That Mur screenshot over there? That’s pretty much how I felt for the whole of this episode. While not as well-crafted as earlier episodes, this one provides a wealth of information as it unveils more of the realities behind Gévaudan’s haunting by both human and non-human monsters, reports Anime News Network.
The core of the problem is, of course, that it is Jean-Jacques, not Chloé, who is the true Beast of Gévaudan, a disguise he willingly adopted to protect the lady who took him in from the horrors in human shape lurking outside.
That seems to be the main message from the Beast’s disclosure, and what created both Chloé & Jean-Jacques fate: while there are monsters that can assume the appearance of a big six-eyed dog or suck blood, the actual demons are the ones that look like you and me. The only reason Jean-Jacques had to strike a deal with Naenia in the first instance was that the Vatican used a made-up story about a monster dog to hide their illegal vampires hunting activities, and he couldn’t stand the thought of them coming for Chloé eventually.
So he turned into a monster to battle the animals, and I believe we can all accept that his intentions were far nobler than the Church used as a pretext to execute vampires who were not harmed. Both situations are motivated by fear, however, Jean-Jacques’ worry is of losing somebody he loves, whilst the hunters’ fear and hate of the Other is all that drives them.
If Chloé was cognizant of what’s proceeding on, her big worry over her Jeanne’s possible death when findings of a lady called Jeanne being died began to trickle in, meant that she has been less frightened that she had killed her buddy and more afraid that the Dracula hunts had resumed, capturing her in an infinite circle of fear.
That might be as much as anything else behind the power Naenia grants her in return for her true name—early in the episode, Vanitas says they’re locked in a temporal loop created by a fate, and if Jean-Jacques is the Beast, Chloé is the proprietor of the frozen moment.
If she stops time all-around the moment the Beast first appears, she may keep her and Jean-Jacques secure by guaranteeing that he dispatches the king’s archers every time they emerge and that nobody else can enter her isolated realm. She and Jean-Jacques may well be trapped in an endless 1767, but it’s a price she’s prepared to pay to keep him alive since the loss is what Chloé fears the most.
