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Why Chaos And Matthew Can't Be Best Friends (Ragnarok Manhwa)?

Friday, February 28, 2014
chaos, matthew, ragnarok: into the abyss, manhwa
How can Chaos and Matthew from Ragnarok: Into The Abyss manhwa be best friends? What is so unbelievable and wrong about this? Why can't those 2 be best friends?

The aforementioned graphic novel first reveals that Matthew and Chaos are apparently best friends in Volume 7. This was when Himmelmez makes the protagonist fight against his supposed best friend.

Chaos refuses to fight and hurt Matthew by virtue of the supposed fact that they were apparently best friends.

As such, he lets himself get hurt without fighting back or defending himself against the onslaught of the blows. What's wrong with the aforementioned scene? To answer that question, let's go to where we are first introduced to Matthew. This in Volume 2 of the comic.

During the scenes centered in the city of Fayon, we know that Matthew and Chaos know each other because this is what we are shown as we read the graphic novel. However, there is absolutely no indication at all that the 2 are close friends, much less best friends.

In fact, they come across as casual acquaintances at best with the way they hardly interacted with each other during the Fayon scenes. There is nothing particular that stands out and makes one think that 'Chaos and Matthew are really close and they are such good friends'.

We only ever see an indication of their supposed best friends status when we get a flashback in Volume 7. Even that flashback wasn't able to show their supposed friendship, not to the fullest extent anyway.

In short, it's really not believable that those 2 are best friends especially when you take into consideration the apparent fact that Chaos didn't seem all that affected by Matthew's death. Sure, he was sad that the guy died. But he was also sad when Peony Irine, the 2 children and the other people of Fayon died.

ragnarok: into the abyss, manhwa, chaos, matthew
He wasn't even shown properly mourning the death of his supposed best friend. After the Fayon scenes are over, we never see Chaos mention Matthew's name ever again.

Is that how a best friend is supposed to act? Why wasn't he affected by Matthew's death if they're really supposed to be close?

It's only now that he's facing Himmelmez and that he's being made to fight Matthew that he mentions the guy and tells us how they're supposedly best friends and this is the reason why he can't hurt the man. Doesn't this sound contrived and convenient for plot purposes (like the only reason this entire thing happened was so false drama could be created)?

Besides, we already know that Matthew is long dead and yet Chaos refuses to destroy the creature that looks like the guy. Why is that? Whether he kills this version of Matthew or not, it won't bring back the guy, so what difference does it make?

When things are seen with this kind of perspective, this whole scene with the main character having to fight his supposed best friend really seems contrived. Do you think that Chaos' supposed friendship with Matthew and how the 2 are supposedly best friends is believable or is this just something that has been made up on the spot (or so it seems) for plot-related purposes?

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by mikanxsakura (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- Image is meant to represent Chaos and Matthew who are supposedly best friends because the 2 figures in said image appear to be best friends as well
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget

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