drunkmado:

Another thing I love about Eto is how she channels both a modern aesthetic and natural/archaic imagery.

Because we have her appearing as this nude, child-like woman in her most villainous encounters. The only thing covering her is usually a robe and bandages – both pieces of garb that link back to pre-modern civilization. 

And in this role, we see her speak about God while eating an apple – Genesis imagery. You can’t get much older than the beginning of man. We also see her on a shrine when she has a flashback to when she encounters Arima for the first time, making it appear as though the shrine represented her. It even looks like the shrine is in the same beaten shape that she is in.

But then we see her as Takatsuki Sen writing her postmodern horror novels set in contemporary society with two computer screens and a laptop. She has water bottles and logo merchandise surrounding her. She almost always wears her hair up in messy buns, a pretty contemporary trend. 

And her organization Aogiri in itself meshes these two themes together. Aogiri functions upon the legend of the One-Eyed King that goes back over 100 years, and they wear those archaic robes in almost every situation. However, Aogiri functions like a contemporary terrorist organization, and fits a lot of trends in terms of 21st century civil conflict.

Bileygr the King especially reflects that overlap, because it’s an epic – a kind of narrative I associate with Homer, Dante, and Milton. The name itself references Norse mythology. But she announces it through television news media and uses contemporary society’s technology as the method to convey this work.

And I think that’s partially why I think Eto’s such an interesting villain: she has the same earthshaking and surreal feeling that old horrific, Gothic villains bring you while remaining relevant and effective within the contemporary society.