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Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV
Episode 9

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 9 of
Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV (TV 4) ?
Community score: 4.4

The sheer gall of Jura unironically telling Ryu that he's trying to kill her out of revenge for her having wiped out his familia is stunning. It's also a marker of how much he lacks empathy and self-awareness, because the entire reason Ryu is after Jura is that he wiped out her familia. But what's sauce for the goose is clearly not sauce for the gander in his mind, and he has zero problems taking out as many people as he can in his bid to kill Ryu for the ghastly crime of seeking retribution. It's a perfect example of “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.”

It's also not the worst he has in store for Ryu in his mad thirst to finish what the Evils started when they destroyed Astraea Familia. While we don't know precisely what's lurking in the darkness of a deliberately ruined dungeon floor, the Lambtons he used to fight Hestia Familia and Ryu are taken directly from British folklore. The Lambton Worm (worm being an old term for dragon; today you're more likely to see it spelled “wyrm”) was a multi-eyed snake-like dragon fished out of the River Wear around the time of the Crusades. The boy who unwittingly unleashed the monster, John Lambton, later had to kill it upon his return from the war, after it had decimated his father's estate, and some legends add in that his family was cursed for his foolishness. Had John Lambton killed the worm when it was a baby, none of the rest of the legend would ever have happened, and the correlation seems to be that had Jura killed Ryu along with the rest of her familia – or had Ryu killed Jura with the rest of his - no one would currently be in their present predicaments. Events snowballed and grew like the Lambton Worm, and according to Cassandra's prophecy, fate is not going to be kind to any of those caught up in its path.

While the fight against the two Lambtons and Jura and his cronies makes up the action of this episode, there's also a very real feeling that this is all set up for what's to come. The Lambtons, as we learn at the end of the episode, are not the final monsters that Jura's been planning on using, but rather the means for him to eventually use the promised Juggernaut next week. (Interestingly enough, the Lambton Worm is sometimes thought to be the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky, and there's a distinct similarity between Juggernaut and Jabberwocky that's kind of a fun little addition to the story.) Instead the main point here is to show how utterly devoid of humanity Jura is while firmly reminding us that Ryu is a good person at her core. The way she urges Bell to flee when everything starts really going to hell is a clear statement of the fact that she truly does care about others and backs up her firm denial that she had anything to do with Jean's death in Rivira. Jura's been framing her this entire time, trying to make her look as unhinged as possible so that he can take her out without facing any repercussions. It's, well, evil, and ultimately that's his defining feature.

It's a sad fact that Cassandra is always right in her myths, even though she never wants to be. She knew about halfway through the Lambton fight that the snake monster wasn't the promised disaster. The question now is whether the horrors she foresaw can be averted in any way. Mythology doesn't have many answers for us, so we'll just have to hope.

Rating:

Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon? IV is currently streaming on HIDIVE.


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