Story Log Portrait
Rien
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–Rien, Canto IX: The Unsevering | ||
Rien (Hangul: 뤼엔, Iw-ien) is a Proxy of the Index and the master of Sora, as well as being one of the five parental figures assigned to training Yoshihide as a Nursefather of the House of Spiders. He is a major antagonist introduced in Canto IX: The Unsevering.
Appearance
Rien is a tall man with pale skin, black hair with silver strands, and a right eye featuring a golden pupil. The left side of his face is concealed behind a porcelain mask, the base of the mask being white, with a golden trim, used to obscure visible burns. The mask features a large crack along it. He wears a black suit jacket with golden buttons and an Index symbol on its left shoulder, with two similarly gold chevrons beneath it. His dress pants and shoes carry the same color as the rest of his suit, with the soles of his shoes having golden trim. Beneath his suit jacket, he wears a plain white dress shirt and black tie. He wears white gloves on his hands.
In combat, he wields a golden vial with a chain on it, which allows for a ferrofluid-like liquid to transform into various weapons based on his assigned Prescript.
Prior to Ryōshū's departure from the House of Spiders, Rien's left eye was exposed and undamaged. When removed, the mask reveals a scarred part of his face that also has a damaged eye, only showing his pupil from within the wound.
Personality
Rien is a coolheaded individual, acting with grace and simplicity even while harming himself or others. He speaks gently, especially so to Yoshihide, who he shows considerable care for, as far as frequently reminding her to handle her scars so they heal. Though he acts with grace, he carries a sinister air, tormenting people both physically and mentally. Due to his allegiance to the Index, he shows extreme devoutness to orders of the Prescripts, going as far as maiming himself to prove the completion of his orders.
Despite his unflappable demeanor, Rien harbors mixed feelings regarding the Prescripts. As it is due to them that he could indulge in sufferings and the pleasures of the City, Rien is thankful for the chance they allow him to enact great violence onto others; however, he conceals a resentment towards them, having harbored a genuine attachment for his previous family, which he had allowed to die by following the order of the Prescripts. Rien also grew attached to his second daughter Ryōshū, to the point that near the end of his life, he was finally willing to defy the Prescript to attempt to convince her to return to her family in the House of Spiders, believing them to be able to protect her from the rest of the Fingers. While Rien returned to following the Prescripts after making his escape from the House, he eventually commits one act of true defiance in refusing to recite a poem that had been assigned to him by a Prescript, and deciding to take his own life instead.
Story
Prior to Limbus Company
In the past, Rien, under an unknown original name, followed the orders of the Prescripts delivered to him and obtained the title of Proxy of the Index; he then rose to the hazard level of Star of the City.[2]
At a point, the Prescripts led him to changing his name, creating a family, and soon after causing the death of this family. While he attempted to delay the Prescript, taking trips away from his assigned tasks or ignoring the Prescripts outright, he would always end up fulfilling the given tasks. Even despite the deaths of his family, Rien continued on, harboring his memories of the past every day, masked under an aura of nothingness and blind devotion to the Prescripts. At some point in the past, the Prescripts ordered Rien to model his appearance on a particular Fixer who was "lost" to the Library. Whether this was before or after the task of raising a family is left unclear.
Among the five Fingers, Rien was the Index's representative in the process of raising Ryōshū into a "perfect blade". In her youth, Ryōshū was trained by Rien in a variety of manners, most especially including a wide variety of weapons, such as the "Spiral". While the other Nursefathers showed distance to the project of raising Ryōshū, Rien showed a far more prominent position in a father's role, frequently doting on and caring for a young Ryōshū.
At a point in the past, Rien met with Ryōshū after having undertaken a Prescript that involved him having to stab a target through his own arm 38 times. While he was in pain, he informed Ryōshū of the severity of burning in comparison to his self-inflicted stab wounds, reminding her how much more painful it is; Rien chose to tell her to never burn somebody as a means of killing, provided they get the chance to curse her with their dying breaths. Taking the Nursefather's words lightly, Ryōshū chose to simply agree.
On Ryōshū's departure, she inflicted Rien with a vicious burn across his face, leading to him adopting the mask he is seen wearing during the events of Canto IX.
After Ryōshū's departure from the House of Spiders, Rien began teaching an apprentice, Sora, who experiences intense devotion to both her master and the Prescripts which guide her. While Rien shows kindness towards the girl acting as his apprentice, he remains deeply interested in Ryōshū.
Canto IX: The Unsevering
During the raid upon the Limbus Company HQ, Rien was present in the assault, joined by his apprentice Sora, who was guided to her own tasks separate from her master. In the first moments of power being lost, Rien was heard before he was seen, walking in a casual manner uncommon of those within the LCE, moments later beginning the massacre.
Following the LCA agents arriving to save those trapped within the headquarters, Rien slaughters a portion of the agents, utilizing a shifting weapon and only a mere few moments to kill an entire room. After his brief massacre, he looked to Ryōshū through the glass barrier between them, mouthing "Hi sweetheart. How did your reviews go?", reminding Ryōshū of her youth.
After a dangerous battle against Shiomi Yoru, the member of the Pinky left the Sinners bloodied and at a loss, signaling the same moment as Rien appeared, criticizing the woman's inability to say goodbye. After a request by Sora to share the code to the Spirals used on the members of the LCE, Rien tells them the code: the birthday of his daughter. Upon the conclusion of his confrontation with the Sinners, as well as the collection of his apprentice, Rien bid farewell to Ryōshū while standing near an elevator which he would soon use to leave the Limbus Company headquarters, mentioning that her words truly did sting him. In his departure, he left behind the safe that previously housed Araya, now empty and damaged.
During the commencement of operation Spider Pyre, Outis, Meursault, Dante, and Ryōshū found themselves at the Corridor of the Index after using the Backdoor, where Rien greeted them peacefully. While he spoke fondly of their shared past, Ryōshū remained interested solely in the place of Araya. Moments later, Jamila, accompanied by the rest of the LCA Udjat Vanguard team arrived at the scene, having dispatched all the Index Proselytes in the area. The Sinners present left the scene, though were subject to Rien's words about Araya as they did so. Soon after, the Udjat team began to prepare an assault against the Nursefather, but were impeded as the weapons had malfunctioned. Rien then easily defeated the Udjat Vanguards with his multitude of weapons and heavily wounded Jamila, before offering words of pity that the LCA should have taken better care of their weapons. With the LCA out of the picture, Rien noted that his only role left is to wait.
Following Ryōshū's severance from the LCB contract binding her, she began hacking her own memories in a frenzy, with Rien, Sora and Ren arriving soon after to the scene. The Index Nursefather noted how proud he is of Ryōshū, stating that the first "stroke" in the painting of the House of Spiders has been made. He then observed as Ren and Sora began battling the Sinners present, the battle ending in the two being erased and Rien questioning if anybody else recalled them. Explaining the motivation for the House of Spiders to train Ryōshū, wherein the group forged a blade where any existence of a concept can be severed by its swings, Rien is made proud of her growth. After Ryōshū crawled back from the point of no return thanks to Dante's resonance with Araya, Rien exchanged words of nihility with Ryōshū, resolving that he must stay with the House of Spiders before engaging the LCB in combat. During the climax of the battle, Ryōshū unsheathed her blade one last time and cleaved through the Index Nursefather, a memory alluding to the lonely waves he once saw resurfacing before he retreated. Due to his weak state, and lack of any supporters, Limbus Company deemed it irrelevant to pursue the man, no longer viewing him as a threat.
Soon after, Rien was revealed to have escaped to a murky gutter, now on the run as Proxies of the Index hunted him. After wishing Ryōshū the best and lamenting that he must dye his hair again, he received a Prescript on his device that seemed to asked him to recite Prayer for Loving Sorrow. Rien began to recite the first line, but soon found himself tiring of the Prescripts and stopped. In response, a spork emerged from his vial, allowing the man to find humor in the situation before promptly declaring that Ryōshū had forgotten to "unfreeze" him. He then rammed the spork into his cranium, ending his misery.
Gallery
Trivia
- Rien's name likely comes from the French word rien, with the official Japanese transliteration of his name, "リアン" (ri-a-n), aligning with the French pronunciation. "Rien" translates to "nothing". This aligns with Ryōshū's description of him as an "empty shell", whose "act of killing lacks any emotional touch".[3]
- Rien is based in part on Yoshihide from the short story Hell Screen, by Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.
- Rien's Prescript to watch his wife and daughter die while doing nothing to save them parallels the end of the story in which Yoshihide watches his daughter burn to death, prioritizing finishing the Hell Screen instead of the life of his daughter.
- Rien's inability to read books without pictures out of fear of his imagination not lining up with the author's intent, and more generally his reliance on the Prescripts to shape his own life, appears to reference Yoshihide's inability to paint without having seen the subject with his own eyes, which is what eventually leads to the death of his daughter.
- Rien's suicide after the completion of his "painting" (Ryōshū achieving her full potential with Arayashiki) parallels Yoshihide's death as well, who hanged himself after finishing the Hell Screen rather than continue to live without his daughter.
- In his replication of Roland, Rien's life reproduces a twisted version of the Fixer, featuring the deaths of a wife and child at a dire situation, though Rien was given orders per the Prescript to allow these deaths, while Roland fought to stop them.
- A number of lines Rien says during his fight resemble the floating on-screen dialogue during the first phase of the reception of The Black Silence in Library of Ruina.
- The dialogue spoken by Rien before using Furioso [Lacrimosa-Crescendo], "You cannot cut this off, sweetheart. ...This isn't something you can break off so easily." references Roland's dialogue in one of the endings of Library of Ruina, "…You can’t just put an end to it, Angela. It’s not something you could decide on your own like this!!!"
- The same ending is referenced through Rien's place of death, as the ending features Roland floating in the same murky gutter Rien ultimately ends his life in.
- Sin Affinities of Rien's skills in order from weakest to strongest skills are: Gluttony (green), Pride (blue), Gloom (light blue), Sloth (yellow) and Wrath (red). This set of colors might be a reference to the Combat Page rarities in Library of Ruina, which in order from most to least common are: Paperback (green), Hardcover (blue), Limited (purple), Objet d'Art (yellow), E.G.O (red).
- The quote that Rien is told to recite per his final Prescript is likewise a reference towards Roland, reciting the opening line of Francis Jammes' Prayer for Loving Sorrow, a poem Roland recites during Library of Ruina.
- Rien's fighting style likewise replicates Roland's, including his signature move, Furioso—a rush of attacks utilizing every weapon at his disposal at fast speeds.
- The scythe used by Rien while he has the
When lacerating through space itself with a scythe, like a certain someone... When lacerating through space itself with a scythe, like a certain someone...- Deals Slash damage
- This Coin deals +30% damage
- On Hit without Cracking, it hits a guaranteed Crit
"The scythe... I could not for the life of me understand how to use this weapon until I saw that Blue Reverberation wield his own."
"Even after I had observed him, the Prescript continued to give me no other weapons than the scythe for a while. Eventually, it became my favorite, most familiar, and sharpest weapon."
"This weapon also cuts the best out of them all. While there are many techniques to cut through space itself— Hm. Perhaps this story is best saved for another time." status effect is a reference to Argalia, the scythe-wielding brother-in-law of Roland.
- The scythe used by Rien while he has the
- Before committing suicide, Rien's weapon takes the shape of a spork, calling back to a flashback in which Rien spoke with a younger Ryōshū, who referred to a spork as a fpoon, much to his own frustration.
References
- ↑ Rien refers to Ryōshū as his daughter several times throughout Canto IX (Season 7 PV, Canto 9-2), as all of the Nursefathers regard Yoshihide as a daughter to them, while she called him her "Dad" when she was still with the House of Spiders (Canto 9-16). While they are not biologically related, they still had the relationship of a father and daughter when she was being raised.
- ↑ Canto 9-39 - Jamila: "The target is alone, but he is a Proxy of the Index, and was once a Star of the City all on his own."
- ↑ Canto 9-12 - Ryōshū: "He is an empty shell. His act of killing lacks any emotional touch. And that... is why you couldn't get a read on him."
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