[Sunder the Gold]

Okay, I posted this in the thread for the manga of AnE, but it also applies to the anime.

Just in case such a repost would annoy people, I'm going to put in in spoilers, so it's easier to ignore if you want.

Spoiler:

Anyone else feel like an opportunity was lost, all the way back during the camping trip?

The characters and circumstances kept repeating the idea that Rin relies too much on his flames and needs to learn how to resolve problems without them. Primarily, this is to hide the fact that he's Satan's son, but beyond that, it would force him to grow as an Exorcist and a person if he needed to control his temper and learn other methods of dealing with demons.

Methods that would allow him to fight alongside his comrades, because the other things that the chapter hammered away at were friendship and teamwork. Not only did Bon repeat how angry he gets over the fact that Rin runs off to deal with problems on his own, without relying on them, but Bon and the others outright state that they are his friends.


After Amaimon forces Rin to Flame On, all of that goes down the drain.

All that budding friendship? Tanked. Killed in the cradle. Bon and Shiemi, the ones who made the strongest declarations of friendship, then turn around to be the ones who make the strongest renunciations (though in Shiemi's case, it's not really deliberate).

Rin's secret is out, thus completely removing any need to ever hide his flames ever again. (It's instead replaced with a berserker mode that isn't half as interesting, and which doesn't make much sense. Suddenly, we're supposed to believe that he's afraid of his flames -- which has never been hinted at before -- and this fear is what drives him to... use his flames more wildly?)

Rin is suddenly put under a Life Or Death deadline to pass the Exorcist Exam in six months, which his brother deems impossible. Yet, the pace of Rin's life doesn't actually change. He still has just as much time to goof off as before, in between school, training and missions.

Rin is suddenly required to be under 24/7 hour watch... but only two people are assigned to watch after him, one of whom ought to be notoriously unreliable and the other is his brother, who has plenty of other responsibilities. Naturally, significant amounts of time pass where neither of them are monitoring the Son Of Satan, and his life is not especially affected despite the Vatican's paranoia.

What was the point?


But going back again to the camping trip... Shura KNEW that Amaimon was out there, watching and waiting. Yet, not only did she NOT cancel the trip and call for backup, she kept the Koumaken and let Rin out of her sight and beyond the protective circle, AND she rigged a decoy to trick Yukio into leaving the scene of impending battle. Oh, and she was getting herself drunk.

None of that makes sense.

Further, Mephisto explicitly wanted Rin to learn and train and get stronger, so that he could become obviously useful to the Vatican BEFORE they learned he was Satan's Son. So why does he immediately sic his crazy brother on Rin when he KNOWS it's going to blow the boy's cover?

That also makes no sense.

It might have made sense if Mephisto arranged things so agents of the Vatican witnessed Rin defeating Amaimon, thus proving that Rin could be a powerful weapon... but there were too few witnesses to the battle. Even if there were more, they would have seen Satan's Son rampaging like an uncontrollable beast, which wouldn't really fill them with trust and confidence in the boy.

Further, the latest chapters show that if Mephisto hadn't sent Amaimon away, the King of Earth would actually have starting fighting seriously and utterly trash Rin. Even in the anime, where Amaimon was much weaker and Rin "killed" him, Mephisto hadn't actually planned on that rematch happening at all.

If Mephisto was going to turn Amaimon on Rin so soon, why even bother trying to hide Rin's secret at all? Why bother enrolling him in the Exorcist Cram School or giving him the time to take the Ex-Wire test? Why not just reveal him from the start?