During WWII, in 1942, a combat pilot (Dante) crashes near an outpost military camp and is nursed back by a closeted gay military priest (Orlando). Playing with a Tarot deck in his tent, the pilot tells the priest he drew the Devil for him.
.
(The Devil here can symbolize ”Being seduced by the material world and physical pleasures; lust for and an obsession with money and power”, but also ”Living in fear”, and ”Ravage, violence, vehemence, extraordinary efforts, force, fatality; that which is predestined but is not for this reason evil”, which is more a premonition for what they both will go through).
The pilot then kidnaps the priest, a vehicle and provisions, and flee. On the run, he rapes the priest before leaving him behind (protected from harsh desert sun) in a cave.
The priest, violated and devaststed, is found by enemy soldiers and probably even further raped by them and others in a POW camp. He looses most of his faith but can’t leave the church, because it’s all he as an orphan has ever known.
.
Three years later, after the war is over, the priest (now working as a monk) and the pilot meet again in a convent, under similar circumstances because the pilot is once again badly hurt. The priest presents the pilot with a white Stargazer lily, which symbolise a ”rejuvenation of the soul.”
.
(They can represent purity, commitment and rebirth, which is why they're often chosen as Sympathy Flowers.)
.
Trying to repent or forgive by accepting that he’s fallen from faith and is actually gay, and to show that (like in the Tarot card ”The Devil” the prisoners chains to corruption are loose and can be thrown off at any time) he can change himself - the priest tries to offer himself to and seduces the scarred pilot... only to find that the pilot has gotten a penectomy because of a severe burnscar. (Probably from a cockpit fire, since his legs and lower stomach are all scarred).
.
The last pictures in the story are about the priest asking why the pilot never forgot Orlando’s name, and then the pilot standing with a the help of a crutch while the priest is picking Stargazer lilies, perhaps symbolising that they might have both attoned for any sins commited and can now try their best to just heal instead.
⁄(⁄ ⁄·⁄ω⁄·⁄ ⁄)⁄ and this was my first ever comment here, be nice to me, plz
Thank you so much for making me understand this deep story
...that the reason the title is ”the Villain Discovered My Identity” is because in THIS version of the novel, our yandere puppy Letio is the villain. (If he ever becomes Emperor, everything will just burn.)
Not Ignis.
He’s supposed to be just ”the hero with a tragic background”. (Even if he’s also a bit of a yandere too, but he KNOWS when he’s doing wrong. He just does it to survive in his father’s court)
Ignis just noticed Selena isn’t as bad at swordplay like she pretends to be.
Letio frikkin’ KNEW from the start she wasn’t Celestine.
And no matter what anyone says, I think I’m a simp for Rwan/Rowen. He’s such a MVP, and his comebacks with Ignis are hilarious (just as funny as when Selena goes around thinking FXCK! when things go wrong in the beginning for her).
(=・ω・=)