Theory Cracktheory:Johnny's Narrative Arc = Death, Character = Death Flag?

[Chloesong]

MAJOR SPOILERS UP TO CH. 226


So Hoshino-sensei LOVES Johnny and his role has expanded much more than she had originally outlined when she began writing DGM. If I remember correctly, she grew fond of his character and he sort of grew into his role as Allen's best friend.

However, Johnny doesn't have a tragic narrative arc nor backstory. He's hopeful, helpful, ever believing, and ever defending Allen. He's a young prodigy and a skilled tailor. Reever considers him worthy of inheriting his position as Section Chief.

Johnny is present at many critical points in the manga, whether to beg Allen to save Suman, to defend Allen after Allen returns with the Ark, to beg Allen again to save everyone in the Invasion Arc, and he is present at the North American branch as a hostage.

Okay, so Johnny feels indebted to Allen and he decides to save Allen this time.
He get Kanda to help search for Allen.
Now they have him.

Johnny's been set up as a crutch for Allen, someone for him to lean on.
Where does leave Johnny now? Will he just go back to the Science branch as a scientist/tailor?

I think Johnny will continue to keep playing a larger role and it'll get him killed or very nearly killed. I don't think he'll be the Heart, but in terms of story, http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BreakTheCutie.

If Johnny dies/gets in trouble, narratively I think that would really affect Allen. Recently the Order/Apo have been seeming really evil and Johnny being injured/killed would shift Noah again to the dark side of the grey good/evil balance.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Thoughts?

 

[Skylent]

Hoshino sensei told that she intended to have someone by Allen's side when he would be on his own, a fugitive from the order. and so she chose Johnny.

If she had thought about that from as soon as the Suman Ark, I think she also thought how this little getaway would finish.

You said that the death of Johnny by the Noah's hands would remind the readers that they are evil but I think that the person who needs to be demonized the most at this moment is Nea himself. Granted he doesn't look very nice but he hasn't done anything really evil on screen yet. I'm not sure how this will exactly affect Allen, but I think that following the tracks "when you become the fourteenth you will kill someone you care about" is a good idea.

Johnny doesn't have much potential as a character beside his role related to Allen Imo. So yeah, killing him off (at the good time and with the good circumstances) would be fruitful for the narrative, I think.

 

[Chloesong]

You said that the death of Johnny by the Noah's hands would remind the readers that they are evil but I think that the person who needs to be demonized the most at this moment is Nea himself. Granted he doesn't look very nice but he hasn't done anything really evil on screen yet. I'm not sure how this will exactly affect Allen, but I think that following the tracks "when you become the fourteenth you will kill someone you care about" is a good idea.

Johnny doesn't have much potential as a character beside his role related to Allen Imo. So yeah, killing him off (at the good time and with the good circumstances) would be fruitful for the narrative, I think.

Interesting!
I can't even begin to imagine the scenarios in which Johnny would die though. There's been so many false alarms/plot-armor situations. I think if Johnny does gets killed, he'll die heroically and in an impactful way.

Regarding Nea, after the Mana=Earl reveal, I took the "kill someone you love" line from Cross to mean that inevitably Allen/Nea would have to kill the Earl/Mana. This line applies to either Allen or Nea in regards to Mana.

To speculate though, I think at this point, Mana/Earl is definitely going to die and the real big bad could end up being Tykki (assisted by a greiving Road) gone awry. Or maybe in a plot twist, once the Earl is killed, the Heart/Apo/Order/(Bookman?) side will turn out to be the real actual big bad. (Innocence and Noah powers are becoming eeriely similar recently...)

I also think Nea/14th has been already misleadingly portrayed as "evil" since the Musican reveal and we're actually now in an arc where Allen Walker is trying to understand Nea's point of view and make the 14th seem less evil if anything.

You say he hasn't done anything evil yet on screen, but he:
1. Nearly cracked Johnny's head on the wall
2. Told Timcampy to help him erase Walker, our protagonist.
3. Held Link in a choke-grip. (Although Link's loyalties are ambigious...)
4. Has an cold, murderous intent/ki according to Link, Lenalee, and Kanda.
5. In dreams/hallucinations, tried to drown and choke Walker. Also chained him up in a chair in such dreams.
6. Speaks through Akuma
7. is literally the source of all of Allen's problems at the moment

In my opinion Nea/14th has been demonized already and now Allen/Hoshino will subvert that by going to the Campbell mansion and trying to understanding him better. Nea's not trying to become the next Earl, he's trying to save his brother Mana from a fate of eternally being a killing puppet, that kind of thing....?

Also not to be morbid, but when Allen/Nea eventually kill the Earl, I foresee Nea as also somehow getting killed. I can't see the ending of DGM as Allen and Nea's continued coexistence x'D.

[side note: ....this is the first time in 11 years of following DGM that I can even start to speculate at endgame/last boss scenarios. We've come so far, everyone T^T Inb4 the last lines of the manga are about how Allen will keep walking. Fin/Thank you for reading. Is that too cheesy/expected?]

 

[Skylent]

I really don't think the earl will die.

We must not forget that the whole premise of D.Gray-man is the holy war, that is the battle between exorcists and the demonic millennium earl.

Besides, I don't know if you read it but in the Gray Ark, Hoshino states that she had imagined the human face of the earl even before beginning the story because she liked the idea of the final boss being a tired old man.