I personally think Saaya's condition will improve even more. Got to remember that she is basically recovering from damage to her soul, with the Humpty Dumpty locket keeping her together and rapidly regenerating the damage she took.
She is also a young teenager, and has some experience already on what bad things can happen if someone uses their powers irresponsibly. She will make mistakes, yes, but her support network she has now, flawed as it is, is still vastly better than the one she had before she had her injury.
Very much looking forward to the next update!
This is a very late reply, and further down, I'll talk about why it's so late, but I have a very low opinion of Saaya's new "support network". I think her influences at JP's have been uniformly terrible. The one thing Saaya is sure about in her new self-image is destruction:
"I don't know. 'Saaya of Destruction' was what I thought when I finally slotted my mind back together, shush, it's cool, but I don't know who that is, other than that she has destruction in her hand."
which is an immensely unhealthy mindset, and Saaya's influences at JP's have played multiple key roles in shaping this mindset.
Let's look at Makoto:
She says it so damn casually that Sako almost misses the blunt implication in the amber eyed girl's words, that deleting people could have been her next step.
"Ri… right. For now, with what you can do, we plan on teaching you to control it. And some of the exercises we use to keep mental types out of our heads. They should work well for you. I'm sure Dr Akamine has said, but-"
Makoto recognizes, correctly, "hey, this girl sounds like she'd try to kill people". And her very next line is offering to teach Saaya to use her murder powers better.
This is a tremendously irresponsible decision.
There's a bit of handwavy justification in the next scene:
What's the alternative? Let her run around with a Kagutsuchi damaging ability and fifth tier mental abrasion? Likely worsening it?
but the only way this power would worsen Saaya's condition is if she uses it. Getting her to
not use it would be far more reasonable than getting her to use it.
Then we look at Hotsuin's influence:
"I'm not sure either? I'm just… working on controlling my ability. Not like I can do much else. It isn't going very well though." Saaya shrugs, wiping the new blood from her palms onto her jeans where the stains won't show.
"And you are willing to leave it at that?" The Director frowns, more than his resting face does. "You have a powerful ability, but it will be wasted if you don't have the resolve to control it." The phone, still held in his hand, rings. His attention moves to it, seeming to dismiss her as he answers the call.
Hotsuin is talking to a barely-recovered coma patient, in middle school. Someone who should have very little use for destruction powers, who definitely shouldn't be trying to practice them
now, while she's still on life support. And he talks about her not having the
resolve.
This is not something anyone should say to someone in Saaya's position. It's the first big push towards turning Saaya into "Saaya of Destruction". It gets her to think of her destruction powers as the thing that makes her valuable as a person. It gets her to think that leaving these powers alone would make her
deficient.
The doctors don't do a good job either. They stand by while a barely-recovered coma patient racks up a "growing list of injuries" trying to use highly unstable destruction powers, while hooked up to a priceless, irreplaceable artifact that is functioning as her life support.
Just the injuries alone would be a reason to try to stop things, but she is also still on life support. They don't know how durable the Lock is. (We don't, either.) Even if the misfires don't kill Saaya directly, one particularly bad misfire might be enough to wreck the Lock and leave her to die of her remaining mental abrasion. Or even if the Lock is too sturdy for that, one particularly bad misfire might be enough to hit the
chain, breaking Saaya's connection to the Lock. They don't know if Saaya can survive that, or if the Lock will resume its work after an interruption like that.
Even when it becomes clear that Saaya used to
have control, that the lack of control might be due to her not-fully-healed medical condition:
"I was able to control it, before. It did what I told it to do, mostly. I don't know why it isn't working now." She takes a deep breath, trying to concentrate on one of the mental exercises the Doctor had been teaching her.
Cat's Cradle, Soldiers Bed, Candle. Twisting the connections of the Locket to draw the Saaya-pieces closer together, into different alignments. It… helps, even if it feels odd.
"The strain you were under isn't fully healed. That will affect your control, especially with an ability like this."
no one suggests, "hey, maybe Saaya should wait until she
is fully healed. Maybe that'll restore her control. All this practice might even be making things worse."
And then there's Niamh. Niamh's advice let Saaya control her powers, but it was also the final push to lock Saaya into the "Saaya of Destruction" mindset. And Niamh says stuff like this:
"It's trying to stop her being Saaya! It keeps yapping on about 'human functionality' and 'familial bonds' and trying to make Saaya want things she doesn't want, instead of letting her be properly Sidhe!"
Making Saaya "properly Sidhe" is not a good thing.
So the reason this is so late is, I don't think this is the intended interpretation. It's been rather heavily signaled that we're supposed to trust JP's:
"Defending against them," Dad corrected. "I was impressed by what I saw when I visited their facility, but it's pretty obviously military. I didn't tell you, Amu, but while you were visiting Saaya I decided to strike up a conversation with some of the guards and other staff members. It was quite an interesting talk. They were extremely professional, but some things bleed through. And I don't even mean the style of signage."
"Such as?" Mom prompted.
"Well, a desire to do good," Dad said. "I don't know the details, but they're certainly taking their work seriously; I don't think a single person treats it as payroll. That, and there's an interesting pattern. A number of the staff are veterans of the Self-Defence Force, and a few are retired police officers. They don't all have excellent records. A number were ejected for 'discipline reasons', but from reading between the lines-" He coughed. "It seems that, well. They were ejected for being liabilities, because of whistle-blowing, 'excess initiative' or speaking out against corruption. There are also a number of foreigners."
to the point of having Dia outright tell us to do it:
"I can't say when we'll meet again—we both know I don't control when I come out, but... if you remember anything at all, trust JPs this time. Hotsuin isn't the same person he was."
and talking to Baughn has given me the impression that Baughn has a much higher opinion of JP's handling of Saaya than I do. Especially for Makoto and the doctors, I think their portrayal was intended to be a portrayal of responsible, moral people making responsible, moral decisions with Saaya's best interests in mind.
And in light of that, posting this feels like fighting against the author. It doesn't feel good, and I don't know what I can actually achieve.
This post has gone through a lot of versions. It wasn't originally a reply. I first started writing up my thoughts on the matter in... October, I think. I shelved my last draft back on November 10th and tried to go think about something else, but this quest still occupies too much of my thoughts, so I eventually decided to post something.
The really frustrating thing for me is, if JP's portrayal
was supposed to be a portrayal of responsible people making responsible decisions, then "responsible" NPC decisions are probably going to keep looking like this in the future.
