Heartwarming / Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms

You smell like the sun.

• Maquia taking in Ariel, empathizing with another child left alone in the world. It's an act that changes her life forever and gives her the strength to continue on.
  Maquia: He's my hibiol...
• Mido has no clue who Maquia is and why she suddenly shows up trying to milk a goat in her farm. Yet despite being a single mother to her two sons, she took Maquia in and guide her on how to make a living anyway.
• Maquia and Ariel's time together as mother and son, which makes it heartbreaking when they distance themselves from each other.
• Lang stands out as a good man who sincerely cares for Maquia. He clearly never stopped loving her since he was a boy and always looked out for Ariel as his commander.
  • After Maquia runs off after the dog's funeral hit her with the reality of mortality, Lang goes after her and talks some sense into her while crying himself.
    Lang: Mothers don't cry! I know my mom wouldn't.
  • Maquia and Lang meeting again years later, it's very clear how glad they are to see each other with the two of them dancing around.
  • Lang's What the Hell, Hero? speech to Ariel after he says Maquia isn't his mother, shows just how much he cares for her even if she turned down his proposal.
  • After Ariel encounters Maquia on the battlefield, Lang offers to let Ariel leave to look for her.
  • After the war, Lang helped Ariel and Dita move back to his family farm.
  • Lang is basically the positive Foil to Krim. Where Krim's love for Leilia turned toxic and possessive to the point he tried to pull a murder-suicide, Lang was able to accept Maquia's refusal and let her go while continuing to love her.
• Ariel stating that Mezzarte is the first home he's made for himself and he wants to protect Dita and fight beside his friends.
• Maquia helping Dita in her labor and getting to see her granddaughter while remembering how Ariel was as a baby.
• Maquia gently closing Krim's eyes upon finding his body.
• Despite having only met her mother for a brief while and Leilia declaring her intent to forget her, Medmel is happy to see her and even compliments on Leilia's beauty.
• Ariel meeting his newborn daughter and Dita tearfully confessing she was jealous of Maquia and wanted Ariel to love her too. Ariel's response is perfect.
  Ariel: My mother raised me to be the man I am just so I could love you. And our daughter, she'll love someone too. So we'll raise her, you and I. We'll raise her well together, so that one day she'll know how to love. Just like us.
• From what their daughter says, Ariel and Dita had a good life together and got to see their granddaughter. He told his daughter all about his mother.
• The fact that Ariel was waiting in the cottage room where he lived with his mother. He wanted her to find him there.
• Maquia's great-granddaughter, Lily, gives her some flowers as she leaves.
• After all the grief and pain she went through, Maquia affirms that she will always be happy that Ariel was her son. And Ariel will always be woven into her hibiol as longs as she lives.
  Maquia: Elder, I am happy that met him. I am happy that I was his mother, I am happy that that I loved him.
• Barlow accompanying Maquia on her new metaphorical journey, implying that not only does she have someone new in her life to watch out for her, but potentially his half-Iorph blood will allow him to live a little longer than most humans. So Maquia will no longer be alone.
• At the end of the movie, we see that Maquia, Leilia and the Iorphs are rebuilding their home.
  • If take a closer look at the upper left, we see what appears to be a red-haired woman helping Iorphs. It's implied to be Medmel, which means that Leilia did bring her daughter back to her home.
  • The director revealed that Iorph who escaped the attack integrated with the humans to hide and many ended up marrying and producing half-Iorph children. When the homeland was reclaimed, those half-Iorphs were invited as well.

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