YMMV / Alone

• Alternate Character Interpretation: The First Families, because of our limited informations on them and because we're mostly restrained to the heroes' point of view. A case of Good Is Not Nice in a conflict with Black-and-Grey Morality or a case of A Lighter Shade of Black in an Evil Versus Evil situation? Their use of slavery, Fantastic Caste System and Knight Templar leaders point towards the second possibility, but the fact that they respect some laws, give the heroes a chance to win their freedom and allow them to leave when they succeed point towards the first. It's also worth noting that their enemies, the Last Families, turn children into brainwashed zombie-like pawns. That could explain some of their extreme methods.
• The Chris Carter Effect: After 17 years and 14 volumes, the story is far from over, each new volume seemingly introducing more mysteries than solving the old ones. Although the story is still good, many old fans wish that the comics would end already, fearing that two decades of mysteries and buildup could only lead to a disappointing Anti-Climax or Gainax Ending. The creators reaffirmed their will to give the story a proper conclusion and even left their iconic publisher Dupuis to avoid Executive Meddling, but announced that it would take two more arcs^note so about 8 books/10 years to actually conclude the story properly.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The first album of the series had Yvan theorized that they were actually dead and ended up in hell, which was portrayed as silly. Then the fifth issue's revelation that the children had, in fact, perished made it more creepy in hindsight.
  • Yvan, him again, jokes about developping super powers in the ninth album, upon learning that he uncounsciously recreates his glasses whenever they are destroyed. Guess what, he and his friends do have special powers crucial to the plot and the upcoming conflict.
• Moral Event Horizon: If branding the slaves with a red hot iron, putting dissidents into brutally sadistic Gladiator Games and establishing a military dictatorship was not that to Saul, his callous murder of Anton, laughing about it and taunting Leila all the while, definitely pushes him far beyond.
• Narm: The Mad Master (Maître Fou in French) is one of the leaders of the Last Families and a powerful entity. That does not stop him from looking like a guy with a bird cage around his head. Although he becomes a little more scary when it's revealed that it is full of spiders under his control...
• Squick: The right side of Toussaint's head is charred, as if he was seriously burnt. It's not a pleasant sight.
• Tear Jerker:
  • In the fourth album, when Yvan finds the crashed car of his parents and remembers that they died in that accident. He then spends a good part of the album in a Heroic BSoD. Made worse later when we learn that he also died in the car crash.
  • Whenever one of the kids remember how they died. The one who has it the worst is Leila, who remembers that all her family died with her the same night, by what's implied to be carbon monoxide poisoning during their sleep. After that, she completely breaks down.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • It can be pretty hard to believe this was aimed at kids, considering how damn dark this series is. It has a lot of brutal violence and death all involving children, not to even mention the mature themes such as racism, child abuse, and politics. The author has stated that they meant to, deeming it important to make chidren conscious about the ugliest aspects of the world.
  • The second arc starts going really deep into analyzing and theorizing on the metaphysical nature of the place they are trapped in, treating its aging audience with interesting philosophical theories that are often lost on most kids or even teenagers due to their complexity.