Line #16 TearJerker/TheUltimateEvil


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4	[[folder:''The Ultimate Evil'']]
5	* The extended backstory of [[PrecursorHeroes Lo Pei]], as told by his LivingStatue to Valerie. He had a son and a daughter named Lo Mei. After his wife [[DeathByChildbirth died in childbirth]], he raised his children as best as he could under Shendu's tyrannical rule. Then Shendu made Mei his bride against her will. [[PapaWolf Pei]] raised an army of enslaved humans to save both the people of China and his daughter, but when they stormed Shendu's palace, [[PyrrhicVictory Mei was killed during the battle, leaving for Pei only the consolation of imprisoning Shendu in his statue form and scattering his Talismans]].
6	** When Pei's statue finally realizes that he's not a living being, his sorrow is increased by the fact that Valerie is not a magically disguised Mei like he first thought. When he performs his HeroicSacrifice, Valerie is filled with sadness due to the familiarity she feels to the ancient warrior without knowing why.
7	** It's eventually revealed that Shendu [[MurderTheHypotenuse killed the young man Lo Mei loved]] and [[ForcedToWatch forced her to watch]] before taking her by force. Before her father defeated him, she [[DrivenToSuicide impaled herself]] with a sword out of grief.
8	** When Valerie asks Shendu if he feels any regret about Lo Mei's fate, he admits that while he mostly hates her for her indirect role in his downfall, he regrets losing what marrying her represented to him: "a future that did not require magic and spells to fuel it, a future to look forward to, a future with someone". Val then asks if her resemblance to Mei is the reason Shendu wants her, and Shendu feels the need to reassure her that he does value her for her own merits.
9	* Valerie is shown to be deeply hurt by her father's death, and she hasn't much common ground with her mother. Her unplanned encounter with her father's killer leaves her so shaken that she [[CryIntoChest seeks comfort]] from Shendu.
10	** Before going to the trip to Bavaria, Valerie has on the phone a heated argument with her mother about her studies, and she utterly refuses to return to Toronto. To her mortification, she ends up telling her mother that she didn't need her before her father's death and still doesn't.
11	--->'''Valerie''': You're a success, you've made your point! But I don't want a lawyer, I want a mother!
12	** It's eventually revealed that Valerie's father died when he was searching for a boy he was trying to prevent from falling in with the wrong crowd again. He approached a group of boys to ask them about the kid's whereabouts, and one of them shot him in the panic of seeing his badge.
13	* Shendu reveals that his mother was not a demon and vanished from his life out of shame after he and his siblings started conquering Earth. He also says that he was conceived in hatred instead of love. Valerie can't help but feel sorry for him.
14	* Most of the 24th and 25th chapters are filled with heartache.
15	** Valerie, determined to rescue Jade from the Netherworld, [[DealWithTheDevil offers herself to Shendu in exchange for the Pan'Ku Box]]. The rest of the J-Team is unhappy with this "betrayal", and Valerie ends up screaming at Jackie and hurting his feelings by calling him a coward who wastes precious time through hesitation, and [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone her words horrify her once they're spoken]].
16	** Shendu, aware that Valerie's tense with him due to what he has told her about Lo Mei's fate, finds himself feeling any semblance of guilt for the first time in his life. When she tells him that she'll give him the benefit of the doubt if he helps rescue Jade without releasing his siblings, he seems to seriously consider agreeing to it. When the Chans banish him to the Netherworld, his feelings of anger and betrayal towards Valerie suggest that unlike what the Chans thought, he really didn't intend to commit any double-crossing this time.
17	** Valerie is overjoyed once Jade is rescued, but Jade [[WhatTheHellHero angrily calls her a liar for not telling the girl about her Other-connection to Hsi Wu]]. Val is on the verge of losing it before Nat offers her comforting words. Regardless, Valerie ends up [[HeroicBSOD wallowing in her misery]] alone in a hotel room before Shendu [[DemonicPossession possesses her]].
18	*** Jade [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone feels guilty]] about her treatment of Valerie when Shendu possesses her friend's body.
19	** Feeling betrayed by Shendu who's forcing her to take him to the Book of Ages, Valerie [[YouMonster tells him the others were right and he's a monster]]. He finds himself disturbed to be considered such by Valerie and feels a little guilty when her memories confirm that she didn't know the J-Team planned to banish him after rescuing Jade.
20	* In the rewritten reality, Nat was killed along with her family for trying to rebel against the Demon Sorcerers. Jade is shown Nat's [[DeadGuyOnDisplay body]] that has been [[MakeAnExampleOfThem put on display as a warning]].
21	* When Shendu goes after the Chans while promising Valerie to return in time for their wedding, her adoration makes him feel guilty about having forced it on her by changing history.
22	* When Valerie reaches the fortress in Australia, she says goodbye to [[PetMonstrosity Ryuu]] who seems to know that they won't see each other anymore… which turns out to be the case with the undoing of the altered reality.
23	* Valerie is anguished to learn that Jade was telling the truth about Shendu's actions and [[WomanScorned confronts him with vehemence]] as he desperately tries to soothe her.
24	-->'''Valerie''': Even after all this time… [[EvilCannotComprehendGood you never understood]], did you?\
25	'''Shendu''': [[Film/{{Labyrinth}} Just fear me, love me, do as I say, and I will be your slave!]]\
26	'''Valerie''': I didn't want a slave – I wanted ''LOVE''!
27	* Before Valerie fixes the Book of Ages, Shendu tells her that everything he did was for her before he's caught by the vortex. While she's mending the Book, she has depressing visions: Jackie stuck working for Section 13, Uncle completely senile in a nursing house, Jade becoming a cold and lonely adult, a miserable Tohru inheriting Uncle's Rare Finds, Shendu's spirit trapped in endless torture, Valerie's mother continuing to sadly wait for her daughter to come home, and finally, her father's death in the original timeline compared to him still being alive in the timeline Shendu wrote. As Valerie finishes restoring the original timeline, she's devastated to let her father remain dead.
28	* With the timeline restored, the Guardian of the Book of Ages decides it's time for him to stop waiting for pilgrims to come to worship creation and let the pathway to the temple disappear and himself to become a legend so that nobody can endanger the fabric of reality again.
29	* The final chapter has Valerie's emotional breakdown over her complex feelings for Shendu, leading her to return home to Toronto to try and sort things out.
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32	[[folder: ''The Stronger Evil'']]
33	* Valerie's complicated relationship with Shendu comes up again, as she's left feeling guilty and sympathetic for him when he's turned to stone again.
34	** The EroticDream they share in the 18th chapter makes them realize that they've actually been [[SharedDream interacting with each other while dreaming]], but Valerie still refuses to admit she has feelings for Shendu. When he asks in frustration for the reason for her denials, she brings up the events of the rewritten reality to answer his question.
35	--->'''Shendu''': I did NOT change you, Valerie. Not one part of your personality. I could have written it so that we were already bonded, I could have consummated our love with you the moment we awoke in that reality – Heaven knows, I wanted to. But I didn't! Even at the alter, if you had but said the words, I would have stopped it all. I gave you the choice throughout. I wanted to make you happy, I wanted you to choose to love me! Can you tell me there was no part of you that was at least content?\
36	'''Valerie''': I… I ''was'' happy. I remember just talking with you, laughing, just being ''easy'' with you. Ever since you've come back, I can't get out of my head this want for your voice, when you would teach me magic and tell me how well I was doing! You believed in me.\
37	'''Shendu''': I loved you. I still do.\
38	'''Valerie''': And yet I can't forget what you did. All the horrible things you've done – or tried to do. If I forget, what kind of person does that make me?
39	* Val's internal conflicts escalate with Future Jade's [[WeUsedToBeFriends cold treatment of her]] and the implications regarding her future role as Drago's mother.
40	* The entire J-Team is sorrowful over Jade's return to the Queen of the Shadowkhan, especially [[ItsAllMyFault Valerie]].
41	* Jackie, Uncle, and Tohru all walk out on Valerie when she proposes [[EnemyMine working with Drago and Shendu]] against Tarakudo. Only Nat sticks with her, and even she's reluctant about the whole thing.
42	* Drago gradually reveals snippets about [[DarkAndTroubledPast his past]]; Valerie raised him as best as she could while Shendu was petrified. They kept moving around to keep safe from human prejudices, and the last time he saw her, he was ten years old. He then lived on the streets and was taken care of by his grandfather Typhon for seven years, after which he got to know Shendu. Unfortunately, Shendu had grown colder and unforgiving, so nothing [[WellDoneSonGuy Drago]] did could please him. Now the grievances from his own timeline prompt him to prove himself, and he has mixed feelings about interacting with the mother who hasn't birthed him yet.
43	* The 19th chapter turns Shendu into a full-blown JerkassWoobie:
44	** With Valerie having griped to Shendu in the previous chapter that he cannot be completely honest with her even just to keep her, he confides to her that he wishes to locate Tiamat to get answers from the mother who cut off all contact with him and his siblings for doing something she birthed them for. The raw emotion he displays fills Valerie with pity as she holds his hand.
45	--->'''Shendu''': When my mother lost her first mate… the pain, the loneliness she suddenly felt, it drove her almost mad. She was angry at humanity, angry at the world for taking away that which she loved with all her heart. When my father found her, he offered her a way to make the pain stop, for her to have her revenge. She agreed but she was loath to do so. My mother was forced to carry me and my siblings in her womb, one by one. And she brought us into the world in a fit of anguish. I don't know if she expected Typhon to help her with the brood he had promised would bring her all the vengeance she sought. In any case, he vanished after we were all born. Mother said his form could no longer hold him together, and he died. Alone she was left with us, eight pieces of evidence of her grief and violation. She made us for one purpose, and one purpose alone: to destroy. And that was what we did. She was our mother, we revered and feared her. When she sent us out into the world to destroy her enemies, we did that and more. We relished in being able to unleash our full potential, in bringing our mother what she desired. And yet… she abandoned us. Gone. Never to be seen again. You speak of me treating Drago less than favourably. But what am I supposed to show him when my own mother took that away from me? I have never known what you mortals call ''love''. I never knew why my mother did what she did. Though I will admit this is a rare case for me; in this instance, I do not desire power, Valerie. I just want answers.
46	** When Shendu hits a dead end with the Babylonian artifact, he's massively dejected by this apparent proof that his mother didn't care about him enough to leave a clue for him to follow her trail. He then gives Valerie an AnguishedDeclarationOfLove about how it hurts him to try the impossible and win her heart, and he's even ready to let the Chans petrify him again should Valerie confirm that to be true.
47	--->'''Shendu''': You said love is about trusting one another, about being happy for another, that love is selfless, about giving up yourself for another person. I say you're wrong. I know all about love, Valerie. Love is not selfless: love is the most selfish emotion I've ever felt in my life. It makes me want to ''change'' anything, ''do'' anything, ''be'' anything – damn the consequences – just to keep you with me. I am utterly selfish in my want to have you near me, gluttonous in my hunger for your every piece of affection. You say it is about being happy through another's happiness, but I find [[LoveHurts love only makes me miserable]] when I realise just what you might think of me. Love makes me want to disembowel myself at the thought that I hurt you, that I scared you. I am ready to throw away everything I am, for the sake of hearing you say the words that, I realise now, I'm ''never going to hear''! And even when I acknowledge that love will only drive me mad, I still cling to it with everything I have, because at the same time, seeing you smile gives me sustenance in a way that nothing else has ever done. Love is dangerous because I suddenly realise I don't want to be without it – even though I'm starting to know it is beyond my reach.
48	** Valerie becomes torn between helping the Chans capture Shendu and her growing compassion towards him. She ends up telling him to continue his search for his mother and not to lose hope in her.
49	** As the aforementioned moments are going on, the musicians play [[Music/RayCharles "I Can't Stop Loving You"]] and Brenda Lee's "Losing You" in the background.
50	* Valerie feels helpless and guilty when Hsi Wu's attempt to merge with Jade is almost complete since she didn't take time to listen to the ill girl's attempt to explain the problem before it was too late.
51	* While they're in a bar, Nat tells Drago that her high school friend fell in love with a night-creature. After Nat's friend convinced her to keep it a secret by assuring her [[ICanChangeMyBeloved it would work out]], she died in two weeks. It gives Nat a personal reason for her animosity towards demons and night-creatures.

Context TearJerker / TheUltimateEvil