dragonslayer
shrine
hello everyone and welcome to my monument to my latest brainrot; the dragonslayers.
they're very minor characters, so much so that calling them 'characters' in their own right is generous, but that's never stopped me before
and it wont be stopping me now. on this page I'll compile all existing canon information about each slayer, and then all of my
personal headcanons.
firstly, in overview; the dragonslayers are a squadron that follow the orders of Dilandau, one of the most guys of all time. for the first half of the show or so, he's delightfully evil, and absolutely insane, and they're all charming in a standard sort of henchmen way. they're all loyal to him beyond any logic! why would anyone want to work for him?? but they must, they seem very dedicated. a whole squadron of lunatics. I really like villains and their evil henchmen, so its not hard to get me on board.
then, sudden plottwist, Dilandau has a lot of character depth actually! generally speaking, the psychology in this show is actually really good, treating violence and trauma with genuine weight, and letting characters sit in some pretty realistic feelings. the plot twist with Dilandau highlights this. the sudden recontextualizing of his behaviour as not the tendencies of a one-dimensional, cartoonishly evil madman, but a deeply traumatized and mentally ill teenager highlights an important theme of the show; that violence fucking sucks, for everyone involved. everyone's a person, everyone's capable of violence, and everyone's capable of being hurt.
the dragonslayers died in the process of recontextualizing Dilandau. despite having very few lines and no development whatsoever, they carry a significant share of the themes, with their deaths marking a major turning point in both Dilandau and Van's relationship to violence.
I always have been and always will be the type of person who gets inexcusably obsessed with the little guys, but I'm not here to make an argument that they were poorly utilized, or that they should've had more screentime just because I like them. honestly, I think the fact they were just random soldiers adds to the total impact.
obviously killing characters with names and backstories hits audiences harder than random soldiers. audiences expect random soldiers to die. but that's the point, isn't it? audiences expect it, and they don't expect to care. they were just random soldiers, until they died. but Dilandau's reaction to their deaths recontextualized them in turn.
half of them didn't have names in the story until he addressed their absence, Viole only exists as a name he says while mourning. none of their names are spoken by anyone but him. the only reason they can even be called characters is because he cares about them. his mourning made both him and them People in the eyes of the audience.
in the space of a story, this works incredibly. in the space of fandom, it leaves a question.
if he's a person, and they're people, then why would anyone want to work for him? what kind of person wants to be a dragonslayer?
we have no idea. we get no backstory for any of the dragonslayers, and next to no characterisation. answering that question is left to little freaks like me, who think about Dilandau too much and cannot think about him without thinking about the little squadron of lunatics that have been attached to him so thoroughly.
Gatty
canon info:
Gatty is the one to deliver reports on the group's status to Dilandau several times, and is also the one to deliver the message from the general. During the attack on the Vione to rescue Van, Gatty, Shesta and Dallet converge in a hall, and Gatty is the one who takes charge, asking questions and giving orders to split up and find Dilandau because they “can’t act without his orders.”
He gets punched by Dilandau onscreen the most out of the dragonslayers, for a total of 3 times. first, in-mech, when he tried to temper Dilandau's aggro approach, second, when he makes the mistake of trying to stop Dilandau from picking at the injury on his face, and third, when he includes the “PS; don't get carried away” part of the general's orders, and Folken snickers at it.
extrapolation:
I’ve seen some draw the conclusion that Gatty is a sort of second-in-command of the dragonslayers, due to him giving orders to the others in that one scene, and being a communication link between Dilandau and the rest. I think that's a pretty reasonable conclusion, and explains his comparative boldness, so I'm inclined to agree.
I think the “we can't act without his orders” line is very neat. like, generally, I'd say that makes sense, but your castle is being attacked? That's kind of a time-sensitive situation, and ‘defend the castle’ seems like the thing to do. I would expect a leader might even be annoyed with their soldiers for wasting time seeking out specific orders instead of engaging in the obvious solution. So why is there any debate on what to do, let alone enough to spend time searching for orders instead of fighting?
Well, the first possibility is that it's not an entirely honest statement. the point of that line is to justify “our first priority is finding Dilandau,” so maybe, given other instances of such, Gatty is worried about his well being, or maybe, given where Dilandau actually was at the time and what he was contributing to the siege, Gatty could just be worried about him being unsupervised. if it was that last point, it would make sense why he wouldn't say aloud “we need to find the boss and make sure he isnt fucking shit up.”
Alternatively, if “what should we do in this situation” is a genuine question, he must have reason to think Dilandau might not be prioritizing the obvious thing, ie fighting the people trying to swarm the castle and rescue the prisoner. I could spend a long time coming up with any alternative agendas Dilandau might have, or that Gatty might think Dilandau might possibly have, but ultimately what matters is that if this is the case, in that moment Gatty and the others seem more concerned about what Dilandau wants than what’s actually the best course of action for The Mission. To me that implies a stronger loyalty to this specific unpredictable bundle of trauma than to the military or the country’s goals and motivations, which I think is neat.
Gatty makes up the majority of times dragonslayers get hit by Dilandau onscreen. The only non-gatty cases being the first scene we see them, when Shesta and Dallet get slapped to the ground. The first time Gatty’s hit is pretty simple, just Dilandau being difficult (and inconsistent, because later in the show when Shesta makes similar objections to orders on the battlefield, he only tells him off), but the second time is very interesting to me. The fact that Gatty made the decision to try to stop him from scratching at his injury implies 1) that he genuinely cares about Dilandau's wellbeing, and 2) that he has reason to think there was a chance of Dilandau accepting the fussing without issue. (possibly even was expecting it as the more likely outcome, since he seemed surprised when he lashed out), and 3) that even knowing his boss’s temperament, he considered it worthwhile to make the attempt, or maybe just didn’t consider it at all.
To me this implies that there have been occasions where Dilandau has been receptive to fussing like that, that lashing out isn’t actually the most common reaction he has to such things, or that Gatty doesn’t think particularly hard before he says things like that.
The third time is also interesting to me. Dilandau’s motivations in the scene are pretty obvious; him and Folken are getting on each other’s nerves, when Gatty interrupts this bad time with a message saying “sick em.” He’s excited! He’s already heading for the door when Gatty interrupts with the postscript order “don’t get carried away.” (original japanese is “はしゃぎ しげるな”, can also be translated roughly as “don’t have fun”) he’s startled, but he doesn’t swing until Folken laughs. (“laugh” is a strong word for it, but Folken doesn’t do big expressions. A small, amused grunt is his equivalent to laughing.) very evidently, he’s embarrassed by it, and annoyed with Gatty for reading it out in front of Folken.
Gatty’s motivations, a little less clear. Choosing to read the PS out instead of just keeping his head down could imply a handful of things about his attitude towards Dilandau and his duty in that moment, but universally what it implies is a certain willingness to just take the hit. He’s entirely unsurprised by getting punched, hardly letting it interrupt his sentence. He seems pretty resigned to it. I’ve seen people describe his expression in this scene as a “glare,” which is a reasonable take, but I always saw it as more of just keeping a straight face.
I also feel compelled to note that out of the three times he gets punched, Gatty never gets knocked over by it like the others. In the face cut scene, he did wind up on the ground, but it wasn’t the punch, Dilandau had to pick him up and throw him. Motherfucker must be pretty sturdy.
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Gatty is mature and analytical, and he values his composure. he has a prideful streak, and when Dilandau made him second in command, it was a big boost to his ego and his loyalty.
He likes to think he’s the most realistic about Dilandau, out of the dragonslayers. The way he sees it, it's a pretty good gig, aside from the volatile boss. He considers managing Dilandau to be his main job, and typically approaches it with a patience usually reserved for managing preschoolers.
That said, his actual feelings around Dilandau are very complicated, because Dilandau is very complicated. He’s a tyrant, he’s annoying, he’s clearly hanging by a fucking thread, he's violent and unpredictable and cagey as hell, but he's had worse bosses honestly. Gatty's emotionally attached.
He prefers not to get into All That if he can help it, and he likes to have the air of a calm, logical, stoic. but under any sort of stress it becomes obvious that he’s compassionate, deeply loyal, and he cares about Dilandau a lot.
Backstory:
His father is the captain of a small fishing boat, and he grew up helping with his father’s work. He stood to inherit the family business, provided he could stand to work for him until his father kicked it. He, in fact, could not stand to do that. Gatty has just enough of a stubborn, contrarian streak in him to make authority figures hate him, and his dad was a little on the authoritarian side, so they never really got along.
His previous commanders before Dilandau tended to find him deeply insufferable, and much more opinionated than most prefer their soldiers. His previous squadmates were a mixed bag, with some finding his tendency to piss off higher ups funny, and some finding it annoying.
He had experience in melefs before joining the dragonslayers, and managed to make a decent record in his short time in the military with skill and tactical thinking.
Dilandau's feelings:
Dilandau finds Gatty annoying fairly often, but at the end of the day Gatty’s name is either the first or second out of his mouth when he’s panicking. He relies on Gatty a lot and puts a lot of trust in him. He feels safe around Gatty and considers him competent and level headed. Whether or not he’s willing to admit aloud that Gatty has a genuine knack for strategy and his suggestions are often helpful depends entirely on Dilandau’s mood and whether or not it's easy to say in the moment, but he is aware of it regardless.
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Shesta
canon info:
Shesta and Gatty are about tied for the second most screen time and dialogue of the dragonslayers. (First is of course Miguel, who got a whole episode to himself)
during the crusade’s attack on the vione, he goes to search for dilandau and ends up defeated by Allen and forced to lead him to Van’s cell. He reports on Van and Folken’s whereabouts to Dilandau, and then he tries desperately to stop Dilandau from doing something stupid when he goes to try to snipe Van from the Vione. He delivers updates on the battle during the siege of Freid, and presumably passes on Dilandau’s orders to hold position. He is the last to die during Van’s rampage. He’s also almost always the first name out of Dilandau’s mouth whenever he’s calling his boys. (occasionally its gatty instead)
extrapolation:
It's fairly well accepted in the fandom that he’s just a little guy. I definitely see where they’re finding the Baby energy, with the childish bowl cut, the big round shoujo eyes, the high-pitched voice that sometimes cracks when he raises it. More than any of the other dragonslayers, his design Communicates something, and what it communicates is “this is a teenager. A Child.”
So, to overanalyze his most important scenes;
after splitting up to search for Dilandau during the crusade’s attack on the vione, he runs across Allen in the halls, and attempts an attack. To call the resulting interaction a “sword fight” feels excessively generous. “Fight” implies some kind of conflict, a clash of wills, or danger to both parties. He gets disarmed and grabbed almost instantly, and Allen takes him hostage. The camera cuts out, and the next time we see them, Shesta is opening the door to where Van is being held, and then is knocked unconscious by Allen. Obviously, it's implied that Allen had Shesta lead him to where the prisoner was being kept, under threat of death. Pretty typical stuff. but because there’s something wrong with me, I will dissect it anyway!
Obviously Allen, on account of being an overpowered bishie, is perfectly capable of taking out a single mook, and getting him to help with the breakout at swordpoint is tactically reasonable, albeit a little cold. The scene is obviously meant to frame Allen as cool and competent, but it's hard (at least for me) to not feel at least a little bad for Shesta as well. (I blame his Huge Shoujo Innocence Eyes)
Altogether, the interesting implications this scene has are about what it doesn’t do.
capturing Van was something Dilandau was pretty enthusiastic about, so it wouldn’t have been surprising to a viewer if a dragonslayer were very resistant to helping him escape, perhaps to the point of being willing to die about it. It would suit the Illogically-Dedicated-Henchmen profile. but if there’s any struggle about that, we don’t see it on camera; Shesta just seems scared. I think it’s an interesting little glimpse into the fact that this is not Random Soldier #408, but some teenager in a uniform who doesn’t want to die.
Additionally, it wouldn’t be surprising to a viewer if there was some kind of repercussions about that later; Dilandau slapped his boys for taking damage during a successful mission, why the hell wouldn’t someone get in trouble for literally losing a fight, getting captured, and actively helping the enemy escape?
Obviously the writing explanation for this is that they probably didn’t think that hard about it, after all, the point of this scene is just to make allen look cool and explain how he found van so fast. The in-universe explanation could simply be that Shesta DID get in trouble and we just didn’t see it. But as there’s absolutely no evidence of that, I find it more interesting to ponder the fact that he didn’t get in trouble.
Maybe Dilandau was too distracted by his own injury to have any time for thinking about that. Or maybe the idea that Shesta would get in trouble for it at all is misled. After all, at no point in the show does Dilandau go out of his way to risk his soldiers, and the incident with Miguel shows that he does in fact consider their lives fairly valuable. So perhaps Shesta chose his actions in accordance with some hierarchy of orders from dilandau that puts “don’t get killed” over “complete the current objective.” that would kind of line up with the interpretation of Gatty’s motives suggested above wherein Gatty might have reason to think Dilandau has priorities to follow other than what is in the best interest of the mission.
The next interesting scene happens shortly after, just after the face scratch punch scene with Gatty. Specifically, Shesta interrupts Dilandau’s tantrum to deliver news. What news? who knows. It cuts out. He starts “Folken-sama” and then we cut away, and when we cut back, Dilandau is in mech, headed out to kick Van’s ass.
Shesta chases after him, reminding him that Folken said not to leave the anchorage; an order that Dilandau follows with malicious compliance, stopping at the edge (of the entryway? Launch strip? whatever) and attempting to snipe Van with a single crima claw; a move that overheats his mech and fucks it up. Shesta runs to him when he jumps out, asking if he’s alright, and then flinches when Dilandau turns to glare out of the vione.
Mainly, he’s here to act as a straight man to Dilandau’s bullshit. an unheard voice of reason. He just wants his boss not to do something crazy that’ll get himself in trouble or hurt.
So, the main question here that I have is about the initial delivery of the information. We know the contents of the message had to include Van’s location, and it was about Folken, so it can be easily assumed that he said something along the lines of “Folken is being held up; he’s talking to Van on the bridge out of the city.”
So the question is why? Why report on the movements of Dilandau’s superior to Dilandau? That doesn’t seem standard? With Folken’s orders to hold, and with him clearly handling the situation and not calling for backup of any sort, there’s no real official reason why this information would have to be reported like this. The way I see it, there’s two possible reasons;
1, Shesta thinks Dilandau would want to know, and considers that reason enough for telling him, despite the potential consequences.
2, Shesta reported it mainly as an attempt to distract Dilandau from freaking out on Gatty.
Either way, he clearly had some Regrets shortly after, because Dilandau was not normal about it, but honestly I don’t know what other reaction you could possibly expect from Dilandau. Maybe he just didn’t think that far ahead.
And finally, the siege of Freid. I just think it's very funny that Shesta makes the kind of objection to Dilandau’s orders that Gatty got punched for, and all Shesta gets is a “don’t make me repeat myself.” favoritism, or just mood swings?
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Shesta is gentle, empathetic and compassionate, and he’s quick to offer comfort and support. He has a little bit of a caretaker complex, but he's aware of it and trying not to let it get out of hand. He’s very emotionally intelligent. Extensive socializing in his youth has given him skills and patience for dealing with a wide range of personalities. He has absolutely no poker face, and struggles to hide what he’s feeling.
He has an uncharacteristically vicious temperament in combat, which is very very rarely seen off of the battlefield.
He worries about Dilandau a lot. He's very empathetic, and tends to take the extra steps necessary to recognize Dilandau's fear and loneliness through his violent, chaotic, self-destructive, and maladaptive behaviour. He's doing his best to figure out what's wrong and how to help, but he doesn't really get a chance to see that goal through.
he doesn't like violence, and he's often conflicted about his participation in it, but he quickly discovered that hesitating in combat costs your comrades their lives. with that weight on his shoulders, he fights viciously, swapping survivor's guilt for blood on his hands.
Backstory:
youngest son of a large family. grew up on his grandparents' farm, surrounded by an ever changing rotation of siblings and cousins.
older siblings and cousins picked on him a lot, and in a large household bustling with kids, an age-based pecking order was usually observed, and parental discipline was rare. This was a contributing factor to his caretaker complex, as he often took it upon himself to play mediator, and look after the ones smaller than him.
got an impressive enough reputation to be selected for the dragonslayers despite being a very fresh recruit, due to an incident during a battle where his commander's commander was downed. He took control of the officer's guymelef and absolutely wrecked shop with it, and afterwards apologized profusely for borrowing it. When asked if he'd ever piloted before, he responded “no sir, unless using a farmer's work melef counts.”
previous squadmates tended to pick on him for being so small and sensitive.
Dilandau's feelings:
Dilandau likes Shesta. He's not emotionally intelligent enough to recognize empathy or pity or anything like that, but he notices that Shesta is the first to his side when he's hurt or having a Time, and the most likely to speak in a gentle voice. to him Shesta is like an emotional support animal. just kind of a comforting, grounding presence. he's more likely to be casual with Shesta, and rarely lashes out at him, for two main reasons; 1, Shesta is small, softspoken and nonthreatening, just not easy to get mad at, and 2, Shesta is generally pretty good at reading Dilandau's emotional state, and knows when to speak up and when to stay out of the way.
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Dallet
canon info:
Out of the dragonslayers that have literally any lines, Dallet has the least. Specifically, if you don’t count single-word apologies and affirmatives said in unison with Shesta (of which there are 4), he has 2(?) lines. Only 1 of which is said while alive.
that line is a single expletive. (“しまった” translated as “damn!” in the subtitles, and “oops” or “damn it” by google translate)
So he's a man of few words.
extrapolation:
For important scenes; he has few of those. He’s present for the initial slap scene, and he’s there during the raid, where he doesn’t do anything particularly noteworthy.
During the fight before Miguel gets captured, (the one where Dallet gets his single word), I do think it’s noteworthy that Miguel initially attacks Van to get him off of Dallet. (and subsequently gets absolutely owned) it’s a good example of the pack-tactics generally employed by the dragonslayers. In several combat scenes we see them fight in this sort of 2v1 back and forth style, always ganging up to overwhelm their opponents. I think it’s a fun little detail; we call it “ganging up” or “not fighting fair” when the bad guys do it, but if they were protagonists it would probably be “synergy” or “teamwork” or, dare I say, “the power of friendship.”
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Dallet is dependable and quiet, and usually stays out of trouble. He’s very enamored with Dilandau. He considers it an honor to train with him and fight for him. Their first meeting had a strong effect on him; he discovered the thrill of getting completely destroyed in a sparring match. fear and awe go together for him, and Dilandau is a very affecting presence. That encounter tempered his ambition and shifted his priorities, and now he’s very content to serve Dilandau. (if the question is “why would anyone want to be a dragonslayer”, at least ONE of the answers has to be “because they’re a little freak.”)
He’s close with Shesta and Gatty, and they often act as a trio.
He also gets along with Miguel. Dallet and Miguel are kind of natural rivals; nearly opposites in disposition, with Dallet being quiet and proper, and Miguel being loud and rough, but with a shared passion for swordplay and similar egos about their talents. They spar frequently.
Backstory:
He’s an only child, and his father was an acclaimed knight and swordsman, and then a decorated soldier. they had a positive, albeit distant relationship.
He quickly built an impressive record through skill and ambition, but it was tempered by a violent streak and generally antisocial disposition. He was very committed to climbing the ranks before he met Dilandau.
previous commanders found him talented but aloof, and previous squadmates found him standoffish and prideful.
Dilandau's feelings:
Dilandau appreciates his dependability, but even more so his willingness to spar. A lot of the others are afraid of one-on-one sparring with Dilandau, but Dallet is kinda into that, and very eager to learn from him, so he's the first to volunteer when Dilandau wants to spar. Since sparring is stress relief and a way to vent for Dilandau, this means he finds himself relying on Dallet often to manage his emotions, although neither is exactly aware of that.
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Miguel
canon info:
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extrapolation:
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Backstory:
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Dilandau's feelings:
Dilandau likes miguel. they share a violent streak and most of their sense of humor. Their synergy is good because of how well their personalities sync. they WOULD run into conflict because they're so similar, but Miguel is actively toning down his own dominant personality to defer to Dilandau, in an effort to get along.
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Guimel
canon info:
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extrapolation:
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Backstory:
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Dilandau's feelings:
Everyone is surprised by the fact that Dilandau doesn't hate guimel. They think that if anyone would be immune to her charming lazy charade it should be Dilandau, but she makes sure to put in the effort when it counts, and to everyone's annoyance, he actually does find her funny at least half the time, so Dilandau just sees a talented warrior with a slightly annoying personality.
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Viole
canon info:
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extrapolation:
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Backstory:
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Dilandau's feelings:
They mainly interact in combat, during which dilandau is happy to have a little shadow. He considers viole very good at synergy in combat, and likes training with him for this reason. Viole is happy to train, as long as he's on dilandau's team, but he goes to great lengths to avoid sparring dilandau.
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Jajuka
canon info:
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extrapolation:
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Backstory:
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Dilandau's feelings:
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Refina
canon info:
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extrapolation:
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Backstory:
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Dilandau's feelings:
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