Spice and Wolf (2024) Ep 16

It’s always sunshine before shit hits the fan….

So the fuss Lawrence woke up to was Amati calling him out to publicly declare a contract, which he will pay off Holo’s debt to free her, and then ask for her hand in marriage. (God help this kid, he might have the brains for business, but certainly not the wits when it comes to a woman’s charm…) Lawrence wasn’t really concerned about it, so things were all nice and rosy when the festival kicked off. He and and Holo went around town together, ate food, drank and danced, but all of that became nothing more than fleeting memory when a letter from Diana arrived… and that’s when things got ugly.

First let’s be clear: Both parties have made mistakes that instigated this mess in the first place. Holo shouldn’t have played the part of the “pitiful nun in debt”, which took advantage of Amati’s heart and wallet (she should be plenty aware of how smitten he is by her), and Lawrence shouldn’t have agreed with Amati’s contract of  repaying the debt of 1000 Trenni Silver Coins to to “free” Holo. As Holo had put it, it would have been more admirable if he had turned it down.

The reason why Lawrence decidedly agreed to the contract because regardless if Holo’s debt were to be cleared, he was confident Holo wouldn’t accept Amati’s hand for marriage and stay by his side. But all of that confidence has been snuffed out when this whole debacle with Holo accusing him for not wanting to stay together happened and thinking it was “fun” for him to see her all excited about returning home when he learned about what happened to it. Now Lawrence is left to scrambling to thwart Amati’s plans to get enough money by the end of the day.

Unfortunately, while Lawrence was out and about enjoying the festival with Holo, Amati had put into action a scheme of driving up the price of the Pyrite the Fortune Teller (who has already left town) had gone around selling. He’s using the fact this item is the hottest item among women, who are vying to get their hands on it. So merchants have been — heck even Marc dabbled his hand in it. That said, it wasn’t like Lawrence hadn’t been warned by Marc or Betos throughout the day. Both of them gave him a heads up that Amati had a method to earn up the cash– after-all, that would only make sense anyhow because why start a contract of paying off a debt if you didn’t know how to do it quickly in the first place? Amati was confident he could succeed, meanwhile Lawrence agreed under the pretense that regardless of the outcome, Holo would still choose to stay by his side because they are on a journey.

But suddenly that long journey they promised to take together is seemingly pointless. It appears Diana’s letter was the bearer of bad news, (seemingly, as we didn’t get to see it ourselves) confirming the place Holo once called home, no longer exists. And with that, the confidence in the key that tied Holo and Lawrence together is gone.

That said, it was not very fair of Holo to accuse Lawrence for thinking it was amusing to watch her be excited about returning to place that no longer exists. In his defence, Lawrence wanted to make sure the facts were straight, and made the effort to put time aside to find more concrete evidence of the truth. However he did himself no favours of slipping up at times by saying things that planted seeds of doubt in Holo’s heart, and worse of all– not having a clear understanding of where he stands. The promise he made to Holo was to help her get back home. It was all made under the notion he’d have a companion for some time, drop her off, and then continue his merry way, right? The agreement was made before a bond had grown between them, and it seems Lawrence hasn’t quite taken the time to really sit down and think how that changes things. And now that there’s seemingly no home for her to return to, where does that leave them? This is the prime time for Lawrence to reflect on what he wants to do going forward, and most importantly, how he feel about Holo. But he’ll need to act fast because what Holo needs right now is confident reassurance to stop her from fleeting to Amati, who she believes at this moment of fear of loneliness and desperation, is the one who can give her what she wants, love and companionship.

Also side note: Holo conveniently forgets that Amati doesn’t know that she’s a Wolf. Would he still be under those rose-filtered eyes if he knew the truth? All the more reason she’s not in the right of mind to make any big decisions at the moment.

But here’s the thing: It’s not like we didn’t know that Holo was lonely. She has made this abundantly clear many times from the very start. However for the first time, we saw the true extent of her fear of being all alone again. Heck, even before she opened that letter, we saw how she’s wasn’t actually excited to hear that Lawrence been investigating to find the fastest route home. Instead, it looked as though she interpreted as he’s in a hurry to end their journey. And then when shit finally hit the fan, she even went as far as asking Lawrence to make love with her, so this way at the very least she would have a child to keep her company. However Lawrence wasn’t about to agree to such a request, especially when he knows she’s both vulnerable and not sound of mind at the moment. Her despair of not having a place to return to is clouding her judgment.

Would this whole clusterfuck been avoided had Lawrence not left the letter with Holo? Hard to say. Lawrence didn’t think Holo could read because she had claimed she couldn’t, but as it turns out she does. Needless to say, I don’t think that was very fair of her to be deceptive about that, especially since Lawrence wouldn’t have been as careless to leave it there if he had. But then again, perhaps it would have only delayed an inevitable fight…. though I do wonder how Lawrence would have approached the subject if he had control over being the bearer of bad news. Whatever was mentioned in the letter, it was enough for Lawrence (who had previously tried to be optimistic and cling to the thread of hope that the stories they’ve heard were wrong or twisted) to have a breakdown and cry too. If anything, the benefit of having the time to process it before telling Holo, would have given him the opportunity to figure out his own feelings and rethink the meaning of their journey together.