Am I the only one who is fascinated by this gesture? He does it to her a couple of times.

The first time is when she overdoes it at Angie’s, and he clearly does it to stop the outpouring of magic. 

The staying hand disconnects her from the crystal. But what does that hand do? Cut off her visual connection to what she’s doing? Maybe, maybe not. I have a theory.

The second time he does it (at least that comes to mind, I might be missing some examples) it’s again a protective gesture in which he’s more or less cutting off whatever action she’s about to take by covering her eyes, coming at her from behind, I.E. holding her back.

The funny thing here, though, is that he doesn’t actually cover her eyes that effectively, at least not for more than an instant. So totally blinding her doesn’t seem like the motivation. (Besides, in the magic usage case, she was visualizing anyway and not really seeing what was in front of her. Here she’s more or less “seeing red” and again, what she’s physically seeing doesn’t seem like a major factor.)

Which brings me back to that header image:

Here, he isn’t holding her back. He’s more or less “in her face.” But he emphasizes it by covering her eyes. Why do this when asking her such a serious question?

Here’s the theory: He does it so she has nowhere to look but in herself, and therefore at herself. In the earlier cases, that brought her self awareness back. Here, it gives her nowhere to go to escape the question. He basically leaves her with only herself to face, so that she has to answer something she probably didn’t want to, or couldn’t before. (Take a look at Ruth’s face, here: he looks surprised and concerned and not at all like he has any idea of what her answer might be, or like he saw this question and concept coming. Given the connection he shares with her and how much insight he has into her head, I think this is suggestive of an instance where there’s no way for him to know what’s in her head, because she doesn’t, either. Until Elias makes her take a good look at herself, alone-together in the dark with only herself to face instead of whatever is happening in the world outside.)

Can I just say I find this fascinating?

Elias, a being who thinks he can’t feel (bullshit, by the way, poor skull puppy is so clueless) and who doesn’t understand himself (or feel understood by anyone else) is the person who immediately recognizes that she has feelings and understandings of herself that she’s not acknowledging. Dealing with such things is skill he seems to struggle with in himself–able to understand that there’s something going on in his head and heart but never knowing how to parse it out–and yet he knows exactly what to do, this unusual gesture, to allow her to do exactly that. He isn’t really asking her to answer him, here. He’s asking her to answer herself, and let him overhear that answer, because he–again, this being who supposedly only understands feelings on a scripted level–understands that whatever that answer is, it’s vital to understand.

And can I just say, too, that the darkness of the art here can be representative of the darkness that he’s throwing over Chise, but I rather doubt it. It’s depicting his tone and attitude here, the panel asks us to see him like this. But this isn’t anger, either. It’s not that kind of dark. What kind of dark is it, then?

I think he’s horrified. Horrified that Chise–who he values more than even he recognizes–would not only put herself at risk intentionally, but do it because she doesn’t think she’s worthy of being here with him otherwise, when, well …

She doesn’t have to prove her worth to him for one second.