Sep 09, 2024
Author's Commentary #125:
Time to talk about Chapter 125: A heartless woman.
This one's a long one, and was originally going to be three separate chapters, however, I hate Imelda so much that I decided to combine everything so that she's only in the story for a single chapter.
イメルダ・ベリンシュ (Imelda Berrinche) is how her name is spelled in katakana. Her last name, Berrinche, actually means "tantrum" in Spanish.
Her birthday is March 13th. I chose this date at random so there's no greater significance behind why this date is her birthday. Though I guess her birthday being on the 13th of a month was a bit intentional.
Her favorite piece is the amazon, mainly because that's Pewler's favorite piece, and like him, the queen is her favorite normal chess piece.
Like some of the other one-dimensional villains, such as Cypress, she was designed to be hated. She was the central source of Carol's misery and brainwashing at college and is a massive Pewler fangirl, believing everything he says to be gospel. The reason she smokes so much is mainly because it calms her down, however, after winning a DESPER match against a Desperado and making her prize immunity to nicotine, the cigarettes essentially lost their effect, allowing Imelda to smoke as much as she wants with no repercussions. Which makes it all the more weird that she suddenly died after the match.
As for what happened to her sister, basically, her sister learned of what she had done to Carol and reprehended her for it. But Imelda aired her grievances to Pewler, which led to her sister being dragged into a DESPER match and turned into a sheepblossom as punishment for losing. As for what happened after, Imelda was walking with her sister, when she saw some guys walking by wearing anime shirts. Deeming anime degenerate, thanks to Pewler's dogma, she ordered her sister to kill the two. Her sister came close to killing one, but the other killed her in order to save his friend's life. This enraged Imelda who promptly phoned in Pewler for help, resulting in the two being tried for murder and eventually subjected to DESPER matches against Pewler and turned into sheepblossom for losing.
The chapter's title also has some double meaning. On one hand, it could refer to Imelda, who claims to be a beacon of compassion, but is anything but. But it is primarily referring to Iori.
As for the game, it ended up being a great way to write in a proper castling checkmate. Funnily enough, it occurred 10 games after the Iori and Carol collusion castling checkmate back in Chapter 110. Now Mimoko can see that Iori truly was capable of pulling off the move, and now holds no resentment over the bet. One final thing I'll mention is that this chapter introduces all the other American SPCMs. I'll go over them more in future commentaries.
That's all for this commentary. I hope you enjoyed it.
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