Aug 10, 2024
There is something tragic about an earthworm's fate.
Because of a popular belief - cutting one in half leads to creating 2 worms for the price of one, so to speak- , it's one day bound to be cleaved in twain and thrown to the ground. Such an act won't generate 2 earthworms however, for only the part containing the vital organs may eventually survive, and will be repeated on that living part until the earthworm no longer "regenerates" itself, dead. So is the Man to an extent, fated to regenerate Himself until He no longer does, not always because of death, but simply because there is no longer something to move forward with, or to move forward to.
Cleaved in twain because of unfortunate events and cleaved to a fate of destruction, Lumière is starting his regeneration. Nevertheless, although he has decided to become different for the sake of moving forward, it's a tough process. "Regeneration" indeed, isn't only about "healing" his wounds with Power and moving forward to his aspirations but also, and more importantly, about growing something new from something damaged - his " true self". However, how is he supposed to do such a thing when he doesn't know the meaning of "Lumière Croft". Concomitantly, to grow within this world's madness, he needs to generate personas - a process slightly different in that it "simply" evolves around producing something new, detached from his "true self" if I may say. This little difference is something our mc is still struggling to fully grasp, and that's probably why cracks of his true self are adorning each mask he's trying to create ( cf the one of spades one ), and why he's still lamenting who he once was.
To reiterate, creating a persona isn't akin to growing a mask from his "true self" and mending its cracks ( remnants of it ) with mere lies - by doing so, he'll simply let the world change him in the proper sense of the term ( hence his reluctance ). Creating a persona is about producing something new, something he can let the world change again and again as it won't change "him" in essence. "New" implies many things, from wearing away all he holds dear to shedding the feeling of his heart entirely, as you said. I wonder, then, what will happen if in order to achieve one of his persona's purposes, he has to kill someone "he" - Lumière Croft- holds dear.
On the contrary, perhaps he will never grasp the difference between generation and regeneration and will keep creating personas from pieces of himself, of his Humanity until he no longer can.
As for the multitude of lies and "performances" he's surrounded with. So far, in 6/7 chapters were introduced lies regarding : the one of spades, the Rememberers, the personas, him lying to himself to control his emotions/ despair/ and to use his aura ( perhaps ), so one will eventually get those impressions of " oh he has to deal with a lot of stuffs"/ " there are a lot of things at once". Nevertheless, a few things need to be precised.
Most of those lies, if not all, are direct consequences of Lumière being a Heretic, sinner or human - consequences that are part of the magic system in which madness occupies a large place. Thus, as rudiments of the magic system - especially its pros and cons - have been introduced, it appears logical that he will have to deal with a lot of things, especially lies => it's all part of the sanity/ madness duality protrayed since the beginning.
Your idea of him being weighed down by a lot of lies and struggling/ failing is quite explicit and understandable while reading - especially thanks to Lumière's clumsiness/ """""self awareness""", something I really like about this character. For now, if I have to roughly summarize it, without having your explanations in mind, it's a bit like " so here are the basis of the magic system and what Lumière has to deal with, let's see how it'll evolve throughout act2" or as if you threw a rock into a lake and the purpose of the act2 is to watch the created waves ( I don't mean this as a critique, such a schema can be interesting to read ). If creating such a feeling was your intention, then it's ok, if it wasn't then there will eventually be some little things to change. Was it necessary to introduce them all/ most of them right now? If not, what are the ones that could be introduced later on? Are there other ways to introduce some "performances" ? On the other hand, you said there was a certain purpose ( if it's something different from what you explained prior ) behind this, so I don't doubt that when this purpose will be explained later on this point will be "clearer".
To sum up, there is indeed this impression of " a lot of things happening at once" but I won't go as far as saying it's too much for now ( of course, if a new performance/lie is added every few chapters without " break" then yes it'll be too much ). I think it's mostly due to the context in which they were introduced and that most of them are "consequences" "imposed" on Lumière rather than performances he "chooses" to do ( but I think such performances are related to his persona's creation etc.. so it's not a big deal, it's something he's starting to do), so the feeling of " added weight" is emphasized, if I may say. The question now is how much you wanted to emphasize this feeling of " added weight" at this time of the plot. If you were more for the "rock thrown into the water" schema, then you did pretty well - although another question will be how " hard" you wanted to throw the rock into the water"/ how many "performances" you wanted to introduce "at once".
On that note, the "schema" itself doesn't really matter, what matters the most is how interesting you'll portray it, and that's something we'll see later on, and ,more importantly, not something that can be inferred from the beginning of Act 2 - so the relevance of my words is negligible.
