Hello folks, and welcome back for another episode of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha. We’re well into the show’s final act at this point, with Fate and Nanoha already having squared off against first Hayate, and then the awakened Book of Darkness itself. We’ve also resolved the duplicity and betrayal of Chrono’s admiral friend, who managed to successfully fuck everything up just before his plan was discovered. The admiral’s meddling backed Hayate into a corner in order to summon the Book itself, and then the Book’s own trauma prevented Nanoha and Fate from negotiating it out of its apocalyptic plans.

Now, with Nanoha defeated and Fate actually absorbed by the book, success or failure will likely come down to this season’s true heroine: Hayate. Just like how Nanoha’s first season was essentially a Fate story that Nanoha also took part in, so has this season most centrally been about Hayate, and her efforts to maintain and protect her family in spite of her curse. Personality-wise, Hayate is basically a version of Nanoha stripped of all of Nanoha’s easy gifts – she starts out alone, has to work hard to create a family, and even then is plagued by physical frailty, in contrast with the magical power Nanoha is able to use to enforce her worldview. But here at the end, with Hayate already stranded somewhere inside the book, the battle will come down to the one thing they share – their unshakable personal strength, and absolute love for the people they care about. We’ve reached the thesis of the season, and I’m thrilled to see how it plays out. Let’s get to it!

Episode 11

“A bond surely connects their hearts. A strong, true bond between mistress and servant.” Nanoha’s cold open immediately sets the terms for this drama, once again catching up anyone who’s not necessary following the key thematic throughline here. Just as Hayate’s strength and charity turned her guardians into a loving family, so too must she now reach out to the book itself

“But chains of sadness restrict them both. Pain from the distant and more recent past, disguising itself as cold reality.” And this essentially sums up the wrinkle in the theme that A’s added to Nanoha’s thesis. A’s counterpoint to the first season’s message is “sure, that’s easy for Nanoha to say, but what about someone whose family is bound by circumstance to suffer great misfortune? Can you say family is the ultimate good to a person like Hayate?”

And Nanoha’s words here reflect the true difficulty of that shift, as she acknowledges that when we endure trauma, it genuinely shifts the ways we are able to engage with others. Though both Hayate and the book desire peace and acceptance, they are gripped by chains of trauma that prevent them from truly connecting with each other. And when you’re in that position, you don’t actively see yourself as bound by circumstance – as Nanoha says, the effects of our trauma “disguise themselves as cold reality,” just the way the world works. Learning to trust again requires letting go of shields we’ve internalized in order to protect ourselves from future pain, and that’s a very difficult process

And yeah, the cold open ends on a direct conversation between Hayate and the book. IT’S TIME

Aw jeez, Nanoha’s look of shock at Fate disappearing. You rarely see her in a panic like that

It seems like we may be moving towards Fate getting to pay her own happiness forward, by reaching out to Hayate like Nanoha reached out to her

“Nothing is eternal. Everyone changes. They have to. I have to… and so do you!” Nanoha continues to be absurdly mature for her age

Moving inside the Book of Darkness allows the show to indulge in some more unique, evocative backgrounds, as we come across Fate sleeping in a giant mossy structure. This season has been smart to embrace the design diversity made possible by Nanoha’s fantastical, interplanetary setup

Fate wakes up next to… Fate!?!?

Oh dang, it’s actually Alicia. This is gonna be painful

“You are her older sister, after all, Alicia.” The book pampers Fate with the family she never had. But Fate doesn’t need this – as this season has emphatically demonstrated, we don’t need to be assigned a perfect family, we can create a family wherever we find ourselves

Their maid is named Linith

“By the time you finish breakfast, that scary dream will have faded away.”

Fate knows what’s happening, so it comes down to her choice – will she accept the fantasy she always longed for in the first season, or has she grown to the point where she wants more from life than to be loved by a mother who never truly existed?

Lots of wide-open compositions for this fantasy, along with many vertical pillars, making Fate simultaneously seem trapped and dwarfed by her surroundings

We quickly jump to Hayate stuck in half-slumber, and then out to Nanoha in battle. Strong color contrast between the bright pink of Nanoha’s barriers and the dull yellow of the lightning created by their clash

“Book of Darkness-san is kind of a spoiled brat, but I think I can get through to her.” Even Nanoha Is Sick Of This Book’s Shit

“Three magazines and eighteen cartridges left…” This was one of the true purposes of transitioning to the cartridge system – shifting to a style of weaponry that can be overtly quantified, thus giving us a way to more directly engage with the stakes and tactical mechanics of Nanoha’s fights. The first season relied on the complex process of charging up some beam attack to lend its fights a sense of gravity, but both the diversity of weapons and focus on cartridges has shifted A’s to a far more tactically grounded style of combat, and also one that brings Nanoha’s weapons just a smidge closer to giant robots

Raising Heart transforms into a sphere form, in one more gloriously indulgent mechanical transformation. Nanoha is really selling the appeal of giant robot shows

The Book of Darkness has such chuuni attack names. “Photon Lancer: GENOCIDE SHIFT”

Alicia tries to frame Precia’s choices as “because she was so kind, she broke when trying to save me,” but that doesn’t excuse Precia’s actions. Of course, this is the daughter she was actually kind to saying this, who only has memories of the loving Precia

I appreciate that Fate herself hasn’t really accepted any of this; she’s gone along with it to some extent, but she knows this is a dream, and she knows it’s going to end. She’s grown too much for this to be a genuine, difficult conflict in her mind – instead, the show is only able to imply Fate might be conflicted by having her not speak at all, and mostly turn over her thoughts about this situation in her own mind. This isn’t a convincing temptation, this is a process of letting go

Similarly, Hayate is only conflicted here because she’s so fatigued by the influence of the book. She doesn’t want any of this either

You’d be surprised how many climaxes rely on this kind of theoretically “false drama,” where the overt conflicts are mostly just leading up to one or another character revealing they’ve had the win all along. But it’s a natural result of the needs of both character arcs and final battles. Characters generally don’t “learn their lesson” and grow all at once during their final battle – they develop over time, and their final battles tend to be more “demonstrate what you’ve learned” than the learning process itself. In contrast, dramatic climaxes demand conflicts that seem unwinnable right up until the moment they’re completed, which often involves some portion of the leads fighting a desperate, losing battle until one of their friends devises an unexpected lateral approach to solving their problem

When you combine these two narrative demands, you end up with a lot of stories where final battles seem unwinnable up until the moment some key character reveals they had the win all along, be it through some emotional resolve or a piece of information the rest of us were kept in the dark about. It’s basically the opposite of dramatic irony, and though blocking it out might make it seem like a “cheap” solution, it’s a pretty important dramatic tool

Oh my god, Nanoha’s charge looks so cool. Her staff generates wings of energy and a spear point, and Nanoha launches herself spear-first at the book. Nanoha is handily holding down the “action theatrics” part of this battle, while Hayate and Fate handle the emotional/thematic throughlines

“You’ve been sad and lonely for so long…” Defining the book as a broken artifact that had been tampered with, thus leaving it unable to fulfill its purpose without hurting its bearer, continues to be a masterful choice in terms of tying this show’s themes together

The emotional climaxes are played against each other, as Hayate gently reaches out to the book while Fate says goodbye to Alicia

“Your strong and gentle friends are waiting for you.” The two virtues. And then Hayate in turn demonstrates them both, telling the book that she’ll overwrite her programming, and give her a true name as a part of her family

“I don’t care what you do, but hit that girl with as much magical damage as you can!” Nanoha is always good for at least one thing

“Sasuga Yuuno. Easy to understand!” Ahaha Nanoha

God, this song is so epic. This whole sequence is amazing. A’s is really outdoing itself here, and A’s in general was already outdoing the first season of Nanoha. The music, Nanoha’s incredibly impactful shots, Hayate and Fate simultaneously illustrating their strength and kindness – this is a phenomenal finale sequence, and we still somehow have two episodes left

Bardiche turns into a goddamn energy sword

The book is renamed! Fate is freed! THE TRUE BATTLE BEGINS

And Done

Holy shit, that episode was so good. By basically any metric, this was a stunning feat for Nanoha, from its visual spectacle to its gripping emotional beats to its perfect illustration of the show’s thematic heart. Nanoha’s clash against the Book of Darkness’ defense system was one of the most visually dazzling sequences we’ve seen yet, as Nanoha’s powers coalesced into that insane spear-rifle, and she fired off wave after wave of glorious, beautiful energy. Meanwhile, Fate was given everything she wanted in the first season, but responded by showing just how much stronger she has become. And Hayate, who has always been the star of this season, demonstrated her own spirit of kindness, in a sequence that contrasted all three of these battles against the strongest musical scoring of the show to date. In short, this episode was goddamn incredible, and I have no idea how the show plans to escalate from here. But whatever’s coming, I’m thrilled to witness this terrific season’s end!

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