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Description
My entry for the Kubo & The Two Strings Contest.

Gonna be real here: the characters of Kubo are magnificent, but my favorite has always been the Moon King. A blind deity so cold, so perfect, so lacking in humanity, he could not see nor feel the warmth of a human's soul, the bitterness of grief, nor the sorrows of failure. How could one be so lonely, so fearful as to deny emotion, to deny pain? Does that make him cowardly? Perhaps. But it certainly did not make him as powerful as his grandson.

I believe one of Kubo's grandest obstacles was no doubt his climactic fate when it came to his grandfather: his willingness to be kind to his enemy, rather than strike him down at his weakest. The Moon King and his evil daughters have taken everything from this boy - everything.
But he did not take Kubo's humanity.
They fought. Anger rose. Rage swept the world in a torrent of chilling moon dust.
And in the end, when the Moon King is human - weak, mortal, defenseless, lost, looking to Kubo for help - the boy does not shirk from him. He has the bravery, the maturity, and the willingness to help this man.

In a way, Kubo saved the Moon King from himself. He could have killed him, but he made his choice: mercy. I could think of no one more heroic than this kiddo (and nothing more traumatic than color dodge layers).

Description
My entry for the Kubo & The Two Strings Contest.

Gonna be real here: the characters of Kubo are magnificent, but my favorite has always been the Moon King. A blind deity so cold, so perfect, so lacking in humanity, he could not see nor feel the warmth of a human's soul, the bitterness of grief, nor the sorrows of failure. How could one be so lonely, so fearful as to deny emotion, to deny pain? Does that make him cowardly? Perhaps. But it certainly did not make him as powerful as his grandson.

I believe one of Kubo's grandest obstacles was no doubt his climactic fate when it came to his grandfather: his willingness to be kind to his enemy, rather than strike him down at his weakest. The Moon King and his evil daughters have taken everything from this boy - everything.
But he did not take Kubo's humanity.
They fought. Anger rose. Rage swept the world in a torrent of chilling moon dust.
And in the end, when the Moon King is human - weak, mortal, defenseless, lost, looking to Kubo for help - the boy does not shirk from him. He has the bravery, the maturity, and the willingness to help this man.

In a way, Kubo saved the Moon King from himself. He could have killed him, but he made his choice: mercy. I could think of no one more heroic than this kiddo (and nothing more traumatic than color dodge layers).