Neil Adams, Hans Wagner, and Makoto Ueda: Humanity's Three Pillars

This is the link to the official public Cryopod Art Repo: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1j8TrqSDRSB5dpzkKxPxZGsNDShcvRxsL 

This is the link to the Patron-only Art Repo, with unreleased art pieces which will come out to the public in future parts: https://www.patreon.com/posts/hey-everyone-art-29727436 

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Today's post is all about the three leaders of humanity. We first meet them very early in Chapter 1 of Cryopod Refresh, roughly around Part 14. However, it takes until the end of Chapter 1 before we get to know any of them with any decent detail.

Neil Adams, as of Part 220, is the most fleshed out of the three, followed by Hans Wagner and Makoto Ueda, both tied for a distant second.

But who are the three leaders of humanity? What do they fight for, if they fight at all? What do they want or need?

Let's start with Neil Adams. Neil is a former soldier who fought under Napoleon, but only until Bahamut caught him off-guard and captured him for her own ends. Neil had a wife and children, but he lost them when Bahamut captured him and forced him into indentured servitude.

100,000 years later, Neil still feels the bitter ring of hatred. Thanks to the conditions of his imprisonment, the 100,000 years passed in a flash for him, making the loss of his wife and family raw and recent. He still remembers their faces as if he had only seen them yesterday.

This, coupled with his war against demonkind at Napoleon's side before his imprisonment, eventually turns Neil into a hate-filled, bitter monster. He wants nothing more than the total extermination of his enemies, and he will stop at nothing to achieve his goals. This even includes manipulating the newly created young hero, Hope. 

Who is Neil? Is he a hero, or a villain? Are his sins irredeemable, or can he find a path to salvation? Most importantly, what will his role be in the story going forward? 

Only time will tell.

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Next up is Hans Wagner. Hans has not had a lot of time to shine. He hasn't appeared onscreen much, and has often felt even to me, the author, like a plot device rather than a character. Hans is the guy who creates gadgets. That has, so far, been his only role.

However, even Hans is a multi-layered character. Born in Germany at the turn of the century, Hans suffered through the Great War as a boy and ultimately grew up to admire the Fuhrer, a man he viewed as the savior of Germany. However, as the war raged and rumors reached Hans's ears, a horrible feeling welled up in his gut. He set about doing what he could to save those entrapped by the Fuhrer's evils, only to ultimately fall into the clutches of Bahamut.

Hans is not a bad man. However, the first time he meets our protagonist, he receives a barrage of insults, as Jason young and naive. The young hero makes a snap judgment about Hans, deeply wounding the man and allowing him to understand what happened to Germany during and after the second World War.

How will Hans' past affect him moving forward? Who will Hans support, if his good friend, Neil Adams, goes head to head against humanity's savior, the young Wordsmith? Will Hans always languish in the shadow of the evil man he once admired? Will he repeat the path he once walked by following a different dictator?

Only time will tell.

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Finally, we have Makoto Ueda. Unlike the previous two characters, Makoto does not seem to have much in the way of a backstory. We know very little about him, even as late in the story as Part 220.

Makoto Ueda is a former Samurai-turned-rice farmer. After spending more than a decade butchering the enemies of his king, Makoto abandons the path of the sword to focus on a life of peace. No longer will he allow blood to stain his coat, nor will he follow the commands of those hellbent on spreading evil.

The former samurai now has fashioned himself into a spiritual mentor, a man who has decided to never bring harm upon another being, no matter the cost. To he who has spent his life killing, there can be no greater sacrifice than the willingness to set aside his past and live for the future.

What will Makoto Ueda's role be in the future of Cryopod? Will the pacifist in him reign supreme and spread love amongst those who would treat him as an enemy, or will he once again walk the path of bloodshed, forced to repeat the sins of his youth?

Only time will tell.

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Thanks for reading! The next character MWTX is going to draw will be Laharl, the Baron of Misery, who we only witnessed as a one-off character in Part 181 of Cryopod Refresh. Expect to see her art fairly soon!