There are a lot of mysteries sustaining the enigmatic Shadows House but none is as persistent as Edward's motivations. Why is he so obsessed with making the young shadow nobles fail? And in particular, why does Edward hate Kate?
Edward's character is a bit oddly written in the anime, as he was given more to do towards the end of the first season, back when Shadows House Season 2 wasn't a definitive possibility. Here, we delve into his motivations in both anime and manga.
Who Is Edward in Shadows House?
Edward presents himself as a living doll during Kate's debut, but he is, in fact, a Shadow noble.
Having completed unification, he has consumed the life of his living doll, Ed, and resides in his body.
Edward is the supervisor of the children's building, but he is not supposed to enter it unless he is going to oversee the debuts of new pairs.
As a highly ambitious individual who will do anything to please the Great Grandfather, Edward is a fearsome man and a danger to non-conforming Shadows and living dolls.
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Why Does Edward Hate Kate in Shadows House?
Edward's hatred for Kate is associated with his status as a ruthless overachiever. His primary interest is to rise high in the Shadow ranks, earn the Great Grandfather's favor, and preserve the reputation of Shadows House. As such, he seeks to weed out whoever he deems suspicious.
Kate and Emilyko are considered an odd pair in the Shadow world, due to their complementing but polar opposite personalities.
Emilyko is bubbly, naive, and cheerful, making friends with everyone she meets and seeing positives in every situation.
Kate, while secretly kind, is serious, bookish, and introspective.
While nothing would be wrong with their friendship under different circumstances, the world of the Shadows puts a lot of emphasis on compatibility between Shadows and living dolls.
Due to their differences, Emilyko and Kate were considered a weak pair, and they were presumed unable to function in unison.
Moreover, Kate's high observation skills, paired with her intelligence caused Edward to consider her a threat, as he (rightly, we might add) believed her capable of harboring rebellion.
Emilyko for her part, might not be book smart like Kate, but her loyalty, imagination, and high resolve help her to find a solution to every problem, so the two are unstoppable together.
Edward felt threatened by them as his job was to eliminate threats against the Shadows House.
On a less personal level, Edward wished at least one pair to fail in order for him to appear strict and highly selective.
However, as Rum and Shirley failed instead, and Emilyko and Kate made it to the finish line just in time, Edward had no justification to fail them.
His machinations to make Emilyko and Kate fail their debut were similar to the anime and the manga.
However, the anime added a short arc known as the kidnapping arc, in which Edward abducts Emilyko from her room to question her.
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This part doesn't exist in the Shadows House manga, and some fans of the original found it counterproductive, as Edward's character is a bit monotonous and his usefulness as a villain more or less ended after the debut.
The abduction arc was seen are more of the same, though, to be fair, there wasn't much room to start the new manga arc in only a few episodes.
Either way, Edward's hate for Kate Shadow boils down to his love for power and status and his fear of rebellion. It remains to be seen if we'll see more of him in future chapters or episodes.
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