revolutionarybutchjuri:

One really interesting thing about the TAZ: Balance universe is that the skills you possess are very much linked to how you acquired those skills and especially the person who taught you them. We see this first when Merle loses his battle-axe proficiency, and along with that loses his memories of training with the battle-axe. And it’s presumably why, in losing their Starblaster memories, Magnus, Merle, and Taako go from incredibly proficient to level 1, even though normal logic would dictate that they should only lose the memories of how they learned their magic/fighting/clerical skills, not those skills themselves.

I think this plays really nicely into the theme of bonds being incredibly powerful forces, so much that losing these bonds means losing actual physical abilities that you learned from them. So much that Taako learning a cooking skill (how to make tacos) from somebody else literally helps save the world. Characters in the TAZ: Balance universe aren’t just sheets of paper with their abilities on them; they’re made up of the relationships they have with other people. 

In The Stolen Century, the narrator says “Our capacity for love increases with each person we cross paths with throughout our lives” — but it’s not just the capacity for love. It’s literally our ability to do anything that increases the more that we form bonds with peoople. 

And oh jeez, that’s pretty sweet. 

also some bonds are so strong that they transcend memories and time. think about it, lucrecia gave everyone a home they could be happy while she tried to handle things herself. then during year when she was organizing the bureau of balance for the first time, everyone found each other. Taako, magnus and merle found each other and they even managed to find barry and lup! they had no clue who any of each other were and their stories from what they knew were as different as one could possibly think but they still managed to find each other. bonds beyond memories. bonds beyond space. bonds beyond time. bonds so strong that in the face of resistance and against all odds, they stood strong together.