Week 110! (Patreon)

This panel comes from the 300th comic ever, 300 - The Corruption of Humanity, during the fourteenth arc involving a bunch of things in Kale's head, including Hugo coming in and trying to kill Fox Kale, as well as the reveal of Lucina being in-the-know and having powers of some sort.

A lot happened in this arc, but this specific panel was picked because I wanted to talk about Hugo's motivations for being a part of whatever conspiracy "created" Kale and for wanting to destroy Fox Kale. In the span of this arc, both during a conversation with the child-version of Kale in the dream as well as in a monologue in a previous panel in comic 300, Hugo espouses how he despises that humans turned themselves into animal hybrids, believing that the change infused all the negative aspects of animals, of lesser beings, into humanity and degraded them into impure, inferior, unnatural instinctual beasts that every single person born from then on was forcibly cursed to be as well. He makes it obvious that Fox Kale is the epitome of that interpretation, a feral, instinctual force that is strangling and controlling the pure human within their minds, and thus why he both hates and has no qualms trying to erase Fox Kale. Additionally, while he doesn't describe why, Hugo makes it clear that even though supporting Kale being forced into a human form could be seen as hypocritical, he doesn't have any regrets about it. This contrasts with Max and Cyrus, who seem pretty guilt-ridden over it.

This motivation and different perspective of Hugo's was meant to reveal a few things. One, it was to establish that not everyone involved or in-the-know about what happened to Kale was guilt-ridden about it, and that multiple viewpoints and reasons existed. Two, it gave a possible reason for Kale having been transformed into a human, although Hugo just gives his own reasoning for supporting it, and whether or not that is the true overall reasoning is left to be seen. Three, it specifically gave Hugo's stake in these affairs, since Cyrus and even Max have their connections and motivations laid out pretty obviously. Four, it demonstrated that, despite hating Fox Kale and wanting to erase him, Hugo does actually care somewhat about the human Kale, since he mentions wanting to erase Fox Kale so "normal" Kale can be "cured" and kept safe. This draws parallel with Max and Cyrus, who make it a lot more clear that they both care about the human Kale as well and are trying to help him. 

And five, it raised the questioning that was also raised during Fox Kale and Max's fight in Arc 9, where you're not entirely sure who to side with. Do you side with Fox Kale, a genuine aspect of Kale's psyche, who just wants to attain some form of justice for what was done to them, forced to live their life as an ostracized freak of nature with clear mental health issues for unknown reasons? Or do you side with the conspirators, so far consisting of his father, a close family friend, and the father of his first friend, who spout that they just want to help Kale, keep him safe, and try to make him better? Maybe you agree with Fox Kale's hatred of what happened to Kale, being forced to forever live an "unnatural" life against his will, with all the mental and social issues that comes with. Or maybe you agree with the conspirators, men who have all made clear they had no intention of harming the real Kale and even talked of their actions as "curing" Kale of a disease, to make him better and not be threatened by this thing inside him anymore; Fox Kale is, after all, the only entity thus far to have tried to actually "kill" the real Kale. Is Fox Kale a necessary and vital part of Kale's mind that he needs to be healthy, or is Fox Kale a disease that needs to be removed for Kale to be healthy? It makes it a more complex and nuanced issue, and it's more up to reader interpretation (at least at the moment) as to who's "right", if anybody.