Thursday DE: Well hell

[bjornwilde]

What difficult realization has your character come to about themselves, that while hard to come to nonetheless made either their lives or mental/emotional state easier?

ETA, in light of answers presented so far: Or maybe didn't make their life easier, but lead to growth in some form, however minuscule.

Comments

[skyhigh_seance]

... So I had this long essay-esque answer written in my head and then got back here and, y'know, properly read the question.

Specifically the last word.

While Klaus comes to some major realizations within the course of the show (and holy heck he has some major plot points for something that doesn't span that much time for him), nothing he realizes makes his life easier, in any way, shape, or form. Except maybe Ben doesn't nag as much. Maybe.

[bjornwilde]

That last word does kind of cause a problem, doesn't it?

[bjornwilde]

Ahsoka: That she's not the one to save Anakin. I don't know if that makes things easier for her, but it does provide less guilt.

I'll have to think on my others.

[angry_friendship_wolf]

This would be easier if so many of Yamato's realisations didn't come with asterisks next to them, because trying to get a satisfying conclusion to an emotional arc for the kid is like trying to get blood from a stone.

Like, it takes all of 01, but he does eventually come to the realisation that he has value as a person outside of just being everyone's older brother figure! Except he realises it in the most perfunctory 'I guess everyone has value just because all people do, so I suppose that includes me, too' and then just continues prioritising everyone else and hating himself, but ever so slightly less.

Tri has him eventually admitting that hey, actually, he can be just as good a leader as Taichi, and he can lead in his own way according to his own ethics instead of being bound to doing what he thinks Taichi would want. And then the asterisk next to that is that the literal second Taichi comes back, Yamato tosses the goggles back to him, reaffirms that he'll follow whatever orders Taichi gives to him, and effectively implies that his own ethics and decision-making are so vastly inferior to Taichi's as to be a non-issue.

(An implication that it seems that not even Taichi agrees with, given that much of his arc for the latter half of Tri is him adjusting his ethical system to incorporate elements of Yamato's, but unlike Yama, Taichi is actually capable of seeing a character arc through to a satisfying conclusion.)

It's not so much that either of these realisations don't improve his mental state, it's just that getting Yamato to improve his emotional health at all is like trying to teach a grizzly bear how to play the piano -- it's slow, you're going to have to fight for every inch of progress, and someone might end up mauled along the way.

[i_am_your_host]

Something that I had to really work through with Emcee was the aftermath of his getting shot and almost dying. For a long time he was extremely emotionally delicate. He was depressed and anxious, fearful, paranoid, and constantly doubted if it had been worth the effort to save his life. He would have breakdowns--I think only two or three people helped him with that. And I say only two or three because he hides a lot of himself from most people he interacts with in Milliways. I realized after a while that all of this was PTSD. Emcee is still currently dealing with it, but there was a point some time ago where he just got so tired and annoyed with himself for feeling so damn afraid all the time. It was mentally exhausting and he hated the person he'd turned into and he wanted his old self back. So, slowly, he tried to reclaim his confidence, throwing himself into the things he loved most, music and performing and hosting parties (hosting parties is definitely a coping mechanism, but it does help him).