alias_sqbr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alias_sqbr) wrote2018-12-06 04:58 am
alias_sqbr) wrote2018-12-06 04:58 am
Thinking about my emotional reaction to the Tei path in Nameless
It hit a bunch of things that are usually triggers for me yet was weirdly cathartic, and wanted to poke at why (beyond "triggers are weird"). But I didn't want to ramble about my personal issues in the reaction post.
Content Note: rape, abuse, trauma (both real and fictional)
I think what it boils down to is:
Tei is an awful guy. Even though he's the romantic hero of the story, the game is pretty clear about this on a subtextual level, and certainly it was very clear to me, playing, and feels like it would be very clear to most other players and those reading my summary etc, though some might need a few more bad ends to really get it. He's manipulative, controlling, abusive, creepy, and a rapist. He treats Eri appallingly, despite her not doing anything wrong to him. He gets better by the end, but ehhhhh.
He is also, based on what I've seen so far, a significantly better person than my ex, and treats Eri significantly better than my ex treated me even before he gets better. Ok, as far as I know my ex never murdered anyone, but that only happened in bad ends, and the only person he unambiguously murdered was Yeonho who was trying to murder Eri so it's kind of a special case.
But even though he is driven to hurt her, and sometimes does, he makes a genuine effort not to, and most of the time genuinely tries to make her happy and safe. He nearly rapes her but stops and apologises, and even in the one rapey bad end I've seen at least doesn't pretend it's anything but what it is and explicitly doesn't expect her to say she loves him. And he acknowledges, sincerely, that his behaviour is wrong.
And when push comes to shove, at least in the good ends of his and the other routes, he ultimately chooses Eri's happiness over his own darker nature despite his trauma and sadistic drives.
My ex didn't do the weird pseudo-parental thing, he was only a few months older than me and he actually preferred older women. But it's a sign of the kind of person he was that it struck me, pondering this post, that if he'd realised what a huge age gap squick I have he probably would have emphasised ours just to make me more uncomfortable. And then, if I'd asked him to stop, he would have acted like the victim.
I would go more into what he was like but it's too triggery so...just take everything I just said about Tei and imagine someone to whom none of it applies. Except for being manipulative, controlling, abusive, creepy, and a rapist. He's the person who taught me the concept of triggers...when he used his own trauma as an excuse for abusing me. He was the first person to suggest I might have mental health issues of my own, when he said they meant everything was my fault. He was willing to do pretty much anything to me as long as it made him feel better about himself, and one of the most reliable ways to do that was to feel powerful by making me miserable. He did nice things too, but they were...window dressing, a distraction, on top of a rotten, cruel core. He did a great job of coming across as loving, devoted, kind. But he was never really any of those things. And when confronted with the truth he just deflected and tried to use it as more fuel for the fire (how could I be so cruel?)
And there's just something really validating about going "this fictional person is an awful, horrifying, over the top monster...and my ex was worse on pretty much every level".
THANKS TEI.
Now this might not apply so much once all the bad ends are taken into account. Maybe he does something in one of them that's worse than anything my ex did to me. This is one reason I'm putting off playing them, the current plan is to finish the game then look up spoilers (since I couldn't find any neat summaries of his route alone) and then see how I feel about it. But this is the emotional reaction I have to the game as I have played it.
EDIT: I guess it's also that Tei has both the drive and the capability to be like my ex, but chose not to. That level of two faced manipulation is beyond most people.
Content Note: rape, abuse, trauma (both real and fictional)
I think what it boils down to is:
Tei is an awful guy. Even though he's the romantic hero of the story, the game is pretty clear about this on a subtextual level, and certainly it was very clear to me, playing, and feels like it would be very clear to most other players and those reading my summary etc, though some might need a few more bad ends to really get it. He's manipulative, controlling, abusive, creepy, and a rapist. He treats Eri appallingly, despite her not doing anything wrong to him. He gets better by the end, but ehhhhh.
He is also, based on what I've seen so far, a significantly better person than my ex, and treats Eri significantly better than my ex treated me even before he gets better. Ok, as far as I know my ex never murdered anyone, but that only happened in bad ends, and the only person he unambiguously murdered was Yeonho who was trying to murder Eri so it's kind of a special case.
But even though he is driven to hurt her, and sometimes does, he makes a genuine effort not to, and most of the time genuinely tries to make her happy and safe. He nearly rapes her but stops and apologises, and even in the one rapey bad end I've seen at least doesn't pretend it's anything but what it is and explicitly doesn't expect her to say she loves him. And he acknowledges, sincerely, that his behaviour is wrong.
And when push comes to shove, at least in the good ends of his and the other routes, he ultimately chooses Eri's happiness over his own darker nature despite his trauma and sadistic drives.
My ex didn't do the weird pseudo-parental thing, he was only a few months older than me and he actually preferred older women. But it's a sign of the kind of person he was that it struck me, pondering this post, that if he'd realised what a huge age gap squick I have he probably would have emphasised ours just to make me more uncomfortable. And then, if I'd asked him to stop, he would have acted like the victim.
I would go more into what he was like but it's too triggery so...just take everything I just said about Tei and imagine someone to whom none of it applies. Except for being manipulative, controlling, abusive, creepy, and a rapist. He's the person who taught me the concept of triggers...when he used his own trauma as an excuse for abusing me. He was the first person to suggest I might have mental health issues of my own, when he said they meant everything was my fault. He was willing to do pretty much anything to me as long as it made him feel better about himself, and one of the most reliable ways to do that was to feel powerful by making me miserable. He did nice things too, but they were...window dressing, a distraction, on top of a rotten, cruel core. He did a great job of coming across as loving, devoted, kind. But he was never really any of those things. And when confronted with the truth he just deflected and tried to use it as more fuel for the fire (how could I be so cruel?)
And there's just something really validating about going "this fictional person is an awful, horrifying, over the top monster...and my ex was worse on pretty much every level".
THANKS TEI.
Now this might not apply so much once all the bad ends are taken into account. Maybe he does something in one of them that's worse than anything my ex did to me. This is one reason I'm putting off playing them, the current plan is to finish the game then look up spoilers (since I couldn't find any neat summaries of his route alone) and then see how I feel about it. But this is the emotional reaction I have to the game as I have played it.
EDIT: I guess it's also that Tei has both the drive and the capability to be like my ex, but chose not to. That level of two faced manipulation is beyond most people.