#...personally i think those 10 seconds when curly is painfully aware of his every failure and charging towards the cockpit

[hakugreenfinch]

i feel like many peoples mouthwashing analysis is... distorted by a false dichotomy of "good people" and "bad people". "curly is a bad person" "curly is a good person" i feel like trying to determine the characters' morality like santa claus is not exactly the way to think about this game. it makes me think a lot about an excellent video essay on the boy wizard books where op points out that in that world there are "no good or bad actions, only good or bad teams" - that is to say if a character is decided to be "good" they will get away with as much abuse as they like. and i feel like mouthwashing is the opposite of that, there are no "good or bad" people, there are people who do good or bad things and its those things that determine them. you dont have to be a "bad" person to do bad things but also your worst deeds wont brand you irredeemable or deserving of nothing good.

jimmy 100% believes hes not a bad person and bad things just keep happening to him because of everyone else that wont let him be "good", but ultimately hes also just a person that chooses to do more bad than good so if his worst moments dont define him what else is there? everyone else on the ship is more or less aware of their shortcomings and/or simply dont try to categorize themselves like this. swansea is a great example of someone who has given up on trying to be a "good person" and escaped the dichotomy instead of trying to fit himself in a box that doesnt even exist.

i just think discussion around curly would be a lot less heated if we just dealt with the uncomfortable fact that hes not a good or a bad person, hes just a man genuinely trying to do good that keeps failing, for one reason or another. he wants to be good and so does jimmy, we all do, but if we keep focusing too much on being "good people" it becomes a dangerous game.

(also this is why i kinda hate aus and whatnot where jimmy "gets what he deserves", the game makes it very clear that abuse is a bad action that cannot make you better than anyone.)