#I love the entire crew (except jimbo who is horrible)

[moonybadger]

Thinking about Mouthwashing Swansea again. I think all three of the white guys on the ship have their own personal hubris that causes their downfall and I don't think Swansea is exempt from that. While he is a much better and more active person than Jimmy and Curly, his decision to throw himself back into hedonistic drinking kinda doom not only him but also Daisuke and Anya. Had he not been completely smashed all the time, there's much less of a chance that he'd have been knocked out by Jimmy and he might have been able to keep a better eye on Anya (like maybe noticed how much she was spiraling mentally).

I do think that Anya told him what Jimmy did to her and that Swansea was trying to act as a buffer between them through the months that they were stuck together. Just, again, he was drunk all the time so he couldn't really be that helpful. I also think that Swansea told Anya about the last cryo pod and that he thought they should save it for Daisuke. I think it comes down to personal interpretation if it would have been better to save it for Daisuke or Anya, but I also think that in Anya's state of mind at the time I think she would pretty readily accept that Daisuke should have it, which is maybe something Swansea could have taken into better consideration).

I don't think him not killing Jimmy immediately after finding out what he did to Anya isn't his worse failing, like killing someone with an axe is a big deal and it's usually a bad idea to start killing each other right after you've all gotten stranded on a ship wreck. Even if he didn't have an issue morally with murdering someone, there's always the chance that Jimmy would overpower him or they could both have been killed or Daisuke/Anya could gotten caught up in the crossfire (and like. Jimmy does end up killing him).

But I can and do blame him for giving in entirely to his nihilism and not being a better guardian to the crew's most vulnerable members. If we can talk about how Curly shares a lot of the blame for what happens, Swansea definitely deserves some too.

(and don't worry, this isn't like a callout post for Swansea or anything, I love him dearly just like I love Curly! They're all very well written characters they are just very "when ya hubris is ya downfall")