#Swansea sin was not to fail Anya it was to fail Daisuke

[duncanor]

I've seen that argument a lot but I genuinely don't understand it. What do you mean 'he did nothing'?

Him and Anya planned together to save Daisuke. For this to work, Jimmy needed to die.

Swansea was always gonna kill him.

one thing in the mouthwashing fandom that annoys me is when people make those jokes like "Swansea would have killed Jimmy if Anya told him" because like,,,,,, she did and he didn't. but also. i don't think the moral the game is trying to show is that Anya should have picked another man to protect her

[gaiathemuse]

I've watched Mouthwashing playthroughs and what's caught my eye is the whole "hero" title. To me, a hero is someone who protects the people with what little power they have, a do what is necessary to protect cause no else can or will. They can be flawed but overall good people at their core or willing to be good. (And if I can insert my bias,Ratchet and Clack, and Sir Daniel Fortesque are good examples of this).

But to Jimmy, a hero is someone who gets respected and rewarded, with all their sins forgotten. So what does Jimmy do when he's faced with his own actions? He makes a problem to "fix." But it doesn't go as planned because Jimmy was never good at planning in the first place. He most likely wanted Curly to do the work, while he plays background. But Curly is incapacitated, and Jimmy is forced into that role and he learns it's actually hard.

Cause being a hero actually requires hard work. They help others cause someone needs to and most times want to. When danger arrives, they're in the frontline. Yet when Anya needed help with giving Culry meds he bullied them both. When Anya and Curly were in "danger". Let's knockout Sweans with a cocktail and make Daisuke go up the vent. Daisuke is hurt? Well let's use mouthwash (even though Anya said not to) cause we don't have disinfectant anymore. Jimmy fails all these things miserably.

Because a hero solves a problem that takes place, not "fix" ones they've made. Problems can be solved, but they can't always be fixed. Curly's own mantra proves to be his demise as he assumes anything can be "fixed". He may have fixed alot of problems Jimmy caused in the past, but what he did to Anya won't magically go away. Curly sees the "best" in Jimmy despite all his actions proving otherwise. Almost like a hero who still thinks their friend turned evil can change. A trope here that's flipped portrayed as a flaw, rather than a strength.

As everything unfolds, we see Jimmy get more manic, constantly saying he can fix it, he can fix it. He will fix it. He can still be a hero. He's trying to convince himself at this point cause everything around him proving otherwise. In his hallucination with Curly, he still thinks they both (cause Jimmy thinks they're partners in crime and Curly is now unable to tell him otherwise), can be heroes. That twisted party segment was probably his last ditch effort to play up this role he made in his head, but he even fails at that (which is the point) cause he didn't earn a proper one.

And the major question anyone would would ask at this point is: Hero of what? Who is Jimmy saving at this point?

Judgment Day with Polle was reality shattering the image Jimmy made up. He tried to have a whole hero speech as if he's psyching himself up to be the underdog who saves the day against the impossible. He use of Anya's quote as if she was some friend/lover or voice of reason he's followed this whole time will be his final push to victory and not someone he abused and ignored until it suited him. And its funny cause if anything, it's that final quote that pushes him to his end. Polle challenges him. "Why are you still concerned with Curly?" As Swansea said, Curly was Captain. Captains go down with their ships. Heroes sacrifice themselves for others. Curly was dead to rights.

So who is Jimmy saving?

And only then does Jimmy realize he's not the hero. He can't be. Again Heroes aren't known for fixing problems they've made. If he goes in the cryopod, He'd have to take responsibility for what he's done. Ironically something he chastised Curly for. Having to take responsibility for what Jimmy's done, even though he knows it will all fall on him anyways. He wouldn't have crashed the ship if it didn't. He wouldn't have taken his own life either, cause then he can't control the narrative that way. You get no rewards for that. He'd be labeled a coward not a hero. Something he was running from the whole time. It wasn't until he was given the ultimatum: Be your twisted perception of a "Hero" and take responsibility or die a coward, that he takes this route. The only thing he fixes in the end is the roles he assigned. He's not the hero, he's a coward and dies as such.

[normal-looking-male]

It's fascinating in a meta sense. By virtue of you playing the game as the main villain (yes, villain), you are forced to experience his perspective, his side, some people come out of it saying he probably felt so so sorry, and atoned for his sins the best he could, and they sympathise with said villain. And it's horrifying.

Jimmy makes it all about himself even outside of the game's world, makes himself the tormented Soul, the one making the final Tragic Sacrifice at the end. And peoppe fell for it. They fell for it, they focused on the "toxic/tragic/doomed/whatever yaoi" between him and Curly, and ignored Anya, the one at the centre of it all.

Imagine how much more frightening the game would have been from her perspective, your abuser talking to people whose protection you desperately want, like it's nothing. The sickness of what happened to you, knowing what's happening in you this very moment. Imagine how much more there could have been to Anya, if we were just allowed to see it through her eyes, but we're not. Just as Jimmy robbed her of her autonomy in-Universe, he did so narratively as well.

And look at how much focus is dedicated to Daisuke and Swansea, their nuance, and their tragedy. Compare that to how much the game, being an extension of Jimmy's perspective, and therefore Jimmy himself, focuses on them. All about how sad their situation is, all but forgetting what happened to Anya, outright disregarding it.

Her story just can't exist without him, she's not allowed to be anything without him.

That's why Daisuke is a forever-hopeful ray of Sunshine, that died too young. That's why Swansea is a tragic and nuanced stern man, whose stone heart ended up softening and being torn apart. That's why Curly is a seemingly noble and good captain, that failed his crew, and his voluntary inaction towards Jimmy is punished with the inability to act at all. That's why Jimmy is the monster, the utterly pathetic and disturbing monster that only ruined everything, and scrambled to avoid responsibility at the end. They are allowed the complexity Anya is DENIED.

She has it, she is a well-rounded character on her own, but all she ends up being is just a footnote, the victim, the dead pixel that ends up putting such a damper on the mood. And it's so much easier to ignore her, look at the bigger picture, as it were.

I find it incredibly interesting how the fan response to Mouthwashing perfectly exemplifies the ideas and themes the game itself is trying to get across.

Seeing people completely ignore Anya and any of her struggles and pain that goes past surface level and instead focus on Curly and Jimmy really shows how effective the narrative was. How people can go throughout the whole game and miss arguably the entire point of the story and instead leave the game more worried about shipping the two male protagonists instead of the woman in the center of it all.