#Where are my ss/kk headcanons asks can we go back to talk about ss/kk now please

[kyouka-supremacy]

with all the respect in the world, i don't think your answer sounded pretentious per se, i just maybe think it doesn't really account for people who are new fans, who don't know how the abuse apologism in bsd actually reaches into the real world. i think it's fair to be shocked about that because even if an author presents themes i don't agree with, i don't immediately jump to them also agreeing to that theme in real life. again, don't mean this as an attack! just wanted to offer a perspective of why the reaction was so visceral

Mmmmmmmmmmhhhhh... I can see how it's not always easy to tell apart the morals portrayed in a book from the morals the author actually supports in real life. But generally, as a rule of thumb, I would say: one thing is for a character to express their own worldviews, and those may or may not correspond to the author's. But when it comes to an underlying, recurring pattern through the whole book, then that's hardly not an expression of the author's own position over a determinate subject.

Examining the case at hands, I do believe, if one were to read chapter 39 alone, they could legitimately say there's no abuse apologism happening in it, but rather a portrayal of two men with very twisted views of what abuse and fatherhood are. And yet such take stops being valid the moment the scene is inserted in the wider context of the manga and novels. When one adds how Dazai's word is commonly considered as true and unmistaken in the context of the manga, and when one adds a rather insensitive approach to the theme in making Akutagawa hit Higuchi being treated even as comic relief at some point, and when one adds how the abuse towards Akutagawa is already presented as something the reader isn't supposed to hate Dazai for (being depicted when the reader is already far used to sympathize with Dazai), and when one adds Akutagawa's words in chapter 85 about how Dazai's treatment towards him was rightful and part of a bigger picture, and when one adds Beast making of the orphanage director almost a martyr, and when one adds Aya's thoughts for her violent father as someone whose teaching helped her when she most needed... Well, then it stops being a single character opinion and starts being an underlying author worldview. But isn't this what reading critically ultimately means, to make connections between the various elements in play in order to recognize patterns and themes?

Still, you're probably right, and the connection between the various instances is something people may have overlooked. Thank you for offering your point of view!!