#but with mob you get an external and internal perspective of how he understands the world around him and himself

[vexangle]

see heres the thing. mob is not only the autism character. he is also the AUTISM NARRATIVE. and that is truly the autism swag of all time

[hacelee-mp100]

Thoughts after (re)watching S2EP3

*The translations for the quotes might be a bit off.

I think the key element Mob keeps tripping over here is emotions. Or rather the role of emotion in human conduct in a society where there are moral codes or, at the very least, external rules. When Mob’s put on the spot it’s because the emotions from the clients—fear and disgust—propelled them to use the social function of request and payment in order to get what they want. At the same time when Reigen tells Mob he doesn't have to eradicate the family of ghosts he also mentions Mob’s emotions. That if he didn’t feel like it, he didn’t have to. “I trust your feelings on this” is his exact wording. Poor Mob was probably frantically scrambling for rules to abide by in his head, but Reigen unintentionally worsens the problem by drawing the focus back to emotions. There’s no moral code for Mob to follow. Just a clash between differing objectives resulting from something as fickle as emotions.

Shuffling through the episode summary might be a good framework to work off from. The episode starts off with a client who wants to put a curse on someone. He already has the malice and the actual intent to do harm, and had just been seeking the means. Here Mob zeroes in on the intention. For someone who already has the power to hurt, what matters to him is not whether or not the intention to harm succeeded, but rather the intention itself. He asks, “Is it really alright for the client to live on believing that he had followed through with his intention to curse? Wouldn’t that be a scary thing.” 

Then we’re introduced to how the majority of people treat spirits versus actual humans via the stalker next door. The client’s fright is understandable since for her spirits are in the domain of the unknown. Of course she’d be exasperated if the cause of her week-long anxiety and stress turned out to be some lame scumbag next door. Mob is only questioning the contrast in reaction because he’s already familiar with the spiritual domain—it’s no biggie for him, he probably even feels safer with the spirits since he has the power to eradicate them. Unlike real life criminal situations like the stalker next door. Here we get a taste of the clash between society and having your own realm, a realm where you’re the boss if you have the power.

The third client of the day, a group of teenagers, leaves Mob and Reigen stranded next to the haunted house because nothing happened and they didn’t want to pay. The poor guys didn’t get to go for soba after all.

Then the bullies come along. Dimple, Ritsu, and Mob’s body-building club members all pitch in to bail Mob out of the situation. Tenga Onigawara reminds Mob that he should learn to act on his own, especially since he has the power to do so.

Mob is immediately put on the spot, but not just in self-defense—he has to choose between the ghosts’ right to live on (or exist, whatever it is) and the clients’ (teenagers from the previous day) emotions. Or rather social obligations since Reigen emphasizes that it’s their job to put the clients’ needs first.

Reigen is concerned for Mob when Mob practically starts breaking down, and tries to put the whole thing in perspective as an adult in charge of a kid. I can’t let him go through this, I can’t let him do such a terrible thing. It’s the best he can do, since Mob functions in a completely different dimension inaccessible to him—for Reigen Mob is still a kid who doesn’t have to shoulder such tough responsibilities yet.

When Reigen attempts to validate Mob’s feelings, however, that it’s alright for Mob to go with his gut, it’s unintentionally the worst thing he could’ve said. Reigen is a creature of social rules and moral codes. (Not going to get into the argument whether moral codes are a construct of society or something inherent in humans, but it’s true that it’s a mode of conduct that goes against the whole structure of the strong preying on the weak.) Mob wants to be under his wing, and looks to Reigen for guidance so that he can integrate into society like Reigen has already done. Except with that advice to ‘go with your feelings,’ Reigen just makes it clear that Mob’s utterly alone in this. The gravity of the situation hits him hard here. Mob realizes, “no one understands my position.” Even after Reigen gets them out of the situation with his special salt splash attack, the incident still stays with Mob. He wonders, “Would there be anyone to scold me?”/“stop me?” (dub version).

The power-emotion-rights function is still unfamiliar to Mob, and he’s not willing to take it up.

So the basic theme here is acting alone vs social rules, or power vs society. Weaker members of society depend on social functions to secure their rights. The first client is willing to pay to put a curse because he probably couldn’t go up against the person by himself. The stalker victim calls the police to take care of the technically physically stronger man. Reigen puts his clients’ needs first because that’s what getting paid means. Here the basis is that everyone is on equal footing. Society has rules and systems for weaker people to live as rightful members of society, for them to get back at ‘stronger’ people that might threaten them. ‘Stronger’ in this case would quickly be redefined as ‘criminal’ once other people’s rights are breached.

Mob is used to living in such a society. Admittedly he’s still in a phase where Hobbes’ state of nature is somewhat applicable; bullies slash stratifications in middle school exemplify the natural power dynamic that would’ve been the norm had there not been engrained social rules. He’s working towards the established social structure from this ambiguous state—he looks to Reigen, someone who’s already gone through the highs and lows of society and basically has it down, for guidance and conduct.

The contrast between the two worlds Mob functions in is even more heightened because spirits don’t have a society. It’s just the strong against the weak, a chaotic mess of eat or get eaten. Of course this goes against the whole grain of what Mob’s been working toward. The situation is even more complicated because the power to see the spirits is also associated with the power to destroy them in Mob’s case. So he’s really thrown into the abyss when he tries to bridge his conduct in the two worlds. There aren’t more eyes from the ‘weaker’ members in the human society to categorize and make rules for the spirits from a human perspective. As the alpha in the spirit realm Mob has to internalize the moral codes from the human society and carry them over to the domain of the spirits if he wants to keep consistent with his actions, if he wants to remain sane and himself.

Not sure how to wrap up this weird jumble of a review...just thought the episode did a good job of showing how morality could be held in a different light for someone in Mob’s position.

[grass-skirt]

thanks for answering my fisk ask! i appreciate it. can you think of characters that are good examples for a well done sympathetic villain? aside from fma's scar

Your welcome! (And sorry to other folks who’ve sent asks that I haven’t answered yet, but sometimes it’s easier for me to think of how to answer some questions than others and again time and energy are very limited resources for me these days) (And here’s the link to the preceding ask on my thought for what constitutes a sympathetic villain, how Scar is one, and how Wilson Fisk is not) 

And let’s see here. If I had to think of some more well-done examples of sympathetic villains… 

Meruem from HxH: amazing example. As someone not human, born not just socially, but biologically, to be king with the massive power to back it up and no reference point for what it meant to care or have feelings for others. And yet, he met someone who could best him in one thing, one simple thing, and slowly fell in love with her and through her uncovered the humanity no one thought he had. (Not to mention, he was manipulated by Pouf who tried to stamp out the love he had learned to feel and set him back on the path of a heartless conqueror, so we can also feel sympathy for his character on that front as well) 

Tetsuo Shima from Akira: this is possibly a more (lowkey) controversial choice. Because yeah, he’s a 15-year old asshole who got psychic powers and became an even bigger asshole. But I feel like he’s an incredibly understandable character precisely because of that. To me, he’s an exploration of the effects that insecurity, powerlessness, poverty, and environmental instability can have on kids. Take a kid who feels miserable and doubts himself and isn’t supported by the society around him who wants desperately to be respected and in control and give him power… He couldn’t control his powers well, they caused him massive pain and made him fear what they would do to his mind and body. He could control through fear but he couldn’t control himself and that pain and uncertainty and fear never left him. One of the elements of a good sympathetic villain to me is that their choices make sense. And Tetsuo is a character whose choices were almost all bad, but IMO make sense from the sad, angry perspective of the view he had and the world around him. (Long ago I made a cool graphic about him) 

Jasper from SU: now here’s an actual potentially controversial choice. Steering clear of the whole Malachite discourse and just focusing more broadly on her character, she was a huge jerk who beat the snot out of people and seemed to relish in it. She was the biggest villain in SU for a good long while, and there was little reason to think of her as sympathetic. That is, until we found out that the reason she hated the Earth and the Crystal Gems and was so fixated on strength is because thousands of years ago the Crystal Gems murdered the person she most loved and adored and the person she was literally created to serve. Then we start being able to see how her villainous beliefs and actions were shaped by the culture and society of the Diamond Authority that doesn’t give it’s members much in the way of choice or freedom. And then we also find out that the person who Jasper’s very existence was for had faked her own death and everything Jasper believed for the past 5000 years was a lie. Again, she’s a villain whose horribleness can be seen as a result of the circumstances around her, and we can see that if she had been told the truth and given different opportunities she perhaps could have been someone good instead of eventually devolving into a literal monster. 

Eric Killmonger from Black Panther: he was someone who fought for a cause he believed him, and that was righteous and justified in his eyes. He grew up in poverty, his father was murdered, and he lived his life on the outside of a great society of wealth and equality, always aware of what they had but wouldn’t share with him or others who were also suffering. He looked at the imperialist, racist, oppressive actions of the world and thought, “Wakanda’s neutrality is acceptance of injustice. If the nation of my birth has the ability to reshape the world, punish the injustice of nations and societies, and give power to our oppressed people, we should do it.” T'challa’s view was that you can’t hurt and kill innocent people in the name of justice. Killmonger’s view was that harm, death, and suffering were constantly happening anyway, and that T’challa’s stance was accepting and tacitly endorsing this injustice. Again, his villainy came from a place of understandable suffering and genuine belief that fighting fire with fire was better than standing on the sidelines and simply watching the fire burn. 

And two final characters: 

Donquixote Doflamingo from One Piece gets an honorable mention. He could have been an amazing sympathetic villain, but for some reason Oda took a character who was born into a culture of ignorance, corruption, and greed, who lost everything and was tortured by angry mobs who blamed him for sins he hadn’t committed, who was then raised by a group of older boys and men who again groomed him and lead him down a road of villainy…. and then said, “Hey, this guy? Doflamingo? He was just born evil. Yeah, that’s it. He was born evil. So don’t worry so much about all the environmental stuff, because he was born evil anyway. Even his brother said so.” (Again, here’s a graphic and analysis I did on the subject for those who have forgotten) 

Lady Eboshi from Princess Mononoke. (I also wrote a big post about her and the overall movie and how great it is.) She isn’t a sympathetic villain. Not really. She is both ends of the moral spectrum simultaneously in every move she makes. She was a monster, a destroyer of gods, an environmentalist’s nightmare who burned nature in the name of industry. She was also a savior, a humanitarian, a veritable saint who took in the sick and the downtrodden of society and gave them respect, empowerment, and a home they were happy in. And all the while… we never actually know what she’s thinking. One could argue that she’s still a villain (rather than simply an antagonist), but the key point here is that she is not sympathetic. Does she help others because she cares, or because through helping them she ultimately benefits herself? We don’t know for sure. The story does not invite us into her internal world. She’s not a sympathetic villain because we’re never asked to sympathize with her. Instead, we’re asked to think of bigger ideas. We’re asked to take a look at the ways human society can benefit itself, advance equality, and lift up the powerless by using and destroying the natural world around us. Is it worth it? What are the unintended consequences of these actions? Can humans harm nature without inevitably also hurting ourselves? Lady Eboshi’s thoughts and feelings and true motivations don’t matter. We don’t know, and we can’t know, and at the end of the day does it matter either way? Even if she was calculated and selfish it wouldn’t change that she’s helping people, and even if she was motivated by love and compassion it also wouldn’t change the harm she’s done. She’s a representation of ideas, forces, and choices larger than herself. Those ideas are what’s important to the film, and they are explored without ever diving into the mind of Lady Eboshi herself because what the thinks and feels has no bearing on the consequences of her actions. 

A villain is someone who hurts others who do not deserve to be hurt. A person is sympathetic when we feel for them. Villainy is external. That person harms others, so we hate them. Sympathy is internal. We feel another’s pain, and understand the reasons for their choices, which includes the possibility that they never even had a choice at all. Lady Eboshi is so interesting to me because she is completely external. We are tasked with viewing and judging her based entirely on the consequences of her actions without factoring in what she thinks, what she feels, and why she’s doing it. We don’t have sympathy for her, rather we have sympathy for the people she helps regardless of whether Lady Eboshi is doing it out of kindness or doing it to benefit herself. 

It’s odd that I spent the most time in this ask about sympathetic villains talking about someone who I think isn’t one, but I think that it’s both helpful and interesting to dive into how a character can completely subvert and dodge the label of a sympathetic villain while still fully capturing their contradictory essence. We hate and condemn the actions of sympathetic villains while also understanding them, respecting the “why” behind what they do, and potentially even loving them. With Lady Eboshi, we’re not supposed to care about the why. We’re not supposed to care about her. While I do love her, that’s not the part that matters. Instead, that same contradictory dynamic takes the form of the audience loving who she she helps while also loving who/what she hurts in the process. The thing’s we’re supposed to care about are entirely outside her. 

I think that sympathetic villains are so interesting because they prompt us to think about why a person hurts others and see that something more than just innate evil is often there–that there are reasons why evil exists in villains’ hearts and that there are things that we can and should do about that. Whether it’s a character like Meruem who was “born” evil but learned to love and ultimately chose to embrace it, or a character like Scar who started out a decent young man who became a serial killer because of the genocide his people suffered. Either way,  through them we are given an exploration of evil that emphasizes heartfelt understanding–understanding the “why” of evil so that we can either heal it or address the circumstances of its creation in the first place. If a sympathetic villain is well written and well handled in their story, the audience should be able to learn about the sources of evil in the world and how it could be made a little better.