#damn right you're the best moon raccoon

[moonraccoon-exe]

No one can tell me that GladNis isn't canon coz Gladio was ready to slap Noct around for getting Iggy hurt. Like, Gladio's dad died, along with Regis. His home's been taken over by enemy forces! He didn't seem bothered much at the time. I mean, his outward appearance didn't look to be shaken, ya know? But when Iggy loses his sight, Gladio's ready to pound Noct into the ground! The very guy he's sworn loyalty to, to proctect! C'mon now! GladNis is def canon!

*sips from grape juice**clears throat**puts glasses on*

Okay, you all buckle in because I SO am about to type this 

Post on Gladio’s psychology post-chapter 9

*cracks fingers*

[There’s a Keep Reading line ahead, for those using the mobile app that can’t see it. Sorry]

Dear anon, thanks for dropping by! I too strongly believe in the canon-icity of Gladnis because the chemistry is there! Nobody can deny that, like holy shit. Even with the stupid ‘girlfriend’ issue, I’m not buying that. Come on, the chemistry is THERE, it’s impossible to deny! It’s so clear in chapter 10 and on their own small journey when they separate from the guys on chapter 13. It’s EVERYWHERE. 

Bbbbut, I don’t agree on the WHERE you see it, anon. I’m not rejecting what you offer, but I do would like to clarify or to give away my opinion on what Gladio was feeling, thinking, and why he acted like that. This is, of course, if you don’t mind. I just really like the psychological side of any story I read/play, and while your entry had me smiling and nodding, I can’t fully agree with the overall view you’re offering. And not that it’s wrong; I just see it from many other angles that make it a bit wider.

I don’t think Gladio snapped out at Noctis and raged at him for what happened to Ignis (which wasn’t Noctis’ fault, let’s comprehend). At least, not only because of that.

That Gladio shows to stay cool and not bothered at the events you list doesn’t necessarily mean he doesn’t care, or that it doesn’t bother him enough to make him snap out, or that they were less bad than what happened in Altissia.

That you don’t react to something in the same second it happens doesn’t mean you don’t care, sometimes it just means it’s hurt so deep inside you that your mind literally can’t finish to understand it happened at all.

Or, simply, that you’re not letting yourself feel it.

Imagine you have spent 23 years of life hearing everywhere and from everyone’s mouth that your only task is to serve the guy that’s your best friend and brother of other blood. That you live for him. Imagine you’re asked to escort him some place, and then find out he’s in danger.He’s your priority. He’s the only thing you live for.He’s priority from over your own feelings and choices and needs.

Gladio knows his job. Despite how playful he can show himself to be, he’s incredibly mature and he knows what his duty asks of him. He dared face a god of war only to become better in what he does in life, only for Noctis’ sake. 

Gladio knows his homeland and the place he loves was taken over and destroyed and that he’s probably not ever going back. He’s slapped in the face with the understanding that his father died. There’s the doubt of whether his sister survived or if she’s currently a pile of ashes or a corpse. And he knows war is lost.All at the same time.

He learns ALL OF THAT at the same time, at the same second. Imagine you receive those news. The shock must be unbearable. The shock must be so great you may possibly not even react at all because it’s too much to be real. That’s why the guys need to go see it themselves, it’s just too much to handle.

Now, we see Noctis break down at the news and rage and get depressed and flail all over the place….Because he can.

Because, even though he knows his duty and role in life and what he has to do, he doesn’t serve anyone, like his friends do. 

Ignis, Gladio and Prompto must have been as hurt and desperate as Noctis, but there’s a difference never told but still understood: they all are meant and literally tasked to aid him, and he’s only tasked to go marry someone. Whether we like the sound of it or not, Noctis is a prince that’s served and the guys serve the prince, that’s how the world goes. They do it proudly and happily but they still serve, int he extent of the word.

I dare say Gladio must have been the one to handle the news much, much, by far much more heavily than Ignis or Prompto.

Ignis seems to only have his uncle for family, and while Prompto does have his parents, his relationship is poor with them. So their affectation is mostly on Niflheim taking over Lucis. Gladio, on his side, has THAT affectation plus the complete, full awareness that his dad has died. The king never dies before his Shield. And Regis is dead. Which must have hit Gladio like a bolt: Clarus is dead. Dead. His father. His only father. His family. His dad.

And to that point he still doesn’t know whether Iris survived or not. Handling losing your homeland in a war is heavy, then add losing your beloved father, and add the possibility of your dead little princess, my god. 

…but then he decides to bottle it all up.

Gladio knows his job, I repeat. He’s mature. He knows very well what he has to do. And that is to aid Noctis. To help him become stronger and much more aware of what he has to do. Guide him. Protect him. The situation desperately needs for the three of them to guide and push and hurry Noctis on his task, on his destiny. 

Right now the only thing that matters is Noctis. Not his feelings.They are obstacles.

We know they’re not, but that’s how Gladio sees that, how anyone in his position and with his knowledge must see. Ignis does that, too. Even Prompto. They all never show themselves bothered not because they don’t care but because they know that mourning right now is useless and that the only thing that’s important is to continue the journey and do something, work, fight and win. Not mourn; that can wait. 

So Gladio just bottles it. Except I think, for the things listed above, that he has quite some particular reasons to be upset. But he bottles it and bottles it.

And he insists on doing that to the point the glass is already full but even then he goes against logic and doesn’t let it spill because he can’t allow himself to feel and let it all out, not when his king needs him.

But then Altissia happens.

Imagine that you’ve spent 23 years of life training and working every single day of your life, every…single…one…just to be the strongest and the best on your duty that’s literally protecting somebody else. Imagine you’ve spent 23 years with the only purpose in life of protecting someone. Literally.Imagine you went through a trial of a GOD and defeated him only to become better at your duty, that is, again, only and literally protecting somebody else.

And then find out that your best friend was majorly injured and lost his sight. In the same battle you were in.

And then go through a day in which the person you sworn to protect was barely found alive and is in a coma state, that the important Oracle is dead, that half the country was destroyed, and that the man and friend that understands you best was found barely, vaguely alive, unconscious, bleeding, agonizing and with this huge burn/injury on the eye and wakes up goddamn fucking blind.

Imagine one of your dearest, if not the dearest friend (Noct is more like a lil bro) goes through that….

While you came out of the fight entirely unharmed.

Dude, I want you to imagine how it must feel. To know you did your best, yet this was the outcome. All your friends harmed, one dead, the other barely alive and waking up to become only half-a-life (we know it gets better in the future, but in the immediate present, Ignis IS losing a major/huge part of himself, seen as half/all the things he used to do/enjoyed were all related/needing of his sight).

There’s a bottle already past full of rage and sadness inside him, this was the very, very, very last drop to spill it. Problem is, it was not a drop, it was a FUCKING CASCADE.

Gladio’s strong, but he’s a human, too. And he, like any of us, has his limits. And I think that,by this point of the story, he’s gone further the limits of his limits, already. And he…as the human he is…merely exploded.

I’ve shared this in other similar posts and I repeat it here: in psychology, in school, I once learned that anger is only a mask for sadness, which, at its time, is a mask for fear.

That Gladio snaps out at Noctis is not necessarily Gladio blaming Noctis for what happens to Ignis and raging over only that.That Gladio snaps out at Noctis is only Gladio’s excuse.

You know these moments when you bottle something up, somebody does or says something, and you snap out at them maybe a bit unnecessarily?

Like, maybe the boss fired you, the bus was late, it rained on you, they robbed your clock and wallet, and when you finally get home, your mom accidentally moved your computer from this room to the other…And suddenly you’re raging over that last fact.

And you’re maybe snapping out at your mom, and you go nuts because “how could you do something so stupid, you know I like my things to be where I leave them, it was connected to the light because it was on and now it’s off and blah blah bla”. 

It’s stupid. You’re raging over a stupidity, a small thing. But you can’t stop. You know why? You’re not raging at your stuff being moved.You’re raging at everything that happened earlier, all the major stuff. The last event is only your excuse. You’re taking the first thing that maddens you to scream at it and to yell at it and to cry at it not because THAT caused it, only because THAT is offering you an excuse to let all the previous things out.

This is the very same thing with Gladio.

He’s not raging only at the fact that Noctis can’t stop being sad or that he’s “not showing any care about Ignis”, he’s raging at EVERYTHING. Everything, from Insomnia’s fall and his dad’s death to Ignis’ injury and almost death, added the more self-centered fact that Gladio let that happen to Ignis when he had worked so hard to become the best Shield ever.

Imagine you’re meant to protect people, yet somebody you love almost dies in front of you while you’re completely unharmed.Gladio’s not only suffering Ignis’ injury, he’s suffering some sort of personal break of his idea of himself.He knew himself something, but the events at Altissia could or not may have had him take the blame to himself. Imagine you know yourself the best Shield ever, then look behind you and see all this death and your dearest people injured and bleeding and barely breathing, and you’re standing there…like, the enemy didn’t even pay attention to you, like you’re useless, like you’re not there and just went past you and killed them all.They went past him. Like he was not there.Like he’s an intangible shield.A shield that is not a shield.A shield that isn’t there.And realize that if a shield isn’t there when YOU are supposed to be one…Then what are you?

I don’t deny that chapter 10 and ahead and the treatment Gladio offers to Ignis all over it is partly to blame on why I adore Gladnis and see it as almost-canon. 

But I don’t think that it’s what happened to Ignis what made Gladio rage like he did. 

Of course, I’m not saying that Gladio doesn’t care about Ignis. It’s most obvious he does, even during the events of the past traveling with a healthy 22 y.o. Ignis, Gladio’s constantly showing how much he particularly cares about him. Sometimes it even feels like he talks more about Ignis than he does about Noctis. The events of Altissia must have made him completely rage, but I don’t think it was only THAT. 

It’s not that Gladio prefers Ignis over Noctis. It’s that Noctis was Gladio’s psychological “drop of water that spilled the glass”, and Ignis’ injury only happened to be the nearest major event, the closet chronologically to Gladio’s outburst. Gladio knows Noctis comes before anything else, but he’s a human, and he simply could not help but finally explode after bottling up months of major event after major even after major event being crowned by not only having your dearest friend majorly injured and eternally handicapped, but to most possibly have also seen him almost die. 

…-deep breath-

Phew.

….

Still, I can’t deny that I love the way Gladio behaves with Ignis post-Altissia. It’s overprotective and so careful. I love it, hahaha. Nobody can tell me Gladnis isn’t canon, either, the chemistry is always there no matter which point of the game you’re playing!