#he's 70 and dying of parkinson's and his daughters still won't talk to him

[gh-0-stcup]

Examining: Paper Bags

So this is legitimately one of the worst things a character has done in the series so far, imo. It gets a bit lost in the Saw trapping and general craziness surrounding it, but it's quite horrifying when you actually imagine it.

It's also just...bizarre. How do two people end up going through with this? It makes me want to put both of them in a glass room for an extended study. So let's do a deep dive into all this.

In high school, you told a girl you'd only "do her" if she had a paper bag over her head. She agreed and you did it even as she cried.

The first sentence is awful, but fairly normal as far as teenage boys go. The second is where thing goes off the rails. My first question is - what kind of girl agrees to this?

Everybody's wondering what the fuck is wrong with Daniel, but I haven't seen too many people wondering what was going on with this girl. The two are tied together. To see what's wrong with Daniel, you have to look at the girl he did this to.

The most likely way this situation started was the girl (Jane Doe) hitting on Daniel. It also seems likely Jane had some pretty strong feelings for Daniel, given what she was willing to do for his affection. The rejection doesn't come across as something you would say to a close friend, so it's probable Jane was a classmate crushing on Daniel from afar.

I think it goes without saying that Jane had very severe serious self esteem issues.

We have a few options here.

She was so obsessed with Daniel that having him in such a hauntingly degrading manner was preferable to not having him at all.

She was consumed with self hatred and used degrading sex as a form of self harm. She sought out Daniel because she knew he'd hurt her.

A twisted combination of the two.

Another important point in this is that Jane cries, but does not say no or tell him to stop. She "allows"¹ Daniel to continue to completion.²

We've somewhat puzzled out our mysterious and tragic Jane Doe - what does this say about Daniel?

It's Jane agreeing to put a paper bag over her head that makes Daniel interested in having sex with her. The level of desperation this displays, the need to have Daniel even at the cost of harming herself, could very well be what made him want to do this.

It places Daniel very far above Jane. She is nothing, not even worth having her face uncovered. He is everything, the boy a girl would degrade herself for.

That he continued even though Jane was crying strongly suggests that he gets off on the humiliation and degradation of other people.

Putting it all together, Daniel is a sexual sadist with an ego problem who is drawn to desperate, damaged people that have an unhealthy attraction to him. He will exploit their problems for his own gratification and derives gratification from the exploitation itself.

Daniel's intuitive understanding of the emotions of others does not inherently grant him empathy or compassion for them.

¹ I would like to make it very clear that saying Jane "allowed" it to continue is for analyzing her thought process and state of mind in the moment, not a statement about whether this was a consensual act. That isn't up for debate - Daniel raped that poor girl.

² Armand would have mentioned if Jane had protested outside of her tears. The phrasing "you did it" implies that Daniel "completed the act", so to speak.