#lucious' route made me cry for real. so did hiro's birthday spin-off. so i think like. maybe that's why i'm attached to them. LMAO

[mcl-mia]

” @shummashum​: I'm not sure but Hiro seems to have some kind of self loathing tendency? 😮”

//you know what, let’s talk about this! i’m back on a hiro loving crusade and i’m not about to stop here!

to say that he has a self loathing tendency isn’t exactly untrue, but i believe it’s a little off the mark. i wouldn’t say it’s loathing, but more of a lack of self-confidence. 

now, there are things that hiro is certainly confident in: his skills as a swordsman, and that he’s the only one who can protect zeus (he says the latter in this same spin off, btw). you could also say that he’s very confident in his ability to love and care about what he DOES love and care about, if that makes sense. 

now, in order to get to the core of where all this lack of self-confidence comes from, we have to think about how hiro grew up: as a retainer in the brundle household with a strict father who always reminded hiro of his status as a retainer. now, while is has been said that zeus and hiro were “raised like brothers”, hiro openly states in his route that while that is true (because of zeus and zeus’ father’s attitude towards hiro), he was raised to protect zeus. pack that in with the huge amount of magical power that zeus possesses, plus the fact that zeus is popular and canonically very attractive, and you have a big ‘ol recipe for an inferiority complex, even if hiro doesn’t fully realize it. there’s a lot that we can gather just by how zeus and hiro talk about each other, and it’s one of the things that i think solmare does almost consistently well. there’s always a reserved tone that hiro has when he talks about their relationship, but i think that’s another post entirely. one of these days i’ll talk more about it. one of these days, BUT I DIGRESS.

as a result of all that, hiro genuinely doesn’t think that he is an equal to those around him. this is prominent in his birthday spin-off (above), his own route, and even in the mr. gedonelune 2 event story. in his happy end, he says that he “was happy just being zeus’ assisstant, but [he] was left out of the loop when it came to prefect stuff.” while that inspired him to want to become a prefect himself, he initially throws in the towel during his route because he takes the defeatist mindset and thinks that his dream is impossible (this is obviously solved in his happy end where he does end up being a prefect). however, it’s that lack of confidence in himself that leads to this sort of depressive spiral. not only that, but it’s apparent in the aforementioned mr. gedonelune 2 story that he doesn’t take praise very well, and it easily embarrasses him. when liz is praising his looks and how competent he actually is, hiro asks her to stop and even covers her mouth at some point out of embarrassment, stating that “[liz] is the only person who thinks all that”. liz of course thinks he’s just being modest, but i think there’s a lot of other context clues through this and his own route that leads me to believe that he might have not been him being modest. it’s also good to note that hiro does get embarrassed when zeus straight up tells him that they are equals, pretty much like hiro has never heard it before or even considered it before zeus said it out loud for hiro to hear.

hiro does have a lot of negative tendencies towards himself, that much is apparent. i don’t think it stems from him hating himself, but more so thinking that he’s not an equal or on the same level as the others. he’s not good with his emotions in the first place, which we see in his route and this spin-off as well [side note: i love the sincerity of “i don’t know how to respond to this”. it’s very in-character for him given everything else we see of him and it’s so genuine and good and AUUUGGHHHHHH--]. the way he reacts so subtly to a lot of things as if taking a back seat, how he can be awkward when put on the spot (this is shown also in his happy end when he is asked for a speech after passing his prefect trials), and how he reacts to praise are subtle details, but very strong indicators about what sets hiro apart from the other “cool silent type” characters. there’s also been a few times where hiro has had “gap moe” moments (that others have noticed as well) that also sets him apart in this way as well, like when he becomes ecstatic upon learning he passed his prefect trials. it’s cute imo. 

hiro is... complicated. and i like that. 

 tl;dr i don’t think hiro hates himself, i just don’t think he was raised to believe that he has worth outside of being zeus’ vassal, and it’s hard for him to think otherwise until it’s spelled out for him.

//hey remember when solmare gave hiro literally one of the best spin-offs in all of wizardess heart? and how it was super insightful to how hiro actually thinks and feels? and how it was so genuinely sweet and emotional and it's all in a fucking SPIN-OFF of all things?? i'm never allowed to forget.