#man I have GOT to write more fic with Octane he's such a neat little bastard

[screechthemighty]

FR Octane is 100% one of those characters where I can see all the building blocks of WHY he behaves the way he does, but also acknowledge that his behavior is...Bad, it’s not great. And guess what, I accidentally wrote an essay about it if anyone cares! (Listen, I paid a lot of money for an arts degree, if I can’t over-analyze everything then that money was wasted, humor me) ETA: also if you’re thinking of dragging me for this post, please read this first and consider not doing that.

 We’re going to be looking at two big aspects of his character for this analysis. One is more subtext than actual text, but since all the evidence is there (and, if how they handled Wattson’s autism is any indication, will likely never be canon regardless of all the evidence) we’re just going to treat it as canon for the sake of argument. The other one is paracanon which, to be fair, isn’t as canon as “evidence actually in the text”, but again, for the sake of argument, we’ll treat it as such.

Fact the first: Octane, most likely, has ADHD. From the way he behaves, I’m assuming it is either undiagnosed OR he was never adequately taught how to manage his symptoms. The most relevant symptoms to this discussion are his seeming overreaction to Lifeline teasing him (Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria being a common ADHD symptom), his persistent and VERY canon inability to handle boredom, and his equally persistent and canon poor impulse control (especially related to the boredom but in this case it also goes hand in hand with the previously mentioned RSD).

Fact the second: He grew up in an emotionally neglectful and dysfunctional home--his dad had multiple re-marriages (and lbr, probably was cheating on his current wife with the next wife every single time), he was raised more by an assistant who didn’t care to learn his wants and needs, so on, so forth. IMHO, this fact does explain both his larger than life personality AND manipulative behavior. If he stands out and acts out, he gets the attention he craves. If he’s manipulative, he can actually get what he wants/needs from the uncaring adults in his life. He behaves badly because of childhood trauma.

So, with all of these facts in mind, here’s the sequence of events:

Octane is relegated to a task he considers painfully boring (keeping in mind that boredom is one of the worst sensations for the ADHD brain). He is forced to stay in said task by an authority figure who doesn’t listen to his input about what he’d rather be doing or what tasks he might be better suited for.

On top of that, he is teased by someone he considers a close friend (practically family by his own admission) in a way that a) makes light of the situation he finds uncomfortable and b) compares him to an “accountant”, something that is anathema to what he wants to be. Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria kicks in; the comment becomes genuinely hurtful and not just slightly unfunny but well-meaning ribbing.

His intolerance for boredom says “no, we’re not doing that task anymore, let’s go do the fun thing.” Poor impulse control and no buffer to mitigate the effects of poor impulse control say, “the first thought to pop into my head is right, let’s get that dopamine!”

His manipulative tendencies say, “If I make a big fuss, do something stupid, and let Ajay know it’s partially because she was mean to me, then she’ll understand that she hurt me and feel bad about it.” Unresolved trauma means that he doesn’t even THINK to communicate that to her, which would be the HEALTHY thing to do but likely not a method that has ever worked for him in childhood. Instead, he leaves an emotionally manipulative letter and peaces out. 

As of right now, we don’t know what the ULTIMATE outcome is (my money is on him getting his ass kicked TBH). But the IMMEDIATE outcome is that Lifeline feels responsible for something that isn’t her fault and now she and Gibraltar are both going to be put at risk of getting hurt. Octane has also put himself in a position where he’ll probably be hurt. This isn’t going to end well, is what I’m getting at.

NOW. Here’s the thing. The two facts I listed up above are not his fault. Him having ADHD? Not his fault. Him not getting the right help he needed as a child? Not his fault. Him growing up in a dysfunctional environment that had a negative impact on his emotional and interpersonal development? DEFINITELY not his fault. Everything about his behavior based on those two facts makes sense, and I’m not gonna sit here and act like he’s a bad person for being a neurodivergent abuse victim.

But, to paraphrase the very smart Jessica “How to ADHD” McCabe, it may not be his fault, but it is his responsibility--in this case “it” being how he treats other people, which is very much within his control. I get WHY he did it, but he IS being an absolute ass to Lifeline for the second time (that we know of), and that IS wrong. He HAS to learn at some point to not be like this. It’s already temporarily lost him a friendship, and it COULD get him or someone else killed this time around. He’s a grown adult, and despite my/the fandom’s jokes, he does have all his brain cells. At some point he’ll have to realize he can’t treat people like this and adjust his behavior.

To be fair to Octane, I completely understand and acknowledge that getting help and admitting to the things clogging up your brainspace is incredibly hard. Trust me, I have firsthand experience with this one, and my problems are small potatoes in comparison to what’s going on with him. So he’s not necessarily a bad person for not having taken those steps, especially because I’m still not sure he REALIZES he has a problem. Now, if he knew that he was hurting people and continued doing so because “that’s just who I am, they’re the ones who are wrong, actually” against all evidence, then that IS him shirking his responsibilities to other people and himself and I could criticize him for that. But I don’t think he’s at that point yet. Right now he just seems oblivious, which, yeah, we’ve all been in that position where you’re oblivious to your problems even as they’re slowly burning your house down (I cringe looking back on childhood me exhibiting early anxiety symptoms that went unchecked until now, when I’m well past college age).

I also think it would be helpful if someone told him in a CONSTRUCTIVE manner that his behavior is worrying and was able to help him get to that place where he can realize that himself and get help (not saying they should bear the majority of the emotional weight, AM saying that he seems like he needs the extra help and that’s valid, all things considered). Unfortunately...pretty much everyone in Apex Legends is their own flavor of messed up and they ARE in the middle of a crisis, so they’re likely either unable to see it or unable to help because y’know, lot going on.

In conclusion: I say none of this to demonize Octane? I say it because a) I think his character is really neat, flaws and all, hence me referring to him as a “problematic icon”, and b) because I think it does a disservice to his character to ignore his flaws. I don’t want him to be turned from a complex character with a lot of neat stuff going on to an uwu tortured sad boy who’s never at fault. I haven’t seen anyone do that YET (everyone seems to love him for being a trash baby and that’s valid), but, y’know, doesn’t hurt to start the conversation preemptively.

(QUICK sidebar that I didn’t think of until I was tagging his: his privilege as a rich child from a rich family definitely is a contributing factor to his behavior and another stumbling block to him getting help for a lot of reasons? I won’t go into all my thoughts on this because that could be its own essay but tl;dr Rich People often don’t believe in consequences as it is and don’t like to admit to being wrong, and some of this definitely wore off on Octane and is exacerbating the rest of it.)