#now that i've got a couple promos done its time to be ANNOYING ON THIS BLOG ABT THEM

[softambrollins]

Hey! i love your ambrollins meta and basically your ramblings in general, so i was hoping if you could write a meta on seth's character? i love how he's a self-destructive asshole who is high maintenance, and makes bad decisions while he believes he's being pragmatic. he's arrogant, but I believe inside he's constantly anxious tbh. I've seen someone headcanon him as having intrusive thoughts and I think it fits very well. How would you characterise Seth? Sorry if this is random!

Oh, wow, I don’t even know where to start tbh. But rest assured, I’m probably going to keep talking about Seth’s character for a long time to come. I actually started writing a post a while back that was kind of a ‘defense’ of Seth Rollins – but not really a defense, because he’s legitimately done some bad shit. It’s more an exploration of his emotions and thought processes over the last year. And maybe I’ll finish it sometime. I just get annoyed when people dismiss him as just being a selfish, manipulative asshole – and I’m not saying he’s not that sometimes – but he’s so much more than that, too.

I think Seth’s one of the most interesting, complicated characters in WWE right now. And definitely one of my favourites. I actually relate to him quite a bit, personally. And I don’t know if I would’ve said that a year ago. His story over the last year is what got me really invested in him – because it’s a rare thing for a face turn to be so slow and so painfully realistic. And I think Seth was absolutely the right person to do that with. Because he had one of the most devastating heel turns ever, and then spent the next couple years being the most despicable person in the company – and you can’t just erase that with one moment or one segment or one promo.

And even now, Seth’s still a really flawed human being. And he’s not hiding that. I feel like he’s truly letting himself be openly vulnerable and emotional for the first time. I think that Seth tries really hard to compartmentalize his emotions, and sometimes it doesn’t work out so well for him. I sort of touched on the duality and conflict inherent in Seth’s character in an ask before, but yeah, Seth’s the kind of guy who would jump off a balcony to save his brothers one night and then betray them a month later – and maybe that seems like incongruous behaviour, but it’s not for Seth. I think Seth destroyed The Shield because he was afraid – he was afraid that it was going to happen eventually on its own and he’d be left behind and he couldn’t let that happen. So he did it on his own terms and said, and really believed, that it was best for all of them. (And can you really argue with him? They all became WWE Champion within the next two years.) But yeah, he didn’t expect it to blow up in his face the way it did. Because again, he’s bad with emotions, and especially with empathising with or reading other people’s emotional states. I think that’s completely clear most of the time he’s trying to get Dean to forgive him. He just doesn’t get it. He thinks that rationally, it’s been years since he stabbed them in the back, so there’s really no reason to hold any grudges anymore. Which is…not how real people work, Seth. But he’s getting better at it, at really trying to understand other people and putting their needs first – we’re seeing that every week with him and Dean.

And yeah, I agree that there is a lot of stuff going on in Seth’s head right now. And at all times, basically. He’s still struggling internally with everything that’s happened and everything he’s done. When he says he doesn’t trust himself, I believe him. When he says he thinks about the mistakes he’s made every day, I also believe him. I think there are still some dark impulses lurking deep within his subconscious, and time will tell if we’ll see them manifest or not. Seth’s a master of self-sabotage, as you said, and he’s usually the architect of his own destruction. He’s happy right now, that’s obvious – but I don’t know if he does well with being happy. He doesn’t trust it. He’s sure it’s going to eventually be ruined – maybe he’ll do something stupid and fuck it all up again. Or maybe Dean will remember he’s a lying piece of shit and leave him again. It’s a lot of shit to deal with, especially when you’re Seth and you’re always considering the possibilities and you always have an exit plan that’s meant for your own self-protection in case things go sideways. Except maybe he doesn’t right now. Maybe he’s finally content enough to not think so far into the future. Maybe he’s changed. ...Or maybe he hasn’t? We’ll probably find out eventually, and we’ll see whether or not it leads to his downfall.