#sorry for ranting i got that kevin day autism

[phantomraekens]

People on Twitter pissed me off, so now I need to talk about Kevin Day. With a new wave of "Kevin was selfish for leaving" discourse happening, I legitimately have to ask, do you all understand what a cult is??

Even putting the psychological effects being in a cult had on him aside, Kevin is not a perfect person. Nobody in the aftg series is perfect, characters are not black and white. This is one of the big points of the series. You have got to put yourself in his shoes. Imagine this:

You are 19 years old. Your mother was killed when you were a child by someone involved in this cult; even if you do not know this for a fact, you have a suspicion. The identity of your father is kept from you in an effort to keep you where you are. You are number 2, supposed second in command of the other members. You can not piss off number 1; you have seen what he does to number 3 when he is angry. You are challenged to fight number 1 and know that if you win, he will be irrationally angry, so you pull the fight and let him win. He knows you did this. He attacks you, and you start begging. First in English, your native tongue, then in Japanese, his native tongue, and then in French, the language you should not know. This implicates number 3, and number 1 lashes out and crushes your hand almost beyond repair.

You are left alone with number 3 there to pick up the pieces. Your mind is absolutely reeling; you are no longer useful to the cult like this, and you know what they do to things they do not deem useful. 3 will do anything for you. You know this to be true. You have to get out, and a solution comes to your mind: number 3 distracts number 1. It is your only opportunity. Do you take it?

Personally, I don't understand how you can read this series and not come out of it feeling incredibly sorry for Jean and Kevin. Should Kevin have used Jean's feelings for him to get out of the nest? In a perfect world, no, but this is not a perfect world. He was desperate, and scared, and vulnerable, and he did whatever he could to get away. If he was selfish, he would not have felt the insane amounts of regret we can practically feel radiating off of him during the series. Kevin is a victim, and I need y'all to stop overlooking that.