#tangentially related but I'd also like to point out that child labor is something that exists and is considered somewhat normal in Twst

[mellosdrawings]

Hey~ Welcome to "Mello thinks too much about Jamil at 5am coz they can't sleep!"

Today's subject: Pride!

I've just been obsessing over it for a while and had a random enlightening last night.

So NRC is a school full of prideful students who know they're hot stuff, right? Aside from maybe Trey and Cater who are more mild mannered and don't boast much like others, and maybe Rook who is more interested in others than himself, Pride is the one sin that is common amongst all the characters.

Jamil's case is pretty singular though, especially amongst the overblotted gang. Because while others' pride usually comes from knowing they're hot shit, Jamil's is a defense mechanism against the fact that he's nothing.

Yes I'll be especially harsh against Jamil, but that's kind of the truth.

Riddle is one of the greatest mages of his generation because of all the work he's done since he was basically born, he knows he's hot stuff.

Leona is just... OP. Canonically the cleverest in all NRC, OP powers, the one guy even Idia doesn't understand why he overblotted in the first place, he's even royalty. Like, if it weren't for his bro he'd have everything. Leona might be self depreciating a bunch, he still knows he's hot stuff and his pride comes from that.

Vil is both powerful and one of the biggest stars worldwide. He's the same as Leona, while he has his moments of self hatred his pride does stem from just being that bitch.

Will it surprise you if I also call Idia prideful? Sure, he's meek and introverted and has too much anxiety for his own good, but he did get his Housewarden position because he thought he was better at the job than others. He knows he's a technomancy genius and one hell of a gamer. What little pride he shows comes from those talents.

And Malleus, well, he's just the devs darling so he's even more OP than Leona.

I purposefully skipped Azul because I think his case is more similar to Jamil's than to the others.

Azul and Jamil's pride are artificial. It's here as a defense mechanism, either to be perceived as better than he thinks he is (for Azul), or to convince himself than he is more than what he actually is (for Jamil).

Sure, Jamil is clever and pretty strong and has lots of qualities. But 1. He's far from the genius he thinks he is. And 2. As soon as people point out he's a fake he immediately goes into depression mode.

Book 6 was a very insightful moment for both Jamil and Azul. They both get paired with people who (not so) accidentally chip away at their pride until they have to face the fact that they are just not as great as they think.

And that's where Azul and Jamil differ.

Because Azul knows he's "not that great". Or at least, he thinks he's inferior to others. That's why people he considers above him punching down on him hurts so much (plus the obvious bullying trauma he's got).

Jamil genuinely thought he was better than everybody else until Book 6, where Leona knocked him down a peg. He convinced himself through inflated and artifical pride that he was more competent than his peers. And the second he realized that wasn't the case, he started flipping back and forth between self depreciating and trying to inflate his own pride again. As a defense mechanism.

Because for someone who's always been pushed down to take the least amount of space possible, for someone who's always known he had the possibility to be/do better but was never given the occasion to shine, admitting that he's mid hurts.

He needs to make himself useful and show off to Leona, not just because it's a reflex ingrained in him since forever or because of the repercussions that could befall him should he let royalty get hurt under his watch, but also because he needs to reassure himself that he is something.

Because he's been nothing his whole life.

And that hurts.

That's why it was so hard for Leona to get through to him, while Riddle and Azul managed to work together midway through their descent into Tartarus. Because for Jamil to accept criticism and help, he'd first need to drop his pride. And he just can't do that.

Even by the end of their descent, Jamil still found a way to twist Leona's preaching in his favor. Even then he still managed to put his pride up to reassure himself. He has more potential to grow than others, sure. That's a first step in accepting his mediocrity, but that's also very validating for his pride. He might not be the best now, but just you wait-

And that's why Jamil was all talk and no show before that point. Because unlike the others, his pride is artificial. He has nothing to back it up.

I'm sorry if I repeated myself a lot or didn't make much sense. I'm afraid me trying to explain my thought process tends to be stunted by the fact I don't have enough vocabulary to back it up :'D (And the fact that I'm writing all that while sleep deprived doesn't really help lol)

I usually tend to obsess over the 'sin' of Envy for Leona, Vil, and Jamil, coz it's one hell of a sin, the only that brings no pleasure whatsoever. And I just love watching characters make their own lives miserable over the pettiest things.

But damn is the subject of Pride interesting. I see most people, myself included, tend to tone down the Pride aspect of NRC when writing fanfics or drawing fanarts, even though it's one of the core points of the story.

And as said earlier, it's hard to make a character change and develop when Pride is in the way, so I totally understand why people downplay it for the sake of narrative.

Coz otherwise we'd only get tragedies.

And I love tragedies~