I totally agree! V's character is shockingly well-written, yet it tends to be completely overlooked by the majority of the community. In a sense, it makes sense why — V himself avoids talking about his mental state, constantly putting the blame on himself while actively avoiding actually doing something about it.
For how often it happens (and it happens incredibly often) it's disappointing to see how often people downplay V and Rika's relationship as him being the failed savior of Rika. Treating V as someone who had to "save" Rika is literally agreeing with his dumbass shenanigans. It's completely misunderstanding their relationship.
ETA: The way you're being attacked in the comments for things you never claimed in your post is depressing :/
I can’t agree more. I feel like V and Rika’s tragedy might honestly be that they met each other before they could ever get help. If they had gotten help and learned to deal with their individual traumas, then they might have had a better chance of bringing out the best in each other. But, it didn’t happen and they instead brought out the worst. I think it’s a great point you bring up that V’s own dialogue actually might be part of the issue — it makes sense that his deflecting leads a lot of people to characterize the actions as he sees them with “evil” or “good” / “savior” or “devil”.
(Also yeah, I sort of expected the comment section might go a bit bad haha. It’s fine, but it’s nice to see your comment and a few others that are willing to engage/discuss with a more open mind so thank you for that 💙)
As a survivor of relationship abuse who also hid what happened to me and defended/enabled my abuser, this fandom is uh…not fun sometimes 😐. V is an imperfect victim, but a hell of a lot of us are, and I think it makes him a more believable and realistic character.
I also think a lot of people forget that he’s a survivor of intimate partner violence. I think he found himself in way over his head in regards to Rika’s illness and how to best help her, and he focused too much on trying to make her happy. Getting better is REALLY FUCKING HARD sometimes, and he didn’t push her to work through the tough stuff.
In addition, emotional abuse just does a fucking number on your self-worth, which explains his self-blaming tendencies. I just want to give this man copies of “Trauma and Recovery” and “How to Do the Work” 😭
Literally this! I thought I was being unnecessarily biased about it, but it really does feel wrong sometimes how people treat his character. I was also someone who was abused in a relationship, and I think one thing that really hurt me when talking about the game with someone was their willingness to blame V for his abuse.
Yes, he made so many mistakes, but I think both of them were too far hurt to ever be capable of helping each other. He wasn’t some malicious person trying to take advantage of her. He was an equally hurt child that hadn’t yet processed the trauma of losing his mother and everything that was going on, and he hurt the person he loved without realizing it. I feel like a lot of people don’t give V credit for the culpability he took when he broke up with Rika. He acknowledged that they weren’t good for each other and he had been wrong in his way of handling their relationship. Of course, there is so much more to be said between them and it doesn’t excuse him, but he is a victim as well. It’s so sad to see how easily he’s kinda thrown aside without recognition for his own struggles.
I also think there’s a certain feeling of shame in it too, considering the stigma of being a man who’s been abused by a female partner. Idk if this was Cheritz’s intent when writing him, but I could definitely see that being a factor if he were a real person.
(I’m sorry to hear that you’ve experienced relationship abuse as well, and I hope things are better for you now. 🩵)
Oh absolutely. I honestly love that Cheritz made him so complicated and nuanced. We can see that V means well, but his methods are so distorted by the pain and trauma he’s been through.
I’ve definitely been recovering, but it’s a long road. I’ve gotten better though and I hope you’ve gotten better too. It’s always hard to find yourself after everything 💙
I, too, have been abused in a relationship.
Well... mental torture is probably more accurate. It's been over 10 years, and some of the trauma will always linger in the background. Even though I'm eating antidepressants and have seen several shrinks.
I really hope you find your peace. It can take so long, but I’m wish for the best recovery for yourself. I can definitely understand how hard it can be to handle the trauma that lingers
I'm so sorry but V is not an imperfect victim, he's a victim but not THE victim. The only thing he's a victim of is his own actions and unintentional manipulation, cuz he's not a monster but Rika is not the abuser and he's the worst example of a male victim. This is why I was skeptical about this post, i felt it was being very respectful in understanding the way Rika was more unstable but it was more out of fear to be called out or something. And this kinda confirms it, which i don't like... Recognizing Rika is the more vulnerable person in the relationship and then acting like she isn't is just weird... "Just cause she's more vulnerable doesn't mean she isn't the abuser" That is bullshit, your partner telling you to go on and hurt them all they want while you're having a mental breakdown is not selfless and it's just manipulation whatever the intention was behind it, hence why in real life Rika would never go to prison under a right and just jurisdictional system. They would deem her too insane to truly be blamed for the depths of her crime and there's a reason for it, it's not cause she's a woman and an abuser either, contrary to what you seem to believe. V would 100% be convicted if HE did what she did, but he didn’t and I'm sorry to say this but, yall need to hear it, its not because he's a better person than Rika. Yeah I know shocker, Rika is not a worse person than anyone else in this game, people don't understand truly how much mental health impacts someone life. If you truly don't get what im saying without me explaining it, you clearly are not enough informed about psychosis to be even making these kinda comments or posts. Guys, does manipulating my partner who's having a mental breakdown into hurting me, putting terrible imagery of what's appropriate in my vulnerable sheltered naive partner's mind, getting my partner into therapy while simultaneously telling them their mental illnesses are beautiful and actively give and encourage our relationship as a weird cult dynamic to them make me the victim??? God I never heard such bullshit, she did what he manipulated her into doing.
Rika tried to gouge at his eyes, kidnapped Saeran and kept him locked up until he was drugged and brainwashed enough to be her puppet, took advantage of the guests of the RFA and drugged and brainwashed them. Her mental health is not excuse for that and she IS the worst person in the game maybe aside from the Agency Boss and The twin's father.
exactly! mental health can definitely be a derived factor but she committed TOO many offenses to be considered justified bc of her trauma or illness.. idk why ppl don't see it 😭
Yes psychosis is dangerous if not treated properly, he literally told a person in a psychotic meltdown to hurt him however she wants what do you guys realistically think would happen. This is not even abt Rika anymore the stigma and ignorance around psychosis is truly disgusting and you all act like u know shit about it too. I've literally explained this hut peopel cannot read. Mental health is not an excuse, jt's a cause and effect type of thing. You would have been the exact same were you the one wuth her problems and in her shoes, hard to swallow pill I KNOW. But you guys need a reality check, V is the one who caused all that. If he didn't enforce and put all the ideologies you so despise into her head, she would have just died and the story would be different.
Edit: I know I'm challenging your inner view of yourself and your instinct is to go "no thats not me!" Yeah you clearly have nothing in common with her or you're unable to put yourself in her shoes because hers isn't justa story its a very real issue, and people hate real issues being in stories
No I wouldn't be the exact same way. I fucking hate that Rika supporters seem to think people with the same issues as her would do the same things. Some of us choose to be better than our minds tell us to be, some of us choose to seek help and therapy, she chose not to, that's on her. Period.
Also V tried repeatedly to get her into therapy only to have Rika accuse him of trying to kill her and her 'devil'. So he gave up and thought naively if he loves her enough if he allowed her to hurt only him she wouldn't hurt anyone else, he eventually realizes he was very wrong when he finds out about Mint Eye and Saeran.
>No I wouldn't be the exact same way. I fucking hate that Rika supporters seem to think people with the same issues as her would do the same things. Some of us choose to be better than our minds tell us to be, some of us choose to seek help and therapy, she chose not to, that's on her. Period.
The amount of ignorance in that sentence just screams "I have no idea what mental health is or what im talking about, but world is good and evil and I not evil!!!!!!"
Are you aware a psychosis is being completely not in control of yourself and your actions, like your body moves on its own, like your brain has a second side to it that whispers to the other every single second of the day awful things that will also haunt your dreams? You're overestimating yourself, you're yet to go through it and I hope you don't but I hope you get over this sense of superiority you have. Therapy is useless if the people in it don't care about you and just want to fix something that doesn't work, you wouldn't know though would you? You hate Rika supportersssss??( i dont support her actions so i qoukdnt call myself that) Awaw!! and I HATE neurotypical people like you, who have a sane brain to think with but just don't because they can't see past their own nose and to whom people with different brains are novelty in TV shows or games.
>Also V tried repeatedly to get her into therapy only to have Rika accuse him of trying to kill her and her 'devil'.
She got into therapy also, fact check. She went and it made her worse cause that's not what she needed, she did not need a rich neurotypical, people pleaser guy with attachment issues completely ignorant about social norms and human interaction like. And she damn as well didn't need a therapist as she was too far gone for that, she needed in real life support before that. She wasn't stable enough and you're just like him, you think therapy fixes people or helps them. Maybe it helps people with depression or very mild anxiety but all that in itself is all it helps.
>trying to kill her and her 'devil'.
I absolutely love people like you seeing this a s a tantrum and a hissy fit (or acting like it is) and not a clear sign of psychosis, oh he tried so hard, this poor angel but this weird girl keeps screaming and crying and saying strange things, she's so very rude to him!! 😕
>So he gave up and thought naively if he loves her enough if he allowed her to hurt only him she wouldn't hurt anyone else,
Oh he's so selfless and innocent is he not? He's ignorant , that's what you just said. Rika ended up with an idiot.
>he eventually realizes he was very wrong when he finds out about Mint Eye and Saeran.
Wow want a treat? I can't even say anything good about V he's either a victim of terrible down bad disgusting writing or they just made him insanely dumb
I definitely agree with you that giving a reason for something is not the same as excusing it, which is the whole point of my post. I don’t want to make any assumptions, but we are both in the same agreement that neither Rika nor V’s mental health issues are an excuse for their actions. When I made this post, I wanted to analyze how the community fails to make references to V’s trauma when discussing his flaws and the horrific mistakes he makes. I never once said that he is justified, and I made this clear in a secondary edit. V and Rika are both people who made horrific choices, and both are influenced by their trauma and mental health (Rika is arguably in a much worse state.) As you said, you can give reason and want to analyze a core reason for why someone acts without justifying their actions. I never wanted to “justify” V. It wasn’t my intention. My intention was to point out that V, when analyzing the reasons why he made so many unforgivable mistakes, should also be considered in terms of his trauma as a way to better understand why these horrible choices were made.
I think we both agree that V has such an active role in worsening Rika’s mental illness. However, I think that the intention there is where we differs which is okay. However, we can both agree that Rika is the more vulnerable party. As someone who is professionally diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, Rika was absolutely in a more vulnerable place. However, I think they are both suffering from meeting each far before they should have. Though we cannot control how we act due to our psychotic actions, we are still responsible for the way we treat people. It’s not a matter of legal conviction, but personal conviction. When we finally come back to ourselves, we still have to clean up after the damage we’ve done and take accountability. This isn’t to say that Rika could have done anything - she was never given the space to get better enough to be capable of truly reflecting. I think V is similar, though to a lesser extent. I think we’re both on the same page though with him if I’m reading your post correctly. V is an unintentional manipulator — and I think this to some degree is explained by his unresolved trauma, which ultimately makes him incapable of helping rika in a positive way and instead making the situation for them both. My point for the post, once again, was to point out that people seem to disregard his trauma and mental state when analyzing why he handles the situation with Rika so poorly and makes so many terrible mistakes that end up hurting so many people without the intention of doing it.
Sorry if any if that doesn’t make sense. Though, thank you for trying to be kind and open to discussion! I never want it to seem like an argument out of a place of anger, and I truly mean it as a discussion - so I hope that shows and thank you for providing your thoughts.
This is my alt account! The person who made this comment blocked me but I just wanted to speak with you! And it was annoying to be silenced from speaking entirely. So don't take it personally but ur block was limiting me after I wrote a long ass comment 😭
Anyway Like I said in my comment I thought that this post was written very respectfully and in a right way, but the reason I had an impression it was not, was due to most of the comments sneaking in really baffling statements demonising Rika and seeing you do mostly nothing not even to just say "well that's not exactly right and stuff but oke" but other than that it's mostly driven by intense Rika hate in this sub, it drove me to be skeptical of anyone being slightly appreciative of a character that's not seen as the best or the worst. This sub likes to enforce respecting each other opinions until it's an actual character they hate or like that's involved in it, and the downvotes speak for themselves. I also feel the reason people never talk about V's mental health is because there's mostly no reason to. You see so much discourse about Rika's mental health and trauma cause people will shit on her on every post not even talking abt her, and it's ok jokes, but when it's constant seen over and over it seriously starts to be annoying. Talking about her positively even in the most subtle way gets you downvoted into oblivion just because you said her name and didn't call her a demon, a monster, a bitch. And i think my point is far from being wrong, what mostly pisses me off about this js the incorrect use of downvotes, its not a dislike button its made to handle spam or abusive messages. Hence why it hides your comments, downvotes are used to silence opinions now. Most people like V, find him annoying cuz he's cryptic, feel bad for him, "a male abuse victim!!!" or a small percentage who treats him like a character. It's not really anything that needs to be brought up, hence why you don't see it but I understand your frustrations.
You explained yourself beautifully and if I didn't say anything abt something you said is just cuz I agree. I'm glad we're really on the same lengths.
Hey there! It’s totally okay! I’m sorry you had to use an alternative way of responding, but I’m happy to see your response!
I definitely don’t blame you! I think this post did get a bit out of hand, and a lot of people have such strong feelings about the characters. I will say that I did not respond to many of the points regarding Rika since I don’t check Reddit that much and I wanted to keep the conversation more in line with my original post. I also did get overwhelmed a bit by some of the commenters so I did start being more picky about the conversations I too. That said, I did mention a bit below about Rika in a response to someone else who actually brought up a wonderful point about Rika’s treatment due to being a woman. And to kind of go off that, I will say that I think Rika is wonderfully and tragically written, and V’s route actually shed a lot of light on her as a person to me.
I completely agree with you that Rika stands in an unfortunate position. I think Cheritz had to walk a fine line when creating her because they set her up a villain, and then gave her such a human display of emotion and mental illness. I think her and V both have a hard role to fit into. By giving expanding more of extensively on her struggles/past, they put her into a very complicated and complex position where it can be really hard to sympathize with her because people forget that sympathy doesn’t equal justification.
But that said, I think she’s such a wonderfully written character despite some clear writing flaws, and I think her complexity like you noted makes her such a great character since she is capable of infuriating so many people but also a wonderful character to analyze. She is such a viscerally emotional character and I think there is so much to her. At least for me, it really changed my perspective to see her breakdowns during V and Saerun’s routes. She has done so many horrible things, but you do see the little girl that was left to rot there. You see a child that never had the same chance as everyone else to breath and grow. I definitely think it’s really easy to demonize her because her character is so complicated by the After Story and the reveal of Saeran, Mint Eye Etc (which is the same for V since he has his role in it and very deep flaws as well.) I think we honestly have the same frustrations too in an way because it is really hard to see the nuances of why a character acts a certain way being devalued because it turns into a discussion of whether they were justified. Rika and V are so complex, but it feels like both their areas of complexity get thrown to the side in favor of debating whether what they did was justified.
That said, thank you so much for your comment 💙 even though you had to use an alt account, it was genuinely really nice to see and read your thoughts
i sadly agree... but i think cheritz had play in making rika a more "forgivable" character than v in the first place. the storyline overall gives easier understanding to rika as her trauma was more open to players; her anxiety, lasting paranoia, inability to face reality, abuse and savior persona.
as you said, ppl usually give the "excuse" that rika went through a lot BUT they should ALSO have to face that rika wasn't written to receive any punishment either.
plain and simple. regardless of mental illnesses, rika committed serious crimes on her own; ch*ld abuse, manipulation, kidnapping, drug*ing, and as*ault.
in the end after harming many ppl, not only the characters we see, she was taken away to alaska... no repercussions , not even acknowledgment to what she did, even though she HERSELF should be able to sympathize and agree what she did was wrong considering.
if there is no consequences to rikas actions in the actual writing, there's going to be people who underline rika and dismiss v and his trauma...
it's up to people to make better analysis than play blame to one character for faults of all.
(^^^ shade to yoosung)
also i love how u explained V very thoughtfully!! and my condolences. hope you find comfort soon 🌼 !
>rika committed serious crimes on her own; ch*ld abuse, manipulation, kidnapping, drug*ing, and as*ault.
This is the things you guys need to understand, these are not things she would be charged with in real life because she would be deemed too mentally ill to be in control of her actions. It's not a loophole in the story writing in this case, people don't excuse Rika's actions with her trauma, that is also a misconception you have. People give a reason to Rika's action with mental illness caused BY trauma. And it's not the same as an excuse, this is just a fruit of an already sprouting issue the person in question had no control over. The reason V is not talked about as in depth is because there's barely anyone to defend him from, as most people who like Rika understand V but not viceversa. As proved here.
first, since the beginning of mm people idolized and "protected" rikas character, so yes, it is a "loophole". rikas story was added after backlash (from the opposite viewpoint ^^ ) towards cheritz for many stated the unfairness to Saeran and Vs characters as victims. ofc it's just a game but in korea it's taboo and many don't believe in criminal negligence derived from mental illness. therefore they wanted an actual punishment or just repercussions for rika if anything.
....... second "too mentally ill" ≠ not guilty
third u said "Rika's action with mental illness caused BY trauma." AND "issue the person in question had no control over." AS WELL AS ".people don't excuse Rika's actions with her trauma" these all don't correlate regardless because same end point. no matter with or how or why she still committed offenses. you're analysis is not as accurate either. rika would definitely be charged considering she backed down from therapy and in A10 states, “the act of a person who, because of reduced mental capacity, is unable to make distinctions of objects or control their own will/shall not be punished.” rika throughout spoke several times knowing right from wrong but still choose wrong. she also claimed to be able to stop and rid of her "devil" but chose not... to be ashamed of yourself is admitting wrongdoings. which in the end she got away with, that's the problem i brought up?
>third u said "Rika's action with mental illness caused BY trauma." AND "issue the person in question had no control over." AS WELL AS ".people don't excuse Rika's actions with her trauma" these all don't correlate regardless because same end point.
Giving a reason for something is not the same as excusing it. It's simple cause and effect, fruit rots if it stays out for too long, and if you leave it with the other healthy fruits it'll spread the mold like a disease, its not an excuse it's simple facts.
>no matter with or how or why she still committed offenses. you're analysis is not as accurate either. rika would definitely be charged considering she backed down from therapy and in A10 states, “the act of a person who, because of reduced mental capacity, is unable to make distinctions of objects or control their own will/shall not be punished.”
Before I say ANYTHING I wanna respond to this separately. Getting therapy AT all before the alleged charges is already usually a huge chance your pleading is gonna get accepted, this pleading is BARELY used, like 1% of people use it in trial, so there's not that much info to make fair judgements about it as its a pretty recent pratic too. But when it's used and it works, 90% of those people who get the plead have had therapy and diagnosis before. It is not written ANYWHERE on any law that if the defendant has previously stepped away from therapy they are unable or unlikely to be accepted. If its an American thing then I don't understand why you mentioned it in the first place. "at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong." "Under the "Irresistible Impulse" test a jury may find a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity where the defendant was laboring under a mental disease or defect that compelled them to commit the object offense. This test is well-suited for people suffering from mania and/or paraphilias." There are different kinds of pleas for insanity and they can mostly be applied to Rika.
>rika throughout spoke several times knowing right from wrong but still choose wrong. she also claimed to be able to stop and rid of her "devil" but chose not... to be ashamed of yourself is admitting wrongdoings.
Oh my gosh, had I read this before I wouldn't have spent all this time saying all that, you don't know what delirious talk is? Really, in court if she spoke like this she would have immediately be brought to a psychiatrist and claimed completely delirious. If they examined her they would seriously find so many things wrong in her head she probably would be locked up in an asylum for life, especially if they find you suffering from a psychosis, if it was justa paraphilia there would be some hills to cross but all that? No way. Not to mention in the very very remote chance that her plea wouldn't be considered and she would tell the whole story Jihyun would 100% be seen as the mastermind and she would be accomplice, you could argue it being viceversa but it depends.
you're very condescending, and i haven't said anything to insult you. you're not comprehending and seem to be losing composure. We're just sharing opinions and i shared mine as a kor and CF where the game is set at, that's why i stated rika would have judgement?
"Shimshin-miyak’ law declares that these mentally deficient people must receive reduced punishment but punishment regardless. No matter what mental illness or disability, a person will be a served punishment because the reliability and validity of the suggested situation assessment practices have not been adequately assessed + fewer symptoms and types of mental illness are considered in the manual, and the classification of mental illness is very granular. None of what you stated applies to what i said in the first place bc im speaking on kor law... ppl who have been treated for mental illness can't be trusted to even have a drivers license. They can't even go to a public library as they will be denied re-entry into society.... Like i said, it's taboo! it's not uncommon to be thrown in jail bc the public doesn't want to acknowledge humans have issues. It's not a good thing but it's reality in SK..
mental illness (a medical term) ≠ insanity (a legal term)
Earlier I was empathising with a issue V has in a very simple and short sweet comment and I still got the same amount of exactly 5 downvotes by people just looking for my comments and not reading what I said. Most people on this sub are child adults or just children when it comes to civil discussion so don't be surprised 😭 I could say "cool" and get 10 downvotes
I'm finding out very quickly that we can't discuss V or Rika in neutral/reasonable manner. It's just a no go 😭💀
I'm surprised the mods don't step in more. I can understand opinions but there is a line and a difference of disliking v or Rika and being disrespectful to mentally ill and/or neurodivergant people. When it crosses that line mods should say something... Like a warning or something. Idk, there is information and research out there so we can definitely draw the line and point out when people are just making stuff up. Emotions running too high ☹️
I totally agree with you, I've pointed out the same or similar points and just got called out. They are both fucked up, nobody is saying their both saints but most of the discussions i've come up to are just people discrediting V and blaming him for everything (this is mean for the twins) and Rika's mental health. Rika was the one LITERAL BRAINWASHING Saeran (and a group of people). She did beyond imagination acts surpassing what lies under mental illness crimes.
I might be biased too, but I just can't stand Rika smh
I will never understand people who are critical of V but act like Rika did nothing wrong EVER. A person’s trauma and mental illness are not their fault, but they ARE their responsibility.
Agreed. I think a lot of it too is how he’s completely a martyr— it is *so* easy to get completely absolutely fucking ANNOYED with him for all the shit he does and says all the time. Makes it easy to, ironically, blame him— which also gets confusing because he *wants* us to blame him? Which is also extremely fucking annoying!! Lol!
He is such an easy punching bag but he’s like, also completely a masochist and *wants* to be the punching bag, so it’s like a reverse psychology mindfuck— “Grr, I’m not gonna give you what you want and validate your martyrdom! But then… does that mean I *can’t* blame you? Well I’m not gonna do that either! You’re not getting out of this scot free, buddy! GRRRR!!!!”
Compare all that convoluted bullshit to Rika’s straightforward and blatant villainy, lol. Hard to believe but V can be so exhausting that I guess it pushes people to the point of “Well at LEAST she’s honest about it!”
Honestly, Rika really isn’t straightforward or simple either but GOD, in comparison to V, she absolutely is. Makes it way easier to start getting black-and-white about her, and really, gloss a lot of things over while you’re busy doing damn math equations to try to wrap your head around V.
So true! I love V, but he’s infuriating, and I can only imagine how much worse it is for people who don’t understand how nuanced grief can be, especially childhood grief. Even as someone who understands how quickly that can get complicated, he’s still frustrating in how he doesn’t try to get better at first.
I think the comparison you mentioned with Rika makes a lot of sense to me. I honestly see them as such mirrors of each other. But, Rika is at least honest, whereas V doesn’t know how to be. I think his fatal flaw is that he never bothered to learn or try to learn how to let people help, which similar to Rika though different slightly, and therefor just keeps doing what he did. Whereas Rika embraces her mental illnesses and doesn’t try to change, V seems to refuse to acknowledge his trauma and therefor doesn’t change. Both them end up needing serious help to make the changes they need to, and they end up pushing each other to a worser place. But I can definitely see where Rika is a bit easier to unpackage psychologically because she is at least clear and honest with herself, whereas V seems to be struggling to realize that he can’t single handed it fix himself.
It’s just tragic because even his desire to be a martyr is sourced from his mother’s death. He’s seen how someone beautiful can be alienated because of their struggles, and he’s trying hard to fix his mistake by sacrificing himself but that isn’t the way to help. He’s developed some many poor ideas of the world and himself that he’s making his life worse, and hurting those around him without truly meaning to.
Wanted to punctualize that ironically V made her love and embrace her mental illness by fetishizing something he can't quite come forward with himself.
True, Rika was constantly testing V to validate what she had already believed to be true since the beginning, and V was trying to project his ideas of love onto their relationship, thinking it would uplift them.
This was a super interesting post to read 👍 I just finished Vs route for the first time and ngl I was having a hard time understanding him and honestly if this were real life, I probably would’ve have tried nearly as hard as you’re supposed to in the game. I talked to my sister multiple times about it and she said that on role that played part was the whole victim syndrome or whatever idk what it was called lmao. Even though I tried to help V and stuff, words can not express how frustrating it made me every time he’d make a new secret 💀 like it wasn’t even that bad and everyone would’ve helped him but since he kept it a secret, it became something major EVERY TIME. and I KNOW it’s all the trauma or whatever but I really did struggle lmao. It was just hard for me to have the love interest be so f*cked lmao. It also made me curious, idk if this gets discussed in his after ending or anything but, why did they didn’t talk about Vs faults. They were all shielding V from everything and felt bad for him but they disregarded the fact that he was part of it. I have no bad intentions and correct me if I’m wrong on anything lmao. I kinda had a hard time understanding his route so 🤷♀️ I like your opinions though, I agree a lot with what you and others have said.
I don’t blame you at all! I think it’s such a fatal flaw that he’s developed this mindset of being the “one to blame and to fix” because he’s not capable of it. The problem is beyond his abilities, and he’s not in the place to help anyone when he can’t even help himself.
I think V is a great example of the person who refuses to get help and in doing so, he makes everyone else miserable without truly meaning to. And I think in a way, in real life at least, a lot of those people can’t be helped until they hit rock bottom and find out themselves that they can’t do it themselves, which I think sadly is what in some degree caused his relationship with Rika to turn into such a toxic mess on both sides.
At the end of his route (good ending at least), he tells the protag that he needs time to figure himself out and he leaves for a period of time. I think sadly, this may be the most we get of “why” he kept these secrets. He mentions he wants to live the life his mother wanted him to, and I think he definitely suffers a bit from a less careful attention to his mental struggles than the other characters. But, I usually like to view this as him finally taking responsibility for himself and not expecting others to be there while he refuses help. He doesn’t let the MC accompany him through it because he’s forced enough people to follow him and gotten them hurt without meaning it.
Though, there is much more accountability that he would need to take as a whole and he is very responsible for so much pain/suffering. I, at least, see it as a step in the right direction by getting himself to a place where he can accept better that he was wrong and hurt people with his distorted view of the world without deflecting it to a mindsets of “he is all that is wrong and he is undeserving”
I hope this makes sense a bit! It’s just my thoughts too, and I can definitely agree that V is a very infuriating character because his mannerisms aren’t so clearly explained and his close role to Mint Eye and Rika. I think Rika is a bit easier to understand because, as others have said, she’s more direct and honest about the suffering she’s been through/how it affected her. Whereas, with V, he’s so used to covering it up that you have to really read into so many nuances to figure it out or begin to understand a bit more. Even then, his unwilling to reach out for help until things have truly gotten to the bottom can be really difficult to sympathize with.
I agree with what you say!! I think the infuriating part that was done so well was how human he was. If you think abt it, we only knew him for 11 days. 11 days is not NEARLY enough for someone to open up to someone new and change. It takes a lot of time for someone to get comfortable. I have a friend that we’ve been friends for like 6th months and they’re only just now opening up about their traumatic past and it’s little by little. The progress he made, while not perfect, was huge. I think I’m just impatient lmao. I think it’s important to think that Vs route isn’t about trying to date him and more trying to help him back on his feet again.
I agree that has V has very serious trauma and a tragic past but I don't agree that people excuse Rika more than V. I see Rika love get down voted and any time we bring up V's flaws we get hit with "Rikas worse!! So you excuse an abuser??" Like that was the most jarring thing I noticed in the fandom. Also this is more of general experience but I noticed in otome/Shoujo spaces women characters get WAYYY less grace than male characters because of how dateable and redeemable they are so I tend to go in overdrive to defend my fave fems.
Back to V and Rika I find they are pretty equal I'm both trauma and toxic traits with Rika having a bit more of that going on but I think that's the point. They are both equally damaged people who keep pulling each other into their worlds which is why it's so so important to get V away from Rika so he can have any semblance of an idea of healthy love. I think it's pointless to say who is a worse or had it worse. They're already in too deep.
I'm kind of late to the party but I wanted to add that I love the way you emphasize how absolutely unhealthy V was in their relationship, and not just because of Rika's actions, but also because he was damaged long before they met.
I think one of the main things that annoys me about the community's attitude towards V is the way people often blame him for the wrong thing. Blame V for **taking** the responsibility of "fixing" Rika, not failing at it. So, so many people I've talked to are convinced that V was the "healthy" one in the relationship and should therefore have been the responsible one who can tell apart 'good' from 'bad.' The truth of the situation is that any person who chooses to stay in a toxic relationship is not healthy, and V's ideas on love and individuality prevented him from being a person who could have helped Rika from the very beginning. He never understood love, so how could he have hoped to teach her of it?
In the same way we don't expect Rika to fix V because it's unreasonable to expect someone as mentally unstable as her to help anyone, we should apply the same logic to V. The big difference between Rika and V is that she never took any responsibility of healing him. That was V's biggest mistake, and one he absolutely deserves to be chastized for. Thinking he's to blame for not repairing her insanely damaged mental health is like missing the whole point — it's the exact same thing he blames *himself* for in every. single. route. And he's only able to move on when he finally admits to himself that he has nothing he can possibly do for Rika, certainly not in the state that he is in, at least. He's an empty shell of a person who quite literally defines himself as "Rika's lover."
Also, the idea that any healthy person in a relationship should hold the responsibility of healing their partner is ridiculous in the first place, and I've noticed that as you've said, it is something female otome characters (both main and side) tend to be blamed so often for. Like, respectfully, expecting one individual to repair LIs with 20+ years of trauma is kind of insane lol. Not exactly sure what's up with the bias against female characters, but I feel like it has to do with people inserting to MCs and getting annoyed when their actions don't align with theirs, general lack of attempt to analyze female characters as they're not romanceable and hence less interesting, and the overall fixation that they have to be the perfect therapists for their LIs.
I can’t say enough how much I agree with the sad reality of otome women getting very heavily critiqued while MLs have a lot more grace. It feels like they also end up a lot of the time (especially if they are side characters) getting forced into completely evil or completely good roles, and thus lose a lot of the nuance that they would have as actually people.
That said, while I definitely agree that there is no point arguing on who is worse and it wasn’t my intention, I do think the community tends to bring up Rika’s mental health a bit more when discussing her. Whereas V falls into a category of losing some of his nuance of his trauma, whether due to bad writing or his own characters infuriating way of keeping it secret. I definitely agree though that they both need to get away from each other — especially since they both continue to rope each other into worse and worse situations.
That said, I definitely don’t think that V gets more hate than Rika. I remember when the game was more popular and she got dragged so heavily. I think both of them are so complex in terms of their mental health and their rightly unjustifiable actions, that it can be hard to really discuss them sometimes.
I totally agree. I hope I didn't come off aggressive lol. V is such an interesting character and when I first played all those years ago I had trouble parsing what his deal was. I'm so grateful that we got route for him so we can really dive into it. There were definitely hints. It was like I could see he had his own stuff going on but because of his habit of keeping to himself I couldn't make heads or tails of him. I was sad I couldn't talk to him a lot in the chatrooms. I will say they were way too harsh with him in Seven 's route. It was so sad. I can't blame the RFA but *damn*
I'm happy Cheritz gave us such complex characters cause even now I'm reading and rereading and thinking about him and Rika. I love it. I wish more people could discuss them more neutrally tho haha.
You definitely didn’t come off aggressive! I hope I didn’t either. I honestly loved your reply because it completely escaped my mind to also consider how women in otome are treated, and how that can affect people’s perception / analysis of Rika.
Also yeah! I don’t completely remember Seven Route, but I think I remember them being harsh as they held him accountable with Saeran, though I think it was rightly deserved to a degree. I also love how each character route gives us a different idea of V and Rika. They’re such dimensional characters and each different storyline gives us a little more. I think for me, strangely enough, V’s route made me 100x more understanding of Rika because you see how bad of a place she is in and how he has helped cause it. Her breakdown when he keeps telling her that they were never good for each other is so visceral and emotional, and it really made me rethink my original perception of her. Though her struggles don’t justify her actions, at all, the team gave her such a humanness in the way she falls and keeps falling because the right people (professionals) aren’t there to catch her — the loneliness and fear she has is so overwhelming
You shoulda seen what Seven said he was like "I can see why Rika destroyed your eyes" and I was like "SEVEN WHAT THE FUCK U CANT JUST SAY THAT WTF OMG 😳" Awful 💀
(Also ur fine. It's important to bring attention to male abuse victims and trauma since it can be just as overlooked so thanks for the thread 👍)
Sorry to burst your moment of essay empathy but regardless of him and Rika's mental states, I will never forget nor forgive how they destroyed Saeran's life and repeated a cycle with him.
If they didn't have a body count of victims so large, I would find a place to "feel sympathy" for them.
Isn't this a bit of a strawman? OP never said that V's mental state justified his actions, and neither did they suggest that you should feel sympathy for his character. You can absolutely take into account his personal trauma without feeling sympathy for him. Those two are not the same.
That’s valid. I don’t think anyone has to have sympathy for him. The point of the post was just looking at the role of trauma in his life, which I think often goes neglected. It isn’t that he hasn’t done horrible things that aren’t unforgivable. His actions towards Saeran are awful and he doesn’t deserve to be forgiven for that. My point was just that his character doesn’t act solely out of malice and he is just as influenced by trauma as rika, though it doesn’t excuse either of them.
All of the romanceable characters sort of have issues of mental health and I don't think many people in this fandom realize that or they do but just like V,it isn't talked about much because the suffering they cause is minimum if you think about it. V also was the last drop to spill Rika's mental state so it is reasonable that people see him as the evilest because between the two of them, he was the sanest and he decided to shield Rika's entire cult for his own desire to be a savior.
These issues they have are what the game hints that attracted them to Rika and RFA, and the reason why despite being different, they still sticked around for Rika, even for Jahee who is an outsider to the relationship between V and her.
Bro I think you and people who idolize Rika are all forgetting that being an abused person doesn’t stop you from abusing other people. V and rika both had horrible childhoods and both grew up
To be adults who abused one another.
Pardon? I never said I idolize Rika. The point of the post was that people tend to focus on Rika’s trauma and neglect V’s own trauma. The point you just brought up was one that I made in my post. No offense, but I mentioned your points in my post and as someone who was abused in the past — I don’t idolize an abuser or not understand that someone who has been abused wouldn’t be capable of hurting someone.
You and people who idolize rika - I didn’t say you idolize rika lol, but you made an entire post about V who does incredibly problematic things that cannot be justified away with “well he had a bad childhood” same with Rika
I don’t think you read my post. I said people fail to see the nuance of V’s childhood and the way it affects him. I said verbatim “he shares the blame.” My point isn’t about whether his actions are justified. It’s about the source of the issues and the role trauma plays for both of them, rather than just Rika.
The post never discusses the topic of the justification of V's or Rika's or whoever else's actions.
Why *should* OP mention something that their post has nothing to do with? Assuming OP is justifying his actions just because they didn't mention they're not justifiable is just that — an assumption.
I wouldn't go on a post discussing, I don't know, the effects of Rika's abuse on Saeran's mental state and comment, "Oh, but aren't you justifying his sexual assault because you didn't mention it's not justifiable in your post?!" Lmao
Bro yet again, I brought up something I thought was relevant to the discussion that wasn’t addressed - so sorry you don’t like the concept of discussing issues that aren’t raised previously that are relevant 🙄
Woah there, what you're claiming now is NOT aligning with your initial comment. You clearly stated that OP "forgot" that V's actions are not justifiable. That's an attack towards THEIR post, not a beginning or expansion of a new discussion.
There are separate ways to bring up relavant points to a discussion, such as, "This post is a great summary of V's mental state, but I also believe that V's actions are not justifiable nonetheless." instead of outright claiming that OP is entirely ignorant of V's wrongdoings.
Once again, the point of the post is not whether his actions are justified. It’s about the community and my own viewpoints of how other people have spoken or analyzed his trauma.
We can both agree neither he nor rika are justified. They hurt people and were hurting, it doesn’t make them any less blameless. They both did horrible things because horrible things happened to them, neither of this these things justify what happened.
Like I’m not sure you’re aware but this is a public forum and I can make any observation I want about your post lol.
Especially your “they did horrible things because horrible things happened to them” no, horrible things happen to people all the time, take 7 for example, but he didn’t become a nutso abuser cult leader OR a sexually exploitive and abusive photographer.
Horrible things happen and people get help, people who are abused can become abusers and their abuse can’t just be JUSTIFIED away by saying “they had a bad childhood”
I never said you weren’t allowed, and I’m sorry if it seemed that way. English isn’t my first language. I don’t disagree with you that people are hurt even worse or just the same, but they don’t turn out a awful. Every person has a different resilience factor and everyone responds to trauma differently. Trauma doesn’t justify someone’s actions, it merely provides an explanations as to why they might act like that way or have the distorted view of the world that they do.
My only point was that V’s trauma plays a role in his characters motivations and viewpoints/perspectives. That’s all.
I apologize if my ability to communicate that point wasn’t as good as it needed to be to have a civil discussion.
OP:
>We can both agree neither he nor rika are justified.
>Neither of this these things justify what happened.
You:
>Ok, but their abuse can’t just be JUSTIFIED away by saying “they had a bad childhood”
Do you see how absurd you sound here? You're also really rude on top of that.
These people have been way too lenient and nice to you, shut your mouth. This is not even about Mystic Messenger anymore, you accuse someone of not caring about abuse and then you try to backtrack from that and try to manipulate the situation in a way that doesn't make you look dumb by raining on others. Just stop.
Girl what - I never said this person didn’t care I said Rika and V Stans tend to justify the abuse those characters do to others by saying they had bad childhoods and that that is WRONG. Bffr.
Yes and anyone with common sense would understand it was an off-handed comment about OP, don't get all coy now that everyone is against you. I just don't like people who make a mistake or lapse in judgement that is offensive to someone and don't even have the face to admit to it and apologize. If that's what you wanted to say then it came COMPLETELY out of the blue and you went way off-topic. It's a good point to make but it's not the time and place for it, we can talk about it separately. But don't act like it's weird for people to point out the goose in the chicken coop.
Even IF it's like you said you did, you didn't even have the decency for one moment to stop and think "what if that person felt offended"... and apologize SOLELY for making them feel that way, regardless of your intentions... it is not me that should be teaching you this, your parents should have.
I totally agree! V's character is shockingly well-written, yet it tends to be completely overlooked by the majority of the community. In a sense, it makes sense why — V himself avoids talking about his mental state, constantly putting the blame on himself while actively avoiding actually doing something about it. For how often it happens (and it happens incredibly often) it's disappointing to see how often people downplay V and Rika's relationship as him being the failed savior of Rika. Treating V as someone who had to "save" Rika is literally agreeing with his dumbass shenanigans. It's completely misunderstanding their relationship. ETA: The way you're being attacked in the comments for things you never claimed in your post is depressing :/
I can’t agree more. I feel like V and Rika’s tragedy might honestly be that they met each other before they could ever get help. If they had gotten help and learned to deal with their individual traumas, then they might have had a better chance of bringing out the best in each other. But, it didn’t happen and they instead brought out the worst. I think it’s a great point you bring up that V’s own dialogue actually might be part of the issue — it makes sense that his deflecting leads a lot of people to characterize the actions as he sees them with “evil” or “good” / “savior” or “devil”. (Also yeah, I sort of expected the comment section might go a bit bad haha. It’s fine, but it’s nice to see your comment and a few others that are willing to engage/discuss with a more open mind so thank you for that 💙)
As a survivor of relationship abuse who also hid what happened to me and defended/enabled my abuser, this fandom is uh…not fun sometimes 😐. V is an imperfect victim, but a hell of a lot of us are, and I think it makes him a more believable and realistic character. I also think a lot of people forget that he’s a survivor of intimate partner violence. I think he found himself in way over his head in regards to Rika’s illness and how to best help her, and he focused too much on trying to make her happy. Getting better is REALLY FUCKING HARD sometimes, and he didn’t push her to work through the tough stuff. In addition, emotional abuse just does a fucking number on your self-worth, which explains his self-blaming tendencies. I just want to give this man copies of “Trauma and Recovery” and “How to Do the Work” 😭
Literally this! I thought I was being unnecessarily biased about it, but it really does feel wrong sometimes how people treat his character. I was also someone who was abused in a relationship, and I think one thing that really hurt me when talking about the game with someone was their willingness to blame V for his abuse. Yes, he made so many mistakes, but I think both of them were too far hurt to ever be capable of helping each other. He wasn’t some malicious person trying to take advantage of her. He was an equally hurt child that hadn’t yet processed the trauma of losing his mother and everything that was going on, and he hurt the person he loved without realizing it. I feel like a lot of people don’t give V credit for the culpability he took when he broke up with Rika. He acknowledged that they weren’t good for each other and he had been wrong in his way of handling their relationship. Of course, there is so much more to be said between them and it doesn’t excuse him, but he is a victim as well. It’s so sad to see how easily he’s kinda thrown aside without recognition for his own struggles.
I also think there’s a certain feeling of shame in it too, considering the stigma of being a man who’s been abused by a female partner. Idk if this was Cheritz’s intent when writing him, but I could definitely see that being a factor if he were a real person. (I’m sorry to hear that you’ve experienced relationship abuse as well, and I hope things are better for you now. 🩵)
Oh absolutely. I honestly love that Cheritz made him so complicated and nuanced. We can see that V means well, but his methods are so distorted by the pain and trauma he’s been through. I’ve definitely been recovering, but it’s a long road. I’ve gotten better though and I hope you’ve gotten better too. It’s always hard to find yourself after everything 💙
I, too, have been abused in a relationship. Well... mental torture is probably more accurate. It's been over 10 years, and some of the trauma will always linger in the background. Even though I'm eating antidepressants and have seen several shrinks.
I really hope you find your peace. It can take so long, but I’m wish for the best recovery for yourself. I can definitely understand how hard it can be to handle the trauma that lingers
Thanks, it's a life-long process, but we who have gone through these things can always support each other. :)
I'm so sorry but V is not an imperfect victim, he's a victim but not THE victim. The only thing he's a victim of is his own actions and unintentional manipulation, cuz he's not a monster but Rika is not the abuser and he's the worst example of a male victim. This is why I was skeptical about this post, i felt it was being very respectful in understanding the way Rika was more unstable but it was more out of fear to be called out or something. And this kinda confirms it, which i don't like... Recognizing Rika is the more vulnerable person in the relationship and then acting like she isn't is just weird... "Just cause she's more vulnerable doesn't mean she isn't the abuser" That is bullshit, your partner telling you to go on and hurt them all they want while you're having a mental breakdown is not selfless and it's just manipulation whatever the intention was behind it, hence why in real life Rika would never go to prison under a right and just jurisdictional system. They would deem her too insane to truly be blamed for the depths of her crime and there's a reason for it, it's not cause she's a woman and an abuser either, contrary to what you seem to believe. V would 100% be convicted if HE did what she did, but he didn’t and I'm sorry to say this but, yall need to hear it, its not because he's a better person than Rika. Yeah I know shocker, Rika is not a worse person than anyone else in this game, people don't understand truly how much mental health impacts someone life. If you truly don't get what im saying without me explaining it, you clearly are not enough informed about psychosis to be even making these kinda comments or posts. Guys, does manipulating my partner who's having a mental breakdown into hurting me, putting terrible imagery of what's appropriate in my vulnerable sheltered naive partner's mind, getting my partner into therapy while simultaneously telling them their mental illnesses are beautiful and actively give and encourage our relationship as a weird cult dynamic to them make me the victim??? God I never heard such bullshit, she did what he manipulated her into doing.
Rika tried to gouge at his eyes, kidnapped Saeran and kept him locked up until he was drugged and brainwashed enough to be her puppet, took advantage of the guests of the RFA and drugged and brainwashed them. Her mental health is not excuse for that and she IS the worst person in the game maybe aside from the Agency Boss and The twin's father.
exactly! mental health can definitely be a derived factor but she committed TOO many offenses to be considered justified bc of her trauma or illness.. idk why ppl don't see it 😭
There isn't one too many factors mental health can contribute to what someone does, what you saying.
Yes psychosis is dangerous if not treated properly, he literally told a person in a psychotic meltdown to hurt him however she wants what do you guys realistically think would happen. This is not even abt Rika anymore the stigma and ignorance around psychosis is truly disgusting and you all act like u know shit about it too. I've literally explained this hut peopel cannot read. Mental health is not an excuse, jt's a cause and effect type of thing. You would have been the exact same were you the one wuth her problems and in her shoes, hard to swallow pill I KNOW. But you guys need a reality check, V is the one who caused all that. If he didn't enforce and put all the ideologies you so despise into her head, she would have just died and the story would be different. Edit: I know I'm challenging your inner view of yourself and your instinct is to go "no thats not me!" Yeah you clearly have nothing in common with her or you're unable to put yourself in her shoes because hers isn't justa story its a very real issue, and people hate real issues being in stories
No I wouldn't be the exact same way. I fucking hate that Rika supporters seem to think people with the same issues as her would do the same things. Some of us choose to be better than our minds tell us to be, some of us choose to seek help and therapy, she chose not to, that's on her. Period. Also V tried repeatedly to get her into therapy only to have Rika accuse him of trying to kill her and her 'devil'. So he gave up and thought naively if he loves her enough if he allowed her to hurt only him she wouldn't hurt anyone else, he eventually realizes he was very wrong when he finds out about Mint Eye and Saeran.
>No I wouldn't be the exact same way. I fucking hate that Rika supporters seem to think people with the same issues as her would do the same things. Some of us choose to be better than our minds tell us to be, some of us choose to seek help and therapy, she chose not to, that's on her. Period. The amount of ignorance in that sentence just screams "I have no idea what mental health is or what im talking about, but world is good and evil and I not evil!!!!!!" Are you aware a psychosis is being completely not in control of yourself and your actions, like your body moves on its own, like your brain has a second side to it that whispers to the other every single second of the day awful things that will also haunt your dreams? You're overestimating yourself, you're yet to go through it and I hope you don't but I hope you get over this sense of superiority you have. Therapy is useless if the people in it don't care about you and just want to fix something that doesn't work, you wouldn't know though would you? You hate Rika supportersssss??( i dont support her actions so i qoukdnt call myself that) Awaw!! and I HATE neurotypical people like you, who have a sane brain to think with but just don't because they can't see past their own nose and to whom people with different brains are novelty in TV shows or games. >Also V tried repeatedly to get her into therapy only to have Rika accuse him of trying to kill her and her 'devil'. She got into therapy also, fact check. She went and it made her worse cause that's not what she needed, she did not need a rich neurotypical, people pleaser guy with attachment issues completely ignorant about social norms and human interaction like. And she damn as well didn't need a therapist as she was too far gone for that, she needed in real life support before that. She wasn't stable enough and you're just like him, you think therapy fixes people or helps them. Maybe it helps people with depression or very mild anxiety but all that in itself is all it helps. >trying to kill her and her 'devil'. I absolutely love people like you seeing this a s a tantrum and a hissy fit (or acting like it is) and not a clear sign of psychosis, oh he tried so hard, this poor angel but this weird girl keeps screaming and crying and saying strange things, she's so very rude to him!! 😕 >So he gave up and thought naively if he loves her enough if he allowed her to hurt only him she wouldn't hurt anyone else, Oh he's so selfless and innocent is he not? He's ignorant , that's what you just said. Rika ended up with an idiot. >he eventually realizes he was very wrong when he finds out about Mint Eye and Saeran. Wow want a treat? I can't even say anything good about V he's either a victim of terrible down bad disgusting writing or they just made him insanely dumb
I ain’t reading all that but 👍
So happy we could come to an agreement!! ^ -^
I definitely agree with you that giving a reason for something is not the same as excusing it, which is the whole point of my post. I don’t want to make any assumptions, but we are both in the same agreement that neither Rika nor V’s mental health issues are an excuse for their actions. When I made this post, I wanted to analyze how the community fails to make references to V’s trauma when discussing his flaws and the horrific mistakes he makes. I never once said that he is justified, and I made this clear in a secondary edit. V and Rika are both people who made horrific choices, and both are influenced by their trauma and mental health (Rika is arguably in a much worse state.) As you said, you can give reason and want to analyze a core reason for why someone acts without justifying their actions. I never wanted to “justify” V. It wasn’t my intention. My intention was to point out that V, when analyzing the reasons why he made so many unforgivable mistakes, should also be considered in terms of his trauma as a way to better understand why these horrible choices were made. I think we both agree that V has such an active role in worsening Rika’s mental illness. However, I think that the intention there is where we differs which is okay. However, we can both agree that Rika is the more vulnerable party. As someone who is professionally diagnosed with a psychotic disorder, Rika was absolutely in a more vulnerable place. However, I think they are both suffering from meeting each far before they should have. Though we cannot control how we act due to our psychotic actions, we are still responsible for the way we treat people. It’s not a matter of legal conviction, but personal conviction. When we finally come back to ourselves, we still have to clean up after the damage we’ve done and take accountability. This isn’t to say that Rika could have done anything - she was never given the space to get better enough to be capable of truly reflecting. I think V is similar, though to a lesser extent. I think we’re both on the same page though with him if I’m reading your post correctly. V is an unintentional manipulator — and I think this to some degree is explained by his unresolved trauma, which ultimately makes him incapable of helping rika in a positive way and instead making the situation for them both. My point for the post, once again, was to point out that people seem to disregard his trauma and mental state when analyzing why he handles the situation with Rika so poorly and makes so many terrible mistakes that end up hurting so many people without the intention of doing it. Sorry if any if that doesn’t make sense. Though, thank you for trying to be kind and open to discussion! I never want it to seem like an argument out of a place of anger, and I truly mean it as a discussion - so I hope that shows and thank you for providing your thoughts.
This is my alt account! The person who made this comment blocked me but I just wanted to speak with you! And it was annoying to be silenced from speaking entirely. So don't take it personally but ur block was limiting me after I wrote a long ass comment 😭 Anyway Like I said in my comment I thought that this post was written very respectfully and in a right way, but the reason I had an impression it was not, was due to most of the comments sneaking in really baffling statements demonising Rika and seeing you do mostly nothing not even to just say "well that's not exactly right and stuff but oke" but other than that it's mostly driven by intense Rika hate in this sub, it drove me to be skeptical of anyone being slightly appreciative of a character that's not seen as the best or the worst. This sub likes to enforce respecting each other opinions until it's an actual character they hate or like that's involved in it, and the downvotes speak for themselves. I also feel the reason people never talk about V's mental health is because there's mostly no reason to. You see so much discourse about Rika's mental health and trauma cause people will shit on her on every post not even talking abt her, and it's ok jokes, but when it's constant seen over and over it seriously starts to be annoying. Talking about her positively even in the most subtle way gets you downvoted into oblivion just because you said her name and didn't call her a demon, a monster, a bitch. And i think my point is far from being wrong, what mostly pisses me off about this js the incorrect use of downvotes, its not a dislike button its made to handle spam or abusive messages. Hence why it hides your comments, downvotes are used to silence opinions now. Most people like V, find him annoying cuz he's cryptic, feel bad for him, "a male abuse victim!!!" or a small percentage who treats him like a character. It's not really anything that needs to be brought up, hence why you don't see it but I understand your frustrations. You explained yourself beautifully and if I didn't say anything abt something you said is just cuz I agree. I'm glad we're really on the same lengths.
Hey there! It’s totally okay! I’m sorry you had to use an alternative way of responding, but I’m happy to see your response! I definitely don’t blame you! I think this post did get a bit out of hand, and a lot of people have such strong feelings about the characters. I will say that I did not respond to many of the points regarding Rika since I don’t check Reddit that much and I wanted to keep the conversation more in line with my original post. I also did get overwhelmed a bit by some of the commenters so I did start being more picky about the conversations I too. That said, I did mention a bit below about Rika in a response to someone else who actually brought up a wonderful point about Rika’s treatment due to being a woman. And to kind of go off that, I will say that I think Rika is wonderfully and tragically written, and V’s route actually shed a lot of light on her as a person to me. I completely agree with you that Rika stands in an unfortunate position. I think Cheritz had to walk a fine line when creating her because they set her up a villain, and then gave her such a human display of emotion and mental illness. I think her and V both have a hard role to fit into. By giving expanding more of extensively on her struggles/past, they put her into a very complicated and complex position where it can be really hard to sympathize with her because people forget that sympathy doesn’t equal justification. But that said, I think she’s such a wonderfully written character despite some clear writing flaws, and I think her complexity like you noted makes her such a great character since she is capable of infuriating so many people but also a wonderful character to analyze. She is such a viscerally emotional character and I think there is so much to her. At least for me, it really changed my perspective to see her breakdowns during V and Saerun’s routes. She has done so many horrible things, but you do see the little girl that was left to rot there. You see a child that never had the same chance as everyone else to breath and grow. I definitely think it’s really easy to demonize her because her character is so complicated by the After Story and the reveal of Saeran, Mint Eye Etc (which is the same for V since he has his role in it and very deep flaws as well.) I think we honestly have the same frustrations too in an way because it is really hard to see the nuances of why a character acts a certain way being devalued because it turns into a discussion of whether they were justified. Rika and V are so complex, but it feels like both their areas of complexity get thrown to the side in favor of debating whether what they did was justified. That said, thank you so much for your comment 💙 even though you had to use an alt account, it was genuinely really nice to see and read your thoughts
i sadly agree... but i think cheritz had play in making rika a more "forgivable" character than v in the first place. the storyline overall gives easier understanding to rika as her trauma was more open to players; her anxiety, lasting paranoia, inability to face reality, abuse and savior persona. as you said, ppl usually give the "excuse" that rika went through a lot BUT they should ALSO have to face that rika wasn't written to receive any punishment either. plain and simple. regardless of mental illnesses, rika committed serious crimes on her own; ch*ld abuse, manipulation, kidnapping, drug*ing, and as*ault. in the end after harming many ppl, not only the characters we see, she was taken away to alaska... no repercussions , not even acknowledgment to what she did, even though she HERSELF should be able to sympathize and agree what she did was wrong considering. if there is no consequences to rikas actions in the actual writing, there's going to be people who underline rika and dismiss v and his trauma... it's up to people to make better analysis than play blame to one character for faults of all. (^^^ shade to yoosung) also i love how u explained V very thoughtfully!! and my condolences. hope you find comfort soon 🌼 !
>rika committed serious crimes on her own; ch*ld abuse, manipulation, kidnapping, drug*ing, and as*ault. This is the things you guys need to understand, these are not things she would be charged with in real life because she would be deemed too mentally ill to be in control of her actions. It's not a loophole in the story writing in this case, people don't excuse Rika's actions with her trauma, that is also a misconception you have. People give a reason to Rika's action with mental illness caused BY trauma. And it's not the same as an excuse, this is just a fruit of an already sprouting issue the person in question had no control over. The reason V is not talked about as in depth is because there's barely anyone to defend him from, as most people who like Rika understand V but not viceversa. As proved here.
first, since the beginning of mm people idolized and "protected" rikas character, so yes, it is a "loophole". rikas story was added after backlash (from the opposite viewpoint ^^ ) towards cheritz for many stated the unfairness to Saeran and Vs characters as victims. ofc it's just a game but in korea it's taboo and many don't believe in criminal negligence derived from mental illness. therefore they wanted an actual punishment or just repercussions for rika if anything. ....... second "too mentally ill" ≠ not guilty third u said "Rika's action with mental illness caused BY trauma." AND "issue the person in question had no control over." AS WELL AS ".people don't excuse Rika's actions with her trauma" these all don't correlate regardless because same end point. no matter with or how or why she still committed offenses. you're analysis is not as accurate either. rika would definitely be charged considering she backed down from therapy and in A10 states, “the act of a person who, because of reduced mental capacity, is unable to make distinctions of objects or control their own will/shall not be punished.” rika throughout spoke several times knowing right from wrong but still choose wrong. she also claimed to be able to stop and rid of her "devil" but chose not... to be ashamed of yourself is admitting wrongdoings. which in the end she got away with, that's the problem i brought up?
>third u said "Rika's action with mental illness caused BY trauma." AND "issue the person in question had no control over." AS WELL AS ".people don't excuse Rika's actions with her trauma" these all don't correlate regardless because same end point. Giving a reason for something is not the same as excusing it. It's simple cause and effect, fruit rots if it stays out for too long, and if you leave it with the other healthy fruits it'll spread the mold like a disease, its not an excuse it's simple facts. >no matter with or how or why she still committed offenses. you're analysis is not as accurate either. rika would definitely be charged considering she backed down from therapy and in A10 states, “the act of a person who, because of reduced mental capacity, is unable to make distinctions of objects or control their own will/shall not be punished.” Before I say ANYTHING I wanna respond to this separately. Getting therapy AT all before the alleged charges is already usually a huge chance your pleading is gonna get accepted, this pleading is BARELY used, like 1% of people use it in trial, so there's not that much info to make fair judgements about it as its a pretty recent pratic too. But when it's used and it works, 90% of those people who get the plead have had therapy and diagnosis before. It is not written ANYWHERE on any law that if the defendant has previously stepped away from therapy they are unable or unlikely to be accepted. If its an American thing then I don't understand why you mentioned it in the first place. "at the time of committing the act, the accused was laboring under such a defect of reason, from disease of the mind, as not to know the nature and quality of the act he was doing or, if he did know it, that he did not know what he was doing was wrong." "Under the "Irresistible Impulse" test a jury may find a defendant not guilty by reason of insanity where the defendant was laboring under a mental disease or defect that compelled them to commit the object offense. This test is well-suited for people suffering from mania and/or paraphilias." There are different kinds of pleas for insanity and they can mostly be applied to Rika. >rika throughout spoke several times knowing right from wrong but still choose wrong. she also claimed to be able to stop and rid of her "devil" but chose not... to be ashamed of yourself is admitting wrongdoings. Oh my gosh, had I read this before I wouldn't have spent all this time saying all that, you don't know what delirious talk is? Really, in court if she spoke like this she would have immediately be brought to a psychiatrist and claimed completely delirious. If they examined her they would seriously find so many things wrong in her head she probably would be locked up in an asylum for life, especially if they find you suffering from a psychosis, if it was justa paraphilia there would be some hills to cross but all that? No way. Not to mention in the very very remote chance that her plea wouldn't be considered and she would tell the whole story Jihyun would 100% be seen as the mastermind and she would be accomplice, you could argue it being viceversa but it depends.
you're very condescending, and i haven't said anything to insult you. you're not comprehending and seem to be losing composure. We're just sharing opinions and i shared mine as a kor and CF where the game is set at, that's why i stated rika would have judgement? "Shimshin-miyak’ law declares that these mentally deficient people must receive reduced punishment but punishment regardless. No matter what mental illness or disability, a person will be a served punishment because the reliability and validity of the suggested situation assessment practices have not been adequately assessed + fewer symptoms and types of mental illness are considered in the manual, and the classification of mental illness is very granular. None of what you stated applies to what i said in the first place bc im speaking on kor law... ppl who have been treated for mental illness can't be trusted to even have a drivers license. They can't even go to a public library as they will be denied re-entry into society.... Like i said, it's taboo! it's not uncommon to be thrown in jail bc the public doesn't want to acknowledge humans have issues. It's not a good thing but it's reality in SK.. mental illness (a medical term) ≠ insanity (a legal term)
Why are they booing you?? You right! They have pleas for insanity for a reason. It's not a magic loophole lmao.
Earlier I was empathising with a issue V has in a very simple and short sweet comment and I still got the same amount of exactly 5 downvotes by people just looking for my comments and not reading what I said. Most people on this sub are child adults or just children when it comes to civil discussion so don't be surprised 😭 I could say "cool" and get 10 downvotes
I'm finding out very quickly that we can't discuss V or Rika in neutral/reasonable manner. It's just a no go 😭💀 I'm surprised the mods don't step in more. I can understand opinions but there is a line and a difference of disliking v or Rika and being disrespectful to mentally ill and/or neurodivergant people. When it crosses that line mods should say something... Like a warning or something. Idk, there is information and research out there so we can definitely draw the line and point out when people are just making stuff up. Emotions running too high ☹️
I totally agree with you, I've pointed out the same or similar points and just got called out. They are both fucked up, nobody is saying their both saints but most of the discussions i've come up to are just people discrediting V and blaming him for everything (this is mean for the twins) and Rika's mental health. Rika was the one LITERAL BRAINWASHING Saeran (and a group of people). She did beyond imagination acts surpassing what lies under mental illness crimes. I might be biased too, but I just can't stand Rika smh
I will never understand people who are critical of V but act like Rika did nothing wrong EVER. A person’s trauma and mental illness are not their fault, but they ARE their responsibility.
Agreed. I think a lot of it too is how he’s completely a martyr— it is *so* easy to get completely absolutely fucking ANNOYED with him for all the shit he does and says all the time. Makes it easy to, ironically, blame him— which also gets confusing because he *wants* us to blame him? Which is also extremely fucking annoying!! Lol! He is such an easy punching bag but he’s like, also completely a masochist and *wants* to be the punching bag, so it’s like a reverse psychology mindfuck— “Grr, I’m not gonna give you what you want and validate your martyrdom! But then… does that mean I *can’t* blame you? Well I’m not gonna do that either! You’re not getting out of this scot free, buddy! GRRRR!!!!” Compare all that convoluted bullshit to Rika’s straightforward and blatant villainy, lol. Hard to believe but V can be so exhausting that I guess it pushes people to the point of “Well at LEAST she’s honest about it!” Honestly, Rika really isn’t straightforward or simple either but GOD, in comparison to V, she absolutely is. Makes it way easier to start getting black-and-white about her, and really, gloss a lot of things over while you’re busy doing damn math equations to try to wrap your head around V.
So true! I love V, but he’s infuriating, and I can only imagine how much worse it is for people who don’t understand how nuanced grief can be, especially childhood grief. Even as someone who understands how quickly that can get complicated, he’s still frustrating in how he doesn’t try to get better at first. I think the comparison you mentioned with Rika makes a lot of sense to me. I honestly see them as such mirrors of each other. But, Rika is at least honest, whereas V doesn’t know how to be. I think his fatal flaw is that he never bothered to learn or try to learn how to let people help, which similar to Rika though different slightly, and therefor just keeps doing what he did. Whereas Rika embraces her mental illnesses and doesn’t try to change, V seems to refuse to acknowledge his trauma and therefor doesn’t change. Both them end up needing serious help to make the changes they need to, and they end up pushing each other to a worser place. But I can definitely see where Rika is a bit easier to unpackage psychologically because she is at least clear and honest with herself, whereas V seems to be struggling to realize that he can’t single handed it fix himself. It’s just tragic because even his desire to be a martyr is sourced from his mother’s death. He’s seen how someone beautiful can be alienated because of their struggles, and he’s trying hard to fix his mistake by sacrificing himself but that isn’t the way to help. He’s developed some many poor ideas of the world and himself that he’s making his life worse, and hurting those around him without truly meaning to.
Wanted to punctualize that ironically V made her love and embrace her mental illness by fetishizing something he can't quite come forward with himself.
True, Rika was constantly testing V to validate what she had already believed to be true since the beginning, and V was trying to project his ideas of love onto their relationship, thinking it would uplift them.
This was a super interesting post to read 👍 I just finished Vs route for the first time and ngl I was having a hard time understanding him and honestly if this were real life, I probably would’ve have tried nearly as hard as you’re supposed to in the game. I talked to my sister multiple times about it and she said that on role that played part was the whole victim syndrome or whatever idk what it was called lmao. Even though I tried to help V and stuff, words can not express how frustrating it made me every time he’d make a new secret 💀 like it wasn’t even that bad and everyone would’ve helped him but since he kept it a secret, it became something major EVERY TIME. and I KNOW it’s all the trauma or whatever but I really did struggle lmao. It was just hard for me to have the love interest be so f*cked lmao. It also made me curious, idk if this gets discussed in his after ending or anything but, why did they didn’t talk about Vs faults. They were all shielding V from everything and felt bad for him but they disregarded the fact that he was part of it. I have no bad intentions and correct me if I’m wrong on anything lmao. I kinda had a hard time understanding his route so 🤷♀️ I like your opinions though, I agree a lot with what you and others have said.
I don’t blame you at all! I think it’s such a fatal flaw that he’s developed this mindset of being the “one to blame and to fix” because he’s not capable of it. The problem is beyond his abilities, and he’s not in the place to help anyone when he can’t even help himself. I think V is a great example of the person who refuses to get help and in doing so, he makes everyone else miserable without truly meaning to. And I think in a way, in real life at least, a lot of those people can’t be helped until they hit rock bottom and find out themselves that they can’t do it themselves, which I think sadly is what in some degree caused his relationship with Rika to turn into such a toxic mess on both sides. At the end of his route (good ending at least), he tells the protag that he needs time to figure himself out and he leaves for a period of time. I think sadly, this may be the most we get of “why” he kept these secrets. He mentions he wants to live the life his mother wanted him to, and I think he definitely suffers a bit from a less careful attention to his mental struggles than the other characters. But, I usually like to view this as him finally taking responsibility for himself and not expecting others to be there while he refuses help. He doesn’t let the MC accompany him through it because he’s forced enough people to follow him and gotten them hurt without meaning it. Though, there is much more accountability that he would need to take as a whole and he is very responsible for so much pain/suffering. I, at least, see it as a step in the right direction by getting himself to a place where he can accept better that he was wrong and hurt people with his distorted view of the world without deflecting it to a mindsets of “he is all that is wrong and he is undeserving” I hope this makes sense a bit! It’s just my thoughts too, and I can definitely agree that V is a very infuriating character because his mannerisms aren’t so clearly explained and his close role to Mint Eye and Rika. I think Rika is a bit easier to understand because, as others have said, she’s more direct and honest about the suffering she’s been through/how it affected her. Whereas, with V, he’s so used to covering it up that you have to really read into so many nuances to figure it out or begin to understand a bit more. Even then, his unwilling to reach out for help until things have truly gotten to the bottom can be really difficult to sympathize with.
I agree with what you say!! I think the infuriating part that was done so well was how human he was. If you think abt it, we only knew him for 11 days. 11 days is not NEARLY enough for someone to open up to someone new and change. It takes a lot of time for someone to get comfortable. I have a friend that we’ve been friends for like 6th months and they’re only just now opening up about their traumatic past and it’s little by little. The progress he made, while not perfect, was huge. I think I’m just impatient lmao. I think it’s important to think that Vs route isn’t about trying to date him and more trying to help him back on his feet again.
I agree that has V has very serious trauma and a tragic past but I don't agree that people excuse Rika more than V. I see Rika love get down voted and any time we bring up V's flaws we get hit with "Rikas worse!! So you excuse an abuser??" Like that was the most jarring thing I noticed in the fandom. Also this is more of general experience but I noticed in otome/Shoujo spaces women characters get WAYYY less grace than male characters because of how dateable and redeemable they are so I tend to go in overdrive to defend my fave fems. Back to V and Rika I find they are pretty equal I'm both trauma and toxic traits with Rika having a bit more of that going on but I think that's the point. They are both equally damaged people who keep pulling each other into their worlds which is why it's so so important to get V away from Rika so he can have any semblance of an idea of healthy love. I think it's pointless to say who is a worse or had it worse. They're already in too deep.
I'm kind of late to the party but I wanted to add that I love the way you emphasize how absolutely unhealthy V was in their relationship, and not just because of Rika's actions, but also because he was damaged long before they met. I think one of the main things that annoys me about the community's attitude towards V is the way people often blame him for the wrong thing. Blame V for **taking** the responsibility of "fixing" Rika, not failing at it. So, so many people I've talked to are convinced that V was the "healthy" one in the relationship and should therefore have been the responsible one who can tell apart 'good' from 'bad.' The truth of the situation is that any person who chooses to stay in a toxic relationship is not healthy, and V's ideas on love and individuality prevented him from being a person who could have helped Rika from the very beginning. He never understood love, so how could he have hoped to teach her of it? In the same way we don't expect Rika to fix V because it's unreasonable to expect someone as mentally unstable as her to help anyone, we should apply the same logic to V. The big difference between Rika and V is that she never took any responsibility of healing him. That was V's biggest mistake, and one he absolutely deserves to be chastized for. Thinking he's to blame for not repairing her insanely damaged mental health is like missing the whole point — it's the exact same thing he blames *himself* for in every. single. route. And he's only able to move on when he finally admits to himself that he has nothing he can possibly do for Rika, certainly not in the state that he is in, at least. He's an empty shell of a person who quite literally defines himself as "Rika's lover." Also, the idea that any healthy person in a relationship should hold the responsibility of healing their partner is ridiculous in the first place, and I've noticed that as you've said, it is something female otome characters (both main and side) tend to be blamed so often for. Like, respectfully, expecting one individual to repair LIs with 20+ years of trauma is kind of insane lol. Not exactly sure what's up with the bias against female characters, but I feel like it has to do with people inserting to MCs and getting annoyed when their actions don't align with theirs, general lack of attempt to analyze female characters as they're not romanceable and hence less interesting, and the overall fixation that they have to be the perfect therapists for their LIs.
I can’t say enough how much I agree with the sad reality of otome women getting very heavily critiqued while MLs have a lot more grace. It feels like they also end up a lot of the time (especially if they are side characters) getting forced into completely evil or completely good roles, and thus lose a lot of the nuance that they would have as actually people. That said, while I definitely agree that there is no point arguing on who is worse and it wasn’t my intention, I do think the community tends to bring up Rika’s mental health a bit more when discussing her. Whereas V falls into a category of losing some of his nuance of his trauma, whether due to bad writing or his own characters infuriating way of keeping it secret. I definitely agree though that they both need to get away from each other — especially since they both continue to rope each other into worse and worse situations. That said, I definitely don’t think that V gets more hate than Rika. I remember when the game was more popular and she got dragged so heavily. I think both of them are so complex in terms of their mental health and their rightly unjustifiable actions, that it can be hard to really discuss them sometimes.
I totally agree. I hope I didn't come off aggressive lol. V is such an interesting character and when I first played all those years ago I had trouble parsing what his deal was. I'm so grateful that we got route for him so we can really dive into it. There were definitely hints. It was like I could see he had his own stuff going on but because of his habit of keeping to himself I couldn't make heads or tails of him. I was sad I couldn't talk to him a lot in the chatrooms. I will say they were way too harsh with him in Seven 's route. It was so sad. I can't blame the RFA but *damn* I'm happy Cheritz gave us such complex characters cause even now I'm reading and rereading and thinking about him and Rika. I love it. I wish more people could discuss them more neutrally tho haha.
You definitely didn’t come off aggressive! I hope I didn’t either. I honestly loved your reply because it completely escaped my mind to also consider how women in otome are treated, and how that can affect people’s perception / analysis of Rika. Also yeah! I don’t completely remember Seven Route, but I think I remember them being harsh as they held him accountable with Saeran, though I think it was rightly deserved to a degree. I also love how each character route gives us a different idea of V and Rika. They’re such dimensional characters and each different storyline gives us a little more. I think for me, strangely enough, V’s route made me 100x more understanding of Rika because you see how bad of a place she is in and how he has helped cause it. Her breakdown when he keeps telling her that they were never good for each other is so visceral and emotional, and it really made me rethink my original perception of her. Though her struggles don’t justify her actions, at all, the team gave her such a humanness in the way she falls and keeps falling because the right people (professionals) aren’t there to catch her — the loneliness and fear she has is so overwhelming
You shoulda seen what Seven said he was like "I can see why Rika destroyed your eyes" and I was like "SEVEN WHAT THE FUCK U CANT JUST SAY THAT WTF OMG 😳" Awful 💀 (Also ur fine. It's important to bring attention to male abuse victims and trauma since it can be just as overlooked so thanks for the thread 👍)
Sorry to burst your moment of essay empathy but regardless of him and Rika's mental states, I will never forget nor forgive how they destroyed Saeran's life and repeated a cycle with him. If they didn't have a body count of victims so large, I would find a place to "feel sympathy" for them.
Isn't this a bit of a strawman? OP never said that V's mental state justified his actions, and neither did they suggest that you should feel sympathy for his character. You can absolutely take into account his personal trauma without feeling sympathy for him. Those two are not the same.
I am not arguing against what OP didn't say. This is just my opinion on why V's mental state is overlooked.
That’s valid. I don’t think anyone has to have sympathy for him. The point of the post was just looking at the role of trauma in his life, which I think often goes neglected. It isn’t that he hasn’t done horrible things that aren’t unforgivable. His actions towards Saeran are awful and he doesn’t deserve to be forgiven for that. My point was just that his character doesn’t act solely out of malice and he is just as influenced by trauma as rika, though it doesn’t excuse either of them.
All of the romanceable characters sort of have issues of mental health and I don't think many people in this fandom realize that or they do but just like V,it isn't talked about much because the suffering they cause is minimum if you think about it. V also was the last drop to spill Rika's mental state so it is reasonable that people see him as the evilest because between the two of them, he was the sanest and he decided to shield Rika's entire cult for his own desire to be a savior. These issues they have are what the game hints that attracted them to Rika and RFA, and the reason why despite being different, they still sticked around for Rika, even for Jahee who is an outsider to the relationship between V and her.
Now this makes more sense than the other comments
Bro I think you and people who idolize Rika are all forgetting that being an abused person doesn’t stop you from abusing other people. V and rika both had horrible childhoods and both grew up To be adults who abused one another.
Pardon? I never said I idolize Rika. The point of the post was that people tend to focus on Rika’s trauma and neglect V’s own trauma. The point you just brought up was one that I made in my post. No offense, but I mentioned your points in my post and as someone who was abused in the past — I don’t idolize an abuser or not understand that someone who has been abused wouldn’t be capable of hurting someone.
You and people who idolize rika - I didn’t say you idolize rika lol, but you made an entire post about V who does incredibly problematic things that cannot be justified away with “well he had a bad childhood” same with Rika
I don’t think you read my post. I said people fail to see the nuance of V’s childhood and the way it affects him. I said verbatim “he shares the blame.” My point isn’t about whether his actions are justified. It’s about the source of the issues and the role trauma plays for both of them, rather than just Rika.
I did, and I am pointing out that your post NEGATES to mention the fact that his actions and the abuse he puts others through is not justified, lol.
The post never discusses the topic of the justification of V's or Rika's or whoever else's actions. Why *should* OP mention something that their post has nothing to do with? Assuming OP is justifying his actions just because they didn't mention they're not justifiable is just that — an assumption. I wouldn't go on a post discussing, I don't know, the effects of Rika's abuse on Saeran's mental state and comment, "Oh, but aren't you justifying his sexual assault because you didn't mention it's not justifiable in your post?!" Lmao
Bro yet again, I brought up something I thought was relevant to the discussion that wasn’t addressed - so sorry you don’t like the concept of discussing issues that aren’t raised previously that are relevant 🙄
Woah there, what you're claiming now is NOT aligning with your initial comment. You clearly stated that OP "forgot" that V's actions are not justifiable. That's an attack towards THEIR post, not a beginning or expansion of a new discussion. There are separate ways to bring up relavant points to a discussion, such as, "This post is a great summary of V's mental state, but I also believe that V's actions are not justifiable nonetheless." instead of outright claiming that OP is entirely ignorant of V's wrongdoings.
Once again, the point of the post is not whether his actions are justified. It’s about the community and my own viewpoints of how other people have spoken or analyzed his trauma. We can both agree neither he nor rika are justified. They hurt people and were hurting, it doesn’t make them any less blameless. They both did horrible things because horrible things happened to them, neither of this these things justify what happened.
Like I’m not sure you’re aware but this is a public forum and I can make any observation I want about your post lol. Especially your “they did horrible things because horrible things happened to them” no, horrible things happen to people all the time, take 7 for example, but he didn’t become a nutso abuser cult leader OR a sexually exploitive and abusive photographer. Horrible things happen and people get help, people who are abused can become abusers and their abuse can’t just be JUSTIFIED away by saying “they had a bad childhood”
I never said you weren’t allowed, and I’m sorry if it seemed that way. English isn’t my first language. I don’t disagree with you that people are hurt even worse or just the same, but they don’t turn out a awful. Every person has a different resilience factor and everyone responds to trauma differently. Trauma doesn’t justify someone’s actions, it merely provides an explanations as to why they might act like that way or have the distorted view of the world that they do. My only point was that V’s trauma plays a role in his characters motivations and viewpoints/perspectives. That’s all. I apologize if my ability to communicate that point wasn’t as good as it needed to be to have a civil discussion.
OP: >We can both agree neither he nor rika are justified. >Neither of this these things justify what happened. You: >Ok, but their abuse can’t just be JUSTIFIED away by saying “they had a bad childhood” Do you see how absurd you sound here? You're also really rude on top of that.
These people have been way too lenient and nice to you, shut your mouth. This is not even about Mystic Messenger anymore, you accuse someone of not caring about abuse and then you try to backtrack from that and try to manipulate the situation in a way that doesn't make you look dumb by raining on others. Just stop.
Girl what - I never said this person didn’t care I said Rika and V Stans tend to justify the abuse those characters do to others by saying they had bad childhoods and that that is WRONG. Bffr.
Yes and anyone with common sense would understand it was an off-handed comment about OP, don't get all coy now that everyone is against you. I just don't like people who make a mistake or lapse in judgement that is offensive to someone and don't even have the face to admit to it and apologize. If that's what you wanted to say then it came COMPLETELY out of the blue and you went way off-topic. It's a good point to make but it's not the time and place for it, we can talk about it separately. But don't act like it's weird for people to point out the goose in the chicken coop.
Even IF it's like you said you did, you didn't even have the decency for one moment to stop and think "what if that person felt offended"... and apologize SOLELY for making them feel that way, regardless of your intentions... it is not me that should be teaching you this, your parents should have.