Whenever I see an assumption that Beel is less intelligent than his brothers, I get frustrated.
If you read into his dialogue and look into his devilgram, you find out that he was once a royal guard in the celestial realm. He was trained to protect the lives of others so thoroughly that he's able to function blindfolded due to the training drills he once did. He doesn't lift weights to look big, or for his own appearance, but so that he's able to be confident in his ability to protect the ones he loves against any possible danger.
He is by far the most emotionally intelligent. This man was born with the ability to literally feel the emotions of his twin. Intimately experiencing the emotions of another person is something that is ingrained within him. It's not so much of a stretch for him to apply that same empathy to other demons and people.
Did you notice that he never once mentions how MC is human and not a demon, he never makes any sort of remark that could make you feel outcast or different? Did you notice that he's the first to genuinely talk to MC about Lilith, Belphegor and the pain of loss?
Yes, his dialogue is often simple and centered around food. But the sin he was assigned is by far the most painful. Imagine how you'd act when you haven't eaten for an entire day. For a week. The hunger consumes. It turns to anger and irritability. Survival instinct kicks in. A gnawing, nagging ache inside your core that barely leaves behind any mental energy.
This perpetual void is also why Beelzebub takes everything at face value, and won't catch on to social nuance. Deciphering social cues and passive aggressive interactions takes energy that this demon simply does not have.
So no, Beel isn't stupid. He's candid and honest, and whatever he's thinking pops right out of his mouth. He's an absolute meatball who chews holes in furniture and doesn't catch on to things the fastest, but he's doing his best to deal with the literal hell he's been handed.
i've been thinking and i think i have a theory about avpd based on all the things i've been reading and listening to lately.
i think avpd consists of/comes to be because of these things:
initial traumatic experience (that included some kind of rejection or ostracization)
no healthy way to process trauma or co-regulate with anyone
dissociation from the "real you" (it is associated with shame due to initial trauma, but also perhaps out of self-protection)
coping mechanism to make up for dissociated "real you" (masking, agoraphobia, social anxiety, co-dependency and/or enmeshment ("safe person"),...)
relational self via the "real you" remains underdeveloped or not there at all (so this could be b/c of masking, not engaging at all, ...)
lacking experiences of being "experienced by another person" as described in the infamous article/study as well as this post and this post.
this then spirals into the known avpd symptoms
the dissociation part is the important part though. i think this is key. the reason why people with avpd report this feeling of not being there, feeling invisible, etc... is because of this i think. for me i always felt like i was a robot or running on a "low flame". and when i use the term "dissociation" i'm using it as it is used in trauma and cptsd circles. a kind of detachment and separation from our own true being, feelings, thoughts, etc...
and when you're dissociated, it's hard to truly interact with people and practice that relational self muscle. instead, if you even have relationships with others, they are superficial, involve a lot of masking & mirroring and can only be kept up for so long, because that is exhausting in the long run. it's impossible to be genuine or vulnerable when you're not really there and not really being honest for the fear of repeating the trauma (shame and fear). and the more time passes with us desperately trying to engage others without our "real self" being in the drivers seat, the more we feel out of sync with everyone else and the more the formation of our relational self suffers and remains underdeveloped or not there at all. everything begins to compound into the known symptoms.
i don't know i've been going through old stuff (journals and letters) of mine and i'm so confused, but i'm trying to think through it all in the hopes of finding a way out. as always. 🥲 maybe the theory makes sense to others, too?
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