thereâs a lot of things one needs to understand about gon freecss but principally it must be understood that gon freecssâ life was pretty much the exact opposite of easy and care free even when he was on whale island. gonâs mentally ill tendencies donât just develop once heâs left whale island, and they donât exist in isolation because of some predetermined âinsanityâ. toddler gon was caught in a custody dispute between his teenaged aunt and his father that built a death game for him because his plan for him was always for his son to take the same self-destructive, irresponsible path of a hunter ging himself had.
mito, who couldnât have been older than fourteen at the time, got custody, but what we know about gon is that he was basically raised by the forest and hid at least some of his adventures and revelations about ging from mito. he didnât have any friends his age and was more entrenched within the animal kingdom than humanity. and this makes sense, because he had a very young mother who under no circumstances should be expected to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and no father. the animal kingdom is one in which violence frequently occurs, but we see through gonâs rescuing of kon that he believes even this can be rejected (i go into gonâs morality and rejection of a lack thereof here).
he was poor, lonely, getting taken around his island older women with a âmaniaâ (as in the original japanese) for âyoung boysâ, his best friends were literal animals, he thought his fatherâs occupation was more important than caring for him, and he was constantly exposed to the violence of nature and this naturalizes him to the violence of the hunter world especially early on in the story (before yorknew, before he really begins to start developing stronger questions about moral sensibilities). mito tried her best but thereâs no getting rid of the fact that gon was dehumanized from a very young ageâknowing he was sort of just an inconvenient thing to his father and taking more solace in nature than humans. itâs easy to see how gon, who sees himself as Thing (shown in how easily he disregards his body and well being and never considers his safety or well being) would get attached to and feel deep empathy for killua and develop a desire to save him.
however, all killua sees of gonâs life is the kindness of gonâs mother, gonâs adoration for her, and the extent of his loneliness is only briefly expressed. even in the scene where gon opens up about his difficulties on whale island heâs still proposing his friendship as the solution to killuaâs woes and we see her the kernel of their codependency. gon knows killua has been tortured by his family; killua has been able to verbalize that it makes him miserable. but when gon describes the adults in his life that have failed him, like ging, itâs always with flowery and adoring language. so both killua and the audience are lured into the idea that gon is a perfectly happy, stable child that can act as killuaâs savior.
gon is honestly a very dissociative character (i go into his romanticization of the troubling mentors in his life here) and speaks with a lot of blind optimism because getting realistic about his circumstances isnât generally something a 12-13 year old can bear. âmy dad isnât in my life because being a hunter is more important than meâ transforms into âbeing a hunter must be awesome enough to abandon your sonâ, âiâm responsible for kiteâs arm getting sliced off in front of meâ becomes âkite is aliveâ, âgrown men keep beating the fuck out of meâ becomes âiâm glad to get strongerâ.
itâs confirmation of kiteâs death that breaks not just one illusion but all of the illusions he relies on to carry on. his protective shell shatters and the entire philosophy with which he approaches life is invalidated. as how he lives becomes worthless, he becomes worthless, and then goes on to commit what can only be called a suicide attempt. as iâve said before, traumatized little boys canât save other traumatized little boys and shouldnât be expected to. gon does not suddenly become a bad person because he didnât fulfill a savior fantasy, because he wasnât perfect, because he carried out the sort of violence practically everyone else in his life has.
even after being healed gon is doing better than he was at the climax of CAA, yes, but heâs clearly internalized some troubling ideas about himself (âyou were weak. never make that mistake again.â âmaybe i wasnât cut out to be a son.â) and all i have to say to anyone who sincerely thinks gon had a good normal life and just went crazy for no reason is this:
this is basically part 2 of this post.
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