the tragedy of !badboyhalo, (why his nature is good, not evil)
Okay I'm going to rant abt !bbh (tr!bad and q!bad) cuz i have so many thoughts. normally I put them on twitter but that's too short of a wordcount LOL (based on the little short animatic I did on the "what do you want to be when you grow up?" "kind" audio)
So, beginning with a recap of lore relevant to my post in case some people don't know, starting with bad's home being heaven. We know he was there for a time unquantifiable by human standards, as he was "outside of time" before being booted from heaven onto earth. We also know from recent lore that bad's job has something to do with destruction, killing and possibly bringing about the end of the world. He started this when he made all the dinosaurs extinct, but apparently, he was too early, and heaven(?) locked him away under the Euphrates River in a void-like pit for about a thousand years. Then bad either escaped or was let free, and has roamed the earth for roughly 15,000 years until now, where it seems that his role of destruction is finally ready to be played. Or at least, that's why he's building the cathedral, to get a message from heaven to see if its time to proceed. We also know his kids are waiting for him in heaven, and he probably can't return to them until he completes this mission.
NOW. onto my headcanons and theories. I like to think that bad wasn't always meant for this role, or there was a period of time where he was unaware he'd have to do this. Then, either as a punishment for something he did, or simply because heaven unluckily chose him, bad was turned into an angel of death/fallen angel/angel of the apocalypse. (hence my design changes of him looking like a basic angel and then changing)
I find this so interesting because, despite the selfishness, talk of killing and being insane, and this being his default nature, I disagree completely. His nature isn't to kill, or at least it wasn't something he chose himself. I think that was a result of when he was given his mission and over the period of time under the Euphrates and his 15,000 years of losing people he loves over and over and over and over. Because that sort of thing ruins even the best people, and the fact that bad still has some good in him even after all of this shows just how much "evil" ISN'T his true nature. If it were, then he wouldn't still make attachments, he wouldn't get sad when people die, he wouldn't drink himself into oblivion to cope with the pain of losing people.
If killing were his true nature, he wouldn't care what happens to people around him. But he DOES. Even after everything that's happened to him, he still cares, and that is heartbreakingly beautiful. He knows and says all the time how every mortal he cares about will die, maybe even by his own hand, but he loves anyway. He just can't help it.
His job, his purpose that is forced on him, is to kill and destroy, but deep down, he doesn't even seem to really want to!! Sure, he likes chaos, or the occasional kill, but only when it's not permanent. He doesn't find joy in taking life permanently. You can even look at the pranks he does; he never is truly destructive, only wanting to cause chaos in a way that won't genuinely hurt the other person.
He would never admit it either, to everyone else, he keeps up the perception of someone who kills for fun and doesn't give a shit about any living creature other than himself. Tr!water is right about the way bad lies, because when he says those things, he's lying to himself as well. Trying to convince himself that he doesn't care and he's not like that, because what the hell is he supposed to do? How could he physically cope with the fact that he's always going to love people and he's going to lose them every single time for all of eternity? That's the kind of thing he'll only admit when he's five bottles deep in Mike's lemonade.
That is the tragedy of !badboyhalo. If he were inately evil, his life would be a whole lot easier, wouldn't it? But he isn't, and he's going to keep loving and caring forever because if he hasn't lost that part of him yet, I don't think he ever will, and that is the most upsetting part of his character to me. Born to care, but created to destroy.
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