a couple of rants/analyses on snmt, generational trauma and love
first off. about generational trauma in the form of love for mutei/kazaru/sanemitsu/haruki:
i mentioned this briefly in my coe server, but if we take the starting point that mutei and kazaru's relationship definitely had some sort of emotional grooming going on, and how it led kazaru to kill himself, and how it signifies generational trauma (passing the curse down*, being unable to break the chain by giving minoru the note and dying in front of him**), there's some interesting parallels to be drawn from kazaru to minoru's treatment of haruki. i mean the obvious parallels are there (braid, green, not the best parent)
there's also minoru's parallels to chie in That one scene, with minoru repeating the same words of ''if you'd never been born'' she said to him when he was a kid to himself, and finishing the incomplete sentence with ''then, i never would've come to love you''. this scene is incredibly important for a few reasons, but to go there i need to go in a small tangent.
one thing about minoru that i feel doesn't get discussed enough, is how flawed his own perception of himself is (and how the fandom sometimes falls for it, basically the 'you fell for the character's facade that's meant to be dismantled and reassessed by the viewer' image). minoru sees himself as an horrible parent, and the same as his own parents, and more importantly, he sees himself as someone who hurts living things and isn't good at taking care of them. All of these assessments of himself are wrong. Yes, obviously Minoru isn't the best parent and anyone can point that out, but those words from his mom he repeats, he never repeats them TO haruki, only to himself (so the damage And the intention are clearly not the same), he *adds* to her sentence words of love (which she didn't do, as her words were only hurtful), when he tries to kill himself in S he does it far away from haruki purposefully choosing the actions that will hurt him less and talking to him in a way that ensures that hrk won't feel bad (a flawed thinking too, but still vastly different from kazaru's own), and the most important of all, he IS good at taking care of living things. he was a good parent to rei and haruki before stuff went down, he was a good parent to reiji- this is completely a misconception born from self-hatred and guilt. even though minoru was undoubtedly awful to haruki during those 10 years, it's so important to remember that this is not how minoru actually is (i can't stress this out enough) and those years have ruined his own perception of himself forever. so even when snmt reflects his parents and feeds into the generational trauma, the 'curse' is never passed onto haruki, because snmt (and haruki himself) broke the chain.
another interesting point of comparison is this scene:
especially with the context that minoru blames his dad for 'not staying with his mom' (this is also such an interesting scene to analyze because, minoru is saying this under the assumption that chie left them because of factor related reasons (Which is probably true, to be fair), but from an outside perspective, isn't it crazy to put the responsability in his dad and say he should have stayed with his mom when she was the one who cheated on him and left? not to mention how we've seen chie talked to minoru? there's definitely a lot to be said about this and minoru's own perception of family as a whole- he sees it as something that has to stay together, and that the person who fails to keep it together is the one to blame, and he would rather have pain within an united family than be separated. minoru gives a grace to his mother that she doesn't entirely deserve, and funnily enough, haruki does the same with rai***). minoru asks rai if she would hypothetically leave it all behind to go with him, and while obviously he wouldn't make her do this for many reasons (he loves the rai who loves everyone, he's aware of how important path of empireo is to her, and he's aware he signed up for this so he doesn't think he deserves to complain or be selfish), it's another difference he purposefully makes from his parents, THIS is the real minoru we're meant to see, and how his choices were never meant to equate him to his parents. again, minoru feeling like he's the same as his father and has hurt haruki the same way, is a flawed understanding of his own flaws. it's when haruki and snmt finally talk things out and stay as equals in S+ that this curse finally breaks fully (although i'm pretty sure there's more to come in this regard, since a few points remain unsolved. i actually have a few thoughts on this and made a small meta rant the other day but i'm shy to post in case i got anything wrong LMAO...ask privately if curious). this is why S+ is so important. ''if my father had lived his life''- by choosing suicide in S, even if it's in a very different way from kazaru that still doesn't make minoru 'the same as kazaru', he's choosing the same path he absolutely hates. by choosing to live with reiji and haruki and treasuring the present, he becomes sanemitsu isoi.
additionally to 'minoru's perception of himself is flawed', it's important that this applies to all of flowerpot trio. i briefly mentioned this in my messy noriyuki ramble, but i think all of them mislead the player into having preconceptions about them that get disproven over time (such as thinking nryk is the one after everything bad during base game, then learning that actually a lot of it was hajime's own doing; or generally just how their roles reverse thorough the games). both noriyuki and hajime also have important scenes correlating to hurt living beings (headless rat for hajime, torturing believers for nryk), but the only one who doesn't is actually ironically minoru, and so on.
*there's also a point to be made about the two biggest instances where this word is used for haradas. for kazaru, the curse of a writer is something that ties him down and forces him to take decisions he doesn't want, it's something that ruined his life. but for haruki, the word 'curse' is used for kanou, and it's completely different. it's almost hopeful.
**it's important to remember that, brutal as that scene is, kazaru didn't kill himself at home to traumatize minoru. there's two factors to take into account here: that he was to pass while listening to mutei's favorite song, and that he said in the note that he was happy to have minoru's curry as his last meal (probably a last wish from kazaru to end things as mundanely as possible, with the same sounds and food and in the same place he was always at). a part of me wants to be hard on kazaru for abandoning minoru in such a cruel way, but we have to take into account context clues and kazaru's mental state. there's also the tears in the note.
***i'm refering to root S car scene, but just in general i believe haruki is of a similar mindset. in that scene, haruki jumps to blame snmt and asks if he really loved rai, it doesn't cross his mind that rai might have been the one who didn't love snmt the same way he did, even when he's gotten some memories back. this is also because snmt is alive and rai is not so it's obviously easier to pin the blame on him, but it's interesting to think about when haruki should know at this point that rai was the one who betrayed minoru and sold haruki to the experiments. (regardless of minoru's own harmful actions to haruki. haruki's feelings towards snmt are completely deserved, but that's besides the point i'm trying to make)
now. about saneharu and post root S+ snmt. this is gonna be the second part of my rant and it's going to be a mess because i need to go into how sanemitsu and haruki view love so bear with me. also, while the first half was more of a proper analysis, now i'm gonna go into headcanon/delusion territory. i'm just including it in the same post because some of the points i made in the first half are gonna be relevant.
additionally, if you haven't read my small haruki rant, i highly recommend you check it out before proceeding because it's also gonna come up!
but as i mentioned in the server, i think there's some projection from snmt to haruki in thinking he's somewhat doing better than his dad by being in a relationship with his son. we've already touched on how flawed snmt's views on love are, but going a bit deeper into that, i think there's a few things that suggest that it's even worse than the game shows. he admits to wanting a family just like rai, but their issues with love are different, while rai doesn't put enough weight into feelings, snmt puts Too much weight into feelings. he thinks that he failed because his feelings weren't enough. he thinks he failed because he wasn't enough (funnily enough, haruki isoi thinks the same. haruki isoi and minoru's brains operate extremely similarly).
in root S, haruki asks snmt if he doesn't have a human heart and if he's unable to empathise with people's feelings at all, to which snmt answers ''if i could, do you think things would have turned out like this?''. this scene hurts because snmt and haruki are retroactively feeding into each other's flawed perceptions, and into the self-hatred and punishment snmt thinks he deserves. haruki is wording things in a way that makes it impossible for sanemitsu to NOT blame himself, and by confirming haruki's words, he's confirming haruki's flawed views on snmt and hurting him (because this is not what haruki really wants), and in turn it's a self-fulfilling prophecy that turns sanemitsu exactly into the type of person he believes he is (but isn't).
so sanemitsu thinks that he should have had stronger feelings in order for things to go well, the same way he thinks his dad should have tried harder and stayed with his mother. it's incredibly flawed, because we as the audience can see and tell just how strong sanemitsu's feelings were (stronger than anyone else's dare i say), but again, that's not how he sees himself, even if he DOES aknowledge that rai didn't love him the same way he loved her.
which brings me to what i just mentioned- that, in the case of sanemitsu and haruki entering a romantic relationship, he thinks that's preferable to what kazaru did to him. at least he's with haruki. at least his feelings ARE strong enough now. i mean, it doesn't really get more intense than dating your son just so you stay together forever. it's also a way to reassure himself. and while in my saneharu scenarios snmt is head over heels for haruki, it'd be interesting to see a universe where he is not romantically in love with him, but still agrees to a romantic relationship just based on these beliefs and to 'make things right'.
love can fix anything. if there had been more love, stronger love, he wouldn't have lost everything.
even worse is my headcanon that a part of him wishes his dad had been like this for him and he doesn't understand why he feels that because he was never even attracted to him. kazaru definitely has some unhealthy attachment to mutei that can border or romantic yearning depending on how insane you are, but he never passed this down on minoru (i fully believe that kazaru would never, ever do something like that to him, he'd rather die), and minoru, although he obviously cares so much about kazaru, never had romantic feelings towards him either, so he doesn't understand why now, as an adult, he feels like he wishes his dad had been like that to him. i like my sanemitsu twisted and traumatized okay. ''if my dad had been in love with me i wouldn't have lost him'' is a very funny view of it. i think. especially correlating it with haruki.
also...no one cares about this but... you guys know how obsessed i am with marriage in my ships and how different characters view marriage (because i have a very complex relationship with it myself and i like projecting) so reading the q&as i was like...oh...
oh... minoru saying this..........oh my god.....................................
somehow it's crazy to me just to know that he HAS thought about it ''so many times''. what are you saying. hey minoru talk to me. but it's just,....ough (remembers my snhr marriage fic/au and wipes a tear). it's so amazing to me. he still yearns for it deep down but he's fully closed off to it and feels so guilty. ougfhh.
oh also, haruki completely dodging the question when they asked him if he had plans to get married was so funny lol. my faggot son...
anyways yeah i think this was all i wanted to talk about. there's probably more and i might edit here and there but i hope it was fun to read! let's all mentally torture sanemitsu isoi!
