Sam Haft confirming that Alastor just genuinely sees strength as not needing anyone and not being needed by anyone is so interesting.
Becasue I already knew Alastor genuinely saw needing others as an inherent weakness; everything he said to Vox about that was genuinely his opinion, not just something to get under Vox's skin. And it's the main reason they would never have been compatible as partners, because Alastor doesn't do partners.
But the second part of also "not being needed by anyone" defintely puts an interesting spin on a lot of his relationships, particularly with Mimzy. Because the implication there is that he has never kept her around because he likes feeling needed; in fact, he's probably continued their relationship despite her constantly asking him for favors because he genuinely found her fun and entertaining to be around.
It's also a good window into why Niffty and Alastor get along so well; Niffty is very attached to Alastor, but she doesn't need him in any sense he would consider consequential. She's very capable of handling herself. The only time we've ever seen him help her directly was apparently fishing her out of a toilet and if he put up with all of Mimzy's bullshit, that's a VERY small price to pay for the bond they share.
I also think this is why Alastor and Vox initially worked so well—Alastor was under the impression that Vox was like-minded in his view of strength. And they genuinely enjoyed each other's company. But once Vox made it clear that he wanted something more than that, Alastor was caught off-guard and got very nasty about it like he always does when he feels out of control of the situation.
I have seen people do some really good analysis on Alastor having poor boundaries and difficulty saying no. It is part of what leads him to be so harsh when he does manage to reject someone. I think this ties into why he might see people needing him as a weakness. If a person depends on him, it creates a sense of responsibility that he risks being bound by. This turns them into a potential weakness both through exploitation by others (Alastor stopping the fight when Niffty is in danger) or direct exploitation (Mimzy using him to clean up her problems). However, once he gets attached, he can't help but let them depend on him. This makes people needing him actually a worse weakness than needing others. He can control to the best of his abilities, needing others, he can't control people needing him. He can only try to discourage it.
