I'm curious, how do you think Cecil feels around truly good people? Not perfect people (they don't exist), but people who are sincere and don't have any shady dealings behind them.
I suppose it's true of most people, but I think it's extra impossible for Cecil specifically to gauge someone's "goodness" without using himself as a baseline. My take on him is that he knows and hates that his fate is to endlessly barter pieces of himself (and his beliefs, by extension) until he draws his last breath, so I think it's equally impossible for him to meet someone who doesn't... who somehow remains selfless and principled without having to sell out, so to speak... and not secretly admire them. Maybe because they remind him of himself as he once was and hopes they never have to compromise like he did; maybe because knows first-hand how difficult it is to stick to what you believe to be right in their unforgiving world… maybe because he wishes things were as simple as sorting people into heroes and villains, the "good guys" and "bad guys," as it were, because it would mean a life free of Faustian bargains.
Cecil doesn't strike me as a misanthrope, but much like the rest of him I can't decide if ^this take^ is inherently cynical because there's an implied optimism here that suggests he believes not everyone has to fall down the rabbit hole if he compromises enough in their stead. Pragmatism is a curse not everyone has to shoulder.
I believe this is exactly what Debbie is to him—that is, a good, sincere person, an argument in favor of this optimism—and it's The reason he acts the way he does around her. Her steadfast honesty just… makes it difficult for him not to care about her, even moreso with her deep connections to his world and endurance through all the bullshit it throws at her and her own (to include the GDA's contributions, of course). Lesser people would stoop to moral trade-offs in her position, and yet she refuses. It's a devotional strength, simultaneously compassionate and self-serving, that he perhaps envies, especially as someone who can only be one or the other.
Mark is a similar case, I think, but he'll never be divorced from his status and the decisions he's forced to make as Strongest Thing on the Planet, so the government's treatment of him will always be colored by his usefulness as an asset. But even when it's difficult to place whether Cecil is acting as a puppet master or mentor figure, you do still get the sense that he admires him for that same [TITLE CARD] tenacity he seems to have inherited from his mother, and as with Donald, he truly seems to respect those who can stand up to authority.
sorry after weeks of sleepless nights my brain is not all here and words are tough to string together, i hope this parsed. sincere people impress cecil, especially those who don't resort to compromise when caught between a rock and a hard place
