Something that I love about Mithrun, interpreting him as a survivor of sexual violence, is how he represents an aspect of being a survivor that isn’t really talked about that much: wishing that what happened to you was worse.
some people could interpret this as his suicidal ideation, wishing that the goat had killed him instead of leaving him broken and and in pain, and i think that is a perfectly valid interpretation. However this post is about my personal interpretation as another survivor who also has these feelings.
Feelings like this of “I wish it was worse” are very common for survivors, myself included. I don’t want to talk about my experience but all I will say is that it was something that most people would consider “not that bad”. These kinds of thoughts of wishing your abuse was worse is especially common when the sexual abuse in question involves very minimal touching, non contact abuse (harassment, inappropriate comments, grooming, indecency, etc), or in some way are considered “not as bad” because they weren’t raped or molested. But this feeling is also common for survivors of more severe and violent cases of sexual assault.
Regardless, sometimes victims will be left with a feeling of wishing their abuser had finished them off, not just in wishing they had died, but in that they had been more violent, more cruel. Sometimes it’s because they don’t take themselves seriously enough as a victim and thinking that maybe they would if what happened was worse and it doesn’t matter how bad the assault was.
Now it’s made pretty clear that the act of eating one’s desires is a metaphor for sexual assault, and it’s also pretty clear that Mithrun’s experience was an example of extremely brutal rape, leaving him severely injured, barely able to walk, missing an eye, cut off ears, and with no will to live apart from what he thinks is revenge on his assailant. This makes his desire to be finished off all the more heartbreaking. Despite how violent his assault was, he still believed there was more to be done. He knew the demon could have done worse to him and because it didn’t, it meant he wasn’t worthy enough of it.
The demon grows stronger with each desire it consumes, we see this later with the Winged Lion eating every last bit of Thistle’s desires. However despite this it chose to leave just one more desire for Mithrun behind and because it did, it disappeared trying to leave the dungeon.
Knowing this, Mithrun feels like he wasn’t important enough that the demon could take every last desire he had and he feels like he has no purpose. He’s been relegated to vegetable scraps that no one cares about.
The idea that a victim is “lucky” for being assaulted is a very harmful but unfortunately common belief in rape culture. It’s the belief that “if you were assaulted you should be grateful because you were considered desirable enough for someone to take you by force”. This idea is common for all victims regardless of gender or age, however you may have seen this being more normalized when it comes to men and boys who are assaulted by women.
Let me make this clear: sexual assault is not about attraction or lust; it’s about power. Despite this, victims will still internalize this idea that it is about lust even when they know it isn’t. And that is another cause of this phenomenon of victims who wish they went through worse: they internalize this idea that they were assaulted because they were seen as desirable. They conflate their experiences with love, thinking that their abuser loved them, and will sometimes feel the same way.
So then they reflect on what happened to them and they might think that brutality equates to passion. They start to internalize this idea that they are not enough because their abuser wasn’t brutal enough, or because it didn’t last long enough. They feel worthless, infantile, unimportant, like scraps on a dinner plate. A meal delicious enough to consume, but not enough to finish completely.
When Mithrun sees the situation he’s in, cutting up Fallin’s chimera half to be eaten by a large population in order to bring her back. This is what made him realize what his true desire was. He sees how important Fallin is to the people she knows and how willing people are to eat her and he envies her. He wishes the demon had cared about him so much that he would eat every last desire he had, left him more injured. And yet despite his envy, he still wants to help her.
One last point I wanna touch on is what happens after Mithrun Confesses to Kabru what he really desired. Senshi approaches them to tell them about all the good uses for veggie scraps.
That’s when it finally clicks for Mithrun. All he really needed to be told was that he mattered.
Hope you all enjoyed this little essay bc it’s 2 am by the time i’m writing this and it won’t even post until morning
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