About the Killua and Gon apology scene (and Gon’s self harm tendencies)
So I was thinking about the missing killugon apology scene and why we didn’t see it, a lot of people theorized that the apology scene was ideed very touching and must have happened off-screen because we’ll get a moving flashback to it later, and it would be quite cute if that was the case but
After some mulling over I realized I disagreed with that and it was probably because that apology doesn’t count/fail to adress the point/was unsatisfying.
Now bear with me, I’m not gonna go off on a “Gon is evil/an abuser/should prostrate himself on his knees for being a traumatized 12/14yo on a war” tangent, I’m even writing as we speak a whole ass meta (1) defending his honor and stating that the gon hate is stupid, heck, I don’t even want him to feel guilty about anything, that would kind of defeat the point of what I’m saying here
(1) I know I kinda already wrote a sort of meta about it, but looking back on it that meta really is incomplete and kind of misses the point and is even stupid on some points but I’m not beating myself up too much over this, I was 19 when I wrote it, pratically a newborn, a baby and I am planning on replacing it with a better one, now back to the topic
Now, Ging is honestly a garbage man and I don’t like saying that, but I really liked his quote about the way to apologize to friends (demonstrated later by Killua to Nanika)
« There are rules when apologizing to a friend, know what they are ? You promise you’ll do things differently next time, and then you keep that promise no matter what ! »
Kind of splendid advice, one that I’m really fond of and I’m definitely stealing it if I have to write a fanfic or something, but going back to the topic
Gon did hurt Killua deeply in the CA arc (again non maliciously, I’m not mad about him for that), and Gon does feel bad about it, but as he is now, he’s not in a state where he can promise to do better and keep that promise, if only because he completely missed the point, he still thinks he did bad because he said rude things to Killua during the lowest moment in his life, and that’s not even what Killua was sad about
Now, what was Killua truly upset about in that arc ?
1)Because he wanted to be included in the revenge against Pitou, not mainly because of Kite but because he wanted Gon’s problems to be his problems and he placed most if not all of his self-worth onto being useful to Gon
2)because of Gon’s excessive self-harm tendencies and the fact that he LITERALLY COMMITED SUICIDE
Now I honestly don’t thinks the first one needs to be adressed or apologized about because it’s honestly more of a Killua problem than anything else, and despite the fact that I understand why he thinks like that (fuck you Zoldyck family) and can’t blame him for that, he need some serious therapy and snaps out of that way of thinking because it’s unhealthy and he did take the codependency thing too far. I do think he’ll get better but that meta’s not about this
Also promising to do differently about that is no solution because the fight against Pitou was absolutely a suicide mission (and Gon knew that) and like someone else said in a post I can’t find, there is no reality where Gon would have allowed Killua to come in here with him because Killua, being one of the most if not the most important person in Gon’s life, isn’t allowed to die in his(Gon’s) mind and I doubt that will ever change
(and that’s not even listing all the times in the Zoldyck family arc or the Riehvelt fight where he was angry about attempts on Killua’s wellbeing other than his life)
and honestly I wouldn’t call it positive character development if Gon was like “Oh yeah I’m gonna involve Killua in my suicide mission and get him 100% killed”. So let’s forget about the first point already
It also hurts Killua because because of that he felt that he was not as important in Gon’s life because of the before rejection, but honestly, Gon make it crystal clear that he cares about Killua quite a lot so yeah, still not a point of his apology
Now, onto point 2, it absolutely needs to be adressed, Gon can’t continue like this, I’m not saying there’s anything evil about it or that he’s a bad person but he absolutely got it way too far, like the Pitou thing can be handwaved as the literal lowest moment in his life and in order to defeat Pitou, but what the fuck did getting beat up and aiming for his face to be punched by puppet!Kite accomplish ? It can also be somewhat explained by his desire to atone, if you absolutely have to justify it, but that isn’t even the dumbest and most self-harmy thing he did
Remember the fight against Hanzo ? When he stubbornly continued the match even though he knew Hanzo was way out of his league as an opponent, when he let himself be tortured, let Hanzo break his arms, was like “okay do it” when Hanzo threatened to cut off his legs if he didn’t give up, he was still like ‘nope I won't !’ and refused to give up, looks, there was no stake in this fight, he could have simply given up, excluding Hanzo, he still had four fights he could try, I’m not sure about Pokkle’s power level but he would have been infinitely easier to fight against than against Hanzo, and I bet he could have defeated the old man with a ponytail/Leorio, whoever it ended up being, Even if all that failed he could have always waited one (1) year to retry the exams while training before it, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, he was 11 he still had his whole life before him to find his dad, There was absolutely no reason to keep getting tortured, getting his arm broken (Hanzo even warned him before that), and risk getting his legs cut off and become disabled for life, he just felt stubborn about it,there was literally no other reason, that kid makes me want to tear my hair out in worry and he’s fictional so I can’t even begin to imagine how it must be for other HxH’s characters,
There was also his first fight in heaven arena where he battled in a state of zetsu against a more experienced opponent with nen and he could have been disabled for life like others nenless contestants before him and he was quite lucky to just end up with just a broken arm that ended up healing completly, was it necessary ? Again no, even if fighting with nen wasn’t cutting it he could have just surrendered with pretty much no consequences
There was also the fight against Genthru, ooh I have a lot of opinions about that fight, he didn’t have to go through any of this,using Killua’s strategy would have landed him with bruises and I think he bled from his mouth but that would have been it, But no, because of his pride/stubborness/whatever it was, he sacrified one whole hand and kinda the other too to land a hit on Genthru and give him a scare, heck he only used 30% of his aura on his other wrist so for all he knew he could have been sacrifying both hands and been unable to pick up a card from his book and thus unable to carry out the strategy, and Genthru would have simply killed him in a terribly painful way, again, I can’t emphasize how unnecessary the whole thing was, was it worth it ? No,
That boy will continue harming himself and sacrifice literal limbs of his for petty reasons regardless of the consequences, and for what ? He can’t keep jajankening his limbs off like this, he even said during Pitou’s fight that he was glad he lost his arm . Most HxH fans have theorised it’s because of his abandonment issues from Ging and I agree with them even if I’m not certain
But regardless of the reason, he can’t continue like this, he is being an active danger to himself and his mental state can’t be good if he’s still like that. For both his own sake and the sake of everyone who care about him (and I don’t just mean Killua), he has to stop.
Leorio was absolutely devastated during the election arc, Killua was horrified/worried beyond words during Gon-san vs Pitou and when he saw the state of Gon’s body after it, they probably called Mito since he’s 12/14 and she was his guardian and he was at death’s door and she was probably devastated too, also a lot of other people (Hanzo, Melody, Bisky, Palm, Ikalgo etc) were worried for him
You’d think that after sobering up from his fight with Pitou he’d be at least a little better about this, but one of his first sentences upon waking up was that he was still blaming himself and that he should have died instead of Kite.
So during his time before he reunites with Killua and the others, I want him to go through some serious introspection and/or see a therapist or at least a decent HxH adult like Wing or Melody (sadly she’s on the murder boat but there are probably others like her I hope), and I want him to decide to stop on the self-harm and the absence of self-preservation, and not just for others but for himself too.
So I think the real ‘apology’ hasn’t happened yet, and that it won’t be with sorrys or “I blame myself” or “I’m such a bad person” and after the timeskip he’ll tell Killua (and probably Leorio at least and maybe his other friends) that he understand what he did was unhealthy, and that he’ll be careful with his life and wellbeing this time and he’ll keep definitely keep this promise
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