This is technically spoilers for the final arc of TR, but I was skimming over Shinichirou's flashback with in the original timeline (bc I’m gathering statistics for my “Baji haunting the narrative” graphs), and I started thinking about the implications of OGTL! Baji again.
Other than absolutely eating up the look with the highlights —
— one of the reasons why I like this timeline is because we the audience get to witness the ways that Baji is different, and the ways he is the same. So much of his personality is shaped by the friendships he has and the trauma he has with Shinichirou's death, so it's interesting to see who he is as a person without those external factors.
For one, unlike with the main timeline, Baji is dismissive of school and callous towards his mother’s concerns; and I think this is related to the way that he’s never “made his mother cry.”
The exact reason why she cries is never explicitly explained by the story or the author, but since Baji’s primary motivator for doing well in school is that he never wants to make her cry again, I have a personal hypothesis that it has something to do with what happened with Shinichirou’s manslaughter and with Kazutora. This is supported by the fact that he doesn't care at all about his education since Shinichirou is alive in this timeline, and if Shinichirou doesn't die, his death doesn’t trigger the implied domino chain of events that would lead him to caring about attending school, or anything that his mother says.
The fact that there’s no Mikey means that there’s no Toman; and Baji would have never met Chifuyu, Draken, Pah or Mitsuya. (Though, it’s unclear whether or not he’s still friends with Kazutora, considering the way that they met had been detached from Toman entirely. It is important to note though that we never get official confirmation if they still know each other.) Although Baji does have a friend in this timeline in the form of Sanzu, this version of Baji is significantly more isolated than his main timeline counterpart.
Even though he doesn’t have the same interpersonal relationships, some of the core traits of Baji’s character remain consistent. After all, he’s still able to properly identify what exactly is wrong with Shinichirou, even if the man himself isn’t saying anything, but once again, this problem is way too large for Baji to help in any meaningful capacity. As he says when he and Sanzu are exiting the hospital:
Then, on the next page turn it reveals that Mikey has passed away.
I find it deeply ironic and incredibly cruel on the author’s part that even though this version of Baji is contained within an entirely different context than the main timeline, the nature of his problems still remains the same. Still, he can only watch as the people he cares about suffer. Still, he doesn’t know how to help them. That, and Shinichirou changing this particular set of events lowkey doomed Baji to die considering how he remains alive in this timeline, which is horrifying to think about within itself.
Anyways, so much of Baji’s character is defined by 1) his own powerlessness in situations he realistically cannot control, and 2) the silent burden and sense of personal responsibility he constantly shoulders; and to me, part of the tragedy of his character in the main timeline is how he does eventually end up cracking beneath all that strain.
Baji stop suffering challenge failed… He's so doomed by the narrative... my son... I’m sick.
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turnnoffyourmind
theartofmadeline
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