The way Sun and Moon have experienced so much hurt and so much horror but in a way they may never be able to fully address because they just may not quite have the full understanding or the drive to unpack all of whatâs happened to them in any sort of context beyond just seeing it as another part of their lives as silly jesters performing at the whims of other people as a small fragment of a dying franchise. That denial and where that understanding escapes them makes it even more tricky for them to heal because they canât even begin to come to terms with the way the virus and their repurposing has affected them both, but the horrors keep on coming and theyâre slowly unraveling and they know - theyâve known from the start - that something is wrong, and yet they canât quite figure out what for the longest time.
When the virus hits, they just carry on as normal because thatâs all theyâve ever known. They notice the other one is acting differently and it alarms them but they arenât listened to. Perhaps they donât openly voice their concerns, or maybe no one is there to hear them. Perhaps they donât even stumble upon the answer until a long time has passed, sitting in denial, just blocking out the changes and the concerns, and the other one whose existence has now thrown their lives into turmoil.
Sun carries on like everythingâs fine and dandy - that is, until he canât anymore. What a life. Always on. Always acting. Heâs a good actor, sure, but when youâre meant to play one half of a day-night cycle I bet it wears at you when you now have to cover both shifts. The fact that heâs even trying to - heâs desperate not to be pulled back into the abyss so Moon can come out because he knows how broken Moon is right now. And Iâm guessing that even if he did have a clue how to fix them (which, maybe he honestly didnât, or simply wouldnât come to terms with until he saw the faz-wrench in Cassieâs hand in Ruin), he couldnât leave the daycare at most hours because heâd be at work, entertaining the kids, or not supposed to be out if the daycare was out of order. And then when the pizzaplex was closed, there were the blackouts all over, keeping him locked in where the generators were, where heâd have a chance to retreat into the light (and we canât forget how useful Moon was to Afton and co as a retrieval bot, so heâd be out and about of course, theyâd make sure of that, but not as himself).
The alternative would have been knowingly risking unleashing Moon upon more potentially innocent victims, and getting both of them in even more trouble when he should have been out. He should have been making sure things stayed working at least a little bit. And we see Sun fighting Moon with everything he has in the Ruin jumpscares just so they wonât do something theyâll regret. How long has he been fighting? How many times might he have tried and failed to stop Moon and woken up with blood on his hands?
How exhausting that must have been. Did he blame Moon at all? Any animosity between them could only have hurt more. And even if he didnât give in to that frustration, the fact is, he was keeping Moon away that whole time, not letting him out to play. For his own good or not, that canât have felt nice, and it certainly canât have been easy.
And then Moon on the other hand expresses little clear awareness that something is wrong in Security Breach itself, at least none thatâs addressed to Gregory or any of the others, simply going about his business, but itâs heavily implied he knows - and maybe he always knew - that there is something pulling from beneath the surface from the things he says in Ruin. âIt wonât work!â He knows at that point at least that Sun (or perhaps Cassie) has a plan, of sorts. But he denies it. He doesnât trust in that plan to fix them. He knows Sun is there, fighting to come out the moment the lights come on. Heâs determined not to stay locked away anymore.
Imagine that frustration too. He wants Sun gone - he has to - because heâs in pain as long as the lights are on. And we can tell from Sunâs sad little song that he feels every bit of emptiness when heâs not active as well. And yet, being active feels like a desperate struggle on both sides as well. Theyâre in a constant battle with themselves, and there can be no victor.
Now imagine if Moonâs awareness - or his relative resignation at the state of the virus - had extended way back to the main game, when they first became afflicted by it. Knowing there was nothing he or Sun could do to stop it - because he (because they?) tried, and failed? Or just (optionally, if weâre considering the novels) because he was always the âvillainousâ appendix FazCorp couldnât cut out of the otherwise comparatively âfunctionalâ working daycare attendant? Because then maybe Moon knew all along that there wasnât a version of events where he was actually supposed to be here anymore.
(When he was infected by the virus, on the other hand? Moon had a purpose. Not a nice one, exactly, but a purpose nonetheless. Something Sun still had in the daycare that he wasnât allowed. Itâs not surprising that they ended up at odds with each other at all no matter how you look at it.)