Hi. I think I'm about to make people mad with a hot take.
Spoilers under the cut for Death Stranding 2, as well as discussion of abuse and victims and assault.
Higgs is a male abuse victim. And I think if Higgs was a woman, he'd have been treated much differently.
And I know what you're gonna say. "Isn't this the 'you'd like Amelie if she was a guy' but in reverse?" No, actually! Because I hate the President in DS2 and he is basically having the same purpose as Amelie but that's not what this is about.
Higgs has been abused his entire life. From his Uncle to Amelie to the Beach. We know in his journals he was beaten regularly, there's even evidence of sexual abuse as well, but that part isn't as concrete as the fact that Higgs was raised in a living hell in a shoe box he could not escape from. So what did he yearn for above anything else? Power. Control. He took power back in violence to save himself, and I think that's really all Higgs has done after.
He knows violence keeps himself safe. It keeps himself safe when his DOOMS weakens and he has to kill to 'recharge' it. People liked him, though. Veteran Porter looked up to him. He started finding purpose. Maybe could have let the violence go if he didn't meet his next abuser, Coffin, who used him in her terrorist activism against Bridges and further poisoned the well.
Higgs was abused and he was left to rot in his abuse his entire life. He was a male abuse victim who was not expected to be savable. Fragile, meanwhile, was literally healed of the physical scars of Higgs, even. She will never completely recover from what Higgs had done to her, but she has the support to help her become a better person.
"But he abused Fragile!"
Yes! Which brings me to my next point. Fragile is ALSO an abuse victim under Higgs. He took away her youth, basically assaulted her and tortured her, and soiled her company and made everyone think she was a monster. But y'know what? Fragile was allowed help. Higgs, though, only spiraled deeper and deeper.
Higgs is still an abuse victim. And even in the shallowest of times where he was allowed to grow past being a victim, it wasn't for long. And it's because he had power to protect himself from being a victim again that he's seen as worse than the devil.
Now, Higgs did awful things in DS2 too. He killed Fragile. He tried to kill a baby. He brought violence into the world. I don't think DS2 Higgs could have been saved. I think he was past saving at that rate, as painful as it is for myself to admit. But he wasn't always past saving.
Higgs just walked on broken legs ever since he could crawl.
Higgs never had the chance to heal. This is even BEFORE the fact that we talk about this man constantly drowning in chiralium that drives people insane. And do you think being stranded on a beach that is so soaked in chiralium it can keep an eternal fire burning... for eternity is a great place for your mental health?
He didn't give weakness because he wasn't expected to. He wasn't allowed to break down when Extinction depends on his work, when God is in his ear telling him that he's finally achieved power to end the suffering he had endured. Higgs was given power he always craved and he was going to use it to stop suffering. Meanwhile Fragile just existed licking her wounds and waiting for someone else to get Higgs on his knees for her.
Fragile had Sam. Had Bridges. Higgs did not. Higgs had abuse. And maybe it's because Higgs is a man that he was expected to carry the pain of a lifetime of being used. Because his abuse also came from women. But I don't think anyone's really willing to talk about that, nor how Higgs has never had a figure he could trust to even begin healing.
And I'm fucking tired of people treating Higgs like he's a demon because DS2 forgot about his entire history and turned him into a one dimensional cackling monster. Higgs was not allowed to change because the story didn't want him to. The story only wanted a villain.
"But what does this do with Higgs being treated differently as a woman?"
Because women in this universe in general are treated differently. I know that's a blatant Kojima thing, but look at all the female characters and tell me that if they did what Higgs did that they wouldn't be forgiven in some way.
Amelie is just as abused in what is expected out of her as Higgs is. But she gets protected because she didn't have a choice. And yet Tomorrow clearly made the choice to not follow the path of Extinction at the end of the game after the fucking baby vore. So apparently. The choice has always been there. Thanks for that, Kojima.
Just look at Amelie.
Amelie. A fucking. Extinction Entity. Is forgiven. She started the Homo Demens. Not Coffin. Everything began with her. She strung Sam and Higgs along in a game to reconnect the UCA so she had a proper foothold to begin extinction. Even more than that, her being an extinction entity is a closely guarded secret throughout the entire world. No one breathes her name. But Higgs? Nah. Fucker tried to blow up the world all on his own. He's a boogeyman.
I could keep going. I want to keep going. But I'm just tired.
Edit: I'm adding one last note about how this game loved to string around the idea of trying to stop cycles of violence by supporting one another. People being brought into the Magellan crew to be supported. Even if Higgs couldn't be saved, it would have been nice for a single person to be like: "...Hold on." And really thought about what causes a person to be too far gone. No one speaks Higgs' name outside of venom.
He's just a Boogeyman. A monster. He is only evil.
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