Okay so I don’t think you intended this to prompt a short essay but here’s one anyway:
I was always under the impression that he was feeding Neku those specific memories deliberately to mess with him—at least a couple of the times that you’re able to read his mind, it’s right after he specifically encouraged Neku to scan the area. As I saw it he was drip-feeding Neku bits and pieces of what he wanted him to see to get the effect he’s going for.
So he drives Neku into a state of more and more distrust and antagonism towards him, which maybe doesn’t seem like the state of mind you’d *want* someone to hold towards you when you’ve got quite a large wager riding on their actions, but it’s useful for a number of reasons:
-It puts Joshua in a position of power, because Neku *can’t do anything about it* because he needs his partner to save both Shiki’s life and his own and he knows it
-On that note, it lets Joshua pretty much test the “trust your partner” thing to its breaking point, and lets him see just how solidly that lesson has sunk in after one week of the Game—after all, a big part of why he’s doing all this is that he doesn’t think people are redeemable. And okay, “how do they treat somebody they’re pretty sure MURDERED THEM” is maybe not exactly the world’s least biased test of redemption, but Joshua’s not running a scientific study here, he’s just trying to make a rhetorical point (and reaffirm something he already thinks is true)
-Let’s be honest, making people want to kill him is basically the only kind of interpersonal relationship Joshua knows how to have with someone who doesn’t worship the ground he walks on
And while we’re being honest:
-Has he mentioned the look on Neku’s face is priceless?
Which is all perfect, because all of this is building up into this pent-up storm in Neku’s head that’s ready to explode—and then Neku sees the bit where Joshua “rescued” him from Sho, and feels super, SUPER guilty for distrusting him because *clearly* he’s had it all wrong and clearly Joshua has been on his side this whole time and it’s *all his fault* for not seeing it and maybe if he’d just been nicer Joshua wouldn’t have felt like he had to get himself killed for Neku’s sake.
-Ties Neku to Joshua emotionally all the more strongly than just the straight-up self-sacrifice would have done, because guilt is a powerful thing
-Leaves Neku with this drive that he HAS to get to the Shibuya River and finish what Joshua started, even if he doesn’t understand why
-Simultaneously feeds Joshua’s martyred self-image and also provides a good ol’ fashioned power trip, because look at that puppet dance
(And of course on a fundamental level it also just means that despite the fact that Joshua’s just spent a week being insufferably *himself* at this kid, this kid will still actually definitely care if he dies. But that’s not a level Joshua’s looking at or acknowledging, because self-awareness is only fun as long as it’s giving you excuses to dig yourself ever deeper. When it turns into ‘hey maybe the depths of that pit you’ve dug are NOT ACTUALLY GREAT PLACE TO BE’ it’s just work.)
tl;dr Joshua is less a necrophiliac than a manipulative bastard. But I’ve always tended to read him that way; ymmv.
