What's your opinion about GreyTroath, i think she deserve more love after reading the archive file and in chapter 6, can you make character analysis about her please?
I agree, Greythroat is an interesting character that I like quite a lot.
She's an interesting case because she gives us a very different perspective on the origins of infected prejudice in Terra. An explanation, but not as a way to excuse it, rather, she ends up being somewhat of a testament of the strength of character required to break free from the overwhelming societal stigma associated with Oripathy.
Greythroat's parents were oripathy researchers; she witnessed them die, watched others be killed, be betrayed and suffer because of not only the disease and those infected by it, but the systems that oppress them. And that harrowing experience from her youth deeply, irrevocably traumatized her and left a mark deep in her psyche.
While it matters little in terms of how you actually treat people, I think it's important to contextualize how Greythroat sees Oripathy. It's not so much that she has a specific hatred or discrimination against the people themselves that are infected, but more that she appears to have a deep seated traumatic fear of the disease itself. Her unconscious uncontrolled phobia is so severe that she's been driven to self harm at even the slightest risk of infection, obsessively checking her blood levels and using all the protective equipment she can get her hands on.
Even later on in her story after she'd done much to confront her prejudice, we're given a story about how she saves an infected comrade's life in battle by giving them first aid- and her body is uncontrollably trembling due to her fear. The operator says he didn't feel she was prejudiced against him anymore; but her fear and trauma is bodily, automatic, and not something she can simply get over.
So Greythroat ends up being an incredible case of personal strength in growth where she's overcoming not just the moral justice of treating the infected as people and recognizing their plight. She's not simply a person who bought into the propaganda and needs to learn otherwise, she has to actively suppress a panic attack and nausea in order to do the right thing. But by the current time in the story, this is indeed what she does through immense and continuous effort.
But even so, this distinction she seems to have between the virus and the people still makes her come across extremely cold and callous towards them, and her general blunt and to-the-point personality only further hampers communication. Her attitude about the Infected after meeting Amiya and learning to extend the same human decency and rights to the Infected also basically... curtails some of her sympathies.
I don't shy away from sensitive topics regarding the Infected? That's correct, they're not like us, which should be obvious, but they're also like us in the sense that they have the right to seize hope. Therefore, there's no need for me to take extra care of them. That's equality, is it not`
Greythroat believes that they deserve to be treated with humanity, but not pity. She is still often separating the effects of the disease from the shared identity of the people suffering from it, which makes talking to characters like Blaze- who resonate strongly with the 'Infected' identity thrust upon them- rather difficult when she struggles to connect the realities of their lives as infected with their social treatment.
But she's gradually trying to do better; through Chapter 6 we see her always asking questions, always wondering why. She's asking very blunt and insensitive questions because she wants to understand and that bluntness grates upon people like Blaze who are so used to those questions being asked dismissively or in malice.
This is also reflected in her confusion facing down with Faust. She doesn't understand the identity politics of being Infected, so the existence of a revolutionary movement like Reunion gives her pause. She’s been hurt before by the infected lashing out at their circumstances, and from her experience this only spread the pain further.
But she finds it equally difficult to raise arms against the infected because she's learned to treat them as equals, she knows they are trying to save them and to heal them. Fighting against Reunion and seeing that same humanity and decency in their ranks muddies the whole conversation for her. It forces her to further reconsider her views and to tackle the sociopolitical aspect of the infected prejudice, to see someone on the other side that mirrors her and someone she can respect, that teaches her more about their struggle.
In the end I think this makes her a deeply fascinating character and one that really enriches Arknight's worldbuilding and storytelling. We're given a character so deeply mired in prejudice that other people, good people, never believe she'll be able to turn around. And it's not an easy process, but she's doing her best to overcome her own biases, her own fears, to do whats right. She doesn't always get it right, and the sensitivity and politics of it don't always please those around her, but she's getting better everyday through exposure to them, learning from their experiences and developing her own views.
She shows us how even good people can develop vicious prejudices and biases, how unconscious fear and the biology of the disease itself drives the hatred and discrimination, but how those instincts are ultimately wrong and something to overcome.
I find her deeply refreshing as not someone we see as a paragon of righteousness, but rather one coming from a deeply flawed place on the axis of morality that lies at the center of Arknight's themes. And steadily climbing that ladder from its depths doesn't show us that this prejudice is omnipresent and undefeatable, or that it's justified...
It shows us that it's something that with the right time and approach, can be defeated. And that with the proper education and understanding, even those people that are stricken by fear and hatred for Oripathy and the Infected can be turned around into staunch allies through Rhodes Island's vision.
