#gien (timeranger)

[cephalopistol]

watching timeranger

[cephalopistol]

i keep thinking back to timeranger and how dolnero and gien's relationship really encapsulates that of an abusive parent and a traumatized child (timeranger spoilers)

when dolnero first meets gien he's basically like a child, can't count to 3, plays with bubbles and shit. hes fairly aware of who dolnero is but befriends him anyway and dolnero teaches him a lot of stuff

one day he gets beat basically within an inch of his life for associating with dolnero, and dolnero, in his grief, brings him in for robot surgery without his consent

he seems excited afterwards but his voice changes signifying his change in personality

later when they go to the year 2000, gien starts reveling in destruction, wanting to see as much of it as possible, and dolnero is confused and angry and threatens to reset him if he doesn't keep his obsession in check, saying "you were never like this before"

so he does for a while but then does it again and dolnero puts a key in him making him revert to the personality and brain of the pre-surgery gien— meaning dolnero could've done this the entire time but chose not to in order to make gien more useful to him, inadvertently giving him a desire for destruction

the key gets removed later and he becomes evil again and goes all over the place etc etc but dolnero keeps trying to get him back and repeats that phrase: "you were never like this before," but he eventually decides he has to be eliminated iirc

and like that fucking sucks right. dolnero did this to him without his consent, then purposefully kept the function that made him more intelligent in order to be useful to him but threatened to take it back once he acted differently, and he started lamenting the old gien

"i made you this way but you're acting in a way i don't like so i'm gonna guilt you and threaten you if you don't go back to how you were before i did this to you"

man.