What Hero's Attempts to Comfort Sunny on the Night of "Two Days Left" Tell Us About His Character
Hi Hero Enthusiasts, let's talk about one of the only times Hero talks about himself and his grief in the entire course of the game...
It is easy to see this as just usual, selfless Hero being in-tune to others' emotions and trying his best to help any way he can. On the surface, Hero appears to be well-adjusted and at a sense of peace with what happened. When he reassures Sunny that Mari "would always want [them] to be happy even if it was without her" thereby encouraging him that it's okay to move forward and find healing, the player of the game believes him. Arguably, even Sunny believes him to a certain degree, but the real question here is: does Hero believe himself?
Let's Discuss Under the Cut...
(Warnings: OMORI spoilers. Heavy themes including death, grief, depression, and guilt).
It really says a lot about Hero that this scene is one of the only moments he talks about himself and his grief in the entire course of OMORI though it makes sense in the context. Being such an empathetic person, Hero could probably fairly easily pick up on the fact that Sunny was thinking about Mari in the piano room in the middle of the night, so, of course, he would start talking about her in attempt to comfort him.
However, it does beg the question: is it deeper than that? Is Hero so quick to put this together because that's what he, himself, was doing in the piano room in the middle of night? If Hero was there to grieve Mari, it would make sense that he so easily jumped to the idea that Sunny was there to grieve her as well, but he immediately stops everything and pushes aside his own grief and his own feelings to try to comfort Sunny.
On that point, it is clear from the context that Hero is only sharing what he thinks will be helpful or comforting. He says "It has been hard for me too" to show empathy, to try to tell Sunny that it's okay that he still misses Mari and that he isn't alone in missing her. He expresses his own complicated feelings surrounding how (he believes) she died, but he ultimately reassures Sunny that Mari would want them all to be happy even in a world without her thereby encouraging him to find healing and to move forward.
There is a painful irony in hearing this from Hero knowing that after losing Mari, he curled in on himself and spiraled into a deep depression that was all-consuming and that the survivor's guilt almost destroyed him. He just shut down and stopped living until eventually, he threw himself in his school and extracurricular activities, always striving to stay too busy to fall apart. Even his choice to pursue a degree in medicine will require years of school with long hours of study and clinicals, then residency, and eventually work itself. As a doctor, Hero can really just hide in his busyness, and that's really all he seems to want anymore.
Though Hero would be the first to wholeheartedly insist to Sunny that Mari would want them to learn to be happy again and that they can find healing and move forward, the truth is that for Hero himself time stopped when Mari died. Life stopped. All of his dreams for the future died with her, and given his survivor's guilt, he honestly thinks that's what he deserves, regardless of what Mari would have wanted for him (but that's a topic for another discussion). For now, to summarize, there is something so lost and listless about Hero in the Real World after Mari's death. He doesn't really know what he wants out of a life without Mari besides not hurting anyone and staying so busy that he just doesn't feel anything anymore.
But despite his best efforts to remain completely numb to it all, that grief and that pain inside of him doesn't go away, and no matter how hard he may try to push it aside, it's still there. He has just locked it away, brushing it under the rug or slamming it behind the door--whatever it takes to be able to function and not drown in it again, because (as the end this scene itself ultimately showcases), Hero is still overwhelmed by it all.
This is reason enough that he doesn't talk about it and doesn't want to talk about it, but arguably another, possibly even bigger reason is that Hero is terrified of being a burden on others. When looking at this situation from the outside, one would think that Hero would have a lot of support and understanding given that so many of his loved ones are also grieving Mari. Everyone grieves differently but there can be a powerful comfort in surrounding oneself with people who also experienced the same loss and who also knew and loved that person. This moment with Sunny could have been an opportunity for Hero and him to really empathize with each other over having lost someone they both loved (albeit in different ways), but Hero would never ever, ever even dream of talking about his grief with Sunny or with Basil, Aubrey, and Kel for that matter. He sees himself as their "Big Brother" and because of that, he feels he constantly has to push aside anything he may be feeling or may want for himself to take care of them. And there is an added problem here that he doesn't feel he has done a very good job of that.
He blames himself not only for Mari's death, but for Kel, Basil, Aubrey, and Sunny's pain as well. Their friend group is fractured--the day's events at the lake have proven that, and in a way, Hero feels like this is his fault. If he hadn't been so depressed and broken himself, he would have been able to help his brother and his friends who have always felt like siblings to him, but he was too weak, too helpless and now they're fighting amongst themselves and miserable.
He feels he has no right to talk about his problems with them, but the truth is, he feels he has no right to talk about his problems with anyone. And this goes back to his one (1) fight with Kel (which, honestly probably deserves its own analysis post one day). Kel was terrified to see Hero spiral into such a dark place and felt like he is losing his brother. When he finally confronted him about it, however, Hero snapped--finally crumbling under the weight of everything that has gone wrong and all the pain he has been carrying around alone. It was, arguably, the one and only time in their lives that the two had ever really fought, and it (most likely) remains one of Hero's greatest regrets. He now lives in fear that his relationship with Kel is permanently and irreparably damaged--that nothing he could say or do and no amount of apologizing could ever erase that distance between them. Hero is terrified that Kel will never really open up to him again and that he'll always feel like he needs to walk around eggshells around him. He is scared that Kel must think he hates him, and he can't bear the thought that it's all his fault and no amount of apologizing will ever make it right.
The whole experience leaves Hero broken and overwhelmingly guilty (even though no one blames him Kel least of all), and while he does come out of the worst of his depression, he is still depressed. He hasn't found healing and closure. All he has really done is gotten better at hiding how miserable he is because he is terrified of ever hurting anyone in the same way he hurt his brother. Vowing to never be responsible for causing pain to his loved ones because of his problems, he buries and represses his emotions and his pain--managing to hide them from everyone but himself.
This is made all the more apparent when, as soon as Sunny leaves, Hero breaks down into tears overwhelmed by his own, repressed grief.
From this incredibly vulnerable moment (arguably Hero's most vulnerable moment in the entire game), it becomes clear to the player that all of the "well-adjustment" and acceptance Hero had been displaying up until this point is, at least to a certain extent, for show.
Hero is not okay. He just wants everyone to think he is.
