Patton Sanders
So, this is my reblog of a post that @cutebisexualmess reblogged and put tags on. And now I must go on a very very long ramble about Patton Sanders and especially his role in Sanders Sides.
I want to be very clear, that this is biased because I relate to him.
I'm not providing clear proof or evidence, because that would require me to watch the whole series again, and I will forget to write this.
CWs include: manipulation and talks of manipulation, talking about morality and the more muddy or unclear bits in it, self destructive habits, self deprecation, depression, and perfectionism
I'm going to be writing this and trying to update the Content Warnings, but I can't promise that I'll get them all.
With that done, if you're able to and would like to read, press read more!
Okay, so first we've got to remember that Patton isn't just Thomas's morality, but he's also Thomas's emotions. Which already muddies a lot of things up right out of the gate.
Morality, while having a kind of unclear dictionary definition, basically boils down to a person's sense of what's right and what's wrong.
Where as, emotions are how you feel about a situation.
I'll (try to remember to) explore both of those topics a bit deeper later on in the post.
So all this to say, that Patton isn't just in charge of what Thomas believes to be right and wrong, but also his feelings on the matter. Which makes him more subjective instead of objective on what's going on. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing in all situations. However, it can be detrimental because, since Patton is Thomas's morality, he has this belief that his views are always morally correct. Which is simply not factual. Morality can be skewed, morality is something that's learned. For most people, when they believe something is morally right or morally wrong, no matter if it is or not, it can be near impossible to convince them otherwise. And when people do things that go against their morals, they tend to feel horrible about it. This is one of the reasons that I believe if Thomas had gone to the callback instead of the wedding, he would've felt horrible there as well.
I'm not going to say I'm unbiased about the outcome of the debate between the callback and wedding, and imo there were better ways to go about figuring out which one to go to. But, what I feel like a lot of people look over when saying Thomas would have been happier going to the callback, is that he probably wouldn't have. Because Patton would feel guilty about missing out on a very important event in some of Thomas's closest friends' lives. Which would have made Thomas feel guilty, which makes it even less likely that Thomas would have been able to perform well, or as well as he would've liked. And as someone who has done acting before(albeit not really outside of the church I used to go to), your emotions going into trying to get a part are extremely important to how well you're going to be able to play the part. So there is a very big chance that if Thomas had gone to the callback instead of the wedding, he wouldn't have gotten the part and would feel even worse about a day where he already feels horrible. (Nevermind the fact that it could very easily spiral into thoughts of 'I went to the callback instead of my best friends' wedding, for no reason. Not only am I a horrible friend, but I suck at acting too.'[For clarification, this is not even close to what I think of Thomas, this is an example of the thoughts that could spiral from if Thomas had gone to the callback and not gotten the part.])
However, as everyone who has watched past the Wedding Redux video would know, Thomas went to the wedding and felt horrible about that. Some of you might understandably be wondering why, as he did what Patton - Thomas's morality- thought was the correct choice. This is because Thomas seemed to want to go to the callback as much if not more than the wedding. Which is where his emotions, which is also Patton, comes into play. Patton now feels guilty and horrible because Thomas wants to go to the callback, and Thomas wants that acting part.
Like, don't get me wrong, Patton absolutely believes going to the wedding was the correct choice, but Thomas had been excited to be fulfilling his dreams of being an actor. And so the excitement of his friends getting married was dampened by the fact that he missed out on what could've been a dream job. And not only that, but now because Thomas is bummed about missing this opportunity, Patton feels guilty about the disappointment, because his friends are getting married and he should be happy and even excited about it. But he isn't. And so, while morally Thomas did the right thing(according to Patton), because he isn't happy about what's happened, that essentially traps Patton in this circle of guilt. Guilt for the choice that Thomas made not making Thomas happy; and guilt for being at Lee and Mary-Lee's wedding to celebrate and not being ecstatic for them. And then there was what happened when Thomas got home and started processing everything.
This has happened before in, I think, at least one previous episode, where Patton has doubled down on his stance. On him being right, because he is Thomas's morality, he knows wrong from right. It. Is. His. Job. So when something(or someone) questions what Patton knows has to be morally correct, he has to shoot it down(I will hopefully remember to come back to this) because if he's wrong, then Thomas is wrong, and if Thomas is wrong, doesn't that make him a bad person? And in that respect, wouldn't that make Patton a bad side? And if he's a bad side, what then?
So Patton does his best to be perfect and correct and right all the time, and in turn he tries to kind of force the other 'light' sides in the same direction, because they need to be perfect. They need to be perfect for Thomas to be perfect. Which, imo, affects Roman the most. Because Roman is Thomas's ego, his creativity, his hopes and dreams, and his passion. With both Patton and Roman needing Thomas to be perfect and the best, it leaves almost no room for failure, which heightens Thomas's anxiety, and makes it less likely that he'll be successful with being logical about his reasoning. (I don't know too much about Remus's function to even semi-accurately allude to how this could be effecting him, and we will be talking about Janus soon.)
To make what was probably going to be a really long ramble shorter. Patton is urging Thomas to do the right thing, because he's morality and he has to be right about what is morally correct. And Roman, is more likely to listen to everything that Patton says, because he's the ego, and needs more positive attention. Being morally correct means more positive attention and that is a good thing. (I am not saying that Roman does or doesn't actually care about doing the right thing, I am saying that he is NOT morality so it is NOT nearly as important to him as positive attention. It is why Janus buttering him up during the trials was discombobulating him so much. And also probably one of the reasons why he started being more hostile to the side after, he did not like the fact that Janus knew how to use his ego against him.) And, I think Patton sort of knows this. Fair warning, this part might be more subjective than most of this post. I think that Patton knows enough to realize that Roman is more likely to agree with him when Roman gains positive attention(when the ego is being fed). And so, he frames things with Roman as though Thomas would be a bad friend for not doing {insert example here}, which Patton does believe. But it's also a blow to Roman at the same time. I don't think Patton realizes the extent of the damage it does to Roman(and in turn Thomas). In my opinion Patton does this because he believes it himself, that Thomas is a bad friend if he doesn't help out(or go to their wedding), and he realizes Roman is more likely to agree with him when he points things like that out. And Roman, as the ego, will not want to openly admit to being hurt by it(iirc the only times he ever tries to vent out his hurt and frustrations are when he can write it off as jokes or make it so his voice is barely heard, and he tends to be vague about it). And it does not help anyone that when Thomas chooses what Patton thinks is morally correct, Roman tends to get positive attention.
But that's unhealthy and can only last so long before everything falls apart.
For the record, I still don't believe that Patton knows that he's actively harming Roman.
Now, we're getting to the aftermath of the wedding(I know I said we were doing that quite a few paragraphs ago, but I realized that I wasn't quite there yet, sorry).
After the wedding, both Patton and Roman are trying to figure out what went wrong. Why couldn't they just be happy for their friend? What went wrong?
So Janus decides to jump in and start explaining to Patton why everything went wrong(in the disguise of Logan until he couldn't anymore). And he tries to go into the more grey areas of morality as a whole, and Patton does not like this. Because Patton believes, and has been raised to believe, that you always do the morally correct thing and that you have to do it for the right reasons. And I can not reiterate this enough, Patton is Thomas's morality and emotions.
So Patton and Janus start arguing. And Roman takes Patton's side, for multiple reasons, but one of them is the fact that one of the biggest blows to the ego tends to be when you are wrong about something you were sure you were right about. Yes, Roman also defended Patton because they are friends, but every decision they make is made by their own functions and their control in what Thomas does, you cannot separate them from their functions when talking about their actions because their actions are shaped by their functions. Throughout this argument things are chaotic and hectic and hard to keep up with. But then Patton turns into a frog and accidentally hurts Thomas while trying to make his point. Because of this, he realizes that Janus is correct in what he's saying. That Thomas needs a fucking break, and he can't do everything right all the time, and that morality isn't quite as simple as he thinks it is. However, the fact that Patton was wrong, kind of shatters Roman, because Roman needed him to be right. Or else what was it all for.
And I want to be very clear here, Patton is reeling from everything that's happened too. He understands that morality isn't quite as easy as crossing a line into being good or bad. I don't think he thought it was quite as simple as I'm saying, I'm just not sure how else to put it. Anyways, Patton while realizing he wasn't right this time, and he might not have been right last time, is too preoccupied with what this new information means for him. And no one is paying any real attention to Roman.
Janus, in order to get everyone present to trust him, tells them his name(iirc, and this detail I'm more iffy on than most, I believe Roman prompted this). Roman, now not just hurting from throwing hopes and dreams down the drain for the wedding but also probably about to sport the biggest bruise to his ego in a long while if not Thomas's life, makes fun of it. And Janus retaliates, poking at his deepest insecurity, comparing him to his twin - Remus. Neither Patton nor Thomas say anything, because in that moment Patton and to an extant Thomas are making that comparison. And then Roman says something about being their hero(I can't remember the exact words, I'm sorry, they're important, I know they're important, I just can't remember). Neither Patton or Thomas respond. And, imo, it's because they no longer know. They don't know. One other thing none of them know, is how much that silence broke Roman.
So, in conclusion. Patton is NOT an innocent little bean who can do no wrong. However he is also NOT unsympathetic.
Again, all of this is my opinions, and why I think this is what's going on. I think it'd be more convincing and have more and even better solid evidence if I had recently rewatched Sanders Sides. But I haven't.
