after reading some Q&As i think something really compelling to me about john is this feeling of suffocation of only being able to speak with someone whose opinion you value too highly. arthur is going to hear pretty much everything he has to say, but hes also the person whose disappointment devistates john the most. how the HELL is he meant to not be on eggshells like all the time.
the power imbalance between them is something thats teased constantly through the show. there are different ways in which they each have 'the upper hand' and can seriously hurt one another if they arent willing to cooperate. Arthur is more straightforwardly vulnerable, its his body being hurt, his life being risked, all while he has lost his eyesight and half his mobility. Its very understandable that he feels like he's the one held hostage in their dynamic.
But he also doesn't really comprehend how much he's capable of hurting John at first, and just how terrified John is of that pain. Most of the worst things John has ever said to him were premtive lashing out and arthur responds as if that hostility came from nowhere. He, as a rational adult, can say 'I need you to be honest with me I promise it will be okay' and then be baffled when John chooses again and again to keep things from him.
He just doesnt GET how much it hurts to have those things exposed, how raw that experience is, to be open and naked in front of someone whose approval means everything to you but is also your only outlet. And there is a pretty big fucking risk of fucking up their friendship. There is not a garuntee that it will be okay. John doesnt have to imagine what it would be like if Arthur abandons him, Arthur did that to him three times.
Obviously his second trip to the dark world, but also the coma, where John had to lie there in the dark for a month with only a single kind voice to comfort him, and then in the prison pits where Arthur knew he was hurting him in the wake of being told that their relationship was irreprably damaged. It's not just a hypothetical. Arthur can and has weilded that pain against him in retribution, and its something he doesn't even acknolwedge until much later on.
So as funny as Arthur's infantalizing of John is, i think there is something sweet about the shift from 'you're a blind sadist who does shit for no reason' to 'you're a scared and hurt and ive contributed to that'. By season 5 he's repeating over and over that he forgives John no matter what, not because he wants John to be absolved, but because he's starting to reccognize a lot of those divorces only happened because John was afraid every disagreement would be what finally destroys Arthurs faith in him.
