My old analysis of Q was kind of bad so here is a new and improved one! No spoilers hopefully :3
Q is a very complicated character in my opinion, simply because we don’t know much about them despite multiple approaches and Dazai fearing them, they have this air of mystery to them that is very interesting in my opinion so- let’s take in the literature base first, Dogura Magura by Yumeno Kyūsaku.
In Dogura Magura the narrator wakes up in a hospital, finding out that he was originally an experiment and killed his mother and wife and he inherited his psychotic tendencies. The novel is inspired by Freudian Psychoanalysis- an idea that people could be cured by making their unconscious a conscious thought and motivations, and by that gaining "insight".
So, relating this to Q, their ability is a mind control that forces illusions on people who intentionally or unintentionally harmed them, we can relate this to Freudian Psychoanalysis since Q makes an unconcious thought (I assume fear?) conscious as an illusion that drives people to attack others because of it. Q thinks of their ability as a curse because they know how dangerous it is, and we also know that abilites can influence the user as well so perhaps Q's psychotic nature is due to their ability and how they grew up.
Q has some major issues on how they see society as well, their hatred of their ability was obviously a result of how people treated them and perhaps they feel that society deserves to be forced to see their fears (we know that Q has "fun" when using their ability on others after all). Their personality seems to flip flop between being an innocent child and being sadistic, they are good at following directions and ignoring their wants.
When Q was captured by the guild, we saw that they were easily influenced, they took answers that were given to them and believed it easily, even when it was something that mentally harmed them or made them hate themselves even more. Q's appearance could also relate to their personality since it seems split, half black and half white hair, different shaped pupils, etc.
Though we know that character designs in BSD are based off of the popular works of the authors so I might just be reaching for straws
woah im so productive it feels unreal? i wrote all this in like two hours just today. i may go back and edit some things because i feel that i didn’t capture the picture well enough, but for now here is q analysis. this is character analysis 2/10 for @/amethystroselily!! i hope u enjoy. (everything mentioned falls in the time frame of the anime, so probably not spoilers?)
read here
i am already anticipating comments and feedback about me not holding q to the same standard as dazai or smth so uhh gonna clarify that here too xd
i don’t hold q and dazai to the same standard exactly because they are very different. q’s violence is a product of his environment- he joined the mafia when he was seven, so of course he grew to be like this. however, like i have stated before, dazai was already screwed up and dangerous when he joined the mafia. the mafia simply enabled his bad acts further, whereas the mafia likely taught q everything he believes in one way or another. either because the mafia does not have good morals or set a good example for children, or the fact that dazai later locked him up, in the end q has ended up as a violent and dangerous kid. but, he is still a kid. he has time to grow, and has expressed that he didn’t really want his ability. dazai is 22 now and little has changed since his time in the mafia, and the fact that as an adult he is still abusing and manipulating people is something i cannot understand or forgive. dazai does most of it for personal reasons, whereas q’s ability is exclusively used as a weapon for the port mafia. dazai is not required to act the way he does, but he does anyway. q acts the way he does likely as a product of his time in the mafia and experiences he has dealt with in his short lifespan.
