So , yeah. I've been a fan of Silent Salt Cookie ever since I stepped foot in this fandom. When he released, I fell in love with his character, and I feel like a lot of people feel the same even now. I've always wondered what made him so different somehow. Here's my attempts at analysing him. But yeah, those are mostly disconnected ramblings.
First, we'll take a look at how he was perceived.
Most cookies, mainly those he protected, respected and admired for his selflessness. Some, according to Charcoal, even viewed him as a god. Many, interestingly, feared him as well, or were at least intimidated by him. They were thankful, but they didn't quite understand him, not enough not to be manipulated into distrusting him at the end.
A lot of people, especially among tyrants, seemed to hate him and his knights, for it is impossible to fight for the oppressed without the opressors viewing you as an ennemy. These cookies hated him, and basically wanted him and his knights dead.
His knights, who knew him best, trusted him with their lives. They admired him, but did'nt fear him. They, more importantly, understood him, knew of the weight of his burdens and his love for cookiekind. Even after their death, and his corruption, they still supported him, because of how much they loved him.
Overall, despite most people assuming he was the most loved among the emissaries, it was only true for those close to him, as there were many who wanted his head too, for something he was basically always doing. So yeah, I don't think he was as revered as it might come accross.
Naturally, his duty is to spread solidarity across the world. According to his dialogue in episode twelve, it seems his biggest dream was to make sure everyone would be safe and free no matter who they were. Solidarity was his virtue, and he was the one who would make this dream come true.
He wanted to fight for this dream. He wanted people to understand that, if they were all united, if they all helped eachother, no one would need to suffer alone. To the point where he did'nt care what happened to him. He was created for this purpose, and he got close enough to the people he was supposed to protect that he genuenly wanted them to live the best life they could, in the end.
But a part of his goals we often ignore is to be found in his fears, or what hints we get of them.
From what we can see, he feared not being enough. It seems to me that, because of how much responsability he had, he thought of himself and the virtues quite strictly. He doesn't seem to trust their, or his ability to keep protecting the world -hence why he formated the silver tree plan, wich originally was going to redistribute their strenght to anyone.
The interesting thing here is that Salt, even before anything bad happened, did'nt trust himself. Not with his power, or with the future of Cookiekind. Barely with his own, too. Because of how much responsability he put on his shoulders, he blamed himself for everything that could ever go wrong. So, he wanted to put that responsability, these powers away from himself.
He's got a strange relationship to power, too.
He wanted everyone to have equal power, according to his dialogue. But at least to me, it seems at though there might be something deeper than this. In SSc's voice line, we can find evidence of his distaste for his own strenght, and power in general. While his pre corrupt and his post corrupt self are largely different, his general belief system appears to stay the same.
The way I interpret it, he may believe himself and even the other emissaries to be threats due to their vast powers, and thus hold them to higher standarts. It would make sense, since he is no stranger to how people in position of great powers tend to become corrupted and forsake everything in the name of their own person. His biggest fear is to give in, to become tainted himself, to the point that he straight up tells his knights that part of their duty is to slay him, if he ever becomes as such.
To the point where, after he does give in his own emotions, he forsakes himself and even starts planning for his own death.
In general, most of Salt's flaws as the SoS are mostly spawned out of his desire to protect Cookieking. He wants to protect them with his strenght, but this very power he has makes him a threat to it as well, making him distrust his own capacities and eventually hate himself. It also spawns this objectification of himself and the other virtues in his head, this refusal to view himself as more than a ticking bomb or a miracle machine. Because if he did, that would mean that he too had desires he could give into. So he, ironically, denies himself solidarity, and rejects his own personhood.
All of this brings us an interesting question ; why is he the way he is, then ? Eternal Sugar Cookie cared as much about Cookies as he did. Mystic Flour Cookie, too had individuals (Cloud Haetae Cookie and their mother) she trusted, and who trusted her. Shadow Milk Cookie was no stranger to hatred and lonelyness. Burning Spice loved his civilasitions, too, before they all crumbled. They all held, in a way, the same love, the same duties, the same despair.
So why was he the one to punish himself and them so thoroughfully ? Why did he completely forsake himself, when everyone else accepted their new selves or missions at least somewhat ?
If I had to take a crack at it, I'd say it's a combination of intense self loathing, trust issues directed at his own person, and overall the strict standarts he held himself to. He didn't end up like esc or mfc because he no longer trusted himself to uphold his duties, he did'nt end like bsc or smc because he didn't believe he hated himself too much to believe he too deserved a fufilling life.
Then the question is about these strict standarts in question ; where do they come from ? Why did he embrace these responsabilities and allow them to break his own life down so much more than the rest of the virtues ? Did something happen to him before his corruption ?
Well, I guess we may never know.
Here's a bunch of quite interesting facts about him I managed to compile while re reading his episodes ;
He canonically talks to his horse
His plan about the silver tree was apparantly made after the witches disapeared, and near the other Virtues's disapearances.
just like White Lily Cookie, he has a tendency to disapear and appear randomly without warning.
At some point, he talks about how in the past, he and the cookies of the barren did the impossible (whatever this means). Interesting how he groups himself with other cookies here.
He came to search for the Virtues after they vanished, but they hid away from him, perhaps because of the weight of his expectations.
I'll make a part two about Silent Salt cookie after his corruption, eventually.
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