Tsubasa’s dark side from a psychological point of view
Tsubasa has had a great character arc in the second season. His figth with Ryuuga has done some damage to him, the dark power is still within him and shows itself when Tsubasa is about to lose a battle. What is really interesting here, is how his situation is portrayed as an mental illness called dissociative identity disorder.
If some of you are not familiar with that psychological illness : After a person faces extreme trauma (mostly in their childhood), their mind creates in respond another (or more) personality(s) to cope with the experience. Those other personalities are extreme forms of specific characteristics (for example, one can have a depressed personality who always speaks badly of themselves and another one, who is always optimistic or only cares about themselves). Those different personlities switch if faced with « triggers », a stimulation which reminds said person of a traumatic experience.
New personalities are formed to cope with the trauma, as said before, there are many different ways of how the personalities can turn out and deal with the current situation.
In Tsubasa’s case, his other personality (Let’s call him „Protective Tsubasa“) tries to get what Tsubasa wants : Victory. Whenever Tsuabsa alone cannot win a battle, Protective Tsubasa shows up and acts a lot more selfish and self-willed in an attempt to win. Whatever it takes. Tsubasa’s mind created a « Protector », a personality that is selfish, confident and does what it wants, but with a certain goal in mind. A goal in connection with the traumatic event. A goal to proetct Tsubasa from being hurt again.
Protective Tsubasa’s goal is to win, winning means that the traumatic experience (in this case, being defeated by Ryuuga in a gruesome way) will be avoided. We have also seen that Tsubasa has already had some winning/loosing issues in his childhood, which might explain better why his mind chose this specfic coping mechanism : Because he has carried the struggles of losing for a long time, because he has been frustrated by that for a long time and couldn’t achieve his goal in the very end. Therefore, Protective Tsubasa might have been created way earlier, Protective Tsubasa himself said that he has been around for a long amount of time. That explains better why Tsubasa reacts in this way to his defeat by Ryuuga. The dark power brings out the fears of people, their worst sides.
Since Tsubasa’s DID is co-conscious (being aware of what is going on, no amnesia), he is able to talk with Protective Tsubasa, who tries to take control. He also gives reasons as why he acts the way he does and reminding Tsubasa of his past, that he has always been a dark person. That kind of behavior can relalistcally happen to real people with DID, their other personalities might try to take control, each one has their own point of view of how to handle things and in the end, tries to prevent further harm, no matter the price sometimes.
For those with DID, who go to therapy, the aim is so „associate“, to become one personality again. Therefore, cooperation with the other personalities is inevitable, to see their point of view and make them realize that things are different now. That there is no reason to be afraid of the traumatic event happening again, that they do not need to be on guard all time.
In the end, Tsubasa accepts his dark side, but also his light side. He accepts that he has both potentials inside himself, he associantes, seeing himself as one person again, with different kinds of shades. The ideal way would be to give more attention to Protective Tsubasa and work more with him, but well, this is an anime for children, we cannot accept a whole therapy session.
Please ask if you have any questions :)
