A few important thoughts on Goro Akechi
Listen. Iâm not here to police what characters you like or dislike. I donât give a shit if you dislike Goro Akechi because the shit he did, in your mind, outweighs his reasons behind his actions (so long as you actually understand those reasons), because forgiveness is a deeply personal thing. I donât care if you canât bring yourself to trust a character who can so easily change his apparent personality to suit his needs, because letâs face it, thatâs a potentially pretty dangerous skill. I donât care if you dislike him just because you donât like the way he acts in general. Thatâs your business, not mine.
But if you are simplifying his motives down to âlol he was butthurt that mommy and daddy didnât love him enoughâ, that is my business, as a survivor of an abusive parent, and you, my friend, are an asshole.
Letâs look at my life. I grew up with my biological parents. My mother was argumentative and pushy but at least mostly acted like a decent person when my father was around, but became cruel, mocking, and sometimes even physically violent when he wasnât. Then she got sick and became less physically threatening, but more emotionally abusive to compensate â to this day, there are things I have great difficulty coping with when trying to care for sick loved ones because of the way she would use her illness as an excuse to be abusive. She tried to turn me against my father in arguments and use me as a weapon to manipulate him; to this day I fear manipulating people by accident. All in all, it was a pretty shitty experience.
And it was nothing compared to what Goro went through. Sure, he doesnât go into much detail, but he tells us enough, and we see enough. The first time he arrives at Leblanc, he spills pretty much his entire life story â the very life story he has crafted an elaborate character to portray for the explicit purpose of preventing others from finding out. He was raised by a single mother up until she committed suicide, then thrown into the foster system. He doesnât say anything more than this, but a quick search will bring up lots of foster care horror stories. One way or another, he found out who his father was â and that he was a horrible person â and he wanted revenge for his childhood, making it safe to assume that he was a victim of one of those foster care horror stories.
But letâs also look at the implications of the fact that he reveals all this at his first visit to Leblanc. I know you all may be desensitized by your coffee shop AUs, where itâs totally normal to spill your heart out to your barista like this for some reason, but where one is trying for more realistic characterizationâŚthat shit isnât normal. Especially not when what youâre spilling could destroy your career, which would probably get you killed. Thatâs not an exaggeration; the stigma against illegitimate children is strong in Japan, so for an idol to reveal that he is oneâŚhe could say goodbye to all his fans, and with them, his effectiveness at distracting the world from how very convenient these mysterious deaths were for Shido and his flunkies. And he just went and revealed this information to a near total stranger. That is not normal. Sure, you can try to write it off as just plot convenient exposition, but that doesnât seem likely in a game that makes a point to realistically portray a wide variety of different responses to abuse (see: Annâs reason for not killing Kamoshida, vs. Yusukeâs struggle with his mixed feelings about Madarame, vs. Haruâs genuine continued caring for her father despite his actions).
Now, how much choice did Goro have in his actions? Itâs canonically made crystal clear that the answer is not much. Itâs worth remembering, Shido brags that he has been in control all along â leaving us to realize that the only real bad decision that Goro made himself was the decision to contact him in the first place; the rest of his âdecisionsâ most likely boiled down to âdo I obey or do I die?â Of course, that, in and of itself, doesnât necessarily warrant forgiveness; like Iâve said, forgiveness is a deeply personal choice. Iâm not saying you have to forgive and like him because of this; what I am trying to highlight is that taking risks â such as revealing that much information to near-strangers â is a common way of trying to take back control of your own life when you have none. In other words, this is common behavior of someone trying to escape abuse. In Goroâs case, specifically, he is risking his life for the sake of regaining just a little control. This is also likely a sign of an attachment disorder â which is caused by â guess what!! â being neglected as a child!
This is not âwaaaaah daddy didnât come to my little league games!!1â â this is âI have gone through hell on earth, and in trying to make it better things went from bad to worse, please help.â This is not a child throwing a childish tantrum over a parent who canât just stop working to spend more time with him â this is the behavior of someone who has been severely mistreated, shows signs of an attachment disorder as a result, and is trapped in what is by far the most harmful part of a lifetime of abuse as far as others are concerned, but for all we know, may not even be close to the worst for him, himself. To treat his motives like theyâre no more meaningful than a ten-year old throwing a tantrum because his dad canât extend the family vacation is trivializing the very real issue of parental abuse and neglect, that very real people experience.
âOh, but he shouldnât have chased down Shido in the first place; he should have known what would happen if he knew he was so bad!â â let me tell you a Thing. People who are abused by family members from a young age often end up habitually falling back into abusive relationships â we see early signs of abuse and we get attached, because itâs whatâs familiar. I had this problem for most of my life; in fact, I was hesitant to start dating my boyfriend until he did something kinda scary that strongly resembled something shitty because he was too nice and it was unfamiliar and terrifying. It still kinda freaks me out to be in such a functional relationship because up until now, most of my life has been a matter of either already being on the defensive, or wondering when the other shoe is going to drop. So, again, common abuse survivor problem. Very much less his fault than a whole fuckton of you give him credit for. Sure, chasing down Shido was a shitty decision, but it was not the kind of shitty decision one makes out of carelessness, ignorance, and selfishness â itâs the kind of shitty decision one makes out of a malformed sense of how interpersonal relationships are supposed to work.
Tl;dr: Hate him all you want, but if your reason for hating him is just that you think being abused and neglected by every parent figure in your life is no big deal if the victimâs very plausible reaction is not one you approve of â i.e., you just like shitting on people who are badly affected by parental abuse â you are an asshole and need to fuck the fuck off. Stop fucking downplaying the effects of abuse and neglect. Youâre not tough or cute for being in better shape than an abuse survivor (whether real or fictional); youâre just an asshole for trying to pretend you are. And if you really, truly think that as a parent, manipulating your child into becoming your personal hitman and keeping them in that position under the threat that youâll kill them if they donât comply is even vaguely comparable to spending more time at work than theyâd like or not taking them to a baseball game, please, please, please, please, PLEASE never ever ever have kids ever.
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