Terra, Lingering Will, & Emotional Regulation
So. A while back I noticed something I thought was odd about Lingering Will, and I figure now's a good time to share with the class.
In its idle animation, Lingering Will looks like it's breathing. It's taking deep, slow, deliberate breaths.
Which is a strange thing for a completely empty suit of armour to do, eh? A haunted suit of armour can't and doesn't need to breathe. At first I thought maybe it was doing that out of habit from being alive, or that maybe it's as simple as the animators either not knowing it's an empty armour at the time of KH2FM or just not thinking that deeply about it.
But. As a friend pointed out to me...
...One of Terra's most consistently shown techniques to calm himself down and control his emotions is deep breathing. So if Lingering Will is doing the same thing, there's a good chance it's for the same reasons. It's using a self-soothing technique.
Remember, though: emotions aren't confined to the mind. They're experienced physically. When you're afraid, your heart rate goes up; when you're calm, your muscles relax; etc, etc.
And the reason that deep breathing is such a good self-soothing technique is that it regulates the involuntary physical processes that are part of emotions. Slow breathing lowers heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature. It triggers changes in the central nervous system that effectively slow your brain down and improve your ability to think. It also encourages you to be aware of how you're feeling physically, which makes it easier to take other physical steps to regulate your emotions, such as consciously releasing tense muscles.
What this all comes together into is:
Lingering Will is trying to control it's emotions by mimicking the motions involved in deep breathing. But because it doesn't have a body, the mimicked breathing can't produce the biological changes that actually help calm you down. It's trying to soothe its rage and anxiety but its primary coping mechanism is giving it nothing.
Can you even imagine that? Your worst flash of anger, the most scared you've ever felt, sustained at full volume for ten years and there isn't a damn thing you can do to help yourself. But you keep trying anyway. No matter how futile it is you keep trying.
It just... makes the whole situation even sadder, for me.
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