#core lies

For our Core Lies series of asks breaking down a character's distorted beliefs about themselves that drive their character.

Breaking Bad is a show about toxic masculinity. Pretty much all of the central characters are victims of a patriarchal structure with warped senses of pride and identity tied into their ability to perform and to provide. Gus pretty much spells it out to Walter when he says "what does a man do? A man provides" with that speech weighing on the toxic ideal that men simply bare the weight and persist forward because it is what is expected of him.

That scene is Gus hoisting toxic masculinity onto Walter, a petty man who desires to have superiority over his surroundings (it is text that he married Skyler because he looked down on her intellectually) and whose life of crime began with him emasculated by his brother in law, feeling weak and powerless, attempting to assert dominance over the world.

Jesse is Walter's first victim in this campaign of domination. Throughout the show Walter seeks to have control over Jesse and uses Jesse's desperation for a positive male role model to assert control over him that he uses well beyond the first seasons of the show. The only reason Jesse ended up still in the game during the final season is because Walter refused to relinquish this control. He spends much of seasons 3 and 4 intentionally undermining Jesse's growth as a person and trying to belittle him as a means of keeping Jesse seeking his approval, even going as far as to admit that he was lying about the quality of Jesse's cook when he felt an honest opinion would benefit more than his usual sharp barbs.

But this is a discussion on Jesse's core lie, isn't it?

Jesse is a chronically dissociated and lost young man who was ejected by his parents and desperately desires love and acceptance from outside of himself. He eventually discovers it in a caregiver's role which was seeded fairly early when we see how he takes care of his little brother, how he protects the child in the den that he raids and of course his behavior around Brock.

Actualization for Jesse is in a character seeking to be taken care of, learning to take care of others. Not in the selfish and angry way that Walter does, in which he lies constantly about his actions being for the sake of his family; Jesse treats nurture and care as an active and present responsibility which involves emotional care and securing safety not with violence but with shelter.

If Breaking Bad is the story of toxic masculinity starring Walter White, it is the story of the self-destructive rampage of a self absorbed egotist who wants to drag everyone down with him.

Then El Camino is the story of a Jesse Pinkman escaping the grasp of toxic masculinity and choosing a life free from the world that Walter dragged him into. (Albeit Jesse did begin as a cook prior to the story, he was a dumb kid who was never going to tangle in cartel business until Saul and Walter got their claws into him).

El Camino is actually a remarkably focused story when viewed through this lens but I'm just going to focus on this one screenshot:

Jesse steals his father and his mother's guns. Specifically gendered in their their names and designs.

One gun is a Colt Woodsman. A long barreled .22 caliber pistol which may as well be called the Man-ManMan gun for the connotations both Colt has for guns and Woodsman has for manly occupations. The other a Smith & Wesson Safety Hammerless a tiny little piece that has an internal hammer and safety on the grip. The modern version of this gun is called the Ladysmith.

The way he wins the final is by baiting an aggressor into a wild west style shootout using the Woodsman on his belt line (a phallic position) indicated as the weapon he will be firing from. With his hand in his pocket he fires the internal hammer gun instead.

He refuses to play by the rules of masculinity and earns his freedom that way.

So we reblogged a meme post earlier that used Jesse under the text "Another day of being a beautiful and charismatic woman"

I'll make the argument that Jesse's core lie is "I need to be a strong and capable man"

I really hope that she works out what that lie entails after the end of El Camino.

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For other core lie asks:

Core lies for the Head centre. It is all about security.

5 - “The world is a scary place. I will keep myself safe by retreating to my knowledge and what I know best. I will stick with my books, and data instead of getting real world experiences. That is because I am afraid of being incompetent and not prepared enough to function in the real world”.

6- “The world is a scary place. I cannot do it on my own. I need a support system. I cannot trust anybody. ” So they test people and systems for reliability, scan for inconsistencies and constantly keep analyzing the world around them. They cleave to systems and people that they believe are logically sound, reliable. As such, they value loyalty highly and are very dutiful, conscientious people.

7: “The world is a scary place. I am just going to be fine if I never confront my fear and keep moving from one thing to another rapidly.” Sevens are avoidant and seek distractions in the outer world to keep from engaging with the inner self. Introspection is truly a dark place for the average or unhealthy seven, because that is when their line to 1 points out hard and harsh truths about them that they have managed to hide from, by rationalizing and reframing.

Core lies for the Gut Centre: The gut centre is mainly about anger, change/control and autonomy.

8 - “If I let my guard down, I will be controlled, harmed, abused or manipulated. Vulnerability is weakness”. For fear of being controlled, they pre - emptively demand autonomy or just take it, control people and/or environments making it amply clear who the alpha is.

9 - “If I assert my needs, I might cause conflict and end up losing loved ones.” Nines stay inert and minimize their own needs, often being under the radar for most of their lives. They are super nice but very stubborn when faced with change. They are afraid of conflict.

1-“ I am undeserving of respect and love unless I am perfect. I am not good enough” Ones have an instinctive sense for what is wrong/can be fixed/can be improved in any given situation or when they meet people. Hard core perfectionists, they shield themselves from criticism by being harder on themselves than you could ever be. They believe in earning their autonomy. Regarding control, 1s can be controlling in a very nitpicky fashion because things have to be just so, in line with what they think perfect. Ones are not resistant to change, they are in fact known as the Reformers because of their eye for improvement. If you pass muster with a 1, you are good to go. But chances are that if you have a 1 fix, you will never be good enough.

- ENTP Mod.

(FROM PREVIOUS POST HERE).

About the heart centre: These are extremely needy people, in an emotional sense. Every type has a specific cognitive lie associated with it. For the heart/image types, the lie is about love.

2- I am unworthy of being loved for who I am. I must earn love in reciprocity, by loving and serving people first. So you see, they are not being kind and nurturing exactly out of the goodness of their hearts. They just have a pathological need for being that way.

3- I am unworthy of love as I am. I must be successful in order to get love. They measure love in terms of achievements because they don’t have a concrete sense of self. Everything that they claim they are, is a facade for the true self they hide from. Indeed, a 3’s greatest fear or life changing experience would be to be confronted with the reality of who they ARE. They DO relationships, it is another milestone for them at average health level. I am not sure 3s see a relationship as involving two people and actual feelings, needs etc. Before they get healthy, it is not uncommon for this type to try and buy affection.

4- I am unworthy of love. I will never receive the love I seek/deserve. I will never find the kind of deep connection I want. There is a missing quality in my relationships. People may reject me because I am too flawed or too unique for them to understand. Before they reject me, I will reject them.

Core Lies meme.

Rei Ayanami (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Throw us in the deep end, why don't you?

Rei is quite possibly the most difficult character to analyze in a dense piece of art that itself is difficult to analyze.

She is a copy of a copy. A fracture of a fracture.

Who is she?

She is alone. Someone so dissociated from humanity that she has no relationship to her sense of self.

She's a tool. A combat doll.

The interesting thing about discussing Rei in any capacity is that you are drawn into discussing what she represents for others. A replacement Yuy. Someone Shinji envies for her connection to Gendo. Someone Ritsuko loathes for her connection to both Gendo and her mother. Someone Asuka hates.

In that regard Rei is nothing more than a mirror reflecting the insecurities the characters face. It's why Naoko killed the first Rei. She saw the child as amplifying her insecurities over the spectre of Yuy.

Rei spends so much of her life alone inside of a room. Her one cherished possession a pair of glasses from the time Gendo risked himself to save her and showed actual concern. A single memory she has of being valued as a person and not a thing. Not a means.

Hell... when she dies in episode 23 she is reaching out for Gendo.

Her entire life she just wanted a connection. Just a single fucking connection.

She's denied humanity. She doesn't even have a sense of self to have a relationship with herself. She's got more in common with the angels and the EVA units than with other humans.

I don't know if I'm equipped to fully answer for a character who is that dissociated from humanity and our specialty in media analysis IS dissociated characters.

I was going to joke that "I am not a doll" was her lie. But that's mean. It makes a good zinger but I think the broader message of Evangelion as a series requires more than that.

Her lie is similar to Shinji's.

She's desperately lonely. She has no sense of self whatsoever.

Unlike Shinji and Asuka she doesn't even seek validation, absolution or acceptance from her utility. She seeks definition from it.

She believes well and truly "I am what others define me." she believes that she cannot create a sense of self outside of being perceived by others. It is why her room is barren. She has no inner life at all, spare for those glasses.

Rei doesn't even attempt to be anything other than what she is used for. She claims not to be a doll.

But she acts like one. Others define her as such. She follows that script. Because she does not know how to be anything than what she's made to be.

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For our Core Lies asks where we take characters and look into what their broken belief is.

Master Aqua (Kingdom Hearts)

Birth By Sleep is a narrative about 3 (allegorical) siblings who are raised in a closed off family under a strict and rigid belief structure, not allowed to interact with the outside world.

The game begins with the two nominal adults being tested to see if they can interact with the outside world without allowing impure thinking (darkness) into their hearts. Aqua is able to maintain her obedience and is granted the rank of Master. Terra questions his beliefs and is forbidden from leaving. Ventus is too young and must remain sheltered.

Then the game happens.

Aqua is (allegorically) the elder sister and feels weighed down by her responsibility to the other two, feeling that anything that happens to them is her responsibility. Throughout the narrative she is shown to shoulder the burdens of others while refusing help (fighting in the Colloseum and refusing Zack's aid) while trusting authority (helping to capture Stitch without question).

Where Ventus is driven by a curiosity, unburdened by the light/darkness dogma that Terra and Aqua are; Terra is mistrustful of light only thinking; Aqua attempts to be true to what she was raised to believe and is constantly tested by her experiences in the worlds, realizing that things are not black and white or dark/light.

Everything was so simple on the isolated island with her family. Now her siblings are growing apart from her and she can no longer trust them to follow The One True Path that she has spent her life dedicated to... and she is starting to doubt herself and that path, too.

It's a mirror to Sora, Kairi and Riku's own progression into adulthood. Every Kingdom Hearts game tends to have an element of what it means to leave childhood behind and to become an adult. In my opinion KH2 did it best.

The thing that defines Aqua during this time is her doubt. She begins the game completely driven by an unwavering conviction. Enough that it's her menu description.

But her narrative is driven by doubt being raised in her heart. She is no longer sure that the beliefs she hold can keep her loved ones safe. She believes in the people and if they are abandoning their conviction to light purity then is she wrong to follow Master Eraqus without question?

Then Terra kills Eraqus and she is forced to make a decision to believe in her family or her fallen master.

...and she fails to make a decision.

She truly cannot reconcile the conflicts that she is presented with because she has been raised to only have black and white thinking and to be guided by unwavering faith, not the ability to tell right from wrong herself. She learns critical thinking in real time during the events of Birth by Sleep and only gets to the point of being able to see outside of what she was taught to do at the very end where she is supposed to strike down the two people she loves the most to protect The Light.

And she cannot.

She needs to believe that there is a way to save Terra and Ventus. Even if she fails and Ventus is sealed in oblivion and Terra is possessed by Xehonort.

In trying and failing to rescue them both she is banished to the darkness for over a decade. Alone in darkness, hounded by monsters.

Yet even still. She managed to hold on to herself through her faith in her family. In hopes of saving them. She never ever gives up.

Ten years. Alone. Lost in the darkness. Silence surrounding. Once there was morning... now endless night.

We see that she is consumed by grief, regret, powerlessness. She has taken full responsibility for all that happened. All that could happen. Even after everything. Even after all that time alone, she believes that she is the one who has to do it all on her own.

It should be noted that the thing that gives her hope is hearing from Ansem that Sora is out there spreading light in the world and that somewhere out there someone is trying to save her.

When she is consumed by the darkness she confronts Mickey and (rightfully, in my opinion) accuses him of abandoning her. Mickey knew (as of KH1 at the latest) and still Aqua had to spend 10 years waiting. Because she is The Strong One. She has to hold up the world for others. Be obedient to her master. Stay true to the light. Protect Terra and Ventus. Be responsible. Protect.

Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong. Be Strong.

Aqua's lie is one counter to the entire Kingdom Hearts series.

She alone is responsible. She alone has to protect everyone.

Everyone must rely on her. She cannot rely on anyone else.

Aqua's core lie is that she must shoulder all burdens. Alone.

...and for someone imprisoned in shadow for a full decade. Is "My burden is mine alone. No one can or will help me. I have to be strong for everyone else." a truly outlandish thing to believe?

For other core lie asks:

(From our ask meme where people send us a character and we dissect their core lie)

Evangeline Morgan (aka The Heartbreak Killer)

So I'm not going to pretend I'm as good at Of The Devil as our friends in the Codex Entry twitch streams, but I am in their orbit and have discussed the characters with them in the past.

To be brief and just break down my answer into a single line. Morgan's internal lie is

"I am being honest with myself." and just a little above that "Nothing I do could ever possibly matter."

I wanted to link a bunch of monologues, particularly the one she delivers to Creek when it/she/he/they work out Morgan's identity. Unfortunately OtD is not popular enough that I can just pull Youtube clips at will.

I do have this one where Morgan tells Serra about HBK and how HBK would have to kill endlessly for decades to measure the amount of death that capitalism enacts in a single day.

Due to this, Morgan thinks that no amount of activity as HBK would amount to anything.

In the Creek sequence she converses with Creek as they die and gets some motivations and moral accusations thrown at her. She shoots down the notion that she's doing things for political reasons or that she was abused by her parents.

She says that she does it because she feels like it.

Reality is that her activities as HBK are having an impact on society. There are mass protests because of what she does. She may be perturbed by the action and get angry that people attribute meaning to her self-confessed nihilistic actions.

But the reason it bothers her is this...

She needs to believe that nothing she does matters, that nothing she does has societal consequences, that her life is meaningless. Because that belief is so central to who she is and what she does, that she cannot handle the evidence that there is an impact.

People believe what they want to believe, she'd argue. Nothing she does or believes has any correlation in how the people are taking this whole HBK phenomenon.

But if she had not done as she did, there would be no protests.

The reason there is a HBK for people to mythologize in the first place is because she was meticulous about her targets and how she executed them in Episode 0. If there is no code, no rhyme, no reason... then why did all the victims from the antique revolver murders happen to match so perfectly that the world could spin a story about it.

Morgan is dishonest down to her core. Blind while declaring she is the only one who can see.

Her lie is that she is telling the truth.

For other core lie asks:

For our Core Lies meme (Bruce has already had an entry)

Devil Hulk (The Immortal Hulk)

So, there are two eras for Devil Hulk.

The Jenkins era in the early 2000s (and the Ultimate Devastation video game) and Ewing's Immortal Hulk.

For the most part I will talk about the Ewing version.

So, full disclosure to our Tumblr audience, Turq and I discussed this on Discord and the "I take that personal" catchphrase that appears on the above image.

Turq said that the first time it was used was after Shadow Base captured the system and did invasive tests on Devil. As he intentionally takes a life, murders with willful intent (as opposed to a consequence of a Hulk's rampage) is claimed to be because the victim in question hurt Banner and when you hurt Banner, he takes it real personal.

Now... we should probably note that Hulk taking life, accidentally or otherwise, is a contentious thing unto itself. It's brought up within Immortal and Devil casually accepts Amadeus Cho's theory that the system calculate potential damage to steer any active Hulk from killing people. It's convenient for protecting Bruce and so he doesn't dispute it.

Devil's motivation in Jenkin's run is to force Bruce into the mindscape where he could live in a happy fantasy, free from the horrors of reality. In Ewing's run it is to "destroy the status quo" because the world as it is under capitalism is something that hurts Bruce and he wants to lash out at anything that hurts Bruce.

Now... the hard thing to note is that Devil is outwardly dishonest. I think Devil is just doing whatever he can to protect the whole system after their successful assisted suicide in Civil War 2. Devil woke up because Bruce killed himself. He was beyond despair and Devil is doing anything he can to repair them all.

It's clear by the end that his plan was always to pass the reigns of protection on to Joe.

I think that Devil internalizes a lot of the building blocks that make him what he is and he embodies them to push the system forward but never envisioned a future with him in it.

Not to post The Page again but...

I believe Devil's core lie is that he is built off of the building blocks of Brian Banner. Bruce cannot imagine love with pain, he fears the anger that exists within him.

He knows that he can never be the father that Bruce needs. He can't protect him forever. He's just doing what he can because the system needs him.

I believe he's internalized some of that.

That he is the monster Bruce sees him as, so he acts it. That Bruce is afraid of him, so he keeps him at arms reach.

My belief is a sad one. "Bruce will be better off without me."

He's just there until Joe can take his place.

For an alter who was released from imprisonment because the system committed suicide, Devil has no attachment to living for himself.

I think that Devil actually has a lot of personal drive and impulse of his own. But he supresses it or rationalizes it to be about helping Bruce. Because he keeps telling himself that he has to go away when they're safe. That "safe" is a world that doesn't have him in it.

Which is kind of sad.

...speaking of Joe. I have another ask in my box...

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For other core lie asks:

Poke at Juri! Show us how much she lies to herself! She's my favorite regal, cool, ikemen failgirl lesbian.

Core Lies ask meme. People send us a character. We interrogate what we believe their central false belief is.

Juri Arisugawa

Juri, from Revolutionary Girl Utena, is the captain of Ohtori's fencing team. Strong. Bold. Prideful. Sensible and accomplished.

Juri is one of the top ranking members of the school's society and serves as one of the duelists in Akio's game. She sticks strictly to the societal norms of the school's culture and does little to question or rebel against it.

She is, however, aware that she is oppressed by it.

Juri is a lesbian. In love with a former classmate of whom she was part of a toxic love triangle with.

Juri is also a mirror to the protagonist, Utena. They are both princely women who participate in the rose bride duels and have female love interests. Juri is a better duelist than Utena. Every time she loses it is because of her feelings of regret and desperation towards Shiori, the woman who hurts her and rejects her constantly. The woman she cannot get over.

In the first duel she, livid to see Utena walking the doomed path that she herself walked, demands to see a miracle that would bring about a success where she failed. Utena summons the power of Dios and a miracle happen.

The second duel she is emotionally torn apart by Ruka (of whom she is implied to have had sex with prior to the fight). Ruka chides that miracles can only be claimed via sacrifice.

Juri cannot let go. She is incapable.

Utena utilizes the power of Dios again. She was aiming for the rose but misses and instead rips her locket from her neck and exposes it. The image of Shiori sitting within.

She rips the rose off herself. Surrenders. Standing in the rain and allowing herself to just cry. To release the bitterness in her heart over Shiori. If only for a moment.

Juri's core lie within the text is simple "miracles are not real" but requires a deeper look to fully understand.

Her locket remains hidden under her uniform. She sits on the school council and aids the patriarchy of Akio's game despite it being a thing that limits her freedom. She holds on to bitterness and affection to Shiori years after the event, incapable of letting go.

Even at the end of the show she tells Utena that she thinks of herself as selfish and unable to release her emotions. She is consumed by repression and believes that this is the only way she can be, even after her defeat. Perhaps on a long enough timeline she will free herself.

But she's not willing to let go. She's not willing to sacrifice. She sees herself in Utena. But Utena never backed down. Never allowed the patriarchal system define her. Juri sides with the system. Utena rebels against it. One will aid the revolution of the abusive cycles. The other will aid in the revolution of tearing down Ohtori.

Juri believes nothing can be changed. That she cannot be changed. That she cannot actualize with the world as it is. That she cannot change the world. That her only choice is to hide her true heart, represented by the locket, and persist as the prestigious member of the school's society.

Juri is one of our favourite characters of all time.

She is potentially the most Camden coded character in fiction.

We love her. We hope that after Anthy leaves Ohtori that she heals and finds a nice woman out in the world.

For other core lie asks:

-💚🦌

(For our Ask Game requesting characters to dissect the core lie about themselves that a person believes)

Dear sweet Elliot.

The Character.

The one fictional blorbo that I write the most about on this blog. Just look how many Original posts we have in our Mr. Robot tag.

Elliot is a fun character to approach this from because he is an unreliable narrator whose entire identity is built upon a lie that believes so thoroughly that the finale of the show is him coming to terms with the fact that he's not who he thinks he is.

But I've made my feelings on the ending known in the past so I'll focus on an easier answer.

In every season there is a "Fuck [x]" speech. Season one he lashes out at society, season two at god, season three at himself and then in the final season against anyone who would sacrifice the future of the world to chase some idolized dream of the past.

As I note in my DID in Mr. Robot post, I think that the show is an allegory for healing with a dissociative disorder and that Whiterose and Elliot both represent people who are defined by what has been done to them in the past and are unable to move beyond it.

The Alderson siblings in the first seasons of the show want to punish Evil Corp for taking their father away from them and have wrapped themselves in a safety blanket of the positive memories they have from childhood. Coney Island being the safe place for both siblings. Whiterose's entire ideology is wrapped around this same core of using the safety of the past to protect ones self. Everything from reruns and cereal, taxidermy and constructing elaborate dioramas built from objects found in her target's childhood homes are ways the show uses this vague notion of past safety as a misguided shield.

But the siblings want to punish. To lash out. They try to cripple Evil Corp via the hack. Darlene even goes as far as to murder the lawyer who defeated her father's case in court and ensured he did not have the ability to finance medical treatment.

Elliot lashes out a lot. He needs to in order to keep himself safe. He's terrified of other people. It's why he does his "Fuck [x]" speeches. Truth is he's a scared kid who doesn't know what to do in a world that hurt him.

The lie he believes (other than "I am Elliot Alderson", because that's too literal and too boring) is that he can force the world to change. That much like Bruce Banner finding a cure for the Hulk, he can just bully the world into being better.

I could throw a serious accusation that Elliot truly believed he was the only person with internality, but that is kind of cruel. Even if his speeches tend to make it seem true. We know that the speeches are posturing and Elliot doesn't truly believe the things he is saying.

The Fuck Society speech in particular is debunked in the final confrontation with Whiterose where Elliot finally accepts that people are generally good, at least they're trying to be.

The fact is...

Lashing out. Destroying. Punishing. They don't work. They never could. The only way to heal is to grow. To build. Block by block. Step by step. Day by day.

Elliot's lie is that he can fix the world. That there is an action he can take that will make things better and make things alright.

Whiterose happens to believe the same thing.

It's why their confrontation is so incredible to watch. Two people opposed who have the same core belief but completely different and incompatible ideologies.

They sense that the world is broken and they want to fix it.

It's not until the very end that Elliot realizes that fixing the world is not an action, it's a movement. Phillip even chided Mr. Robot on this very issue at the start of season 4. The Alderson system kept calling 5/9 a revolution. But it was just chaos. There was no movement because there was no direction.

Real change requires changing society by being in society. By being yourself intentionally and letting the tide change around us. It's not a quick and easy thing but as the show is an allegory for healing trauma; neither is that. You can't just drink a potion and be rid of trauma and its impacts (looking at you, Banner) - it's a process of living in the world and changing it and letting it change you.

Elliot is only able to heal the system when he accepts that. Because beyond the hacking and the economic crash and the corporate nonsense there's just a dissociative system that is maladaptive because Elliot (and Robot, tbh) believe that they can just Make It Better and it'll be Fixed Forever.

Sorry, sweetheart. It doesn't work like that and I think you always knew it.

Other core lie answers: