Debate Part 1: About Hans... and how Psychopathy does not encapsulate Hans as a person. Seriously, people are quick to label any person who had done shitty things as a psychopath.
I wanted to do an itty bitty rant about his characterization, especially with how the supposed wikis I've read about him had assumed him a psychopath/sociopath with quick succession instead of addressing the many other factors that could've led to the justification of ending winter via killing Elsa. Granted it was in poor taste that he let the arrogance get the best of him with Anna and spilled out his plans, but to say that it's only reserved for psychopaths is a very presumptuous and reductive assumption.
Not only that, but Hans has shown a lot of emotions himself which weakens the evidences from the label that comes with psychopathy, which is commonly associated with shallow affect(outward expression and depth of emotional experiences). He may possibly be instead, suffering from mismanagement of emotions(compartmentalization, performances, pride, etc.) than the absence of emotions. Not only that, but we barely know about Hans as a whole, as most of the lore that can be found are based from the movie and from the supplementary material, which means we have an incomplete basis of Hans to come to a strong conclusion.
I do not excuse his actions, as they have consequences to the people who ended up being harmed and traumatized by him. He can be harmed by his family and still choose to harm others, that is a choice that he made himself — but that doesn't make him less human for it. If anything, he's unbearably human in the ugly sense. And I dislike how people avoid that part of humanity just to settle with a black and white thinking, we are not saints nor devil incarnates, don't put humanity in a pedestal that is impossible to reach.
Some have bigger regrets than most, I am not telling you to forgive them, I am simply encouraging you to acknowledge their humanity. Perhaps I should bring up that the capacity to do wrongdoings is a human trait? Fyodor Dostoevsky, anyone?
There are many such cases in real life where killers are mentally sane, and not always afflicted with psychopathy/sociopathy, a lot of these cases are from motivations that humans can recognize in themselves, such as greed, jealousy, anger, revenge, or through systems that pressure them.
I'd like to believe the only difference between a killer and a person who hasn't killed is that they never committed the thought into actions, in short, they crossed the line, and one is lucky enough to not see the other side by many other factors, like choice, morality, upbringing, among other things. As I like the quote itself, "It's doesn't take a killer to murder, it only takes a reason to kill."
Spoilers for the "A Frozen Heart" down below!!!
Like we don't even begin to unpack his childhood at "A Frozen Heart" which in the first chapter, had implications on the abuse(if throwing stuff hadn't already counted as one, thats no normal healthy family behavior if I've seen one, not to mention, he knew how to dodge it, which is an indication that he developed reflexes from getting thrown at).
He even specified how his father is the jailer and that he hated the Southern Isles, in Hans shoes, its not hard to when the association you have with it is a deeply unloving family. Another curious thing is how he puts a lot of hope for his father to notice him, to be proud of him, if he truly was unaffected as people say, or even dare I say "psychopathic", he wouldn't be chasing for his father's approval and wishing to prove himself worthy or useful. I consider psychopathy partly reductive to the behaviors and thoughts that were displayed.
He disliked his father, but that didn't mean he wasn't emotionally attached to him. Abuse is a funny thing, it makes you care for the people you shouldn't be caring, and you can say you hate them with all your might, but deep down, you simply only want to be acknowledged by that specific person anyway — or that was the possible explanation I found for his oddly contradictory behavior.
Moving on to the later parts of the chapter, not only that, Hans found physical pain comforting, maybe even more so than emotional pain would. Its also implied that he had used fists and insulted his brothers, which ended up unsuccessful, hence his comment of how it was useless to fight back. In the dynamics shown, it can be inferred that they treated Hans as the scapegoat of the family, where most of the blame and the humiliation gets passed to him.
He even stated how the meeting with his brothers and father for the birthday of their mother, could've been a lot worse, meaning there are separate other incidents that were awful for him to even state it casually like a ranking system. That chapter was happening to him when he turned 17 a few months before at least stated during the end of the chapter, and that it had been happening for a while now, possibly even when he was a kid.
A lot of the chapters have emphasized conditional affection, this appears in how Hans thoughts were often revolving around being needed, being useful, proving himself worthy. My read for him is that he is deeply insecure and negative/pessimistic in his thinking, he copes with stating it's how it will always be, forcing the daydreams out of his head and calling himself worthless and a throwaway. He is used to disappointment and the lack of attention. He has already decided, at least to him, what he is, which is less than nothing.
Let's not forget he was compared to mice, and that his father told him that he should learn a thing or two from his brothers, he was implied to be sensitive back then, enough for his brothers to notice and use it to their advantage to mock him. Which means, he did care, he had enough emotions, but vulnerability itself became a target on his back, especially in a family that cares far more about appearances or politics. Hans wasn't born with immediate knowledge of deception, if anything, it seems to be a learned skill he picked up from his family.
Is this a debate of nature vs nurture? I'd like to think its both actually.
[Under construction, I'll be making more of the paragraphs soon]
