#icy rambles

Parrot's regularly proven himself to be a hypocrite, what with telling Wemmbu off about how stealing is wrong and you shouldn't stoop to your enemy's levels, only to immediately turn around and talk about stealing from Reddoons the next video later BEFORE he even realized there was anything wrong with Red or Capitol City's way of business. Then there's the blatant killing off of Dean and Wifies' pets while arguing it's fine for him to have an allay just to make it super obvious that, yes, he is a hypocrite.

Then there's the entire mess with Wifies during their fight. They "broke up," sure. Parrot ran away despite Wifies begging him to come back and then later accused Wifies of being the one to leave. Wifies has since apologized profusely and no longer made any attempt to argue with Parrot on the matter of his own safety because he fears Parrot will leave again. Parrot has not yet apologized as of the time I am writing this. Wifies may have overstepped by burning the compass, but Parrot refused to hear him out on a very real concern that Parrot is throwing himself into danger, and Wifies just doesn't want to lose him. Considering Parrot's hero complex, as shown by repeatedly jumping into fights that aren't necessarily his with little to no regard for personal safety, this is a very real risk.

And, you know, also hypocritical on Parrot's behalf for refusing to listen when he himself has expressed one-sided concern for Wifies' well-being during the entire confrontation with Clown. A scenario where Parrot literally refused to let Wifies help despite Wifies wanting to because he did not want to risk Wifies safety.

I think Parrot was telling the truth. He doesn't understand.

And that, when I really thought about it with this last episode, is kind of fascinating. Even when Parrot has lived through an exact scenario beforehand where he felt the desire to keep someone he cared about safe, he refused to listen when the situation was reversed. In fact, Parrot said his usual "I don't understand" multiple times after Wifies burned the compass and explained he wanted to keep Parrot safe.

He doesn't understand, despite having been in a very similar situation before.

The more I thought about Parrot's actions throughout the entirety of Unstable Universe, the more I realize that Parrot doesn't seem to experience empathy. At all.

He feels sympathy. He feels bad for the people forced to mine for ores to line Capitol City's koffers. He feels bad for Wifies being chunk banned and missed him dearly because he does care about him. He felt bad for Dean's predicament with the mafia and took him under his wing. He has a strong sense of justice. He helps people. He knows what's wrong and fights for what is right. In fact, Parrot is an objectably good guy. But he can't put himself in someone elses place. And when he does end up in the other person's shoes, he can't handle it.

Just look at how freaked out he was over Clown saying they were a lot alike. Something that had a profound impact on one, possibly more videos. Let's ignore the moral high ground Parrot tried to scrape together at the end that was absolutely unjustified and focus on Parrot's actions after Clown said that for the moment. Even after getting Wifies back from the threat of Clown almost killing his friend, Parrot STILL wanted to go after Branzy again despite very clearly seeing what that kind of a hostage situation would lead to. Even after experiencing the same threat to a loved one that he was trying to hold over Clown's head, Parrot could not make the connection that Clown may feel the same. That history would just repeat itself.

Heck, he doesn't even care that he's planning on dragging into a war a bunch of innocents who had only been trying to escape the mafia when he went to the Farlands. Despite the fact that he had his own civilization already taken over by the mafia.

Parrot has his hero complex and acts narcissistic and hypocritical because he can not make the emotional connection between his own feelings and others.

I'm no psychologist, but he strikes me as someone with Empathy Deficiency Disorder. People with this disorder tend to criticize or blame others without understanding where they are coming from, don't take responsibility for their own actions, have little to no patience, rarely show any appreciation for others, and regularly put themselves first and foremost.

Sound familier?

You could probably consider someone like Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean as someone with something similar to this disorder. That or more of a narcissistic disorder, but those tend to go hand in hand.

I don't know if this was the content creator's intention as he wrote up his character, but it certainly helped me put Parrot's actions into perspective. It's really cool to think about watching a character go through the hero's journey without something as basic as empathy. While it's too early to tell, the only other character that might come close to such low empathy is Ash, who is literally the big bad. Then again, we see so little of Ash and his spoken word makes him an unreliable narrator regarding his own goings-ons. Not even Clown, who we've seen has plenty in common with Parrot. Clown experiences empathy, because he knew how upset Parrot would be if Wifies was threatened. Just as upset as Clown would be if Branzy was threatened.

Parrot has changed a lot as a character through the series, but his ability to empathize has remained static. I imagine at the true climax of the story whenever that may be that Parrot will somehow come to understand that other people can and do feel the same. And I'd like to say that will be a satisfying moment, but who knows what it might take to reach that point. A lot has been lost already.