#kantbabe

The stark difference between the two sets of siblings.

One set begs to date/threatens possible crush with death.

Another set is asking for advice/giving advice to date the "cute" customer.

those dynamics in particular are interesting to compare because kant essentially IS babe’s father. he had to take up the role of caring for babe since he was very much a kid himself - he RAISED babe, babe says it himself explicitly. and yet, to me, their dynamic feels a lot more brotherly in nature than fadel and bison’s. it’s not to say fadel and bison don’t feel like brothers at all, they certainly have their moments! however, a lot of the time fadel does come off more like an overbearing father to bison than an older bother.

and i think a lot of it does come down to the different situations they’re in and thus the different ways they handle their brothers as a result. like, the two of them have the same motives throughout the show: protect their brother. but where kant wants babe to have freedom, to have a life, to accomplish his dreams because he is babe’s sole caretaker, fadel tends to squash bison’s dreams in way of keeping him safe from their mother and from the law.

and then there’s the jay and style dynamic which, funnily enough, is the one i think feels least like a normal father/son dynamic despite it being the only ACTUAL father/son relationship in the show. at least not in the proper direction, because a lot of the time it comes off more like style is taking care of jay than jay is taking care of style. not that jay doesn’t have his moments, but often it does feel more like style is the “father” between them. which, knowing style’s mom died when he was a teenager and that he had to step up in that way, it makes sense!

like, one of the moments in particular that stands out to me with regards to jay/style feeling more like the reverse of what it should be and kant/babe feeling more like brothers despite essentially also being father/son is the way kant/style handle telling babe/jay about fadel and bison being in prison.

babe is implied to be fully aware that bison is locked up and is even sending him books about prison breaks to read, while jay is completely unaware fadel is in prison after several YEARS of him being there! like you would think kant would be less likely to tell babe because of how young babe is and wanting to protect him from the knowledge of what bison did, and yet he seems to have no issue telling babe! and you would also think with how close jay and style are and just who style is as a person that he’d feel comfortable being honest with his dad about it. and while it’s entirely possible he didn’t tell jay because he wanted him to keep a good opinion of fadel, to me at least it comes off like it’s more out of protection.

he’s not doing any of this just cause. he is being forced into it in order to protect his brother. all he wants to do is get his records clear so he can keep custody of his little brother. his motives and fadel’s motives are the exact same at the end of the day: to keep their little brothers safe.

which, i think it’s easy to forget that because babe isn’t a main character - we don’t see them interact quite as much as we see bison and fadel interact, we don’t hear kant talk about babe quite as much. and obviously babe has no idea what kant is doing to protect him, so you don’t have him saying it as explicitly as we see fadel trying to reason with bison. but even in the small amount of scenes we do have, you can see how much kant loves babe and how strong that relationship is. it’s his driving force, even if it doesn’t come across quite as clear as fadel’s own.

and i also think it’s an interesting parallel when you consider bison and babe as the things that their brothers want to protect and how that actually impacts them. like on the one hand, you can argue that fadel’s involvement is actively harming bison more than it is helping him. because bison is an adult with wants and desires and agency, and fadel is actively trying to subdue those in order to keep bison safe, but in the very least he’s being honest with bison even if bison doesn’t like the way he does things.

but with babe, he’s just a kid. and yes he has clear wants and desires as well that he expresses in the first episode about wanting to go to london to see a shakespeare play live, but he can’t do any of that on his own yet. and kant unfortunately isn’t just his brother - he’s his guardian. kant is actively lying and hiding things from babe but his own motives come from the fact that he wants to keep babe in his custody and allow his brother to one day achieve those dreams he has.

Bison’s gaze is piercing as he looks at Kant. “You have to understand what you’re asking me. He’s a child. He’ll be stuck a child forever. He won’t get to have friends or a normal life. Everything you’ve worked so hard to protect him from, his innocence you’ve worked so hard to preserve, it won’t matter. He will have to hurt people, to kill them, he will be a monster,” Bison explains firmly. Kant shakes his head. “He’ll be like you. You’re not a monster.” Or. Kant asks Bison to turn Babe.

Kant is twenty-one when he has to become a parent. He’s twenty-one when he drops out of college and moves back home to take care of his little brother. He’s twenty-one when he makes himself and Babe a shitty life raft out of a shitty job with shitty pay that barely keeps them afloat. Or. Kant and all the ways he's drowned in his life.