follow up to my janka psychoanalysis post from a while back:
After getting psychoanalyzed, Zanka makes it his mission to accurately dissect Jabber's mental state back so he can finally find Jabber's weaknesses. Which is extremely hard but in the process, he ends up discovering more about himself (validating what Jabber said about him) and finding the strength to beat Jabber at last now that he's put in all that work to understand him. Basically they both start putting in the work to understand each other and this is how they learn to communicate (still mostly through fighting)
Ya know, tying back to what we were chatting abt with Zanka dehumanizing “genuises”. This is actually a compelling balance of their toxic relationship becoming healthy by making toxic choices like this. Cuz a thought that crossed my mind today was like, “If Zanka’s so good at fighting and being competitive, why doesn’t he just do the ol’ reliable competitive thing and like, learn about his enemy?”. Not being curious about his opponent is a major downfall imo. Maybe he’s good at reading physical movement, reading the most probable strategy of his opponent, and reading into their limits and wants. But psychoanalyzing your opponent is such a real thing too. Being so caught up in your own selfish perception of them is a major handicap.
I loooove competitive videogaming, and he’s not being a good gamer!!!
Yes yes, exactly! It gets so toxic it circles back to being healthy lmao (Unless Zanka doubles down on the sadism)
Zanka's major flaw is how he lets his insecurities affect him. The two best examples of that are fittingly with Jabber and Hyo.
In Zanka's second fight with Jabber, he took the wrong conclusion out of Jabber revealing Mankira's true form. Because Zanka looks down on himself, he assumed Jabber was looking down on him too by holding back, instead of acknowledging that Jabber who never lets completely loose, let loose for him. He still might've lost, but if he had realized that Jabber was admiring him instead of looking down on him, he would have had a lot more genuine confidence.
His other major flaw is how he dehumanizes "geniuses". We can see that with Hyo. Zanka's automatic assumption is that Hyo is a natural talent, better than he who worked so hard, effortlessly. He doesn't once analyze why Hyo could beat him and his classmates easily. The Hellguard Academy students, including Zanka were trained traditional methods in a controlled environment (even if that environment is intense). Hyo grew up in the slums with no formal training, and given how strong she is, she presumably had to fight for her life regularly. The Hellguard students had no real-life experience and were expecting Hyo to fight like them, of course they lost. That literally never crossed Zanka's mind.
YESSSSSS yes YES, you get it:’] and most importantly you see the vision and you’re able to articulate your thoughts abt it! Always takes me some time to marinate in it, and reading other ppl’s text thought posts helps^^
I love chatting hehe, it helps me articulate my thoughts and come up with new ones too 💞💞💞
