volaatile

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Well, Giorno is an abused child. Neglected by his mother and beaten and later on feared by his step-father, that much we know. Even the man who saved Giorno from all that wasn’t physically in his life. The Gangster was more of a backstage figure, taking care of Giorno from a distance. For most of his life, Giorno was a lonely child. A sad child.

It’s really not that difficult to pretend that the person you don’t know anything about would fill the void in your life. All Giorno knows about Dio is what he looks like - so when he was scared and alone at night, it would have been easy for him to think “if my father was here, he would hold my hand” “he wouldn’t leave me alone” “he wouldn’t beat me” He wouldn’t, he wouldn’t, he would, he would…

I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that as a child, Giorno sort of… merged together the figure of the gangster and this fantasy version he had of Dio. Dio is not physically there with him either, but he’d probably be like that kind gangster too, right? He’d look after Giorno too, except it would be better because he would be with him. Dio would love Giorno.

When you grow up going through what Giorno went through, with only a picture to remember someone by, it’s easy to think up a supportive personality that fills all the holes in your life. It’s a coping mechanism.

And you know? Even in the events that Giorno and Jotaro met, and Jotaro actually popped his bubble and told him what sort of person Dio really was, I don’t think Giorno would completely accept that. Of course, he wouldn’t agree with Dio’s methods, he condemns his savagery, but he would still find admirable things in him. Things like his drive, his ambition, his quiet, terrifying confidence and his love of books. Dio’s charisma is a powerful thing even in death. And if he was so horrible, then why didn’t he kill his mother? Why didn’t he kill Giorno? Did he have plans for him? Was he going to pick him up in the future? Was Giorno different? Maybe he was. Maybe Dio would have chosen him.

It’s true! What the wiki didn’t say though is why this is a funny parallel:

Giorno’s backstory being similar to Cosette is already funny in itself, but then you see the canon bit of trivia stating Giorno’s favourite book is Les Miserables; and VA wasn’t the only part where Araki snuck a reference.

In Phantom Blood, Dario’s history with George Joestar I - and by extension part of Dio’s backstory - is almost textually lifted from LesMis. Most specifically, it’s the Thenardier storyline: Thenardier is a crook who while trying to loot what he believes is a corpse is mistaken for a good samaritan and given a letter stating “this man saved my life, be nothing but good to him” etc, etc. That bit in the prison cell with George where he lies to save Dario’s thieving ass saying “but I gave him the ring, here you forgot that I had given this to you too” is again almost a textual copy of the scene with Valjean and Monseigneur Myriel. In a way, Dio is almost like a bad end Cosette: just like her he gets taken in by a kinder, more financially stable stranger, but instead of being grateful he just pretends to be a model son to steal his fortune. 

I always thought it was very smart of Araki to make that book Giorno’s favourite, not only because it’s pretty obvious there’s at least a little bit of Enjolras that went into Giorno’s character (Enjolras’ very first description, save for the part about not caring for nature, can very well read like a verbose description of Giorno) but also because I find it very ironic that by reading his favourite book over and over, Giorno was unknowingly reading something very similar to his own father’s history.

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