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hiroshi-sato · 3 years ago

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I was definitely too sick to pay proper attention to the final fight between Hiroshi and Asami and on second watch it hurts so much more. Asami calling him out for doing what he's doing out of hatred and not love - Asami is just wrecked because this man is who taught her how to love in many ways! They were close. She felt safe with him and I believe that for a time, she was. The show never makes Asami out to be naive about him, whether for trusting him or wanting better for him.

It makes me think about how they got here. It seems the Equalist movement sprang up quickly, perhaps over a few months. Probably under a year. I believe that for the 12 or so years before that, following the death of Asami's mother, Hiroshi probably was someone worthy of Asami's trust. I don't think he feared benders, because that's not something you hide from your kid. He taught Asami to be able to defend herself, but the very fact that she didn't grow up with a prejudice or even kept separate from benders tells me there was a good stretch of time where Hiroshi was getting by okay. Hurt, always, but doing his best to move on.

I think it was just the fact that he had been hurt and wanted to protect Asami that got him pulled into Equalist bullshit. It's so easy to prey on fear, so easy to manipulate someone who genuinely cares for something. He taught Asami how to take care of herself but when the fear was manipulated he lost whatever faith he had in her capability and started trying to control things for her.

I don't think he started out hating benders. It wasn't something Asami should've seen the whole time and on some level I think he knew he was wrong because he did keep it so secret when up until then he'd apparently been pretty open with her. He talked about hoping to get her to see reason later rather than sooner, but it was never reason. The fear he raised Asami to be without was the same fear that led to destroying what he'd built with his daughter, to the point he was unrecognizable as the man who was once worthy of Asami's affection.

That's why I can believe him when he says he loves Asami. That's why he goes in a different category for me than the usual abusive parent making excuses for their behavior. I don't think it excuses him at all and neither does the show, but it's one of the few instances where someone who fell to fear and darkness was once genuinely kind and well meaning. Usually the signs are shown to have been there the whole time that they were already headed down to darkness. I believe Hiroshi once really was a man who cared for his daughter and taught her kindness because the woman she grew into loved him very much. That tells me she wasn't raised by a nanny or anything - she's a direct product of who he used to be. I believe the show supports this too, and it makes it extra hard to hear him tear Asami down and try to harm her. He is responsible for his actions. Nobody tries to say he wasn't himself because at the end of the day they were his bad choices to make. But I look at this show and I'm just blown away by the mix of compassion for what he may have once been mixed with the firm refusal to let it excuse what he became.

And I think that's why his redemption works at all. I'm not obsessed with redemption and I don't need it for most characters. Cool motive, still murder, etc. But Hiroshi didn't become better to earn back Asami's trust - in fact he didn't become anything. He already once was an earnest man who loved and cared for her. Three years away from the influences that led him to the brink was enough to allow him to see for himself where he went wrong and recognize how badly he'd hurt Asami. The only thing he wanted her to know when she came to tell him to fuck off (rightfully) was that he loved her - not because he wanted anything from her, but because the last thing he said to her was that she was an insolent and stupid child. His last action had been to try and hurt her and he succeeded even before the robot was involved.

That's the only reason his story works. He wasn't a unilaterally bad man who sought to change for his own gain. He was once a good man who fell and pulled himself back with absolutely no input from Asami. He didn't need it. He knew he was wrong, he knew why, and he knew what was most important to set right. If he never saw her again, he wanted to make sure his actual last words were to lift her up.

I have thoughts about characters who do wrong, come back, and immediately die without having to live with the consequences of what they did, but in this case the biggest consequence - how much he destroyed Asami's trust in him - had largely been resolved. Asami didn't need him to prove anything at that point because she'd forgiven the hurt he caused her, but for him he still needed to try and make up for the hurt he'd also caused everyone else. His sacrifice wasn't about Asami. That was done. It was about everything else. And you know, I'm okay with how that played out. It didn't feel cheap at all.

I think Hiroshi Sato was very well written and I think the show did a great job focusing on the damage caused to a protagonist without excusing or forgetting to acknowledge that others were hurt too. He died as the man Asami trusted, and that was enough for her to be okay with the loss.

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