#he and gil are intentional parallels/foils people compare them for a reason

[typemoonconfessions]

[kiaronna]

Hey beautiful author, may i ask you a question? What do you think of JJ? A lot of different author write different JJ. Are you the one who like to write 'Annoying to everyone JJ' or 'Lowkey aashole but not Bad person JJ' or 'not an aashole but very narcisstic and fun to get bullied 'harmlessly' by others JJ' or simply 'JJ neutral' OR 'I love JJ'? And do you think he's an aashole or not?

Hi, Nonny! Thanks for your interest in my opinion, but whatyou were blissfully unaware of is that I’m an obsessive little perfectionist,so my answer to this question is gonna be long. Personally, I don’t love JJ—I’mkind of indifferent to him. However, I think he’s an excellent, fleshed outrival to Yuuri and an excellent person to compare to Yuuri. I’ll go overthis in three points, which are explained below the cut:

1.     JJ is confident to thelevel of arrogance (note: NOT a narcissist)

2.     One of JJ’s goals is tocompete against and defeat Viktor

3.     JJ is a misunderstood butgood guy, though he’s not that nice

1.     JJ is confident to thelevel of arrogance (note: NOT a narcissist)

This isn’t really hard to see. The man hashis initials tattooed on his back, he calls himself the “king” and skates to anoriginal song about him, and spends a lot of his internal monologue kindof…bragging about himself. Turning our eyes to Yuuri, who thinks he’sdime-a-dozen even after making it the GPF two years in a row and winning the heartof the world’s most eligible bachelor and his idol, we can see the comparisons.

Yuuri is underconfident because he puts alot of internal pressure on himself, keeps setting his personal standardsextremely high—obviously he’s under external pressure, too, but his main enemyis himself. Yuuri’s family doesn’t care if he’s a champion or not, despite whatYuuri may think, and while Japan clearly adores Yuuri, he’s moved to the USAand is notoriously reclusive (though he does read what people say on theinternet). Obviously, feeling like he’s stolen Viktor from the world puts himunder external pressure, but that’s fairly new in his life. On the flip, wehave JJ, whose parents coach him, whose siblings are Juniors skaters that arelikely nipping at his heels, who has a pretty devoted fanbase he interacts alot with—heck, Isabella is one of his fangirls and he’s marrying her—who a bandwrote a whole song about. That’s a lot of long-lasting external pressure todeal with, and I’m going to suggest that a lot of JJ’s arrogance comes from aneed to combat this pressure.

When he brags, JJ isn’t just bragging—he’spumping himself up, because he’s nervous. We all know that his nervesand pressure got to him in the Barcelona GPF, and that wasn’t some isolatedincident. This has to do with an idea I’ve seen from a lot of people: that JJis a narcissist.

JJ isn’t really a narcissist. Narcissiststend to overplay their achievements and consider themselves superior orspecial. They demand admiration, feel entitled to victory, and lack empathy tothe extent that they take advantage of others (DSM-IV criteria). JJ brags a lot, but he actuallyhas earned a lot of his own achievements—this guy was destroying ice skatingcompetitions, okay? He was favored to win the GPF till pressure did him in, andif that hadn’t happened… he probably would have won. All of that takes a lot ofwork—it’s not weird to be somewhat proud of it. JJ claims he’s superior because,by some skating standards, he is. 

Also possibly because if he doesn’tbelieve himself to be superior, invincible, he’ll collapse to nerves andexternal pressure. JJ isn’t a narcissist because he does feelempathy: he wants Isabella to be happy, and fears losing her and the support ofhis parents/country. Finally, JJ definitely isn’t a narcissist because… well…look at his response to losing, or his response to the success of others. Inepisode 8, when Seung-Gil lands a quad loop, JJ doesn’t downplay thisachievement—he claps, and tries to bring it up to the rest of the room (albeit awkwardly,we’ll get into this later). He acknowledges that Yurio wants to beat Viktortoo, and expresses a genuine desire for them to climb podiums together. When JJcrashes and burns at the GPF, he doesn’t fly into a rage over how he’s lost, orfeel he’s been robbed of the medal he’s entitled to: he’s worried he’ll losethe support of the people he loves, and understands that he’s screwed up.Friends, this is a guy who’s intimidated by cinnamon rolls like KatsukiYuuri and Phichit Chulanont—he’s not a narcissist, he’s not only ego-driven, he’sa complex character who behaves like he does for some good reasons.

BAHAHAHA HE GENUINELY THINKS YUURI ORPHICHIT WOULD DO HIM THIS WAY

Basically, JJ is a normal teenage(YES, HE IS A TEENAGER, THIS ALSO PLAYS INTO HIS BEHAVIOR) guy who compensatesfor a lot of external pressure and nerves by talking himself up. I hatewhen JJ gets made out to be a total jerk—he’s not one, and Kubo made him thatway for a good reason.

2.     One of JJ’s goals is tocompete against and defeat Viktor

JJ states that he wants to take Viktor onagain in the GPF and beat him—of course, Viktor takes the season off, so thisdoesn’t happen, but honestly I think this plays a lot into his behavior.

We all felt terribly for Yuuri when hisidol, Viktor Nikiforov, seemed to have no idea who he was. Well guesswhat? JJ has literally been on a podium with Viktor, the man he aspiresto defeat and probably idolizes at least a little… and Viktor doesn’t really knowwho he is, and doesn’t care. Now, Viktor doesn’t have to care, but imagine thatyou’re nineteen and the guy you admire and want to beat won’t give you the timeof day—that’d suck, wouldn’t it? JJ mostly responds to this by trying to getViktor’s attention in any way he can. We’ll walk through one particularinteraction that is going to lead straight into the JJ is misunderstooddiscussion.

In episode 8, JJ approaches Viktor andYuuri to talk about a quadruple loop. Yuuri, as we know, is already nervous andtrying to get in the zone by listening to his headphones. Viktor is supportinghim, and JJ busts in yelling about how accomplished some other skater is—Viktoris annoyed and rebuffs him, mostly because it could make Yuuri panic.

But honestly, JJ’s intent wasn’t to rile upYuuri—it was to snag Viktor’s attention. Look at this:

JJ passes Yuuri right by. If he was tryingto intimidate Yuuri, you’d think he’d talk to him, wouldn’t you? But he goesstraight to Viktor, tries to talk about Viktor’s achievements, and hegets brushed off. LOOK AT HIS AWKWARD LITTLE FACE:

HE IS TRYING SO HARD GUYS. He just wants totalk to skating’s Living Legend, and geez, with his accomplishments, he’searned the right to do so by this point. But Viktor doesn’t want to talk tohim. It’s a little sad that JJ pays no attention to Yuuri, but Yuuri is acompetitor and not the guy JJ wants to surpass, so we’ll let this go.

Yuuri idolizes Viktor, and we all know thatdeep down, he also wants to compete against Viktor and beat him (the Nishigori conversation), though he’shesitant to say it. When he initially interacts with Viktor he is Awkward witha capital A.

I’d like to say that JJ probably alsoadmires Viktor, and has clearly stated that he wants to compete against him andbeat him. When he interacts with Viktor he is Awkward with a capital A. Theparallels go on.

Anyway, this analysis goes straight intothe next section, so onward!

3.     JJ is a misunderstood butgood guy, though he’s not that nice

JJ is not the nicest guy. He calls Yuri feminineand acts like this is meant to be funny, which is honestly the closest to intolerancewe get in this show. He busts into conversations and focuses a lot of attentiononto himself. But you know what? Overall, JJ is a good guy who is nice to hisfans, loving to his girlfriend and parents, and is hardworking.

He annoys the other skaters, but hegenuinely wants to be part of their ‘crowd’—something they deny him. Here heis, about to be rejected by the coolest of the cool, Otabek. Look at how EAGERhe is:

I,at the very least, was startled when he arrived during the restaurant scene,directed the conversation to himself and drove the other skaters away, and hislast words were “I was just joking!!” JJ is AWARE, guys. So when JJ bragsabout himself and says he’ll defeat others he’s… joking?? He’s… trying to laughwith other people, talk about the competition?

Most of the characters, and a lot ofpeople, think JJ is obnoxious and self-centered. JJ is not. JJ is Awkward. Halfof his interactions are please talk to me, please hang out with me, we’recompetitors! Viktor calls him unapproachable, and I think this is mostlybecause JJ’s attempts to interact with the other skaters gets misunderstood ashim being annoying and bragging. In actuality, JJ is just not all that great attalking to other people. We can blame him for this… or, we can understand that,like Yuuri, JJ can be socially awkward and make mistakes. He looks atsituations, like Yuuri trying to get into the zone, and fails to read themproperly and insert himself appropriately into them.

We don’t blame Yuuri for failing tointeract perfectly with people—we just encourage him to get better, and lookforward to his growth. I think we should treat JJ the same way, and hope hegets some humility, social skills, and a less annoying coping mechanism fordealing with pressure.

As a final note… I’m just going to say thatthe parallels between Yuuri and JJ are in no way an accident. Good rivalcharacters tend to be good foils, I think. Honestly, having JJ also be engagedand claiming he’ll get married after the GPF– and the resulting pressure hefaces– is a great example of how the narrative compares JJ to Yuuri, and ups therival tension.

Whew. So that’s what I think of JJ. Again, it’sprobably TMI. I don’t write JJ into a lot of my fanfic, because as I’ve said, Idon’t particularly love him or anything. But I think he’s misunderstood bycharacters in the show and by consumers of the show. Frankly, he’s human and agood rival for Yuuri—I love how Kubo made him sympathetic and real. So that’show I would write him, if I ever did.