#just wish they broke the Zelda Villain Mould™ a little

[scrawnytreedemon]

OKAY I'm gonna ramble in your ask box for a minute. about ghirahim in the context of demise. we don't get a ton of screentime for demise, right, we dont have a ton to go off. but what we DO see is that he has the similar pseudo-gentlemanly manner as ghirahim. maybe it's game mechanics, maybe it's maybelline, but he creates the lil world and waits for link to restock n stuff instead of fighting him on the spot, and that is VERY reminiscent of the first battle with ghira where he basically teaches you how to fight. and you know what ELSE we see is a singular interaction between him and ghira where demise doesnt even acknowledge ghira. which ik has been played on in a lot of fics, but hear me out. a lot of people have demise being very overtly abusive and outright sadistic, which does make some sense but. towards his /sword/? lets work under the assumption that he absolutely doesnt consider ghira a person. which /makes sense/ with how he treats him when he's revived. so i think, instead of sadistic abuse (physical or otherwise) of ghirahim by demise could actually be seen as less realistic. it might be more accurate to characterize their relationship with APATHY. demise doesnt care. he "punishes" ghirahim to the extent you'd sharpen a sword, or put it away when you dont need it. and imagine the effects of extreme neglect ON A PERSON. ghirahim, with the emotions and personality and /needs/ he was never supposed to have. was going through my quotes folder and i found this, which is one of my favourites for the info it gives (from a book called The Child Finder):

Her friend Diane explained to her later that, in the spectrum of hurt, it is better for a child to attach to an abuser than to experience the blind hole of neglect. Babies raised in orphanages without touch become like little monkeys, shrunken from inattention. Without a face to see, they can even become blind. At least in abuse, Diane had explained, you have someone to fight against. Abuse starts with the premise that you exist, even to be mistreated. It's a running start, she had said.

anyway, you dont have to respond to this, i just thought it might be cool to read. also that paragraph just slams, doesnt it???

Yeah, I definitely got that impression, too? Demise seems to abuse more from apathy. Hell, it's evident in his motives, too-- Yes, he's aiming for subjugation... but it feels more power for power's sake than any personal bloodlust. The fact that Ghirahim seems almost ashamed about flying off the handle, deeming it "beneath him" speaks alot, also.

And like you said! That's a far more insidious type of abuse. The fact that it can leave you physically underdeveloped-- It does make me wonder, are any of the sword spirits we see "fully-developed"? Fi was constructed to have a limited range of emotions, and sealed away right after the Surface War. But I suppose also she did have what would eventually become the Sage Bloodline to take care of her, and by the time the game starts she already seems largely aware and fluent in human communication. Hell, she even throws in a bit of snark.

Ghirahim, on the other hand... You get the sense he's had to build it all up from scratch. I find it funny how Ghirahim gets characterised as this insidiously emotional empath while Fi gets tossed into Blunt Robot Box, when functionally it seems to be the other way around?

(Well, maybe not the insidious part for Fi.)

(Not unless she wanted to...)

Fi was, in the least, constructed with the ability and even emotional capacity to guide her master-- Which requires a heavy degree of empathy: cognitive, and, it would seem, emotional. Ghirahim, on the other hand, was given no such purpose, because why would Demise need guidance? He's just meant to be there, to kill; and when he's not needed, to be put away.

Thrown away, even.

But not yet.

Not while he's useful, yet.