u/residentquentinmain

I started playing Rivals way after the s1 bp got rerun so I missed Butcher Loki, and I really want him. Will I ever get a chance to get her again or am I just screwed?

so Haiji’s infamous line scene is often memed on and treated as a focal point of his character, despite the fact that it’s mentioned only three times (twice in dialogue and once in his character bio) and changes nothing about his character.

when some people (myself included) talk about how useless this character trait is, and how absolutely nothing was done with it; some other folks try and argue that it actually is utilized by saying “it show’s what a truly awful person Haiji is”.

and yeah, at some point I understood that. But I’ve been thinking about it for a while and I realized something.

that makes absolute no sense.

here’s the issue; up until this point, we didn’t know what a true abusive scumbag Haiji was. Yeah he was a dick and a pussy, and he hates the kids, but that could’ve easily been justified by the fact that he was traumatized, scared, and rightfully angry at the kids for killing innocent people. We had no clue about his abuse of Monaca, war profiting, or want to cause a genocide on brainwashed children until *after* his infamous line is spoken. There’s no reason for the line to “reveal what a true scumbag he was” when we didn’t even know the true extent of Haiji’s atrocities until afterwards. It’s not even a case of “something to look back on after the reveal and realize what a true monster they were” cause Haiji was completely blatant with his words.

and here’s the thing; I wouldn’t find Haiji being a pedophile out of character if *SOMETHING WAS DONE WITH IT.* But nothing, nothing is done with it beyond a shock value joke. If you remove Haiji’s pedophilic trait, nothing changes. He’s still the same character at the end of the day and that’s the truth.

of course, nothing truly *has* to be done with it, sometimes characters have traits that don’t get elaborated on. That’s fine, but here comes the other issue; IT’S TREATED AS IF ITS HAIJI’S ONLY AND MOST DEFINING CHARACTER TRAIT. WHEN IT’S NOT EVEN THE WORST OF HIS CRIMES.

I don’t want to go on a major rant here cause that’s not the point lol. But the consensus is; Haiji’s pedophilic trait has no justifiable reason to exist, nothing is done with it beyond being a weird joke (seriously neither Komaru or Toko took it seriously, but tbh that’s not surprising they’re both fuckin weirdos), and removing it would change nothing about his character. Disagree with me if you like, I’m not gonna rag on you for your opinion, not everyone’s gonna share my thoughts and that’s cool. But I just wanted to share my thoughts on something I’ve had told to me for a long time now.