[What Kagari believes or doesn't believe about himself is complicated, and often contradictory. He hates society for his suffering, for its complacent acceptance of having their way of life protected by those they treated as less than human, but he hates himself, too. Don't make me laugh. Both you and I are trash who simply envy the happiness others have, he'd said to Makishima's henchman, once.
His self-image is a warped, twisted thing--society saw in him nothing but a hunting dog, a beast to collar and set to work until it died or needed to be put down, and Kagari had no reason not to embrace it; it served as both outlet for his anger and the closest thing to freedom he would've ever known, had it not been for the Storm. Goodness and morality were for people who had a life and a future; he dismissed those things as irrelevant a long time ago.
Kagari's quiet a long time at the question. To the point where it seems maybe he won't respond at all. When he finally does respond, there's a strange quality about it. Lacking those same vicious overtones, the effort to stick the knife in and twist it as deeply as possible. The thing is, as tough as he acts, his heart isn't inured to true compassion. He's been trying to avoid it, trying to ignore how distinctly Valjean's attitude reminded him of Akane, but he's slowly starting to understand that that's what this is. This old man is one of those idiots that stubbornly keeps giving a shit, even when they have no reason to. It's frustrating.]
...The Sybil System is shit. That doesn't mean it doesn't work. I heard in the old days, people used to lock their doors to avoid robberies or getting murdered in their sleep or whatever. Most doors don't even have locks anymore.
[But that's not really what Valjean asked, is it. He turns away from the cell and the image of his younger self, starting to instead pace up and down that section of hall.]
There's a difference between me and actually good people, yeah. But there's plenty of people who aren't latent criminals who are just as garbage as I am. All they need is the right excuse.
[People, in general, are garbage. The ones that aren't, like Akane? Like this man? They're exceptions. And even more miserably, they think they're the rule.]
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His self-image is a warped, twisted thing--society saw in him nothing but a hunting dog, a beast to collar and set to work until it died or needed to be put down, and Kagari had no reason not to embrace it; it served as both outlet for his anger and the closest thing to freedom he would've ever known, had it not been for the Storm. Goodness and morality were for people who had a life and a future; he dismissed those things as irrelevant a long time ago.
Kagari's quiet a long time at the question. To the point where it seems maybe he won't respond at all. When he finally does respond, there's a strange quality about it. Lacking those same vicious overtones, the effort to stick the knife in and twist it as deeply as possible. The thing is, as tough as he acts, his heart isn't inured to true compassion. He's been trying to avoid it, trying to ignore how distinctly Valjean's attitude reminded him of Akane, but he's slowly starting to understand that that's what this is. This old man is one of those idiots that stubbornly keeps giving a shit, even when they have no reason to. It's frustrating.]
...The Sybil System is shit. That doesn't mean it doesn't work. I heard in the old days, people used to lock their doors to avoid robberies or getting murdered in their sleep or whatever. Most doors don't even have locks anymore.
[But that's not really what Valjean asked, is it. He turns away from the cell and the image of his younger self, starting to instead pace up and down that section of hall.]
There's a difference between me and actually good people, yeah. But there's plenty of people who aren't latent criminals who are just as garbage as I am. All they need is the right excuse.
[People, in general, are garbage. The ones that aren't, like Akane? Like this man? They're exceptions. And even more miserably, they think they're the rule.]