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I absolutely love your writing style and choice of wordsđđ whenever you write scara or do a a character study he sounds like a loser lmao (in a good way-)
Thank you, dear anon! Your kind message inspired me to write a proper response (I havenât done this in ages), so do forgive me for wasting your time on reading it! â€ïžđ
I think âloserâ is a pretty accurate word to describe Scaramouche. He never gets what he wants, being either robbed of something he had spilled his own blood and tears to finally seize or prescribed to experience the underwhelming and unsatisfying results of his seemingly âsuccessfulâ goals. In my humble opinion, itâs the latter that makes Scaramouche such a tragic character. In the end, he wasnât even allowed to escape from the painful reality of living with the fact that he had spent almost five centuries believing in absolute lies and subjecting himself to blatant manipulations. He was denied the right to commit what the game essentially implied to be a suicide in the name of âcorrecting his mistakesâ, and to someone as wilful yet fragile in terms of ego as he, having to continue existing in Teyvat and actually face the consequences of his actions instead of âquitting in a quick and beautiful fashionâ is the cruelest but sobering punishment one could invent and execute against already broken and humiliated individual whose unyielding convictions were shattered by the sudden revelation.
In short, Scaramouche is a complete failure of a person (and deep down he knows it). Itâs only natural that you, the âReaderâ character, wonât be happy with his pre!Wanderer version â after all, you are the prisoner of his flawed mentality. His imperfections (hidden self-hatred and prejudices included) are too sharp to be smoothed, let alone to be rid of. They leave no room for improvements to be made to the cage you are placed in, depriving him of the pleasure of hearing you sing for him. A bird without a voice is a pathetic sight to behold, and there is nothing he can do about it other than activating his usual defense mechanisms and blaming you for not succumbing to his childish whims. He will be inclined to think that you deserve to have your wings clipped because... there certainly must be an urgent justification for making you miserable, right?
But he wonât be happy either with the outcome. Despite a certain amount of sadistic glee produced, your suffering wonât be considered a victory on his part. It doesnât matter what kind of feelings you harbor towards Scaramouche â you may desire or loathe him, whatever. Itâs he who is the sole problem here; to be precise, itâs his tendency to constantly contradict himself that really dooms your already unhealthy relationship. After all, you are no mind reader, so how would you know that Lord Scaramoucheâs disdain for you was born out of his bizarre interpretation of how love works? How would you know that The Balladeerâs despicable demeanor has a complex layer to it? How would you deduce the discarded puppet hurts you because his guts twist at the thought of him â of all people â behaving in a genuinely nice manner?
He wants you to love him, truly, for even failed tools can long for the taste of intimacy. But he also has a burning hatred for seeing the sincere joy of another, himself included. As such, those mutually exclusive feelings constantly clash with each other â if he canât just dream of that sweet fairy-tale nonsense without a feeling of revulsion, then he is not worthy of it at all. By this logic, the fault is yours alone (for causing him to malfunction, of course) and you are not worthy, too.
Scaramouche is being difficult because there is no other option for him to take â he simply canât see alternatives. His preferred method of coping with the trauma is lashing out at those few pleasant things in his life and destroying them, therefore prematurely declaring his defeat. Itâs as if he aims for it on purpose... or is in strong denial of his neglected need to be loved, thus unconsciously choosing the most crooked and thorny path.
Predictably, this path will lead him to an impasse. As long as he keeps refusing to admit he still has the capacity to feel himself human, he will never win. He is the creation of Eternity, the puppet made by the hands of the embodiment of everlasting stagnation; enthralled by false beliefs, he wonât reconsider them at his current state of being. Your humanity, on the other hand, gifts you the ability to endure, adapt, change, and ultimately prevail â a feat not eligible to his infinitely tolerant body. You have the advantage of possessing a spirit free of the constraints of an artificial creature and a mindset of agile properties â in other words, all roads are open for you to explore to your heartâs content.
Scaramouche, however, has only one. He shall remain a dedicated worshipper of the stale idĂ©e fixe until enough force â a force of source almost divine â is applied to his stubborn self. You donât hold such power, but at least you will always find a way to escape the horror of cohabitating with him. Yet he⊠He will haunt the same repeated trail in a vain attempt to prove to the world and everyone living in it that his decision to torment you (and himself) was never wrong. Only time shall eventually show him the downsides of the narrative he has been obsessing over and point out the obvious inconsistencies, and until thenâŠ
Until then, he will never ever beat you. But will you still be here to laugh at him once he realizes that he never had the slightest chance of putting your king in checkmate from the very beginning?
It is a question you must resolve yourself. By then, his intervening whisper wonât entice you anymore; by thenâŠ
You will be the one to pull on the unlucky dollâs strings.