#Kaveh's flaws may be way more obvious story-wise

[alternatefandom]

Right, so I (ariciabetelguese, on my main) was having a discussion with @addictofanimation on Alhaitham's actions towards Kaveh, but I don't wish to clog moonilit's notes further. So I invite you to continue our talk here, shall we?

First, allow me straighten out a misperception: I never claimed that Alhaitham doesn't care about Kaveh. I've stated that he does care, in an inept way ("he's clearly trying his best from his limited perspective, so kudos for that, I guess?"). But I still think what Alhaitham did was borderline cruel, and this is where I'm coming from.

In my youth, I was a lot like Alhaitham. Half the fandom cleanly pegged him an INTJ, and I am, too. He values rationality and knowledge, and so do I. He's practical and pragmatic; so am I. His insight can cut people to the quick, causing him to conflict with people; so had mine. Nobody liked to go up against me, and truth be told, I was perfectly content that way.

Alhaitham said he is not a leader. I agree. Here's where we differ: Alhaitham is not interested in exploring that, while I was.

So out of curiosity, I led people, despite hating every second of it. Here is what I found: 'tough love' as you called it only works if you can make sure the person was picked up afterwards. Pain is a great teacher, but only if you're treated after. Otherwise, there's a big possibility that the other person will actually be set back in their journey of healing, and if you get yourself cut off, there's really not much you can do to fix that.

And until the Palace of Alcazarzaray was built, Alhaitham was never there to pick up Kaveh, nor was he there to make sure that someone else did. I'm not even sure if he tried to apologize; was there a lore bit I missed somewhere? After all, to this day, he still takes digs at Kaveh's very ideals, the things he prided himself on, although people still disagree on whether or not Kaveh takes these digs seriously. Regardless, I don't think much of Alhaitham's methods, and seeing as Kaveh remained a stubborn idealist who literally gave up everything for Dori's palace, we can see that his methods didn't work out all that well, either, so... yeah.

When you are your own worst enemy, it takes a friend/family being real with you to snap you out of it. The best way to tackle illogic actions/thoughts is with logic and reality. Alhaitham didn't let Kaveh believe a lie (that it was somehow his fault) and used logic against it.

And yet.

Alhaitham had seen through the reality that he had never been able to face, causing him to feel reality's bite for the first time, a feeling that made Kaveh steadfastly declare that he regretted making friends with this all-too-intelligent person.

Kaveh already knows. He didn't even waste a second denying Alhaitham's words because deep down, he already knew. He was simply not ready to face it; he didn't know how to do so. To reiterate: as a whole, it's not a logical trauma, so it's not so easily solved with facts and logic. If it was, a brilliant engineer like Kaveh would've solved it easily.

What Alhaitham did was like telling a depressed person that they have no reason to be sad because they have too much to be grateful for in life. Detangling an illogical trauma is not that simple. Does that mean Kaveh was too sensitive? I guess, in the same vein of people who's just been wounded are too sensitive, geeze, why did you shout when I poured alcohol over your wound? After all, alcohol is good at cleaning wounds, no? What I did was a good thing!

Once again. I'm not saying that Alhaitham doesn't care about Kaveh, or that he wasn't trying to help. I'm saying he's incredibly inept at caring, and he ended up hurting more than helping during their fight. But then again, he was still young and inexperienced at the time, so I won't blame him too much for it. In the end, I agree that his friendship with Kaveh could be somewhat beneficial; both of them could learn from the other's example. After all, they're each other's reflection :)

#ari's rambles #alright getting a bit personal here #not part of the discussion #just a personal reflection #i'm harsher on alhaitham because he's too much like me #and because a lot of people idealize his flawed actions and perspectives #without realizing that those flaws *are* there #Kaveh's flaws may be way more obvious story-wise #but they're still mirrors. two extremes in opposing ways. #go too far in one direction and you will fall