Reka Norikawa and Jun-ai Shen in “Eternal Rain” come from camp #1 – they've dealt with abuse for most of their lives and have been hardened by it. Naoyuki Kondo in “So Distant” and dis-colour’s Khalil Evans come from camp #2 – their abuse was triggered by something that occurred later in their lives, and as a result, they're not “used to it” (not that that's something a person could or should ever be expected to truly “get used to”) and have a harder time dealing with it.
Let’s start this psychoanalysis with camp #1.
In Reka's case, the abuse came from his father, a military man with a violent temper and a deep entrenchment in the caste system that exists in their country. Reka's mother was initially taking the brunt of his outbursts; but when Reka befriended someone in the lower class, he became a target of his father's anger. He was 8 years old when the abuse started. Reka hated seeing his mother get hurt when she tried to protect him; so he acted tough, pretended to be okay and tried to get through everything on his own, which over the years led to him becoming extremely private, even with friends. Burdened with growing resentment and bottled-up anger that would explode when he was provoked, Reka started to rebel when he reached his teen years. In an attempt to reform him, his father enrolled him in a boot camp that trained potential recruits for the Llanian Guard (basically a child soldier division of the army). Rather than reform him, though, the camp became the catalyst for Reka defecting from the Guard to join the Keyholders in their efforts to end the war. So, when he returned to Llania (and started bringing home orphaned lower-class children from off the streets), needless to say, his father was furious. The abuse intensified. Though years of previous mistreatment and months of fighting had heightened his tolerance for physical pain, the abuse took a heavy toll on Reka emotionally. Finally, when Reka was nearly 15, his mother got a legal separation and took Reka with her to seek shelter in her brother’s home. After that, Reka was gradually able to heal.
For Jun-ai, the whole of her family environment was toxic starting very early on. Her father was a drunkard, and her mother – taking out her frustration on her and her older sister, Ming – demanded perfection and went to the point of abuse to get it. Her sister perpetuated the cycle with verbal and psychological abuse. Jun shut off her emotions to survive in that house. By her early teens, she had become cynical and critical and used her sharp tongue, and at times force, to protect herself – in short, adopting the same abusive tendencies for self-defense. Hating the hypocrisy of her parents, who only showed her kindness when they were obligated to in public, she also became deeply distrustful of people’s motives. Her only reprieve came from time visiting her older cousin, Shaoqiang, who lived hundreds of miles away. So, she developed a far harder shell and grew to view sentimentality as a weakness. The only one she allowed herself to let down her guard with was Shaoqiang, who was fighting to get her out of her parents’ house as she neared age 16. Kita also eventually broke through Jun’s shell by offering her genuine support, and she learned to open up a bit more, though the years of abuse had stunted her emotions.
Comparing the characters in camp #1, Reka and Jun-ai both have explosive tempers resulting from the stress of dealing with their home environments. Reka, running mostly on his emotions and values, is much more fragile/unstable emotionally and quicker to reach his breaking point than Jun; and Jun, being driven less by emotion and more by a calculating focus on protecting herself, is much more self-centered and much less easily rattled, though shows of bravado or patronizing pity are guaranteed to set her off. While Reka often regrets letting his anger get the better of him and is apt to swing from explosive anger to self-deprecating depression, Jun-ai shows little remorse after throwing a verbal barb or even a punch. Reka had his mother to give him the foundations for the empathetic parts of his personality; but Jun had no one in her immediate family. Having turned off the sentiment she viewed as a weakness, she shows little emotion other than the anger that she uses to defend herself. Because Jun truly is apathetic, it’s a struggle for her to differentiate true kindness from false, let alone reciprocate positive emotions. On the other hand, Reka’s aloofness when he first meets people is more of a front – a wall that he puts up until he can judge whether someone is trustworthy – than true coldness; so, he gets hurt much more easily, especially by a person he’s built trust with. Since both of them have all this baggage, it takes a lot of time and effort to get them to open up to others.
But trust issues are the order of the day for all of the characters discussed here, including the two from camp #2 whose abuse didn’t last as long.
Naoyuki’s trust was broken when his parents suddenly up and disappeared on him and he withdrew into a shell to protect himself from further rejection. He stopped talking and distanced himself from others to the point that he would overreact if anyone touched him, which alienated his relatives. When he did finally find his parents again, his reputation preceded him. On top of that, he was struggling with flashbacks and bouts of extreme guilt after, on his way to their house, he was involved in a car accident that killed the driver and his son and left one of his only friends severely injured. Unable to accept the changes in Naoyuki’s personality, his father rejected him and started to verbally and physically assault him. Unlike Reka and Jun, who had built up defenses against their abusers over the years, Naoyuki – who was 11 years old when this began – was quickly breaking under the stress, and his self-esteem plummeted. Nearly hopeless, he began to believe that he had done something wrong to warrant his father’s disdain. But after going through so much to find his parents, he didn’t want to leave his mother despite his father’s ill treatment. When his father began to vent his anger on his mother and stepbrother as well, this only worsened Naoyuki’s anxiety because the family he wanted so desperately to be together again was breaking apart. Thankfully, a classmate named Taki, who befriended him, offered him refuge in her home and was there to encourage him. If not for her, Naoyuki would not have survived that environment.
Circumstances were similar for Khalil. His mother was very strict and rarely showed any affection, his father was preoccupied with his work, and his older brother, Derek, was cold toward him because he was jealous that his father favored Khalil. Khalil was already repressing his emotions and his passion for the violin to please his mother. When at 12, he started to see color and his brother and mother started to abuse him physically and verbally, he initially tried to stand up for himself. But over the year that the abuse continued, he stopped speaking out and started masking his emotions to hide his vulnerability and to keep his father from finding out what was going on. (It was also around this time that he had his first panic attacks, though he never told anyone or let them see.) Like Naoyuki, Khalil wanted to stay with his father, so he also hid his physical wounds by wearing long sleeves and pants. But, also like Naoyuki, he was slowly breaking under the stress of watching his family change for the worse. When the abuse reached its peak, his father found out and sent Khalil away to the Facility with the intention of protecting him. Having spent so long repressing his own wants and feelings and scarred physically and emotionally by his family’s betrayal, Khalil became unable to express himself freely and afraid of truly opening up to anyone. Slowly, he found “family” within the Facility that he was able to connect with. As with Naoyuki and his classmate, they became his support and helped him to heal.
While Jun-ai and Reka were hardened by their abuse and eventually lashed out, Khalil and Naoyuki started to break and became withdrawn – though Naoyuki’s social dysfunction is much more extreme than Khalil’s. Naoyuki’s refusal to speak with his classmates leads him to be viewed as either stuck-up or handicapped; consequently, he’s often teased and bullied. Khalil has far better people skills. He caters to others’ expectations and needs with enough congeniality to get along with most – courtesy of his mother’s grooming him to handle business dealings – even though he can come off as disingenuous as a result. With deep reluctance to trust rooted in the rejection from their family members, the two boys are also averse to physical contact, though Khalil’s aversion is less obvious than Naoyuki’s because he represses his emotions, while Naoyuki’s emotions run high. However, they are both still undoubtedly “feelers” deeply sensitive to how others view and treat them; so, both are extremely fragile emotionally. Khalil tries to hide his vulnerabilities, but his efforts backfire in the sense that bottling up his negative feelings worsens his anxiety. If he’s in a situation that makes him feel cornered or reminds him of his abuse, he can be paralyzed by debilitating panic attacks. Going to an opposite but just as detrimental extreme, Naoyuki’s emotions are so out of control that he overloads and engages in self-destructive behaviors to disconnect from them. Naoyuki does not have an outlet for his bottled-up emotions (outside of talking to Taki), whereas Khalil is at least able to vent some of it through playing the violin.
In addition to difficulty trusting, another trait that all of these characters share is stubbornness. In some cases, it offsets their weaknesses because it allows them to stand their ground when it comes to something or someone they care deeply about. Reka, for instance, refuses to give up on his ideals, which keeps him from breaking under the stress that his father puts on him and helps him to move forward. Jun-ai does not give up and run away when the going gets tough but continues to fight through it for better or worse. Khalil is passive-aggressive when it comes to standing up for himself or caring for his own needs but will get angry in behalf of others or jump into dangerous situations in spite of his fears if it will protect someone else. And Naoyuki desperately clings to the hope of returning home with his parents even after all that his father puts him through. In other instances, however, this stubborn streak keeps them from accepting needed help from others when it couples with their inability to let people in. Reka, being particularly private, is infamous for trying to do things all by himself and recklessly getting into trouble. Jun-ai doesn’t mesh well with the team of Keyholders at the start due to her fierce independence in addition to lack of trust. Khalil hates being a burden on others and thus rarely asks for help and needlessly adds to his stress. Lastly, Naoyuki initially pushes Taki away because he blames himself for what happened in the car accident, and he treats her coldly when she tries to help him.
To wrap up this character exercise, I’ll sum up with this: regardless of how long it goes on, abuse has long-reaching effects that vary from person to person but it in essence destroys their trust in others. Each of these characters developed different mechanisms to protect themselves that shaped their personalities.
