nemeankitten:

I never liked the idea of Bro just being pure asshole, but I don’t think that I enjoy the idea that he legitimately thought it was good for Dave all the time, either. It’s too straightforward for me. What I want is a depiction of Bro Strider that is frightening, and good intentions aren’t frightening, they may make a character understandable, even more repugnant in some circumstances, but definitely not frightening. Neither is a cookie cutter villain. So, here’s how I personally interpret Bro, from what may scare me about him, yet make it possible to understand Dirk falling into.

I’m drawn back to a very powerful scene (possibly my favorite) from ATLA: specifically, from my favorite character, Katara, “There’s just nothing inside you. You’re pathetic and sad and empty.” Then another favorite quote of mine in the Light Fantastic, 

“Rincewind stared, and knew that there were far worse things than Evil.  All the demons of Hell would torture your very soul, but that was precisely because they valued souls very highly; evil would always try to steal the universe, but at least it considered the universe worth stealing.  But the grey world behind those empty eyes would trample and destroy without even according its victims the dignity of hatred.  It wouldn’t even notice them.”

I’m drawing from what frightens me the most, and that is the idea that Bro didn’t operate out of good intentions, nor was he outright resentful or hateful of Dave; he felt nothing. A frightening Bro Strider, to me, would be the diluted manifestation of Dirk’s ruthlessness in reaching a goal, coupled with a deadened apathy of what was to come, a Dirk who was not brainwashed by Cal, but was simply told throughout the decades what was to come. “You’ll have to raise a kid. The world will end. You have to keep him alive. You’ll die.” And a knowledge that if this doesn’t come to pass, than the entire timeline will just collapse in on itself, so he’s got two choices: Keep barreling forward in his own personal convictions, keep not wanting a kid, just keep pursuing his Self and then eventually fade without relevence as the world comes to an end anyways, or go by the book. Follow the predictions of this rude puppet, raise the kid, and die. Bro to me isn’t just a Prince of Heart roaming unchecked in that he destroyed Dave’s self; Princes, when they’ve failed, tend to destroy their aspect within themselves as well (Kurloz’s disturbing lack of rage, Eridan losing hope). Bro having misguided care, or hatred? I don’t think it lines up. What really would punch it in would be a dead soul, someone who has lost all capacity to care, and does what they do out of necessity. He didn’t even keep food in the house, and yes, he taught Dave turntables, something Dirk linked to his own identity, pushed pieces of his identity onto Dave but with little personal attachment.

Bro is a result of Dirk giving up on his own personal convictions, then raising Dave in a purely clinical method, a complete lack of Heart as he coldly arranges an environment that closely approximates a battleground, grooms Dave to be afraid of coming death as any moment. To top it off, no emotional attachment is developed between them whatsoever. I have no doubt that Bro had every intention to not have Dave in mourning when he died, because Dave states that he never got one hint that Bro cared, and that kind of thing would most likely be deliberate, not even an accidental action betraying a hint of care. Destroy every emotional connection, don’t let it grow, and grief won’t hinder him. The most efficient course of action in the long run, he calculated, received information, and executed without an inch of emotion.

To me, Bro being completely devoid of any kind of malice or care throughout the entire ordeal makes it nauseating. As a failed Prince, he destroyed Dave’s sense of self, but he was utterly devoid of a heart in the process; no love, no resentment, no misguided beliefs that what he was doing was for the greater good. There’s just a possessed puppet telling the facts, and now he has to raise a kid (which he never wanted), divert himself to the sidelines (also something Dirk was adverse too), and die as an off note in what will become Dave’s story. Bro is empty. If anything, I’d bet the only thing he’d have to look forward too would be the final battle, where he begins the Scratch, and dies in combat.

It’s not only that; I believe this prospect of a Bro who was completely devoid of any kind of emotional attachment or motive would be more poignant (and more of a crushing revelation) to Dave. He spends his life wondering what the hell was happening inside of Bro’s mind, only to come to the crushing realization that there was nothing, just a guy following a script, whose heinous abuse wasn’t even out of some twisted good intention, or a hatred of his own kid. Dave suffered and his perpetrator is hollow. He didn’t even believe Dave was worth his resentment and granted him no autonomy throughout his life, that is the ultimate insult; he never even granted Dave the dignity of hatred, or resentment, which would at least be something. It’d give Dave a reason to hate him back. But what if he didn’t see him as a person so much as he was just another check on the list in the course of coming events, how crushing would that be?

tldr: I think Bro being an empty being who is blankly following a script, Dirk’s ultimate destruction of his own self and his idea of autonomy, is most definitely my most consistent, and most disconcerting view of him. With Dirk’s fucked up way of helping people, but a lack of heart behind it, as per a failed Prince.

svedone:

“bro”

“what bro”

“tell the whole world that we’re bros”

*whispers* “we’re bros”

“why’d you whisper bro?”

“because you’re my whole world bro”

“b r o”