Observing Yourself

How you see you, and how other people do often do not match...

So, I have been watching a lot of anime lately and one, in particular, made me think about how the individual sees themselves and how the world might see them. Also, that motivations for actions oftentimes mean little in terms of the effect of those actions. In the anime that I am watching a young woman, who in her previous life, really loved Otome games. I am not personally familiar with these types of games, but apparently, you play a character that has to figure out certain romance paths with the other characters in the game. The definition from Wikipedia is:

An otome game (Japanese: 乙女ゲーム, Hepburn: otome gēmu, lit. "maiden game"), is a story-based video game that is targeted towards women. Generally one of the goals, besides the main idea/goal, is to develop a romantic relationship between the female main player character and one of the usually male, secondary lead characters.

And yes, you do need to know that for this post. Also, you are going to have to suffer through a little context in regard to the anime so you know what the hell I’m talking about.

In this anime, the character that I mentioned really loved these games, but she loved one specific one called, “Fortune Lover”. She has played all the possible paths in the game save one, and in the game, there is a young heroine named, Maria, who is a commoner that has light magic, which apparently commoners having magic is super rare, and light magic itself is super rare, and she has both. So, you know, bullying happens. Or rather torment if you get right down to it.

She attends this very prestigious magic high school that usually is reserved for nobles and royalty, and that is where the villainess comes into the picture. This villainess is named Caterina Claes, and she is a member of a noble family. She is also engaged to the second or third prince of the kingdom, which of course he is a romanceable character for the heroine Maria. Caterina, as I mentioned, is the villainess. She is the leading person that torments the heroine and is all around a bad person.

Back to our young woman who is playing this game. She is in middle school as best as I can tell, and on her way to school, she is hit by a car, or involved in a traffic accident that kills her. She is then reincarnated into the game as Caterina Claes when Caterina is around six years old and recovering from a head injury that was intentionally inflicted by Geordo Stuart. She recognizes the game after a short time, and begins to panic, because the end result for Caterina in this game is “doom”. Meaning that she is either exiled or she is killed, depending on the path that the game takes, which is no longer a game, but rather now her life.

She realizes as things around her begin to play out how certain events have shaped the characters of the game which leads to them taking the future pathways that they do, and you have to have a bit of an understanding of that yourself for this post to make sense. The most important characters are as follows:

Keith Claes- Catarina's adoptive brother and an earth magic prodigy. The son of a distant relative of Duke Claes, Catarina's father adopted him after her engagement with Geordo to continue the Claes family name. In the game, Catarina bullied him under the belief he was a bastard child of her father, causing him to grow up to become a womanizer. In the good ending, he has Catarina exiled and abandons his womanizing ways to be with the protagonist, whilst the bad ending has him kill his sister in a fit of rage before disappearing.

Geordo Stuart- A prince who became Catarina's fiancé after he inadvertently caused her to trip and injure herself, forcing him to take responsibility. In the game, Catarina uses this to her advantage to monopolize him for herself. In the good ending, he exiles Catarina and marries the protagonist, whilst the bad ending has him kill Catarina and abandoning the heroine due to guilt. He is described as a black-hearted sadistic prince who cannot be trusted.

Alan Stuart- Geordo's twin brother and Mary's fiancé. He was jealous of his more talented brother, which made him into an introvert. In the game, Catarina actually does not appear in his path, as Mary serves as the rival character instead. After Catarina becomes friends with Mary, he became angered by how she is constantly ignoring him in favor of her. This causes him to challenge Catarina to a series of competitions, which she handily wins. Over time, however, he and Catarina become friends and his relationship with his brother also becomes better. While he has a crush on Catarina, he has yet to realize this due to Mary's interference.

There are several other characters as well, but for the point of this post, they need not be mentioned. One is obviously named Mary, as the paragraph above mentions her, but in the show, she is one of the female characters that while they are important to the anime, they are not important to my point. There are also a number of other ways that Caterina can be led to doom by these other characters, and the events surrounding these pathways are referred to as “doom flags”. Whenever the character recognizes one, she does whatever she can to counter them.

With her adoptive brother, instead of being cruel to him, she is extremely kind and loving to him. Instead of being highly manipulative and taking advantage of Prince Geordo, she thinks it would be to her advantage to simply try to break off the engagement and encourage him to want to be with someone else. This is unsuccessful, as Prince Geordo is taken by her personality changes.

Instead of being a terrible person and an awful bully, she specifically is the opposite of that so she can save her own life. However, she also tries to do what she can to be prepared in case she is indeed exiled. She learns to farm so if she finds herself on her own, she can, at the very least, have food. People note her behavior change after the head injury, and state that she used to be a brat, but has really shifted in her way of being.

The entire anime is centered around her desire to save herself and how she would strategize in order to do so. She seeks out the heroine, Marie, and when she encounters her being bullied she puts an end to it. She encourages her to bring homemade sweets that she has a real talent for baking to share with everyone on the student council, she befriends a young girl and her brother, when everyone else makes fun of them because the sister has white hair and red eyes, and is mocked for being a “cursed child” by everyone else. She loves and protects her adopted brother, and she makes various other friends that in the game had either been rivals or somehow related to causing one of the “doom flags” to appear.

It’s all very self-serving in her mind, and she’s right, it is. However, what she fails to see is how her actions, regardless of their motivations, have changed the world in which she exists. She certainly sees it when she has successfully navigated through a game event that leads to her destruction, but she doesn’t see how the perception of who she is has shifted in the eyes of those around her, nor does she take it into account. Even though she has drastically changed who she is and how she interacts with people, she is completely convinced that she is still on the pathway to her demise.

This is what this post is about, and why you needed that whole backstory. Motivations cloud how we perceive our actions. If you do something that is self-motivated, it may make you think that self-motivation somehow cancels out the good that your actions provide to the world. What has fascinated me about this anime, and why I keep watching it, is that she literally cannot see how the doom pathways that her character would have gone down are no longer possible because her actions have changed the circumstances far too much. She doesn’t have a gripe of enemies, instead, she has loyal and devoted friends that are very invested in her because of her kindness.

She fails to see that none of them would become a turncoat and condemn her to death or exile, but she is so convinced that she still has such a long way to go that none of that matters. How much does your perception of how and why you do things color what you assume people think of you I wonder? I have mentioned this before, that the motivations behind manipulation are rather secondary provided that those motivations aren’t dreadful, to begin with.

For instance, in this anime, her motivations are to save her life. The result is that everyone sees her as a kind and loving person. They cherish and want to protect her. An example of dreadful motivation would be a story I heard earlier of someone going to a gaming convention for one of his favorite games. None of his friends were into the game, so he was on his own. While there, he met a girl who was not only into the game, but cosplaying as one of the characters in a really good costume. Not one that was cheap, but rather high quality with dyed blue hair to match the who aesthetic. They spent the day together, they took pictures together, they went out to dinner together, and she invites him back to her house. He thinks, “AWESOME!”

However, the house is abandoned, he was lured in, robbed, and beaten at the hands of her boyfriend that was hidden there, and left in that state. Her motivation for the entire day cancels out all of the good that she might have provided to him. Had he said no, he didn’t want to go with her, the intention was still to rob him and allow him to be beaten, leaving him in an abandoned house. Would he have known about that? Most likely, no, he would never have found out, but the intention was still dreadful. However, for him, he got a great day out of it. However, those individuals are going to target someone else. While he may be none the wiser, the intention overrides the result.

Motivations do play a role, but perception plays a large role as well. It can be difficult to step outside yourself and see the results of actions instead of just filtering those actions through your veil of intention. Let’s say that you want your sister to do something, so you do something for her knowing that it is likely that she will reciprocate. You are aware that this is the outcome you are looking for, and feel guilty that your actions were tainted by self-gain.

Now look at it through your sister’s eyes. You did something nice for her, and she is seeing those actions through all the good emotions that your actions brought about. She feels thought of, important, and valuable. Her response is because of those thoughts and feelings, but since you know that was your intention all along, you still have some sort of guilt about it. As though your actions have less meaning because they are self-motivated.

In my life, everything is self-motivated, and I am incapable of feeling guilt. I simply observe the give and take of the world and use it to my full advantage. It is why I choose to manipulate with greed. It nets the best results and people have an overall positive impression of me, and they should. When they leave my company they are better off than before they met me. What isn’t to like about that? Should they care that it was entirely motivated by what I wanted from them? I suppose you could make the argument that it should, but that argument is going to be emotionally based, not logically based or moralistically based.

Logically the world operates on a tit-for-tat basis. You get what you give. Thus why sayings like:

Treat me well and I will treat you better. Treat me poorly and I will treat you worse.

exist. The world is transactional, be your currency emotional, physical, or monetary. People are more likely to be motivated to assist you when they have a good feeling about you. This aspect of the world for neurotypicals is colored through the lens of their emotions. Their payoffs tend to be emotional, feeling wanted, needed, validated, important, or they are elevated in the perception that others have of them, such as giving to charity. However, for many people, their motivations are also going to color their perception of their actions. If they perceive those actions to be motivated by what they consider selfishness or “manipulation”, they may develop a negative self-image.

Another thing that it may do is make people think that they are different than other people around them. If you assume that your actions are the only ones that are self-motivated, but everyone else’s are pure as the driven snow, you might think, “Oh, there’s something wrong with me”.

Or, if you don’t realize that your actions are self-motivated but extremely toxic, you might convince yourself that everyone is like you are, and out for themselves, thus leaving a wake of destruction in your path. In this case, you aren’t seeing the results of your actions, only your own motivations and justifying those motivations as necessary. Everyone else does it, so, of course, you should too.

Therein lies the crux of the argument. You have to step outside of yourself and view what your actions result in when observing the world around you. Did you leave people better off and happy? Then your motivations likely have no impact on people’s perceptions of you, rather, they are seeing you based on their own emotional experience.

Conversely, do your actions leave everyone miserable? Your motivation for those actions likely needs to be examined because they are causing you to not be aware, or not care about the outcome. Self-service is fine. It isn’t something that needs to be condemned or shamed. What should be examined is how your self-service creates the world. If you have yourself convinced that your motivations matter more than the result, you likely aren’t seeing things clearly.

Unless you’re a bad person. In that case, knock it off.