Can one of you Eridan lovers actually explain, coherently and without the same excuse, why you like Eridan?
Cause I tried to for my friend, but I really can’t. He’s kind of a huge dick, who just went batshit fucking insane because his love interest rejected him??? And you kind of can’t come back from killing said love interest and then assaulting the ones who tried to stop you?? And even considered fucking land-dweller genocide??
And don’t give me that bullshit “it’s just in his nature” talk, because it’s also in Feferi’s nature- but she never did so. It’s in Equius’s nature, but as far as I’m concerned, only really fucked with robots. It’s also in fucking Karako’s nature, but he’s a sweet summer precious child.
Give me legit reasons why you like Eridan. I’m genuinely curious why, and not looking for people crying for whatever reason. I’m harsh, and I’m looking to stay that way.
Eridan is a huge dick who doesn’t truly deserve the like. Change my mind.
*leans into the mic* You can like fictional villains and still find them interesting and compelling without downplaying or excusing their villainy. There is nothing about “deserving” involved. People have different experiences and imprint on different things for different reasons. You don’t find Eridan enjoyable, other people do. That’s just the way it is.
Personal answer: He’s compelling. He’s fucked in the head in a way that is shaped by inside and outside factors. His tragedy is his potential and how it was wasted, scorched to the ground. His pathos is that even he had some self awareness that he was fucking things up, but was too far gone into a spiral helped along by Alternain culture, isolation, the angels, all of it. I actually really disliked Eridan on my first read through, he’s a massive tool!
Eridan is easy to scorn if you compare him to a grown adult human from our modern culture. He becomes heart breaking when you remember that he was a thirteen year old mentally unwell kid in a group of other thirteen year old mentally unwell kids, raised Lord of the Flies style steeped in a culture that’s an extreme allegory to our own oppressive power structures, and no one in his friend group had the tools (nor should they have been expected to) to help him pull up.
He’s clearly lonely and hurting, and he keeps shooting himself in the foot over and over again and at some point you want him to break the cycle and get better. I think it’s very human to see things failing and want them to get better. To make them better. To picture universes and timelines where he learns from his mistakes a little sooner with less fatal results.
I never said he wasn’t compelling- in fact, I do think he’s quite compelling. However, I don’t like him for the simple fact if he wasn’t so caught up in the snobby act, he could have thought before he acted and did what he did. I do know good and well that all the trolls have the system of “im higher, so you’re trash” and it gets completely worse as it gets up the hemospectrum. And sure, I guess more prone to violence aswell, though it’s never stated explicitly as far as I am aware.
Maybe I’m not thinking too deep into it. His tale is heartbreaking. None of the other trolls were prepared for something like that (and as you said, they shouldn’t have needed to be prepared for it), nor is their mental states themselves even able to process stuff like that. They /are/ all just thirteen at that time, raised in a society completely different to ours. They have different mindsets, they have different habits.
But none of that excuses Eridan could have thought before he acted, like other trolls have certainly done. The fact his entire tale is tragic due to the circumstances does not excuse the actions themselves. It does not excuse what Eridan has done. It is still murder (and attempted murder), and especially to the Heiress.
He was still a dick, no matter lonely or hurt from heartbreak. Being heartbroken doesn’t automatically mean you have to turn around and be a dick, no matter if he’s already a snob anyway.
Yeah, it’s definitely not an excuse, he behaved badly, period. And he hurt people, killed people. Personally I feel its unfair that he never got a chance to actually step up and take responsibility for that. We have a glimmer of it when Erisolsprite talks with Fefetasprite. He expresses remorse and apologizes to her, though in a confused and stumbling way. And we see Aradia bring Feferi and Sollux to him in the dreambubbles and they don’t seem displeased to see him in spite of everything so. Maybe he did some more reflecting and proper apologizing (but we sure didn’t get to see the resolution to that, DID WE, HUSSIE!!)
I’m not sure how much he actually was in control of his own actions though. He certainly wasn’t acting rational by the end of it (join Jack? Kid, did you really think he was going to give you a moment to breathe a word much less entertain an offer of allegiance?). If you’ll allow me to dive a little more into the speculative side. These aren’t headcanons per se, but they are the impressions I get from the character, and how I interpret them based on personal experiences (the only real lens I have to filter anything through, in the end).
First Eridan has a pretty obvious inferiority complex (it comes out most obviously in the walkabout where he talks to Terezi, but it’s hinted at in other places). He has two primary conflicting messages growing up. “You are the best, the cream of the crop, everything you get, you deserve, everything you want, it’s your right to take because you are the best,” and “but if you don’t engage in these specific points of what we, your leaders, have deemed the correct and proper milestones for achievement, you are actually a worthless piece of trash that deserves no less than death.” Think of it as toxic masculinity on steroids. This is pretty hard coded into his psyche by the time in his life where the game begins. On the outside he fronts, terrified to have his bluff called.
Second, he exhibits what I feel are definite signs of cluster B personality disorder*, specifically either histronic or borderline (primarily the splitting/black and white thinking, and emotional dysregulation is what pings me here). If you have never encountered someone who is in the process of a cluster B spiral, then I can assure you they are the epitome of this gif:
Reacting comes first, and it takes over rational thought. It’s so powerful it’s overwhelming. Time and therapy can help you recognize it and manage it, but uh…. guess what Eridan has had absolutely none of growing up on Alternia? Yeah that. combine that with the fact that he’s a hormonal thirteen year old groomed by a sadistic empire to be a weapon for their bloodhungry tyanical leader to fuel her galactic conquest with the corpses of Trolls and aliens alike? HOOOO BOY!
Third, we have the angels. It’s unclear exactly what they told him. There’s speculation, but we can be pretty certain whatever it was, it convinced him that fighting Jack was hopeless. Might not have taken much at that point; isolated as he was, a Prince with no target will turn inward and attack himself first. As far as Eridan was concerned, he was thinking things through. Everyone else were the ones not being rational about it!
Fourth is Sgrub itself. We’ve seen alternate time lines were he went god tier. Where him and Feferi hang out and presumably they’re still friends. We’ve had glimpses into timeline where he was better. Did better. Made better choices. All of those timelines are doomed. For whatever reason, for the Alpha timeline to progress, SGrub required that he fail, and in doing so destroy the Matriorb. (And this is something I think about a lot. When he died he would have learned that he really didn’t have any other choice. His struggle was futile. He could have never been the hero, not even halfway to decent. The game required him to fall, so it played Jenga with the already rickety scaffolding he had used to prop up his mental state. Can you imagine being thirteen, and learning that your mistakes would be your only legacy, death your only meaningful contribution).
This is what ultimately draws me to him as a character. I love to pick at the cracks, of which he has many. Watch the way he shatters, glittering, a soul turned to shrapnel, and try to think about how those pieces can come back together better; a person made from metaphorical kintsugi. It’s why I love to love him and what makes him so much fun, even when he’s a dick. Especially when he’s a dick, even! (This a really fun writing challenge to have an Eridan who is learning or has learned, but is still a snobby asshole).
All this does not absolve him. He is still definitely responsible for the hurt he caused, but the fact that he never got a chance to take that responsibility and grow from it eats me up, because I think he was capable of it.
* As stated previously, I am drawing from personal experiences. I am by no means a licences psychologist, and can not even begin to give a diagnosis to real, living, flesh and blood people. Eridan is a fictional character, and it’s all fun and games to figure out what makes fictional characters tick, but that’s as far as it goes. If you feel like some of the descriptions in the links provided might ping you, please contact a therapist licensed in your state.
ugh 