Tw: Discussion Of Physical And Emotional Child Abuse

Tw: discussion of physical and emotional child abuse

I've seen some people depicting Belos as someone who enacts physical violence on Hunter as direct punishment for his actions. While people are free to do that, and while I do believe Hunter's scars are (at least mostly) from Belos, he doesn't strike me as someone this blatantly cruel, someone who'd go "you did a bad thing, so now I must punish you so you know not to do that thing".

No, in fact, I think he's way smarter than that.

From what we've seen of him, he's very emotionally manipulative, and when Hunter sees him on a "good day", on the surface level, he seems actually... gentle. Someone Hunter would have a reason to like and care about.

As such, I'd wager he always presents any physical harm as a side effect of his condition. Something he doesn't want to do.

So it's not "you deserve this punishment". Rather, he spins it as "I didn't want to do this, but you know how I am when an outburst hits and you made me angry. Look what you made me do."

It serves as a way to both remove himself as the perpetrator, putting himself in the role of a victim of an illness unable to control his actions, and place the blame entirely on Hunter. Whereas in the case of direct punishment, he'd place himself as a figure of authority to be feared, but would risk Hunter growing to resent him way more.

It also adds another reason to why Hunter wants to help heal his uncle. Not only from the goodness of his heart, but also because he believes it could end both Belos's suffering and his own.