Bsd Dazais character analysis

Obviously tw for suicide

I could rant about dazai's character for so long but I've never had the motivation to write it all out cuz there's just too much. 

Like first there's the fact he really doesn't want to die, even if he talks about it a lot and attempts all the time, someone as smart as him would have died already if they really wanted to. Or that's one theory some ppl have but there's also the fact that dazai's says whenever he wants something it gets taken from him, so if he wanted to live he would end up dying and thus has to keep finding a reason to want to die, he has to keep struggling with declining mental health or else he will die. 

I also think the fact he makes it his entire personality might have something to do with his childhood. Maybe he lost who he really was over the years, he's shown to be somewhat emotionally numb to things so he might have lost his own identity and all he can remember is the feeling of wanting to die so he keeps that as his main personality trait becuz it's the only thing he can remember about himself and the thought that that's no longer true would probably break him. He has lost everything else about himself and just has this one thing to cling onto and if it is no longer true then he has entirely lost himself and has no idea who is truly is. 

Him being in the mafia at such a young age also definitely made anything he was feeling way worse. Some ppl say it was his own fault becuz he could have just not entered the mafia but like 1. He was a suicidal kid who thought he would just die if he joined. And 2. If u look at the chuuya dazai 15 manga you'll see that Mori said he would let dazai die after he helped him kill the old mafia boss so he was lied to and only joined becuz he was literally promised death. The fact he never died isn't his own fault, and no he couldn't have just left becuz he had nowhere to go and as it says in the anime and manga it's really hard for anyone to leave the mafia, that's why he went into hiding for yrs (at least one of the many reasons). 

As for him abusing akutagawa, dazai had Mori as the only adult figure in his life and Mori was abusive as hell so when there's someone like that teaching dazai how to act ofc he's gonna be shitty, he kills ppl, he's a criminal. Mori probably trained him in the same way dazai trained akutagawa so he just assumed that it was a normal thing to do, and that could be reinforced if dazais past outside the mafia does involve more abuse, if that's how he's been treated all his life he will repeat those behaviours and not feel like he's doing anything wrong. After he leaves the mafia he does take a different approach with atsushi and tells akutagawa he's proud of him. I honestly think dazai is kinda sympathetic, like he was an asshole and abused akutagawa but I feel like if he didn't think it was all meaningless and that he would die before ever having to make up for what he did, he wouldn't have. I think dazai would be the type to get overwhelmed by guilt in those situations and the only reason he didn't in the mafia was becuz he was in the mafia,emotional numbness caused by the trauma of killing ppl and also the way he was taught. If he really didn't care he probably wouldn't have been so nice to atsushi, even if oda told him to be a good person, dazai is a very gray character, if a child is taught something is ok they will think that for ages and it will be very hard to change their way of thinking so oda could tell him to be a good person but he could have still excused his actions and have very different opinions of what a good person is, so dazai could save atsushi but still be abusive cuz he wouldn't see that as bad but he doesn't do that, he's nice to atsushi and he's trying to get better so he clearly cares about pp and always felt like it was wrong but did it anyway becuz he was made to tell himself he didn't have a reason to feel bad and that it's normal. even if he wouldn't have changed if oda never died he had always wanted to get better, he's always wanted to be a good person but never knew he had the ability to change and do something like that, his depression made him feel like he was always just gonna be a bad person and he could never improve and never change so he never tried until oda told him to and now he's a good person more becuz he wants to and less becuz it'd what oda wanted. Oda started his journey to improvement but he's the one who'll do it for himself.

Growing up he definitely got manipulated into somewhat doubting his own emotions and opinions on certain things, he may have been told he was smart and his plans were always perfect but he was probably told his feelings were wrong so he never felt like he had a reason to be sad and invalidated himself, he told himself he was fine and never tried to get help becuz he really did think he was fine and what he went through was fine even though being in the mafia at that age would have been so traumatic for him. Even if he didn't feel like he had been traumatized by any of it, it would just be cuz he was so emotionally numb from it all and unable to feel what it was doing to his own mind

And I'm gonna need to make whole other posts about his relationships with kunikida and chuuya, I have so much to say about them.