He has some depressing moments
- his dad died when he barely started middle school
- he was mostly alone growing up (besides his mom), and he’d always keep the TV on so he doesn’t feel lonely. He still does this today when traveling. Apparently it’s the very first thing he does when he checks into his hotels
- He didn’t want to worry his mom after he got fired from Konami, so he never told her about it. He wanted to wait until he finished Death Stranding to tell her but she died before learning about any of it
- Death Stranding was a reflection of his loneliness, but he wanted it to make it optimistic for others
I think he made a lot of home movies growing up, but I wonder how much of using TV to cope exposed him to all the western movies and made him who he is today
It is. If you want an extreme example, look at cases of school shooters or serial killers or really any bad criminal. The parents will often express disgust and disappointment, but still defend their children (e.g. he’s misunderstood, she’s a good kid). Part of it is denial or pride that they’re partially responsible (much of the time) for raising them, but people automatically get upset as if the parents are 100% in control of their feelings. They’re their parents. Maybe they do believe their kid has no responsibility, but no matter how much you hate your children for being monsters, there’s still a little biological part in your brain that says “but I’m still responsible for protecting you”, so they try to do that until the very end.
Another example is with abusive and dysfunctional families. Growing up I was constantly hit and verbally abused by everyone in my family, parents and siblings, to the point that I don’t consider that I really had siblings, just 4 parents. I never got to confide to anyone, had anyone to stand up for me, or do any of that for them. I’ll never forgive them for that, bur at the same time, I’m just tired. I’ll still go to their weddings and parties, but it will never be the same. As I said above, there’s a small biological part in me that says “you also took care of me”, and so when when they die, I will most likely shed a tear because of that, and I resent them for it because they don’t deserve that tear.