Silver and Gold Bonus Material

Why Hunter is in denial of Belos's Abuse at first

Slight spoilers for Chapter 12 and above!!!

Okay so you know how in the fic, he suddenly thinks in chapter twelve, "Is my uncle really evillll????" or something and he just starts to think about it for the first time?

Well, that's because of two reasons.

1, is that it's cannon. In Hollow Mind he goes on and on about how Belos is the greatest hero in history and he's still blindly obedient to Belos. But when he finally realized everything was when he discovered he was a grim walker and what the coven system truly was. That's when he runs away.

"But Belos always abused him physically, so he should know Belos is abusive!"

Before you comment something along the lines of that, let's go onto reason number 2.

I watched this one YouTube video with one part talking about basically Hunter's mindset (the video was about kids growing up neurodivergent and the representation of that in toh). The person explains how whenever Belos physically abused Hunter, he almost always made him believe he deserved it.

In the end of Hunting Palismen where Hunter talks to Belos, Hunter speaks out of term and Belos almost slashed his face. Then when Belos pulls back his weird sludge spike thing (idk how to describe it), Hunter apologizes. Belos raised him to think that whenever Belos physically hurt him, Hunter was the one at the fault.

So because Hunter thinks he deserves it, his brain doesn't really register it as abuse, but rather a punishment he wholeheartedly deserves. He's in denial about it because he doesn't think that's possible. This is the great and powerful Belos we're talking about here after all, the greatest hero of all time. This is just how Belos raised him. But eventually, Hunter starts to slowly question his uncle until he finally learns the truth.

And don't think that Hunter just didn't know that Belos is hurting him, Hunter isn't stupid. He does know Belos hurts him and it's painful, but was just manipulated to think it's always for a good reason so it's morally right. And even he expects it. He's shown to flinch at Belos multiple times at the show. He even flinches at other people whenever he makes physical contact.

And I noticed something strange with the Hunter x reader's I have read.

They never go in depth with this.

Usually near the beginning-middle, Hunter already believes now that his Uncle is bad and blah blah blah then it goes 'OH WAIT, HOLLOW MIND! He's in denial again! Actually nevermind- he's traumatized now.' And this happens in the ficus that are otherwise really well written.

For some reason's Hunter's always like this and they don't do the slow build up of him realizing his uncle's true intentions. I think that's a missed opportunity personally. So when I watched the video, I thought it would be cool to write in that way instead of rushing it all. I really like psychology and I think it's cool to go in-depth like this.

Please don't think I'm a professional in anyway though! I'm most certainly am not.

That's pretty much it for that ig.

And if you want to watch it, here's the video! I strongly recommend it and also the person's channel in general. The video explains what I'm trying to say much more easily and delves into more stuff like his religious trauma and PTSD. But I didn't feel like diving into it.

I hope this helped