a jamatop extensive character study from a jamatop kin, because as of late he seems to be the most underdeveloped character of all time.
something about jamato getting objectively worse and being delusional about it aka paralleling spoke nearly exactly. using his totem exploit when he himself repeats time and time again how exploits should not be used and they make the world unstable, possibly being the cause for several deaths of people completely unrelated to his original goal.
i think the day jamato realises what he's become is the day he dies because i don't think he'll be able to handle the sheer juxtapositionary weight of his own judgement and the fact that, both legally and morally, he's somehow become worse than spoke ever will. but at the same time not literally. he dies in some abstract way. gives up completely and lays limp for whatever fate karma gives him next. but i think he's too scared to *really* die. to stop existing completely. the totems prove that. jamato is always scared, he shares that with spoke, and he uses that as a motive for everything he does.
i think this fucked up bug also has mental issues in the way that like, he is a coward. through and through. he wants to just get away from everything and disappear completely no matter what happens. and i think a part of why he hates spoke is because spoke is everything he isn't, too. they share the same scared attributes, they're both exploiters, they've had similar ambitions and come from the same kinship and yet spoke is always out there, always at the centre of major events, being brave enough to stop the mafia despite everything, stopping leo's insanity with bat despite it being his fault. and i think jamato hates spoke for that because he knows if he had made the same mistakes that spoke had, he wouldn't have done the same. he wouldn't have stuck around to fix them.
it's a jealousy that creeps up on him silently and manifests in the intrusive idea that spoke is self-righteous and arrogant. spoke got involved in law too, despite not having anything to do with it, he got involved in fixing the server from tyranny and jamato stood by and watched. if the problem doesn't reach him, then it's not his to deal with. he has bystander issues.
"i'm not trying to protect the server from ashswag, i'm not protecting it from the mafia, i'm protecting it from you" but in this new sense that his own isolation has caused his judgement to be warped. spoke is fixing everything. but he is also at the centre of it all. he is causing this to happen in the first place and causing jamato this internal turmoil of being a coward and if spoke had never been there in the first place there would be no mafia, no rogue bat, nothing at all. that's jamato's warped belief i think. it's on completely shaky foundations and he's holding onto it with the thinnest of threads to keep himself sane and he's clearly losing it the more null becomes active. his grip is faltering.
jamato tries to act like this unstoppable force, imposing his own self-righteousness he refuses to believe he has onto spoke, trying to appear calmer and more mature and in control.
he's trying too hard to act like wifies.
using unknown soldiers to eliminate things in his way behind the backs of everyone? keeping the identity of the leader as vague as possible? being obsessed with one specific person? trying to lead the narrative like he knows how it's going to play out? he tries too hard at anything and forgets to be real. it's like he's trying to erase himself.
there’s a belief that bugs don’t really like the sun, but i think it's the opposite, on jamato's part. i think it's the way a fly buzzes annoyingly, or the way you can never really ignore an irritating black form flitting about. the way all bugs are perceived as bloodsuckers and nothing more. it's a type of self-hatred for himself, but in a way that's redirected at everyone else to make himself feel better.
i think people don't understand jamato because they are victims of his facade. his act is working.
people believe he's some mastermind, some know-it-all, a mature and mysterious figure with a quiet voice and hard-hitting lines, they believe he's pulling all the strings and that all this time he's been leading spoke on; that's exactly what he wants to look like. because he is calm. a calmness too eerie. and that's led most to believe jamato couldn't possibly have deeper emotions. he couldn't possibly have turmoil, or be imperfect, or struggles, therefore he must be apathetic, therefore he must be the perpetrator. jamato is trying to look like everything here except the perpetrator part, that’s why it works, but he cared so much he ran.
jamato cares about his image, too. not in a way thats like. how dare you ruin my reputation!! grr!!! but in the sense that he cares how people perceive him, and he feels too vulnerable around spoke because spoke knows almost everything about him, having been so close. this is emphasized by his appearance with wemmbu.
he tries to act like a know-it-all to spoke, when all he really knows is spoke. he barely knows anything with wemmbu, acts as polite as possible after making sure wemmbu is trustworthy (being tricked quite easily) and then seeming hurt and running when wemmbu tries to kill him.
there are crazy points in that one simple, brief as fuck interaction that make me insane.
- jamatop knows nothing. if he truly knew everything in the server, he would know who wemmbu was, his reputation, and know to avoid him by all costs, especially with wemmbu's visit in the underworld and jamato having heavy ties to them. which means he cares that spoke thinks he's got it all under control, he doesn't want to break in front of spoke or show any more vulnerability. he wants spoke to think he's invincible.
- jamatop is sentimental. when he trusted wemmbu, his instincts were to be as accommodating as possible. he began telling whatever he knew about certain things to wemmbu, essentially nerding out, and being as polite as possible. he cared about this "new friend" and wanted to make a good impression.
i still think about the totem scene. jamato's dare for spoke to murder him, and then use a totem to escape. there's so much to unpack there.
why did he bluff? did he want to make an empty point to spoke that he knows his next moves? solidify to spoke and himself how spoke has become a villain?
he didn't want to die. hell he didnt even think it through. it was a spontaneous bluff, like throwing a fit.
i think, and this is my best guess, the one i feel is most right; if spoke hadn't attempted to kill jamato there, jamato would've broke. i think that was his slipping grip on his composure and a last-ditch effort to restabilize his belief that he should despise spoke. he needed proof to himself to keep going down this delusion. It’s like. to me, at least, missing someone who's still alive. he's warped and changed spoke in his mind so much for his own comfort that actually being face to face with spoke nearly destroyed all the work he put into convincing himself. i think that's another reason why he never bothered to come see spoke again. i think he only showed up there to steal mapicc and zam, if only to prove himself more right. to show them a peaceful world wihtout spoke's chaos and watch how happier they would become and then use that as proof for himself even more that he's doing the right thing. but he didn't expect spoke to be there so soon, if at all, really.
i think the isolation and lack of connection is something he's jealous of too because even with all the wrongs spoke keeps making he has all these people on his side, while jamato is completely incapable of connecting with anyone like he did with spoke ever again. but he can't be wrong. surely spoke is manipulating them to stay there with him. surely something is wrong. and he can do better.
i think he also sees it as a mild insult, a means of apathy the way spoke "replaced" jamato so fast with mapicc. when spoke was really unstable and needed someone to hold him up, and mapicc stayed long enough for spoke to get attached, jamato took this as him being easily replaceable and then wondered when exactly spoke would replace all his other new friends when they stopped being useful, too. maybe that's what sparked this unjust hatred. a pitfall of isolation and hurt that spirals into jealousy and desperate tactics.
reminder that jamato and spoke are both the villains of each other’s story in my view, and i don’t view either of them as in the right at all. i think they are both terrible for each other and should be made even worse. #toxicfriendshipgoals or whatever
