Stan's character development--Ramblings
Spoilers for Okage: Shadow King, as well as some speculations. Some of this does depend on my own interpretation of the character--I believe he's not really that stupid, but that he just doesn't bother thinking things through ever. But that's a whole different essay. So, without delay:
Stan has, as some of you may know, now been stuck at camp for 6 months. He's died, lost his memory, been genderswitched, been turned into a child both physically and mentally, and even had his own very short periods of emo. Still, through out almost all of that, he's managed to stay the same unlovable bastard that we all know and, well, love. Or not. Regardless! Most of the time, Stan can bounce right back to being his usual loudmouthed, evil self.
However. Six months of being stuck at camp is a long time. That's six months it's been since the last fake evil king he got to fight. Six months since he's been anywhere near regaining his full power--and his body. (Though he now sometimes has a physical form at camp, it's unstable and he does revert back to shadow form unpredictably. He's not happy with such an arrangement, especially since he can't control when he has a physical form, and half the time when he has a body his magic is unusable.) It's been six months that he's been unable to do anything regarding his dream, his goal, his sole motivation for everything he does, of regaining his powers and taking over the world as Evil King Stan.
To understand what this means, you have to understand Classification. In Stan's world, every person is Classified. This defines who and what they are in every way. Rosalyn is a Hero by classification, and nothing else. Stan is a classified Evil King, and as such, that's all he wants to do. Conquering the world is his sole purpose, no matter how bad he is at it. Being Evil is his drive; it's what makes him keep going on, failure after failure.
By the end of Okage, Ari and his group are attempting to overthrow the Classification system so that people can be whatever they choose to be, not what they're told to be. However, both Stan and Rosalyn state that they're Evil and Good respectively, with or without Classification; it's what they choose to be. They make this statement after they throw off the power of Classification and regain their free will, after Beiloune had tried to force them to kill each other by focusing their Classifications on them. Instead, they manage not only to avoid killing each other, but also to team up to fight Beiloune.
On the one hand, this is their way of saying that they can't be controlled and that they'll do whatever they want. On the other hand, they may have rejected Beiloune's control, but they still haven't changed from what they are, an Evil King and a Hero. Sure, they're working together--and maybe they're friends--and that in itself defies Classification, but in all other aspects they're still playing their roles. They've been defined by Classification their entire lives, and while they're giving other people the chance to be what they want, to have a choice, Stan and Rosalyn themselves are too used to their lives to change them, or even want to change them. Stan is Evil, always, and even if he fights alongside a Hero, he'll still taunt her and piss her off and even fight her again when he's trying to conquer the world.
Stuck at camp, however, he can't do anything to be an Evil King. He can't regain his powers or conquer the world, and all that leaves him with is making the other campers miserable. Which is all well and good for the first five months, but six? It just loses its charm and appeal.
So. Camp has essentially taken away Stan's very reason for being. Not only that, but the campers don't hate and fear him. Some of them even find him tolerable! That is not acceptable for an Evil King.
Still, with the hope of escape from camp some day, Stan could have dealt with that. The final straw came in two forms--first, being stuck in the same bottle that was his prison for 300 years already, and second, Goku. Specifically, Goku saying that he thought Stan liked him, and maybe he didn't really hate Stan. And that is not only completely, absolutely wrong in every way for an Evil King, but it was true, as well. Stan, at this point, likes Goku.
So now Stan is becoming aware of just how much he's failing at being an Evil King, and while he's stuck in the bottle, he can't even make Goku shut up, or go piss off Ari and Rosalyn to get some reassurance that he's still detestable. He's feeling extremely frustrated. So he lashes out at everybody as soon as he can, and gives them all nightmares designed to prey off their worst fears.
What Stan expected to happen, after putting everybody through that little mental hell, was that people would hate him. That people would be pissed, that they would finally acknowledge him as evil and unlikable. And, almost most importantly, that Goku would stop feeling any and all affection for him, and hate him, and then that Goku would take revenge and thus enable Stan to hate him in return. This seemed to be working out at first; Goku was severely traumatized by his dream, and a lot of other people were upset as well. Goku started to beat the shit out of Stan, and Stan didn't try to fight back very much, hoping that the more Goku hurt him, the more he could hate the monkey.
But then Goku started crying, and Stan felt guilty. So while he'd succeeded in pissing Goku off, he hadn't made himself hate Goku yet. But that would be okay, because given enough time, he could at least lose the affection.
Not over yet, though. Stan's nightmare spell then hit Sanzo. And that pissed Goku off even more--but also got Sanzo to strike back at Stan. He hardly physically hurt Stan, but what he said hit Stan hard. Because not only did it hit close to home--Stan's fear that he wasn't any good at being an Evil King, which is what caused the nightmare mess to start with--but the fact that Sanzo wasn't going to bother with trying to kill Stan means that Stan's actions completely failed. Sure, he'd pissed Sanzo off, but he didn't, as far as he knows, hurt Sanzo. ... and there was the whole spitting thing. that hurt. T_T
Stan pretends that the whole bit goes in one ear and out the other, but it doesn't. It doesn't at all. He was able to recover from what Susan had said to him the night before because he'd never interacted with her before, and he doesn't care about dying--as an Evil King, he knows that he's going to either kill the Hero or die on the Hero's sword, and that's just a fact of life, so death isn't a big deal because it's just going to happen one day. Sanzo, however--Stan cares what Sanzo says because he hates Sanzo.
After this, Ros and Kabuto have a go at Stan--and my, Kabuto's quite the sadist--but that doesn't bother Stan. Like death, he doesn't care too much about physical pain; it sucks like whoa, it sucks hardcore, but whatcha gonna do? He tries to fight back, sure, but he's already had the shit beat out of him and he can't do much. The only thing that bothers him here is that Rosalyn picks up on what he was trying to do, that he was trying to chase Goku away, and calls him an idiot for it.
All of that, however--all of it--Stan could have recovered from. He could have denied and ignored it, and bounced right back to his regular annoying self. The kicker is later, after Ami's patched him up, Goku shows up again. Goku doesn't beat on him anymore, which is sort of expected since Goku's not sadistic, he just enjoys fights, and fair ones at that. What Goku does, however--brushing his lips against the wound he gave Stan on his forehead, and thus proving he really doesn't hate Stan no matter how much he should--means that Stan's nightmare plot has completely and utterly failed. COMPLETELY.
So Stan gives up. He doesn't apologize, and he honestly doesn't regret what he did because regret is a waste of time and no fun, but he knows he made a mistake, and he tells Goku as much.
What this entails is going to seriously affect how Stan acts in the future. He is now aware of the fact that he's not really all that evil, and has given up on changing it. After all, he's hurting himself by trying to push Goku away, and Stan is not the kind of guy who denies himself something that makes him happy. He's still, of course, going to be a jerk, but he knows that he doesn't deserve the title Evil King. This is the utter rejection of his classification, and he's not exactly thrilled about it, and he's definitely not going to announce it to the entire camp. But he IS going to be acting different.
The rambling ends here, because this is as far as things have gone in the roleplay, and this is just to explain WHY Stan's character is going to be changing from what it originally was in the game Okage. Because of the events that have occured, it's almost impossible for Stan to not change; staying the same would require more denile than he possesses.
... and besides, if he ever makes it back to his own world, hey. What happens at CFUD, stays at CFUD. ♥ He can always go be evil again once he gets home.
Stan has, as some of you may know, now been stuck at camp for 6 months. He's died, lost his memory, been genderswitched, been turned into a child both physically and mentally, and even had his own very short periods of emo. Still, through out almost all of that, he's managed to stay the same unlovable bastard that we all know and, well, love. Or not. Regardless! Most of the time, Stan can bounce right back to being his usual loudmouthed, evil self.
However. Six months of being stuck at camp is a long time. That's six months it's been since the last fake evil king he got to fight. Six months since he's been anywhere near regaining his full power--and his body. (Though he now sometimes has a physical form at camp, it's unstable and he does revert back to shadow form unpredictably. He's not happy with such an arrangement, especially since he can't control when he has a physical form, and half the time when he has a body his magic is unusable.) It's been six months that he's been unable to do anything regarding his dream, his goal, his sole motivation for everything he does, of regaining his powers and taking over the world as Evil King Stan.
To understand what this means, you have to understand Classification. In Stan's world, every person is Classified. This defines who and what they are in every way. Rosalyn is a Hero by classification, and nothing else. Stan is a classified Evil King, and as such, that's all he wants to do. Conquering the world is his sole purpose, no matter how bad he is at it. Being Evil is his drive; it's what makes him keep going on, failure after failure.
By the end of Okage, Ari and his group are attempting to overthrow the Classification system so that people can be whatever they choose to be, not what they're told to be. However, both Stan and Rosalyn state that they're Evil and Good respectively, with or without Classification; it's what they choose to be. They make this statement after they throw off the power of Classification and regain their free will, after Beiloune had tried to force them to kill each other by focusing their Classifications on them. Instead, they manage not only to avoid killing each other, but also to team up to fight Beiloune.
On the one hand, this is their way of saying that they can't be controlled and that they'll do whatever they want. On the other hand, they may have rejected Beiloune's control, but they still haven't changed from what they are, an Evil King and a Hero. Sure, they're working together--and maybe they're friends--and that in itself defies Classification, but in all other aspects they're still playing their roles. They've been defined by Classification their entire lives, and while they're giving other people the chance to be what they want, to have a choice, Stan and Rosalyn themselves are too used to their lives to change them, or even want to change them. Stan is Evil, always, and even if he fights alongside a Hero, he'll still taunt her and piss her off and even fight her again when he's trying to conquer the world.
Stuck at camp, however, he can't do anything to be an Evil King. He can't regain his powers or conquer the world, and all that leaves him with is making the other campers miserable. Which is all well and good for the first five months, but six? It just loses its charm and appeal.
So. Camp has essentially taken away Stan's very reason for being. Not only that, but the campers don't hate and fear him. Some of them even find him tolerable! That is not acceptable for an Evil King.
Still, with the hope of escape from camp some day, Stan could have dealt with that. The final straw came in two forms--first, being stuck in the same bottle that was his prison for 300 years already, and second, Goku. Specifically, Goku saying that he thought Stan liked him, and maybe he didn't really hate Stan. And that is not only completely, absolutely wrong in every way for an Evil King, but it was true, as well. Stan, at this point, likes Goku.
So now Stan is becoming aware of just how much he's failing at being an Evil King, and while he's stuck in the bottle, he can't even make Goku shut up, or go piss off Ari and Rosalyn to get some reassurance that he's still detestable. He's feeling extremely frustrated. So he lashes out at everybody as soon as he can, and gives them all nightmares designed to prey off their worst fears.
What Stan expected to happen, after putting everybody through that little mental hell, was that people would hate him. That people would be pissed, that they would finally acknowledge him as evil and unlikable. And, almost most importantly, that Goku would stop feeling any and all affection for him, and hate him, and then that Goku would take revenge and thus enable Stan to hate him in return. This seemed to be working out at first; Goku was severely traumatized by his dream, and a lot of other people were upset as well. Goku started to beat the shit out of Stan, and Stan didn't try to fight back very much, hoping that the more Goku hurt him, the more he could hate the monkey.
But then Goku started crying, and Stan felt guilty. So while he'd succeeded in pissing Goku off, he hadn't made himself hate Goku yet. But that would be okay, because given enough time, he could at least lose the affection.
Not over yet, though. Stan's nightmare spell then hit Sanzo. And that pissed Goku off even more--but also got Sanzo to strike back at Stan. He hardly physically hurt Stan, but what he said hit Stan hard. Because not only did it hit close to home--Stan's fear that he wasn't any good at being an Evil King, which is what caused the nightmare mess to start with--but the fact that Sanzo wasn't going to bother with trying to kill Stan means that Stan's actions completely failed. Sure, he'd pissed Sanzo off, but he didn't, as far as he knows, hurt Sanzo. ... and there was the whole spitting thing. that hurt. T_T
Stan pretends that the whole bit goes in one ear and out the other, but it doesn't. It doesn't at all. He was able to recover from what Susan had said to him the night before because he'd never interacted with her before, and he doesn't care about dying--as an Evil King, he knows that he's going to either kill the Hero or die on the Hero's sword, and that's just a fact of life, so death isn't a big deal because it's just going to happen one day. Sanzo, however--Stan cares what Sanzo says because he hates Sanzo.
After this, Ros and Kabuto have a go at Stan--and my, Kabuto's quite the sadist--but that doesn't bother Stan. Like death, he doesn't care too much about physical pain; it sucks like whoa, it sucks hardcore, but whatcha gonna do? He tries to fight back, sure, but he's already had the shit beat out of him and he can't do much. The only thing that bothers him here is that Rosalyn picks up on what he was trying to do, that he was trying to chase Goku away, and calls him an idiot for it.
All of that, however--all of it--Stan could have recovered from. He could have denied and ignored it, and bounced right back to his regular annoying self. The kicker is later, after Ami's patched him up, Goku shows up again. Goku doesn't beat on him anymore, which is sort of expected since Goku's not sadistic, he just enjoys fights, and fair ones at that. What Goku does, however--brushing his lips against the wound he gave Stan on his forehead, and thus proving he really doesn't hate Stan no matter how much he should--means that Stan's nightmare plot has completely and utterly failed. COMPLETELY.
So Stan gives up. He doesn't apologize, and he honestly doesn't regret what he did because regret is a waste of time and no fun, but he knows he made a mistake, and he tells Goku as much.
What this entails is going to seriously affect how Stan acts in the future. He is now aware of the fact that he's not really all that evil, and has given up on changing it. After all, he's hurting himself by trying to push Goku away, and Stan is not the kind of guy who denies himself something that makes him happy. He's still, of course, going to be a jerk, but he knows that he doesn't deserve the title Evil King. This is the utter rejection of his classification, and he's not exactly thrilled about it, and he's definitely not going to announce it to the entire camp. But he IS going to be acting different.
The rambling ends here, because this is as far as things have gone in the roleplay, and this is just to explain WHY Stan's character is going to be changing from what it originally was in the game Okage. Because of the events that have occured, it's almost impossible for Stan to not change; staying the same would require more denile than he possesses.
... and besides, if he ever makes it back to his own world, hey. What happens at CFUD, stays at CFUD. ♥ He can always go be evil again once he gets home.