The Humane Origins of Corruption -- Graham Cray Character Analysis
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Introduction And Moral Notes
Some people, due to their obscure and difficult-to-understand origins of corruption, may never find themselves understood properly by a humanity defined by conformity and uniformity. In their loneliness, they see reality differently than you do. You may see such people and characters as pitiful, or as inhumane monsters, or even as fakers, even when they are brutally honest...
In humanity's lack of strength within them to understand complex people and characters, these figures will always appear illogical, mad or insane.
Such figures can be seen both in fiction and in real life. Some people can even be dismissed as cartoonish as a result, be dismissed as people who make up things just for an intention you merely think they are advocating for.
However, the more you dismiss and forsake your own ability and faith to understand them, the more you deem them to lurk in the dark, and, should they give in to that darkness, will become evil and malicious, develop personality disorders such as narcissism, and so on...
Introduction Note I: The Essence of Ignorance's Redemption
Your ignorance is more deadly than you think, and your hubris has the unseen potential to grow your children, grow a loved one, and even a promising intellect, into a ruthless, evil being.
Please, always question what you merely think exists in the world beyond your mind. Otherwise, you might summon misfortune upon you, in the form of those who you may hold dear to your heart.
You might see the very complex people and characters as the unfortunate ones. However... the more such obscure beings are rejected, the more they see, think and feel differently from the societal matrix we all have to swim in...
With rejections you might find yourself accidently turning your child into a tyrant, into a criminal, or into an escapist. Always, always have faith in your heart, therefore, or your years of nurturing and caring for others, will fail you, and bring you more grief than happiness.
Introduction Note II: Ode to Humanity
There will always be loneliness in being upstanding moralists, and there will always be loneliness in a moralist turned corrupt by the tyranny of circumstance, which he or she can never control completely... Please, accept this peacefully... Accept this with intellectual humility.
Please, never demonize anyone. For even within the most cruel of psychopaths, there are very, very humane origins. Often, it is these very upstanding virtues which, in one bad turn of events, break even the most noble of moral paragons.
Without the ability to foster the determination within us to understand more deeply, those who are dear to us may feel forsaken without you even knowing.
The more you're convinced you understand someone, the likelier you will render them unseen beyond the prison of your own vision. Please, never forget that other people perceive reality differently than you. The more unique they are, the more they understand reality in their own unique way.
Always try to understand this, not only in the name of justice, but also in the name of love. Otherwise, in your limited vision, you already made yourself lonelier without your awareness...
Introduction Note III: How to Understand the Obscure of Figures
To understand people, you should see yourself in them. That is the most basic, simple way of relating to anyone. Their pains, their struggles, their cries, their hopes and their dreams...
That is how you can show sympathy, if not empathy, to even the most rejected and esoteric of folk you may talk to or read about in books or in movies.
It is, simply put, the humane way to understand many, many dimensions of obscurity.
When developing an understanding, try judge less. Don't even lambast. Study the other person or character. Vision yourself in his or her shoes. For in the end, there is much humanity even in the most eccentric of masterpieces, and the most eccentric of humans.
And even in tales of aliens and monsters and mechanical beings, one could see the human in them. The more you see humanity in anything human made, the more you can grow to appreciate the world around you, and the obscure worlds of discarded media.
Otherwise, you would remain ignorant and stagnant in your exploration of the world around you. Remember, you do not only use your eyes to see the world, you also use your mind.
Test Yourself!
And now, let yourself put these teachings into the test, in the form of understanding a most, most hidden shadowy villain... Graham Cray, of the Cray Trading Company. A man who gave in to his corrupt worldviews, and already understands he will never, ever have a way back from his own obscurity, no matter how much he may be honest about himself.
He thus see no reason to hold back on his mad quest for power and control...
Part II: The Merchant of Death's Origins
As people are rightly busy in their own lives, making end's meet or working with an apprentice's passion, many people whom they think they know, deviate. Deviate away from the very society that is supposed to host them within its ranks. The very society that should embrace such people, or else such people will either grow lonely, or horribly, horribly corrupt.
One of these horribly corrupt characters in the mysterious, aloof and intimidating character, Graham Cray, from the world of Suikoden IV.
Graham Cray looks behaves and acts like a zombie would. He is a former shell of the great man he once was. As the time went by, giving demonstration to what I call the Time Lapse Fallacy, Cray's former greatness remains but a very distant memory...
The Cursed Incident
The most early thing we know of him is that he used to be part of an amoral nation known as the Scarlet Moon Empire. There he was an military officer and the apprentice of a well-respected strategist, Elenor Silverberg, who also worked for the Scarlet Moon Imperial Army.
Cray had an unnamed son, whose death changed his father forever...
During a Scarlet Moon raid on a small enemy border village, the unnamed son, in his distress, decimated the entire place with an unknown, parasitic curse, sacrificing himself, and saving his father in the process...
The Scarlet Moon government saw no reason to believe a mere child would have the powers to decimate an entire village, with enemy residents, along with members of its own army. Therefore, Cray turned into the scapegoat of that massacre, and all blame went on him.
As punishment for a crime he did not commit, while showing no remorse for the death of his only child, the now-promising officer's future has been taken away from him. Furthermore, his master was also stripped of her ranks. Finally, that cursed, very destructive magic has now found itself a new host to devour... himself.
No longer being affiliated with the Scarlet Moon, he headed away to the very nation he was attacking... The Kooluk Empire.
Cray, upon finding no way to escape the cursed parasite rune that found itself on his arm, still refused to succumb to its madness. After all, it is the very same parasite that destroyed that village, killed his son, and changed his life's trajectory forever...
He replaced his biological arm with a mechanical one, deeming him a cyborg, or a half-man, half-machine. He is now, technically, a disabled, forsaken war veteran.
A lot of war veterans may suffer much in solitude from the anguish of their past.
Cray is seen as a very unrelenting man. It often requires much determination to overcome such events, such as the death of one's child or children.
In general, mental survival after traumatic lives is something capable of compromising people for the rest of their lives.
Part III: Cray and Elenor's Chosen Paths
Cray: Crime Lord
To survive financially and resume with his arts of strategy, Cray turned into a criminal mastermind, forming the dubious organization, the Cray Trading Company.
It is a mysterious network of information gathering and the trading of arms.
Sometimes no one can help you, so you just have to help yourself survive in this world.
You don't have to resort to crime just to form an alternative framework for yourself and other disillusioned individuals.
The fact that Cray fell to crime, indicates the fact he forever accepted his destiny as a rogue shadowy individual, not even desiring to be understood by the world around him.
The failure of the world to relate to Cray's misfortune and traumas, only enabled his heart to go dark forever.
Such people who, despite what really happened in their lives, may become like that without being shown any scrap of empathy or sympathy.
From this we can conclude that Cray's life might've went different if people had the strength within them to see Cray for the grieving, very unlucky man that he is.
The foundation of the corrupt Cray Trading Company can therefore be attributed to the failures of societies, friends and lovers to embrace a man who has fallen from grace, not much because of himself, but because of events with no decisive narrative.
Always consider the fact people prefer to move on and enjoy their lives, than to delve on past events. This shows the weakness in the hearts of many.
Should the disillusioned man not have the strength within him to retain his heart, he will very likely resort to crime.
The Merchant of Death's Henchmen
Once an officer to a national army, he is now in charge of a very shadowy network of merchants, assassins, spies and ninjas, yielding him profit in many fronts.
The company relished in hunting mermaids. These beautiful, innocent aquatic humanoids would be trapped and sold.
The rest of the fronts remain obscure.
Hiring these dubious henchmen and henchwomen only means Cray deemed it fit to give up on being a legitimate businessman. Also, it means he gave up even more on trying to be embraced by either the Scarlet Moon or the Kooluk Empire.
Elenor: Hermit Sage
His former master, Elenor never made much contact with him ever since the incident. Old and forsaken herself, she decided to retire as a hermit, forsaking Cray even more by replacing him with a new apprentice, Agnes.
Elenor couldn't care less about riches and wealth.
Her Hermitage Island is filled with many beasts and other eccentric folk such as a mysterious beast man and an abandoned archer.
Elenor, compared to Cray, has no desire to succumb to any temptation for power. She only subjugated Agnes to teach her the art of strategy, nothing more.
Possibly, to cope with her life's misfortune since that village incident, she succumbs to drinking away her sorrows.
Agnes acts not only as her apprentice but also as her bodyguard. She is quite the fanatic, given her master's ascetic choices.
Elenor and Agnes later on partake in high-ranking positions against two factions: The Kooluk Empire, and her former apprentice, Cray.
Elenor and Cray seem to resent each other. Melancholically enjoying her suffering, Cray would just keep on hiding his motives, even when he is ultimately defeated....
When he can finally explain himself to a person who happens to know him more than anyone else, he refuses. His relentlessness to not be understood prevented him any chance of salvation.
Fostering a deep connection with her only apprentice, one could say Agnes saved Elenor from going into a path of malice like Cray did.
Part IV: The Empire of Slow Decline
Providing refuge to Cray, the Kooluk government covered up this strange incident, leading many to believe it were the Kooluks who destroyed their very own unnamed village. Ironically, Cray lived there with his son, despite being Scarlet Moon citizens...
When you serve in militaries, how can one understand your personal pains and discomforts, when the very factions you serve matter more than yourself?
How can one understand the logic of militaries and governments when such logic is hidden even from its very own citizens?
Serving in such organizations, compels you to lay low. The more you lay low, the less you are understood, and the more the people around you move on with their lives, despite your anguish.
They kind of have to move on with their lives to cater for their own basic wants and needs.
During the height of his criminal empire, Cray turned into a very close ally of the Kooluks. However, he shared no patriotism for Kooluk. Why would he care about Kooluk given he chose a life of transnational crime?
Cray was never liked by Kooluk's most beloved war hero, the illustrious Child of the Sea Dragon, Troy.
Troy acts like a samurai, with his own unique code of honor. Not understood himself, he is also gradually rejected from the very empire he served under several wars.
Troy falls under depression over time, despite being a promising, dashing young naval officer. He accepts his ultimate defeat in grace, and sinks down with his one remaining ship.
His personal assistant is a rough patriot and naval commander named Colton. Colton is an extremely patriotic, elder officer, and belongs to a period where Kooluk was a more respected nation in the eyes of the world.
Without giving in to emotion, he stayed loyal until he shown sympathy to his traitor son, Helmut, obliviously telling him that "there is more to this world than Kooluk". After Cray's defeat, they vanish themselves both without a trace.
The only other Kooluk commander during Cray's corrupting influence on the empire is a nameless governor who foolishly biases himself towards the evil mastermind and authorizes Cray's highly-advanced technological innovations, whom are used to destroy an enemy island nation and conquer other island nations as well.
In his foolishness, the Governor is killed off discreetly by Cray. Cray then takes over for a while, until he is finally defeated by Elenor and the opposition force she decided to join in.
Since Cray's humiliating defeat by his former master, The Kooluk Empire slowly devolves into anarchy, and many of its territories are finally seized by Scarlet Moon. Kooluk is no more.
Conclusions...
There are many complexities of human nature, along with societal factors that can lead to corruption and despair. Here are some of them:
The Importance of Understanding and Empathy: The role of understanding and empathy in preventing the descent into darkness, is crucial. By acknowledging the unique perspectives and struggles of others, we can foster compassion and prevent the isolation that can lead to destructive behavior.
The Dangers of Societal Rejection and Neglect: Societal rejection and neglect can have devastating consequences. When individuals feel misunderstood, abandoned, and unsupported, they may resort to destructive behaviors as a coping mechanism or a means of self-preservation.
The Impact of Trauma and Unresolved Grief: Cray's tale explores the profound impact of trauma, particularly unresolved grief, on an individual's life trajectory. The man's descent into villainy is largely attributed to the unaddressed trauma of his son's death and the following societal rejection he faced ever since.
The Limitations of Societal Structures: Societal structures, particularly within militaries and governments, can be very strict. They may often prioritize institutional goals over the well-being of individual members. This can lead to feelings of isolation, disillusionment, and ultimately, corruption.
The Enduring Power of Human Connection: Despite the prevalent themes of isolation and despair, we should underscore the enduring power of human connection. The relationship between Elenor and Agnes, while unconventional, highlights the importance of mentorship and the potential for redemption through genuine human connection.
In essence, Graham Cray's tragic story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of societal indifference and the importance of cultivating empathy, understanding, and compassion in our interactions with others.
Even the most seemingly irredeemable individuals may have been shaped by profound trauma and societal neglect.
By extending a hand of understanding and support, we may be able to prevent the descent into darkness.
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