#i doubt he thinks he could take care of them

cruelfeline:

Something that I ask myself A Lot is what, exactly, should Axel have done?

It’s easy to look at Days!Axel and judge him for keeping secrets from the kids, lying to Roxas, fighting Xion, but, given the utterly awful circumstances these three found themselves in, what was the alternative? Should he have just told them the truth, right off the bat? “Hey, Roxas, you’re the Keybearer’s Nobody; Xion, you’re a puppet who’s slowly sucking the life out of Roxas.” Voila: done. Now everyone’s all smiles, yeah?

Except that the truth sucks. The truth is dangerous. The truth doesn’t actually lead to anything good. The truth kills them all.

What happens when Xion finds out the truth of her origin, of her effect on Roxas? She goes on an honest-to-gods suicide run. She is a fourteen/fifteen year old little girl, seeking out her own death because welp, that’s the way it needs to be. That’s for the best. Gotta go back to Sora. Time to mcfreakin’ die. And she succeeds. She actually succeeds in killing herself. Axel keeping her in the dark was dishonest and manipulative… but by the gods, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you bend the truth to save your friend’s life? 

What happens when Roxas finds out the truth? He gets rightfully angry, leaves and… nothing. He realizes that there’s no where to go. There’s no sanctuary to run to. There’s no peace waiting for him outside the Organization. And then, after being baited into killing one of his best friends, he’s captured by Riku and DiZ, stripped of precious memories, and trapped in an illusion that ends in him also choosing what is essentially his own death. Again.. wouldn’t you lie to prevent what is essentially this kid’s willing suicide?

The truth doesn’t fix anything for them. It separates them from the Organization, yes, but awful as it is, the Organization is the safest, most stable place for them. Axel knows this. He knows that they’re in a wretched spot, but this spot is better than killing themselves for Sora’s sake. It’s the only place they have where, used and abused as they are, they have some chance to glean a bit of happiness from one another at the end of each day.

It bothers Axel, lying to them. Keeping them blind to what’s happening. Not at first, sure, but by the end, he’s distressed by the lies, by the loss of trust… but what is he supposed to do? Tell them the truth, knowing that it’ll just speed up their progress toward their own deaths? Shatter this last, tenuous security they have? Tell them everything, so they can accept their fates and literally go off themselves? What alternative is there? Leave the Organization to go where? Where, when the Organization can track them, will look for them, will continuously hunt them down? Where, when DiZ and Riku are likewise seeking to destroy them to bring Sora back? Where is actually safe for these three?

Nowhere.

This, to me, is the most heartbreaking part of Axel’s position in Days: he loses his friends’ trust by consistently lying to them… but the alternative is just godsawful. This isn’t a man lying to some kids to keep them stupid and docile and under his control. He lies to them because the truth is legitimately deadly. Not maybe-deadly; not sort-of-shitty: they both actually die because of it. There is no happy revelation, no sudden freedom when they see through his lies… there’s just death. Sad, futile, heartbreaking death. For both of them.

So yeah: Axel’s lies are a Bad Thing… but I don’t know that there was a Better Thing available. I think he did what he could to protect their one chance at happiness, and I just can’t judge him harshly for that.

and yes I know they’re both in Sora’s heart hotel, but they can’t know that, and functionally it’s still death; their individual lives are done, and all they have is a sort of sleeping half-life with no new experiences or agency; it’s as dead as KH can make it

also also: I think this is why they so easily forgive him at the end of KH3: they understand, after all that’s happened, that the shit he pulled was essentially the best he could do (Xion seems to kind of understand this in Days proper, not being angry with him after he knocks her out the first time)