Squeee, that was a joy to read, I love thoughtful analysis like that. ^^
Sometimes I do wonder about the family dynamics before World War II. I mean, I can imagine that Kinzo took care of the basics when the siblings were babies, at least, even if he didnāt have any real paternal love towards them. A lot of abusive parents do an okay job of being parents when the kids are infants, at least (yes, I realize thereās also a lot who donāt). What about after that? Sure, we know that Kinzo never truly loved his family, but did he care enough about their well-being prior to meeting Beatrice that he at least went through the motions and showed them some amount of fatherly friendliness and kindness? Whenever Kinzo meets Beatrice in 1944 and goes through his personality change, Krauss is around 10 years old and Eva is around 8. Whenever Beatrice dies in 1949, Krauss is 15-ish, Eva 13, Rudolf about 8. Thatās quite a few years under the kidsā belt before Kinzo is thrown off the deep end into despair and rage. (Actually, maybe it was 1947ā¦ I canāt really rememberā¦ point stands either way.) I know that he was never worth a shit as a father afterwards, but I wonder if he ever showed the kids or his wife any warmth or kindness before that, when he was relatively mentally stable?
Iām guessing, though, that he never put forth much (if any) effort towards overcoming his feelings of indifference or treating his family with any kind of explicit affection. During his flashback in episode 7, whenever Kinzo talks about his weak sense of attachment to his wife and kids, he never shows consideration for the fact that they might have been hurting as well. Thereās no expressions of guilt for feeling nothing towards a woman who, from what extremely little we know (ie just barely more than nothing), was a decent human being who loved him. Thereās no worry that the kids might feel neglected or unloved. Whenever Kinzo talks about his pain, itās entirely focused on himself alone with no recognition of the fact that the others might have been hurting, too (and Iām sure that Eva was intuitive enough to pick up on these feelings, though Krauss might have been too much of a derp to notice so long as Kinzo put on any kind of social mask).
That does lend a certain consistency to his character that unites Young Kinzo with Old Kinzo. Kinzo was probably always a self-centered turd who loved those he loved, and didnāt those he didnātā¦ and if you didnāt get his Seal of Approval based on whatever arbitrary criteria exist in Kinzoās strange little mind, no amount of devotion or kind treatment could change that. Kinzo was probably always a somewhat coldhearted person. Whenever you add anger and hatred to the emotional makeup of someone who wasnāt prone to caring about others anyway, then you end up with Grandpa Kinzo.
(I know this is all a bit more obvious when taking the manga in mind with its added information. Iāve never actually read the manga, so I tend to forget his role in the Rokkenjima massacre.)
On a random note, Iād love reading some fanfics that focus on Ushiromiya family life during the 1930s or the early 1940s sometime. I think the 1930s sound interesting for the same reason that Kinzo hated the decade; given how slow, drab, and uneventful those years were, any story that focused on them would have to be personal and character-driven almost by default.