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Literature Text
Digimon - Cody: Failure of Character
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February 1st, 2004 - Writing this down so that I cannot forget, writing this down so that I never become so self-absorbed again...
This past month has given me the cruelest days I have ever known since Dad died. I feel like all my progress has been erased, shattered by a 20/20 hindsight that leaves me with no excuse and no recovery. The freedom of MaloMyotismon's defeat was too bittersweet to enjoy, and if you've seen the tearstains on other pages you'll know why.
My mom and grandpa are convinced one of them is now the owner of Oikawa's possessions, and they've been trying to talk to the police about that very issue. I don't go with them; I can't bear the fact that because of me, the possessions but not the man can be saved. I can forgive Oikawa for letting Myotismon possess him, but not for how deeply his actions have humiliated me, how all the justifications and constructs I lived by fell down, how all my efforts to stiffen myself have come to nothing, how unready I was to be the person he needed.
What he became in the Digital World wasn't heaven, it was purgatory. Purgatory... and I couldn't bring him to heaven. I couldn't be there like Davis was for Ken, or Wizardmon for Gatomon, or even Patamon for T.K.; I couldn't even be there like my dad when he took the bullet for someone else...
That's what hurts the most. I failed on everything I thought I had succeeded on. I was lead astray by the very blinders I thought were guiding me true, the very precepts that I thought were the ones keeping me safe. I wanted so badly to be right, to be confident in myself, that I couldn't be what I needed to be in the situation, I couldn't be understanding and sympathetic and vulnerable. And the opportunities slipped through my fingers, shattering my confidence and making all I had gained (both as a DigiDestined and before that time) count as nothing, as worthless!
Over the past month, I've cried myself to sleep more than once. I've questioned everything I had ever learned, everything I ever considered sure in my life, every principle I held to and lived by. I even questioned my sanity, thinking my failures came from a diseased mind and that, one day, I would wake up and it would all be just another illusion. I still prefer the illusion of diseased mind to the reality of personal failure, but I can't live in that illusion. Not and retain what's left of my personal cohesion, at least.
Armadillomon has stayed with me, and I appreciate him now more than ever. T.K. and Kari and even Ken have been around, assuring me I was still an accepted member of the DigiDestined. Thanks to all their efforts, I did not try to leave the group, but they can never completely heal the scars on my character.
I look right from the bed where I'm writing this and I see a picture, what I once was - I say "was" because it can never be "am" again - with my mom and grandpa, them helping as much as they can but not quite being able to understand. I see that picture as in a broken frame, a deliberate and deserved mockery of what I had been. How serious and closed-minded did I become? How deliberately did I construct a shell around myself to cope with my father's death? Did I try to grow up too fast? Too many questions, with answers I am scared of finding out...
Yolei was one of the few friends I had before I was chosen as a DigiDestined, mostly by design. I liked it better that way, weighing advantages and disadvantages to relationship. All of the others passed quickly, but not Ken. I was held up by something, my conscience says it was my ego... most likely it was. It could also have been the fact that I wanted to avoid his tragedy, having hit too close to home for me.
If there were others trying to convince me, Davis and T.K. and Gatomon probably, I did not listen to them... ears but did not hear, eyes but did not see... too wrapped up in protecting myself to see how badly Ken had been damaged. And I missed the same clues in Oikawa, because I was not looking for them. Not looking because I didn't want to see...
I underestimated the power of the enemy, we all did in a sense. When I was told the enemy had penetrated my mind, it seemed like everything was imploding. Already I had been mentally paralyzed by the rapid-fire shocks of the situation; now I had been left naked, no excuse and no recourse left save the salvation of Oikawa. And he was too far gone for heaven, only allowed into purgatory...
Ears but did not hear, eyes but did not see... when I ask why I had those things, the answer my conscience gives brings me to tears: I had made myself that way. I was not made that way like Gatomon had been, I chose that path myself. A defensive mechanism stripped naked by the illusions of MaloMyotismon. It was a serious failure of character, MY character, that left Oikawa in purgatory instead of heaven.
Though everyone (including myself) wanted to see Oikawa sorry, I feel I should be sorry to everyone that trusted and believed in me. And that includes Oikawa's true self that had been hiding under Myotismon's possession. My burden to bear, my grief to carry for the rest of my days, my greatest failure: I could've done more, much more, but I didn't. I didn't because I refused to see the truth in front of me, that I could've provided a way out.
And that's why I'm writing all this down. So that I can look at this and remind myself of my greatest failure, so that I never become as hard-headed and hard-hearted as I once was ever again. So that I never repeat the mistakes of the past...
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February 1st, 2004 - Writing this down so that I cannot forget, writing this down so that I never become so self-absorbed again...
This past month has given me the cruelest days I have ever known since Dad died. I feel like all my progress has been erased, shattered by a 20/20 hindsight that leaves me with no excuse and no recovery. The freedom of MaloMyotismon's defeat was too bittersweet to enjoy, and if you've seen the tearstains on other pages you'll know why.
My mom and grandpa are convinced one of them is now the owner of Oikawa's possessions, and they've been trying to talk to the police about that very issue. I don't go with them; I can't bear the fact that because of me, the possessions but not the man can be saved. I can forgive Oikawa for letting Myotismon possess him, but not for how deeply his actions have humiliated me, how all the justifications and constructs I lived by fell down, how all my efforts to stiffen myself have come to nothing, how unready I was to be the person he needed.
What he became in the Digital World wasn't heaven, it was purgatory. Purgatory... and I couldn't bring him to heaven. I couldn't be there like Davis was for Ken, or Wizardmon for Gatomon, or even Patamon for T.K.; I couldn't even be there like my dad when he took the bullet for someone else...
That's what hurts the most. I failed on everything I thought I had succeeded on. I was lead astray by the very blinders I thought were guiding me true, the very precepts that I thought were the ones keeping me safe. I wanted so badly to be right, to be confident in myself, that I couldn't be what I needed to be in the situation, I couldn't be understanding and sympathetic and vulnerable. And the opportunities slipped through my fingers, shattering my confidence and making all I had gained (both as a DigiDestined and before that time) count as nothing, as worthless!
Over the past month, I've cried myself to sleep more than once. I've questioned everything I had ever learned, everything I ever considered sure in my life, every principle I held to and lived by. I even questioned my sanity, thinking my failures came from a diseased mind and that, one day, I would wake up and it would all be just another illusion. I still prefer the illusion of diseased mind to the reality of personal failure, but I can't live in that illusion. Not and retain what's left of my personal cohesion, at least.
Armadillomon has stayed with me, and I appreciate him now more than ever. T.K. and Kari and even Ken have been around, assuring me I was still an accepted member of the DigiDestined. Thanks to all their efforts, I did not try to leave the group, but they can never completely heal the scars on my character.
I look right from the bed where I'm writing this and I see a picture, what I once was - I say "was" because it can never be "am" again - with my mom and grandpa, them helping as much as they can but not quite being able to understand. I see that picture as in a broken frame, a deliberate and deserved mockery of what I had been. How serious and closed-minded did I become? How deliberately did I construct a shell around myself to cope with my father's death? Did I try to grow up too fast? Too many questions, with answers I am scared of finding out...
Yolei was one of the few friends I had before I was chosen as a DigiDestined, mostly by design. I liked it better that way, weighing advantages and disadvantages to relationship. All of the others passed quickly, but not Ken. I was held up by something, my conscience says it was my ego... most likely it was. It could also have been the fact that I wanted to avoid his tragedy, having hit too close to home for me.
If there were others trying to convince me, Davis and T.K. and Gatomon probably, I did not listen to them... ears but did not hear, eyes but did not see... too wrapped up in protecting myself to see how badly Ken had been damaged. And I missed the same clues in Oikawa, because I was not looking for them. Not looking because I didn't want to see...
I underestimated the power of the enemy, we all did in a sense. When I was told the enemy had penetrated my mind, it seemed like everything was imploding. Already I had been mentally paralyzed by the rapid-fire shocks of the situation; now I had been left naked, no excuse and no recourse left save the salvation of Oikawa. And he was too far gone for heaven, only allowed into purgatory...
Ears but did not hear, eyes but did not see... when I ask why I had those things, the answer my conscience gives brings me to tears: I had made myself that way. I was not made that way like Gatomon had been, I chose that path myself. A defensive mechanism stripped naked by the illusions of MaloMyotismon. It was a serious failure of character, MY character, that left Oikawa in purgatory instead of heaven.
Though everyone (including myself) wanted to see Oikawa sorry, I feel I should be sorry to everyone that trusted and believed in me. And that includes Oikawa's true self that had been hiding under Myotismon's possession. My burden to bear, my grief to carry for the rest of my days, my greatest failure: I could've done more, much more, but I didn't. I didn't because I refused to see the truth in front of me, that I could've provided a way out.
And that's why I'm writing all this down. So that I can look at this and remind myself of my greatest failure, so that I never become as hard-headed and hard-hearted as I once was ever again. So that I never repeat the mistakes of the past...
Suggested Collections
Another Digimon short story, something of a sequel to "What Went Wrong?", written as a hypothetical diary entry in Cody's journal about a month after the final battle with MaloMyotismon.
Most of the hate of Cody stems from his stubborn refusal to accept Ken into the group of DigiDestined, but I see that as one manifestation of a serious character flaw that also cost Cody a number of chances to save Oikawa and head off the trauma of the final battle.
In reaction to his father's sudden death, he built up a defensive shield around himself (the kendo, the serious personality, and his determination) that ultimately made him unable to see the situation for what it was. Having "eyes but not seeing" and "ears but not hearing", he pushed away Ken and ultimately learned nothing from Davis's efforts to help him. This in turn caused Cody to miss important clues in his first encounters with Oikawa, having closed his mind to how seriously both Oikawa and Ken had been damaged.
It was only during the final battle with MaloMyotismon, when his mind was penetrated by illusions, that Cody finally realized both the power of the enemy the DigiDestined faced and how far from reality his perception of the situation had been. But by then, it was too late to save Oikawa's physical body.
As a result of the failure to save Oikawa and realizing how disconnected from the reality of the situation he had become, Cody's protective shell is shattered with devastating consequences as he sees how far short of his own standards he had fallen. In trying to protect his self-confidence, he had instead set it up to be wrecked, MaloMyotismon's illusions leaving him without excuse for his previous actions.
Hence this journal article, writing down the revelations so that he cannot forget them, to remind him how seriously he had failed to judge the situation correctly because he was misled by what he thought was keeping him safe. To remind him of his greatest personal failure, and to learn from that failure...
Most of the hate of Cody stems from his stubborn refusal to accept Ken into the group of DigiDestined, but I see that as one manifestation of a serious character flaw that also cost Cody a number of chances to save Oikawa and head off the trauma of the final battle.
In reaction to his father's sudden death, he built up a defensive shield around himself (the kendo, the serious personality, and his determination) that ultimately made him unable to see the situation for what it was. Having "eyes but not seeing" and "ears but not hearing", he pushed away Ken and ultimately learned nothing from Davis's efforts to help him. This in turn caused Cody to miss important clues in his first encounters with Oikawa, having closed his mind to how seriously both Oikawa and Ken had been damaged.
It was only during the final battle with MaloMyotismon, when his mind was penetrated by illusions, that Cody finally realized both the power of the enemy the DigiDestined faced and how far from reality his perception of the situation had been. But by then, it was too late to save Oikawa's physical body.
As a result of the failure to save Oikawa and realizing how disconnected from the reality of the situation he had become, Cody's protective shell is shattered with devastating consequences as he sees how far short of his own standards he had fallen. In trying to protect his self-confidence, he had instead set it up to be wrecked, MaloMyotismon's illusions leaving him without excuse for his previous actions.
Hence this journal article, writing down the revelations so that he cannot forget them, to remind him how seriously he had failed to judge the situation correctly because he was misled by what he thought was keeping him safe. To remind him of his greatest personal failure, and to learn from that failure...
Comments6
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I have never read a Cody-centric story in my life. I was looking for a Ken one...and then stumbled onto this. It's so beautiful. Thanks for making me pick the wrong story and being blown away by how beautiful it is 