>>58348265Back to narcissism, there are also different degrees of it. In RS Courtney was the stereotypical "criminal sadist who likes torturing people" malignant type while Ruby was generally a more "annoying but has a conscience" benign type (see chapter 201). The trouble with implying all narcs are the criminal type, it makes Ruby out to be intentionally malicious, but that contradicts the core of his non aggressive personality. He's inherently defensive. In fact that's the rule with him: the reason for his actions ALWAYS comes down to conflict/harm avoidance, whether for himself/Sapphire/both, that's why it's said he's controlled by fear. Which is also a stereotypically feminine approach to life. But since it's impossible to avoid all conflict, Ruby keeps causing collateral damage by accident which is what gets highlighted in the Hoenn arcs. His fuckups never come from wanting to hurt people, he's just a walking disaster with bad decision making skills.
Sapphire is the inverse where she's very aggressive, but she also lacks malice. She's aggressive because she's determined and self righteous with a huge sense of justice, and is also just too retarded to control her feelings a lot of the time. It's also why she looks like the shounen hero, she's always running towards the source of conflict while Ruby's always running away from it. Some people misinterpret Sapphire's aggression as her just being a bully, which is the same level as interpreting Ruby's cowardice as malice.
They're both also just dumb teenagers making mistakes. If either of them had evil intentions, they'd be the villains instead of just protagonists with eternal relationship drama.
