organism posted:

In failknight, I don't understand the sister's reaction to any of this. She's already stated that she hates her family because of what the did to her brother but instead of cutting ties with them or reporting their abuse of her brother to the media (which would hugely embarass them given how prominent they're supposed to be) she decides to incestuously fall in love with him.

Why does the protagonist always respond with "I'll just work harder until they acknowledge me" in those anime scenarios where they're shunned and treated like crap in the family? You would think, statistically, that one of them would just go "gently caress it, you hurt me, I'll hurt you worse". What boggles my mind is that, most of the time, it ends up working out and the family acknowledges them. That's not how toxic abusive relationships go. You don't ever change the other person's mind and make them realize they were wrong the whole time. The self-help book, psychologically healthy response is supposed to be that you realize you don't have to live up to other people's standards not that they were right and you just weren't trying hard enough.