Is Gon Freecs Mental? Hunter X Hunter

Gon Freecss may very well be one of the most interestingly frustrating characters ever written in fiction and anime. As endearing as he is, his moral fiber and frankly attitudinal inconsistencies leave more to be desired. Initially, I thought maybe It's just the fault of a less than stellar writer but then I remembered, he was created by Yoshihiro Togashi. How could the creator of Yu Yu Hakusho an anime that was literally carried by its superb characterization make a mistake like this? The Answer, he didn't. In fact, I believe that every frustrating decision made in regards to the Gon character is, in fact, deliberate.

To truly understand Gon Freecss, we must first understand his motivation, intentions, his origins, and influences. Gon is like the wind, carefree and always present in the moment. Born to a pseudo-family in the middle of the wilderness in a secluded town, Gon grew up with his aunt Mito and Grandma and not his actual parents. Gon is free-spirited, instinctive and genuinely curious about the world at large. He craves knowledge about the outside world, to a fault to be honest. He would do anything to gain that knowledge which most of the time makes him both reckless and selfish. It's the same reason he went out to become a hunter, he wanted to know what would cause his father to choose his profession as a Hunter over being a parent. Among the 4 main characters at the start of the story Gon is the only one who at that point had no experience with death. Leorio was dealing with his inability to save his best friend, Kurapika had everyone on his clan murdered by the Generiodan and Killua, well, he’s been surrounded with death from the time he was born. Don't get me wrong, Gon has experience lost, yes. His mom died in childbirth and as I said his dad basically abandoned him. So yes, Gon is familiar with lost but he has never killed or had someone important to him be killed in front of him, now this is important because when it does happen it brought him to a place he's never been before but more of that later.

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His powers and abilities are also tied to his personality. Gon is an Enhancer, who are known for being simple-minded and yet has a great sense of perseverance. His special attack is literally rock paper scissors, I'm guessing that's a deliberate choice in conjunction with Gons childishness. Gon has a heightened sense of smell, vision, and taste which I think directly translate to his ability to relate to his surrounding without actually empathizing with them.

The problem with Gon is that his moral compass has some kind of a loose screw, he is good-natured yes, but he also has the tendency to be extremely hypocritical. Gon has a bent idea of what is good and evil, in reality, I don't think he really understands it. Gon will consider something or someone good or evil depending on his current consequence, and I meant that on a subconscious level. To put it more bluntly you are good if you are interesting and/or useful to him and/or his friends, and if you mean harm or proved to be a distraction to his currents goals, well he goes rock-paper-scissors on your ass. In a way, his morality is a blank slate constantly fed not my his sense of sympathy or empathy but rather what he deems beneficial. Gon is a kid, a literal child who in spite of his abilities is thrown into a fantastical world of hunters, assassins, monsters and other things which to be honest, is really not suited for an 11 to 14-year kid. There is a lot of things he thinks he understands but simply doesn't. This often leads to frustration, both towards himself and the people around him. Togashi created Gon as a young immature kid in the purest sense. Open to many possibilities but also exploitation. And Togashi did it in a very relatable way, by surrounding him with people who quite frankly know better than him.

This is where all the inconsistencies come into play. Gon hates killing but doesn't really bat an eye if someone he doesn't know gets killed in front of him, in fact, his best friend belongs to a family of killers. Gon legitimately hates Hisoka and yet ironically actually works really well with him. Tompa one of the most backstabbing, villainous, asshole-ly characters ever introduced in the show is pretty much just an okay guy for Gon. Gon's literal reaction to crime is not met with judgment but rather curiosity. But that's the point. Gon does not adhere to any conventional ideal of morality, but instead just does whatever the hell he feels like doing because let's be honest what would an 11 to 14-year kid do? He doesn't know any better, he just wants to help his friends.

What I truly take away from Gon's progression as a character though is that he did eventually change, though the change itself was brought on by a very dark and quite frankly awful experience. When Pitou killed (well, loosely speaking) Kite, that was the first time Gon actually experience death and it brought him to a very dark place, for the first time he had experienced a kind of anger like nothing that came before. For the first time, he truly wanted to kill someone. And yet, when he finally did it... It brought him another feeling... pure sorrow. He saw himself as a monster, a sense of realization that he indeed has changed, and no longer the free-spirited kid he used to be. He was forced to grow up, to finally adhere to the consequences of his actions, quite literally and mentally. His maturity finally surfaced by the end of his arc. After being revived by Alluka and finally being able to confront his father, he learns that his ability as a Nen user has completely slept, and thus he was given a choice. To either re-awaken his abilities or to go and live a normal life, which to my surprise, he actually chose the later. When you think about it, Gon didn't really choose to learn Nen or to be thrown into the events that he was part of, It all just kind of happened in pursuit of his true goal. To find his father. By the end of his story, he realized that he did what he set out to do and that's what's important, not his powers, not the Hunter association, but rather his own self-realization.

When watching, playing or reading any form of fiction, what we often see when it comes to a protagonist is him/her overcome the odds, facing adversaries, saving the world, etc. But what Togashi did here is introduced a character, exposed him, purposely give him moral inconsistencies, threw him in fantastical oddball situations and have the whole world watch him literally grow up. Togashi didn't make a mistake, he simply did what he does best, create actual people, beyond any form of tropes and stereotypes.