bad_apple
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Bad Apple!! is the third stage theme of the fourth Touhou Project installment Lotus Land Story, composed by ZUN1). The original song was quite a standout within the game, but it was the remix of that song that became famous. I am linking the English cover of the song made by the brilliant artist Juliet Simmons, acting online under the artist name “JubyPhonic”:
In my opinion, this song is, well, it's extremely good, and I think it deserves a full page analysis for everything I could find in the lyrics. I don't normally analyze lyrics a lot, but this one is special and I hope that I can do it justice and get across how brilliant it is through the analysis. However, I will not be looking at the song from the typical angle. The standard angle to take, on this track, is that the song is about Depression. This is “correct”2), however, I have found that it becomes even more interesting to talk about when analyzed from the angle of Narcissistic Personality Disorder. As far as I understand this, this angle is wrong, but it turns out that NPD and major depression are related in a lot more ways than might be superficially apparent. A lot of NPD symptoms, and a lot of behaviors that NPD causes, are very similar to Depression. Or, in my words, the overlap in terms of mechanics and dynamics in both NPD and Depression, is very large, large enough that it is actually still very useful to look at the song from the NPD angle, even though that will be a very unorthodox and canonically “wrong” angle to take. It should be clearly said that even though I will be presenting things as fact (ie. “this is what this line of the lyrics means”), it is not actually what it was intended to mean.
Analysis
One very defining feature of NPD is that people with it often harbor strong resentments, often against a lot of things. There are all kinds of reasons for this. It's a defense mechanism, useful to deflect a variety of problems with the patient's own (nonexistent) ego. Resentment is useful because it can provide a substantial sense of self that is less in need of defense, ie. less fragile. Resentment was transferred onto people with NPD and they exhibit it as a way of projective identification, ie. to be the one resenting someone/something as opposed to being the one who is resented (which is what they are used to). Inside of people with NPD rages the abyss, the utter absence/invisibleness of a person or personality, the ultimate level of shame and fear a human person is capable of feeling. Confrontation with it feels like utter annihilation and can happen any second of the day. Any one thing that reminds a person with NPD of their (lack of) humanity will lead to a confrontation with the abyss - be it a poor or even just normal grade, be it another person trying to befriend them, be it another person not trying to befriend them, being wrong about something, not being loved enough, everything can remind a person with NPD of the abyss. Resenting the things that remind a person with NPD of their abyss can be a way to avoid that confrontation, to alleviate the suffering. Even just good things, like other people having good grades, or other people enjoying their time, can remind a person with NPD of how they are lacking these things. Narcissists feel empty inside and can never truly be filled. Every time they become aware of something that is outside of them, they feel challenged. Resentment can help repress the abyss.
The song starts
bad_apple.1747973446.txt.gz · Last modified: 2025/05/23 06:10 by ultracomfy