The Turnabout Big Top Slander Experience (Objection.lol) 

Actually, that's a really interesting case. In both versions, he's portrayed as this very stupid, mentally vulnerable man. I'm told in the original Japanese version, he is portrayed more as having regressed on death row. Janet Hsu sorta made his dialogue seem more 'has a disorder' in the English version to make his character work better in that regard since the end of the case is supposed to be this tragedy of how badly he was manipulated and provides a context that better explains how he was manipulated by a teenager to begin with. I'd say the localization honestly only works because there are cases (especially in the ASD-2 or ASD-3 areas of the autism spectrum) where there are people who do fine with more academic functioning but have all the deficits that I mentioned Terry has. Honestly, shortly after uploading this video, I realized I should have just pointed to Beauty and The Beast for that segment since it's the definitive case for what I was talking about.

@@okayjection Ah, I was trying to remember the Japanese take, but maybe I mixed up the official Japanese take I'd heard of with what I thought was my own headcanon. I think whoever instigated that relationship may not change that it looks like it was pretty toxic on both sides. Terry definitely had a view of Dahlia that sort of infantilized her, that whole "perfect teen angel" bit, and imo I think he might have just been as blinded by her outer beauty concealing the inner malice for a long time the way everyone else in the series who seem neurotypical often were. Like so many others, it seems to me he conflated her appearance with innocence, and maybe even took it a step farther as a result. I guess I just hesitate to give this a pass even if he does have some sort of development or processing disorder, or difficulty understanding social cues, because there's plenty of people with disorders like that who don't end up trying to date 14 year olds. I think a lot of people failed Dahlia for her to end up the way she did, and that doesn't lessen how awful a person she became as a result of that.

@@rebellemuria I don't think "giving it a pass" is the right word. More that the difference between it and Big Top is that it's clearly portraying a fucked up situation as a fucked up situation. It's a very strange case, but it's unfortunately more realistic than people realize. It's part of why a lot of states are having to reevaluate the whole system and create more exceptions surrounding things like autism (Depending where on the spectrum the person is) or other developmental disorders. Especially an undiagnosed person who has something as severe as what Terry is portrayed to. Keep in mind, a lot of what is just naturally socialized into most people has to be taught when it comes to that level of neurodevelopmental issue. The way I see it. It was a toxic relationship not because Terry was any kind of abusive or manipulative figure, but like you said, he only really saw Dahlia as this romanticized angelic figure. I'd argue Terry was basically acting like a lot of vulnerable people with those kinds of issues do. Not able to really emotionally support her and mostly just following how he thought a romanticized idea of 'doing everything for the person you love, no matter what' worked. Without much socialization or real world experience with romance, a lot of people like Terry get their idea of romance from movies and things of that nature. Hence why he's mostly characterized as having just gone along with Dahlia and Valerie's plan. He downright kills himself because he thought he did wrong under this twisted view of love that he had because he lacked the emotional maturity and situational awareness to see what had really happened. Now, I'd say if we take a more sympathetic approach to Dahlia. What that really means is that there's sort of a light where both were victims of the negligence of those who should have been both capable and responsible enough to step in. While the idea of a more sympathetic Dahlia is definitely an interesting one. The issue for me is that if you view Terry as some kind of malicious or abusive figure, the whole tragedy of how the case ends falls apart. Especially when viewing them both as victims honestly contributes to making her father a worse figure since he was ignorant to the fact that the man he hired clearly needed some kind of help that honestly? He'd have had the resources to get him said help if he really planned to have said man spend so much time around his daughter.

@@okayjection The only thing I hesitate to say and why I don't just put Terry's issues down to him having a disorder here is because Phoenix does exactly the same thing. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the disorders in question, but I don't think Phoenix is depicted as having the exact same disorder (though I'm not sure that he's neurotypical either), so imo it seems suggested more that this is an unrelated issue that both Phoenix and Terry Fawles have in common - either that Dahlia is just that manipulative, that both of them have unrealistic views of romance regardless of how well they've been socialized, or a combination of the two.

@@okayjection Also >Especially when viewing them both as victims honestly contributes to making her father a worse figure since he was ignorant to the fact that the man he hired clearly needed some kind of help that honestly? He'd have had the resources to get him said help if he really planned to have said man spend so much time around his daughter. That's kind of exactly how I see it. It really makes Dahlia's family just that much worse - yet, it also doesn't seem inconsistent with what we know about Morgan or her father. We know Mr. Hawthorne left his prior wife who he had Valerie with, in order to go have children with Morgan, but then when it became clear that Morgan would never have much power or wealth herself, he leaves again. Remember that *all* of them were at least initially in on the plan, so none of his children particularly liked their father. And while Dahlia may have been one of the ones requesting to put Iris at Hazakura and maybe she was spoiled and malicious even back then, her dad was still the adult and still went along with the idea of abandoning a child. So a father who cared enough to keep up appearances for his daughter by hiring a tutor, but not really caring what the tutor was doing? Also consistent imo. Also never said Terry was abusive, just that their dynamic was probably toxic on both parts, given he's that much older than her and that he also just enabled some of her issues. Whether he was knowingly preying on Dahlia or not, I can't imagine it would have *helped*.