All that changes is argument of intent. Chris lies a lot and is an unreliable narrator. Your theory just tweaks it to "Chris lies a lot and is an unreliable narrator, but most of the time he deludes himself into thinking he is a True and Honest person". When in the context of this thread, in which it was brought up because people were debating on whether Chris's version of events should be believed or not, that difference means absolutely nothing. All :late: as fuck at this point, and I get that you're arguing semantics, but I figured I should point that out before this thread
I think these semantics are substantially more significant with Chris because his mind is way more scrambled.
Like, the level of delusion that you're talking about, seems to be on the scale of, say, an sjw convincing themselves that they're not fat, they're actually totally beautiful and thicccc. Whereas with Chris, he's got legit problems with his perception of reality.
Example: the reason Chris sliced his taint open was because he believed he had a vagina growing in underneath.
I wouldn't say that there's no part of Chris that recognizes reality and is trying to hide from that, but... I wouldn't handwave his delusions away as being a conscious deception on his part. I don't think he's capable of noticing that all his stupid beliefs are strongly beneficial to him. Even when you talk him through the logic of "you are biased in believing you can cast magic spells", step by step, his mind is so slow moving, you can hear the gears turning through every single step of the process.
Dispassionately analyzing his behavior is not a talent that was valued and exercised in the Chandler household.
I don't know if Chris can even conceive of the idea that he's ever wrong, because he's never felt wrong in anything he's done, at least not when he was doing it. It's like bonkers
Sapir-Whorf esque psychology.
As this relates to this thread, it definitely paints a different picture if Chris is actively groping people and kissing people and telling the convention staff to fuck tha police when they tell him to stop, versus him being a mongoloid who had no clue anything was wrong, right up until he gets booted out.
He's culpable in either situation, but I think it's distinction people would want to talk about.
Now, there's certainly situations where Chris is definitely being a shithead, and his delusions don't really cloud his view of the situation. (wheelin and dealin, having the neighbor's cat killed because it scratched them, running over snakes because they're evil, shoplifting, etc) In those situations, he's intentionally being a shithead or at least being incredibly negligent morally.
I think this one is more debatable though.