That's a pretty normal opinion to have as a teen, but the fact that Bob clings to this when he's 40 really highlights how immature he is. Even actually mentally disabled people I knew growing up had a point around their early 20's where they got over themselves and started thinking in the present rather than the past.
You can kinda chart the "normal" ethical/psychological growth of a person by how their reaction to a villain having "an excuse" for evil like Magneto does (I was singled out unjustly for what I was, therefore, now I'll single humanity out for the same treatment and see how they like it) is framed.
Young kids are innocent and don't understand why he'd choose to be a bad person, even with "the excuse".
Teens are selfish but sure they know everything, therefore they understand "the excuse" and, probably empathize with it and think he's justified in getting revenge.
Adults are mature, and understand WHY a person like Magneto has "the excuse" but also realize that it doesn't justify spreading misery to other people, two wrongs don't make a right and it's not justice to punish a different group as a surrogate for your actual tormentor should they "get away with it".
The fact Bobby is "stalled out" at step two is telling.
Long-time lurker, first-time poster (in this thread, at least).
One thing I've never understood about this guy is this: how did he EVER come to believe that he's a part of the "vaunted" elite? He doesn't come from an "important" family, he didn't go to some hotshit private highschool, he didn't go to an Ivy League university (did he even go to college at all?), he doesn't work in investment banking, entertainment, or politics. He can't even dress himself in formal wear properly, going off that picture of him at his sister's wedding. Does he really not understand that he's as far from the aristocracy as anyone else? I just don't get it at all.
His identity is based around not what he IS, but what he ISN'T. (indicative of a person with no real accomplishments in life, but that's a whole nother' potato)
And because he isn't a racist, a sexist, a bigot or a transphobe, and since he imagines just about everyone in the general populace is. well, then he MUST be part of the elite, otherwise, he'd be a racist sexist bigoted transphobe too.
Remember the old
Simpsons joke where Homer says he's
obviously a jock because there's only two types of people in college, jocks and nerds, and he's not a nerd? Same thinking at work.
There's only the enlightened elite and bigoted redneck masses, and since he's not a redneck.............
