Script available for the next HxH video! (Patreon)

The following is a ROUGH, uncut script for my next HxH video (with my incomprehensible notes and all): 

Pariston Hill - The Art of the Troll (MACHO GRUBBA/KEFKA/Made in Abyss?)

Fade in. Ep 143 - 7-8 mins. CREEPY LAUGH ** .. cut cut.. “They’re so easy to understand.” SHARP CUT. 

Hunter Hunter’s Election arc carries a pretty unenviable burden. After the absolute monster that was Chimera Ant, this small story had the task of transitioning some of it’s predecessor’s misanthropic themes into the arena of politics, being a tone transitioner akin to Heaven’s arena, introducing a cavalcade of new world concepts and characters, smoothly moving the story past an awkward stopping point and maintaining the charm that makes the series so strange and captivating. It was an arc that required two antagonists - one to serve as a hurdle for Killua, a mantle which Illumi was all too happy to take up, and one to be the crux of the Hunter’s Association material, a rival to peel back the layers of Ging and become the backboard from which Togashi’s new ideas would bounce off of. Pariston Hill not only achieves this mechanical function with style, but also manages to be one of the most darkly enticing personalities that the series has to offer, a man who brings forth so much with such little screen time. And it all boils down to this one thing: that anyone who knows him personally hates his guts, simply because.. he wants them to.

The 13th Chairman Election is something of a behind the scenes pissing contest disguised as civilized procedure, and Pariston is the main reason for that due to his motivations. He makes an absolute joke out of politics, and that is why he’s an ingenius character concept for a politician. He does some truly grimy things such as using Netero’s name and memory as emotional leverage to ensure that the election is carried out and then using that very election as a means for his own amusement. Not that Netero would have minded much; after all, he knew what he was getting into when he named his number 2 and as much as Pariston annoyed him, at least he was interesting, fun and more desirable as vice chairman than a passive yes man. However, as we’ll explore later, his use of Netero’s final wishes may not be as insincere as it seems. 

Ep 139 18-19 mins - “This is a task the chairman set us. We should all work together to clear it!”

Pariston is extremely intelligent, weighing his words with delicate care and putting on a cheerful, almost mocking front to appear diplomatic, aggressively so for those who know his intentions. His reign as vice chairman resulted in the highest amount of deaths in history at best because he simply doesn’t care about the health of the Hunters or the association, and at worst because he was the catalyst for these deaths. And bonus points for pissing off the members of the Zodiac.

His actions and behaviours follow a general pattern of mischievous underhandedness, but from the outset there doesn’t seem to be a clear correlation in terms of intent. And this is because Pariston has no end goal other than enjoying himself. He is a lot like Hisoka in that sense, driven purely by a need to feel gratification. Yet instead of deriving this pleasure from bloodlust, Pariston’s drive is a bit more broadly focused.

It differs from situation to situation which makes him unpredictable, but all in all he is the personification of schadenfreude in that his personal victories involve the misfortune of others. He wants to piss people off and cause them some form of harm. Oftentimes, though not always, it involves finding the breaking point in those he considers adversarial in order to make them angry or powerless. This is not only a motive that is a delightful thematic fit for the story, but one that is genuinely significant in real world terms, even given Pariston’s pettiest, smallest scale motives. The power to annoy may seem insignificant, but it proves to be a genuine way for people to feel superior. And there is a true catharsis that can manifest as a result of that. And if you don’t believe me, just check the comment section of nearly any decently popular YouTube video. Pariston analyzes each situation and decides how he wants to insert himself and cause ripples in a way that would be enjoyable for him. Sometimes it means winning, sometimes it means losing, a lot of the time it involves being on top in his interpersonal micro political mind games, and most of the time, it means having power - which explains why he fits so perfectly as the core of the politically based Election arc. Now, this doesn’t necessarily have to be an active form of power, but rather a firm sense of control. Predicting outcomes, analyzing variables and seeing situations play out in a way that he expects will make people despise him, before he can assert his dominance. As he says, “When I am hated by people, that is when I feel happiness. And then I want to tear apart and inflict unimaginable harm to the things I love.”

Ep 145 14 mins - “He doesnt care about winning or losing so he can stay calm, manipulate, use rules against others to spite them.”

Due to how much Pariston stakes on this one endeavour, he devotes everything towards achieving this catharsis even if it puts him in a bad situation from the perspective of an outside onlooker. Using a mix of intelligence, intuition, charisma, a silver tongue and the influence he was able to grasp due to his stint as vice chairman, he will go to any lengths, making him extremely difficult to predict. There is an indirect yet substantial feeling of authority in controlling outcomes to make people act in a desirable way and lose control. It’s as if the universe lines up and all of the pre-ordained calculations play out - seeing his mark on the world cause the chips to fall where he predicts them to in this way is what makes Pariston tick. Simply put, he is an eloquent troll.

So in order to maintain this control, he often thinks of serious events as if they were games. He owns 5000 chimera ant eggs just in case he needs them - whether it be for leverage, for power, or for pure entertainment. He’s aware that this election means the world to Cheadle and some of the other Zodiacs, so he intends to use whatever means necessary to influence the swaying mood of the populace and turn it into a dragged out joke to perpetuate their hatred of him. When he wins the election as a result of a brilliant deduction of Leorio’s situation and it’s relation to Gon and Ging, he immediately hand waves the position and passes it on to Cheadle, because that is what gives him gratification. The others assume he was scrambling for votes because he wanted to be chairman, but he never truly wanted the power of the position - he seeked something greater - the power to be able to decline such monumental authority that others desire. He doesn’t truly care about the world, he doesn’t have grand ideals for how it should be, and he doesn’t have any lofty goals. He just wants the power to annoy and destroy people and have them know that they cannot achieve their goals unless he allows them to do so. There is subtext to his words, and although he may be dressing his sentences up, when all is said and done he wants others to know that they are so beneath him that they are not worth crushing. That they should worship the ground he walks for letting them live another day.

Ep 146 11 mins - “Cheadle, if you make the Association dull, I’ll really toy with you.”

Pariston is amoral and sociopathic, using people as tools and pawns for this enjoyment, and this is why he states that doesn’t hate anyone. They’re all useful for him and the vast majority contributes to his happiness, so as he says.. he loves people and he holds no malice to anyone.. except Ging. The two have a back and forth dynamic that is a demonstration in itself of how personally powerful each is. The normally uncaring, unflappable Ging who is always out on a quest for himself turning his full attention to his rival in the Dark Continent arc shows how much of a genuine threat Pariston is. But the opposite is true as well. Because in Ging, he finds someone like him. Someone just as intelligent, someone who enjoys manipulating situations in a similar way.

“If I can get my target to move, I’ve succeeded as a Hunter.” (146, or 137/138)

Pariston finds himself regarding Ging with extreme paradoxical interest. Ging consistently getting the upper hand on him and intuitively guessing his motives for the expedition and the future of the world causes Pariston to realize something: he is being read like a book. It’s like looking in a mirror in a sense: He is infuriated by Ging, yet he enjoys his rivalry. He is quite sure that Ging is the first person in the world that he has ever hated, so he wonders - what does he want to do with him? If he thrives in destroying the things he loves.. what will he do to someone he hates? He wonders this, and looks towards the idea with conflicting excitement and fury.

On a related note, he has admitted multiple times that he misses Netero, even saying that if the Association does not carry out what he believes to be the great man’s will, he wishes to destroy them using his Chimera Ants. It brings forth the idea that perhaps his posturing with Netero’s name is not as fake as it may have seemed.

Ep 146 9-10 mins - He misses Netero.”

Netero himself was known for his nonchalant, mischievous behaviour whilst he was Chairman, so maybe in wanting the Association to take the quote unquote interesting route, Pariston wishes to play the fool to create his form of theatre as a tribute, a requiem, for the late chairman. But there is something else to this, something that perhaps hints at a bizarre sort of indirect narcissism - given that the one person he has run into that is somewhat similar to him is someone he admires, is it possible that he will he develop a similar sort of paradoxical attachment to another like-minded soul in Ging? Pariston loves to be hated, and he has personally ensured that everyone that knows him despises him. But what happens when he meets a kindred spirit, a fellow troll, someone who knows how he thinks, who can match and even beat him at his own game? Do his motivations stay intimate and fixated on beating Ging? Do his inclinations change? Does he change his tact and broaden his horizons and set his sights on creating a Chimera Ant army, a move that would carry out his motivations with grand-scale implications? Only time will tell.

Ep 138 7 mins.. “(Pariston is) A beast that cannot be tamed.”

A man who is universally hated by those who know him personally, who derives pleasure from the pain of others, who enjoys being annoying and has no true ideals or convictions.. is the symbol, the monolithic personification of politics in Hunter Hunter. That someone with such repugnant, and, more importantly, constantly changing behaviours could rise to the top politically is a statement in itself about Togashi’s thoughts on central governmental leadership. It’s a farce, a sham, a joke. It really is blunt and elegant at the same time - taking a genuinely twisted man and plopping him into the role of a politician, scarily having him take to the role like a fish to water, not looking a hair out of place. Pariston manipulates public perception and the results of the vote in a way he intends on a whim, to carry out the most enjoyable plan, controlling an election that is vital to the fate of the world and treating it like a game. 

Episode 137 - 5 mins.. I can understand the weak”. 

For a man like Pariston, a proclamation of understanding the weak represents a double meaning. Outwardly, he clearly means to say something along the lines of him being able to understand what the common folk want, but this is also a veiled hint at his inclinations. He can manipulate situations so well because he has an understanding of people - who he deems as weak - and a knack of knowing what will make them tick.. and break.

With charisma, intellect and the right motivations, high level politics, commonly perceived as one of the most important elements of the modern world, can become a selfish, personal playground of projected dominance. They can be, and usually are, built on lies and deception, a contest of ego in a fight for authority and gratification by those who are ill-suited but playing a role. It is a concept that is interesting, well presented, and even quite fun at times, but it is also nearly as condemning of human nature as anything in the Chimera Ant arc.

It is often postulated that villainous characters with one-minded motivations such as “I want to cause harm to others” are shallow, but this man is a direct contradiction to that. With Pariston Hill, Togashi has crafted an extremely substantial figure and characterized him with insane efficiency. It is a rare thing to have an antagonist that contributes as much as he does in terms of theming while being both an interesting personality and a character with engaging relationship dynamics, but Pariston manages to do all this immediately after his introduction, being a display of the narrative benefits of writing a character with a crystal clear vision in mind. It’s a character concept that is stylized in the trademark Hunter Hunter fashion, but it surrounds a quite menacing personality. What he calmly seeks is something that direct, material power doesn’t always coincide with - an intimate, unwavering ability to dominate others, a nonchalant yet resolute authority carried out with a poisonous smile. And that is Pariston - the hedonist, the politician.. the troll. Many thanks for watching.