I always thought that Hal wasn't immune to Soma's brainwaves, didn't have some ability to block it out. I just figured he wasn't nearly as big a pussy as Al and so he could go on hacking people to ribbons while largely ignoring it. I mean, that's often what defines a split personality relationship; the weak personality can't handle something, so it creates the second one to deal with it, usually making the second personality incredibly good against whatever that thing was.Originally Posted by Ryllharu
So I'm pretty tempted to reject the theory that Al's mind is still taking the damage, because that sorta defeats the purpose of creating the other personality to deal with all the shit. And it also doesn't work because, if Al's psyche still took the mental damage from Soma's brainwaves when Hal has control of the body, then Al's psyche would still be taking the mental damage from Soma's brainwaves in episode 23.
Not on the same level, but if I really hated Japanese to the point that I couldn't deal with learning it, and I made a second personality to learn Japanese in my stead, he'd probably get damn good at it, while I wouldn't progress at all. Then, if I went to Japan, I couldn't just go "okay second personality, I need you to translate for me and help me speak Japanese". sure, maybe if I was lucky and my second personality was a very nice... persona... maybe he'd translate what other people said in Japanese into English. But he sure as hell couldn't convert all my thoughts into Japanese and allow my main persona to speak Japanese to others.
So, I can understand that Al forced Hal to experience all the "seizures" and negative side effects he experienced being around other Super Soldiers as a kid, and that Hal became used to shutting out those brain waves, or at least ignoring them. But what I can't stomach is how the second personality is just supposed to conveniently do stuff for the main personality while the main one is in control of the body.
If multiple personalities could all work in concert together like that for the main one, I'd imagine we'd have seen, you know, one freaking example of it in real life.