Tales of the Abyss

[Munsu]

"Yes, I'm the one who kidnapped you and traumatized you enough you'd forget how to speak... will you follow my advice from now on?"
Luke is a big, fuckin', amazingly naive stupid idiot.
it's not even funny anymore.

You can parallel it to kidnapped children, who start thinking of their kidnappers as parents. The Stockholm syndrome if not mistaken.

With the big reveal, he used words as "want", "need", "help", "I'm the only one", "save you". "trust", etc. etc. to manipulate him. I think it has more to do with what has been done to his brain, and how Van has surely invested a ton of time influencing Luke's thought process than simply Luke's naiveness.

Then you have to consider that he was the only one to bring up the lines that were unsaid about the prophecy, he was showing that he had nothing to hide, that he was the only one being truthful... he even risked his relationship by coming clean about the kidnapping (which he turned into a rescue attempt)... it's all a ploy. And you'd be surprised how many times this works; I know I've used it a couple of times to get what I want by confessing something voluntarily in a way that it doesn't seem as bad as it was, in order to gain someone's trust. It's quite easy. Welcome to Con 101.

I'm still waiting for this show to be interresting. Designs, base story, quality is ok. But it's quite boring as it is.

I'm waiting for the show to become interesting myself... I see the potential, but they haven't followed through yet. At least they've invested enough time on the characters so far so that they won't have to waste much time on it when the shit hits the fan. I just hope the shit hits rather soon, and the next episode looks like it'll be it. Allies all seem to be choosing sides, and that should cause trouble especially with the looming war.