Hey, no, I hear you. I personally love CitR, have read it multiple times, and I agree that Holden is a tragic character that should evoke sympathy. Hell, I would even go so far as to say I see *a lot* of myself in him, as someone that grew up feeling like a loner/outsider and feeling a lot of anger towards everyone in the world. But I’ve always recognized that those qualities are not strengths, and not traits you’d want to amplify in your own personality. It’s a cop-out to be angry and defeatist all the time because of other people’s behavior. It’s the easy way out, and it’s a vicious cycle that will progressively eat you alive (see subs like r/inceltears for no shortage of examples). It’s also important that we remind ourselves (and Holden should’ve realized this too) that we judge everyone else by their behavior and actions, and only ourselves by our thoughts and intentions.

My friend, on the other hand, romanticized all of Holden’s flaws, especially his angry outlook. He loved the idea of thinking everyone is a ‘phony,’ and thought Holden’s hatred of everybody was absolutely badass. Which is a complete misread of the character.

He actually did the exact same thing with Rust Cohle in the first season of True Detective. He took all the nihilistic philosophies Rust is spouting in the first couple episodes and ran with them, while completely ignoring the character’s arc in the (somewhat) opposite direction.