well yeah, but that's kind of what i was saying, dude. i thought that those elements of the narrative were there to showcase what a shitty loser he is and how he's the real monster and villain in the story. idk maybe it's just me, but i never thought that sh2's goal was to make you feel sorry for james. the fact that people did end up feeling sorry for him is a different matter entirely, but i really don't think that it was the intention driven by the narrative.

as a matter of fact, i felt like much of the game was built with the intention of making you distrust james from the get-go. none of the other characters trust or like him, and the story he spews at people about his wife never really made much sense in the first place. but because the game is told from his perspective, of course there's going to be an element of "but what about james's feelings tho" but i think in the overall picture of it, the whole game was about "well who gives a fuck because james has only ever thought about his own feelings anyway, and it's time he owned up to what he did and tried to think about someone other than himself for once in his life."

just my 2c tho.