Society does not always applaud the strong but always recognizes the weak. The inability of an individual to find his/her own voice, the constant need for an approval mechanism and the inability to take responsibility for his/her own decisions places him/her in the “victim” status of the modern world. So why does an adult become a figurehead in his or her own life?
The foundations of weak character are usually laid in protective family structures. Families“ approach of ”don't let my child get tired“ and ”I will do it for him/her" is actually the biggest damage to the child.
Learned Helplessness: Parents who solve all problems on behalf of the child atrophy the child's “coping muscles”.
Consent Addiction: The individual, who is not allowed to make his or her own decisions, accepts the truth only when an authority (parent, boss, group leader) says it is “right”.
External Locus of Control: These people attribute success to luck and failure to others. They do not have an internal compass.
Social groups need a “scapegoat” to release the tension within them. Adults with weak character who are unable to draw their own boundaries, who cannot say “stop” when they are wronged, become the natural target of this accumulated anger.
Labeling someone as “weak” in a community (in competitive environments like Survivor or in corporate life) opens up a hidden space of superiority to the rest of the group.
Since the weak character cannot say no and is inconsistent in defending himself, the dominant characters test their strength on him. This becomes a kind of “psychological training” ground.
Adults with weak character pay the heaviest price when blame is placed on them. These people are ideal lightning rods because of their low ability to defend themselves.
When a real criminal or manipulator makes a mistake that he knows will get a reaction from the group, he immediately draws attention to the “weak link”.
Society tends to believe that someone who is unable to express himself, who stutters or emotionally collapses “looks guilty”. Often the silence of the weak character is perceived as an admission of guilt.
In isolated environments like Survivor, character traits are put under the magnifying glass. The situation seen in the example of Can Berkay is that an individual remains on the periphery of the group due to “not belonging” and “need for approval”, regardless of his/her pure talent.
“The person who appears weak in a community is actually a mirror of that community. The worse the community treats him, the more he is trying to suppress his own fear of ‘inadequacy’.”
In such competitions, contestants who are seen as weak in character trigger the protective instinct of the audience and whet the appetite of the contestants for a “show of strength”. However, unless one builds one's own identity, the same cycle is repeated with each new group.
It is no coincidence that Büşra chose Can Berkay to cover up her own guilt. As we have mentioned before, Can Berkay was chosen as the “easiest target” because he has a profile that needs approval, avoids conflict and has difficulty defending himself out loud.
Unfortunately, Büşra tried to use the group's perception of Can Berkay (that he was weak and weak-minded) to build her guilt on this perception, but she ran into Sherlock Bayhan.
Bayhan's calm and probing attitude is the biggest enemy of the manipulator (Büşra is the manipulator in this case). As the viewer notices, when Bayhan starts to question the issue with technical details (with a Sherlock-like logic), Büşra's defense mechanisms start to collapse.
At the point when Büşra was unable to answer logical questions, she switched to an “aggressive style” with typical criminal psychology. This is known in psychology as “Suppression and Displacement”. Anxiety caused by guilt can only be suppressed by shouting at the other person or trying to silence them.
Büşra's overreaction is actually an admission of guilt. Her inability to remain calm, in contrast to Can Berkay's helpless tears and embarrassed weakness, signaled a “guilty aggression”.
Bayhan is not only revealing a truth here, but also relieving the heavy pressure (voluntary or involuntary) on the weak. Unless an authority figure or a strong voice (like Bayhan) steps in, characters like Can Berkay cannot get out of such spirals of slander on their own.
The most dangerous point is this: Sometimes adults with such a weak character are exposed to the slander so intensely that at some point they may even doubt themselves: “Did I do it?” This inability to trust one's own reality is the extreme of the “inability to make decisions” that begins in the family.
Fortunately, a guilty person cannot remain calm because calmness is an open space for thinking and finding evidence. Büşra also sabotaged the logical thinking process by making noise, in fact Bayhan's “Sherlock”-style calmness infuriated Büşra. Bayhan's importance at this point is that he does not get caught up in the emotional chaos in the group. Honestly, he is a name that continues to surprise me a lot.
While Büşra manipulated emotions (anger, victimization role), Bayhan questioned data (who was where, who said what). The greatest need in the life of a vulnerable adult is not a “protector” who will draw this logical boundary for her, but a “guide” who will teach her how to build this logic. Whether consciously or unconsciously, we don't know, but Bayhan seems to have taken on the role of this guide quite successfully.
I must express that I felt sorry for Can Berkay's tears and his desperate struggles. Honestly, I analyzed a lot while watching it, and I read Can Berkay's situation as not just a matter of food theft, but as the struggle of an adult who has been left without an identity to survive in the wolves“ table. According to my observation, Can, who was actually left ”defenseless“ by being ”protected" by his family, is now facing the real (and sometimes cruel) face of life in the harshest way.
Identity construction is a choice, dear Can Berkay. The only way for weak adults to break out of this cycle is to break the “approval” mechanism they expect from the outside. Life is not as safe as the living room at home, but the day a person can say “no” to those who violate their boundaries, they stop being a victim and start becoming an individual.
I would like to address the protective families; “To put a barrier in front of a child to protect him/her from life is to leave him/her defenseless against life itself. The protective approach that families take under the name of “goodness” actually turns into one of the greatest evils they can do to their children. Just as the body cannot gain immunity without being exposed to germs, the soul cannot grow stronger without being exposed to difficulties, injustices and conflicts. Don't lead your child by the hand; teach him to tie his shoes and shake the dust off his own knee when he falls. Otherwise, when you are not there, you will have to watch in silence as someone else dominates his or her life.”
Life, like Survivor, is sometimes fair and sometimes unfair, sometimes you are slandered and sometimes you are asked to be eliminated as the “weakest link”. If a family does not teach their children to say “no”, to “manage conflict” and to “step out of victimization and become a perpetrator”, that child will become an appetizer at the wolf's table of society when he/she becomes an adult. I'm telling you...
With love ...