>>57974812
>Trauma reactions: Just like in RS, in ORAS both of their trauma responses end up ironically setting off the other. In RS Ruby gets triggered by Sapphire's masculine behavior and Sapphire's triggered by Ruby's feminine behavior, because they remind each of heir past and deep self hatred. In ORAS, Ruby's traumatic fear (losing Sapphire, his main life purpose) makes him lie to Sapphire, which then accidentally triggers her traumatic fear instead (being useless/trapped while everyone around her dies, especially Ruby dying). It's not even that they don't care about the other, it's literally just miscommunication, but Ruby's lying/Sapphire's panic only made their confusion worse. Ruby is made to apologize in this situation since he's the one who started it all 4 years earlier.
>Theme of collective action > individual heroes: It's not just Ruby, EVERY Hoenn character who tries going off alone (like Norman and Winona, to a lesser extent even Sapphire herself) even with good intentions gets cosmically punished for not working with a group. The moralism is kind of ridiculous.

But it goes even beyond just Ruby and Sapphire, the story itself is so didactic (technically being written for children and all) that sometimes Ruby gets punished for things that aren't even that bad/completely his fault.
>Ruby gets the trolley problem
>He makes any choice at all
>"GUYS HE IS SO MORALLY GRAY OH MY GOD"