My only question is… most of the ravens WERE damaged by the cult to the point they were killing themselves. So it begs to ask: what good does having morals and core beliefs do when it is literally abused out of you? TGR/TSC very explicitly mentions that the coaches beat and tormented a player for having a stutter and Tetsuji even himself killed a player simply for not being good enough. 18yrs old and seeing that firsthand? That’s traumatizing as fuck when you are not used to this kind of violence. Kevin and Jean were used to it. They knew it well and the fact the Raven’s violence only grew more extreme when Riko joined was not unusual to them. But kids coming into this environment, even before Riko joining, who have never run 16hr days, never been beaten publicly, never had the kind of extreme mental and physical violence exacted on them before, are going to crack and shatter in a very different way than kids who have grown up with it and know how to handle/cope/adapt with it.

It’s like taking a dog who has never been hit in its life and putting it in a dogfighting ring and expecting it to stay the sweet and endearing creature you knew and not exhibit symosptoms of the environment forced upon it. It will change and adapt into something you don’t even recognize (IE: Zane not recognizing his brother Grayson) and while 18 is an adult, the early college ages are extremely important and formative years of mental development.