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I like this idea, anon. I'm not an Allen player, but I've got some thoughts on what makes a good Allen (and what doesn't).

It's important to keep in mind that:

1) Allen shouldn't cry often, and he definitely shouldn't cry for himself or for selfish reasons. It's true that we sometimes see Allen cry in canon, but we don't see him cry out of self-pity. He shouldn't be a character who turns on the water works at every sadness or let down. When Allen cries in canon it's because of a death (or the prospect of death) which comes after a sad life. It's not just death itself, but the sadness of other people's stories that gets to him. Allen thrives on hope, specifically hope for others, so, for example, if Allen's in a panfandom game and someone he cares about gets sent home, that is not the sort of occasion when he should cry. That's something which benefits the person who's gone home, and even if Allen is sad not to be with them, he's not a character who would put his own sadness ahead of what's good for someone else. He smiles through most pain, puts on a brave face. He does not make huge demonstrative displays or beat his breast or cry on the shoulders of his friends. He doesn't use sad things that happen to other people as the occasion to have a new installment of his own personal pity party. He's far more stoic than that when it comes to what he's feeling, and he's not a great sharer of his own feelings either.

2) Allen is not Jesus. He's also not a martyr, and he's definitely not a martyr in the Christian sense. (He's not even especially religious. He only once in canon ever refers to himself in any kind of religious way, and that's in the very first chapters, before he ever even arrives at the Order. After he arrives, he never again claims himself to be some kind of clergyman or church representative; he doesn't wax poetic about God.) He may be self-sacrificing and willing to endure suffering and pain for what he believes in, but it's not the same thing as being a martyr. His tactic is not "I will willingly die for the truth (of the word of God) as I believe it," or "I prefer to die than to recant the witness I have born." His tactic is, rather, "I will run away to assure the integrity of my self and to keep me being me, even if I don't wholly know what that means or where it will lead me," and "I will say the words the Church requires me to say, even if my internal determination contradicts them." Allen shouldn't be played as overly religious, and part of that is not confusing his particular brand of suffering with martyrdom.

3) Allen is the kind of idealist who wants to have things both ways. He wants to have his cake and eat it too: destroy and save at the same time, protect everyone whether they're friend or foe. There's a kind of naivete in taking that approach to things. It's not just a wish for the world to be other than it is; it's also a kind of denial of the fact that he can't personally change the conditions of the world just by wishing it hard enough. Allen often acts like if he can just muster the energy then everyone really can be saved by what he does. All of this makes Allen very uncompromising, and in some respects his determination is a strength, but in others it turns out to hurt him because just having the will to move mountains doesn't mean the mountains are going to move when you run at them full-on, head first. So when it comes right down to it, there's a kind of egotism buried in Allen's idealism (and in him being so self-sacrificing): he's set his hopes on trying to make the world different but with a faith that it's his own blood, sweat, and tears that can do it, which is hardly a recipe for being humble. (On the other hand, I'm pretty convinced that some part of him knows he can't change the conditions of the world just by the force of his determination, which means that setting his sites on doing so is just a recipe for continuing to assure he will be hurt and punished by his own failures. So Allen's idealism kind of turns out to be a huge construct for self-punishment, which I think he thinks he deserves.)

Ugh, my phone battery is dying so I can't type as much as I want to in response to this till later, but!! Dumping a quick thought wrt (1): "is Allen a Stepford Smiler?" And do you think his smiling, "everything will be alright" deal is part of his trying to act as Mana would or just a general consequence of his original personality + subsequent trauma?

I think you'd have to explain what you mean by Stepford Smiler. I get the reference but I'm not sure how you mean it to apply here.

As far as the second question goes, I think that if you're thinking of anyone's actions in terms like "original personality" then you're never going to get very far.

Does Allen change over the course of his time with Mana? Yes, undeniably. Is there a simple either/or, cause and effect answer to how and why and what the before and after results are? I don't think there is. If any character was to try and deal with the loss of someone dear to them by just emulating aspects of their behavior as a kind of "tribute" then that would be an aspect of their personality and how they individually cope with loss.

I don't think that's what Allen has done on any conscious level, like he's just going through motions to mimic Mana. The aspects of Mana's outlook and approach that seem to have touched Allen most did so in much more fundamental ways. But I think that his behavior and approach to things had already changed long before Mana died. I don't think that he remained the same bratty child who Mana met at the circus right up until Mana's death and then started to copy him after. Identification would have happened by small degrees while he and Mana were together, a bit at a time. If that hadn't been the case, then I don't think Allen's actions upon Mana's death would have been what they were, and I don't think he would continue to hold him so dear after.

If I'm understanding your sense of "Stepford Smiler" here, I don't think it applies to Allen. Allen doesn't smile and pretend everything is okay, or even that everything is going to be okay because his hope and optimism is very different to him having a rose-tinted view on the world-he's had too much life experience to pretend that everything is actually just going to be fine if he smiles about it enough.

Personally, my take is that the smile isn't about acting like everything is/is going to be okay, but it's just Allen's way of keeping his personal pain or discomfort hidden wherever possible. The above anon wasn't wrong about Allen not crying for himself and only for others and in the same way if he wore his own negative emotions on his sleeve that would be self-absorbed and being a burden on others.

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