That's the problem you and a few others have, you take everything the MC has said to be gospel and ignored everything else the game has told you.
You're projecting harder than an IMAX theatre here. I didn't ignore anyone. I listened to everyone and weighed out all the possibilities. You on the other hand, have been reaching further than Stretch Armstrong ever could to try and make excuses for Elaine. You've made up an entire fantasy about Elaine being a doting mother for years, all because they used to eat together at a dinner table for an unspecified amount of time a long time ago.
You also like to claim that Elaine fought for years on behalf of the main character, because the father's recorded will said that Elaine used to complain about his treatment of the kid before she fell in line and did what she was told. That is a rather generous interpretation of events. I'd say that her complaining about their treatment of the kid means that she complained about the treatment of the kid. I'm not going to take that to meant that she was fighting on his behalf for years, because fighting isn't the same as complaining, and we weren't told how long it went on for. What I will say, is that it shows that Elaine knew that what they were doing to this kid was wrong the whole time, but she still went along with it. Which isn't exactly a good look for her, is it?
You also like to insist that Elaine was only ever guilty of ignoring him and not actually being mean to him (because being cold to a twelve year old boy who just lost his mother and was forbidden to ever see the loving family who help raise him is totally not mean at all), and that the kid was not a kid, even though Elaine specifically says "
You were just a kid and I wasn't nice to you at all, so no wonder you grew up hating me. And I let it happen.
It made it easier for me to be mean to you and to ignore you if I let you hate me."
Absolute best case scenario for Elaine is that she was suffering something similar to battered wife syndrome, which was the result of the years she spent with Don before his ex-wife died. The worst case scenario is that she was a gold digger who felt guilty enough about her treatment of a kid to complain about it for a while, but not enough to actually do anything to counteract it. There's no talk about her secretly being nice to the kid when the father was away, or anything of that sort. So for the foreseeable future, I'm still going to suspect her of being a gold digger who had to change her plans after she found out that she wasn't guaranteed the house that she threw the kid out of after his father died.
Elaine made the father promise her the house while he was sick, then she kicks out the kid immediately after his death. We then saw that the cold and cruel father actually suspected Elaine would do just that, so he left his son the beach house and $100,000 just to make sure that he wasn't out on the streets. Only after Elaine learns that her ownership of the house is temporary (unless the will conditions are met) does she have a change of heart. And what a change it is.
Elaine: Please don't think you can come back if you are having trouble finding somewhere. I want to be very clear. This is no longer your home and you are not welcome here. Please let me know your new address ASAP and I'll ship the rest of you stuff. I don't want it in my house. If I don't hear from you in three days, I'll assume you don't want it and it will go in the trash.
That was before the will. But shortly after the reading, it's a complete flip. She's showering the main character with affection and begging him to move in with her and going on and on about how she misses having a man around to dote over. She talks about how she wishes that they could've been like a family before and she wants them to be like one now. And then, after several days of that, she asks him to promise to give her the house if he ends up in possession of it.
And that's why I'm more than a little skeptical when it comes to Elaine. Because it's the logical thing to do.
