You see, the thing with verbal mind control is that it is so morbidly singular. The speaker tells you what you are to do, but there is little in between. I treat Kilgrave the same way I treated my old math teacher. She would always tell me to sit down, shut up until I had completed my work. So when I had completed the meagre sheet, which I did expertly and at lightning speed, I made a show of yelling and walking around the room. Obviously, she would give me another set of instructions, but the damage was done. I had already done what she didn't want me to (but never told me not to) do.
Hope Shlottman didn't really get the idea, though. Neither did that dumb-ass support group that runs at that stupid-ass cafe. If you are clever, there are loopholes. It's not only his words in your mind, but your own. And if you are so centred on the perspective of the big bad wolf, you do not hear your own voice.
When Kilgrave first ordered me to kill a busker, in the middle of the street, the first thought that came to my mind was, "How?" I do not regret to say I spoke that aloud to him. He has called on me ever since for random things – maybe he just likes my originality. When he demands I make his coffee, I often force myself (no matter how much my senses protest) to ask him how he wants it. Or, when I don't ask him how he wants it, I put either too much milk or not enough sugar in. I also make myself one when I serve him his. It's a small defiance, but I'm getting there.
The attempt (Kilgrave told me to 'attempt' so I did nothing more than that) to kill Jessica Jones was incredibly successful. And not in the way you might think. I now report to her what he gets people to do, what he asks for and where he next moves. Kilgrave never tells me not to visit her when he tells me to leave. He also never tells me not to buy a pack of smokes out of the money I demand for the taxi fare. I have always been good with words, but I never knew my life would depend on it. Jones is now advertising the use of loopholes to her friends. I don't know how I found mine, but it involves focusing on what is said, and not coming to assumptions.
What everyone thinks, under control, is about what Kilgrave would want you to do. How he would have you complete and finish the job. The idea is to think about how you would do it. So I told Jessica that you do what he tells you, adding or negating as many things as you like. And just like that, verbal power is no more challenging than a singular politician, with no party or advocates. You can bend the rules, as long as his words are acted on in such a way that they can be translated to fit.
Her little Scooby/Buffy-gang (made up of herself, the Amazonian drunkard, a dude that has hair like the Weeknd, Patsy Walker and ex-military) hope to subdue Kilgrave to extract the confession from him. She doesn't want him dead, she wants him pained. And violated. And co-operative. Exactly how she was when he used her.
I'm slowly beginning to help Jessica understand the way he works daily to help her fight him. She now understands why she killed Riva, when he only implied it. She now understands why he'd only have to tell her to kiss him, and she'd strip. She understands why she'd blow him without instruction in bed, and maim anyone who he told to pinch. If she had met me sooner, maybe she would hate herself less.
Maybe Jessica wouldn't now be on a route to murdering him for all she did he made her think she had to do. And I don't want him dead, or ensnared – I want him free. And not free to wreak havoc, as most men of pain do. I want him free to be neutral, and indifferent. He harbours the love he has for Jones as bitterness, and the resentment for his family towards the human race. I don't want him cheerful, or do-good-ing. I need him less emotional.
And how do I know Kilgrave so well? It's called three bottles of spirits, shared between two hookers I was told to 'Jack the Ripper', a cute little button of a chef I picked up along the way to his, and a game of confessions on a rough evening.