really appreciate you thinking deeply about this. I think loneliness and rejection are extremely strong motivators, and can lead to such strong feelings they overcome self preservation
i think the ties and attachments in the myth at the end to me are not all leashes but are more like the "red thread of fate" sort of thing (as...not a normal example, but a different rotation of this concept, see my wife's hitman.drr.ac ). The leash to me is ownership (a leash is designed to be held and to choke whatever (or whoever) struggles), slavery annihilates will. I think there are many ways people are tied together, not all good or bad.