like if you break the hisoka thing down to its bare bones, hisoka is an adult who wants to nurture gons potential in order to eventually break him to his own purposes. he is prodding gon to grow in frightening yet exciting ways. gon fears him but he is unmistakably compelled by him as a pseudo mentor figure. as a kid, he is able to grasp that there is something sinister about hisokas intentions for him, but not able to grasp why. he can't say no to hisokas challenges because hisoka is skilled at baiting gon into them. this is an INTERESTING thing to have in a story, especially when gon's driving motivation is caused by an absent father figure
this basic concept has potential for a lot of interesting generative readings, depending on how it's played. there's room for readings about masculinity, fatherhood, how adults shape kids into being like them, the ways that people can be exploited by those with power, etc, etc. i actually do think the pedophilia thing would work wonderfully if it was just a potential read rather than a deliberately invoked homophobic stereotype. it's just. yknow. that was how it ended up being played.