what’s funny about the ponyboy and mark and curly thing — which I could talk about forever but have no time to rn — is I think we’re forgetting he used to hang out with dally winston. and they’re nothing compared to him (well maybe adult mark could give dally a run for his money but yknow) like pony’s got a reputation to uphold. look at his closest friends. dally “mixed up in a murder rap in New York” winston. mark “prison break” jennings. johnny “stuck him in the back” cade. tbh curly deserves better bc all he did was play cigarette chicken and fall off a phone pole
This is such an interesting thought and it made me realize anew how effective the Outsiders is. We’re so intimately tied to Ponyboy’s secret heart, his loneliness and isolation, his feelings of not belonging, and we care about him so deeply for these things, that he transcends the stereotype of his class and we forget he’s actually a hood.
Hard cut to That Was Then This is Now, where we see Ponyboy for the first time from an outside perspective, hanging out with Mark Jennings and getting into fights, and suddenly he’s a greaser again. Like, putting aside his questionable friends (of whom he’s had many *side eyes Dally*), this kid has a rep for being a crazy fighter, mixed up in a murder, part of a gang, steals, smokes, carries a blade, etc.
We look past those things because we know they don’t define him—we see him as an artistic, idealistic dreamer. But it doesn’t negate the rougher side of him, a side that almost everyone else in his world would see as being the only side of him.
From that angle, Ponyboy’s friend group actually makes PERFECT sense.