The Hero & Kel (and parents) rant (spoilers!)
Iâm sorry, I had to do it eventually-
How does Kel feel about Hero, and how does Hero feel about Kel. The best place to start with this is post-staircase, to try and figure out how theyâd feel without the whole Staircase thing.
So. How do they feel post-staircase?
Boy am I glad you asked because these thoughts have been plaguing me--
So. Letâs start with Kel, because I think thatâs more complicated.
Hereâs the thing. Judging by the argument Kel talks about in the graveyard, he should honestly resent Hero. From how he acts when heâs younger, he was clearly hungry for attention, and didnât get the amount he needed or deserved. Meanwhile, thereâs Hero. Golden Child Extraordinaire. Totally Perfect.
The thing that concerns me is this;
Both post-staircase and pre-staircase, he absolutely worships his older brother. More concerningly - both pre-bedroom argument and post-bedroom argument, he worships Hero. He never has a bad word to say about his older brother, he despairs over getting him a proper gift, he clearly eagerly anticipates his visits from college, he thinks Hero is perfect.Â
This becomes concerning when considering the bedroom argument.
Consider this; youâre Kel. You are at the most emotionally vulnerable youâve ever have been. For the last year or so, your older brother, the most important person in your life, has been absolutely wrecked. Your parents are probably paying even less attention to you than usual - they have to worry about their own lives, and Hero, and are probably taking the whole thing pretty hard themselves, unsure how to function with their golden boy so completely devastated, nothing theyâre doing seeming to help. You are practically friendless. Sunny, your closest friend in the whole world, has completely disappeared. Left you behind. Aubrey seems really mad at you when she passes you in the hall, and you havenât even really tried to talk to her that much, because. What is there to say? And Basil has been acting more and more distant recently, and itâs honestly really hard to try and stay friends with everyone when theyâre all drifting away. Not to mention that Mari committed suicide. And maybe you werenât as close to her as Hero, or Sunny, or Aubrey, but youâre still young and impressionable and she was still your friend. Maybe even a role model, or a parental figure.
Youâre done doing nothing about Hero. You canât just wait around anymore.
We donât know what he says. We donât know if Kel genuinely does repress it or not. Or even if he convinces himself he repressed it, just so he doesnât have to confront it. Hell, for all we know, Kel dealt with it healthily. Knew Hero didnât really mean it, or accepted Heroâs apology, or was just glad it was all over and barely even absorbed what Hero said, or genuinely repressed it.
But. Come On. None of us actually think that, right?
I think Kel remembers every word Hero said in that bedroom. I think they were branded against his fucking skull, and I doubt heâs gone more than a week without thinking about them since.
Because Kel still worships Hero. He never expresses a single negative emotion due to this. And, if he didnât repress it, and didnât just think that Hero didnât mean it, that leaves two options.
Either, A; he accepted Heroâs apology, and genuinely held no hard feelings or residual emotions about this at all.
Kel thought whatever Hero said in that bedroom was correct.
And with that horrifying thought out of the way, how Kel feels about Hero becomes a Lot more complicated, post-staircase. Because suddenly, Hero isnât amazing older brother - Hero is the one whoâs always correct. Right?
And Hero would probably agree with all the mean little voices in his head.
No. Maybe even worse than that. Hero is all the mean little voices in his head. The person he worships.
Oh, Hero. Post-staircase, Hero cares so much about Kel.
He rouses himself from his depressive state, I think, purely because he didnât want to push Kel down the same path as Mari. Because he still blames himself for what Mari did, and doesnât want to make Kel do the same - wants to protect the person close to him, rather than constantly worship the memory of someone already gone and push him away in the process.
Hero loves Kel. Loves, loves, loves him.
But, therein lies the problem, doesnât it?
So what if that never happened?
Well, dear reader, let me draw your attention to a scene in Basilâs photo album. Pre-staircase.
Kel and Hero get in an arm wrestling match. Kel loses and gets moody, and Hero leans in and gives him a smooch. âAh, brotherly love.â
Except, uhm. Hereâs the thing. Kel gets moody.
And this isnât just a ten minutes and itâs over kind of thing. Kel is still feeling sour the next day. This is something we never see from Kel, not before this and not since. Especially not towards Hero.
And why does he get so moody?
Well, consider this - Hero is... a nerd. Heâs physically weak, something played for comedy many times in Headspace, and all his awards are for academic feats.
Kel, on the other hand, is very athletic. Certainly is post-staircase, anyway, with the whole basketball thing.
And now, the last thing Kel thought he was genuinely better at than Hero - pure physical strength - has been taken away from him.
Just like everything else.
And he actually gets moody over this. He doesnât ignore it, or move on, or forget it after half an hour - he genuinely gets annoyed with Hero. For a full day. And remember, this is Kel. Not just Kel - twelve-year-old Kel. Experiencing a non-joyful, non-erratic emotion for a full day. Thatâs not nothing.
Without the staircase thing - without Kel being told something horrible about himself in his most vulnerable moment, and probably believing it - how would he feel about Hero? Would he still worship his perfect older brother, who takes everything from him? Who gets all the awards, and all the girls, and all the height, and all Mom and Dadâs attention? Not Hero, the figure huddled in his blankets, completely despondent, who Kel felt personally responsible for - no, Hero who gets everything he ever wants, while Kel has to fight just to have his parents look at him.
I dunno. I doubt heâd just adore Hero. And maybe heâd grow more mature about this kind of thing with age, but, well. You could argue that would just lead to another Hero is the idolized version of my own self-loathing thing, just down another path.
So, yeah. Basically, fuck your feel good everyone-lives au, everything is all depressing all the time /lh /j
I wrote this at like six in the morning so donât crucify me if I said anything bad or wrong-