Ace Bioromantic || he/him || Trans, Nonbinary, Asexual, and Aromantic people are welcome here || Pro racial/gender/sexual diversity || I'm totally normal about the Locke & Key comics I swear lol || will block bigots and assholes unprovoked
roads diverged series: Lucas Caravaggio never gets infected by the creature from the Black Door. Some things work out better, some things get much worse, and some things end up happening anyway.
welcome back (to the place you never left)
WIPS:
take a bow, before the final curtain: The survivors of Prom Night use the Echo Key to say their goodbyes to those they lost.
endings not yet in sight: Erin Voss faces the rest of her life.
LOCKE & KEY ESSAYS AND FAN THEORIES
The Riffel Rule did more harm than good
Why Dodge is a good villain
(Soon to come)
Locke & Key Themes: history repeating itself
Locke & Key Themes: unhealthy behaviors following grief/trauma
Shit take: Duncan used the gender key on himself so much because he’s gay
Shittier take: Duncan using the gender key on himself so much is what made him gay
Better take: Duncan used the gender key on himself so much because in his young mind, not yet tainted by gender roles, he was able to view biological gender objectively, and not as a strict set of rules he had to adhere to. For him it was just fun and games, like costumes he could put on and take off at his leisure.
Something something, Dodge having so much influence over Sam Lesser that it gets hard to tell where who ends and who begins VS. Rufus Whedon being the one person Dodge cannot control.
Shit take: Duncan used the gender key on himself so much because he’s gay
Shittier take: Duncan using the gender key on himself so much is what made him gay
Better take: Duncan used the gender key on himself so much because in his young mind, not yet tainted by gender roles, he was able to view biological gender objectively, and not as a strict set of rules he had to adhere to. For him it was just fun and games, like costumes he could put on and take off at his leisure.
I think about this a lot. How the relationship between Kinsey and Nina is both a parallel and an inverse of that between Ellie and Candice. How Candice could have been a glimpse into Nina’s future if she didn’t actively decide to get better.
I didn't read the Locke & Key "...Only Bad" edition YET, but I read the summary on the wikia, since it snatched my interest as soon as I read the description: "an all-new ending… only bad." Ever since I finished the comics I've been hungry for more content about the Locke family after the canon series, so how could I wait to get a copy?
Spoilers under the cut.
Trigger warnings for: death, depression, suicide, mentions of sexual assault, alcoholism below
HOLY MCFUCKING SHIT
And of course, since I'm a slut for canon divergences and AUs, my mind tried to speculate on how the series would diverge from there, how the plot would proceed. I wondered about how Tyler and Kinsey would find the keys and stop Dodge without Bode, but I came to one conclusion in the end:
The plot wouldn't proceed at all. Because when you think about it, Bode is the reason his family survives the first arc of the series. And his death would spell that of his family's.
Tyler
In Issue #4 of "Welcome to Lovecraft", there's a scene where Tyler is stewing in his own guilt and self-loathing over what he believes is his part in his father's death. In the comic, it is strongly implied he's contemplating suicide, and in the audible it's confirmed.
But Bode comes and interrupts him, asking about a knock-knock joke. After Bode leaves, Tyler puts any thoughts of suicide out of his mind, fearing how it would affect Bode.
But now? After seeing his little brother get literally sliced in two by a freak accident? So soon, after his father's death, the death Tyler believes he's responsible for? Not to mention the likelihood of Tyler's guilt-warped mind twisting Bode's death into his own fault too? Not only would there be nothing to stop Tyler from committing suicide, it’d be likely he’d do it much sooner.
Kinsey
In Issue #3 of the first arc, Kinsey was constantly reliving the moment she was hiding with Bode on the roof while Sam was looking for Tyler. Not just while she was breaking down in her room by herself, but she took this everywhere she went. Kinsey responded to her trauma by keeping her head down and staying hidden in social settings. She seems to find a healthy way to deal with it at the end of the issue, but we see that wound reopened after the news of Joe Ridgeway's death comes out in Issue #2 of the "Head Games" arc.
Kinsey is ultimately afraid of losing people, a fear set off by her father dying and reinforced by both Joe Ridgeway dying.
If Kinsey saw her little brother die from simply a freak accident that could happen to anyone at any moment? Literally the same day Kinsey herself said she couldn't stop crying over what happened? She only spiral further and further into her own fears and grief, taking an even heavier toll on her than what we saw in canon. Kinsey wouldn't be able to get to a better state like she did in canon, probably not heeding Ellie's advice or taking Jackie's offer of friendship.
Nina
Through most of the main series of Locke & Key, we see Nina's alcoholism and her mental state get progressively worse, until it escalates to her hitting Kinsey in Issue #6 of "Crown of Shadows". The grief over her husband's death and the trauma of her sexual assault makes an unhealthy combination with the fact that she doesn't talk about her problems with anyone. So, she lets herself stew in her grief and drown her sorrows.
If Bode died when and how he did in "...Only Bad"? With her previous trauma still fresh in her mind? Nina's alcoholism would get a whole lot worse and a lot faster, and even more so after Tyler commits suicide. The resentment and anger between her and Kinsey would very likely get worse and come quicker too, considering they’re both in terrible places mentally and emotionally.
Duncan
Something to note about Duncan is that we never see him properly grieve his brother. He says in Issue #2 of "Welcome to Lovecraft" that keeping himself busy helps. A personal headcanon of mine is that Duncan has this "I don't wanna burden others with my problems" mentality, so he just shuts it in and keeps quiet, which seems consistent with his canon personality.
But it would wear down on him so much harder if Bode died so soon after his brother did, with Tyler following not long after. And Duncan would try to be there for his last two living relatives, trying to be the peacekeeper or the shoulder to cry on, not just for them but in an attempt to ignore his own grief, and that would very much put a lot of strain on him too. I can even picture him starting to resent Kinsey and Nina, wanting to leave but unable to leave them like this and feeling trapped as a result.
Dodge
Bode was Dodge’s ticket out of the Wellhouse in canon. He was young and naive enough to trust a mysterious voice in a well, and could be convinced to get them the Anywhere Key after Sam arrived. Neither Tyler (if he were alive at that point) nor Kinsey would be as receptive to a mysterious voice in a well as Bode would be. So, Dodge had to trust Sam to get them out.
Which would probably go as well as it did when Sam tried to get the Omega and Anywhere Keys from Rendell.
Sam
Sam would come to Keyhouse similar to how he did in canon. He’d demand the Anywhere Key and the Omega Key, and neither Nina, Duncan, nor Kinsey would know what he was talking about. Even if Kinsey, the last living Locke child, found a magic key, she probably wouldn't think much of it. Why would she? It's just some old key. And as in canon, Sam wouldn’t notice the Anywhere Key in Kinsey’s bracelet. None of the Lockes would be able to give Sam what they don't know about, and he would almost certainly kill them all.
In Conclusion:
Tyler would commit suicide over the combined grief and guilt of his father's and brother's deaths. Kinsey's fear and grief would multiply to a debilitating degree with no hope of things getting better. Nina's drinking problem would worsen at a quicker pace. Duncan's grief and stress would wear him down and make him a mess alongside his last surviving family. Sam would kill off the rest of the Locke family and go back to jail or get shot to death. Finally, Dodge would stay trapped in the Wellhouse, and with no living Locke children to come to the house and find keys for them, probably forever.
As small and basically dead as the "Locke & Key" fandom is, I've seen plenty of people who like Dodge as a villain, myself included. They're witty, cunning, and dramatic (theater kids make for fun villains). But there’s no denying that Dodge is, simply put, a monster. They're sadistic, manipulative, and remorseless. They've hurt and killed people throughout the series, not just in pursuit of their goals, but for fun.
But what makes them a good villain ties into a theme very prevalent throughout the comics that I’ll definitely write another essay on: those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
Spoilers under the cut.
Dodge's tie into this theme is shown specifically in "Clockworks", the fifth volume of "Locke & Key". Let’s begin by looking at Issue #1.
On the cover of Issue #1 is Harm Timmerman, one of the members of the American militia that the Locke family helped hide in the Drowning Caves back in 1775. He was also the first human shown in the series to be a victim of possession after the militia came into contact with the portal to Leng. Benjamin and Miranda Locke finding Harm and using Whispering Iron to create the Black Door to shut the portal is the catalyst for the Locke family’s legacy of magic keys.
With the Locke family continuing to open the Black Door to make more keys, it can be argued that another case of possession was an accident waiting to happen. However, a fan theory of mine supports the assumption that using the Black Door isn’t a risk that generations of Lockes after Benjamin and Miranda haven taken lightly.
Now let’s take a look at Rendell Locke. Specifically in his teen years.
In the comics, Rendell seems to have a bit of a case of Main Character Syndrome. He even says as much in Issue #6 of “Clockworks”.
“I used to imagine myself as a big deal, heir to the Locke family fortune, living high on the hog in Keyhouse.”
Rendell convinced his friends to open the Black Door, despite having a good amount of evidence on why it’s a bad idea. The reason he’s doing it is even worse: to create a key that has its target forever looked at with admiration. Nothing as useful as the Memory Key from the Netflix series, just something for vanity, and it all blows up in their faces.
It can be argued that Rendell and his friends didn't take opening the Black Door lightly, since they knew knew of the risks of possession beforehand and even took several keys with them just in case. But the entire time, they treated the ordeal like some fun adventure, instead of the danger it was. If someone truly wanted to make a key, then a way to minimize the risk would be to have as few people as possible present to open the Black Door long enough to get Whispering Iron through.
The possession of Lucas Caravaggio, Rendell’s best friend, happened as a result of Rendell's carelessness with the Black Door. The principle villain of the entire main series of “Locke & Key” exists because Rendell convinces his friends to make a massive risk with him. Rendell loses his best friend, Ellie loses her first love, Mark and Kim are killed, and Erin is made catatonic. The possessed Dodge is Icarus’s fall after recklessly flying too close to the sun. Dodge is the embodiment of the destructive consequences of hubris.
Next, on the cover of Issue #6 of “Clockworks”, the last issue of that part of the series, shows Dodge, in the same pose as Harm Timmerman on the cover of Issue # 1: eyes yellow to indicate infection, grinning maniacally, and holding the Omega Key.
In "Clockworks", we have the first case of possession, resulting in the turning of a normal person into a bloodthirsty sadistic monster. Next, we have generations of the Locke family using the thing that resulted in possession as a resource for great power. Despite the obvious risk, none of them seem to make light of the matter, and we can assume that because of their caution, nothing bad happens. That is, until Rendell decided to make a key for purely vain reasons and treated it more like an adventure than a danger. The result is Dodge's possession. The problem that the Locke family tried to solve those centuries ago reappeared due to careless use of the Black Door.
So, in analyzing Dodge’s role as the villain, we not only find the theme of “those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it”, but also the theme of “fly too close to the sun and you get burned”. Dodge the embodiment of the consequences of Rendell Locke’s hubris. Consequences that not only affect him and his friends, but all the people that Dodge kills and hurts through the series. Rendell ignored the warnings and reawakened what his ancestors took pains to avoid. The covers of Issues #1 and #6 of “Clockworks” symbolize this nicely: if you don’t learn from the past, especially a deadly one, you’ll end up exactly where you began.
