Em | she/her | critter and queer and filled with existential fear | this is my CR blog mainly, anime and Multi fandom stuff at silvershine69 Twitter: @_silvershine_
essek saying "bren" out loud, claiming a position on caleb's side as the mouthpiece of his regards to astrid, did something to me. i can't tell if it opened a wound or punched me or gave me a hug. all i know is that i am feeling so many emotions right now
more under the cut because i'm about to get rambly:
"bren aldric ermendrud" is a separate character from caleb widogast. he's a young boy learning how to make magic. he's a deeply traumatized and indoctrinated teenager. he's the boy who curled up with astrid and eadwulf in a freezing tower for warmth all night.
essek never met bren. he met caleb and he's never known him as anyone else. if i'm remembering correctly, caleb never even said the name "bren" to him during the campaign, and neither did any of the nein.
essek knows caleb widogast. he knows the man who held up the object of his worst crime and then kissed him in the bowels of a ship and made a floor of infinite stars for them to walk through together. he knows the person who healed over bren's wounds—thinly, but enough. he knows the man that the boy has become.
astrid knows bren. she barely knows who caleb is. she still calls him bren after hearing him referred to as caleb repeatedly. she can't know him as the man he is, she only knows the boy. there's some of bren in caleb, but there is no caleb in bren.
essek saying "bren sends his regards" is him gauging astrid's reaction, on one level—if she freaks out, which she did, she's in opposition to caleb's cause and thus a threat. on another level, it's essek delivering a very different subtextual message from caleb: "the boy who loved you is giving you one final warning."
because essek is a threat to astrid. their last meaningful interaction was slinging spells at each other in the blooming grove. and that's funny in a "current boyfriend vs ex girlfriend exclusively fight each other" kind of way, but it's also deeply tied to caleb's recurring theme of transformation. "bren sends his regards" also means "i have healed enough to love enough for someone else to know this name and use it with my consent. and this someone else is your enemy. what does that make you think i've become?"
it also does a fantastic job of communicating subtle offscreen discussions that have happened over the years since the end of c2. we don't have the details of when or how caleb told essek his birth name, but we know that he did, and we know from all of c2 that the name bren occupies a place of immense emotional weight for caleb. it functions similarly to a deadname in terms of who uses it and for what purpose. trent exclusively calls caleb bren to wound him and place himself in a position of power. astrid calls him bren to remind both him and herself of who they used to be—same with eadwulf, though obviously he's not here.
the first time we hear essek say "bren" is on caleb's behalf and confronting one of the narrative representations of caleb's trauma. it's four words that manage to communicate "i, your enemy on a hundred levels, can speak for both the man i love and the boy who loved you, because i know him in his entirety."
astrid knows bren and essek knows caleb, but only essek can speak for both. because at some point, caleb gave bren to essek. and we know this from four words. four IMPROVISED words.
[ID: A realistic digital painting of Crowley from Good Omens entwined in snakes. Crowley is seen from the shoulders up, lying on his side, with his arms thrown partially in front of his face so that only one eye is visible, gazing skyward. Bronze-scaled snakes fill the frame around him and twine around his arms. His fingernails are long, talon-sharp, and painted red, and there is a metallic gold halo behind his head. End ID]
Honestly it's so funny that Caleb told Essek, "Once you're a part of the Mighty Nein, you're in; you of all people should know that by now," and then like a week later Essek tried to give this whole noble speech about "I hope one day our paths may cross again," as if this was some long goodbye, and dip.
Sir, what was the game plan. You couldn't even avoid these assholes when you were desperately, anxiously trying to. Yasha has been attempting to impress upon you that she tried to fuck off on her own to atone for her sins and it didn't work since you all had dinner. Beau actually said you were a good person, which is unheard of. Caleb is only not making out with you right here because he's not going to be that asshole who tries to tempt you into going back to a city where you would be executed on sight. They are sending you to crash on their unhinged friend's couch and they will not take no for an answer. Jester doesn't care if you'd welcome her messages at any point because she will be sending them, and there is literally nothing you can do to stop her.
How else did you think this was gonna go. Boy, I know you have 22 intelligence but by the light you are fucking dense.
for how much Caleb has changed Essek, i can never stop thinking about how much Essek has changed Caleb. Caleb looked at Essek and thought, this is a man whose knowledge i might be able to use to change my past. but when Caleb convinces him to share that knowledge, the first thing Essek teaches him is how to control his future
But the magician shopkeeper and his trans/NB spouse who wore a fancy early 19th century dress to the ball.
Job's son who was flirting with Aziraphale (hilariously played by Ty Tennant giving Michael Sheen heart eyes in front of his dad lmao)
Even the tough macho man in Scotland that Aziraphale borrows the phone from - using it for "Grindr".
Plus of course Michael, Uriel, Muriel, and Dagon also all being non binary/gender queer characters.
With all this, there was no homophobia, no one batted an eyelid at any characters sexualities, sexuality wasn't even brought up, characters just are who they are and like who they like. Its a non issue in the GO universe.
AKA my favourite type of queer representation. The same type found in The Sandman (show not comic).
And whilst there was plenty of drama and not everyone gets a happy queer ending (YET) there was no queer trauma to be seen. No hate crimes, no "bury your gays", no stupid discussions about how HARD it is to be out of the closet in a bigoted world, because the GO world isn't bigoted.
Its SUCH a BREATH OF FRESH AIR.
I know we have similar experiences in The Sandman, In OFMD, and even in WWDITS, but each time a new show takes this very new approach towards queer representation I feel like I'm once again sinking into a comforting hug from someone I love, who loves me back.
Its just really fucking wonderful to see. I hope we keep seeing it more and more often.
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