you know what, yeah. i'll go on a tangent about this. hi mutual! 👋
now, before i knew a lot about nexus, i had this misconception too; that jebediah was somehow at fault for hofnarr going absolutely bonkers clown mode. i think i've even talked about it here a few times, but if i contradict any of my old points.. we'll call it growth via actually getting to know jebediah and hofnarr a lot more over the course of time. i don't remember what i said, so just listen to this. small disclaimer that i do ship christnarr to death so this is written from my perspective of jebediah feeling a lot for hofnarr during all the.. everything.
obviously, hofnarr losing her mind was out of jebediah's hands. she was the spearhead of dissonance research, he'd have every reason to think she knew what she was doing-- and i am absolutely certain she did, too, but.. waves my hand in a circle. the nature of these things. jebediah of course has this track record of putting people in places of power they maybe can't wholly handle, look at the sheriff, but it feels almost.. belittling to her to presume that she couldn't manage herself with all of the intelligence she possesses. he didn't really have a reason to think that she would fail. she was the closest thing to an equal he'd ever see, and for a guy like him, that's nothing to sneeze at.
i do also think that it was somewhat of a calculated risk, and when i say that i mean it in the same way that everything jebediah did was a calculated risk. things always have the capability to go wrong, that's kind of unavoidable. i'm sure jebediah knew of dissonance and what it can do through hofnarr chatting to him about her work, knowing of and being an expert are just very different things. she was educated and highly capable. honestly, he probably thought any issues with her would be the least likely thing that could have come from this plan negatively, in the grand scheme of things. we could argue that he's not wholly absolved purely because it was his idea to do all this crazy shit but like.. what else was he going to do?
so, yes, he's walking this fine line of "you couldn't have really known that'd happen" and "your plan left her alone, so technically this could be vaguely on you". and that line pretty much only exists in jebediah's mind, because jebediah perceives situations so far beyond the realm of any normal human being.
guilt is not.. an unfamiliar feeling to him, exactly, it's just one he tries to avoid. jebediah is a really contradictory person and that's how both of these concepts exist at once within his mind. he wouldn't call himself quite heroic but he knows what he did was necessary and for the greater good. given an opportunity he would do it again. the sanctity of nevada is his top priority above himself or any personal relationships.. that doesn't mean there's nothing in those other boxes, though. that's where it all gets confusing for him. if it was a success, why are there parts that hurt about that mission? why does it sting to think about what and who he lost?
hofnarr, she's part of nexus city. a "piece of the plan". that's how he tries to justify it. if you asked jebediah how he felt about it all he probably wouldn't say that about her, unless it was purposeful to try to make himself feel less for her, but it's the truth of how he envisioned her at the time. it's this kind of casual dehumanization jebediah does without wholly realizing he's doing it. people are just fragments of the grand equation. it's easier for him to keep her on that level along with everybody else than it is to admit she actually holds something meaningful to him, because in that admittance also comes acknowledgment that she got altered via his plans..
and that is exactly why he refuses in turn to acknowledge the existence of tricky the clown. that's admittance that something went wrong. everyone who once worked at nexus has changed for the worst of ways; crackpot also lost what was left of its mind, gonne is missing in action, jebediah is.. this. but hofnarr has always been different and special to him, and that's where the line lies. hofnarr is the one who entirely lost herself. hofnarr is the one he trusted most. he does not want her to be gone and can't admit to himself that she is.
even with everything about her being different, her losing (almost) everything that made him feel so strongly for her.. surely he could shove past that guilt and try to accept reality, yeah? especially by getting her hand in aiding s.q with taking nexus down for good? well, no, because this is jebediah, but also because of this.
"SHOULDN'T YOU BE OFF SAVING YOUR PRECIOUS NEVADA RIGHT NOW, CHRISTOFF?"
"YOU WANT MY HELP?! THEN YOU'D BETTER LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO GET IT!"
tricky does not feel the same way he does. tricky is acutely aware of what happened, that it was left behind by jebediah. maybe it was for the greater good or some shit like that, but it still happened, and tricky isn't cognitively there enough to remember their closeness in a way that matters. jebediah wanted to work with tricky, knowing and trusting its intelligence still, and tricky went.. you're so funny, jebby, i like you better dead. ouch..!
jebediah had met and known tricky before this, he has to have if he knows where that clown was hanging out anyway.. plus the whole "remember when we teamed up to kill hank" thing. i still think this stung him in a special way. in the moment he won't feel it, too focused on surviving and the mission ahead and all those things. in the aftermath, though, when he's left to his own devices, and he hears a raspy voice echoing those words in his mind.. that's when he feels the most guilty. it was a waste of a brilliant mind, of a brilliant person.
it is out of his hands now, but it could have, maybe, in another world, not slipped from his grasp to begin with. that's kind of what keeps him up at night, the what if.
tldr.. i don't blame jebediah, but jebediah does blame jebediah. cheers.
