I think that we as a fandom, talk often about what Tai meant to Shauna, but not what Shauna meant to Tai.
I mean, everyone seems to notice that Tai is usually the one doing the comforting and not Shauna and seem to see it as a failure entirely on Shauna’s shoulders. On one hand, Shauna definitely could’ve done more, but I feel like we forget something somewhat important
Tai herself and her thoughts on Shauna, and how she wants to be comforted.
In canon, Tai is a character who likes having control and usually likes to play the “wise, older sister” figure. This role is seen in her interactions with Natalie, Misty, Akilah and even Travis and Lottie
This helps her to maintain relationships in which she won’t be questioned by the other about her mental state
It’s easier to deny the “you need help” allegations when you’re the one doing the helping, when the person you are with is below you in status or in income, this is seen especially with Natalie
It’s not that Natalie cannot shake Tai and get through to her, it’s that her history of crimes and addiction that Tai usually saves her from keeps her firmly in the little sister role, in spite of her annoyance towards that role.
It’s also probably Tai’s way of keeping out of someone’s debt, as that is also something she hates
Tai is also someone who desperately wants to maintain the mask of normal, so playing the role of big sister is also Tai’s way of maintaining control
Also, she has a really big heart and that counts too
But the exception to that rule is Van and Shauna, who both comfort Tai and can see through her and shake the balance of that relationship
Natalie tries to do that, but the trouble she gets in makes it really hard to do that
But Shauna is technically Tai’s equal in every way, she gets the same grades, plays in a similar position to her, and is the only one to call her out when she messes up with Allie.
Hear me out, I was thinking about Taivanshauna and the Van and Shauna parallels of it all (I’ll get into that one day), and I realized something.
Both Van and Shauna represent something entirely opposite to Tai
Again, you need to listen to me. Van represents fantasy to Tai. This is not to dunk on their relationship whatsoever, I love them okay, But it is interesting to think about when you actually look at it.
They have a secret relationship to start with, and sneak around Romeo and Juliet style, Van and Tai run off and have sex while the others are hunting Travis and attempting to murder him, Van convinces Tai that other Tai is some sort of wilderness superpower while at the height of her wilderness mania, and she encourages Tai to let out other Tai when she has to kill Coach Ben
Shauna, on the other hand, represents reality, and the way she interacts with her represents how she views that reality
Shauna is a character who, for the most part has been affected the worst by the wilderness and seems to accept reality and reject the wilderness and the bullshit stories they told
From the beginning of the story, in the pilot, it is Shauna who calls Tai out for breaking Allie’s leg while everyone else was willing to let the issue go unquestioned.
Shauna questions Tai and holds her accountable for breaking Allies leg. Van attempts to calm Shauna down, but Shauna refuses to let it go. Tai attempts to discredit Shauna’s insults by pointing out her drunken state. She does the same with Natalie as well
Shauna calls her out on that again, refusing to let her off the spot, until Jackie diffuses the situation, and Shauna gives in for the sake of group peace, but she has managed to shake Tai off her high horse
Shauna is Tai’s equal and someone she respects, kind of like Jackie, but unlike Jackie, Shauna gets to know Tai more personally by choosing to follow her into the attic when nobody else does, crossing the red tape.
Tai had fully expected to be alone, Shauna coming was unexpected and kind of messed with the dynamic, so she attempts to fix it by immediately mentioning Shauna’s pregnancy, probably to even the playing field
Her relationship with Shauna is at it’s tightest when Tai is acknowledging reality and attempting to be clearheaded and before other Tai becomes more prominent in her life
Taking care of Shauna grounds her to reality and keeps her feeling useful and in control, and also because she loves Shauna. And the reality does start to seep into fantasy time with Van as well, as she worries about Shauna’s health
After Tai listens to Shauna break down about dying, she immediately forgoes all fantasy and decides to go out and find help. She lets go of the fantasy of being rescued soon and sets a match to the false sense of security the others were enveloped in
Throughout the trip, Tai does attempt to keep the others from believing Lottie’s stories and eventually, other Tai surfaces and Van is hurt.
When they are rescued, Shauna reaches them first, (interesting detail I noticed when I watched the episode) and Tai, afraid of losing grip with reality, looks for comfort in Shauna, and opens up and is entirely vulnerable in that moment.
Shauna promises to stay with her, but things get worse with time. After Doomcoming and Jackie’s death, Shauna loses touch with reality and starts speaking to corpses, leaving Tai alone. This is probably one of the only times Shauna is untethered from reality
Tai probably assumes it’s grief at first and leans on Van, being able to take comfort in Van being less serious and more affectionate than Shauna, but even then, she seems to be leaning more towards fantasy now than reality. She isn’t a fan of Lottie’s circles, but she is definitely a lot less fixed on reality than in season one
After she realizes that Shauna is putting makeup on Jackie’s corpse, she immediately loses her shit. She was shaken to her core, and rightly so, but this also has a bit more to it than the obvious “people don’t put makeup on corpses or braid their hair”
Shauna is her only tether to reality and her losing her mind terrifies Tai, because if Shauna is losing her mind, then what would happen to her?
She can’t have that. She’s going to shake Shauna out of this, no matter what, and that meant getting rid of that body asap. Even if it meant they had to burn it.
Only for that decision to end up being the reason she ends up committing cannibalism, and with that, she finally accepts the invitation to the prayer circle, to get rid of the other Tai, who she blames for the cannibalism. And in doing so, she distances herself from Shauna.
That does come to a head the day of Shauna’s birth. It always felt weird how defensive Tai was about being unapologetic about Lottie helping her, as though she was afraid that Shauna would burst the bubble she created. Shauna is someone with the strength to burst Tai’s bubble
According to the actress, Shauna is someone Tai was willing to put aside all her pride for, Shauna is someone Tai was willing to chop her hair for, to march into the middle of nowhere for.
If anyone could shake Tai, it was Shauna, and being defensive and treating Shauna like she was overreacting is Tai’s way of attempting to take control of the relationship dynamic, like she did during the pilot (“Someone needs to take her wasted ass home”)
Kind of like how she insults Natalie every time she gets to her (“You smell like a wino” or “Don’t you have a bong to hit or a dick to suck?”)
When they are lost in the blizzard and Tai is afraid they will die, she willingly prays to the wilderness to save them. When they are safe though, she attempts to keep Lottie from starting up the wilderness worship, telling her not to do that right now
But the moment that Shauna collapses, and Tai believes that she might be dead, she immediately starts praying again. Shauna is her tether to reality, and I think that she believes if Shauna is lost, then so is she.
And when Shauna is close to dying, she will immediately give in to bullshit prayers and fantasies to bring her back, to take control.
Even if she knows that prayers didn’t bring Shauna back, over time it’s grown much easier to give in and believe in that fantasy than it was when she first landed.
Especially thanks to the power of peer pressure and the wise philosophy of “happy wife, happy life”
Afterwards, as Shauna falls apart and Javi is eaten and the cabin burns, Tai gives in entirely to fantasy and Van. It makes sense of course, because even if Van does encourage Tai to believe in the Wilderness, Van is capable of comforting and loving Tai in a way that Shauna is incapable of.
Which makes it a lot easier to choose Van over Shauna. It’s interesting as Van and Shauna are on opposite sides at the beginning of season 3. Shauna is the outsider who refuses to believe their stories and is a thorn in the ass.
Van is beloved by the group and the storyteller who tells tall tales and makes the group laugh and feel like they’re normal teenagers again
Shauna reminds everyone of who they are now, Van reminds them of who they used to be.
It’s an easy choice for Tai to choose the person who makes her feel happy and loved over the person who is constantly miserable and bitter. And obviously, Tai does care and I do think she does feel bad, but it’s just so much easier to be told everything is okay than to hang around Shauna and end up feeling depressed.
But when Coach Ben is found, Tai and Shauna finally find common ground again and work together to bring him down. But when she has to kill him, she immediately goes to Van to have sex and find a way to remove her own agency to make it easier
Other Tai, who Tai has rejected, is now someone Tai willingly calls on to do the job for her. Van, unlike Shauna does not have experience in doing the hard job, does have experience in other Tai, though and can make her feel better about the whole thing.
Afterwards, when the scientists arrive, reality finally hits to Tai. The fact that home still exists and if they are to return to it, they have to be careful about it. And it’s interesting to note that Shauna is the first person to acknowledge that.
These are things that Tai mentions when talking to Van
What are people going to think when we go home?
What are they going to think of us?
How are we going to get away with all of these crimes we’ve committed?
These are all concerns Tai carries into adulthood, and the fact that Shauna says them out loud first does prove my theory correct. Shauna’s questions wake Tai up to reality once again, like she did back during the abortion attempt.
Shauna puts down her bags after Lottie does, but Tai chooses to stay home after Shauna does.
She attempts to take control of the situation and when attempting to fool the others, she works with Van, attempting to do for Van what Van has done for her, soften the blow and create a fantasy. “It’s not murder if it’s Hannah”. But it’s clearly not working in the way it used to. Van no longer wants to live in a fantasy, and Shauna sees right through Tai.
Shauna is the one to confront Tai about messing with the cards, and Tai immediately shuts her out, most likely shifting to other Tai in order to keep up her fantasy
She dresses Shauna up as the antler queen as well, paralleling adult Tai villainizing Shauna to discredit her, or how she discredited Natalie every time she got to her.
If Shauna was crazy and evil, then she was no longer Tai’s equal and that meant that Shauna could not shake her or make her feel vulnerable anymore.
As an adult though, she seems to have more of a relationship with Shauna than she has with Van, given the fact that Shauna has a burner phone she uses to call Tai.
Tai’s breakup with Van and marriage to Simone was her way of chopping out the fantasy that was the wilderness.
Unlike Shauna and Melissa who marry reminders of the wilderness out of guilt, Van who lives in a video store and lives in the 90’s as a reminder of the childhood she had before the wilderness, Natalie and Travis who stay together, doing drugs and aimlessly wandering around their lives and causing chaos, or Lottie who never lets go of the wilderness religion, Tai marries someone with no connection to the wilderness, and has a career that outshines her time in the wilderness.
According to Tai, her sleepwalking stopped for a while, most likely not as much as she thought, given Sammy’s experience with “the bad one” at least to Tai, she was normal and refuses to believe otherwise.
When she realizes someone is blackmailing her, she immediately calls Shauna, most likely for a solid plan on how to do this, which Shauna provides. Which is kind of interesting as the Shauna in the teen timeline does not seem like she’ll be giving rational advice anytime soon, hopefully they get into that in season 4
When she is confronted with the reality that she is sleepwalking, she goes to Shauna’s house, most likely for the same reasons that she had done so 25 years ago. To be shaken awake, to regain control of reality.
But when she goes too far and nearly kills her wife, she looks for Van this time, most likely for the comfort Van will provide her and the fantasy bubble that Van will provide her.
Van is definitely not in the interest of doing so, most likely scarred for life after the Mari thing, and no longer able to come up with stories like that anymore. But she does attempt to do so.
And Van is the one who suggests calling off the psych team while Shauna is the one who was trying to rationally diffuse the situation, once again Tai chooses Van and fantasy over reality
Tai does end up trying to forget her grief for Natalie and Lottie by immersing herself into other Tai and having fun with Van. But as adults, Van no longer wants to do this anymore and starts to question Tai, she burrows even deeper into other Tai
This probably shakes her vision of reality even more, as Van, the closest person to Tai, the only one who ever truly got to see all of Tai was no longer willing to provide a fantasy for Tai to stay in. This scares her, and she desperately attempts to keep Van alive at all costs, even if it means murdering innocent people to do so.
Van, on the other hand, comes to the conclusion that she could no longer cling on to false illusions or fantasies anymore and finally accepts death. Her final words to Tai are to wake up.
Van’s death shatters her illusions and forces her to finally accept reality. In fear of having to accept reality, she immediately attempts to discredit and vilify Shauna. If Shauna is crazy and evil, then she can’t shake Tai
Shauna is the only person alive who can make Tai question herself, the only person who knows Tai well enough to do so. Tai has fully embraced fantasy wilderness worship when Shauna nearly died in childbirth. So, maybe Tai believes that if she can get rid of Shauna, then she can get rid of reality altogether. If Shauna dies, so does the fear that somebody could make her feel vulnerable again, or force her to realize how far she has fallen
Simone cannot do that, as she does not know the truth about the wilderness or Tai. Misty cannot do that, as she is not close enough to do that, nor would she try to either. Melissa never knew Tai at all and she killed Van, the person Tai loved most.
I do think that in season four, Shauna and Tai are finally have a real confrontation that will force Tai to finally accept reality. Van was the only one who could wake her up, but Shauna can definitely break through to her, like she did in the pilot.
