Thinking about Dead Mom Irina Rozanov,,, thinking about how Ilya might have sanctified her after her death,,, thinking about what kind of life leads a girl in her twenties to marry a guy in his fifties,,, she loved hockey so was she an athlete? She loved Ilya, clearly, but how did her depression impact her role as a mother? She was clearly a woman of faith but Ilya doesn't seem all that religious so was that something she was discouraged to share with her kids? there's just so much about her we don't know,,, that's kind of my favourite place with minor side characters because the potential for headcanons are VAST.
Do you have any headcanons for her? I'm especially interested in ones that grapple with the possibility of her flaws that Ilya as a narrator and her kid might have overlooked
My personal Irina Rozanova headcanon is that she was schizophrenic and while she was a wonderful person and mother, it didnāt stop her from traumatising Ilya to a degree that he probably never dealt with.
I donāt think Ilya would know that it was schizophrenia, as it was never discussed and Ilya blocked out the memories of most of the more obvious signs or attributed them to just ābeing sadā.
I think Irinaās parents were probably less than understanding, perhaps even viewing her illness through the lens of superstition and devout religion and she needed a way out of her childhood home and had no money or prospects, so marrying for her own security was probably the easiest option.
I like to think of her as an aspiring figure skater who just never quite made it, and there was no way Grigori would entertain it when they married- a womanās place is in the home, bearing children.
When she would have particularly bad episodes, Grigori would confine her to the house and often lock her in her room, where Ilya could hear her crying and banging on the walls.
It would also add another dimension to Alexeiās hatred of Ilya- a resentment that Ilya was too young to remember the worst of it, but not Alexei.
Also Iām fully just projecting onto Ilya right now as both my father and sister were diagnosed and hoo BOY childhood was fun. but what is fiction if not therapy lmao. Going into adult life with mental health issues knowing that at any point thereās a non zero chance you can develop it is just like waiting for a jack in the box and I just want to put Ilya through that same torment nexus x
