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Reflecting on Kent Parson

So I’m going to start out this post by saying this: Kent Parson is a dick. He’s gaslighted Jack to hell and back, most prominently at Samwell, which was Jack’s safe space, and likely many times before and after that. He hasn’t been hiding the fact that he taunts Jack on the ice, treats him like shit during games, and is willing to get a rise out of him.

That being said, he’s one of my favorite characters to study in the series. Don’t mistake that for him being my favorite character in the series. I fucking hate him and how he has treated Jack. There’s a difference between liking the way Kent’s character has developed from a literary point of view, and liking the way he’s developed as a person (or should I say, Parson).

Now that that’s out of the way, lets go right in. Here’s what we know about Kent (or at least what has been heavily indicated):

Kent is, given the info we have, considered bisexual or pansexual, as it hasn’t been stated that he is only interested in men, or anything else that falls in the spectrum.

Kent was there for Jack's overdose, but as far as we can tell, Jack didn't tell him how bad it had gotten, and Kent didn't find out about it until after it happened, and even after that Jack basically fell of the face of the earth after the draft.

Kent went into the draft not knowing if his best friend and possibly-more-than was even alive, and wouldn't find out for quite a while. He was drafted to a team that we now know isn't exactly the most accepting, and has been with that team for (if i'm doing the math right) about 5 years, and now leads it.

Kent has been in the NHL for about 5 years, and likely hasn't been able to talk to anyone about Jack (at least his teammates/friends), and hasn't been able to have the somewhat private experience that Jack had in college where he could explore himself (meeting bitty, coming out to shitty and eventually the others, etc etc).

Next up, what we know about his current situation with the Aces:

Kent is captain of the Aces, and has been so for quite a while now. He’s lead them to the Cup, and won early on in his career. He’s been there for about 5 years now.

This is based on him being drafted just after Jack’s overdose and being there in the year between Jack’s OD and going to Samwell, and the four years he spent studying there.

Kent has two kinds of teammates (and/or team staff members):

People like Carl, who are, nicely put, jerks, and honestly put, bigots. They make their stance clear on how they feel about Jack, and without realizing it, Kent.

People like Scraps (and seemingly Swoops), who fall in the area of “bothered by people like Carl but overall unwilling to intervene beyond telling them to shut up.” From what I can tell, there aren’t really any people like the Falcs players/staff, seeing as Carl would’ve likely been less open about his views had they have been there.

Kent is in a leadership position of a team that he feels/knows he can't tell about his past with Jack or his sexuality because he might lose their respect and his position, along the life he built for himself in Vegas.

Now let’s look at the update:

Jack:

Has a boyfriend who loves and supports him

Is in a leadership position of the Stanley Cup winning team

A team which has shown its support for him through all of this and is accepting of him and Bitty

Publicly came out of the closet, and was able to do so with the support of his team and family.

In short: Kent just saw Jack do what he’d done over the course of his 5 years in the NHL, along with a lot of what he couldn’t do, all in his first year as a rookie.

(Cont. under the cut)

So you might be saying, so what? Kent did all of the basic hockey stuff and he got what’s coming to him with the whole coming out thing. He was horrible to Jack, and he deserved what happened. And from our/Jack’s point of view we can see that.

However, lets see things through Kent’s eyes:

As mentioned above, while the situation is not fully known to us as readers, it doesn’t seem like Parse was aware of how bad Jack’s anxiety had gotten, especially leading up to the draft. It’s entirely possible that he was completely blindsided by the overdose, and even more so by Jack’s leaving and the lack of contact that followed. He then gets drafted into the NHL and spends the next 5 years trying to forget about Jack and make life for himself without him. Kent works his ass off to make his mark on the team and eventually get the C, all while keeping his identity and things with Jack under wraps. He essentially builds a new life for himself in Vegas, one that forces him to pretend like the hurt from what happened with Jack never happened.

Eventually, Jack starts making a name for himself in the NCAA and Kent gets the opportunity to talk to him in the form of the ‘scouting’ at the EpiKegster. (Break time: Kent did not handle that night properly, gaslighted the hell out of Jack, and was just a piece of shit in general) Things don’t go well, and, to me, it seems like he came face to face with how much Jack had changed, and how much their relationship has changed. Kent didn’t know how to handle it, and did what he did, which was being a, quite frankly, terrible person. He leaves, goes back to the Aces and doesn’t see Jack for a while.

The next time they see each other is when they’re against each other on the ice. Another thing here: the last time he and Jack played together, they were dreaming of getting drafted together and taking the hokey world by storm as a duo. Now they’re fresh off the fight during the EpiKegster on opposite teams and they’re both faced with a bunch of emotions all at once. Jack faces what is essentially the embodiment of the toxicity he experienced in his past and a huge obstacle for his future. Kent doesn’t just see Jack, who prior to the OD, was supposed to take the hockey world by storm with him and be legends together. Kent sees Jack who rejected being on a cup winning, renowned team lead by him, in favor of a fairly new team that (as far as we know) hasn’t won a cup yet, with people he doesn’t know. This is a moment when Kent realizes that the dreams he and Jack had of doing this as a duo and taking the hockey world by storm are crushed, as well as how much Jack has changed. Jack before was determined to live up to his father’s legacy and be a hockey legend. Be on the best teams, win as many Cups as possible, go as far as they possibly could. Jack now chose to be on a lesser known team, which wasn’t expected to make playoffs let alone win the Cup, rather than be with Kent on a team that had won at least one Cup already under his guidance and are seemingly faces of the franchise.

This game is basically the cumulation of Kent realizing that his best friend - the person he loved (or what he thought was love at the time) - isn’t who he was before, and that despite being given the opportunity to be what he dreamed of in Juniors, declined the offer in favor of being where he is now.

Which brings us to now. Kent is at a bar with his teammates who know him as their straight, dude-bro captain. He is being shown Jack kissing Bitty on the ice to the cheers of the Falcs, and the jeers of his own teammates, like Carl. He sees Jack, who, as far as Kent knew, would do anything to avoid having more negative attention brought to him, or hurt his place in the hockey world, do the most controversial thing he could have done in the situation, and seemed content to do so.

On top of all of this, Kent realizes that he’s not uninvolved in this. The press knows, to some extent, how close he and Jack were in Juniors and before the draft. He’s going to get questioned, and the life he built for himself in Vegas, away from Jack, and away from what happened, is about to come crashing down. And Jack didn’t even think to tell him.

Does it excuse Kent's gaslighting during the EpiKegster? No. Does it excuse the taunting during the Falc vs Aces games? No. Does it excuse what he's done to Jack since seeing him again? No.

But maybe it adds a little more depth to him.

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