New American Girl Doll Has Psychic Powers??? Not Clickbait! (Maybe Clickbait)
THIS LITTLE [BLEEP] IS PSYCHIC AND I’M GONNA PROVE IT
[ID: Illustration of American Girl’s Gwynn Tan, during an ice skating performance. She wears a glittery outfit and has a purple flower in her hair. End ID.]
Okay, so. This year, 2022, American Girl debuted their first Chinese Girl of the Year, Corinne Tan. She also has a little sister you can buy, Gwynn Tan; Corinne is ten and Gwynn is seven.
[ID: Picture of the Corinne and Gwynn dolls, posed together with a plush representing their dog, Flurry. They are standing together in a snowy area. End ID.]
Corinne has two books– Corinne and Corinne to the Rescue, and both feature her relationship with Gwynn a lot. They’re very close, and though Corinne gets annoyed at her in book two, they do practically everything together and Gwynn thinks her sister is the coolest person in the world. It’s very sweet.
Now, the books are from Corinne’s POV. So whenever Gwynn says cute little kid baby stuff, we’re like “aw, how cute,” just like Corinne. However, I’m pretty sure they’re implying that Gwynn is freakin psychic?
So: in book one, it is established that Gwynn thinks they have “sister brain,” basically twin telepathy without the “twin.”
Gwynn liked to think that we could communicate without talking. She called it sister brain. I didn’t think we could actually communicate that way. Most of the time, it was obvious we both felt the same way, like when we both got bored on a long car ride. But I pretended along with her.
Gwynn references this constantly throughout the book, in that “little kid obsession” way; every time they have a similar thought, she says that they’re having a sister brain moment.
But the thing is… the sister brain thing gets to an. eerie point.
At the end of book one, Corinne runs away and ends up lost in the mountains. Corinne tried to find the “sister shrine” she and Gwynn made on the mountain but got lost and ended up hiding in tree roots. Later, their dog, Flurry, tracks her down and is able to get her to a rescue party. When she reunites with her family, we find out that Gwynn not only got the dog, but figured out Corinne’s destination.
“How did you know where to look?” I asked, thinking of the moment when Flurry’s face appeared.
“Gwynn thought you might go to the sister shrine,” said Mom. “Since you could get to the gondola on foot, Arne had them check the system for your pass. And Dad notified the ski patrol.”
[…] “I’m sorry. I don’t know if we’ll be able to find you necklace.” [Corinne says, referencing the lost shrine.]
Gwynn was not bothered. “We’ll find it,” she said. “We just need to be together.”
[…]”It was my idea to get Flurry,” said Gwynn. She had attached herself to my side, and we’d called Flurry to jump into our laps. “And Flurry’s vest. I thought that even though Flurry isn’t an official search and rescue dog, she would know how to look for you. I put on her vest and told her to search.”
And this conversation is immediately followed up with:
“Did you get my sister messages?” asked Gwynn. “I kept telling you not to give up.”
Gwynn’s question made me wonder. Had I gotten a sister brain message? That moment when I thought I might give up, but then I realized I needed to hang on– maybe that was Gwynn. Or maybe sister brain was just another way of saying I love you.
“Okay, but Connie, that could super easily be coincidence.” You’re right, I thought so too, obviously. But then the second book happens.
There isn’t as much “sister brain” in book two, but here are some things in the book you need to know. This may not seem important, but pay attention please.
The family goes camping– Corinne, Gwynn, their mother (who is roughly six months pregnant), their stepfather Arne, the dog Flurry, and Corinne’s best friend Cassidy. The first day, the girls and Arne find a meadow of flowers. Corinne excitedly points out each flower, including the columbine. The below section is important, I bold-faced the parts I want you to remember.
“The columbine is the official flower of Colorado,” I told Gwynn. “I’ll show you a trick. Columbine comes from the Latin word for ‘dove.’ Can you figure out why?”
Gwynn scrunched up her face. “Because some of the petals are white, like a dove?” Columbines come in different colors, but these flowers had five rounded white petals cupped inside five pointy purple petals.
“Nope!” I gently bent the stalk so Gwynn could see the underside of the flower. “Look now.”
“Ohhh! The petals look like doves having a meeting!” said Gwynn. Each of the purple petals had a rounded tip that looked like the head, and the rest of the petal flowed out like the bird’s body and tail.
- Corinne to the Rescue, pg61
The next day, the family goes canoeing. Unfortunately, after Corinne is distracted by Gwynn not having to paddle (big sister mood), the canoes flip and the family ends up stranded in the forest. Their mother is obviously not gonna be able to walk far, their stepfather’s leg is injured, and Gwynn is seven years old, she’s not gonna walk very far. Cassidy and Corinne then leave to follow the map to get help from the nearby campsite, leaving Gwynn “in charge” of the adults.
“See you soon!” Gwynn yelled.
“We’ll be back in a little while!” I shouted back.
“Send me a sister brain when you get there!”
I tried to pretend that we were just going for a walk, but Gwynn’s comments nearly did me in. I swallowed hard so she wouldn’t hear the worry in my voice when I yelled back one last time, “Sister brain activated!”
- Corinne to the Rescue, pg94
Corinne and Cassidy are nearly at the campsite when they encounter a rockslide that’s blocked their path. Cassidy is (uncharacteristically for her) scared to climb it, and Corinne herself is scared until…
It wasn’t like Cassidy to be negative, so her tone scared me a little. The rocks were dauntingly high, with no places to put our hands or feet. And there was always the risk of falling, even if we could get started.
A flash of purple caught my eye. I looked down and saw a tiny columbine poking out between two rocks. It seemed like an impossible place for a flower to grow, but there it was. This was a time to believe in the slightly impossible.
- Corinne to the Rescue, pg. 101
Corinne is inspired to continue with her friend over the rocks, even managing to get their dog along with them. They’re atop the rocks and slowly trying to get over, until they encounter a mountain lion, also atop the rocks. The section is a bit long, so I’ll summarize: Corinne holds back the dog, and Cassidy panics. Corinne remembers that they have to act big and keep eye contact as they back up. As they back up, the lion comes closer and Corinne throws a rock and begins yelling. The girls then throw rocks and shout as the dog barks and Cassidy holds up a stick to try and make them look bigger. Eventually, the lion retreats.
The girls try to continue, only for the rocks to start to fall. They get somewhere safe, and…
I didn’t really want to move. It seemed like we were safe here, sitting, with nothing moving. Then I remembered Mom, Arne and Gwynn. They were depending on us.
“Let’s get crawling,” I said.
- Corinne to the Rescue, pg. 111
They eventually make it to solid ground, and then to the campsite. They get a rescue party and return for her family.
Now, remember everything I told you about this book before. This, then, is the following conversation the girls have with Gwynn when they return.
Cassidy and I walked with Gwynn to the van, holding her hands.
“I got a sister brain message that you saw something scary,” said Gwynn. “Like this.” Gwynn let go of our hands and raised her arms, fingers curled and apart, and bared her teeth. “Raaaaar!” Flurry looked at Gwynn, mildly alarmed.
Wide-eyed, Cassidy and I traded looks. I hadn’t told Gwynn about the mountain lion yet.
“Did you get any other sister brain messages?” I asked.
Gwynn nodded. “When you felt really, really sad, I sent a message telling you not to give up!”
I took Gwynn’s hand again. I thought about the tiny columbine poking out between the rocks when we weren’t sure how to start climbing over the rockside, and how it gave me the courage to keep going. “I’m so glad we have sister brain,” I said.
“I kept telling Arne and Mom that I would’ve gotten a sister brain message if something bad happened,” said Gwynn. “But they were still worried. I had to work really hard to keep them thinking of other stuff. We named eighty-seven things that are purple! Do you want to hear? Eggplants, violets, amethysts–”
“We saw a mountain lion,” I told Gwynn, interrupting her list.
- Corinne to the Rescue, pg116-117
Gwynn somehow knows about the mountain lion, despite Corinne and Cassidy having, at this point, told no one. It is not even mentioned if they told their rescue team– we don’t believe so, as they don’t mention it, and the team is only focused on saving the family.
Gwynn says that she sent Corinne a message not to give up, specifically stating “when you felt really, really sad,” and Corinne thinks back to the columbine.
At the time, Gwynn also notes that she and her parents listed things that were purple. She is cut off, but the columbine Corinne saw, like the one she and Gwynn saw the day before, was purple.
Gwynn is also very certain that she would have known through “sister brain” if something had happened to Corinne. This could be chalked up to 7yo “I know everything” energy, but with everything else, it’s… interesting.
There is no way Gwynn could have known about the mountain lion, nor that Corinne “felt really, really sad.” And it’s implied that she, somehow, sent the purple columbine to her sister to encourage her.
With this stated, thinking back on the previous books, there are some small things that didn’t seem suspicious at the time, but now, um, really build up additional evidence.
In the first book, Corinne has a fight with her best friend as Gwynn does a skating routine; this is right before Corinne runs away. The audience is cheering as she skates, and the song “Happy” plays; all in all, it is pretty loud.
But Corinne ends up shouting, on accident, and Gwynn hears it and stumbles, sprawling across the ice.
Gwynn raised her head, looking just as betrayed and hurt as Cassidy. I hadn’t sent her sister brain. I had made things worse.
At the time I chalked this up the shout, but really, would Gwynn be able to hear one girl’s shout over the song? Her parents run over, too, but only after Gwynn falls and looks to her, cuing them in that Corinne’s the reason she fell, we don’t know if they heard her yell as well. Is it possible that instead of the shout, Gwynn sensed her sister’s distress?
There is also a bit in Corinne to the Rescue, right as everyone gets stranded. Corinne sends Gwynn to fetch sticks for firewood so they can boil water. Unlike the night before, the fire starts quickly– something Corinne specifically notes as “lucky.” Gwynn, just before this, was freaking out quite a bit, whereas she was calm the night before when making the fire. Is this bit a reach? Possibly, but it is something I picked up on.
Then, finally: right at the beginning of the first book, in the first friggin chapter, when they are entering their stepfather’s house as they’re about to move in, Gwynn recalls watching… Matilda.
“I remember watching Matilda here,” said Gwynn, pointing. “Arne fell asleep in that chair. He kept saying, ‘Springa springa springa!’“
In case you don’t know, Matilda is a movie about… a six-year-old with superpowers. While the film and original book keep her powers at telekinesis (and the supergenius part we could probably count), the musical (which is getting a film adaptation THIS YEAR) does also give her psychic abilities via her storytelling…
Gwynn claims she has “sister brain” in order to communicate telepathically to her sister. While Corinne doesn’t believe her, Gwynn later claims to have sent her specific messages, which Corinne was able to receive. Gwynn also receives information back that she shouldn’t be able to know, and seemingly was able to materialize a flower irl in order to send her sister a message. The previous book, she was also able to intuit where her sister, in a panic, would go, and had the idea to send the dog after her; the dog was the reason Corinne was eventually found.
American Girl made a psychic doll and I’m starting a campaign for her to be 2025 Girl of the Year so we can hear about how she hones her psychic powers.
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