#i’m so fuckin????????????#this just makes it 100% worse tbh#congratulations you were NEVER real (via @pnrrish)
idk like! I guess it depends on what parts about the Cabeswater remaking Gansey thing don’t sit well with you in particular. For me, I guess I was relieved because it means the Gansey that we fell in love with through the books is still alive and well at the end of the series. (Also, if it helps, I like the way this ask puts it quite a bit)
Okay this response gets long and this is already a long post so the rest will go below the cut
There’s a question with a lot the characters, I think, about whether they are essentially “real”. I can’t remember in what book, but I know Ronan wonders about this in terms of himself- half a dream and half something maybe not even quite human. Is he “real”? Most similarly to Gansey’s case perhaps, Ronan comments in TDT that something about Adam has been fundamentally and irreversibly changed by his bargain with Cabeswater. Is Adam in the last three books the same Adam he was in TRB now that that part of him is Cabeswater? Noah has also deteriorated into something other and inhuman by TRK, and Blue also has questionable humanity status by the end of the series.
So there’s this pervading theme with each of our five mains about what ultimately defines someone as human or inhuman and if something is “not human”, does that effect their ultimate worth or validity?
I don’t really think the books directly give us an answer for what makes a person “real” in TRC, but characters answer it in different ways. I saw a post a while ago where someone said that they didn’t think it was fair to consider Kavinsky irredeemably bad because of Matthew’s kidnapping, because “it’s not like Matthew was a real person anyway”, so clearly this person’s definition of what makes a person real would exclude dream people. (This is like, my own conjecture, but I’ve always kind of interpreted a warped version of this sort of outlook to be part of why K is the way he is. After you’ve successfully killed two people and replaced them with perfect copies, not only are you going to start believing that you live in a world devoid of consequences, but the inherent value and “realness” of everything around you is going to be called into question, which has to be incredibly lonely. Ronan is the only person Kavinsky can’t replace entirely, making him the only “real” person to him. But I’m going off topic.)
Ronan, meanwhile, obviously disagrees with assertion that Matthew isn’t real; I highly doubt he would consider dreaming up a replacement one if Matthew had died in the confrontation with Kavinsky. So his definition of realness, despite his doubts, ultimately does include people who are dreamed.
Blue answers the question for herself when she determines that whatever Noah has become by TRK can’t be considered human or even the “original Noah”, but that she’ll continue to call him that if that’s what he wants. Even when he can no longer be categorized as human, she still sees a fundamental value in him and respects him for the undead phenomenon she has befriended, still “real” in a way that’s utterly different from the boy killed seven years ago.
Idk, basically what I’m trying to say is that I think this question of “realness” is one that pervades throughout the Raven Cycle and so the fact that Gansey’s own state of reality is questionable is in keeping with the themes of the series. I personally that think that he’s still the same little boy that was stung by those bees, but since then, because of the “cycle” he’s just also been part Cabeswater, something ancient and timeless and inherently connected with legacy of Glendower. But still fundamentally the same boy.
But even if he isn’t, he’s still the same character we’ve grown to know and love throughout the books. We can ask the question about whether that Gansey is essentially “real” now that we know that he’s something other than just a person, but I think Gansey’s character rings true enough as both a human being and something a little fundamentally more, that I would consider him real, Cabeswater and all. But it’s very much up to interpretation imo
Also, is my outlook on this influenced by Fullmetal Alchemist and the fact that they ask pretty much the same question about whether people stripped of the obvious qualities of humanity can still be defined as “real” and ultimately answer it with a “yes, they can”? Probably.
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