making my own post re tlg stuff: my take is like. i don't necessarily think its done Well. but my instinct is always to find a justification for canon that makes sense (& to treat the story as its own entity rather than Something The Author Said, which i realize is an approach that has significant limitations) and i think there is a way to justify the whole Would You Choose Me Over Hockey Fight if we add some layers of emotional reasoning that reid implies but does not fully explore.
if i'm being honest one of my biggest gripes when i first read tlg was ilya's depression plot and how very surface-level his depression was explored. i also upon first reading actually really liked the Would You Choose Me fight bc it was the first time there was significant #drama in what was otherwise, To Me, a pretty boring novel, plot-wise. and i think that is because of the aforementioned surface-levelness. BUT. if i were to be generous and treat the story like its own entity that maybe was just not fully manifested to its potential, with all the events staying the same, there's a way to argue that what was unexplored in the underlying emotional reality of ilya's depression is the missing link that makes the fight and the central conflict of the novel make way more sense.
what bothered me the most about how ilya's depression was talked about (keep in mind i am a #therapist with strong anti-medical model opinions who is incapable of being chill about how mental health is treated in media) is that it's essentially presented as this Disease he inherited from his mother that he has no control over. and i understand that that is in fact how he would see it. i also think that that idea is a self-fulfilling prophecy that keeps him stuck in it, and i think that also makes perfect sense. he's terrified of ending up like his mother, so he fights against his own sadness, which just makes it worse, making him depressed and more likely to end up like his mother. you can see this when he confesses to shane that he is afraid it will get worse and there will be nothing shane can do (i'm afraid of putting you in the position i was in, watching my mother slip away from me while i was completely helpless and alone) and in the way he keeps insisting that he can Fix Himself to be good enough for shane, and in the way he immediately spirals upon having One Bad Feeling post-engagement when he loses a game and gets passively suicidal on the plane ride home (i thought i had beat my sadness with the power of gay love but it came back which means i have no control over my emotions and i'll end up like my mother or burden shane trying not to so i might as well just die now actually). there’s also another layer to this - if it wasn’t purely a Disease She Couldn’t Control, if she had any agency whatsoever, then that means she chose to leave ilya. which means ilya wasn’t enough for her. giving him a core fear of not being enough that is once again reflected in his relationship with shane (though of course he will likely not unpack this for many years bc of his need to keep his mother on a pedestal.)
But! none of that is really explicitly Addressed in the text. ilya's therapist does not really do a lot to call out this belief ilya has that he is Doomed to end up like his mother, which ends up kind of leaving ilya's reading of his depression as this purely biological inherited disease as the accepted truth. the reason ilya’a depression stays surface level is probably because the text is a romance novel that is not equipped to delve deep into mental health. but it also has the consequence of making shane and ilya's core conflict seem rather emotionally context-less, and the whole Would You Choose Me fight seem kind of random and out of character.
ilya's core fear is that he is going to emotionally burden shane, that he will be more than shane can handle and that he's not worth what shane will have to do to handle him. this manifests as ilya keeping his emotional needs to himself, especially ones that he believes will conflict with shane's and potentially cause shane to realize he'd be better off without him. the reason ilya wants to be out more than shane is because shane is the only person ilya has really let in emotionally (going off book canon so ignoring svetlana here) which means All of his emotional needs (which I think he is mostly attempting to satisfy via sex, which of course only kinda works as a stopgap) are going to one Very Secret basket. while being a Secret feels kinda hot and fun to shane, to ilya it feels like a punishment, proof that he can only ever be partially happy, and a reminder that his very existence is a burden to the one he loves most. (i think he also has a bit of emotional object impermanence: he's finally loved, but no one is allowed to know, so when shane isn't with him, is it even real?)
shane's core fear is that he's going to be Found Out. that he's going to lose control of his life, fall from the pedestal and be damned to hell. not really by ilya, at this point (ilya already Found Him Out by loving what was his most shamed aspect of self, his Sexual Freak Self) but by The World (which, In My Annoying Therapist Opinion, i think is likely an extrapolation of an emotional reality his parent's - probably mostly yuna - unintentionally laid on him). Hockey, and hockey culture, for shane, represents The World. this also makes more sense when we add the context of shane's autism. he likely, from a young age, has felt like The World is a place he doesn't really belong. Hockey is the one place in the world where he undeniably Does belong, because no matter your social failings, no one can argue you're not supposed to be there when you're literally that good. so his entire sense of belonging in the world hinges on keeping himself good enough so that Hockey will approve of him no matter what.
i think this changes a bit upon being in a relationship with ilya, who is maybe the first person in shane's life to love him for more than what he can perform - to love him inspite of (or because of) what he perceives as his failings and imperfections. i think this challenges shane's idea of what belonging is, but it takes some time for him to accept it. he's spent his entire life sacrificing himself to the god of Hockey just to feel belonging - only to find out it wasn't real belonging. (keep in mind when i say Hockey with capital H i'm talking about the world that hockey represents for shane, not the sport itself, which you could argue he'd love regardless). i think for most of tlg, he's still in the bargaining stage where he wants to believe that Hockey really does love him, and he's not ready to risk losing its approval.
So! when ilya asks Would You Choose Me Over Hockey, i don’t think he’s Actually asking shane to give up the sport he loves or his career. what he's really asking is - if loving me means losing their approval, is it worth it? if it happens - when it happens - will you regret loving me for what it made you lose? am i exactly the burden i've always feared i am? i think it's also a bit of projected resentment of the things he preemptively gave up (sports car collection, friends he can be out with, the entirety of his boston career) to be with shane - which shane never asked him to do! but he did, both for the sake of practicality but also for the sake of Making Himself Less Of A Burden, a resentment that's really towards himself for minimizing his own needs because he always insists he's Fine. and because shane is often too distracted by his own anxiety to really question it, he unknowingly enables ilya in lying about being Fine.
i also think this is why shane proposing after the plane crash and deciding he wants to come out - while narratively feels a bit lazy - CAN make sense if we read it as shane realizing he was never actually in control anyway - no matter how perfect he makes himself, he could lose everything in a second. being forced to confront the idea of actually losing ilya permanently, to death, forces him to contend with the fact that the belonging he thought he had with Hockey is actually not belonging, or at the very least, completely and devastatingly pales in comparison to what ilya means to him.
(and then of course to top it all off - shane's right! his worst fear comes true! he does fall from the pedestal and get condemned to Hockey Hell! and i do think that would cause a Lot of grief and anger! but that ultimately he wouldn't regret it, he would just be Pissed The Hell Off. which i am naively hoping we will get to see in unrivaled or at least in the show but that's to be determined.)
anyway this was way longer of a post than i intended but that's my very generous reading of tlg's emotional conflict
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