marauders & the raven boys! my favorite codependent friendgroups!
we truly need to be talking more about the raven boys/ marauders parallels… like i’ve seen a few people mention it in passing but there is so much more there than surface level similarities u don’t get it like i do!!!! so this is me taking matters into my own hands and talking about it :) let’s look at the main four boys of each and discuss!Â
(if u haven’t read the raven cycle yet do NOT read this yes i am talking to u specifically u know who u are… go read trc then come back okay ty)
born into comfort, into wealth, into high society. both come from intact families and neither has ever gone without love.Â
incredibly naturally charismatic. they collect interesting people to themselves and then refuse to let go. they are loyal and trusting to a fault.
hopeless romantics but also really bad at romance… james was so annoying that lily basically hated him for years. gansey accidentally called blue a prostitute the first time they talked. and yet despite fumbling so hard, they both landed girls so far out of their league? unfair.
a bit pretentious. maybe even more than a bit. neither of them is genuinely uppity or snooty, but they know how to put their airs to use when they must.
smart without hardly even trying. school comes easy to them, but both love a challenge. james canonically spends a lot of time practicing intense, extracurricular magic. gansey tries to solve a thousand year old myth. jocks with special interests!!
dumb as shit at times. accidentally hurt the people close to them kind of a lot, without even trying to.Â
neither really knows who they are when they are alone.
the first time we meet each of them, we already know they die young <3
also born into wealth, but neither fits into it the way gansey and james do.
messy families. and not just for the drama; sirius has the whole incest thing, and ronan has the whole his-mom-was-actually-literally-dreamt-up-by-his-dad thing, which is like… messy.
they hate their brother(s), but would literally die for them.
they’d actually die for any of their friends.
both look tough and scary (and can be so when necessary), but are also just like emo nerds. they know latin for some reason.
reckless, chaotic. the type to act first and think later. will charge headlong into danger for the fun of it.
the dog thing! sirius is a literal dog at times. ronan was called gansey’s dog by kavinsky, and he neither denies nor resents the implications of that. even gansey admits kavinsky had a point there.
jealous with their friendships. they don’t want to have to share the people they love.
had massive crushes/ were like fully in love with their respective boyfriends for so long before they ever made a move. both thought they were subtle about it. literally everybody knew.
physically they are like… the exact same to me. too tall, too lanky, covered with freckles and scars. neither has any idea how attractive they really are.
rough childhoods, like, physically. remus dealt with transformations every month, and adam had to deal with his father’s anger every day.
the outsider. they come from a different world than the other boys, and are absolutely conscious of that fact. they care a lot more about these differences than the rest of their friends do.Â
stubborn. they don’t want to accept help, they might not even know how to. vulnerability is dangerous, and admitting weakness is like admitting failure.
probably the smartest, but because they have to actually work for it. they cannot afford to fall behind. where their friends coast or simply don’t care, they work their asses off. they could thrive academically, but their circumstances make it a lot harder for them to do so.
always tired. too many bills to pay all the time.
both are pretty much literal forces of nature. remus is controlled by the moon. adam offers himself over to the control of the forest.
they each think they are unloveable. literally all their friends have had a crush on them at some point.Â
NO IM NOT DOING THIS ONE NOT TO MY DEAREST DARLING DEAD NOAH. well… i’m kinda doing it. i don’t want to talk too much about them personality wise, bc where i am partial to a fanon peter-never-betrays-them-and-is-the-funniest-and-most-diva-of-them-all interpretation, canonically i hate him and he sucks.
there definitely can be some character similarities between them… both are furthest from the group, in a way. peter was called once more of a follower than a friend of the rest of them. noah, noah was more when he was alive. the whole ghost thing makes it hard for him to fit in at times :(
HOWEVER what i DO really want to talk about is how noah and peter are direct narrative foils !!!!!! this is my favorite thing! look at it this way:
james died because of peter’s selfishness. gansey lived because of noah’s sacrifice.Â
really, the whole plot of both series is directly influenced by peter and noah. if not for peter, james wouldn’t have died. harry would never have to be known as the boy who lived. if not for noah, gansey would have died the first time. he would have stayed dead the second time.
noah, to me, is what peter could have been. we don’t know what made peter betray his closest friends; but i think it must have been out of desire for glory or honor. i mean, he was a gryffindor, but he sure as hell wasn’t brave. perhaps he got sick of living in the shadow of his friends. he can’t have betrayed them simply because he was forced to do so; he was the one who actively brought voldemort back. why would he do so, if not to try and prove that he was greater than james, than sirius, than remus? he had something he wanted to prove.
however, noah? noah accepts his non-life in the shadows. we know it hurts him, being less than when he was alive, and while he might be jealous of gansey, ronan, and adam at times, he never resents them. he makes the ultimate sacrifice when he chooses to give himself up for gansey. he quietly slipped from time, and received the opposite of honor and glory. his every memory was forgotten. but, for love of his friends, he did it anyways. he didn’t need anything, besides the knowledge that the rest of them could live. he is the best of them all.
wow okay! i said a lot but also not nearly enough. i could talk for so long about all these boys… also! fanon peter get behind me idc! i know i went on this whole rant about canon peter but let it be known that i can and i will reject canon whenever i like! so to me, noah is alive and well and peter is just like him. i miss them both. i miss them all!
(last little note! though there are so many similarities between each of the boys, blue is not comparable to any of the girls… she’s all her own person, she’s all blue. i think she’d like that)
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