i want you to know your tags on the self reblog? about quentin choosing things over fillory. its sending me into a spiral. I WISH the show had had the balls to actually show us quentin struggling with the idea of fillory vs the reality. or even just showing him loving it. it was his whole personality and yet he was never there. im having so many racing thoughts about it aaaaahhhhh
ah, yes, the quentin coldwater spiral, i know it well. <3
i think it actually mostly works for me though? as a show-don’t-tell thing. i think it’s so clear, throughout the seasons, that fillory does not actually mean that much to him. he gets the choice to be king, over and over (eliot has to poke him hard in 2x12 and invoke “you chose to be king and this is what that means” to get him to leave brakebills south), and he doesn’t take it, because alice means more. in 3x10 when he’s like “uh, can i point out the uncomfortable truth” @ eliot and margo about how fillory deposed them... he’s just not touched by it! because fillory doesn’t actually mean that much to him, at least not compared to the people he loves. hard to say whether he’d realized that consciously (probably? he’s such an overthinker) but i think it’s clear in his actions, which is why 4x12’s speech felt so jarring.
whether we should’ve seen the internal journey of this -- actually showing us quentin struggling with his feelings about fillory -- is a good question. i think that was intentional on the part of the writers’: in 2x13’s recap ember/SJH says “the personal nature of her story subverted quentin’s hero’s journey nicely.” and i think it might’ve been part of decentering him. if the show hadn’t decided to put itself on fire it would've needed to bring it up, to wrap up his story, but 4x12 was not the way to go about it.
