So like, I recognise all the things Tristan did wrong, I truly do. I recognise that the essence and aim of the Byron/Tristan arc, successfully executed imo, is to portray two people with very different but essentially human and somewhat reasonable personalities and ideologies who just shouldn’t be stuck together and are likely to always rub each other the wrong way, and to capture the particular frustrations of twins who are excessively compared and contrasted with one another. The subjectivity is the point.
But also.
Byron, who sees himself as the unassuming and nonthreatening one, the one incapable of asserting himself or making a splash in the world or winning people over to his side, is, in fact, usually the one initiating physical violence upon Tristan first. Byron’s the one who chokes Tristan out in an argument, and somehow expects Tristan to think clearly enough to tap out while Tristan is genuinely halfway to dead of oxygen deprivation and then has the gall to be angry and surprised that Tristan physically fights back and does so in a wounding way. Byron’s the one engaging in self-harm that is also, by virtue of their Case 70 situation, directly physically felt and impossible to guard against or physically resist by Tristan (and which happens to echo the way Tristan stabs Byron).
Byron is the one essentially refusing to meaningfully participate in group therapy, even years after complaining that he never got a fair hearing in the individual therapy offered by Reach because Tristan took up too much time. Byron’s the one who, when given the opportunity to speak up for himself to others who let him down or leave him behind, repeatedly chooses to stay silent about it and pretend things are fine by him.
Byron’s the one holding actual hatred in his heart toward Tristan rather than Tristan’s frustration or irritation.
It’s a rigorous portrait of a self-defeating character who just happens to spend all his time first socially and then physically tied to his own walking Chad meme. I feel like I recognise him from people in the early stages on r/IncelExit when they aren’t yet quite ready to change.
What I’m saying is Tristan was incredibly wrong to do all that, but I would also be going mad living inside Byron half the time.
