I’m thinking about Billy Hargrove right now because I saw something about an author discrediting and invalidating someone’s concerns because they ship Hargrove??? SoI need to say this.
I like, resonate, and accept Billy Hargrove because he’s messy. Flawed. Humane. Angry. Real.
He’s driven by complexes, insecurities, and broken ideologies that have warped the way he sees the world, but he’s not irredeemable.
If given a proper support system, he could have been very much capable of un-linear, unclear, imperfect growth.
Was his anger, resentment, fear and self destructive energy targeted to undeserving people? Yes; But that’s honest.
When forced to endure warfare the way he was, in adolescence no less (so no one at his age behaves perfectly all the time and treats everyone how they deserve to be treated, even without one physically abusive parent and one neglectful one—which in and of itself is a form of abuse in my opinion to a child whose entire evolution in formative years depends upon said parents), you start to see the world through a distorted lens that tricks your brain into believing there’s a war everywhere and with everyone. Because that’s all you know.
Is it hard to watch at times? Yes. Is it honest? Yes. But that’s why it’s hard. It hits close to home. It’s human. It holds a lens to the way life happens to us all. Whether we respond “perfectly” or not.
It’s too easy to write Billy off as an apple who didn’t fall far from the tree of which gave him life, but that’s honestly lazy.
What he could have become when the reigns of his father was loosened, is endless.
Would he have changed overnight? Not likely. But he would have evolved. Without question that is a fact. He was a child still. In adulthood, he would have evolved regardless, as we all do, even if he didn’t change for the better. But I’m inclined to believe that he would have. He threw himself in front of a girl he didn’t know, had remorse for the actions that his flayed consciousness made him commit, and longed to protect a mother at a young age, even when that mother failed to protect him.
I myself love Lucas Sinclair and don’t make any excuses for Billy’s behavior with him. But I also refuse to turn a blind eye to the factors that shape all of us.
People are capable of change. And before his death, Billy made the choice to take the first step towards that growth. And yet still, he’s regarded as only the mistakes he’s made.
Mind you a boy like that?; Almost every decision he makes out in the real world stems from a deeply rooted trauma response of trying to be who his father demands. And seeking silent approval that his father will never grant.
He’s trying to earn a love that was his birthright.
He’s trying to be whoever he needs to be, a monster or not, to feel like finally, one of the people who are meant to love him, will at least, see him.
So as he charges into the world, he’s not really acting of his own free will when his autonomy has been dictated and snatched away from him since before he understood what was truly happening.
Billy Hargrove is a cautionary tale.
There were so many Billy Hargrove’s who grew into Neil’s because people regarded them as such before they ever had a real chance to change.
We write people off and reduce them to their wrong doings, placing them in box or a void that they can’t escape, and then we wonder why they won’t make a move to better themselves.
They’re in a cage, angry and battered, we judge and ask them why they scream.
Why they hate.
Why they don’t evolve.
The world sometimes doesn’t allow for evolution when we pass harsh and unforgiving judgements, deciding who quote on quote deserves to grow.
Billy Hargrove wasn’t perfect. And yes, we should have conversations about his actions and where he went wrong. The problem comes from when we talk about him as if he’s incapable of being more than that.
So many Billy’s are capable of flourishing and changing when given the grace to do so, and when taken out of the environment that lead them to believe they had to have raised fists against the word to begin with.
Billy Hargrove died before ever understanding that he wasn’t what his father said he was with strikes against the face and damaging expectations.
He was a victim.
The world is so stuck on having a perfect victim to accept.
Someone docile. Someone who retreats into themselves in response to abuse. Someone who wants to be invisible and who doesn’t make too much noise.
And that response to abuse is valid. But so is rage and anger and self imploding.
There is no perfect way to respond to trauma, there’s only a way.
Billy’s way was hurtful to those around him. It wasn’t perfect. But it was real. It was honest. And he should have been better to Max, absolutely. He shouldn’t have put hands on Lucas. Undeniable. But he never had anyone to show him that this wasn’t the way.
How do you know there’s anything different when a father strikes you constantly in your formative years?
How do you know the world at large isn’t under attack constantly?
How do you know that you’re safe in a world when your father taught you young, that you aren’t.
How do you know how to communicate with words when your father only taught you a language through violence?
You learn from the people around you.
If Billy had any other figures around him that helped guide him, and who’d have given him the space to do so without a constant judgmental oppression, who knows where he could’ve gone in life. What he could have been.
How much growth he could have had.
Who knows.
Shipping harringrove or resonating or understanding Billy doesn’t make you any less of a person. Nor does your opinion hold less weight.
Billy Hargrove wasn’t seen while he was alive like so many real people aren’t. Which is why I think it’s important to take an extra second to see beyond what’s obvious. To see what’s really there.
Anyway, harringrove lives! ❣️
