margo. roth. speigleman.
i actually feel really strongly about this, i feel so strongly about this and i FEEL strongly so much and i'm gonna fucking talk about it because it's one am and i'm watching the paper towns movie because this is the kind of shit i do at one am and i am reminded of when i managed to quote john green in every single one of my ap lit papers and i was actually kind of impressed with myself and then one of my classmates got annoyed with me because (in her words) he "made the manic pixie dream girl trope" and then got mad at me when i tried to explain that in reality that is not at all what john green did, functionally. is margo roth speigleman a manic pixie dream girl? sure, if you only read half the novel. the whole point of margo roth speigleman and her relationship with q is to deconstruct the manic pixie dream girl trope. is there or is there not a whole arc in the book dedicated to q realising he was viewing margo as a concept and not a person. is there or is there not a whole page where he understands that he isn't understanding her or seeing her as a whole person. is there or is there not a moment in which he realises that that's bad and what is actually functionally keeping him from getting her and ultimately finding her. she is a teenager who has a lot of hurt in her, and for all his perceived faults john green is REALLY GOOD AT WRITING HURT.
and herein lies the problem, doesn't it? who is going to take the time to read the novel in the context of understanding margo past what they believe her to be? these same people who look at their real friends and see their hurt as surface level entertainment are the people who think that margo roth speigleman is meant to be the hailing crown jewel of the manic pixie dream girl trope, because they think that that is the function of trauma. the read of margo and her stroy, of the novel in general, as something that glorifies the manic pixie dream girl is a read that comes from a person who already glorifies the manic pixie dream girl.
maybe i'm projecting a little. maybe i had a friend who continuously compared me to margo in ways that made me realise he didn't understand the book. maybe when he said don't pull a margo on me as a fun little joke he didn't realise that there was some part of me that wished i was that bold. maybe that's the point. margo represents something, undoubtedly. but she isn't meant to represent the manic pixie dream girl in a way that markets it, rather, she's meant to show how the manic pixie dream girl is underneath the perception of the trope. what it means to be the person who others look to for their lifechanging experiences and use the ways that your hurt informs you to grow without helping or understanding you. using your broken pieces to build themselves up and then letting them break all over again after they get used up.
maybe i'm not making sense, maybe it's just one am.
but at the same time, maybe margo roth speigleman is so completely nuanced that people just want her to be shallow because it means they can get away without examining themselves.
anyway, i should stop consuming john green media in the middle of the night. it always makes me sad and pensive.