Rambling rant about chnt (mainly focusing on episode 52 and onwards!) (this will be mentioning Sydney’s self destructive behavior; up and Adam’s devious plans; Jedidiah’s guilt/fear/anger; and a few other things) (including the rant about why people should not hate Fennel for the way they talked to Sydney)
Hi! This is just me saying that this rant won’t be as organized or formalized (if you can call it that) as my other rants about these topics! As I am a bit busy and these are just random thoughts I am trying to mold into the form of words. So without further ado, let us begin!:
I want to start this off with the rant about Fennel’s talking to Sydney thing. Because I have been saying I would write that down for what a month or so now?:
Fennel shouldn’t be hated for what they said to Sydney regarding Soren and other things, because Fennel is clearly very worried, but not just for Soren. Here’s what I mean by that; notice how they say that “[they] hope [Sydney] never has a loved one hurt the way [Soren] is” which is an important line to think about, this is because they are (yes) worried about Soren, but also because they are worried that Sydney won’t be able to help/won’t be willing to help if someone he (Sydney) cares about is in trouble.
And yes this doesn’t excuse the way they said before that “no wonder everyone hates you” and “you are so mean” but theres context here: first of all when Fennel first came in to talk to Sydney, they weren’t aggressive. They simply were asking for help with Soren, (though we’ll get to more on the matters of Soren later), and when Sydney outright refused to talk about it or try to help they were devastated, because they don’t like seeing Soren hurt; think about it, you would probably do anything to help if a close loved one was hurt or was about to do something dangerous. What would you do if you were denied help for them?
Fennel is lashing out at Sydney due to the stress of seeing Soren hurt, but also to try and teach Sydney to take care of people/care for their feelings as well as his own.
Now to rant about Sydney’s self destructive behaviors + up and Adam yayyyy:
First of all Up and Adam specifically suggested the therapy to Sydney because he knew Sydney couldn’t resist it after some time and several factors causing stress in relationships; as we all know Sydney wants to be “eaten by something that loves [him]”. But this isn’t love, not in the way that two people loving each other is love, but in the way a hunter loves its prey. What I mean to say is, Up and Adam is preying upon Sydney’s vulnerabilities (which include him being insecure, and any stress in his relationship with Jedidiah), but he is doing this in such a way that its disguised as love. He acts as if he’s doing Sydney a favor, which is not true. Because, while it was VERY unethical for Jedidiah to do what he’s done, what Up and Adam is doing is just as bad if not worse.
Up and Adam may not be lying about being able to cause Sydney’s death, but and this is a big but, if this goes too far then Sydney won’t be able to turn back if he decides this isn’t the way. Adam’s way comes with a price to pay, and the cost is pretty large: to succeed in what he’s doing, Adam has to successfully push Sydney to withdraw himself from everyone (which he’s done a pretty good job in doing), make everyone tire of helping him, and get him to willingly give his blood and more.
So far Adam has gotten Sydney to be bitter towards everyone, by making him believe (through using his insecurities) more than he did before that people hate him. This has caused him to both ignore other people’s feelings but also to make private arguments public (like we saw with Joshua). And when he’s confronted for that, he either pushes people away more, or lets them get a bit closer temporarily only to push them away again when they offer solutions to his problems. Sydney has also willingly given Adam blood, an eye, satisfaction, and love, and fear. Adam is feasting on Sydney and in return only giving him pain; I didn’t mention death, because he isn’t giving Sydney it in the way that he’d wanted/normally would happen. Sydney is already self destructive in many ways, but Adam is specifically using this weakness and trauma and fear to get him to be more and more self destructive.
If you’ve ever felt gross after Up and Adam either talked to or about Sydney in some way in any of the episodes (idk if you have), I wouldn’t be surprised, because the man is essentially abusing Sydney, so subconsciously you know somethings not right about the way he’s talking about Sydney. And there is a plot reason for it, Adam takes joy in eating Sydney both in body and in emotion, he drinks in Sydney’s fear, anger, sadness and fuels it, he eats Sydneys eye, and drinks his blood; he seems to have a reason he believes this to be a good thing. He is scared of Sydney, but is using this to grapple for power above him, he wants to feel strong, and to satiate his never-ending hunger.
Another point I would like to make is the fact that Adam is always eating snack foods and packaged foods, but those never fill him. We know hunger and love are connected in symbology for this at least, so I would like to purpose a theory: Adam is low on love, he craves it, and cannot get it, we see him desperately trying to fill himself with it through eating, eating snack foods, those weren’t made with love, they were mass produced and packaged. He enjoys the taste, but they do nothing to fill him. When he realizes he can’t fill himself with them, he uses them just to temporarily satiate himself until he can get more love/food. In this case, Sydney, he is eating Sydney, eating his love, eating his care, in the form of getting him to lay all of his trust upon Adam. By doing this Adam is bestowed with trust, love and food. The food is Sydney himself, given with care. This fills him because it is filled with a type of love, a twisted type of love yes, but still love. But, in a lot of symbology love is in the heart… is he saving that for last?
Adam is interesting to think about in comparison to Elijah, because both are trying to kill Sydney, for both different reasons and the same if you think about it. Because, Elijah was trying to make him live forever to worship and importantly feel the love of. While Adam is trying to kill Sydney while importantly drinking/eating his love. Both of them are doing it for love, both in twisted ways, but also very different ways.
Sydney is killing himself in mind, meaning he is making sure everyone around him would already consider him too far gone to save, so when he’s actually gone, they won’t think twice of it.
Now the matter of Jedidiah:
Jedidiah is an interesting one to think about, as he obviously cares for Sydney, in so many ways; but he isn’t good at expressing it, and the ways in which their relationship is without change are kind of toxic. Jedidiah doesn’t want to lose Sydney, but also in many respects already has, he is’t willing to let go but also isn’t willing to make things right. He is scared, he feels guilty, and he wants to love and to be loved as anyone would be.
Whatever he did to Sydney is something he won’t admit, because he regrets it, he is scared of what he’s done, so he does what he needs to to keep Sydney alive but he never processes it fully, otherwise he’d feel even more guilty for what he’s done, and he wouldn’t be able to look at Sydney without remembering in detail all that he’s done. Though not processing it has also caused him trauma, trauma he’s trying to suppress rather than work through, which is what causes him to avoid Sydney and to snap at him all the time. He does want to protect Sydney and keep him safe but he cannot in his current condition effectively do so.
If you have anything to add/point out you can mention it to me! Or if you just want to discuss it I am willing to do so!
