can you tell me more about henry x gansey. I feel like I'm so close to seeing the light
this is who you are. to me. for asking. i love (sar)chengsey SO SO BAD. i have made several posts about them across the years including at minimum 5 fics (eg 1, 2) but its like. i ADMIT my favorite version of them requires editing of canon(in that they dated and broke up before TRB) but even if you DONT do that and stick exclusively to whats written:
required reading IMO is specifcally TRK chapters 28, 29, 30, 37, 38, 58, 66. i knowwww we all forget wtf happened in trk but i feel theyre so good for establishing henry as a well rounded character in a subtle and natural way
i will begin this essay by pointing out that henry jokes and wears a 'snazzy' outfit one time which is all fanon cares about BUT he canonically knows way more about the fairy market and declan's history and niall lynch than ANY of the gangsey do. also he got KIDNAPPED and kept in a GRAVE for FIVE ENTIRE DAYS. and has had weapons pointed at him MORE THAN ONCE! (ch37).
^the logo bear is a henry thesis statement. to me. now to the meat of it. gansey and henry are character foils in almost exactly the same way ronan and kavinsky are. (new guy with an established friend group who you see on the fringes abruptly becomes a main character who has one-on-one interactions with a member of the gangsey going through a crisis of self.) henry acknowledges this by pointing out their shared age 10 traumas + their shared tendencies to put themselves into the exact situations they're afraid of (gansey with the outdoors, henry with holes). gansey specifically says that henry is practically his twin,
and smth i find crucial abt chengsey is that henry is the only person who has never needed anything from gansey. gansey who has spent the entirety of his appearance since page one making plans for his own demise, desperately stressed about how people will function without him, what happens to ronan, what happens to noah, what adam's father could do to him, etc. henry is the manic pixie dream girl urging gansey to actually LIVE and not just wait to die.
henry is the only one of the gangsey who fundamentally understands that every side of gansey is gansey. blue likes who he is but hates president cell phone. henry not only sees president cell phone, he breaks through PCP when gansey is IN that mode. it's why gansey's parents like him better than ronan and adam. they'll GET each other in a way that adam or blue or ronan can't share because theyre inherently different in personality & the way theyve been raised. the reason noah goes away when henry enters the situation is because henry/noah functionally fill the same Vibe slot :shrug: there's smth to be said about henry and gansey's individual reactions to having guns pointed at them but this is long enough as is.
one last thing is that henry has been in an enemies-to-friends thing with gansey the whole time. henry was specifically meant to spy on gansey for nefarious reasons but CHOSE to betray his mother and change his mind and choose gansey's friendship. i think it's largely because gansey passed a test of mettle by just. being a good person. and this friendship with henry SAVES HIS LIFE because when everyone else is freaking out, henry says the one thing nobody else realises, the one thing that actually kickstarts gansey's resurrection:
WAIT SORRY ONE LAST EDIT. when i read this at 16 i was like "....hot. will make this my personality now."
