personally one of my biggest disappointments with greywaren was the lack of discussion about like. The World. like MI had SO much of this energy of like revolution and We Have To Change The World To Survive It and all of that was just like. totally skirted. not to mention the unanswered questions and plotholes like does the world know dreams and dreamers exist now? wtf happened to Ronan and Hennessy being wanted by the FBI? all jokes aside with that it’s kind of disappointing how we just get like one sentence in the epilogue that tells us that they’re traveling the world helping people make sweetmetals where the ley line needs it like I love that for them but how did they come to that conclusion. if the takeaway is supposed to be that the revolution needed to happen in the way they saw themselves and their relationships first then that’s dope but there was nothing to really tie that together with everything we set up in MI
THE THING IN THE FOREST: DRAMATIC MEDIATIONS ON GREYWAREN CHARACTERS
I am Declan Lynch. I am the boy erased by purposeful blandness, the boy who crafted a mask so thoroughly it became him. I am the boy who hides his soul in the attic full of paintings and the fancy shoes he can’t seem to convince himself not to wear, despite how hard he tries. I am the brother who committed to staying safe by becoming nothing, unnoticeable, unremarkable, afraid that if too much space is taken up by something like a personality there will be knives at my throat and nightmares I can’t even imagine. I am the brother who had to be responsible, because no one else would, the one who continued to play the part even when my insides were breaking again and again and again and again and again.
I am Adam Parrish. I am the boy with insatiable ambition, desperate to rewrite his past. I am the boy that feels unknowable. I am the boy playing life like a strategy game, unconcerned about who I have to lie to or what rules I have to break. I am the boy who believes helplessly that if I can just get somewhere, if I can just make something of my life, if I can become some picture of success then maybe all that pain could be worth it. I am the boy who can’t allow the reality of myself to be held by more than one person. I am the boy who tries to convince himself not to love and fails miserably. I am the boy who collects crying friends, the boy with the quiet otherworldly power only few seem to understand. I am the uncanny stranger next to you. I am the outsider in every room. I am desperate to belong to a world not made for me.
I am Ronan Lynch. I am the car crash you can’t stop happening. I am everyone’s problem they don’t know how to solve. I am the disaster in your dorm room. I am the thing that wakes with my rage in my hands. I am the brooding misunderstood teenager, I am the young boy who is lonely. I am the soft and fragile thing hidden in glares and snarls. I am the thing in the shape of a human longing desperately to be real. I am the thing with too many feelings. I don’t know how to survive in this world. I don’t know how to be complete in the other. I am the thing that loves fiercely, I am the thing terrified of my hugeness and my smallness both, because neither have given me a place to belong. I am the god dreaming of being a baby dreaming of being a god.
I am Jordan Hennessy. I am the girl who runs from her own mirror, and yet finds herself surrounded by it everywhere she turns. I am the girl who cannot help but re-create herself, again and again and again, hoping that at least one version will turn out better than the original, or at least stay alive long enough to find out. I am the girl with the void inside of her big enough to destroy the world. I am the girl who’s first experience of love came from the act of painting over her mother’s horrible portrait of a daughter she did not bother to know. I am the girl who hates herself, but I am also the girl brave enough to love herself even when she is terrified of what loving herself might mean, and not knowing if it will ever be possible for her to love or be loved by anyone else. I am the explosion of words in the room, I am the car crash that happened on purpose. I am the artist who dreams while awake.
I am the other Jordan Hennessy. I am the girl who’s never had her own life. I am a girl made of dreams with dreams of her own she’s not allowed to have. I am the girl that stays awake only by the ceaseless and restless pursuit of art that is bigger than reality. I am the girl with lost memories. I am the girl with no option but to create her future, because her past was never truly hers.
I am Carmen Farooq-Lane. I am the woman who gave her life to a cause that betrayed her. I am the woman with blood on her hands. I am the woman who learned to control herself because she couldn’t control her volatile brother, and someone had to be controlled. I am the woman who must keep herself together, no matter what it takes, no matter what she loses, I am the woman who can’t seem to stop what she is desperately trying to stop, what we all know is coming. I am the woman with the apocalypse inside her.
I am Matthew Lynch. I am the golden child, the easy one, the one that everyone loves simply because I am good, because there is nothing about me to suggest any wrongness. I am the brother who isn’t real. I am the boy who does not know himself, because all he has been is what was dreamt into him, what he has allowed others to shape him into. I am the boy who tries to fight his brightness in rebellion. I am the boy who can’t help but make others smile anyway.
I am the being known as Bryde. I am the ancient voice in the forest that just appeared yesterday. I am the disdainful hawkish man who believes the world is killing him and killing itself. I am the guy who is mostly right, but is wrong in the ways that matter. I am the one who does not know if he can trust what he knows. I am the angst of a teenage boy and the wisdom of a god and the longing of a revolution. I am the one who does not know if there is anything left worth saving.
I am Liliana the Visionary. I am the maiden, the mother and the crone. I am the human volcano; I am the woman who must erupt to stay alive. I am the woman who chooses her own life, no matter the destruction it causes. I am the woman who believes despite everything that it will all work out. I am the woman with the sound of all her years within her. I am the woman who refuses to keep it all in.
I am Mór Ó Corra. I am the woman who can’t help but dream pain into everything she touches. I too am afraid of the thing in the forest. I too wonder if it was a mistake to bring it to life.
I am Niall Lynch. I am the father with a heart bigger than his brain. I too want to love the thing I’m afraid of. I too want desperately to make it human.
I am the Lace. I am the dark mirror you do not want to face. I am the dream where you can’t wake up. I am the dream where it was all your fault. I am the dream of the world without magic. I am the thing that shows you what you already feared. I am the shadow of the world that will not stop until the world faces itself. I am the voice you already know.
I am the Greywaren. I am the thing in the forest, the thing beyond worlds, choosing life, again and again and again. I am the thing that belongs nowhere and everywhere. I am the thing that talks to you in your dreams. I am the power of possibility. I am the bravery of deciding what to make real, what to love, what to become. I am the thread of magic that connects us all. I am the end in the beginning in the end.
idk there’s more I wanna say re: dreamer trilogy apocalypse vs revolution. carmen “I’m going to stop the apocalypse” to “if she thought about it, the apocalypse had already happened inside her a long time ago” (or however that quote goes) farooq-lane vs ronan “I want to change the world” to “he made up the task of saving the world, which meant nothing to him, instead of his family, which meant everything to him” lynch. I can’t articulate my thoughts rn but. means something
