a sad, strange story. vaguely incestuous, in that the sibling relationship defines the book, is unnervingly central to the protagonist's sense of self. To those with siblings, that unnerve does hit home. No one will know you as they know you. An adult year of a girlfriend's life at someone's side is nothing (or perhaps, jealously, even more) to 11 years of childhood at their side.
Hank says that Gwin doesn't have that thing you need to get married, and I believe the inplication is that she already gave it away to her brother. A missing wedding ring finger in spirit, if not yet physically.
It's also a searing critique by analolgy of, one could say, a few things. Harry Potter (and JKR), fan works (that give hearts of themselves to the worlds of other people), AI (that great vampire).
The obvious. The one that gets muddy upon inspection. The children's book series of the 2000s, the one that lived a thousand lifetimes within the minds of children. The juggernaut that lives scrubbed clean in collective consciousness the author's once dirtiness and homelessness a charm woven into its success story. The author that some view as rotten, a person who grew ever more rotten as her star rose.
By making the main characters of this pseudo-potter real, it gives us a reflection point for the hopes, dreams, wishes, that fans projected onto its main trio (a duo here). These people, these fans, who came to this work with their own light, then seeing it reflected in the work. Like the mother in the theater of the dead. Like the many fans who told Gwin (and presumably Ennis) they felt they knew them, that they saved their lives.
It's not only about the people whose memories became entwined in this story, it's about those who gave their own creative work to the story. About fan culture itself as vampire, adding prestige and power to one towering cult of imagination.
And at the middle sits someone sucking it all up and grinding it back out for herself.
The magic of the main characters is no less real, but it's tarnished by the reality of the publishing industry's money-grubbing gnawing at it. The spittle of sucking up from a golden goose, rather than feeding ducklings of independent works. The meat that's getting made in the factory, spitting out one disaffected artist after another.
It seems a reflection of the fears of drowning by way of the tidal wave of one story's devotees. Or perhaps of being sucked into a corporate artist's life, beholden to the mouse or its ilk.
Last, AI. The beast that's coming to eat us all. The great creative compromise. Those that can't do, teach no longer. They just use AI. The bridge that lets us reach into the souls of artists and spit it out, bypassing our own voids altogether.
Rightly, it reckons with this reality as a tragedy of adulthood. In the YA story it feels it should be, Gwin would have stood up for what's right, told off her brother, saved the day. In the real world, she's already been stolen from. She's been chewed up and spat out. She's owed this from the world.
