okay so heres my question whats your opinion of jim breaking his promise to his mother in p1ep25 I was kinda... disappointed like I understand that his mom not knowing is the default state of that relationship, but the whole ‘breaking the curse will remove memories’ felt very forced imo, and I was disappointed in Jim’s growth of character, because I feel that a big part of his growth is him learning that the help of his friends is valuable to him
like I understand that he doesnt want her to get hurt but,,, still
Yes, this is an excellent point and well worth discussing.
I agree that the memory wipe sucked, but I was more or less expecting it given the genre. I’m honestly surprised they took her finding out as far as they did.
It’s a built-in weakness to the bildungsroman: Since the narrative is about a young person taking on independence and developing into an adult, the governing adults in their lives by necessity must be kept at arm’s length to allow the protagonist to learn and grow.
(trolls do NOT count since they apparently think a battle to the death is an appropriate learning experience for a 16 yo)
This is why Disney’s so notorious for killing off parents and why so many YA fantasy stories involve a long, lonely journey. The protagonist must face seemingly insurmountable conflicts and resolve them indepenently. A major part of adolescence is learning to stand on your own (or at least within your own social group), and coming of age stories reflect this by pushing parental figures into the background. Barb couldn’t be a part of Jim’s narrative because it would effectively end his autonomy. (which does not reflect on real life, but we’re talking narrative structure here)
That’s me, sitting outside the story, thinking about the writers and the wider arc of it as a Piece of Fiction.
Now from a character perspective, I completely understood why Jim lied. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to grab his shoulders and shake some sense into him, buuut…
Think about the situation. He has an impending battle with Angor Rot, a ruthless wildcard. Jim has to be able to fight. He can’t give up the amulet, even if he wanted to. The immediate result of Barb finding out was her majorly freaking, asking him to quit, and then throwing herself into a battle he’d begged her to stay out of, wrecking their plan, and being terribly, near-fatally injured.
Jim can’t change the amount of danger he’s in, but he can limit his mother’s involvement–and therefore risk of injury– by keeping her in the dark. There’s also a practical aspect–if she enforced grounding or tried to get directly involved, it’d be a disaster for everyone.
Jim has already set himself up as a caretaker, giving his mom the emotional and practical support she needs as an overworked single mother. He feels responsible for her–and part of that self-inflicted duty is downplaying his own risks and problems. His mom has expressed concerns about him taking too much responsibility– but whether she likes it or not, it remains a defining aspect of his character.
All of which you know already, I’m sure. The point being that all of these factors– safety, practicality, an overdeveloped sense of protectiveness, even a little bit of a teenaged need for independence– point to continuing the lie as the obvious choice.
I agree that the overarching theme is Jim learning to depend on his friends, ie, they’re stronger together as a team, and this moment with his mom really seems counter to that message.
But does Jim really learn that lesson in s1?
An interesting thing about the end of s1 is that Jim consistently acts counter to everything he leaned on earlier in the season. He subverts the teamwork pattern we saw work so well before on Killahead Bridge. He lies to his mom. He draws away Angor Rot to fight him alone in the Hero’s Forge. And then he goes to the Darklands alone.
This is, again, probably a combination of factors. The Council and their misguided advice, the disaster that happened with his mom, and at the end, Arrrgh’s death. But it’s also consistent with Jim’s underlying character. He sees himself as someone who protects, who’s independent, and sets himself wildly unrealistic expectations.
Which gets back into that whole ‘these characters act so human and I love it’ bit. He’s an idiot, and in that particular moment he was a mucho grande idiot, but it was so true to the idiot we’ve followed through 25 episodes up to this point that I didn’t expect anything less.
Oh, and may I note here that it was also a very effective bit of drama, the twining story of Barb, Strickler and Jim and their different feelings for each other. If you’re upset that Jim didn’t tell her, that’s good storytelling at work. The writers lovingly traced out the tragic elements of each angle and made it a good show.
At the very least, Trollhunters allowed us a full emotional arc, gave Jim and Barb a chance to talk, gave her an opportunity to absorb Jim’s situation and tell him she’s proud of him. Even if the ultimate fallout was disappointing, it still did some great character exploration that I personally found very satisfying. I haven’t given up hope that they’ll revisit this in s3 with more permanence.
So I guess the tl;dr is that I was okay with it? The memory wipe was disappointing but unsurprising, and I have a hard time picturing Jim willingly telling her the truth when there’s another way. *shrug*
