Some days I sit and stew on the fact that Shelley’s mom should take some of the blame for all the OTHER things that happened to the boys beside the hydatid.
there were so many signs that shelley was.. a lil funky, and she did nothing bc she was convinced her son was fine?? and to be fair half of it was him being a manipulator but.. where’d ur cat go mrs. longpre.. oh yk, ur son couldn’t possibly be the reason,
I know she didn’t know, but most parents with kids who experience the same symptoms that Shelley did, know in the back of their heads and ugh
it’s a bad thing at this point to be left with a keyboard and a raging fixation
tw: talk about ephraim’s past abuse and trauma, spoilers and his eventual last scenes
-anyway ephraim’s like running theme is a fear of being left vulnerable because one of the last time’s he was, his dad literally displaced his shoulder,
-this runs through the book as the constant replacement of vulnerability to anger, whether it’s caused by confusion, fear, ect, he’s always going to be the first one to argue about something.
-not to mention the amount of trauma this kid already has?? like his dad, and he literally saw a dude half alive after an accident.
-ephraim does not process things like the rest of the kids do, because anger’s always been his first reaction. if he can make the other person fear him there’s less of a chance he’ll get hurt.
-this runs into his “stunts” and haphazard dangerous things he does to cope with the amount of anger he has yet to process, i’m sorry but does the “i do stuff that could easily get me hurt or killed to suppress other emotions” sound familiar to anyone who struggles with mental health issues?
-HE HAS LIVED HIS WHOLE LIFE BEING CONSTANTLY COMPARED TO HIS ABUSIVE FATHER. he looks like a mini version of him, his tempers like his, + the impulsivity. not to mention his mother being terrified of him turning out like him. leading him to have the same fear, and try to further suppress his emotions to not have them come out like they do. he didn’t get a chance to process the shît that happened to him, nor his own emotions living as someone predisposed to traumatic events, ptsd, and MAJOR stressors. most of his life he hasn’t been able to readily communicate this stuff with his mother because he’s too scared of reminding her of his father.
-Not to mention when he was talking about that tiger, he literally asks if feeling that way about it was alright,
-He never got the chance to process, nor work through his emotions and had a mother who more so feared the display of those emotions more than what could be making him feel those ways
-so you pick up a kid, with unprocessed emotions and trauma, and put him on an island, where one of the only ADULT men he looks up to at this point gets a deadly unknown illness, and there’s a threat he’ll get it to?? he’s literally a bomb waiting to go off.
yk how people reacted when covid first came?? now picture it 10x, on an island, and as a kid with no authority members but the one you just watched make your friend perform makeshift surgery on, before locking him in a closet and having him DIE.
-PLUS watching tim, the only decent male role model start to unravel into panic and doing shit that outright put the boys in danger, which probably outright reminded him of his father
-don’t even get me started on shelley, this man was manipulating half the group by the time tim was relatively near the closet.
-he had genuine regret about his fight with kent + max, i mean max was one of the only people he had put his trust into being vulnerable around. but within seconds shelley was right next to him, pulling the strings and blatantly reminded him of his dad before he planted the seed of eef being sick into his head.
-by the time eef was by himself? and by the time shelley had slipped him the radio? eef was basically already long gone.
-eef’s fear of being vunerable and not regaining the control hit him again, shelley stood being the only one listening to him about his “symptoms” which at that point were part of his brain falling prey to gaslighting (thank you so much shelley you ass)
-he took it into his own hands to fix, because he was so scared of not knowing what was gonna happen to him that he needed to prove to himself that he was gonna be okay.
-the brain does this funny thing when you’re in traumatic situations, have not eaten or consumed water in awhile, not to mention being gaslighted by someone who was supposed to survive with you. he hallucinated.
-when the boys find him again he’s held onto this theory that shelley’s right so hard that regardless of them knowing he’s probably not infected, they kinda have to go with it
-he than for the first time trusts someone with his life, sadly this is shelley and it’s because he’s so convinced the hallucinations are true that shelley seems to be the first one on the trip that has tried to “help him” and continued to “support him” throughout that event.
his last thoughts are ridden with such stubborn belief that shelley wouldn’t lead him down the wrong path (which, truthfully is ridden with being in shock from his wounds, shock from the past traumatic events and the amount of manipulation that he’s been through, not to mention the lack of food)
and there and then there he lights himself on fire, in a risky stunt, seeing no other way to drive the parasite out of him.
let me take a minute to mourn him again bc this whole scene had me sobbing during my first read through.
ephraim manages to trust one person with helping him, in a state of fear, panic, shock and overall terror from the past events and he’s repaid by being manipulated to the point of dying.
UGH. i will never fully get over how fucking tragic his character is to me. i trauma bonded so hard to him bro.
