We know that Clary Fairchild found out about her secret identity as Shadowhunter, that she fought and won two wars, and even rid the world of half of her family (slay queen). But what else was going on in the States in 2007? Here's a list:
Bush was president.
Wearing a thousand layers was considered fashion.
Also fake tan.
Ugg Boots, flats, and sneakers (especially Converse).
Denim everywhere.
Famous Disney Channel shows airing included: Hannah Montana, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, and The Emperor's New School.
That's so Raven and Kim Possible aired their last season.
Phineas and Ferb, Wizards of Waverly Place, and Cory in the House aired their first season.
High School Musical 2, Enchanted, and Ratatouille came out.
More movies: Transformers, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, 300, and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End.
Nickelodeon, on the other hand, offered: Zoey 101, Totally Spies, Lazy Town, H2O: Just Add Water, and Spongebob.
Icarly's first season aired.
Ned’s Declassified School Survival Guide, Danny Phantom, Drake & Josh ended.
And then Cartoon Network: Ben 10, Teen Titans, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Ed, Edd n Eddy, George of the Jungle.
Some songs that came out that year included: "Umbrella" by Rihanna & Jay-Z, "Rehab" by Amy Winehouse, "No One" by Alicia Keys, "Don't Stop the Music" by Rihanna, "Girlfriend" by Avril Lavigne, "Before He Cheats" by Carrie Underwood.
'New Moon' the second book in the Twilight Series came out.
Twitter and YouTube had just recently been created.
My Space was a thing.
The website Tumblr was launched.
The Naruto anime aired.
Gossip Girl, The Big Bang Theory, and Keeping Up with the Kardashians also premiered that year.
The Final "Harry Potter" Book: Deathly Hallows released.
The first iPhone came out.
The popular cellphone was the Motorola RAZR.
Netflix began streaming content.
Paris Hilton ended up in prison for violating probation and driving with a suspended license.
Lindsay Lohan was arrested for drug possession.
Britney Spears had her meltdown at the MTV Video Music Awards.
right off the bat, this post is going to be fairly critical of nora so i want to make it clear that i do deeply respect her as a writer, and this is basically the main issue i have with her work. and feel free to tell me if you think im wrong! i welcome opposing viewpoints here.
that being said: the biggest disappointment in the entire series for me is cat and laila as characters. i was so hype that we would finally have some female mcs (or secondary mcs), and honestly i feel completely let down.
i don’t think i have to point out nora’s obvious misogyny (lack of female mcs, unwillingness to even consider that allison and renee might be anything but straight, calling male characters ‘men’ but female characters ‘girls’, etc). she is pretty clearly not super interested in writing women, although i would say she did a fairly good job with the three original female foxes, especially renee. but even though cat and laila are more important/central to the plot than their counterparts were, they are worse written.
that is not to say i dislike cat and laila. i like them a lot! they’re perfect! and therein lies the problem, because perfect characters are boring and, frankly, bad writing. im not even going to get into the fact that they basically become jean’s mommies, because that’s another whole post, but also that’s there.
in a series with so many incredible, morally gray, nuanced characters, it is simply so fucking disappointing that cat and laila don’t get the same treatment as the men.
i mean, just think about it for a second. what flaws do the two of them have? i literally can’t think of any. a few times they get upset, and that’s pretty much it. but for the most part, they are simply everything they need to be to move the plot along. nothing more, nothing less.
and their backstories? a fucking joke. they each have like one mildly upsetting piece of baggage from before the series begins. and im using mildly in the context of the frankly insane backstories of pretty much every single male character.
i love these books so much, and that is why this upsets me so much. think of how much more interesting the books would be if *either* of them was a fraction as interesting as neil, or andrew, or kevin, or hell even renee. imagine if they got upset, if they were prickly, if they were mean or demanding or manipulative or combative or fucking anything but happy and/or supportive 95% of the time.
obviously there’s nothing to be done at this point, even if nora wanted to address this (which i don’t believe she ever will). i will continue to read and obsess over these books, but i will also continue to read them critically, because frankly the level of misogyny lurking just underneath the surface of these books is flat out insulting.
Okay I’m awake again and something that really stood out to me with TSC was how different jean and neil are as protagonists. I expected they would be, but the thing I really noticed was how distinct their reactions were.
So, these books are HEAVY. There are many many traumatic events and the characters spend a lot of time in high-stress situations. Even when they’re not being attacked or threatened or XYZ, they’re often in a state of heightened physiological arousal (their sympathetic nervous system is going haywire). As a psychologist, the thing I find really interesting is that we see very different reactions that are all aligned with different adrenal responses, and I wanted to talk about it.
As a baseline, when your sympathetic nervous system is activated, you typically experience what some psychologists call the four Fs. Fight, flight, freeze, and/or fawn (some people use another word here but I don’t like it and think it’s less accurate to the situation). These can occur simultaneously or alone. And of the four characters who are most showing this response are the ones who are consistently in the highest stress situations, but who are also traumatised in such a way that even when they’re not actively in danger their sympathetic nervous system is overreactive and heightened.
So first off, we have Neil. He’s pretty clearly shown to have two responses: flight and fight. For his entire childhood, he’s been fleeing from danger and in the earlier parts of AFTG, we see this response - he tries to run as far as he can possibly get from anything that might be a risk. As a side point, this is pretty clearly a learned response from his mother. As Neil begins to feel more secure and his flight response is impeded (he can’t run away) we see the emergence of his other primary adrenal response - fight. I don’t feel like I need to explain this one, tbh, we’ve all seen how he runs his mouth. Fight is also typically shown when you believe you can defeat whatever’s threatening you, so I love what this says about how his confidence develops across the trilogy.
Then you have Andrew. He’s not a POV protagonist but I feel like his response might be the most obvious. His primary responses are fight and freeze (Andrew Minyard runs from/fawns for no man). Fight is pretty obvious - he’s a very violent person - but I feel like the most clear example of this is stopping Riko from attacking Neil. Andrew is obviously wired and his instinctive response is to protect. I love that for him. His other primary response, unfortunately, is freeze. Based on the most obvious time we see it (during Drake's attack), this is probably a response he developed as a child, before he felt strong/safe enough to fight back. God, these books make me sad sometimes.
Next is Kevin. He has a slightly more varied response - i can see the argument for him freezing, although i wouldnt say it's a primary response - but his main two responses are fight and fawn. Fight isn't necessarily literal, btw - the most obvious example is covering his tattoo. His fawn response is slightly more expanded on in TSC (mild spoilers if you haven't read that yet) when we see him responding to Riko's attack by begging first Riko and then Jean to intercede and stop the violence. he's trying to appeal to their affection for him, which is absolutely heartbreaking. Kevin i love you.
And finally, we have Jean, whose primary responses are only really made clear in TSC, although they are backed up by his appearances in the trilogy - freeze and fawn. We see freezing in Jean's response to sympathetic nervous system arousal, often from hearing about or recalling upsetting events/information. He closes in on himself and becomes unresponsive. Fawn is slightly more complicated, as we see it somewhat throughout AFTG. when he's loyal to riko and doing things he thinks riko will like in hopes of reducing any potential pain/threat he will experience, i'd call that fawning. an example at usc is him getting on his knees and handing coach rhemann his racket - he's not just submitting to punishment, he's trying to be helpful and well-behaved in hopes of lessening it. it's honestly a really strong response from him and it absolutely breaks my heart. jean in tsc is really struggling and i hope the last book brings him some peace. i also find it really painful that he's the only one of these boys without a fight response - he's never felt capable of winning against his abusers. i really hope the trojans and bee are able to help change that.
Thoughts on Jod Na Nawood and Where We Go From Here
So, Jod Na Nawood. Spoilers ahead for 1x05, read at your own risk.
After watching 1x05 and seeing other folks's thoughts about what went down there, I felt the need to write something.
Now I'm going to start by saying that from the beginning, I (and everyone, really, I'm sure) was wondering just who Jod is, really. I didn't immediately buy into the idea that he's a Jedi just because he can use the Force. That doesn't make or define a Jedi, I don't think. Anyway, it kept me wondering and kept me interested. I will be honest and say that in the first few episodes, I sort of hoped that despite the fact that he's a pirate, a scoundrel in it for his own interests....I had hoped that his heart would soften at least a little bit, being with the kids. But now I remember what Jude himself has said about Jod and his perspective of the kids. According to Jude, Jod has this sort of disdain because his childhood was taken from him (or something along those lines iirc). It's a little sad because apparently Jod didn't have that. But, Jude said, he also doesn't want the kids to end up the same way he did.
Either way, I think it's interesting that Jod has twice done things that remotely demonstrate even the vaguest, faintest sense of...I won't call it affection but whatever it is, he isn't disregarding them.
First example, when he reunites with the kids on At Achrann. Neel and Wim run to him and hug him, and he just holds them close. He could have easily been aloof, or shoved them off and been like 'Ick. Small humans. Go away.'
Second example, when he finds Wim crying. Initially, he's very much repelled by the sight and turns as if to leave, but then goes back, sits down and talks to Wim about it. True, he doesn't give very good advice when he says to let go those attachments (Granted: to the Jedi, that's important, but in the sense of being free from those attachments not in the sense of cutting off love and wholesome, good human connections). But it just caught my attention.
Another thing I thought interesting is exactly how the writers are presenting him. I don't have extensive experience with studying writing methods or even observing it in the shows I watch, but I've noted that in some of the best written stories, the big reveals are almost never obvious. That's sort of their nature, no? Like why would it be a surprise if it's already been spoiled before its time?
What's my point?
This. I think it's notable that when they first present Jod, it's in an ambiance of mystery, so much that everyone is asking 'Who is he?' They're already laying down that idea of wanting to figure him out completely and see what he's made of. Now after 1x05, it was striking to me to see Jod invoke the pirate code and threaten Fern with a knife at her neck.
Let's unpack that moment first. There's a few things I want to point out.
Jod hesitates. It seemed to me like he's debating, really turning around in his head the idea of what he's considering doing. It struck me because we see only moments before how quickly he had SM-33 fill the pit back up with acid and melt the pirates. Jod has no problem with killing, that's clear. So why did he make such an effort not to harm Fern, if he's as despicable a man as we're supposedly led to think he is?
He holds the knife near her neck, but not nearly enough to harm her. It's a threat to make it real enough for her, but he's not trying to harm her. Anyway you dice it, it's NOT okay that he did that and I don't approve it, I just think that it's worth noting.
He keeps insisting that she has to say 'I yield' because that's what the Code demands. 'You literally have to say it,' he tells her.
Then, and this point's more flimsy, up to interpretation, I suppose, but...the bit with the chair. I assumed, on first watch, that he didn't react because he simply didn't care what happened to the kids now that they're out of his way, but I saw a post once (if it was yours or you know who wrote it, tell me please and I'll credit them here) pointed out it's because he knew what the chair would do and he knew where they were going--into a tunnel.
Lastly, I was thinking about this more recently and it came to mind that Jod could have, essentially, done this at any point when he was with them, no? Why did he chose THAT moment to do it? Furthermore (and I mentioned this in a different post), I find it very suspicious that the writers, if they do intend to make Jod out to be the actual Bad Guy ™ po
one thing about me is that i LOVE to speculate and spread rumors
so here are my jeremy knox lore predictions (i will probs add onto this and fact check myself at a later date)
things we know
jeremy has beef with cops
jeremy has 3 siblings. an older brother, a younger sister, and a younger brother
we meet his sister, and there is obviously some bad blood between them. he is getting blamed for something and she thinks him playing exy is dumb.
there is very bad blood between him and his older brother. there isn’t an explanation but they clearly have a very volatile relationship even if we never see them interact.
jeremy has beef with his stepfather, and by extension his step-grandfather. his sister seems to be ‘playing nice’ because of the money he has
they have a butler
jeremy says something about his dad being stationed overseas. was he in the military? does he work for the government? is he alive?
he uses his mom’s credit card, but is intentional about keeping receipts to give to her finance person. was there a money fraud thing in the past?
i think his stepdad/stepgrandfather is in a political office?? idr and i dont want to check rn
my predictions
exy killed my grandma his younger brother
somehow said exy accident is jeremy’s fault??
except i have no idea how exy kills someone (we are ignoring the entire mafia thing going on in exy, we are pretending that isn’t a thing bc why tf would jeremy be involved in it)
his dad is either dead or VERY estranged
his mom moved on too quickly after his dad died/left
his dad left because of the younger brother’s dead or died at the same time
mom was involved in money scandal at some point
she married rich husband to get money/her status back
Starved dog, leash metaphors, cardboard dog, obedience. I think Jean represented as an obedient, loyal dog is pretty straight-forward. I think it's interesting that in the extra content, Nora described him as an angry cat when he came to Evermore. He left as a starved and beaten dog. I wonder where this arc goes, though. Like, he takes a chain around his neck from Renee -per Neil's philosophy, is this "collar" his first reason not to slip the [Moriyama investment] leash? Also Jeremy has always wanted a dog. I guess this piece is a little harder for me to wrap my head around, maybe I'm overthinking it, but maybe he's the right kind of [s]Dom[/s] [s]owner[/s] person for Jean. He has the authority "I'm your captain," but he pairs it with an equalizer "I'm your partner". He pushes Jean, but he holds the hard boundaries. He's intrigued by Jean's scoop neck deep blue shirt - I think partly for the personal growth to wear color and partly because it allows him to see Jean's collarbone. He shivers with the sound of "Yes, Jeremy." I wonder if "my mom is allergic to dogs" is foreshadowing his family's reaction to Jean.
2. Safety
Neil's arc was about hope, finding a future in a futureless situation. Jeremy's had an idea of the future, the perfect court, but his big thing is safety. "Safe" and its variations appear in TSC 48 times. This boy is really not asking for much, but Jeremy makes him feel safer which is just too sweet. Also, tighten those screws for safety..
3. Childhood
At the beginning of the book, Jean knows immediately that he is not in the Nest, because he knows every inch of it. He feels like he knows everything about the world and he often insults people by calling them children. His childhood innocence was stolen from him at the Nest, and outside of it, he regains pieces of it. He wonders at the vastness of the world, he learns skills he never had before (shopping, cooking). I had a hard time when I found out he was 19 (ie 14 and 16 at the time of some really unpleasant things). I didn't understand why he had to be two years younger. But the protection and corruption of innocence is a big part of his story. We see that acutely with his sister's story and it allows him to turn on his parents without guilt. The duck/duckling motif is cute too. When he first comes to Evermore, Thea describes him as a little duckling. He associates little yellow ducks with his childhood and baby sister.
4. Air?
Being able to breathe is core to the safety thing. When Jean feels least safe, he can't breathe. One of his earliest revelations about being Riko's pet was the buried alive punishment, and pressing his face against the sparse airholes. Then there's the waterboarding thing. You'll see Jean mentions being unable to breathe when he feels threatened and grabs at his throat. Conversely his happy things include breeze and open sky (rainbow and the open road). When Grayson appears, Jean says he can no longer feel the breeze, and he is particularly disturbed by the neck biting. There are lots of throat and neck things going on in the book too and maybe it's a stretch but burning (ie eating away at oxygen) comes up several times too.
im at my second read of tsc and it really IMMEDIATELY broke jeans heart ehrn his brsin made the compairason of kevin damning them both and thinking renee did so too omfg im gonna cry
Can’t stop thinking about tsc and jean finally asking for help im not sleeping tonight
you and me both!!! also. i know i keep coming back to the parallels/differences between neil and jean but when jean asked for help ofc my mind immediately went to help me/let me in trk and the way these two scenes are emblematic of their individual journeys. neil’s main concern has always been surviving the dangerous Now, and the first time he asks for help it’s a plea for wymack to help him make it through the moment. he’s incredibly close to splintering and he needs someone to hold him together for the time it takes to get back to himself. jean’s main concern has always been surviving the hopeless Future. so the first time he asks for help it’s not a “help me rn” it’s a “help me survive what comes next.” he’s lost and scared, the ground has been pulled out from under him, and he needs someone to help him imagine a future he can live in. a future he can hold in his mind. a future that can hold him together.
