So I’ve got my cousin staying over for a few days and decided that was the perfect time to finally get them to watch YJ. Started the binge last night and made good progress, we’re about halfway through season one and they’re LOVING IT!
A little thing I realised while watching... it’s really minor but it just caught me and I wanted to point it out...
Wally didn’t tell anyone about his nearly being trapped forever in the helmet of fate. It sounds so obvious but it says a lot about his mentality - something you seemingly don’t get much of for him— compared to the others anyway. The only time you see him talk about what happened, he gives a joke answer - the kind of answer that is expected from him. He uses humour to hide. To protect himself - instead of dealing with his own feelings - which is obviously touched upon by Black Canary in Disordered.
I’ve realised he does it a lot throughout season one, but the Fate incident is the first time we see it. Now I may be wrong, but the way it looks to me is, Wally never revealed the full danger of helmet - at least not to the team anyway - which is why Kaldur used it. Wally made a choice to not only not tell people for his own emotional benefit, but also not warn them for their personal future benefit.
I’m not gonna go into speculating what would have happened if Kaldur didn’t use the helmet in Revelation - but if Wally had made it clear the cost of summoning Fate, maybe Kaldur would have never taken the risk. However Kaldur does put it on and Wally’s immediate reaction is one of guilty panic. He isn’t fast enough to stop him and is faced with the prospect of his friend is about to be lost forever because he lied about what happened to him. His own secrecy put his team and friends in danger of something he could have prevented. (And I just now realised the same thing happens in S2 when no one tells M’gann that Kaldur’s not a traitor.)
Had Naboo not released Kaldur it would have been, for Wally, his fault for treating the helmet like a joke instead of leaving a warning label on the thing. That’s why his reaction and response to the situation is the way it is - Kaldur’s loss would have technically been because he (in the words of Superboy) thought it was a bad idea to share.
Though thankfully Kent was able to save them both from being forever trapped - a trick he wasn’t able to pull a third time to save Zatanna... and we all know how that ended.
Anyway I’m gonna leave it there. Don’t if this made any sense - it’s mainly me just thinking out loud. However seeing Wally’s more internalised side in S1 is suddenly very interesting to me.
LB 💛
