analysis: SSR Under The Milky Way, luke pearce, and dichotomies that make him a wonderfully contradictory mess of a character and make this love story one i really adore
(wow, thats a mouthful of a title. cuz this is a mouthful of a post)
obligatory disclaimer that these are just my own thoughts and interpretations. spoilers for up to luke's personal story 4, his anniv card obviously, and other cards here and there too
hes Such a Mess. i dont mean this in the "physical space organization" tho that is hilariously canon (pls whenever we're in the 2nd floor of his building i cant stop focusing on the papers on the floor, one of them literally under the leg of the table, MY MAN PICK UP UR FILES JHSDVFKJSDH), but i mean it in the emotional sense. and i also mean it so lovingly, cuz it's among the many things i love abt his character. hes so messy, he has so many character traits that i'd classify as flaws and faults that make him interesting to endlessly rotate in my brain, hes SUCH A MESS IN SO MANY WAYS and he even says this outright in his personal story 3 as a general statement
and after i read his personal story 4 and then his anniv card, his mess was at the forefront of my brain because it ultimately made his anniv card So Satisfying in terms of scratching certain story itches ive got, in terms of addressing his emotional messiness thru the crux of his romantic relationship with mc
and i'll get to that in different portions of this post. but first, i wanna lay down one by one what causes his mess; dichotomies in how he thinks and how mc acts as the other side as the narrative foil, and how all this adds up to a love story i really, really love
i’ll start with the most obvious one. ever since luke’s personal story 1 allllll the way up to this anniv card, the inevitability of his illness and his limited lifespan prognosis looms over and informs the decisions he makes. which, yknow, makes sense. thats a Heavy Thing to have to deal with, and luke for a large amount of his story doesnt want this to be anybody else’s problem but his exactly Because it’s heavy. it’s sad and upsetting and causes worry, and ever since luke was a kid, he was already beginning to harbor a guilt for hurting other people or bringing bad upon their lives (mentioned and shown in SSR Shape Of You)
even after personal story 4—after he’s made the decision to tell mc the whole truth—he is still convinced of this inevitability. hes so convinced that he sent the letter and skedaddled elsewhere to give mc time and space to think it all through without being clouded by the heat of the moment.
hes so convinced that once mc confesses back to him, he argues with her (sidenote: my GOD getchu a love interest who, in the Confession Card, is literally trying so hard to get the main character to pick ANYBODY BUT HIM because he thinks it’d hurt less. my heart aches SO MUCH). he throws the inevitability of his death in her face, as if to scare her away.
while the whole inevitability thing is so obvious in luke like, Everywhere in his thoughts and stories, i also realized it’s subliminally communicated through even the settings and symbols that are linked to him.
luke runs an antique shop, he’s into photography and takes pictures as memories, he’s got his treasure box filled with things from the past, he’s Always bringing up fond anecdotes of his and mc’s childhood: all of these are things have the concept of the passage of time intrinsic to them, and time passing to luke is something that brings his inevitability closer and closer. so all these symbols implying time are also focused on the past specifically, when things were happier because he’s sure his future can only cause pain.
and mc, of course, is the foil to inevitability. first, she focuses on a portion of time that isnt past or future: the present.
in luke’s personal story 4 when aaron not so subtly grills her about “dangerous professions” of somebody she loves, she says this:
and then when you pick the second choice here in the anniv card (which i did), she says the following lines
while there’s still time, she says.
this sentiment from mc doesnt just crop up here. cherishing the present is something she brings up many times across several stories (off the top of my head: SR Radiant Sunlight and luke’s personal story 2 during that whole story with Zero) and it’s clear that to her, yes, the past and the future are important, the former being a time none of them can return to and the latter being filled with uncertainty, but now matters so much as well. maybe it matters even more, taking into account how uncertain tomorrow will be.
the second thing mc brings to face luke’s inevitability shtick is related to uncertainty: hope.
luke’s prognosis is dire, but as long as he’s alive now in the present, theres still a chance. theres still hope. going back to that scene in luke’s personal story 4 where aaron is grilling mc, she says:
and then immediately after this she cites wedding vows which luke secretly overhears outside still holding the fucking kettle, oh my GOD, i CANNOT TAKE THESE TWO…
back on topic tho, this bit shows that mc’s view of the uncertainty of a future with a lover in constant danger (and “constant danger” in this specific scene is in regards to luke’s job, yeah, but also has pretty obvious parallels to his illness as well: pain can and will happen) skews towards something more balanced than luke’s concept of inevitability. her view is more of like…we can’t ever be sure. and that doesn’t just make space for pain, but it makes space for hope too.
and this view isnt only for his illness to be treated, but for his and mc’s relationship as well.
which brings me to this line, the line that Broke Me and also made me think “OKAY EVERYBODY, PACK IT UP, GO HOME, THE WINNER OF BEST CONFESSION IS NONE OF THE BOYS, IT’S ACTUALLY MC!!!” this is what she says:
i know, it seems simple at first but listen. Listen. this is….so good and so perfect for them. this line has two key parts, the verb and the subjects, and i first wanna talk about the verb: believe.
belief is not rooted on things that are sure. believing in something, anything, is acknowledging there are things that cant be controlled or fully known but taking that chance anyway. belief is faith, belief is hope, and these things as a cornerstone for love is so important to luke/mc cuz it shows how much they matter to each other and that uncertainties arent a dealbreaker but a call to hope and believe and love. mc believes and pleads luke to believe too, believe in her and in them together
which now brings me to the next dichotomy
luke, when bringing up his fear of inevitable grief hurting mc, words his feelings in a very particular way. in the anniv card, he says
worded another way, this could go “i could follow my heart, but at the cost of her happiness.”
this is what he thinks the price of his happiness is: mc’s own. and it’s indicative of something i noticed about luke wayyy back in lost gold, that he has the habit of pitting him and mc against each other, particularly his desires against mc’s emotions.
if he is to indulge in what will give him joy, he will rob mc of hers. if he is to value his life, he will ruin mc’s life (actually to bring up SSR Shape Of You again (SORRY IT RLLY IS JUST SUCH A FAVE CARD OF MINE) this is taken further to the (past childhood) implication of like…if he even just exists, he will ruin mc’s life). if he “wins”, she “loses”
this kind of thinking is cuz he is still, up till now—even after he had said in personal story 4 that he said that the secrets he’s got concerns them both—not seeing himself and mc as a team. he’s seeing himself and mc as two people on different sides and only one of them can get out of this with their heart intact.
and of course, as is usual with luke pearce, he’d always rather the winner to be her.
so now i wanna go back to mc’s line which Broke Me™. “You have to believe in me…In us.” awhile ago i was talking about the verb but now i shift to the subject.
mc wants luke to believe in her, which is already in itself something that would hit luke emotionally. afterall, every single argument hes saying is supposedly for her own good, yet he also told her that he’d respect whatever her decision was. if he really, truly does love her, she should listen to her, trust her, and believe in her. going further, she wants him to believe in her and him together.
because thats what a relationship is supposed to be, even a platonic one and doubly so for a romantic one. the people are still individuals, yes, but theyre not on different teams, theyre not supposed to be with one more important than the other, theyre supposed to be side by side as equals, together.
in the verb and subjects of “You have to believe in me…In us.”, mc asks luke to rethink inevitability and indulge in faith, she asks him get rid of the divide he’s put between them that says both of them being happy is impossible.
and in response to this, luke says “...I do.”
cue kiss scene of the anniv card. of course, the crowd cheers, crowd goes wild (the crowd is me) as they kiss. it is so SO satisfying because these two things that luke has struggled with are met with an equal and kinder force coming from mc. the buildup is sublime and crests towards this moment and it is so sweet and tender and amazing.
and then luke’s self-deprecation busts through the wall again. which brings me to the last dichotomy
“how can i ask anyone to love me” vs. “when all i do is beg to be left alone”
the prior dichotomies all had luke as one side and mc as the other, but this last one is different. these are both two sides within only luke and i wanna talk about it not through narrative foils but through the lens of how characters change.
but first lemme explain: the above bits in the quotation marks are lyrics from the song Left Alone by Fiona Apple and theyre really neat lyrics that succinctly articulate a super common contradictory experience, one luke lays out in full with his depressing explanation for his depressing song choice for the music box
after he says all this, mc reassures luke that she loves him and understands that his contradictory actions we are stemming not from cowardice but from the fact he loves and cares about her (and that it all just got mucked up with mixed signals and actions like this because of //gestures at aforementioned two dichotomies). and mc is right wonderful, i love that, shes wonderful!!
but what im drawn to here though is less of the resolution of this issue but the fact that this speech from luke made me realize one thing ive adored about his character ever since the beginning: because of his love manifesting into contradictory desires, he not only goes through character development, but moments of character regression as well. he not only changes for the better, but he has moments where he backslides and relapses into old bad habits.
“why, zak, why do you love this in a character??? are you a SADIST???” yeah, i am. but i do also have valid reasons JHVJKSHDVFS.
on a personal level, i find it’s more realistic and genuine as to how stuff happens with real people. i cant speak for everyone, but as somebody with [redacted mental bad times], seeing a character have moments of going back to bad habits feels great to me cuz in real life, the road of recovery or being a better person isnt always linear. sometimes it’s like this, it’s 1 step forward, 1 step back.
on a story level though, character development and character regression both happening does two things:
1) it highlights just how strong the motives and rationale of the old ways are, which increases the depth of the character and their traits
like, luke has several regression moments in the anniv card alone. first one is one he mentions, he said he’d accept whatever mc’s decision was but his first instinct that he Did act on was to argue with her because it is so ingrained in him to think of her choosing him as the Wrong choice to make, the choice that will lead her to sadness, and he loves her so much that he doesnt want her to go through that.
another smaller backslide moment is that he Runs Away in this card. remember luke’s xmas partyland card, SR A Star in the Palm? the card luke word for word tells mc “I promise that from now and forever, I’ll never try to run from you ever again.”? well, while luke explains in his anniv card his rationale for lying to mc that he’s out of town the moment he sends the letter, that rationale doesnt trump the fact that he still ran away and gave her no information on how to find him (thank u aaron for immediately fessing luke’s location, god bless)
also, he lied to her. ding ding ding, pretty sure he said he’d stop doing that!!! but him running and lying once again highlights how much he once thought his absence in mc’s life would be better for her, he has to be Not There when she reads the letter so his presence doesnt lead her into a choice thatd result in her sadness.
the second thing character development and character regression both happening does is
brief segue, but for the longest time, i had always known that i personally get bored with perfect characters. characters who always succeed, who never doubt, and whose flaws (if theyve got any) are largely minimal and do not affect the story. and only when i started writing this analysis did i realize why i get bored with perfect characters: there’s nowhere else to go for them.
if theyre perfect, they wont backslide. and if theyre perfect, they cant get any better because theyve already Gotten There. theyre stagnant, and what i personally love to see in stories, among many other things, is a character changing.
luke is so flawed and imperfect and this delights me to no end. his faults ensure theres room for him to improve, and he does. he makes promises, he changes for the better. and once hes done that, theres space for him to regress and fuck up all over again, which emphasizes his traits, beliefs, and what matters to him.
and once hes a step back, theres space for him to take a step forward again because if theres one thing so sublimely clear about luke, it’s that he tries. he keeps on fighting even if it looks like an impossible fight, and in this card, he does this because he loves mc, because he believes in her, because he believes in them together.
so. luke is a mess for so many reasons, and to me, that makes him one hell of an interesting character with some fantastic stories. it makes his and mc’s love story one that focuses on hope, togetherness, and change.
and these kinds of stories, messy ones that have room for characters to fail and also have room for characters to get better, are ones that i really love a whole bunch.
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