#if found please read | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

juvinadelgreko · 3 months ago

Text

The Lynch Family was a Cult.

The Lynch family was a single family cult. Niall Lynch was the cult leader. His children are cult survivors. Buckle up, because I’m about to pick this bitch apart like a pomegranate.

TW for discussion of Ronan’s canon suicide attempt, mentions of human trafficking, and child abuse.

This realization hit me the other day and I’ve been chewing on it since. Recently, I discovered the work of cult and extreme group scholar Daniella Mestyanek Young (on TikTok & Instagram as KnittingCultLady - I highly recommend her). She has made a wealth of videos discussing the cult of MAGA in the US and the mechanisms of manipulation and coercion used by cults and extreme groups. She has a list of criteria she uses to define a cult:

Charismatic Leadership & accompanying Skinny White Woman

Worldview shift that brings you under the Sacred Assumption

The Transcendent Mission

Self-sacrifice of members

Limited access to the outside world

Distinguishable vernacular

Us vs Them mentality

Exploits members' labor

High entrance/exit costs

Ends justify the means mentality

It's easier to see these traits in the cults we know of throughout history - Children of God (in which Young grew up), Jonestown, Branch Davidians, etc.

But she points out in one of her videos that cults aren't all large groups. They can be single family, or even one on one. Many abusive relationships fit the bill of one on one cults. Looking back on my life, I'm pretty sure I've been in relationships that would fit that bill.

Anyway: the Lynch family, as they're written in TRC & especially TD3, is a single family cult. Here's how they fit the criteria. 1. charismatic leadership & accompanying skinny white woman

According to Young, cults always form around charismatic chosen-one types. an ever present accessory is the skinny white or otherwise conventionally attractive, docile, and subservient woman.

niall’s charisma and good looks are discussed ad nauseam, how he could charm anyone into anything, how he passed his good looks on to his sons, etc. a charming, handsome rogue.

the skinny white woman is clearly present in aurora—pretty, docile, agreeable, aurora. that he dreamt up to replace his combative, unyielding first wife. he literally custom built himself a housewife. enough said.

2. worldview shift that brings you under the scared assumption

in typical cult leader fashion, niall builds a myth around himself: that when he was born, he broke the mold—so forcefully that it registered on the richter scale! he’s special.

he’s been telling his sons this story forever. hell, he ever has the newspaper clipping from his birthday confirming that there was an earthquake in northern ireland that day. from day one, they’re told this story about how their father is literally so special and powerful that the earth shook when he was born. how could anyone not line up behind that?

more importantly—as soon as his children become aware of their family’s dreaming abilities, they are told to keep them secret. this secrecy implies that they are separate from the rest of the world, hence: “you are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”

3. the transcendent mission

niall lynch is constantly leaving and returning with trinkets galore. he inserts himself, his wife, and his sons into old irish folktales to teach them lessons. he paints them as grand, fantastic heroes. when declan does this in cdth, ronan immediately shuts up and pays attention to him (“are you going to be quiet?”)

niall is a master at what i call the Divorced Dad Gambit ™️: every time you fuck up with your family, pull a rabbit out of your hat to make them forget about it. the bmw, declan’s moth, hell—the entire barns property!

the ability to pull things out of his dreams literally makes niall a god. and by never explaining the mechanics of that ability to his sons, he maintains his position on pedestal above them.

4. self-sacrifice of members

exhibit a: declan lynch’s entire life.

exhibit b: ronan suffering under the weight of an ability he didn’t understand because niall insisted he keep it a secret.

5. limited access to the outside world

exhibit c: the barns.

we’re told straight up in tdt that niall lynch only gave his sons three things: obscure irish music lessons, trust funds, and the ability to box.

the lynch brothers were not watching clifford the big red dog on saturday mornings. they were listening to niall yap. they were not playing tee-ball. they were being taught to box. ronan was never allowed to have sleepovers (for obvious reasons, but the point stands). all of their literary intake is filtered through their parents. even alice in wonderland is a selection of niall’s. which, by the way, definitely wasn’t an accidental selection. he wanted ronan to see himself as an intrepid traveler in his own dreams—not as their commander. niall is the only one who’s allowed to know how to command dreams.

again, they’re told ad nauseam to keep their father’s work and their dreaming a secret. they can’t share their true lives with anyone. this is why declan dates a series of nondescript ashleys. why ronan can only be friends with gansey, someone who also has their toes dipped in magic. even then, when his dreaming almost kills him, ronan would rather allow gansey to believe he’s attempted suicide (and hospitalize him as a result) than broach the pact of secrecy he made with his father, even after his father is dead. if that doesn’t scream cult to you…i don’t know what does. ronan is literally less afraid of the psych ward than he is of dishonoring his DEAD cult leader. like. i shouldn’t have to provide further evidence than that.

(semantics aside, that was a suicide attempt. ronan practically says it to gansey outright when they fight the night horror together at monmouth. he quotes seneca to gansey: “the sword is a never a killer, but a tool in the killer’s hand.” translation: i wasn’t entirely sure i wanted to live anymore. those impulses took root in my subconscious which in response created monsters designed to kill me).

6. distinguishable vernacular

i’ve pointed to this already, but most of niall’s communication with his sons existed in folktales and stories, metaphors and riddles. it’s not so much the words themselves, but how they’re delivered. see again, niall “breaking the mold so hard the ground shook” when he was born. niall as an earthquake. metaphors.

i think this quote ties up this point and the last one really well:

7. us vs them mentality

by isolating his sons from the outside world and instilling in them a sense of grandiosity, niall naturally sets them up for “us vs them.”

there’s declan, who’s been through so much shady shit with niall that he’s suspicious of everything with a pulse and is terrified to let ronan out of his or gansey’s sight for too long for the entirety of trc. declan, who recognizes bryde for what he is and tells ronan “not to chase” bryde.

there’s ronan the misanthrope, who despises school and most of his peers because he can’t relate to them. see: “fuck washington!” and “ANARCHY” and “litigation is a farce.”

(i also think some of this rooted in the fact that ronan is, like me, a neurodivergent person with way too much intelligence, emotion, and creativity for the conventional school system to handle, but this isn’t that essay).

that’s without mentioning the ecoterrorism bender. i think ronan’s unconscious manifestation of society-hating-tear-it-all-down-rah-rah bryde is actually one of the most compelling cases for ronan being a cult survivor because:

1. cult survivor ronan, without a proper understanding of what happened to him, is naturally going to look for another leader when the previous one dies.

2. the us vs them/transcendent mission/ends justify the means mentality is absolutely present in bryde as it was in niall. see again: “you are made of dreams and this world is not for you.”

8. exploits member’s labor

i mean. do we even need to go over this. niall used declan for pretty much his entire life as his assistant for all of his dealings in the fairy market. things no child should’ve been exposed to to begin with, but declan was never compensated in any way. niall always knew he could be murdered or otherwise disappeared for crossing the wrong person, but he didn’t care because he knew declan would clean up the mess.

he didn’t care about advertising his own son, the greywaren, as an object for sale—because he knew that even if he didn’t give ronan up, whatever the consequences of that were, declan would handle them. he made declan executor of his will, his brothers’ only keepers in the event of niall’s death. he forced declan to do the uncomfortable parental labor of protecting and raising his brothers after he went off and got himself whacked because he falsely advertised one of them for sale.

and, hello. offering a person for sale is trafficking, whether niall intended it to be or not. he either a) didn’t see ronan as human (which is supported by the fact that he was prepared to kill him and only declan’s humanity stopped him) or b) was fine with trafficking his son. either way, exploitation and dehumanization. he intended to sell ronan’s labor as the greywaren and pocket it for himself. and even if he never intended to give ronan up: he always expected declan to clean up the resulting mess.

9. high entrance/exit costs

i mean. look at ronan, matthew, and declan’s lives. look at their choices. they’re pretty screwed. look at mor. she was flawed, sure, but she recognized what she’d be giving up if she stayed with niall. she didn’t want to be his skinny white woman. she didn’t want to give up her autonomy to stay in his inner circle, so she left (honestly, you could probably make the argument for mor as her own kind of cult leader but again, essay for another time). the entrance costs were too high.

declan, ronan, and matthew were freed from niall, but at a ridiculously high exit cost. they can’t go home. they’re being hunted. they can’t live authentic lives. declan’s cooking at least 10 stress ulcers in his gut. ronan attempted suicide. matthew has an identity crisis. none of them have any clue how to form healthy relationships. they all nearly die numerous times. the list goes on.

10. ends justify the means mentality

there isn’t much to say here that i haven’t already said, except:

niall (and mor) was so allured by power that he dreamt a magical entity into being without consideration of the consequences. he then became so afraid of this creature’s power that he’s willing to kill it, to kill his own son, in his bed while he’s asleep. the fact that declan loving ronan stopped niall from killing him doesn’t necessarily mean niall gave a shit how declan felt. it means he knew declan being angry with him would be inconvenient. it also didn’t stop him from trying to get rid of ronan—niall couldn’t kill ronan, so the next best option became selling him.

it makes perfect sense: keep ronan dumb enough that he can’t use his power against you, fawn over him relentlessly so he never has a reason to hate you, and when the time comes, make a pretty penny selling him to the highest bidder. except you can’t get rid of him that way, because declan will hate you, so instead, you’ll scam the buyer and let him send a hit man to kill you, removing you from all culpability in the situation. which brings me to:

bonus round: the cult leader’s precipitation of their own apocalypse.

Young also frequently notes in her work that cult leaders often precipitate their own apocalypses (see: jonestown, branch davidians). they spend all this time building up to something, there has to be a grand finale! a transcendence! the end times!

and here’s my piece de resistance: i think niall wanted to be killed. he realized he’d backed himself into a corner with ronan and declan and the only way out was to die and dump all the consequences of his schemes on his sons. so what did he do? he tried to sell ronan, realized it wouldn’t work, so he scammed greenmantle knowing greenmantle would off him and move on to declan and ronan next.

it removes niall from all responsibility. his dreams will all fall asleep. declan will pick up the rest of the pieces. ronan will hopefully crash out. problem solved, neat little bow on top.

so what happens when the cult leader dies? a few things. the cult typically fractures, with some members gathering around a new leader. but it’s never the same.

case in point: when niall died, the lynch family cult fractured. aurora fell asleep. the barns was locked up. ronan had a mental breakdown. declan stepped up and tried to lead, but it didn’t matter because the cult was fractured. ronan wouldn’t get behind him because declan wanted to be a parent, and the only parent ronan wanted was niall.

it makes sense that it fractured along the lines of the brothers. they all had very different experiences. declan was outright abused and reacted accordingly—stepping up and attempting to clean up the mess. internalizing everything and accepting that he’s going to have to be bad cop, do the hard emotional labor.

ronan was manipulated—abuse trojan-horsed in fawning over the favorite son. it’s all he’s ever known. of course he’s going to look for someone else to please, to garner attention from. gansey. adam. bryde. fortunately for ronan, gansey and adam actually care about him, and adam actually respects him enough to hold him accountable for his own life. bryde is, as i said, a direct manifestation of the hole left in ronan’s emotional stability with both gansey and adam whisked away to the ivy league.

matthew is…matthew. because he was dreamt to be the perfect little brother, he’s never had a chance to be anything else. when he gets that chance…it’s a lot. of course he experiences some anger at his brothers for not telling the truth sooner.

in greywaren, ronan completes some of the cult survivor healing arc. he finds his own inner strength independent of another person or entity (“he had never once decided for himself” and then he does). he finds purpose and friendship and community with other dreamers. he begins to mend fences with his brothers.

but the last piece? the last piece is ronan accepting the fact that niall abused and exploited him and never, ever gave a damn about him. this would be very hard for ronan to accept, understandably. it would upend everything he thought he knew about himself and his childhood. but it’s a vital step, and i’ll always be a little disappointed we didn’t get to see it in greywaren.

it’s an inevitable confrontation, with mor and the new fenian lurking around the barns (ew) and declan sitting on a bag of memories. no one in this family has communication skills so there’s door slamming and silent treatments aplenty. it’s ugly but they get through it because they have to.

TLDR: the lynch family was a cult. niall lynch was their cult leader. declan, ronan, and matthew are all cult survivors who have a lot of healing to do. like a lot.

#if you read this entire thing thank you #was just driving alone when the realization hit me #holy fuck the lynch family was a cult #if you found this interesting please check out knitting cult lady. she is brilliant.#would be interested to see if there are any other fictional characters/groups she IDs as cults…#recognizing these things in fiction -> recognizing them in real life #anyway #trc #ronan lynch #declan lynch #matthew lynch #td3 #meta #pynch #adam parrish #niall lynch

165 notes · View notes