#autistic Gansey

[foxofanequinox]

gansey Acquires queers bro. he's the lure for all these gays that stick around because of his pretty face and extreme levels of autism. ronan? how many times can you describe them as knowing each other and being so in sync and LIVING together and tell me ronan doesn't have heart eyes. adam? im like 90% sure he in text calls gansey attractive. they're so terrible to each other but adam stays. hmmm... and Blue??? she's literally queer. she's the she/they bi alt girl to gansey's "whats a pronoun" nerd loser. caught by the allure of autism quests and silly boys. noah? his boyfriend was a huge nerd for the ley line you can't tell me he doesn't think gansey's intelligence is attractive, and gansey not being a bitch and murderer is a plus. henry literally was into gansey. said outta my way gayboy im bout to get it (gansey). the list goes on. what is it about a rich white guy with severe anxiety dressed like jake from state farm that calls the queers running. why are you assembling a squadron for each letter of lgbt. gansey's allure bro.

meme after cut

literally any character upon meeting gansey bro cmon. au-rizz-m goes crazy for richard campbell gansey the third.

[brekkers-wife]

he's just like me fr

[urmomsfavauthor]

Autistic gansey you will always be golden

[myrmeraki]

Autistic Gansey???

richard gansey iii is so. autism coded in a way that is definitely not on purpose but let me explain my thoughts:

The way his mannerisms and voice changes so easily and so drastically, ie the Gansey The Boy persona vs the President Cellphone appearance. My guy is just perfect at masking. In Dream Thieves he is able to handle himself in that room of strangers and, from Adams POV, very easily ‘becomes’ the kind of person and conversationalist that best fits the other person or people.

His trouble with social awareness in a way that shows his understanding of other people’s perspective is purposefully learned. In BLLB when Blue becomes mad at him after they are out on a late drive and he lends Henry his cell he says “I’m trying to see things from your point of view but I’m having a very difficult time”. This kind of relation to where other people are coming from is not a natural skill and something he takes time to develop.

The “nobody knows who Ned Kelly is” and “Who rips out repugnant?” bits of dialogue (both, interestingly enough, from mister Autism Adam himself) that again show his difficulty gauging where other people’s understandings of his interests line up with his own. His ‘agelessness’ where he is seen as both young and old at the same time; Many autistic people have heard comments of being “mature for your age” or “an old soul” or the opposite of being “young at heart”. I know this is ‘cause he’s got freaky ley line history but the way his chronology doesn’t line up with what is considered “typical”

Glendower / Welsh History special interest duh

Comorbidity between autism and insomnia (Him and Ronan’s insomnia and his little Henrietta model)

It’s stated multiple times about Ronan that he values their friendship because Ronan never lies, Ronan is honest, etc etc. Ronan also doesn’t hold much care for pointless social conventions. This is also a case for Ronan Autism but as it relates to Gansey I believe he treasures these traits because, based on his need to be all these different versions of himself, Gansey is always lying and putting on a show. IMO this more raw, honest version of Gansey is closer to his true self, but a self he cannot be.

IDK how universal this is but orientation in physical space? He’s not klutzy but he’s not really graceful. Specifically in TRB he says, on flying, “He seemed to lack the important ability to orient himself vertically as well as horizontally, which led to disagreements involving trees”

His obsession with the Camero and preserving the integrity of it, like the specific run-down way it functions, the paint job, the leather, seems like its an important piece of sensory input for him. It also is, again, a tool that represents his masking (all the times he’s said that the Camero is who he is on the inside)

This is kind of a stretch but the near constant chewing on or rubbing the mint leaves, personally that sounds like sensory hell but hey, to each his own.

im sure there are many more but i’m interested to see if anyone else has thought of this before and there are points to add…

[therockywhorepictureshow]

i dont care what anyone says gansey will always be autistic in my mind

[pistacheriot]

ronan: FSSJKSKSKKSKSK YESTERDAY ADAM FELL AND MADE SOME SOUDS HE'D ONLY MAKE WITH SOMEONE IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM

gansey: which sounds? AND I'M IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH ADAM

narrator's voice: he was thinking about a friendship

THIS IS FUNNIER IN PORTUGUESE, GO LEARN THE LANGUAGE ENGLISH SPEAKERS

ronan: HSJSKSKLS ONTEM O ADAM CAIU E FEZ UM SOM Q ELE FARIA SÓ COM ALGUÉM COM QUEM ELE TENHA RELAÇÕES

gansey: q sons? e eu tenho relações com o adam

voz do narrador: ele estava falando de relações de amizade

[oikawasstofu]

Ronan n Gansey so different at first glance have been friends for so long

They just get each other in a very autistic way

[vampyre-knight]

ive started rereading the raven boys and,,, me making several posts about all of gansey + blues autism coded moments + ronan's adhd ones (gansey has had like,,, at least 8 alr and im on page 55) when tbh??? i am collecting evidence so,,, maybe

[funkyfruta]

Ronan n Gansey so different at first glance have been friends for so long

They just get each other in a very autistic way

[hondayota]

broke: blue sargent is a manic pixie dream girl

woke: gansey is a manic pixie dream girl

[hermitmoss]

autistic gansey: the raven boys

literal thinking

All of the sources said that church watchers had to possess “the second sight” and Gansey barely possessed first sight before he put his contacts in.

It took Gansey a moment to realize that Ronan had made a joke, and by then, it was too late to laugh.

Gansey, misunderstanding, immediately asked her, “Why would you have to leave?”

“Coincidence?” Ronan asked. “I think not.”  It was meant to be sarcastic. Gansey had said I don’t believe in coincidences so often that he no longer needed to.

He said, “I don’t think that minor children are required to get gifts for their parents. I’m a dependent. That’s the definition of dependent, is it not?”

Several exasperated faces turned on Gansey. Maura said, “Well, he’s not going to just go away because you don’t want to deal with him.” “I didn’t say it was possible,” Gansey replied, not looking up from his splint. “I just said that it was what I would like.”

"His name wasn’t really Butternut, was it?" Gansey asked Adam in a low voice.

food sensitivities

Gansey said, “Tell me there’s no sauce on this burger.”  Dropping the strap from his teeth, Ronan scoffed. “Please.”  “No pickle, either,” Adam said

stimming

The area around him smelled strongly of mint from the leaf he chewed absently. 

He ran his thumb back and forth across his bottom lip, a habit he never seemed to notice and Adam never bothered to point out.

Gansey was crumpled on his bed, earbuds in, eyes closed. Even with the hearing gone in his left ear, Adam could hear the tinny sound of the music, whatever Gansey had played in order to keep himself company, to lure himself to sleep.

special interest

Gansey couldn’t resist talking about Glendower. He never could.

But Gansey never minded retelling the story. He’d related the events like they’d just happened, thrilled again

he was wondering if it was more than the ordinary curiosity people possessed when faced with Gansey and his obsessive accessories. He knew Gansey would find him overly suspicious, unnecessarily proprietary of a search Gansey was more than willing to share with most people.

“We talking about Gansey the third and his New Age obsession?” the secretary asked.

what he found was that Richard Gansey III was more obsessed with the ley line than he had ever been. Something about the entire research process seemed … frantic.  What is wrong with this kid? Whelk wondered

It was suddenly difficult not to be excited by the idea of explaining it all to her.

The easy way that he began the story, at once striding through grass and eyeing the EMF reader, let Blue know that he had told it many times before.

“If you’d just asked,” Gansey said, “I would’ve told you everything in there. I would’ve been happy to. It wasn’t a secret.”

masking and mirroring accents

Adam remembered finding him intimidating when he first met him. There were two Ganseys: the one who lived inside his skin, and the one Gansey put on in the morning when he slid his wallet into the back pocket of his chinos.  The former was troubled and passionate, with no discernible accent to Adam’s ears, and the latter bristled with latent power as he greeted people with the slippery, handsome accent of old Virginia money.

It was a default answer, she saw; he fell back onto his powerful politeness when he was taken by surprise. Also, he was still watching Adam, taking his cues from him as to how he should react to her. Adam nodded, once, briefly, and the mask slipped just a little more. Blue wondered if the President Cell Phone demeanor ever vanished completely when he was around his friends. Maybe the Gansey she’d seen in the churchyard was what lay beneath.

A few minutes later, when Gansey climbed into the front seat beside the pilot, she saw that he was grinning, effusive and earnest, incredibly excited to be going wherever they were going. It was nothing like his previous, polished demeanor.

There was something about the timbre of his voice that surprised Blue. It wasn’t until he spoke again she realized he was using the tone she’d heard him use with Adam.

This Gansey, this story-telling Gansey, was a different person altogether from any of the other versions of him she’d encountered. She couldn’t not listen. 

Gansey had always felt as if there were two of him: the Gansey who was in control, able to handle any situation, able to talk to anyone, and then, the other, more fragile Gansey, strung out and unsure, embarrassingly earnest, driven by naive longing. That second Gansey loomed inside him now, more than ever, and he didn’t like it.

some days Gansey wished that he could be him, because Adam was so very real and true in a way that Gansey couldn’t ever seem to be.

Gansey was first into the room, and he clearly hadn’t expected to find anyone there, because his features hadn’t been arranged at all to disguise his misery. When he saw Blue, he immediately managed to pull a cordial smile from somewhere. And it was so very convincing. She had seen his face just a second before, but even having seen his expression, it was hard to remind herself that the smile was false. Why a boy with a life as untroubled as Gansey’s would have needed to learn how to build such a swift and convincing false front of happiness was beyond her.

not understood/accidentally offensive/words coming out wrong

The Aglionby boy appeared puzzled for a long moment, and then realization dawned. “Oh, that was not how I meant it. That is not what I said.”

To his credit, the Aglionby boy didn’t speak right away. Instead, he thought for a moment and then he said, without heat, “You said you were working for living. I thought it’d be rude to not take that into account. I’m sorry you’re insulted. I see where you’re coming from, but I feel it’s a little unfair that you’re not doing the same for me.”

He hadn’t meant to be offensive but, in retrospect, it was possible he had been. This was going to eat at him all evening. He vowed, as he had a hundred times before, to consider his words better.

He’d managed to offend again, with no effort at all.

After a moment, he said, "Sometimes I’m afraid he’ll never really understand me."

I did tell him, right? I did say that we were to wait. It’s not that he didn’t understand me.

Words pressed against his mouth, begged to be said, but he kept silent.

But Gansey’s words had somehow become unwitting weapons, and he didn’t trust himself to not accidentally discharge them again. 

“My words are unerring tools of destruction, and I’ve come unequipped with the ability to disarm them.

specifically coming across as condescending

 She clearly hadn’t found him condescending.  Which was probably because she hadn’t heard him speak.  

“Sometimes he’s very condescending.”  Adam looked at the ground. “He doesn’t mean to be.

“Really?” Gansey asked, so innocently startled by this that it was clear that Adam had been right before — he hadn’t meant to be condescending.

“God, I’m sick of your condescension, Gansey,” Adam said. “Don’t try to make me feel stupid. Who whips out repugnant? Don’t pretend you’re not trying to make me feel stupid.”  “This is the way I talk.

honesty

Adam suspected Gansey’s preference was because Ronan was earnest even if he was horrible, and with Gansey, honesty was golden.

“So I think we deserve the truth. Tell me you know something but you don’t want to help me, if that’s what’s going on, but don’t lie to me.”

“I’m going to need everyone to be straight with each other from now on. No more games. This isn’t just for Blue, either. All of us.”

He wasn’t sure how to speak without hurting Ronan. He couldn’t lie to him.

“age-inappropriate”

Gansey himself sat at an old desk with his back to them, gazing out an east-facing window and tapping a pen. His fat journal lay open near him, the pages fluttering with glued-in book passages and dark with notes. Adam was struck, as he occasionally was, by Gansey’s agelessness: an old man in a young body, or a young man in an old man’s life.

In his best professor voice

He sounded so old, Blue thought. So formal in comparison to the other boys he’d brought. There was something intensely discomfiting about him

once again Blue got the sense that he seemed older than the boys he’d brought with him.

There was something very ancient about him just then, with the tree arched over him and his eyelids rendered colorless in the shadows.

“You haven’t been a dependent since you were four. You went straight from kindergarten to old man with a studio apartment.” 

Malory had been the first one to take fifteen-year-old Gansey seriously, a favor for which Gansey would not soon stop being grateful for.

journal is comfort object

Gansey retreated to his bed, though he didn’t lie down. He reached for his journal, but it wasn’t there; he’d left it at Nino’s the night of the fight.

Whelk held his hand out for the journal. Gansey swallowed.  He asked, “Whelk — sir — are you sure this is the only way?” The journal weighted his hands. He didn’t need it. He knew everything in it.  But it was him. He was giving everything that he’d worked for away.  I will get a new one.

alexithymia

He thought this feeling inside him was shame.

Gansey tried several different ways to think of the situation, but there wasn’t any way he could paint it that made it hurt less. Something kept fracturing inside him.

Gansey couldn’t begin to explain the size of this awfulness. He only knew that it burst inside him, again and again, fresh every time he considered it. 

some complicated longing to settle an argument that waged deep inside himself.

overwhelming emotions

 More than anything, the journal wanted. It wanted more than it could hold, more than words could describe, more than diagrams could illustrate. Longing burst from the pages, in every frantic line and every hectic sketch and every dark-printed definition. There was something pained and melancholy about it. 

 His bald expression held something new: not the raw delight of finding the ley line or the sly pleasure of teasing Blue. She recognized the strange happiness that came from loving something without knowing why you did, that strange happiness that was sometimes so big that it felt like sadness.

He couldn’t stand it, all of this inside him.  In the end, he was nobody to Adam, he was nobody to Ronan. Adam spit his words back at him and Ronan squandered however many second chances he gave him. Gansey was just a guy with a lot of stuff and a hole inside him that chewed away more of his heart every year.They were always walking away from him. But he never seemed able to walk away from them.

“too serious”

Things seemed to weigh heavily enough on Gansey as it was.

His voice was peculiar. Formal and certain.

~awkward

He knocked fists with Adam. Coming from Gansey, the gesture was at once charming and self-conscious, a borrowed phrase of another language.

“I don’t know what else to say.”  “‘Sorry,’” she recommended.  “I said that already.”

clumsiness and disorganisation

It wasn’t that he meant to be careless — as Adam told him again and again, “Things cost money, Gansey” — it was just that he never seemed to realize the consequences of his actions until too late.

[Ronan] stopped the recorder and said, “You’re dripping gas on your pants, geezer.”

Gansey crashed onto the driver’s seat.

Then there were the notes, made with a half-dozen different pens and markers, but all in the same business-like hand. They circled and pointed and underlined very urgently. They made bulleted lists and eager exclamation points in the margins. They contradicted one another and referred to one another in third person. Lines became cross-hatching became doodles of mountains became squirrelly tire tracks behind fast-looking cars

Not the tidy stacks of an intellectual attempting to impress, but the slumping piles of a scholar obsessed.

It looked like the home of a mad inventor or an obsessed scholar or a very messy explorer; after meeting Gansey, she was beginning to suspect that he was all of these things.

EfficiencyTM

Gansey derived a large part of his pleasure from meeting goals, and a large part of that large part was pleased by meeting goals efficiently. There was nothing more efficient than aiming for your destination as the crow flew.

RulesTM

They didn’t even have the authority to choose an alcoholic beverage. They couldn’t be deciding who deserved to live or die.

likes mechanical things (not counting the camaro because that’s just Too Many Quotes to compile)

He liked the little knobs and toggles and gauges of cockpits, and he liked the technological backwardness of the simple clasp seat belts.

not understanding/realizing things

Again, his face was somehow puzzled by the fact of their hand-holding.

It hadn’t occurred to Gansey that if the Camaro had been operating properly, fleeing would’ve been an option.

Gansey didn’t understand, but he nodded. 

And now Gansey was a king here, and he didn’t even know how to use it.

difficulty reading people/nonverbal cues not impacting him

Gansey suspected that none of them was being completely honest with their replies, but at least he’d told them what he wanted. Sometimes all he could hope for was getting it on the record.

One of Ronan’s eyebrows was raised, sharp as a razor.  Gansey strapped his journal closed. “That doesn’t work on me. 

He didn’t believe she was really offended; her face didn’t look like it had at Nino’s when they’d first met, and her ears were turning pink. He thought, possibly, he was getting a little better at not offending her

need for certainty

What Gansey needed out of life was facts, things he could write in his journal, things he could state twice and underline, no matter how improbable those facts were.

generally unusual ways of thinking

An astonished Roman historian commented, You look under rocks no one else thinks to pick up, slick.

general “strangeness”

Adam leaned toward her as if he was about to say something, but ultimately, he just shook his head, smiling, like Gansey was a joke that was too complicated to explain.

“ARE YOU LISTENING, GLENDOWER? I AM COMING TO FIND YOU!” Gansey’s voice, ebullient and ringing, echoed off the tree-covered slopes around the field. Adam and Blue found him standing in the middle of a clear, pale path, his arms stretched out and his head tilted back as he shouted into the air.

“You find it not normal?”  She could tell that he very much wanted her to say that he wasn’t normal, so she replied, “Oh, I’m sure it’s quite normal in some circles.”  He looked a little hurt, but most of his attention was on the meter, which showed two faint red lights. He remarked, “I’d like to be in those circles.

Gansey couldn’t keep the exasperation from his voice. “‘Strange’ doesn’t help me. I don’t know what ‘strange’ means.”

He was himself, but he was something else, too — that something that Blue had first seen in him at the boys’ reading, that sense of otherness, of something more, seemed to radiate from that still portrait of Gansey enshrined in the dark tree.

not knowing other people don’t know things he knows

“Gansey, seriously,” Adam interrupted, to Blue’s relief. “Nobody knows what quiddity is.”

“Nobody knows who Ned Kelly is, either, Gansey.”

Born This Way

A small voice within Adam asked whether he would ever look this grand on the inside, or if it was something you had to be born into.

just. this. the way he knows to think this, the way he instinctively compares them to aliens that humans mistreat and that he logically shouldn’t love.

They were like aliens, Gansey thought. Aliens that we have treated very badly for a very long time. If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.

[barrywhelk]

Top 10 autistic Gansey moments

[sureuncertainty]

for your consideration...

ronan lynch trans

that is all thank you for your time

[friendofcars]

I know a lot of people have pointed out that Maura, Calla, and Persephone serve as mirrors for/are counterparts of Gansey, Ronan, and Adam, but before she is Adam's mirror, if she is at all, Persephone is Noah's. As time loops, Noah has died, is dying, will die, and so will persephone- something of which I think they're both aware. they reflect each other's ghostly qualities. more on Adam later, though!

(in hindsight, part of this list reads like diagnostic criteria. unintentional on my part. take from that what you will. this is also really long. it gets more analytical towards the end.)

From a more meta (?) perspective, I think the purpose of Noah and Persephone being parallels to one another is to foreshadow Persephone’s death (in concert with her name) via parallel descriptions and narrative roles to noah: a lot of her descriptions and actions are ghost-like, not just generally, but Noah-like too!

1. appearance and impressions: light, vague, approximate, ephemeral - except for their dark eyes

“There was something out of place about his clothing, his mostly combed-back fair hair.”

“Persephone knelt on the edge of her bed, draping a crimped pale cloud of hair around Blue’s face.” (I think it's also worth mentioning here that the woman who dies in Opal is described as cloud-like).

“[O]ne was smudgy, just as he said, with a rumpled, faded look about his person, like his body had been laundered too many times.”

“He looked pale and insubstantial in the yellow, late-night light of the room behind him; the skin beneath his eyes was darker than anything. He looked less like Noah than the suggestion of Noah.”

“For a second, all that seemed to be visible was his pale face; his dark clothing invisible and his eyes chasms into someplace unknowable.”

“Noah’s chin ducked farther, his expression somehow black, his eye sockets hollowed and skull-like. Were they looking at a boy? Or something that looked like a boy?”

“He thought of what a cruel mockery that mirror-version of her had been, the terrible child-creature from his ritual before. Nothing like this airy whisper of a person in front of him now. ”

“When pressed, people often remembered Persephone’s hair: a long, wavy white-blond mane that fell to the back of her thighs. If they got past her hair, they sometimes recalled her dresses — elaborate, frothy creations or quizzical smocks. And if they made it past that, they were unsettled by her eyes, true mirror black, the pupils hidden in the darkness.”

“Persephone blinked up, her black eyes a little far away.”

“A mirage had appeared at the end of the exit ramp, only now that they looked a bit harder, it was a real person, behaving like an unreal person... Her hair was a blond frothy cloud and her skin was chalky. Except for her black eyes, everything about her was as pale as the psychic beside Maura was dark.”

“He was, Adam noted, nearly disappeared already. He was more the feeling of Noah than actually Noah.”

“He thought of what a cruel mockery that mirror-version of her had been, the terrible child-creature from his ritual before. Nothing like this airy whisper of a person in front of him now. ”

Even her tarot cards resemble Noah: "Spidery lines and smudgy backgrounds suggested the figures on each card..."

2. movement and body language

“Czerny was on the ground. Not dead, but dying. His legs still pedaled on the uneven surface beside his red car, making drifts of fallen leaves behind him.” Re: drifts- I associate both Noah and Persephone with air (especially as a symbol of dwindling life).

“Persephone was a poor but energetic sleeper; her midnight shouting and nocturnal leg paddling ensured that she never had to share a room.”

Like the tarot cards, Persephone's belongings look and act like Noah's dying body: “Most of the bed was covered by strange, embroidered leggings and plaid tights running in place...”

“Noah seemed about to put his hands in his pockets and then didn’t. Noah’s hands seemed to belong fewer places than other people’s.”

“She twirled a hand around in a vague sort of way. Blue took this as a sign to find a place to sit.”

“Behind her, Persephone stood in the doorway, her hands clasping and unclasping each other.”

“Noah made a series of incomprehensible gestures, more agitated than she’d seen him.”

“ Noah immediately spotted Gansey and made a generalized flapping gesture.”

“Persephone flapped a hand as if it was too difficult for her to explain.”

“When he straightened, he realized Noah had drifted from his room to stand near Gansey.”

“Persephone tended to get caught in odd drafts and blow around.”

“Behind them, the stairs creaked, and both Calla and Blue leapt...She’d gotten over her shock and was now merely angry at being shocked. “You should make some noise when you enter rooms.”

“Noah. You’re creepy as hell back there.” In the deep, shadowed entrance of the church, Noah stood silently.”

“Because it was rare that Blue noticed the moment Noah actually appeared.”

“Persephone, and the furniture lurked against the walls.”

Both Noah and Persephone often seem childlike in comparison to their friends, too, emphasized by their preternatural knowledge of the story (Noah's through nonlinear time experience, Persephone's through psychic ability).

3. quiet and distant voices

“Persephone’s tiny, breathy voice said, “It’s available. I mean, open.”

“Her dainty, child’s voice was soft enough that Blue had to hold her breath to hear it. ”

“Oh dear,” Persephone said in a small voice — and Persephone’s voice was already quite small, so her small voice was indeed tiny — but she turned and went up the stairs. Her bare feet were soundless as she did.”

“One at a time?” Persephone suggested, her voice nearly inaudible.”

“Noah’s voice, cool and barely there, whispered in her ear. “Please say something to them.” ...Noah’s voice was faint but desperate. His distress hummed through her. “Please.”

“He thought he heard Noah’s voice, distantly... “I’m sorry. Can you say it louder, Noah?”

“Noah, who could go unnoticed for hours, whose room was pristine, whose voice was never raised.”

“Persephone’s quiet voice cut through Maura’s and Calla’s increasingly loud competition.”

“Noah, who could go unnoticed for hours, whose room was pristine, whose voice was never raised.”

“Persephone finally spoke up in her tiny voice.”

“Now,” Persephone said, and her voice was very small and soft. “Are you the Magician? Or aren’t you?”

“She sighed deeply. She sighed a lot.”

“Even though Ronan was snarling and Noah was sighing and Adam was hesitating, he didn’t turn to verify that they were coming.”

4. obscurity/evasion of others' memories

“-it was always difficult to know details when it came to Persephone-”

“Adam,” he demanded, “what is Noah’s last name?” Before Gansey had asked, Adam felt as if he must have known. But now the answer slid away from his mouth and then from his thoughts entirely, leaving his lips parted. It was like losing his way to class, losing his way home, forgetting the phone number for Monmouth Manufacturing. “I don’t know,” Adam admitted.”

“Everyone had been surprised to discover Persephone had a last name.”

“Maura offered, “It’s the Russian in you.” “Estonian,” Persephone replied.”

and soon after,

“Maura gestured toward the third member of their group. “And Persephone is Russian.” “Estonian,” Persephone corrected softly.”

The fact that only a handful of characters can see Noah also applies here. A lot of the examples in the appearance section also fall under this category!

5. recycled language: from other people and other points in time

“Good morning,” Persephone echoed. “It’s too early. My words aren’t working, so I’ll just use as many of the ones that work for you as possible.”

“No,” Adam said softly. Persephone echoed, “No?”

“He’ll be a champ,” Blue said, punching Noah’s arm lightly. “I’ll be a champ,” repeated Noah.”

“Is that all?” she whispered. Gansey closed his eyes. “That’s all there is.”

and then,

“Noah, standing next to a pile of plywood and four-by-fours, asked, “Is that all? That doesn’t seem like very much.”

and a three part example:

“Ronan was right. Things felt bigger. He may not have found the line, or the heart of the line, but something was happening, something was starting. Noah said, “Don’t throw it away.” This is right after Ronan kills the wasp in Monmouth and deposits it in the waste basket, but Noah is, of course, referring to Gansey's second chance at life, for which Noah has sacrificed himself.

and

“Don’t throw it away,” Noah whispered. “I’m trying not to,” Adam replied.” This is right before Adam takes the Camaro to Cabeswater to stop Whelk. Noah is now referring to Adam's chance to make a sacrifice to Cabeswater and wake the line, to supplant himself in the story where Noah left off. This is perhaps the point at which Adam definitively sets along the path that leads him to Persephone, but first, before he goes, he mirrors Noah one last time: “Noah stood directly in front of him, hollow eyes on level with Adam’s eyes, smashed cheek on level with Adam’s ruined ear, breathless mouth inches from Adam’s sucked-in breath.” The parallel injuries, the opposing presence/absence of air (read: life)- it's a turning point! It's almost as if Noah starts to cede his mirroring of Persephone to Adam in this moment- he doesn't lose the qualities he and Persephone have in common, but they become secondary as Persephone's primary role in the story crystalizes as a mentor to Adam. I think you could also consider Persephone not as a mirror to Adam but a lens- microscopic, telescopic, or both. She's instrumental in his psychic awakening and self healing and does so by teaching him to shift his perspective, to look both within himself and far beyond himself, finding the connections in between. I still think Adam and Persephone mirror one another, especially with regard to their generally quiet and distant demeanors and psychic abilities that distinguish them from their friends, but it's a parallel that gets crafted mid-story, not a parallel that frames the story from the start- even if Adam is inherently psychic independent of his sacrifice, which I think he is!

and finally,

“Goodbye,” Noah said. “Don’t throw it away.” I don't think this needs any further commentary:(

6. relationships with friends: noah + gansey and persephone + maura

Gansey and Maura can also be considered mirrors of one another; given Gansey's experiences with falling into cavern pits, the Henry hole in the ground situation, etc., we can tenuously equate Gansey's (second) death with Maura's disappearance into the caves. Noah knows that Gansey is fated to die through his nonlinear experience of time (time along the ley line in particular, I believe). Persephone is implied to have known Maura was going to disappear too: when the characters return to Fox Way in the epilogue of The Dream Thieves and find Maura's note, we read: “As Persephone climbed the stairs, Calla said accusingly, “This is your fault. Did you know this was going to happen?” Noah is also aware that he cannot stay in the story forever ("I'm almost gone anyway"), and it seems to me that Persephone knows she will die too (mainly because her giving her tarot cards to Adam seems like a precautionary measure/a parting gift). I'd even go as far as saying that Noah dies for Gansey and Persephone dies for Maura, although they "die for" their respective friends in different ways (Noah designates his death as a sacrifice for Gansey's life; Persephone dies in the process of trying to save Maura's- but unlike Noah's death, her death is not integral to Maura's survival. Two distinct actions and outcomes, but not entirely unrelated ones. I'd argue they both make the biggest sacrifices for Gansey/Maura in their respective groups of friends.).

And because I can't not make this about Adam again, Persephone herself doesn't see Adam as like her: in the prologue of Blue Lily, Lily Blue, Persephone comments on how new to life he seems (in contrast with her agelessness), how she isn't suited to bargains like he is, and especially this:

“She was a far better psychic when she had her two friends Calla and Maura with her: Calla to sort through her impressions and Maura to put them in context. Adam seemed to have potential in this department, though he was too new to replace Maura— no, that was a ridiculous way to put it, Persephone told herself, you don’t replace friends. She struggled to think of the proper word. Not replace.”

Like the Gray Man (see "Adam Parrish and his band of merry men" which sort of happens in a contrived way in TD3 w/ the Crying Club being rather unmerry men), Persephone recognizes Adam as a leader of the kids' quest, much like Maura's leadership amongst the psychics of Fox Way.

7. other notes

I think it's worth mentioning that Noah doesn't enter 300 Fox Way until after Persephone's death. I haven't reasoned out why exactly, but I think it's intentional.

They're both harmed by literal mirrors (not narrative foils nor the Blue/Gwenllian type of mirror)- when Gwenllian possesses Noah, Jesse Dittley halts the possession by putting a mirror in front of Noah, which makes him incredibly distressed. Persephone, of course, dies between the mirrors in perpetuum in the Fox Way attic.

In the epilogue of The Dream Thieves, Persephone and Adam flank Noah as Ronan brings Aurora into Cabeswater: “And there was Noah, shoulders slumped, hand lifted in an apologetic wave. On one side of him, Adam stood, hands in pockets, and on the other side was Persephone, her fingers twisted together.” In the same section, Ronan realizes Aurora looks like Matthew, which to me serves as an implicit reminder to consider how Noah and Adam are similar to Persephone as well.

I don't really have any summative thoughts on this, but I think it would have been incredibly cool if Persephone turned out to be a ghost as well... but alas...

[moonssugar]

we get the moment blue realizes she likes gansey in and all the hang ups that come with that in agonizing detail BUT i want gansey’s pov of slowly realizing he likes blue in the same agonizing detail because i know this boy had a meltdown and shattered into like a billion pieces and then imploded before slowly putting himself back together like come on. or was it a gradual “this is happening and i can’t stop it” like with him calling blue after the argument with adam and asking her to describe everything just to hear her voice and letting himself slip. like did gansey have a big Oh moment the way blue did we didnt see. he drives blue up to the hill after her second argument with adam and thats when we see him really freak out over his feelings for blue so much that he jumps out the car and runs away from her. before that almost every time he thinks about blue he’s going knock it off, gansey and his thoughts darted toward adam, toward blue, and rabbited away and the boat scene where he’s absolutely admiring her and then telling himself not to ruin things. so ch.51 of the dream thieves is like the moment he can’t not address it, thats his Oh. Oh no moment and he goes right back to trying to repress it by saying “and now we never speak of it again.”

i still want the agonizing detail that went into every single time he ignored how he felt

[searchingforglendowerwithleah]

I think part of the reason why I loved Glass Onion so much is because Benoit Blanc kinda gives me Gansey vibes