#in which liz does some pretty wonky intertextual analysis

[terrainofheartfelt]

Serena uploading Blair’s diary entries to the Gossip Girl laptop was one thing (shitty, but maybe forgivable given that she didn’t actually intend to upload them and was Going Through It at the time), but what she did in 5x24 at the Campbell divorce party was something else entirely. Ignoring the dubious consent issues of Serena sleeping with a drunk Dan who wasn’t aware he was being set up or filmed (mega yikes), Serena intentionally set the scene to recreate one of the worst formative moments of Blair’s life. So many of Blair’s insecurities about herself and her relationships stem from Nate cheating on her with Serena on that fucking bar, to the point that it was STILL affecting her in the present day - we’re shown in season 6 that she still doesn’t fully believe that anyone could truly get over Serena, which is part of the reason she decided to get back together with Chuck. For Serena to purposely exploit those insecurities, to force Blair to relive that moment just because she’s mad at her for kicking her out? It’s indefensible. As much as I feel like the whole thing was majorly OOC, if we are considering it canon, then I don’t think Serena deserved to be forgiven by Blair at all - it really should have been the end of their friendship, as shitty as that would have been. But I just don’t see how anyone could get over their best friend doing something so intentionally malicious to them, y’know?

(And again, that’s without even acknowledging the impact that being taken advantage of in such an intimate way must have had on Dan!)

Oohf so I am trying to answer some asks today and I’ve left this sitting for a while because it requires many spoons and mine have all…been in the sink or something. 

And yeah as you have I am going to put the Serena & Dan of it all (mostly) to the side bc it is SO egregious and I am not trying to justify what Serena does because it is awful 

But because you’re bringing this back to Blairena, let’s take it there. 

I’m actually glad I put answering this on hold bc now I can refer you to this excellent piece of meta by Jo. And it really does all come back to 1x04 doesn’t it? Blair thinks she’ll never be enough, but Serena just is, for that fact that she exists — and that’s not Serena’s fault, it’s just who she is, so it has to be Blair’s fault. 

Ok wow I am making myself sad so like, when you frame the relationship this way, it just gives the s5 finale that much more power to hurt you, because Blair has spent her whole life reconciling with how she’s Too Much and Not Enough at the same time, and she finally reaches a moment of arrival with “Dan loves me for me,” bc she doesn’t have to do that math with him anymore. But then, in her eyes, (not what I think was actually happening in this moment in my own reading) Serena takes another person from her, because that’s who she is. And it’s the narrative, right? The story that Blair, more than any of the other mains, except maybe chip, has known how the story is supposed to end. And here it has. And then it adds this extra layer of her going back to chip: she’s never enough, but he hasn’t made that a secret really. The devil you know. Meanwhile Dan is grappling with his own issues of Never Being Enough and Always Being Too Much and gossip!Serena (#notmyserena) captures them both at their weakest moment and confirms their respective fears at the same time. God that is some shakespearean shit. Gossip! Girl! Is! A! Tragedy! 

As for Blairena in the post s5 economy…I’ve been thinking about it a lot, it’s the next knot I’m trying to untangle in my post s5 au. the wounds they have inflicted on each other are so severe, but narratively, I still want them to love each other. So, I guess I’m suspending my disbelief a little bit for the sake of the fiction (which I think is fine! it’s a good thing in media!). And there’s is a friendship that is built for fiction. It’s the true Mythic Relationship of the show, the deep deep love they have for each other counterweighted by the deep deep loathing they have for their own selves, and constantly colliding and revolving and thriving and surviving and destroying each other. 

But with all of that, narratively speaking, they still need each other. 

So, it reads very homoerotic and romantic—which is valid, but if I may broker a pretentious cringe comparison born of another fandom obsession: I’ve always kind of thought of Blairena’s friendship as comparable to the notion of parabatai that is in Cassandra Clare’s Shadowhunter Chronicles Series (I know, I know just let me go there for a sec). So, leaving all the magic and warrior cult context of this fantasy series aside, the parabatai relationship is like a deep, binding platonic devotional bond between two people. They are tied together by faith and ritual, from childhood (that’s actually an important point in these books), a very specific kind of soulmate. Clare uses the ancient greek delineations of love to describe it philia (friendship, brotherly love) & agape (selfless universal love) but not necessarily eros (erotic and/or romantic – for the purposes of this illustration – love). She also references the biblical story of Ruth and Naomi “thy people shall be my people / thy god my god…where thou diest, I shall die, and there they shall bury me” etc etc. I don’t want to get to into it (because I will if I let myself, but this is all just to say, I don’t think the world would spin right if these two were to be estranged forever. They are bonded together, by their shared childhoods, shared traumas, the way they carried each other through their adolescence. The red string of fate is tying them together by their pinky swears.

So I don’t want the friendship to end, but I do think it needs to be given space. In calling back to my au, Mouthful of Forevers, that’s what I’ve done so far. To heal, they absolutely have to be apart for a while, Blair moves to France, Serena starts traveling, yadiyadiyadda. It’s distance that they needed probably since the Pink Party. To grow into themselves, so that when they next see other and really talk, they know enough about their own self that they aren’t threatened by the strength and self-actualization that their best friend now happens, the growth has to happen separately, or it won’t last. 

Which also comes back to 1x04 (shocker), and the way they define themselves in opposition to the other. Because, in this world of wealth they grew up in, they were taught to believe in scarcity. If she has this, that means that I can’t have it too. If Serena is good, then I am bad. If Blair is smart, then I am foolish. If I love her, then I can’t love me. If he loves her, then he cannot love me. If he loves me, he can’t, because who will love her? 

It’s a theological principle my dad and I have talked about (I know, let it go there) the gospel of scarcity vs the gospel of plenty. Ultimately, the gospel of scarcity is a fallacy. There is enough. These girls have enough love within them to give to each other and to themselves. There is enough in the world for them to both be happy. One does not need to tear herself apart to save the other, and she doesn’t need to tear the other apart to save herself. And they have to learn that by being apart for a while, and build a happiness that is outside of their friendship, so that they know when they come back together, that life isn’t going to go away in the presence of the other’s happiness. 

I think what Dan and Serena’s friendship looks like in the aftermath is a whole other post, but I’ll say this: the way he and Serena are tied together is different, because they met at a different point in their lives and to a different end, so I don’t know if Serena’s betrayal of him is worse (given the history she and Blair have) but I think Dan feels it more keenly, and has less qualms about cutting Serena out of his life than Blair would have. Which is also something I am trying to tackle in MoF, once I get back to writing it. It’s all incubating right now while I’m working on the P&P au, but here, have a snippet: 

She had been staring out the window, gazing at the Alps on the other side of the glass, Dan’s head pillowed in her lap while he talked. 

I think – he’d said, After it first happened, I thought it was something we had done together, but the further I get away from it, the more I think she was using me. And I don’t – I don’t know what to do with that.