#GS1S2

[thoughtfulfangirling]

It seems Princess Katharine may feel a bit different about our gargoyles now. And like really... good.

It's also really interesting that right here, though her words are soft, they are also disbelieving. There's no trace of horror really, but there's something to it. She's seeing The Magus in a new light. She knew he was magical, powerful. But had she realized he was capable of such cruelty?

And if I recall correctly, later on we get a whole story line of what takes place after this for Princess Katharine, Tom, and The Magus, and in that story line, The Magus clearly is in love with Princess Katharine, but she doesn't reciprocate. She hardly ever seems to notice. I wonder if this is the moment where the idea of that becomes simply unfathomable. This is the sort of thing she imagined the gargoyles would be capable of.

Instead, her loyal friend did this. Did it to those who came to and did save her. This is her own, lesser moment of seeing someone close to her in a new light as Goliath did Robert. She thought the gargoyles brutes, but a human sabotaged his home, another human threatened her life, those two humans nearly got all three of them killed with their bickering, and her advisor displayed great cruelty. Quite the learning moment for our princess.

And Goliath? He's just in despair. Those were the last of his people, and though they might not be dead, they may as well be.

[thoughtfulfangirling]

Xanatos, I really think, is letting the fact that he broke the spell do a lot of work here. He keeps talking about relationships and rebuilding trust, but it's done in a way that assumes that this trust and relationship is going to happen organically.

In other words, it's sort of like he has already done all he has to do. That's not how actual trust works though. It's work. Trust happens more in the smaller moments than in the grand gestures. Grand gestures can be nice and easily can make us want to trust that person. It's nice to be on the receiving end of nice things and our desire for that to continue can convince us of a great many things.

But it's not trust.

Even a shared goal does not prove trust. Xanatos is hoping their emotions of being grateful will translate into them feeling trust. He is hoping that fighting side by side with a people who fight will translate into trust.

And honestly on humans at the very least, they are very convincing tactics. We like big showy gestures that we can easily file away and pull back up for reference later.

Is it a sign of gargoyles being different? Or evidence that Goliath understands trust and community better than Xanatos may think.

Sorry to go all philosophical here, but I just finished the book Bowling Alone, which was written in 2000 and speaks to a three decade decline in social capital, in our tendencies to build close knit communities that benefit more than just our close friends, but extended friends and family.

Goliath comes from a time when social bonds were life and death, where community relied on the 'thick trust' of going through hardships as a community and not just from the good deeds one friend does for another. I think he does have an understanding of trust that Xanatos has been divorced from. He understands that community is proven over time and cannot be rushed.

I'm in a loop. It's interesting okay! XD

And it's also important to know where Goliath is in his own head. He may know all these things, but it doesn't mean he's ready to start the process of building those communities again. Not after all that just happened. He means to protect himself and what is left of his people, and so he builds some walls. He would feel this way no matter who he first encountered I think, but I think there's something about Xanatos that makes him all the fiercer about it.