#I DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY BUT IVE LIKE HALFWAY MADE A CHARACTER ALREADY. HELP

[sol-shines]

GOT ACCEPTED INTO A LANCER CAMPAIGN AT MY SCHOOL'S TTRPG CLUB. WE ARE DOING IT SCARED

[astudyinfreewill]

hey this may be a stupid question, but it's already been a long time since ive read trk so i don't remember everything properly, so can you explain to me why exactly ganseys behavior in the book is seen as problematic??

hey! don’t worry, there are no stupid questions in my book. in fairness, it’s not about gansey’s behaviour in trk, it’s about his behaviour throughout the whole series. most of his problematic actions all come down to the same basic flaw: self-centeredness. for all that gansey is a generous and loving person, he can’t help but make everything about himself. he is driven by anxiety to define his place in the world beyond his privilege, yet he is blinded by that very same privilege - a bad combination, and one that leads him to show very little empathy for the people he loves.

like many teenagers, he’s looking for affirmation from his friends... but then resents them for not giving it, while failing to see that (most of) his friends are dealing with traumatic issues. when his friends reject his input - because it is not what they need or want at the moment - gansey always, always takes it personally. at no point does he try to ask himself, okay, if this isn’t what my friends need, then what do they need from me and how can i be a better friend? instead, he goes straight into self-pity mode, complaining that his friends reject his support and walk away from him. thing is... it’s not real support if it only makes him feel better and not them.

i don’t really have the time to write an extensive meta on all of the interactions where gansey’s lack of empathy comes into play, but here’s a list of just the most glaring ones in the series, in no particular order:

gansey consistently tries to pay for adam’s way and persuade him to move in with him, even though adam has told him multiple times that he is uncomfortable with it because independence is key to his sense of self as an abuse survivor. sometimes he does this even when he’s fully aware that it will start a fight. despite that, adam is usually the one apologizing, at least on page

notably in trb there’s a scene where gansey tries to get adam to move in with him, but when adam asks what’s going to happen if gansey leaves henrietta - is adam just supposed to drop out of aglionby and follow him? - gansey doesn’t reassure him that’s not gonna happen. he just says adam will have to start again at a new school. 

as i said above, this is not true support because it helps gansey feel better without inconveniencing him, but it is not what adam wants. if gansey wanted to support adam, he’d at least promise he would stay in henrietta for their final year of high school, instead of expecting adam to follow him around the world.

when adam rejects that offer and says he’ll stay in the trailer park, gansey takes it incredibly personally and his first response is to victim-blame adam for his abuse, saying things like: “you let your dad pound the shit out of you. you’re as bad as [your abusive mother]. you think you deserve it.” when adam still refuses to move in, and tells him, rightfully so, that gansey doesn’t know what it’s like for him, gansey follows that up with “don’t pretend you have anything to be proud of”. this is past mean and straight into cruel.

adam is the one who apologizes after this fight. let that sink in.

when thinking back on ronan’s suicide attempt, it is strongly implied in the text - and was made explicit in deleted scenes - that gansey appears to have taken ronan’s suicide attempt not just as a traumatic event, but as a slight against him, and is always vaguely guilt-trippy when it comes up (i.e. you promised me you wouldn’t get suicidal again)

gansey does illegal things on ronan’s behalf, multiple times, without ever wondering if this is what ronan wants, see: bribing school officials to keep ronan in school when ronan explicitly wants to drop out, because staying in school is what gansey thinks he should do. even if gansey’s heart was in the right place (i believe in staying in school), he is essentially involving ronan in illegal dealings against his will.

gansey is happy to share his search for glendower with the others, and delegate tasks to them (adam especially) as long as they do things his way. when adam acts against one of his decisions, gansey is absolutely unable to let that go. and while i understand that he is hurt by the breach of trust, because adam went behind his back, his language is telling: “i did tell him that we were to wait, right?”. you don’t “tell” your friends what they “are to do”. that’s not an equal relationship. 

this is also seen in the way gansey acts with ronan in more of a parental role, actively ordering him about. you know there is a problem when an outside character refers to ronan as “gansey’s dog” and neither gansey nor ronan disagree with this.

there’s the infamous hospital scene in trb, too, which has been excellently analysed in this meta post by @bleachersmp3 and @mericatblackwood, but i’ll say a few words about it anyway

in this scene, adam has just been beaten into losing his hearing. he has just come out of the hospital, bruised and traumatised, and has been told he will now have a permanent disability as a result of his abuse. he is now also homeless, because by pressing charges against his father to protect ronan, he has ensured his parents will kick him out for good. so he is forced to move into monmouth - something we have been told from the start of the book he absolutely did not want, because it was critical to his sense of self not to depend on gansey’s wealth. so, he’s bitter about it.

and okay, that’s not entirely fair, because it wasn’t gansey’s fault. but if your friend had just undergone such horrific trauma, surely you would be a little lenient, and understand they’re not being objective atm, right? well, not gansey. instead, gansey launches into a tirade at him: “what is your problem, adam? [...] is there something about my place that’s too repugnant for you? [...] I’m sick of tiptoeing around your principles!”

when adam snaps at him that he’s being condescending by using highbrow words (we can assume that this is a discussion they’ve had before, because adam tries to get gansey to use more everyday words multiple times in the book, especially when it’s clear that blue doesn’t understand something, so it’s something gansey already know adam finds condescending), gansey goes straight to victim-blaming again, this time with a classist twist thrown in: “i’m sorry your father never taught you the meaning of repugnant. he was too busy smashing your head against the wall of your trailer while you apologized for being alive.”

gansey does not apologize at any point after this fight. 

when adam sacrifices himself to cabeswater - which he does explicitly to stop whelk from murdering one of them and save gansey - gansey takes it as a slight against him, because it goes against what he told adam to do, and sadly asks adam “why? was i so awful?”, showing he has completely misunderstood adam’s reasons. adam tells him, and not for the last time: “it was never about you”.

it clearly doesn’t sink in bc they have the same discussion in the dream thieves, when gansey again asks him why did he go to cabeswater against his orders. he does this in an emotionally manipulative way, too - implying that ronan and blue both think badly of him while gansey has been defending him so adam owes him. adam again tries to tell him “it wasn’t about you”, which gansey refuses to believe, and reminds adam that the glendower search “belongs” to him. adam replies that if gansey wants adam’s help - which gansey relies upon frequently, as it seems like adam is assigned a very large share of research and coming up with ideas - he needs to treat him as an equal

after the fight, when adam has a mental breakdown due to the combination of stress, ptsd, and magically-induced hallucinations, and is found wandering along a highway, clearly dissociating and undergoing amnesia, gansey is still so bitter about their fight that he contemplates leaving him behind in dc, so that “adam will have to apologize for once” (for once???)

consider all this emphasis gansey puts on how much adam betrayed his trust; consider that gansey then spends nearly two books seeing blue behind adam’s back (starting in tdt, through bllb, and halfway through trk)

consider that despite the fact adam takes the reveal gracefully and thanks gansey for his honesty, when adam later in trk is honest with gansey about his feelings for ronan, gansey’s immediate reaction is to assume adam is using ronan as a sexuality experiment and warns him not to break ronan’s heart, because ronan is just so fragile and adam is just so cold

consider that the only basis gansey has for making this assumption is that “adam has hurt him (gansey) so many times before”, but never stops to think about his own responsibility in their disagreements, or whether he ever hurt adam 

as you can see, the vast majority of these are in the first two books, with the exception of the “shovel talk” in trk. i would like to say gansey grows over the series, but i think unfortunately it’s more to do with the fact that starting with bllb, the plot is split between gansey/blue and adam/ronan, so gansey just doesn’t get as many interactions with adam and ronan (he’s still bribing school officials on ronan’s behalf though, including selling monmouth which at the time is where ronan is also living). 

gansey isn’t a bad person, and doesn’t (always) mean badly. he does love his friends. unfortunately, his refusal to see things from anyone’s perspective but his own makes him a toxic friend on a great number of occasions.