#The Golden Raven Spoilers

[erlie]

*cries in tears* Him. And the tomatoes. Goddamn.

[aledethanlast]

The care with which the golden raven establishes Jean and Jeremy to be suffering the same kind of abuse in different fonts flies past poetic and into straight up mathematical precision.

Jean is the Raven hate sink. Nobody in the Nest is okay, but in an environment where every weakness is mocked relentlessly, Jean the significantly younger foreigner who won't (can't) speak english is the obvious standout, and Riko and the Master clearly signal that they won't punish abuse against him, so he becomes the target of their violence as a collective outlet.

The Knox/Wilshire siblings are all equally under their mother's controlling thumb, and none of them are coping well with the matter. They end up taking it out on Jeremy, since their parents already focus their ire on him for not staying in the closet or adopting the new family name.

Edgar Allen brags about the myriad of fantastic amenities they award their athletes, including high end cars and guaranteed professional careers, that they're never going to get to enjoy because the Nest demands too much of them. The Wilshires are fantastically wealthy, but more of that wealth is spent bribing their wider social circles to isolate the children than it is given to them for their own discretion.

The Nest implodes when Ichirou snubs Riko from their father's funeral, prompting him to almost kill Jean, and give up their greatest defensive talent in the process. The Wilshires explode because, by design or simple scheduling conflict, they entrusted their suicidal youngest to his drug addicted older brother in a large social event, because making both boys miserable was simply more convenient than getting either of them the psychiatric care the family had full access to.

Jean is technically out of the Nest, but he is still firmly under the Moriyama's thumb and there is no amount of technical freedom that will let him forget it. To cope, he tends to hit, scratch and choke himself, turning his grief and frustration into a physical pain he can quantify.

Jeremy does his best to act as your average LA rich boy, but there's no amount of placating that will keep his mother from pulling back his leash at a whim. To cope, he sleeps with people who treat him badly, mentally giving both himself and his parents a tangible reason to be disappointed with him, rather than accepting that their prejudice is not his fault.

Jean and Jeremy were raised to believe that they are at once fully competent and capable, and utter failures who cannot be trusted with anything and will inevitably get everyone hurt. And its only now, staring at each other, that they can see just how deep the contradiction runs.

[iambecomeyourvillain]

[solisitude]

did it

Made a chart for sorting fantheories

[ninyard]

from andrew, to renee

[you-know-i-get-itt]

jeremy knox the man that you are

[crisis-exystencial]

Either i missed the posts talking about this scene or we moved on way too fast from it. Like what the FUCK Nora????? The broken sentences? Jean's desperate thoughts in between lines? Thinking he asked for what he got even though he couldn't say no???? The confession that he wasn't allowed to say no bursting out of Jean without meaning to, because inside of him he knows, he knows he didn't deserve what happened to him. All these years keeping these feelings inside of him and now he can't keep them buried any longer

[solisitude]

I HAD TO REREAD THE SENTENCE THREE TIMES TO SEE IF I WAS SEEING IT RIGHT

real footage of me rn

[zombiecowboy65]

Yes yes the “I’m sorry about your dog”/“I thought you hated him” /“you didn’t” Jean said like it was all that mattered interaction is gut wrenching but may I rub salt in the wound by pointing out Jean’s actions around Barkbark before that moment? He hates that dog and he has more than enough time and willpower to destroy it. But instead he hides it behind the fridge and stops himself from tearing it and puts it on Jeremy’s bed when Jeremy isn’t there, because he knows what it’s like to have the things you cherished destroyed

[saintofsacrilege]

andrew quit smoking because he was worried he wouldn’t be fast enough to save neil next time. andrew GAVE UP one of his PRIMARY COPING MECHANISMS (which doubles as a literal addiction) on the off-chance that it would make him better at protecting neil. because andrew minyard can endure a lot of terrible things, but losing neil is not one of them

[foxpile]

rotating thoughts about the misplaced forever partners in my mind and yanno how jean is always sooo concerned about neil but only when neil’s not there to see it? like he freaks out when watching both of the fox vs ravens games and defends him behind his back when others say shit but to neil’s face he’s so bitchy to him (said with love. jean is hilarious and iconic). do you think that neil ever gets like that about jean? like do you think when that guy tried to fight jean during the trojans vs white ridge game that neil was freaking out the same way jean does when he watches neil’s games? or when he heard about zane afterwards? and everyone else is like “wtf i didn’t think you guys were that close of friends??” and neil’s like “we’re not he’s a bastard” while shaking with barely contained rage

[solisitude]

I HAVE THIS PART SCREENSHOTTED LMAOO

Laila and cat, devastated beyond belief having just lost their home and desperately trying to understand information for an apartment in a foreign language:

Jeremy knox, worlds greatest french student: ☝️bedroom

[allfor-thegames]

jeremy being emotionally, mentally, and financially abused by his family. jeremy having sex with people he knows will mistreat him.

jeremy listening to jean talk about an entirely different kind of abuse and thinking that he himself has never been abused like that, so therefore he's not in an abusive situation.

jeremy surviving under the thumb of incredibly controlling parents. jeremy accommodating his life around their needs. jeremy having to find alternative ways to meet his own needs because of the control his parents have over him.

jeremy listening to jean talk about the inhumane levels of control the nest had over the ravens and thinking "well, my situation isn't that bad, therefore i have no reason to complain."

jeremy seeing extreme levels of abuse in jean but not quite seeing that he's experiencing a different extreme.

[sethisonendgame]

TGR SPOILERS

Hey Jeremy if you could please elaborate on that that would be great 🙏

[lorasx]

andrew saw jean throwing bryson to a car and almost breaking his neck for jeremy and said yeah that kid wants to kiss captain sunshine so bad. breaking someone’s neck for the boy you want is like the most romantic thing for him

[youdontknowhowtodiequietly]

yes! and don't get me started on laila. i adore her, but she was so privileged with her uncle owning all the houses in the area she lived (sorry). if it were the foxes, they would not have survived so long. like, wymack can get all the security he wants but they still had their shit vandalised. and it does not cover off campus.

the foxes are lucky most of them didn't live off campus full-time, but what if the press or angry fans got wind of the columbia house at the height of everything? they wouldn't have been able to hold out for so long, and there wouldn't have been a rich landlord uncle to provide security to protect them (even if it still did not do laila and cat well in the long-run)

money and prestige gets you away with so much. i am very glad jean was not with the foxes because he would not have been this well protected.

I thought that Jeremy couldn't be an addict because that would make him "too much of a fox" and the trojans didn't have criminal or public, stigmatised problems but in actuality I think it's a great way to explore how wealth defines these labels. The foxes are constantly maligned for being problem cases but Jeremy is the captain of the trojans because of blatant bribery and abuse of power. Jeremy suffers horrific consequences for his actions, in the form of homophobia, shame, guilt, emotional and fincancial abuse and control. But he is able to avoid the worst practical consequences (serious jail time, let alone suspension from school, loss of his Exy career) because of his parents influence and wealth. He is able to get clean because of their wealth. Whereas the foxes are 'junkies and criminals' for their entire career and are only allowed a shot at a better life if they're lucky because Wymack puts his neck out for them. I think it's genius to have us guess and wait for book two because it emphasises this disparity.