#after getting once again obcessed with marvin's giddy seizures

[just-an-enby-lemon]

I think for all their similarities Marvin's and Clay's tragedies are the exact opposite of each other.

Marvin's tragedy is that in the end of the day he is sweet. He sees the terrifield face of a son that despite it all, despite wanting otherwise, still loves him, and he realizes the answer for the attention (and affection and love) he always wanted and he CHANGES. Marvin is still petty and still jealous and controling, but by understanding the wolrd owes him nothing, he also understand he has to work on his faults. He makes friends, he makes amends, he improves his relationship with Jason, he even gets Whizzer back (a thing Marvin wasn't planning nor expecting at all because he stopped thinking he should get all he wants), he also hates himself less, and less often.

And that's his tragedy. Marvin changes. He works hard. He spends an evening home pacing anxious afraid Whizzer is cheating again, and he chooses trust, to not make it another pointless fight. And Whizzer changed as well and wasn't cheating. He goes to Jason's games. Hell, even the Bar Mitzvah's fights. He is still figthing Trina but now he let's her speak. He does his best. He does all he can. And it almost makes a difference. But that's is 80's and the Reagans and the AIDS crisis and so by something completly real and totally out of his control it is to late. It doesn't make a difference. He still loses Whizzer and he still dies.

Clay's tragedy is that he is bitter. He sees his son refusing to see his worst self, and responds by showing it again and again. He sees his son's love turn to hate, and responds with the ultimost bitterness. He blames the kid. He blames the wife he doesn't love, and the job he doesn't want, and all the things he has that are for him just new things to choose between hate and indiference. He was hurt by life, doesn't understand love, and has no idea how to make it better.

He thinks he is already doing the sacrifice and doesn't undersrand why it isn't enough. He thinks the world owes him the perfect happy family, and anytime he could have questioned it, he had conservative christianity to tell him, that no, as a man, as a moral man, he did deserve it all. And so instead he blames everyone else for not getting it. Even when Danielle leaves him. He can't understand why. He can't assume it is his fault. Clay got lost too deep in his faulty morals, in his trauma, in the acohool and in his hate. If Marvin's tragedy is that he changes and loses anyway. Clay's is that he can't change and therefore can never win.