#and YES im a kyle allen apologist

[applesandbannas747]

There's so much I love about Kyle's flashback and the insight it gives on his character. We see him falling in love with fencing and looking up to his uncle and wanting so badly to be part of that world.

But with Jesse Coste for a cousin, not only does he always fall short, but it's more personal because of that relationship--he'll always be compared to Jesse by virtue of being related to him. And he's aware of it--he's heard it before and probably hears it pretty regularly even now. It would be easy to resent Jesse for always being better--for being the ideal Kyle's always being measured against.

But instead of calling Jesse names or being angry at this boy for approaching him to talk about Jesse, he answers honestly and proudly that Jesse's unbeatable--even before realizing that being related to Jesse labels him as cool too. He genuinely admires Jesse and is proud of him and to be his cousin.

And then we see too the way Kyle's identity gets wrapped up in Jesse. Kids are flocking to him excitedly calling him cool for being related to Jesse, and we all know very well how often Kyle talks about Jesse and being related to him from then on. It's clear that Kyle's feelings about Jesse are genuine, but he mentions it too much to be purely gushing--he mentions it because he's learned that people like him better for his relationship to Jesse. There's got to be some self-worth issues all tangled up in there, and I think we see the roots of it all here.