#and coping with it in horrific ways that explain it but also maybe don't fcking do that bud

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

it frustrates me that the writers did a similar thing with sandor as nine, where the version of them we see outside of their pov backstory novella is a completely different and significantly worse person, and that's the version the rest of their involvement in the series is built on while effectively missing a backstory.

like, sandor in last days of lorien and sandor in nine's legacy are both interesting characters in very different ways. but they are VERY different ways.

[canon-typical child abuse, dehumanization, torture, misogyny, transphobia mention, racism mention, there's a lot here lmao]

[deep breath]

NL!sandor is callous, dehumanizing, and cruel, and absolutely cannot grok that his child is not a belonging and extension of himself, to the point of being shocked when nine gets sick of being treated like a possession and starts really pushing back in a way he can't steamroll over because Hi I am a Fucking Person. he makes use of nine's inheritance to blow on cars and fancy suits and impressing girls, while completely and utterly isolating him and refusing to so much as give him time out of training to read about basic history or literature. when he finally starts half-assedly giving him a little bit of childhood it's because treating nine like a machine wasn't working anymore. he's a misogynistic piece of shit who uses that to emotionally abuse and insult nine and devalue his relationships with other people, while pressuring him to engage those relationships the way sandor would, and telling him that people he wants the respect of will think he's worthless, embarrassing, and a loser if he doesn't go through with it. he belittles nine's choices in presentation and appearance, in ways that are also misogynistic as well as transphobic and frankly pretty racist (hi, shitting on men with long hair). he treats him like a fictional character from comics he likes. it does not cross his mind even slightly to leave after they have LITERALLY BEEN FOUND BY A SCOUT WHO DID NOT REPORT BACK, because it would mean leaving behind his toys and he cares more about those than nine's safety. he guilts nine for supposedly being the one to take away his toys by escaping from the mogs sandor brought down on them, while doing something sandor pressured him relentlessly to do--the dating--and then disparages him for risking everything 'for some girl.' he gaslights him about being 'immature' and 'not thinking straight' when nine won't leave this time. he condemns nine to a year of torture, being forced to watch his girlfriend slaughtered in front of him, having to watch sandor be tortured in front of him, and having to mercy kill him to make it stop. he forces him to kill someone in what is clearly a horrifically traumatic incident, one that leaves him shaking uncontrollably and about to puke, and goes 'get used to it you fuckin pussy there's a war on' before moving right along. after said incident he gleefully beats him bruised and bloody on the regular, to the point where nine starts using his methods to self-harm later, and says 'you're no good to me' when he gets beaten up in the middle of training because he was preoccupied (thinking about the girl sandor pressured him into pursuing). he casually treats him like a servant. he makes him pick out knives to be thrown at him later. he calls his new legacy an upgrade.

like. there's more. there's more! the list is long! holy shit! he is interesting but jesus christ!

......and he is nothing like LDoL!sandor.

i could go on for a long time about this and in a followup i probably will, but like.

[deep breath the second]

LDoL!sandor would doubtlessly not be a great parent either, but it wouldn't be Like That. it would be single teen immigrant parent with zero support whatsoever, and no life experience with a place where there's scarcity and rough weather and shelter isn't always easy to come by and day-to-day life isn't relatively safe. it would be a very very adhd and autistic single teen parent who has never really learned how to cope with that outside specific social context and is very irresponsible because of it, and is also irresponsible as backlash against the authoritarian dystopia he grew up in. who is going to be fighting off the mother of all adhd/autistic burnout after a year and a half bottled up in a tiny space with a bunch of animals and SEVENTEEN OTHER PEOPLE, half of whom are small children, and more specifically has been left in charge of another very neurodivergent small child who is extremely loud and hyperactive and not good at grokking the idea of personal space. LDoL!sandor would be a parent who fiercely, desperately loves and wants the best for his kid, but is also a kid himself who is trapped in an absolute fucking nightmare scenario, and is desperately trying not to drown, and failing.

also a really interesting character! and a really goddamn heartbreaking one at that! and a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ONE from the sandor we got, whose arc and personality have the clearest knock-on effects on NL!nine's characterization, and then (to a lesser extent, for Reasons but that's a whole lot of posts of their own) canon!nine's throughout the series. and it's frustrating because if you try to use LDoL!sandor instead, it completely changes the fundamental themes of NL!nine's character and arc.

namely: pushing back against the idea that because you are a child you are an extension of me, not a person, and i own you. having both childhood and adulthood dangled over your head, to yank you around as a method of control by adults who were never going to treat you as a person either way. trying to become the latter for the agency to scrape together what you can of the former, and only having those last few scraps taken from you too in the process. infantilization vs adultification. That Kind of Thing.

(which, god that would have given him so many fantastic parallels and foils with five, but that is also something for another post or it will derail this train into the next state over. i could go on for So Long about this)

and! none of that would be a thing if he hadn't had the sandor for a guardian who treated him that way. aaaaaaa!!!

anyway there's a lot i could say about this but the long and short of it is that i am confident LDoL!sandor would beat NL!sandor to death with his own pasty little hands