NO OK BUT I'M STILL NOT OVER BOOTHILL AND DAN HENG AND THE JADE ABACUS IN ENA'S DREAM!!!!!
For some extra context, I have a whole henghill manifesto I wrote over here, but the tl;dr is that Dan Heng decides to use the Jade Abacus of Allying Oath to save the Express Crew the first time. Boothill urges him to think it over carefully, but he doesn't stop him. And then, the second time Dan Heng decides to use it, we get this instead:
And just! That's so!! so!!!
Because like. We see in the first battle against Sunday that that Jade Abacus is effective, like we really do just get an entire army lead by a whole-ass Emanator of The Hunt right to our location and ready to fuck shit up. It's important. It's incredibly valuable. That is a huge amount of power to hold in the palm of one's hand.
But Tiernan's relic works the same way.
Galaxy Rangers are terribly dangerous. Boothill comments on this when discussing Acheron's motives, because he can't believe anyone would be stupid enough to get The Hunt on their asses. They're considered to be on a level even above The Annihilation Gang.
And now, with the burial relic, he has a way to get thousands of them, almost immediately, and all in one place.
And you can't tell me that wouldn't be something extremely useful to Boothill, like literally life-saving. He's wanted by the IPC. He makes his living as a bounty hunter. His whole driving motivation in life right now is to do whatever he can, up to and including throwing away his own human body, to ruthlessly hunt down one man and kill him in revenge. Like that has to be dangerous, the IPC is a massive entity with far-reaching influence and money and power and weaponry. He surely must have already had some close calls.
Like can you imagine it? Galaxy Rangers are solitary creatures. If Boothill were to find himself near death, he would probably be all alone. Do you think he had regrets? Did he wonder if anyone would find his own burial relic? Did it feel the same way it did when they melted his flesh, replaced it with metal? Did he lay there with his vision slowly blacking out until he thought of home, and family, and the little daughter who he never even got to hear her first word, until he was so full of fury that he could prop himself up on his rage like a crutch and find help?
Tiernan's relic would have been like a get-out-of-jail-free card. Just for one time, no matter where Boothill was, someone would find him. The Galaxy Rangers aren't sociable or organized between themselves, but they help their own. Someone would save him.
He chooses to give all of that up to help Dan Heng.
And I just cannot get over it, especially the wording of it, the pause before he speaks, the gentle way he tells him to hold onto his once-in-a-lifetime treasure...!! He wants Dan Heng to leave this to him! He wants him to keep this precious item that will help him save his companions again in the future! And maybe it's just...wishful thinking, me reading too much into it? But I mean. Just the way he says it...
I really do think it comes from a place of deep kinship and respect. That there's a lot of thought and feeling behind that statement. Something from one Pathstrider of The Hunt to another. Boothill fought for his home and his family, he fought really really hard! But. Sometimes that just doesn't matter. And now he's watching Dan Heng fight for his, too.
When he made that decision the first time, Dan Heng was in the parlor car of the Astral Express. He was completely removed from any danger. He could have chosen to get the hell out of Dodge and not look back. Obviously we know he would never even consider such a thing, but it was technically an option, and Boothill watched him decide to go back into the proverbial lion's den for his friends anyway. And I'm sure that was part of what sealed his decision, to later use Tiernan's relic instead of the Jade Abacus to summon enough people to disrupt Ena's Dream. Because he greatly values ideas like righteousness and justice and saving people, and Dan Heng so beautifully embodies all of that and then some.
Boothill doesn't have people to protect anymore, only ghosts to avenge.
And there is just something so endlessly endearing about him wanting to help Dan Heng, to make sure his friend doesn't go through that the way he did.
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What makes the whole thing with Sammie ratting Ian out to the MPs even worse is that Ian and Mickey were literally the only ones who didn't do shit to her and her kid. In season 5, even if they WANTED to deliberately put Chuckie in prison themselves, they sorta kinda had their hands full with, I don't know, maybe THE FACT THAT IAN WAS IN THE WORST MENTAL STATE HE HAD EVER BEEN AND HE WAS TRYING TO MANAGE HIS BIPOLAR DISORDER UNMEDICATED AND MICKEY WAS DOING HIS BEST TO BE THERE FOR HIM AND TAKE CARE OF AND HELP HIM IN ANY WAY THAT HE COULD AND KNEW HOW. I get Sammie was mad about the whole thing Carl, I mean how could she not be, her son was put in juvie because of it. BUT WHY FUCK WITH IAN??? LITERALLY THE ONLY ONE WHO WAS KIND TO YOU AND WHO HAD 0 INVOLVEMENT IN THE WHOLE THING.
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