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buffyspeak · 4 months ago

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the big book of craig manning meta, part 2: pre-series background.

trigger warnings: discussions of emotional, psychological, physical, and potential financial abuse, as well as brief references to classist attitudes.

albert: what's your interest in my son? joey: just... albert: he's my son, right? joey: yes, but he's also angela's brother. albert: half-brother.

though craig's introduction is quite memorable and the show is quite good at letting us get to know his life circumstances right away, because certain things happened pre-series (or at least pre-craig's introduction) there are a couple of things that are left ambiguous and up to interpretation. i've seen different perspectives, for instance, on how julia leaving albert went down, whether albert was abusive to julia as well, or whether craig used to live with joey and julia before she died. a lot of this is going to be based on speculation/my interpretation of what's talked about.

a couple of things we know to be textual in canon by when doves cry:

joey and julia's wedding was five years ago, so craig would have been about 9 at the time.

angie is six in season 2, so julia and joey had her before they got married.

craig went to a different middle school as most of the rest of the main cast, which is why he wasn't in season 1. (i mean, realistically, i don't know if the writers had come up with his character at the start of the show. but this is the in-universe reason.) he starts at degrassi because the nearby high school closed down due to budget cuts. this also seems to be the the high school the other grade-nines would have gone to, so he likely would have met them, but he would not have gotten to know emma more or met sean, who are both in grade eight. (and both of whom are pretty instrumental in helping to get him out of his situation.)

albert is a rich surgeon, and at least since julia died, seems to have full custody of craig.

julia died two years ago, given that at the start of season 1, joey says she's been dead for a year, and it's now a year later. so i believe craig would have been 11 or 12, depending on what time of year it happened.

at some point, when angie was a baby, craig was with angie (and presumably joey and julia) on a trip to british columbia.

joey is unaware of the abuse until the events of when doves cry. while he seems generally concerned for craig's well-being due to his mom's death and his clearly missing angie, he doesn't seem concerned for craig's literal safety until sean and emma inform him that albert is hurting craig and angie unwittingly tells him about the bruises she saw.

a couple of things i feel can be intuited from the aforementioned facts:

albert frames the separation between him and julia as her leaving him for a used car salesman. while he is not the most reliable source and we have little perspective about what their marriage was like, the timeline seems to indicate that julia either divorced albert in order to get together with joey very quickly, or that she cheated on him with joey, and that getting pregnant with angie was possibly the final push to leave albert. i've always kind of assumed the latter to be true since i first saw these eps, given exactly how much resentment albert seems to hold for both julia and joey.

(note: i am 1000% not blaming julia or joey for albert's abuse of his son. his actions are his own, and whatever reasons he has or feels he has do not excuse those actions. we also know very little about the relationship between albert and julia, making it difficult to judge her actions, as elaborated on below.)

i think it is unlikely that albert was physically abusive to julia, because i think if that was the case, joey would likely know about it and would be much more concerned about craig's safety. while it's clear joey and albert don't like each other, and that joey thinks albert is not a very nice person, i think it's fairly logical to chalk that up to the relationship drama in their history. i do think it's possible that albert was emotionally/verbally/pyschologically abusive to her, as he also is with craig. but even now, some people don't recognize these things as abuse, and at the time period this would have been happening, i think there was much less understanding of the kind of toll these forms of abuse can take. i think for joey's part, if julia did confide in him about any potential problems with her relationship with albert, he likely thought albert was a dick and a bad husband, but may not have the language or the knowledge to recognize him as an abuser. julia herself may not have at the time, either.

these notes are even more speculation based, but this is how i tend to interpret the events before craig's intro on the show, based on what we do know:

i pretty strongly believe that even when julia was alive, at the absolute most, the time craig spent with joey, angela, and julia was on weekends, maybe holidays, and at least one trip to british columbia.

i know people are often confused by the idea that albert might have gotten full custody, but honestly, it is not that much of a stretch to me. if julia initiated the divorce, and especially if she and joey had an affair, putting my own feelings about it aside (because again, i really do not want or think it's fair to judge her for this, given how little we know about the relationship), i think any court likely would have seen julia as the one 'at fault' for the divorce. we also don't know anything about her own background or what she might have done for work: it is possible that she did not have the financial means to either start or win a custody battle, and albert is established to be a rich surgeon with a good reputation. so it's possible that julia did fight for custody, but it's also possible that she wasn't able to and that they worked something out for whenever albert oh-so-graciously (note the sarcasm) decided to let craig see her.

i've seen it implied that joey, julia, and angela might have lived in british columbia, or that albert and craig moved there for a while, but i don't see this as viable, given that we know joey has a long-standing used car dealership and that albert is a well-regarded and well-known surgeon at his hospital. while it's not impossible, it seem seems unlikely and is not confirmed.

what we do know is that at some point, craig and angie were there together, though angie was too young to remember it and craig says she was "just a baby". my best guess would be that maybe joey and julia had a little honeymoon there and brought both kids along with them. angie would have been about 1, then, making it a lot more feasible that they would have taken her on this trip. with her being so young, i doubt they'd want to leave her, even with another family member, like joey's mom. and hey, if angie's coming, craig can come along, too!

it might seem counterintuitive, when i'm sitting here saying that i don't think albert usually let craig see them, that he would then allow him to go on this trip, but for one thing, it's clear that craig did spend at least some time with them, given the bond he and angie have developed. i also think the show does a pretty good job at showing the complexities of abusers: they're not always these complete monsters, doing one bad thing after another. we see 'nice' moments between craig and albert, couched as they are in manipulation, but realistically, he probably wasn't always this 100% unreasonable guy all of the time. and honestly, that's one of the really dangerous things about abusers: they can seem nice in front of other people and even to their victims, and they may even mean it some of the time, but that 'niceness' is often what keeps people from seeing the truth. someone could see one of act of kindness albert might do for his son and think, there's no way that guy hurts his kid.

maybe craig really wanted to go, and the day he asked, albert was feeling charitable. because again: the show is actually pretty good about showing the cycles and complexity of abuse. albert, while awful to craig in general, probably did not always seem awful 100% of the time.

or maybe julia insisted and threatened, regardless of her circumstances, to take him to a court. for one reason or another, i think it's feasible that this happened without necessarily being indicative of albert agreeing for craig to spend a lot of time with them in general.

however, based on what we know, i do not believe craig lived with joey long-term prior to the show for a couple of different reasons. this is fairly subjective, and they obviously know and are decently familiar with each other in when doves cry, but it does not seem like they know each other particularly well. i don't know exactly why i say this, it could be totally off-base but... the way they talk to each other just does not strike me as two people who have spent tons of time with each other.

to be fair, you could chalk this up to the fact that julia has now been dead for two years, and albert obviously isn't letting craig see joey in any signifcant capacity. 12-14 are also pretty formative years where a lot can change for a kid. but still, it doesn't seem like, up to this point, they are more than somewhat acquainted to each other. i imagine that trip to british columbia was probably the most significant length of time they spent together.

however, my especially big reason for believing this is the case is what happens after craig moves in with joey and angela. in the next especially craig-focused episode we get, drive, something subtle is happening in otherwise overall pretty lighthearted episode: craig and joey are both learning the boundaries with each other. craig doesn't know where he'll go if joey goes away for the weekend, but joey says he's old enough to stay at their home. joey establishes ground rules for having friends over during the weekend. craig gets into trouble at joey's for the first time and it is clear it is the first time joey is disciplining him as his dependent. i think that, had joey and craig lived together in any significant capacity prior to this, their boundaries and dynamic would be more firmly established. the underlying conflict here might be "i do not know how to raise craig now that julia's gone and i can't coparent with her" rather than "i don't know how to raise this new teenager in my life." but instead, a lot of what we see between them this season is learning how to live together, what the roles are, and how to be a family unit.

this sort of leads to my next point, as convoluted as all of this problem seems (i swear the structure makes sense in my head): because i believe that albert had full custody pretty much from the moment julia left, i think it logically follows that the abuse toward craig either started or ramped up/became physical once julia was no longer in the household.

i've seen other people say that it doesn't make sense for albert to be abusive to craig but not julia, and while i can understand that to a degree, i don't know how much i agree. as i said, i think it's more than possible he was emotionally abusive to her, and that may have contributed to her leaving, but it's clear that her leaving triggered a lot of albert's behavior, as he let that resentment fester and began projecting it onto his son. i think the abuse toward craig likely started or significantly ramped-up and became physical once she left because albert could get away with it, being his primary guardian and given his ability to isolate craig the way he does.

albert is an esteemed surgeon who clearly cares a lot about what people think of him and about his prestige, and he is very used to being in control. yet, with his wife leaving him for someone he considers so low beneath him (because classism), his pride is wounded, he feels his sense of worth, tied up in ego and masculinity as it is, slip, and i think his abuse of craig is pretty undeniably him grasping for the one 'thing' that still is under control: his son, who he sees as his to parent how he pleases.

which tracks, because albert often frames his abuse of craig as punishments for craig 'misbehaving', such as lashing out and throwing a dinner plate when craig is home late for dinner, or saying "because you always screw up" when craig reminds his dad that he always says it will never happen again and it always does. it obviously goes past what any reasonable person would deem appropriate discipline for a child and is instead abusive, but i truly do think that's how he justifies it in his mind. it may have even started out - i don't want to say more normally, but there are more socially accepted (especially at the time, though to some degree, even today) physical punishments, like spanking, and it's possible albert's assertion of his extreme control over craig started somewhere there, and escalated as he began projecting all of his issues onto craig and realized the degree of control he had over craig as his primary guardian. which i think is why he can stand there at the end of when doves cry and say he doesn't beat craig, and some part of himself probably genuinely believes it, because cognitive dissonance. (it is still gaslighting, though.)

anyway. this was long. it realistically should have been the first part, but oh, well. i think that a lot of this is subjective and up to a viewer's own interpretation, as i think they left some of this purposefully ambiguous because trying to establish the prior events when craig's story is supposed to be about what's happening now would have been confusing. regardless, this is my two (or three, or five million) cents.

#long post //#abuse tw #ask to tag tw #child abuse tw #craig manning #albert manning #joey jeremiah #julia jeremiah #angela jeremiah #classism tw #* the big book of craig manning meta #degrassi #this is convoluted but oh wellll

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