#character analysis: jonathan

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

this episode is so agonizingly human. this is like one of the only times jon actually expresses his feelings openly, and even though they argue, martin still treats him like a person. this doesnt feel like martin "talking at" jon, or vice versa. it doesn't feel like elias gaslighting him or basira and melanie invalidating his feelings. it feels like a couple having an argument, albeit a very intense one.

its so. gut-wrenchingly mundane, in the midst of so much supernatural insanity. its one of my favorite episodes

[shyjusticewarrior]

Scarecrow stays being a menace to Jason

Truth & Justice

Gotham War: Red Hood

Robin Lives (elseworld)

[cult-of-the-eye]

Jonathan Sims vs Samama Khalid: A Comparison of Horror Protagonists

I want to talk about the differences between these two and for me, the most interesting one was the idea of agency. At first, it seems as though Jon had chosen to work at the Institute, chosen to take the job as the Head Archivist, chosen to record himself speaking the statements. Obviously we later find out that he lacked agency his entire life but we start off believing that he is in complete control of his actions. Sam, on the other hand, is suggested to have been driven by his past experiences, something outside of his control. He's taken this job because he needs it, who would willingly work a night shift with their ex? And most importantly, he's being recording without knowing. What does that mean for the rest of tmagp? It's not a long shot to suggest that tmagp will be an antithesis of tma, i'm guessing it will follow along in a sort of mirror image. Equal and opposite etc etc. So as Jon slowly loses his agency, which is the main focus of the tragedy, Sam could gain agency, gain knowledge, gain power within this universe but inversely, use it for all the wrong reasons. Jon's corruption arc was rife with moral questioning and what he could possibly do to avert his ending but maybe Sam's tragedy will be complete knowledge of what will happen and the inevitability of tragedy, coupled with an innate need to catalyse it.

[gamma-ghoul]

I have a question, and perhaps the Stranger Things fandom can help me with this.

But, I've been wondering about this for a while: why does Joyce seem to not care that much about money, unlike Jonathan? One of Jonathan's core traits is that he constantly worries about money, even when they move to California and the family is much better off, at least they are in my opinion. I understand that the first season was meant to show that Joyce is willing to do anything to find Will so money is not even within her scope. However, in season 3, she all but ditches her job to figure out what the hell is going on with the magnets. Meanwhile, Jonathan is getting into a fight with Nancy over an internship.

I like the dynamic personally, as it shows how Jonathan is more tied to his social class compared to Joyce. I mean Joyce has played a role in the parentification of Jonathan Byers.

While Joyce loves her children deeply, she does make some questionable choices when it comes to Jonathan. I mean Jonathan's plight highlights the traumatic impact that can be caused by poverty. And you can sort of infer that Joyce probably didn't experience that growing up.

But it is jarring as viewers to see Joyce give not a single fuck about their financial situation while Jonathan is worried about mortgages. It makes Joyce look way more irresponsible as a parent, or Jonathan is clinging onto an identity that is no longer accurate to their current circumstances.

[thesleepyhollows]

The batman adventures has one of my favourite Jonathan scenes.

Maybe im just soft but the pure ecstasy and joy when he revels in his victory saddens me. His obsession, his need to be a source of terror. Yes it’s sadistic and evil but its not fun to see someone whos completely lost themselves like Jon has. People are not born evil. He must’ve been good at one point. Innocent at least.

At least to my knowledge whilst not canon the batman adventures comics have the same lore and characters as BTAS. We only ever see a younger Jon being cruel and obsessed with fear out of interest and sadism but I doubt that’s the whole story.

He was talking to his henchmen during the scene where he monologues. I doubt he would give the full truth and would probably try to seem more scary by painting himself the way he did.

I do believe part of it was honest. But what I want to know is the part before that. What started his fixation.

I wouldn’t be shocked if he had been bullied like many of his usual interpretations and or had a rough home life. He clearly has fairly fragile self esteem given how much he overreacted to being mildly insulted whilst getting fired. Not to mention kids who do show traits of sadism do usually have things like that going on behind the scenes.

And so we return to the comic.

Theyre all finally scared of me.

Yes you could read that surface level. But the possible deeper meanings especially with his mostly unknown past just. Depress me.

When some animals are terrified. They try to make themselves look scary in response. After all.

No matter his past. Jon has become the scarecrow. He has become so fixated on fear its all that matters to him. Its consumed him completely.

But people dont fear crane like he wants. They fear his persona. Hes become so lost in the scarecrow that he and everyone else forgets that he is just a man, and when his mask. His defence is removed. He is still what he always was. Just a weak, selfish human. That nobody fears.

[nineinchclawz]

Sometimes I wish Jonawagon was more popular but then I remember how Jotakak is treated.

I don’t think I could psychologically or emotionally handle an entire fandom woobifying Speedwagon and daddy-domifying Jonathan.

[leslie057]

rating things owned by nancy elizabeth wheeler

because she’s got a lot of little things. mostly they are very cute and strange little things.

starting off strong we have the prettiest tissue box in the world. 9/10, i think if i were sick it would make me feel better to have such a nice tissue box.

i’m fairly certain this is her diary beside it because her diary looks pink in the upside down version of her bedroom. so this is probably it? 11/10, i want to read it so bad. and very sweet pic with mom—7.5/10.

next up these pinstripe pants !! 10/10 i love them so much. oh and the index finger ring is there obviously, 8/10, such a consistent piece of her character.

a ribbon for being the bestest girl ever in the world. 10/10. also the card of cardinals: 6/10, probably just a christmas card or something rather than a symbol of her love for birds. but i still like it.

mr rabbit gets 11/10 for the name alone. and why does he look dead. i love him. he’s me.

descent from xanadu: QUITE LITERALLY 0/10. at first i was SO excited to cheer her on for reading a sex and drugs book at school but as it turns out? bizarre and gross. seems to go heavy on nonconsensual stuff. i snagged a free pdf and command f’d for whore and bitch. lots of results obviously (one use of c*ck crazy bitch…lovely). it seems men in this book say a lot of sexist stuff that the women pretend to hate but love which i can’t imagine is great for a teenage girl to consume. also just not sexy at all.

literally so bad, and this is not the worst of it.

sooo bad. the author was what 70 (??) writing that his female character got clinically DIAGNOSED with being a slut for every guy she comes in contact with. i know options for sexy literature were probably limited at this time but…please go check out something else. i wanna bonk her on the head with this book (paperback) and hug her. you don’t need to read this to be cool and sexually aware. moving on.

on the other side of that, the blondie calendar gives us a sense of the GOOD media she’s consuming!! a 10/10 no questions asked. we don't really get to see many of her hobbies or interests outside of investigation so this is a much appreciated detail.

of course like all good things in life the blondie calendar does get replaced. its replacement is what i will call Weird Antinaturalist Art Piece #1 seen in her room in s4. i give it a 4/10 because idk what’s going on really.

and here is a very crunchy screencap of Weird Antinaturalist Art Piece #2 from s4 which i will give a 5/10. note the boyfriend typical photography above it, for sure a 10/10.

there is also Weird Antinaturalist Art Piece #3 which gets an 8/10 because i like the composition and the piano player. where did she get this and why. interior decoration is her passion.

the sleeping bag and crochet pillow setup. 7/10. would take a cat nap here.

pluto!! 15/10, the best mickey mouse character i would say. i hope her cousin is taking good care of him.

bulletin board 10/10. i love how obvious it is that she has had this up for forever. probably a nice constant in her life.

and my favorite pic up there is this precious one. look at herrr. 5000/10.

her floral weekender bag. 6/10, i like it, but not as much as i like the speedwalk and the toss into the backseat. she was SO ready for her lab takedown road trip.

trapper keeper is a 9/10 because they probably put anything and everything on trapper keepers back in the day and yet still she chose this lovely understated hot air balloon. elegant.

tom cruise poster is 1000000/10 actually. she is so loyal to that man. actually though not a great pic of him all things considered so maybe i give it a 999999/10. (i love it so much because i know for a fact that jonathan byers works proactively to never acknowledge this poster, because he is more mature than that.) (he is not more mature than that, in fact he is a little pouty about mr cruise.)

KITTY FIGURINE. 10/10. i thought it was just in s4 but i found it on her other nightstand in s1. very very adorable. i imagine it is now one of the first things she sees in the morning (well that and her blue telephone: 8/10) which is bizarre and cute. the mixtape drawer gets a 10/10 for reasons that i don’t think i need to get into.

white fingerless gloves! 10/10. so chic for monster hunting.

black fingerless gloves from s4. hmmm 3/10, they're cool i guess but they don’t feel very nancy and the white ones are so much better. especially because you may get the splatter effect of monster blood on them in a battle scenario, which would be badass.

piggybank (with her name on the side). 2/10 unfortunately i don’t like him. he looks at me like i took out his whole pig village and i just need some quarters. also did she paint this herself? in that case, 3/10 for customization lol.

pastel underwear drawer: 10/10. her committment to the hollistic aesthetic and color palette of her room is impressive here. it was a good idea to use this drawer as a deterrence against her little brother and a money hiding place but clearly he has no manners and is a THIEF.

STRIPED SOCKS. 10/10. i realize it's hard to see because she's moving so fast (slow down he is not going anywhere) but they are indeed stripey even though i would have guessed solid white. and wow what good sleeping socks. stripes are just cozier. hope she got lots of sleep in those.

[exaflux]

How good is BTAA Scarecrow at therapy really? (An analysis) (Part 1)

So I naively thought that this'd be a laugh. Take the unethical psychiatrist, analyse his techniques, highlight what he's doing in real world contexts and give him a rating. After hours of working on this though I unintentionally managed to construct a theory on how BTAA Jon might approach therapy. Oop.

This part contains- a breakdown of some psychological approaches in therapy settings, character analysis/theory of Jon (in the conclusion), Jon being awful

Disclaimer- I am not a trained psychologist or therapist or anything of the like. I did study the topic under a teacher who was a trained psychologist though, and I still very much like psychology, so that basically makes me an expert in this field. This is a joke. Do not take my word as gospel. This post was written for fun and will probably have a mistake somewhere.

Harvey and Two-face will be referred to seperately in this analysis, but if referring to both Harvey will be used as default. Jonathan is Jonathan.

A-Level psychology don't fail me now 🙏

Session one/"two"-

The following all takes place in S2, Episode 5

The first section of our analysis takes place on March 4th and the time is 2:02pm, surprising no one as Two-Face is present. Jonathan begins the session by setting up a recording and going through standard legal procedure, following the “Code of Medical Ethics” (0:15) of Gotham. He also makes note that the first tape was destroyed, again probably for legal reasons. Good start.

Being that it was Harvey that destroyed the last tape machine due to a mishap of it not being the first session and Harvey refusing to perceive the number one, Jon asks him to elaborate- “tell me more about that” (0:56). Asking for more info on something a client has said often shows interest, which helps with relationship building, and on the mental health professional’s end would help build an understanding of the client. It has been established at this point that the session is for “introductory psychoanalytic examinations” (0:24), so that latter point is especially important. Killing two birds with one stone, very efficient. Whether Jon actually shows interest towards Harvey’s fascination for the number two though is a completely different matter. 

In addition, throughout all this Jon also gives terse responses, “I see.” (00:49) (1:11), to Harvey’s statements to indicate he’s listening and doesn’t try to weigh in. One-sided conversation such as these allow the client to speak as much as they need to, the sessions are for them after all.  

So overall, Jonathan is being very professional so far. 

At 1:21 of the episode is when Jon finally decides to give his thoughts (after Harvey has finished talking) stating that "The best way for [him] to help [Harvey] is to establish a bond of trust between [them]” (1:26), something that Harvey agrees to. Truthfully, another thing that is important between client and mental health professional, so his approach isn’t wrong.

Upon Harvey agreeing to this, Jon promptly demands that he be given the coin, something Harvey doesn't want to do. At being told that he isn’t comfortable with that, Jon points out that "it's not up to [Harvey]" (1:46) and takes the coin anyway through it's infallible decision-making prowess and the full knowledge that Harvey relies on the coin for all his decision making. He successfully gets the coin, Harvey is unhappy, and trust is established. But not really because Jonathan didn’t respect Harvey’s personal feelings nor wishes. Which is a breach of ethics. Horrible decision really. Jon places the coin on the table, presumably in a place where both he and Harvey can see it, and he declares aloud that it's on the table. In any other context this might have actually been a good way to maintain trust while seperating an item of emotional importance from a client, but such actions should only be taken with the consent of said client. 🚨 JONATHAN IS BEING UNETHICAL HERE. 🚨

Afterwards Jonathan reopens the session, “We meet again for the very first time” (2:06) as though everything said and done previously never happened. He goes on to ask the pair to reintroduce themselves. He notably sounds more casual here and upon hearing that Two-Face is older asks “Harvey was here first, wasn’t he?” (2:21) in a tone that doesn’t sound genuinely surprised. The question was most likely asked as a method to fish for confirmation or another elaboration.  

He then moves on after Two-Face is done speaking, very obviously not caring about the reasoning given for Two-Face's origins, to say that he heard “a horror story” (2:58) referring to the courtroom incident. Despite Two-Face's response being a positive one, claiming “That day set me free, like it was in the beginning” (3:11), Jon instead believes that the incident “found [Two-Face] in [his] hiding place” (3:17) and that he was hiding because he was, and still is, “afraid of what [he] would do without Harvey” (3:27). Jon weighing in should have ideally been avoided here. Therapy is normally approached with a mentality akin to teaching a man to fish, where the point is to teach a client how to identify and analyse their own feelings.

Instead of stating why a client thinks/feels as they do, a mental health professional will tactically ask questions in an effort to get a client to reflect. Jon asks some of these questions- “Do you ever wonder what if that acid had taken more than half of your face that terrible day? [...] What if when the acid had done its business, there wasn’t enough of Harvey left to do the serious work?” (3:30) which, in a way, counts. There is still criticism to be had here though as wording can passively influence how a client thinks. Describing the day that Harvey went through his incident as being “terrible”? Probably made Harvey view a day considers favourably as something more negative. Likewise, stating that Harvey could have somehow been lost that day from the acid in all certainty no doubt might have instilled some sense of unease in Two-Face. You should avoid making clients uncomfortable. Bad therapy moment.❌And then Jon follows these questions to Harvey up with another explanation, "You won't let it [cross your mind] because it frightens you [...] the thought of being alone." (3:50).❌❌

“Let’s try something. Bear with me” (3:58) Jon says next, reaching for the acid he inexplicably keeps in his draw. Upon being asked what he’s going to be doing with it by one (two?) Two-Face, Jon retorts with his own question, “What are you afraid I’m going to do with it, hmm?” (4:18) before pissing around with the acid and wanting Harvey to “Tell [him] about the fear” (4:29). This is an example of Jonathan being unethical again. Remember gaining the consent of clients of a therapeutic activity you want to do together is of utmost importance. Likewise, then Jon clarifies that he thinks that Harvey is scared of the “other” (5:05) attribute he acquired that day that wasn’t just the acid damage. Believing that tapping into this fear would cause emotional distress, he proceeds to dunk Harvey’s coin into the acid, destroying it. 🚨JONATHAN IS BEING UNETHICAL AGAIN, DO NOT DELIBERATELY CAUSE MENTAL DISTRESS TO CLIENTS OR DESTROY THEIR PROPERTY. 🚨 According to Jonathan himself he considers his actions “aggressive intervention” (5:30), but Jonathan’s judgement for considering this necessary can be called into question. 

Finally, after everything is said and done and Harvey has in fact been reduced to “a puddle of quivering terror” (5:10) like Jon predicted, Jon is again back to asking Harvey questions about his feelings and acting like a good mental health professional. He even reassures Harvey that he understands! Creating an environment of understanding and lack of judgement is important in any therapy setting. And, further playing his role as a psychiatrist, Jonathan in all his understanding of Harvey’s inability to make decisions anymore prescribes him with meds of his own creation. He explains what the medication does positively, in fluffy terms rather than anything technical, and gets Harvey to take it. While Jonathan is allowed to prescribe medication like this being a psychiatrist rather than just a psychologist, the fact that he starts tooting his own horn about how good the meds are, neglecting to talk about the potential side effects, and then makes Harvey take them anyway is, again, unethical. Informed consent should always be taken from clients before prescribing and a therapy session is an inappropriate setting to advertise your products.

In conclusion:

Jonathan takes more Ls in this session of therapy than he has moments doing his job in the proper way, and his approaches to psychological methods indicate that he takes those Ls not from any amount of ignorance on his part but from a blatant disregard for the well-being of his clients. He plays nice and uses correct therapy techniques consistently only up until he establishes a "bond of trust" by removing Harvey's coin, despite Harvey's feelings. After, Jon can be observed descending more and more into ignoring basic therapy practices; providing his own viewpoints on events, outright stating why Harvey feels as he does, refusing to explain what he's planning to do, eventually getting to the point where he's talking more than the clients during the session. All this happens until Jon permanently rids Harvey of the coin for good, leading to an emotional breakdown in the clients and a subsequent administration of drugs.

If I didn't know any better I'd say that during these events, Jonathan goes from setting up the session like any mental health professional would to gradually steering the session into the direction he wants it to go. Even moreso if one regards how he brings up the court room incident of his own volition completely unprompted (2:50) which then leads that into bringing up the topic of fears. Which eventually leads to dropping the coin into acid... Now this idea is insidious enough as it is, right? I'm sure this Dr Jonathan Crane is a well meaning psychiatrist, I mean he's following Gotham's Code of Medical Ethics! So here's also a slightly different perspective to all this:

Jon is speedrunning therapy.

I mean think about it- not even two minutes into the session and Jon basically forces Harvey into "trusting" him. This is only the second time that they've had a session together mind and trust is a thing that often takes months or even years to form between a mental health professional and a client. The chosen method of building trust was to remove a valued item from Harvey and one that he relies on, again something that takes multiple sessions to build up to and- as had been stated- is a valid trust building technique. After taking the coin Jon still leaves it in a place where Harvey knows where it is, just like you'd expect in a therapy setting. Jon even asks the pair to introduce themselves before deliberately steering things into talking about the court room incident which is the nexus point for why Harvey relies on the coin as far as he's concerned. Even him outright telling Two-Face what his fears are could be interpreted as him not wanting to spend months doing the standard therapy approaches that aren't even a guarantee for any progress.

In fact, Jon doesn't even attempt to destroy the coin either until the following happens in order: he tells Two-Face he thinks the court room incident found him and he was hiding out of fear of what he'd do without Harvey, he then asks Two-Face if he's ever thought about what he'd do if Harvey was unable to do much of anything anymore, then outright tells Two-Face he's afraid of being alone before then saying "Let's try something" (3:54) as though he's about to demonstrate his point, forcing Two-Face to acknowledge it.

"I think we had a breakthrough" (5:36) indeed. Breakthroughs are when a client successfully identifies something about themselves, like where a thought or feeling or bad habit stems from. A client having a breakthrough is the point where therapy can progress. And, hey, Harvey probably did make a breakthrough from losing his coin, though it was forced. This breakthrough led to being given a special drug. Which is something to be explored in a later part.

Of course though none of this really matters. Therapy is about treating a person as a person and "teaching a man to fish". Apparently Jonathan doesn't care about fishing.

FINAL SCORE FOR THE SESSION:

🎊 3/10 🎊

Jon is definitely not lacking in skills when it comes to psychology or therapy techniques, in fact he seemed decent enough for the first chunk before the session metaphorically drove off a cliff through his driving- intentionally no less. He simply lacks regard for the feelings of his clients and is a walking ethics breach. Likewise he took deliberate control of the session, and whether the end result was intentional or not this is definitely not something to do in a therapy setting. His approach to "therapy" may lead to breakthroughs, making his clients recognise the things he identifies, but it's not in the true spirit of therapy. It's doubtful that a client under him would ever learn the techniques they need to overcome whatever things they might struggle with.

...And this isn't even getting into how much enjoyment he seems to get from making his clients uncomfortable.

[thesomebody]

I think that some people have not experienced anxiety at all in their life. With how they bring up Jonathan’s line of how Nancy would sacrifice her schooling at Emerson to be with him in California. Jonathan is just doom spiraling and thinking of all the possible negative possibilities. Not that Nancy would actually do it. But at the possibility that she could do it. It happens.

Jonathan was in a pit of anxiety and feels a little useless in his life while also having anxiety because of the horrors he has seen in these last three seasons and even before that.

[twilight-zoned-out]

"Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured."

Although Dracula was published in 1897, some think that it takes place in 1893 because of the way the days and dates used line up. If that's the case, Jonathan Harker's epilogue, seven years later, would have been added around 1900. A new era bubbling with new change and new conventions. The story ends with Jonathan looking ahead to a new century filled with the unknown and being able to look on the past, despite its darkness, "without despair."

[chirpsythismorning]

This is everything

cr: @hellfiresbyers

[shyjusticewarrior]

We don't talk enough about how- because of Bruce's actions- Jason was almost killed by the man who killed his childhood best friend.

[cult-of-the-eye]

Jon and his trauma:

Jon never really thought he had it that bad but that was only because it had been that bad for all his life so it just became his "normal"

So every once in a while he's surprised at the shocked reactions he gets to telling people the details of his lives

He has a tendency to believe that if he tried hard enough, he could've changed things, which translates to a sort of god complex, where he'll try desperately to control things out of his control, thinking that they are in his control

His main response at triggers is to run, get out of there as fast as possible, he'll feel an uncomfortable prickly sensation spread through his limbs while his brain screams at him to be anywhere other than here

His brain occasionally throws the worst thoughts he could possibly have out there, like wouldn't it be nice if I just collapsed here and then everyone had to escort me to the hospital or if i got cancer cause that means i can lie down for a bit

He is stubborn to a fault. He won't follow instructions, he has to physically fuck around and find out and then once he finds out he completely spirals.

Working himself to the bone is the only way he feels worthy, the only way he feels like he is justifying his existence and it feels gratifying, the sharpness of the edge he constantly knows he's just about to fall off, the way he knows it's hurting him but that's what life is.

He over explains like it's his one true purpose. He desperately believes that if he just says the right words then the other person would get it, they'd understand and he's surprised when they don't. He doesn't get it when they don't hear him out.

Jon believes in the goodness of the world, he'll give second, third, fourth, fifth chances because all he can do is hope. He never got the chance to hope someone would change when he was younger, so he'll take what he can get for now

[anongalactic]

I feel like there's a lot of fundamental misunderstandings about how hamon and vampires work in jjba, and I think that's so tragic. Hamon has gained the reputation of being just "magic sunlight karate," but it's so much more. Hamon is the energy of life, it's found in the ever rippling motion in everything. It beats in our blood, flows in the waves, shines from the sun, blooms from flowers, the air we breathe. It's intrinsically tied to motion and to life itself. Everyone and everything has hamon, its just that hamon warriors have been trained to harness it.

Jonathan's hamon abilities are so strong from the very beginning because he's so full of love and passion, all for the people and things he cared about so fiercely. What he's channeling isn't the sun, it's life itself. The most painfully symbolic part of hamon as a concept is that it's what ties all living things together. the very nature of human connection is brought from hamon.

Dio failed to ever truly connect with anyone else in life, when he kills someone to drain their blood it is like he's severing that person's love, relationships, their passion for living-- its so much more than just eating a couple prostitutes sometimes. Vampires don't feed on people just because, they drink blood to sustain their hamon. They have to leech the very essence of life, of human love and joy, to keep going because they lacked those things in life. Dio becoming a vampire is just as symbolic as it is literal.

Vampires at their core represent self-sabotaging, bitter, lonely people who refuse to let others in. The only way they can live is by killing others, severing human connection and happiness and love and destroying it with them. They don't get happier themselves, they just destroy.

Vampires are killed by the truth of human connection and passion being blasted straight into their faces. They are born from self-hatred and loneliness, a lust for the peace and happiness that escapes them, a violent urge to destroy what they struggle to obtain. To live is to love, and to be undead is to yearn.

[nelyoslegalteam]

#WOULD KILL DRACULA AND SURVIVE#listen maedhros feanorion and jonathan harker are fundamentally the same genre of person. no im not elaborating just trust me. #actually that’s a lie i made a long unhinged post elaborating but like #‘​‘his spirit burned like a white fire within’’ / ‘‘in fact he is like a living flame’’

PLEASE elaborate on Maedhros and Jonathan being the same kind of person! Is Jonathan the living flame quote?

YES LISTEN OKAY YOU HAVE TO UNDERSTAND. first of all i have been unhinged already here but. look i just really love a character who makes decisions they know are putting them in danger because they’re bound to some duty beyond themself. love a character who was trapped and imprisoned and makes for a juicy study of what the power structure of that entrapment was like (and for maedhros i have to shout out @outofangband for just utterly sinking their TEETH into this in the BEST way). love a character who SHOULD’VE died, who DIDN’T, except they did go through some kind of metaphorical death. and now they’re back. and they’re not as soft and measured as they used to be. and now they’re spurred on by rage and trauma - and also the desire to protect their people (maedhros has his little brothers and also All Of The Noldor, jonathan has mina) from the horrors that they faced. and they WILL face those horrors. violently. with a knife. no matter how much it opens their own trauma, they’re taking the blow. and fuck do i LOVE a character who’s willing to meet the worst version of themself along the way, who’s willing to Become The Thing They Fear for the people they love. (maedhros, who refused to burn the ships, doesn’t want to be the kind of person who slaughters refugees. but he will be that, for his family. jonathan doesn’t want to be dracula. but for mina, he’ll turn to vampirism without second thought.)

also listen. a character who is physically changed by what they went through, as a metaphor for the way their trauma has altered who they are. maedhros losing his right hand. jonathan’s hair turning white. you see. you get me.

AND YEAH. YEAH THAT’S A DIRECT QUOTE ABOUT JONATHAN!!!!!!! it’s from the october 3rd entry, where jack describes jonathan as such:

The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. Today he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period; he will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life.

(emphasis mine but!!!!!! TELL ME THAT ISN’T THE MOST MAEDHROS-CODED OUTSIDER POV ON JONATHAN HARKER EVER)

anyhow. i love them both dearly. and the living flame quote is one of my favorite lines of all time <3

[scytheclawz]

If Jonathan had enough insight to find an air pocket underwater while he was about to drown I'm pretty sure he'd be observant enough to pick up on the fact that Speedwagon had the hots for him.

I know Jona is not the best at catching social cues but Speedy isn't really subtle about his feelings...