#gregor is literally SO eldest daughter coded

[emerdoodls]

no bc actually im gonna talk about it rn. this is not the plot it's just an infodump about gregor's trauma ngl

that fourteen year old CHILD has so much trauma by the end of book 5. like holy shit. (spoilers ahead ig)

starting at age eleven gregor is fighting battles against giant talking rats right. and they usually want to eat him. and most of the time at least one person is annoyed with him for being unused to the brutality of a world that never made it past sustenance farming and swords and constant territorial wars. like that's all bad enough. but then gregor finds out that his dad who he thought up and left them for no reason is not only alive but being kept in a pit by said giant talking rats, and is horribly sick (mentally and physically) and malnourished. this means that this eleven year old, (who has lowkey been half raising his sisters and taking care of his grandma bc his mom works long hours) now has another person he kinda has to take care of.

in book 2, his (two or three year old) sister gets KIDNAPPED by the giant talking roaches from the underland bc she's allegedly part of a prophecy (the lines that they believe are about her literally say "die the baby" so gregor is less than thrilled about this. this causes another quest. on the dangerous river. into the heart of the gnawers (rats) territory. because gregor has to kill a rat so the rats don't kill his sister. he gets introduced to underland family drama, and watches mites EAT A BAT ALIVE then has to fight a squid or octopus i don't remember which but it leaves him with scars all up and down his arms and THEN he has to JUMP IN A WHIRLPOOL because everyone is going to let one of the rats they brought on the quest drown. then they get where theyre going! yay! but the rats wake up the giant serpents and the serpents break the boat, split the group, and gregor loses his sister and luxa. he thinks theyre dead. he goes to try and kill the rat he's supposed to kill and guess what. the rat is a baby and gregor can't kill him bc the baby reminds him of his baby sister. he goes back to the people in the underland and they're mad at him for not killing an infant. gregor is TWELVE. his sister is alive! yay! he and boots (his sister) go back up to the overland.

in book 3, gregor's family gets chased out of their apartment by rats in their walls until gregor agrees to go back to the underland. gregor's mom goes with bc she's mad. they want him there because surprise surprise, theres another prophecy. there is also a plague. it's basically the black death but yk more brutal bc suzanne does not pull her punches. gregor's flier (bat) ares is sick, and was one of the first to get sick, and this fact is lowkey used as emotional manipulation to get gregor to help the underlanders. gregor's mom gets the plague. gregor starts questing. the creepy sort of psychic gal (nerissa) says she arranged for a guide for this quest, but she did it when she was five. the guide shows up. he's nerissa and luxa's uncle. he killed a bunch of gnawer families and decided that war wasn't for him, actually. he has a son. none of this really applies to gregor's trauma, i just really like hamnet and hazard. anyways. the jungle wants to eat the entire questing party. basically nowhere is safe. they lose most of their food and water somehow and are trapped in the jungle bc one of the fliers who came w them is hurt. after a few days of starving, one of the rats gets eaten by a plant, another gets almost eaten by a plant, and gregor watches this happen. then they find fresh water (yay!) they also find LUXA (who has been living in the jungle with a colony of mice for months) who everyone thought was dead and who is very angry with gregor for not killing the baby rat. gregor and luxa make up, yada yada yada, luxa joins the quest. then the fucking ants show up. the ants are described as being fucking massive, and the questing party has to fight them in an attempt to save what they think is the cure. the questers lose. gregor gets even more scars up and down his arms and legs. gregor is 13, and can never wear shorts or short sleeves again.

books 4&5 are getting lumped together bc they are more or less one storyline. book 4 starts with gregor visiting his mom and ares who are getting better! yay! then luxa gets a message from one of the mice she stayed with and she convinces gregor to go with her to figure out whats goin on. they go to the jungle, fight some snacks, gregor has the horrifying realization that being a rager means he is basically biologically programmed to kill. which is terrifying for a 13 year old to hear, esp when he gets told he was LAUGHING while covered in blood yk. they realize all the mice have been disappearing and end up on a quest to look for them. they find out the mice are getting killed by the rats in the firelands. they lose a bat who was like, a literal baby and it's very sand and traumatizing. gregor and luxa bring the last of the mice back to the city, and book 4 ends. book 5 is where shit gets real, and honestly i know this is gonna be very out of order bc everything starts to blend together here for me. basically the rats have created a code using taps and scratches, as well as a written version in order to communicate about their plans. the humans and rats are now in all out actual war. the humans are trying to solve the code, can't do it, everyone thinks boots (who is literally like three or four) is somehow gonna do it until they realize gregor and boots' sister lizzie exists. lizzie, who has a panic attack thinking about the underland, comes down to the underland to crack the code. at some point during this book gregor gets thrown in a cell by the general of the human army because he disobeyed orders (i think? that might be wrong) but he is in there for long enough that he LEARNS TO ECHOLOCATE (tbf one of the rats (Ripred) has been trying to teach him to do this since he got to the underland the first time and they found out gregor was a rager). later gregor watches the human army pour boiling oil on the rat army, watches the rats overrun the castle, watches several people die in front of him, watches someone have a stroke in front of him upon hearing that his wife died. then gregor goes to fight that baby rat he didn't kill in book 2. that baby rat is now 6 or 7 or 8 feet tall idk and very nearly kills gregor, ripping his chest open. the rat does kill ares, violently. and in front of gregor. all of this happens and then gregor stays in the underland hospital for a few days, then goes home.

the book ends with him staring at his ceiling comptemplating his life and the fact that he can never be normal again, and his mom wants them to move away from everything he's ever known to the family farm in virginia. bc she thinks that will solve literally anything. she is absolutely wrong.

if you made it this far i would literally die for you,

some day i will obsessively explain the entire plot of the underland chronicles by suzanne collins and you guys will all be my captive audience you are not safe