#hello hi working class simon is deeply important to me

[pfhwrittes]

ghost doesn't understand the concept of homesickness. why would he? when his idea of home has always involved raised voices, the leccy meter beeping on emergency credit and bare cupboards.

[adamarks]

simon snow has fucking dragon powers or some shit and this is my goddamn proof

Whilst you people were having a meltdown over Baz and Simon not hashing it out (Simon’s not in a place of understanding his self worth enough for that yet.), I was having a meltdown about Simon Snow The Literal Fucking Dragon. 

Now, this is obviously going to have major spoilers for Wayward Son. I’m going to assume you’ve read it if you’re reading this. I’ve put a lot of thought into this theory and this is a long ass post so I’m putting it under the cut. Now. Let’s go, lesbians!

First and foremost, let’s start with the wings and tail. 

Simon’s wings are established at the very beginning of Wayward Son to represent something. We don’t really get to quite know what that something is until they start referring to Simon’s wings the same way they used to refer to his magic. 

The most direct reference to Simon’s wings symbolizing his magic is in Simon’s section of the prologue at the very end of the book:

“It’s time for me to stop pretending I’m some sort of superhero. I was that-- I really was-- but I’m not anymore. I don’t belong in the same world as sorcerers and vampires. That’s not my story.

Dr. Wellbelove said he could remove the wings. And the tail. Whenever I’m ready. I could go back to school then, or get a job...”

This section directly confirms that yes, these wings are a metaphor for Simon’s magic. They’re all he has left connect him to the world of magic. They’re the only thing still making him feel even remotely on the same level as Baz and Penelope. (This book really was all about the concept of self-worth and how completely lacking it affects not only us but those we love. Phew, talk about a doozy. No wonder we’re all crying.)

Now that we’ve established that Simon’s wings, at the very least, are his one tether to magic, let’s drive the nail into the coffin of the wings and tail being absolutely, 100% symbolic of his magic. 

As I mentioned earlier, the book starts treating the wings exactly the same as it treated his magic. This even starts before Wayward Son. The first mention of Simon’s emotions relating to his wings and tail is in the first book. In the epilogue, in Baz’s section, during the dance scene. 

“His tail whips out of my hand. It tends to slash around when he’s upset.”

This really starts to come out in the last fourth of Wayward when he’s “itching for a fight.”

His wings constantly poke, prod, and generally annoy Baz and Penny because he refuses to put them away. Almost.... like... how his magic..... felt suffocating.... and too much... and he couldn’t push it back... or tamp it down. *cough*

Okay, so that was all pretty basic, boring, base-building stuff, yeah?  Pretty “whatever we get it.” 

Well, here’s where it starts to get fun. 

Let’s talk about Simon’s Mirrors.

Lemme just explain what the hell a mirror is, first. In case we all flunked our high school Lit classes. 

A mirror character is, in simple terms, a character that acts, looks like, or reminds you of one of the main characters. Through these “mirror characters” some important information about the main character is revealed to us subtextually. 

Let’s name our Simon mirrors:

Ebb 

Agatha (she’s being developed as her own character but that’s not stopping her from mirroring our good lad.)

Aunt Fiona (to some extent anyway. she doesn’t really factor here.) 

There might be some minor ones I’m forgetting (I’m not including foils) but these are our main guys. 

I put Ebb on the list first, but let’s start with Agatha, the cranky heroine of our dreams. 

Throughout the whole first book, Agatha is shown to be Simon’s mirror. Them both mooning over Baz in almost the exact same way. (Jesus Christ they’re embarrassing to watch.) The waiting on rooftops, the handkerchief. (Don’t get me started on Simon carrying around Baz’s scarf in Wayward. I’m soft and everything hurts. Our poor, stupid, stupid boys.) It’s not exactly subtle. 

In Carry On, Agatha reveals just how much Simon also resents his fate. He never really expresses it, but Agatha is reflecting to us how he’s feeling. They both get progressively less resigned to the bullshit “Chosen One” fate as the book goes on. They both make it out alive. Maybe everything will be okay. 

But then Rainbow rolls up with a Sex On The Beach and Gucci sunglasses to tell us that “fuck no everything’s not okay.” (She’s right. God, I could go on a rant about how no one ever talks about how you feel when you’ve defeated the villain. When you’ve escaped the dungeon. Hhhhh)

Wayward Son immediately sets Agatha up as even more of a mirror than she was in the first book. We’re shown right away that the two of them are both in a depressed funk. They’re both at “15%” and miserable. These two are echoing each other like NEVER before and I am LIVING for it. 

Like, we even get this amazing bit in Chapter Four:

“That would feel like an answer to... the question of me. Then I could say, ‘Oh, that’s who I am. That’s why I’ve been so confused.’”

They! Are! Struggling!

Now, how does this relate to Simon having literal fucking dragon powers? Good question, thank you for asking. 

In Chapter Fifty-Six, when Pen and Agatha are stuck in the back of Fuckwad Vampire #3′s car, Agatha says this:

“I honestly thought I could walk away from it all-- like magic was a place. Like magic was a person. Or a habit I could break.

When Simon first came to Watford, he couldn’t make his wand work. He could barely cast a spell. He thought they were going to kick him out, that he wasn’t magic enough. 

“You don’t do magic,” Penelope told him. “You are magic.”

I... am magic. 

Whether I like it or not, whether or not I claim it. Whether or not I carry my wand. 

It’s in me, somehow. Blood, water, bone.”

They!! Are!! Both!! Magic!! 

Magic is in them! Magic is with them! They’re made of the stuff! They can’t cut off this part of them, no matter how much they want to. (lmao. talk about good old internalized homophobia. I don’t really have an opinion on what Agatha’s sexuality is, btw. I’m using homophobia as a blanket term because I have no clue what’s up on that front.)

Simon is made of magic. He doesn’t want to remove his wings. Even though he has to hide them. Even though he thinks he’s a Normal now. Like Penny said, “an aeroplane is still an aeroplane even if it’s on the ground.” (I’m not sure that’s verbatim, apologies.)

Simon still has magic. We just can’t see it. He’s made of magic. He is magic. He was literally conceived during a spell. Bitch is as magical as you can get. 

But where is the magic???? Where’d it go???? Hello????

I’m getting there. I promise. First, we need to talk about Ebb. 

Ebb wasn’t only Simon’s weird Aunt figure; she was his mirror. Ebb was what would’ve happened to Simon if he hadn’t rejected the mage at the end of Carry On. Ebb just gave in. She didn’t want to fight anymore, and she figured Shithead The Great knew more than she did. 

God I just fucking hate Mage so much like holy shit. Anyway, anyway. 

Ebb was the strongest magician next to Simon. She didn’t want to fight. She didn’t want to use her magic for any great purpose. She just wanted to be. Agatha even reiterates this in the epilogue of Carry On.

 “Like, they couldn’t just let her be.”

(No, Simon doesn’t miss killing things in Wayward. He misses excitement and having a purpose. He mainly misses having a purpose. Not having one of those fucking sucks.)

What the fuck does Ebb have to do with this? Why can’t I just get to the point?

My point is!

My Point IS!

That goddamn dragon with the sheep was supposed to remind you of Ebb.

So, let’s do the math. If 1=1x1= 1 then...

Ebb = Margaret = Simon

Sure, sure we had Simon screeching that he wasn’t a dragon. But Margaret was immediately like, 

“Not yet.” She pets his wing. “Are kitten. Someday dragon. Someday ferocious.”

Simon smells like a dragon, but also apparently “smells like iron.” Whatever the fuck that means. I mean I guess it means that Baz could still sippy sippy. (Which is gonna happen or I’ll eat my own toe.) 

One more thing: 

“I wanted wings,” he says. “I wanted to fly.”

“Why tail?”

“I wanted to be free!”

Gee, that sure sounds like what Agatha was saying earlier, huh?

YEAH OKAY HE’S HALF DRAGON!! WE’VE ESTABLISHED THAT!!! WHAT THE FUCK AM I ON ABOUT!!!!

Omg thank you for asking. I’m going to blow your mind with my final point. 

The Final Point: The Baz Problem.

Wayward Son is, by all accounts, Baz’s book. It develops everyone beautifully and everyone has an arc, but this book is where Baz gets to shine. 

We found out in this book that vampires are immortal.

This introduced a whole new issue, an issue that surfaces every time immortality is introduced as a possibility for one character but not the rest. 

Someday, Baz will be left alone.

He’ll inevitably outlive everyone he cares about. We all know our poor, beautiful, delicate bastard boy couldn’t take it. How deeply he cares is his most beautiful and wonderful trait, and this could break him. 

I wonder, how long does a dragon live?

Penny talks about the improbability of Simon and Baz in Chapter Three. 

“Star-cross’d lovers. ‘From forth the fatal loins of these two foes.’ The whole shebang.”

Simon’s magic was always described as smoke and fire. The first creature we learn about Simon fighting was a dragon. (Chapter 1, first page of Carry On)

“You’ve slain a dragon, Simon. Surely you can manage a long walk and a few buses.”

 God, I just really hate Bitchface the Mage. Anywho.

Simon. The One Who Came to End Us. Simon. The One To Save Us All. Simon is the dragon and the knight. He’s his own worst enemy. His arc will be completed once he accepts the “dragon” part of himself. It’s poetic as fuck, I must admit. 

Simon has to find love and care for himself, and then this baby dragon will be grown. He’ll be “on top” as Margaret had said. (God, could you imagine all the dragons waking up? How fucking epic would THAT be? Fingers crossed.)

The monster that drains living things and the monster that burns all in its wake. These losers are starcrossed, but they complete each other. Dumbasses. I just love them so much why can’t they get their shit together. 

Simon and Baz’s storylines are utterly intertwined. They’re perfectly matched. Simon might not know it, but their hearts are already tied together; they beat in sync. They’re two stars orbiting each other. And, if we’re all very lucky, maybe they won’t crash. Maybe this story won’t end in flames. 

So, in conclusion, I really really really want Simon to breathe fire. The only other way I could see this twisting is the wings somehow going away and Simon getting a regular-magician amount of magic. That’s kinda lame tho and doesn’t complete his arc correctly. This dumb boy is a dragon now and there’s nothing we can do about it. (EDIT: actually yeah simon’s not gonna lose his wings no way in fuck. check out my meta.)  Also? I would sell my soul to see Simon getting really possessive over really weird objects for his hoard. 

Thank you for sticking with me this far, dear reader. I’ll leave you with this thought: Baz is Donkey and Simon is the dragon from Shrek. 

Check out my other meta on the future of simon and baz’s relationship and how penny and agatha relate 

scarf meta as well check it

Gonna be tagging peeps so this can circulate better. 

@carrybits @neck-mole @watfordwallflower

[sometimesrosy]

(1) Hello, Meta Anon (thank you, Jeanie205) here. Just dropping in to say I agree with your assessment of Wells. If there’s one The 100 character who best embodies the quote, “You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain,” it’s Wells. The last act of his life is to impart onto Clarke the importance of forgiveness and then he dies at a juncture when the show’s horrors were relatively, considerably tame. He didn’t even make it to the culling. Given all we’ve seen,

(2) the cinnamon roll perception has never tracked for me. Every character is broken by traumas, tragedies and impossible choices, every one. It’s presumptuous to think Wells would remain the one person unsullied by darkness had he lived. Presumptuous doesn’t even seem like the right word. More so, unrealistic. Maybe because he died early, he’s malleable enough to be whatever fandom wants him to be and romanticizes the thought of a character representing a steadfast beacon of light? In fairness,

(3) I’ve only seen this argument aggressively utilized by an antiClarke, claiming the show would have been “so much better” had Clarke died instead of Wells. By better, I’m assuming they meant having a lead character who isn’t morally bankrupt, or some such nonsense. I guess we’ll never know where the story would’ve taken him. I could just as easily see him akin to Monty - someone not immune to the narrative’s evils but never so impacted that he went off the rails, opting for a peaceful end.

+++

Interesting. Because Wells was a “good” character who was generally unformed by hardship, he can serve as a kind of cipher for the fans to give him whatever purpose they want him to have. He stands in for everything good, for the idealistic vision of what could have been. 

I never really jibe with the people who say a character ‘deserves’ better when they don’t get the storyline the fans want. I don’t think that’s what deserving means. And I don’t think that “deserving” is a function in many stories. 

In a more simplistic story... or maybe they are more traditional stories... we have the good heroes and the bad villains and those characters who do good things are rewarded and those who do bad things are punished.

This story does not really work that way, at least for the good people. They often fail in their goals and are not rewarded. If a character is “good” they “deserve” a happy ending or victory or reward. If a character is “bad” they “deserve” to suffer, lose and die. The witch is chased off the cliff, the brute is vanquished, the demon is exorcised. The hero and heroine get together. The knight wins the battle. The loyal best friend is rewarded. Not in The 100. The hero and heroine are separated. The knight is sentenced to hell and must reign there, and the loyal best friend is killed for something he didn’t do.

HOWEVER, there is a hope for this story, for while our heroes have not been rewarded yet, and we have lost MANY of the deeply good and moral characters, our dark side knight has come back to the light and the TRULY evil characters have indeed gotten their just reward, often in VERY fitting manners.

Tsing was irradiated to death after her torture experiments.

Cage was killed by his own drug, administered by one of his victims.

McCreary’s coercion and torture was turned around on him and he was curb stomped to death.

Josephine was erased from existence at the hand of the victim she thought was vanquished and her own true love soulmate who couldn’t bear her evil any longer.

Simone lost her daughter and friends and was kicked out of the ship by the person she murdered to get her way.

??? So it’s not QUITE that the characters don’t get what they deserve. Some do. And maybe by the end of the show, the heroes will get what they deserve, too, and it won’t be death? Maybe? We can hope.

Maybe it’s about learning to be a good person. And Clarke and Wells at the beginning of the show could be the good people because they’d never ever been faced with horror and oppression until Jake was floated. That’s why Clarke fell from grace and her place as golden girl. She had to confront the horrors of this world and these systems that were in place and figure out how to be a good person WITHIN this world.

WOULD Wells have done better at it than Clarke?

I tell you, I have never seen the argument that Wells should have lived and Clarke should have died. I HAVE seen the argument that he should have taken FINN’S place, but that’s probably because I avoid clarke-antis like the plague. Because they are a plague. I get not loving a character, but how do you actively campaign against the hero of the story. That’s who the story is about, and wishing it was a different story about someone else isn’t going to do a damn thing except make you bitter and disappointed, and spread your bile to other fans, ruining their enjoyment. (I understand that this is what some people feed on. Hate, anger and spreading their negativity.)

To say Clarke shouldn’t have been the hero, Wells should have, smacks of misogyny. How HARD do they have to fight against having a complex, conflicted, morally gray female hero who struggles incredibly with what it means to be good. How often do they watch a male hero (his name is Bellamy) have almost the same struggles and be fine with it? To say that Wells would be better as a hero than Clarke says what? Do they think Wells wouldn’t have struggled with being morally gray?

How would that be possible? That’s what this show is about. It wouldn’t have turned into a disney cartoon simply by virtue of a different hero. 

Wells was a sensible character with a firm sense of right and wrong and he did things based on logic, and the desire for peace. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a character like that. But, is he the hero that this story needed? 

I don’t think so. First of all, he doesn’t rock the boat. Don’t tell people about the oxygen failing. Don’t start fights. Don’t waste resources. He didn’t have a problem with the plans his father had. He didn’t have a problem with the inequities and oppression of the lower classes, or if he did, he didn’t do anything about it. He was about stability and building up. 

If he’d found himself in Mount Weather, would he have fought them? Knowing that they were in a culture that worked, that was successful and safe and even thriving. Would he have resisted upon finding out about the grounders? Would he even have looked beyond the polite society to DISCOVER the evil? 

I don’t think so. He was a sensible character. Good character. Brave character. Wasn’t particularly bold or passionate and his vision of the world was to make do with what they had and follow the rules, while Clarke dreamed of something bigger. 

When those rules fell apart on Wells, what would he have done? THAT’S what we can’t know. What would have been his part in this story? Fearful? Resentful? Peacemaker? Collaborator? Defender? Administrator? Supporter? Warrior? 

There’s a lot of options, but in this story? I don’t think he would have been “hero.” 

Well no. He definitely wouldn’t have been the hero, because CLARKE is the hero. The story is about HER. A story with Wells at the center would have been a very different story. 

I think this is one of the problem we get into when we don’t pay attention to point of view or who the hero is. Even though we have narrative arcs for all the important and secondary characters, the main story does NOT focus around them. And they are not shaping the main story. 

Clarke Griffin was designed by JR to tell THIS story. Everything relates back to her and/or Bellamy (secondary protagonist.) A story with Wells as the primary and Bellamy as the secondary wouldn’t have been the same, because Wells was not proactive character like Clarke, but a reactive one, so Bellamy would have taken over. A story with Clarke as the primary and Wells as the secondary could have been similar to this story but it would have left out the class story. It would have been two upper class people swooping in to save the world. It also would have lacked the yin/yang of opposites. If they had written Wells with Clarke’s story, made him the rebel who wanted to tell the people what was happening against his fathers will, well, that could have worked, but he would have been Clarke in a man’s body. In which case it would have been the same story. In which case either we’d see the same hate for him as we have for Clarke, or we’d see the same clarke-antis loving WELLS, because he’s a man and it’s okay for a male hero to be complex, conflicted, morally gray person who struggles with what it means to be good, and that, my friends, is misogyny.