#i guess that makes these unhinged rambles instead of an essay then?

[sojourner-between-worlds]

The funny thing about me making two separate posts within the same hour about Lockwood's death wish yesterday is that I had all the dots and I was so close and yet completely just... did not fully connect them. So here's the follow up no one asked for.

Because there is something to be said for the fact that Lockwood was the best able to resist the call of the void on the Other Side. And I was right: he manages this both despite AND because of his loose ties to the Living World.

This is contrary to the expected. His family is all gone and he can't see the meaning in their deaths. Le Belle Dame snares him so easily because of this. It would be so easy for him to let go and join his family, and really what's the point in staying alive anyway? Except that he finds out his parents' deaths weren't meaningless, and he gives meaning to his sister's.

His ties to the Living World are weak after losing his entire family. This doesn't necessarily change when he finds the meaning; they're still gone and he's still alive, and the grief still lingers even if there is purpose in it now. He should feel the pull more than (or, at the very least, the same as) the others. But that's not what happens because he's used to it. He's used to feeling the pull of death. That's not to say the void didn't affect him at all, of course; turning away still wasn't an easy feat. But the pull is less because its always there and he's always fighting it. In a twisted sort of way, his own desire for death is exactly what made him more immune to its influence.

Despite this, it would still have been easy for him to let go. But he doesn't. He's found meaning in death and so he turns away because he knows there is meaning in life still, too.