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dragoncookies · 11 months ago

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The Unlocked Healing Center Scene

There are many, MANY scenes in which you could pick apart the ever-loving shit out of Fitz's dialogue and his actions, or just look at how his character is treated from the POV the scene is being told from and compare that to what objectively might be happening.

But one of my favorite's has got to be the Unlocked healing center scene from Keefe's POV, because GOLLY was Fitz just bagged on in that scene, in an almost undetectable way.

(This also isn't meant to be hate on Keefe btw. He's a fine character, not my absolute favorite, but there's no reason to hate on him. It just so happens that Keefe's POV of Fitz is especially patronizing in this scene).

First of all, Shannon starts the scene with presenting us with how lonely and sad he was, just straight up:

”sadness

Nervousness

Regret

Loneliness

Plus a hefty dash of anger.

Coming straight from Fitz” (-Unlocked, idk what page lmao).

I mean, the man was grieving. He just broke up with his maybe girlfriend AND lost the only chance he had to finding his terrorist older brother (who might or might not want to end him and who has caused him and his family immense stress/trauma for the past 4 books if not their entire lives to a degree) in one fell swoop (because of the maybe girlfriend he trusted a lot, not to mention Fitz values trust almost more than he does love so you could basically say the girl he loved).

Me personally? I would just cease to exist after that, but here we have sad, nervous, regretful, lonely and angry Fitz in the healing center waiting for his maybe-bro to wake up.

Once Keefe DID wake up, Fitz was nothing if not worried for Keefe and trying to comfort Keefe. Fitz was obviously GENUINELY worried for Keefe. Look at this:

”Fitz tore a hand through his boringly perfect hair. ‘I get why your mad. But I’m only trying to help. I know what you’re going through-‘

’Right-you totally know what it’s like to have you mom do deadly experiments on you,’ Keefe muttered. ‘I must’ve forgotten that part of the Vacker history.”

’Maybe not,’ Fitz conceded, ‘but I know what it’s like to have a traitor in the family. And I also remember how scary it is to wake up in one of these cots after being brutally attacked-just like I know how hard it is to talk about what’s wrong, because it feels like you’re admitting the Neverseen beat you. But they only win if you keep pretending everything’s normal, because you end up making the damage permanent.’

’I’m not damaged-‘

‘You’re right. That’s the wrong word.’ Fitz blew out a breath. ‘Look, all I’m trying to say is that I wouldn’t be walking right now if I hadn’t let Elwin help me. I probably wouldn’t even be alive. So I want to make sure you get the help you need-and you do need it, Keefe. No matter what you believe. But accepting help doesn’t make you weak. It just means you’re taking care of yourself.’”

Such an underrated Fitz moment, imo.

First and foremost, lets just take a second to point out the "boringly perfect" hair comment. I don't know why this stuck out to me, but it shows how differently these two characters think. While Fitz has his hair styled "perfectly" because its been his lifestyle to maintain a perfect façade, here we can see that Keefe STILL doesn't understand just what goes beyond this perfect façade of Fitz's. Keefe values freedom, loves rebellion, and his hairstyle reflects that. Keefe makes it messy, but a masterpiece. To Keefe, Fitz's hair is just generic and standard. Perfect, well presenting, but it follows the standard of whatever is considered "perfect" to elves, so we can see that it is repulsive to Keefe's nature.

This is much the same as how much Keefe sees the scale of what Alvar's disappearance has done to the Vacker Family. Keefe continues to reject the idea that the Vackers aren't as perfect as he once believed. As soon as Fitz even mentioned the idea of empathy for Keefe, the idea of relating to him, Keefe immediately rejects it, and rejects the idea that Fitz could have gone through any mental/emotional turbulence as a result of the horrendous situations Alvar has put him and his family through. I mean, for crying out loud, Fitz had literally tried to kill his brother in an emotional mess of conflicting feelings and guilt just two books ago, and unheard of crime for the elves. Fitz had to spend weeks and WEEKS in the healing center. Keefe was there when Alvar, on his deathbed, described how the "Vacker Legacy" was what drove him to a life of crime.

Yes, Keefe was having a rough time to put it lightly, but taking it out on others isn't justified (if you want to be mad at Fitz for taking his anger out on others, now you have to be mad at Keefe for taking his emotional distress out on his friend). We can certainly understand it, but we can't justify it, and because the POV is from a likable character, we're more willing to trust what the character says. Since Keefe presents Fitz's actions in a way that makes them seem appalling and jerk-y, and if Keefe presents this idea in his POV that Fitz is always Mr. Perfect and never has trouble in his family, then the readers are more likely to believe that. Objectively, based on what Fitz is saying and doing, we can see he's struggled and is struggling a lot. Fitz had to have worked on learning to receive help himself (asking for help is a SKILL, believe it or not) in order to truly explain how important it is to Keefe in the way he did.

Who just says "Accepting help doesn't make you weak, it just means you're taking care of yourself" and doesn't mean it in the kindest, most sincerest way ever?

Not just Keefe can take this advice, anyone should.

Side note: I also feel like he gave himself bad flashbacks to when he called Sophie damaged in book two when he accidentally used the word here. Ouch.

At another point in this scene, Keefe also shows how irrational he can be, as Fitz is simply trying to do the right thing and get Keefe the help he needs, and Keefe is ABSOLUTELY DEMONIZING Fitz for it. Keefe's health was Fitz's priority, and Fitz didn't necessarily care if he stepped on Keefe's toes to get him the help that he couldn't see he needed (Sophie was in the room as this point):

Unlocked page 561:

“‘Uh, you should probably step back, Sophie,’ Fitz warned. ‘I think your emotions are too strong for him.’

’No, they’re not!’ Keefe argued-and wow,did his voice sound strained. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Nothings wrong. I swear, I’m fine.’

’He keeps saying that,’ Fitz told her-because he was begging for a face-punch. And if the world hadn’t gotten so spinny, Keefe might’ve given it to him when Fitz added, ‘But Keefe’s been picking up all our emotions without even trying. And he’s always been able to do that with you, so I think you’re overwhelming him right now.’

’Okay, I’m done liking Captain Perfectpants,’ Ro announced.

‘Keefe was right there with her-which was probably why he blurted out, ‘Uh, for the record, most of the emotions are coming from you, Fitzy. You wouldn’t happen to have some unresolved feelings for anyone in this room, would you?’”

I'm not gonna lie, if somebody read my emotions and called me out on something that I was VERY touchy about, and was a relatively new blow, I would just leave the room. That was an A class jerk move right there.

Not saying Keefe IS a jerk, because all the characters have acted jerk-y in the series and everyone has their moments, but it was still pretty rude of Keefe to make that comment. What’s annoying is that nobody in the books seemed to react as though it is rude when Keefe makes these kinds of comments. If it was anybody else who had said that, there would be an apology required in order for that character to be redeemed.

Keefe also literally wanted to PUNCH Fitz, because Fitz was...making sure Keefe stayed alive? Because Fitz cared enough about Keefe's health to make sure the details were pressed out and make sure the facts of the situation were clear? So Elwin could actually do his job??

Keefe hated Fitz in this moment because Fitz was being a practical, helpful guy, but from Keefe's perspective it just makes Fitz look like an asshole.

Ro’s unsolicited opinions are also very unhelpful, since Ro is written to be in support of what Keefe wants (or just in support of whatever will make Sokeefe happen…she’s kind of creepy about her Sokeefe obsession ngl), it makes her more likable and therefore the readers are more likely to trust what she says or take her opinion as their own.

But Ro saying things like “I’m done liking Captain Perfect Pants” is rude, because it 1), insinuates she will only like someone based on how much they please her, and 2) denotes him to his perfect facade, which undermines his brilliant and complex character.

Eventually, Keefe tried to apologize to Sophie in a telepathic conversation. He didn’t remotely consider apologizing to Fitz.

I mean, Keefe was crazy terrified and hurting but...I don’t get how when Fitz was hurt and acted out he was suddenly “toxic and trash”, but when Keefe did the exact same thing nobody said anything.

And nobody even knows Fitz is hurt because nobody asks him. Nobody talks to him about how hard the Alvar situation is for him because they’re scared he’ll just get mad and yell at them, or they just assume he’s just mad about it and wanted to kill Alvar.

Is nobody going to see that there’s some deep emotional/mental trauma to unpack here? Is he always just going to have to help himself all the time?

At least Keefe has people who understand him, who are willing to talk to him about what’s wrong and help him through it. He had a seriously traumatic childhood, and I’m not comparing their trauma or anything, that’s not what I’m trying to do. What I am trying to say is, Keefe’s got a whole crew of people helping him, people who want to make sure he’s okay, people who care for him, and he rejects it, deems them annoying in Fitz’s case, and just discounts the effort and energy they spend on him.

There is a lot more to unpack from this scene, but it’s mostly all along a similar vein of what I talked about here (this is long enough haha). There are also tons of little details about the Vackers in Unlocked that just emphasize how pressured Fitz is into the Vacker mold, and how the Alvar drama just makes it worse.

For example: reading Fitz’s registry file, it says that it is “highly suggested that he choose someone on his match list” because of how dragged the Vacker name already is. So when people want to get upset with him for choosing "his reputation over Sophie", we have text evidence that its more complicated than that. Fitz isn't just choosing between being liked by the world and the person he likes, he's choosing whether or not to maintain a level of peace within his family at his own sacrifice. SPOILERS! (if you haven't read stellarlune don't read the rest of this paragraph). Eventually it was his sacrifice, because as of stellar lune, Sokeefe is official. Fitz couldn't repair things with Sophie quick enough, so she moved on.

It also mentions in Keefe’s detention slip write ups about how people actually hassle Biana and Fitz at Foxfire for Alvar being apart of the Neverseen. Because of their family, because of the Alvar drama, Fitz and Biana can't go to school without people bullying them.

Theres also this sad note in Fitz’s Base Quest instructions where Fitz writes about how you can use you special abilities while playing base quest, but included a little side note that said “but it's no fun when you turn invisible the whole time and hide Alvar!” Which just insinuates that Alvar would turn invisible and leave to go do whatever else he wanted while Fitz still thought they were playing. :(

Depressing.

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