#talking so much. about gondoleery

[hearts401]

Crepe god youve changed my life i think its over now. Restorers of Quill are my thing...

UHMM first the worldbuilding

Quill is a desolate desert island circled by a wall. It's ruled by high priest Justine and the Quilitary. Every year, creative 13-year-olds are purged and sent to the lake of boiling oil. But instead of them dying, Marcus Today takes them into a magical world he created called Artime and teaches them magic and art of all kinds. Children who are purged are Unwanteds. Children who are not are either Necessaries (people who do all the hard labor) or Wanteds (people who go to the university and get good housing and jobs)

and Gondoleery timeline

Gondoleery was born on warbler and could control the rain. she practiced magic with her friends Eva, Marcus, and Justine. Marcus and Justine are twins. One day, the twins gathered up a ton of people, Eva and Gondoleery included, and brought them to a new island called Quill. Justine became obsessed with control, told marcus to wipe everyone's memory of magic and other islands, and built a huge wall all around them. Gondoleery lived as a wanted for the rest of her life. Until Justine discovered Artime and went to war with them. She was killed, and Marcus's friend Gunnar took over Quill. Justine and Marcus were 71, i think, Eva is 72, and Gondoleery is 70-something, but older than them. Gondoleery was unhappy with this change. Then, Marcus gave her her memories back and she was furious. She blamed marcus. She then teamed up with Aaron Stowe, whos twin brother Alex (theres a lot of twins) was deemed unwanted. He also tried to kill Alex but thats not important LMAO this aint about him. The two team up and make the Restorers. Which consists of Bethesda Dia Gloria, Dred Crandall, Crawledge Prize, Liam Healy, and Eva Fathom. The first three don't matter ignore them. She spends a lot of time away from Aaron because theyre working on two different sides of a plan. Gondoleery is plotting an attack on Artime. Aaron kills Marcus, rendering Artime magic-less, and so Gondoleery defeats them. Aaron seizes control and becomes high priest. Gondoleery is one of his governers, but she spends more time at her house, practicing magic. Eva and Liam are suspiscious and try to tell Aaron shes up to no good, but Aaron ignores them. Eva dies (HGFHUDHHFHGHF) and Liam fails to convince Aaron of anything. Even when Gondoleery threatens him, he's in too crazy a headspace to actually do anything about it, and then he gets kidnapped and thrown in the ocean. goodbye aaron. Gondoleery sends Liam and Aaron's two, now orphaned baby sisters (who are also twins btw) to the Ancients Sector (area where *usually* old people are sent when theyre not useful, but its also used to anyone they decide is unworthy or disobedient. its like purging them later except marcus doesnt get a chance to save them.) and takes control. freezes quill and half of artime, and starts literally just killing people. Liam rescues the babies and flees to artime. Alex hatches a plan and very nearly kills Gondoleery but at the last minutes because of very complex trauma and because he's like. fifteen. He backs out out of guilt. So she lives <33 and later attacks artime using wind, fire, and ice. At the end, she's killed.

SO SEE THATS NOT. A SUPER CRAZY THING. SHE DOESNT SEEM TO HAVE A LOT BECAUSE THE BOOKS DONT HAND YOU THIS ITS VEEEERRY SUBTLE SUBTEXT. So this is where i go onto explain why i think shes so interesting and a few parts of her character i appreciate a little too much.

Firstly, her initial magic was rain. and the first magic we see her use after getting her memories back is rain. GUESS WHAT SHE DOENST USE IN THE FINAL BATTLE. Rain being gentle and innocent. rain being helful. her using rain to play in puddles with her friends as a child. but she doesnt use it. because thats not her anymore

Second, she has a massive disconnect with her memories that ive talked abt before so im gonna include those ss:

SO THATS HER MEMORIES AND ALSOOO i wanna talk about her mentality because Justine and Aaron wanted control and peace. they wanted to have everything and weren't afraid to demand it, but they're so desperately attached to control it genuinely harms them.

But gondoleery didnt seem feel that way. at least not exactly the same. she doesnt follow quills rules even a little after getting her memories. she knits a robe fro herself and paints it. she laughs and dreams and embraces the creativity. in another world she wouldve loved artime.

Her relationship with each founder is also interesting to me since ive talked enough abt restorers. welcome to my second insanity.

The author confirmed i think in a qna that Eva and Gondoleery were really close as teens and young adults, but grew apart later. Whether that was because of the memory wipe or not i dont know but i dont think it was for a couple reasons

Growing apart implies a close relationship slowly tapering off. If it'd been post memory-wipe, there'd have been a sense of distance already because that's how Quill works

Gondoleery was wanted and Eva was Justine's secretary. They likely wouldn't have seen each other that much at all.

So that also implies (to ME since ihave to make up everything abt her aparently) she was closer with the twins. Yknow. WHO BETRAYED HER.

She dislikes Marcus so much she doesnt even register him as the Marcus she knew as a child. and she refers to Justine in such a formal manner. She's also older than them which is kinda irrelevant but not to ME so who cares.

She's the last of all her friends to die and she hardly registers them as her friends anymore. its not the same anymore. she was irreversibly changed and had she not had her memories wiped, i don't doubt she would have ended up in a good place. Maybe even reconnected with Marcus like Eva did. but she never got the chance because Quill's customs mutilated her personality and joy. She was doomed the moment Marcus wiped her memories. whatever. id otn care. I DONT EVEN CARE. WHATEVERRR.

heres some art of her its rlly inconsistent sorrz also the other restorers are there yayy except strang ignore him

"Gondoleery is terrible and not that interesting and I don't think theres a ton to be explored" ->"I need this old woman to get worse and point the gun a little to the left."