#tartt protagonist brainrot

[quidfree]

hello! i've followed you to indulge in your TSH content, having just finished the book and your fanfic Sober II (Melodrama) back to back! (i'm destroyed!!)

i'm wondering if you've given any thought to whether Richard (Tartt's Richard, or yours) is gay or maybe bisexual? he ofc probably would not make that distinction himself - given the time period, or his aversion to that kind of self reflection, or the apparent finality of his relationship with Francis, or maybe all of the above - but it's fun to think about now, especially myself being someone who now IDs as a lesbian after 10 years of IDing as bi.

thank you for your service 🫡

hello! love your username btw. and thank you, glad to have you in the quidfree extended tartt community.

i like the 'tartt's richard or yours' distinction- i would say i do make an effort so that (to me at least) my richard is a plausible iteration of hers, i.e. i do not like to write so that the characters are 'my' versions unless i think the source material is bad (or at least bad in that specific way). but some of my less serious tsh material veers further into the 'my' side of the scale, for sure. anyway all that to say i don't have separate sets of thoughts on 'both' richards, it's more that there's some stuff i'm 100% on being in canon and some stuff i know i extrapolated into the extended materials my tsh fic constitute.

all that aside, i actually do not have strong feelings on whether richard is gay or bisexual. i think both have strong canon grounding and present similar but slightly different psychologies of the character. the obvious thing is that richard is repressing his attraction to men, but whether he's also comphet in his attraction to women is debatable. he's consistently attracted to them and sleeps with/dates them across all of canon, but on the other hand the key female love interests for him are 1) judy, whose interest he doesn't reciprocate 2) mona, who he sleeps with post murder in a fugue state 3) camilla, who he deifies as a feminine ideal and also always lauds the androgynous beauty/looks she shares with her brother of and 4) sophie, who does lend the most credence to him actually being into girls but also is someone he latches onto when his whole group has deserted him and then fails to emotionally connect with despite several years of dating. of course that could be the trauma, the repression, or both! but my point is there's evidence both ways, no pun intended. richard has very distinct ways of thinking about men and women but it's not as simple as one thing- there's his own self-perception/masculinity, his sexism, his homophobia, and his sexuality all playing a part.

you're right that he wouldn't make the distinction himself, though- either way, his canon thought process is very much 'well i'm not one of those' and that's a catch-all. if and when he gains self-awareness it would have to be through a prolonged relationship of some kind, e.g. with francis in sober ii-verse, because one-offs he can excuse and repress. which is why i think once that sort of long-term realisation happened he would think that he had been lying to himself/everyone the whole time beforehand and secretly consider himself a homosexual (regardless of whether this would be accurate).

i think modern day richard would be more likely to call himself bisexual regardless of which option you go with as more likely. you know that quote from obama's biography about reading marx to get with bisexual college girls... that's somehow richard-coded but in the sense that he thinks calling himself 'flexible' or whatever lets him sound liberated but plausibly heteronormative. in any setting francis delights in the corner he paints himself into.

[sillymewaiting]

i will not stop following the donna tartt tag but please god you bitches need to read the little friend. get help

[quidfree]

The bit where theo is complaining about popper being gay made me laugh out loud it's SOOOOOO funny - surely not... - I want him to meet Richard tsh badly who would win in the gay and homophobic off in ur opinion

that's a really tough showdown. i think somehow richard is the more repressed of the two when it comes to this specific topic (despite richard being generally more well-adjusted, in spite of the fact he has literally murdered a friend etc). theo as a teen at least had enough emotional self-awareness to almost-unspokenly tell boris he loved him. but really they both share some key elements of 'i am Normal and part of the normalcy is that i am not attracted to men'.

they're 0:2 when it comes to hooking up with their best frenemies and then pretending it never happened, including to the reader. i guess theo did it more often and repressed it harder, but that's maybe the drugs' fault. although richard was hungover too... tie?

theo is a lot more in love with boris than richard is with any given male friend in tsh i think? i mean richard -> henry is something but that's not as teen-codependent-boyfriend as the other two. and boris kind of spells this out to him as an adult which distresses theo, which is a step further out of denial than we see richard make.

another tie on deeply weird relationships with the women they claim to be in love with though! camilla-pippa coalition of victims (they would not get along).

key point of consideration is the time period. richard is in the 80s where homosexuals are an unacknowledged looming Other (and the aids crisis is around the corner). theo is in the 00s so queer eye is on TV and every child age 0-18 uses 'gay' as their default insult. same premise, different fonts.

[quidfree]

Hi first off I wanted to say I fucking love your writing, you've seriously got a beautiful style and you seem to understand tsh characters so damn well it's crazy. Second I have four very important questions for you if you wouldn't mind

1. in your mind/ in your tsh fics does francis have long/longish hair? I know it said in the book he has a short mop of hair or whatever but I really don't like that so in my mind he grew it out after Hampden or something.

2. in sober ii when Richard says " I haven't- since you" before Francis kisses him does he mean he hasn't fucked since Francis committed or he hasn't been with a man since francis in college? this doesn't actually matter but I'm curious

3. this is a bit more broad but I wanted to know what you thought about the Theo's three big romantic relationships in tgf (kitsey, Pippa, Boris)

4. have you read the little friend? did you like it? coz everyone seems to hate it but it was the first Donna tartt I read and I had me completely hooked for weeks. I literally re read it constantly and when I finished I would just start it over. I especially liked the dynamics with the ratliff family and ended up feeling kind of attached to Danny even if he obviously wasn't a great person. (I didn't like the amount of slurs she used in it though but that's a whole other topic)

sorry this is very long but I'd like to hear your thoughts on this

well first off thank you very much. i love when characters feel true to the source material. and i love questions like these, whether fic based or otherwise!

francis to me doesn't have a shoulder length mane or whatever (he's too conservative for that) but i also agree he wouldn't just have short hair like the other guys. i see him w a sort of bob-length situation- long enough to tuck behind the ears and such. i saw a rich guy in a paris gay bar once who was extremely over-dressed w a suit jacket hanging like a cape over his shoulders complaining to his friends about the venue and he looked exactly like what i picture francis as but unfortunately i can't airdrop my memory of this man to anyone so you'll just have to take my word for it.

richard's just saying he's never been w another guy. which i can't imagine he would have been. he's lucky francis has a long history of sleeping w straight guys bc honestly...

oh that is a big one. i think id need to do a separate post it so lmk if you want it. in the meantime more on the characters themselves... kitsey to me is an undersung hero like i love the character so much. she's so interesting and deeply fucked up. in her own mercenary way she is being so much realer w theo than he gives her credit for bc she sees thru the act of normalcy he is clinging to, as an expert actress herself. pippa i also think is great altho i actually have less of a sense of who she is than w kitsey due to the tartt protagonist dehumanize-woman-ray at work; i really like the layers of her relationship to theo and the way we the audience can glimpse at her reality beneath it, her discomfort and her charm. like she does love him and they are brothersistersouls and she is actually fucked in ways that theo is without knowing it and sometimes not, but she is also like white-knuckling a shot at being Okay and trying from a safe distance to get theo in that kind of uncomfortable space too. and then boris obviously is the easy fan favourite bc there's just so much to him. he's deeply charismatic yes but he's also really interesting. in many ways he's a lot more grown up and realistic than theo, at every age, but he's still self-destructive, just more outwards than inwards, and i think while his lack of introspection saves him theo's inner agonies it also shuts him off to some level of profound codependent connection which he and theo r always tight-rope walking over.

have not read it, didn't know everyone hated it. i tend to have too long a to-read list to read multiple works by the same author in any kind of reasonable timeframe.

hope these thoughts were of interest.

[quidfree]

oh my GOD judy poovey is based in part on the actual bennington grad who is now succession’s costume designer. this is the best day of my life

[quidfree]

my ex-law prof just sent me an actual life-size goldfinch reproduction from the mauritshuis perhaps i am the main character

[quidfree]

I saw that you consider The Goldfinch a better book than TSH, but that you have a soft spot for TSH

What is it about TSH that appeals so much to you? I’m in the process of reading it. I enjoy it for the most part, but whenever I read something like Henry not knowing about the moon landing, I just have to laugh at the sheer pretentiousness of these ppl. Did Donna Tartt intend for that to be funny????

oh, no, that's definitely intended to be funny. like, TSH is intensely satirical. donna tartt extensively based hampden on her actual college, and a lot of the characters bear striking resemblances to literary figures she knew in real life (see: bunny and brett easton ellis). add to that the fact that richard himself tells us that his fatal flaw is romanticising elitism and it becomes even more apparent that his inner monologue/fawning over his absolutely ridiculous classmates is meant to be seen as transparent.

as to what it is about TSH that appeals to me so much... a lot of things! i love murder plots, and i love stories about terrible people being terrible and kind of funny about it. i love the literary references in it, especially because i happen to be in the richard papen target audience where greek/latin/french quotes are ones i can enjoy firsthand. i'm just pretentious enough that i really enjoy the meandering reflexions on humanity, beauty and the nature of good and evil (something i also appreciated when theo and boris were doing them). and, as above, i just find it all very funny- a cast of rich idiots with 0 common sense or practical skills who get into a stupid fake cult and continue to have the absolute worst sense of priorities throughout the entire novel. judy poovey is my favorite character after francis, which will give you a sense of what i choose to focus on when i read. now that i think about it you could say i just zoned in on the people richard judges the most despite them being his not-so-secret besties. richard has questionable taste.

as an aside, i know some people find the narration in tsh really off-putting because richard buys into the schtick so hard, but i just find richard endearingly annoying in the same way i endured theo- they both have their strengths, but they're also so incredibly obtuse and self-destructive you kind of have to laugh off their delusions to get through their narrations.

[quidfree]

i already left you a comment on ao3 but i just wanted to say how much i love your tsh fic. it’s better than anything i could have imagined and the relationship is done so believably?? i basically see it as an extension of canon now—i finished rereading tsh a bit ago and i thought to myself “and then richard stays in boston!” also i love how you expanded on a lot of the unsaid things in the book, particularly richard’s romanticization/deification of the study group, which is something i thought a lot about but was never able to put into words as lovely as yours. i also think you portrayed his complicated relationship with both camilla and francis beautifully, and i loved getting insights into his mind that we didn’t get in the book because he’s so good at shaping his own reality. also, all your characterizations were absolutely spot-on!! not to mention your absolutely gorgeous prose. i think this is my favorite tsh fic ever, i’ve been looking for something that expands on that wholly unsatisfactory conclusion for so long and this. this is perfect.

thanks so much for going out of your way to write this! your comment on ao3 was very rewarding and this is equally thoughtful.

i very much wrote sober ii because i wanted something to lend more bittersweetness to the story than the grim ending of tsh proper, and in my head it now exists in the realm of possibility after the final page closes, so it makes me happy that other people have taken it as such as well.

as for exploration, i think a lot of people read tsh and formed thoughts on the richard-beauty thing, which is probably due to donna tartt’s mastery of theme and of frustratingly repressed narrators, so i’m glad you felt that was handled well in the fic because i was being very self-indulgent in turning subtext to text, especially by relating it to the adjacent camilla / francis thing. i find richard and his myriad hangups endearingly insufferable so i had fun running around his psyche, especially when francis was helpfully voicing his problems out loud. and thank you re: prose and characterisations- tartt is such a good writer that emulating her is a risky game :)

[quidfree]

reading tsh anon [the one who sent the ask abt richard being insufferable] and yeah what u said abt fandom and charas being billed as morally grey was super intriguing, i wish i had put my finger on that earlier! that frames a lot of the media i consume differently hmm.. thank u for saying it!! ig reading tsh... lowkey reminds me of reading greg heffley pov LMAO i feel like what rubs me the wrong way isnt the big choices he makes but rather all the little things he doesnt acknowledge [cont.]

hi again. no need to thank me (!!) i really wasn’t trying to come off sermon-y, just giving my personal take on the subject, but i’m glad if it makes you reconsider some classics you maybe couldn’t stomach the first time around. i just read beloved myself (toni morrison) which is certainly a very grim story with some very morally screwy figurantes but also a truly excellent and moving story; i think it’s a shame for people to miss out on reading books like that, is all.

the greg heffley analogy made me laugh very hard (also wow, what a throwback) and i completely get what you mean, though greg is a heartless little asshole and richard at least is a loyal and dependable friend, although his kindness and taste in friends may be called into question. tartt has a knack for very frustrating protagonists- @merah-senja was ready to knock richard’s teeth out like five pages in, and my father upon reading goldfinch nearly gave up during the vegas interlude because boris and theo’s escapades were driving him insane. i don’t know what it is that makes me sail through these issues- certainly i recognise the characters for the assholes they are, but that doesn’t impede my reading at all, whereas if i am presented with an anastasia steele i can only stomach about one page before i grind my teeth into dust. maybe it’s the framing- tartt is very clearly crafting her characters this way on purpose, not as aspirational likeable protagonists. and i have a fondness for difficult people, i suppose- as long as there’s something to them beyond the terrible choices and bad attitude.

i think your [contd] got lost in cyberspace, but do follow-up, i’m intrigued to hear the rest of your thoughts.

[quidfree]

Just bought Donna tartts little friend from the charity shop (for £1 KACHING) we know that you liked / loved the goldfinch and TSH but what did u think of this one?

wow a bargain love that for you anon

i haven’t read the little friend! i read the goldfinch with purpose and then secret history kind of fell into my lap when i was bookshopping- usually i don’t go out of my way to stick to an author because i have so many books already on my reading list. i feel like i have to give it a try solely to see if donna tartt will bother to write a significant female character now she’s got one as the protagonist lol. how have you found it so far?

[quidfree]

How do you “lightly stab” someone or “lovingly pitch” them down a flight of stairs?

Tbh I’m just imagining a public service announcement with a guy going, “Regular murder? Basic shit. Murder with begrudging love is where it’s at.”

ah but see it’s all in the nuance.

lightly stabbing is like, on the actual bodily harm side of the spectrum. deep stabbing is more the grievous bodily harm vibe. there’s an easy 13 years of prison’s worth of distinction. imagine a pricked finger à la sleeping beauty vs gutting someone like a fish. ‘lightly stab’ anon feel free to chime in if you’re being misrepresented.

as for lovingly pitching down the stairs: i would shove richard papen bodily down a flight of stairs, but i would position a mat beneath them to save his bones upon landing. also maybe a pillow because he doesn’t need any more brain damage. toss him a blanket so he can catch some zzs as he lies there dazed. then attempt sleep hypnosis.

murder with begrudging love is a good tartt vibe lmao. meanwhile tsh is more like “murder: what’s love got to do with it?” : the henry winters story. sorry bunny. never loved ya.