#they're both lonely and had traumatic childhoods and take comfort in each other

[greiiliss]

So, Lark and Sparrow are ~13, right? And they're both "wild children", they're "disrupting to the class". And their dad doesn't do much about it, not really. He focuses on encouraging desirable behaviors rather than correcting bad behavior. So the twins live their childhood essentially out of check, and they start to develop this idea that they can kind of do whatever they want with no real consequences (kinda like their grandfather).

They get to the Forgotten Realms, and they get taken to Neverwinter, and they learn that people here think the Doodler, the school mascot that Sparrow made up, is a real, powerful creature. And they learn about the prophecy that a Lord of Chaos will bring the Doodler into world, and they figure out (or decide) that the prophecy's about them. They decide "'The Lord of Chaos', that's really cool! We should do that! Then we'd be really cool!"

But their dad stops them, and Sparrow kind of changes his mind. But they don't give up on wanting to be as cool as possible. A lot of stuff happens until eventually, they bring about the end of the world. For quite possibly the first time in their lives, their actions have very real, very bad consequences. The worst thing that has ever happened to them or anyone they have ever known, was their fault.

They don't know how to handle this, they've never had to before. They get angry, blaming themselves and each other. They feel guilty and stupid. It strains their relationships, not only with their family and friends, but with each other.

I imagine they tried to take some sort of comfort from the knowledge that them releasing the end of the world was prophesied. It was inevitable, fated, and if it was fated, it can't be entirely their fault. They weren't children making a dumb decision, they were tools of fate, acting out a prophecy. It was their purpose.

And then they hear about another prophecy. One about a Chosen One who will stop the Doodler and undo all of the damage they caused. And they figure out (or decide) that it's going to be one of their first kid.

Rebecca gets pregnant, and Hero arrives, named for the role she's destined to fulfill. The twins are desperate for something, anything, just one chance to fix their mistake, and they've pinned all their hopes on Hero. So they train her, and train her, and train her, pushing her to do better, be better, be perfect. They drill the story of what they did wrong into her head and remind her over and over that it's her responsibility to fix it. They mold her into the tool they think fate wants her to be.

Hero is ~17, and she's a person, not a tool. She is scared, and lonely, and she is bending under the crushing weight of the pressure her father and uncle (and who knows which is which) are putting on her shoulders. And they don't notice, or they don't care. She has no one to talk to, no one who could possibly understand and sympathize with her situation. So she decides that she's done. She's sick of the training they've put her through and the expectations they put on her. She gets a job delivering pizza, and an internship at the JPL in another world, probably to fill up her schedule so her father and uncle don't have any opportunity to take her away for more training. I personally think she's also saving up money to try and get away from her family.

This is the real Oak family curse, it seems, for the fathers to drive their kids away. Barry expected Henry to be perfect and ignored him when he was anything less. Henry's complete lack of discipline caused tension between him and his sons, even post-Doodler, when he wouldn't punish them for something they felt they should be eternally punished for. Sparrow had one completely honest conversation with Normal, and it resulted in Normal completely rethinking his entire identity. And now we learn that Lark and Sparrow have been traumatizing Hero all along. For a family that has based its identity around "working with all sides of an issue", the Oak-Swallows-Garcias have a lot of trouble listening to and accepting their own kids.