Gerard's whole life feels like a never ending "Do you want to go to the castle where the dogs are or go back to your frog pond?"
Because it's so demeaning. He can be presented with the choice but he can only ever really go back to the frog pond. He could fight in the war but he was never taught to do anything but hide. He could fix his marriage but he was so young when he was cursed he doesn't know how to do anything but hide. Because his formative years -the years that define who he is and how he reacts- were spent fleeing from herons and dogs and boots. and he may have had his body back for a time, but he will always mentally be in the frog pond, with nothing to do but throw tantrums and hide and make up friends that will not speak to him.
And what lesson did he learn? He deserved it. Pinocchio lied, Ylfa killed, and Gerard understands that they had no choice, but to him, it was always his fault. Elody tells him he wasn't evil, and he doesn't hear her. Because good little boys don't get turned into frogs, and at nine?? The only lesson he could have learned was that he was evil.
Gerard isnt a coward. He just can't go back to the castle, because that's where the dogs are.
SOMEONE please write the Neverafter modern au fanfic where Gerard impulsively becomes a foster parent for Pinocchio and Ylfa after he and Elody “take a break” (it’s not a divorce, he insists, it’s temporary) and because of course he let Elody keep the mansion, he’s not going to make her move out he’s not a monster, he now lives in a little suburban house next to the overly indulgent Timothy Goose, his husband, his son Jack, and his incorrigible cat Pib. Soon after his cousin Rosamund turns up on his doorstep not offering any explanation, but her parents don’t seem to be looking for her and Gerard knows a little too much about parents who don’t look for their children, so she lives there too now and is helping out with Gerard’s strange little foster kids. Ft. Gerard sleeping on the couch every night because of course he gave the master bedroom to Rosamund and Ylfa and Pinocchio share a room with a bunk bed; Timothy helping out where he can, most often in the form of giving way too many cookies; Pinocchio dragging Pib everywhere and trying to use the cat as a scapegoat for half the mischief he gets up to (the other half is things Pib actually did but no one believes a cat would be capable of); the weirdly intense social worker Mr. Wolf; Timothy’s coworkers at the local school Scheherazade and Aesop; and Pinocchio’s ever growing collection of stuffed animals including Senator, cricket, Pinocchicrow and Spinocchio
Like seriously the amount of narrative nat 20s he's had is Ally in Unsleeping City level importance.
First he has the Nat 20 to sever his strings from the stepmother.
He rolled that absolutely critical nat 20 to gain insight into how to defeat the Terrible Dogfish.
Then he rolls the nat 20 to save alphonse reuiniting Tim and PIB with their friends and loved ones. Something that i think helps make the situation with the Gander and Baba Yaga tempered a bit as they had some sweetness to the bitter.
Then finally on what is the most critical roll in regards to actually getting what they need from the Baba Yaga, He rolls that Nat 20 to get the 30+ persuasion they need to at least have the Baba Yaga meeting go well.
Lou truly is some channeling some King Shit with The Boy of Destiny.
The last thing Gerard did before leaving Baba Yaga’s cabin was to comfort Pinocchio. To tell him to lean on Tom Thumb if things went wrong. To turn over the duty of Pinocchio’s care to someone else, someone who Gerard knew could do the job.
I know this was played for laughs, but like… imagine being in Pinocchio’s place, and this older male figure that has been uncomfortably-makeshift-dadding his way through this adventure with you comes back, and he’s now just a giant frog without a name. Just a big-ass frog. Wears a crown. Probably dragging the Sword of Truth through the snow behind him with his tongue.
No more yelling about dragging him to Toy Island. No more snowball fights. No more whiskey and bubble gum.
I drew the bird as I was listening it was simply too good! Ah what an end!!! board games at baba's, divorced best friends and princesses who try speed dating (each other??!!1!?!?)
Not to obsess over Brennan Lee Mulligan’s literal Capitalist pig, but I’m really happy, both narrative wise and allegory wise, with the end that the Baron met.
Like, narrative wise he watched his brothers die for taking the easy way out, and so he “worked hard to create his empire” (a sentence a lot of capitalist use to make it seem like they did all the work themselves). He creates this empire, then locks himself in his giant house while his underpaid workers do all the work to keep his empire going for him, essentially showing that he too is taking the easy way out. He makes a mech suit so that he doesn’t have to fight as himself and spends most of the battle using the spoon to knock people over rather than fighting one on one, taking the easy way out again by not having to fight on the same level of everyone else. And that’s his downfall. People genuinely putting in the work take him down, and he meets the exact same fate as his brothers.
The perfect allegory for how capitalists use group effort to bring themselves up and claim that as their own work, and how group effort and collaboration can take down capitalism