#and instead he represented violent dehumanizing fuck-you-got-mine hatred and victim-blaming for Every Other Victim

[angorwhosebabyisthis]

five's character suddenly makes a lot more sense when you look at it as a metaphor for a kid indoctrinated into an abusive evangelical church, who has been convinced that hell is real.

[longpost, talk of religious abuse--mainly the evangelical christian variety--after the cut.]

he's convinced that everyone who doesn't comply with the church's rules will go there; that leaving won't save you, because hell will be waiting for you in the end; and that everyone who claims to believe differently is lying and knows better, they're just pretending they don't because they don't like the idea of acknowledging authority in the time they have before hell catches up to them. and as much as he's been taught to be self-righteous and unsympathetic about people who '''choose''' hell, in practice he's the kid who goes around trying to have the 'so have you accepted jesus into your heart' speech with everyone he even remotely cares about, and won't back off about it even though it goes over Absolutely Fucking Terribly and he's being an asshole, because if he doesn't get them to convert when (he thinks) there's any chance they might have done so they will go to hell and it will be his fault.

and like, this adds a lot of layers to his hatred of nine and what he thinks (and in some ways is correct 🙃) that he stands for. but one of the big ones is that as far as he's concerned, nine can and will snipe people to send them to hell out of spite for converting to save themselves. one of the things that made him hate him so much--decide he Needs and Deserves to Die--is that he was told sandor made the decision to comply with the mogs because it was the Smart Thing to Do... and that nine punished him for it by murdering him brutally. and that given half the chance nine would do it to him.

for all he's been indoctrinated to value Having Power Over Other People and Deserving It Because You're Special, at heart five has major just world fallacy going on because he desperately wants to believe that everyone can be safe, and happy, and understand each other. that all that needs to happen for them to have that is to make the right choice. he doesn't actually believe the mogs are inherently Superior; he thinks they have the same fair shot as everyone else and that the only difference is that they will take that shot, and are honest that they're doing so.

whereas what is one of the other big things he hates nine for? the one that fills him with so much rage he has to stop reading about him? the idea that nine is inherently superior to him and the others, and deserves a better life, regardless of any choice they ever could have made.

he's told that the elders saved nine for last because he was strongest, and that the earlier numbers were cannon fodder because they were weak. he's told that he and the lower numbers were forced into hiding, made to suffer, to buy nine a little more time. and he's told that in the event he managed to survive that far, he would be nine's inferior--his servant--because he's a lower number.

five talks about how he's superior and deserves to rule everyone else because he has 'potential,' but it's not about how powerful he is because of his legacies; it's that he thinks he's willing to make the right choice. he thinks the idea of treating someone like they don't have a right to that choice because they're inherently worth less than others is absolutely fucking repugnant. and where the mogs get him is by twisting his idea of what constitutes Everyone Being Happy so far that they convince him their cause, which is doing exactly what he hates most, is the one that's fair.

add onto that that he's terrified of the idea that you can in fact just be completely fucked no matter what choices you make, and just gets more and more invested in coping via denial the clearer it becomes that he is the one who is utterly royally fucked no matter what he does, and... well, you get some real unfortunate end results to say the least. but like, that's where he's coming from.

so to wrap this back around to the evangelism metaphor: if you believe what five believes, the idea of someone being willing and able to do what nine does by sending someone to hell regardless of their own choice would be Existentially Horrifying to begin with! but it also goes against one of five's deepest core beliefs, both reasonable and Unfortunate Coping with Trauma. and when you pile that on top of the immense suffering he's gone through over it, the result is going to be visceral burning hatred.

anyway this post is already Long and i've got a lot more thoughts in me about it, but suffice it to say five absolutely is a metaphor for evangelical trauma, and how victims get weaponized into extensions of their church's abuse. and it's an evangelical survivor's nightmare, because the version of hell he's been taught to base his entire worldview around fearing is objectively real. 🥲

(the real smoking gun here? not only is the Great Book a really obvious analogy for the bible, but the name is a retcon. what was it called before that, while he's evangelizing about it no less?)

(the Good Book.)

(welp.)

#lorien legacies #LL number five #LL number nine #LL sandor #LL tag #cws in post #looking back at the characters and parts of the worldbuilding i got most invested in back in the day i am seeing a Pattern #and that pattern is called It's Religious Trauma All the Way Down #on both an individual and community level #the mogadorians and five /could/ have been a really good raw painful narrative about the grief; ugliness; and difficulty holding onto hope #for the culture you grew up in and the people who escaped it and the people who haven't and the people you couldn't help #and for the people who never wanted any part of it to begin with and are having to suffer for your community's systemic upfuck #it's why rereads have left me increasingly soured on adam; and made me appreciate rex more despite his own moral dubiousness #i thought adam represented grief and hope for the culture and community that traumatized you while refusing to go back to them #and instead he represented violent dehumanizing fuck-you-got-mine hatred and victim-blaming for Every Other Victim #instead of 'i recognize that the work of engaging with the community to help the victims inside of it is important and worthwhile' #'but i cannot be the one to do it because i cannot and will not have that community in my life anymore; therefore i will focus my efforts #on helping and protecting people who are targeted by the community from the outside when internal damage control isn't enough' #his narrative was to pull the ladder up after him; then torture every other survivor for the rest of their existence to atone for their sin #which...... hmmmmm....... sounds familiar.............. #whereas rex represents being able and willing to go back into the burning building as many times as he needs to #because there are children in there #anyway. subject for another post #dyn: lost boys #dyn: but i'm helping you anyway