#i don't know about y'all but 'white girl working with the government' never stuck with me as much as 'poc person who's been wronged and out

[bookwyrminspiration]

Hi bookwyrm! it’s the ”Tam in Kotlc frustrates me” anon. I didn’t say this in the first ask bc it was so long, but yeah Tam always seemed vaguely uncomfortable to me. He’s actually my favorite character bc when I first read the series as a little kid, it was the first time I’d felt understood (I have GAD but it wasn’t diagnosed for a long time, and bc of that I was very closed-off and spent a lot of my interaction with people feeling like I was acting.), I was super excited to see him more because to little-kid me it was like seeing myself for the first time. Granted, he barely showed up unless there was a disaster or something, but I reread the scenes he was in a million times over when I was younger. Anyway, his kidnapping hurt to read bc I made that connection when I was little, I’m very glad legacy didn’t come out back then bc I probably would’ve cried lol.

oo welcome back!! hello!

this is incredibly accurate--kinda what I was trying to touch on with the "he feels like he's in a friend group where he only knows one person and is bluffing his way through it" comparison, but you've worded it really well. i mean, we saw in Neverseen that he "didn't give [sophie] permission to bring anyone else" (paraphrased), and was uncomfortable with everyone else being there. he just kinda got thrown into everything and had to go along with it

but I 100% feel what you mean about that being understood part of it! there's something so comforting about characters who just...don't perfectly mesh with the group, who are part of it but not in sync, just a moment off. I also have gad, so those kinds of characters were just like ah, there are other people who don't know how to people either. i didn't talk to a lot of people, and just tried not to talk in general because I didn't know how. like what volume, what topic, what vocab and slang do they use, will I know the subject, should I face them, will anyone else be part of the conversation, what if i'm wrong? and so on and so forth, you know?

tam's out of touch characteristics can kind of mirror that and make him easier to relate to. I'm very glad you had that relation and saw yourself in the series! I think in general he's has a lot of qualities we can relate to. personally, he's just the closest thing to me in the series, so it's really interesting to see what else draws people to him

i've reread the series so many times and I just remember always being like ah yes. tam. there he is. excellent. I like this scene more already. although it wasn't great when he was being kidnapped. that scene hurt, like I was so frustrated with Gisela because my dude! no! leave him alone! can we not just have one thing! do you gotta take him??

tam just has so many details and little things that we can identify and latch onto because we see ourselves in them!! it is apparently tam hours right now and I am absolutely not mad at that

(i got a little distracted while answering this so if I missed something please feel free to come back and remind me to go back to it!!)

#i don't know about y'all but 'white girl working with the government' never stuck with me as much as 'poc person who's been wronged and out #cast by society for something unfair and isn't quite sure what they're doing but they're fired up about it' #(i know he's specifically asian but right now I'm using him being poc to appeal to a larger audience as a mexican person who doens't see #themself in 100% white characters with no brown characters in the series) #(I absolutely do not intend to ignore his identity as a specifically asian person however) #not that sophie doesn't have relatable qualities #there's just something that doesn't fully click with her for me the way tam does #i am attached to him #i care for him greatly #just the depth #so good #kotlc #keeper of the lost cities #tam song #kotlc character analysis #quil's queries #frustrated tam nonsie