maggie-stiefvater:the raven king countdown → day sixMost heartbreaking momentSuch a damaged thingI t
maggie-stiefvater:the raven king countdown → day sixMost heartbreaking momentSuch a damaged thingI think the most heartbreaking Raven Cycle moment is in The Raven King (though it is not the one you think it is), but I actually think this Adam moment in The Dream Thieves comes in close second. He’s already had to endure quite a few heartbreaking events, such as losing his hearing and his family home and stability in quick succession, but the worst moments to write for him were actually not events but thoughts.I know too many people stuck in this place: they’ve removed the cause of their trauma, but they haven’t realized that they are still actively traumatized. In DT, Adam academically knows the consequences of long-term child abuse, but he hasn’t yet realized the portability of his abuse. It doesn’t matter that his father isn’t living in the room next to him. He’s living in Adam’s head, and that sort of life — freed from physical reality and set free in a world of damaged thoughts — is lasting and insidious. For Adam to admit that he’s been broken by abuse is a powerful step towards moving on, but in DT, he’s still too far in it to realize that his clinical analysis of his own worthlessness is not clinical at all.Money, a car, a home that looks nothing like the one he grew up in. Someone to want him. Adam thinks all of these things — any of these things — will make him happy. And it’s true that they’re things that would make his life easier or different. But DT Adam doesn’t realize that he could get every single thing in that list and still not be ok. He can’t work his ass off at Aglionby to magically make himself feel like he’s worth something. He can’t annex the entirety of Virginia to his father’s memory to be free of pain outside the state lines. Being wanted by Blue Sargent or crushed on by Ronan Lynch is not going to make Adam love himself any more.I admit freely that I don’t really know if these scenes are heartbreaking to anyone else. As a writer, I bring my own baggage, and for me, much of the agony of Adam in this part of his journey is knowing people who have never gotten any further than he does in this part of the series. -- source link
#adam parrish#child abuse