#(in fact that's why i'm here now - a negative review i stumbled upon about six years ago

[toddhewitt]

Todd Hewitt for the Reverse Unpopular Opinion meme 😁

my favorite of all time 😭 i have extensive notes written on why exactly that is but to sum it up it's mostly about just being human. making mistakes, feeling bad and saying you'll learn from them, then making more mistakes and that cycle repeating itself. redemption as a non-linear process, the way both todd and mayor prentiss raise complex questions about what makes a person ir/redeemable - this all weighs so heavily on todd's shoulders and he's not dealing with it like a hero, he's dealing with it like a human. more specifically, a human raised by two parents who are more moderate (and one of whom actively strays away from toxic masculinity) in a violent extremist society based on said toxic masculinity, and the contradictions that come with this kind of upbringing. he's kind, but he fails. he feels everything so much, he has so much rage and love and anguish in him. he's just a kid who's not remarkable at anything of his own making, it's just that upbringing that made him into the emotional guy he is.

and the intensity of these emotions is that power. this is made explicit by the mayor (and others) multiple times, and is shown to us specifically with everything regarding his noise. todd is undoubtedly at his weakest in the middle of the second book because he's numb, and echoes of it, a different kind of numbness, appear in the third book. both times, that numbness breaks when he's at a sudden emotional extreme - in the ask and the answer it's seeing viola again, especially when she shows him the band, and in monsters of men it's hearing ben's song. as he gets farther away from the mayor and closer to ben, his noise literally opens up. it's such a perfect way to show the power that is in todd's emotions, and i haven't even mentioned the noise battles.

but the thing is - he doesn't want to use that power, and it's not a necessarily positive or heroic statement. there's being greedy for power, and in opposition there's giving up on power and the indication that it's resisting greed and so it's valiant. but that's not the case with todd; he's actually told that his power could do the world good, that he can help bring change. viola tells him that in the tent scene in monsters of men, which is, in my opinion, the most important scene for his whole character arc. and it's because he's simply saying - no. i know i have this power and that it can help, but i've been trying to do a lot of good, and it's exhausting me. there are adults who can help handle the situation. i just want to live quietly with the people i love.

that rejection of the hero role imposed on you by others is not something that this story invented, but here it's the most powerful way i've ever seen it used, because for three books we have been inside the mind of this kid, who is full of anger and full of care, reading about his constant turmoil at the questions, "am i moral? am i forgivable? am i good?" so this is todd saying he doesn't owe anyone an answer to these questions, including himself. this is him recognizing that the world should not put him in situations where he constantly needs to ask these questions, that a society which challenges his goodness in its cruel reality is not one that he wants to keep living in, and that he wants to find an alternative. it sounds almost naive but i think it's also mature in its implications, or like, accepting his own naivete. he doesn't know he's the protagonist of a story but everyone seems to think he's special anyway, and he's rejecting the responsibility that comes with these things. sounds selfish? maybe. but it's human. maybe "i'm human" is the best answer he can give to the questions he's been asking himself... embracing the chaos of personhood, this intuitive wording feels right.

i love the way his internal voice is written. it's so genuine and so fluid, like a flowing stream of thought. i love his terminology, especially in the hebrew translation. i love his imperfections as a human being and i love that he feels so much like a human being. he's human. that's the thing i love most about him ❤

#mayareplies #chaos walking #i know for a fact that not everyone agrees it's a likeable quality of his/of the books #(in fact that's why i'm here now - a negative review i stumbled upon about six years ago #made me feel guilty for liking and relating to todd's character #and then i read the trilogy again with the intention of figuring out what this character means to me and in general #and what i've written here is a significant part of my conclusions from that journey) #but regardless of whether it's a likeable quality or not #i feel like the simple notion of that humanity is recognized by readers #and it is what makes him likeable to many readers who i've had interactions with #so this is me expanding on the idea in my own way #'i have extensive notes' she says and proceeds to write their contents in a new way lmao #nah to be fair this IS only summing it up. i have a beginning of a doc of meta on the entire trilogy so this is quite short really #chaos walking books