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#i took a REALLY analytical approach to this question bcz otherwise i'd have started sobbing lmfao
sushisocks · 5 months
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since sean was the first to die(rip king😔), we never rly saw him deal w the death of the other members. how do you think a situation like that would go and who's death would impact him the most?
Oooh boy, what a great question!! 
So, I do think Sean would feel obligated to keep things light, but we also KNOW that he’s the one that likes to remember people and talk about the ones he cared for. I can 100% see him being the main push for letting people feel grief in a safe manner; Sean would be the one sitting at the campfire telling funny and heartwarming stories about the dead person, and encouraging other people to open up and share stories too.
At the same time, I 100% see him being weighed down HEAVY by certain deaths in private. If he survived past Arthur’s death, for example, that would absolutely rock his world. Same with Lenny’s death; if not from a shipping perspective, simply because Lenny is the youngest gun, is smart, and a friend of Sean’s. I think that would put some things in perspective for him real quick, and internally he’d be having a REAL bad time. Thing is, Sean isn’t really one to show a whole lot of negativity, so I don’t think this would be apparent to anyone who didn’t know how to look for it.
Additionally, I do genuinely think both Kieran and Molly’s deaths would hit him HARD. I’ve talked with several friends now about how Sean, Molly, and Kieran do all three have a connection with Ireland, and probably did feel a faint sense of kinship over it. Molly feeling unsafe and more alone after both Sean and Kieran dying right after one another makes a world of sense, even if she wasn’t really close to either of them, simply because of what they represent to one another. I can imagine her death hitting Sean in a similar way, and Kieran’s death would also absolutely sour certain things for him – ESPECIALLY since if you get all their possible interactions over the course of Horseshoe & Clemens Point, the two DO actually develop a repertoire between one another. 
Hosea’s death is a rough one, I think. Sean and Hosea’s relationship is of great interest to me, because there’s a LOT of conflict there, and Hosea is definitely among the– Less kind gang members, to Sean. Still though, Sean does clearly have some regard for Hosea as a wiser older man, as shown by him actually asking Hosea about their situation, clearly seeking advice and/or comfort regarding it. In large part I think Hosea’s death would be somewhat overshadowed by Lenny’s, to Sean at least, but there would very much be a sense of… Indignation, maybe? The context of this being one of the founding members of the gang, Dutch’s partner in crime, this voice of authority, now dead for what? 
Sean, at his core, is a people person. There’s no way any of the deaths wouldn’t leave an impression.
One thing I can then see happening is… A sort of disillusionment for Sean, when it comes to Dutch & the gang? Imagine all these rapid rate deaths of people you care about, and when you look to your leader he doesn’t really… Do or say anything? About it?? 
I think, similarly to my reasoning as to why I think Sean would’ve sided with Arthur in the end had he gotten that far, Sean isn’t as fully sold on every aspect of Dutch’s talk nor as fully invested as Arthur and John are (with their specific daddy issues lmfao). That WOULD allow Sean to grow more critical, and as more people die, I can imagine us actually getting to see Sean possibly become more– Well, for a lack of a better word, more Arthur-like. “He’s just a younger version of you” and all that, here’s Sean at around the same age Arthur was when he lost Eliza and Isaac, watching people that matter to him die through a failure of leadership, if you will. It makes sense to me that Sean would start harboring a similar sense of anger, that would probably start grounding him a bit more. 
This is all obviously assuming that Sean survives and everything happens the exact same way, which, as I’ve talked about before, I think is extremely unlikely! But it’s an interesting thought experiment for sure!!
Thank you so much for this question!! I enjoyed writing this a lot, and Sean’s potential journey in the story when surviving his scripted death has always been a point of deep fascination to me, so I LOVE getting to think abt stuff like this!!!
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