i’ve talked before about how i think “the bunny” and “the box” are a metaphor for “the girl” and “the closet” especially since john is the only beta kid actually disconnected from their thematic animal. everyone else fuses with their animal at some point, and john’s comment on that is “dang you guys must all be luckier than me.”
I’ve also talked about how the progression of the bunny mirrors cali’s progression - the green eye ripped off by wv (who is a mirror for jack) and eaten unceremoniously, leaving one red eye that eventually transforms into a face-wide red visor with the added influence of dirk strider’s robotics and some time travel. the green girl killed by jack, leaving kid caliborn, who eventually becomes lord english after getting fused with hal.
lastly i’ve talked about how i think part of why john hates caliborn is his relation to gender+his violent hypermasculinity, and i’ve previously specified that he hates what caliborn has done with the bunny - he hates what caliborn has done with “gender.”
i felt like that was a reach before, but if caliborn’s upbringing is a perversion of john’s, then i think it makes sense that caliborn has a perverted authority over some version of john’s gender, and it makes sense that john would hate that. caliborn who killed the girl inside of him and became The Most Man of all time - is that what john is? is that what he looks like? - that’s what i think john is thinking. i would go on to say that this is almost on the level of intrusive thoughts, because if you ask either me or the draconian dignitary, The Most Man of all time is john’s own dad who is an awesome role model, and similarly a masculine caricature but more positive. anyway i’m very sidetracked hope i’m still comprehensible. point is, john rejects everything caliborn has done with “his” upbringing, particularly regarding the inner girl he killed and the disgusting caricature of masculinity it turned him into.
(with regards to this)
finding transgender subtext around John hasn’t come naturally to me in the past but admittedly when I first looked at Caliborn as a perversion of John’s childhood it was very hard to look past “Caliborn as the John who killed his inner girl”, and this is a really great breakdown of that. the phrasing “everything Caliborn has done with his upbringing” is of particular interest to me because it places any notion that Caliborn is going to, or already has, jack John’s body against the backdrop that Caliborn is jacking John’s entire life.