i feel like the addiction metaphor for statements doesn’t really work. it does work for parts of it, like how his decaying relationships with others and his dependence on statements being a higher priority for him than his own health could be viewed as an allegory for addiction from certain angles. some of the themes are similar, like when someone has an addiction, their reliance on it often ends up harming both themselves and the people around them.
however, the main reason this just doesn’t work for me is that the statements are not an addictive substance that he can be weaned off of and recover from. they are food.
the s4 archival staff are not practicing tough love or doing something misguided but with good intentions, trying to break him of an addiction. they are not removing his access to a harmful substance, they are starving him to death. trying to stop jon’s live statement intake is not removing a drug addict’s access to their supplier, it’s forcing a vampire to live off lettuce.
it’s kind of like the “fears are capitalism” allegory i hear going around sometimes. on a surface level, some aspects are similar, but fundamentally, these things just can’t be equated to each other.
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