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chester-i-hardly-know-her:

thinking about how jon has had survivor’s guilt since he was eight and through the rest of his life. and how jon recognises this in a guest for mr. spider, that it’s not a rational way to think.

Speaking this out loud for the first time, I am struck by something else. The feeling I have been living with my whole life, that if that poor idiot hadn’t gotten involved he would still be alive. A strange conviction that, if I had been able to face that thing myself, maybe I could have saved him. Stopped it. Ridiculous, of course, I was eight, but it has made me reconsider my attitude to getting help. I have consistently kept the others at arm’s length, tried to deal with things myself and it… it ALT

though, the more i look at it, he only states the idea he could have done anything is ridiculous, not that rethinking how things could have gone might be damaging to him. and i think it is fair to say he at least considered the option of being taken instead, (the idea of the bully not getting involved implies jon would not have been stopped by anyone), but either way he’s thought about taking on the threat alone. either he can fix the problem or he can’t, either way no one else is getting hurt. this version of the mindset is very apparent in the season 2 finale, just before 81, but it doesn’t leave after he recognises it.

You too, Basira, if you’re hearing this. (pause) I know you’d – stop me. You’d be right to, but – but if this goes wrong, all you lose is – (abrupt) I’m not risking anyone else. And I know – (pause) I-I think. I can get her out.ALT

and he does recognise it. he tries to lean on others more, tries to recognise what he can’t actually do alone. but when he thinks he can do something, at cost to himself but that will be able to save someone, he does. because he still feels that conviction, that he needs to save people, that he doesn’t need to be saved, that he is less worth saving (besides, he doesn’t have that many people to lean on anyway). and with how characters blame him for things that are (in many cases) not his fault, just like how mr. spider wasn’t, or imply or state that he should be dead… it’s clear how this guilt would get worse.

(note: i don’t think guilt is the sole reason he acts self sacrificing in situations. the fact that he has several consistent analysable threads in his decision making is why i’m obsessed with him. caring about people, the need to have agency, etc.)

DAISY And of course, for John, there’s survivor’s guilt in there, too. He thinks he’s not human. Makes him very… self-destructive.ALT

but like i say. people have discussed this a lot, both in and out of podcast. i was just thinking about how that feeling of guilt over being alive might have started even sooner.

My parents had passed away when I was too young to really remember them; my father of an accidental fall when I was two, and my mother a couple of years later from complications during routine surgery. My extended family weren’t close and I had no siblings, so I ended up living with my grandmother, a kind enough woman, but she had already raised her children, and the resentment she felt at having to raise another was never something she completely managed to hide from me. It seemed to mingle with her grief, so the sadness over her own lost son would manifest in recriminations and bitterness.ALT

like. even if it’s not as extreme as someone being killed by something that easily could have killed him instead. poorly disguised resentment over his parent’s deaths, over raising him, is the kind of thing that would easily lead to guilt, and possibly connecting those two things, in a childs mind. and thematically, it feels deliberate. people joke about how jon being an orphan is overshadowed by every other awful thing that happened to him, but it starts a pattern, of him losing a proper support network on top of everything, losing people he cares about. of resentment towards him for things that aren’t his fault.

like. mr. spider was always going to be horrifying and affect him throughout his life. but the traumatic events are not the only throughline. maybe he would have blamed himself less if he wasn’t blamed by other people first. even if sometimes it’s easier to blame yourself just to feel like it could have gone any different than it did.