am i dying on the demodus hill because i'm transmasc and he's meaningful rep for me? partially
but also because like most everyone is just
running with Murray's incredibly flawed projection on him to the point of actively ignoring what we know about him as a character and how Brennan has talked about him and his perspectives.
He's a self-employed disabled adult who has set his eye on professorship and has worked his ass off, constantly, to get there. He has many of the same concerns around money as Hal, who is notably not infantilized for not wanting to ask for money.
Murray tells him that Demodus could have come to her for help with money: yeah, in theory!
He owes the Penteveral everything though! He's been reliant on the Penteveral since he was 12 years old when his family dropped him off and cut him off. He wants to work for the school to give BACK to it because he is so appreciative of what it has done for him.
He is a Grad Student: He Has Already Graduated, And Has Gone Back For Additional Study. He's studying for a DOCTORATE.
Murray is infantilizing him as a social signal of displeasure and as an act of projection because he took actions she does not approve of and because he was injured in the course of working with the Crow Keepers. Who she has worked with. She is very likely displacing feelings of guilt and personal responsibility for him ending up in that position - he could have come to her!
She could have noticed that he was struggling and gone to him!
And instead of facing up to that, infantilizing him is a neat rhetorical trick that puts him down in order to affirm herself as his protector.
I love her, but it's a bad move. It's a bad call, and it's a major flaw.