Cunning Language

I very often see tripgate defended as being an important part of Shane’s heroic arc. And this interpretation just. Could not possibly be more wrong.

Shane’s “heroic arc” in tlg is picking Ilya over hockey. It is the question he is directly confronted with and the one he answers in the affirmative during his conversation with Crowell. And I’ve seen a lot of people construe the fact that Shane signs with Ottawa as him once again picking Ilya.

But that’s objectively not what’s happening. A character does not get the benefit of saying that he made a choice if the only reason why he makes that choice is because all other choices are taken from him. Shane does not get to look at his decision to move to Ottawa and say to Ilya “I left Montreal for you babe 😘” because he DOESNT. He leaves Montreal because he’s forced out by a hostile work environment and public vitriol. He leaves Montreal because he can’t stay. And this does in fact devastate his career to the point where he is afraid that no one will sign him. He doesn’t sign with Ottawa for Ilya and so we cannot reasonably claim that it’s the completion of his arc. He didn’t pick this willingly.

Which, as a note, is the same reason why I refuse to give Ilya any credit for the claim that he picked hockey over Shane. I’ve said this before, I’ll say it again, he presents the idea of moving to Canada to begin with for the sake of his own immigration. He explicitly states that America is bad for Russians and he wants to move to Canada. Shane wants to him to come to Montreal and Ilya says no because they can’t afford him. He picks Ottawa explicitly so his career won’t take a hit, and then we retconn it in later books to make Ottawa into some terrible team that Ilya only went to because it was convenient for Shane. Like. This idea that Ilya sacrifices hockey for Shane is laughable because when he was presented with the choice of “will you take a pay cut and sacrifice your captaincy for Shane” he just straight up says “no” and they do Ottawa instead. Like he legitimately picks hockey over Shane. These books drive me absolutely bonkers because I personally think that the entire narrative of “will you pick your love over X” is overtired but, to be clear, that’s a personal preference and not a legitimate criticism. Some books just aren’t for me and that’s fine.

The legitimate criticism is that in practice both Shane and Ilya’s actions substantively answer that question with “NOT REALLY NO.” Ilya picks Ottawa over playing in Montreal with Shane and Shane only picks Ottawa because he loses all other options. Like oh my god that book undermines its own message at every possible turn. The books display an alarming lack of confidence in the fact that Shane and Ilya will pick each other when it comes down to it, and it’s shown in the fact that they repeatedly end their stories with them either not picking each other or only picking each other out of lack of other options. It simply does not accomplish its own message.

If you accept as a premise that Shane and Ilya are best on the same team which I don’t but let’s assume for the sake of the argument you should be able to get them there without putting a gun to their head. The entire point of a character’s arc and specifically a heroic character arc is to have your character become the kind of person who makes the right choice. They should be able to bring about their own ends. And tripgate completely robs them of that agency. Shane’s “happy ending” is just a bad thing that happens to him and that he never receives an ounce of justice or healing for. Ilya’s happy ending is to be a guy whose happiness comes at his partner’s cost and who frankly does not seem to recognize or care that his partner is hurt. It cheapens both of them. Like. This is one of the most bizarrely punitive and fundamentally miserable “happy endings” I have ever seen executed in fiction. Her editor should be taken out back and shot like what were they thinking letting an ending like that get to print

I think with books like these it’s very important to recognize when a literary analysis is watsonian and when it’s Doylistic. If you are analyzing a work within that work’s universe, then you are taking a watsonian approach. But Doylism demands you look at the real world influences underlying the writing choices. A watsonian analysis accepts the events and the rules of the universe and tries to find meaning within them. But a Doylistic perspective is meant to critique how the work was actually created.

And frankly, I don’t find watsonian analyses for the long game to be very helpful. There is no compelling in-universe explanation for how that book ends. If you look at it in-universe, the analysis is “Shane should hire a divorce attorney.” Like. Ilya shows a mind-boggling lack of compassion towards the man he’s supposed to love more than anything in the world throughout that entire book, but particularly in how it ends.

I go after Ilya so hard in the long game but that’s because I really like Ilya as a character and I’m upset at how much he was butchered by the end of it. The ending of the long game is a discredit to both of them.

In all the other books, Ilya is presented as a compassionate and empathetic character. That’s one of the reasons why I like him so much.

But the empathy displayed by the version of him we see in the long game is non-existent. Like. The most he does is look concerned after the game. He doesn’t even call Shane until the next day. When he does, it’s to complain about how the media backlash against Shane is actually insulting to him because it implies he needed Shane to trip for him to win. Shane points out that he only won because Shane tripped and Ilya’s like “Not now Shane.”

Every single thing he says with respect to the trip is some kind of backhanded and insulting joke. Don’t worry about the pay cut, your rich husband will provide. His captaincy? Prima fucking donna, you know you don’t get a leadership role. Get to the front of the line with the rest of the plebeians. He cracks jokes about how Shane doesn’t have any playoff games to get to at one point. The closest he gets to displaying anything close to sympathy is when Shane is worrying about whether anyone would sign him now and Ilya asks him if he needs Ilya to fuck his self esteem better in his trophy room.

And the trip is very much presented as a good thing that happened to Ilya. It is the day after it happens and Ilya’s like. Yeah, there’s a huge number of disgusting opinion pieces and angry tweets directed at disparaging the love of my life. It may be so bad that he quits the job that’s been his long-held dream to work until the day he retires. I’m so excited at the idea but I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high.

If I was going through something as personally devastating as my career dreams being lost, my reputation being trashed, and my name being dragged through the mud by the public at large, and my partner responded by getting excited and trying not to get his hopes up too high about how good this could be for him, I would be in prison.

When Shane signs with Ottawa and ends up with a new jersey, Ilya describes his joy as “overwhelming” and asks if he can fuck Shane in bed with it on. There is no recognition whatsoever about how this must be painful or bittersweet for Shane, who, again, has just been dragged through the mud so hard that he went from the most respected player in the League to being worried no team would sign him. The empathy is absolutely non-existent. That ending is an insult to both of their characters. Like it is so poorly written and inconsistent with their every preceding representation in the novels. And that is a Doylistic critique of the book. I’m not saying “Ilya is a bad person,” he’s not a person at all. I’m saying he is written poorly.