Epsilon04

A Fair Return

SCRATCH: CONGRATULATIONS!

The specifics of it are kept vague but one detail that I keep coming back to in particular is the fact that Jud never actually said he was sober. When he talks about facing addiction in the past he says, "Christ saved me" but he doesn't actually mention sobriety or the process of recovery.

It makes sense that he wouldn't straight up say he's recovered because addiction isn't that simple and neither is the process of recovery. The distinctions between recovered vs recovering are hard to define bc it doesn’t always align with how addictions actually work in the medical sense (elaboration under the cut)

He could've said ‘recovering from addiction and X years sober’ but he doesn't. Jud chooses his words very carefully and I think it’s an interesting dialogue choice if nothing else.

Obviously I’m not suggesting that Jud never went through recovery or whatever, because this part would just disprove that immediately.

Whilst battling addiction isn’t the overarching theme of the movie, it's definitely there and I think there are a number of details that are worth pointing out because it's a great foundation for exploring his past in fics or character analysis, even if he doesn’t live like that anymore.

If we suspend our disbelief for a moment and pretend the prayer meeting scene is real life instead of a movie, I don't think it's weird for him to brush over the details. It doesn't really raise any red flags or questions about his personality because he's literally at work.

Generally speaking, nobody would be expected to share such intimate details about their personal lives at work, especially in regards to private medical information. However, Perpetual Fortitude is not exactly known for being a well functioning workplace. The fact that Jud was able to just casually access Wicks' medical bills and find out about his radical prostatectomy is just insane on its own, so I can see why Jud might become cautious over time, if not a little paranoid.

(There's also the added element of the fact that Jud is a priest which is important to consider when disclosing details of his medical history because a Catholic church is obviously going to be held to very different HR standards than the typical rules you'd expect working at a Taco Bell or smth but I digress)

It's interesting how he uses this anecdote about his past to try to connect with people because it's quite a risky move, especially for a priest. The stigma of poverty alone is enough to make a lot of people uncomfortable at the the idea of 'a homeless guy' being their priest, let alone the fact that Jud struggles with addiction or that he killed someone.

I think he knows how taboo his very presence in the church is already, so he uses this story about his past to humanise himself and show his community that he's grounded and imperfect, just like they are. It's especially clear in this part:

He acknowledges his past struggles as being a crucial part of who he is now. He shows how he didn’t leave it all behind when he joined the seminary, and he chooses to carry it with him.

You can call that growth/maturity/trauma or even serendipity. Whatever it is, it’s important to him and he speaks about it with enough confidence and deliberate ambiguity to keep up his image of being an open book.

In the prayer meeting, he's attempting to emotionally engage with the flock and do some good priest work without inviting too many follow questions about his circumstances. Especially those that could make them question if he even deserved to be a priest to begin with.

Anyway my point is that when you have this context in mind, I think you could use a lot of these elements to infer that his relationship with addiction is much more loaded than he let on.

If done right, you could easily imply that substance abuse/risk of relapse is still an active struggle for him and it would be interesting to explore the how his role in the priesthood impacts this dynamic. And it has even more potential if you compare Jud's past to Samson and Wicks’ subplot about alcoholism.

(source: FE8, Lute and Vanessa's C support)

Zorah's wish to roam freely had finally come true

For Those Who Come After