fenixme

It doesn’t help the fact that Eddie is starting to resemble even more s1 Nancy Wheeler.

Do I decided to share a cute thing I notice reading the book that I NEVER see people talk about.

Earlier in the novel Eddie mentioned that his favorite artist is Jerry Lee Lewis (yes, the one who later married his 13 years old cousin, but let’s not talk about that) and later one, when Richie is talking about music with Mike and Ben, he of course first mentioned Buddy Holly and Little Richard (who he often says are his favorite artists), but he refuses to talk about Jerry Lee Lewis, who he calls ‘his secret obsession’.

I wanted to talk a little more about how they are literally codependent on one another ESPECIALLY Eddie. On this post I decided to write a couple of signs of codependency and this time even with quotes from the book.

1. Difficulty experiencing appropriate levels of self-esteem:

Eddie always brings himself down when talking about Bill who he see as this amazing figure that is so much better than him. He has an hard time even believing that someone as cool as Bill would ever be his friend because he’s such a loser.

2. Idealization

Connected to the previous one, he sees in Bill this role model who he has to inspire and that can do bo wrong. Of course that is not true since Bill os a flawed character like anyone else.

3. A mood that reflects how others feel rather than your own emotions:

There are numerous times when his mood was ruined just because he thought that Bill was a little sad to the point he literally couldn’t focus about anything else than how Bill was feeling.

4. Constant feeling of self-sacrificing

It’s not once, but numerous times, Eddie talked about how he would be ready do to everything for Bill, even if that meant losing his life. Then maybe less extreme, but still concerning are the times he say ‘For you, Big Bill’ as if everything depended on his approval. 

Like I’ve said in my previous posts, I believe that this behavior stems from the emotional incestus relationship with his mother who basically acts like if she couldn’t live without him and the absence of father figure certainly doesn’t help.

It doesn’t help the fact that Bill didn’t even realize that this is happening or maybe even encouraged it (we don’t know what happened before the story between the two). I see that very likely because he’s a very lonely boy who barely get considered at home so maybe unconsciously he made the affection stronger so that he could get that love he so desperately missed and because in that way he knew that he at least wouldn’t leave him.

I have no problem with this happening with any of the other characters like trans fem Ben is completely fine, but with Eddie, his struggles to be seen as a man are a big part of his character.

He’s more effeminate (for the standards of the 1950s) than your average 11 year old boy and that is something often remarked. Words like ‘thin’, ‘small’, ‘pale’ are normally used to describe girls not boys, but that is the description that we are given of Eddie. Another thing Eddie is way more soft spoken than the other, and most of the tine he’s behavior is almost childlike and that is yet again not a characteristic typical of male characters. And his role for most of the story is of the one getting protected, not the other way around.

Another proof of my argument is that when the author has to compliment Eddie’s look, he doesn’t use ‘handsome’, but ‘beautiful’ an adjective that is more often associated with a feminine kind of beauty. Also let’s both forget that Henry like many other people that knew Eddie considered him queer most likely because of that.

There are a lot of other things that suggest that Eddie is more feminine than the others, but I wanna go back to why I wrote this post in the first place.

Eddie absolutely hates all of this, he isn’t intentionally trying to make himself more feminine, that is part of his internal struggle for most of the novel: he wants to be seen more manly. That it’s also why I suspect that the first thing we see him do is talking back at Henry: for once he wants to be the ‘hero’ that doesn’t sit back and just watch. Also every time he gets scared or he feels about to cry he thinks ‘Bill wouldn’t do that’ because he sees Bill as the man he wants to be.

And I believe that his need to look more masculine can be seen even in his interest: Eddie is into things normally associated with males like mechanics, trains, cars, cowboys etc.

The losers as the seven souls from undertale:

Patience - Mike

Bravery - Eddie

Integrity - Stan

Perseverance - Richie

Kindness - Ben

Justice - Bev

The funny thing is that this chapter should be Bill’s memory about what happened that day, but the problem is that he wasn’t there and that conversation is never mentioned again (except for the ice cream part) so unless they told him exactly what happened between scenes that we don’t see (something that I find very unrealistic) or, as I like to imagine, Bill came out with this conversation in his head imagining that for sure Eddie said to Ben how amazing he is, and writing that on his diary while fantasizing about what other things Eddie could have possibly told Ben about him.

Not only if you see it as romantic, but even as friends. Richie would do ANYTHING for Eddie while Eddie barely considered him at all. He’s not only kinda rude with him (most of the times, Richie deserves it) but he completely ignores him.

Monday's child is fair of face - Beverly

Tuesday's child is full of grace - Stan

Wednesday's child is full of woe - Bill

Thursday's child has far to go - Richie

Friday's child is loving and giving - Ben

Saturday's child works hard for a living - Mike

Eddie grew up with an emotional immature parent and for him caring about someone means basically ‘do everything to make them happy’, with Bill his obsession is even more intense because Bill for the longest time was the only friend he ever had and the only kid how treated him with some kind of respect.

Another part of Eddie’s personality is also that he’s VERY insecure to the point he believes that his friends are basically doing a act of charity at hanging around him. And that is even stronger around Bill because he can’t accept the idea that someone normal like Bill wanting to spend time with a ‘freak’ like him. He believes that he’s undeserving of that friendship.

His insecurity is very clear in Eddie’s bad break when Bill wants to sign his cast, he can only think that if he broke his arm earlier that spring nobody would have sign it WHEN IT’S NOT TRUE.

Than also he admires Bill because has a stronger personality than him (basically isn’t a crybaby), Bill ignores the bullies and mostly Bill is cool. A normal kid would do nothing about it, but for Eddie that never had a good parenting figure, he tries to imitate those behaviors to be like Bill.

Now let’s focus a little bit about Bill. Bill recalls Eddie to be the only ‘real friend’ he had during that time he was grieving his brother, so in my opinion he cares about Eddie the same of how much Eddie cares about him, he just is too scared to admit that because he believes that admitting that would make the eventual loss of him just as painful as it has been for George. And however say otherwise JUST READ ‘BILL BEATS THE DEVIL’ AGAIN.

That chapter was very much when Bill reached the bottom, he was crying over being sure of the soon coming loss of him and not even being able to leave his side to get his inhaler to save him just because he was too scare of the thought of leaving him there to die alone. Just like Georgie. And in the same chapter we see Bill risking his life just to get Eddie’s inhaler. Just like the friend he would’ve die for him.

In the rest of the novel Bill shows pretty often his caring for Eddie with little things that sure he doesn’t do for the others. Like for example he often offers to protect Eddie directly or he’s shown to worry way more about him than the others. But I will talk more about this in another post since otherwise this will last forever.

Than also we have to remember that Bill doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved since he believes he’s the cause of Georgie’s death and because of that he often tries to musk his feelings even if he’s having a very hard time grieving his brother.

All of this just to say that I wouldn’t define their relationship unhealthy in the way that is one sided, but it’s unhealthy because they rely too much on one another: Bill uses Eddie as a way to grieve, but at the same time he’s not able to admit how much he cares about him, while Eddie just wants that validation so bad that he’s ready do to anything Bill wants him to do.

I don’t think that any of them should have gotten kidnapped in the first place because it doesn’t really make sense in the story, but IF it had to be someone, that should have been Eddie. He’s the one that more often than not needs to be saved NOT Beverly. He’s the one the rest of the group finds themselves more often protecting.

Then the choice of Beverly doesn’t even bring anything to the story: Bill, who is supposedly in love with her, completely ignores her and Ben kiss is completely left aside and never brought up. And it’s not like that scene is similar to anything in the book, most of the group, like I’ve already say, saves Eddie at least once in the novel ESPECIALLY when they are in the sewers, so it would make more sense to use him for the role of the one who needs to be rescued.