can we just take a moment to talk about how shitty kit’s childhood actually was because i feel like no one ever talks about it, and it’s obvious in so many scenes that johnny rook did nOt show this kid love...
first of all, he wasn’t even really allowed to leave the house.
“Shadow Market nights were Kit’s favorite.
They were the nights he was allowed to leave the house”
“After that his father kept him at home, mostly, letting him teach himself out of old books. He played video games in the basement and went out rarely, during the day, or when the Shadow Market was on.”
like ???? he wasn’t allowed to leave the house, and his dad made him stay at home and teach himself out of old books. johnny rook didn’t even teach him himself, he didn’t even give him a tutor, he just kept kit at home, and kit had to teach himself.
“His father put an arm around him, a rare affectionate gesture.”
meaning that he was never really shown affection...
and when magnus met johnny rook and their conversation went like this:
“Kit. He’s a good boy. Growing like a sprout. Quick hands, very useful in my line of work.”
“You have your child picking pockets?”
“Some of that. Some passing on trifles like keys. Some sleight of hand. All sorts. He’s multitalented.”
“Isn’t he about ten years old?” Magnus asked.
Johnny shrugged. “He’s very advanced.”
if this is how his own father treated him—barely gave him any attention except for the fact that he was useful for his “line of work”—it would explain why kit was so sure that if he didn’t help ty in qoaad, ty would shut him out, and kit would lose him. because kit is used to getting the most attention when he’s useful.
and can we please talk about this:
“He had never had anyone but his father, and he was sure beyond any words that his father had never loved him like that.”
“My dad knew me, and he didn’t care. Don’t say he did. I know he didn’t. But he loved my mom, apparently, so it wasn’t that he couldn’t love anyone. It was that he couldn’t love me. And—and the—and—nobody else has, either.”
“Jem did know enough to see Johnny Rook must have done something truly wrong, if he’d had all Kit’s life to show him that he was loved and never convinced him.”
kit spent fifteen years being raised by only his dad, and his dad was the only constant in his life (+ the shadow market but i’m getting to that in a second) and his father never loved him. the one person kit had ever loved, aka his own father, never loved him back, and kit was fully aware of that fact.
and this part with the shadow market:
“You cannot wash the taint from your blood. I’m telling you for the last time, boy—leave the Market. And don’t come back.”
Kit backed up, looking around him—seeing, as if for the first time, the faces turned toward him, most blank and unfriendly, many avidly curious.”
remember when he said that shadow market nights were his favorite because those were the nights he was allowed to leave the house? or how at ease he was in the prologue of lm, and how comfortable he was around the shadow market? this was probably the closest thing to a home kit has ever had, and when he tried to go back to it after losing his dad, he was shunned.
and you know how when a child has been neglected and no one has ever really been there for them, they stop crying at all because they know no one will be there for them anyway? do you think that’s how it was with kit for a long time, and that’s why he didn’t even cry when his dad died and why he thinks he’s not able to “feel properly”?
“Kit had never had siblings, never had a mother, had only had Johnny. His father. His father who had died, and he didn’t think he’d ever looked the way Ty looked now, as if the possibility of something happening to Livvy was enough to break him inside.”
“Maybe there was something wrong with him, Kit thought as he followed Alec into the hallway. Maybe he didn’t have the right kind of feelings. He’d never wondered that much about his mother, who she was: Wouldn’t someone who knew how to feel properly wonder that?”
also later in this scene with alec when kit says:
“I’m no one, though,” he said, taking the box full of bandages. “Why would he care what I think? I don’t matter. I’m nothing.”
“I know that you and Tessa took me in because of Will. And I’m—I’m grateful, I want to—I can be like—”
kit thinking he’s not good enough if he’s “just himself “ because he doesn’t think he matters, and him thinking that he has to be more like will for jem and tessa to want him...
and the rooftop scene of course:
“Kit had never been a casual hugger, and no one had ever, that he could remember, come to him for comforting. He wasn’t a comforting sort of person. He’d always assumed that.”
he’d always assumed that ?????
in conclusion, someone needs to give kit herondale a hug and tell him that he is great just the way he is and that they love him
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