WHY did Motherspore target Jimmy out of everyone else??
First of all, let me tell you, I had been thinking of making this post for a while, and it was originally going to be me sharing my thoughts and going crazy with theories hehe
But it turns out there's ALREADY an answer to this question, that was hinted at in Maruu and Doody's streams a couple of times, which I found out extremely late because I can never catch those live.
Still, I thought so long and hard on this, that I decided I would share my thought process anyways! Show you how deep I went before ever knowing if I was delusional or not hwjsjwjs
So here goes nothing!
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For starters, I wanna say I was initially under the impression that Jimmy's involvement in the Motherspore incident had been, for the most part, COLLATERAL DAMAGE. Like it was mainly a mix of negative factors, and maybe also Jimmy's infamous bad luck lol, that got him in that situation.
I imagined he'd been one of the many people to have fainted at the start of the whole mess, and having probably done so in his office (a more isolated place than a classroom or a break-room where most people were), he had been the easiest target; secluded enough that Motherspore had managed to capture him without any trouble or interference from anyone.
That sounded like a likely scenario! And considering it probably wasn't very important, I didn't dwell on it too much...
That was, until we got to Chapter 15, and most importantly, HOTGUY'S INTERROGATION.
Because Hotguy brings to attention that Jimmy's position in all this is actually quite suspicious. He remarks that Jimmy had been the only person to remain in the building, when everyone else had been evacuated, which then led him to be the most difficult one to find and rescue. He wonders if there's a possibility that he stayed behind ON PURPOSE.
And while it's important to note that all of this is stated with the ill-intention of triggering Grian and forcing him to talk, it is undeniably TRUE that Jimmy's situation had been unlike anybody else's.
In fact, once I started thinking about it, I realized there's something actually odd that happened, that didn't see anyone mention and was particular to Jimmy's case... and that is that Motherspore actually fought to GET HIM BACK.
Think about the way Motherspore acted when everyone was evacuating the building, or rather, how she DIDN'T ACT. Sure, people were fainting, which I don't know if it was an intentional move on her part or simply a side-effect of the spores in the air, but with some help they were all able to get out safely.
And she let it happen, and not because she lacked the power to stop it. She could've had people trapped in the fungus like Jimmy was, she could've covered the exits in it so people wouldn't be able to escape, she could've attacked Hotguy the second he stepped in to help, yet she didn't.
But when JIMMY was the one being taken away?? She willed the fungus to grab at him and drag him back towards her, proceeded to literally pounce on Hotguy. And judging by the shocked look on his face, we can assume and confirm that was the first time he was met with resistance and hostility on this foe's end.
So after pondering all this I suddenly went HOLD ON. What if Jimmy being captured wasn't just an unfortunate coincidence? Because it's starting to look as if he was intentionally singled out... OMG what if he was actually TARGETED???
And oh boy did that set me off.
I rapidly started coming up with quite a few ideas as to why that could've been the case. Could it have simply been because he's related to Grian?? Or because he's also a witch?? Maybe specifically because of his mind-reading ability?? And so on.
BUT, as I said before, there's already a kinda answer to this question, as to why Motherspore went after Jimmy, that was revealed in one of Maruu and Doody's streams, which might be the reason why lots of people like myself hadn't heard about it.
Doody responded that the one thing she could say about the matter is that it was important to remember that Motherspore is fundamentally STILL GRIAN, just taken to a more primal, slightly fucked up level. They mentioned that this version of Grian is guided primarily by instinct, and I quote, "is protecting the things that are dear to him and attacking what seems like a threat."
And OMG do you know what this MEANS??
It means that yes, Motherspore did target Jimmy, but not exactly for the reasons I first suspected. It wasn't because she had wanted to hurt him or use him in any way, but because she had wanted to PROTECT HIM!! That's why she hid him away from everyone else, and why she went to greater lengths to keep him there!!
And dude I just think that's so sweet 😭 that even in a corrupted state of mind, Grian was able to recognize his cousin and still strived to keep him safe no matter what <3
And I think this is very important information to have, because it makes their interaction in Chapter 14 even MORE heartbreaking than it already was.
Because we know Grian was DEVASTATED to see Jimmy hurt, and even more horrified at the notion that he had likely been the cause of it. And I just know that guilt is part of the reason why he denied his offering to stay, why he decides to push him away. He believes it would be safer for Jimmy to keep his distance, even if it breaks both their hearts.
And this is so incredibly sad because Grian DOESN'T KNOW. He doesn't know that Motherspore never wished Jimmy any harm, that in her own messed-up way, she tried to defend him from everything.
He has no idea that caring for Jimmy is such a core part of him, that any version of himself can't help doing the same...
Anyways they make me sick <3 can't wait to read and find out more!!!
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TLDR: Found out Motherspore didn't capture Jimmy for malicious reasons, but because Grian was unconsciously trying to protect him, and now I'm emotional :'(
