#chnt analysis

What’s really interesting to me about Sydney’s character is how despite being so fed up with not being taken seriously, he still falls into the role that Jedidiah plays in his life whenever given the chance. Maybe to feel control? Or maybe because it’s all he’s ever known. But it’s expressly pointed out in the episode where he takes the silver fox into the nurses office. The fox wants to leave, but Sydney doesn’t realize this and tries to protect it, not listening to it, just like how Jedidiah doesn’t listen to him. It’s not just when it’s specifically pointed out like in that episode though, it’s also in things like the way he brushes off Rowan’s visions later on. Rowan will be clearly concerned about something and Sydney will just be like oh he’s building up a tolerance to those anti dark visions meds. Which is usually true, but the boy who cried wolf was right eventually soooo. It’s also interesting because in file 20 the Trees of Boys, Jedidiah getting super mad at Juniper for not showing up for Rowan shows a clear parallel between Jedidiah and Sydney’s relationship and Juniper and Rowan’s relationship. Which would make Juniper the parallel to Jedidiah here, and Rowan the parallel to Sydney. And yet still, Sydney brushes Rowan off, so in a sense he’s brushing himself off, not taking himself seriously, taking the way the others have neglected him and redirecting it back out into the world. Idk, do you see what I’m getting at here? I just think it’s interesting. I wonder if we’ll see more of this idea explored later on.

So, you know how when Sydney goes missing, Jedidiah, Joshua, and Yvonne all try to read his notes but they all look different to each of them? Well, I think that this could be a reflection of either the way that they see Sydney or the way that Sydney sees them, or both. For Yvonne, the notes are all scrambled, and barely legible. They’re chaotic. This could be Sydney viewing Yvonne as chaotic and unreadable, as she is a bit of a loose canon and is seen making fun of Sydney over the loud speaker when she gets to use it in his absence. It could also be her viewing Sydney as a bit crazy since she specifically tends to poke fun at how much he vents about his mental state over the loud speaker. So, the notes may reflect the craziness that she sees in him. As for Joshua, he believes that the paper is blank. One would think that Joshua’s paper may be full of insults considering how much Sydney dislikes him and constantly gripes at him over the loud speaker, but there isn’t. It’s just nothing. This could mean that Sydney doesn’t know Joshua as well as he seems to think that he does. Sydney always seems convinced that Joshua is out to get him, but from what we’ve seen of Joshua, he can be a bit of a nuisance, but he does genuinely seem to care about Sydney, and is even shown to be upset on his behalf or be a bit upset when Yvonne makes fun of him over the loud speaker. So, the blank notes could be showing that Sydney does not understand Joshua. If it is Joshua’s view of Sydney, it could mean something similar as despite Joshua seemingly wanting to be able to get along with Sydney, Sydney wants nothing to do with him and pushes him away so that Joshua cannot know Sydney as well as he may like to. For Jedidiah, the notes are perfectly legible. Although , he certainly reads them a lot more dryly than Sydney does. The legible notes may show that Sydney understands Jedidiah more than any other person at the camp, and Jedidiah understands Sydney more than any other person at the camp. Their lives are intertwined for better or for worse and so they can understand each other. Of course, their relationship is not without its miscommunications, as despite being able to read Sydney’s writing, he does not perform it in the same way that Sydney would, and spends little effort making it fun for the kids. This is because Jedidiah does not care nearly as much as Sydney about making the kids happy. Jedidiah’s sole focus is Sydney. So, he can understand what his writing says, but not what it truly means. He understands the words that Sydney says, but he does not understand Sydney’s true desires. So, despite being so entangled with each other, so close to understanding the other, they miscommunicate, and fall over and over again due to the misinterpretation of each other’s words because they come from such different lives that shape their perspectives in such drastically different ways.

The new episode does a really good job at using the established use of food as a metaphor for love within the series. Of course Sydney is currently starved and hasn’t eaten in days at this point because he’s coming to the end of his rope and feels as though no one cares for him and anyone who has, he’s attempted to drive away. Adam, who represents his unhealthy coping mechanisms tells him to eat, but there is nothing on the plate that he can stomach. The self harm that Adam causes Sydney to engage in promises a feeling of love in some sense of the word, but the promises are empty, Sydney can’t eat it. It’s also extremely interesting how the man at the table who is Adam but Sydney mentions looks very similar to Jedidiah since both of them abuse their power over Sydney keep trying to feed him things that he literally cannot eat. They offer him love, but they do not accommodate for Sydney’s specific type of love. Jedidiah wants to pretend as though everything is fine and ignore Sydney’s disabilities and love him the same as he would anyone else, without shifting his life to accommodate for him. He keeps working at his project, convinced that eventually Sydney will be able to accept the love that he gives him without him having to figure out how to make it edible to Sydney. It’s very similar in concept to Joshua’s speech the previous episode where he talked about the life he and Sydney could have where he goes out of his way to tell Sydney all of the ways that he would accommodate him, and include his disabilities in their life together. Details that Jedidiah leaves out of his plans for the future, still convinced that he can fix Sydney. The symbolism of Adam eating Sydney directly shows how he is draining Sydney of any love that he has left to give. He promises to help him, but then in the process he drains him of any energy he had to love due to how strenuous his tasks with Adam are. Adam also seems to greatly enjoy eating pretty much everything around him, sucking up all of the love people could have given into the void. Hiding it away behind their self destruction. When he tells Sydney to write his fortune on the last cookie, it is an offering of a crumb of autonomy. However, it is a lie as Sydney cannot eat anything but buttered bread in the real world. It’s unclear how much of this sequence is dreams and reality but it can be assumed that part is a dream since he can’t eat fortune cookies, but if it was real life then it probably didn’t sit in Sydney’s stomach well. Sydney mentions that he should be above hunger at this point, above love. When Adam makes him eat the centipede (the centipede has been a symbol of Sydney’s loss of autonomy) it is him giving into his own loss of autonomy, but at the hands of Adam instead of Jedidiah, because at least that is his choice, a crumb of choice, and that feels good.

Thinking about the parallels between how no one believed Rowan and so his co counselor was destroyed, and no one believed Sydney and so he was almost sacrificed on the pyre by the elephant man. Something something commentary on society’s lack of trust in “crazy” people, Sydney’s psychosis and Rowan’s sky visions and his subsequent panic. Also they’re both the resident trans men, I don’t know if that just so happens to be the case or if a point is being made about them also not being taken seriously due to that. Poor Rowan is now digging into the ground as a club to flee because of you, and Sydney now has a new questionable man messing with him. Narrative, leave these men alone! And characters, believe them!!!

It’s super interesting to me that Rowan specifically predicts a flood since that has a lot of Christian symbolism which the show has been shown to use especially because of Jedidiah’s upbringing. The flood could be referencing Noah’s arc which is when people were bad so God decided to wipe out everyone except for Noah and he told Noah to go get one of each animal and put them on a boat so that all species could survive. It’s a literal and symbolic fresh start for the world. Especially after how corrupted their world has become due to Sydney’s resurrection. So, I wonder if after the storm, despite the devastation, there will be some good to their fresh start to be had.