#lily-rambles

First major realization I had while rewatching is that literally NON of the problems each Sanders Sides episode tackles is ever truly solved.

It's kinda crazy to me cause each episode ends with a resolution and a nice speech from Thomas to conclude... but even tho they managed to find a solution, it's still not THE solution, only temoprary ones.

This is made evidence through multiple episodes where they seem to be coming to those same problems they so called 'solved' in previous episodes such as, Thomas' lack of motivation, his fear of growing up, his negative thinking exct.

Okay it sounds really obvious when I'm writing this now😅 but even tho I was aware of that for a long time I think now it suddenly clicked that that's why things have suddenly ramped up so quickly, why Janus decided to pop up when he did, it's not that new things came up that worsened Thomas' mental health, it's that every problem we've already seen starts to take its toll on him since none of them has been truly dealt with.

Thomas is still struggling with childish thinking, he thinks that at the end of every episode, everything is resolved just like in disney shows, he doesn't fully realize there's work to be done beyond those quick resolutions.

The callback vs the wedding wouldn't have been such a heavy debate if Thomas was able to think about it maturaly and without all his issues clouding his persepsion. All he thought of during this debate was "if I'm not there, they're gonna hate me", even Logan, the literal Logical side of him, said he could lose his friends by simply not going to their wedding. That's how far Thomas' cognitive disturtions go without him even realizing it.

Lee and Mary Lee were his friends for YEARS and he still sees it as rational to think he'll instantly lose them if he's not there for one event.

Furthermore his fear of growing up, that is literally tackled (ironically) by Patton in like the second/third episode of the series, is STILL very much there because in his childish reality, not being there for your friends immidiately equals being a bad person.

All of that leads to a simple desicion such as "going to a wedding you know you won't enjoy or going to a potentially life-changing oportunity" becomes a heavy discussion that feels like life or death.

Which is exactly where the 'dark sides' come in, we all know Janus is Thomas' self perservasion, and he realized the plane(Thomas' mental health) is going down all the way back to his first appearance. He wasn't actually trying to get Thomas to lie, he was trying to show Thomas how much he magnified the sitution to seem bigger then it was.

First he made sure Thomas will be walked through all the kinds of lies to help him see how uncomfortable they make him, second he made sure to get found out, knowing he'll immidietly be thought of as a villain trying to trick him so that Thomas will be forced to 'defeat' him by telling the truth. And when he finally did, he realized it wasn't as bad as he thought.

Now comes Remus, the side we only fully had in two episodes so far. I remember really struggling to think what he could represent besides intrusive thoughts and 'bad' imagination but I think I finally figured it out, he's simply Thomas' subconcious, unfiltered mind, every thought that either goes unchecked or is hidden to the waking mind. Just think about it, he heavily mentioned in DWIT that he'll never hide anything from Thomas, he's BRUTALY honest, that's his thing, he's Thomas' thoughts if they had no filter.

Somtimes it comes through in the form of intrusive thoughts, but not always, he's essebtially every part of Thomas that he doesn't show on the outside and actively represses due to either social norms or his religious upringing and or his inner moral code.