okay okay so i haven’t read it since high school either but here goes:

i think it’s so important to go into the book remembering that he’s 16. remember that he’s just this traumatized, lonely, terrified 16 year old. bc he is such a frustrating guy like you just want to shake him by the shoulders and tell him that he’s being a little shit, stop whining, stop judging people for being fake when he’s fake to everyone. but he’s SIXTEEN he’s a kid of course he’s not self aware.

but he has such a good heart i stg. he’s been betrayed and let down and even assaulted by all of the adults in his life. he has no guidance and no clear pathway to a good kind of adulthood, no concept that there even is a good kind of adulthood. he is terrified to the core of becoming like the adults that have mistreated him, and he’s looking for someone, anyone, to sit down and tell him “it’s going to be okay. you’re going to be okay.” that’s the whole thing with the ducks!! he’s not asking about what happens to the ducks during winter, he’s asking what’s going to happen to him as he grows up. and no one is willing to have that conversation with him (because all the adults in his life suck ass).

and what does he do with all that fear and anxiety and trauma???? he wants to protect other kids. that’s all he wants, at the end of the day. he wants to be the catcher in the rye, wants to keep other children from experiencing the loneliness and betrayal and phony niceness that he experienced.