#poor cecil

I’m so glad you said this omg…. I have been thinking more and more about his admission in Ghost Stories, where, he can acknowledge that their mother was unwell before she even left, as well as when she finally did abandon them, but that the hurt and damage she caused he and Abby was still very real. Perhaps there were things truly out of their mothers control, and its a more interesting and complex story when all of the grief and trauma is still real and there if BOTH things are true. For example, she may have been sick BUT she was a bad mother. There may have been forces outside of her control BUT she still neglected and ultimately abandoned her kids. Etc etc.

Cecil loves Esteban, clearly. But then again, maybe his mother really loved Cecil, despite what it seems like. Maybe she really tried to. Maybe she was truly trying to protect him. We of course know all she did was create grief and trauma, but its interesting to compare Cecil as a parent and his mother as a parent. Her actions are inexcusable, if the things in the narrative she said and did are true, but stories are almost never as black and white as that. I don’t think Cecil would ever say or do the things his mother said to him to his own son — but with the way things are in Night Vale — can we ever really know why his mother said them to him? Was it just her? Was it something else? Does it matter? Because she did do and say those things.

So, to give an example, lets look at It Sticks With You, where Cecil, Carlos and Esteban take a trip into the woods. If Esteban been had been older than 3 in It Sticks With You and the memory was firmly in his mind — a memory of a really fun and lovely day with his parents — and his father kept wandering off, and eventually forgot entirely about the day — like it didn’t even exist for him — how would Esteban feel? And then what happens when that patten continues? I’m sure he understands his father loves him, and hopes that he enjoys spending time with him— but— an inkling of doubt forms. We are looking at an isolated incident, but history shows a pattern of Cecil forgetting, and sometimes its not his fault, and things are out of his control, but it still happens. We will see all of Cecil’s rightful confusion and heart break — but what of Estebans? This is a story told through Cecil, after all.

Because Night Vale is a reactionary story. Most of the narrative is how people respond to and process things — since it is framed as a news show. Much like real life, there might be reasoning behind your actions, but there are still consequences, and they will effect others. Cecil isn’t exempt from that! No character or person is. And it really comes down to the point of, no matter the reason, the events that occur effect people in different ways, and no one can control that.

Me, realizing he’s talking to himself: