Or, Seven Toy Soldiers and a Big Boy Hat pt 2.
- TBHM taking away (taking back) his bowler hat from Luke hammers home how very real his nightmares are, and subsequently how empty his parents’ gestures of protection are. His fears come to take away the symbol of his ‘big boy’ power over his nightmares.
- Despite it all, even in adulthood, Luke measures out those seven steps over and over - Mom, Dad, Steve, Shirl, Theo, You, Me. But ofc it doesn’t truly work, because his trust was never really reciprocated. A talisman of protection that really symbolises what he’s running from in the first place - his mother.
- Drugs become Luke’s escape. Addiction is a duplicity all its own. They are safety and stability. They are nightmare hallucinations and a loss of control. Luke is stuck in a vicious cycle of reliving the ghosts of his past.
- Also what step of the recovery programme does Luke always falter on? If it’s the seventh step is2g.
- The root of Luke’s fears is a heart-wrenching dissonance between his mother’s love and protection, and his fear and mistrust of her for those very same emotions (she tried to kill him, to protect him). Displaced onto the image of a bowler-hat man. An empty talisman. Like the seven toy soldiers. Like headlights in the dark. Every symbol of love and protection falls apart.
- Even here, as the headlights of his mother’s eyes come to maybe chase the nightmare away, it is instead Steve coming to tell him his sister is dead. Everything falls apart.
I have many feelings about Luke Crain.