✩•*˚ terance

I’m going to use this ask to answer answer a bunch of gender-Blue asks all at once, so I’m sorry. It’s going to be really long.

Let’s clear one thing up from the start: whoever said that Blue’s feminism isn’t real feminism is correct.

She’s saying the words, but she’s as feminist as Gansey is egalitarian. They want to be better than they are, but every single character in the Raven Cycle is a fool or a damn fool. It’s sort of the point.

Second: We are only halfway through their character arcs.

Third: A “strong female character” doesn’t mean a character who is always a perfect role model of feminism and female agency. Strong characters of either gender are imperfect, complicated, changing. Unfortunately, readers often give male characters greater leeway in this department. Adam and Blue are frequently mirrored, but Adam’s terrible behavior is often interpreted as part of his character arc and Blue’s as her being a bad character. Readers often regard Ronan’s jealousy as endearing — aw, look at him being protective! But the reaction to Blue’s jealousy is very different — “I’m sick of seeing girls claw each other’s eyes out!”

The upshot is: both forms of jealousy are because the characters are fools and damn fools. Neither is more acceptable.

Fourth: I wrote before that my characters are not me, but they are the questions I have in my head. I am allowed to use my writing to process my own cultural background, my religion, and my own teen battles with OCD and suicide and gender identity. Other readers might have other entirely useful and interesting lenses they would have chosen for the Raven Cycle, but my own lenses are valid and permitted. To tell me otherwise is hypocritical.

Fourth, part two: I went to college when I was 16, and immediately joined a bagpipe band which became my life (you may laugh gently now). I acquired about fifteen male friends and one female friend. Learning how to relate to other humans and my own gender while living in a man’s world was a formative part of my life, and that’s the story I’m telling with Blue —It won’t be the only story I tell about girls, but it is the one I’m telling with her. My current blood-bonds with my female friends are echoed in the older, more evolved women at 300 Fox Way, who get a closer look in book 3.

Fifth: while on the topic of friends, I have a few asks in my inbox about Blue having no female friends before the Raven Boys came along. That is correct. She had no friends. None. Neither did Adam. Neither did Ronan. Gansey is the only one who had meaningful relationships before the others — coincidence?

“Gansey could’ve had any and all of the friends that he wanted. Instead he had chosen the three of them, three guys who should’ve, for three different reasons, been friendless.”

Fools and damn fools.

Fifth, part two: I also have an ask about Blue’s story only beginning when she met a man, Gansey. However, Adam and Ronan’s stories in the Raven Cycle also only began when they met Gansey. And Gansey, who has been wandering the world having adventures for seven years, doesn’t get his story until he meets Blue. The Raven Cycle doesn’t begin because a girl met a boy. The Raven Cycle is because these teens found each other and shit began to get real because of it.

Sixth: In book three, I do look closer at Blue. But none of the other books will have the narrow-eyed gaze on a single character as The Dream Thieves did.

Seventh: Folks can feel free to disagree with everything I’ve just said, and it won’t hurt my feelings. Discussion and analyzing our own biases is how we change the world. It’s also sort of what the Raven Cycle is about.

but when adam talks to blue for the first time (described from blue’s pov), they both have their bikes; adam’s is one of several details that endear him to blue, along with his frayed sweater, quiet demeanor, and accent- all of which let blue know that adam doesn’t fit her assumption that all aglionby boys are affluent and arrogant. she notices that adam’s bike is “dolefully squeaking,” which i’m taking to be an oblique reference to a squeaky wheel, or something/someone neglected/in need of care. and when ronan (wakefully) sees adam for the first time (in a flashback in cdth), adam and his bike are going uphill while gansey and ronan ride in the camaro. he refers to adam simply as “the boy with the bicycle." adam, inclusive of the bike, is immediately attractive to ronan, which is a stark contrast to adam’s perception of his bike (and, thus, himself). adam is ashamed of himself, but blue relates to him, and both she and ronan see him as desirable (with the bicycle present!).

in trb chapter 20, adam is trying to get his bike to stand up in the monmouth parking lot, but the kickstand is broken (emblematic of the familial love and support that he lacks/his abusive parents have destabilized him). he then tries to remove the kickstand without breaking it (adam is trying to extricate himself from henrietta without hurting himself or others in the process/ he’s living tensely and precariously. in tdt, he becomes more likely to snap under stress. ronan recognizes adam’s fragility, of being about to break; adam’s spirit breaking is one of gansey’s worst fears). and even if adam could remove the kickstand, a bike without a kickstand (a boy without a family or friends) cannot balance unless it’s in motion (a miracle of moving parts, maybe)- but perpetual motion is impossible, so adam is destined to crash without external support. in this scene, he could lean the bike against monmouth, but he’s not yet ready to accept help or gifts. a bike can only seat an army of one, unlike gansey and ronan’s cars. with the bike, symbolically, there's no risk of codependency or humiliation, but there’s also inevitable isolation and pathological independence. (thank you alli @whoreshoecrab for helping me organize my thoughts re: the kickstand!)

in the same chapter, adam muses that ronan doesn’t need physics/isn’t held back by the mortal, mundane, material restrictions adam has to work around. adam's not serious (and doesn’t know that ronan actually does defy physics when dreaming), but if ronan can waste his time idly and metaphorically use his privilege to launch his bmw through the sky to the moon, adam must drudgingly bike along the ground; he must manage his time diligently and strategically; he must deal with the physical failures of his bike and the kickstand with human amounts of force. this sets up adam’s core frustration with ronan and ronan’s apparent freedom, but this envy gets deconstructed as he spends more time alone with ronan, particularly in bllb.

literally our introduction to his friendship with ronan is that they’re both covered in scabs because they were dragging each other behind a moving car on one of these things

instead of trying to break up ronan & declan’s fight, he finds a bouncy ball with spongebob printed on it and hangs out in an alley playing with it

goes full on Notice Me Senpai the moment a hot teacher walks in. put your hand down, parrish

he is taking a SCIENTIFIC METHOD EXTRACURRICULAR. who does this. who

the transformer toy??? oh my god??

stares blankly at helen gansey when she asks if he wants to go into whole foods

that time he got stressed out and the narrative was saying “adam melted into the seat” and “adam slithered down even farther into the seat” son please

that time he absolutely lost his shit and started giggling and letting out helpless wails of laughter because of malory’s pigeon show

sees gansey looking at the aglionby dean and mouths “yee-haw” SHUT UP

when gansey decided he was going to wingman adam and adam covered his entire face and was So Embarrassed

his general attitude of “ronan lynch is an ASSHOLE who is HANDSOME and BEAUTIFUL and SUCH A DICK” that started literally with his first paragraph of narration

rmr when the kids brought gwenllian back to fox way and adam/ronan hid in the hallway like babyass cowards and then desperately scrambled out of the house at the first opportunity?

when ronan confessed that he’d dreamt cabeswater into being and adam is internally doing this 

“adam wanted desperately and masochistically for tad to ask him where he’d summered”

that time he slept for twenty-four hours and then woke up and drank an entire jug of pomegranate juice before leaving

that other time he slept all night and then woke up and ate two hamburger buns and drank all of ronan’s milk straight out of the jug

his helpless laughter when noah is like “u do have nice legs tho” and blue play-slaps both of them

flirting with his crush by using his psychic connection to a forest to make shitty EDM music play out in the open

smiling cheerily when his crush calls him an asshole

when ronan comes to the garage to flirt with him very badly and adam is like “hmph! some of us have homework!”

in trk when maggie is describing how aurora talks to the kids about what interests them and for adam she asks him scientific and logical questions and he tries to get her to answer them too LIKE

the picture of an honest to god male model in his glove compartment

at fox way when he lays out all the tarot cards and spends ages studying each of them…. he is so scientific about everything he does my son

“other classmates complained about the work. work! work was the island adam swam to in a stormy sea.”

“shuffled his ambitiously laden messenger bag onto his other shoulder” what a nerdy phrase

ronan also calls his science guy and i love it

nikolai was only king for 3 years which is not a lot when u think abt it, but one of the first things he did was abolish the conscription for grisha. the little palace remains a safe haven for grisha, but no grisha is forced to serve a country that's abused them for centuries, they're not immediately thrown head first into military propaganda when they're barely 10 years old! he gave them this choice even tho the second army's numbers were already dwindling

not to mention lazlayzon?? like cmon! nikolai created the nolniki bcuz he knew grisha and otkazats'ya could accomplish more when working together, which is smth even alina and zoya hadn't truly considered bcuz it seemed so impossible (pun totally intended)

the darkling used fear as a manipulation tactic to make the grisha believe they had no other choices. they HAD to become soldiers. they HAD to serve him. no otkazats'ya would EVER treat them fairly. he told them there was no other way to protect themselves when that wasn't even remotely true - he just needed them reliant on him.