Queen of Air & Darkness Q&A: Kitty
onomatopoeiasuga said: Throughout LM and LOS, we’ve seen Ty caring so much about Kit. He slept by his door every single day when Kit first arrived in the Institute, he tried to include him in his and Livvy’s activities, tried to make him feel safe and welcomed and just helped him adjust to his new life. But in QOAAd Ty seemed so distant and negligent, it’s almost like he didn’t care at all about Kit and he was so unfazed by the fact that Kit left. Was it an aftermath of losing Livvy or maybe he just never cared all?
Well, I said I’d answer the opposite of this question here, so let’s go!
Ty isn’t distant or negligent in Queen. He’s fractured by an immense grief. Losing a sibling is terrible; losing a twin is a unique kind of hell that many people don’t survive. There’s a specific term for someone who’s twin has died: Twinless twin, and there are support groups and special therapies to deal with the profound loss.
Profound grief affects people differently. In Ty’s case he focuses entirely on the idea that he can save Livvy and bring her back — that he hasn’t lost her at all. Sometimes that belief frays at the edges (causing him, for instance, to tear up his room) but mostly he hangs onto that as a survival mechanism. That simply doesn’t leave him a lot of emotional capital to spend on Kit. Again, that’s not negligence and it’s not lack of caring. Ty is in incredible pain. That he wants Kit around so much while he goes through trying to get Livvy “back” indicates how much he does care for Kit; he’s leaning on him because he no longer has the emotional strength to be someone Kit can lean on, but he’s also leaning on him because he trusts him. The worst thing that has ever happened to Ty in his life has just happened to him. It’s not at all strange he can’t think about how he should be there for other people. He can barely be there for himself.
Nor is he unfazed by Kit leaving. He asks repeatedly if he can see Kit.
“Where’s Kit, really?” Ty said… “I keep asking, but no one will tell me.”
Magnus looked up, his cat’s eyes hooded. “Kit’s all right. He’s with Tessa and Jem. He’s going to be living with them.”
Ty begs to be allowed to say good-bye to Kit.
“I know,” Ty said. “I know, but—can I say good-bye to him?”
“He’s already gone,” Magnus said. “He didn’t want to say good-bye to you.”
It’s made very clear to Ty, by Magnus and others, that Kit doesn’t want to see him. So keeping on pushing would only be disrespectful of what has been stated to him to be Kit’s wishes; it wouldn’t be a sign he cares about Kit, but rather the opposite. The smallness of Ty’s request — that he be allowed to say good-bye to Kit — and the fact that it gets turned down, is one of the saddest outcomes of the whole mess, to me, though again, it is no one’s fault.
It’s totally normally when something happens between two people in a book that’s sad — like two people breaking apart when you hoped they’d get together — there’s a desire to blame one of them. But no one is at fault in this situation. These are two people who are not in the same emotional place at a crucial time: that doesn’t mean they never will be, or that either of them did anything wrong.
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