Fangirl-ing across the web

Why I can’t help but be worried about S2 and Shane’s character, and how I hope the series can continue to do him justice - an overly parasocial, neurodivergent perspective.

So I’ve seen a lot of posts about how Shane in TLG is villainised by some fans, when his situation and reactions would be just as understandable (flawed! but human) as Ilya’s. And I strongly agree - but the problem is that the book itself doesn’t adequately put that across. I wrote an angry post about this when I was in my feels at the end of this very extensive and interesting Reddit thread, but wanted to set it all out in a more considered way here.

TLG is heavily weighted towards Ilya’s POV, and there is a great deal to sympathise with there. He’s left behind the country he grew up in and the team that drafted him (and the latter for one that’s not as strong), he doesn’t have the same in-built support network as Shane has, and he has an undeniably tragic history of family trauma and depression. Plus, innately, he is a naturally bold, charming, and gregarious person who - once the Russia threat is eliminated - craves being out, and feels stifled in the shadows. All of that really makes you feel for him, and it’s absolutely right that it should. 

But this is a two-person romance, where the characters love each other and we’re meant to love both of them. And this is where I feel Rachel Reid’s writing of TLG does the Shane she created in HR a disservice, because there’s a lot to sympathise with him about, too, and the book doesn’t make the most of that.

From the outset, we’ve known Shane as a nervy perfectionist who maybe only truly feels instinctively in control and comfortable when he’s on the ice. He’s intense, serious - someone who hates being caught out, who has to think through everything he says, who wears his heart on his sleeve despite his best efforts not to. And the thing is that this is not a flaw - we’ve been shown it’s precisely that earnestness and honesty that so charms Ilya. Where Ilya has had to learn to have layers of consciously, carefully constructed defences, Shane’s self-protection techniques are much more instinctive and transparent, a reflex reaction to how close to the surface his emotions and nerves are.

So HR is a classic opposites-attract romance where you can see just how good their differences are for each other. How Ilya could so easily bury himself forever in layers of detachment and wit and bravado, without Shane bulldozing through that straight to his heart with his sweetness and determination. And how Shane could, too, bury himself in people-pleasing and perfectionism and workaholism, without Ilya’s boldness and easiness and warmth pulling him out of that, making him more comfortable to be himself too. They were created as loving each other, specifically, for a reason.

Rachel Reid has said she accidentally wrote Shane as autistic, but that by the time of TLG, she’d realised he was and consciously wrote him as such then. What’s unsettling to me is how his character seems to be given much less grace after that realisation than he was before. Shane is an autistic, biracial, closeted gay man in one of the whitest and most conservative sports in North America. He would have been bombarded with microaggressions of every kind his entire life, and he is instinctively wired to be careful about how he deals with pressure from the outside world, as we see from how he answers interview questions. If he is anxious about coming out, if he finds it hard to deviate from the plan he carefully prepared together with Ilya, it fits exactly with who he is - with the person Ilya loves. 

That doesn’t mean Ilya can’t change his mind about the timeframe, doesn’t invalidate his own feelings of frustration and how they impact his own mental state. It doesn’t and shouldn’t mean they can’t argue. But if this is a two-person romance story about how hard it is to keep a relationship strong, then the essential nature of BOTH of those characters is important and valid in every dispute. This is where the way TLG is written lets it down compared to HR, because the framing is so often through one character’s eyes and one character’s needs. We so often read Ilya’s intense, deep yearning to be out and to be free and to be loved out loud, as in the Fabian club scene and the infamous Boxing Day fight. We’re not shown the counterpart enough: the instinctive terror that would be crowding Shane’s mind at the thought of losing so much control, at changing the carefully-thought-out plan with no notice, knowing the person that the author had already established he was.

Then there’s Rachel Reid’s author notes written for TLG, which were disappointing to read, and explain a lot of the above IMO. I know these are only rough building blocks, but think they therefore show the book’s uneven foundation, in that Ilya is almost entirely defined by things that he is (cool, perceptive, intelligent, dealing with trauma) and Shane by things that he is not (except obsessed with hockey). For one thing, categorising an autistic person as less intelligent because he finds it hard to read people sits very uncomfortably with me. Categorising a neurodivergent, biracial, closeted gay man in a deeply conservative field as having no trauma at all also sits so badly when you consider the layers of bullshit he must have heard and internalised and guarded against his whole life, how much harder he must have had to work to be treated with the respect he deserves.

A massive element of all this is, of course, the complete absence of attention her writing gave to his being Asian even in HR: every character in the GCU has to navigate their own way around the ever-present spectre of homophobia, but we never hear anything about how the one POC player protagonist must also have had to deal with racism and role model/model minority pressure. Having your white character believe they’re aware of the “dark side” of hockey while your POC character is blissfully unaware is a hell of a choice, especially when the writing does so little to contradict it (other than one solitary suggestion when he’s threatened by Crowell).

All of this is to say that in TLG, I found Shane’s worries to be downplayed beside Ilya’s. His anxiety is not given the same interiority and understanding as Ilya’s depression. His need for privacy and planning and a comfort zone is framed too often from the outside as fussing, as stalling, as mere insensitivity. The internal and external demons he has to be facing are almost always off the page. Ilya is an unreliable narrator, but too often in TLG he’s the only one given the depth and weight that’s deserved, and that overbalances the narrative.

There are so many little touches that land too often on one side - for example, there are beautiful moments between Ilya and other characters, between him and the Hollanders as regards their own relationship. Yet when Shane interacts with his parents it’s usually him feeling guilty or being chided over Ilya (or food - there’s also that unfortunate accidental eating disorder written for laughs and not as its own response to fear, trauma even). Ilya’s character and other relationships have been built up lovingly over the whole GC series by TLG, but as far as Shane’s own world goes, we don’t even see his coming-out to his team, and famously, the fallout in Montreal/the hockey world AND his eating disorder are wrapped up in like one page near the end of the book, which is wild tbh. In an unnecessarily cruel little detail, we’re even told Shane is the only one not good at coaching kids - despite hockey camp having been his idea, despite being the captain of his team, despite being a beloved uncle to the Pike kids. It feels like outside of his eventual big declarations of love for Ilya, we’re shown almost no innate positives or inner struggles for Shane in his own right in this book, just the external circumstances of his mostly-lucky life. And this is a relationship and a romance that famously arose amid a rivalry between equals.

Then there’s the plot. Shane begins the book by having everything (in Ilya’s and too often the narrative’s view), and ends it by having almost all of his worst fears validated (bar losing Ilya and bar losing hockey entirely): outed in the worst and most public way, humiliated, ostracised, threatened, his integrity and reputation besmirched, his beloved team lost, his captaincy and first line position gone. Taken together with the imbalance in POVs, it does almost feel like his eventual demotion (played for laughs in the book’s last scene) is a punishment for perceived selfishness. Rachel Reid has said Shane has the hero’s arc, and I try to give that statement the benefit of the doubt in that he does have to make hard choices, as do we all, to prioritise important things like love and being your true self (I’d argue your career and life’s passion is also very important). I of course completely agree that a happy ending for Shane as much as for Ilya was always going to be to be able to come out and to be who they are and love each other publicly. But so often the way TLG was written felt to me like the Shane we know and love as anxious and private was being berated for how difficult the process of getting there was for him: as if this was a battle against his own complacency, instead of a very hard negotiation with his own innate nature (let alone the coldness and prejudice we presume, but are barely shown, he’s already facing from his own team). This shouldn’t be framed as a redemption arc of insensitivity or cowardice overcome. It is a crucible where he was always going to be badly hurt in a way that targeted his most vulnerable points, even if it is ultimately worth what’s gained.

Now for a personal moment where I unveil the full extent of my parasocialness and projection - I found this series and fell completely in love with it at a time when I, as an adult woman, have been finding out about my own neurodivergence. A GP, a psychiatrist and a psychologist all finally flagged me for probable autism after an entire adult life battling depression, and an extremely low patch last year - please believe, I sympathise with BOTH Ilya and Shane. 

Similarly to Shane out of the two, though, I’ve had a lucky personal background without big-T trauma (for which I am immensely, hugely grateful). However, that hasn’t stopped me feeling like I was fundamentally flawed, miserable, and increasingly exhausted through the years, decades even. There’s been burnout, self-destructive habits and thoughts and occasionally actions, self-isolation, panic attacks over things other people might find easy. There’s been immense guilt and self-loathing over how fucking hard I can find life, despite having had all the luck in the world compared to so many. In these recent months I have been trying hard to reframe things wrt both my neurodivergence and the depression that’s been exacerbated as a result - trying to give myself that kindness, that I am built a certain way, that the pain hasn’t always been my fault, and that I hopefully am who I am in positive ways as well. 

Which is to say that when I watched HR and fell so completely in love with Shane and Ilya’s love story, one of the many reasons why was this beautiful portrayal of a neurodivergent person who is successful and confident in his field, and is loved fiercely and who loves fiercely BECAUSE of and INCLUDING the way he is, not despite of it. I am so very not a pro sportsperson or anything like Shane in so so many ways, lolol, but like many others I nonetheless connected on an instinctive level with so many things about how he processes life. These include but are not limited to: the cautious way he carries himself; the flicker in his eyes when he’s assessing a social situation or overthinking a text; his constant need to clarify things verbally; his instinctively direct and literal answers to questions; the deep relief and safety that is his special interest; how he only truly unmasks with the people he’s closest to (above all, Ilya); how he will set his mind to understanding and addressing a problem when it’s about something or someone he cares about.

That was my reaction to tv!Shane first (bless you forever, Hudson Williams), but I think in S1, both characters were built up from the groundwork laid by Rachel in the first book, with much more added depth and love. If there’s already a big disconnect between the books’ treatment of Shane in HR and TLG, then it would be that much more stark and sad in the tv version if this beautifully, subtly nuanced character were to be shortchanged in the understanding and exploration his feelings and journey are given, when everything about his nature has been so clear on the screen.

I didn’t know what they were called for much of my life, but I’ve always had hyperfixations - especially on movies, books, or tv series. Fiction has been my comfort zone and my conduit for relating to the world for as long as I can remember. And so this is why I’ve written over 1,500 words and counting on this, lol - and why I’ve undoubtedly taken all this far too personally. But also part of that understanding I’ve been trying to show myself for getting so deep into this is that actually, from what I’ve seen online, there’s so very many of us who’ve connected to this show for so many different reasons. Its portrayal of love, of queer joy, of unabashed intimacy, of emotional connection between equals and partners - and within that, its neurodivergent representation (which author, showrunner and actor have all agreed was intentional). Simply, it meant something to see Shane love and be loved just as he is, in his neurodivergence and also in his own particularities as a character. It is unfortunately, a little too parasocially important to me that that continues in S2.

So then - season two. Jacob Tierney did a brilliant job on S1 (along with, of course, the amazing Connor Storrie and Hudson Williams). He captured the fun, sweet, sparky nature of the first Hollanov book’s romance and layered into it so more emotion and depth, from exploring Ilya’s background (the abuse from his father and brother, the warmth and safe space that is his friendship with Svetlana) - to the very needed engagement with Shane’s ethnicity (eg. being hit with the Tiger Woods/Serena Williams comparison, the pressure of being a visible role model for the kids who’ll look up to him). You are emotionally eviscerated at least once an episode and usually more - but what an incredible, soul-warming journey and payoff. 

This is what I wish for season two, and what I hope we all wish for (in addition ofc to the humour and the heat). For one thing, to see onscreen what it’s like for a confident, successful, charming, larger-than-life person to also be clinically depressed - something we so often are not shown in media. Sorry to be personal again, but I have a demanding and public-facing job, and have had bad experiences with counsellors being unable to tally that with being depressed, like one thing must cancel out the other. I have no doubt Connor will be heartbreaking in how he threads that needle, and that that representation, too, will be meaningful and important to so many people. But I also want to see his counterpart via the material given to Hudson: how someone also at the top of his game can still be fighting a daily battle with his anxiety over revealing his true self to the whole, huge, often hostile world - not out of shame or cowardice, but simply because that’s how he’s wired, that’s the nature of his soft underbelly.

I would like to see that coming-out scene with the Metros as well as its aftermath throughout the series - how their subsequent behaviour could affect the locker room and their team dynamic, could reinforce all his worries about the whole truth coming out, could contribute to his own anxiety spiral alongside Ilya’s depression. I would like that continued awareness of how the specific kinds of pressure Shane’s faced his whole life have shaped him, just as Ilya’s own have shaped him. I would like to see how Ilya’s (also understandable!) reticence to open up about his depression disconcerts Shane - who we know does not deal well with ambiguity and stonewalling, as in Sochi and Vegas. I would like to see Shane’s post-plane clarity framed not as catching up to a more emotionally-intelligent partner, but in its own right as the brave confronting of his own oldest fears, in the face of the very worst of all fears.

I would like Shane’s half of the story and the fear and the pain to be given the same weight in a way I don’t feel the book did justice to, to be honest. And if the series is going to have to follow every plot beat, as I imagine it will, then I would like to see the outing and especially trip-gate also be properly devastating for everyone - especially for Shane, but also for Ilya and for the viewer - and not rushed through before we get to our next bittersweet HFN. 

In S1, some of the early plot beats - especially Vegas - could in lesser hands have made Ilya a temporary villain: the unsympathetic, more emotionally withholding dom to Shane’s soft, naive sub. But instead, in Jacob and Connor’s depiction, you feel every bit of his frustration and guardedness and need for control and distance given just how unfair and cruel his home life is. You fully understand the pain on both sides of that penthouse door. You still root for them to be together, and you wouldn’t if you only liked or sympathised with one! I would like that same even-handedness and exploration of and sympathy for Shane in S2. 

I wonder if there is serious talk in the S2 writers’ room (as I understand JT isn’t doing it all himself this time?) right now about tackling the imbalances and omissions and questionable decisions and framing in TLG. Hopefully genuine and heartfelt concerns about the material itself and how that will translate to their deeper, kinder, far more emotionally-nuanced series, but I’ll even take a little self-interested worry over the optics too if it helps towards the final outcome.

Because RR may have consistently neglected to tackle race in her books, but HR S1 kept it within focus in a subtle but recurring through line, and from my (limited and possibly skewed?) impression of the fandom, it also seems the larger TV audience is more attuned to this than the OG purely book loyalist base. That it’s more widely understood now that outside his own completely valid drive to be the best, there’s also the external and internalised pressure Shane feels to be perfect, to be unassailable, because they will always, always scrutinise and criticise you the most.

I just mean when your happy ending immediately follows your generationally-talented POC protagonist’s hockey-wide humiliation and then removal to a secondary position below his white partner but it’s totally OK because he’s learned (and then been forcibly taught in case he didn’t get the message) to prioritise True Love over his career … presumably there’s someone there going 😬 guys 😬 idk 😬 plot might be canon but can we at least shitcan the pay cut / captain jokes 😬

(I’m sorry if I’m being overly salty and cynical, because (a) based on S1 I do believe the show’s creative team genuinely cares and (b) I know it’s a romance and I do obviously want Hollanov to be happy together eventually in their aforementioned true love, and being on the same team allows them to do that! just really feel like those fuckass screenshots and recent interview broke something in me trust-wise with the book and how it gets there and deals with Shane and the multiple parts of his identity, and am still trying to work through it back to a place of greater optimism and joy about the series, or least greater idgafery.)

Separate but related: I’d also really like to unpick the fairness/punishment angle of it all again, because again it’s structured in such a simplistic, even childish way.

Because the truth is that it IS so unfair that Ilya had to give up the team who drafted him first, where he practically grew up, where he was a hero to his teammates and fans, where he made his name and brought home his first cup and restored the team’s legacy. And that he had to take his own generational talent to a team which was objectively much worse, and he couldn’t even explain why to anyone, either personally or professionally! And again even if it all works out in the end, it would obviously be so difficult, for so long, because even if Ilya is not as laser-focused on hockey as Shane is, he’s still rightfully proud of himself and his career and he’s still worked so fucking hard at it, even when all he got was contempt and greed from his own family instead of praise. And he’s dealing with trauma and depression throughout all of it. It is extremely bloody unfair!

But none of that is Shane’s fault - it’s Ilya’s family, it’s Russia, it’s geography, it’s the institutional homophobia this series was allegedly conceived as criticising (yet seemingly disappears at will when it’s time to call fears over coming out “selfish”). Shane should logically be able to extrapolate the cosmic injustice and practical imbalance of the situation (even without Ilya confirming the emotional impact it’s had) and be understanding and sympathetic about that as a baseline, and it’s definitely a failing whenever he doesn’t and isn’t. But he can’t be called selfish for setting the plan up in the first place. When they both agreed? When it was literally the only way they could conceive of being together by the end of HR?

(Part of me wonders if - apart from the favouritism - she was just mad at herself for inadvertently having written Ilya into a box, and took it out on Shane.)

So the whole tit-for-tat tone just rubs me wrong and hints, I think, at such a moralistic and punitive tone to the whole thing. (Underlined by the “going into TLG my main notes were all the ways Shane had been selfish” thing, because again, just: what a bizarre way to conceptualise your two-person romance tbh. There’s a reason “Pride & Prejudice” assigns a flaw to each!)

Canonically, Ilya chose this because it was the best option in an imperfect and unfair world, in order to protect himself and to have a relationship at all. RR structured a story where he was going to have to be the one to make the choice/sacrifice, and then rewards him for it. He’s given the heartwarming arc of building a team and a support network and shoring up his professional reputation before the bomb hits, and then gets extra insulation from in-world criticism by the Centaurs’ win.

Because Shane was the “lucky” one who did not have to give up his home and team, he has to have his career and reputation blown up for him far more comprehensively, as what appears atp to have been intended as a moral lesson. And he can’t complain, because it’s his due after having been lucky till then - even if that stability also helped Ilya have safety and a future in the first place. He can’t complain because Ilya did it first, even if their circumstances were wildly different. He can’t complain because it’s his “turn”. Even if the unfairness wasn’t his fault, even if (as we know, but the book repeatedly fails to show) his world is unfair too in so many ways.