Talk:Keefe and Sophie/@comment-44100169-20191208195213/@comment-216.139.2.247-20191208202706

Don't worry, this isn't offensive at all. ^-^ Yeah, it's really really interesting. If it wasn't a kids' book I'd be all for Shannon making Keefe a bit more like this.

But I do have a couple things I disagree with- for one, Keefe's emotional scars aren't magically healed by Sophie caring for him. She keeps trying to fix them, but they're obviously still there, and they're not going away easy. And Keefe is afraid of being hurt by being close to others. I understand how that can be hard to see, but let me explain.

Keefe never truly embraces other people, or shows his full self to anyone, because he's afraid of being hurt- the Vackers are the best example of this. In all the years he'd known Fitz, Biana, Alden, and Della, he never, ever showed them his darker, more flawed side. He never really showed them what his life is like, because he was afraid it would ruin everything, or they'd realize he wasn't worth the baggage, or they would see him differently and not be an escape from his life anymore. I mean, obviously, over the years, the Vackers have seen a little bit of what his life is like, but he made a habit of shrugging it off and acting like it didn't bother him so that it couldn't hurt him.

With Sophie, circumstance sort of forced him to be more open with her, but there are a lot of times you can see he fights it. The first time Sophie went to Candleshade, Keefe first was extremely hesitant to bring her there, saying "I don't bring friends home..." but he convinced himself he was being stupid and he could handle her seeing it for a few minutes, and went anyway to avoid having Sophie get in trouble with Grady and Edaline. He wasn't exactly itching to show her his dark side, or open up to her completely. You see it again when she's looking at his memories of the battle of Everest- when the new flood of memories starts, Keefe struggles to fight it back so she won't see it, and when it's over he says "I never wanted you to see that." He never had any intention of opening up to Sophie. It kind of just... happened.

And once it had, and she didn't hurt him, he allowed himself to tentatively relax. You can still see moments when she presses a little too hard and he tenses up, walls coming back around him, but they're all very subtle moments that you have to be looking for to see. And if you'll notice, Keefe still studiously avoids telling her anything new about his emotions, memories, or personal life unless the situation calls for it, and he needs to tell her something to avoid some catastrophe- there are occasions when he slips up and says something about his relationship to his parents, or his life in Candleshade, and he instantly regrets it when he sees Sophie's sympathy. He doesn't want to let himself believe that she cares so utterly and completely because he doesn't want to get hurt- the last time he overestimated someone's love for him, they turned out to be a psychopath (Lady Gisela).

It's all really subtle, so you have to look for it. Part of the reason why Sokeefers are Sokeefers is because you can watch their relationships develop, and Keefe slowly letting his guard down bit by bit and allowing himself to care for Sophie. He puts up this facade of carefreeness that can easily make some readers think that he's an open book, but honestly, he's not. Not even to Sophie, and definitely not to anyone else.

The other thing that I'd have to argue with a little bit is that the way you put it made it sound like you were saying that Keefe's behavior is very unrealistic. Most of the time, people don't cope the way Keefe does, you're right. But I've actually heard real-life accounts of people dealing with their emotional baggage almost exactly how Keefe does. The quote said he had "no personal emotional baggage," and I'd have to say that's far from true. He just has a unique way of covering it that makes it feel that way- and that's what he was aiming for.

I'm a huge character analyst, and I love searching for subtext, hidden meanings, motives, and emotions behind characters' words and actions. In almost everything Keefe says, I can find at least a hint of his past leaking through, with emotional trauma and depression hidden in almost everything he says. After all, no one can hide their feelings perfectly. He does feel worthless, depressed, often moody, and tempted to push people away. He just pretends to be a completely different person, and tries to convince himself that he doesn't have those feelings and urges. Not healthy at all, but over the course of the books, he veeeery slowly begins to see that if Sophie can accept both sides of him, maybe he can too. But he hasn't gotten his hopes up all the way- why do you think he still hides his problems behind jokes and quips? He's not magically cured. I doubt he ever will be completely cured.

As for making him less emotionally strained so he can 'cuddle with the protagonist' ... XD I'm just gonna go full nerd here and say that Keefe can be both emotionall strained, and cuddle with the protagonist- it has to do with hormones. I'm not going to get into it completely here, but basically speaking, depression, stress, and lack of affection from others causes an intense desire for oxytocin- the happy/cuddle/relaxation hormone. It's scientifically and psychologically acceptable for Keefe to accept hugs and affection from Sophie, and it doesn't mean that he's magically cured (though in the moment it might seem like he is- oxytocin has a strong effect, and can make people seem completely happy and content. It's only temporary, but people have been known to mistaken the momentary surge of positive emotion for a long-lasting cure, when it's not.) Okay, done geeking out. dOn'ThUrTmEh.

The last thing I wanted to touch on- you said that when Sophie went to Fitz, Keefe would realistically just crack... for one, that would be devastating. XD But on a more logical level, that's not entirely true. For one... and this is really sad, but... Keefe has been preparing himself for it. He expected Sophie to leave him from the moment she came learned about the 'real him'. It's exactly the kind of hurt he was expecting, and, as I said earlier, he hasn't completely opened up to Sophie, so he truly was expecting to get hurt. Now, if it was just that, he might have cracked anyway, but there's one more factor here- Empathy. Before Sophie got together with Fitz, Keefe and read her heart emotions when she enhanced him. We've established at this point that he wouldn't have smiled if he didn't realize that she really did love him, and I don't feel like getting into a head vs. heart debate, so we're just going with that. The knowledge that Sophie truly accepts him and cares for him probably played a huge part in helping him cope with her relationship to Fitz. But even when it did, you can see that their relationship affected him. A lot. Despite his attempts to hide it, he was hurting like crazy. The knowledge that Sophie actually cared for him in a way that no one else ever had was just enough to stop him from breaking, but that doesn't mean he wasn't really affected by it.

So yeah, that's what I wanted to say. owo Still, the points you made were really interesting!

~ JAKS