fairandfatalasfair | Entries tagged with dead boy detectives

A short list of things I love about Crystal Palace:

- Genuinely and from the bottom of my heart, I love what a mess this girl is. She's not any more of a mess than anyone else in this show, but I'm so delighted by how much she's *allowed* to be a mess, how her selfishness and her past self's cruelty are treated as things she can grow from, while her snark and cynicism are treated as traits worth having

- I love the change in Crystal with losing her memories, how just the ability to tell herself that even if they weren't here someone out there loved her, created this incredible shift in her. How she became someone who fights for other people, a voice for the dispossessed, the way she advocates for Becky even when she barely knows the boys.

- I love her resilience in dealing with David, the way that she bears up under his harassment and stalking and the weight that's given to that.

- I love that it's her determination to remember Esther's victims - even those we never met - that ultimately defeats Esther. I love her standing up and demanding justice and getting it.

- Crystal is the character who I was most excited to see in season 2. There's so much room for her to develop from here, so much more to explore in the relationship between her past self and her new one, her old fucked up life and her new fucked up life. There's so much potential in her powers and the legacy of her ancestors that she's hardly begun to unlock

There's a common thread in Charles' impulsive decisions

He possesses Esther in episode one because he dragged himself up from the ground to see that Esther had knocked Edwin across the garden with her cane. So he did whatever the fuck he had to do to make that not happen again.

He grabs the vase in episode two because they're on a deadline to get back to Niko, and he smashes it because the skeleton grabbed Edwin and he had to get its hands off him.

He knocks the Night Nurse into a sea monster in episode four because she put him through his own hell, and then she threatened to do the same to Edwin.

He abandoned his afterlife despite Edwin's protest that that is not how you make decisions, based on however you happen to be feeling in the moment, because he means to spend his afterlife the same way he spent his life: putting himself between other people and the bad shit.

Charles is impulsive, yes, but he's impulsive specifically because he's protecting his people, protecting Edwin, and sometimes that means you have to act fast.

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#Charles *is* impulsive but seeing someone in danger #ESPECIALLY seeing Edwin in danger #before rushing in without hesitation... is a real pattern #Charles is obviously capable of complex planning but in the moment that's not the role he assigns himself #He throws himself into the fray so that Edwin has breathing space to take care of the logistics #Yeah possessing Esther was a bad call in the long term!#but it gave Edwin the chance to get to Crystal and get out

Thinking about Crystal in Ep 3 talking about how Charles is the only one who has her back, and then grudgingly admitting that Edwin had her back as well, and how few people in her life have ever been unequivocally on her side.

Thinking about Jenny moving to London, and keeping in touch because she would, and ending up being the kids' go-to responsible adult very much against her will, because there isn't anyone else, and Jenny is, despite herself, unable to turn her back on a kid in trouble.

Thinking about Crystal getting into some scrape that really needs a living human adult to help her out of, and realising that for the first time in her life she has an adult she can call who will actually help her.

I genuinely love Charles and Crystal. I love how they each give the other something they want - Charles is desperate for a connection to the living world, and Crystal wants someone who has her back unconditionally. And I love how they give each other something they need - Crystal pushes Charles to deal with the things he's been pushing down, and Charles shows Crystal that it's possible to choose kindness even when you're not used to receiving it.

I think they fall together less because of any fundamental compatibility than because they're both lonely and stressed and looking for something the other one can give them. But I also think the care they feel for each other is real. And I think it makes them happy.

I think they can be good for each other, and I think they're inarguably important to each other.

And at the end of the day Crystal is growing up. And Charles is always going to be 16.

A lot has been said about Edwin and Crystal's argument in Episode one, and I endorse a lot of it.

But I suspect there's another factor adding to Edwin's blow up, and it's that Edwin spends most of episode one terrified that he's going to fuck up and Becky is going to die and it will be his fault.

He argued against taking the case because he's the cautious one that looks for ways that things might go wrong, but that was an argument he was never going to win, and they both knew it. Charles raised his eyebrows and asked if Edwin was really going to let a little American girl die, and Edwin folded like a cheap suit.

Only they get there and it's more complicated than they planned for. They can't go in and get Becky because there's a witch involved and she'll see them, and he doesn't have his usual resources, and Charles is distracted, and Crystal is lying and hiding things and becoming unreliable without warning, and Charles is taking her side...

And none of that is Crystal's fault! She's sixteen, and traumatised, and doesn't know him, and genuinely doesn't realise he cares. She's afraid he's going to abandon her the second she becomes inconvenient. Of course she's keeping secrets. She's not fucking around with a child's life for her amusement, she's trying to survive.

But he's not being facetious when he says that David could jeopardise the Becky Aspen case.

He's terrified that because he's off his game and doesn't have all the information and is in a strange town, that he's going to fail to solve the case and this little girl is going to die (like he died; like Charles died) and there will never be justice for her.

A thing I enjoy about Edwin is that he’s an arrogant little shit, but he’s especially an arrogant little shit to people who could break him in half.

Empathy and kind words aren’t his strongest suit, but with people who seem vulnerable or who need his help he makes an effort. People who are throwing their weight around with him, on the other hand, seem to get him at his most supercilious. He responds to the Cat King trapping him in Port Townsend by telling him his punishment is “unacceptable” and loftily instructing him to “kindly remove it” like he’s a misbehaving child playing with magic handcuffs. The Night Nurse tells the Principal that he and Charles are due for an extreme reality adjustment, and he snippily points out that he doesn’t think she’s in charge here.

I don’t know if that tendency to bite back at people who try to talk down to him predates his death (in which case I can’t imagine it did him any favours at school) or whether it’s something he picked up after spending 70 years in hell on a technicality. Certainly knowing that you were unjustly sent to hell and the proper authorities are okay with it because the right paperwork was filled out would be enough to burn out any latent respect for authority in most people.

But I love his refusal to play nice with people who think they’re in charge. Charles may look more like a teenage rebel and Edwin like a teacher’s pet, but appearances can be deceiving. Edwin’s got a mutinous streak a mile wide. They’re better matched than they seem.

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#Charles is a punk kid and Edwin is a relentlessly proper nerd AND ALSO #Charles is a nice boy who calls the washerwoman ''miss'' # and Edwin is a renegade damned soul who talks back to the afterlife while they're still deciding whether or not to send him back to hell #and I love that for them #They contain multitudes

I think Charles grins fondly when Edwin’s being a bitch because he genuinely thinks it’s hilarious and adorable. But I also think he admires the shit out of Edwin’s unwillingness to tone himself down or file off his sharp edges. Charles needs to be liked so much, and he spends so much time setting himself aside and tying himself in knots to be what other people need, and Edwin just doesn’t. He is exactly and entirely his snippy bitchy self and everyone else can take it or leave it. I think there’s something exhilarating in that for Charles - both a sense that by attaching himself to Edwin he can borrow some of that fearlessness about outside judgments, and a thrill of knowing that Edwin can ignore everyone else’s opinion because Charles is always, entirely, inarguably enough for him.

And there are downsides to that dynamic. Charles works really hard to manage the vibe, and the fact that Edwin doesn’t really do that back (isn’t equipped to do it back, because he doesn’t read people and intuit what they need from him the way Charles does) sometimes leaves him feeling like he’s carrying that weight alone. (who else is gonna keep spirits up? you?)

But also there’s a reason Charles is drawn to stubborn difficult people with sharp edges who don’t apologise for who they are, and I don’t think he’d give up Edwin’s bitchiness for anything.

Charles is aces with people.

He can read a room. He knows how to tell when someone’s upset, and he’s pretty good at judging whether he can try to deescalate or whether he just needs to try to avoid setting them off. He’s charming, and friendly, and easygoing, and difficult to offend. He’s good at making himself into whatever people need him to be, making people like him.

And he can gloss over how he got that way, yeah? Ignore that he learned to read a room by growing up in a house where explosions of violence were normal. That he’s difficult to offend because he spent his life being beat down by people for whom what he was would never be good enough. That he needed to be charming because he knew people weren’t going to give the biracial working class kid a fair shake. That he needs to be liked because when you’re not one of the guys they throw you into a frozen lake and throw rocks at you.

He’s good at people! He’s proud of the fact that everyone likes him eventually. And his ability to read a room, and tell what people need from him, and charm everyone he comes across is useful to him. All of this can still be true. The things that you learn from horrible experiences are still yours, and you get to make of them what you will.

But holy shit is there trauma attached

“Edwin can help” says Charles.

Crystal raises an eyebrow at him. He smiles sunnily.

“Edwin would sell me to Satan for one corn chip,” she says.

Edwin, from his spot at the desk, lowers his book enough to give her a longsuffering look. “This feels like one of your obscure internet references,” he says. He still says “internet” like the word doesn’t belong in his mouth.

Crystal gives him a bland smile. “The internet isn’t obscure,” she says. “You just don’t know anything about it because you’re a million years old.”

“One hundred twenty four,” he says, because he’s a pedantic little shit.

Charles is chuckling in the corner, because he has low tastes and thinks Edwin being a pedantic little shit is hilarious.

“At any rate,” says Edwin crisply, “As a fugitive from hell, negotiating with Satan would hardly be in my best interests. Also, as a fugitive from hell, I have no interest in seeing anyone sent there unjustly, much less someone I have grown… attached to.”

She feels her smile warm a little at that, and turns her head so that Edwin won’t see. Love you too, Edwin.

“Finally,” he concludes, “I am dead, with no need to eat, and therefor have no use for corn chips. This accusation does not make sense.”

Crystal chokes at the affronted dignity in his voice, but pulls her expression back under control, only turning back to Edwin when she’s sure she can look disdainful without her lips twitching. Charles dying of laughter in the corner isn’t helping, but she manages.

“It’s a meme,” she says loftily.

Edwin’s longsuffering expression turns pained. “Half the time, I am sure you are making these things up to aggravate me,” he informs her.

She isn’t, but only because the reality aggravates him plenty without any embellishment.

“Is it working?” she asks, and finally lets herself laugh when he picks up his book again and glares daggers at her over the top of it.

I know people have posted about this before but it honestly it striking how much the boys do not default to violence as a way of solving problems. They’re detectives in the classic sense - they’re looking for clues and unravelling mysteries, and most of the time they can handle things with subtlety instead of force. It’s not off the table, but it’s very much an option of last resort.

The first time we meet them they’re dealing with a ghost that is actively trying to kill them, and they’re not fighting, they’re running. While trying to figure out what happened so that they can go back in with a better strategy. Even when the cursed ghost catches up with them, Charles hits it exactly once, to get enough breathing space that they can get back to the office and get the resources they need to break the curse. Their plan with Becky was to slip in and out while Esther was distracted - they only ended up in a fight because hauling Edwin and Becky out of the magical void took longer than expected.

And as much as Charles comments in Ep. 3 about puzzle solving being “Edwin’s way” and hitting things with a cricket bat being his, that absolutely goes for him as well. In the flashbacks where he confronts his friends, he pulls them off and puts himself between them and the kid they’re beating up - he doesn’t continue the fight once the victim is safe. In the Devlin house he’s visible shaken and upset from the first round of the cycle, but it’s not until they’ve witnessed the murder several times and Edwin’s plan to break the loop has failed and he’s confronting the possibility that there may not be another option that he tries to fight Devlin directly. Most of what he does with his cricket bat is pull it out and plant himself between Edwin and whatever he’s decided is a threat.

I suspect that’s part of why Edwin was so rattled by the first encounter with the Night Nurse - not because it was wrong or unjustified, but because it’s not normal for Charles to hit first.

And these are not normal circumstances! Charles has been pushed pretty hard at this point, and has just been assaulted in a way that Edwin probably isn’t fully cognizant of, and was acting urgently to stop the Night Nurse from doing the same thing to Edwin. I think his reaction was absolutely justified, and possibly necessary. And I think Edwin’s response, whether it was intended that way or not, did read as condemnation - at least to Charles who is already beating himself up for not being able to protect the people he loves and doubting whether he’s a safe, trustworthy person.

But I also think it’s notable that the next time he deals with the Night Nurse - after he’s processed some of his feelings of anger and helplessness, after he’s been reassured that he’s still the best person Edwin knows - he takes a different tack. She’s still imminently threatening to split them up and send Edwin to hell, which is probably Charles’ worst nightmare. But this time he turns to negotiation, to appealing to her sense of justice, to looking for a loophole that could let them stay together. He’s back to trying to solve problems by working through them.

And in fairness, the fact that she came back after being eaten by Angie is also a pretty strong indication that trying to fight her wouldn’t have worked. But I do think it says something about Charles’ attitude to the world that despite describing himself as “the brawn” and thinking of himself as the fighter between him and Edwin, his reflex is still to problem solve first, to use force defensively and only when necessary. That yes, he’s angry and justly so, but unlike his father, or the boys who killed him, he doesn’t choose to turn that into an excuse to hurt people. That his use of force is judicious and careful and is always, always about preventing harm.

I do think there’s value in Charles’ ability to let insults and verbal antagonism roll off him - I think it makes him happier than he’d be otherwise, and I think it’s a big part of why he does so well at adopting prickly hostile people who try to drive away potential friends by reflex because they’ve been burned so many times before. I think he likes being the only person allowed to hug Edwin without complaints or the one Crystal can talk to when she’s feeling insecure about her powers disappearing on her or missing her family.

But I also suspect it’s a survival skill he learned by growing up in a home where nothing good was ever said about him and the other place he spent most of his time was a school where yes, he had friends, but their support came with the caveat that they were likely to be casually racist and possibly classist towards him, and if he had too much to say about it he’d be out.

Like I don’t think it’s a bad thing for him most of the time, but I do think it comes from a place that hurts my heart to think about.

When you first meet Edwin’s it’s easy to attribute his general emotional repression to being a boy from the 1910s, but I do think his tendency to deal with distress by repressing the shit out of it and not expressing or acknowledging comes into sudden focus in the context of the dollhouse.

He got dropped into a nightmare that never stopped, and for 70 years his only option to get a chance to think, to rest, to work on his maps and finding a way out, was to find a corner to hide in and keep silent. There was no fighting back, no negotiating, no waiting for it to lose interest or take pity or wander off. He had to be able to exist in this maze littered with the corpses of his past selves and stalked by a thing out of nightmares and not break down or scream or run because that would make it immediately, measurably worse.

And it worked. He got out. Keeping a tight rein on his emotions and trying to understand the problem got him out.

No wonder he responds to stress by trying to shut down emotionally and intellectualise the situation.

All of which to say, the desperate dispassion in his voice as he tries to make Charles understand that yes, watching himself be repeatedly torn apart in a room filled with his own sundered body parts is awful, but it is absolutely essential to be quiet about it or they’ll draw its attention completely fucking kills me.

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