let's talk about Dess Holiday a little.
for all these stories telling us how awesome and cool she was...
...she wasn't really all that popular?
i mean, Dess has been gone for years and nobody in Hometown ever mentions her. the older teens/young adults, who should be her peers, only talks to Kris about Asriel.
You'd think they're avoiding the topic of Dess for Kris' sake, but truthfully, i don't see Pizzapants and Bratty as all that tactful.
instead, i think they were just never friends with Dess, and paid little attention to her even when she was around.
i think Dess was in fact rather lonely. and we only came to think of her as this cool, badass rebel girl because of how Noelle and Kris saw her.
with Noelle, i suppose Dess maintained till the very end an image of a loving, protective big sister. Noelle remembers Dess helping her win every snow angel contest, and whacking Kris over their head when they went too far with pranks, and promising to take her to a city of shining lights.
but i don't think that's the full story of their sisterhood. rather, i believe Dess had kept her bitterer, more complicated feelings for Noelle hidden, and this was where Kris came in.
but first, let's take a look at what Dess was like.
she was messy and unfocused. she was rowdy and dirty. Susie reminds Gerson of her, and Susie is aggressive, rude, implied to struggle with formal schooling, and very much ostracized by her peers.
so Dess' main friend group was like...her own sister, the boy living next door, and the neighbor boy's gremlin younger sibling.
and two of these people are just. Perfect. Noelle, sweet, polite and well-behaved, cast as the Angel that Hometowners literally worship. Asriel, so academically and socially successful. they are the faces of the Holidays and Dreemurrs, respectively, golden children of the town. they shine so bright that their siblings live under their shadows.
now, i think Asriel genuinely liked Dess, and their closeness wasn't just for show or anything.
but that doesn't mean proximity and the fact that their parents knew each other well didn't factor into this friendship. i think Dess was very aware of how out of her league Asriel was, even if she was the mayor's daughter.
i think she wasn't sure if Asriel would still be her friend if they weren't neighbors.
and then, there was Kris.
Kris was Just Like Her. just like Dess, they were weird, unruly, an outsider. just like Dess, they have a vastly more popular and easily likeable sibling.
and i think Dess leaned on Kris as Kris leaned on Dess. the bitterness Dess couldn't exactly show Noelle? she showed to Kris. the loneliness and insecurity she couldn't tell Asriel? she let it slipped with Kris. because Kris was the only one who could possibly understand her.
well, Kris and someone else. until that someone else is gone.
two of the dark worlds seem like attempts to relive the time when Gerson was alive and her teacher.
i do wonder if Gerson's passing was shortly before Dess' disappearance. if the loss of someone so important to her had shaken her and prompted her to do something drastic.
and I think Kris was the only witness to what happened to her.
