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in the back of my mind, it’s always there.
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there's a part of canto vi I've been thinking about since it came out, and it doesn't actually have anything to do with Heathcliff.
this
She is bitter as fuck and as time goes on she's getting worse at keeping it down. Sinclair's the one who started it, by talking about how sad it is that they'd never get to see color, and Rodya starts to get a little irritated over it (yeah, sure, pity the Backstreets folk and their poor miserable little lives, privileged nest boy), but she's obviously trying not to straight up call Sinclair a privileged nest boy because she doesn't want to. But then Yi Sang and Ishmael join in on talking about how sad this place is with no color and she just can't keep her opinion down.
But that makes the atmosphere tense, and she hates a tense atmosphere, so she changes the subject and her tone, not giving a damn about how obvious it is. also, haha, ice and cold references.
And actually, this doesn't really have much evidence to support it, but I wonder if she holds a higher level of resentment for Sinclair in particular.
Canto II had some discussion about how Rodya wishes she was special (and while I think what Sonya said about her killing the tax collector just to feel special is absolute bullshit, I do also think there is some truth to her wanting to feel special), and introduced us to the concept of The Sign in a way that was vague and more like foreshadowing than actually introducing it. Then Canto III was all about The Sign, and how special Sinclair is, and since then we've had people talking about signs and stars and a new birth of the world and it's all stuff Rodya doesn't get to be part of.
I don't think she wants to hold resentment for Sinclair, and she especially never wants him to know, but going back after all this time and rereading this one interaction with him in Canto II felt pretty jarring.
the more important part of this is the way it feels like she's making a joke at Heathcliff's expense, for being poor, like even though she's also from the Backstreets she feels she's "above" it.
She absolutely does not feel this way.
On my way to find the first passage, I reread some other interesting stuff:
Once again, there's the harsh juxtaposition between casual, fun-loving Rodya, and tired, poor man's advocate Rodya. Almost everyone on the team speaks through the lens of a Nest dweller (I have to wonder if learning that Heathcliff was apparently raised in a mansion made her even more bitter), and the way she's so short with her mention of the Sweepers makes me think she's thinking about how painfully obvious it would have been to any other Backstreets dweller. And then, right after, dropping back into her casual voice, and Sinclair revealing that Rodya used the fucked up Backstreets creature to tease him...
Other obvious moments of Rodya being bitter as hell about rich people include this part of S.E.A.
and this part of her observation logs on Spiral of Contempt (actually, nearly everything in that log that isn't about the physical abnormality has to do with how much she hates how rich people look down upon the poor)
Hong Lu's canto comes after Don's, and then after his is Ryōshū's, who, based on her source material, probably served one of the most awful, contemptuous rich people the sinners have access to, and I really hope at some point here Rodya gets to snap in a big way
...hey so I wrote this entire post at 1 in the morning and then saved it to drafts because I didn't want to post something at 1 in the morning. the Timekilling Time trailer came out about two hours later, featuring both Rodya... and the long-awaited return of the Yurodiviye. so now it's past 3 in the morning for me but I'm posting it now anyway because ohohoho seeing the Yurodiviye again has given me SO much energy
I have a feeling all this is going to be very relevant extremely soon
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