The most exciting moment of this episode for me ...

[wowbright]

... was when Kurt found out he was a finalist for NYADA and Burt said "Who's gonna tell Blaine? Let me do it!"

If your dad thinks about your boyfriend as quickly as you do when you get good news; if your dad is as excited as you are to share it - well, your boyfriend is part of the family. My headcanon about Blaine and the Hummels is canon.

The second most exciting moment of the episode for me was when I got to Skype to anxioussquirrel that Sebastian is "sexist, racist, homophobic, and cisgendernormative." He's not just asinine; he's a total ass.

Comments

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I figure lots of people end up at Dalton for no other reason other than they can afford it and their parents prefer it to public school. I've just assumed that about Sebastian the whole way through, and his father being a state's attorney contributes to that idea for me.

It's interesting; realizing that Sebastian is homophobic actually caused me to dislike him more. He's not someone who's homophobic because he lacks confidence in his sexuality (to all appearances), and once he gains confidence he'll stop being homophobic; it's because he's a judgmental douchebag. There is a real issue in the LGB community of judging other for appearing too queer (butch lesbians and campy gay men), and it bugs the hell out of me. This attitude might be partially self-hatred, but I think it's also "I wouldn't do things that way, so you shouldn't, either." It's the second sense I get from Sebastian, and I do not like it.

But that's how I interpret it. I could be totally wrong. Before yesterday, I was completely ready to get, at some point, a heart-rending backstory for Sebastian. Once I've calmed down, I may be able to be so again.

And how is he the captain of the Warblers when last year there was a council? Inquiring minds want to know.

[needsmoregreen.livejournal.com]

The thing about Dalton though, is that, on a metaphorical level, it's the place that boys go when they "die". (There's a thing where everything in Gleeland relates to a mythological place/being/God/trope etc., and Dalton's like the Underworld). Blaine went there when he got the "living crap" beaten out of him, and Kurt went there when Karofsky threatened to kill him (and had to cross a literal river to get back to McKinley in AIWNSG). From the way the Dalton boys act in situations in/outside of Dalton, it reads that they're all people who are there because, yes, they probably have money, but also because they've been bullied badly enough that they would need to be there. I mean, look at Trent and Matt transferring from McKinley too.

(Sebastian also says, when he first meets Kurt, "I was dying to meet Blaine".)

So I'd say the two (money and being bullied) aren't mutually exclusive when it comes to being sent to Dalton.

With the homophobia thing... I dunno, I just always find it sad more than infuriating when an LGBT+ person says homophobic things. Like they have to compensate for who they are? It strikes me that, maybe, Sebastian's learned that attitude towards gay and gender non-conformative people, along with the racism/sexism etc, from a very toxic home or previous school environment. The fact that we live in a society where people can unconsciously make members of the LGBT+ community bring ourselves down for them is gross, and sad, and upsetting, and it makes me feel so torn between wanting to hate Sebastian and wanting to take him to Pride parades and marches and hug away whatever happened to him.

(And then I remember what he did to Kurt/Blaine/Santana and I don't feel that anymore.)

I mean, of course, I get that "my way is the only good way" vibe from Sebastian, but by the same token... there's always a reason people act that way. And it sucks.

/ramble

[wowbright.livejournal.com]

I read this right before going to bed and slept and woke up and realized I had misspoken. Since I only started seeing him as potentially irredeemable after 3.11, his homophobia (which was evident by 3.8) wasn't the clincher for me. It was his racism + sexism + everything else.

Even the fact that he intentionally injured someone, I may have seen as immature not-thinking-things-through or a sign of true pathology, if it weren't coupled with the other stuff.

But taken all together, when I woke up I realized that, from henceforth unless proven otherwise, I'll see Sebastian's story line as the fear of losing white male upper/upper-middle-class privilege. It may be an authentic fear, and a learned fear, but it's a fear I don't have a lot of sympathy with. And I say that as one of Sebastian Smythe's fellow WASPs.

On to Dalton being the Underworld - I've seen references to this but never spelled out clearly, so thank you for explaining it to me. (What's AIWNSG, by the way?) I will have to learn more about it before I form a true opinion, but I generally take literary metaphors/analogies as useful but not prescriptive - a place in a story may symbolize death and rebirth for one character or many characters, but not all. And writers often like to tweak the metaphor/analogy or completely flip it on its head somewhere in the story - that's what provides tension and conflict, because it's something other than what the audience has come to expect. But I may become a convert to Dalton/Hades yet! Like, if Sebastian's evilness dies there.

I know about the actor who plays Trent having appeared in an earlier episode as a McKinley student, though I haven't formed a strong opinion on whether they are the same person yet. But I'm confused about Matt - he left McKinley but I didn't think he'd transferred to Dalton (never saw him there). Did I miss something?