“I love those too.Butthe Lord of the Ringskinda gives me flashbacks in parts.He was so mad that they fucked up Faramir’s character.”
“Did they?”
“Yeah.He’s way cooler in the books.”
“Ah, a purist?”
“No, he liked that they gave Arwen stuff to do, even though it was someone else in the books.”
“Who?”
“Glorfindel.”
“… wait, the guy with Cate Blanchett?”
“No, that’s Celeborn.Don’t worry about it; he’s not in the movie.”Taran chuckled and tucked into his food.
“But your dad liked Faramir?”I was always kind of curious about his dad, probably because he didn’t say much.It was implied that they were close even back in the day, but now he was gone—and suddenly, too, from what I understood—I had no idea how Taran felt about it.
“Yeah.He was this kind of ideal hero, you know?Contrasted with Boromir—who could’ve been amazing but got sidetracked.And their father.Jesus.”
“Faramir also bagged the baddest bitch in Middle Earth,” I pointed out.“Eowyn’s a smokeshow.”
“I was so into her when I was a kid,” he admitted.“Between her and Aragorn, I didn’t stand a chance.”
“I always like the villains more.Or the conflicted characters, like Gollum.Literally arguing with himself,” I mused.
“Yeah, fair.I like them tormented.”
I snorted and glanced up at him.“Obviously.”
“You’re not tormented.Well, anymore.”His smile was goofy and crooked, a little missing piece of the seventeen-year-old Taran who’d done all my chemistry homework and kissed me breathless in his car.
“True.You’re the tormented one now.”I smiled to soften the blow.
“Oof.”But he laughed.“It’s funny cuz it’s true.”
“Is it hard to talk about your dad?”I wondered.
“Why?Is there a vibe?”
I shrugged.“Not really.Just that you don’t, much.You never did, but I feel like you were close.”
He sighed.“Yeah.I mean, that’s another thing I’m trying to figure out, these days.”
“Oh.No shit?”
“You know how those guys in their class were.I mean, he wasn’t that different from your dad.”
“Except white and rich,” I said with a raised eyebrow.Okay, Taran’s family wasn’trich, but from my viewpoint growing up, they looked it.
“Right, yeah, that’s—kinda huge, now you mention it.”He chuckled.“I don’t… know how to talk about it.I tried with Mom, but she jumped to his defense, which—I mean, I get the reaction.I guess the short version is that I don’t know how to reconcile missing him like I do with all the angry, hateful shit he said about queer people.Not just around me buttome.”
Oh.Yeah.And unlike with me making being content not to confront my father about his past behavior as long as his current behavior stayed good and he kept learning… Taran would never have that choice.That ability to take the power back for the powerless kid he used to be, surrounded by homophobic locker room talk at school and homophobic toxic masculinity at home.
Jesus.What was it like the first time Taran connected himself with the wordfaggot?What was it like for insidious words, ideas like that to come from people he loved, and then to never, ever have the satisfaction of an apology—or of telling them off, at the very least?I was never gonna get the former, but I had plenty of the latter right from the start.
Taran said, “So, there’s most of the list.Stuff that stems from those two massive things.”
