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Obverse & Reverse Ch6 Page 26

Obverse & Reverse Ch6 Page 26 published on 35 Comments on Obverse & Reverse Ch6 Page 26

How can you say no to those faces? You can’t, it’s the law.

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35 Comments

I’m gonna guess that response was impulse and that he’s already regretting his words.

But naw, Rupert’s happy he made that decision, Eleanor’s happy he made that decision, and I’m happy he made that decision. Question is, what are the next few weeks (hell, next few DAYS) gonna look like?

from his perspective, he has two bad choices, even before going into the moral aspects
Allowing Eleanor mean having some control and provides a friend to his son, but at the cost of a higher long term risk of rumor and social consequences.

Refusing and expelling her now would be visible, upset both his son and wife, and risk Rupert sneaking out to meet her anyway in the future, in addition to being part of the segregation culture he probably does not approve

Maybe he is thinking of suggesting that Eleanor goes with the Finn when they go back to the main world, “solving ” the issue of her being homeless and neighbor gossip

Nitpick: Mary isn’t Roald’s wife, she’s her brother (IIRC).

Which still leaves the pertinent question: what has happened regarding Roald’s wife? Is her absence the reason for Rupert’s insular withdrawal, and that becomes the real reason for Roald being unable to say no in the end?

Or she’s just away for the story. We don’t need to assume melodrama behind every unrevealed and/or minor plot detail.

You’re probably right, I just couldn’t help recalling that she’s never been mentioned before (not that there was any need to).

That’s true, although if Mary is visiting, she probably is fully aware of where Roald’s possible significant other is (or isn’t), so unless it’s relevant to the discussion, I don’t see any reason for them to mention it on-camera. At least, any Watsonian reason.

“How has Uncle Antoine been raising you”, Jim asks Rupert on page 23 of Handshakes.

Roald’s wife by then hasn’t been around for a long time.

Ah, but *is* she? Eleanor’s reaction suggests she certainly wasn’t expecting that to happen and she doesn’t know what to do now. Roald isn’t talking down the neighbourhood prejudices and Ealanor has to sacrifice much of the freedom she had outside. How long before the need to belong somewhere starts to feel like the necessity of being imprisoned somewhere?

Jimmy’s gonna ruin it.

SOMEHOW, Jimmy’s going to unintentionally ruin it; he just can’t help himself.

Things seem to work out in the end; Eleanor is still friends with Jimmy and Rupert, and she lives in an Avalon.

Doesn’t mean he can’t temporarily ruin it for now while he’s *nine*. :)

I wonder what your definition of ‘ruin’ is in this case.

I mean, not connecting with a bunch of closed-minded speciest yokels who have not even deigned to give them the time of day, and from the way things sound, will never do it in the first place, sounds like a win to me…

As opposed to connecting with The Finns and Rupert.

Well gee. Roald did the right thing. Not without doubts and only after working through a lot of angst, with still more to come while clinging to a desperate hope that he doesn’t have to go all the way. I suspect his neighbors are going to disabuse him of that notion fairly quickly.

This shouldn’t have been in doubt given that Rupert and Eleanor are still together in Liverpool 20+ years later. But the whole messy process is a lot more realistic than the shiny plastic hero approach would have been.

I love it how even Eleanor is aware how big of a deal this is. Looks like Roald might have less to worry. Rupert might be all over the wall for his new bestest buddy ever, but she will quite likely keep the little gleeful monster in check for Roald. :D

Mr. Rupert’s dad

I can’t help but stumble over this. Eleanor is obviously making it up as she goes, because she doesn’t know how to address Roald properly – and she ends up with a wording that could just as well come from a random current-day child, rather than, random example, “Sir Rupertsfather” like it would probably have been in medieval times. This goes beyond being in command of the language, and we still don’t have an explanation when, where, and from whom she learnt that

If Eleanor somehow inherited her language, she would have been speaking in older stlye of language (such as Victorian) for a while if not outright speaking Old English that would not be intelligable to a pair of kids.

I would not be surprised if Wonderlanders know less about the forest inhabitants than they think. I would also not be too surprised if there are Wonderlanders that secretly DO go out into the forest at regular intervals for whatever reason.

I wonder whether it is possible that sometimes a random person somehow DOES wonder into wonderland and transformed into a “monster” with no way back home.

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