'Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel...'
'...but do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatch'd unfledg'd comrade...'
My grandfather used to love this quote, we'd all groan but chime in. All I could ever remember was grappling with hoops of steel, lol.
I don’t know if this will make sense to anyone who doesn’t share my brain, but I have a theory. It occurred to me while I was watching the season three premiere of Kyle XY. Kyle and Jessi are…get ready for it…the new Blair and Serena [Gossip Girl]. TOTALLY. I know one show is a soapie and the other is- well, also a soapie, albeit with sci-fi themes, and such a cool blend so you all should go watch it right now.
Let me justify this.
Serena and Blair’s main conflict is that Serena gets everything, she always manages to come out on top with the thing that Blair wants most, be it the boy, the university, maternal approval… Serena doesn’t intend to do it, she loves Blair and wants what’s best for her, wants to make her happy, but the universe constantly pits them against each other by denying Blair something in order to enrich Serena’s life. Completely unfair, and neither girl’s fault, but it always gets between them.
Blair’s life falls apart, her relationship is on the rocks because her boyfriend is in love with Serena, her mother cares more about Serena, her father is more concerned about his boyfriend than their traditions, nothing seems to ever go her way. Even her status as queen bee, the ruler of high school cliques, something she takes as her due, is jeopardized. Serena wants to be there for her, but she’s the symbol of what she’s lost, of all her failures.
Kyle and Jessi. His life seems to be charmed. A wonderful family takes him in, treats him as a member of their family, providing him with fun siblings and loving parents who all make with the witty quips and affectionate bickering. They are there for him every step of the way, while he wrestles with his amnesia, his secret past and cool powers. He also falls in love with a girl. Things are all sunshine and happiness and chocolate chip cookies.
Jessi, otoh, is darker, more troubled, she does bad things for all sorts of reasons, she is lied to by all the people she thought were trustworthy, none of whom actually have her best interests at heart. She can’t find someone who genuinely cares about her- other than Kyle. Perfect Kyle, with the perfect life. And it hurts coming from him, the wonder boy with everything, so she simultaneously needs him and rejects him. Every time they have a moment where their motivations and philosophies seem to align, something happens to split them apart. Usually, it’s someone that values Kyle more than Jessi, that acts like he’s more important than her, wounding her self-esteem, driving her to exploit her special abilities so someone will pay her attention, doing what it takes to feel like she is superior to Kyle to soothe her injured pride. She’s usually wrong, he’s almost always right, but that just makes her even more stubborn and refuse to budge. Because if she listens to him, if she lets him tell her how she should act, she’s admitting that he’s better than her and she can’t handle that, even though the last thing Kyle wants is to compete, even though he’d rather die than hurt her.
Jessi and her stupid pride, her relentless ambition. Blair and her control freak tendencies. The two girls who always need to be on top, who are always making power plays, and always seeking love and approval, whose best friends threaten their self-confidence and their self-delusions and thus need to be kept at arms length, even when they want to let them in, even when they know better but keep blindly stumbling down the path to self-destruction.