I had a vision

I have this overwhelming sense of longing for the picturesque when thinking of ‘The Goldfinch”. Hobie’s antique shop. Horst’s place full of art. The Barbour’s house. The museum. The ‘Goldfinch’ itself.

Tiny Goldfinch details that make me feel insane:

-Theo getting a glass of water when coming up with a lie to tell Hobie and remarking it’s what his father always did

-Theo telling his mother off for talking to someone and her saying he’s like his father and Theo’s immediate guilt

-Theo obsessively studying as if he could scrub away the guilt and shame and disgust he felt towards himself for no reason he could identify

-Mrs Barbour saying goodbye to Theo and looking like she was forgetting to say smth

-Boris taking his fathers gold lighter and putting it into Theo’s bag after he remarked on it once

-Theo and Tom cutting their palms, shaking hands and promising to be brothers 2 weeks before Tom betrayed him, leading to his mother’s death vs Theo beating Boris bloody until his knuckles were split and Boris kissing them to let him know all was forgiven, weeks before Boris stole the goldfinch. Theo remembering this all right before Boris came back and he found out abt Kitsey and Tom

-The clock being one minute to midnight in the photo of Andy and Mr Barbour.

-Andy’s innate almost prophetic fear of water. Being born with the knowledge of how he was going to die.

-Mrs Barbour inadvertently being the one to introduce Theo to drugs

-Theo’s mother saying the moon is home and Boris telling Theo his name means moon along with the quote “home is wherever I am. The center of my earth is you”

-Theo’s mother calling him puppy and the story in Theo’s suicide note of the injured puppy they couldn’t save

-Pippa being the “morphine lollipop”

-Theo’s terrifying dreams of his mother, trying to get home to her, only to realise he never could or it wasn’t actually her. Stuck haunting subway stations in his dreams never to return home again.

I just realised something about The Goldfinch movie and book version. In the book there is a part where Theo decides to commit suicide in Amsterdam, but he doesn’t succeed and when he wakes up he almost gives himself away to the police. Then Boris runs through security just to see what is with Theo because he wasn’t answering his calls or text messages. But in the movie they made this scene differently by making Boris come to Theos room while he was unconscious and quickly hoisting him up and basically saving his life.

I think that the movie version wanted to make it more clear that it was actually Boris that saved Theos life because it was very subtle in the book.

Let me elaborate, even though the book version of Theo didn’t die he would have given himself to the police which is Theo still wanting the worst for himself and punishing himself for something that he didn’t have to be punished for. But after Boris came, told him that his painting was safely stored and they had that talk about how sometimes even though you do something good it can do more harm to other people around you than doing what you’d think is bad. And how Boris says that everything he did and does is out of love and he believes that that is the best he can do for himself and people around him. This all meant a lot to Theo and even though I remember him saying that he didn’t want to get philosophical or he wasn’t getting anything of what Boris was saying it really got to him and he might’ve been just pretending not to understand to hide his reaction, but he surely understood everything in his last monologue.

And I just have to say that it is very sweet of Boris that every time when Theo gets in his depressed haze he tries to distract him by telling him stories. For example right after he found Theo in his room and noticed that he looked unwell he started telling him the story about how he got high on weed and that it hit him too hard. Which was very random but it loosened up Theo a little bit. Another thing that I noticed was that Boris was the only one mentioning how badly Theo looked and always trying to go get food with him whenever they were together. Maybe it doesn’t sound so special but considering that not Hobie, Pippa, Kitsey or Mrs. Barbour seemed to care about how badly Theo looked because they didn’t really try to help him or even mention it. Only time Kitsey mentioned Theo’s drug abuse was to say that she knew about it and that she just didn’t mind. So Boris was really the person that cared about Theo the most.

That is why I think Theo didn’t even write a suicide note to Boris, because of all those people he would understand why he did that. He didn’t need an explanation or some sad story of his past. Boris was there with him at his worst moments so there was really nothing left to write. That is why Boris was so caring of Theo he saw how hurt he was and wanted to overcome the worst which was his suicide.

I wish Hobie & Welty were my sweet fun antiquarian gay uncles & I could hide away in their shop & crash in the extra room sometimes & listen to Pippa play music & in the evening we’d have warm cozy dinners & Welty would tell us stories about his clients & Hobie would gaze at him with fond wonder & Theo & his boyfriend Boris would barrel in late but so happy & full of ridiculous funny excuses that none of us mind & then we’re all watching a movie & I feel so honored that Popchyk is sitting in my lap & Boris is pouting that his beloved fluffball loves me more than him & Theo rolls his eyes & me & Pippa laugh & Welty is asleep on Hobie’s shoulder & Hobie is shaking his head & smiling at the cozy chaos of us all ❤️

Ranking the morality of Donna tartt characters.

I will apologize I have not read the little friend.

From least to most-

Francis Abernathy and Camilla Macaulay do not have a particularly evident moral compass but then on the other end, aren't immoral either. Shown by- Francis feeling bad for killing a man but not bad enough and Camilla going down with Henry to see if bunny was really dead.

Boris pavlikovsky runs a drug cartel/ is a mafia boss. His business involves killing people but then he has never (I think) killed anyone for a personal vengeance. Has a fairly good moral compass.

Richard papen Richard is a character on the sidelines in his own narration. Most of what is done is not done by him but rather told to him. He is not directly responsible for any immoral acts committed not is he a part of them. He is also manipulated the entire book so..

Bunny Corcoran did not commit any immoral acts but then used a murder committed by his friends as a bait to get them to do things for him and did not go to the police but used the upper hand that he could in fact go to the police as incentive for his friends money. Was homophobic and sexist and did not care much about morals.

Theodore decker Theo had, I think, the most morals out of any Donna tartt character. One could argue that his actions after killing a man were due to general melancholy about existence but like. Wouldn't he have killed himself already..? His actions towards pippa are downright stalker..ish? but his affections and views towards pippa are not of a person but rather a thing. He returned the goldfinch when he could have kept it (I think.). Yeah sure he sold fake antiques but compared to other crimes on this list it's pretty lame. Is overall a guy with fairly good morals

Side characters such as Judy poovey, hobie, theos mom, pippa, Mrs barbour among others.

Popchyk

Do you guys remember when Theo had a freak out when Boris asked him if he and Hobie are partners ( meaning business partners.) LMAO

Theo Decker as spiderman fighting his enemies in New York and he accidentally breaks some shitty restaurant front chair during the combat but after the scene is all cleared he takes the chair back to Hobie so he can fix it

I have this hc that Hobie buys Theo books with gay subtext trying to encourage Theo to come out and Theos homophobic and gay self literally has no clue

Supporting role characters named hob who are gay that i think the story should focus on more. Many cases of this phenomenon !

movie hobie really is hobie… i do have to say.

I love when it’s apparent that a person loves their job

I know in the past you said you took suggestions for art and one I think would be so funny is the scene of Francis and Theo interacting!! I didn’t even realize until someone pointed it out that Francis makes a cameo in tgf and basically asks Hobie how he got stuck with theo lol

francis: i know what you are

i wanna see fifty five goldfinch pieces 💔💔

OKAY!! So I have this little series I like to call the great decompartmentalisation of Theo decker... Let me walk you through it. I promise there's art after the massive paragraph of meandering analysis alright

You know how Theo's life is segmented into these distinct episodes? And how he himself is split into multiple different identities, and how much shame and fear there is associated with the idea of those identities mixing? For example: the straight a student living a completely, delusionally idyllic life with his adoring mother and the vanilla teenage troublemaker breaking into people's summer homes with his shady homoerotic bestie. When the two identities come into contact via his suspension, it leads to the most traumatic event in Theo's life, and honestly I suspect that might be the origin of this tendency towards compartmentalisation... I could go through the whole book here but the most prominent examples are Theo panicking at the thought of Mrs Barbour or his therapist finding out about Hobie, his cutting himself off from New York when in Vegas with his other shady homoerotic bestie (the amount of times Vegas is compared to an alien planet...) and his dual post timeskip identifies of charming antiques salesman/fraudulent art stealing junkie. And this often manifests in Theo's reluctance to let people from his different periods interact - see him rushing to stop Boris from talking to Pippa, and him keeping Hobie in the dark about the blackmail, and isn't it kind of weird that the barbours - Theo's soon to be legal family - don't really interact with Hobie and Pippa? Anyway. Basically I thought it would be cool to make a series of little vignettes of theo allowing the people and places and things that represent various versions of Him to interact and thus symbolically healing the disconnected parts of himself... Or something. I have more ideas scribbled down but somehow the only ones I ended up with proper art for is the various holidays (which, holidays are also a weirdly prevalent theme in tgf? Idk whats up with that but it's a good tool for this purpose) so we have:

Christmas Eve at Boris's, featuring Pippa and Hobie - I feel kinda bad for only ever portraying Boris with polish customs but let's be real I'm just using him to show off my own heritage lol. In Poland the main Xmas celebrations happen on Xmas Eve, traditionally with the appearance of the first star in the sky. You eat the mostly inoffensive barszcz as well some truly vile shit, such as mushroom and cabbage dumplings, mushroom and cabbage salad, other items made of mushrooms and cabbage, and finally the most disgusting dish of my life: Jewish style carp. No, it's not quite the same thing as gefiltefish, although that's the Wikipedia page you might use to get to the actual dish. All washed down with compote which I hate. You also break and eat communion wafers while wishing each other stuff, which Pippa is doing with popchyk here hehe

Christmas breakfast as a little bonus despite it not having much of a tradition - I associate it with lots of hams/cured meats, gherkins and maybe Tatar sauce (yum). Much superior to the Xmas dinner imho. Really I just wanted Theo and Boris to have a moment to themselves haha

Christmas proper at the barbours, featuring Boris and Tom cable! I could talk about all the tension and who's diffusing it but honestly I think y'all can draw your own conclusions lol. I just think it would be really funny for the infamous dis-engaged couple to each bring their delinquent boytoys and for Boris the drug dealer to actually come out looking superior

Vegetarian friendly Thanksgiving at Hobie's, as tradition requires! I think he'd love to throw one of his big Thanksgiving parties purely for all of Theo's families to get to know each other... you know, kind of an elaboration on that Thanksgiving illustration I drew a while back! This would be before all the Christmases I think. Boris is winning Mrs Barbour over with his roguish charm lol I think old ladies would like him... Theo in the corner freaking the hell out as per this project's mission statement lmao

And on a slightly different note I wanted Theo Pippa and Hobie to all visit weltys grave. I'm borrowing slightly from the polish tradition of all saint's day, when you clean, decorate and light candles on the graves of loved ones.

What is it with all the nicknames in tgf anyway. Puppy. Popsy. Potter. Xandra. Xan. Kotku. Kitsey. K.T. Borya. Hobie. Welty. Is Pippa short for Philippa? Carole. Amyl and nitrate and popchik and snaps, anything but his real name. Even Boris isn't actually the correct spelling. And does Theo ever call tom by his first name in dialogue, or only cable?

Edit and grishas “mazhor”!

I bet Hobie has tried to gently come out to Theo a bunch of times, but every time he felt Theo getting all tense & weird, so he’s just left it.

also he knows Theo’s gay & he’s like daang how to I help this mega repressed lil guy?

also shiit can he plz stop his obsession with Pippa? whatever’s happening there is not healthy or really based on who she actually is but some dream he has of her.

maybe if I start inviting some handsome fellows into the shop…

oh my gosh imagine a fic where Hobie is trying to stealth matchmake Theo??