The secret identity of Le Chat Bleu
Aug. 7th, 2015 07:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreadedcandiru2The interesting thing about the arc is that as of this writing, Les has collapsed on the gym room floor because something has overwhelmed him. While it might be that the whole time travel arc is simply the end result of his hallucinating after having a mild stroke, I'd like to raise an interesting possibility. What might be happening is that Les has watched his past self read the Great Big Book Of How Lisa's Death Affected Me, A Passive And Helpless Observer Who Could Have Done Nothing To Prevent It by Les Moore and realized that what he thought was a hallucination or lucid dream wherein he went to a distant and impossible future and read a book he supposedly wrote about any number of horrible things that could happen to her actually did happen.
Oh, sure, every last one of the tragedies that he actually did experience did line up pretty much exactly with what he "dreamt" he read but, as he's managed to convince himself up until now, that was merely a horrific coincidence. So far, he's managed to convince himself that he didn't really have foreknowledge of the future and thus is not morally responsible for not suggesting courses of action that could have saved Lisa's life. This is no longer the case and the result staggered him. He could have done it and should have done it but didn't do it because he couldn't handle it and didn't realize that he could have changed everyone's lives for the better until it was far too late.
What's worse, Le Chat Bleu will never let our boy hear the end of it. For years, Les has been tormented by an imaginary fiend who exists to berate him for being a fraud and fool who doesn't deserve the success being handed to him on a tray. Said bogey seems to be animated by the fact that he knows something Les has wanted to blind himself to since he was in high school: the fact that for a very selfish and stupid reason that probably relates to a need he has to deprive a woman of an agency that could be used against him, Les failed to warn someone of any number of things that could hurt her so he could pose as her protector. This means that Le Chat Bleu is sort of like the character of Nadine on the PBS thing Arthur in that both are the conscience of an annoying pain in the neck glory hound.
Oh, sure, every last one of the tragedies that he actually did experience did line up pretty much exactly with what he "dreamt" he read but, as he's managed to convince himself up until now, that was merely a horrific coincidence. So far, he's managed to convince himself that he didn't really have foreknowledge of the future and thus is not morally responsible for not suggesting courses of action that could have saved Lisa's life. This is no longer the case and the result staggered him. He could have done it and should have done it but didn't do it because he couldn't handle it and didn't realize that he could have changed everyone's lives for the better until it was far too late.
What's worse, Le Chat Bleu will never let our boy hear the end of it. For years, Les has been tormented by an imaginary fiend who exists to berate him for being a fraud and fool who doesn't deserve the success being handed to him on a tray. Said bogey seems to be animated by the fact that he knows something Les has wanted to blind himself to since he was in high school: the fact that for a very selfish and stupid reason that probably relates to a need he has to deprive a woman of an agency that could be used against him, Les failed to warn someone of any number of things that could hurt her so he could pose as her protector. This means that Le Chat Bleu is sort of like the character of Nadine on the PBS thing Arthur in that both are the conscience of an annoying pain in the neck glory hound.
