Jason's Spooks adventure, if you will, is a huge chance for development If he would decide to join up with the Spooks he could climb the social hierarchy. This could lead to one of two ends: he could be more free to be himself expressing his poetic side and nerd-ing out, or he could become more introverted in an effort to maintain his more popular position. My hope is that neither of these situations occurs. I hope he completely rejects the Spooks and becomes more of a Hugo figure. Like it's been said in class, it's completely different to be invited into the Spooks then rejecting them, and not getting invited at all. In the best possible scenario, Jason rejecting the Spooks will make him appear bad-ass, which would make anything he did bad-ass. No longer would he have to hide his poetry or hurriedly take down his middle-Earth poster--he could flaunt them because he was the kid who was too cool for the Spooks.
Like I said these would be optimal outcomes. It's more likely that he would fall apart, given the tendencies he's displayed already in the book. Jason seems to me to be too scared of social repercussions to embrace the opportunity presented before him to flourish. At first it seems there's no hope in sight, but I'm hoping any social hardships he will face will just make him stronger.
It's interesting to think that in the chapters following Spooks, Jason is afflicted with pretty much the worst case scenario. However, if I were him, I don't think I would have it any other way, considering all the valuable lessons he is learning and that the process is in some ways a coming-of-age trial by fire. However, that might be easy for me to say, considering I'm not getting grundied or having parts of dissected lab animals slipped into my belongings.
ReplyDeleteThis post also set off a tangent thought: the quandary of difference between reading a book for the very first time and rereading it. I wonder how well Spooks' illusory promise would shape up against a repeat reader's dramatic irony of foresight.
We have to remember how top-secret all this stuff is: the public at large won't know Jason rejected Spooks, as long as he and Dean keep their mouths shut about why they were in Blake's back yard (and it seems like they do). But in terms of his self-development, maybe having this possibility ("they'll let me in! I'll be one of them!") permanently cut off could lead Jason to be more self-sufficient and independent, not as needy in his desire to be accepted.
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