Latest / The Autistic Mile / The Ideal-ist: Episode 14 (Lunar/Soleil)
Transcript
- Shane: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Autistic Mile. My name is Shane Gaffney, and this is episode 14 of The Ideal-ist. Today we'll be talking about a character who is a two for one deal, you'll see what I mean in a second, in the form of Lunar and Soleil. Characters from the Sonic IDW comics. And that is interesting in that I am not usually one who's fond for comics. Not because they're necessarily bad, but because it's simply not my cup of tea. Not a lot of motion or audio like you would see in the form of films or movies, and not any interactivity like you would see with video games. Once you've read the whole issue, then you know all there is to know. However, this one I actually came across a few days ago, and it introduced me to a character that in the span of one afternoon managed to really capture my attention. And for the sake of simplicity, I will primarily be addressing them by the name of Soleil. Now, Soleil is a sugar glider and the heir of a circus troupe by the name of the Celestial Troupe. A very talented group of entertainers run by Soleil's parents. And that all sounds very wholesome: family-run run circus going from town to town making people happy. However, Soleil is an interesting case in that they didn't really take to stage life smoothly. They're very timid and uncertain of themselves, and that's not helped by the fact that they're not innately good at the various stunts and performances that being a part of his troupe requires. Despite this, Soleil's parents are perfectionists and they project those perfectionistic tendencies onto Soleil, hoping that they will live up to their high expectations. To "uphold the legacy of the troupe", so to speak. And that I see is a red flag right there in that whenever you become more preoccupied with your reputation or your quote unquote "legacy" over the well-being being and feelings of your own child, then you've already effectively deviated from the path of being an ideal parent. And to the surprise of no one, this response ends up backfiring pretty hard in that one day during training exercises, Soleil ends up screwing up a routine of some kind. We don't have explicit details on exactly what, but it's implied that this mistake almost ended up costing them a trip to the hospital and Instead of seeing this as a sign that maybe they're being too hard on the kid, Soleil's parents end up doubling down and simply express disappointment that Soleil A made them look like a fool, even though no one else but them was around to see it, and decided to just kick him out of the troupe. Now on one hand, that is in a way a good thing, in that Soleil was never gonna have a future in show business. Let's just be honest with ourselves. Clearly their talents just lie elsewhere. But on the other hand, they've just been forced to live on their own and have been cut off from all sense of connection and family. And that's bound to do all kinds of psychological damage to them. And that's exactly what happens. We see that this stress and feeling of inferiority manifests itself into a second personality by the name of Lunar. And Lunar is the exact opposite of Soleil in many ways. Lunar is confident, boastful, has a flair for the theatrics, and they also have a mischievous streak, namely in the fact that they have a fondness for stealing and thieving. Soleil only ever becomes a part of the plot in the first place because Lunar takes control when gets stressed and decides to go around stealing chaos emeralds, which are very important items in the Sonic mythos for those unaware. And it's not necessarily that Lunar is just malicious or out to get anyone. It's nothing that's done with any intentions of harm. It's more something that I read as Lunar manifesting Soleil's suppressed desire to be noticed and for someone to acknowledge their situation. That or it's their way of trying to acquire funds to pay the rent. Honestly, I couldn't say for sure which is more likely. But either way Lunar is protective of Soleil despite acting against their will to some degree. And when Sonic approaches Lunar even when he doesn't have the full story on how Lunar came to be or that Lunar is just one personality of two, he is surprisingly understanding and merciful with Lunar. Trying to get to the bottom of why they're doing this. And generally trying to make sure that they don't cause any serious trouble for themselves. And when he does meet Soleil for the first time, Sonic does genuinely listen to Soleil's side of the story, and comes to understand that none of what Lunar did is their fault. And really they are just a victim of circumstance when you come to think about it. Lunar wouldn't have even happened in the first place if their parents were just a little bit more like accommodating of Soleil's handicaps. Or a little less ruthless in their expectations of them. And like a surprising number of parents, when Soleil's parents find out that even before this point, Soleil had quite the fondness for Sonic, idolizing him and looking up to him, they see Sonic as a scapegoat for Soleil not being as perfect as they hoped they would. Just blaming Sonic as a bad influence and generally pointing the finger at everyone else except for themselves. And so when Soleil's parents end up bursting in unannounced and once again just angrily confront Soleil over all the things that Lunar's been up to and sort of just taking out all their frustrations on Sonic since he is there with them at the same time, it ends up putting Soleil in a lot of stress and causing Lunar to take over once again. prompting Lunar to just lash out at Soleil's family and once again run away. And to cut to the chase, this storyline does have a happy ending, 'cause well, of course it does. That's how these sorts of storylines always work. His parents end up realizing they've been wrong all along, and they end up accepting Soleil for who they are. And that is a very nice gesture. My one complaint is that this storyline was way too short for my liking. It would have been nice if the mystery was continued for say, I don't know, like two, maybe three comics before we got into the meat and potatoes of what is causing this whole conflict. And ever since this short run in the comics has completed, Soleil has never really been seen again as far as I can tell. Effectively just being a character of the week who shows up, does a thing and are never seen again. But despite that, it is a storyline I imagine a lot of people on the spectrum relate to. Because sad as it is an inevitable byproduct of being on the spectrum means that you're going to sooner or later come across an authority figure who acts like Soleil's parents. Someone who, by all accounts, has good intentions and yet the way they rationalize things and prioritize certain values over the immediate issue It can end up doing more harm than good. That's why I, for one, am actually reluctant to be a parent. It's not something I'm going to rule out altogether because let's be honest. none of us know what the future holds. For all I know, tomorrow something could happen that completely changes my outlook entirely. But I'm very much one for the idea that we should not bring people into the world only to subject them to suffering that they never asked for. And parenting is very easy to screw up, even with the best of intentions. Whatever personal malfunctions you have or inner demons you haven't managed to deal with those are all inevitably gonna come out in your parenting style and are going to have some manner of effect on how your child develops. And I just feel if I'm gonna do this, I wanna make sure I do it right. And I also relate to Soleil's feelings of rejection and being crushed by expectations from their parents. To get personal here, me and my dad have had a lot of ups and downs in our relationship over the years. Had a lot of points where things were rather on the rocks. And things have gotten better. Both of us have deeply improved, both me and him. But inevitably, because of our own experiences, we both have situations where we are perhaps more volatile and unstable than we want to be. And it leads us to say things that we can never really take back. We still have a long way to go as people, both of us, in that there are plenty of areas where both of us could be better. I know that's certainly true for me. But we have made progress. And though just saying "I want to be better" by itself doesn't really mean anything without any intention to follow through, and it's always more of a journey than a destination, there's never gonna be some point where you make it to some level of personal development where it's suddenly "All right, Now we're all set indefinitely." There is still always a choice, and the will to improve as people from where we began. And like I said, there are some mistakes that neither of us can really undo, despite the fact that both of us desperately want to. But all we can do to really honor the things that have happened and the lessons we've learned over the course of our lives is to keep in mind the wisdom that these mistakes have given us and try to put them to good use so that they don't happen again. And it's for all these reasons that I greatly admire this storyline. And I appreciate the message that I was trying to give, even if it wasn't necessarily perfect. Sometimes you don't have to stick every landing for a story to mean something to you. But yeah, that's about all I have to say about Lunar and Soleil. Feel free to leave a comment if you want to. Like, and subscribe, and I will see you next time. Thank you.