Philomath she/her Posted May 5, 2022 Posted May 5, 2022 Okay first off spoilers for Moon Knight here. (In tags of course.) I just finished the series though and it made me rethink some things about Shallan. Spoiler So in Moon Knight we first meet Steven Grant, who seems to be a slightly forgetful, but fairly average normal person doing his best at life who suddenly finds himself thrown into a wild and terrifying adventure. We learn about him. Want to cheer for him, want to see him succeed. Then we learn he is also apparently Marc Spector. A very much not average person who has done some questionable things and is the reason Steven is wrapped up in all the wild and terrifying events. But ultimately is also a good person trying to do his best in life and save the world because he is begrudgingly connected to the Egyptian god Khonshu. They have to learn to get along and share a body and figure out the whole working together thing. Anyway, anyone who is likely to read this probably watched the show so no need to really recap… sorry. So, the thing I noticed though is that because of how the multiple personas were introduced, we care about both of them. They are easy to view as 2 (eventually 3) separate people despite the fact that they inhabit the same body. It is hard for me to think of either one of them really having to give up their life/existence for the other one completely. It feels like it would be killing an actual person. Now, this makes me rethink how I feel about Shallan, Veil, and Radiant. Given that we sort of see Veil and Radiant really come into themselves after meeting and knowing Shallan who is the core person, it was harder for me to see them as individual people. I saw them more as Shallan’s coping strategies to her very real traumas, but that as she worked on healing, she wouldn’t really need them anymore and she could recognize that she herself was enough and good and that the things that happened to her weren’t her fault. Which is essentially what happened to Veil. At first after reading this I felt like “Oh yay! Shallan is getting better! Shallan is healing!” But now after watching Moon Knight I’m reconsidering if that is actually a good thing. Or do Veil and Radiant actually deserve a chance to be whole individuals as well who happen to exist in the same body as Shallan? I don’t know. I don’t claim to understand anything really about Dissociative Identity Disorder or how it is worked with therapeutically so I don’t really know what best practice in reality is. But I do find it interesting that the way each set of characters was initially introduced influenced how I really felt about their situations and what each character deserves or what their rights are as individuals even if they aren’t actually individual. Also, slight tangent, if Shallan/Veil/Radiant really started viewing themselves as 3 individual whole people, would enough Stormlight create 3 separate bodies for each of them? And if so would they all still be able to be Knights Radiant? Anyway, my main point in this long post is that I feel like I gained a little more empathy/understanding for Shallan, Veil, and Radiant. And I’m glad for that. 2
StormingTexan he/him Posted May 5, 2022 Posted May 5, 2022 (edited) I am glad someone else has these thoughts. Not really spoilers but putting in tags incase you do not want any info on Moon Knight. Spoiler Watching Moon Knight I had very very similar thoughts in relation to Shallan! I'd actually love to see the question posed to Brandon if he drew any inspiration from the comic books because the entire time I could only think "hey this is the male Shallan". I never read the comics so had no frame of reference before the show. More than likely he did not but it does paint Shallan's multiple personas and how they coexist in new light for me. Edited May 5, 2022 by StormingTexan
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