Channelknight Fadran

I ain't got the brain for an essay but basically:

Gwen really doesn't want to hurt anyone, but always seems to find herself inadvertently doing so. Of course this stems from her losing her bestie Peter way back in the backstory by literally killing him on accident.

But the way she goes about doing this always seems to hurt people in the long run. First of all (and perhaps most notably) with her dad, who would have likely been much more open to conversation about the Peter Murder Sitch had Gwen come out and told him the truth right away - and this should've been our first clue throughout the entire movie to the fact that she's lying to Miles.

Gwen is probably better than any of the Spiders at lying, deception, and pushing people away. That was pretty much her entire arc in Spiderverse 1, coming to an ultimate conclusion with her accepting a friendship with Miles (and, of course, subsequently kicking off the best teen romance ever written in cinema history). But what's really interesting to me is that nothing has changed in her when she returns home, despite the memories - she still doesn't make more friends, she still doesn't talk to her dad (yet), and she still keeps all of her feelings bottled up inside her.

Then when she tries being honest for once by revealing herself to her father (which, notably, was more out of desperation than anything), it only winds up with the most emotional gut-punch I've ever experienced in years as he tries to arrest her anyways. So of course she tries to run from her universe, and makes friends in the Spiderverse Elite Squad Force People - and they're good for her, but she's not solving any of those problems she's caused.

Enter Spot, re-enter Miles, and re-re-enter Gwen. She's jeapordized an entire mission to go see the one person who really understood her in the first place. "We're the same. In the important ways."

(Can you tell that I really need these two lovebirds to just... lovebird? I don't even need them to kiss. Just hold hands already dagnabit)

But then we get to the point of her whole arc: that she hurts Miles. The reason she's come to visit him is a lie, and she completely hides the reason she isn't supposed to visit him in the first place.

Why does she hide these things? Because she doesn't want to hurt him with the truth - and, of course, hurts him with the lie.

Spiderman is a tragic hero to be, and Gwen just... carries that grief. Losing your uncle or your girlfriend's captain is bad enough, but losing your best friend? I couldn't even imagine. Family members are more like constants of life, where losing them is akin to completely shifting a paradigm - friends are people you go out of your way to add to your story.

There's a reason why Bridge to Terabithia and The Book Thief just hit harder than... well, kinda just everything.

Gwen is sixteen - she's a kid. Motorcycle lady mentions to Edgy Boy that "she's doing this on her own." Gwen is a kid carrying the pain of having lost Peter, the accusation of being his murderer, the fate of her world, and the fact that she can't even go see her only real best friend anymore. She's been hurt more than anyone, and only wants to not let anyone else get hurt like she has.

But she does: over and over and over again. One of the core aspects of being Spiderman is that you can't always save everyone, so time and time again Gwen can't save her friends by being hurt by her actions.

I rewatched the movie just today (as of writing this, anyways - it might be yesterday by the time I finish), and while some of it was slightly less impactful due to the lack of surprise or suspense (though it was still decidedly surprising in many ways and suspensful in many others), but more than anything I was just painfully aware of just how much Gwen was hiding the entire time. And too just how effortless it was. Dishonesty has been ultimately ingrained into her personality out of necessity and it is tragic.

What I love most about her character, though, is the fact that she barely even hesitates to go after Miles after he even snaps at her during the (for lack of a better term) Intervention scene. For Peterbee it's like a child snapping at their parent - difficult, but effectively just one challenge among many in mentoring. For Gwen it's her actions directly leading to Miles taking out his anger and frustration on her.

But then she's sent back to her father, and she finally opens up of her own volition about everything that she's had bottled up for years now (notably in the best scene in the movie) - and she finally reconciles with him, and is then capable of going after Miles to fix her mistake.

(She's my favorite character)