Wednesday 14 October 2009
I wish he had cited sources in this thing, but I guess I can’t expect too much scholarly rigor from cnn.com:
Many, many children who are depressed will become significantly better if the troubles in their lives are addressed and corrected. An amazing recent example of this comes from a study that found that when a depressed mother takes an antidepressant medication and responds, the effect on depressive symptoms is bigger in her kids than it is in her. She takes the pill, but they get the biggest benefit.
– Dr. Charles Raison, “What can cause depression in a 12-year-old”
That interested me most for what it implies about kids whose depressed mothers don’t get treated. Or in our case, fathers.
Gwynn’s personality has changed so much in the last few weeks. She cried those self-indulgent tears on the night Lili died, but since then she has been truly suffering. She seems to be the Sebright kid with the most insufficient coping strategies.
She’s the kid whose character is slipping away from me the most — it’s harder and harder for me to figure out what she will do and how she will react. And she literally is getting volatile and unpredictable — look at how she blew up with Cubby. Of course that was only more of her usual histrionics — “It is not to be borne!” — until he mentioned Finn. But even then, though that was a cute moment of Fwynn!, it is also really sad. Even her meddling in poor Connie’s love life is sad.
No point to this ramble, I’m just fretting about Gwynn. Her family is in crisis, her so-called bosom friend is damaging to her self-esteem and furthermore currently out of her grasp, she either gets no or the wrong sort of attention from boys…
And then there’s Finn and Egelric, and she does not have an ally or a sympathetic ear in that situation, even if she could bring herself to talk about it.
Margaret is trying to help her, but perhaps not in the best ways. Gwynn just seems so painfully alone. 
) Gwynn has experienced tragedy of her own -- and involving her father, as it happens.
It would be poetically right for it to have something to do with Egelric. Especially if Finn didn't find out about it till after he called her some nasty names. 
Chapters
You were saying earlier that you thought Finn's recent experiences were going to make relating to Gwynn even more difficult than usual. I think that maybe Gwynn doesn't get enough credit for being deeper than she appears. Going through tough times doesn't automatically make you deep, but it seems like a lot of her tightly held views of romance are a defense mechanism against some of the very unromantic things that have been happening in her family lately - or even six years ago, when Matilda had an affair and died as a result. Not much romantic material to mine, there. She does need a friend, and bad. Maybe Baldwin!