musings on elijah elkwood

[dellearte]

look at him striding in like that

Elijah's this cool, confident guy. Maybe a politician-Cyril says something about that-travelled across the continent with his brother. Has a family he adores, smart, well dressed, etc.

He's also pretty dang twisted and cynical. And it's really, really likely that he got this way based on his background. You see, as a kid? He had a smart mouth, lived in fear of his aunts, ran around with his brother and sister, loved his mom enough to be a brat, read a ton. Normal kid. No signs of anything off about him.

Petunia is the one who says this line about him. "Even now, Elijah is the same, except sometimes when I look into his eyes something in them is burning." And even more tellingly, there is one page that shows him beaten and bloody, obviously a flashback triggered by the idea of wanting to destroy.

Now, to take into account the climate. 1920s Australia. The Elkwoods are an Aborigine family. It is now not just incredibly likely, but implied canon that they've been the victim of racism. Multiple times and bumped up to canon, to add the examples of Petunia being denied a job and other people explaining why. Elijah has stated that "I tend to assume people can't stand the sight of me. It's easier that way." Most people don't think it's easier to start from a hate standpoint, unless given a situation where you're quite sure people would have reason to hate you. In this case, because he's Aborigine.

Which begs the question-why would he be in a political position at all if there's this hatred? For that, I turn to the creator's blog and another canon fact-he's known as "Mr. Gabriel" in Parliament building. Nozmo has also said he might change his voice depending on the situation-which may imply he changes his accent to suit, making it more appealing by taking on a British one, perhaps? Or, possibly, he could be posing as Indian from the currently British occupied colony (which was going on at the time, mainly for men who wished to enlist). Whatever the case, he wants to hide for a reason, and it's a possibility that it is his ethnicity. (Or his family, but this is not the theory for eliolet entry.)

This falls back into his views on hate-"Hate is quite dangerous." He wants people to die, he wants to force people to see what hate does to people and what will happen. People who hate the government vs. the government-Todd nearly died there, and Elijah would have been happy to let it happen as an "experiment". This was suffering that he underwent-even in Melbourne, in his second life-and he wanted to inflict it on other people.

Certainly I don't wish to justify Elijah's actions as anything but hideous in the regard that he wished Todd a torturous death and implied he's done things like this before. I only want to see if I can understand why he does it, and how he might react to a modern context with the racism he's used to being so lessened.

I was going to put more cool Elijah pictures in here but then I remembered he's also a big dork sometimes



also I just really like this picture of him and Cyril



/end words