Silversun

No, I think Finn is the one person who easily saw through Ryder's charming façade. There's no love lost between them.

Ryder/Kate is an intriguing possibility. She seems to like her younger men.

Brekkon

Silversun

Good lord, Kate Fleming is a bit of a hussy too if that were the case, isn't she?

Brekkon

lunabunny

Ryder was just an arse... I don't think there was anymore to it. He liked to annoy people, to benefit from their pain, and to out people I guess is a way to do that!

Finnegan

Anja,

The premise that Ryder is "homophobic" seems questionable, and seems to me to obscure more interesting aspects of the Ryder story-line, on both the naive (teen) and the symbolic (adult) levels.

On the naive level -- YA's meaning for teens:

Facts:

-- (1) The scene in episode 7 in which Ryder sniffs "Jake" Pratt and then alludes to "genetic mutation" seems designed to make the viewer suspect that Ryder suspects that Pratt is female. The scene contrasts neatly with the "smells good" scene in episode 1 in which Fleming borrows Pratt's cap and whiffs her female pheramones, but fails to draw the correct inference: the wicked sense deceit more readily than do the good.

-- (2) Ryder does not engage in ostensibly "homophobic" behavior toward Pratt and Fleming until after (we suspect) he suspects that Pratt is female, i.e., that the Pratt-Fleming relationship is not homosexual.

-- (3) Ryder makes ostensibly "homophobic" remarks to Pratt and Fleming twice. On both occasions he implies that Fleming plays the female role in the Pratt-Fleming relationship. On the first occasion he refers to Fleming as "a lovely one, the dean's daughter." On the second occasion he implies that Fleming is on the receiving end of anal sex with Pratt. (Fleming calls Ryder "butt boy," refering to his cigarette smoking; Ryder resonds by alluding to the other meaning of "butt," saying, "That's a rather ironic insult, coming from you." He's implying that Hamilton takes it up the butt ... arguably YA's closest approach to obscenity.)

Inferences:

-- Ryder deliberately implies not only that Pratt and Fleming are gay, but that Fleming is effiminate and Pratt masculine, precisely because he suspects that is none of that is in fact the case.

-- What Ryder wants is to destroy love and capacity to love (as he tries to render Caroline less willing to love in future, or when he tries to destroy Fleming's family). Pratt's supsected gender deception offers him an opportunity to try to destroy the love between Pratt and Fleming; it renders their love vulnerable to his malice. He has an uncannily keen sense of how to do the greatest harm with the limited resources he has, as he demonstrated in the camera scene in episode 3.

-- Specifically, Ryder "outs" Pratt and Fleming as gay merely as a means to either (a) render Fleming unwilling to continue to love Pratt given Pratt's suspected gender deception, which implies Fleming's heterosexuality, or (b) expose Pratt's suspected gender deception, forcing her to leave Rawley and Fleming, by drawing public attention to the Pratt-Fleming relationship, which cannot withstand sustained public scrutiny. Here, (a) and (b) are choices filling the possibility space: if Fleming does not break up with Pratt, or is not at least publicly perceived to have done so, then Ryder's "outing" will result in public scrutiny of their relationship and increased risk to Pratt's gender deception.

-- Fleming may well understand what Ryder is up to, and the choices available to him in responding to it. What Fleming seems to be doing, in punching Ryder and telling Pratt publicly that "this is not worth it," is breaking up with Pratt in the most conspicuously public way possible. He may prefer to give the appearance of (a) being unwilling to continue to love Pratt, in order to defuse the real threat of (b) public attention to their relationship, entailing increased risk of Pratt's exposure and departure. Fleming's response to Ryder's malice may be no less tactically skillful and shrewd than Ryder's malice itself. Far from being uncharacteristically implusive, it may be deliberate, hence very much in character. Fleming has time, and takes time, to consider his response: Ryder's strategy is evident in his first provocation of Pratt and Fleming, but Fleming responds only to the second provocation, and in between, we see Fleming thinking on his perch above the school door. His behavior throughout episode 7 may be consistent with what he tells Pratt: "I don't care about my reputation, I just don't want to lose you" -- although he may care even more that she not lose him.

On the symbolic level -- YA's meaning for grown-ups:

Fact: Twice, Ryder displays oracular foresight. In episode 3, he taunts Krudski that he will lose his scholarhip: that happens in episode 8, but is not a "likely" event, safely predicted. In episode 7, his allusion to "a shower caddy for two," when taunting Pratt and Fleming, ominously foreshadows the shower scene in episode 8 that renders (or at least seems to render) Pratt unable to remain at Rawley and with Hamilton.

Inference: Ryder is somehow a bit more than just a human boy. The Ryder of episodes 3 and 7 is diabolical, not just in his devotion to pure malice, but in his power to effect it.

Fact: Fleming is the main target of Ryder's malice not only in episode 7 but also in episode 3. Ryder's recording, on camera, of his statement that he and Krudski saw Fleming's mother kissing a man other than her husband immediately follows, and resonds to, a confrontation between Fleming and Ryder, and, had not Krudski intervened, would have destroyed Fleming's family.

Fact: On the symbolic level, Fleming is plainly more than just a human boy. He's Orpheus, he's the prince who kisses and transforms the frog, he's the emotional savior, he's the personification of Rawley, the door-spirit perched over its entryway, reminiscent of Janus, the Roman god of doors and of beginnings. Fleming has uncanny power to effect and inspire "true love," just as Ryder has to effect malice.

Inference: Ryder is inherently an antagonist to Rawley, and to Fleming as its personification, to whom Rawley and Fleming are vulnerable, and from whom they need protection.

Fact: In all three episodes in which Ryder appears, it is Krudski, the narrator, who frustrates Ryder's malice and enables greater good to come forth from Ryder's intended evil.

Inference: It is chiefly the narrative perspective -- Krudski's control over Rawley, the utopian dream of moral renewal that Krudski has created -- that keeps Ryder from wounding Fleming and wreaking havoc on Rawley, that makes evil bring forth good despite its malicious intent. The narrating sub-creator's beneficent "providence" protects Rawley and the character who personifies it. The narrator, descended into the story-line as a character, serves as the agent of that providence. However, Krudski tries to make the moral rules and providence governing his dream-world replicate those governnig the "real" world: Rawley is utopian not in having different moral rules and providence, but in focusing selectively on people who try to be guided by them and to trust in them.

s e r e n i t y

Wow... I never got that thats definately YAs closest approach to obcenity, interesting

Wow you make Ryder sound like so much more than just a mean teenage bully though I suppose the things you described the whole tendency to destroy love actually falls under the characteristics of most those guys

I do agree with this observation is explains just why ryder goes up against Hamilton and then Will