— The tragedy of Tyler Galpin and how he falls under the "perfect victim" discurse.
tw: mentions of grooming, torture and s/a obviously this also has wednesday spoilers from season 2
1. Tyler's very first appearance says he's a 16yo, later we find out he's the sheriff son and his mom isn't on the picture anymore. We also know he's on mandatory terapy after a fight he got involved a year later.
We then find out it was the last Outreach Day, where normies and outcasts should have a peaceful coexistence, that he ruined Xavier's portrait and assaulted him along with his townie friends. /2
Then there's his relationship with his father, Donovan, who is always on conflict with Tyler trying at every chance to make his dad talk about his mom that we now know is dead. There's hints that him and Tyler don't at all, and when they do, it escalates to a fight quickly. /3
So what we can take from all that is Tyler is a teenager who is grieving his mom and his father is rarely present in his life at all. Turning him into a easy victim for Laurel Gates. /4
2. At first, we thought she was a normie too friendly teacher. Turns out she's a bigoted woman from a bigoted family with a mission to genocide all outcasts, and her plan involved creating a war between the normies and outcasts /1
By making a series of murders against the normie community that would raise suspicions on the outcasts students due to its violent nature. And she did it by becoming the master of a creature known to be an outcast to outcasts, the Hyde, who are not even allowed at Nevermore. /2
As we know from Faulkner diary, a Hyde always has a master. This creature CANNOT NOT obey its master. Their dynamic is similar to what we see in real life with Stockholm Syndrom: a victim that in order to survive, develops a link to its captor that they start to believe them. /3
Laurel pray on Tyler likely since she got in Jericho (A year and a half before Wednesday got to Nevermore), lured him and showed the truth about what happened to his late mother: she was a Hyde, and Laurel poisoned his mind into believing that the outcasts community failed her /5
likely causing her death. This could be the reason why Tyler attacked Xavier on Outreach Day. But that wasn't the only thing Laurel did. In season 2, she admitted with all words she had groomed Tyler, likely lured him into a cave in the mid of the forest, and "unlocked" him /6
The show heavily hints to us that Tyler was also a victim of s/a - the way Laurel touches him, using the term "mommy" to refer to herself, her own speech in one of her classes that refers to what she did to pray on her victim /7
Laurel isolated Tyler from everyone: said his father failed his mother, made him rage against the outcasts, turned herself into his mother figure and at the same a lover figure, so she was all he had. In s2, she stated "I'm the only one that have ever loved you" /8
Then Laurel put her plan to work, attacking hikers on the woods with extreme violence. Tyler admitted he first woke up naked with no idea what had happened. And then, he started to grow conscious over the Hyde, and as he did, the killings became less and less violent /10
It didn't mean however that the link between Master and Hyde had faded, Tyler had no choice but to obey her - and even if it wasn't for their link, she was all he had.
3. And if all that wasn't enough, Wednesday tortured him too prove her vision right- the episode make it look like it was in a short time and she didn't do damage, but it took time to the Nightshades to report to Weems and for the police to get there.
4. At Willowhill, a 17yo stays in a high security cell, chained to a wall, for three months under a therapy that consists of drug cocktails and electroshock - surprisingly not making him cooperative. His father only visited once, his master was gone. He had no one.
We don't know what meds they were giving Tyler, but we do know that they eletrochoked him for 5 minutes, and its stated after that the voltage they use for him could kill a normal human being by simply touching him.
When Wednesday visit didn't work, Dr Fairburn brought his abuser to visit Tyler, even tho she had just admitted to have groomed him, in the cell they kept him chained and shirtless, much like how Laurel kept him during her torture sessions to unlock the Hyde.
(This is more of a personal opinion but writing a scene where the 17yo character meets his abuser in nothing but pants is definitely a choice. I get it, Hunter Doohan is hot, but putting his character, a victim of s/a, in such a vulnerable position AGAIN was so odd)
In ep 4, Tyler kills Laurel - but the producers and Hunter says a Hyde cannot SURVIVE without his master. His future is unsure, he is angry, he is in terrible emotional distress, he was abused for more than a year and locked away for crimes he was groomed to commit. And he's 17.
Tyler is an example of the Perfect Victim exactly bc people are disregarding his own suffering bc he isn't a saint, he's complex and reacts to what happens to him with violence, bc all he knows since he's 15.
Tyler storyline is abt a victim of grooming and s/a HEALING, pointing out the hypocrisy of "pro outcasts but only the right outcasts." Wanting him to die as a "redemption" would send the message that only death could be the escape for victims and ppl that don't fit in.
***prey FUCK