Jake Delegates And Cassie Is Delegated To (Quote Selection)

[Ember Nickel]

Yeah, all those Jake/Cassie (or Leader Jake and Lead-ee Cassie) quotes I was collecting during the reread? I finally put them together, in chronological order. I was going to write up some analysis, but, eh, you know what, forget it. I pulled it together, if there’s a pattern or foreshadowing then there is, and if I’m just grasping at straws, then, there isn’t.

Quotes!

[itw2009]

heh. i'm really impressed with your having found all of those. it's not something that i would naturally draw any conclusions from; contextually, it seems to me that jake and cassie are making the right decisions on a case-by-case basis. i recall cassie standing up for herself and her personal decisions whenever she thought that she needed to; i don't think (? can't remember) that she muted or changed her personality in response to something jake had ever told/asked her to do. i do know that she took a lot of crap for the team (did things that ran contrary to her stated feelings on the matter) but, imo, that made her braver in a lot of ways than the rest. occasionally, it was "her against the world" and she knew it and she still took it on.

and i definitely don't think that you're grasping at straws; i think that it's worth thinking about. although, you might be getting at something else and i might be missing the point completely. xD


oh. random thing that i said way back in the day that this has reminded me of:

the one thing that i might be overthinking but will still bring up for its potential validity is cassie's progression....

part of it was the ghostwriter's general tendency to, as you sort of put it, smash 3D characters into 1D lines... but i think that cassie's logical, psychological development was lost on some of the readers because the development was implied and not stated outright. i.e., originally, she saw things as more of an undefined yet b&w cloud of "i haven't experienced this, but here is what i kindasorta think i feel about 'x' situation". once she really got caught up in the war, she was forced to solidify her position on issues that she'd had no business reasonably judging to begin with. so it looks like she's hypocritical but really, imho, she's just getting better at understanding herself, her context, and her morals. people change- that doesn't make us all hypocrites. and ESPECIALLY at that age... i think we do a lot of changing.

iow, i don't believe that cassie acts on a contradictory moral set, and i don't think that katmike intended it that way and i don't think that cassie feels that way about it, either. anyhoo, i only really bring this up because several people have said similar things previously.

[Aluminator (Kit)]

Could have sworn I responded to this. Interwebs! Stop eating my posts!

It is really interesting, seeing them all together like this. Jake has this thread wherein he subtly uses his authority to keep Cassie out of danger that falls somewhere between sweet and selfish (since someone else always has to put themselves in harm's way instead).

I found this sequence particularly interesting:

[spoiler]

(Book 51, Marco)

"…Group Two has to travel to the capitol. Get to the governor somehow. Convince him to work with us."

"I’ll go," Cassie said.

"No," Jake replied, practically before the words were out of her mouth.

Cassie froze. Stared at him.

Jake didn’t even look at her.

Instead, he gave me a sarcastic half-smile. A glimpse of the old Jake. “If anybody can handle a politician, it’s Marco. And Tobias can get to the capitol without getting lost. We also need to make sure the governor isn’t a Controller, and Ax is the most qualified to judge. So that’s the second group. Marco, Ax, and Tobias.”

That’s when he finally looked at Cassie. Locked his gaze on her.

"I can trust them," he said.

Silence.

-

(Book 52, Ax)

"Cassie’s going," Jake said. "If there are tough decisions to be made along the way, I want Cassie to make them. She’s as close as I can get to going myself…"

 

"No offense, Cassie," Marco said. "But I think it should be me or Ax."

"Why? You don’t trust me to give the people only five minutes to escape?"

"I don’t trust you not to sacrifice yourself somehow in the process. No unnecessary heroics. They give me gas."

-

(Book 53, Jake)

"I need Rachel, Marco, Tobias, Ax, Toby, James, and Eva," I said.

I hadn’t meant to exclude Cassie. I really hadn’t. But it was too late. She looked like I’d hit her. She blinked and turned quickly away, covering the moment with aimless chatter to her parents…

‹Okay, then. Get started. Make sure Cassie doesn’t know.›

‹You still don’t trust her?› Rachel said angrily.

‹She loves us both, Rachel,› I said. ‹I can’t make her part of this…›

[/spoiler]
Basically, Jake doesn't trust her, then he trusts only her, then he plays it as though he doesn't trust her again. I don't remember those books too well without a reread-- is Jake's trust of Cassie in #52 there warranted or in-character?

Court, I like your old post on Cassie's development. I'm glad you dredged that up. And I agree-- Cassie is a very brave character who probably doesn't deserve a lot of the flak she gets. Some of it, I think, is warranted, but not all