Tackling the second part of my "Why I love Mike Carey and Peter Gross' The Unwritten so much" series, I move on a few issues to number 17, "The Many Lives of Lizzie Hexam." If the Tommy Taylor series of books in-universe seems to be a very Harry Potter-esque series, then Lizzie is the character who whole-heartedly grabbed on to the Hermione role in a trio of characters and ran with it.
This is mostly her backstory (sort of?) and delves into her extremely confused world view. She's a great character, but one who has been twisted and whose motives are very... I don't even know some times. I want to say that she's got a noble purpose, but then I think that if I met someone like her in real life, my first instinct would be to back away very slowly. And that's why I like her as a character. Again, spoilers under here.
If the name "Lizzie Hexam" sounds familiar to you but you haven't read the comic, it might be because Lizzie Hexam is a character in the Charles Dickens novel Our Mutual Friend (also his last completed novel, according to Wikipedia.) A few issues prior, this Lizzie--the comic's Lizzie--popped into the book, and at first I assumed that she was Lizzie Hexam come to life. Except then a "Have you seen this girl?" poster with her face on it showed up later on, and it was revealed that Lizzie was really Jane Waxman, and this realization caused something of a break in her, and that's where this issue picks up: with Lizzie/Jane (I'll just call her Lizzie, since that's what she thinks of herself as, that's who I've been thinking of her as for two years now, and that's who she is now) catatonic on a gurney, waiting to be identified so that she can be admitted into a psych ward.
And then the meat of the issue starts. It's a choose-your-own-adventure issue. I was never good at these when I was a kid--inevitably, I got the ending where I died horribly, even if I tried finding a good ending, starting backwards, and working forwards. I'd get lost and end up blown up or stabbed or otherwise dead. And every time I reread this issue, I forget what choices I made and end up with Lizzie drugged up to her eyeballs, forgotten and alone, the first time through.
There's a few constants with every story: due to some event in her past, Jane became Lizzie--actually became, thought that she was from the Dickens world and everything--and ended up under the care of various doctors and treated with various methods. The specifics depend on what you choose. At some point Wilson Taylor--Tom Taylor's dad, author of the Tommy Taylor series of books--takes an interest in her case. He takes her into his household, and at this point things branch again.
This is the part I found most interesting. Either way, the same result happens. What matters is how you choose to interpret it. Was Lizzie's training/indoctrination done to prepare her and Tom for what would eventually happen, or was it manipulated? Was it done semi-mystically or with freaky sense deprivation like a scene out of Fringe? Was Wilson helping a gifted child or further hurting one who was already on the edge of sanity?
Enough weird stuff has gone on in The Unwritten that we as an audience and they as characters know that Wilson wasn't completely full of shit. But it's very debatable how much of that has been good. People have died. Kids have died. Lots of people have been very, very hurt by everything that Wilson and later Lizzie set into motion--including the main characters. And now we can potentially add Lizzie's mental state to the list.
Back in the present, Tom and the Ron of their group, a blogger named Richard Savoy, try to break into the hospital in order to get her out. They find Lizzie, still catatonic, and Tom tries to reach out to her. He tries logic, which doesn't work. And tellingly, when he tries to reach out to her via the fiction that Wilson constructed for them, the Tommy Taylor narrative that occasionally echoes the action that the characters are going through starts to come through. In it, Sue (the in-universe Hermione character) has been turned to stone, and Tommy has to break the spell that froze her. As the real Tom lies to Lizzie, the story's Tommy breaks the spell, and Lizzie/Sue wakes up in both universes. Lizzie comes back into herself, confident.
The last page, of a self-assured Lizzie leading Savoy and Tom, contrasts wonderfully with the Tommy Taylor story's Sue, quietly declaring her love for Tommy in the story after he saved her. Lizzie's a strong character in her own right... as long as she has her fiction to depend on.
The Unwritten #17 can be found in volume 3, Dead Man's Knock.
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