Kenyons Minions discussion
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Anyone else angry at Ryssa but don't hate her?
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In acheron she was great. In styxx i hated her. Plain and simple.
I see what you're saying. I've had mixed feelings about her from the beginnig. Mostly because I don't think I ever really believed that Acheson and Stuff hated each other. You can't be that close to a sibling for all those years especially if you are a twin and not continue to love them. I think a large part of Rysa's feelings were tied to resentment and perception. Her father and her uncle fed the feelings in all three kids and the hate and resentments just grew. Since she was kept away from both brothers most of the time she had very l8tr knowledge of either brother to form an accurate idea of who Ache and Stuff really were or what they were going through. So no I don't really hate her but there were times I wanted to smack some sense into her.
sorry my auto correct doesn't like the name Styxx and keeps changing it to Stuff.
Hating her would take too much energy. She did a lot of terrible things and had an awful influence on Styxx and Acheron's relationship but… She's dead. She's been dead forever. And they are grown men who had millenias to try to deal with their trauma and repair their relationship, sooooo… I hate that such a petty person basically built the corner stone of Ash and Styxx's difficult relationship, but I have a hard time laying the blame at her door because she also seems kind of pathetic compared to every other terrible thing that happened to both of them. I pity her. But I mostly don't think about her at all.
I agree with you both. I dont think about her as much just her horrible cheating marriage which also brought alot of trouble to the brothers. That whole family in general was awful but like it was stated earlier ...their dead. And its what shaped the brothers into who they are today.so in a sense i cant hate them. But. I did cry for what the brothers went through. So glad they got their happy ending.
Like:impulsiveness (potentially self-damaging) - I can't think of a specific example. But it's a lot to do with her lack of foresight.
intense anger, that does not fit with the situation, or difficulty controlling anger - She lost her cool because her dress was broken.
experiencing minor problems as major crises- Again back to the dress example.
‘black and white’ thinking which often means switching between love and hate in personal relationships - Love Acheron, Acheron can do no wrong. Hate Styxx, everything Styxx does is bad.
Keep in mind that Ryssa's mother was clearly mentally ill. I refuse to believe that Ryssa's mother was right in the mind, because she wasn't. Someone right in their mind doesn't stab their child multiple times and then try to kill themself in front of their child.
So I maintain the idea that Ryssa was mentally ill, because these things are usually genetic.
Here are some personality disorders that Ryssa has some of the traits of, besides BPD.
HPD
At the end of the day I think she would be PD-TS
That stands for personality disorder-traits specified.
It means you have many traits from quite a few personality disorders, but not enough traits to qualify you for any of them.
What my view of mental illness is:
A mentally ill person can't control their thoughts or feelings. If they could, they wouldn't have their mental illness. But 99% of the time they can control what they say and do.
So by no means does Ryssa being mentally ill give her a free pass.
I do think it gives her a free pass to FEEL the EMOTION of hate for Styxx. But it doesn't give her a free pass to act on that hatred.
I do think Ryssa should be given a free pass for her thoughts. I've had thoughts like "I hope you die!" during an argument with a family member. Thoughts are a lot more difficult to control.
It was pure bad luck that Styxx could hear Ryssa's thoughts. It's not Ryssa's fault that Styxx can hear her thoughts. Thoughts are usually raw and uncensored.
Like you might imagine stabbing someone who hurt you, but you wouldn't state that out loud.
So I won't blame Ryssa for having raw and uncensored thoughts, just because Styxx was unfortunate enough to hear them, doesn't mean Ryssa did anything wrong in that regard.
Our thoughts are a place were we can let out steam, think the worse of someone, fantasize about the worse happening to them; and know at the end of the day we haven't hurt them, but it made us feel better.
I will hold Ryssa accountable for what she said and did.
But I won't hold Ryssa accountable for her thoughts or feelings.
Sorry if that made no sense.
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Did I miss the part in the books where the characters reflected on how clearly mentally ill Ryssa was? Like, as a reader, I can tell she could have had a number of mental health issues. But did SK ever actually indicated that that was her intention with Ryssa? Are we just assuming mental health issues were behind some of her behavior rather than accepting that she just chose to be that way?I think I remember Tory referring to a specific part of Ryssa's journal as "bipolar" but I don't think she was making a statement regarding her mental health. I think she was just characterizing Ryssa's obvious bias in how she viewed Styxx and Acheron as "bipolar" (as in, swinging wildly between two extreme: in this case, love and hate)
Marie wrote: "Did I miss the part in the books where the characters reflected on how clearly mentally ill Ryssa was? Like, as a reader, I can tell she could have had a number of mental health issues. But did SK ..."SK did mention somewhere that Ryssa was bipolar in a post she made. I think it was her answer to some Good reads question a couple years back. She was describing how all the characters have their own flaws to reflect that just like us they aren't perfect. Some of them don't always tell the truth and may lie or have bigger problems going on in their lives with them. And she mentioned that Ryssa and her mother were bipolar and had the disorder.
I don't know which post it was, sorry.
Ah thanks! XD I wondered about that because I wasn't sure where the "bipolar" thing was coming from and I was like "yeah, I can see it, ok, but why is everyone acting like it's a pre-established fact? What did I miss?"
But there are so many people who hate Ryssa to the point they were happy she died.
I didn't hate her that much and it still breaks my heart the way she was killed like that.
Here are all the reasons I can't hate Ryssa. Mind you, I dislike her though.
1. Sherrilyn makes a really strong point about how characters can misunderstand situations
2. Ryssa had bipolar
3. Ryssa was also a child (an older child) when she bullied Styxx. Much different than had she been a grown adult bullying a child.
4. It's not naive of her to believe her brother had all this power and could stop Acheron's abuse at any moment. In fact it was normal she thought that. So when Styxx does nothing to stop the abuse it pisses her off. She's naive and doesn't realize that Styxx is almost as powerless as she is.
5. Ryssa half lies to Acheron, telling Acheron how much Styxx and Xerxes love him. (Styxx does love Acheron, but it's hidden under a lot of anger at Acheron's betrayal) When Acheron happily looks at Styxx expectantly for that love, after being rejected by Xerxes; Styxx rejects Acheron. We know why Styxx did it. Styxx's reasons were understandable. But what Ryssa saw was Styxx rejecting Acheron for NO REASON other than Acheron was different.
I think if Styxx had taken that risk and not rejected Acheron it might have changed the story for the better. But Styxx rejecting Acheron only cemented Ryssa's hatred of him.