Self-Insert as Selves

Summary

We finished rereading Piranesi, and something struck us about the names at the end.

Content warning: spoilers for Piranesi

Thoughts

Frequently, not-Matthew-Rose-Sorenson asserted that he did not believe his name was actually Piranesi, and knew that is just what the Other called him. When Raphael asks what to call him, he identifies himself as the Beloved Child of the House. Yet, at the end, the next person (who we'll call the New World Person) who is not him or Matthew Rose Sorenson refers to him as Piranesi.

By calling him Piranesi, however, it seems that the New World Person agrees with Ketterly. "Piranesi" is the captive of the Labyrinth, a prisoner in a cell. The "Beloved Child of the House" is an identity that he created for himself. Yes, Ketterly brought him to the House, but he forged a new relationship with the House that existed beyond Ketterly or the search for the Great and Secret Knowledge. It was a name reflecting his sense of self, the world he lived in, and even how he interacted with the other people of the world who were not the Other, even if they were dead. He was their guardian because he was the House's Beloved Child and must take care of the other children.

To us, calling him "Piranesi" now that they are in the New World seems kind of cruel. The Beloved Child still exists within the New World Person, such as when he balks at money when simple barter would do or when thinking of the statue of Raphael, and while there does seem to be a sense of past-ness that exists like Matthew did for the Beloved Child, he's still more present than Matthew's sleeping. He's there, now, in this New World. The New World Person is adapting, but the Beloved Child struggles. Why call him by something that only identifies him as someone who suffers because of Ketterly? Why not celebrate his relationship with the House?

An interesting choice. What does that say about the New World Person? He still loves and appreciates the House and visits often. Does he not want the responsibility of being the Beloved Child? Does he not want to feel the same obligation toward the House that existed when it was their whole world? Does he just want to distance himself from who he was now that he's free from Ketterly? But why invoke Ketterly's name then, if that's the case?

Maybe he actually wants to emphasize that that person, the Beloved Child, is the way he is because of Ketterly. Maybe he wants to emphasize the worst parts of the Beloved Child's existence to keep himself safe and present in the New World.

At the very, very end when there's the call-back to "the Beauty of the House is immeasurable, its Kindness infinite," the New World Person is contemplating the relationship between the House and the New World. He'd just seen people who the Beloved Child first met as statues. He's seeing them for real, moving, engaging with the world. The New World Person exists because the Beloved Child lived inside the House, and now they do not. But the House still influences how they see the world. So when the New World Person calls him Piranesi, he boxes him in to that span of time when the Beloved Child had no other options. Now that the New World Person and the Beloved Child can explore things together, can explore the relationship between the House and the New World... cut Ketterly out of there. Why not emphasize who they were when they were learning the House? When that was the new world?

Maybe he simply does not believe that he was the Beloved Child. Maybe the New World Person no longer believes the House felt any kind of way toward anybody, so calling him Piranesi is his way of denying that line of logic. But the New World Person still has a relationship with the House!

When the New World Person visits James Ritter, takes him to the House again, and tells him he cannot stay there forever, he makes a distinction between himself, someone who could survive in the House indefinitely, with James, who could not. The New World Person's offer to eventually take James Ritter to stay there forever with him is undercut by the final end when he sees the House inside the New World, thus robbing him of any need to live in the House, but he makes an offer. And we see that the House holds onto people forever once they have been adopted with how James Ritter responds.

The Beloved Child is awake. He returns to the House often, but he is no longer Piranesi. He doesn't need that name anymore.