1/11/19 - Favourite Character Praise Friday - Simon Spier

Hello and welcome back to Favourite Character Praise Friday! This is one of my absolute favourite posts to write and I hope you enjoy my picking apart of my favourite characters enough to stick around while I examine my next victim, I mean, character. Don’t worry, I do not rank these characters in a particular order, it just so happens that some characters are better worth sharing praise for at a different point in time to others! Remember, every fifth instalment is Least Favourite Character Praise Friday, so keep an eye out for me probing at characters I can’t stand and raving about how well they were written in order to evoke such a reaction.

So, who is the subject of my next Favourite Character Praise Friday?

Simon Spier from Simon Vs The Homo Sapien Agenda & Love, Simon

Warning: The following analysis will contain spoilers for Simon Vs The Homo Sapien Agenda and Love, Simon

When I first read Simon’s story it was 2016 and I fell in love with the way his story was so perfectly crafted to be the same as a “standard” heterosexual Young Adult Romance. I remember seeing the film in cinema with my friends, and all of us weeping in the back row at how beautiful it was.
But why is Simon one of my favourite characters?

He fit seamlessly into the Young Adult Genre. Becky Albertalli demonstrated with this novel that when writing same sex relationships between characters in this genre, you don’t need to change much about them. Had Simon been a female character, a lot of his struggles would have been nullified, but he would have been equally as likeable. Simon’s character fit so well because he was just a normal person, this is explained several times in both the film and the book, the most iconic instance being in the opening monologue where he says “my name’s Simon and I’m just like you”. He acknowledges that he is a normal guy and he and his friends do what normal teenagers do, drink too much iced coffee, watch bad ‘90s movies and hangout at Waffle House dreaming of college and gorging on carbs. Which, in my experience, is exactly what I do with my friends. I felt like the way that was written immediately establishes the type of person he is. All of the declarations are easy to access, regardless of which aspect of the list relates to you as the consumer best. I immediately felt a kinship with Simon as I related to all three things he listed. I felt like the way he was written as a character was an easy way to show other writers who are apprehensive to write LGBT characters that they don’t need to make these characters any different than you would the rest of your characters. Not every gay male fits into an archetype, the same way that no straight male does.

I also love Simon because he is so easy to access. I have already touched on this in my previous point where I explained why I felt a kinship with him, but to look at the film, in particular, you can see from the stuff on his cork-board that he has interests outside of the plot of the story. It became a game of my friends and I to look for more Easter Eggs about Simon’s character. He has a Hamilton playbill mounted on the board, and a Hufflepuff crest. I feel like the film shows a completely different dimension to his character that isn’t necessarily seen in the book, as Simon would have no need to describe the contents of his bedroom as he knows where everything is. Seeing his outside interests littered around the room make him even easier to access than the information he provides us in the opening monologue about how he’s “just like you”. I feel like the fact he is so easy to relate to in that instance makes it easier to become attached to him as the story goes on. Most teenagers can relate to the plights he is exposed to; with one friend seeming to have so much undesired romantic attention, or exposure to unrequited love, the sensation of getting to know people through a computer screen, so on and so forth. It’s not uncommon for stuff like this to take place in the lives of teenagers, especially with us being in the age of social media. I have seen, and wept over many videos of online friends meeting in person for the first time, and have met some of mine in a similar way, not that we recorded it, even though we probably should have done. Albertalli really created something clever here with so much reach to connect with so many different types of people.

The last reason I adore Simon Spier is due to the plight that he has found himself in. Being in a situation where you feel like you can tell someone absolutely everything and be so emotionally close with them, but have no idea who they are is a scenario many with online friends encounter a lot. However, his is amplified due to his knowledge that Blue, his love interest, actually goes to his High School. The prompt addition of Martin Addison’s threat to out him makes the entire story more tragic and heart-breaking. In the film, after he is outed via social media, Simon ends up confronting Martin after he attempts to apologise for his actions and tells him that “that’s supposed to be my thing”. It awareness to people that aren’t LGBT that if you’ve been trusted with that kind of information, it isn’t yours to share, even if the person who shared that information with you is out to many people, which, in Simon’s case, he was not.

I am immensely grateful that Albertalli wrote this story as it was one that I feel that many people need to see in the world! Simon is, consequently, one of my absolute favourite characters, and it was genuinely really hard to unpack why I adore him as I do.

Please, if you have opinions on Simon Spier, feel free to share them with me! Don’t forget you can check out my previous Character Praise by looking through the hashtags below.

And remember!

Per Aruda Ad Astra!