Photo via DreamHack and Adela Sznajder

The Thorin Treatment: The Wonderchild Just Wills

JW. The Wonderchild. Fast and fluid.

Who is that boy? The one that moves so freely and without hesitation. Bursts a bubble of the potential danger range so effortlessly. Pierces the veil of possibility instantaneously and in such a freshly opened and previously non-existant moment shows sparking innovations that are effervescent bubbles which excite onlookers even as they irritate those affected immediately with a sickness sinking to the stomach’s depths.

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This boy has wings at his feet and his movements leave blazing flames tracing the trajectory from his past to future. Aesthetic ecstasy accompanying the increasing speed and a point of possibility opening up on the dark horizon of predictability. None have gone where he is headed yet he does not waver. Seeking freedom within a fixed system, he finds it in the moment of creation and dare not look back lest he acknowledge what he is doing and the chains of rationality weigh him down and bind his feet to the prison of acceptability.

A box is not an obstacle but stair to higher ground, to be navigated to a point above. A door is an opening not to an area but a stage, to show the other something, however bold or simple it may yet be and even if they are not ready to see as much. Height is but an invitation to leap and tumble through air as a rolling boy through autumn leaves. Those who do not look up can only be deceived by the truth of his jump.

His hell is the grey and suffocating realm labelled and conjured as the straight lines of the triangle, its boundaries enforced with the barbarous name: “meta-game”. The grooves worn deep and clear by other travellers may be a comfort and guiding set of signposts to others, but he seeks for new ground and terrain to explore.

There is a purity to his intentionality that ignores all labels of pretension and rejection of efficiency, as his impulses are a dizzying wine which feed a thirst for expression which yearns to be manifest. There are those who look to find the style which will be the palette of their play, while he creates his own as if it were only natural, as if it could be any other such thing.

Nobody saw or showed such momentum with an AWP or CZ, but the assumed arrogance and anger-invoking shock of such freedom outside of all bounds angered the gods and their dull servants. His long lightning whip struck down with a weight and his faithful sidearm stripped back to a single dimension, the years sapped his spirit. The boy forgot how to move and to dare and to dream.

Photo via Gfinity and Joe Brady

To play is unadulterated expression, but the child so wondrous became a man, settled into a role and accepting of the responsibilities of an adult. To win is blasphemy to the spirit when it becomes the goal in sight, rather than the crescendo of the soul’s song. Trophies and titles, weighty but gleaming handcuffs and bars fixed him firmly into the realm of respectability. Soon nobody said a word and everything about him became acceptable, defined, normal.

As his speed deserted him the vibrant colours of his sweeping movements washed out to a mix of regiment browns and pale greens. Imagination evaporated and left only a dusty precipitate too bitter to taste from as he had when inspiration had gushed forth and refreshed the boy in the heat of his joyous expression. Identity became walls closing in, not light fences pushed down and leapt over. Definition trapped him.

But a voice still lingered, so quiet now it was but a whisper on the wind. One cannot name from whom it is uttered, but its call is always the same “remember”. As long as it still flickers as a flame not yet extinguished in a wind it can be nursed. Feeding and growing, a fire is born which again consumes the soul. The deadwood is burned away in the pursuit of expansion. One becomes lighter and more fluid. The red flame morphs into blue. As one remembers so one becomes the one remembered. He is returned. The boy is awake again.

As if no time at all had passed, for such time was but a charting of the trajectory of his fall, the instant has returned and he is whole once more. Burning, rising and yet unharmed. The restrictions are again pushed against, so lightly and yet purely that how can they do anything but accede to his dream. None can resist, least of all destiny. It welcomes the child as it always has.

Again he frolics, the weightier whip somehow still elastic enough to snap impossibly against his foes. The possible is a fog which others mistake as clarity. Emerging from it to once more paint the improbable on the canvas of server with his movement, actions ringing across the landscape which is his to traverse. His ideas reach a boiling point others soon remember, scalded by their inability to withstand such fiery fastness. There is no set of points to connect an idea to a movement, as his inspiration is gaseous now; his game is driven by this steam.

Is it a wonder he remembers who he is again? His expression is what he wonders. Onlookers can question what he won there, when a trip or a fall temporarily slows him and halts his circulation. The child hears not. Incorrigible and intoxicated. Fluid and fast. The water does not fear the fire.

The boy they called foul porcine insults. Integrity questioned, he could not have known to follow his path without illegitimate knowledge, the gnawing voices yammered. Except he doesn’t Just Win any more, he Just Wills. Catch him if you can. The Wonderchild.

“Those who restrain desire do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained”

William Blake

Photo via DreamHack and Adela Sznajder


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