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This is why the most compelling family narratives are not simple morality plays about good and bad relatives. They are nuanced examinations of ambivalence. You can love your sibling and still envy them with a visceral, shameful intensity. You can be grateful to your parent and also furious at their limitations. The British series Fleabag offers a masterclass in this ambivalence through the unseen, deceased best friend, Boo, and the fraught, silent grief that defines the protagonist’s relationship with her sister, Claire. Their competition is not over a man or an inheritance, but over who has the right to suffer more, whose grief is more authentic. This unspoken rivalry, rooted in shared loss, is far more devastating than any shouted argument.
The writer’s challenge: Do not write arguments about the present. Write arguments about the artifacts of the past that the characters have dragged into the present.