Boxilar wrote:I think it comes down to what did Shelly know, and when did she know it. If Shelly only found out about Monica's "Jaguar Girl" status after the metric tons of personal revelations (pale horse, grass burnt up, star named wormwood. *CLINK*) she just went through, there hasn't been a chance to tell her. Monica has held herself incommunicado for two weeks and was in the process of emotionally detatching herself from her supernatural friends. Shelly brought the subject up at the beach and Monica blew her off. Long experience has taught Shelly that often times when Monica has her mind made up about something telling is ineffective, showing is the only thing that works.
**snip**
And Shelly also probably understands the value of self discovery. It can be hard, but is also very rewarding.
I'm reminded of a piece of philosophical/spiritual teaching I heard many years ago:
"Speak to every man according to his understanding. There is a gradation in all men; each will perceive what he can perceive, at the stage at which he can perceive it."
(and I personally read "every man" as "each person", etc. - the English language unfortunately lacks a good gender-neutral turn of phrase for these things. You either have to say "his or her", or use the plural "they" and "their", and both are clumsy. It's enough to make a person pull hir hair out.)
That, I think, is what people have been pointing out. Monica hasn't every been very comfortable with the paranormal/supernatural in general, and certainly not with her own connection to it. During the past two weeks (since the big sphinx-feed) she's been actively looking for ways to withdraw from the whole paranormal world, even if it cost her one of her oldest friendships.
I think she has been actively resisting (or at least in denial of) information about her own true nature. When Shelly dropped the first reference about "Jaguar Girl" (that caused a lot of us to say "Hunh? What?!?") Monica's reaction wasn't one of curiosity and inquiry - it was one of "Well, I did
have a special nature at one point, but that's closed and in the past now." Rather than follow up on Shelly's statements, she backed away from them. She really didn't want to know... because knowing would have required her to face the fact that she can't just withdraw from the paranormal world and return to the "safe" normal world.
Her own fire-and-OOBE experience was an abrupt wake-up call (in a very literal sense). She can no longer deny that she's part of the paranormal world. Now, she seems ready to actually listen to Shelly, and hear the information Shelly has to impart.
It'll be interesting (and significant) to learn just how long Shelly has known all this stuff. My guess is that Shelly may have had some (or many?) of the pieces of the puzzle from her time in the Time Forest, but that at least some of this is relatively new information for her.
Shelly had quite an opportunity to talk with Nudge (after the Bia punch-out), and Nudge is clearly a very knowledgeable demigod who could have told Shelly about a great many things that had previously been hidden. As others have noted, there was also time for a Shelly/Phix reconciliation and talk-talk.
I have to wonder whether
Phix and Nudge may have come to an agreement that it was past time to stop hiding things from Shelly and Monica. Just
what quiet places are being filled?
Shelly did say something about how M would have burned her way out of the freeze if Euryale hadn't defrosted her quickly enough, too. I'm guessing the fire bit is a power that's here to stay. 