"Before I try to sort this out, I think I need to recap everything I know..." lol, what?!
I have to assume this was a direct response to people complaining about not being able to follow the plot, but damn was it an overcorrection.
On Page 1186, do we think "They were most likely doing my will" is Melissa just explicitly trying to spell the story out to us? I find it funny Elena is saying it's the "only possible explanation". I guess Melissa wasn't a fan of our theories (not that she reads anything here)
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I find it interesting that it's Elena waking up with these memories and not Andrew. I assumed that the memories were a big part of what kept the Andrew persona in control, but now for the first time Elena knows she's not Elena and she still can't shut it off (referring to herself as "Elena", in love with Nikos, referring to Marina as her niece).
It's kinda weird though? Andrew was the one being reminded by "Aphrodite" of these events. Maybe I'm reading too much into symbolism that wasn't there, but Andrew is the one being femininzed in the dream state. And when Andrew suddenly awoke after the timeskip, he still seemed to be channeling a lot of the Elena traits (attraction to Nikos, limited English fluency).
So rather than it being like split personalities, based on the exposition dump, I think we're supposed to read it as Andrew was getting progressively more "behavior locked". And we're now at the point that with/without the memories, Andrew behaves as Elena. But what's changed is the amount of info Andrew/Elena knew. So rather than two entities, it's one entity that does/doesn't have info.
So we have original Andrew: He's aware of the feminization and is progressively getting more in character to sell the character due to safety concerns.
We have a traumatic event. Now we have "Elena". Elena behaves perfectly in character but the trauma has wiped memories of ever NOT being Elena, so Elena acts perfectly in character.
Elena/Andrew remembers events up to a certain point. Specifically, remembers some but not ALL of the feminzation. Still behavior locked, but at this point, "Elena" is behaving more like "Andrew" in terms of relationships with people and skills he wouldn't be familiar with (for instance, not being comfortable in even taller heels). Which sort of makes sense. The Elena behavior makes him enjoy sex with Nikos, unable to speak English, etc. But "Andrew" is of course extremely wary, nervous and confused because of the sudden body and relationship change and is constantly thrown off. I'll note, on page 553 and 554, "Andrew" complains about how he couldn't possibly wear such high heels, but then is shown to have no problems doing so. "Andrew's" current memories convince him that he couldn't possibly wear them, but his "locked behavior" handles it without issue. Like muscle memory.
Which gets us to post-dream Elena/Andrew. Still behavior locked as Elena, but with even more memories, which removes some of the wariness and paranoia.
So the biggest takeaway for me here... is that everyone is playing along treating Elena as Elena because... Elena asked them to? So including page 542, where Elena directly brings up Andrew, and Nikos feigns ignorance...? Which... ok... They agreed to keep doing this even in private. It's one thing to sell the story. But I'm missing where that means Nikos eagerly fucks his niece's husband?