Orin's diagnosis of Hal: shut down, performing for Avril's approval, unaware anything's wrong

pivotal · Nov YDAU (the Steeply interviews)

• When: November YDAU (Orin's Steeply interview)
• What: Orin's external read of his brother is one of the book's sharpest diagnoses of Hal: Avril "has to keep Hal's skull lashed tight to hers without... Hallie [having] any idea"; "The kid's still obsessed with her approval. He lives for applause from exactly two hands. He's still performing for her, syntax- and vocabulary-wise, at seventeen, the same way he did when he was ten. The kid is so shut down talking to him is like throwing a stone in a pond. The kid has no idea he even knows something's wrong." Names, from outside, the mother-approval engine, the lexical performance, and the unwitting shutdown that drive Hal's arc.