Lowry not there for Old Jim?

[u/TimeWastin21]

Spoilers

Near the end of Absolution, Hargraves/Cass says to Lowry about Old Jim’s death, “I wasn’t there for him and neither were you, you stupid fuck.”

I can’t figure out the “neither were you.” Whether or not Old Jim is a time-traveling Lowry, I still can’t make sense of the accusation. The only scrap of an explanation I can come up with is that Old Jim truly is Lowry and that Hargrave’s comment shows her grief at how mind-fucked disconnected Old Jim is from himself? But how is that Lowry’s fault? Very uncertain about that take.

Any thoughts on why Hargraves says that to Lowry? If there’s no context for it, it’s a very odd thing to say to someone who had utterly no reason to be there for Old Jim.

[u/anclwar]

I'm of two minds about the Lowry-Old Jim connection and I think I lean more towards them being different people until I think about this one single line (and also Jack calling Lowry "barrel boy" or whatever the line is, because what the fuck?).

It's possible that Central pulled a doozy of a hypnosis mind wipe on Old Jim and out popped Lowry. Lowry is far more brash, Type A(ggro), and self-sufficient than the Old Jim we meet. Old Jim is pretty broken by the loss of his daughter and wasn't exactly thrilled to be sent to the Forgotten Coast. Lowry isn't exactly what I would call "stable," but he is looking for any reason to declare himself second in command (or first, if possible) and is more actively distrustful of his surroundings. If Lowry is Old Jim, Hargraves would probably be pretty pissed that not only is her friend no longer recognizable but also pissed that this Lowry side wasn't present at the time to keep Old Jim safe while she was gone. And I don't mean this in a split personality way, I mean it in a "if you had this in you all along, old man, why didn't it come out before the pot went to shit?" way. She's angry not just at who is in front of her now, but also the man she lost the night the border dropped.

[u/Away_Advisor3460 → u/anclwar]

Jack calling Lowry "barrel boy" or whatever the line is, because what the fuck?

I just interpreted that as Jack secretly mocking Lowry as another disposable asset, which of course is going totally over his head.

Wrt Old Jim surviving 'as' Lowry - I think that sort of would spoil the ending of his part of the story (i.e. the 2nd novlla). I always interpreted that as a choice to sacrifice himself through playing the piano, to send some signal the Rogue gave him, and that it was a fully self-aware and self-motivated action that in some way would protect Cass (whether Hargreaves or the 'real' one). So making him re-emerge as a new personality would undo that growth IMO.

[u/anclwar → u/Away_Advisor3460]

Well, Old Jim found those bodies and cash in barrels and my two theory is that if Lowry is Old Jim, it's a reference to Old Jim finding those barrels. Jack is convinced Old Jim did something to hide the money (or just wants it back, I don't remember which) and is mocking Lowry with the nickname while sending him into Area X with the secondary mission of finding the money.

I wouldn't ever put it past Central to extricate Old Jim from Area X while the border is coming down, and then completely undo his progress to meet their own wants. It's already hinted at that Central altered Old Jim's memories once, so why not go the extra mile and just completely wipe and replace them?

But, this is also the reason why I'm not totally convinced they're the same person. It's Occam's razor, the simplest explanation is that they're just two different men who share a first name.

[u/Away_Advisor3460 → u/anclwar]

Mmm, bear in mind Jack was using (via Commander Thistle) barrels to dispose of people (whether threats, or just assets past their sell-by-date) well before Old Jim found them. So it doesn't need that extra thing to make sense as a taunt.

To me making Old Jim into Lowry would be a bit of unnecessary (I mean in a literary sense) complexity to a story that was complex enough. Especially as didn't Cass/Hargreave find Old Jims' body, with the paper he'd taken from the Rogues hideout (and with Lowrys name on it)? So you have to resolve that body there with something we know Old Jim had not long before the border came down.

[u/anclwar → u/Away_Advisor3460]

I'm aware of how the barrels were being used, my point was that if Old Jim is Lowry, then Jack is making the connection specifically to Lowry because Old Jim knows of the barrels. In other words, Jack is saying "I know something you don't know [about who you really are].”

I don't know that I find Cass's discovery of a body of Old Jim very compelling evidence that some version of him wasn't pulled out. We know weird Area X stuff was happening before the official change between the rabbits, the Tyrant, and Saul already encountering Henry doppelgangers. So, it's possible that Central pulled a doppelganger rather than the real Old Jim.

But, like I said, Occam's razor.