Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
- 199
- 2
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
The creator of the film Obsession, Curry Barker, claims that the One Wish Willow is not a monkey's paw, but I feel like this doesn't make sense, or, if it is true, it undermines the point of the film.
Bear wishes for "Nikki to love [him] more than anyone in the fucking world." An aligned One Wish Willow should not have made her obsessive to the point of murder and cat-cooking. Even if you follow the logic that the real Nikki would never fall in love with him, so it has to create a Freaky Nikki persona who would, that also just isn't what he asked for.
Even if he was more in love with the idea of Nikki, than in her in her full personhood, Freaky Nikki is not Nikki, and not just in the minimal way that his wish should have implied.
I feel like Barker's statement implies that a more evil wish, like, "I wish for Nikki's personality to be completely erased and replaced with a robot persona that carries out my orders exactly as I intend them" would have had better results than Bear's comparatively less evil wish. But since the film is a classic "be careful what you wish for" horror movie, I find it easier to believe that the wish granter is actively malevolent in how it interprets any wish that impacts human agency, and even a wish like that will have a bad outcome somehow.
Like, is the take away really supposed to be that Bear simply should have waited to get a better sense of the limitations and proclivities of his wish-granting artifact, by watching other people use theirs, and then make his wish after running it by a lawyer? Surely not.
I'm not sure how much I should comment since I have only heard about the movie second hand, but I imagine that "all bad things that happened are 100% his responsibility and exactly what he wished for" is an easy way for the director to defend himself from accusations that he is making excuses for a male character that by all accounts the feminist set considers problematic and evil. In arguments-as-soldiers-verse, complicating details that water down the perfect narrative are enemy bullets.
It's just an odd sort of moralizing. Bear was just making a wish on a tacky toy from a New Age store, and it is clear from his own disbelief at Nikki's reaction that night and into the next day that he had expected the One Wish Willow to be about as effective as a birthday wish or a wish on a penny fountain or a falling star.
Maybe it's a bit loser coded to literally wish for someone to fall in love with you, but he had almost no reason to think that he had a genuine wishing artifact. And even if he truly wanted what he wished for, it's not like you want people's free will to be subverted so you can get your wish. If you throw a penny in a fountain and wish for your crush to fall in love with you, you're usually just hoping that they'll organically fall in love with you (however contradictory that is with the action you're taking.) If you wish to get your big promotion on a wishing star, you're not really hoping that your boss will be possessed by a demon and forced to give you a promotion.
Bear factually derailed Nikki's life, but he did so largely in ignorance of what he was doing.
While the apparent life-or-death stakes do certainly confound matters - the most obvious alternative path the film presents us with is Bear sacrificing his own life to undo the wish, although he still could have tried going to a priest or something, digging a little harder - I do think it meaningfully condemns Bear that he repeatedly tries to get Nikki to be loving-but-not-crazy after he has realized that the wish has subverted her free will.
Yeah, I think Bear was a selfish coward, but I'm not sure he had a lot of good options once he had the conversation with customer service and was sure what was happening and how he could end it.
Sacrificing yourself to save someone you essentially accidentally whammied with a wish would be very noble, but it is a tall ask, and I'm not sure most people put in Bear's situation would be able to go through with it. And the other out he is given, when the real Nikki begs him to kill her isn't exactly great either, since he's going to be the prime suspect if her body is ever discovered. So he's got two no win options, his life is over in either option that "fixes" his mistake.
Bear is absolutely selfish and not concerned about the real Nikki at all, and even his actions at the end, trying to get Ian to make it so he had never made a wish can be read as manipulative (sure, it would presumably undo Sarah's murder, and get rid of all the social consequences for Bear and Nikki, but it also probably leaves Bear able to make a new wish, and I don't think that's an accident. Even at the end he was trying to find a way to get an alternate version of his wish granted, knowing full well what it entailed.)
I think Bear's morally bad in a banal way, but I think if he had been "good" but not saintly, I'm not sure how things could have turned out much better for him or Nikki. I guess if Bear had sought out more One Wish Willows before someone died, and tried to calmly explain things to Ian, there's a small chance Ian would take it seriously enough to actually make the wish to undo things, but I have my doubts.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link