Set up and pay off. Character believes wrong thing. Character faces struggle. Character learns right thing. That's just how arcs work. These characters are in starting places that are VERY flawed, but I love that personally. Idk.

I think it's hard for people, knowing better than the characters they are watching. We can look at Vox mistreating Val and Vel, Lucifer standing off against Vox, Husk falling back on old habits, etc. and see the obvious outcome of those things. But that's always how fiction works, right?

Idk I could say more about Charlie and the different facets of her character here (fear of abandonment, flawed view of good and evil based around biblical stereotypes, her consistent trend of getting in her own head) but I don't think I need to. Point is, these flaws make her interesting imo

Sera is lost, facing a complete upheaval of her world view. She knows that somehow sinners can be redeemed. Yet in the face of demons threatening an uprising/war, the very thing that led to her greenlighting exterminatios, what does she do? She retreats to old habits - displays of force

The only other characters I can imagine this critique applying to are Lucifer (a character so removed and isolated from the world that he greets his daughter with "heyyy bitch") and Sera. For Sera, this critique lands a bit better, but I still disagree with it

She's ignoring what's directly in front of her (her loved ones and their needs) because the hotel is so deeply personal to her, so directly linked to her need for approval from her parents. And at the core of that belief is a desire to "fix" people, a la her out-dated biblical views of redemption

Charlie is finally given some real flaws here. Her need to prove to the world that she's right stems from her strained relationship with her parents/hurt pride. She's desperate now, feeling like she's going crazy because she KNOWS she's right and no one believes her

Also in love with chaggie bless

Not to mention the increased anxiety and depression living here. Could be not mold related but also COULD be mold related.

This is just me noting prison labor. Obviously there are many other forms of slavery we depend on as well

But also the comradery among so many inmates who recognize their position in life is screwed up

Hearing about my dad's time in prison is wild. The racial segregation, the abuse, the forced labor, the nazi designated seating arrangements with their own swastikas carved into the chairs...I'm repulsed

It doesn't feel earned. That being said, the creature facing the sun in the end got to me. It was like seeing a version of this doomed figure from the book that gets to finally appreciate the beauty of life the way he did when he first emerged from Victor's lab. It took ages but he made it

I think I would have liked it better if it felt as though victor deserved the forgiveness he recieves. In the book, it is the creature who repents for his behavior. In the movie, it is victor. But why? Up to this point we've seen him as a cruel, vindictive monster unable to admit his own wrongdoing

I think the movie doesn't capture the same ambiguity that the book does (it straightforwardly says that the monster is victor, and the creature doesn't kill anyone), and I have mixed feelings on that. But it's made with intention. It's looking at select themes in an alternative way

Interestingly, the film's focus is much more on the inability to die being the crux of the creature's alienation. He is not rejected by the blind man as he is in the book, and he experiences love in the way that the book creature never could. He is separated from the living by his curse of life

Her character does a 180 imo, and her odd flirtation with victor was way more interesting to me than her love for the monster, but I recognize that she paves the way for the tragedy of del Toro's monster - that the only good things in his life die while he is cursed to live

That being said, I didn't love Elizabeth. Her pursuit of purity is interesting and it makes sense that she would see that in the creature I suppose, but the movie seems disinterested in addressingher hypocrisy. She imprisons and studies insects the way Victor imprisons the creature.

Frankenstein is very different from the book but feels spiritually faithful to the story. The God as father vs God as mother theme, the oedipal undercurrents, the catharsis of the ending...all good stuff. Love the characterization of victor and the creature, love the costuming and sets...