It's fascinating to compare what we can deduce of the SM-8 crew's encounter with the Light (the Research Lead and the Research Assistant, that merged to become the Monster), and Simon's. It's also... kinda funny.
Both the SM-8 crew and Simon went inside the Light-- this tear in reality, this pinhole through which an ignorant God glimpsed their Universe and caused the Quiet Rapture. It's unknown if the God offered the same deal to them as it did to Simon ("I see you." "I see you." "Agreed.") but it's highly likely. Since both the Research Lead and the Research Assistant were there to record the last message on the SM-8 black box after having "went in" and seen the God, it's safe to assume that the God spat them back out alive, just like it did Simon. But one of them had been drinking the blood, and was mutating. Eventually, both women turn into what we see as the Monster, bursting out from the SM-8 and leaving that massive hole in its side.
So far so good, it doesn't seem that different. The blood was mutating Simon into a similar monster, trying to merge him with his ship; either ingested or simply having touched skin or eyes, the blood's effect is inescapable. But at the end of the movie, as the Monster tries to stop Simon from propagating knowledge of the Light, she yells "Why you, Simon? What did it see in you?". And, well, what does make Simon special?
Simon didn't give a fuck about the Light, and if I were the God, I'd honestly be a little offended.
When luring Simon towards the Light, the Monster says "A tiny glimpse of answers greater than our infinite. It burst our mind like a tick." Meanwhile, Simon is returned from his encounter with the God, and other than an understandable breakdown and doubting reality, he says nothing about the Light. The most we hear from him that's along the lines of wondering about what happened is "I might have died." And then it's right back to a purely survival focused mindset. Unlike the SM-8 crew, there's no rambling about having seen the answer to everything, something meant only for them, the promise of salvation. Simon hears the radio once more and instantly tries to reason, figure out if Ava's voice is a trick or not. Hell, even before the Monster led him to the Light, Simon doesn't really care about it. He doesn't want to get into a conversation about God, absently indulging who he assumes are survivors on the radio. He is only focused on himself: "Even if your miracle could solve all their problems, they would just... send me down again." He doesn't even say our problems!
The way I see it, the main difference between the Monster and Simon's encounter with the God is that Simon's mind didn't "burst like a tick". He doesn't ever mention the Light after seeing it, not once-- not even at the end, when the Monster constantly talks about it, when the Monster explicitly tells him "It wants you to do this!". All he does is rebel against her ("What do you know?" and "You think I'll just give you what you want?"). Simon maintains individuality where the Monster lost hers, and it's probably because the SM-8 crew were not able to hold their end of the bargain. The God saw them, but they were not able to withstand seeing it back. However, Simon did. Another potential difference is that the God returned Simon and his sub to coordinates that left him in the range of the COI tow ship radio, with his own radio fixed (after having been at the Light's 116520 coordinates, the sub is then at 462241, and not as deep as before). Couldn't the God have done the same for the women on the SM-8? It's certain the COI would've hung around and tried to find them, if the SM-8 contained such important technology.
I guess the lesson is: one needs a very strong "Fuck God, what about me?" sort of attitude when facing cosmic horrors. Clearly even the God respected that. Notably, it is the Monster and the blood ocean that constantly use "we"; the God says "I". By fulfilling his end of the bargain -- being perceived, and then perceiving in return -- Simon remains an individual, and shapes his own fate. The God "understands all that is, and all that will be", and Simon too ends up seeing glimpses of a future distorted self, missing an arm. Simon pats the sub as if it's a person, tells it "Sorry" when he punches it in anger, sternly tells it "I am trusting you on this" when navigating... and the ship becomes alive, where the SM-8 did not. The God said "Butcher" when seeing Simon, and Simon delivers on that perception ("Fine, you want the Butcher? Come on! Fucking die!"), struggling until the end and actively trying to kill the Monster-- not his fellow man, despite how potentially deserved leaving behind the black box would've been. Simon voices the belief that "when we die, our bodies become the soil", so his body becomes soil for the Last Tree, instead of another monster in the blood ocean. All along, collectives forcefully claim him against his will, but Simon wants to be free and make his own choices. Hence, he does not become assimilated.
I do think that the way the charm with the tree seed bursts with light at the end, just as Simon's eye glows too, is a manifestation of his deal with the God. After all, what does it mean for an entity that shapes reality by its very perception to understand you? To see you, and because you saw it back, to recognize you as something akin to itself?
tangentwithtanner
stormborns
