Hivemind

theres so many people who think that shauna has a big ego or a superiority complex and they'll never understand that she literally hates herself and all her actions (going back to sleeping with jeff behind jackie's back) are to self destruct and ruin every relationship she has. yes, she is a terrible person i'm not denying that, but so many people like to say she's 'cartoonishly evil' or that her arc in season 3 'came out of nowhere'. but that's just not true. there's a reason for all of her action.

what shauna really wants in s3 is to be their leader. not just as a way to control everyone, but because she doesn't think they're worthy of it. in her point of view, she's lost her baby, lost jackie, butchered up javi for them, all for nothing. the first hunt we can assume was days after she lost her baby, and they expected her to be the one to kill natalie, her friend (and i can go into more depth about shauna and nat's dynamic as well), who was one of the only people she trusted at that point (which we can see in her hallucinations of her baby).

shauna HAS done terrible things, she has tried to stop them from leaving the wilderness, threatened them, but look at it from her perspective. the girls (including her) have been responsible for SO many deaths, including a child. and i'd say she still hasn't recovered from hallucinating them eating her baby. logically she KNOWS they didn't, but she's grief ridden, and still going through post-partum psychosis.

in multiple instances (02x06, right after waking up from the hallucination, and 02x07, before beating lottie) she mentioned them eating her baby. and sure, they all deny it (and WE as viewers know they're telling the truth), but how can SHE believe that? she was THERE when they ate jackie, a main force in it, and then they ate a child. why javi and not her baby? what's the difference, really?

she doesn't think they deserve to go home. that's all there is to it. and this isn't a theory, she said this herself in 03x01 while writing in her diary. they can never go back home. because of what they'd done. because of who they'd become. and they really drilled that point in in 03x06 when coach ben asked what kind of monsters they had all become.

all of them, including her, have commited such unspeakable unforgiveable crimes that in her perspective THEY DO NOT DESERVE RESCUE. THAT is the reason she stopped them.

people online say it's because of jackie, because of wilderness baby, and that has a truth to it, but if it was just her own guilt she could stay there alone. but she forces them to stay as well. she's cruel because she thinks they deserve it. she thinks they're all monsters, but they aren't monsters, they're just kids.

obviously the situation is more complex than 'they're bad people'. they're all plane crash victims, they're going insane out there. but it isn't the same in her point of view and that is the whole POINT. we are viewers, so we see the whole story, even if we mostly follow shauna's life, we see other peoples perspectives and we empathise with them, we know things that SHAUNA doesn't.

one example of this is coach ben. we know coach, we all know how mentally unwell he was in season 2. we know he couldn't have really done anything for shauna, but the whole point is she DOESN'T know that. all shauna saw was her coach, the only adult she could've relied on, saying he only put on a video and walk back to his room. how fucking disheartening would it be to hear that.

and also, during the trial, shauna honestly DOES believe he burnt down the cabin in an attempt to kill them. this is more of a viewer perspective since it isn't confirmed, and personally i don't believe he was the one to burn it down, but that doesn't matter because it's what SHAUNA thinks. she thinks that he didn't care enough to help with her baby. she thinks they tried to kill them all. and that isn't going to change because she isn't omniscent she doesn't know so much and the reason so many people hate her is that they don't process that she DOESN'T KNOW EVERYTHING. she doesn't see the man who told natalie that love is everything. or the guy who said natalie wasn't as bad as the rest of the girls. all she sees is a disappointment of a potential ally.

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