never getting over alien stage

The original, while somber, is still hopeful in the end, a comforting lullaby to sing to your child for bedtime, something warm. Ivan's cover is devoid of that hopeful note, it is colder and much heavier, sounds like you're suffocating but strangely enough, it's still comforting. While the original Wiege offers comfort in the fact that there is always hope for the future, Ivan's offers comfort at the end of the road, that this is where your journey ends and that you won't have to worry anymore. It sounds like Ivan comforting himself as he dies.

Loneliness and Ivan's image of himself - Mainly thoughts on Nowhere and the picture it paints of Ivan

Ivan sings alone in his Wiege cover, devoid of harmonies, alone in a void. Ivan believes he was alone, beginning to end, nothing, just a speck of dust not even worth acknowledging. He was never "Ivan;" just a product, always putting on his mask and copying. He has very low self-worth as shown in Nowhere. He thinks himself unlovable and unworthy.

Ivan wasn't loved as a child, never had the love of a parent like Till, never had the love of a guardian like Mizi, and never had the love of a sister like Sua. Love is foreign to Ivan but he still feels it, he just doesn't know how to express it.

He's clumsy, violent. He wants Till's attention, his love, but he doesn't understand love itself. He sees love as what Till and Sua feel for Mizi, something akin to worship. But I believe Ivan loves Till because Till is so very human, something Ivan never felt he was. Till and his flame of rebellion was something Ivan idolized.

He's never had control over his life, always a product up for sale, never allowed to develop as a person. Till inspired something in him, allowed him to take control of his life for the first time ever in that escape attempt; but Till went back. The next time he takes control of his own fate is when he sacrifices himself for Till, believing it to just be another stepping stone in Till's life. Ivan doesn't think Till cared.

Ivan describes his life as something he is unworthy of, but also as "an existence like dust." He believes himself unremarkable, unworthy of even looking at. The pain of his life grew and grew, festering until he became numb to it because it's always easier to forget pain than to remember and face it.

I don't think Ivan saw Till's love for him. Till didn't love Ivan how Ivan loved Till, he saw Ivan as a friend, as family, nothing more nothing less. Ivan, meanwhile, thought of himself as nothing, not even worthy of Till's gaze. He's deluded himself into thinking no one cares for him and will never care for him.

So is his sacrifice really that surprising? He confronted Sua because he knew Sua was going to leave a mark on Mizi, be everlasting trauma. But Ivan? Ivan was "nothing" to Till; he won't haunt him after he dies. Ivan died with no regrets. He wasn't like Sua, who left Mizi behind, or like Till, who's flame was reignited by Mizi only to be forcefully extinguished. Ivan was "alone," "unloved." No one would miss him.

This brings us back to Wiege and the absence of hope in Ivan's cover. It's because Ivan was never hopeful to begin with. Like Sua, he plays within the system, not knowing how to break out, too conditioned to living within as a product not a person. Ivan was okay with dying. Afraid, but okay. He went into Round 6 knowing he was going to die, planning to die.

But I don't think he was wholly unafraid of death, nor do I think he'd lost his will to live. Ivan decided that a life without Till isn't a life worth living.