all’s fair in love and poetry.

A scene I don’t hear people talk about enough in Obsession is the very end of the phone call with the customer service rep when he is connected to Nikki on the line. Mostly the focus is on how during the conversation Bear specifically requests to alter the wish, not cancel it, and how it shows that he only cares about the impacts of the wish to the extent that it effects him negatively. Not the general immorality of forcing Nikki to love him. But I think the most blatant symbolism for this is him quite literally ignoring her screaming in pure agony, terror, whatever it is. It makes his actions later that much more disgusting imo. This woman that he supposedly loves, and therefore should care about the wellbeing of, is horrifically screaming while trapped in her own body because of his doing, and he simply doesn’t give a shit. It doesn’t affect his actions moving forward in the slightest. He’s just gotten true confirmation that she is actively suffering, and that he has done something truly awful, and he still chooses not to do anything about it. This is maybe the most direct evidence of exactly what she is going through that he is faced with, and it does not change anything. The scene where she begs him to kill her a little while after is made even more disgusting because of this. If you were trying to give Bear the benefit of the doubt, on the surface level you could maybe understand why he does not want to kill Nikki. He claims he cares about her. Maybe he still wants to find a solution where nobody has to die. Then he has the audacity to say “what’s so bad about loving me?” And any empathy for him is gone. He’s heard with his own ears the consequences of his actions, knows that she’s probably still screaming like that somewhere deep within herself, knows that he has been essentially raping her and using her for (weeks? Months?) and is so selfish that he cannot find it in himself to even attempt to undo it. He knows she’s screaming and he ignores it. He ignores every cry for help. He is fully aware of what he is doing, how it is affecting her, how he has ruined her life and scarred her beyond belief, and just does not care. I never want to hear someone call him anything except the villain that he is.