ivansua's strongest soldier

one of the most important parts of karma is when till shows the kids a drawing of the anakt flower, but it's the real anemone instead of a plastic recreation. narratively, showing this version of the flower to the freed children is a smart move to gain their trust and curiosity. it's a familiar flower shown in a different way — a promise of freedom. but what's more interesting is how it's used symbolically.

throughout the mv, the anakt flower is used to represent mizi, and how she views human relationships. she thinks human love is an instinct designed for the purpose of benefiting from each other, as visualised by the veins. the flower then blooms from the portraits of the losers of each round, symbolising how her continued survival is rooted in the death of others, how her beauty is a guise concealing her true, villainous love that does nothing but take.

this is why mizi makes her judgement that humanity is innately sinful, because of her overwhelming survivors guilt, all because of how anakt has taught her to relate to other people. at anakt, this is the only flower they know, and the only way of loving too.

however, the turning point comes when she realises till is alive, and decides to save him at no cost to herself. this is at odds with her perception of humanity, so it makes sense that till then redefines the meaning of the flower in the epilogue.

till often represents freedom (of expression), and it's no different here. in a garden made of simple, artificial shapes, he draws the complexities of the real world. it's the same with the anemone. instead of the one dimensional way mizi learns to view love through her grief, till draws the real flower, something alive, imperfect, and beautiful.

alnst uses imagery, symbolism, and metaphor for efficient communication of ideas. in karma, the anakt flower is introduced with its roots feeding off other children - love as exploitation. mizi narrates this exact idea, and if you are also paying attention to what is happening in the video you are watching, you can connect these two things together and understand them as one. then, it's extremely clear that the open question Isaac leaves for the audience at the end is answered, at least partially, by till showing rescued children his drawing of the real version of the fake anakt flower. it is all in front of your eyes. you just have to connect the dots laid out for you.

the second pitfall is the inability to engage with the text on a level that doesn't require falling back to searching for a diegetic answer to an often metaphorical question. people can often pick themes apart using a character as base, but cannot extrapolate it out to a broader theme that encompasses more than just an in-universe understanding of how a character feels. why does till show a drawing of a flower to the children? is he stupid? the mistake lays in trying to engage with this as an in-universe action of till's. the fact that he drew a flower in his notebook is mostly unremarkable. I'm so glad he has access to coloured pencils now. however, as mentioned earlier, if you are able to engage with this on a symbolic and thematic level, it becomes immediately clear what it means. the flowers the children knew were all fake, and till can now emulate the real. the children are free, and their worldview opens up as their world does - they can start loving without exploitation as the sole basis of all relationships.