Orneltec

We break the shells of invasive species in coral reefs with hammers, shoot invasive fish with guns and feed them to sharks, pick up cigarette butts off the ground, plant native plants where they never would have flourished naturally, create captive breeding programs for release in zoos, hunt deer and other game where there are no natural predators, make laws banning whale fishing, and a billion other small and large attempts to garden nature into a more hospitable place

What I do remember is fucking sobbing in my bathtub because of how obvious Pratchett made it that he was aware his time was coming and he wanted to face his own mortality, and did so by taking Granny Weatherwax with him.

For those who don't know Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer's eight years before he died, and advocated for the legalization of medically assisted suicide. He was open about how he struggled with Alzheimer's, and how he wanted to die while he was still himself.

I don't remember the plot of the book, but I do remember Granny Weatherwax cleaning her home, taking a bath and dressing in her finest clothes, then altering her "I ATE'NT DEAD" sign to say "I IS PROBLY DEAD" before laying down to pass away.

I remember Death greeting her with a kind judgement when he came to reap her soul.

FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT.

“where Nobby went wrong was in thinking small. He sidled into places and pinched things that weren’t worth much. If only he’d sidled into continents and stolen entire cities, slaughtering many of the inhabitants in the process, he’d have been a pillar of the community.”

“People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn’t true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless.”

“That’s how politics works in this city. It’s a game of chess. Who cares if a few pawns die?”

“Stupid men are often capable of things the clever would not dare to contemplate”

“I'm not a natural killer! See this? See what it says? I'm supposed to keep the peace, I am! If I kill people to do it, I'm reading the wrong manual!”

“But we might go to war to keep some damn island that's only useful in case we have to go to war, right?”

“Theft was the only crime, whether the loot was gold, innocence, land or life.”

“I’ve got to remember that. This isn’t a war. This is a crime.”

I love it because it actually fully articulates the message that has filled a hundred thousand holiday movies at this point, and that is that it is important to believe in things. It's important that you believe in things starting as early as possible.

(Also that your revenge against the greedy and compassionless evils of the world must be ruthless, violent and funny, which also crops up in a surprising number of Christmas movies.)

Usually the Christmas movie stops at the feel-good point of rewarding someone for believing.

But Pterry went deeper into that meat and actually full on explained that we need to believe in things, especially good things, when we're children. We need to believe in the grandeur and the meaningfulness in the otherwise clockwork mechanics of the universe because it's practice for adulthood as much as learning facts and nuance is. Belief is a story we tell ourselves, and everything we tell ourselves about reality as adults is, to a greater or lesser extent, a story based on whatever information we have. Reality shapes fantasy but, and this is key, fantasy also shapes reality, like water in a jug.

So it's very important we get into the habit of telling good stories. Of believing they must be true. Because that will, inevitably, shape how we view and interact with the real world and the people in it.

Guys! I think I figured it out!

I'm not saying that I'm right but here's my theory:

So there's been a lot of discourse regarding why this shot is reversed. We all assume (probably correctly) that Guillermo Del Toro is too smart for this to be a mistake. It ate at me too but I didn't have a theory. Until now.

Last night I saw a user on here make a post about the use of mirrors in the film. So I watched the movie again tonight and paid particular attention to the use of mirrors, making sure to notice the scenes, and stories and characters, and the general themes at the times they were used.

And it started to remind me of something.

I started thinking about The Last Jedi. About how that film tackled perception and that part of its focus was on how perception can shape us and our beliefs.

So here's my theory on the use of mirrors and the reversed image at the end of Frankenstein:

All through the movie we are seeing the Creature through the perception of others, for good and for bad. Even when we are in the Creature's Tale we are still seeing how others see him, and we are seeing his assumptions about others. His story isn't just about revenge and about seeking love. It's also about knowing who he is. And this isn't just literal. It goes beyond him learning he's made from corpses. It's the most fundamental existential question we all have: Who am I and why am I here?

At the end of the film his vengeance is spent. He has made peace with his creator. He walks out to the sun and embraces its warmth. For the first time as his OWN person. Free from the perception of others.

Firstly, in Victor's Tale, when Victor is shaving the Creature's head and he keeps looking at the mirror - that's the first time the Creature is seeing himself (timestamp 1:08:57). So, in his own perception, that is how his own face looks, with the three forehead scars diverging from the scar on the right temple rather than the left (as is in reality).

You can zoom in and see him looking at himself, studying himself, with wonder. Victor already seems frustrated, and is constantly forcing him to orient his head in a specific way, which means that the Creature has been trying to study the image in the mirror repeatedly. So we can conclude that he has formed his self-image in his head, and this is how he looks to himself in his mind.

Sidebar: in the original novel, the 1818 version**, when the Creature first looks at himself, it's in a river, and he is repulsed by his own reflection:

"I had admired the perfect forms of my cottagers—their grace, beauty, and delicate complexions: but how was I terrified, when I viewed myself in a transparent pool! At first I started back, unable to believe that it was indeed I who was reflected in the mirror; and when I became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster that I am, I was filled with the bitterest sensations of despondence and mortification. Alas! I did not yet entirely know the fatal effects of this miserable deformity." (Shelley 104-5)

Here, the Creature looks at himself for the first time, and because he already has knowledge of humanity, he is repulsed; his self-image in his mind, how he saw himself in his mind's eye, does not match the reflection he is seeing, and so he is repulsed by himself. This is in contrast to del Toro's version, where the Creature is 'brought up' (for a small time) by Victor and is discovering himself without any such repulsions. So, his own self-image in his mind, informed by his reflection in the mirror, is normalized (as far as it can be; it's not as huge of a shock as it is in the book).

Secondly, in Creature's Tale, when he escapes from the tower and enters the forest for the first time, the shot is flipped. This is the first time shot-flipping happens (the second and only other time we see a flipped shot is at the very end, the screenshot op attached above). The timestamps are: 1:31:05-1:31:48.

As you can see in the screenshots, the scars are flipped. Nowhere else in the movie does this flipping happen again (except at the end). This is the first time the Creature is exploring the world on his own, and it is him telling the story here, with no one else present to perceive or see him. So, in his own telling of the story, because in these parts, no one else is present, we are seeing the scenes from the Creature's POV only (basically we are seeing his narrativised memories), and because in his mind, he is exactly as the mirror shows him, the image is flipped*. When he picks up the skull and compares it to himself, then too we are seeing as he sees himself.

As op wrote:

"Even when we are in the Creature's Tale, we are still seeing him how others see him..."

In isolation, unburdened by others' perception of him, or their characterization of him as a monster, this is how the Creature sees himself moving through the world. When any other individual (human or animal) is present, the narrative shifts to an omniscient camera, and we see the Creature as he is in reality (within the story's world), but in these two scenes, when he is completely alone, the narrative is from his own POV, and we see the flipped scars (a counterargument could be his escape scene from the tower, where also he is totally alone, but there we can argue that it's the omniscient camera operating and not subjective camera).

So, the final shot of the film being this flipped image of the Creature is as he is seeing himself, standing before the sun, free and forgiven, now able to be who he wants to be, unperceived or uninfluenced by any other individual's perception.

Here's further analysis (see: convoluted overanalysis) of the filmmaking/narrative technique, and more on the omniscient and subjective camera, under the cut. You can skip this, I'm just rambling atp.

If Victor Frankenstein is the shitty, abusive parent, of course the Creature has to be the abused and neglected child but by God, did GdT commit.

He did not have to go this hard.

He did not have to film Jacob Elordi like that, curling in on himself, folding all his miles-long limbs up into the fetal position because no one else will hold him. Watching a leaf float away, out of his cold, dark prison, with nothing short of wonder. Gazing at the camera with his big, soulful eyes. Meeting a wild and dangerous creature and gently feeding it a berry.

Being able to speak only one word, the most important one, Victor, because this - his father - is the only thing in the world to him.

And of course Victor, tragically commonly unequipped to handle the responsibility of parenthood, resents him for it. He built the Creature from the ground, exactly as he wanted, carefully chose every bone, every muscle, every neuron in his body. And yet, when he comes to life, when he breathes, and moves, and needs, Victor recoils. All his hard work, the toiling that drove him to near insanity, was only just the beginning. But this, this slow caretaking, this is different: there's no glory in it. Not the excitement of discovery, not the grandiosity of defying God and nature. This work is repetitive, frustrating, exhausting, and Victor very quickly tires of it.

I do not need to explain the metaphor.

This is usually where the story turns around and says, well, it can't be denied that the Creature is horrible to look at. He is violent and dangerous. Victor may have failed but really, can we blame him?

Well. Yes we can.

I think this exchange gets overlooked a lot because it happens right before the big climax, but I think it shows the basic principle of the book boiled down to its most essential core. The importants of humanity and view people as people.

"Think logically, will you?" he said. "You're a philosopher, aren't you? Look at the crowd!" Urn looked at the crowd. "Well?" "They don't like it,." Simony turned. "Look, Brutha's going to die anyway. But this way it'll mean something. People don't understand, really understand, about the shape of the universe and all that stuff, but they'll remember what Vorbis did to a man. Right? We can make Brutha's death a symbol for people, don't you see?" Urn stared at the distant figure of Brutha. It was naked, except for a loin-cloth. "A symbol?" he said. His throat was dry. "It has to be." He remembered Didactylos saying the world was a funny place. And, he thought distantly, it really was. Here people were about to roast someone to death, but they'd left his loin-cloth on, out of respectability. You had to laugh. Otherwise you'd go mad. "You know," he said, turning to Simony. "Now I know Vorbis is evil. He burned my city. Well, the Tsorteans do it sometimes, and we burn theirs. It's just war. It's all part of history. And he lies and cheats and claws power for himself, and lots of people do that, too. But do you know what's special? Do you know what it is?" "Of course," said Simony. "It's what he's doing to-” "It's what he's done to you." "What?" "He turns other people into copies of himself." Simony's grip was like a vice. "You're saying I'm like him?" "Once you said you'd cut him down," said Urn. "Now you're thinking like him . . . "So we rush them, then?" said Simony. "I'm sure of-maybe four hundred on our side. So I give the signal and a few hundred of us attack thousands of them? And he dies anyway and we die too? What difference does that make?" Urn's face was gray with horror now. "You mean you don't know?" he said. Some of the crowd looked round curiously at him. "You don't know?" he said.

This is such a profoundly important part of the message of small gods, it's what makes Vorbis that monster that he is and what makes Brutha the man that he is.

The thing that Simony cannot understand, and that Vorbis never did is summed up best by granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum

'There's no greys, only white that's got grubby. I'm surprised you don't know that. And sin, young man, iswhen you treat people as things. Including yourself. That's what sin is.' 'It's a lot more complicated than that-' 'No. It ain't. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they're getting worried that they won't like the truth. People as things, that's where it starts.'

Simony just sees Brutha as a martyr, a tool to strenghten his rebellion and rally around, he's not seeing the person bound on the burning turtle, just how he can use its ashes.

Vorbis always thought like this, in fact he never saw people at all, his mind was never open to a single other person, he was the very embodiment of sin as viewed by granny, he never saw a single person as a person, only ever as a thing.

"So," said Vorbis. "The desert. And at the end of the desert?" JUDGEMENT. "Yes, yes, of course." Vorbis tried to concentrate. He couldn't. He could feel certainty draining away. And he'd always been certain. He hesitated, like a man opening a door to a familiar room and finding nothing there but a bottomless pit. The memories were still there. He could feel them. They had the right shape. It was just that he couldn't remember what they were. There had been a voice . . . . Surely, there had been a voice? But all he could remember was the sound of his own thoughts, bouncing off the inside of his own head. Now he had to cross the desert. What could there be to fear? The desert was what you believed. Vorbis looked inside himself. And went on looking. He sagged to his knees. I CAN SEE THAT YOU ARE BUSY, said Death. "Don't leave me! It's so empty!" Death looked around at the endless desert. He snapped his fingers and a large white horse trotted up. I SEE A HUNDRED THOUSAND PEOPLE, he said, swinging himself into the saddle. "Where? Where?" HERE. WITH YOU. "I can't see them!" Death gathered up the reins. NEVERTHELESS, he said. His horse trotted forward a few steps. "I don't understand!" screamed Vorbis. Death paused. YOU HAVE PERHAPS HEARD THE PHRASE, he said, THAT HELL IS OTHER PEOPLE? "Yes. Yes, of course." Death nodded. IN TIME, he said, YOU WILL LEARN THAT IT IS WRONG.

The fact that the desert is empty for him because, even when he was alive he never saw the people infront of him so how could he now? He never listend, never learned, never took in the perspective of anyone else, just had his own thoughts echoing inside him.

We didn’t have much money, but I hardly noticed when there were woods and fields to run around in, trees to climb, and animals to play with.  Dad and I often walked around the countryside while he taught me which wild plants were edible and showed me hidden caves and pools in the middle of the forest.  He used to whistle loudly.  I could never get the hang of it, so instead he taught me the words to The Rhubarb Tart Song and Whose Pigs Are These?  We would sing them loudly, joyfully, the wildlife fleeing before us.

Dad was someone who committed to the narrative of a situation rather more than the practicality.  So he would wrap me up and take me out of bed in the middle of the night to show me the glow-worms in the hedge or Halley’s Comet blazing across a star-filled sky.  For him, his daughter seeing these marvels of nature was much more important than sleeping, which I could do any time.  He didn’t teach me magic, he showed me it.

Guards! Guards! has one of the first Big Deal Discworld moments for me, and I’m not very good at articulating what that means.

The moment I’m thinking of is the dragon’s speech to Wonse – “we were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But…we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.” That’s a passage that always makes me stop and reread it a couple of times. And it’s a small moment – it’s the only time we hear the dragon speak at all, and it’s a speech that has no bearing on the rest of the story. It could have been taken out of the book entirely and nothing would feel like it was missing. But the fact that it’s there is a Big Deal moment. The great big monstrous antagonist’s judgment of humanity is unavoidable in its accuracy.

And the Discworld series is full of moments like that. Sometimes it’s just one line, sometimes it’s a full scene, and most of the book is so full of shenanigans coming so quickly one after another that you don’t always see the Big Deal moments coming. We think of Pratchett as a humor/satire writer and yes, the books are hilarious, but in between the jokes are these Big Deal moments that casually rearrange our perspective and stick with us even after we think we’ve forgotten.

I think my favorite one changes, but right now it’s in Feet of Clay:

The vampire looked from the golem to Vimes.

“You gave one of them a voice?” he said.

“Yes,” said Dorfl. He reached down and picked up the vampire in one hand. “I Could Kill You,” he said. “This Is An Option Available To Me As A Free-Thinking Individual But I Will Not Do So Because I Own Myself And I Have Made A Moral Choice.”

“Oh, gods,” murmured Vimes under his breath.

“That’s blasphemy,” said the vampire.

Vorbis demands that Didactylos recant his claim that the world travels through space on the backs of four elephants who stand on the back of a giant turtle (which in Discworld is true). Vorbis insists that Didactylos agree that it is a sphere, as the Great God Om intended.

To all appearances, Didactylos easily and happily recants, saying something like “Sure, let it be a sphere” and Vorbis – for whom this is as much about humiliating Didactylos as it is about what’s “true” – decides to let him go. Didactylos gets all the way to the doorway before he turns, throws the lantern he carries into Vorbis’s face, and yells “NEVERTHELESS…THE TURTLE MOVES!” before legging it. 

“But what’s worth more than gold?“ “Practically everything. You, for example. Gold is heavy. Your weight in gold is not very much gold at all. Aren’t you worth more than that?”

When you get your head around the idea that something’s worth is based on a subjectively agreed upon set of standards, it can rock your capitalist-based worldview right to the core.

He was also the first character to articulate what has kind of become a guiding philosophy for me:

The bit where Moist literally throws himself under a train to save a pair of children had me in absolute tears.

‘What was it Granny Weatherwax had said once? ‘Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.“

But of course it’s also in this conversation in Carpe Jugulum

Granny Weatherwax: “…And that’s what your holy men discuss, is it?” 
Mightily Oats: “Not usually. There is a very interesting debate raging at the moment on the nature of sin. for example.” 
Granny Weatherwax: “And what do they think? Against it, are they?” 
Mightily Oats: “It’s not as simple as that. It’s not a black and white issue. There are so many shades of gray.” 
Granny Weatherwax:“Nope.” 
Mightily Oats: “Pardon?” 
Granny Weatherwax: “There’s no grays, only white that’s got grubby. I’m surprised you don’t know that. And sin, young man, is when you treat people like things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is.” 
Mightily Oats: “It’s a lot more complicated than that–” 
Granny Weatherwax: “No. It ain’t. When people say things are a lot more complicated than that, they means they’re getting worried that they won’t like the truth. People as things, that’s where it starts.” 
Mightily Oats: “Oh, I’m sure there are worse crimes–”
 Granny Weatherwax: “But they starts with thinking about people as things…”