Dani

It is devastating to me that the first thing the creature experiences *is* kindness. Victor wakes up and sees his creation, and he loves him in that first moment, under those golden rays of the sun. His touch is kind. He all but embraces the creature while listening to his heartbeat. Victor looks at the creature with wonder and softness and delight. The creature’s first experience is one of love and wonder and kindness, of being cherished.

And then that disappears. And the creature doesn’t know why, he becomes both afraid and full of yearning for that love again. Victor goes from loving to cold, with just glimmers of hope for kindness left, glimmers that the creature reaches for. Then Elizabeth comes, and the creature experiences kindness again. Gentleness, softness, curiosity, wonder. Those things exist again.

And then Elizabeth leaves. Victor abandons him. Tries to kill him, even though he doesn’t understand that yet - he just understands he’s alone. The deer is kind and gentle and dies, the hunters harm him but are kind and gentle to their family.

The creature is told at every step “there is kindness and gentleness in the world and it is not for you. You may have a taste of it, here and there, but it will cost you greatly.”

And that’s just fucking devastating. To know what it is to be loved and cherished, to feel the warmth of the sun and the kindness of family, and to be denied it again and again and again while aching for it. *Needing* it. Because here, the creature *is* human by all markers the film sets, and humans need kindness and love to live. It’s why the ending is so powerful. To choose to live, to choose to continue seeking basic human needs despite a lifetime of pain. To choose to break a familial cycle of neglect and abuse and *try*, despite it all.