#childlib

In media, the most important element for me is representation. The symbology and themes and how that relates to concepts we have in our world. Things like structure are also important too but for me they come second. My favorite part of media is what it can say.

In Little Nightmares, with the exception of 3, my interpretation of that world is that it's a reflection of a world that is actively hostile against children, honestly a lot like our own. Everything and everyone bigger than children tries to hurt them, trap them and/or kill them and while our own world isn't usually so extreme, I find that being a child in real life feels similarly perilous.

You're small, the entire world feels so much bigger than you and every person around you has exponentially more power than you. You've been taught since birth not only that you're lesser, but that it should be normal and expected you bend to the will of those older than you, no matter what they do to you. We act so surprised when we realize how pervasive child abuse is but most people never engage with the idea that it's us teaching children that their agency matters so little they should be submitting to the whims of adults. Do we honestly think we can say listen to us unquestionably but "not the ones who want to hurt you" or "not the ones who touch you inappropriately" and then wipe our hands clean of blame when we justify beating them or even spanking them (hurting them on a private part of their bodies as a form of humiliation, sound familiar?) as discipline?

This is at best a misunderstanding of how any brain works and more accurately, a gross violence against a population marginalized so heavily by everyone else. Little Nightmares to me does a good job of portraying that, how when the world is big and scary, everything is a threat, not just what adults tell you is a threat.