#cube posting

the sixth ear

The Cube.

and i think the cube is massively interesting! and i don’t really have a comprehensive way to put all my thoughts on The Cube, so instead i’ll do a list:

1. The Cube as human/inhuman distinction.

the cube, and the purpose it currently serves, is to be a definitive proof of one’s connection to the zone. this is straight forward and explicit in canon. it glows near mutants, doesn’t glow near humans. simple. except, there’s a layer added to it, a very important one: the cube glows in sanya’s hands.

it glows faintly, but it glows nonetheless. and this brings up a ton of interesting questions, all of which could be summed up in: is sanya a mutant? because, well, she has albinism, and that is technically a mutation. it is, also, a mutation that is fairly common in humans without the influence of any sort of extra-normal stimuli (i.e. the zone). at the same time, her father was a stalker, and the implication that that is related to her condition is made explicit by the fact that the cube glows in her hands. it glows around anomalies from the zone, and that means her albinism is anomalous enough and connected to the zone enough to be considered, in a way, a product of the zone.

and so, the question of “is sanya a mutant?” is kind of unanswerable. because, sure, if you’re asking “does she have an abnormality connected to the zone?” the answer is yes, but if you called a scientist and told them to do experiments using her mutation they’d probably tell you to stop wasting your time.

so, my thesis for the cube’s purpose in this case: it is an object of thematic relevance that blurs the lines between mutants and non-mutants.

pafl is, currently somewhat indirectly, concerned with questions of humanity: can a mutant live among humans? what distinguishes a mutant from a human? does that distinction matter?

and the cube is two fold in this way: on one hand, it’s an objective reality of dima’s condition: no matter how assimilated he becomes into human society, no matter how innocuous he looks, how much he undoes the conditioning of the facility, the cube glows near him, proving he’s not human. he cannot escape.

and yet, the cube glows in sanya’s hands, too, ever so faintly, but we’re not supposed to accept that as the reality of her condition, and sanya doesn’t either: if she did, she wouldn’t need to check how it reacts to other artefacts from the zone. it glowing in her hands would be enough.

sanya is a middle ground at this point: she both understands the urge to save katya, and doesn’t want to force anyone to do it. she’s in the middle of yura learning inhumanity and dima learning humanity. she’s a mutant and she’s not. she’s both part of the reason katya got captured and part of the reason her rescue mission is facing resistance. she wants her back, and wants yura to stop his descend towards cruelty.

the cube glows faintly in her hands, and she needs something else from the zone to confirm its function.

2. The Cube as objectivity.

question: why did yura need the cube if he already knew dima was a mutant?

one could read this as an act of doubt on yura’s part, but i disagree: he was pretty damn confident throughout occam’s razor, in fact, that entire song was him building up confidence and ruthlessness in his assessments.

the reason he needs the cube is because the cube is objective. he cannot use his “feeling” as a concrete element of blackmail, but the cube? you cannot deny the cube.

and think about the difference between “sensing” mutants and using the cube: one can only recognise a mutant by making eye contact - already a relatively intimate ordeal - and the recognition comes in a form of a visceral fear. it’s an emotional experience, not just a solid analysis and identification. i’d argue one of the reasons yura is so attached to kt is because seeing her for the first time was an emotional experience for him: they make eye contact, and yura experiences a deep panic. notably, nothing indicates sergei sensed her in the same way: he notices the marks on her arms, and, presumably from experience with anomalies, deduces she’s a mutant. sensing a mutant is, in a way, vulnerable: you have to feel powerless, fearful for a moment.

first meeting kt is described as an emotional experience first and foremost: they make eye contact, the room caves in, he has to calm himself down, and yura says he felt as if he was about to die. he only snaps out of it when sanya join the fray. the loser looks in the eye of the monster, the loser weeps in the arms of the monster.

with dima, on the other hand, it’s already much more subdued: he’s talking about waiting for another sign, and that’s when he makes eye contact with dima and pauses. with kt, the moment of eye contact is described, his feelings are detailed. with dima, it’s silence. and right after he goes into analysis: isn’t this weird? this feeling is familiar.

with dima there’s already a level of detachment, but there’s still that emotional concession: his stomach ties up in knots. he pauses. sensing a mutant is still an emotional experience, no matter how you slice it, and yura cannot get out of that. it requires a level of sincerity, a level of concession of one’s feelings, etc.

if yura wants to rely on his own instincts, he has to accept feeling fear. has to accept, for a split second, feeling powerless.

with the cube, though? you bring it close to a person and it tells you if they’re a mutant connected to the zone or not. that’s it.

it’s yet another way for yura to detach himself from his humanity, ironically: he doesn’t have to feel powerless even for a second! all the power is in the palm of his hand and that power is the cube. you cannot attempt to gaslight, or reassure a cube. it’s a cube, it glows near you, so it’s a mutant.

occam’s razor is all about yura getting reassured in his own logic, and yet that does not mean by the end of that song he can reassure someone else. and that’s fine. lines like “call it my wishful thinking” go from lines that demean yura’s point of view, to lines that are downright silly and objectively incorrect. because he has solid, real, empirical proof: the cube.

3. The Cube as a symbol of Yura’s changing disposition

what’s also important when discussing The Cube, is that it didn’t start off as any of this: as a symbol of power, as proof of the zone, none of that. yura picked it up because it’s useless but kinda looks cool.

it’s the first thing he brought back from the zone. it’s nothing special, it’s just a cube that glows. it’s small, useless, and yura, at the time he took it, had no real value for it: he probably wouldn’t be able to sell it for any fair price, and he didn’t know of any of its properties that are now useful, he literally just thought it was a shape that glows.

he didn’t take it because it was some artefact he thought could be valuable in some way, he took it as a souvenir. a reminder of the wonders of the zone and the novelty of it all. it’s an almost shockingly sincere act in the context of everything that happened after: it’s an item of almost sentimental value, and he leaves it with sanya for the same reason: it’s a goodbye gift. at that time, he doesn’t even notice it glows, only sanya does.

but before that, an important thing happens: yura gets mocked. as he is brutalised by police, they mock him for what he brought back: a cube that, as it turns out, doesn’t even glow outside the zone. it’s just a plastic cube now. its sentimental value gets demeaned on two levels: by the police mocking the cube, i.e. not even recognising a valid reason for bringing back such a useless artefact, and by the cube not glowing outside the zone: it can’t even be called a souvenir, because the one property that could remind you of the zone doesn’t work outside of it.

it’s a representation, on every level, of yura’s trip to the zone being a failure: he starts it out with a new-found resolve, showing an attachment to this job beyond monetary gain: maybe there’s joy to be found in this. maybe there is meaning he could derive from the venture, maybe he can be happy with his life. all of this gets shattered when nikita gets killed, and yura pulls out his gun in turn. he can find no joy in this, because all he got out of it is more blood, humiliation, community service and a cube that doesn’t even have the single unique property that made it look cool.

yura’s lesson from this is that his sincerity is pointless. his sentimentality, vulnerability, all of that is useless. it is only useful once converted into power, into leverage to be used against others:

the cube is only useful once it’s being weaponised against those of the zone. his stalker sense is only useful once it’s being weaponised against those of the zone. olya’s sacrifice is only useful to yura once it’s being weaponised against those of the zone.

it’s, once again, a symbol of perverted sentimentality: a sentimentality that he gifted to sanya, and has since warped. the same way kt is a symbol of yura’s sentimentality. i think it’s poignant (and analytically important) that at the end of occam’s razor, yura gifts sanya the cube, and yet in the next song, he’s already taking it back to be used by him for means she doesn’t approve of.

it’s the same manoeuvre as his facade, the one he didn’t let down for sanya, and still doesn’t: the cube hangs between them as a larger representation of their relationship, even, all its thematic beats tying into sanya and yura and their dynamic with each other.

in the end, that’s the world in which the cube is actually useful. ironically, despite being mocked for its lack of properties outside the zone, its in the zone where the cube loses its use. it’s just another anomaly. the same way, perhaps, mutants inside the zone are expendable, while it’s outside where they’re able to learn humanity and have value.

To Conclude:

The Cube is, as of now, of great thematic and symbolic importance, and is specifically tied to sanya and yura, and their relationship. it is a solid representation of yura’s feelings, be it his stalker sense or his sentimental status, and at the same time, a representation of how sanya doesn’t fit into those feelings. sanya is not yura’s ally, but she also is not a pawn he’s willing to manipulate and use the same way he’s ready to do with others. she is a mutant, and she is not.

i think the cube also serves as, in a way, its own element of meta narrative. i’ve talked before about sanya’s relationship with narrative (here), but another thing i think a lot about is how ferry said that in the first half, yura is the main character of palf, while in the second it’s sanya.

We speak praise in different tongues, however worshiping the One True Deity transcends such mortal barriers.