She could've been an archetypal villain, ruthless and one dimensional, especially since you're supposed to root for Grace, but I am so glad she is far from that. Sandra Hüller plays her with such depth. You can tell that, despite sending them to their deaths, despite keeping her distance, she really does care about the astronauts.
Her affection for Grace in particular grows over time, and it nearly bleeds out of her every time they're in the same scene. Urging everyone to clap for him when he discovers the Astrophage are cells, as well as when he enters the conference room aboard the ship, singing to the crew (while for everyone, but specifically for him). And "I didn't mean to bother you" "You don't bother me" and knowing that she means it because she's blunt enough to say it right to his face if she didn't.
When Grace says, "It must be hard, having to ask everyone to, you know..." and Stratt replies, "Actually, it isn't," but when she asks Grace not to struggle as he's being taken away, you can see that for one moment, it is, so much so that she nods as almost if she's re-convincing herself that this is what she needs to do.
She is Earth's scapegoat, a duty she accepts with equanimity, a woman who loves Earth so much that she is willing to make great sacrifices for it. Even to sacrifice someone she loves just as much. Even though it hurts.
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After my first watch, I was convinced that this diva is autistic, and after the second watch, this is all I can remember to prove it. I trust you all to see my vision, but regardless, the evidence:
• Clothing choices: my girl is always wearing loose/baggy clothes despite being in the highest up professional job ever. No clean-cut suits, no pencil skirts or tight dresses. Always turtlenecks, sweater vests, bigass coats, etc. NOT TO MENTION a consistent color palette. Could be due to sensory issues and/or just having one style she likes
•Straightforward delivery in conversations: she’s very blunt and doesn’t sugarcoat anything. There’s no small talk with her and she prefers to just get straight to the point. This could just be her being really professional, but in the movie, she isn’t really as sarcastic as Book!Stratt, leading me to believe that her bluntness is more from not bothering to mask/not knowing how to do conversation neurotypically rather than just not caring
• Doesn’t get humor! Or doesn’t care. Either way, she takes jokes very literally (“that’s lava” “it’s not”) Also she tells Grace this right off the bat!
• Doesn’t like social events: doesn’t participate in the party that she’s planning and hosting (just watching from outside, not knowing where to fit in) and chooses to stand and ponder on the deck instead until Grace comes to hang out with her.
• Doesn’t emote much (even in extreme circumstances): this has led so many people (characters AND audience) to describe her as “cold” despite Sandra Hüller directly arguing against this interpretation. Also, she literally does show emotion, it’s just more subtle (every tiny smile at Grace, voice crack during betrayal, Eridian goodbye gesture at the end, etc)
• Black and white thinking: probably the most important to her character, Stratt has to think very logically about the choices she makes, even if they hurt people she cares about. She clearly has some kind of affection for Grace (karaoke scene, explosion scene, ending scene, etc) but this does not stop her from sacrificing him for the greater good of humanity without hesitation. She even asks him not to make it hurt more than it has to! She’s hurting when she betrays him!! But she knows that it’s the only way to save Earth, so she does it
• Strong moral compass/sense of justice: kind of goes with what i just said but like, she literally knows that her choices are inexcusable in most circumstances, but she’s doing it all for the explicit purpose of giving humanity more time! It’s not like she decided to blow up Antarctica for fun; this was a calculated choice and a necessary evil, just like all of her questionable choices
I feel like there’s more that i am just not remembering (it’s been a week since my last viewing) so come at me with your Autistic Eva Stratt evidence
eva stratt would call all your comparisons of her situation to the trolley problem bullshit, then tell you to get back to work or leave, because she has a planet to save.
Ok, so i need to brush up on my history and also my math is definitely fucked but walk with me here:
Young East German Eva Stratt at the fall of the Berlin Wall? in the crowds of people pushing for a world free from authoritarianism? full of hope watching the wall dividing her country topple? watching bravery rewarded with a better life?
Eva Stratt becoming the first World Dictator to save that same world she always loved? doing anything and everything it takes to save as many people as she can? sacrificing maybe the only person who understands her? the whole world resting on her shoulders? and knowing that when it’s over, she’ll give up the freedom she fought for so hard?
Older Eva Stratt seeing the beetles return home? seeing that Ryland Grace found the answer to save the world? seeing bravery once again rewarded with a better life?
Also, genuine question, why am I not seeing more PHM/The Martian crossovers??? Please tell me I’m not the first person to consider Stratt/Lewis. Are they too alike? Did everyone forget about The Martian? I need to know
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Oh my god I actually can’t stop thinking about her, I wanna write a fic so bad where the commanders die instead of the science officers and Stratt goes to space in Yao’s place, intending to lead the crew but wakes up alone and pretty much the plot is the same but i wanna explore how she would perceive everything differently and make different choices + maybe Ryland sent a bunch of videos for the crew to help them make the right science choices in case they had memory issues from the coma (i know his memory issues came from a different drug but shhhhh)
Also, Stratt and Rocky!!!! She would be so excited to meet him!!
Need me an Eva Stratt who always dreamed of touching the stars and ended up getting lost in them to save her home
the idea that Stratt has never specifically been granted legal authority to do anything that she does, but is Stratt enough to get people to go along with it is:
not supported by canon
is very much supported by canon because if Eva Stratt decided that it needed to be done, it would be done.
How it would work:
she starts with no "actual" authority
she convinces enough people to go along with it that eventually some officials do sign actual official documents granting her real authority, which they think she already has and they're just smoothing out the process, not granting anything new
the letter granting her blanket immunity, that's real
the unanimous secret vote is technically real, but not at the time she says it, wasn't a formal vote, and was more like a unanimous consensus that no one was willing to stop her
"you don't even have a dog" maybe Eva Stratt didn't have a dog either. No one waiting for her at home. And yet, just like Grace, she loved the world. Just like Grace, she wanted a future.
