I think a lot about the theme of bodily autonomy in worm.
I think of Alexandria, and how for all that she was a willing participant in the actions of Cauldron, she was still indoctrinated into it as a terminally ill child, and not even when she dies for it was she left to rest in piece, because she was a tool and not a person. I feel the horror of her brain dead body being piloted by this man as a weapon of war isn’t highlighted a lot, but it’s something that made me deeply uncomfortable as an insidious evil. Because yeah. Of course they’d do that. (I don’t say this to excuse or flatten her very deliberate crimes, just to highlight that not even President Wonder Woman escapes her social destiny)
I think of Sophia, completely victimized by Alec, stripped of every shred of agency that allowed her to navigate the worldview she had of predator and prey, turned into the most thorough personification of a value-less toy for a few terrifying moments. Of the concept of powers like Alec's at all, actually, and Cherie and Bonesaw and Amy, capable of so thoroughly rewriting your existence. ( I think of all these aforementioned characters, who while their powers are the ultimate will breakers, were subject to thorough manipulation by the adults around them to where their will was completely inconsequential if not deliberately suppressed)
I think of the victims of those powers, Blasto, Murder Rat, Victoria Dallon, and more that I'm forgetting, whose bodies are stolen from them while they remain to witness it.
I think of Sveta, of Noelle, monsters in the same way but from the very origin of their powers, their shards completely inescapable and hungry for more, their bodies malformed and having turned on them.
I think of the not-insignificant influence the shards have on every single parahuman. The effect Parahumans have on one another, with their various mind-influencing powers. The effects your family and upbringing has on the type of person you grow to be, then multiplied by a billion for the entire world to see in intimate detail all your weird traumatic hangups.
To be a bystander in your own body, I thought. - Venom 29.8
I’m not particularly good at dissecting themes, I just like noticing them. I feel like a lot more can and probably has been said about this. It’s just so fucking tragic.
