#trashcan's analysis

there is something about iron lung that is deeply tied to the diasporic experience. i originally said asian american because mark is asian american, and i'm asian american, so i can really only pull from my own experience– but i'm certain there is overlap in this aspect.

it's the way simon is seen as different. on eden, by the C.O.I., by the blood ocean. not necessarily always in ways that are overtly bad, but ways in which it is clear that he doesn't really belong.

eden doesn't want him. and he doesn't want them either– or so he says. but he grew up there. calls the people of eden his brothers. sees a memento of it left by the brother who came before him and nearly weeps, because it's all he has left of it. of home. he may say that he never wanted to consider himself part of eden's cause, but it's obvious that the love that he feels for eden itself is bloody and raw and real. even if it is unrequited. even if it makes him feel ashamed.

a culture that you were raised in– that raised you. that you tried to turn away to make yourself more palatable because maybe, just maybe, if you distanced yourself from them enough, you could finally be seen as something more than just its product. you could be one of the good ones. even if it means giving up part of who you were. even if it means you inevitably come crawling back when it's already too late, when they already don't want you back. a foreigner in your own skin.

the C.O.I. definitely doesn't want him. and he most certainly doesn't want them either– how could he, after all they did to him? the imprisonment, the disfiguring, the theft of anything he had left that could remind him of home? (...but was it ever really home?)

unless it means survival. unless it's refuge from the thing that was always inevitably going to strangle and suffocate him for love to death, anyways. there is one thing left that the C.O.I. can still give him that eden never could, and that's hope for a better tomorrow. hope for a tomorrow, period. they think that there's something still out there, something that means home (but was that ever home, either? is your parents' home really home?), and simon wants to believe that too, no matter how much he keeps telling them and himself otherwise.

but it's a better tomorrow that he knows, deep down, he's not going to be allowed to have. one that the C.O.I. is going to take from him no matter how much he deserves it (...but what do we ever really mean by the word deserve?) because he's always been disposable to them. something they can get rid and wipe their hands clean of because he's not like them. they'll lie to him and tell him that they'll make him one of them if he just does this one more thing for them. but that one thing turns to another. and another. and another. and they'll just keep taking from him no matter how little he has left, because that was all he ever was to them. something to be taken from.

a promise of something different, something more than what you were only ever going to be. but a promise that comes with a cost. a promise that requires you to conform, to make yourself anew even if it means abandoning all you had ever known. a promise that keeps you wary and defensive and turns you against the people, the places you loved (but did you ever stop? how could you, after all you've been through?). one that might stab you in the back and leave you for dead anyways, if they think it'll suit them, no matter how many ropes you've severed, markings you've scrubbed away, masks you've put on to make yourself look exactly like them. only ever a means to an end.

and yet, the blood ocean does want him. sees his perseverance as valuable. wants to take him for itself just like it had taken every other soul that dared traverse its hemas. it's not like he'll ever make it home anyways, right? what home does he even have? he's better off down here, with it, an entity that can finally, actually, promise him safety.

safety in exchange for betrayal. betrayal of eden. betrayal of the C.O.I. betrayal of the flawed systems that failed him both, time and time again, and yet they are systems that he cannot bear to let go of. hope is all he ever had left, and you're telling him that he has to give that up too just to have some place in this world?

it's tempting, it really is. the thought of finally being able to rest. to drop his weapons and lay down his head and finally have somewhere he can call "home". (unseen. unheard. uncontrolled.)

a rejection of both cultures and promises that feels like the only option you have left. a sinking feeling that this was all you were ever going to be– not one or the other, not enough of this, too much of that. forever stuck in limbo, a version of hell that you were doomed for from the moment you first opened your eyes, by no fault of your own. and yet it's what you deserve, anyways, isn't it? for all you've done? the bridges you've burned and the institutions you chose to put your faith in, blindly or otherwise? what other choice do you have? a martyr of you own volition.

and yet simon still chooses the path forward. a path that only ever lead in one direction, but a path he's going to take because fuck it, it's his. it's the one thing nobody can take from him, the ability to choose. and he chooses humanity. not one or the other, not surrender, but the only thing that ever really mattered. it's bigger than him. and it's too bad that it took all of this for him to finally see it, but if it's all he's got left then he'll fucking do it, even if he'll never really get vindication, the one thing he's ever really wanted.

all his life, simon was never given the right of having a choice. always had other people making decisions for him, decisions he never asked for or wanted. never even given the semblance of something that wasn't what felt like inevitable. because why would he ever need one? he's just like everyone else, isn't he? why would he ever want something different?

but there is just... something there. about not being given choices, obviously, but specifically about not being given the option of saying "no". because i mean... as an aspec person, who hasn't been explicitly told that "no" isn't an option?

i hear "how many more times are you going to use me before you let me go?" and i hear a man who has given in to the fact that when he says "no", it's not actually going to matter. and i think about all the times where i've said "no" and had people tell me that that wasn't something i was allowed to have. that i "just had to try it", that i "hadn't met the right person yet", that i "shouldn't say that about myself."

why the fuck not. why shouldn't i say that about myself. i didn't say it to be self deprecative, i said it because it's what i want. what i DON'T want, really, if we're leaning into semantics. why do you get to tell me what i do and don't want? why do you get to make decisions for me all of a sudden? what did i do to deserve that? what do any of us do to deserve anything?

i hear "you're not listening to me, there's something else." and i hear "why doesn't what i say matter to you even when it's about my health and wellbeing?" am i just not enough of a person to you to be able to make decisions for myself? why not? just because i don't value relationships the same way you do? just because i find joy in living for other things? for myself?

why is it not enough to want to live for the sake of living? why do i have to be belittled and infantilized just because of how i love and what i live for? why is my life inherently less valuable just because i'm supposedly not like everyone else? there will never be a number of us high enough for it to be worth throwing lives away, so why do you suddenly get to decide that i'm throwing away mine?

it's obviously not a 1:1 comparison, such things rarely are. even less so when it comes to the lack of wanting. but i see simon and i can't help but feel... understood. i look into the eyes of a victim, a perpetrator, a criminal, and i see someone i can call a brother.

...and as an aside, people will joke about the harness scene and yes, i will too, because it's just a little absurd, isn't it? i mean there's just no practical purpose for that thing for a man who has lived and grew up in a society where things generally need practical purposes to warrant having. why does he even need that fuckass little harness that 1. isn't holding anything up, 2. isn't keeping anything in place, and 3. seems to serve no purpose other than making him look good? it's just funny. hilarious, even. i'm not gonna pretend like it isn't.

but i mean. god forbid a person feel comfortable enough in their own skin to have this one thing to themself. to wear what they want and feel good about it because they think it makes them look good, regardless of how other people see them. god forbid simon have this fuckass little harness just because he likes it, just because it's one thing he can have that makes him feel good about his own body even if it's not practical. because it has to be for someone, right? right?? otherwise, why would he even have it?

and yet he keeps asking. and then i'm free? if i do this one more thing, will you let me go? because that's what you told me the last time. and the time before that. and the time before that too. is this the time that words will actually mean what they say? is it? because you keep telling me that over and over again, and it's getting harder to believe you still think i'm a person.

i'd say it's naïvety, and maybe it is, deep down. but i can't describe it as anything else but hope. that this time will be different. that words will finally have meaning, that he'll have finally earned the right to be told the truth. it is simon's singular shining quality, one that twinkles under the roughage of personality he has both naturally acquired and purposefully put up as a defense mechanism– it's the fact that he never gives up. never gives up hope.

because it's all he has left. as much as he hates to admit it, all he has left is the hope for a tomorrow that was brighter than the last because everything else has been violently taken from him, time and time again. hope is the one thing he refuses to give up no matter how many times people say that he should, the one thing that he knows he can cling to and not have it physically ripped from his grasp.

"how many times are you going to use me before you let me go?"

thinking about how ava knew what she was doing when she put simon in the SM-13. knew for a fact that she was lying to his fucking face, way before simon had ever called her out for it directly. and i think it's because she knew. from the moment she came into contact with him i think she knew– that if there was anyone that would have been able to get something from a trip in the iron lung, it was going to be him. because he just keeps fucking fighting, thrashing against the hand that holds him down– her hand.

how many eden prisoners do they have aboard the station? how many of them have enough will to keep living, let alone to dare think that there could be something better out there for them? for everyone? simon said it himself, that eden hasn't "deluded" themselves into thinking that there's still something out there. so why should he? why should he keep fighting for a future he knows will never come?

because he doesn't really believe that that's true. he keeps telling himself (and everyone else) that he does but i think it's because daring to hope means hardship. it means not giving up the ghost and reaching out for a line as thin as sewing thread itself in the hopes that it'll hold your full weight. it's foolish. it's unthinkable.

it's all they have left.

and that's what makes him perfect for this. there was simply no other way that things could have turned out– not this well, at least. because simon has a drive rivaled only by ava's herself, and the ability to use it effectively– something that very few people from eden (or even the C.O.I., for that matter) seem to possess. and she sees that. she sees that when they first send the sub down and he keeps yelling at them anyways. she sees that when they manage to establish connection with him after four fucking days of thinking he had suffered the same fate as every single other pilot before him. she sees that when she argues with her own second in command in his favor, when she sends herself down there because hope is all she has left, too.

so she lies to him. over. and over. and over again. even after he tells her that he knows that she's bullshitting him. even after she knowingly condemns him to a fate no other person, "deserving" or otherwise, has escaped. because she knows what hope can do to a person. it's all she has left, after all. and if she can wield simon's hope, something so reactionary and volatile that even simon himself doesn't seem to have a good grasp on it, into a useful channel then maybe she can find a way out of this mess for everyone else. even if it means simon is sacrificed in the process. even if she is sacrificed in the process.

simon has done terrible things. undoubtedly, she has too. and despite it all, they are humanity's last fighting chance. no matter how many times simon says otherwise. no matter what she has to do to get him to finally believe it with his full fucking chest. the ship they were on was sinking before it even left shore. the last thing they can do is deploy the lifeboats in the hopes it'll help someone else, even if it means going down with the ship anyways.

in a similar vein, i don't think ava was actually serious about sending david down in the SM-14 in her place. i think it was just the only way she could get him to understand how important this all was in the limited amount of time they had because she knows david cares. she knows he cares a lot. and she just cannot afford having someone who cares about her like that in this moment because she has an obligation to the people aboard the station– her station– to try to find them a way out of this mess, even if it means she doesn't get to come with them.

his final "yes, captain" wasn't just falling into the order of hierarchy. it was letting ava go because she cares more about her people than she ever did about herself. it was giving in to the fact that ava puts her duties above all else, above relationships, above feelings, above her own life. it's something he really admires about her, something that he knows makes her a better captain than he could ever be (as much as he likes to complain otherwise), but it's also what keeps her at arms length from everyone, including her own right hand.

david wants ava alive. ava wants for everyone else to survive. and this is just not the universe where these things could coexist.

their dynamic is i guess you could call it unrequited. not that i don't think ava doesn't care about david At All but that it's more like he is one of many people whose lives are at stake if she doesn't do whatever it takes to save them, whereas david cares about ava in a way that is far more personal.

i think that he probably has some sort of feelings for her, feelings that he knows she doesn't return but it's something he's ultimately fine with as long as he gets to be in her life. he just thinks it's something better left unsaid, knows that his life doesn't matter to her above everyone else's but that's just how ava is. even if it makes him a little wistful, she wouldn't be ava if she wasn't so disciplined.

and i think ava knows. i don't think it's something david would ever tell her outright but she can just tell from the way he talks and moves that he loves her (however you want to define love, here); they would naturally spend a lot of time together, after all, and she wouldn't be where she was if she didn't know how to read people as well as she does.

she doesn't acknowledge it, either. she's grateful he doesn't even if it does make her feel kind of guilty, that she could never reciprocate the kind of affections he has for her, even if they weren't in the situation they're currently in. he never tries to make her feel bad for it, though. again, she wouldn't be ava if she did like him back enough to try to make things work, he's fine with how things are and he's professional enough to not let it interfere too much with their working relationship. so she simply chooses to act like that's the same as them simply being captain and second hand (...even if she knows that's not really true).

but for standard he opens the door. pulls the seat back both so standard and blanche can get in quicker but also so that he can get a better view to make sure standard is ok. actually gets out of the car when he sees him fall down after getting shot and only drives off once he realizes that there is no saving him.

because there is just. something there i think. of not knowing where you can call home (because is your parents home really home? is the country station that doesn't even seem to want you home?). of not having people who want to claim you because you're not Enough (too much of this. not enough that. arbitrary lines drawn in the sand.). of clinging to a culture that you originally shunned but desperately want back now that you have nothing left (because it used to feel suffocating then but now it's the only thing you can hold onto for any sense of comfort).

does that make sense? am i getting too in over my head?

hotline 1 doesn't make this readily apparent (saying that as if hotline in general makes anything regularly apparent; this really is a series you gotta put at least a little bit of work into reading into if you wanna get that full picture). but almost everything you do in these games is because of him.

the majority of jacket's motivation for his actions in 1 is because of beard's death. like that is a nonnegotiable fact– beard died on april 3rd, 1986 and jacket joined 50B exactly 3 years later. that photo he tosses off of the balcony at the end of the game is the only one they have together, the one that must haunt jacket's entire life considering beard had brought it up with him on that final phone call they had together just seconds before his end.

beard is the initial reason for his rampage. girlfriend's death adds to it, yes, and while i would argue that it's her death specifically that gives us the ending we received with him in 1, none of those events would have happened if beard were still alive. jacket wouldn't have signed up for 50B. girlfriend wouldn't have died (and yes, we can equivocate about whether or not this is a good thing considering the environment jacket had taken her out of, but for succinctness we won't here). hell, practically none of the major events of 2 would have occurred past most of richter, jake, and maybe some of evan and pardo's storylines (as well as biker's, but i digress). midnight animal wouldn't have existed and martin never would have gotten shot. the fans wouldn't have held someone with so much hero worship and likely wouldn't have tried to become vigilantes themselves. the henchman and the son wouldn't even have the same development they do in 2 because the father would still be alive and in power– meaning they and the fans would have lived.

hotline miami would not be a fraction of the game that it is without him. i've pointed it out before but in the table sequence when you start a new game after completing 2, it's specifically richard and beard who are sitting at either head of the table. they are the real reason why everyone's here. and the wild thing is that past jacket, richard, and evan, none of these people even know who he is!! the impact of beard's death is so widespread and none of these people even know it!!!! because why would they? he was one soldier in a futile war that killed him when he thought he was finally safe. in his own words, he's expendable!! he's just not that special!

...but isn't he, though? doesn't it say something about his character, about how important he was to jacket, that jacket would do everything he could to avenge him? and isn't that devastating in and of itself, that jacket thought that this was simply the way things had to be?

what did jacket find special about him? the companionship? the fact that he'd saved his life? or the fact that he likely was the only person who had consistently looked upon him with kindness, the only person he was consistently able to keep in his life even after coming home and being thousands of miles apart? i guess we'll never know for sure. but one thing is exceedingly clear to me.