tayizcray

"You just couldn't help yourself, could you? You fucking creep. You're always doing that, and I hate it!!!"

Angel Dust:

Plus, if we want to go a bit further on the train of thought, we know that his sinner form has a lot of eyes on it and if we want to use Emily's dialogue here, it appears to suggest that he can't even close them all, despite his best efforts.

With all that in mind, his sinner form was basically to that every single time he saw his own shadow, his own silhouette on something, it would remind him how his own inaction on that day eventually led to 5 more women being murdered by that man.

It's brutal shit if the line of thinking I'm going down here makes sense ngl, must've been eating him from the inside for basically the entire time he was in hell with that form ngl.

When Victor goes to sleep after thinking his project failed, the sheets on his bed are crimson red, making it seem like the aftermath of a bloody childbirth.

Victor's ivory anatomy miniature is of a pregnant woman, foreshadowing that his scientific pursuits will be about creating life; it also shows that his scientific interests are forever linked to his attachment to his mother, who dies in childbirth.

Elizabeth's wedding gown has a fluttering lace design like the antennae of butterflies and moths, echoing her butterfly motif and her search for something she cannot explain (the moth's attraction to the light).

Heinrich refers to him as Adam but that’s not what he calls himself. In fact he doesn’t give himself a name in the movie (there’s no “I ought to be thy Adam”). When the Creature meets Victor for the first time, Victor points to himself and says “Victor” then the Creature also points to himself saying “Victor.” Then Victor says “yes yes of course you are.” At face value this just looks like a child mirroring a parent and Victor patting himself on the back for conquering death but if you think about it it can be read as Victor giving the Creature the name Victor. Victor Frankenstein the father and Victor Frankenstein the son.

The Creature being Victor also adds a dimension to the ending as forgiving “Victor” becomes both forgiving his creator and forgiving himself for being born. Victor Frankenstein asks the Creature to give the name “Victor” back to him because it meant nothing to him when his father gave it to him. This dynamic with his father is perpetuated by Victor himself when he gives the name “Victor” to his creation which at their first meeting meant nothing to him. Victor was his father’s creation and their relationship ended there. Victor was the creator of the Creature and their relationship ended there. By having the Creature who bears the name given by Victor give it back to him he is accepting their father son relationship post creation and acknowledging the pain of the son, ending the cycle of abuse and neglect. “Victor” meant nothing as a creator and a creation, but “Victor” means everything as a father and a son.

And all this extra stuff is absent with the name Adam.

There can be multiple Frankenstein adaptations in existence, but to essentially reduce this film to 'Frankenstein For Men', because the film focuses on abuse cycles from father to son, with references to the cultural dynamics that Del Toro himself grew up both in and around, is not... it.

And to also erase the fact that so so many women felt represented by this film, with the implication that the film in itself 'should have been made by a man' is also not it either.

The insistence that this adaptation's existence is 'wrong' is just such a strange thing.

And with the main criticisms of the film being linked to viewers not understanding Del Toro's style of storytelling or even the cultural elements of the film, it makes one wonder sometimes if this 'criticism' doesn't come from a good place.

The fact that Harlander only saw Victor's science, his creation, as a means to preserving himself. His own name.

The fact that Victor had only thought so far as the creation itself, and not what comes after. That the perfection in his mind began and ended with the act of creation.

How men only see (pro)creation through the lens of carrying on their legacy.

And when told no, that the creature will not be Harlander and his legacy? He seeks to ruin it all. And when the creature seems too slow, too difficult, too painful for Victor to deal with? He tries to destroy him.