The Lizeard Wizeard



Look at his face when Ava can't see him. You can clearly see hope twisting into distrust and fear, looking behind him in paranoia. It's dark and he keeps shoving his whole body closer to the light of the porthole:

Compare that to when they are talking face-to-face, his eyes go almost completely dead, he's baring his teeth, the light in his eye is red instead of that sparkle we saw in the first photo:

Simon's Scar

Note: This is speculation.

Simon was in COI custody for a little while, it seems, judging from the way he talks about them like he's gotten much more acquainted with them than he ever wanted to.

His phrasing here is what trips me up. It's not, "they burned it off," it's "they made me burn it off." <- Note the word "BURN" as well.

This is a really freakin' bad hypertrophic or keloid scar resulting from a poorly-treated burn. A neck injury like this is incredibly dangerous, especially in a resource-scarce world. That is way too close to Simon's jugular. It's indicative of how reckless or forced the act was.

If the Consolidation of Iron (COI) had done it to him as torture or an official branding, it likely would have been much more uniform. The COI is nothing if not militantly-strict in the way they do things. This scar seems the opposite of that.

At some point between Filament Station and the expedition, they sat Simon down and had him take it off, most likely in some cruel version of "pledging" against Eden. If you consider the physical nature of the burns, they seem rushed, unsteady, and don't even cover the tattoo all the way; I can only assume self-inflicted and quick. Just enough to get by.

Note the angle. If you reach up to your own neck right now and lay your finger across the opposite side of it, it's at a slightly-upward, crooked angle. Looks like Simon reaching around in the same manner with something hot.

I initially assumed this scar was from perhaps a hot knife, but the way the lines curve make me think otherwise. The tool would need to get super-heated quickly, be easily accessible in an industrial/engineering environment, not a straight-edge, and also be handheld/small enough to jab under the jaw. My bet?

Soldering iron.

The COI is cruel.

P.S. I have an entire scene in Chapter 7 of Terminal Lucidity dedicated to watching Simon be forced to burn his tattoo off at gunpoint with a soldering iron, for people who love pain.

Simon wouldn't get into the atrocities he did, but he'll mope about the state of things, about the bigger picture, and about other people. He'll talk about memories and do everything possible to lament on happy times.

But he won't admit he's just as bad of a man as everyone else.

He won't talk when he thinks the person asking will hold it over his head. That's only fair. Simon's ready for everyone around him to be a bully, because we all saw what the COI did to Simon when he believed in them enough to surrender.

Simon's a talker. Most of the lines in the entire movie are Simon just yapping to himself.