Someone in the DBDA fandom had identified that the dolls â in the Dollhouse, and that make up the spider â are Mary Ann dolls. (It was @snowmenatwork and this was the post).
Which is the same derogatory term used by the boys who sacrificed Edwin.
So, when Edwin died with those words in his ears, and his heart, his Hell became the school, a maze of hallways, and became the spider made of Mary Ann dolls.
The phrase itself manifested into a grotesque, forever-hungry, terrible, grasping personification made to torture Edwin. To endlessly chase, tear him apart, and chew him up. And then to start it all anew.
To ensure, in every time he was caught, that Edwin would believe that who he was was wrong.
Because thatâs what he had to believe. Thatâs what we see in the show. That he was an outsider. That he struggled with who he was. That he struggled, in some way, with affection, both giving and receiving. That there was a wrongness to him/that he was wrong (there isnât, and heâs not. of course heâs not).
So when he meets Simon, and tells him âIf you punish yourself, everywhere becomes Hell.â itâs because he did that for however long the spider made of dolls tortured him.
If Edwinâs story, according to George, is about understanding love in any form, I think thatâs why Simon was locked away from Edwin. He wouldnât have been able to understand, or to articulate. To free himself. To free Simon.
Itâs perhaps why his second stint in Hell was different, in the end, because love (Charles) was there too.
Itâs why the confession had to happen on those stairs because it wasnât just for Charles. It was for himself, now, and for the young man sacrificed over 100 years before. An admission that he understood, truly, the ability to love without reservation. And that freed him.
