I really can’t stop thinking about this scene
Where Simon challenges The Father. Because!!! It shows he is smart, he’s always been smart. He challenges authority when it he doubts what they are saying.
Do you know how dangerous a doubting child in a cult is??
The Father laughs like he likes the question and that’s the trick because Cults hate questions and doubts and independent thinkers- but they pretend to love questions.
Especially from new members. Simon is a new member (came from Mars- that one conversation with his mother “I don’t want to go- Simon don’t be like that.”) They love to answer questions from new members because it offers them a chance to nip any doubt in the bud, answer with absolutes and half-answers and usually end in humiliating or tearing down the person who asked the question. Not to get personal on main but trust me. You just see their teeth sharpen when you admit to a doubt or ask a question as a kid. They’ll make you feel stupid for asking and if you keep not understanding their half answers (asking more questions) they will get angry at you for persisting.
That’s why I headcanon that Simon has always been a doubter- especially with his monologue later about “what’s more likely? The stars disappeared or a few space stations?” (Paraphrasing) but it’s a very difficult and painful life for a doubting child growing up in a quite literally inescapable cult. But doubting doesn’t necessarily mean he didn’t listen. Doubting doesn’t mean he didn’t fall for the dogma. He can still doubt and be their Butcher. They made him a solider, they made him loyal, and just because he privately thought it was all horse shit doesn’t mean he didn’t learn to not to challenge authority (that he still struggles with). That the belief sank into him like thorns, that he can’t help but feel a religious reverence for the seed despite hating what they did in the name of the Last Tree.
Religious trauma is just so complicated and especially cult trauma because they are literally masters of manipulating large groups of people and they have systems in place to keep their members there even if they don’t believe and even if they do escape, they leave lasting gashes.
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