The Creature calling itself Viktor and following Viktor around is so much more tragic when you know how babies develop and how newborns don't yet realise they and their mothers are two separate people. And one of the first things babies realise about themselves is that they're a whole separate person. And one of the first things they do when they start developing as a person is find out they have hands and play with them and with textures and start exploring. And when they want to start talking, they put their hands and fingers on their parents lips and throats to figure out how that sound is coming out of there and then they start imitating. Guillermo Del Toro nailed every single step of human development in such a beautiful celebration of life.
And Viktor abused the crap out of the poor creature for not being smart enough when it was only following natural developmental milestones. Because, like most men, like his own father, he wanted to create life but he wasn't interested in raising it beyond that and instead wanted it to be born a doctor ready to show the world how smart Viktor is for creating a carbon copy of his brain except in a stronger immortal body. Elizabeth gave him five minutes of love and let him explore how sounds come out of her mouth and he started talking.
Idk why some people are complaining about the movie being different from the book when the essence is literally the same, Viktor created life as if it were a godly feat and not something women have been doing since the dawn of humanity, and then he abandoned that life as deadbeat dads do. And that abandonment is what created a monster out of an innocent souls who could have become a beautiful being had it been nurtured. That's literally what Mary Shelley wrote. She would have been proud of this story. On top of being an incredibly gorgeous visual story, the narrative is very loyal to the point Shelley wanted to make.
I think my problem with the Rats in the books is that they are given these horrific backstories about war and contempt and how the child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth. But this is told to us through the narration, not the characters themselves
(Spoilers, TW for SA mention)
Contrast that with Angoulême, who is very much a foil character to Ciri and the Rats, she gets to tell her own story of abuse and becoming a bandit, to Geralt and the rest of the company, and it humanizes her
And they don't really have distinct personalities outside of just delighting and violence and killing and enjoying stealing and pillaging gold, and fancy clothes and jewelry, and also fisstech, Sapkowski is normally an excellent character writer, even with characters without tons of page time have distinct personalities.
Was this supposed to be the author's take on "A Clockwork Orange"? teenage ruffians dressed to the 9s, enjoying a bit of the ol ultraviolence, if so, it never addresses any of the themes explored in that book/ film, the only one it does sort of address is the tendency for victims to repeat the cycle of violence, especially sexual violence, which is something I don't see talked about in fiction very much
But it isn't touched upon nearly enough as a topic of this weight requires. Mistle, despite having one of the most horrific backstories in the Witcher novels, I often see fans describe her as one of the most hated characters in the books, and I think that's because how that experience affected her from her perspective is never told or shown to us (beside the obvious of her having no concept of consent, becuase in her mind what she is doing to Falka isnt nearly as violent and horrible as what was done to her)
I think I know what was missing with them, we needed to see their low points not just their spoils and partying, we need to see what they run from with their contempt, the night terrors, the PTSD flashbacks in the middle of raids, the drug withdrawal
We do get a bit of that with Mistle and we will obviously see things from Ciri`s perspective, but I think if we got to see them as actual characters and not just mcguffins for Ciri`s corruption plot, their death scene would hit much harder IMO
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