sometimes I think about how far we still have to go with consent
my worst relatives try to sneak meat or meat products into my food despite the fact that I'm a vegetarian
my ex's brother gave his mother an edible without her knowledge and when she got freaked out and paranoid they laughed, and people I've told that go "yeah that's shitty but it's just weed"
when I go to the doctor and ask them to describe what they are going to do before touching me they get frustrated
when I ask a friends of a friend who is a small influencer to keep me out of frame in videos they film for social media in public they look at me like I've pissed in their cereal
why is privacy so eroded. I get treated like a nutcase if I say no, I don't want strange companies taking pictures of my home and putting them online for maps or whatever. I don't want to be in the background of your tiktok, and I think it's weirder for you to assume I'm okay with it than it is for me to politely ask you to refilm it so my face isn't in the frame. I don't enjoy handing my employer a list of every online account I have and feeling under surveillance when I'm just shit posting or sharing pictures of my cats or garden harvest. I don't want to hear your private calls on speaker on the bus, esp when the person on the line doesn't know you're broadcasting their words to strangers. I don't want an algorithm guessing what will piss me off the most so I spend more time online, engaging with shit I don't want to see or hear out of outrage. I don't want any of this. it's total ass.
i don't think of Elisabet as Aloy's mother at all to be honest.
spoilers for horizon zero dawn and forbidden west below (just my lore musings so you're not missing anything if you skip lol)
Elisabet had no idea GAIA would clone her, and will never know Aloy exists.
I also thought it was pretty cruel of Aloy to call her "the closest thing i've ever had to a mother" when Rost is right there, he did all the parenting!
I guess the veneration of biological motherhood in the nora contributes to her obsession with a female parent specifically, so it makes sense in some ways.
and sure there are genetic influences on personality that might make Aloy similar to Elisabet
but like even biological daughters are about 50% their mother genetically, Aloy is a CLONE. she's 100% Elisabet genetically and it is an unnatural thing, the whole situation is unnatural and that's the point. she's a post-apocalyptic hail-mary clone made to repair a humungous terraforming system that's been sabotaged by an evil vengeful alien hive mind.
also, how the environment interacts with genetic influences is super important, and the only connecting thread between Aloy and Elisabet's environments is the literal weight of the world being on their shoulders. their diets, activity, etc would all be so different
i guess their social isolation is similar but in Aloy's case i absolutely put this down to being ostracised in her formative years and her guardian Rost's demeanour
my final thought is that Elisabet really doesn't give mother material to me. the final scene of HZD with her describing her ideal child is beautiful of course. but it feels like a far-off ideal. she has no strong relationships with others, the whole toxic situationship with Tilda, Travis talking about how she seems to love life on earth as a whole but struggles to connect with people on an individual level. that doesn't give good parent material to me
if there were no apocalypse i think Elisabet might have grown into a person capable of being a mother, but i feel like as she was at the end of her life, responsibility for a child would have just been a threat and burden, not a blessing. i wonder what she'd think if she could see Aloy and know how Aloy feels about her
obviously I love Aloy and Elisabet both, this isn't a hate post at all. I just think that Aloy hinging so much of her identity on fulfilling 'her mother's legacy' is not good for her (as the game makes clear) and also inaccurate.
in summary i think Aloy's idealising Elisabet not just as a saint but as a caring mother, though i also think this is in-character for her so no criticism of the plot itself. i'm excited to see where her character development goes in horizon 3!
in HZD the “operations log” datapoint in ELEUTHIA-9, it gives Aloy's birthday, but I have some questions
the matriarchs gave Aloy to Rost presumably as soon as they found her since she was 'cursed' in their opinion, but newborn babies need breast milk. i don't think Rost was breastfeeding Aloy, and I also don't think any of the other mothers in the tribe would do it, let alone the matriarchs allowing any of the sacred mothers to breastfeed a 'cursed motherless child'.
so... how did Aloy survive infancy? did the ELEUTHIA-9 pod automatically gestate her beyond what humans are normally born as? to the age where she'd be able to survive off solid foods? i feel like that's the most likely answer but it would be cool to know for sure
didn't even realise this at first but i found this thread https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/14345xa/so_did_baby_aloy_just_drink_likeboars_milk_or/ (thanks @chromatichorizon) and this comment in particular.
this comment got me thinking about how NONE of the babies in cradle facilities are being breastfed by mothers. they were built to restart the human race post-apocalypse with no mothers left! there must be something in their system that automatically takes care of that.
maybe gestating them until they no longer need it, but accelerated? the pods wouldn't be limited by nutrition or space like what real mothers have to deal with. or maybe they have artificial breastmilk ready to give them once they're born?
but if that was so would they have had anything left? one of the servitors said to the first generation teens that they have to leave now because "there is no food here anymore"
this thread also had some cool thoughts https://www.reddit.com/r/horizon/comments/lhe9iv/overthinking_hzd_baby_aloy_and_way_more_detail/?solution=0e0c861f2719a5010e0c861f2719a501&js_challenge=1&token=bbbe4bf1c9a2b5160829c4be34da5861aa8c580fb7f928dbbd7bd0cc26e62f74&jsc_orig_r=
for now i think my favourite theory is Aloy and all the other ELEUTHIA-9 babies being gestated beyond the normal human timeline. maybe when i have more time i'll do a proper deepdive!
Everyone fights with bows, swords, spears, etc... And then there's the protagonist's pitiful wet cat of a twin sister just walking around with a fucking revolver
I'm gonna be real I mainly chose Yarra for lesbian reasons but also she seems very obviously the right choice. She seems far more regretful of killing than Drakka, who seems almost excited to kill you when you side against him. And she seems to care about the clan way more
in HZD the “operations log” datapoint in ELEUTHIA-9, it gives Aloy's birthday, but I have some questions
the matriarchs gave Aloy to Rost presumably as soon as they found her since she was 'cursed' in their opinion, but newborn babies need breast milk. i don't think Rost was breastfeeding Aloy, and I also don't think any of the other mothers in the tribe would do it, let alone the matriarchs allowing any of the sacred mothers to breastfeed a 'cursed motherless child'.
so... how did Aloy survive infancy? did the ELEUTHIA-9 pod automatically gestate her beyond what humans are normally born as? to the age where she'd be able to survive off solid foods? i feel like that's the most likely answer but it would be cool to know for sure
why is it always a male character going mad avenging his dead wife and never a female character cradling her dying pure of heart husband in her arms then dragging the whole world down with her
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