rachel and elias are siblings
this is a theory based on a post @hydfreak-blog tagged me in, and its basically just analysing OA and Elias’ conversation in episode 4.
Prairie says “I still feel like a prisoner” to which Elias responds, “I understand” if he is Rachel’s brother and they ran away to escape their dad, he would have had to live with that, or after Rachel was taken by Hap he would have been put in the adoption system, helpless due to his age.
Elias says “I guess I became an agent to catch the bad guys”, “the perpetrator” We can assume from this Elias joined the FBI due to his sister’s disappearance, and this could be why ‘Rachel’ was written on his wall. it’s still unclear whether he is aware of Hap’s existence but his use of the masculine noun “guys” and then the singular noun “perpetrator” strongly suggests he’s aware that it was one male that took his sister, but because he’s even talking to prairie its clear he has no idea of Hap’s identity or location.
The more cases Elias did, the more he “realised” that “the punishment never really mattered, or it was never enough” We are introduced to this concept of neutrality usually used by Hap “Theres no such thing as good or evil. Just what you can stand” (im paraphrasing lol), except Elias uses it in a sense of helplessness and Hap uses it from a position of power.
“No one was thinking about the victims, mainly women and children” In the greater context, “Women” refers to Rachel and “children” refers to Elias. Just as next to nothing could be done to find prairie or homer or scott, Elias found that nothing was done to find his sister, and so he and a few others began the ‘Victim support program’. Prairie says he doesn’t know the context of her trying to help people and he responds “Maybe I do know, in a way” - They are both Hap’s victims, and they are both trying to use this to help people, and this is presented as altrusitic but it is very much for their own means- Prairie needs to die to return to the five, and Elias wants to find his sister, and this leads their paths to converge.
“First, have compassion… for yourself. You’ve been through something no one is equipped to deal with. Admit that.” Elias is clearly speaking from past experience, and is addressing both himself and Prairie through this advice. “Simplify your life. Same way you would if you had been in a car crash or…” [he cuts off with like… a muted gasp its around 30:32 everyone go watch this holy shit] this quote is killing me because first, he deadass references the “car crash” Rachel describes in her NDE that she was in with her brother, and I honestly know that if he hadn’t cut himself off he would’ve said something like “lost a sister”. This in itself is something of a parallel between the two- Prairie loses her dad, Elias has maybe already lost his sister, or he will if Prairie doesnt help him find Hap’s location. He doesn’t finish this sentence, just says “Just take the time you need to heal” “I understand more than you know” he avoids eye contact with prairie as he says this, but not in a deceitful way as if he was lying about his empathy for her; almost to avoid prairie realising who he is. He then references Prairies earlier line of “I still feel like a prisoner” and he tells her “You’re not a prisoner”.
yes i love this <3 I was already surprised i was the first to come with it and couldnt find any back-up XD
