To parrot one of my dear mutuals, I think Marius is a good character from a storytelling standpoint. But in terms of "liking" him? Yeah, I'm with Jacob.
BUT I have been buzzing with excitement ever since the wonderful Christopher Heyerdahl, patron saint of cult vampire shows, was announced for the role. And I thoroughly enjoyed his performance in this recent episode.
From a writing standpoint, I think this is a really fascinating direction to introduce Marius in. Well, seeing him on-screen. We've already had an introduction to Marius in a brief name-drop in season one, and a more... revealing exposition in season two. But the first time we see him, I love Rolin's description of it - the lighthouse keeper version of Marius. It was interesting to see him like that and I loved how these flashbacks explored the madness these vampires go into after spending all this time taking care of living statues, and hearing Akasha's voice in their minds.
But what I adored about Chris' performance - and I knew he would nail this - is that you could see the more calm, dignified Marius we know from the books in short glimpses before he goes back into the "yep ok new employee is here, I am out of here, BYE!" frantic mode. And of course his full-Dafoe-mode screaming during Akasha's rant. That was fun to see. Chew that scenery, Chris!
Look, morally my stance will never change on Marius. But I am so excited to see more of Chris in this role.
i CANNOT express how much more lovable my friends are to me at their most annoying. i'd rather hear the same story 3 times than not at all. i'd rather read a 22 message text rant about something totally inconsequential than not hear from you all day. i'd rather you tag me in the stupidest post i've ever seen than not know that it made you think of a conversation we had a month ago. BE ANNOYING AT ME. I LOVE YOU
so women are supposed to grin and bear the books, the comics, the movies, the plays, the tv shows, the stories, the sci-fi, the translated ancient poems, the fucking millennia of men writing about their self inserts torturing women and it being declared as High Art by other men, we’re supposed to read it in our free time, study it in classrooms, include their styles in our own writing, accept their cultural influence as natural, watch it in the cinema, write about it, talk about it, accept it, aspire it, but men can’t tolerate three seconds of female wish fulfilment of a woman snapping the wrist of a creep without feeling personally kicked in the balls.
This reminds me of something I observed in college while I was doing my honors thesis on women in modern horror films. I watched a LOT of horror during that time as part of my research, and sometimes that was done with my family around.
And my dad and brothers? Were deeply disturbed by the movie Jennifer’s Body. I was flabbergasted. It’s not scary! It’s not even that gory. But they were horrified by it. These men who grew up on 70s slashers were legitimately shook by 90 minutes of Megan Fox eating a few teenage boys, mostly off-screen.
Similarly, my all-male reading panel for my thesis? Were so disturbed by my synopsis of the film Teeth that they couldn’t even talk about it. One of them said he couldn’t look at his wife for a week after reading it.
Again, grown-ass men who study and teach media for a living. Who definitely watch and enjoy horror movies. One of whom was a huge Tarantino buff. We watched and read worse in his intro to mass media class! But one movie about a girl whose vag could bite was enough to haunt him.
Then of course you have things like the Gone Girl backlash–men yelling that Amy Dunne is evil and women clamoring to assure everyone that they know she is not someone to emulate–the backlash against Carol Danvers, and, more recently, the griping from MRAs against the upcoming film Hustlers, which is about strippers scamming their Wall Street clients.
My conclusion? Most men–at least most straight, cisgender men, who are both my sample population and most of the ones whining that Carol is a “villain”–are perfectly fine with, and desensitized to, media where men do violence to women (horror movies), or men do violence to men (horror and action movies). They’re even sort of fine when women do violence to women (“ooooo cat fight!”).
But they get intensely uncomfortable when women are depicted doing any kind of violence to men, especially in films that tilt the balance of power to the other side of the m/f gender binary beyond a single moment or scene.
So woman as flesh-eating monster with men as her preferred cuisine? Woman who responds to unwanted sexual contact by biting it off? Woman who frames her cheating husband for murder? Woman whose response to harassment–behavior that many of the loudest whiners know is both creepy and reflective of their own thoughts/actions–is to break something?
Too scary. Unacceptable. Disturbing. These men hate being presented with the idea, even in fiction, that their position of power is socially constructed, that it could easily be flipped the other way. It terrifies them.
In feeling that terror, they experience a tiny modicum of what living, existing, moving, being perceived as a woman in the world is like.
Maybe it's just the side of the fandom where I'm at but I see so many depictions of the protagonist as this emotionless, stoic guy, which I (personally) disagree with.
He audibly freaked out multiple times over the course of the game (pale visitor breaking down his door, being torn apart by visitors in his basement), acted downright rude and took next to no shit from guests (mostly in the rus version), was generally wary and concerned over guests in quite a few dialogue options, multiple endings exist just because he felt a certain thing to an extreme (vigilante – rage, murderer – paranoia), and he has "I'm scared" dialogue options when meeting death.
All of this makes sense cause, well, duh. If you're about to die, you'll be scared. And if someone is banging on your door so loud, obviously you're gonna retaliate. And you as the player can always choose to go the soulless route, cause you "control" the protagonist. But you're not exactly writing the dialogue yourself, the options are still there and, in my opinion, still canon.
You choose how you act during the game, and the beliefs the protagonist has when, for example, bar guy asks you what you think happens after death. You can control his moral compass and level of asshole-ness with letting people in or not letting them in, but the dialogue options stay the same, and the things the protagonist has to say about the house stay the same.
It's just sad seeing so much potential get thrown out for the sake of keeping the mysterious vibe, when his character isn't even all that mysterious. The protagonist is one of the few characters we know most about (in terms of backstory & psyche). Just because he's an adult man who keeps to himself doesn't mean he's this "I feel no feelings" alpha loner. Honestly, I feel like he's quicker to lash out and get frustrated & upset than others because of how alone he is, since he's not used to dealing with anyone but himself.
Plus Pale Visitor headcanons part 2 !! Humantruder version :ь
- Has a name starting either with V or B. Viktor, Valyera, Bogdan, Boris, Volodya. Viktor seems to be fan picked
- In his 30-40s, mid 30s seems pretty fitting. The type of person to look older than they are cuz of hard life
- Has a voice a little higher than average that can sound deeper when he talks quietly
- Has a коренастый build. About 175cm (5'7), around 215cm (7'05) as a visitor
- Has pale skin even as a human, his face turns red very easily
- The type of person who talks to a lot of people and can find common language with anyone, but only lets a selected few get close to him and see his vulnerable side
- I imagine him being an average Joe, so painfully usual it's boring, for the sake of angst. Imagine living your whole life unremarkable and unnoticed only to then get turned into a monster that is on everyone's lips, terrorizing the village you once lived in
- Had a difficult childhood just like most of the country. A dysfunctional family with one or two alcoholic parents. Has problems with alcohol himself as an adult
- Born to older parents
- I joked about him having Fetal alcohol syndrome but it seems to make sense actually
- Has a lazy eye which gets more prominent when he zones out
- Big dark eyes. Very dark blues that seem black from afar. They used to look comforting as opposed to after his transformation
- I like the hc fans have of him that he works in retail. I can see him working a laborer job: shop loader, plumber or mechanic. Has back problems because of that said job
- Probably got into this job as a last resort to feed himself. The 90s in Russia were tough times
- I have no particular headcanons about his dating life as a human strangely. But i kinda see him as a man who's had a few relationships but never got to the serious wedding/planning kids/living together stage for various reasons. It's kinda tragic imagining him never getting a chance at having his own family, but i don't think he cared about it anyway
- As for his sexuality, he's living a straight life but is more open minded than others. Maybe bi-curious?
- Must be as smart in life as he is post mortem. Well educated on literature, history and philosophy, but gave up climbing the academic ladder because of the crisis
- You know that uncle that brings up politics at every family gathering? Yeah that's him
- Must've already had radical views on the government and people before turning into a visitor. Has an overall cynical and hedonistic view on the world, but doesn't show it much
- Still not sure if the devs used ГрОб songs for his dialogue as The Intruder quoting the lyrics and the band exists in the NINAH universe or used it as inspiration for writing the dialogues. Either way, Viktor listens to russian rock bands modern for NINAH's times and older
- I'm curious what he was doing deep in the forest when he died. According to the huntsman, the visitors were already roaming the earth when Viktor tried to break into his cabin. What sane person would go into the woods when there's creepy monsters pretending to be humans? But what if what he'd become as a visitor reflects what he was as a human? What if he was in the forest to seek victims, only to become a victim hunted by The Thing? Imagine the irony of being a maniac killer, dying to an eldritch monster and resurrecting as a disciple of Death, cursed to be trapped in your own skin to continue the job you were doing in life. Maybe it's a stretch, but it's pretty interesting to consider yk
Idk i think if he was given a bath, a fresh set of clothes and a nice hot tea he would've been a lot nicer🤔🤔 jkjk
Anywayy here are my headcanons for the Pale Visitor because i have to put my thoughts out SOMEWHEREE
Cw: descriptions of body horror
- The Bearded Hunter mentions Pale man getting significantly taller after he gets left outside his cabin, but doesn't mention anything about his face looking different. Idk maybe he just didn't pay attention, esp in the dark forest, but i think that The Thing that took human Pale man's skin also took his skull, so his face looks exactly the same as when he was a human, but more atrophied
- The Pale man has no organs, and when he breathes, (which he does only for speaking, getting air into his lungs to pass it through the vocal chords that got ripped with the skull) it sounds really dry, hollow and is echoed by the walls of his empty chest cavity
- His voice, given that he's basically a reanimated corpse, is really raspy and gritty. But not in a hot way, in an unpleasant old-man-with-pneumonia-on-the-verge-of-death kinda way
- His body is driven by the force of the thing that is possessing him. There might be some desiccated pieces of muscle and tendons that are still attached to his skin. Inside them, there's stale blood, it's dried, thick and brownish-black, but there's very little blood left in his flesh, almost none
- People see Pale Visitor and Humantruder as two different beings, but i like to imagine Pale visitor as Humantruder in a wrong body, his mind corrupted by The Thing. Kind of like rabies or cordyceps, but more symbiotic. He's like a ghost of his former self. He gets power, and Death gets his loyal service
- He still has his memories - he simply chooses to not access them, but those memories find a way to influence his actions. I believe the reason he kills those who are alone in their house is because it's an act of revenge. He died because the Hunter refused to share the safety of his house, and he swore to murder all those as selfish as the Hunter is
- As for romantic feelings, he knows what they are, he remembers what they felt like, he knows the ways humans connect, but he simply has no interest. He's not human, and it's in human nature to have an urge for connection and reproduction, which he doesn't possess anymore
- Even if someone does win his interest, it's only for a short while. He may toy around with his victim, try to see their weaknesses and painful buttons to push, but they meet their end just like the other ones. People love Palegun, but even Death's personal favorite didn't get enough interest from the Intruder for more interaction. He simply kills him. Nothing is personal for him
- He doesn't eat, drink or sleep. He doesn't have to, he never gets tired. He's one of the strongest visitors, but he's a little different in that way. Ballerina, one of the other stronger visitors, still has to eat something and get rest to sustain herself, just like the rest of the visitors
- He does occasionally spare people, but it's almost always out of inconvenience or distraction. Not every person who meets him dies, and that's how the police sketch was created. Even if he feels pity for someone, it's not out of empathy, it's condescending
- This is more of a general visitor headcanon. When they run into each other and no humans are around, they don't talk to one another. They may throw each other a glance or a nod. They access the information they want to exchange via some kind of telepathy like a hive mind and then they part ways. They only talk around humans to keep their cover and seem normal. This is so uncanny lmao imagine seeing two people in a field just motionlessly stare at each other for five seconds and then go their own ways without a word
This turned out much longer than i expected😭😭. I might do a part 2 with headcanons for Humantruder
