thought iâd add my two cents to the âis andrew a sadist?â discussion going on from a sadistâs perspective. andrew displays very strong and consistent sadistic tendencies, but understanding those requires understanding what the source of that gratification is. it is, of course, power, and everything in andrewâs life revolves around it.
most tend to think of sadism as exclusively sexual and the plain polar opposite of masochismâ which, granted, it often is for people whose sadism is limited to the confines of the bedroom. when it isnât, however, i wouldnât say thatâs particularly accurate. sadism in the paraphilic sense is just a psychological association between sexual pleasure and seeing others in pain that develops gradually when you get off enough times to that specific stimuli. your brainâs reward system now associates it with the rush of dopamine you get when you bust a nut. congrats, youâve pavlovâd yourself into a fetish. this is not more innate than jacking it to footjobs on the daily and then getting aroused when you see feet.
i canât relate to the exclusively kinky flavor of sadism myself, and i wouldnât consider people for whom it is only a kink true sadists. for people with a sadistic personality, the gratification is emotional, sometimes exclusively so with no sexual component to it, and even with that component, the sexual arousal is secondary. no matter how many wires get crossed between how the sadism actually manifests and the core of that desire or need, the motivation is almost always vengeance and punishment for a perceived crime, projected onto whoever is seen as deserving of that punishment.
andrew sure as hell wants to avenge himself. thatâs a recognizable pattern in his thought processes and behavior.
i saw his behavior towards ashley being used as a reference point here, but i personally do not see andrewâs sadistic tendencies applying to ashleyâ on the contrary, sheâs the one person iâd say is exempt from his sadistic inclinations, who he instead feels mental discomfort when heâs causing her harm. his internal conflict shuts his sadism down instantly when he has thoughts along those lines, when he feels a desire to hurt her, because the sense of fulfillment he finds in being her one source of safety, comfort and happiness is stronger than acting on any sadistic desire would be. thatâs where he gets his sense of purpose, his reason for living, and the two desires are naturally completely incompatible.
when andrew reflects on his lack of regret over murdering the warden, he admits that he only regrets not killing him slower and making him suffer, deriving pleasure from it, rather than hacking him up impulsively out of necessity to defend and protect his sister. why? the guy supposedly leered at ashley, looked at her as a potential sexual conquest, and for that, andrew would certainly gouge your eyes out and scrape out your eye sockets with a rusty spoon, and heâd savor every moment. my point: every other murder he commits is a stark contrast to the manner in which he kills ashley. he does this with tenderness and bitter sadness, her death pains him so unbearably much that he commits suicide the moment she is gone and dead in his arms, and he makes sure her death is quick and painless and that she doesnât suffer. and to andrew, this is a loving act of mercy.
this deep love and care for her is not his sole motivator here, weâre not gonna do him the favor of pretending otherwise, he has utterly selfish motives as well, but andrew cannot stand the thought of abandoning ashley, so if he dies, she will have to die with him. in his mind, he needs to spare her from living without him even for a second, save her from the agony she would feel when he is gone and sheâs alone in the world without her brother. if he kills her, he wonât have to leave her, and he could never, ever be the one to make his sisterâs deepest fear into a horrifying reality. incomprehensible logic if you do not think like andrew does, but heâs not exactly sane.
as for the reactive abuse he inflicts on ashley, it does undeniably feel good to him in the heat of the moment, but itâs not sadistic gratification. itâs a wholly different emotional response. itâs relief from the extremely distressing feeling of powerlessness, the result of ashley relentlessly robbing him of any control until he feels small, helpless and cornered. perceived powerlessness induces panic, it suffocates him, and he lashes out accordingly with explosively excessive aggression when heâs triggered. he takes his power and control violently, whether this is when ashley pushes him so far with her abuse of him that he responds with violent reactive abuse, or when the woman in 302 attempts to retake control over the situation by lunging for the nail gun. the latter may look like self-defense, but only if you donât know that andrew graves is a pathological liar.
the narrator generously informs us that andrew snapped and stabbed the woman in 302 way, way more times than is needed to kill a person, that he kept going until he felt satisfied even after she clearly stopped breathing, because the âdumb bitchâ had the gall to think he was stupid and embarrass him.
to andrew, she insulted him, she deserved it, and it felt good and right to stab the fuck out of her for it. if the circumstances he found himself in simply made her death inevitable, if this was only a necessary evil to eliminate all witnesses, there was certainly no need for andrew to mutilate her.
but here we are. in the flashback to his point of view in apartment 302, we see the undeniable gratification he gets from power and control before the murder when he has the knife to her throat and she is entirely at his mercy, her life is in his hands, when sheâs scared of him, and we see it again in the grand finale and act itself when he throws her onto the bed and stabs her to death without a second of hesitation. which he does when she shows that she is not as afraid of him as she should beâ as andrew wants her to be. to andrew, fearing him is respecting him, and she was stupid enough to disrespect him when heâs holding a knife.
now this woman is just like ashley. andrew goes fucking batshit, sees red and snaps like a rubber band wound too tight, and the parallel here is clear as day to me given how we saw ashley treat him just a few scenes priorâ iâm not scared of you, andy, who do you think youâre talking to?
ashley belittles him, subtly humiliates him when he stands up to her and challenges her to make him back down. she doesnât take him even remotely seriously even when he makes an honest threat on her life, and now this âdumb bitchâ doesnât either. she doesnât think he has it in him, so sure heâd never actually use that knife, heâd never actually kill her, he is not a real threat, heâs weak, heâs spineless, heâs a pushover, a doormat, heâs all bark and no bite. yeah, andrewâs livid, and thereâs no fucking way he will let that slide when he has nothing to lose and everything to gain by killing this woman.
he will fucking show her how seriously she should have taken himâ andrew makes a terrifying example out of her, she will take his sisterâs punishment because he wouldnât think of ashley as truly deserving of it, and he definitely enjoys every single second of it. that taste of power? iâve no doubt he enjoyed it more than heâd ever imagined enjoying anything in his life.
none of this sadism ends up directed towards ashley at all. in fact, he obsesses over whether or not sheâs safe and sound upstairs even as heâs reveling in the complete power and control he has over their notoriously fuckable neighbor. ashley returns unscathed and immediately calls him out on his shit, observant as she isâ he killed the lady in 302 because he enjoys killing, not out of pure necessity, thatâs an excuse, and he got off on it.
this is hardly ashley making shit up from a dismissive throwaway comment andrew made about the woman being easy on the eyes, even if he defensively reduces it to that to make ashley look and feel irrational. she canât prove anything, so andrew will die on that hill insisting he was just dutifully protecting them both from harm, while this is ashleyâs insecurities talking and making her act crazy. as usual. he clearly jumps through mental hoops to justify what he did and lies his way around his motives and intent constantly, but when ashley accuses him of getting his rocks off killing their downstairs neighbor, thereâs his âeven if i did, who cares, sheâs dead.â
king of telling on himself even when heâs bullshitting.
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