(2)Larr’s escape in PT4 feels like childbirth to me.
I think Larr’s escape is the most unsettling, brutal, but also surprisingly poetic scene in the whole episode. In this post, I want to share how I feel about it, about Larr and his story. To begin with, I sense that there is a structural parrallel between Larr’s escape and childbirth.
I’ll explain why I have this idea.
At about 8:00, Larr squeezes himself through the iron bars. Half of his head can be seen at that moment. It was this exact scene that left me pondering. I thought of a 3D animation I just watched, which vividly showed the process of childbirth.
From the animation, I learned that childbirth usually goes through these phases: before delivering the baby, the mother will first wait for her body to be prepared. The womb’s opening (cervix) slowly thins and opens up to about the width of a bagel. When the opening is fully open, the mother feels a strong urge to push, and the baby moves down the birth canal until the head first appears, then the shoulders, and finally the whole body comes out.
Then, I connect this to Larr’s escape:
Before the escape, Larr first forces the iron bar open, to create an opening through which he can get himself out. Afterwards, he begins to squeeze himself through the gap. His head is the first to be freed, then his shoulders, and finally his whole body. Visually, he performs the escape in the same sequence as childbirth. Is it a coincidence?
Another similarity is about the location of wounds.
In real life, humans evolved to walk upright. Women’s pelvises became narrow, making babies’ heads and shoulders too big for the birth canal. The mismatch of size sometimes makes childbirth extremely painful.
Then, look at Larr’s wounds—the left side of his head and his left shoulder are damaged. I think Avocado intentionally chose these two body parts, because they echo with the two most common types of dystocia in real life: cephalic and shoulder dystocia. The former can happen when the baby’s head is too large to pass smoothly through the mother’s birth canal; The latter occurs right after the baby’s head is delivered, when one or both shoulders get stuck behind the mother’s pelvic bones. If not handled properly or in time, they may leave severe injuries. In this sense, Larr’s wounds, on his head and left shoulder, seem to reflect the real danger in childbirth, and the price Larr has to pay for his rebirth.
I want to pause here and clarify what I mean. I am not saying that Larr is the mother or baby, or that the prison is the womb, or that the iron bars are the cervix. What I want to point out is not a direct metaphor, but a structural parallel: The sequence of Larr’s escape mirrors the sequence of childbirth. The location of his wounds aligns with the most common sites of birth injuries. And the outcome of his escape can be framed as a kind of rebirth (I’ll talk about this later).
I once saw a comment questioning why Larr didn’t squeeze sideways through the gap, so that he could avoid the crush injuries. Leaving aside whether this is truly practical in Larr’s situation, in real life, one of the methods that medical staff use to handle shoulder dystocia is quite similar to the commenter’s idea. It is called rotational maneuvers: when shoulder dystocia happens, medical staff gently rotate the baby’s shoulders inside the birth canal to adjust their position, and create enough room for them to pass though.
But during the whole process of “childbirth”, Larr has no his family or doctors here to help him. He is literally alone. He performs the escape all by himself. He struggles with the agony in the dark, in a total isolation. He is not a baby waiting to be pushed down the birth canal, or to be adjusted when the position is not right. He is a grown-up who bears everything on his own. Realizing these, the escape feels even more helpless to me.
So what’s the underlying meaning if Larr’s escape really is a metaphor of childbirth?
In my opinion, that means after suffering from Steve’s atrocities, Larr is not defeated or destroyed. Instead, he develops, like the baby developing in the mother’s womb, and finally ushers in his rebirth.
For the past three years before PT4 came out, I had firmly believed that Larr was going to impale Steve with the bone he sharpened. This was because based on what I saw by the end of PT3 (Larr’s expression, full of grief and resentment), I had this feeling that Beehr’s death had ruined him completely. He gave up all his dignity and became totally insane; I thought Larr would be driven by overwhelming hatred, and would try all he could to hurt Steve, even if his damage could be insignificant, even if it would be at the cost of his own life. I imagined this—an ancient Greek tragic hero who knew his path inevitably led to destruction, but still stood up against the evil. His action would declare that Steve’s oppression was not absolute, and that weak as villagers were, they were still able to loathe, to fight back, and to injure the so-called “god”.
I was completely excited by my imagination. But Avocado didn’t give me the answer I expected. He didn’t let Larr be a tragic hero. He let him be a realist survivor. The bone is not sharpened to hurt Steve, but to kill bats and acquire blood. What Larr is thinking about is not a bloody revenge (at least so far), but a way out this hellish prison. My 3-year-long guesses are proved wrong: Larr is not ruined. He is developing.
In PT3, he is about to give up his life (“My fight ends here.”), but in PT4, he actively plans his escape. The desire to live is rekindled within him. What’s the reason behind this drastic change? Perhaps because Larr blames Beehr’s death on himself (for “irritating” Steve) and feels extremely guilty. Or he realizes his life has taken on a new significant meaning—he’s living for both himself and his brother—The rest of his life is earned by Beehr. If he dies, Beehr’s death will be nothing. Or he still bears this overwhelming hatred of Steve, but he doesn’t let it take control. He knows he cannot confront Steve when he is just a prisoner. Only when he regains freedom, can he stand the chance to rival Steve—he can learn to fight, recruit people, and form a faction.
So Larr places all his hopes on this only solution: escape. To make it possible, he learns to hide his hatred, obediently handing over the items Steve wants, as if he has completely submitted; He learns to transform his knowledge (which he might have acquired from books or classes before he was trapped in the prison) into his tools and weapons, applying it to building a pulley block that pries open the iron bars; He learns to “pay any price to be free”. He has sacrificed his identity as an innocent, vulnerable villager: he engages in slaughters (killing bats), and has the taste of blood. He has put aside his own well-being and human dignity: the life in that hellish prison keeps torturing him, and he keeps tormenting himself too, with this desperate desire to be free that gives him no rest. He becomes a bag of bones, naked, exhausted, and covered all over with wounds.
Larr develops, from a defeated man on the verge of death, to a survivor who actively and tirelessly struggle for a path to freedom and life. When he successfully squeezes himself through the narrow gap and falls onto the ground, it’s like a newborn eventually leaving the mother’s womb after 10 months of development, and falling into a wholly new world he’s never been before. He ushers in his rebirth.
The hallucination of childhood, returning home, and family.
Images of young Larr walking back home frequently flicker through Larr’s storyline. When he finally breaks out from the prison, and stops before the light, he sees (in his hallucination) that his younger self places a tender hand on the knob, and opens the door. Behind the door reveals the softest, warmest scene of the whole episode. There’s no death, no suffering and no pain as they are in that hellish prison—just home, tinged with a layer of pink and red that seems so surreal. His mother, father, and brother are all here, tightly nestling against each other. The mother is naked after delivery, wrapped in a white blanket. The newborn comfortably rests his head against her warm embrace, eye-closed, fragile.
This scene must have been delicately chosen and designed. If the animation simply needs something to soothe the audience’s tension and to depict family affection, there are a plenty of options. For example, Avocado can draw a scene where young Beehr happily runs into Larr’s arms, or where his family are sitting around a dinner table. However, Avocado chose this scene, the one closely related to birth. It must carry certain irreplaceable meanings. It hints that Larr and his family (in his hallucination) have experienced the same thing. Larr finishes a bloody “childbirth” alone, while his family welcome a new life into the world, in their safe home, under the warm and glistening sunlight.
So when young Larr gets home, he sees the result of childbirth: the birth of his brother, a vulnerable infant held with affection and care, a new life with infinite possibilities. However, what is the outcome of Larr’s own “childbirth”? He has already got rid of the prison. What’s his next step, next purpose after his *rebirth*? Is he reborn—to be a heart-wrenching man who weeps over his past suffering day after day? Or to be a forgiver who returns to village life, and heals his wounds with time? Or, to be an unforgiving avenger who rules a faction, forms an army, and claims a war on Steve?
I have no clues. The only thing I know is that, the hallucination of home itself can be a gentle reminder for Larr, “You’ve been through hell. You’ve been worn beyond recognition. But don’t forget where you come from, and don’t forget that you are inherently made from milk and love.”
(I’m curious about what is going to happen next, so that’s why I’m begging for more episodes of A Villager’s Night.😭)
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