Karma, Hearts, and Mizi's warped belief in humanity.
Hello, this is my second time making this post so please forgive me if it is not as nuanced this time around. I am mourning the fact that I accidentally deleted my first post. ANYWAY! Watching Karma, I came out of it thinking real hard about something as I started reading everyone's interpretations of what went down: you have to accept the fact that there will be multiple interpretations of everything and no one interpretation is the whole truth. That being said, below is mine on the heart scenes and how I think it all comes back to relate to Mizi.
What is the belief that humans are inherently evil or sinful creatures? In Christianity, this belief stems from the "doctrine of original sin." The belief that humans are so corrupted by sin from Adam's first sin that we have an inborn tendency to commit sin. Famous philosopher Thomas Hobbes is often quoted for this belief as well, calling humans selfish and seeking endless success in satisfying our desires. That this what we all want. So what does this have to do with Alien Stage and Karma? We know Mizi holds these beliefs. In Karma we see her say, "... humans are the root of all this pain. We're creatures who can't seem to love without exploiting."
The heart scenes prove this. The hearts represent the innocence, purity, and love that everyone holds but the blood represents the core of that love and innocence - pain, selfishness, cruelty, and evil.
Ivan tearfully and violently forces his heart onto Till's mouth. Pushing it inside, and it shatters. The evil exploding into their mouths.
Luka holds the remnants of Hyuna's and HyunWoo's hearts, evil spilled onto his hands. Notably, Luka's heart is intact but not untainted while Hyuna's is completely eviscerated - all Luka holds truly is the remaining evil.
Even Mizi and Sua who hold the gentlest scene here, softly connecting two halves, are not spared. Even their love overflows with this evil.
I think these scenes show what Mizi believed what everyone's love was. What she came to learn what human desire and innocence truly is. Love is exploitive, violent, and in the end no matter how gentle it is everyone suffers because they are all selfish creatures. So, of course, when she knew the rebellion was going to save humanity and give them a fighting chance to return to True Earth and live life as they should - Mizi, pushed to her mental limits, freaked out. No, she thought, the only reason we suffered is because we caused this suffering. Even if humans got to True Earth and granted freedom, we would still suffer the poison of desire and chasing pleasure - whatever that may be for a person. So, she blew up the rocket and in her eyes did the best thing for humanity: stopped them from ever having to go through what she did. Chasing freedom, love, and happiness. Mizi chased that since childhood, its all she ever knew. Of course she did, as humans we are hard wired to chase connection and love.
But my heart bleeds for Mizi because there is an unreliable narrative here and something crucial she could never understand. Her evil, everyone's "corruption," and selfish actions in Alien Stage were not an inborn evil like she believed. It was a result of their environment. It was a result of being in such unimaginable conditions, forced to survive in any way possible, and their loves being shaped by the hands of their oppressors. I think, when Mizi is faced with her choice (the rocket), she realizes this. She does not look up in satisfaction or pride over what she's done. She looks up in horror, and we see this belief start to be overruled.
Hyuna and HyunWoo fall together, happily clinging to one another in love and happiness. All they needed was the chance to be there for each other.
Till and Ivan fall together. Ivan looks down, tentative, and Till sees Ivan. Till reaches for Ivan first, grasps his hand, and pulls him closer to him with shining eyes and a grin. Ivan sees Till, accepts his pull, and lights up. All they needed was the time and place to see each other.
Mizi and Sua grasp each other, always seeing and loving each other. They light each other up and pull each other in, so gentle. They kiss and kiss and just love. This time, there is no suffering, no pain. Just smiles and the knowing: I love you. All they needed was each other in a place where they could simply be.
What is important in this scene is that it is their environment that is falling apart. Their environment is set ablaze and suffering. It is the oppressors that look at this in horror and scream while the humans are overcome in joy. It is the world that tries to tear into their love and call it cruelty. I genuinely believe Mizi fully understands this now, that it was not fair to pass judgement on a whole people based on the cruel circumstances they faced as victims. But she stands there knowing she can not take this back, eyes unblinking and devoid. She then clings to Till, the ghost of Sua hugging them both. I think she also represents this realization, and as she leans down, it solidifies into forgiveness. Who could truly place all blame on Mizi after all she has gone through and all the things we still do not know? She was a victim of emotion, of love being shaped by survival, and suffocating in a land humans were never supposed to be in. Everyone in the cast was.
It is important to note that in all the AUs we have seen where they are free of Anakt, Alien Stage - the cast is happy. Our universe, Alien Stage, is the only one (that I have seen) where they are suffering. Where an oppressive environment drove these people into doing desperate things they never would do otherwise. It is karma. Karma is the cause and effect of someone's actions - what goes around comes around. It is not punishment or reward, it is not good nor bad, simply a result of what has happened and what will be.
In the end, Mizi atones by saving Till, humanity's last hope, and the only person in the cast who would've suffered a death not on his own terms or come as a result of karma. We see this solidified, again, by Sua when Mizi runs back into the room where we previously turned away [from looking at Sua practice her death], and hug Sua, who embraces her back.
Issac at the end spells all of this out for viewers: innocence was never a luxury any of the cast could afford in this universe. That does NOT mean that they weren't innocent. They were all victims and you must see this before judging their actions, which were born out of desperation and survival. In his words, "can we really blame her for that [Mizi's desperate last act of love]?" We can hate, scream, and put these characters on trial for their sins - but we will never get a clear answer for it when their actions were never truly their own. We as a fandom must give them grace for we know not how we act when pushed to our limits. Until it is far too late.
In other timelines, given the absence of oppression, they thrive. They love with innocence. Their nature isn’t evil. Their context was. Actions devoid of innocence are violence. But when that action was full of love and the innocence of it simply torn apart by an outer force, I hesitate to call that solely violence. But they will never know that the cruelty they inflicted wasn't a result of themselves, but rather a result of the oppression around them. Unfortunately, there is no clean slate and no tidy justice here. Everyone is both a victim and vector. Everyone is breeding actions and consequences no one can fully control. That is Karma. No one is redeemed, but we can take a chance to understand them better as characters. Put these souls somewhere safe, and they'll choose love, not violence. That is the point.
May those who died rest in peace, dreaming in the next universe and Till? Go get em, kid.
i made a couple pukicho enstars textposts because i was bored but enstars has been invaded by a swarm of new ppl so i’m not sure if i want to touch the fandom again
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