After that birthday art I HAVE to know how many times Ivan was queerbaited by Till walking up to him with a present before clarifying it was from some random
There are so many paralells between Luka, Sua, and Ivan its crazy. Because in this world where aliens are the dominant species, the three of them all resign themselves to being puppets for the aliens.
Ivan does this by becoming the perfect pet, becoming the best in his class and winning trophies for his owner as well as becoming the image for his owners brand. He doesn’t fight back and instead he plays into his role
Sua was able to rid herself of all of her emotions before meeting Mizi. Able to just sit there for hours, unmoving because she knows theres no point. She does what is told of her and just becomes a doll
Luka wins the 49th season of alien stage and continues on to become a famous idol, even with a whole fanbase and continues to play his role well. He’s a great actor who never falters on stage.
However, because Sua and Ivan were in love, they willingly broke themselves out of their roles. Sua went from being a doll with high hopes for winning to dying the first round. Ivan gave up his chances of winning to save Till, but Luka has no one he wants to save, so he continues to be the doll aliens wanted him to be.
IT IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME THAT HYUNA, who was presumably forced to be an Idol for the alien stage and definitely suffered in her past for it, stills wants to sing for other humans even after escaping. She wants to spread music purely for music's sake, to get people hyped up and cheerful, because she loves singing and wants her audience to love singing and see it as smth fun and not just a talent the aliens abuse for sadistic entertainment. She's redefining singing despite how it's treated her and it's kinda beautiful and wholesome.
I had some thoughts about Round 5 and Mizi, so here they are:
During Round 5, Mizi is clearly going through that grief thing of watching the world move on when her universe has stopped, was killed in front of her actually. The world isn't stopping to mourn Sua, isn't stopping to let Mizi breathe, to learn how to live without the person she loves more than anything. The show must go on.
Luka represents this system that can keep going, keep cheering, keep treating this like a game and joke while her entire world is shattered. Who only views love and grief in others as a tool to be used and exploited.
I think this is when Mizi fully realises that this is the world she lives in, as she looks from Luka to the crowd cheering for him. A world that cheered as Sua died, raised her and the person she loved the most to die, all for entertainment. A world cheering while she is consumed by her grief, while she is dying. While someone is trying to kill her, slowly and painfully.
She probably knows that Luka won alien stage before. That he (seemly) gleefully participated TWICE. While she is suffering and destroyed by grief after one round, he can do this AGAIN and AGAIN, and treat love and grief as a weakness to exploit.
I also think Mizi sees herself in Luka. Luka is the epitome of what the aliens want from humans. Someone who can treat Alien Stage as a game, can gleefully cut other lives short without hesitation, can perform, entertain, and then be put away when not in use.
Mizi was like him. Was complacent and happy to go along as long as she was treated well, comfortable. Her greatest dream was to perform in Alien Stage, despite knowing that participants will die. She believed the Segyein when they said death was an honour.
If she had never loved and lost Sua, would she have been like him? Would she have woken up?
She beats the shit out of Luka not just because he's fucking with her, she beats the shit out of him because he represents this entire system that did this to her, did this to Sua.
She also beats the shit out of Luka because he represents her, the version of her that she was and could have been forever if she never loved Sua. The version of her who continued to believe her 'parents' without question, didn't see the world for what it was, who didn't fight back, who let themselves be a tool.
Ivan is perfectly capable of being likeable on a surface level. Their teacher says that he gets along with the other kids and is polite to superiors, and his graduation messages indicate he was well liked by his peers.
It's been pointed out before that it's hilarious that Ivan seemingly only behaved in an unhinged way with Till, and how jarring it must have been for everyone around them to see Ivan go from 0-1000 whenever Till was around.
Ivan was observant and KNEW how to endear himself to others. He could have chosen to put on whatever mask was needed to have Till's attention.
He loved Till for being strong and resilient, and seemed to enjoy Till's extreme reactions to things. Till is described as the most sensitive of the group, and he doesn't seem to change who he is for anyone. Ivan loved Till's authentic self.
Did he let the mask drop entirely around Till, because Till was the only person he was interested in having a genuine connection with? Did loving Till, who was never anything but himself, inspire Ivan to be honest?
Is that another tragedy of Ivan? That he truly loved someone enough to be his flawed, weird little self in front of them, and was not loved back?
Thank you @lazyrunawayphilosopher for engaging with my thoughts like this 😭❤️
Everything about your addition is absolutely correct in my opinion. I love Till with all my heart, and I completely agree that he loved Ivan, even if it wasn't in a way Ivan wanted or could recognise. Till's love for Ivan is not any less important or valid because it wasn't romantic, and Till doesn't owe Ivan romantic feelings.
This post is speculating about a scenario entirely from Ivan's perspective, which is biased and flawed. He died genuinely believing that he didn't matter at all to Till, which we know is objectively not true.
I have already talked way too much about how Ivan didn't make things easy for Till with his deeply flawed ways of interacting with him, that ended up hurting Till and prevented them from growing closer.
It also hurt my heart, but you're so right about how Till's reaction to this behaviour showed he really did care about Ivan enough as a person to keep him around despite everything the little bastard put him through.
Till wasn't even aware of a lot of Ivan's actually tender moments towards him! And he still stayed close to him!
The miscommunication between these two is just... a lot, with Till being a bit awkward about communicating his feelings, and Ivan being a menace with low self-esteem who possibly looked at Sua and Mizi's relationship and went 'IT'S THAT OR BUST', and who never saw how much he was ACTUALLY loved, even WITH all the times he was a massive fucking jerk.
Ivan is perfectly capable of being likeable on a surface level. Their teacher says that he gets along with the other kids and is polite to superiors, and his graduation messages indicate he was well liked by his peers.
It's been pointed out before that it's hilarious that Ivan seemingly only behaved in an unhinged way with Till, and how jarring it must have been for everyone around them to see Ivan go from 0-1000 whenever Till was around.
Ivan was observant and KNEW how to endear himself to others. He could have chosen to put on whatever mask was needed to have Till's attention.
He loved Till for being strong and resilient, and seemed to enjoy Till's extreme reactions to things. Till is described as the most sensitive of the group, and he doesn't seem to change who he is for anyone. Ivan loved Till's authentic self.
Did he let the mask drop entirely around Till, because Till was the only person he was interested in having a genuine connection with? Did loving Till, who was never anything but himself, inspire Ivan to be honest?
Is that another tragedy of Ivan? That he truly loved someone enough to be his flawed, weird little self in front of them, and was not loved back?
I am destroyed over the whole god/worshipper dynamic and have no idea how to adequately put it into words.
I mentioned in another post that Mizi could not fathom Sua ACTUALLY dying, or comprehend what death really meant, and attributed this to her relatively comfortable and sheltered life as the pet of Shine. She was not taught to conceptualise death as a loss, and she never faced any opposition to that world view. From what we know, she might have never really known true, lasting pain or loss before the end of Round 1.
However, her reaction could also be due to her placing Sua on a pedestal as her personal god and universe. She viewed Sua as her absolute everything, and why would any faithful worshipper believe their god could be killed? Only, while Sua was everything to HER, that perception did not carry over to their captors. Mizi's love and devotion was not enough to save Sua. Forces stronger than them both took her away like she was nothing.
How must Mizi have felt, having her perception of Sua as the centre of the universe shattered that way? Coming to the violent realisation that Sua was just another human, and that humans are indeed that vulnerable and disposable? That Sua could now only exist in memories and in the visions that haunt her? That Sua is not a god, but a ghost?
Now we look at Till's perception of Mizi. Again, in an earlier post I mentioned the tragedy of Till falling for someone who did not have a reason to leave. He had a lot of blind faith in Mizi, and it could be said that he idealised her as a paragon.
It's not hard to see how he reached this point. The poor kid had not been shown a lot of kindness in his life, and so meeting someone who was genuinely good and so full of joy must have had a huge impact on him.
However, his faith is still a blind one, but in a different way to Mizi's blind faith in Sua. He is happy to endure any amount of horrible treatment and does not expect anyone to help him. He doesn't resent Mizi for being so close to their captors, for her dreams stopping at Alien Stage. He doesn't resent her after he gives up on his chance at freedom and is subjected to who knows how many more years of pain and torment at the hands of their captors (Not that Mizi is at fault, Till made his own decision that Mizi likely never even knew about).
He sees Mizi's innocence and ignorance to the cruelty of their reality as something wonderful instead of a character flaw that prevents her from saving herself or her loved ones.
Sua has the same issue, seeking comfort and bliss within Mizi's brightness instead of acknowledging the cruel reality of their world. Maybe she felt sharing her perspective with Mizi would dim Mizi's bright spirit, and so she was more than content to wait out the clock with her god.
Maybe Sua felt that meeting Mizi, loving her and being loved by her in return, was nothing short of a miracle after the life she had lived before Anakt Garden. Maybe she felt in light of that, aspiring for something like freedom or a long, long life of happiness with the person she loved the most was asking far too much. The time she got with Mizi was already a miracle, why expect or demand anything more?
If Sua was afraid of Mizi losing her brightness, no wonder she was so affected by Ivan's lecture about becoming a source of trauma for Mizi after her death.
Ivan's view of Till as his god is a bit different. He is similar in that he doesnt seem to demand his devotion be reciprocated, he just wants his god to acknowledge him as a person, as someone that is at least PART of Till's universe, if he can't be all of it.
He is also very willing to become a martyr for his god while expecting nothing in return but Till continuing to live. He acknowledges Till as vulnerable and falable in a way that Till doesn't with Mizi, and Mizi didn't with Sua. He knows damn well that while Till is the centre of HIS universe, their captors certainly do not hold Till in that same regard. He knows that love and devotion in a vacuum does not save anyone.
Which is why he was always the one to free Till, to try and escape with him, and why he pulled the stunt he did in Round 6. Ivan knew that actually making an impact in this world required personal risk and sacrifice, because their captors don't give a fuck if you're in love or if that other pet-human they're about to kill means everything to you.
Till knew this too, but his idealised version of Mizi is too perfect to be broken and beaten down by this world the same way the rest of them have been. So he's still shattered by Round 5, seeing how far Mizi has fallen and then not knowing if she's alive or dead, but knowing for sure she is far out of reach. I wonder, did he regret not running away with Ivan at that point? Did he wonder what all those years of suffering were for, if he was just going to end up losing Mizi anyway? If this world was able to break her too, no matter what he did?
Mizi is gone and changed forever, and nothing he did could stop it. His love and devotion and sacrifice wasn't enough. He failed his god.
In Round 6, Ivan is faced with the same thing. His god has lost his fighting spirit, is changed forever, and Ivan's love and devotion wasn't enough to save him. The last thing he can give is his life, and hope that will be enough. Just like Sua. But he was never Till's god, was never even part of his universe, he probably won't even leave a ghost behind. So, the choice is obvious, really.
They're all so desperate for hope and connection in this lonely, painful existence that they make a person their entire universe, and then are repeatedly crushed when they are shown again and again that their soul-consuming love for one another is seemingly meaningless in a world that views them as infinitely disposable.
For me, the most heartbreaking aspect of Ivan is that the poor clueless bastard didn't have the tools to express his affection in any way that didn't involve violence or manipulation, or weren't too inscrutable, quiet, or unseen to be picked up by Till.
I definitely interpret Ivan as autistic for several reasons, a big one being their Segyein teacher's notes about him:
It's just. Classic ND behaviour to me.
Not only does expressing emotion and communicating the way other kids do not come naturally to Ivan, but it's not as if he's been given a great example of coping with this from the Segyein.
Ivan managed to mask in a way that made him popular with other students, and got him in the good graces of their captors. He did everything expected of him to survive and thrive in this environment.
Then he meets Till, inscrutable and very different to the other kids, just like Ivan is. Except, Till doesn't mask. He doesn't change or try to endear himself to their captors, and he doesn't bend to anyone, no matter how much he is hurt and punished for it.
This is a new situation for Ivan, and he's never had anything to compare his feelings to. He also can't figure out how to communicate with Till, every interaction, no matter how well meaning, seems to end in failure.
I bring your attention to the cheer up comic, and how, again, autistic this interaction feels:
There could be many reasons why Ivan chose to say what he did, but to me it feels like ND bluntness not being received well. And that's fair! From Till's perspective Ivan is being a jerk for no good reason.
Instead of responding with glee towards Till laying him out (as we see from Ivan when they're a bit older), Ivan justs seems... really confused. Like he didn't expect that statement to upset Till that much, and he didn't expect Till to respond in the way he did. Everything was fine a second ago, what went wrong?
Then, Ivan uses the phrase he learned from Till in an attempt to self sooth. It might have been the first example of comfort after an injury/hurt he had ever seen, given how he defaults to it. And it was from Till trying to cheer up a flower.
This also shows some of Till's blindspots. He has grown up having to be vigilant, because violence and hurt have been a core part of his upbringing. This leads to anything he doesn't immediately, clearly understand being perceived as a threat or a slight, and so he reacts violently to Ivan's statement.
I'll also draw your attention to this comic where, as far as we know, Ivan is simply stating a true fact in a blunt manner:
In my interpretation, these types of interactions keep adding up, and Ivan is grasping at straws the whole time, trying to be closer to Till and failing every time.
Eventually, the only surefire way to get Till's attention is to piss him off, provoke him, manufacture scenarios to talk to him. I'm not excusing this behaviour, but I understand where Ivan could be coming from, from the perspective of both an emotionally immature/stunted child and/or an ND child.
Despite how much they fight and bicker, at every moment it really mattered, Ivan was there for Till. It was always Ivan coming to free him, to take off his collar or gag, and it was Ivan who led their escape.
Ivan couldn't leave Till behind when he went back for Mizi. Even with the confirmation that Till would choose Mizi over Ivan every time, Ivan couldn't leave him.
The miscommunication goes two ways though. It's insane to think that Till didn't care about Ivan at all. They were close as kids, and I doubt Till ever forgot about the escape he gave up.
We have the graduation messages, where Ivan is able to write something that could be reasonably interpreted as affectionate or fond towards Till.
Meanwhile, Till's message-
If we're being charitable with our interpretations, we can say this was Till's way of saying 'of course I remember you' and attempting to communicate that Ivan HAD left a lasting impact on him.
However, how could any reasonable person be expected to get THAT out of 'you stole my fucking pencil'? Ivan could have taken this one of two ways:
1) Omg he remembers me 🥰
2) he leans into his 'i will never be loved back' bias and thinks that Till really doesn't care about him at all
Who the hell knows what goes through that weird little brain of his. But given how Round 6 went, and what Ivan had to say in the confession comic, he obviously didn't think his impact was significant enough.
Then Alien Stage happens, and in Round 3 Ivan is FINALLY communicating his feelings in a way that is vulnerable and might even have a chance of being understood as love and yearning!
Till is unconscious through it until the very end.
Then in the next round, Mizi goes missing, and Till can't care about anything anymore.
Ivan finds him after the private performance, takes off his gag, and just holds him. Again, Till is unconscious for all of this.
Then, in Round 6, not only is Till distraught from the disappearance of Mizi, but he's given no time to process what the fuck is going on before Ivan is dead at his feet. Till might have finally had a chance to really understand where Ivan was coming from, how he really felt all this time, and Ivan DIES.
And still, Ivan's most transparent act of affection? It's delivered with violence. He's kissing a distraught Till who tries to push him away, and neither of them are happy. He puts his hands around Till's neck, not really hurting him, but it's enough to look convincing for the cameras, and it's enough for Till to go limp and wait for death. Ivan's final loving act is to give Till a soft look with blood pouring out of his mouth, that Till still does not see, and then let go before falling to the ground.
It's just a collection of failures. We see from Ivan that he truly loved Till, made a lot of selfless decisions for his sake, was filled with so much longing and affection, but he just couldn't get it across in a way that doesn't seem fucking deranged from an outsider's perspective. And when he DID manage to communicate his feelings more clearly, it was to a Till that was unconscious, or too distracted/dense/traumatised to see Ivan's actions as ones of love.
There's no guarantee that Till would have reciprocated even if Ivan had managed to communicate his feelings in a healthier way, but there was at least a CHANCE. At least Ivan could have gotten some closure, even if he was rejected.
Instead Ivan died thinking he was completely unloved by the person who he cared about more than anything else, and his last ditch effort to make Till understand was deeply flawed and uncomfortable.
If these kids had grown up any other way, maybe they could have had a chance. Unfortunately, the world they were in didn't equip them to not hurt eachother in their attempts to grow closer.
So there's implications that sometimes the aliens deliberately match up contestants with strong relationships to increase the drama and potentially get more emotional performances out of the contestants.
We also know that Alien Stage is firmly treated as reality show-level entertainment. The Segyein are casually talking about brand deals and critiquing performances while several characters we deeply care about are forced to kill to survive and sometimes watch people they love die in front of them.
During Ivan's pre-Round 6 interview, the interviewer kept needling him about his connection to Till, how Ivan felt about facing him.
The Segyein thought that facing Ivan and Till against eachother would be some dramatic storyline on the side of 'most popular season contestant against rough around the edges musical prodigy, also they have HISTORY 👀', but it actually turned in a tragic display of how this whole system finally broke Till and Ivan sacrificing his guaranteed win to save him anyway, because to Ivan, Till mattered as a person he loved and not as a commodity.
Till finally ended up as docile and broken as his owner had wanted him to be all along, and it took away his love of music while making his performance in alien stage worse (I think Till in round 6 is a good example of how 'tortured artists' don't actually always produce great or profound art from their trauma. The far more likely outcome is they just end up depressed and losing the fucking will to live kfdjks)
Meanwhile Ivan has everything going for him, he's become a popular, profitable commodity through Alien Stage, he always did what he was told and was a model pet-human, and he was guaranteed to win Round 6 with the state Till was in.
But he threw all that away to save Till without a second of hesitation. Ivan was given a choice between losing Till, a pet-human that many Segyein view as inferior and disposable, and the highest quality of life a pet-human can aspire to, and he said 'fuck you, I love him' to everyone watching.
So I have a running interpretation of Mizi as having been quite sheltered as a result of her relatively comfortable life as a pet, hence her being a bit delusional in her and Sua's interview before Round 1 and her shock at Sua's death, despite the humans all knowing that the loser dies in Alien Stage.
Now I'm onto the implications that this has for the whole conga line of longing between Ivan, Till, and Mizi:
The fucking tragedy of Till falling in love with the one person who didn't have a reason to escape or intervene.
Mizi had a good life and was never exposed to the same pain and suffering the others had known.
Sua is implied to have had a pretty empty life as a pet, being treated as an object by her owners, and being very emotionally withdrawn as a result. However, she also didn't have the drive to leave, as the one person she cared about seemed so happy here, and Mizi's dreams were all about singing together and fulfilling the wishes of their owners.
Ivan had known suffering before being taken in by his owner, and even though his life was relatively good as a pet, he still knew how precarious that position was, and besides he had to watch Till be horribly mistreated by his owner. He had enough reason to want to get out of there.
But Till loved and wouldn't leave Mizi, THE ONE PERSON WHO WOULD NEVER LEAVE. So he didn't go with Ivan when they had a chance to escape, he stayed. And Ivan stayed too, because he wouldn't leave Till.
And by extension: the tragedy of SUA falling in love with someone who had no reason to leave, and Mizi falling in love with someone who couldn't see past the world they were trapped in.
Following this interpretation, this is one angle to Ivan's judgement of Sua that I'm stuck on.
Ivan TRIED to break Till out so the person he loved wouldn't have to suffer anymore.
Meanwhile, the best Sua could come up with was following the path laid out by their alien owners, and then dying instead of Mizi.
Sua only aimed as high as the best outcome that their society could allow them, while Ivan was willing to deviate entirely. The only thing that stopped him was Till running back to Mizi.
He could be thinking "the person you love would have followed you anywhere, and the best you could do is die? You couldn't imagine a future with both of you alive and happy? You had everything I ever wanted, and you threw it away."
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