do i have strong negative feelings towards celine because of the way she raised rumi and trained huntrix and messed them all up? yes. do i understand that she was probably trained the same way and is an immensely complex character? also yes.
y'all ask for complex women and then can't handle them when they come. yes, celine really messed up the girls and that's not something to just be ignored or glazed over. but understanding that there's more to her is so important.
I totally understand why people react the way they do to Celine. At the same time I’m absolutely losing it 100% of the time for Celine as a character.
Because if we’re being real, Rumi represents an incredible threat, potentially endangering billions of people if the Honmoon protecting the entire globe is accurate. She’s shown to have an unusual ability to shotgun blast the Honmoon with her voice in a way we don’t even really see from the Saja Boys who are actively trying to tear it down.
Reminder that Celine had no way of knowing what Rumi would grow up to be, or what kind of danger she may represent as she aged. Reminder that Celine has a responsibility that extends far, far beyond herself and her own interests.
With this in mind Celine keeping Rumi alive after she realizes she’s a demon is batshit insane. Imagine the guilt of not being able to go through with killing a child, then the horror of realizing that you even feel guilty about that. Loop on repeat. The woman’s brain was probably a torment nexus for 20+ years.
Of course we can assume that Celine is simply a monster who is keeping Rumi alive out of some misplaced guilt… OR… There is a far more interesting alternative.
Celine has only one thing left: Rumi, her best friend’s child and her daughter in everything but name. Acknowledging that Rumi is a demon puts Celine in an impossible position. Rumi is too dangerous to live. She is too precious to die. So Celine lies to herself in every way she can, because the alternative would destroy them both.
Then Rumi shows up in the middle of the Honmoon tearing apart at the seams and asks Celine to kill her as if she would ever be able to make that choice. As if Celine hasn’t actively taken every measure to deny that choice every day of Rumi’s life. As if Celine doesn’t love Rumi. That’s what Celine’s child believes that she is capable of doing.
I’m not saying every choice the woman made was justified but goddamn I wouldn’t have been at my best either.
I think all the time about Celine just endlessly erasing her lines in the sand. Compromising and compromising and compromising because she can’t do it! She won’t!
I think a lot about the fucking tragedy of Rumi believing she’s disposable enough to put down like a rabid dog.
Meanwhile Celine is throwing away all dignity and all her principles, scrambling for any shred of hope. She sees herself as being weak for this. She sees herself exactly as we see her in that scene - a cringing, pathetic coward. My personal theory is that if Celine were close enough to fall under the Saja Boys spell she would hear: Even your own child sees what you are.
Like I’m endlessly chasing my own tail about Celine loving so hard that she breaks herself with it.
The way she looks during the confrontation with Rumi when she says "Our faults and fears must never be seen!" it's like, idk a maladaptive form of self soothing. She looks traumatized, or like she's having an OCD panic attack (honestly her having OCD would make too much sense) and the first time I watched I was like "Oh, this mantra didn't just hurt Rumi, Zoey, and Mira, it hurt Celine too." Like it probably hurt ALL of the pervious hunters in one way or another.
But I think some people think that after that specific line Rumi hated Celine, but that couldn't be more inaccurate. Yes she was angry, but only at the start and only at herself, she clearly came to Celine because she didn't know what to do anymore, and figured Celine would be willing to go to any lengths to save the honmoon (which as the above aptly notes would be beyond heartbreaking for Celine to realize that's who Rumi sees her as) but once it became clear to Rumi that Celine is traumatized in the same way she is, like they all are, that's when she goes from anger to resolve (and pity). She realizes that the honmoon needs to be destroyed AND rebuilt to save Celine as much as the rest of them, we're just hardwired to see demons as bad and she def looks scary as fuck so I assume people missed what emotion was being conveyed behind the spooky demon features. She loves Celine, and at the end of that confrontation clearly knows that Celine cannot save herself, the rot runs all the way back to the first hunters, and Rumi must purge it, not just for them, but for every hunter who comes after as well as all of the ones before who were forced to carry their burdens alone.
To me the most ire she directed Celine's way was a simple plea asking why Celine couldn't see her as she is, but more than anything she just looked dissapointed, and like she's seeing the truth of everything and how awful it is. That face, the demon face, was Rumi realizing that what got in the way of Celine loving her wasn't her demon blood, it was the foundation of the honmoon itself, the repression it demanded, and the only way to help herself, Celine, and her friends, Jinu, and all of humanity is to destroy it and make a new one. (Love that Jinu is saved only after he tells Rumi the truth.)
I think what would have helped is a resolution scene for Celine at/right after the new honmoon is made. I feel like all the tension in her relationship with Rumi just built and built and then got no resolution, so even just a scene of Celine admiring the new honmoon that's built of honesty and weakness and unity and love, and maybe saying something echoing Rumi's insistence that the truth be seen and embraced without shame. They just needed a scene to bring home the truth that Celine is a good person who loves Rumi and the others, she was just in a horrible situation—and still is clearly re: trauma—and she too needs to embrace the truth and her shame and let go of her now fully self-imposed emotional repression and perfectionism. That would have helped the audience soften to her, making sure her last moment on screen wasn't her literal rock bottom.
It feels like the movie is about toxic cultural norms and the ways they hurt us, as well as exploring generational trauma, so recognizing Celine as the flawed yet determined character she is is integral to understanding what the story is saying. Shame people won't see the nuance bcs lord is it juicy indeed.
