The generational abuse in Moral Orel
I literally watched this show a few weeks ago and made it my whole entire personality lol
So one of my favorite messages in Moral Orel is defiently based on how having kids when you are still dealing/repressing trauma is never a good idea because you will eventually pass on that trauma to your kids, with or without intention.
I mean, besides the absolutely beautiful lesson about how family shouldn't be something made out of obligation but out of love, the latter message sticks out to me quite a lot.
For starters we have Bloberta and Clay, In the outsiders eyes they may seem like the best parents ever, but as a viewer, we are aware of how god awful they are at parenting.
Blorberta reduces her responsabiltiy as a mother to cooking, cleaning, and briefly attending to her childrens physcial needs.
She is barley attentive to her childrens emotional needs and always ignores them and tries to brush off their emotions to feel better about her own self.
Another thing is that although shes physically there, she isn't actievely present in her childrens lives and is always in the background.
Orel never goes to her for guidance, and although that could be rooted in misogony another main reason is because she dismisses Orel constantly, telling him to go tell father or to go pray to God instead because shes busy cleaning.
Orel naturally has heavily been accostumed to not go to his mother for help unless it deals with food, clothes or messy rooms.
Then theres Shapey, who is obviously heavily neglected. His "bad" behaviors are manifested because of that constant negligence, she never once taught him anything and she will never bother to do so.
Shes always throwing Shapey around to Orel, making Orel the responsible one for Shapeys un-ethical behavior instead of realizing the reason he acts this way is because of the lack of an adult authoritive figure.
Most of her interaction with her kids are based on her giving them lunches, cleaning their room or when she lightly reprimands her kids when they get in the way of her cleaning.
Bloberta is a cold, cruel and emotionally distant mother...but why is that exactly?
Well, we can sort of blame the enviorment around her. Women in society, especially in a very religious society, are only respected when they are seen as "useful".
In Moralton, its clear that a womans worth is based on their usefulness for the people around them, ESPECIALLY their husbands and kids.
This very warped viewed on womanhood caused Bloberta to believe that the only right way to be a mother is just to be helpful enough in a physcial way, she never learned about the importance of emotionally nurturing her kids because in her eyes, thats the own kids job to do.
But the enviorment around her wasn't the only reason as to why shes a god awful parent, lets take a look at her family background.
Bloberta grew up with 3 siblings, and for some reason, her mother considered Bloberta to have an unimportant and neutral role in the family.
In turn, Bloberta felt useless, unloved and unwanted. The only person in the family who tried to help Bloberta was her dad, but even he couldn't stomach connecting with her unless he was drunk enough to do so.
So anyways, she's dealing with all this internalized urge to be of use in her own house.
Her decision to settle down with Clay was flat out obviously not out of love, but out of a need to be percieved as wanted.
It was both for her own personal need and to finally succeed in societal image's standards.
She also seems to be someone who cares a whole lot about her looks. She cares about them to the point she doesn't let anyone see her messy hair, baggy eyes, and lack of makeup. Including her own family.
She doesn't feel comfortable enough to show her true self to her own family. She keeps up an image even with her own blood.
Clay obviously never loved her from the beggining so she starts looking for external love aswell.
Which is why she cheats on Clay with Danielle and seeks sexual attention from Dr. Potters Wheel.
So all in all, she is basically seen as an extention to her husband and kids, which causes her to feel well...numb.
This numbness eventually is what makes her to start actively self harm. She feels absolutely nothing for her husband and kids besides this socital need to be seen as a good wife and mother.
One can argue that she does care for her kids, but it's not deep care, it's out of duty.
Although Orel can be naive, he does subconciously take in that her mother is never there in his personal life. In the episode "movie primere" Bloberta is only mentioned twice, because she has never tried to gain any type of connection with her kids.
Orel also admits that Stephanie (a peeson he JUST met) radiates more kindness than his own mother.
The reason she never reached out for her kids in an emotional sense was because no one ever did that with her as a kid, she doesn't know how to do it, she doesn't know how to deal with her own kids emotional needs because she herself has a looot of repressed urges and stress.
She doesn't bother to deal with her childrens pain because shes too busy trying to repress her own.
So thats the reason Bloberta is a god awful mother... Is it justified? Of course fucking not!!! But its totally okay to be able to sympathize and understand her.
Now we have Clay... Boy this is going to be a ride.
Also Clay's parenting towards Shapey and doesn't fully count, they aren't actually his kids. Is the way he neglects Shapey okay? Hell no but we can't expect him to care for him when he struggles to be attentive to his actual son.
Unlike Bloberta, Clay is way more present in Orel's life than she ever is, and although this should be considered a good thing, theres many factors that say the contrary.
Orel's almost-instict reaction when he wants advice is "gee... I have to ask dad!" that includes even asking him during unreasonable times, for example, when hes sleeping or when it's waaay to early in the morning.
This gives us an understanding that Orel trusts his father to guide him.
Without context, that's the sweetest thing ever until we realize Clay constantly spanks, gives hypocritcal lectures and constantly tries to drain the natural curiosity in Orel.
His way of connection through Orel is through scolding him, through reprimanding him and through physical abuse (well—Clay doesn't consider it physcial abuse but we all know damm well that it is).
He sometimes gives little pats in the head or puts his hands on his shoulder as a small way of normal parental physical reassurance but thats about it.
As for emotional reassurance, it's very scarce.
Clay avoids any external conversations with his child unless it involved any sort of scolding or hypocritcal lessons.
He once openly admits he loves Orel but it was worded pretty interesting: "Oh Orel, I could never love you more! People only have a certain amount of love in them and im afraid I have to divide mine up between atleast a dozen people.... But remember son, I love you enough."
His argument here is that he loves too many people so he can't spend it all on Orel, but the true reason he can't fully love Orel is a much more sinister reason.
Let's talk about Clay's background shall we?
Clay grew up for 12 years very pampered by his mother. His father was much more stern and lacked much warmth but he still tried to be present for his son.
His mother made Clay believe that he was the most precious thing to her, until later Clay starts finding out about his mothers multiple miscarriages which causes him to have a full existencial crisis.
He wouldn't have existed if it weren't for the previous miscarriages.
This causes Clay to pull a really childishly cruel prank where he plays dead to worry his mother and father.
What Clay expected from this prank was to be reassured that no matter the previous miscarriages, he will always be loved by his mother the most.
Well... Lets just summarize that Clays mothet has a weak heart and in turn died of shook.
Ever since that incident his father blamed Clay for the death of his mother.
Arthur (clays dad) would hit him, and Clay started to view that as affection because thats the only fatherly acknwoledgement Clay ever got to know.
So Clay would purpously rile his father up so that he can hit him and give him the desperate fatherly attention he craved.
But Arthur noticed this, and instead of realizing how much he's fucked up his own childs perception of love, he completely stops paying attention to Clay, basically disowning him without ever kicking him out of the house.
So now we understand why Clay connects with his son through physical abuse, right? This was the only fatherly attention he ever got as a kid and he doesn't know what else he can do to show his kid love since he never got it himself.
And although this is an unpopular opinion, Clay really was trying to put an effort into being a good father. In "beforel Orel" he didn't talk to Orel because he was nervous about his parenting.
It was until he faced his father again which gave him the outmost confidence to parent Orel in a way that his own father never did.
His parenting skills are obviously the worst though lol.
Orel may have loved his father, but his subconcious feared him.
One time when Orel made a stopmotion he drew Clay as a scary wolf saying that his dad was made as a dog because "he's loyal and good." Orel understandably feared his father, I mean the only way he properly interacted with him was through his father hitting and scolding him.
Now, something important to consider is that Clay never wanted to get married, he confirms this in the episode of season 3 "help". He got manipulated in a marriage with Bloberta and it was too late to pull back.
His horrible marriage with Bloberta aswell as being tied to a family and job that he didn't actually want start to make him extremely miserable.
Which causes him to drown out all his pain with alcohol.
But funnily enough, alcohol only worsens his pain more.
In the nature p1 AND p2 episodes, we realize how much alcohol Clay consumes, which is honestly really disturbing.
So basically in those episodes, Clay takes Orel to a haunting trip, trying to continue the Puppington tradition (funnily enough, that tradition was cut short after Clay's mothers death).
Orel being a normal child, wasn't really keen on killing animals, so he was already quite nervous about the hunting trip.
When they arrive to the reserve, Clay is drinking and he doesn't stop, each time he drinks out of frustration that Orel hasn't killed any animal.
Orel gives up and doesn't kill anything, telling Clay that he isn't comfortable hunting with his him. He then proceeds to call him "too drunk" which in return makes Clay mad.
Clay proceeds to call Orel as pessimist by saying his cup is always half empty, which is ironic considering Orel is naturally one of the most positive characters in the whole series.
He then goes onto a rambling, confusing bright with "blight" and then admiting his own life is truly full of blight, he starts crying and then says how he hates himself.
Orel starts tearing up himself, never expecting to see his dad in such a state.
The bottle in his hands start yelling at him "WHY DO YOU QUIT WORKING ON ME?" implying that Clay would expect the alcohol to drown out the pain but instead amplifies it more.
He then starts rambling again, he is quite literally talking about women and how they force you into something you don't want and "squeeze things out of you."
I think the "women" he's proyecting on is defiently Bloberta. He didn't want a marriage, but he was manipulated and obligated into one anyway, and then public image caused them to force themselves into having a child.
Clay didn't want that, he didn't want to be tied down this way. He expected that having a family could make him feel alright, but that eventually quit "working on him" because it wasn't what he evidently needed.
His rant on women can also tie down to his own repressed homosexuality, which makes this all too sad.
Later on, Clay foolishly starts handeling his gun with no safety on and accidently shoots Orel in the leg.
Instead of apologizing he asks "what have you done?" and Orel responds "I got shot by you..." his passive sentence here gives us an understanding that he is still processing that his own dad shot him.
When Clay opens the first aid kit, he sees the rubbing alcohol and drinks it up instead of applying it on his son, which causes Orel to finally say "I hate you."
This was Orels moment of realization.
Clay being drunk and obviously dismissive of the power of Orel's words just brushes it off by saying "Hate away, sister. Hate away."
When Clay sobers up the next morning, he completely acts as if he didn't shot his son, not wanting to accept he hurt his son that way aswell as not wanting to accept the blame.
Orel also lied to Clay that day, telling him that Clay shoot the bear and not Orel himself, because he didn't feel like his dad was someone worth making proud. He wasn't worth it.
When they return home, Orel has a conversation with his mother asking her why she married dad in which Bloberta responds "why not?"
This has been Blorberta's whole thinking process ever since she met Clay, "he's an attractive man and I have to marry soon to prove my worth so why not?"
She never choose Clay out of love, but out of mere obligation and pressure.
When Orel tells her mom that when Clay drinks he changes, Bloberta finally confirms to Orel that he doesn't change, that its just his true nature coming out.
All those repressed emotions, toxic masculinity, societal pressure, labor stress, awful marriage, and the crumbling of his perfect image.
Thats Clay's true nature, how he feels about himself and how he deals with it is what makes him who he is.
Afterwards, we have an amazing episode called "Sacrifice".
This episode is the most self-awarness we will ever get from Clay.
So this takes place literally after the haunting trip, Clay overhears the previous conversation between Blorberta and Orel.
He then also finds out his wife has been desiring Dr. Potters Wheel. So he decides to drown all that out by going to a bar.
In this episode, Clay kickstarts into a series of alcohol induced rants.
He initally focuses on the term sacrifice, feeling as if he's sacrificing his own happiness for his kids.
Clay thinks that by economically supporting and lecturing his kids is enough to give them satisfaction. It's a really hypocritcal rant because although he does mantain the whole family, he also made his family life miserable by keeping his awful marriage with Bloberta and drinking alchol to drown his sorrows.
Aftee a whole series of events unfold...Clay's monolouge gets deep.
"maybe there was a jerkoff called Darwin after all and that you never acknowledged his existence, because you knew deep inside that you were really what you feared you were: Weak, and passive, and ultimately broken by the ones who were made the fittest. And then through your weaknesses you built up a poison, that poisoned others around you... That you love..."
He then starts tearing up when he says that, unable to truly finish the sentence. He ultimately knows that he destroyed a dynamic with the only person in the family that genuienly loved him.
He feels hurt, he feels torn, but the guilt won't make the bullet hole go away (literally).
I also have to mention that Clay wss desperately trying to poke at the people who were in the bar, expecting them to beat him up. He wanted to be beat up, to be proven that he is worth it, Clay used to measure his wortfulness over how well he parented Orel. But after the incident, he can't even feel slightly worth it, thats why he needs to be proven by others that he is.
But everyone leaves him alone, because he truly isn't worth it anymore. And he knows it.
It is also implied by Orel that Clay has hid away in his study for 6 months. He stayed away from Orel out of personal disgust and guilt, but refussing to change and take responsibility.
During Honor, we see Orel desperately trying to find a way to still honor his father, so reverend putty tells him to go to talk to someone who truly loves his dad to find out the reasoning behind it.
Orel then goes to Danielle.
Now Danielle was actually upset with Clay because he saw him kissing Censordoll.
He was hurt because well, he loves Clay and Clay would rather get physical with another woman for buisness issues over giving Danielle the actual love he feels for him. (once again, repressed homosexuality!!!)
Orel and Danielle basically hang out throughout the whole day, which causes Clay great jealousy and discomfort.
He then drags Bloberta and his two illegilimate kids to Danielle's home.
He burts through Danielle's door and tells him to stay away from Orel because.... "he's not yours I am."
Cats out of the bag now, am I right folks?
Sadly, thats not the case.
He immedietly brushes off what he said and hugs Orel, looking lovingly into Danielle's eyes.
"Oh how I miss you... Orel"
"I need you in my life... Orel"
"and I..."
He then pushes Orel away and walks towards Danielle, repeating "I love you" mulitple times but ends the last "I love you" with Orel's name. Still trying to shield his very obvious declaration of love.
Danielle was the only person that Clay actually loved that didn't involve manipulation, obligation, or mommy issues.
But of course, he screwed it up. It was too late.
Clay deprived himself of the arguably healthiest love he would ever have.
After this episode, we get a beautiful time skip
The time skip includes Orel finally marrying Christina.
Christina is someone that Morelton looks down upon because of her differing beliefs.
But Orel gives a damn about image, he loved Christina as a kid and always has.
In turn of marrying someone he truly loves, he had children he truly wanted with her.
Like the Reverend said "family is sometimes a group of people that are forced to live together but every so often, a miracle happens."
The miracle was Orel choosing his own life without the need of societal pressure. Orel genuienly marrying for love.
In the end scene, we see all the happy kids sitting with Orel while Christina sits next to him.
And in the back we see Clay and Blorberta, who grew old together and never divorced.
They are miserable and will always be miserable.
Orel, however? He learned not to follow into their footsteps.
He broke the chain. And I admire his braveness.