i dont mean it like that kind of making fun of people. i mean alison actually bullied the girls, why do that if she cares about them so much?
I’m having trouble thinking of an instance in which she was genuinely bulling them. Lashing out when upset, but not being mean for the sake of being mean. At least, I can’t think of a time that she did so without apologizing anyway.
The closest I can think of is the way she jumped on Hanna after “the Jenna Thing”. She was panicking as it obviously didn’t go the way she thought it would. It was a stink bomb, it wasn’t supposed to explode and she was terrified because the cops were there, Jenna was in an ambulance and it just really went out of control.
When Hanna spoke, she whipped around and took her fear and frustration out on her. She was harsh and hurtful with her words. When she was scolded, she quickly tried to calm down and apologized, explaining that she was upset and taking it out on Hanna. She acknowledged that she wasn’t being a good friend and told them that she’d take care of things. She’d protect them.
More horrible things in which she went on to threaten Toby and made him take the fall. She thought he was a creep who was peeking in windows and molesting his step sister. She thought he deserved to be punished anyway.
So, yeah, she was mean to them at times and did crappy things to people. But I still don’t think that means she didn’t love her friends. If you can name a time you feel that she was genuinely bullying them, I’ll be more than happy to talk about it. I just can’t think of any.
Perhaps I simply have far more experience with dysfunction relationships myself and am unable to see this as you see it. Perhaps I simply see far more of myself in Alison than you do and am unable to see this as you see it. To me, it’s clear that Alison loves her friends very much, even if she doesn’t always know how to show it.
[1/4] i like your theory of the liars/ali feud being more of a spalison feud. but i also think a lot of it is honestly just a huge clash where neither side wants to look at it from the other person's perspective. alison's been on the run for years after an attempt was made on her life and her mother helped cover it up. trusting people was already hard for her, that had to have made it ten times worse. and when she was on the lam, as a method of survival she had to think of herself first
she picked and chose what information to share with the people who had helped her when she was on the run. she survived by using people’s secrets against them in an effort to coercing them into help her. she survived the only way she knew how.
and falling back into the mix with the liars, when none of them except probably emily and hanna had been particularly welcoming and where they clearly didn’t trust her, wasn’t going to make her want to open up and discuss tactics any time soon but on the other hand, the liars lives hasn’t exactly been a cakewalk.
being continuously stalked/threatened/tortured/harassed/blackmailed/almost killed for the past two years hasn’t been easy and they survived by relying on each other to an almost unhealthily codependent degree. they plan together, they stick together, they’re rarely leave each other out.
they’re more than close-knit. they’re this firmly closed circle of paranoia and anxiety and complete and utter trust and they do not even make the effort to let others in. they manipulate and lie, but they rationalise it as being for the greater good. just like ali’s done what she had to do, they’ve done the same.
and alison and spencer facing off is something of an inevitability but i think if they’d all five at least tried to think about it from any other angle but their own, alison and spencer could have been butting heads on the same team and facing off against their combined enemy instead of each other.
Yes, yes, I agree with quite a bit. This very thing is what makes Spalison so very interesting to me. They’re both “my way or the highway” type people.
I’m actually going to go off topic for a moment here, but it will come back and make sense, I promise. Once I’m done, you’ll understand the comparison I’m trying to make, so bear with me a moment.
I want to talk about my favorite villain of all time - Azula from the Avatar the Last Airbender series. When I first encountered her character, I was amused by her cruelty, cynicism and tyranny. She was a princess who expected and demanded the world. I was amused because she seemed like a classic egotistical villain.
The more I saw of her, the more I realized that she was rather unstable. She accepted nothing less than perfection from herself. She manipulated everyone around her to achieve her goals. Failure was not an option.
Then I saw why that was so and I began to sympathize with her. She was always praised as a prodigy, and her father demanded more and more. He cast aside his son and focused on his daughter. He expected nothing less than perfection from her, making it so she could expect nothing less of herself. She was trained to be a solider, a leader, a cold-hearted tactician. Nothing more, nothing less.
She grew up resenting her brother, Zuko, that her father said was worthless. She was born lucky, her brother was lucky to have been born. And yet, she saw the way their mother held him, coddled him, loved him. While she labored the days away and her mind was drilled with war tactics, her brother was held by their mother in the gardens.
She didn’t get that affection. She was a prodigy and great things were expected of her. Their father was grooming her to rule with an iron fist and things like childhood games and affection were just a distraction. Her brother was a weakling while she was a genius. Her brother was a disgrace compared to her and their father wanted nothing to do with him.
It was all on her and she was raised in his shadow. The closest she got to affection from her father was praise, so she’d try and try to do everything she could to get it. Her mother couldn’t connect with her, and so she focused all her attention on Zuko. This caused Azula to not only resent her brother, but also her mother. And yet she still craved her mother’s affection to the point that it drove her mad.
Azula ended up suffering from a psychotic break after the only two people she truly cared for betrayed her. They were her best friends since childhood, and while she often treated them poorly and closer to subordinates than friends, they were the only two people who ever got close to her.
In her own way, she truly cared for them and trusted them, something her father said she should never do. Trust and care were foolish notions that one such as herself had no time for. But she did. And then Mai, the one closest to an intellectual equal, turned her back on her to protect the boy she loved - Zuko. That cut Azula so deeply that she prepared to attack, to take Mai down. Yet she never got the chance.
Ty Lee, the girl who idolized her and followed her around like a little puppy, intervened and struck first. She incapacitated Azula so that Mai could flee, knowing she herself would now have to run too. They had betrayed their country, their princess, and one of their best friends. The punishment was surely death. They were split second decisions to protect those they cared for from others that they cared for, though they had no real clue of the consequences.
Their actions are what caused everything to come tumbling down around Azula. In that moment, she was faced with the realization that once again, her brother was chosen over her. That people loved him and no one had ever loved her. No one loved her.
“Trust is for fools, fear is the only reliable way.”
It continues on to be quite a sad tale, though I’m sure you can now see the parallels. Azula being Alison, and Azula’s father being Alison’s mother. Spencer being Mai and Emily being Ty Lee.
Noting these parallels, I had gotten very fearful when the girls turned their backs on Alison. I feared she would crumble as Azula did. Instead, now that she’s in jail, it’s more like she simply gave up. She’s not hostile from all the hurt as it’s simply become so much she’s shut down. It’s like she’s empty inside, at least for now.
But Azula’s words hold very true for Alison and eventually the girls have come to accept it to a degree as well “Trust is for fools” though only Alison has ever believed “fear is the only reliable way.”
Some of Azula’s other words are also accepted by Alison “I know what you really think of me, you think I’m a monster.”
In a way though, they are all monsters. What’s unfortunate for the Liars is that they don’t see this. Alison knows she’s horrible, but accepts it because she does what she needs to survive. The girls do whatever they need too, yet they often times don’t seem to realize how awful their words and actions are.
And this is why they have so much trouble seeing eye to eye. They believe themselves to be in the right for their actions, yet condemn Alison for hers. Alison has always planned alone and depended on herself to do what needs to be done, long before all the -A mess they find themselves in now. They forget that -A was harassing her for roughly 8-9 months before she ever even disappeared and they had not the slightest clue.
She was battling it alone because she’s always battled alone. She was raised and taught to fight her battles alone because exposing your weakness to another just sets you up for more potential pain. It’s foolish to put your trust in anyone but yourself.
But the Liars were not taught this since birth. -A began teaching them to be mistrustful, but at that point they had already believed it was safe to depend on certain people. They depended on each other and felt safe enough to tell each other most of their thoughts and plans. Alison never felt that.
This is why they can’t get with Alison, even though she tried several times to reach out to them. She doesn’t trust them enough to tell them much of anything and they expect her to give them the same trust they give each other. She just can’t. It’s programmed into her everyday functions. Don’t trust anyone, keep as much to yourself as possible to stay as safe as possible.
But the girls can’t fully comprehend that mentality. They expect more than she can give and it frustrates both parties. She wants them to give her the trust they give each other, but they refuse because she can’t give it back. She doesn’t know how and they take it as a sign that she shouldn’t be trusted.
To receive trust is to first give it. It goes back to the Halloween she scared them all and tricked them into storming through the “haunted house” to come save her. It was a test designed to see whether on not she could rely on them. She wanted to know if it was worth putting whatever trust she could give in them. They passed and so from then on, she protected them and cared for them in whatever way she was capable.
They didn’t truly grasp how important their actions in that moment were as they were upset and angry. They believed Alison to have been playing a cruel joke. They didn’t, nor do they now, understand the way her mind works. And she can only vaguely grasp how theirs works.
To Alison, everyone and everything is merely a piece on the board. A part of a puzzle. Pick up the piece to exam it, a nudge here, a prod there. How does it work? How can I get the most out of it? How can I use this to get what I want? What do I need to do or say to get this piece to fit how I desire? She doesn’t explain herself because she can’t give anything away. If the piece knows what I want of it, it may behave in a way that doesn’t suit what I need it to do.
With a certain cold detachment, she tries to play all the pieces to win the game. Not because she’s cruel, but because she understands the rules and she sees herself capable of winning. She sees herself as being a key player, the player, if you will. Everyone else is but a piece she can move around the board as she faces off against her opponent - -A.
Alison thinks as -A thinks which is why she’s survived so long.
The girls work as a group and see each other as equals. Alison sees no true equal. The girls see it as Alison thinking she’s better than them and they grow furious as they feel she’s the same manipulator she always was. They can’t understand that it’s not so much that Alison thinks she’s “better” per say as it is she… just thinks differently.
Ever seen the Sherlock Holmes movies with Robert Downey Jr? It’s kinda like that. Proper social and emotional dealings don’t click the way it does with the average person. She sees quite a bit of it more as concepts that can be used to her advantage than something she genuinely feels. That doesn’t mean she’s incapable of feeling as she feels things quite deeply. She’s simply able to detach herself and press on, doing whatever it takes, which not many people can do.
So, the fact that the girls can’t leads them to think her cruel and the fact that she can leads her to think them foolish. She believed them trustworthy enough to care for and know they would protect her, though she didn’t believe them capable of doing the things she can. They can’t detach themselves which makes them untrustworthy in certain respects. She couldn’t share her thoughts and tactics because they would look at them from an emotional stand point, something Alison couldn’t afford. She was willing to be the very monster she faced in order to win, the girls are not.
What they don’t realize is whether or not they’re willing to, it’s already happening. At every turn, they’re becoming darker and darker shadows of themselves. They can’t understand Alison’s way of thinking, yet they are becoming so much like her. Doing whatever it takes to accomplish their goals, regardless of how morally wrong it is.
They justify themselves by relying in one another and sharing the blame, while Alison doesn’t feel the need to be justified as she already accepts that she’s not a good person.
Spencer has had moments where she accepts this as well, though it isn’t as definitive as Alison’s. She’s able to come back from it and rationalize in an almost delusional sense. The other girls have had moments of uncertainty, though they have never truly acknowledged this. They think “I don’t mean to hurt anyone, I’m just doing what I have to.”
Alison thinks “I’ll hurt and use whoever I have to if I need to.”
While it’s close to the same meaning, it’s not. There is a great enough difference that it’s what divides them. It’s the difference between willingly acknowledging all the repercussions of their actions and going forth with them regardless, and refusing to acknowledge all the repercussions so they don’t have to feel guilty. It’s the difference between playing the game in a rather “cut throat”, logic driven manner, and playing the game a bit more softly in a more emotional manner.
Neither side is capable of truly thinking as the other does, but their actions are getting close to playing the same way. The Liars are now playing a lot like Alison does, willing to go as far as plant evidence and blackmail others to win. But they do so collectively which makes it easier for them to tell themselves that they’re not in the wrong. Since Alison isn’t in on their plans nor does she let them in on hers, they see her actions to be in the wrong.
While their actions are very similar, their thoughts on their actions are not. This is what caused the girls to turn on Alison. It’s a lack of understanding in which they may never truly overcome. This realization is what’s now settling in for Alison and why she’s given up at this point.
“I know what you really think of me, you think I’m a monster.”
Ah, I rambled a lot more than I should have, I’m sure. This ask has been sitting in my inbox for a while and felt I should make up for it by talking myself silly. So, I thank you if you took the time to read all this kinda repetitive rambling lol
One thought that I've been thinking over and over Ali said "turns out the boy next door likes watching all the girls in the neighborhood" like it was no big deal. Could Ali (with the help of the NAT club before they died) help uncover things about all the liars family's to destroy what the girls had so they "only had her" if she is a true sociopath? Cause it seems like in Ali's true nature to need people depending on her (like with the new "liars" that we don't know)
I suppose this is a possibility, though I don’t believe Alison is a sociopath. The writers have shown us too much that doesn’t add up with true sociopathic behavior. I think it’s another one of their ploys.
It’s not so much that Alison “needs” people depending on her as it is that she enjoyed attention. Yes, I changed tenses on purpose. I don’t believe she exactly enjoys the attention she gets now. Too much has happened, too much has changed. She looked really uncomfortable going back to school and I’m sure it was probably terrifying.
After the Liars turned their backs on her, you’ll notice how proud she suddenly becomes. She holds her head high and saunters through Rosewood High like she’s doing just fine. It’s a protective shell. She grabs for other people to surround herself with so she doesn’t look weak. She doesn’t want it to look like her friends left her. She wants it to look like she doesn’t need them.
Most of Alison’s behavior boils down to insecurity and self preservation. She flat out tells Paige in her apology that she would put people down to feel better about herself. She collected secrets to hold over people and I’m sure she learned a handful of them through the N.A.T. club.
She didn’t seem like she wanted to “destroy” the Liars or the relationships with their family though. I mean, she never told about Byron’s affair because she knew what it would do to Aria’s family. But she milked Byron for it because she felt like he deserved to be punished and she might as well benefit from it too. In her own twisted way, she often helped the Liars. She encouraged and helped Aria trash Byron’s office and made it look like Meredith did it in order to make sure he would stay away from her.
(There are lots of moments like this actually. She’d do “nice” things for the girls, but they were kind of horrible really. She’d have good intentions, yet she’d go about it all wrong. Comforting Hanna who she caught crying and gorging, wiping her tears and taking her to the bathroom to coax her to throw up saying, "You don’t have to feel this way." Rigging their class election in order for Spencer to win because she was crying and breaking under the pressure of her parents already planning a victory celebration with the whole country club when it hadn’t even been decided yet. Etc.)
Alison is a selfish, manipulative, vindictive person who is very broken and doesn’t fully grasp deep emotional bonds. She doesn’t know how to properly be a friend to someone. She’s… emotionally stunted. I’ve said this many times before, but I don’t know how else to put it. She is a product of her environment. I have dozens of posts dedicated to this and deciphering her mental process all under this tag right here.
(If you’re interested, I pulled the posts regarding her being a “product of her environment”. This post is literal scenes depicting an abusive home life and this post goes on to describe how Jessica’s parenting affected Alison’s growth and development. It’s also heavily implied in the series that she was sexually abused. I have a more general post about this right here, then I picked apart some more scenes in this post and this post.)
