#frankenrot

[mrbrainrot]

response to some frankenstein takes!!

though i am making the response to this post specifically, i have also seen these takes a few times before and so this is also in response to those!

first off i want to say that i'm so excited that other people are getting excited about the book and i'm really glad for the critical analysis! these are just my personal opinions in response to other personal opinions but i'm not upset with people.

all quotes are pulled from the above linked post or from the Project Gutenberg Frankenstein.

on Victor's motivations:

This immense grief that he is caught up in causes him to spiral into a psychosis of an obsession with death and specifically how to reverse it... I definitely think the reason Victor created his Creation in the first place was because of his Mother. (post)

obviously i can't/don't disagree with the fact that Victor's mother's death influenced him heavily, but i think that people often underplay the importance of the fight for knowledge.

I entered with the greatest diligence into the search of the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life; but the latter soon obtained my undivided attention. Wealth was an inferior object, but what glory would attend the discovery if I could banish disease from the human frame and render man invulnerable to any but a violent death! (Gutenberg)

this quote comes from chapter two, when Victor first becomes obsessed with death and its reversal. his mother dies in chapter three. her death actually interrupts and stops his dedication to alchemy, and he no longer wants to leave his family to go to school. with the grief and depression settled on him, he spends the rest of chapter three slogging his way through school, until he meets Waldman, who gives him the resources to start learning science. his words when he again becomes passionate about science are:

I will pioneer a new way, explore unknown powers, and unfold to the world the deepest mysteries of creation. (Gutenberg)

rather than words about life and death, he speaks of creation, power, and pioneering. i think Mary Shelley's word choice is crucial here. although he later talks again about his obsession with life and death, the initiatives that drive his study don't start with his mother, they start with his need for innovation and discovery.

on the Creation's mind:

Now here's where I get kind of controversial with this opinion. When he created this creation, The Creation was a newborn. (post)

i'm afraid i must starkly disagree with this one. the Creation's brain is fully developed, though he has no memories or knowledge. this is an extremely important distinction from newborns and children, as their actions are heavily dictated by underdeveloped neurological capabilities. this deprives them of complex reasoning, risk/reward evaluation, and long-term consideration.

if an adult suffered from a stroke that resulted in retrograde amnesia, apraxia, agnosia, and aphasia, you would not think of them as an infant. similarly, those with alzheimer's are not considered to be children. although it is often acknowledged that these symptoms can make someone feel as burdensome as a child, it is noteworthy that everyone involved understands the difference; these people are adults with serious conditions that require attention and care.

we know the Creation does not have a child's brain because he is able to quickly learn and eloquently use language, and because he is able to understand long-term cause and effect (ex: understanding that placing the locket will result in the placement of blame, understanding that killing one person will hurt another).

on the relation of the Creation to Victor:

people always like to say that “they have a Father's son relationship” when in reality, yes the creation viewed Victor as a father, but Victor has always viewed this creation as an object until the last couple chapters of the entire book (post)

i agree that they do not have a father-son relationship! i have two nit-picky addendums to make:

1.) the theme of fatherhood is still core to their relationship, even if it isn't a father-son relationship

No father could claim the gratitude of his child so completely as I should deserve theirs. (Victor, referencing the hypothetical species he will create - Gutenberg)

he explains before this sentence how the species should praise him as a god, and this quote isn't saying that he thinks he is the 'father' of the species, but it is still roping in the concept of fatherhood where it was otherwise unthought of. several times in the remaining duration of the chapter, he battles with the knowledge that he is neglecting communication with his father. once the Creation is finished, he doesn't think of his father again until clerval reminds him.

i have vague concepts of theming here, but i have a hard time connecting everything coherently (my frankenmoots are much better at frankenstien theory). for now, i'll just say that he thinks about his dad a lot while making the Creation, and once the creation is gone, he does not think about his father so much : )

2.) Creation does not view Victor as a father

"No father had watched my infant days... I had never yet seen a being resembling me or who claimed any intercourse with me. What was I?" ... "I learned from your papers that you were my father, my creator; and to whom could I apply with more fitness than to him who had given me life?" (Gutenberg)

in this first quote, he wonders at his lack of a father, and attributes it to the fact that he is something other than human (like the family he is watching), though he does not know what he is. to him, the father is the blind man: someone who cares for the children and looks after them.

i may be contradicted by the fact that he does later say "you were my father" to victor (in the second quote), but i feel as though he is speaking literally here, saying that Victor is the man who made him, and therefore his father, despite the fact that Victor does not fit the role of the caring father he believes in. for the rest of his story, he refers to Victor as his creator rather than as his father to emphasize this point.

on Victor destroying the 'bride':

the reason I find that the fact that he destroyed it not as terrible as most of the other people I talk to is because the monster lied too him! The monster said he would not interrupt or interfere while Victor worked on the second creation. (post)

i'd like to start off by saying that i am not in the camp of people who think that Victor should have completed the 'bride', i just want to correct some things here to rearrange some of the blame here. the Creation does not promise to leave Victor alone while he works, he promises to

quit Europe for ever, and every other place in the neighbourhood of man, as soon as (Victor) shall deliver into (the Creation's) hands a female (Gutenberg)

he also promises to observe the entire creation process:

Depart to your home and commence your labours; I shall watch their progress with unutterable anxiety (Gutenberg)

he broke no promises; told no lies. he said exactly what would happen, and thusly it progressed. Victor was not moved to destroy the 'bride' because of the Creation's presence, he was moved to destroy her because he had a moment of clarity that showed him how flawed the assumption was that the Creation would be able to keep them both in check.

on the Creation's mindset:

And most of that is due to his child-like intellect. He thinks like a kid and immediately hates anything that makes it even slightly mad.  (post)

i again reference the fact that the Creation is not child-like, and does not have child-like intellect. children don't read Paradise Lost, Plutarch's Lives, and the Sorrows of Werter and have complex thoughts relating to them. he has an understanding, however biased, of the world.

he is doing this for several convoluted reasons.

all of society violently rejects -- and tries to kill -- him, why should he be respectful of their lives?

Victor has deeply wronged him, and he wants to get back at Victor.

the Creation is all alone in this world, with no friends or family, and he must isolate Victor completely and violently so that Victor knows how he feels.

there's more than these, but i think you can get a gist from this. he is smart. he does not 'immediately hate anything that makes (him) slightly mad', he hates Victor -- with good reason, i might add -- who has made him completely mad.

on Victor's feelings towards his marriage with Elizabeth:

He literally says he would rather live the rest of his life alone than marry elizebeth. (post)

he doesn't literally say that anywhere that i have found. if you are referring to this sentence:

To me the idea of an immediate union with my Elizabeth was one of horror and dismay. (Gutenberg)

then i might remind you that it is followed with these sentences:

I was bound by a solemn promise which I had not yet fulfilled and dared not break, or if I did, what manifold miseries might not impend over me and my devoted family! Could I enter into a festival with this deadly weight yet hanging round my neck and bowing me to the ground? I must perform my engagement and let the monster depart with his mate before I allowed myself to enjoy the delight of a union from which I expected peace. (Gutenberg)

the reason the wedding brings him horror is because he knows that the Creation is attacking those he loves; he knows he can't participate properly in the wedding with the burden he is feeling. he explicitly states that he can't allow himself "to enjoy the delight of a union from which (he) expected peace." he only ever talks about the wedding as an event of great joy that is being prevented by the Creation.

this doesn't mean he isn't queer; his love for a woman doesn't disqualify any other love he may feel. i just wanted to point this out because it's one of the most common takes about Frankenstein that i disagree with.

on his love for Clerval:

He literally calls him so beautiful and practically worships Henry for just taking care of him. Having basic human decency.  (post)

nothing much to say here except that he also calls Elizabeth beautiful and worships her in the novel, and also that what Clerval does isn't necessarily "basic human decency". Henry abandons the college life he worked so hard to achieve -- in fact, he abandons his entire life -- to wait Victor hand-and-foot. Henry takes care of Victor and nurses him back to life for two whole years, in which he could be doing anything else. to call that basic human decency is to undermine the extreme effort that Henry put into their relationship, in my opinion.

on Victor being gay for the Creation:

i don't really care either way for this theory, which i have seen before, but every time it surfaces, it's backed up by the most unhinged evidences

When Victor is swept up by grief, he makes it a point to only pick what he deems as the “most beautiful” parts of men for his creation. Essentially only making it what he deems as most beautiful. (post)

i'm fighting a losing battle with this point, but i don't think Victor's use of 'beautiful' in this sentence is indicative of actual aesthetic pleasure. the full sentence is:

His limbs were in proportion, and I had selected his features as beautiful. (Gutenberg)

it's a bit odd to give a clinical assessment of "His limbs were in proportion," and then follow it by calling them beautiful, no? and we must remember that the Victor that calls the features beautiful is not the same as the Victor who calls the lakes beautiful; when he chose the features, he was in his manic state of picking endlessly pursuing scientific achievement. in my opinion, when his scientific side says 'beautiful', it means optimal for success. to support my claim:

As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in height, and proportionably large. (Gutenberg)

almost immediately, he sacrifices aesthetics for the possibility of increased efficiency. these are not the words of a man who is greatly concerned with aesthetic pleasure.

This includes Genitals and is implied when he is worried The creation will reproduce. Now I don't want to sound too vulgar, but picking out the perfect dick and digging up possibly multiple graves to do it? That sounds pretty gay to me.  (post)

i disagree that it is implied. obviously, the creature must needs have genitals in order to function, but there is nothing that hints at the fact that Victor picked 'the perfect dick', although he might have made an effort to pick the most seemingly in-tact, functional one.

i also resent the notion that grave-digging for penises is some symptom of being gay. has a negative connotation on it for gay people, and isn't something anyone in recorded Gay History has done, to my knowledge. that's just a personal gripe, though.

Do I believe the Monster was groomed by Victor mentally and would possibly have been physically too if Victor stayed with the Creation? Yes I do. (post)

at this point, i felt really lost. how could the Creation have been mentally groomed by Victor, who literally never interacted with him until forced? grooming is a long-term manipulation, Victor wasn't even around the Creation short-term.

also, we know that Victor is physically repulsed by the Creation...

these luxuriances only formed a more horrid contrast with his watery eyes, that seemed almost of the same colour as the dun-white sockets in which they were set, his shrivelled complexion and straight black lips. (Gutenberg)

... so why would he physically groom him?

that's all i've got. personally, i feel like the moral of the story is that neither Creation nor Victor are 'good' or 'bad', so i agree with you that they are equally bad. i think Victor did romantically love Elizabeth (although i believe that Elizabeth probably only had a familial or platonic love for him) and Henry. i think that Victor was driven to create the Creation by his greed for knowledge and scientific advancement, not because of his mother's death or his sexuality. but these are all my takes, and everyone is entitled to their own takes. this whole response thing is just me nitpicking and waxing analytical about an old favorite of mine.

also i'm super sorry if some of this came off rude, i try to keep a neutral/factual tone but i'm bad at it and i don't know how my tone comes off online </3 as i said in the beginning, i'm always happy when more people get into the Frankenstein community and book analysis.

[mrbrainrot]

there were two things i thought i could expect from Guillermo Del Toro's Frankenstein: book accuracy and artsy handling. after finishing it an hour ago, i feel that i got neither. be warned, spoilers ahead!

it had all the signs of being artsy, with its occasional whimsical costuming and pretty sets, but none of it felt substantial. it felt like it was, as the saying goes, 'just skin deep'. actually, that's unfair; i thought there were some interesting aesthetic allusions. young Victor looks very similar to Percy Bysshe Shelley (who, rumor has it, inspired Mary Shelley's depiction of Victor), and Victor's body language often suggests the hunchbacked assistant of earlier Frankenstein film releases. even with those neat additions, it fell short of what i've come to expect from GDT's films.

i would like to clarify that the reason i'm hammering so heavily on its adherence to the novel is because it is being lauded as a faithful, perfecting adaptation, when it really is anything but. which would be fine, it obviously doesn't have to be exactly like the book, but everyone acts like it is, including GDT in the interviews i've seen from him. the film clearly takes inspiration from the original novel, but it changes nearly everything about the plot, and drops many of the themes that were dear to me. that's another thing that many people seem to be saying: that the film at least maintains the themes of the original novel, and i have to hard disagree with that.

the film changes Victor's dynamic with his father from mediocre to outright abusive with the goal of accentuating a theme of generational trauma, which is not (as such) shown in the book (although the book does display generational patterns, the way the film depicts it changes the nature of the theming). it essentially accuses Victor's father of killing his mother, preceding a religious epiphany from Victor that allows him to create life. is all of this interesting? sort of! but not necessarily substantially related to the book's themes.

to once again show Victor being a stand-in for Percy Bysshe Shelley, the film makes him a Baron. the mother's death in childbirth may be referential to the fact that Mary Shelley's mother died after giving birth to her. is this nifty and more than surface-level? maybe. is it actually relevant to the plot or themes of Frankenstein? not in my opinion, no.

to keep his slate completely clean of incest, GDT portrays Elizabeth as being distinctly related to some other random person who, trust, is not related to the Frankensteins in the least. also, she's to be married with Victor's (only) brother, but don't worry, she's still a love interest for Victor as well, for reasons i cannot ascertain (maybe she serves as a Percey Bysshe Shelley to Mary Shelley and Claire Clairmont? that's a huge stretch though, and i lose interest each second in trying to relate every creative choice to Mary Shelley's life). she also has an emotional affair with the Creation, because... she likes bugs, i think. anywho, the point is that Elizabeth is NOT related to Victor, and so it is okay that she has a crush on every Frankenstein or something, and also she is a super eccentric and cool dream girl who is anti-war, so we should like her. the complete overhaul of Elizabeth's character destroys all of the themes relating to Elizabeth from the book, which is, in my opinion, a lot of them.

GDT's Elizabeth serves as a mouthpiece for all of the themes and ideas that the film was too lazy to interlace more delicately, like War Bad, Nature Good, Empathy Good. her interest in insects is the film's way of saying that Good People enjoy nature for what it is, even if that's not always conducive to human aesthetics or wants.

that other random person she's related to is the guy who funds Victor's endeavors. he's in it for the love of the game, and also mainly because he wants to be reincarnated into the Creation, please. he ultimately doesn't matter for any other reason than giving Victor Infinite Money to do with as he will. so Victor buys a castle and they go into crazy detail about how the Creation was brought to life, because Sci-Fi, yay. this was actually cool, but it gave me the distinct impression that Guillermo Del Toro could have just made a normal Sci-Fi movie about mad scientists instead of pretending to make a Frankenstein movie.

i recognize that this isn't all very fair. no matter what GDT or fans of the film say, it isn't very book accurate, but it doesn't have to be. it is its own media, loosely inspired by the Frankenstein novel, and it only has to be entertaining. but it wasn't. for me at least, it wasn't. even people who liked the film will admit that the pacing was off and it kind of dragged. on top of this, its entertainment value felt unmemorable, like i probably wouldn't pick it for myself again. but maybe that's because it's an elevated film, the kind that isn't meant to entertain, but rather to make the viewer think. but it also didn't do that. very little thinking is required to get to the core of the film, and any more thinking than that just makes me angry about what i had wanted the film to be. aesthetically, it's mediocre and confused. it's not very period-accurate to the novel, which takes place vaguely in the late 18th century; the costume design seems to have been vaguely inspired by 19th to even 20th century fashion. while the costume designs are pretty, most of the costuming feels like it's been done to death before in other artsy period pieces about later centuries.

one of the things this film was supposed to have over other Frankenstein adaptations is how different it is. i can't argue that there aren't several differences, but bones of the film seem to have stayed the same. mad scientist, infantile monster, doomed innocent maiden. the primary difference is that the infantile monster of this film is also completely innocent.

before finishing off this post, i'd like to say that i promise i didn't hate everything. like many others, i enjoyed the monster's time with the old man the most, and not only because it feels like the most book-accurate scene. it was sweet and touching; it was probably the only part of the film that landed on me the way it was supposed to.

overall, in my opinion, the film fell short of the Frankenstein novel and the Guillermo Del Toro name.

[mrbrainrot]

currently reading Paradise Lost and i feel like these lines alone pretty clearly show why the creation (see: Frankenstein) feels owed a bride/thinks that would go down well:

(these lines are spoken by eve, referencing seeing adam for the first time after having seen her own beautiful reflection)

Till I espied ther, fair indeed, and tall, ... yet, methought, less fair, Less winning soft, less amiably mild Than that smooth wat'ry image: back I turn'd; Thou following cried'st aloud, Return, fair Eve, Whom fliest thou? Whom thou fliest, of him thou art, His flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent Out of my side to thee, nearest my heart, Substantial life, to have thee by my side Henceforth an individual solace dear: Part of my soul I seek thee; and thee claim, My other half.---With that, thy gentle hand Seiz'd mine; I yielded; and from that time see How beauty is excell'd by manly grace, And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.

(Book IV, lines 478-491)

woaahh!! this part was crazy to me. eve literally runs from adam because she finds that he doesn't look like her!! super interesting parallel to how humanity treats the creation and what this could tell us about how the creation imagines his meeting with a bride going.

eve returns because she is obligated to; eve (and by extension, the book implies, women as a whole) owes her existence to adam (men). after this, eve realizes that actually, appearance isn't as important as content of character, and so she loves adam, not only out of obligation, but because he's just cool like that. (grossly summarized but you get the point)

(this next section comes after adam explains to eve that the night time is for sleeping)

To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorn'd: My author, and disposer, what thou bid'st Unargued I obey; so God ordains: God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.

(Book IV, lines 635-638)

so all of this is pretty lame and wrong by today's standards, or even the 18/19th century standards, but abundantly visible in the creation's thought process. my skin crawls when i read it to be honest, but for frankenstein and commitment to the bit, i perservere!!

[mrbrainrot]

remember that one time the person had the really bad takes about frankenstein.

okay, so there were many times, but i think a lot of tumblrite frankenfans will know the one that i'm talking about.

honestly, i had forgotten about them completely because i don't check social media often, but i got a notification that they reposted my repost for... i'm not sure what reason, other than to say:

ignoring the fact that the snarky tone is dismissive of the real issues with what they said (whether or not it was their 'intention'), do they realize that i compared them to elementary schoolers because they objectively have less education? because it's elementary school, as in the first round of schooling? it's not about age, it's about level of formal education, which is why i said 'elementary schooler', not 'child'. i do agree that they give a bad reputation to their fellow elementary school students, though :)

anyways, this spurred me to go ahead and find their response to the frankenfandom's post, and to my surprise, it had a lot of moments where they genuinely did concede the point and admit to mistakes. here are all of the points where they made a fool of themselves because life is stressful, and i need a punching bag (/j), and it just so happened that they made themself an easy target (/gen). i'm not reposting them or using their username because i'm being rude and they don't need to deal with that, and they'll be stupid and i don't need to deal with that.

part 3:

screenshot #1:

the evidence includes the necklace which was supposedly on the child's person directly before he was killed, and eyewitness testimony that she was walking away from the scene of the crime. not necessarily shaky evidence. also, victor does believe that justine is innocent, which he blatantly states repeatedly throughout the book.

"I believed in her innocence; I knew it."

this quote literally comes from his internal monologue in the chapter that they were pulling quotes from, there's no way they didn't see this, so "oh please" yourself. he believes his entire network of family and friends are innocent victims of him and his creation.

screenshot #2:

the inclusion of the trial shows corruption, which OP even briefly mentions in this repost (as seen above), so i'm confused as to why they're confused that it's corrupt. she's an easy victim, being a a woman and a servant and an orphan leaves her with seemingly very few people willing to defend her, and the court, as they mention, isn't just.

screenshot #3:

"Several witnesses were called... and they spoke well of her... (they were) unwilling to come forward."

based on OP's prior reading skills, i'm not surprised they didn't understand this quote. the witnesses were called, but they were 'unwilling to come forward', meaning they never actually testified. they 'spoke well of her' in the past -- they had previously vouched for her character -- but they presently 'supposed her guilty', meaning they no longer trust or support her, and refused to give a positive testimony. her support network is practically only elizabeth, as far as testimonies in this trial go.

screenshot #4:

if it's not the evidence against justine that bothers them, why did they just waste so much time talking about it? just earlier they said, and i quote: "But the basis and evidence the whole court case stood on was still shaky, which is my real issue." so is it, or is it not, bothering you? and the judge's don't disregard every witness, because elizabeth is the only person that attests to justine's character, as mentioned earlier. in fact, there are seemingly more witnesses against justine than for her, as evidenced in the quote below:

The trial began, and after the advocate against her had stated the charge, several witnesses were called. Several strange facts combined against her, which might have staggered anyone who had not such proof of her innocence as I had... The picture was then produced which the servant had found in her pocket; and when Elizabeth, in a faltering voice, proved that it was the same which, an hour before the child had been missed, she had placed round his neck, a murmur of horror and indignation filled the court.

in other words, the prosecution calls several witnesses that testify against her, and elizabeth is forced to testify against her (to an extent) by admitting that the necklace from justine's pocket had been on william's neck prior to the murder.

screenshot #5:

the fact that it is justine is important. justine is a really close friend of the frankensteins, and she is also facing her own set of personal difficulties with her mother and financial status. the frankensteins were her fucked up saviors, friends and employers in this time of turmoil. it's a harsh betrayal that she is being convicted for the faults of one of her friends, made even harsher by the fact that she never even learns the truth of it. all of that was right there in the text.

you could no more replace her with a goat than you could replace elizabeth or victor's parents or henry or william or any other character in this book, but they singled out justine. weird vibes, man.

screenshot #6:

so, let me start by saying, i apologize on behalf of mary shelley that a child being murdered wasn't interesting enough for them.

victor's suspicion does have a basis, which is that he spots the creature right outside of town as he's arriving to mourn william, and when he makes it to the gate to enter town, he finds that they are open already, even though dawn has just broken.

william's death by dramatic rock concussion that you fantasize about wouldn't have achieved everything shelley wanted to say. first off, we don't know what shelley wanted to say, no matter how much we try to (vis-a-vis 'Death of the Author').

secondly, william is the monster's first kill. this quote from victor's account of events explains what the implications of this crime are:

Two years had now nearly elapsed since the night on which he first received life; and was this his first crime? Alas! I had turned loose into the world a depraved wretch, whose delight was in carnage and misery; had he not murdered my brother?

sure, if it wasn't actually the monster, he might have still had this thought, but when we hear the monster's account, we learn that he was correct; it confirms these moral implications, and is our first example and confirmation that victor was wrong and reckless in his actions with the monster.

lastly, the creature isn't supposed to be sympathetic or innocent, that's not what the book is about; it's not about how everyone was secretly a good person and 'oh, poor daemon'. the people in this book make terribly flawed decisions, ones that are morally inexcusable but logically understandable, ones that reflect their beliefs and educations. the book isn't supposed to support some manichaean 'good' versus 'evil', and you're not supposed to root for the characters. it would be a different story if you were.

mary shelley wrote a book where a man's brother is killed by a monster of his own creation, and his close friend is killed for it. OP describes a book wherein a child cracks his skull on a rock to be interesting and an strange old man/goat is accused of the murder and also there's a monster that's totally innocent and really sympathetic. i think this is why one is a famous author and the other is getting bashed online. anywho

part 5:

screenshot #1:

i think this comes from OP misunderstanding frankenfandom's point. he isn't sympathizing or empathizing with the creations in this scene, and nobody thinks that he is. he is, for all intents and purposes, just thinking about what's best for his family and the rest of humanity. the difference is that he is acknowledging that the female would have agency and individual intelligence ("... she, who in all probability was to become a thinking and reasoning animal, might refuse...") as well as emotions ("She might turn with disgust from him..."). he doesn't think that "she should have rights too :(", he knows that she will have agency and independence, whether she is granted them as rights or not.

there's an obvious parallel here with victor's own semi-arranged marriage. elizabeth was groomed up to be his wife, without the parents ever actually asking her if she wanted this or not -- despite victor being asked twice in the duration of the novel -- just on the assumption that she'll do it because she's told to. the 'bride' would be elizabeth in this scenario, and this is victor refusing to put someone into the situation that his own parents didn't blink an eye at. this isn't to say that he cares for her, but he is recognizing something that many from the time period might not have, something that the creation, at least, didn't.

screenshot #2:

that's so crazy because that is actually, like, exactly what you said:

screenshot #3:

this is from the original post (not the reply, which is mostly what this post is about) but i'm bringing it back in relation to screenshot 2 to emphasize how much that IS what they're saying.

stating that having a woman made for the creature is a "clean deal". that's not victor's morality, that's theirs. OP thinks it's a clean deal.

they say this as if it's the only reason that victor gives, but it's very much not. victor has several qualms that he speaks for paragraphs on, and he spares one or two sentences being afraid they'd start a new species, and OP got REAL interested in women's reproductive rights VERY quickly.

these are their recommendations for victor in the section about his morality, so i'd darn well say that they WERE saying this was the moral action to take, got called out for having a bad take, and decided it's victor's fault that they said that.

screenshot #4:

i think it's really bold and pretentious of them to be called out for misunderstanding a book so terribly, acknowledge they were wrong, and then proceed to state that they understand one of the characters and their morals better than the book itself.

"given his complete and utter lack of a conscience" and yet, he and literally everyone else managed to make it through the book without ever coming up with the idea to remove a reproductive system. no one else was thinking that. in my opinion, it takes someone with questionable morals to not only imagine that, but say that it is what should have happened. victor's morals were bad enough to abandon a child, but not to try that. OP should really do some reflection.

"Victor is the kind of guy who'd think 'designing' a docile, dependent partner is a genius idea." who told them that? mary shelley? victor himself? they misinterpreted the book, came up with a cartoon supervillain plan based off of it, and was mad that the character in the book wasn't morally corrupt enough to do it. that's on them, not victor.

part 8:

screenshot #1:

again, victor doesn't 'care about' consent and free will, he knows about them and acknowledges them. OP shouldn't be so jealous that victor knows more than them.

"Literally SAVED the concept of pro-choice" from who? you? the book was never about pro-choice or pro-life or anything, the only reason reproductive rights were brought into the conversation was because OP has a twisted mind.

"Truly the pinnacle of feminism" nobody claimed that victor was feminist. they said that OP was antifeminist (which OP didn't even refute so...) and that mary shelley was feminist (which is true, albeit a nonsequitur). that puts victor at normal-ass-feminism levels, better than OP but worse than mary shelley.

screenshot #2:

but he DIDN'T! they pointed out all of the opportunities he had to take control of her (and we are all worse off for it), but he doesn't take those opportunities. in fact, if it were control he were after, continuing to work on the bride would have given him control over the creation, if only for a while. he chooses to lose his control in favor of what he views to be the logical option. he knows this puts the target on him and his family, but it's not just them he's worried for, he's worried for all of humanity should two hateful superhumans be released upon the world.

part 10:

screenshot 1:

similarly to other key characters in the horror genre (think freddy krueger, jason voorhees, pennywise, or even godzilla), the creation has superhuman-esque qualities. he's super fast, strong, and pretty tough, too (if you'll recall him surviving having rocks thrown at his head on more than one occasion and getting shot); it wouldn't be a stretch for him to also be very adept at learning. if you'll recall, victor was trying to create the perfect human, he engineered the creation to be good at almost everything.

but also... he did resurface a few years later. if you'll recall the quote from part 3, screenshot 6, victor spots the creation two years after the night on which he first received life. i don't know about you, but at two years old, i could say a pretty solid collection of words, and i bet i would have been able to say a lot more if i had an adult brain, like the creation does, instead of an infant one.

overall:

they acknowledge that they sound rude, but also that they're doing nothing to fix it. "That's just my sense of humour and I'm basically the only person it lands for lol" = "I make jokes at everybody else's expense because I only care about myself and not how it makes others feel".

they don't only sound condescending, but extremely intentionally rude with no hint of a joke, and at times even downright discriminatory.

conclusion

thank you for reading all of this. i don't hold actual hatred in my heart for this person, just a general distaste for their... conduct. they admit near the end that the book wasn't really for them, and that the book wasn't actually necessarily bad. in their reply, they apologized for a few of their mistakes, but even then wouldn't take full responsibility; they always had something to say: they were just being hyperbolic or trying to make a catchy phrase.

i agree with them that you shouldn't have to know the context of a book to enjoy it (i didn't know the context when i first fell in love with frankenstein), but to properly criticize a book or join the discussion, some deeper level of thought, reading, and research is required. if you just wanted to complain a bit about it, go right ahead! but to pose it as a "formal complaint" and then use formal analysis terms -- "compelling protagonist", "plot holes", "character development" -- and state objectively that it's "bad writing", you'd better have some real good, well-researched points to make.

[mrbrainrot]

GDT WIRED interview opinions (2025)

something that i was confused about with the film was the film being sandwiched by quotes by... Byron? i looked, but couldn't find anything. then i saw this post and looked again, and what i found only made me more upset about the film (link to my original post about what upsets me about the film).

below the cut are my opinions, which are spoiler-free but long-winded.

here is the interview this post is based from

ANGELA WATERCUTTER: ... You’re adapting Mary Shelley. Why give Byron the last word? GUILLERMO DEL TORO: Well, to me, the movie is an amalgam of Mary Shelley’s biography, my biography, the book, and what I want to talk about with the Romantics. One of the strands that I felt was missing, but very present, was war. Basically, the metronome of their lives is in many ways the Napoleonic Wars, and this is part of Byron’s poem for Waterloo. There's no better way to express what the movie's about than that quote. This comes from a very personal experience for me. The fact that your heart will be broken, you will be pulverized, and the sun will rise again, and you're going to have to keep living. AW: they had a competition to write the best horror story... She came out with what was probably the best of the bunch. GDT: I like The Vampyre by Polidori. It’s really raw and full of the desire and hatred he had for Byron. [Laughs.]

okay so already i'm pissed 🙂

the Frankenstein novel is only 1/4 of what actually inspired the film (an adaptation of Frankenstein). he could have just as well called it Mary Shelley, or more adeptly, Lord Byron.

what he feels was missing from Mary Shelley's story is Byron's story. that's just crazy, to be honest; to have the confidence to outright say 'this person's work was missing this thing that is actually so important to it, which is someone else's work.'

the interviewer says Frankenstein (again, the book he was supposed to be adapting) was probably the best of the bunch of stories, and he responds that he likes The Vampyre, and how it's about Byron. i know he's not directly saying that he likes it more than Frankenstein, but in my opinion, the thought is there.

AW: Shelley allegedly kept Percy’s heart after the sailing accident that took his life. GDT: No, it is not allegedly. It is a fact... I don't know if you know this, but in a cremation, one of the last things to burn is the heart, because it's such an incredibly strong muscle... Shelley's heart passed from hand to hand but ended up on Mary's desk. Yeah, that's a fact.

so... no...

we actually don't know if it is the heart. it's very sweet to think that it's the heart, but it could be any organ.

maybe GDT has some secret cremation knowledge that nobody else has been privvy to, but i cannot find a single source backing him up on the heart burning last. everything i've seen online suggests it burns at the same time as the organs, but i could be wrong.

the most likely way that the heart was preserved to the end of the cremation was not because it was just so strong, it was because it was calcified, or turned to bone. i find it very unlikely that Percy Shelley could have survived with a calcified heart, and i think the calcified organ was probably the liver, as he once had Tuberculosis.

bit nit-picky here, but if you're going to say "Yeah, that's a fact," you better prepare to be fact-checked. the organ was inside one of the drawers of the desk, alongside locks of hair from other deceased, because keeping momentos from the dead was common practice back then.

AW: When I saw the Byron quote at the end, I thought (Mary keeping Percy's heart) might have been what you were referring to. GDT: Her allegiance to Percy beyond the grave is very, very moving. The fact that they eloped when she was 16 is crazy to me. They were basically like a band of punks.

sure, maybe it's 'crazy', but that doesn't actually mean 'romantic'. yes, Mary was 16, but Percy was 21, so... maybe that isn't the best example for devoted love? i think the word most people use for situations like this is 'predatory' or 'kidnapping', as Mary was barely at the recognized age of consent.

AW: ... why tackle something so well-known? Obviously, you do it in your own style and bring a lot of new elements in. But Frankenstein has been adapted a lot. GDT: This is not your run-of-the-mill Frankenstein with the mad scientist and the creature grunting his way around, being chased by villagers with torches. This is very true to the spirit of the novel. This is divided in an almost epistolary form into different very, very separate sections of narrative with very particular voices... All I can say is what's new is me.

what if i BLEW A FUCKING GASKET

so it is actually your "run-of-the-mill Frankenstein with the mad scientist and the creature grunting his way around." literally BOTH of those things are in this movie. he portrayed Victor as a mad scientist, and the Creation spends most of his time grunting around. why are we lying.

i go over how it's not true to the spirit of the novel here.

does he know what epistolary means? does he know that he didn't do that at all? which is totally okay, because it's hard to do the epistolary format in film, but you don't have to lie about it. it feels like he heard that the book was in epistolary format and ran with it.

"All I can say is what's new is me." how self-absorbed does one have to be? i know he has a huge fan base -- hell, i, myself, have enjoyed many of his films -- but good lord the egotism required to say "what's new is me". what about the entire plot that you fabricated that wasn't in any previous frankenstein media? take pride in that! admit that it's new!

AW: Do you see a modern relevance or resonance with the story of Frankenstein? The idea of someone trying to play God and bring something into the world, perhaps against better advice. GDT: I happen to not believe that the novel is anti-science. The Goodwin-Shelley household of Mary’s youth was really pro-scientific. I think that Frankenstein is actually closer to Paradise Lost. It’s man rising up to God and saying, “Why am I here when I didn't ask to be born?” Which is a very romantic—and by romantic, I mean the Romantic movement—question.

notice how he didn't answer the question? i am hoping this is due to the interview being cut up weirdly by WIRED and not because he's just ignoring the interviewer.

i actually do agree that the novel is not anti-science, but again, objection, your honour, relevance?

of course it's close to Paradise Lost. it literally says that it's close to Paradise Lost in the book and almost every article relating to the book. what he's missing is the clear relevance of Satan's egotism in trying to obtain god's power/level in PL to the plotline of playing god in his own film. that would have been interesting and relevant.

AW: No one asked for (AI being used in art). GDT: Look, the real threshold has not been crossed. It’s not people making this, it’s people consuming it—at a cost... who is going to pay $4.99 for something created with AI? When that threshold is crossed, then we'll see. AW: Do you think that’s possible? GDT: I don't know. I mean, I'm extremely glad I'm 61. So I don't have to worry about this. With a little bit of luck, I'll die before that takes root. I'm much more interested in talking about anything you want except that.

sure, let's not blame the people who stole all of the artwork and data and then coded machines to take over human jobs for profit. let's blame the people who have been fed propaganda and advertisements, effectively brainwashing and manipulating them until they eventually buy something AI made. let's blame the dog for biting, not the owner who made them bite.

it's the fact that he is outwardly admitting that he doesn't care about any issue that doesn't directly affect him. this is actually bizarre. this is insane. it has already taken root, it's already hurting people, and he is so privileged, so disconnected, so riddled with affluenza, that he doesn't even know. when AI has taken everyone's jobs and we can no longer afford food, i hope we know that 'eat the rich' includes Guillermo Del Toro.

from here on out, he says some things that i mostly agree with about mary shelley, and then they talk about other things. i don't have any strong opinions on the rest of it, but i'll link it here again for anyone who wants to check it out

Guillermo del Toro Hopes He’s Dead Before AI Art Goes Mainstream

The “Frankenstein” director tells WIRED the real Victor Frankensteins are tyrannical politicians and Silicon Valley tech bros.

[mrbrainrot]

⌜about me post!⌟

⇾hobbies:

i enjoy reading, learning, hanging out with my cats, playing video games (or real games if i can make it happen)

⇾health:

i have chronic and clinical anxiety and depression.

⇾tags:

#frankenrot for my frankenstein ramblings

#rot crossing for my animal crossing ramblings

⇾fandoms:

disco elysium

frankenstein novel (i have no interest at all in the films)

the magicians tv show

animal crossing

cats and cryptids

school spirits

for the most part i don't engage in 'fandom' because i find it overwhelming and stressful, but these are the topics i tend to follow and repost from

[mrbrainrot]

Life, although it may only be an accumulation of anguish, is dear to me, and I will defend it.

- Mary Shelley, Frankenstein