small mizisua ramble (mizi focused)
heads up: if i use a photo with the original korean text then the images are meant to focus on the art rather than the text.
i really like how literally mizi's sense of control is shown here. her hair covers and hides sua and her arm acts like a wall separating her and everything else. she touches sua's face as she pleases, caressing her and relaying the same praises she was given as a child that now resemble the act of 'being loved' in her eyes. because of the twisted way in which mizi herself was 'loved', she dehumanizes sua in an unhealthy manifestation of 'love'. sua is in her costume meant for the stage, a place where her humanity becomes a tool for viewing, while mizi is wearing something completely normal. mizi is just a 'person', but sua is a 'god'. she is something not up to this world, beautiful and loved in the only way mizi knows how to love; by placing the object at a distance and admiring it from afar. just as 'sua', her eyes and her telling expression in all that makes up her identity and humanity, is covered by mizi's hair, mizi does not always see sua as who she is, but rather as the very 'doll' sua despises and as 'god'. perhaps the most excruciating part of this perspective is how sua feeds into it, providing no attempts at showing mizi anything human in her nor anything outside of the happiness mizi brings out of her; her guilt constantly overwhelming.
when mizi was young and hurt, the aliens could not understand the concept of mizi being in pain. even when there was something on her head trying to bite into her, her owners merely ripped it off with its teeth stuck in mizi, not caring for how their actions could have backfired on mizi. they did not view her as someone who suffers and hurts, but more as a fragile thing to be taken care of. they stripped mizi's humanity away from her, her ability to feel, and simplified her to the physical effect of her pain. mizi is made powerless again, hurt and toyed with by a higher power. in both “the true face” and the most recent comic, there is a lot of emphasis on mizi being weak. she is helpless to be pushed around by everyone else, and in her craving to feel strong, she wanted to go to anakt garden. there, she could have that ‘power’— the power to ‘crush someone’ as she always feared would happen to her, the power to make someone else powerless. mizi was drawn to sua for all the things she hated being identified through. the sentiment is clear throughout the entire comic, sua’s smaller body parts, her smaller frame easily being covered by mizi, mizi’s dress visibly not fitting sua, etc. when mizi calls her adorable, it is her repeating the same dehumanization she had dealt with as a child from her owner and reminding sua of the very words she can never rid herself of; her uselessness, her clumsiness, her existence as a doll and not a human being.
it is because of sua’s fragile and delicate demeanor that mizi found so much fascination in her. it is because she is the very picture of something to be protected and cherished that mizi, who desperately seeks strength, became fond of her. having the power to ‘crush someone’ is ultimate strength to mizi, someone who has always had that very dynamic used against her; since she was a child with her owner and even further into her life through the abuse she faced from the blonde boy, mizi is visibly weak. she is an object, something to be thrown around and seen rather than perceived and respected like an actual human being, like an equal. as a child who knows little of love and identity, mizi cannot conceptualize the desire to be seen as a person, but she can understand the desire to be in control because 'control' has always been lorded over her head. it is through sua, who forgives her for every little thing, who guides her and shields her, that mizi becomes strong and in control in a way she has never been. for mizi, sua, who is physically smaller and weaker than her, who seems fragile in the same way she does to others, was beautiful. she is someone mizi can overpower, someone she has the power to crush easily, and for that, mizi became drawn to her. a common psychological pattern in victims of abuse is the repetition of past scenarios from a different position. it helps to make them feel less powerless, more in control. after the scene in “true face” where mizi was slapped, where mizi couldn't properly express how she felt, and where she was berated and hurt for the mere act of being a woman, by slapping sua the same way she was hit after she said the same phrase her abuser did was a way for her to regain control. she was powerless then but now, where was she? in a safe environment, taking out her anger and discomfort on the person she loves the most, on a weaker target just as her abuser did. for a second, she felt like she corrected the imbalance she felt earlier, as hurtful as the sentiment is. it must be noted that, just as mizi views her as weaker, she also despises this idea of sua in her mind. when mizi hits her, she immediately starts sobbing again, remorse and regret clear on her face. it is only through mizi herself twisting the narrative that mizi’s view of sua can be misconstrued. though she was drawn to sua because she saw her as ‘weaker’, we know that mizi spent a lot of time listening to sua sing before she approached her. she saw, consistently, a part of sua that was human—a part of her that was equal. mizi is, at her core, a scared child just like sua is. she does not view everyone through a lens of “weaker” and “stronger” unless the idea is forced into her face (like it is when she’s made helpless) and when she saw sua as that, it was because of how prominent the ideas of strength and control were in her life at the time. as a child who has known nothing else but weakness—her mother being crushed in front of her, her owners hurting her— she desperately searched for a person weaker than her to control and gain back all that was taken from her. yet, as much as she wants to have control and power in the way she was robbed of it, she’s not as heartless as the ones who took that power away from her. she loves sua, and the shame she feels for the ideas of “weaker” and “powerless” in her head are undoubtable. because she is weak and powerless, too. how could she use someone just like her, in the same way she was used? as they grew closer, mizi probably found a lot of solace in the fact that they were the same. they could be equals with one another, could be safe with each other.
as much as mizi’s viewing of sua as a god is a manifestation of her love, it is also the very thing that stops her from loving sua as an equal. mizi views sua as her light, her guidance, her strength, and a hundred other synonyms for adjectives that all represent a “reason for living”, something god is supposed to provide. yet, as romantic as the sentiment is, viewing another through the lens of god will not only ruin you but strip the subject of their humanity and ruin them. there is an innate expectation in being viewed as god. a god is considered such because of his lack of humanity, because he is above our worldly rules, and because he is the guiding light to escape our suffering. mizi places sua as a god because, to mizi, sua is a saint. she is an angel so pure she becomes god. an angel who forgives mizi no matter how disgusting she is, who allows her to keep a facade of innocence, who cultivates her purity. an angel who shows no and thus feels no sorrow, who is all merciful, who guides. an angel of light; someone so bright they can only be considered god. because mizi can only view her within the same distance she was viewed, mizi offers no comfort to a lifeless sua beneath her. even though sua's eyes are ones of hurt, mizi can only say that she’s adorable in the same way her owner felt she was adorable when she cried out of pain as a child. it is mizi’s way of showing love. just as owners can’t conceptualize a pet feeling in the same way that they do, suffering the same anguish they suffer, we cannot conceptualize the idea of a god who suffers the same anguish we suffer. sua shows none of her sadness to mizi, so mizi has subconsciously gotten used to a complete lack of sorrow from her. a god does not feel agony, but mizi’s god is fragile. she breaks and cracks as if she feels because, at her core, she is merely a human molded into a god. all mizi can see is the physical manifestation of sua's pain, and not the pain itself. sua never shows it to her, and confronting it directly would mean a confrontation of their fate.
when sua says “you always say that” in response to mizi calling her adorable, all that mizi thinks is “of course, you’re someone who i could crush in an instant if i felt like it.” it’s as if this form of love is a given for their relationship. a child’s definition of love exists only through how they see it displayed, and mizi is no exception. mizi has all the control that was robbed of her, all the control her child self viewed as love, and sua willingly gives the reigns to her. she says nothing when mizi hurts her, protects her innocence in the cruelest way possible. because she loves her, because of her time as a child, because she is guilty for loving her, sua leaves herself to mizi’s hands, surrenders control to a higher power, and that is her manifestation of ‘love’. she forgives everything mizi does because she feels that she is the main perpetrator of their relationship. she’s the one hiding their fate from mizi, and she’s the one prioritizing her own happiness over the possibility of mizi’s future anguish. she allows mizi to believe in her as a god and breaks neither mizi’s bubble of innocence nor her own bubble of veneration, and so she is mizi’s to crush. yet, through sua's death, mizi begins to understand that being 'crushed' is not merely a physical manifestation but a mental one. sua leaves mizi with a hundred layers of guilt, each and every one mirroring sua's own. mizi's guilt after sua's death is a reflection of sua's guilt before her death; the regret of having lied, of being the cruelest lover, of the pain their love caused each other.
mizi is her most unreliable narrator. mizi is merely a human being, a powerless child becoming an adult in an environment that does not foster growth. she is not merciless nor is she heartless. she is not like the aliens she imitates, and thus her emotions are not as shallow as theirs. i don't feel as if mizi is not speaking out of her own desire when she says she has the ability to crush sua. she wants that power, but mizi is not as merciless as she believes, and all she can do is hold and love sua like the god she believes her to be, as if in worship. she loves sua, loves her so much that sua becomes a god in her eyes. as dehumanizing as her first interpretation of sua was, you can actively see mizi regret every single time she tries to regain control she lost through sua by hurting her. sua is the same as her, her only equal in a world not made for them. she fell in love with the very person she meant to use and became so terrified of their reality that she grew willfully ignorant to the end of their relationship. how could she face the fact that one of them would have to die? as a child who found something she wanted to protect, she fooled herself with childish ideas of a tie in order to distract from their inevitable end. sua fed into her delusion with lies in order to protect her, and what could mizi do but take them as truth? she was scared and she didn't want to face their reality, and sua's lies were so sweet, so ideal; so unlike their reality. for how much mizi speaks of control and crushing, mizi doesn't do anything but cradle sua in the most gentle way possible, as if she is a mother holding her child. mizi could never hurt sua in the way sua gives her the freedom to, not purposefully. she nuzzles against her arm as if her entire life is at the mercy of sua, caresses her face as if she's the most precious thing in the world. they hurt each other a hundred times over because of who they were made to be and how their world was structured, but their love is undeniable. they're nothing if not their love for each other, no matter how many mistakes they made in their process of understanding one another. they care for one another and it seeps into everything they do. at their core, they are two children in love--two children who don't know how to love desperately clinging onto one another. their relationship dynamic is a meaningless game of constant surrender to one another, because the reality is that their relationship is in the hands of nothing more than the audience. their lives are not their own, as much as their love is.
also a little something to be noted about the anguish in mizi's eyes here. she's not stupid; she knows what's going to happen as much as she deludes herself out of the knowledge. she's terrified.
