Slight Iron Lung spoilers if you haven’t seen it
Massive rant.
Something I like about Simon’s characterization is that he never cries. Yes, he’s been vulnerable and broken down during many different points throughout the movie - but something interesting to me is that he never actually sheds tears.
He’s quick to get angry, and he’s clearly a moderately empathetic guy; he feels guilt for blasting people with radiation and clearly feels strongly about filament station. There’s a lot going on there.
But amongst his crashouts, he’s never actually let himself cry. The closest we got to him genuinely almost breaking down in tears was when he gets down to his last bit of oxygen and realizes he won’t have enough to survive - when talking to the voice on the intercom. He asks the voice to keep talking to him, likely to calm him down amongst other factors, and very quickly switches to “Actually, I don’t wanna talk anymore”.
When he’s having his big vent about humanity, where we get his big famous line “I just wanna live, is that so wrong?” He quickly backtracks and sucks it up by pushing the idea down. “It doesn’t matter, does it?” It’s almost like he feels stupid for caring so much.
When he realizes Ava isn’t going to save him, and he says “You still need that, right?” He sounds broken, but again, doesn’t shed tears.
What strikes me about this is that he’s been through some of the most exhausting, nightmarish experiences and the whole time he’s lost on the SM-13 and can’t contact anyone, he’s completely alone. Even when he has no connection to humanity and is completely isolated he doesn’t let himself actually get emotional - he’s not putting on some persona to seem tough in front of the C.O.I, or anybody else. In his most lonesome moments he feels there’s no point to his emotions.
With that said, it poses many interesting aspects to his character. Is it the exhaustion that prevents him from crying? Is he already just overwhelmed? Or is it guilt - does he believe he’s not worthy of feeling that emotional pain because he may deserve it in some way?
Or is this something to do with how Eden raised him? Is this something form of something more deep rooted and societal in this world? I mean, everyone we’ve met so far in the movie seems either hostile or in general disinterested.
It’s a part of Simon I really like. How he’s not just one of those characters who cries at every misfortune. His emotion is strained and pushed back by survival and in every distressing situation he resorts to anger over tears.
It’s almost like he’s scared that if he lets himself totally break down he’s admitting that he’s given up.
