Itās tempting to think that innies are just the outies at their core, right? That theyāre what you get when you take a person and peel away all their past trauma until you get to their very soul. The true essence. The self free from expectations. āThe you you are.ā
But we have to remember: innies canāt be the ātrueā outies without the environmental influence to āmess them up,ā because the severed floor is NOT a non-environment. This world that the innies are born into forms their every character trait and idiosyncrasy that isnāt already BURIED in the outieās subconscious. So though itās fun (and not completely wrong!) to say innies are outies without the baggage⦠they arenāt the outies in their āpurest formsā either.
Take Mark, for example. On the surface, the Mark S we see at the beginning of season one is a hard-working, kind, and seemingly content yes-man. Mark Scout, meanwhile, is a depressed and sarcastic alcoholic who gets drunk at night and sobs in his car the next morning.
The apparent difference between them? Mark Scout remembers his wife dying in a car crash and Mark S⦠doesnāt. Therefore, Mark S must be basically like Mark Scout was before Gemma died. ⦠Right???
Not exactly. Because Mark S still has a past. A short one, sure, and closed-off too ā but still a past, and it highly affects his personality today.
Itās heavily implied that he didnāt start off as the corporate tool we see in early episodes. In fact, based on his account of threatening to kill Petey and extensive references to past torture (ābad soap,ā āMilchick canāt always be nice like that,ā and āItās easier for you both if he knows which end to start fromā), he couldāve been almost as rebellious as Helly. The difference is that where Mark Scout remembers being formed by a drunk father, screeching tires, and policemen at the door, Mark S remembers days on end in the Break Room, saying he was a blight on humanity until he believed it was true.
Thatās a decent portion of why he comes across as a āsweetā yet timid bootlicker! Because he is built on trauma! Just new trauma! Different trauma! Trauma he remembers, but Mark Scout doesnāt! (His outieās past still impacts his character, sure, but itās not at the forefront of his mind the way his conscious memories are.) The fact that his bad experiences are novel, weird, and surface-level innocuous donāt make them any less potent or formative to the kind of person he is now.
In the same way, I donāt think itās exactly right to call Helly āwhat Helena wouldāve been like if she was free from Lumon and the pressure of being an Eagan.ā
Yeah ā in some ways, itās true. Helly doesnāt have to worry about public opinion, the weight of her name, or what her father thinks. She can have friends and a surrogate dad and, well, baby goats. But the difference between Helly and Helena is more than just one remembering her Eagan upbringing and the other not. The severed floor is in NO way some controlled, pressure-free, unable-to-change-its-inhabitants environment.
Helly remembers cutting her arm in a smashed-open window under red glow, apologizing in the Break Room over a thousand times, and learning just how much she isnāt considered a person. But she also remembers three other people being her only allies, friends (and lover), and entire world ā literally. Less than ten people, and always under horrific circumstances, are the only people she ever sees. This kind of life could NOT happen to anyone on the outside, including Helena ā even if she wasnāt born an Eagan.
So what would Helena be like if she wasnāt an Eagan? The truth is⦠we donāt know. But the question isnāt what she would be like. Itās if, stripped of her heritage, it would even still be her in the first place.
Your brain is split in half. Is that still you? You are awakened, memories gone, born again into a whole different kind of world, and grow to fill it like water in cupped hands. Is it still you now? Are you the same āyouā you were ten years ago? Ten months ago? This morning? Who ARE you? And what IS āyou,ā anyway?
Thatās what Severance wants us to ponder. And whatever the relationship between innies and outies is (the same person, completely different people, Cain and Abel, you in another lifetime) (can you even call that āyouā?), one thingās for certain: innies arenāt just outies with the bad stuff wiped off. If anything, thatās what Lumon would like them to think.