the way one is born will inevitably color the way one sees the world. on this, i am fairly certain, it is easy to agree.
there is something about iron lung that is deeply tied to the diasporic experience. i originally said asian american because mark is asian american, and i'm asian american, so i can really only pull from my own experience– but i'm certain there is overlap in this aspect.
it's the way simon is seen as different. on eden, by the C.O.I., by the blood ocean. not necessarily always in ways that are overtly bad, but ways in which it is clear that he doesn't really belong.
eden doesn't want him. and he doesn't want them either– or so he says. but he grew up there. calls the people of eden his brothers. sees a memento of it left by the brother who came before him and nearly weeps, because it's all he has left of it. of home. he may say that he never wanted to consider himself part of eden's cause, but it's obvious that the love that he feels for eden itself is bloody and raw and real. even if it is unrequited. even if it makes him feel ashamed.
a culture that you were raised in– that raised you. that you tried to turn away to make yourself more palatable because maybe, just maybe, if you distanced yourself from them enough, you could finally be seen as something more than just its product. you could be one of the good ones. even if it means giving up part of who you were. even if it means you inevitably come crawling back when it's already too late, when they already don't want you back. a foreigner in your own skin.
the C.O.I. definitely doesn't want him. and he most certainly doesn't want them either– how could he, after all they did to him? the imprisonment, the disfiguring, the theft of anything he had left that could remind him of home? (...but was it ever really home?)
unless it means survival. unless it's refuge from the thing that was always inevitably going to strangle and suffocate him for love to death, anyways. there is one thing left that the C.O.I. can still give him that eden never could, and that's hope for a better tomorrow. hope for a tomorrow, period. they think that there's something still out there, something that means home (but was that ever home, either? is your parents' home really home?), and simon wants to believe that too, no matter how much he keeps telling them and himself otherwise.
but it's a better tomorrow that he knows, deep down, he's not going to be allowed to have. one that the C.O.I. is going to take from him no matter how much he deserves it (...but what do we ever really mean by the word deserve?) because he's always been disposable to them. something they can get rid and wipe their hands clean of because he's not like them. they'll lie to him and tell him that they'll make him one of them if he just does this one more thing for them. but that one thing turns to another. and another. and another. and they'll just keep taking from him no matter how little he has left, because that was all he ever was to them. something to be taken from.
a promise of something different, something more than what you were only ever going to be. but a promise that comes with a cost. a promise that requires you to conform, to make yourself anew even if it means abandoning all you had ever known. a promise that keeps you wary and defensive and turns you against the people, the places you loved (but did you ever stop? how could you, after all you've been through?). one that might stab you in the back and leave you for dead anyways, if they think it'll suit them, no matter how many ropes you've severed, markings you've scrubbed away, masks you've put on to make yourself look exactly like them. only ever a means to an end.
and yet, the blood ocean does want him. sees his perseverance as valuable. wants to take him for itself just like it had taken every other soul that dared traverse its hemas. it's not like he'll ever make it home anyways, right? what home does he even have? he's better off down here, with it, an entity that can finally, actually, promise him safety.
safety in exchange for betrayal. betrayal of eden. betrayal of the C.O.I. betrayal of the flawed systems that failed him both, time and time again, and yet they are systems that he cannot bear to let go of. hope is all he ever had left, and you're telling him that he has to give that up too just to have some place in this world?
it's tempting, it really is. the thought of finally being able to rest. to drop his weapons and lay down his head and finally have somewhere he can call "home". (unseen. unheard. uncontrolled.)
a rejection of both cultures and promises that feels like the only option you have left. a sinking feeling that this was all you were ever going to be– not one or the other, not enough of this, too much of that. forever stuck in limbo, a version of hell that you were doomed for from the moment you first opened your eyes, by no fault of your own. and yet it's what you deserve, anyways, isn't it? for all you've done? the bridges you've burned and the institutions you chose to put your faith in, blindly or otherwise? what other choice do you have? a martyr of you own volition.
and yet simon still chooses the path forward. a path that only ever lead in one direction, but a path he's going to take because fuck it, it's his. it's the one thing nobody can take from him, the ability to choose. and he chooses humanity. not one or the other, not surrender, but the only thing that ever really mattered. it's bigger than him. and it's too bad that it took all of this for him to finally see it, but if it's all he's got left then he'll fucking do it, even if he'll never really get vindication, the one thing he's ever really wanted.
to be repeatedly pulled one way or the other. to keep remaking yourself over and over in the hopes that this is the one that'll finally work out. a movie so bloody and esoteric and yet it always felt clear as crystal.