#utangatta

[stillsmybeatingheart]

[enidc0leslaw]

Maniac - Utangatta

[stillsmybeatingheart]

[sumarugla]

The code words and utangátta

Maniac has so many hidden clues and easter eggs, I keep finding new ones. I just need to write this one out.

In e1 Owen sees Grimsson and tells him “You are not supposed to be here”, and the latter replies: “Good. You're still using the code words.” And I didn’t realize until now that the phrase itself was the code words. Because later Grimsson tells him to make contact with Annie “using the code words”, and that’s what he says to her. “You are not supposed to be here.” AND later they hear the same phrase in e5 from some weird people in one of the bedrooms while looking for the lost chapter. Then in e6 Annie goes into Owen’s pod AND he says the exact words again.

Then in e8, when he’s living his dream with Olivia and seven kids, Owen suddenly yells the word Utangátta and goes on to tell: “I’m not supposed to be here with y'all. I can't be the person I'm supposed to be here.” Then he jumps out of the window, hears Annie’s voice and says: “I know where I'm supposed to be now.” He turns into a hawk and flies away to look for Annie.

And then there’s utangátta. He explains it beautifully in e9: “It means something is amiss. - No. Tell me what it means to you. - To Snorri, it means... every relationship I have had, old or new, has somehow been false. And I've always felt invisible, hidden from the world, like an Egyptian nightjar. And all of this makes me tremendously... sad right now.”

The thing is, I used to try to teach myself Icelandic years ago. It’s very rusty now, but I have this old Icelandic-Russian dictionary. So naturally I looked the word up. Utan means “out”. And gátt means door. Innangátta means “at home”, literally indoors. And utangátta means outdoors, out of home, not home. So it’s something or somebody that is “not home’. Not where he’s supposed to be. Utangátta was Owen’s code word all along. And described his main problem, too (“What’s wrong isn’t that I’m sick, it’s that I don’t matter”.) The problem no pill could solve, only finding his place next to another person who actually sees him and appreciates him for who he is.