haha well ok i can’t speak for Exactly how everyone else feels about it but the impression i get from scrolling top posts/dashboard osmosis is that 1) people primarily see it as something that was Done To Him and 2) the discussion is mostly about the extent to which stratt was justified. whereas on first watch my partner was actively and exclusively critical of *grace*, and while i fully sympathized with him it never even occurred to me to question stratt’s actions
as for the way it affected my view of grace, it honestly made me like him more. when i assumed he volunteered himself, he read more as someone who stepped up in impossible circumstances and then got (understandably) scared/maybe regretted it when faced with the reality. in retrospect, realizing he was *always* scared and was never actually prepared to die (“i didn’t mean any of that. it’s just something you say”) it makes every risk he took after meeting rocky feel so much more meaningful. especially the last one, when he turns around and actually chooses another life over his own with his eyes wide open.
someone in the replies mentioned that this was more obvious in the book, but even with less emphasis on it in the movie it didn’t escape me that when he turned around to save rocky he was doing so with no reason to believe he’d survive much longer after that. it brings his character arc full circle and disconnects his happiness from earth at the same time, which is a big part of why i walked out of the theater feeling like the ending was the absolute best case scenario. he can go back if he wants to, but he doesn’t. he wanted to stay on earth because he didn’t have anything worth dying for, he wants to stay on erid because he finally found something that was
dededos
theartofmadeline
origamiaround
tangentwithtanner
germansingergirl
baratheonpilled
annaxmalina
