I'm like you

A forum for discussing fan fiction related to Let The Right One In
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sauvin
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Re: I'm like you

Post by sauvin » Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:06 pm

cmfireflies wrote:
Wed Feb 10, 2021 6:55 pm
sauvin wrote:
Tue Feb 09, 2021 3:19 am
So, my question stands: if turned Oskar were to go down that road, would she still love him? Could she? Would he still love her?
Depends, Eli probably won't have a problem with Oskar taking revenge upon bullies, but indulging in carnage for carnage's sake would probably push Eli away. Novel Eli, at least, looks down upon theatrical and empty vampires. Movie Eli is absolutely sad that she has to kill and seeing Oskar take joy in it will probably shock her. As for whether they'll still love each other, probably, if only because kids tend to be more resilient and, honestly there's nothing like first love.
Mm, first love, best love, unforgettable love, and for some, last love.

I met mine in high school. Peaches and cream, cast a perfect silhouette, musical laugh, and that's just what the eye can see and the ears can hear. Christian, loving, devoted, creative, knowledgeable... I could go on all day and never say the same thing twice. In just about every single imaginable way a girl could be perfect, that was my Anne. We were a couple for more than two years, which in High School Time is basically half a lifetime, and I think we could say we knew each other fairly well.

Supposing I were myself an immortal young man with an "unusual illness" and a never-ending case of the lonelies, hooked up with Anne and gave her my bug thinking that I'd have somebody to share eternity with. I sometimes wonder, under these conditions, how I'd react if she suddenly started keeping a collection of heads in her fridge and the local papers and radio stations started screaming about an unusual incidence of mauled bodies turning up. Would I still love her if she were to start saying things like "I'm bored and feel like going out and killing something"? She would most definitely NOT be the Anne I loved.
Fais tomber les barrières entre nous qui sommes tous des frères

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metoo
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Re: I'm like you

Post by metoo » Thu Feb 11, 2021 7:51 am

sauvin wrote:
Wed Feb 10, 2021 9:06 pm
Supposing I were myself an immortal young man with an "unusual illness" and a never-ending case of the lonelies, hooked up with Anne and gave her my bug thinking that I'd have somebody to share eternity with. I sometimes wonder, under these conditions, how I'd react if she suddenly started keeping a collection of heads in her fridge and the local papers and radio stations started screaming about an unusual incidence of mauled bodies turning up. Would I still love her if she were to start saying things like "I'm bored and feel like going out and killing something"? She would most definitely NOT be the Anne I loved.
Do one ever really love another person, or do one rather love one's own image of that person?

It is possible to shut one's mental eyes and see only what one want to see. It happens all the time. It happens to all of us.
Thus, even if a loved one's person changes, the lover's image of that person need not.

Love can indeed be strangely persistent.
But from the beginning Eli was just Eli. Nothing. Anything. And he is still a mystery to me. John Ajvide Lindqvist

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PeteMork
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Re: I'm like you

Post by PeteMork » Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:48 am

metoo wrote:
Sun Feb 07, 2021 6:32 am
sauvin wrote:
Sun Feb 07, 2021 2:00 am
Just take a look at the scene where Oskar thwaps Conny upside the head, but take a few steps back, get some scale. It was broad daylight, Eli was probably busily purring with her arm around her nounours under a blanket in her bathtub, but she was also very much on the ice, and not just at Oskar's side. Without her encouragement and support, Oskar probably would have taken a polar dip; instead, he was busily gazing at the sky feeling euphoric, a Freudian symbol grasped in one hand and Conny on his knees before him on Stage Right. She was also on Stage Left, kids screaming their lungs out, while Blackeberg digs up yet one more body to add to a local rash of mysterious murders.
This is what we see in the movie. In the novel, however, after Oskar having briefly felt victorious, the scene continues with Oskar realising how badly he had hurt Jonny (worse than in the movie), and then he tries to help. This is the Oskar I see, and whom I let speak in my fan fiction.

Eli told Oskar to fight back. Everybody does that to the bullied kid. Oskar even did it to himself, in his fantasies in the woods. So why didn't he do it in real life?

You might say that he was scared, intimidated by the other kids. Surely he was, but there was another, no less important factor at play: Oskar simply didn't like to hurt people. It didn't make him feel good, but the opposite. Therefore he was an easy target, defenceless against kids with less capacity for empathy. And, I like to think, Oskar sees this bit of himself in Eli, too. "I'm like you."
I agree with metoo. Oskar is a bit more empathetic in the book despite his fantasy revenge daydreams.
We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain. (Roberto Bolaño)

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