Do any of the infected blame Oskar for leaving his parents

[cmfireflies]

I was thinking about Ferris Buller's Day Off the other day. For those who have not seen it, you really should. It's about a kid who skips school and talks his friend into taking his dad's antique car out for the day. They planned to return the car before the father gets home but stuff happens and the car ends up destroyed. This is played as an emotional moment where the friend has a realization about his relationship with his dad and decides to stand up for himself. Younger me never questioned this, but thinking back now, it would suck for your kid to destroy your passion and prized possession and make it all about him.

Which got me thinking. Are there any parents of Oskar aged kids among the Infected? If so, do you blame Oskar for leaving with Eli and abandoning his parents? I can imagine Oskar's dad being indignant if he learned where Oskar went. "I spend the entire weekend with you and have one drink with a friend and you run away with your vampire girlfriend? What do you want from me?!"

[dongregg]

I've shown the film to several colleagues. As the train rolled on in the final scene, one of them, a mother, asked, "You mean they ran away together?"
That got my attention. Brought me back to the fact that Oskar is 12. But thinking about it that light, I think of all the kids who are unhappy at home and decide to run away. That could be a better way for me to look at it, but the hard part is, his situation with his mom doesn't seem bad enough to cause him to run away. She babies him. She is childish. She doesn't really see him. But that is neither uncommon nor grim.

Until these angles presented themselves to me, I just thought of Oskar leaving a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad place. The bullies are dead, but there is nothing good about to happen to him. I thought, Eli is the only good thing that has happened. You know, the romantic angle.

I have to think more about the unimaginable pain he must know he will cause his mom by leaving.

Elephant in the room: Why did he leave with Eli?

[metoo]

[...]I have to think more about the unimaginable pain he must know he will cause his mom by leaving.

Elephant in the room: Why did he leave with Eli?

These are thoughts I have contemplated for years. I have spent hours attempting to rewrite my fan fiction in order to include this dimension, but so far I have been unsuccessful. Still, I think the thought of the grief Oskar had caused especially his mum would have haunted him ever since leaving. She was quite a good mom, and he loved her (according to the novel).

So, why did Oskar leave with Eli? Going by the novel, Oskar had ample time to make the decision, so it wasn't hasty. It wasn't a case of youthful lack of impulse control. Anyway, Oskar was noticeably happy at the train (as witnessed in the novel by Stefan Larsson), but the path to get there might not have been easy for him.

It's a very complex issue that might create a great fan fiction. I still want to write it...

[a_contemplative_life]

Love is a powerful force, at once natural and strange. It can force you to make hard choices.

[Enly]

In fact, a good question. I once thought about it. And this is the view I have formed
It seems to me choices about Oscar's father did at night when the city ran to Eli. Why did he do? Hard to tell. I do not think it's only alcoholism. At the very beginning of the book considers the old photograph of his parents with him in her arms. And he comes to the conclusion that his father does not look exactly like his father. Rather, as a man holding a baby in her arms. And I think this situation is preserved for life. Oscar's father did not exactly father.
Regarding Oscar mother. I'm reading her dialogue with Oscar had the feeling that her son partly thing for her. She did not know why he left. She did not ask what he thinks on this score. She forbade them to see each other alone. Deciding for two that Oscar's father is not needed. I do not mean that she does not like Oscar. No, love. But she does not understand him, and he feels it. In the film there is a scene, he walks into the room where the mother sleeps. Includes light, it is worth a few seconds and turns off the light. Exit the room. I think at that point he wanted to tell her about Eli. But it could not.

[sauvin]

I don't think it's his parents he left.

His dad might have been an alcoholic, but as alcoholic parents go, he was relatively benign. I don't remember any mention of his father being outright abusive, physically or emotionally, other than drifting off into his own private Idaho when he started tipping a bottle. His relationship with his mother seemed OK, when she was around, but she wasn't around a lot (going by the movie). I'd place his relationship with his father as being just vaguely south of neutral, and with his mother as somewhat north of neutral, and I say this because it's significant Oskar felt he had to lie about how his cheek got cut: he saw no point in trying to talk to them. They might have cared about Oskar, and might even have cared deeply, but weren't able to show it, or Oskar couldn't see it.

Leaving with Eli was a push/pull kind of situation. On the push, there's everything he imagined might have happened with police, his parents and his classmates in the ensuing weeks (and at 12, the "ensuing weeks" pretty much constitutes "the foreseeable future"). Maybe he feared jail, and maybe he feared that the dead bullies' friends would try to exact some kind of revenge. Life at home certainly wouldn't be the same, at least on the surface, but his father would still be a drunk and his mother would still not be around a lot after all the immediate drama died down.

And now there's Eli, who actually listened, and actually understood him. This may be the first real friend he's ever had, just as Eli claims he's the first "normal relationship" she's had for a "very long time" - which might mean decades, or might mean centuries. She had to go away, and maybe he did, too, because he couldn't abandon the first person ever to actually make him feel connected.

At the age of 12, it's not all about what Mom thinks, or what Dad thinks, or how much other people's feelings might get hurt. As with so many other things, he's in a border zone between childhood and adulthood, with much of the child remaining, where much of his personal world still revolves around him (if unpleasantly so) and other people are really little more than set pieces in his own personal, private drama.

I think we also need to consider that the Oskar seen in the movie isn't the Oskar I saw in the novel, a short, fat little guy who lies and steals.

[gattoparde59]

Oskar is going to leave his parents sooner or later. In traditional China this would be unforgivable, but in the West it is expected that children will eventually break with their parents. I think both the film and the book show Oskar breaking with his parents at least in the spiritual sense well before we get to the end. Oskar seems to be leaving his child hood behind as well as his parents. In the film he shuts his Mom out of his room and then he starts shutting the doors on his toy cars. The pool scene is the final break with the past and everyone- Mom, Dad, Mr. Avila. Eli has replaced all those people who might have been important in Oskar's life.

[intrige]

A 12 yearold kid running away with someone he says he loves in real life? EH YEAH
In the book and movie? Nah.

The thing about LTROI is that morals are out of the window by the end of it. Would I have smiled and cheered for Oskar when he hit Connie back in real life? NO! I would get mad at him. Violence is not the answer. In the movie and book, I totally did! Because those bullies were nasty. Eli killing a hand full of tweens and one teen? SURE, as long as Oskar and Eli get to be together! Oskar leaving his parents? Who cares? Look at his little dorky face at the train.

I don't blame him because I connect with him and Eli together far more than what would be best for him as a child and his development as a growing human being. But this is not real thankfully.

[intrige]

As for what might have gone through Oskar's mind as he left his family behind is a far more complex matter.

I always thought it was something he decided quickly and effortlessly on the get go based on his gut feeling, and because he loved Eli, and being saved by someone increases love hormones as well. So he was scared, alone, lonely, in danger, with Eli he was loved, cared for, safe and in company. But I do think after a short while after leaving it would dawn on him what he actually decided. Not changing his mind but comprehending all the consequences that does not revolve around him or Eli. Not that he didn't' think about his mom when he left, but maybe not as much because Eli was in the front view. And lather he'd be like: I chose Eli and I', glad I did, but oh god what have I done to my family?

That's what I think. Because kids, even as big as he I have seen, rely much on feelings and their guts. Then as they grow up they become more aware of the logical possibilities and are able to take a step back and think more carefully on the matter of whatever decision they're making. 12 kids are pretty smart at that age but those parts of the brain who understands empathy and consequence doesn't fully develop until perhaps around 16 or 17 maybe even a bit later. It depends on the person. He might not fully grasp everything he's doing, only that what he did felt right.

And at least from a fictional standpoint I would say he made the right choice. On a realistic level he did not.

[cmfireflies]

I agree with everyone here. And anyways, Eli needed Oskar more than Oskar's parents needed him anyways.

I also think that the invitation scene is a nice echo to Oskar's scene with his father. "It's your turn" vs. "what happens if you come in anyways?" an unspoken ultimatum by Oskar to see which one cares about him more, and Eli came through while his father did not. Interestingly Oskar never even gives his mom a chance like he did with his father, a little cruel, but he's too young to know better.