Eli's guilt

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Takuda
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Eli's guilt

Post by Takuda » Tue Apr 25, 2017 10:22 pm

Hello everybody! :)
Apologies if this has been answered before but it's been on my mind for a while and there is so much to this forum I still have to read!

In the scene where Hakan arrives back at the apartment without any blood from the kill we hear an enraged Eli. At first I thought It was just because he didn't get anything from the kill and Eli was upset that she would have to go out and get some herself. But after rewatching I thought to myself another reason as to why Eli is so furious. By not obtaining anything from the kill, Hakan had killed a man for no reason and perhaps Eli felt some sort of guilt over it. Later We see Eli showing remorse; sobbing after killing Jocke who was kind in trying to help out a weak child in need.
Then the pool scene happened, Eli went overkill in saving Oskar. She had murdered 3 boys in cold and brutal ways and I have to wonder did she lose her mind in blind rage or am I wrong in assuming she feels guilty for those killed? :think:

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dongregg
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Re: Eli's guilt

Post by dongregg » Wed Apr 26, 2017 12:50 am

Takuda! Welcome! I wonder what path you trod to get here.

One member (now former member), a 13-year-old girl, wrote that Eli wasn't angry at Håkan. She wrote that Eli was teetering on the brink of hysteria knowing she would have to do.

Well. Eli's voice is rather over the top in what she says to Håkan.

As for Jocke, I felt from the first viewing that Eli was just showing how much she hates her vampire life and hates having to murder to live. IOW, I saw self-pity rather than remorse.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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dongregg
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Re: Eli's guilt

Post by dongregg » Wed Apr 26, 2017 12:55 am

Then the pool scene happened, Eli went overkill in saving Oskar. She had murdered 3 boys in cold and brutal ways and I have to wonder did she lose her mind in blind rage or am I wrong in assuming she feels guilty for those killed? :think:
Either way. I take it to be a lesson for bullies. Before you start picking on some kid, make sure the kid doesn't have a girlfriend who is a vampire with unresolved anger issues. I'm just saying. :D
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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a_contemplative_life
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Re: Eli's guilt

Post by a_contemplative_life » Wed Apr 26, 2017 1:10 am

Takuda wrote:Hello everybody! :)
Apologies if this has been answered before but it's been on my mind for a while and there is so much to this forum I still have to read!

In the scene where Hakan arrives back at the apartment without any blood from the kill we hear an enraged Eli. At first I thought It was just because he didn't get anything from the kill and Eli was upset that she would have to go out and get some herself. But after rewatching I thought to myself another reason as to why Eli is so furious. By not obtaining anything from the kill, Hakan had killed a man for no reason and perhaps Eli felt some sort of guilt over it. Later We see Eli showing remorse; sobbing after killing Jocke who was kind in trying to help out a weak child in need.
Then the pool scene happened, Eli went overkill in saving Oskar. She had murdered 3 boys in cold and brutal ways and I have to wonder did she lose her mind in blind rage or am I wrong in assuming she feels guilty for those killed? :think:
I think it's really hard to tell how much guilt or remorse Eli feels because of the killings. I hadn't thought that his anger toward Håkan was an indication of unhappiness over a pointless death, but I suppose you could retrospectively interpret it that way depending on how you interpret Eli sobbing over Jocke's body.

With regard to Jocke's death, I think you could interpret it as sadness for having to kill Jocke, or maybe just a "live sucks in general," perhaps combined with the idea that Håkan’s earlier failure had led to this. Later in the film, at the "be me a little" scene, Eli justifies himself to Oskar by noting that he kills because he has to; he doesn't really demonstrate much regret or indicate that he's constantly going around being sad and remorseful about it. So I think there's a lot of ambiguity in the story and you can interpret things in different ways.

As for the pool scene, I agree that Eli was probably acting out of character because she was afraid that Oskar was in mortal peril, and was angry at the bullies for going so far.
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metoo
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Re: Eli's guilt

Post by metoo » Wed Apr 26, 2017 5:12 am

Whenever you have a question about the film, there always is the option to read the novel. After all, both novel and film are sprung from the same mind. :mrgreen:

That said, this particular issue isn't very clear in the novel, either. If anything, novel Eli comes out as rather more indifferent about his murderous ways. There is nothing similar to the sobbing scene; the one in the movie was added by Tomas Alfredson, apparently.
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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sauvin
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Re: Eli's guilt

Post by sauvin » Wed Apr 26, 2017 9:11 am

I've not seen the movie in some time, and so have probably displaced a few details. As I remember it, Oskar had just loaned her his Rubik's Cube, and this was after the altercation between herself and a remorseful Haakan who'd just come back from his food-shopping foray empty-handed.

It stands to reason that in her quarter millennium of having to subsist on the most forbidden of all possible foods, and of having to endure the kind of lifestyle her diet imposes, killing people wouldn't ordinarily affect her much more than swatting a fly would affect any of the rest of us mere mortals. It'd usually be for food, and sometimes for self-defense.

In the novel, in one of their meetings, Oskar had touched Eli's cheek just as she was about to nom him, and she withdrew, asking "what did you do that for!?" and casting her eyes back and forth (as if searching for a lost memory). Quite a bit later in the novel, she admitted to him that she'd not been in a "normal" relationship in a very long time.

There may not have been any physical touching in the movie when he loaned her the Rubik's Cube, but the manner in which he interacted with her wasn't what she'd been used to. He didn't want her for anything - didn't want anything from her - except simple, honest friendship. It may have been centuries since this had happened, and (with her yet further admission that she hadn't been "much good for anything" while she was still a normal child), it's possible this kind of interaction was entirely new to her.

Oskar departs, her stomach gives off a couple of monster growls, and so she runs off to hunt. Jocke falls into her trap, she finishes sating the beast, and now she's just the normal little girl again with a monster on her back that she can't shrug off. I don't think she even knew Jocke, or anything about him, probably never even heard his name; the corpse on which she now sat astraddle was just one nobody among thousands.

I think what happened was that on the jungle gym, she was allowed to be just a regular person - just for a single fleeting moment - before being dragged back into the beast's world, and what hit her after the hunger was sated was a combination of (1) horror brought to the fore for the first time in $deity alone knows how long and (2) suddenly missing once again the existence she'd once enjoyed, such as it might have been, for the first time in what must basically have seemed like forever.

As for the bullies at the pool? Um... you just try drowning my girlfriend, or sister, or daughter, or niece... see what happens!
Fais tomber les barrières entre nous qui sommes tous des frères

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a_contemplative_life
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Re: Eli's guilt

Post by a_contemplative_life » Wed Apr 26, 2017 10:58 am

I like your analysis. :)
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ltroifanatic
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Re: Eli's guilt

Post by ltroifanatic » Wed Apr 26, 2017 11:00 am

Yes me too.Eli's spark of humanity awakened when she met Oskar.
Please Oskar.Be me for a little while.

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