The possibility of change

[gattoparde59]

In another thread Johnajvide talks about the element of transformation in Let the Right One In:

It´s mentioned somewhere that the core of the story is the story of transformation. I think this is true, and that it goes for most of my stories. The possibility of change. I have always considered the ending of LTROI as happy. Becuase love has been found, and accepted. Because change has occurred.

This makes Let the Right One In a linear story. Oskar begins the story at point A and ends the story at point B. When we first see Oskar in the film he is saying “Squeal like a Pig” and holding a knife. When the film ends he is giving Eli a kiss- a pretty clear cut transformation.

My question: Does Matt Reeves see the story in the same way? When we first see Owen he is eating candy and singing the “Now and Later” jingle. Owen is this way "now" and the implication is he will be the same way "later." At the end of the film he is still singing the same song, “Now and Later,” we heard him sing at the beginning. Owen is the same person “now” as he was at the beginning of the story. Further the song implies there will be no serious changes in the future. Then there is the ominous example of Thomas. Thomas started out the same way as Owen to eventually come to a dead end with Abby.

This makes Let Me In a cyclical story. Owen starts out at point A and ends up at point A. I do not see much change going on in this story. Maybe this is material for a chilling horror story, but I don’t see the kind of emotional transformation that is so important to Let the Right One In.

[intrige]

I agree totally!!

[sauvin]

The Deer Woman might or might not interest anybody on this board; it doesn't have much in common with LTROI or LMI. Apart from one particular, it's mildly entertaining cheesepuffs, popcorn and Coke entertainment for a boring Saturday afternoon when there's nothing else going on. The Masters of Horror might indeed be masters, but their mastery isn't always evident in this collection of movies.

The particular is where the two cops investigating a series of bizarre deaths and discussing their cases over lunch at a casino. They're joined by a young Native American who explains what a Deer Woman is: a stunningly beautiful woman who entices men into trysts, tramples them to death, and then runs off back into the forest. From the waist up, the woman is every red-blooded man's dream, but from the waist down, she's a deer.. When the cops try to drill the young man about where this woman comes from, and what is "done" about her, he shrugs with bemusement; there is no "beginning" to this creature, and no "end", there are only recurring episodes of its appearance.

This brief exchange very nearly sums up the entirety of the hard, cold nucleus of what true horror is for me: something that comes around, does awful things and then slips away, sure to come 'round again sooner or later somewhere else. The Hulu showing isn't subtitled or closed-captioned, and so I can't guarantee that the Deer Woman's genesis isn't discussed or explained, but I don't think it is. The smaller scale subtext here is is a vaguely interesting reversal on the concept of a dirty old man wearing a rumpled and soiled raincoat waving around a bag of candy in a schoolyard if you brassily insist that all horror must have a moral dimension, but the larger scale admission here is that even in what may yet prove the pinnacle of our technological sophistication, there are things about life, the world and ourselves we just don't understand yet. Things that'll sneak in, do awful things and then slip away again without any clear cause or ready explanation. Something against which we have no defence either because we are inherently defenceless against many outside forces, defenceless against our own natures (and our own drives), and defenceless against our own ignorance. Something we know just enough about to dread, but not nearly enough to predict when or where it'll appear again.

I've agreed in the past that LTROI has a strong element of transformation to it, but I believe the last time I'd agreed was before having seen LMI enough to have begun to assimilate it. There's a difference between transformation and simple passage.

In LTROI itself, there's "love found and accepted", but the jury still appears to be out on precisely what kind of love has developed. From here, passage into LTODD most defintely does mean transformation (from a human perspective, the word "transmogrification" is probably better suited), but even if Oskar goes on to resemble materially the Thomas seen in LMI, there does seem still to be transformation. The young man who had already been largely on his own has with his inhumanly capable ally struck off to make his own way in the world - his eventual possible decline into a Thomas or an Oskar at 40 would just be a "transmogrification" of a slightly different sort.

In LMI, there's evidence for arguing for cyclicity without any kind of transformation. The Owen I see staring up at his blood-spattered girlfriend at the pool isn't different from the Owen I saw being given a wedgie in the locker room in any important way, his defiance in refusing to tender Kenny his carefully copied sheet of Morse Code in the bathroom and his refusal to go swimming in the ice hole notwithstanding. He was an oppressed young man at the beginning of the movie, and if he's entering into another Thomas Cycle (tm), he's a passenger on the train into another form of oppression at the end. Owen is merely changing his mailing address, nothing more, whereas Abby may be passing on to the beginning of another cycle, possibly an old and drearily familiar one.

The difference between Owen and Oskar in this context is too subtle for me to delineate. I feel Oskar genuinely came to love Eli in all sorts of different ways. Owen came to love Abby, too, but that love is tinged with an acknowledgement that she could represent an "easy" escape from Los Alamos together with an awe and a kind of respect based partially in sheer terror.

Eli seduced Oskar (intentionally or not) within a fairly compressed window of time (from an adult perspective), but Owen left the pool with an image burned indelibly into his mind of what Abby can be with a kind of emotional shock that could result in arrested or deformed emotional development that Oksar won't experience. If so, what Owen experiences isn't transformation or even transition: it's sudden stasis.

This is one of the major (if subtle) differences between LMI and LTROI for me, and I have to presume it's because of conscious choices made by the producers and directors. It doesn't diminish LMI, but it does cast it into a qualitatively different pall.

[jetboy]

In another thread Johnajvide talks about the element of transformation in Let the Right One In:

It´s mentioned somewhere that the core of the story is the story of transformation. I think this is true, and that it goes for most of my stories. The possibility of change. I have always considered the ending of LTROI as happy. Becuase love has been found, and accepted. Because change has occurred.

This makes Let the Right One In a linear story. Oskar begins the story at point A and ends the story at point B. When we first see Oskar in the film he is saying “Squeal like a Pig” and holding a knife. When the film ends he is giving Eli a kiss- a pretty clear cut transformation.

My question: Does Matt Reeves see the story in the same way? When we first see Owen he is eating candy and singing the “Now and Later” jingle. Owen is this way "now" and the implication is he will be the same way "later." At the end of the film he is still singing the same song, “Now and Later,” we heard him sing at the beginning. Owen is the same person “now” as he was at the beginning of the story. Further the song implies there will be no serious changes in the future. Then there is the ominous example of Thomas. Thomas started out the same way as Owen to eventually come to a dead end with Abby.

This makes Let Me In a cyclical story. Owen starts out at point A and ends up at point A. I do not see much change going on in this story. Maybe this is material for a chilling horror story, but I don’t see the kind of emotional transformation that is so important to Let the Right One In.

I also agree with LTROI being a movie about change or the term I like, being born again. I also agree that LMI isnt like that so I agree with you about LTROI being more of a linear story and LMI being cyclical. However, the cyclical aspect of LMI came from LTROI (as some thought) and I feel in LTROI's case, this cyclical aspect fits into this linear perspective without changing it.

The difference between the two is the filmaking technique. In LMI, the cyclical hints are purposely dropped here and there as if the director were leading us somewhere, while LTROI's technique treats us the audience, as if what were happening were real life and that we are actual spectators and just like real life, we only know what we see, not what is thought. This leaves us with alot of questions that different people fill in differently.

How the cyclical aspect of LTROI fits in with the linear is that the cyclical aspect represents why this love is so precious and so rare, yet also how its there for anyone, anytime. The hell that is Eli being manipulative represents so many peoples worst nightmares and that is the fear of failure and rejection, how the pain of rejection overrides taking a chance. Being in miserable servitude most of your life out of obligatory love, like Hakan and maybe now Oskar are, may be an extreme way to point out how something might go if you take a chance but I think it accurately depicts the dragon we all might have inside.

That doesnt mean its true though, just like some kind of suspicious activity coming from your neighbors might not be true true.

[cmfireflies]

I suppose Owen does change. From a bullied boy to a cold-blooded murderer in a few years. In this respect, I think that Owen is more similar to sauvin's Oskar at 40. (Or maybe just because I love Oskar more than Owen and I can bear to think about Owen's future without the lens of sentimentality.) Sauvin is right as always that this type of change is a possibility in both stories, however, I don't think that the difference between the two films is that Owen experiences an emotional stasis while Oskar does not. I think that both boys will be at some level emotionally stunted. To live happily with Eli or Abby is to be OK with murder. An emotionally mature and healthy person cannot be OK with constantly killing You'd probably either stay emotionally stunted and stay sane or slowly go mad trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

I think that it's conceivable that both kids saw the exact same image when they looked up from the pool. TA showed us that Oskar was focused on Eli's eyes. Reeves left what Owen saw to the imagination. It's possible that each boy found something to love in the blood covered monster looking down at them, with Oskar, the blood and gore might have been an unnoticed minor detail compared to the joy at seeing his friend, with Owen, it might be the sense of pride that yes, this monster was His, and he was chosen from all the other children to be something special to It.

Another thing, Eli represented an escape from Blackeburg for Oskar, too. It's not too stressed from the movie, but Oskar was clearly unhappy at home if he chose to go play alone at night in freezing weather rather than spend just a few hours when his mom is at home with some free time with her. This was a single working mom so I'd imagine free time when they could both relax together is at a premium, but maybe Oskar was too young to understand this. Oskar was clearly at the age when the extra attention from his mother was stifling rather than welcomed. Owen got no attention from his parents at all, so we don't know how he would have reacted to a genuine inquiry from his mom without the helping of guilt.

Speaking of Owen his parents impending or completed divorce seem to be a bigger deal with Owen, I don't know how well this is supported, but I have the feeling that Owen is the way he is (passive, quiet) because those traits make his home life easier. Don't tell mom what happened before dinner. Don't do anything to get in the middle of the tug of war between mom and dad. Those things that make his home life bearable paints a giant target on his back at school. The more he doesn't fight back, the more he is bullied. The more he is bullied, the more he learns to stay quiet at home.

I would hate to say that Oskar's problems are simpler, but I think he's better off than Owen. Oskar seemed to be bullied because of who he is. Owen seemed to be bullied because he's stuck in some kind of negative behavioral feedback loop described above. I didn't get a sense of the real Owen, or maybe he's normal enough: he shares his candy and video games with Abby (but that's a brief moment, I think one of the few where Owen is away from both his bullies and his mom before Abby's reveal crowds out any normal plans Owen may have for wooing his first girlfriend.)

My point is that Oskar has more of an idea of what he wants to be, i.e. from the film: loved, but also understood and he tests both his father and Eli and decides which one he prefers. (I've written about how I see the tic-tac-toe scene as Oskar's personal test, which his dad fails miserably vs. the invitation scene which is Oskar's test for Eli) This is probably a healthier way of transforming oneself than what Owen does, which I think is just repeating his learned passivity for Abby. (Maybe I'm being unfair, maybe he really did want to leave with Abby, more than he wanted to leave period, but Reeves certainly didn't answer that one)

TL:DR: both Oskar and Owen changes, maybe even conciously throwing away emotional maturity to be happy with a vampire, but Oskar knows what he is choosing, while Owen is forced by circumstances (or will be) to adept himself to Abby.

[jetboy]

I (Maybe I'm being unfair, maybe he really did want to leave with Abby, more than he wanted to leave period, but Reeves certainly didn't answer that one).

Youre not being unfair. Theres definite instances where Owen leaving isnt all happiness and sunshine, even in his own mind, and Im sure it wasnt a mistake.

[Jameron]

When we first see Owen he is eating candy and singing the “Now and Later” jingle. Owen is this way "now" and the implication is he will be the same way "later." At the end of the film he is still singing the same song, “Now and Later,” we heard him sing at the beginning. Owen is the same person “now” as he was at the beginning of the story. Further the song implies there will be no serious changes in the future. Then there is the ominous example of Thomas. Thomas started out the same way as Owen to eventually come to a dead end with Abby.

An excellent observation.

I've always felt that Owen doesn't develop as much as Oskar, but this suggests he doesn't develop at all. It's very interesting, to say the least.

Further to this, when we first see Owen being bullied he tries to avoid the confrontation by rushing into the changing rooms to collect his 'stuff' and go. He is fighting back, albeit in a passive way, he is trying to deny the bullies their fun. He is still fighting back in the final conflict in the changing rooms, and previously out on the ice. All throughout the film he is fighting back in his own way.

When we look at Oskar, he has no fight in him, he stands there and allows Conny to flick the end of his nose, no resistance, no nothing. We see his defiance grow as the film progresses, culminating in him striking Conny with the stick, out on the ice. A definite progression of defiance, whereas with Owen we see a steady defiance.

Owens defiance is born from within himself, Oskar's is from Eli. When Abby goes, Owen still has that fight in him. When Eli goes Oskar has no reason to fight back. Oskar demonstrates an emotional dependence upon Eli, something he was incapable of at the start of the film, a transformation if you will. Owen, to me, doesn't have that same dependency, he hasn't been transformed.

.

[sauvin]

I suppose Owen does change. From a bullied boy to a cold-blooded murderer in a few years.

I believe the OP was asking for evidence or discussion of change that happens within the window of time shown in the movies; what happens (or might happen) in the time after the train rides away from home are relevant to me only insofar as they could be seen as (or extrapolated from) what we see in the movies. None of the three stories (novel and two movies) gives anything solid to support any particular future.

In this respect, I think that Owen is more similar to sauvin's Oskar at 40. (Or maybe just because I love Oskar more than Owen and I can bear to think about Owen's future without the lens of sentimentality.) Sauvin is right as always that this type of change is a possibility in both stories, however, I don't think that the difference between the two films is that Owen experiences an emotional stasis while Oskar does not. I think that both boys will be at some level emotionally stunted. To live happily with Eli or Abby is to be OK with murder. An emotionally mature and healthy person cannot be OK with constantly killing You'd probably either stay emotionally stunted and stay sane or slowly go mad trying to reconcile the irreconcilable.

I share this stronger cathexis with Oskar, and am also less discomfited by the possibility of Owen moving into Thomas' role in future.

The "emotional stasis" I speculate for Owen wouldn't necessarily be total, and I will never claim that Oskar's emotional development during his life with Eli wouldn't be markedly impacted. Maybe it's true both boys will suffer some kind of arrested emotional development, but it's not an "all or nothing" proposition because the very term "emotional health" is amorphous. My claim here is simply that Oskar's development seems likely to advance further than Owen's on strength of my impression that Oskar's reaction to Eli's appearance at the pool was one of joy, implying willing choice, in contrast to Owen's undeniably more complex reaction that seems to me to include a strong component of fear, implying a perception of lack of choice.

"To live with Eli is to be OK with murder" may be a bit simplistic. I think it more accurate to claim that living with Eli forces a choice between finding a way to be (more or less) OK with murder and being (more or less) OK with not having her in his life. Owen's case is a bit more complicated because part of what binds him to her may be the fear that leaving her means being hunted down and killed like an escaped lab monkey with some horrid disease.

I think that it's conceivable that both kids saw the exact same image when they looked up from the pool. TA showed us that Oskar was focused on Eli's eyes. Reeves left what Owen saw to the imagination.

I disagree. Oskar may well have "seen" the gore presumably covering the rest of Eli, but we're shown her intense concern followed by what has got to be a relieved and welcoming smile. Verily, those eyes did smile, I say unto thee! - and that smile, as I'm remembering it, was returning Oskar's big, stupid, overjoyed grin. One presumes that her smiling eyes are what Oskar saw with his heart, not his eyes, and if he isn't welcoming her back into his life with both arms wide open, I've seriously misread these few seconds of the movie.

In the few times I've actually watched LMI since I've last made this comment, I've been unable to trace down what I thought I saw in Owen's reception any better, that whole spectra of different emotions raced through his mind in those few seconds. Awe, gratitude and love flitted by almost too quickly to catch, but interspersing these different emotions I could swear I also saw fear. It came and went in waves, and I couldn't help hearing a voice saying "$deity, she is beautiful!" and "$deity, don't do anything to make her any madder!" both at the same time.

It's possible that each boy found something to love in the blood covered monster looking down at them, with Oskar, the blood and gore might have been an unnoticed minor detail compared to the joy at seeing his friend, with Owen, it might be the sense of pride that yes, this monster was His, and he was chosen from all the other children to be something special to It.

Another thing, Eli represented an escape from Blackeburg for Oskar, too. It's not too stressed from the movie, but Oskar was clearly unhappy at home if he chose to go play alone at night in freezing weather rather than spend just a few hours when his mom is at home with some free time with her.

No argument whatsoever, except to say that it might not be "too stressed" in the LTROI movie, but should still be abundantly clear that Oskar is miserable as Owen in most ways, even if he's not as overtly (physically) brutalised at school. Both boys seem to be pawns in their parents' games, and Oskar's life as the latchkey kid son of a working mother seems only shades of a semantic degree better than Owen's life as an emotionally neglected child.

I seriously doubt either boy saw his girlfriend as a ticket out of town until the possibility had to be discussed after the pool scene. There's more than one way to be taken away, though, and both boys keenly missed it after Lacke's or the cop's murder: in both cases, the girl had become the wind under the boys' wings.

This was a single working mom so I'd imagine free time when they could both relax together is at a premium, but maybe Oskar was too young to understand this. Oskar was clearly at the age when the extra attention from his mother was stifling rather than welcomed. Owen got no attention from his parents at all, so we don't know how he would have reacted to a genuine inquiry from his mom without the helping of guilt.

What "helping of guilt"?

The boys are clearly taking the first steps towards some kind of independence, distancing themselves from their mothers. This is one of the hallmarks of the onset of puberty, in fact, but the boys' home environments would tend to accelerate this part of the process. It's almost as if the boys are realising at some level "she can't or doesn't want to help me, or doesn't know how, and either way it doesn't matter, because if she can't be with me, then I won't be with her!"

The help the boys might get from their mothers would probably be frustrated by two major factors: (1) they're women and can thus have only a dim idea of how their sons' emotional development as young men is being adversely impacted by all the stressors shown in the movies, and (2) they're women who've long forgotten what it's like to be twelve. Owen's case is exacerbated by his mother's impaired ability to interact with reality critically through the lenses of an alcoholic haze and apparent religious mania.

Speaking of Owen his parents impending or completed divorce seem to be a bigger deal with Owen, I don't know how well this is supported, but I have the feeling that Owen is the way he is (passive, quiet) because those traits make his home life easier. Don't tell mom what happened before dinner. Don't do anything to get in the middle of the tug of war between mom and dad. Those things that make his home life bearable paints a giant target on his back at school. The more he doesn't fight back, the more he is bullied. The more he is bullied, the more he learns to stay quiet at home.

Again, no argument whatsoever.

I think it's possible Oskar's defuncted family life has painted a similar bull's eye on his back, but the rift seems older and relegated more to the background by whatever other issues might have arisen since. I gather Owen's parents' divorce is still in progress, meaning that the attendant is still brand new.

What's being suggested here, I suppose, is a reason for Oskar's being otherwise inexplicably bullied at school; Conny really is a sawed-off runt, standing almost nose to collarbone to Oskar.

Owen's case needs less explanation for anybody who's ever had to endure locker rooms because he's small, scrawny and pretty. Swap out what he's wearing now for a miniskirt, "re-assign" what's between his legs and honk some nascent breasts on him without making any other changes at all, and what you've got is a beautiful young lady a young man could go for. Atop his mousiness and almost reclusive nature, he's something of a trigger (among other things) for the latent homophobia that seems universal to postpubescent boys everywhere.

I would hate to say that Oskar's problems are simpler, but I think he's better off than Owen. Oskar seemed to be bullied because of who he is. Owen seemed to be bullied because he's stuck in some kind of negative behavioral feedback loop described above.

One of the major clear differences between movie Oskar and Owen is stoicism. Oskar endures with silence, refusing to give any clue that he's feeling any pain.

There's a fleeting moment (don't blink!) just after Martin whacks him in the cheek with a stick, when Oskar is opening his eyes, that you can almost see murder and repressed rage. Owen just blubbers and cries when he's assaulted.

If Owen and Oskar ever met and got into a genuine fight, I wouldn't give you single Monopoly dollar for Owen's chances of survival.

I didn't get a sense of the real Owen, or maybe he's normal enough: he shares his candy and video games with Abby (but that's a brief moment, I think one of the few where Owen is away from both his bullies and his mom before Abby's reveal crowds out any normal plans Owen may have for wooing his first girlfriend.)

Eli had three "reveals", the first in the basement clubhouse where she convincingly showed Oskar she's disconcertingly different somehow, the second when she bled out in his living room and the third when he peeked and discovered part of what Eli meant when she said she's not a girl. I suppose it could be argued that her attack on Lacke could be taken as a revelation, too, and while I'd agree this first uncontestable demonstration of what Eli is would be viscerally unsettling, it shouldn't be taken as "revelatory" because he'd already known what she is, and what a vampire is - at least intellectually.

One point I'm not clear on is exactly how the basement clubhouse scene unfurled for Owen. Abby ran out the building and shinnied up quite literally the first tree handy maybe ten metres from the door. Did Owen follow her out and see her attack on Virginia? Maybe not, but Owen is clearly shown watching Virginia being carted off to the ambulance from a spot just metres away from the basement clubhouse's nearest sortie. He's clearly shown wrapping up the wound to his thumb, and his facial expression suggests he needs to swallow a bottle or two of Pepto-Bismol. In the LTROI movie, I remember nothing to suggest that Oskar might have had any idea that Virginia had been attacked at all - or even had any idea who Virginia might even be.

The "reveals" that Abby has for Owen, then, are more vague. The first is the basement clubhouse scene where she's graphically shown to be different with Owen immediately afterwards witnessing the aftermath of a likely associated attack (if not the attack itself), and the second is the bleeding-out in his apartment. If I'm following this properly, the attack on the cop really is no revelation, not intellectually and not viscerally.

If Abby's "reveal" in the quoted text is meant to mean the shower scene, kindly notice that Owen doesn't show any surprise or disgust at seeing what we're not shown. I take this to mean that (1) Owen knew what he should be seeing when looking at the body of a girl in a shower, and (2) what he saw in the shower was the body of a girl.

If anything in either movie were to put a kink in how either boy sees himself continuing to "woo" his new girlfriend, it would be in the basement clubhouse.

My point is that Oskar has more of an idea of what he wants to be, i.e. from the film: loved, but also understood and he tests both his father and Eli and decides which one he prefers. (I've written about how I see the tic-tac-toe scene as Oskar's personal test, which his dad fails miserably vs. the invitation scene which is Oskar's test for Eli) This is probably a healthier way of transforming oneself than what Owen does, which I think is just repeating his learned passivity for Abby. (Maybe I'm being unfair, maybe he really did want to leave with Abby, more than he wanted to leave period, but Reeves certainly didn't answer that one)

I don't think I ever ran across your discussion of the tic-tac-toe game as a test. It's a perfectly valid and plausible conjecture as presented in the quoted text. What I don't get is that he was trying to decide which he wanted to be with. This was probably a child's way of desperately trying to find a way to connect to an increasingly remote and inaccessible father (and not, note, the mother to whom he's trying himself to become increasingly remote and inaccessible because he lives with her and probably often gets way too much of her in all the wrong ways).

At this juncture, Oskar isn't thinking in terms of buying cars and houses and boatloads of kids' toys, so there's no reason to believe he sees himself as having to make any kind of choice. He's a kid; he could still have it all.

Here's one of the few places where the LTROI movie blew it. The novel made it really clear that Oskar felt forced to choose between the werewolf that emerged when his father opened a bottle and the vampire that Eli might be, but even this choice isn't necessarily for the long term. Just for that weekend, just for that night, he decided that he'd rather deal with Eli's weirdness rather than his father's childish neediness because she made him feel good, and he didn't. If you'd have asked him right then and there how life might be a month of Saturdays into the future, he'd probably have just shrugged his shoulders and said "Aw, more of the same, I guess".

Didn't the novel, in fact, explicitly state he didn't want anything more to do with his girlfriend somewhere just before this time?

In the movie, his father abandons the game (and him) for his drinking buddy, and they just sit there looking at him with stupid blank self-satisfied looks on their faces. Movie Oskar may well have just decided "[CENSORED] this, I don't have time for this [CENSORED], I'm gonna go see what's up with my girlfriend!"

As for Oskar's (and Owen's) invitation test: "Feelin' kinda dirty, feelin' kinda mean... (my double vision gets the best of me)..." It might not be an consciously intentional test, but it is interesting that Eli had to survive this test just as Oskar had to survive her test across the door with the window into her apartment.

TL:DR: both Oskar and Owen changes, maybe even conciously throwing away emotional maturity to be happy with a vampire, but Oskar knows what he is choosing, while Owen is forced by circumstances (or will be) to adept himself to Abby.

TL;DR: if it's TL, then DR Sauvin's rambling eye-bleeding posts.

I don't see Owen throwing away a darn thing; I don't see Owen as seeing he ever had anything to throw away, and his "decision" (if that's what it was) to run away with Abby is a complicated thing to sort out. Oskar's case is a lot simpler: he ran towards love. If Oskar changed at all, it's in precisely this: he has developed an ability to recognise, express and choose love.

[cmfireflies]

I believe the OP was asking for evidence or discussion of change that happens within the window of time shown in the movies; what happens (or might happen) in the time after the train rides away from home are relevant to me only insofar as they could be seen as (or extrapolated from) what we see in the movies. None of the three stories (novel and two movies) gives anything solid to support any particular future.

I agree with the OP that LMI is supposed to be cyclical. I think LMI gives some solid support to the cycle theory by deliberately inserting the photo and making Thomas and Abby closer.

One of the major clear differences between movie Oskar and Owen is stoicism. Oskar endures with silence, refusing to give any clue that he's feeling any pain.

There's a fleeting moment (don't blink!) just after Martin whacks him in the cheek with a stick, when Oskar is opening his eyes, that you can almost see murder and repressed rage. Owen just blubbers and cries when he's assaulted.

Yeah, that's quite a complex expression. Some people over at imdb badmouthing Oskar have said that it looked like relief, therefore hinting at Oskar's abnormal tendencies. I thought it was relief in the sense that (in the film, at least) it was the first time that the violence had escalated to a new level and Oskar wasn't sure what to expect. After the hit, Oskar could be thinking, "that's it?" as he thought about all the times he cowered in fear of what the bullies might do. It could be what made him see his bullies are just peers, instead of some indomitable force. But that may be too optimistic a reading. Rage works just as well.
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What I meant by being "OK with murder" is the absolute acceptance with the act of taking another human life. I think that for Oskar, the trick isn't to going to be justifying one particular killing, (i.e. Lacke was going to harm Eli) or suppressing his guilt because his Eli needed blood, but rather a complete break with human society. The one thing that I found most tragic about "Oskar at 40" was Oskar's inner monologue where he thought about people as pigs for the slaughter. Not sure if this was your intent or not, but I thought it very very sad that Oskar was doing mental gymnastics to avoid confronting the fact that he has killed a whole bunch of people and he was getting very very tired of lying to himself. Oskar at 40 was so tormented because on some level, he felt guilty and I'm saying that guilt is something that a vampire can't afford, because even the tiniest guilt adds up over the centuries becoming slowly unbearable. Hear is where the film breaks with the novel, Eli crying over Jocke's body was a great shot-it humanizes Eli without breaking the flow of the story, but I don't remember novel Eli ever feeling guilty, except maybe in passing, wondering why she's still alive. Indeed crying over a victim would be pretty out-of-character for novel Eli. What I meant about emotional health is that Oskar can't afford to mature to the point where he would be haunted by everything he will do, but rather be a child who always lives in the moment and be more than a bit naturally selfish.


Here's what I wrote about Oskar running away from his father and why he demanded an invitation from Eli on IMDb. In the book, Oskar acknowledges his drunk dad as a kind of monster, but I don't think that particular side plot made it into the film.

Now I here's the way I see this scene: Oskar is too young to understand addiction. He's too young to give his dad credit for spending the day with him. All he sees is that as soon as the bottle is out, he's forgotten. So Oskar decides he's had enough: He gives his dad an ultimatum: it's me or the bottle. But because he's a kid, he doesn't think to say it that way, after all, if his dad can't see how upset he is, dad has already failed. So Oskar's ultimatum is: It's your turn (about the tic-tac-toe) What he's really saying is: if you care about me at all, please show it by continuing our game.
Dad brushes him off. BOOM. Oskar is gone. Because in his mind, that was the last straw.

What I like about this reading is, Oskar then does the exact same thing to Eli: a new ultimatum: If you care about me at all, come in without an invitation.
Now he can't understand the rules for vampires any more than he can understand his dad's alcoholism, but to him the choice is simple-SHOW ME YOU CARE. Eli does, and BOOM he's hers forever. Eli gets his heart because he passed the test that his father failed. Both are stupid requests, childish, selfish, but Eli came through when his dad didn't.

About the dose of guilt from Owen's mom. From what I remember, the only spoken interaction between them consisted of Mom asking accusingly whether Owen has spoiled his dinner. It seems to me that Owen associates attention from his mom with accusations and thus feels guilt when talking to her, maybe because of his stealing and lying.

[sauvin]

I agree with the OP that LMI is supposed to be cyclical. I think LMI gives some solid support to the cycle theory by deliberately inserting the photo and making Thomas and Abby closer.

I wouldn't call it "solid support", but I'm certainly a believer.

What I meant by being "OK with murder" is the absolute acceptance with the act of taking another human life. I think that for Oskar, the trick isn't to going to be justifying one particular killing, (i.e. Lacke was going to harm Eli) or suppressing his guilt because his Eli needed blood, but rather a complete break with human society. The one thing that I found most tragic about "Oskar at 40" was Oskar's inner monologue where he thought about people as pigs for the slaughter. Not sure if this was your intent or not, but I thought it very very sad that Oskar was doing mental gymnastics to avoid confronting the fact that he has killed a whole bunch of people and he was getting very very tired of lying to himself.

It's been quite a while now, and my Swiss cheese memory it's what it used to be. As I recall, without poring through old posts, the real initial intent was just to burst some purple and pink bubble gum bubbles. Everybody was fawning over cute little Eli and adorable little Oskar and ignoring the darker aspects of the movie or novel that gave it the balance that was part of the magical effect the movie had on us. I think I remember being at work, doing something mind-numbingly boring, and telling myself "OK, Oskar is 40, stayed with Eli all this time. He's in a bar having a cig and a few shots in a town whose name he may not even know. Now what?" When I got home and fired up the computer, the rest of the story flowed out of my head directly from the darker side of town where I grew up without my actually thinking about it at all. It just flowed in a single burst between dinnertime and bedtime.

What this means is that your interpretation of "my" creation is as apt to be valid and "correct" as mine.

In a subsequent fanfic, where my Eli (a much lighter-hearted version of a later Eli-like interpretation) considers what life with 40something Oskar has been like, she says to herself that Oskar's thinking of general humanity as swine is a mind trick ("It's just got to be!", I think she said), but I'm not entirely certain that's true. He loves Eli, but after so much time so much of his humanity has evaporated that there's barely anything left.

I don't think Oskar is tired of lying so much as just tired of having to pull up stakes and run away every few days, tired of looking over his shoulder for evidence that the pigs are wising up, tired of knowing that any of his food runs might be his last. He's getting to be an old man; it's time to drop anchor, buy a house, plant a garden and have a cat meowing on his lap and a cup of hot chocolate on the side table. I didn't get "mental gymnastics" at the time, even if that's what my Eli "wrote" a few months later, I just got that he's mentally exhausted.

What's still jarring to me is Thomas' comment "Maybe I'm getting sloppy. Maybe I'm tired of all this. Maybe I want to get caught" months after my 40something Oskar sat in a bar having a few shots to settle his nerves after "this last one didn't go none too smooth" (as I remember it).

[..] Hear [sic] is where the film breaks with the novel, Eli crying over Jocke's body was a great shot-it humanizes Eli without breaking the flow of the story, but I don't remember novel Eli ever feeling guilty, except maybe in passing, wondering why she's still alive. Indeed crying over a victim would be pretty out-of-character for novel Eli. What I meant about emotional health is that Oskar can't afford to mature to the point where he would be haunted by everything he will do, but rather be a child who always lives in the moment and be more than a bit naturally selfish.

"Why can't I have anything?"

(because you should be dead)

But the pangs of conscience weren't as strong as the will to live, were they?

"But I don't kill people!"

"But you would if you could, to get revenge, wouldn't you?"

"Nuu...." (in the movie, an acquiescence without conviction)

But for Oskar, at twelve years, nine months and eight days (if I remember properly), it's already too late. Oskar's humanity is as fully formed as it's ever going to be, he just needs some field time to get some experience with it. His interaction with Eli before discovering what she is shows sensitivity and concern.

40something Oskar can still show these, just as 50something Thomas did with Abby. What neither 40something Oskar nor potential future serial killer Owen can afford is to lose their humanity entirely, because doing so means losing the ability to recognise their girlfriends as human.

In the book, Oskar acknowledges his drunk dad as a kind of monster, but I don't think that particular side plot made it into the film.

It didn't.

[..] Oskar then does the exact same thing to Eli: a new ultimatum: If you care about me at all, come in without an invitation.
Now he can't understand the rules for vampires any more than he can understand his dad's alcoholism, but to him the choice is simple-SHOW ME YOU CARE. Eli does, and BOOM he's hers forever. Eli gets his heart because he passed the test that his father failed. Both are stupid requests, childish, selfish, but Eli came through when his dad didn't.

He might not understand addiction the way we do, but he can certainly understand its effects. As for not understanding vampires? Maybe you could say that about Oskar; as I understand it, vampires haven't enjoyed much popularity in Sweden. You can't say that about Owen, though. I knew more about vampires by the time I was twelve than I did about what makes the lights go on when you flip a switch.

About the dose of guilt from Owen's mom. From what I remember, the only spoken interaction between them consisted of Mom asking accusingly whether Owen has spoiled his dinner. It seems to me that Owen associates attention from his mom with accusations and thus feels guilt when talking to her, maybe because of his stealing and lying.

An interesting take, and one I'd never considered. Possibly it's even reinforcement of a phenomenon I'd read about in several places where children of divorcing parents feel guilty for the dissolution because they'd not been "good" enough or felt somehow otherwise responsible.