Why does Abby Undress in Owen's bedroom?

[Vilhelm77]

I apologize if this topic has been covered or if this in the wrong thread. I was unable find a satisfactory theory.

1.) In Owen's bedroom after Abby comes in the window, why does she undress? Was there blood on Abby's clothing? Confusing because then Abby doesn't or can't seem to wipe the blood from her face, which is why I guessed she didn't want Owen looking at her.

I've seen it implied that she's testing Owen, but I got the impression she needed comforting after her 'dad' died.

Thoughts appreciated.

Thanks.

[foxfire]

I think Abby undressed because her clothes were soaking wet from the snow.

[varamiglite]

I agree with Foxfire. In this case the simplest explanation is the best. I don't think there was any symbolism or testing. She was soaked and she was being considerate. Occam's Razor.

[Bustedstuff15]

I think this is Abby being considerate of Owen in her 12 year old vampire mind. Although she may not be bothered by the fact that her clothes are soaked and cold, she knows Owen is. So undressing seemed like the right thing to do even though its not normal for a 12 year old to get in bed naked with another. Thats where her innocence comes into play. I have heard people say this was a sexual scene but if you really look at it deeper its very innocent and sweet.

[sauvin]

In the following post, I make extensive reference to Eli. All of this discussion, IMO, is equally valid for Abby.

I agree with Foxfire. In this case the simplest explanation is the best. I don't think there was any symbolism or testing. She was soaked and she was being considerate. Occam's Razor.

Occam's Razor may not apply terribly well in either novel or movie form because simple things like nudity often serve multiple purposes

Not terribly sure yet what her nudity in the novel's bedroom scenes meant, but in the one where Oskar asks her to be his girlfriend, there was a back-and-forth give-and-take kind of thing going on where at one point Eli actually offers to "kiss" for a while. Read into that whatever you might, but I interpreted it to mean (1) Eli was trying to offer consolation (or mollification) after having initially declined to be his girlfriend, and (2) Eli knows very well what kinds of things might mollify a boy whose physical age has exceeded a certain point.

It's very hard to imagine Eli (movie or novel) actually shedding all her clothes just for the purpose of trying to seduce a boy who probably doesn't have that "smell" yet, the one that men can get when they're aroused and that Eli can undoubtedly detect. What's easier to believe is that she just didn't think about it at all, and had just been as considerate and respectful of Oskar's clean and orderly world.

The nudity in the movies wasn't actually needed. Eli could have stripped down to panties and/or a slip and the bedroom scene would have proceeded apace with scarcely any perceptible impact to the impression it gives, but there would have been subtle differences. The dimension Eli's nudity in this scene lent was a degree of emotional vulnerability.

On 29 August 2010 I made these remarks:

Her flight towards Oskar is fleeing chaos and seeking order. She doesn't exactly know what she's looking for, and has no idea what to expect; she has no idea what might even be possible. She knows only that Oskar's gentle, undemanding tolerance for her differences can bring immense comfort. Here, she thinks, is a friend who can sooth her frayed nerves and forestall a mounting emotional maelstrom for her. She's comfortable that interaction with Oskar isn't a game of emotional chess.

She believes he's nothing more than this, just a friend she's really comfortable with whose company she'll lose soon enough now that events in Blackeberg have begun to promise untenable threat.

The Eli who climbs in through Oskar's bedroom window tells herself she's shedding her clothes in order to avoid soiling Oskar's bedsheets, to avoid sliming her friend. Is she afraid he'd be mad at her, or is this genuine respect? She's just a kid, after all, and kids don't view these things the way we do, but I suspect it was a little bit of both.

I can remember voicing these thoughts before, but can't find them: her descent from the window and shedding her clothes was a descent from the heights of darkness and into relatively bright, clean and well-ordered human warmth. In dropping her clothes on the floor, a recently sated Eli can also drop her beast, at least for a time.

Does her nudity imply innocence? Somebody in this forum, commenting on my fanfic or one of the posts discussing it made this suggestion. The word "innocent" actually means "doing no harm", and while Eli certainly means no harm as she approaches Oskar's bed, I suspect that "naivete" would be a more appropriate word: for all that she has two hundred years of experience as a stone cold serial murderess, a corruptor and sometimes heartless exploiter of sad and broken old men and very likely a part-time child prostitute, she's also a newborn baby, hopelessly lost in the jungle of human experience and utterly defenceless against it in this moment. She doesn't even have enough guard up to avoid eating her friend, because it's unneeded at the moment.

Naive, innocent, vulnerable. All of these, and more. I think she's just as vulnerable and as open as it's possible for her to be, and I think it's possible she's never been more so in the entire time since her true childhood. She's not prepared for the abrupt challenge she's about to face.

and again (previously, rather) on 24 August 2010, in the same topic:

Very briefly, then, I'll touch upon nudity. It means being unprotected, literally so when we're talking about running off to the car in the wintertime to get something we forgot to bring in, and metaphorically when we're talking about some forms of nudity seen in films. The girl in Hitchcock's "Psycho" in the archetypal shower scene was vulnerable, not just because she was unclothed, unarmed and trapped in what should have been a protected inner sanctum, but because she was a bundle of jittery nerves in her flight from justice and towards her boyfriend (of whom she can't be sure) AND because she had no idea she'd attracted the amourous attention of the motel's owner and the hitchhiking supercop mother he carries around somewhere behind his frontal lobe. Alice (Resident Evil)'s nudity as she picks herself up off the floor of the shower after having been gassed is a metaphor for vulnerability not because some Bad Guy could just barge in and have his way with her, but because she doesn't know the Bad Guy would just wind up moaning on the floor in agony - if he survived. She's vulnerable because she doesn't know she's some kind of highly trained superninja "security operative"; she doesn't even know who she is, where she is or that she's been living at the mouth of [deleted] for the past little while.

Eli is vulnerable, too, and for similar reasons. Even completely nude, she's hardly physically vulnerable when she has here eyes, ears or nose open because hiding under her skin are fangs and claws that can shred half a platoon to ribbons in less than as many minutes. She's vulnerable because Oskar is taking her into an arena of human experience where she's just never been before, has no idea what the rules are, what's expected of her or what she can herself reasonably expect. Worse, while she doesn't say so outright in the novel (and not at all in the movie), she brings with her a number of expectations and fears that just don't apply to the situation. Her internal reactions, in other words, are completely inappropriate to the circumstances, and she doesn't even have the conditioning or experience to begin to guess just how wrong her reactions are. She's completely emotionally disarmed and unshielded.

I hope people will forgive me for quoting myself so shamelessly. It's late, I'm tired, and don't really see that my perspectives on this have changed enough since that time to merit editing or rewriting.

[DarkGuyver]

I think this is Abby being considerate of Owen in her 12 year old vampire mind. Although she may not be bothered by the fact that her clothes are soaked and cold, she knows Owen is. So undressing seemed like the right thing to do even though its not normal for a 12 year old to get in bed naked with another. Thats where her innocence comes into play. I have heard people say this was a sexual scene but if you really look at it deeper its very innocent and sweet.

I couldn't have said it better myself. Those who see this scene, which has a somewhat sexual nature are probably perverts to begin with. But from what I see it's nothing more than Abby seeking comfort from having lost her old friend, it is entirely innocent and sweet.

[Angelalex242]

Abby is more likely to have a bit of sexuality in mind then is Eli.

The major difference between Abby and Eli is that Abby is a true female, and Eli is the castrated Elias. That makes a difference.

Then again, Abby, like Eli, asks Owen if her nudity is 'gross.' That's more then the mentality of 'do I have cooties?"

As such, I tend to believe Abby is feeling 'inncoent', in that she has no naughty designs. She's old enough to kiss (she expected one before Owen was a moron and cut himself), but not old enough for more then that.

As such, I doubt she wanted anything more then human warmth. (Though it likely turned out to be a self control excercise. By human standards, it's like cuddling a sirloin steak at night.)

[drakkar]

Then again, Abby, like Eli, asks Owen if her nudity is 'gross.'

The way I got it it also could be that Eli/Abby was very cold. Oskar also slept in his panties, every kid did that back then - me too.
So it could be Eli was only mimicing Oskar's behaviour - after all Oskar taught her being human.
That rises the question how Eli could know Oskar was only in his panties under the duvet, but the bulleri bulleri bock in this very scene shows us they have been together when we werent watching.

[sauvin]

Abby is more likely to have a bit of sexuality in mind then is Eli.

The major difference between Abby and Eli is that Abby is a true female, and Eli is the castrated Elias. That makes a difference.

Then again, Abby, like Eli, asks Owen if her nudity is 'gross.' That's more then the mentality of 'do I have cooties?"

As such, I tend to believe Abby is feeling 'inncoent', in that she has no naughty designs. She's old enough to kiss (she expected one before Owen was a moron and cut himself), but not old enough for more then that.

As such, I doubt she wanted anything more then human warmth. (Though it likely turned out to be a self control excercise. By human standards, it's like cuddling a sirloin steak at night.)

I actually tend to agree with most of this, although claiming that Oskar or Owen was a "moron" for trying to suggest a blood pact misses the point a bit - both boys showed quite a bit of insecurity in insisting on "more" and "stronger" bonds than just being boyfriend/girlfriend on such short acquaintance. Both boys had been insanely lonely.

As for cuddling with a siroin steak at night, well... heh... either I'm hungry, or I'm not. If I am, the sirloin is already history, and if not, it's sitting in a fridge for when I am hungry again. Not much control here, and not much reason to try to exert any; it's unlikely you're going to be looking for any kind of relationship with said steak.

Abby does indeed appear to be a true female. The deleted scenes reinforce this impression. What's more, Moretz' Abby appears to have been turned after she'd begun puberty, whereas at least portions of Leandersson's Eli appear to have been filmed just prior to this stage of life. What's yet even more, Abby is just plain slinkier and looser in her manner of movement (Leandersson's Eli, to be perfectly blunt, was almost wooden and lifeless).

Does this mean that Abby would necessarily have been likelier to have something a bit less than completely innocent in mind? Depends on just how much "biology" she might have retained after having been turned, and it depends on just how much her 'biology" had truly started to wake up before her turning. Even if Abby had been a precociously raging nymphomaniac, if she's been through more than a couple of Thomas cycles, isn't it also possible she's actually fried out at the very idea of it, especially since she'd just! killed her long-term companion and sought out Owen's bed for solace, to grieve quietly?

[intrige]

Who said that Eli usally wore underwear? I don't see why he should really. Maybe that's why he by dressing off his pants and weather got completely nude. Because it wasn't more to dress off? XD
For Abby I would say it's rather different. I have no idea..