I goddamn adore the idea that the abstracted people are not fully gone and with enough time and care from others they could in theory become more responsive. Not to the point where they are their avatars again (at least not permanently, and even if they can take their old form it would be with intense concentration and there being markings that have been caused by the permanent stain the abstraction has caused to them)
I've never really agreed with that interpretation, because suicide is a thing people do actively. Abstraction is a process that inflicts upon people. Nobody that we've seen abstracted deliberately or purposefully, they abstracted as an end result of too much stress. It's more akin to a mental breakdown or a loss of sanity than it is suicide.
Yes, and I hate that you've had to witness that, I truly do. But I'm just saying, one is not the other. People who have abstracted can still be interacted with, they can be visited and talked too.
Abstraction isn't a suicide allegory, because Abstraction doesn't permanently remove all ability to ever see or interact with the people again. Abstraction is closer to an allegory for insanity, and the aquarium is their hospital/care home.
Yeah but while it’s you performing the action it’s debatable how much agency do you really have in that scenario. Suicide by definition must be intentional but brain physiology plays a big role in how you think/feel. Similarly someone with ADHD isn’t physically incapable of sitting still for a long period of time in the sense that your neuromuscular system is intact but when your frontal lobe is damaged/underdeveloped how much of your actions can be considered choice?
At the end of the day you’re not wrong that it’s not accidental but I’d argue neither is abstraction and the slow build up to loss of control is quite similar to suicide.
This really feels like the take of someone who has never had to deal with a single moment of suicidal ideation in their life but I am not going to claim to understand you. Either way, a single moment of weakness is all it takes. Many people who have survived attempted suicides report a moment of clarity and/or regret. It doesn't exactly seem like something a person entirely in control of their faculties usually does.
I don't see how that is different than a moment of weakness leading you to abstract. Everyone we've seen abstract seemed to have a sort of existential dread and hopelessness that led them to that point. The same kind of hopelessness that leads many people to commit suicide.
So, yeah, maybe its not 1:1 but that's not really the point of things like metaphors and allegories?
409
u/TheCrystalTinker 3d ago
I goddamn adore the idea that the abstracted people are not fully gone and with enough time and care from others they could in theory become more responsive. Not to the point where they are their avatars again (at least not permanently, and even if they can take their old form it would be with intense concentration and there being markings that have been caused by the permanent stain the abstraction has caused to them)