u/Nika_35_40

I also keep thinking about this: what if Niall hadn't been gay? Would people have seen it differently? Would the abuse have been considered more serious? Because he's gay and in love with Ruben, does it somehow seem less severe?

After reading so many comments about the characters' relationship, people romanticizing it, arguing over who was worse and who inflicted more harm (many even think Niall was worse), I can't stop wondering how different people's opinions would have been if the story had been about a man and a woman.

I really doubt people would have perceived love between them, empathized with Ruben, or claimed that Niall was the worse one or just as evil as his brother. And when I say this, I'm not just talking about other people—I include myself too. The thought that I might have experienced the series differently if the victim had been a woman honestly makes me feel awful.

And, to be fair, I did romanticize Niall and Ruben's relationship at first. It felt almost inevitable because of the constant homoerotic undertones. Later, though, I realized those moments were really meant to connect them through the way both of their traumas were expressed through sex.

I never saw Niall and Ruben as equally evil. I always empathized with both of them, and I never excused either of their actions. But I still can't stop thinking about how different our reactions might have been if this had been a story about a man and a woman—or if Niall had been a straight man instead of a gay one.

Their traumas are different, but in the end, their sexuality is what they have in common.

As an adult, Niall becomes addicted to it because it's the closest he can get to another man without openly acknowledging that he's gay. He even tells Gus: "I'm not gay because I have sex with men. I'm not in love with them." It's also his way of maintaining control and dominance in his relationships by always being the one on top.

For Ruben, it's the most intimate and affectionate thing he ever received from a man who supposedly "loved" him. That's why he resorts to that kind of sexual aggression toward Niall whenever he feels emasculated by him—it's his way of regaining control and asserting dominance.

Someone asked me in another post what my deal was with Richard and this show, so I felt the need to share my personal experience and explain why it has affected me so deeply.

To start with, I haven't been a victim of sexual abuse, but I was bullied for around fifteen years, and I didn't grow up in a healthy family environment. I found myself identifying deeply with both Niall and Ruben, although for different reasons.

With Niall, it's because I've always been a self-destructive person. At school, I was made to believe that I was the problem. Both boys and girls mocked my appearance, and I was physically assaulted. Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw a monster. I never loved or accepted myself, and over time I shaped my personality around pleasing other people.

Ever since I was very young, I've felt a great deal of empathy for animals and insects that everyone else hated. Looking back, I think they reflected how I saw myself: unwanted, ugly, and disgusting. I seriously considered suicide many times, and I constantly self-harmed because physical pain was the only thing that seemed to quiet the pain I felt inside.

My parents never noticed. They were too busy arguing. They either minimized what I was feeling or chose to look the other way. Home was never a safe place for me. I was also psychologically and physically abused by them.

I have a younger sister who is prettier and more outgoing than I am, and that filled me with envy for many years. We were both quite cruel to each other growing up. There were times when I took my anger out on her. I never seriously hurt her physically, but I used her as an emotional outlet for everything other people were doing to me, and afterwards I always felt guilty. She grew up resenting me because of it.

As I got older, I felt I became capable of empathizing with other people. I always gravitate toward those who are emotionally struggling, taking on their problems because that's what I wish someone had done for me. But many times I wonder whether that empathy is truly genuine, or whether it's simply my way of trying to fill my own emptiness.

I've hurt many people throughout my life, and sometimes I feel that, deep down, I have as little regard for others as I have for myself.

As for Ruben, although I'm not an impulsive person, I recognized myself in his outbursts of anger. While I have occasionally reacted physically, I've always managed to stop myself. But the distance between what I actually do and what I sometimes feel like doing is frighteningly small.

I've had terrible thoughts, and as difficult as it is to admit, there have been many times when my deepest wish was for everyone to die. I've fantasized about committing horrific acts. For years I became obsessed with violence and with films and documentaries about it. I watched gore movies constantly, and instead of making me feel disgusted, they fed those fantasies.

Please, if you're reading this, don't judge me. We can't always control what we feel, but we can control what we do.

My father took his own life six years ago. Even though my mother denies it, I feel that I was partly responsible for his suicide, and I can't stop thinking about the irony that when I was fifteen, I almost took my own life because of my parents, but I didn't. Whether it was cowardice, guilt, or something else, I don't know. But he did. He left, and I've been carrying this unbearable weight ever since.

I feel a mixture of emotions toward my family that I still can't untangle: love and hatred, admiration and envy. Exactly like in the show.

Today I'm thirty-four years old. I have a partner, a good job, and a much better relationship with my mother and my sister. But that love-hate feeling is still there, buried somewhere very dark inside my chest. I don't know what to do with all that resentment. I still see a monster whenever I look in the mirror. I still can't accept myself, and nothing I have seems to make me happy.

I'm still a self-destructive person. I smoke, I drink, I don't feel well physically, and I don't really care. Sometimes I still self-harm when I'm at my lowest, but if you met me, you'd never guess. No one ever does.I hide. I make myself small beneath this shell I call a body. I suppose it's because I don't want to hurt anyone, and because I don't want people to see how I really feel. To show vulnerability.

If I'm alive, that's okay. But I also feel that if someone told me I was going to die tomorrow, I'd be at peace with that too.

That's why this show hit me so hard, just like other films and TV series have before. I feel that becoming obsessed with fictional stories is both a way of escaping my own reality and, strangely enough, a way of understanding it more deeply.

I've also loved writing ever since I was a child, just like Niall. People always told me I had real talent for it, but obviously I never became anything. I love art too, but because I never feel good enough, I always abandon everything halfway through.

For years I've had the idea of writing a book about my life—about what I did, what I truly felt, and the things I believed I was capable of doing. This show, just like Baby Reindeer and others before it, has pushed me toward finally writing it.

I've never done it because of fear. Maybe because I'm afraid no one would ever read it, but even more because I'm terrified of what people would think of me if I exposed myself like that. Some of the ideas I've had are probably even darker than what Half Man portrays, and I don't know if I'm ready to make myself that vulnerable.

I'd also have loved to create a TV series one day, but I simply don't have the means to do it.

I've seen people here who have interviewed Richard, and I'd absolutely love the chance to interview him myself because I have so many questions I'd genuinely like to ask. The problem is that I have no idea how I'd even go about it. And I'm Spanish, and my English isn't very good, so I suppose that's probably impossible.

If you've read all the way to the end, thank you, sincerely. I'd really appreciate hearing your thoughts, or reading about your own experiences if any part of my story resonated with you.

Am I the only one who noticed that at the beginning of the final scene, Ruben tries to choke Niall with one hand while reaching down with the other? I took it as him intending to sexually assault Niall, but then Niall resists, and Ruben ends up using both hands to strangle him instead.

From the very first episode, I had a feeling the story was building toward Ruben raping and killing Niall, although I honestly thought the death would be accidental. After episode five, though, I became convinced he was going to kill him intentionally.

Throughout the series, there are several moments of sexual abuse from Ruben that seem to foreshadow something like that. Even so, I always thought it would either be an attempt that Niall would fight off, or that it wouldn't become an explicit rape scene. I'm genuinely glad it didn't.

The death scene already felt long and incredibly brutal despite how sudden it was. I can't imagine how much more disturbing it would have been if Ruben had gone further. I think it would have genuinely traumatized me.

The way the scene is filmed suggests that intention without fully following through. In the end, what happens feels more like a sexual assault over the clothes. I'm honestly grateful it didn't go beyond that.

I also liked the way the ending intertwined violence and sexuality. It made the scene even more shocking, especially coming right after the prison scene, where they look at each other with so much tenderness and understanding.

I'm not sure if Richard has ever talked about this in an interview, but it's something I've been wondering about. He seemed to turn pain and jealousy into anger, but I'm still curious about what he found so difficult to express that he kept resorting to those more primal growls instead of words.

I don't remember him doing it when he was younger. It seems to become much more frequent in adulthood: when he hugs Niall in episode four, at the end of the series when Niall confesses his love to him, and I also noticed he does it a lot while beating Niall in the final episode, when Niall is lying on the ground.

I've seen a lot of comments asking why Niall says that to Ruben while he's opening up about the abuse he suffered from his father. People say he should have listened and that he was being selfish.

I interpreted it differently. I think Niall says "it's too much" right after Ruben admits that he sometimes climaxed during the abuse, because that hits very close to home for him. We see something similar happen to Niall in the first episode when Ruben strangles him—he climaxes against his own will. Hearing Ruben describe that experience forces Niall to confront something deeply personal and traumatic that he has experienced himself.

So I don't think Niall was being selfish or uncaring in that moment. I think he was simply overwhelmed because Ruben had unknowingly touched on something that resonated with his own trauma.

I thought having them both die was the perfect ending for the series, but I felt Ruben's reaction after Niall's death was too detached considering how much they meant to each other. I mean, it was clear he went there intending to kill him, so there was never really going to be any other outcome. But I expected that, after actually doing it and realizing he was completely alone, he'd have a much more emotional and intense reaction.

My interpretation is that maybe Ruben seemed so indifferent because, by that point, he was no longer capable of feeling anything after losing everything. Or perhaps he had idealized Niall for so long that, once he discovered his brother's betrayal, he saw him for who he really was for the first time. All the qualities Ruben believed Niall possessed simply vanished, as if he were meeting him for the first time.

In the end, they were everything to each other. Their love was toxic, unhealthy, and intertwined with hatred, but it was still love. The hug they shared in the hospital felt completely genuine and heartfelt. That's why Ruben's reaction at the end doesn't quite fit for me.

It happens very rarely that a TV series or a film hits me that hard, but both of Richard's shows stayed in my mind for a long time after I watched them, and I've rewatched both several times. There's something about the way he writes his characters that makes me feel deeply attached to them.

Does anyone else feel the same way? Any recommendations for shows with similar themes or that are just as gripping?

Basically, if Ava hadn't interrupted them in the street when Ruben was trying to pull Niall's trousers down... do you think he would have actually been capable of doing something to him? Or was it just a threat meant to scare and humiliate him?

Ruben felt emasculated by Niall in that moment, so he attacked him in that way to assert his masculinity and dominance. But would he have gone any further?

The fact that Ruben seemed to have suspicions about Niall's sexuality from early on makes me think he may have suspected there was something going on between Niall and Albi as well. During the bottle game, when Albi arrives, Ruben looks at both of them and notices Niall's discomfort before inviting Albi to join in.

Then in episode 5, he tells Niall that he found his bathrobe on the floor and that it smelled like another man, but he didn't know whose scent it was. I mean, he knows what Niall smells like, doesn't he? It feels like he may have had his suspicions.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I wonder whether Richard intentionally left it ambiguous so that viewers would consider that possibility.

It would be interesting if someone asked him about this in an interview.

What do you all think?

After watching the series a couple of times, I have a theory that they were both struggling with the same traumas.

Niall spent his whole life hiding his homosexuality and battling his internalized homophobia, but he was also being sexually, psychologically, and physically abused by Ruben.

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Ruben spent his whole life trying to rebuild himself in order to compensate for the abuse he suffered from his father, but I feel that his feelings for Niall went beyond brotherhood or friendship. I think he was also attracted to him and felt that kind of love for him.

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So I believe he was struggling with the idea of being attracted to his brother in that way, and because of his view of what it meant to be a man, he couldn't accept or understand those feelings for Niall.

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Ruben tells Niall that he has spent his whole life following in other people's footsteps instead of his own, but later he admits that he has spent his entire life constructing himself as a man in order to compensate for what his father did to him (having a wife, a child, being a provider).

Was that really what he wanted? Or was it what he believed he was supposed to be?

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It's just a theory, and Richard has hinted that they may indeed have had those kinds of feelings for each other, so...

I'd love to hear your thoughts. ✌️

I'm curious because the series never really tackles that subject. They have several conversations throughout the story, yet Ruben's repeated assaults (making Niall lose his virginity, the attack in the hospital, and the one on the pavement) seem to go completely unaddressed by both of them, almost as if they were normal. But it's obvious that Niall is hurt by those experiences and haunted by them.

I think it would have been interesting if they had talked about it in the final barn scene, even if the outcome of their conversation had ended up being the same.

I also wonder if Richard did this deliberately, because in real life many cases of abuse are ignored, minimized, or never openly discussed.

Yes, I know that in prison he told Niall that he didn't care if he was gay or if he was with Albi, and I do believe him when he says that. But considering his personality, how possessive he was, and his need to feel needed by Niall, I have my doubts that he would have been completely comfortable with Niall being with Albi.

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We also don't know whether Ruben felt something "romantic" for Niall (for lack of a better word), but even if that wasn't the case, I still feel like he wouldn't have taken it very well. Another man would have been taking his place, perhaps?

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In the same way that he had always suspected Niall was gay, he may also have suspected that there was something between him and Albi. In fact, during the spin-the-bottle game, when Albi walks in, Ruben looks at both of them and invites Albi to join. Sometimes I wonder if he didn't just hit Albi because he pushed his brother — maybe there was an element of jealousy there as well.

What do you think?

I'm not sure whether Richard Gadd has confirmed if Ruben had planned it or if he has spoken about the subject at all. I keep thinking about how Ruben tended to turn all of his emotions into anger, although it's also true that he sometimes acted with premeditation.

Do you think anything would have changed if Niall hadn't refused to talk about Mona? Or was Ruben looking for answers?

A few weeks ago I had the HBO app open and a preview for Half Man came up with a barn scene that I'm pretty sure I haven't seen in the series. The shot showed Niall lying on the ground, crawling backwards with a surprised look on his face. He didn't have any blood on his face, so I assume it was before Ruben hit him. Does this scene ring a bell for anyone else? Have you seen it?

That's it! I'm interested in hearing your opinions. I'd also be interested to know whether you're a man or a woman.

I know Richard Gadd has said that he has no intention of making a second season, and that both characters are dead. Even so, I can't stop thinking about this series. It left me wanting more, and I keep wondering whether another season could have worked.

I missed having part of the story told from Ruben's perspective. We would have learned much more about him, since many of his feelings and motivations remain ambiguous.

There are also a lot of time jumps, and there are many moments I would have liked to see explored in greater detail. At the same time, it's true that the ending could have been interpreted in many different ways.

Some people thought the wedding was actually Niall's book, and others even believed that Niall never left the psychiatric hospital and that everything was his imagination.

I was also puzzled by the mother appearing at the wedding in her pajamas. I assume that was a deliberate choice to make us question whether the ending might have another interpretation.

If you think the story could continue, what do you think it would look like?

And don't get me wrong—I think the ending is brilliant. But I also think a second season could have been great.

After Niall's final confession, I knew it was going to end that way, but it still hit me hard to see Ruben kill him like that, suffocating him while looking him in the eyes, and everything that led up to it. Forcing him to confess, lifting his skirt, hugging him and telling him he wanted to hear it one last time before losing him forever, making him think he meant that he was getting married when he already knew he was going to kill him.

Coming after the prison scene, where they were confessing things to each other, laughing, and Ruben was looking at him with such tenderness, it was especially shocking. Not to mention that the scene carries a sexual undertone. At the beginning, it almost seemed as if Ruben was going to rape him (when he rocks over him and keeps one hand low), and by the end it's strongly implied that Niall has climaxed, and I think Ruben may have as well.

All of that, after Ruben had confessed that his father abused him and left him emotionally broken, makes the whole thing feel incredibly cruel and violent.

I can't get that scene out of my head.

I've been thinking a lot about that part of the conversation where Ruben asks how long it took Niall to take what belonged to him, and Niall replies that he doesn't want to talk about it. Ruben then says that he doesn't have to talk, only listen. But the conversation is left hanging and they never address it again.

Why do you think Niall refused to confront it? Was it shame? Or maybe he didn't want to touch on the subject of Ruben's abuse towards him, which is another issue that often gets overlooked.

Was Ruben genuinely looking for an explanation, or would he have killed him regardless?