u/No_Incident_8489

Both Manousos and Zosia receive wounds to the back for reasons related to Carol. What’s up with that? Thought it was an interesting visual rhyme. Feels Catholic somehow. Anyway, have at it.

edit: the differences between their wounds are also cool to think about—Manousos is wounded by thorns from the natural world, bacteria from earth, on his own, while Zosia is wounded by the leftover weaponry of the old human world, and the accidental/thoughtless actions of another human being.

Also, re: Catholicism, just copying here this quote I found from a Vulture interview with Carlos-Manuel Vesga (Manousos’s actor):

“Catholicism was quite an element in the equation. This guy has an image of the Holy Virgin hanging from the rearview mirror of his car, and that says a lot! Maybe he’s not praying all the time, but he grew up with that and still has a certain connection to that. Catholicism has a lot to do with suffering, and suffering as a way of purifying yourself and getting to Heaven. There’s many kinds of Catholics, but I grew up with the kind of Catholic that accepts that life is hardship and suffering and strife, and in a way, that makes it worth living. I don’t think he approaches suffering and strife in the same way as other people who haven’t had that Catholic thing given to them from birth. It’s a way of seeing life in which you go, This is hard, but life is hard.

I would be speculating, but the fact that he has had to leave his home before tells us that he’s been on the ropes. I don’t think he’s had to eat dog food before, but he probably knows about hunger. He probably knows about lacking resources and having to adapt to whatever comes up. He has been tested. And this time around, he’s trying to right a very big wrong. You could read something about martyrdom in Manousos. He cauterizes his wounds from the Chunga tree, and that image of somebody going like this [mimics holding a machete against his back, as Manousos does on the show], for a Catholic or someone thinking about Catholicism, reminds people of self-flagellation. He’s kind of a martyr for humanity, right?”

I know some people might have a combo or overlap of the below options / Reddit polls are not an exact science, so just pick whatever and clarify in the comments. But thought it could be fun to see based on these basic categories I’ve encountered through the years!

edit: given how many are picking the fiction/media/history option I thought it’d be fun to share this exploration of transmasc names from Magnus Hirschfeld’s early 1900s “Urnish People: Causes and Nature of Uranism”:

“The Uranians also have analogous names in their circles, especially in their pubs, of which there are also a number of them.
Only, in contrast to men, one usually finds simple given names, rarely surnames that refer to some special characteristic of the person who wears them; Monosyllabic names are preferred, such as Fritz, Heinz, Max, Franz, especially Hans; but there are also those who are called Arthur, Edmund, Theo, Oskar, Roderich, Rudolf.
A remarkable number of names of Uranians have been taken from history and literature; I mention Berliners: Napoleon, Nero, Caesar, Heliogabal, Caligula, Antinous, Gregor, Carlos, Posa, Mortimer, Götz, Tasso, Egmont, Armin, Teja, Blücher, Ofterdingen, Karl Moor, Franz Lerse, Jörn Uhl, Don Juan, Puck and hiddigeigei.”

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