u/SisterFirefly

His hope was the information on the blood. Humanity aren’t going to find take a fight to an ignorant god. They aren’t going to reverse what happened in the Quiet Rapture. The CoI were hoping to find resources to replace the lost food and water and power.

What Simon discovered with the black boxes is that the blood is humanities salvation. It’s a food source. There’s no planets or stars to replace crops and vegetation and animals. There’s no rushing waters or rivers to drink from. But there’s the blood.

Humanity will be dead in a generation without a new source of food. Like Ava kept reminding Simon, it was bigger than both of them. It was worth it. It was hope. Getting the information that the blood is a resource was worth dying for. There’s nutrients in the blood. There’s oxygen in the blood. It’s salvation. It’s a future. And Simon secured it for humanity. He won.

But Ellie knew what that future meant. It meant becoming like her. One of the crew drank the blood and she was the result. Simon got the blood in his eye and started becoming like her. He even saw a future glimpse of what that would look like. So is it truly salvation? Humanity has a food source, but they will mutate into something not even vaguely human. Continued existence and defying existence, at the cost of becoming something monstrous.

It may not be ALL bad, you can hear your loved ones in the Blood, like Simon did with his mother. It’s a way for humanity to reunite with itself.

So I ask you, did Simon truly do the right thing at the end of the story? Was his choice to let the CoI view the black box contents and discover the blood is edible the right one? Is any kind of existence truly better than oblivion regardless of circumstance? Because whilst the CoI may fight against drinking the blood knowing they’ll become like Ellie for a time, but as resources dwindle and food runs out, it’s eventually going to be the only option left. Simon has indirectly handed the CoI a poisoned chalice with the information he recovered. Ava didn’t know what the blood was capable of when she fought hard to release the black box information. Simon did. What happens to humanity now is his fault. His cross to bear.

But hey, he gave the human race a chance to survive when previously they had none. That’s better than nothing……..right?

“They said, ‘Hey, we want you to be an Asian redneck.’ Okay, what do you think of? I think of rodeos. I think of NASCAR. I think of Dukes of Hazard and General Lee. I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, I’m an Asian redneck, so I gotta wear the Confederate flag on the back of my vest and go out there.’ But if anybody knows what that symbolizes, it’s God awful and it’s horrible. I wish I would’ve not done that.

Undertaker is the one that told me. He saw me wearing it and was like, ‘Jimmy, take that f*cking sh*t off!’ I said, ‘Really? I’m playing a character, an Asian redneck. He said, ‘That sh*t means some horrible sh*t. Take it off.’ Alright. Then I take it off and they said, ‘Hey, where’s your jacket at? Your vest?’ I was all, ‘Undertaker told me to take it off.’ They said, ‘Okay.’”

My all time favourite is in the Japanese 1998 Ring movie. Early on when Reiko watches the cursed videotape for the first time in the cabin and for a single shot, only a second or two, Sadako can be seen standing behind Reiko in the reflection of the TV screen. It’s pretty subtle and I missed it for years when I first saw it. Chills everytime. Tons of horror movies/shows have had “hidden” scares over the decades though. So let’s hear your favourite examples.