All the singing the love shown, the small talk in the village, the pageantry and encouragement. Then right after them all getting up and walking off as if it was all a show hits hard. Do you think that she is now just data and that her brain is just another CPU of a supercomputer? Is she only ever spun up and emulated if the hive mind needs to use it for propaganda for an uninfected person?
Yeah, the worst part is she was convinced to join because she wanted to be with her family and experience what they did. And to see how they all just walked away from each other quietly after it was done was so…. cold and depressing. Pure inhumane.
Note that her siblings or what even pretended to talk to each other about the blue sky. Like they are still normal people. Until the charade wasnt needed anymore.
I believe it was her aunt and cousin to be precise.
The little goat running after her but being too scared to keep following was so heartbreaking
Poor goat is gonna get snatched by an eagle
The goat and dog i think mean something. That they arent what they say. They love life or whatever of all beings, but don't have the compassion of a pet relationship. I remember reading a theory that sociopaths dont have the ability to have any meaningful pet relationship, I think thats what's going on with the plurbs. Like yes they have one dog in that stadium but its not like the human was connected anymore at all, the dog still was to the human and was thirsty for interaction that it finally and only received from Carol
That’s a good theory! And it was as if she was walking away from her humanity when she left the goat and dogs are supposed to be “man’s best friend” they no longer have friends. There’s no intimacy or confiding because they are really all one being
i don't think the goat was scared, lol. like i don't think the goat would have interpreted the situation anywhere close to how a human would understand it. i think it just realized she wasn't paying attention to it / didn't respond anymore.
Devil’s (plurb’s) advocate: they don’t need to talk to communicate. Still agree that the scene accomplishes what you’re describing really well
Oh yes, that’s true. But again shows how not-human they are now.
Yeah it's always unnerving how cold and calculating the hive is when they're not putting on a show for an unjoined person.
Really hope we get an un-plurbing in S2, to get some insight on what it's like physically/mentally for an individual in the hive. Or if it's just nothing, effectively like you die when you join the Hive.
My worry is that the person might still be aware inside. If that's the case, I think the main goal should be stopping the spread of the signal, not reversing it, as the vast majority of people would probably be insane or catatonic by this point if that's the case.
Yep we're only seeing the outside, they could be having a big ol' hive town psychic hoedown.
For me it was when she just left the baby goat.
Yes but also they only communicate to carry out the tasks of staying alive and functioning. They no longer have any individuality so they wouldn't be making small talk with each other.
That we know of
We do not know that; people are assuming that, even though the language in the show is inconsistent.
They don’t even need culture or physical closeness to feel the deepest connection.
Counter, they don’t communicate, it’s one. At most maybe they process between brains lol
I think they were saying her family was talking to make things look more normal?
Almost……alien, you might say.
Also, the poor traumatized goat 😢
Her holding the young goat in the pen was such a metaphor for how the hive saw her. Literally the hive watching her in the pen.
The goat bleating and confused! 😔
Temba, his arms wide!
then they were all "Mirab, with sails unfurled"
Dathan and Picard at El-Adrel
Shaka, when the bolt-gun struck
I got so unreasonably choked up when that goat chased after her
Same. It really did something to me.
it reminded me of my cat :(
Yes they allowed here to keep the domestic animals to keep here calm, i thought they wouldn’t allow that! Those domestic chickens are going to be something’s lunch very quickly.
I pointed this out in another post last week after the scene with the dog. There was also a scene in the second episode where someone mentions The Others letting all the zoo animals out.
It's kind of a loophole to "do no harm". They can't directly kill anything but abandoning animals that are normally cared for by people is sentencing many to a miserable death- so they're indirectly harming the animals. I imagine a lot of house plants got abandoned and will die despite them not being able to "pick an apple".
And then the "antenna the size of Africa". Where are they building this that won't harm animals or plants?
Maybe it's the writers way of showing The Others aren't as harmless as they make themselves. Or maybe all the animal stuff is going to play into something more.
I bet they're allowed to harm animals or plants as long as it's they're following their primary "biological imperative" after all they did murder 10% of the world when they knew the forced joining would cause it.
The only plausible way to build an antenna remotely that big is as an array in space. If they're sticking to reality, then that's what we'll see them doing.
100% it will be built in space. Maybe the moon
ah perfect, with the whole world controlled with all the materials in the world they could totally just chill on the moon and do whatever they want and build the biggest antenna ever
You could build a big ass antenna array and get similar results.
I read this and couldn't help visualising a big array of ass antennas.
Yes that’s going to be interesting to see, how they are going to achieve it!
Not to mention that, essentially, the RNA or whatever is going to passively kill its hosts through starvation before spreading to another galaxy. In a weird way, it’s accomplishing its goal to continue spreading as long as it gets them to build that antenna.
It seems to me the little goat was expecting the girl to pick her up to her arms as she used to do, but to my eyes, the little girl was empty of feelings and unaffected by the sight of the baby goat, and phased out completely, tuned to the hive mind already
This 💯💯💯
That's the point, it is all a show, a means to an (the) end. All of zosia's bullshit, it's all meant to manipulate the immune. Once the immunes are absorbed no one will ever speak, write, sing, converse, hug, kiss handshake ever again. It only becomes about the signal, millions will starve off with a crazy smile on their face. Everything dies, hope, art, nuance, creation, the only thing that will matter is the signal
this words my horror with the hive mind perfectly. it’s infuriating seeing most of the survivors let the hive manipulate them into not grasping the fact that this is the complete death of individuality, personal passion, love, EVERYTHING human. the fact that every victim being puppetted will starve just makes a bad situation worse
manousos is such a champion. i thought carol had an okay middle-ground going until she got manipulated into comfort like everyone else. manousos’ extreme individualism that he was fully willing to die for in the darien will be what saves humanity
Carol FAFO. (As it were)
FZFO
Bro.... 100% could not of said it better myself. Thank you for saying what I was trying to say better!!
Bros prob typing this from a place with internet access… I’m sure if you go to some war torn countries those kids would rather be plurbed than continue being human 😭😭everyone’s equal the appeal (btw I would not want to be plurbed but that’s because I live in first world country and well to do)
It’s wild Carol is not noticing this or saying this. How was this not her argument to the other survivors?!
Because she is dealing with her own grief as well. This is a multiple stages of denial. Anger, depression, acceptance and then well probably fight but we will see.
She lost her planet her life and her partner.
I think Carol is dealing with her own form of denial in the face of the sublimation of humanity. She managed to preserve one O'Keeffe painting at least. I wish she would set about a project with the plurbs though. Since they must please her she could ask them to start a project to preserve the works of humanity, or to somehow build the world in an way that is even better for humanity if it ever returns.
So is the message of the show that, of the survivors, only one or two of them are smart enough to realize this is a bad thing? And one of them is from the US?
It’s not smarts, most of them probably “know” with varying amounts of lying to themselves to cope with it all
I think the message of the show is that humanity is messy, it's not efficient. Creating something worth creating causes emotion, which isn't efficient. Empathy and efficiency isn't the end game of humanity. We need the messy to truly live other wise we're destined to consensus and consensus is the death of thought
That’s the frustrating part of the show and the only thing I don’t really believe.
I don’t know that it’s only one or two of them, I’m waiting to see where the story goes. I think Mr Diabate will hold out because he doesn’t want to join, he’s enjoying life, and Laxmi will not join out of protection for her son from starvation. The hive might find workarounds like they did for carol but I don’t see them giving up their stem cells any time soon.
And then after theyve built a huge satellite and sent off the signal into space they will sit quietly until they die smiling
It’s funny because we effectively seen them do this already when Diabaté had the hive mind recreate a movie scene for him. It hits so much harder because this is someone’s family and culture they are faking and not just a movie. But in the end that is what the Hive is doing, pretending until the moment they do not need to any more.
Perfectly depicted in the Peru scene. The music stops, the fire put out, and everyone leaves, probably to work in the milk factory.
She is one with the Borg. The part that really made me sad was, on Air Force 1 she said she couldn't "be with her aunties", she wanted to join and be like them and be with them. And when she joined, she walked off to nothingness, to clean up dead bodies somewhere? They wandered away as well. The hive doesn't love you, they're just waiting for you to turn.
Given what Vince has said about the hive, I think it's a bit of both. They do genuinely love the uninfected. We could debate about the nature of love and what it means, but at the very least, the hive thinks they do. It's not pure manipulation.
But they also know the uninfected are a huge threat to their plans. They know there's a way to reverse the joining and know that if any uninfected people exist, they might discover and implement it.
For a hive mind with an imperative to spread everywhere, the threat of not only not spreading, but reversing would feel like an existential threat and they would do anything to prevent it. Hence love bombing the shit out of Carol with her ideal fantasy woman.
But that doesn't mean everything the hive in the form of Zosia is doing is a lie either. For example, I don't think plurb-Zosia is thinking, "God I fucking hate this bitch" the whole time she's galivanting around with her. Yes, it's manipulation to keep Carol happy until they can turn her, but it's also real on some level to them. They do love her, just like they admitted they love Manousos the same way (which really crushed Carol - loved her acting in that scene, especially how she had difficulty putting her relationship with Zosia into words).
I think it’s as simple as the hive, because the virus itself isn’t human, feels love in a different way, or because it’s only capable of experiencing positive emotions, perceives it as love. It feels pleasure, similar to how people feel when they have sex. Like how animals are rewarded with “happy chemicals” like Carol and Zosia discussed at the end of the finale, the virus is coded to do the same thing when it wants to spread. It’s rewarding itself for befriending and turning the survivors.
To them, it is love.
Exactly. Like I said, we can debate the nature of love and what the hive is "feeling" when it claims to love the uninfected, but from the hive's perspective, I don't think they are lying when they say they love the uninfected.
Remember, part of the hive's directives is that they can't lie. So even if we make the case that what they are feeling isn't "real" love in a human sense, it still feels real to the hive, or they wouldn't be able to say it.
Beautifully put!
I feel like their own explanation makes perfect sense: if someone is drowning you just save their lives, you don't get consent first. They see them as people in profound suffering e.g. someone actively on fire, and they're just putting out that fire. Their "love" is patronizing - the way they show love is by making you like them, their interactions are to facilitate that outcome.
When Carol found out they loved Manousos it reminded me of the movie Her when the Joaquin Phoenix character finds out Samantha the AI is in "love" with hundreds of other people.
Yes the acting is amazing
I think it's pure manipulation after everything they have put Carol through & the difference of how they treated Manousos last episode. The Plurbs' choices are very deliberate. They "care" and "love" you as a potential being that needs to live and placate so they can spread & infect. Nothing more. So until you join, they will take "care" of you with all these facades of normalcy. I knew the second Kusimayu was down that they would all stop talking & abandon the village. They "love" themselves & anything that can become them.
The hive can’t love, or want, or hate, or get angry. They can’t even get hungry or annoyed.
They don’t “love” Carol. Their directive is to assimilate her, because she is a threat to their survival and expansion. They use the word “love” because it has meaning to survivors like her, and they need to keep her happy until they can assimilate her.
I think they maybe do “love” her in some way from their perspective, definitely different than humans love each other (and the survivors definitely ought to keep that in mind), but you could argue human love is also “just” some evolutionarily advantageous chemical process.
I think it’s closer to want than love. The way Zosia scientifically explained happiness made me sure that human emotions are completely beyond them.
But their project won’t really work without her, and she has proven to be an active danger to them, so they have to enlist her. With or without her consent, this is the goal.
inI don't think the fact they want to assimilate them contradicts with them loving them. they are a new entity with probably a different way of consciousness. if they are convinced their life feels wonderful doesn't mean it doesn't feel good and they are not able to love. we see individuals smile without immunes around.
It’s like an ‘attract more flies with honey than you can with vinegar’ approach. My dad said me this my whole life.
zosia saying that felt very Her (the movie) to me
Great reference. I've seen the movie, but didn't make that connection until now.
There is one.
It's killing all of humanity now before they can make the antenna.
It is harder without nuclear weapons, but asking the Hive to set up bombs in all of their best places to set-up and power the antenna will force them to recognize that the last bits of true humanity hate them utterly, and they should just go and die.
And they didn't even get a machine gun early to in the season
I somehow honestly don't see it going this way, at least not this outright hostile from the hive. I think how the writers will tackle this inevitable conflict will be carried out way cleverer with plenty of manipulation and finding loopholes to refuse helping the immune in some way and sabotaging them in creative ways. The plurbs just going "let's kill em" would be way too boring and quick.
The point is that the humans can reverse the Joining by killing enough of the Joined, or at least prevent the Hive from getting its reproductive goal of spreading the virus into spaces unknown, while obeying its non-violence drive. by killing enough Joined.
You can easily kill a honey bee hive by killing 10% of the worker during the winter months, and they won't have enough heating capacity to not be mostly dead by winter's end, and not have enough workers to restart the queen reproducing workers properly.
Oh,
it's not the plurbs deciding to kill the other side.
It's the immune that do it.
Why? Because the immune consider the Joined already dead, and value the worlds that might get infected.
Immune already know that cross species cross world infection is possible, and decide to help people thst can never know find a better way to be civil than as suicidial deluded hosts of a virus.
Or to corner it into it like Carol :(
Everything they do is against the humans' wishes. They didn't once ask for permission. They do lie, that part was a lie.
Yes and also the old isolate and love bomb, the manipulation is some masterful writing
I was questioning why those two women were talking to each other at the fence. After they infected her, I had my answer. It was performative BS to maintain her sense of normalcy until she succumbed. I immediately felt completely grossed out.
I personally think she and her memories are just part of the data that makes up the hive mind. Even if she’s needed to convert someone else in the future, the essence of her (her personality) is no longer there, as evidenced by the way she walks away from the goat. She’s a meat puppet now.
It was like the scene at the diner in the last episode with Carol. The hivemind put on a show complete with background chatter, cars driving by, it’s all a manipulation tactic and the moment she left everything stopped
There was even a car in the background that stopped driving the minute carol stopped paying attention and got pissed!
I also found the symbolism of her deeply caring for the goat pre-plurb, compared to her walking away from it nonplussed post-plurb was very telling. Literally stripped of her humanity.
Anyone else feel bad for the baby goat?
I don't want to know anyone who didn't feel at least a pang for that little guy
This scene was hard to watch for that reason. And the little goat chasing after her not understanding that’s she’s gone.
I made myself feel better by telling myself that at least the little baby goat had its mama in the background
That was the saddest part
I think a lot of of us knew that was going to happen, but it still really smarted. (One of the reasons it was so clear is that they made such a big deal about the singing and everything else was so prominent. They aren't just going to play villager, that doesn't get an antenna the size of Africa built.)
It really threw a cream pie in the face of all the people on Reddit saying that the hive would be great, it's a new stage in our evolution, it's peace and love and harmony, that humans are the problem.
We don't know if the infected are put into hibernation mode, or if they are experiencing everything in real time, or if their memories are just downloaded, and then they are essentially deleted off the hardware.
The hive would effectively be the death of all art and culture on the entire planet.
While it doubtlessly has the technical skills to write, paint and make music, and has the memory of cultural traditions, it evidently has no interest in doing these things as it would just optimise for efficiency in the absence of an audience.
Right, and it already is. The whole protecting Georgia O'Keeffe's paintings thing made me think, "for whom?"
Calling it a stage in evolution has got to be one of the worst takes I’ve heard. Evolution to not being able to defend yourself or eat properly? So we evolve to be invalids? Just absolutely misunderstanding what evolution is. Imo the virus is the great filter. Very clear that humanity will build a giant antenna and then die out.
They said it was like a virus at the beginning didn’t they, virulent viruses can kill the hosts as they are not themselves alive.
Evolution is change over generations, it doesn't have to be positive or helpful. Like the moths that evolved to be white that started being outbred by black moths when the industrial revolution covered everything with coal dust. Both moths are part of evolution.
And to be even more semantic, this occurring to individuals rather than offspring makes it mutation.
Very good points. Thanks. I should have specified that evolution doesn’t occur all at once.
Ya I mean isn’t it like that classic movie trope? If aliens ever were to make contact with the purpose of eradicating us, thousands would be there to greet them with open arms/join them before knowing their motives/intentions?
always a good day every time the "hivemind is good actually" crowd gets egg on their faces.
NPCs.
Non-Player Cannibals.
The goat from Severance doing overtime
Apple is pro goats
There was one in Foundation, too!
Yes, and when Zosia told Carol she could call her to learn how happy she is, Carol saw right through that. That was the start of her journey back to Manousos. The egg backstab was just the final (albeit structural significant) nail.
Carol also found out that the real Zosia was probably straight which also ruined the facade. I agree the eggs were the last straw, thankfully. Fuck they had me too until the opening scene, and I was like, oh yeah, they only care about joining.
Yep.
Best cold open of the season
Gonna feel like a long wait till season 2
I found the scene so heartbreaking. The way she cradled the goat so lovingly before she joined, because it was a source of love and comfort. And then after, she was happy to just walk away from it all. Who she had been was gone.
100% Got me too :(
And then the baby goat jumps to the top of the box so that it can see her as she goes.
Really shows you the virus is a body snatching alien.
Exactly. Most likely designed to eventually wipe out intelligent life, leaving all natural resources ready for.. whoever / whatever.
Never thought of that being a potential motive behind refusing to harm living things. Maximum preservation for whoever/whatever comes in the virus’s wake.
The inability to lie is a little harder to explain, maybe a shotgun blast approach to ensuring the infected can earn the trust of the uninfected.
The inability to lie is probably a side effect of the virus (the inability to directly harm any flora or fauna). The primary purpose is to spread the virus - far and wide. All else is secondary, which is why humanity will eventually starve to death.
it's the Great Filter
I like how this show treats language to express its message, even if it’s heartbreaking.
The hive talks in every language they need to. They even have some human like interactions with the survivors and make communication easy. They talk and sing and as soon as it’s over, there’s no language spoken anywhere anymore. Immediately everyone is silent. And that’s the last time this dialect was spoken. Countless languages where extinguished already and the last few are dying. It’s already horrible how regional languages die right now; this is just devastating.
Manousos and Carol have problems interacting. Translation software is needed and both struggle with the language that is spoken. Manousos invested a lot of time. But every word they choose to say in English or Spanish is a choice that’s been made. Something is expressed this way. They struggle and and stutter, but they beautifully express themselves. Even when they’re talking about the ‚bug‘ or listening device, it’s clear that their cultural backgrounds think of this thing in different metaphors. It’s a misunderstanding and it makes things more difficult, but it’s also proof of uniqueness, plurality and individuality of cultures and languages. With the hive there’s only one way left to view the world. And therefore language, the tool to express oneself, dies.
The hive knows ever word known to humanity and yet refuses to do the most human think and speak them.
My word is "bravo.'
https://i.redd.it/bo0wfs51q89g1.gif
little baby goat 😭😭😭 Bring the golden globe for best animal performance now (please don't say it's AI)!
I owned some goats like that (I had Nigerian Dwarfs). They really act like little clingy babies just like that little one did. I doubt it’s AI.
AGI
Artificial Goat Intelligence
Funny, although the words intelligence and goats don’t belong in the same sentence. At least not in our case. Ours were not smart at all, but so lovable and sweet. Goats are charming and endearing creatures for sure.
If you still don't believe the hive is pure evil then I don't know what to tell you.
An entire culture, family, wiped out in a matter of moments.
No matter how you look at it, this is a psychological murder. I would just call it death.
I'm with you. I've also been thinking a lot about the fact that speed of incubation and assimilation was more important than human life. Millions and millions dying because they wanted to be fast instead of careful. There is no question that they're evil.
What about their biological imperative excuse?
We have a biological imperative too, remember? But if you were starving, would you begin to devour your fellow human beings, commit murder? You would struggle with it, because you have a moral conscious.
"We have a biological imperative", is just an excuse... Or a convenient lie ;)
Considering the affordability and homelessness crisis going on in many of our developed nations, no. Those stories come from extremely specific situations like The Donner Party. Very extreme. The situation for the Plurbs is not extreme and they started eating people pretty quickly.
i don't know if they're "pure evil", and i definitely don't think that the show sees them that way
but i do think the Peru scene was meant to be joyous on the surface but sinister underneath, it's meant to give the hive a darker edge to it if only to set the tone for the rest of the episode
a lesser show would have put creepy music underneath to drive the point home, but Pluribus is subtler than that
They're not more evil than anything else in nature. But they are very much inhuman
Apathy with a polite smile
The poor baby goat 😭
I’m sad for the goat 🥺 they said that if a dog want to stay with their owner they let them but they didn’t let the goat. Probably so many animals abandoned and the chickens will get eaten by a bear or something
I'm guessing the difference is the baby goat stopped, where the dog continued to follow
It was horrifically heartbreaking.
Great scene, shows it doesn't care, it just wants to assimilate by n means.
The show keeps pushing and pulling you around. The plurbs are bad the plurbs are good the plurbs are very baaad no actually they are good etc etc. Same with Carol and Manosos, she’s mean! She’s sad! He’s smart! Oh he’s crazy. And on and on and on. That’s the entire season one. Where ´s the moral compas? Wouldn’t you like to know, see you in season two!
It’s not really doing any of that. People just refuse to believe that the show isn’t trying to do those things so they read it that way. Everything has been intentionally telegraphed for the viewer.
It’s almost as though real life isn’t straightforward and therefore good writing isn’t either . I know a lot of Redditors get upset if they don’t get their hands held throughout but it is what it is
Nah…nowhere in season one did it ever show the hive being good, if you’re a viewer who thinks just a bit.
Yes the original horror of the frozen body parts head and mincer, to normalized in the next episode by a management information program. Pulled and pushed all over the place! Which is great storytelling
Vince does like to jerk us around…thanks I hate it Vince.
Unbravo Bince
I’ve been saying “machine behavior” for week and keep getting nixed. I think Vince throws it right in our face with this open. Between the young impressionable girl and the way the switch gets flipped on the whole village right after her turn, to the pro forma of the gate opening for the animals and cold abandonment the lil goat. It’s a cold, machine existence with single purpose drivers on a galactic scale.
And this all the more makes our “humanness” unique and beautiful and incredibly important
I think it is more about eliminating risk and expenditure. They can’t predict the survivors and a lot of resources are going towards them.
I knew from the moment she was with that Goat that she would throw the latch later.
Yeah, it definitely felt like we were watching a funeral of some kind
No the goat crying after her made me so SAD
100% I don’t know how they filmed in but it was the chef’s kiss of the scene to make it hit hard.
I loved the Oreo ice cream goat.
Manousos was spot on — they steal souls 😔
For me, it’s a mirror image of the desire for the hive to devour someone , clear metaphor .They don’t care that a personality will literally die they don’t even think about it. They’re simply convinced they’re doing the right thing. Just like with the goat: they set him free, certain it’s good for him, even though his fate is obvious.
The baby goat really got to me .
https://preview.redd.it/ua4av6wi8b9g1.jpeg?width=827&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ab72b8e47be1ad623db084ba6bfe66b1bd51ef07
Do you think that they all walk around as if they’re super happy all the time just to convince the uninfected to join them? Like the way Zosia called it a “biological imperative” - they don’t actually experience euphoria, they are flesh puppets for the virus, mimicking joy to bait their prey.
Yup. 100%.
They were still smiling after she was turned though, so I don't think so. It could just be an act or natural response for them though.
Hivemind apologists will see this scene and go "ah, perfect society"
Same people who would replace every form of art and social interaction with AI
Even though I knew it was coming, that moment when they all stopped singing hit pretty hard.
-Diabaté and his harem -Carol and Zosia -Kusimanu and her "village"
They're all intricate and complex manipulation schemes to get each of them to consent to the joining.
It foreshadowed exactly what Zosia was trying to accomplish with Carol.
The goat broke me.
poor baby goat :(
And the little kid (baby goat) she was cuddling before the cermony, running bleating after her as she leaves the village 💔
I died when the goat run after the tribal girl
And the little goat going after her as she doesn’t even recall it as her pet.
I loved how a fly flew over her just as she joined, symbolizing death. Well done.
I’d not thought of that, her soul leaving her body. It’s also like the death of her whole culture, their language will never be spoken again, their way of life gone, no individuals just a homogeneous soup of humanity.
Every human in the Hive is part of the consensus of what needs to be done.
Maintaining that small village was not efficient towards the Hive's overall goals, which include:
Limiting the transportation of goods around the world to save energy and efficiency.
Building a big signal using all of the Earth's electricity.
Making sure that the inevitable deaths that occur are reaped back into HDP.
That culture, those people, don't serve anything towards those goals. They are perfectly happy and content joining the consensus for efficiency and simply remembering the people that they were. They now view all of human life and culture as equally important and valid, which is to say that none of it is.
Just had a thought what you said, they will have nothing new to paint, write, visit. Maybe Carol Ian keep them at bay by saying she wants to finish her book before they force her to join! She they really wanted new material
I thought it wasn't out until the 26th?
Omg sorry it’s out now, go and watch!
I didnt even read past the first few words! Thank you lol. Was it released early?
Yes for Christmas Eve, have a great Christmas
You too!
Culture creates connections between people. So once you join the hive, it becomes unnecessary/replaced.
Hard to say much about their experience beyond that - it's not something we as human individuals could ever accurately fathom. It sure looks pretty depressing from our outside perspective though.
It’s a monoculture of one now.
The Collective ends an entire planet’s culture, technical development, progress — if it spreads, it terminates the development of all intelligent life.
I could think of nothing other than how manipulative the whole thing was.
After digesting all this horror (yes I am also chocked and talk about the peruvian girl scene). My (rather hopeful) theory is that the individuals are still there inside, “dormant,” and that they can come back if Manousos and Carol find the right way to reverse the process (with also the way Manousos was trying in his experiment with Rick: “You hear me, you can do it,” etc.). I would say they are just “asleep” and won’t know what has happened, just like, “Ouch, where am I and what’s going on?”
And then the Hive is simply a virus acting like a parasite, with its own narrative, connecting to other parasites while having access to all the individuals’ memories, intelligence, and stories.
As it should. They’re monsters.
Gave a real Midsommar vibe, which now that I think about it has some unsettling parallels.
They were playing village theater all for her to feel like they were still there. Once she crossed to the other side there was no point to keep up with appearances. All about efficiency now.
It was straight out of a horror movie. My gut reaction was absolute horror and a deep feeling of violation. It felt like a gut punch.
100% I thought it would happen but seeing them seemed like manipulation, like using the tribe to pressure her.
The goat and dog i think mean something. That they arent what they say. They love life or whatever of all beings, but don't have the compassion of a pet relationship. I remember reading a theory that sociopaths dont have the ability to have any meaningful pet relationship, I think thats what's going on with the plurbs. Like yes they have one dog in that stadium but its not like the human was connected anymore at all, the dog still was to the human and was thirsty for interaction that it finally and only received from Carol
Yes it wanted some attention didn’t it, so they were prepared to feed it but not to emotionally look after it, they say they like the animals to be free, but in reality it’s more like a waste of food and resources to look after them. Those animals are domesticated letting them go into the wild is as good as killing them.
If you still believe they are in there, still the same people just with new priorities, then it's not the end of her and her village. The hive mind has no need for that lifestyle right now, but the memories of it still exist.
I hope they are still in there just suspended, they seem to hold peoples personalities like data so it may still there (I hope)
This is my devil's advocate perspective as well. If we take the joined at face value and everyone is truly connected and happy, then once everyone is joined, there is no need for anyone to talk openly ever again, as everything (including culture) can be expressed internally. These are big ifs though and I have major doubts.
There's no need for a culture if you're perpetually content and at the worst mildy annoyed by an immune, and partly as a natural consequence of being always content, unable to really dislike your new core priorities being spread infection and do not directly harm. Culture is born of variance, of clashing views and reaching towards harmony and connection, the wish to show another. The very nature of this infection eliminates variance in every mind during the initial seizure, and without variance there is no other to show something. Culture is outmoded. The core drives are what matter. They are the only things left to cause discomfort while unfulfilled.
It broke me a little realizing that if Carol fails that's probably the last time someone will sing that song
They they all left the village, assumedly to join a larger cluster of plurbs at a group shelter. No need to stick around and keep their culture alive. It was all an act.
It's also what culture has become for many in real life. Just a performative bit of time then back to the milk factory.
I like to think the individuals are still there. The virus allows all our brains to function as one with instantaneous communication.
The biggest thing is the virus changes the hierarchy of needs and that spreading the virus is the top priority.
They no doubt are but as you say the hierarchy of needs has been hijacked. I think majority of Redditors vastly overestimate the extent of their free will and vastly underestimate the extent that their day to day life is driven by unconscious instinctive processes. If their entire bodily reward system was reconfigured to drive them to do something different then they would. It’s like puberty in a way - I had no romantic interest and then suddenly I did just because of all the different chemicals my body pumped into me. This is just the same but more so.
Yeah it bothers me that they don’t get that they don’t actually love them. Laxmi son is also her husband he literally have memories of creating himself i think it’s disgusting those humans are a disgrace.
Does anyone know if the song has a cultural significance or was it made up for the show?
You and plenty of us, brother.
All I was thinking, and I’m sorry if it’s been mentioned above, but surely there’s somebody calling the shots? A queen bee in this hive? I just can’t understand how the whole of humanity would act in synch without some direction from somewhere?
Still sad over the goat
That baby goat hit me like in the feels when he was calling out for her.
I think they're all still in there. It's just that the hivemind's "psychic binding" chemical has altered their electromagnetism enough to override free will. The show has established that the main premise for the primary characters is "we have to save the world." I suspect that the most horrible option would be that they're all prisoners in their minds, watching through the windows of the eyes, but being incapable of making changes. The master function of the Joining would allow for the superseding overmind to suppress the original mind, creating these happy drones we see, while the actual people are scrambling to escape. This would explain why Zosia often has these thoughtful or saddened glints, even if they can be explained away as "Awww, we didn't get Carol into the hive today, sadface."
Nothing in that sequence was remotely surprising. Everything they did was for her comfort and to make her happy. Once she’s part of the hive she’s just another hive member. She’s loaded up on happy chemicals and just does what the hive needs. That’s how the hive works. Then the village is shuttered for efficiency.
Personally, I don’t see this as evil or bad. It’s just a different way of living from the individualized human experience. Certainly it’s inhuman and different though, because the hive is not fundamentally human.