beta
word vomited my thoughts on this one…
when ayesha returns back to the house after sylvia killed aida, it seems like this is the start of ayesha’s pseudo-revenge against the family. we later learn that ayesha in some ways premeditated aida’s death by encouraging her to mention the lawyer to sylvia, knowing full well that sylvia was capable of murder. regardless, ayesha was a bystander to the whole ordeal and could’ve saved aida if she really had wanted to. so in actuality, ayesha does this for a more self-motivated reason, as sean states, that she no longer wants to live half a life in the shadow of her sister. and that’s why she lets her sister be killed. and then uses her sister’s death to drive sylvia to suicide. by letting her own sister die, ayesha is able to start regaining her own identity.
what i don’t get is why sean somehow is above the rest of the family in ayesha’s eyes. we’re led to believe that sean is somehow better than his brothers despite his partaking in the bullying back in their childhood firstly because he never fell in love with aida like carlo and nemo. the second reason we’re given is that sean was never truly party to the bullying because one way or another he was also just trying to survive in that household. what seems to tie both sean and ayesha together is their simultaneous tragic childhoods and their capacity for murder. sean murders his stepfather and ayesha, although never by her own hand, provokes the murder of aida and sylvia (sean technically kills carlo).
either way, i can’t really say sean did anything to garner ayesha’s love. like unless she loved him all along for whatever reason, she could’ve gotten rid of him too. it’s like he gets some mid redemption arc because all of a sudden his tragic backstory absolves him of the past and his interest in ayesha isn’t entirely self-seeking like his brothers with aida. and ig he helps her in the whole post-aida vitriol. but if that’s the reason, i don’t know how that put him above aida? because ayesha loved him? i mean was ayesha’s envy towards her sister so fundamental that it was worth aida dying when all she had ever tried to do was protect them both? aida’s childhood was equally as tragic.
if the whole point of the story was for ayesha to reclaim her sense of space and autonomy, then what followed was necessary. however, if what differentiates sean is some romantic factor, then frankly it feels trivial and falls short.
don’t get me wrong, i think the plot is great, it has qualities of both the horror and psychological genre. all i’ll say is i wasn’t really sold on ayesha and sean ending up together. will have to read the remastered version at some point !