not to be dramatic but I am thinking about Clara Thornton again, and I know she's like The Worst and has seriously hurt every single person in her life and is an abusive-workplace-approving, marriage-arranging, cold-mothering, cousin-killing capitalist dog, but seriously let me speculate about young Clara for a while. Under the cut because, predictably, I got swept away in the sweet sweet stream of psychoanalysis.
She's born a bastard child with an unknown father into a very traditional family that presumably cares very much about propriety and pedigree. Not the end of the world, but definitely something she's insecure about and something that puts her on thin ice with the family from the beginning.
And then, when she's 10 (or maybe 5, if you believe the family tree over Wade), her mother dies without ever telling her who or where her father is. She doesn't know where she's going to go.
She ends up living with her aunt and uncle and cousins, which probably sounds really nice, since Mariana and Roger are by all accounts wonderful people, but it's possible that she felt like a burden, out of place in the household. Presumably, they never formally adopted her, and Charlotte and Harper seem to have had a remarkably close relationship that maybe she was always a little left out of.
Regardless, being re-homed as a child--no matter how functional the new household-- is a tremendous trauma. Pretty much all kids will have a lot of anger and grief about what they lost, or feel anger and guilt for allowing their new guardians to "replace" their biological parents, and just generally feel insecure about their future, like the rug is going to be pulled out from under them again.
And it is pulled out from under her! Again and again!
When she's a teenager, the aunt and uncle who took her in are killed in a plane crash, and the three girls are left on their own.
From the line at the end of game, when Clara tells Charlotte's ghost, "You had so much, and I had nothing," we can assume that Clara was not included as a daughter in her aunt and uncle's will. Unfortunate for the obvious monetary purposes, but it also probably serves as sad confirmation that Clara was never really seen as a part of the family.
And as Charlotte is her parents' successor, she undergoes the process of taking over the (extremely successful and lucrative) company, and part of that is setting up the next successor. Maybe because Charlotte thought Clara was the best choice, maybe because she felt bad for her, maybe just because Harper wasn't an adult yet... regardless of the reason, Charlotte set the company up to go to Clara if Charlotte, too, were to pass. This was important to her not because of the money and power, but because it solidified her value to her family. After years of feeling unsure of her place in the family, maybe feeling unwelcome in her own childhood home, this must have been a huge relief, even if it would only ever be symbolic and wouldn't ever come to pass.
And then Charlotte tries to take it away. From explicit evidence (the diary in Charlotte's bedroom), we know that it's because Charlotte thought Clara was in some way unstable or close to snapping (probably a product of her childhood trauma), but if you subscribe to the Jackson-incest theory, there's just that much more to unpack about Clara and how she fits into the Thornton family. Clara does in fact snap. I personally believe Her Interactive's response about Clara not literally striking a match, but instead throwing down a candle in a fit of rage, and then, boom, Charlotte is gone, too.
Obviously, Clara, who has always felt like she was on thin ice with her family, isn't about to go confess that it was her fault or why, but Harper knows. And of course she resents Clara.
But maybe she's willing to give her a chance. It was an accident, after all. Harper has an interesting few lines where she states that Clara could've been there for her after Charlotte died, and that after Charlotte died, that was the end of her family. Helping a younger sibling through grief under the best of outside circumstances is trying, but Clara is also coping with guilt, and the extreme, burdensome responsibility of taking over the company. And something else. If Clara never really felt like part of the family, if she always felt like Charlotte and Harper were the sisters, the best friends, and she was very much just the cousin, she might have also felt slighted that Harper only wants her as a sister after her biological sister is gone. That's just my personal speculation as a possibility; I don't have much to support it, but I think it makes sense.
And no matter whether this was the case or not, eventually things get so bad with Harper that Harper makes an attempt on Clara's life (I have a personal headcanon that Clara provoked her in a purposefully dangerous position as an indirect suicide attempt, but again, unfounded). Harper flees in the aftermath, so now she's gone, too.
I truly believe that all the positive influences in Clara's life were gone when she was learning how to run the company. And the extended family couldn't have been too thrilled about this young, unstable, bastard orphan running things. Thin ice, you know the drill by now, Now, the only way to prove herself to her extended family is to get them that coin.
Anyway, what I'm trying to say with all this is that it's no surprise that she ended up a completely emotionally closed off woman who was focused on the success of the company, no matter what, and that I think she's 100% one of the most tragic and believable villains in the games. Come on, that backstory is delicious.
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I noticed something while replaying Ghost of Thornton Hall that for me confirms that Clara did willfully murder Charlette.
Clara may tell you in the end that it was an accident, but she also says that one other time about a different family member she wronged.
She tells you that she never meant for Wade to go to jail, that she just wanted to scare him; similar words she uses when confessing Charlette's death. Wade on the other hand outright says that it's a lie in his case, since Clara would visit the jail just to laugh at him.
Harper even calls Clara a "Revisionist".
It sounds as though Clara wants to believe these things were accidents, so she refuses to accept the truth of her own actions. I definitely believe she murdered Charlette intentionally--even if she wishes she could take it back.
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Todo puede pasar… “Black Mirror · Temporada 6”
Llega el tan esperado regreso de la serie de antología, creada por Charlie Brooker, que se reinventa con cada nuevo episodio.
· Joan Es Terrible
Una mujer común y corriente descubre que una plataforma global de streaming ha lanzado una prestigiosa serie sobre su vida y es protagonizada por la estrella de Hollywood, Salma Hayek.
· Loch Henry
Una joven pareja viaja a un tranquilo pueblo de Escocia para trabajar en un documental sobre naturaleza para luego encontrarse involucrados en una jugosa historia local sobre eventos impactantes del pasado.
· Beyond The Sea
En un 1969 alternativo, dos hombres se encuentran en una misión peligrosa y deberán lidiar con las consecuencias de una tragedia.
· Mazey Day
Una celebridad es asediada por los paparazzi mientras enfrenta las consecuencias de un incidente en el que una persona fue atropellada.
· Demonio 79
Norte de Inglaterra, 1979. Una tímida asistente de ventas recibe instrucciones de cometer actos terribles para prevenir un desastre.
Estreno: 15 de junio de 2023 en Netflix.
La temporada cuenta con las actuaciones de Aaron Paul, Anjana Vasan, Annie Murphy, Auden Thornton, Ben Barnes, Clara Rugaard, Daniel Portman, Danny Ramirez, Himesh Patel, John Hannah, Josh Hartnett, Kate Mara, Michael Cera, Myha’la Herrold, Paapa Essiedu, Monica Dolan, Rory Culkin, Salma Hayek Pinault, Samuel Blenkin y Zazie Beetz.
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