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wen-kexing-apologist · 6 months

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IS BROTHER ANURAK THE ONE ARMED MAN?

OKAY! SO!

I feel like I am teetering on the edge of delulu for this fucking show, but…because I just wrote a post about the Left Hand Path and all the left hand/left side imagery, and because I’m…well, me, and hands in shows are My Jam. When I was watching the promo trailer for Episodes 8-14, I noticed something. I never once saw Brother Anurak’s left arm. So I went to the teaser trailer for the whole show, just to see if it was coincidental that the like 5 seconds total of screen time Brother Anurak had in the Part 2 trailer just happened not to show his left arm…but uh…

Brother Anurak holds his rosary with only his right hand…

And Brother Anurak’s left hand just hangs at his side, rather than resting on his lap like his right hand is doing…

And Brother Anurak is shoving Trin with only his right hand…

And Brother Anurak’s left hand is hidden from view by some books…

And this, naturally, started me thinking about the One Armed Man. We don’t know much about this man, only that lost his left arm in an accident and then engaged in some homosexual and substance use activity, he was arrested and executed. We know that Dan, after losing his lucid dreaming stone, had some sort of dream or vision about this one armed man.

We do not know what purpose he serves to the story yet, we do not know if he is truly evil or just presented that way by the villagers. I mean, if the One Armed Man truly is a wild ghost, the Venerable Monk gave a few theories himself: a) The wild ghosts in the village got angry when the school was built and floating bodies down the water in sacrifice was banned after World War II or b) the wild ghosts take those who ask them for help, and who they like.

And we do not, currently, know the One Armed Man’s identity. Or…do we, cause you see, I was thinking about the fact that in just these trailers alone, I had not seen a single instance of Brother Anurak using his left hand.

And so…I did what any completely reasonable, totally non-obsessed, definitely completely normal human being would do….

…and spent the last few hours watching every single scene that involved Brother Anurak in Episodes 1-7 to see if he ever uses his left hand. (I don’t have photo evidence for all of these because trying to screen shot them all would be impossible but, trust me or you can verify for yourself. I also recognize this is a lot, so you’re welcome to just like, choose at random which ones you read).

Episode 1

Welcoming Dan The first time we meet Brother Anurak is when Dan first steps foot on campus. Anurak is the person who gives Dan the school tour and walks him to class. When Dan arrives, he does the traditional ‘wai’ hands that we have come to expect of any Thai show, that is, he presses the palms of both of his hands together when he says hello. Brother Anurak, whose arms are both tucked behind his back, does not return the ‘wai’ and instead just nods. When Rerng, the groundskeeper, runs in to Dan and Anurak, he does the ‘wai’ hands at Anurak and uh…once again Anurak just nods, he does not return the ‘wai’. When he introduces Rerng to Dan, he gestures at Rerng using only his right hand. Otherwise his hands remain tucked behind his back out of view.

Rescuing Dan from Anan We are introduced to Anan in the locker room where he immediately establishes his Utter Irrepentant Douchebag status and tries to control all the boys. Anan comes in at some point and puts a stop to Anan’s hazing, and you don’t really see his body at all, the camera mostly focuses on close ups, but if you watch closely you can see only his right shoulder moving because he’s gesturing with his right hand. His left shoulder stays relatively still.

Talking to Dan about the Shadow

Brother Anurak has been working with Dan and his mother since Dan was about 7 years old. When Brother Anurak is talking with Dan in his office after his first Shadow dream, you can see Anurak’s left hand stays staunchly at his side, he does everything in this scene with his right hand.

Visiting Dan in the infirmary Dan spent the night in his dorm away from his dorm…the infirmary, after he faints in class. Brother Anurak comes to visit him, and both of his hands are hidden by the bed for the entire scene.

Episode 2

Finding Dan at the lake At the end of Episode 2, Dan collapses near the lake while coming face to face with the Shadow. Anurak and Rerng find Nai and Dan, and Rerng helps Nai carry Dan, Anurak takes the flashlight from Rerng with his right hand and that is his full contribution for Getting Dan Out of There.

Talking to Nai When Brother Anurak is scolding Nai about being off school grounds with Dan, his hands are once again hidden behind his desk, and he only gestures with his right hand.

Visiting Dan in the infirmary → transitions to his office

Brother Anurak is standing on Dan’s right in the infirmary when he wakes up after his collapse at the lake. Once again, Brother Anurak’s hands are hidden behind the bed, so you can’t see them, and then when, out of nowhere, Dan and Anurak are talking in Anurak’s office, his left hand is hidden behind the arm of his chair.

Dan wakes up from his dream

During their office session, Dan is shunted out of his dream and realizes that he has been in teh infirmary the entire time, and was not actually in Brother Anurak’s office at all. What has snapped him out of his dream is Brother Anurak shaking him awake, but… he is only using his right hand.

[Side Note: I am taking careful notice of the fact that Dan’s ability to remain present and conscious in reality seems to slip often when he is in Brother Anurak’s presence. Then again, he also sees the Shadow a bunch when he is around the theater teacher, but I have already looked at his hands, and his left hand is real and he does use it so I at the very least I don’t think he has any relationship to the one armed man.]

Episode 3

Dan, Josh, and Nai are punished for coming back late. At some point, Anurak appears to observe, but not deliver, the caning of Dan, Josh, and Nai for missing curfew after going to see the Venerable Monk. We get a wider shot, which means Anurak’s left hand is visible, but it is held in exactly the same position it always is, and he continues to only gesture with his right hand.

Telling Dan not to wear the ring Brother Anurak runs in to the boys in between classes, and he notices the lucid dreaming stone around Dan’s neck. Anurak reminds him that accessories are not allowed in school, and while standing there, his left hand still in the same position it has always been in, and he only points to Dan’s necklace with his right hand.

Teaching class

Brother Anurak is writing on the white board with his right hand, this in and of itself is not all too suspicious because he could just be right handed, but when turns to face the class, his hands are covered by the students so you can’t see either one of them. He moves to the podium and his left hand, which continues to hang at his side, is hidden behind the podium, so we can’t see his left hand. But he places his right hand on the podium, and whatever brief glimpses of the left hand we see when it peeks out the side of the podium, it is in exactly the same position as it always is.

Episode 4

Grabbing Dan from his room to take him to visit his Dad When Brother Anurak visits Dan and Josh’s room to bring Dan to the hospital to say goodbye to his father, not only is Anurak’s left hand hanging at his side, but he is shot from the right side of his body so any potentially visible part of his left hand is hidden by the open dorm room door.

At the hospital Anurak is standing on Dan’s father’s left hand side, making his left hand visible… in exactly the same position it always is, his fingers never even twitch. When Anurak leaves the room to give Dan some time alone with his father, he uses his right arm to comfort Dan even though his left arm is closer to Dan’s shoulder.

Outside the hospital room, after the flashback to Dan’s homelife Left hand visible, in exactly the same position it always is, cut to talking to Dan outside the hospital room, his left hand is hidden between his legs. We get the best close up we have had of Anurak’s left hand and it is too smooth, and is lacking in any pores or spots, and it’s weirdly shiny. (Unfortunately like the one above, the way my computer works for screenshots, the play bar covers the part of the screen I would need to take a photo of).

Flashback to Anurak talking with Dan’s mother

When we see Anurak interacting with Dan’s mother, because she was his patient, his left hand is visible, still in the same position. AND HOLY SHIT, ANYONE READING THIS, YOU NEED TO GO TO TIME STAMP 18:27 AND WATCH HOW BROTHER ANURAK STANDS UP FROM HIS CHAIR. THAT LEFT HAND IS FUCKING FAKE. IT’S FUCKING FAKE!!! He gives the rosary to Dan’s mother with his right hand.

Dan’s mother’s funeral Anurak is sitting on a bench outside the temple, and we only see him after Dan drops the coin he has leftover from buying ice cream, and it hits Anurak’s right foot. We pan out into a wide shot, and Anurak’s right side is visible. Both his hands are in Anurak’s lap but his right hand is covering his left hand so we can’t actually see it. Then, Dan sits on his left side so we never

Baby!Dan sees the Shadow and Anurak comforts him

Shortly after his mother’s death, Dan wakes up in the middle of the night and sees the Shadow looming over him. He runs screaming from his room, at which point Brother Anurak appears on the stairwell. (What he is doing in their home after Dan’s father accused his mother of sleeping with Brother Anurak, is beyond me but I digress). Brother Anurak’s right arm is hugging Dan while his left arm stays at his side, in the same position it always is

Right before Dan fights his father

Dan’s Father’s funeral Anurak comes up to talk to Dan at his father’s funeral, and as he does he places his right hand on Dan’s shoulder. Left hand? Does nothing, as usual.

Episode 5

Dan confronts Brother Anurak

We get the scene from the trailer where Dan tells Brother Anurak that he thinks Trin was murdered after seeing the visage of Trin’s dead body in the pool. This is one of my favorite instances of the hidden left hand, due to the creative use of binder placement. You get a little bit of skin from Brother Anurak’s right hand because it is further away from the camera, but in the foreground? We are not entitled to see what Anurak’s left hand looks like.

Flashback: Talking to Trin in his office after his Student President Win

After Trin wins the student body president race in a unanimous vote, he is taken first to the Headmaster’s office and then to speak with Brother Anurak about the policies he hopes to institute (read: the traditional systems Trin is hoping to change). Like always, both of Brother Anurak’s hands are initially hidden behind his desk, but as he gets more engaged, more serious about the conversation at hand (haha) he leans forward and he only brings his right hand on the table.

Anurak gets a phone call about Trin’s medical records

I don’t remember if this is the first phone call where Anurak is told that Trin had bipolar, was off his meds, and was treating his bipolar with narcotics, or if this is the second phone call where Anurak is calling an unknown person, angry because he didn’t know how Trin’s medical records got leaked to the press. Either way, and in both cases, he answers the phone with his right hand, and never uses his left.

In his office with Trin’s parents

Trin’s parents (one of whom is an MP) are naturally, pissed that Trin’s medical records got leaked and storms over to the school threatening to sue. Brother Anurak speaks with them in his office, and he offers them tea, using only his right hand, his left isn’t even in frame.

And while he is speaking with Trin’s parents, trying to calm them and sort things out, he once again, only puts his right hand on the table. His left is hidden from view.

In his study, listening to old recordings of his sessions with Trin Anurak is thinking more about Trin, and digs out old files of his using only his right hand to pull the files out of his cabinet. When he sits in his chair to listen to the audio tapes, his left arm settles in to the same position at his side as it always is when he’s in that chair, and he hides the hand very quickly underneath the file folder when he opens it.

Episode 6

Brother Anurak does not have a lot of screen time in Episode 6, but he is at the student org fair where he meets the husband of the homophobic teacher that is sleeping with Anan. And here again, the people he is with all do the ‘wai’ hands, while he just nods.

Episode 7

Taking Dan from the headmaster’s office after Anan beats him up

Dan is the unfortunate victim of Nai’s decision to blackmail Anan, and gets beaten up once again. He and Anan are called in to the Headmaster’s office to talk about what happened as Dan left the Funhouse, when all of a sudden Brother Anurak appears, asking to take Dan away since Dan is under his care. Brother Anurak’s left hand is visible, but it is once again, still held in the same position, and his right hand is the one he is using to place a comforting hand on Dan’s shoulder.

Talking to Dan in his office

We reach the final scene with Brother Anurak in the first half of the show, before the One Armed Man is introduced to the story. And it is, once more, the same deal as it has always been throughout the entire show so far. Brother Anurak’s left hand is sitting at his side, in the same position is has literally never changed from. And then he is gone from the rest of the episode, so we don’t have any visual reminders that he exists while the One Armed Man is being introduced and discussed. I have gone through every scene, I have watched to see if his fingers even twitch. They do not, his left hand, whenever it is in view, never moves. You cannot convince me at this point that Brother Anurak and the One Armed Man aren’t connected somehow. This man does not have an actual left hand.

I do not know if Brother Anurak is the One Armed Man, if he is the scapegoat for the One Armed Man, if he is possessed by, a reincarnation of, or a legitimate ghost of the One Armed Man we learn about at the end of the episode. I do not know what the Shadow is, what it wants, if it is malicious, neutral, or good, I do not know what the ghosts of Trin or those two boys want, who the dead bodies are, what happened at this school. I don’t know any of it, I don’t know if all the pieces of the puzzle we need to figure it out have been revealed yet.

But the one thing I do know, is that Brother Anurak does not have a left hand, and the level of detail that the show has done to both reveal and hide that is truly fucking impressive. Utt Uttsada who plays Anurak is doing a fucking phenomena job. I do not know how much time and effort went in to consciously never moving that arm. Like he has not once, not ever moved it. His shoulder remains completely still, his arm swings precisely as much as someone with no lower limb to control will swing. He has to be wearing some sort of prosthetic glove to keep his hand exactly in place, to make sure that his fingers don’t twitch.

It is so incredibly clever to hide his hand like this. To give us enough glances at his left hand from a distance so we don’t question it. I mean, we see his hand, right? We see it is there, it looks real, and there are so many other things to figure out about what the fuck is going on, that the last thing in our minds is the fact that Brother Anurak never uses his left hand.

Anyway, I don’t even know if this will end up being BL, but I need the entire rest of the BL fandom to deal with the occasional jumpscare and creepy smiles and stares and watch this show, so that I can scream about this with more people. Because holy fucking shit, if this show maintains the quality it has given me with the first half of the story all the way to the end, it might make a last minute grab for Show of the Year for me, with how intentional it has been.

#clown checkpoint #screaming crying throwing up about this show #shadow the series #I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO WATCH THIS FUCKING SHOW IMMEDIATELY #PLEASE #I NEED MORE PEOPLE TO SCREAM ABOUT THIS SHOW WITH #wka long post #singto prachaya #fluke natouch #utt uttsada

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