thinking about how mari is obsessed with heirarchy and making sure she's near the top
early season 1 when jackie is the captain, popular and stepping into a leader role, mari is always trying to get her attention.
trying to be helpful and close and always backing jackie up, wanting to be her no.2 (and stepping in the second there's tension between jackie and shauna)
but after they've been out there for a few weeks, things start to shift. there's no soccer team so jackie being captain doesn't matter. she's not stepping up as a leader because that involves living off the land and jackie has no clue what to do there. and the only popularity is within their group - and jackie not pulling her weight means she's no longer popular.
i don't think at this point mari singles out jackie to make an enemy out of her, they still have some friendly moments. but we all know mari's favourite thing is being a hater and that just comes out. she's treating jackie like they're equals - and in this situation, they now are.
besides, someone else is starting to step up as leader
and when tai leaves on her mission to find help, mari is in the small group that goes. it's worth mentioning that jackie also gave her support in the escape attempt. both leader-figures are in favour, so mari is too.
but tai's stint as leader doesn't exactly go as planned...
their group is attacked in the night when tai was supposed to be on watch. tai fell asleep, the fire went down, and "other tai" slept-walked her up a tree. and while when tai comes to she joins the fight (and kills a wolf with an axe damn), i think that would've broken mari's trust in her as a leader.
the other person who is being set up as a leader, whether she likes it or not, is lottie. before their attempt to leave the woods (after the seance / possession, when everyone is freaked by lottie and only really van is starting to believe her) mari is openly making fun of her.
but after van is more vocal about believing in lottie, and laura lee is advocating for lottie too, there's a shift.
it's not entirely clear whether mari just starts to believe in The Wilderness and lottie's connection to it, or she see's the others starting to believe and agrees to be in the majority. i think it's a combination of the two.
and by doomcoming, lottie is starting to stand out as a leader.
and (especially once the shrooms and booze kicks in) mari is happy to follow along
lottie says they should find jackie and travis, and all the girls follow her into the woods. and guess who's the first one through the door, the first one to go after jackie? mari.
and when they find jackie and travis, they all follow lottie's lead there too - ganging up on jackie, locking her up, and that whatever-orgy-hunt thing with travis. once again, lottie is the one ordering them to go after someone, and they all willingly - eagerly - comply.
and when they have travis on the alter, lottie in her antler queen glory, who's the one standing beside her? who's the one forcing travis' mouth open for lottie to shove the pinecone into? who's grinning like a predator while doing it?
how even after the hunt is over and the shrooms have worn off she's still ready to antagonise jackie, who's setting herself up as an outsider
jackie doesn't believe in the wilderness, or lottie (even after a bear bowed to her and she killed it! metal af! oh and she predicted it!), she didn't eat the stew and go on a non-consensual mindfuck journey like the rest of them. now that lottie is being put on top, and jackie has been alienated from the group, the dynamics have all changed.
jackie orders shauna out, but she doesn't have that power anymore. and while ben and tai try to keep jackie inside, lottie tells ben to stay out of it, and mari is the one who mocks jackie - and further ostracises her from the group.
throughout s2 mari is firmly in team lottie with most of the others. always supporting lottie, going to her morning meetings, participating in the rituals, helping her when she's nearly comatose. so when the starvation and fear and determination to survive wins out, and the group decides to kill one of them in order to save the group, it's agreed it can't be lottie.
but they draw from a deck of cards. whoever gets the queen is the sacrifice. it's random, they're all equals. everyone has to draw a card.
and given that we've seen the first card-drawing-wilderness-choosing session, and the last (so far) in 2021, and they're pretty much the same, we can assume that this is the way it's done all through the rest of those 19 months too.
sure possibly there was cheating, rigging, people trying to save themselves or who they love most. but at this point we don't know.
all we know is that next winter a girl, that is most likely either mari or gen, is hunted down in a ritualistic way before being killed, butchered and eaten.
and as far as mari's character arc goes, it makes so much sense for it to be her.
that she's put all her effort into being in the majority, in being useful and following the leader no matter who they are, so that she can be on top.
only for it not to matter at all. because 'the wilderness chose'
it would be a cruel end for her character (for anyone but specifically) but the show is portraying just how cruel survival and the wild can be. jackie just wants to be loved. she dies alone in the snow. javi wants to help. he dies in nat's place. mari wants to be on top? she dies in a pit.
mari threw jackie aside because she no longer served a purpose for mari, and mari dies wearing jackie's necklace.
it also makes sense because of her constant antagonism of misty - because mari perceives her as being on the bottom, and as long as misty is then mari should be safe. mari is the cook, and after the shrooms incident, she refuses to let misty anywhere near the food
and yet... after pit girl has been turned into food... it's misty that brings the plate forwards. something mari never would have let her do. they all have their roles - for instance, shauna is the butcher, and we know it was her who bled out pit girl (shauna has flashbacks to it when attacking adam). so shauna's role has stayed consistent, if mari was still in the group why would misty be the one bringing the food out? maybe because mari is the food...
and each character has something different going on - lottie has visions, tai sleepwalks, akilah hallucinates a dead mouse as being alive, etc. well mari hears dripping. constant dripping she can't find a source for. until she sees buckets of blood oozing through the walls
"Oh my god! Oh my god! They're dead! They're dead, they're dead, they're dead! They were! No, their blood was dripping on the floor."
Doesn't bode well for her.
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