thinking about how mike flanagan's first netflix series ended with the crain family together, both in death and in life
and his last netflix series ended with the entire usher bloodline 6 feet under, buried side by side (with lenore in the same row as madeline and roderick instead of the row below with frederick and the others) but no more a family in death than they were in life
the haunting of hill house and the fall of the house of usher feel very much like two sides of the same coin - a home built with love will stand for centuries, but a house built without that foundation will crumble and leave no survivors
the haunting of hill house tv series: love is stronger than trauma! family is the most important thing, and together, we can overcome the literal and metaphorical ghosts of our past!
i love when a character is a ghost but in a tragic way instead of a scary way. i love when a character has been dead from the beginning but is still holding on to stay in the narrative. i love when a character could choose to resent the living but ends up loving them instead. i love when a character drives the story but isn’t quite there enough to be at the center of it. i love when the ghosts are the protectors instead of the ones causing the harm. i love when a character is at the heart of the story because depending on where you began it, no matter how you told it, the story is about the ghost who struggled to keep their humanity
WLWMEME: 5/9 tv characters ♡ theo crain (the haunting of hill house)
See, when I was little, I was afraid of a lot of things. I didn't have to be, though. They were all in my head. I just didn't know that yet. But when I was scared, I would imagine myself building a big wall all around me made of the strongest bricks in the whole world. And when I got scared, I would imagine myself putting another one on, one after the other until that wall was so thick and so strong. I knew I'd be safe in there forever. And that's what you do too, right? It's okay. It's good. 'Cause kids like us have been through more than other kids. We're tougher than other kids. We're great builders. We make ourselves really safe. And no one ever gets in.
There's just something about the dads in Mike Flanagan's works that fuck me up. None of them are perfect but they're all trying their best and love their kids so damn much. The horror of knowing the world is gonna eat your kids alive no matter what you do. The tragedy of never knowing just how much your dad loved you until it's too late. I just-
No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill House, not sane, stood by itself against its hills, holding darkness within. It had stood so for a hundred years before my family moved in, and it might stand for a hundred more.