Posted:
Originally posted by: TakingAStand
I agree with the topic maker, they are going down the point of no return... how can you just a redemption arc by getting "treatment" and then becoming positive,". Many negative characters are ones we love to hate and the grey characters we love to root for because they are flawed, but 3D, and touch a chord in us. Maya is none of those things.. specially after deliberately Ayan accusing of rape and breaking Vandys hands... that categorically falls under misuse of law and abuse
Coming to the quote: I too see the resemblance to gone girl but it's a flawed and misinformed/ misinterpreted adaptation of the same. The events that trigger Amy's series of events are the recession,financial hardships and her husband cheating on her. She starts by planning out a revenge, then in comes the third angle of vices of social media and hoe that affects our perception and that trigger events post that. I also believe that the downward spiral is in part due to her parents writing a children's book about her making her the perfect child.. so she grew up with that ideal of 'perfect' and in a way was until the 2008 recession. What I'm saying is, none of this applies to Maya in the literal or figurative sense. There is no trigger, the story arc is completely different. This is more the abused is now the abuser with no rhyme or reason. I suspect her childhood is a huge factor, but the makers have botched it up so badly that there isn't a real relevance to Maya acting the way she is vs what she has seemingly endured.
And it's completely bizzare how though people have caught on to her, can't do anything, to stop her. Even Arjun has essentially said 'shut up and put up'
Let me clear one thing out, I think you have probably assumed that I think Maya can be redeemed. That's not the case, for I already said that she's gone beyond redemption and beyond the point of no return for me.
Psychopaths : As much as I have read or known about psychopathy, people just don't become psychopaths. Psychopathy is not just a disorder it is a wiring difference of the brain It is not something to be 'cured', it is something to learn about and operate within it's parameters. They can utmost be trained but not cured, at least that's what the medical science believes but that also might depend from one case to another. And if they aren't born psychopaths, there's only one known cause of ever having become one, extremely critical head injuries that causes your brain to function differently, as in the way it functions for a psychopath.
Amy : Amy, in my opinion, was a born psychopath. Whatever she did wasn't just because she felt the need to teach her cheating husband a lesson. Much before Nick came into her life, she's displayed all the red flags and warning signs but they got ignored because she had a crappy set of parents. She had falsely accused and pressed charges of grievous degree of rape on her boyfriend(the one before Desi), pressed charges against Desi (Although, he was said to have issues of his own as well), physically abused/resorted to violence to her friends/classmates and instances as such. The fact that her parents treated her as money making machine and not a human or their daughter didn't help her childhood either. All of the criminal offences she committed occurred during childhood to adulthood thereby establishing the journey of her becoming full fledged psychopath by the time Nick came into picture. Had someone paid attention to her in the childhood, there might have been a chance a treatment or a cure that would have been effective to a certain extent at least but that didn't happen.
Enter Nick, she saw a man who made a perfect material for an experiment. In her own words, she's said to have engineered Nick to become a person he naturally wasn't, their relationship/their marriage was in the first place laid on a wrong foundation and when partners are engineering each other to become something they're not, such relationships/marriage don't last long. They faced recession and while Nick had genuinely lost his job due to it, Amy quit herself. Again, she confessed that time of recession made a perfect opportunity for her to test her marriage because she felt Nick going 'lazy. Once Nick's philandering ways came to her knowledge, she hatched the world's most fool-proof and genius plan to ruin Nick's life. And everything that followed, as they say is, history.
Point being, every single thing she did stemmed out of her brain's functioning than the betrayal she might have felt because of Nick cheating or her marriage falling apart. Every single thing she did, she did it in complete consciousness, knowing what's wrong and what's right but always choosing to do the wrong because according to her, it was 'right'. Her sense of right or wrong or a sense of judgement doesn't even hold any accountability because she perhaps could never be made seen or realise the barbarous, monstrous and unforgivable deeds and crimes she committed. Because? Brain, it was all screwed up right in the head and thus the name, 'Gone Girl'.
Maya : She matches Amy's character sketch to a great deal; mirrors almost. The difference and perhaps the only one between Amy and Maya is, Maya has her traumatic past/childhood abuse to fall back on while Amy's childhood was 'controlled' beyond the permissible limits, Maya's was greatly damaged. So, every time Maya does anything wrong, she can always flash the past card and get away with it and that's something she had been doing till season 1. Personally, I could see her treading on a journey to become a full fledged psychopath bit by bit and it's something I have always said (when I used to make topics here) that if she isn't stopped within time, then she'll turn into someone no one will be able to recognise. After Ashwin's death, after having successfully alienated Arjun, after having discarded her only link to conscience (her Ganesha), there was nothing she feared, no one she had to face or be answerable to. Come season 2, she's become an unapologetic, unabashed, fearless, unstoppable, omnipresent, ruthless, barbaric and monstrous version of herself. Gone was the scared and abused little kid and in was the all powerful abuser. The girl who was once abused is now an abuser herself.
Now, keeping in mind some of my theories (being responsible for Ashwin's murder, perhaps even Mauritius pandit's, causing Jhanvi's accident rendering her paralysed, causing Vikram's accident, faking pregnancy 2 times) and the things she's shown to have done in the show such as mentally torturing Arjun (domestic violence, mental abuse, abduction, intrusion of privacy by putting up cameras even in bathroom, isolation from family and friends), mentally and physically abusing Jhanvi and endangering her life along with her own, falsely getting Ayaan convicted in an attempt to rape case and now physically torturing Vandana, there's absolutely no chance at a 'redemption' in my opinion. Redemption is for those who can possibly realise their mistakes and repent for them. Given Maya's psyche, I doubt if she's capable of doing that because according to her, all that she's done is way of serving punishment to those who have wronged her or not obliged by her rules.
Viraj Dobriyal (from DSNDS, Life Ok show) : Again, a character quite similar to Maya's. After having killed his wife (among other million awful things he did), he owned up to everything he did, was established as 'obsessive' in the show, had been sent to a mental care facility and then sent to jail to serve his term for all his crimes. He was shown to have been deeply regretted all that he's done but also understood that there was no forgiveness and no redeeming him, at least not in this life.
Personally, I wouldn't mind the same end to Maya as Viraj's unlike Amy's who got away with everything in the end. Another end, I think that'd do justice to her character would be she dying while saving Arjun either from herself or from some external harm. Or just simply be institutionalised in an asylum or be sentenced to whatever punishment court deems fit for her crimes. If the makers decided to take up any of the three routes mentioned above, I wouldn't mind it at all, would be content with the show's/Maya's end. However, if in the name of redemption, they decide to get a baby/child in the picture or just sent Maya to a doctor and after a few days, she's said to be completely cured or recovered and then be united with Arjun, then I'll probably laugh it all off. 😆
Oh and yes, I too have had major issues with the way Maya's character shaped up or the show's writing in general. One of the gravest mistake they made was to give Maya a traumatic past if they intended to establish her as a psychopath (whether officially or unofficially; that is leaving it open to interpretation/study). That's the very reason why the show's audiences are divided into sections. Also, their love for keeping things ambiguous doesn't help the case either, millions of questions that are still unaddressed and unanswered which actually should have been cleared long ago.
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