"humans put up an act. monsters don't bother to." And it's contradiction. Please elaborate! I have so many thoughts about the human vs. monster in relation to TMA and I love reading other people's thoughts about it.

ARGH THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ASKING !!!!! ok so

it’s a bit of a contradiction of my other interpretation, because my other interpretation is that the entire idea of avatars being “monsters” in itself is an act for them. an entirely different kind of facade, where they pretend to be completely inhuman to excuse their actions. you can blame a human for harming other humans, but you can’t blame a monster for simply being a monster.

an interesting exception to this is nikola. she’s an avatar that was never human to begin with, and so she has no humanity that she’s trying to escape. she is, for all intents and purposes, a pure extension of the stranger itself.

i think that that’s what all avatars are trying to be, in one way or another. but the tragic and fascinating thing is that none of them, except for nikola, truly can be.

another cool aspect of this is avatars and their relationship to mortality. it’s said that the one fear that existed before humanity was the hunt, and interestingly, not the end. this implies that the fear of dying is inherently human. almost all non-end avatars express this fear in one way or another.

even at her most distorted, helen begs for her life. she doesn’t want to die. why would something entirely non-human even be capable of that sort of fear?

some avatars are ‘immortal’, but not unkillable. none of them are actually unkillable. even the pupil of the eye dies like a mortal, choking and bleeding.

because i think the truth is that none of the fears can ever make you actually inhuman. you have to be a non-human to begin with, like nikola. humanity is a mark that can’t be erased, for better or worse, and so every single avatar that used to be a human will always have something inherently human about them.

and all of that brings me to jonathan sims. jonathan sims, who chose to be a human, chose to hold onto the parts of himself that were. i think that’s why he’s the protagonist; his entire character arc proves that the other avatars are pretty much just really fucked up humans, pretending to be monsters.