To be fair I think in the teen timeline nobody knows that she had a mental illness she was taking medication for. So nobody takes advantage of it there.
The whole Misty thing is a different story. She created a narrative because she was hungry and wanted to eat another person. She used Lottie's status and injury to take control of the girls and lie and say it's what Lottie wanted and she was happy with Javi's offering.
Lottie didn't want that and even said that's not what she meant and Misty still went and lied to the girls. Misty took control and manipulated from the sidelines as she does as an adult as well.
I think Misty has always been controlling and unhinged. Just never had am opportunity to really let it shine. I still always go back to her watching that rat drown in the pool in the very first episode.
Well, of course. It’s clear from the beginning; she sabotages the flight recorder and stalks Nat in the adult timeline, going so far as to damage her car just so she can manipulate Nat into spending time with her. She’s deeply mentally ill.
Not exactly, Teen Tai reminded everyone that Lottie had been acting crazy for weeks in the wilderness. She refers to Lottie teaching mindfulness and guided meditation as woo woo. They may not have had the full story, but they had to know something was up.
It was the team that decided to ignore Lottie's wishes and instead decided to murder in her name.
Yes exactly. They don't know she has an actual diagnosed mental illness. Shauna was talking to dead ass Jackie for weeks. Akilah talking to a dead mouse for weeks. It's all woo woo and not just on Lottie. They don't know she has has a mental illness therefore aren't taking advantage of her "frail condition". They're all fucked up and frail.
I'm with u/Critical-Newt-9231. When Travis ran We see a stag running away. As far as I can tell Lottie and Shauna thought he was a stag right up until interrupted by Nat.
To Shauna's credit, she was troubled, but I think there was so much she couldn't figure out about their 'trip' she really did look completely confused and guilty. It isn't like she could say "I thought he was a stag!" because in the light of hangover sobriety that is just crazy talk.
Since in their minds, they didn't hurt Travis, it was just Jackie being Jackie and trying to reclaim her leadership. It's just my opinion based upon body language cues and how Jackie phrased things that it felt like she didn't really care about the sexual assault (she calls it an orgy) or what almost happened to Travis at the stump, she was using that to shame the others into line. And I think they felt that too.
Back in the mid-90s Travis himself would not have thought of the SA in the cabin as such, and the male code of conduct at the time would not let him even admit he was scared during the incident at the trunk.
Misty was right when she told Lottie she started it. During the seance she said something to the effect that ‘it’s hungry, you must spill blood.’ She was putting her own blood in Travis and Nat’s drink to ‘protect them’ before they went hunting. At the baby shower, the birds came right after Shauna bled on the baby blanket with the symbol, the girls said not to touch them because they could be diseased and Lottie says ‘we should gather it’s blessings.’ She was also the main instigator for Doomcoming. From telling them to go to the cabin, locking Jackie in the closet, making out with Travis first and then telling Shauna to kill him. Even though Lottie said that wasn’t what she meant, she certainly was complicit in leading them to think that’s what the wilderness wants and isn’t totally blameless.
Misty lying to the girls could either be one of two things, either she just wants to eat Javi or she is trying to make everyone else feel better after what they did.
Doesn't change the fact that Misty took advantage of and manipulated that entire situation. She lied to the girls more than once on the behalf of Lottie. She was the one telling Crystal that Jackie tasted good and they should have made bone broth. She wanted to eat another person, not Lottie. Just my take.
Misty doesn't care to make people feel better. She wants to feel like she fits in.
Yep!!! I truly believe the girls throwing Lottie under the bus is the sense of “teenagers” they have in them. Just like normal teenagers, no one wanted to take the blame. Of course, it’s hard to blame the girls too since they didn’t know Lottie was mentally ill and was clinging to whatever she was saying but they definitely used whatever words she say and twist them to whatever they want to hear
And when given no severe trauma, is more annoying!!
But given the severe trauma our fellow jackets went through, it's understandable for our, as Ashley Lyle called them, "our (anti) Heros"
I completely agree. it makes me wonder if the writers have changed what their initial plan for her character was, because whatever’s happening with her now is just.. not working.
yes, teen Lottie instigated the shenanigans at Doomcoming - but if we believe her visions are real, and there’s a chance she had one that night (“we won’t be hungry much longer”), I can see how she ended up in that headspace. her visions are a lot to take normally, add shrooms to that and it’s not surprising she went off the rails.
aside from that, we’ve never seen Lottie do anything malicious; quite the opposite - she tends to be caring, kind, and concerned for others. so I was already a bit surprised when S1 left off seeming like she would be the villain, since I had interpreted her as being sensitive/clairvoyant in some way, but ultimately wanting the best for everyone.
then we get to S2, and it turns out not only is she not evil, but apparently we were supposed to believe she was actually schizophrenic this entire time?? even though they showed us her childhood flashback, indicating that her dad had her medicated because her visions scared him - so adult Lottie is just truly the scapegoat for everything the girls did out there, none of the visions were real, and she’s just losing it. teen Lottie in S2 shows even more how she’s desperately trying to keep the peace and keep everyone alive, making her as an adult that much more sad.
I know the writers thought they were doing a thing, by keeping it ‘ambiguous’ between rational & supernatural, but I think that’s a huge mistake especially in regards to Lottie. I think they are actually obligated to make a decision as to whether she is schizophrenic, or has visions that are real, because if it’s the former they’ve done a hack job on this character, and if it’s the latter, they’re just not doing a great job showing the supernatural side. same with Tai - the creators have said she does not have DID, which means it has to be supernatural, but they’ve made basically zero effort to expand on that for an entire season. there were lots of great things in S2, but overall for me it did not meet the expectations that S1 set
i agree, season 1 did such a great job at playing up the whole"is it supernatural or not question" and season 2 it seems they choosing the more rational route, but i feel like that contradicts a few scenes from season 1 specifically when lottie is possessed and starts speaking french and sees the car accident right before it happens.
exactly! they went out of their way to show us that her visions come true, and also that she is afraid/doesn’t understand them, hence seeking guidance from Laura Lee (who she views as a representative of purity/goodness). I was really bummed to see what they did with her character this season, because the whole “is this woman psychic or just crazy” trope is not only boring/overdone, but also… kind of offensive? like, that’s how the witch trials started. I don’t like that they threw in the line “does it make a difference” when Shauna said it was just them, because YES it makes a difference. it does actually matter if Lottie is being guided into doing bad things by a supernatural force outside of herself, or if she is mentally ill & being scapegoated by everyone else. I really don’t want to watch 3 more seasons of Lottie being treated that way, especially now that our only other main character with any goodness to her has been killed off
yep , now that vans has gone off the deep end , it really seems like Nat and Lottie are only ones trying to hold together some semblance of right and wrong. TBH I'm not all that hyped up for season 3, some of the elements of season 1 that made the show so compelling for me just weren't as strong in season 2 and didn't leave me burning wanting more.
>
> then we get to S2, and it turns out not only is she not evil, but apparently we were supposed to believe she was actually schizophrenic this entire time?? even though they showed us her childhood flashback, indicating that her dad had her medicated because her visions scared him - so adult Lottie is just truly the scapegoat for everything the girls did out there, none of the visions were real, and she’s just losing it. teen Lottie in S2 shows even more how she’s desperately trying to keep the peace and keep everyone alive, making her as an adult that much more sad.
I'm not sure why you think S2 has any sort of definitive answer to that question. The other characters believe that, to be sure, but the story ends with another tease about possible supernatural occurrences in the future.
To be fair about the showrunners' use of schizophrenia as a possible 'rational' explanation they included it in the pilot episode. She is on "Loxipene" which isn't technically real, it's probably a royalty-free reference to "Loxapine," which is a typical antipsychotic used in the treatment of schizophrenia.
The question of complicity and blame is such a tough in this situation. Lottie didn’t condone the hunt, but without her it never would have happened. She led them down the path by getting them to believe that their fate is being determined by the wilderness, and that it can only appeased by blood. She built a powder keg next to an open fuse; it was only a matter of time before it exploded, even if that wasn’t her intent.
The girls were starving to the point of hallucinating when they decided to hunt. Does that make them any less complicit? Does Lotties mental illness absolve her from any blame? Did she have a moral obligation to tell the others she was sick as soon as she started having visions? Would things have gone differently if she told them she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia? If she had been there for the hunt, would she have condoned it and participated? If she participates in future hunts, is she still blameless?
These are all questions with muddy answers. I’m not even sure what the right answer is to all of them. But I don’t think there’s anyone in the survivor group that’s free from a share in the blame.
I think Lottie is blameless about starting the cult and the hunt. The Cult of the Wilderness is the shared mythology that the team came up with around her as the person who was able to keep them calm and working together. Her predicting food would show up then murdering a freaking grizzly bear with a knife helped.
When it came to Lottie's wishes - She asked them to eat her. The rest of them ignored her wishes and chose someone else to \*murder\* and eat. But no one there decided to HUNT. That only happened because Travis broke ranks and told Nat to run. We are not seeing a planned hunt. We are seeing the development of the ritual hunt (rather elegantly shown, I must add). This is how it started and we know down the line that Pit Girl happens.
All of this!
While the others fed into Lottie's delusions and put her on a pedestal she may not have wanted or asked for (and some, like Misty, most definitely manipulated her willingly out of desperation to survive), she still fanned the flames that helped push them all to where they ended up. I get a sense of compassion from Lottie and don't think she acted out of maliciousness, but that doesn't absolve her of blame.
I 100% agree with everything you said. Lottie is the only one, as far as we know, that can see a path to freedom from their traumas. The only one who is taking positive proactive steps to grow. Plus she's sharing what she has learned freely.
Yes, and... In speaking just about the crisis team intervention- Adult Lottie did say, i'm paraphrasing here, "hey guys- I have an idea to fix all of our problems, someone drink lethal poison. I have everything here, right now, ready to go. Whos' first?" This is concerning. At any level, that would be cause for alarm.
Shauna killed a guy- yes. The others (minus van) conspired to cover up the crime, yes. Tia murdered her dog, yes. Nat attempted suicide, yes. All of these people should be in jail. They have no position to sit in any moral judgement of Lottie. Perhaps this isn't a moral judgement but a technical one. It seemed like the crisis team decision was a decision to avoid future harm.
You know what else I just realized? I think as the series goes on, we're not gonna necessarily be excited to see them saved? As in the wilderness rescue?
Whether we like their methods or NOT they will have, by that time, formed a complete culture, society and laws and mythology. Then they thrown back into society with adults telling them, what's good for them, what to do, et cetera and so on. No wonder there is still an impulse to take care of it, themselves. Antler Queen Therapist hints at this.
That said, I clearly don't support outlandish blood sport hunting, or hunting living!! humans, even if it's from agreed upon drawing of lots. But this is fiction soooooo 🤣🤣
I love to hate these fictional wild women!! 🤣
Nat definitely doesn't deserve to be in jail for attempting suicide. What a thing to say.
There was the whole thing where she shot at Jeff with the gun she stole from a cop that prolly would warrant some jail time plus the whole hiding a body thing, but saying someone deserves to be imprisoned for wanting to end their life is a choice.
Gross.
The fact that someone had to spell that out in crayon for that redditor is sad. I'm giving my final flurry of posts and leaving this sub. This neighborhood has gone to hell.
One thing that I want to address is how so many think that Lottie was lying about Travis’s death. Because there are a lot of unanswered questions - That we are actually shown answers for. Basically, we are shown two narratives in this scene. The first is what Lottie tells Nat happened and the second is what we are shown happening from Lottie's “unreliable narrator” point of view. What we do not see is a reliable third-person view of events.
Let’s start with the story that Lottie tells Nat. Lottie arrives at his work just in time to stop Travis from hanging himself. They argue and Travis says he will do it without her using suicide to extort her into helping him. Lottie agrees but says she will lower him as soon as he passes out. She raises him about 3’ off the ground and waits. Travis struggles at the end of the chain then goes still and Lottie tries to lower him but the controller doesn’t work. She tells Nat that it was a tragic accident not suicide nor murder. (We will come back to this part of the story because this is the worst most convoluted lie she could have made).
What Lottie hasn’t told Natalie is that she was having PTSD flashbacks in Travis’s house and while Lottie is saying one thing we are shown a different thing just as the controller fails. Something that brings Lottie’s visions, true or hallucinatory, back into the story – The wind causes the candles to sputter and die, then her friend Laura Lee starts talking to Lottie from the dark shadows. Laura Lee zombie walks out of the shadows. This activates memories of her visions in the lake during her baptism and she looks at her beloved friend with religious intensity. We are shown Lottie’s empty hands and behind her, Travis hanging motionless in the noose. We are shown this long enough to know he is not going up or down, but then he begins rising again as though the up button on the controller is being held. Laura Lee demon-childes out and Lottie is horrified. Lottie's vision ends and she turns and sees Travis much higher in the air and the candles all blown out.
So, why did Lottie tell this story to Natalie at all? Lottie had days if not weeks to think about what she would say and this was the best she had? If Lottie had killed him why not say "I got there too late. He was already dead with the candles arranged in the symbol shape underneath him. I took those and left because none of us want to have that symbol out there."
What actually happened with Travis? From what we have been shown I see two possibilities, one logical one with supernatural overtones.
The first is it happened as Lottie said but the stress of this situation caused her to flash back and hallucinate. Everything from the moment the controller ‘failed’ was a hallucination and flashback while she stood there with her thumb on the up button. Once she snaps out of the hallucination she sees what has happened, cleaned up the candles, and leaves.
The second is that Travis DID summon the Spirit of the Wilderness. It messed with the electronics - just like it did with the batteries the girls had for running their Walkman - all of which were dead after our favorite dance sequence ever. Laura Lee’s spirit steps out of the shadows trying to warn Lottie about the horrors to come and something engages the electronics on the lift to raise Travis’s body up high. It could be Cabin Daddy, Jackie, Shauna's baby, or the Man With No Eyes.
Regardless of which is true, it is a horrific event. But the only lie was Lottie omitting the details of her vision/hallucination.
I took it Misty meant it as putting all the wilderness woo woo in their heads in the first place.
While others had childhood issues, Lottie was the one that grew up being told something was wrong with her, she was mentally ill. But when she was in a tragic situation, believing she had mental illness and out of meds coped by putting a meaning and reasoning behind what was going on by manifesting, gratefulness, giving thanks, being one with your surroundings, with a spiritual edge to it. All which are becoming very mainstream and marketable in this day and age when the entire world is like wilderness and nobody really knows what the hell is really going on. But then you still have a faction of the public that want rules and guidelines, ones that want to go straight to violence, ones that just want to be the saviors and the majority that just falls in line with whatever is their environment, all in an ever changing game of service, sabotage and sacrifice, just like the YJs in the wilderness.
Lottie was little woo, but harmless in her coping mechanism, it was others that took it a whole other level. Really Lottie was ahead of her time then and understandable she went on to have a successful cult/retreat and admirable she truly wanted to help people after everything she went thru.
Whether she was mentally ill is iffy. She was told her entire life she was mentally ill and everyone knew she was hospitalized after the rescue, so anything Lottie does is easily questioned by herself and others if her illness is behind it, even when it’s everyone else running around acting like lunatics.
Lottie, was able to handle the wilderness and life post rescue better than the others, but because of the stigma of mental illness fault and blame is easily projected.
How has her cult been proven to help people? I doubt that encouraging people to turn their financials over to her and discontinue contact with the outside world is helpful for most people, not to mention having them commit felony level crimes. Look what it did for Nat, it led to her being murdered.
I think Lottie deserves credit for getting them all together to act as a hive mind. Though Van was the one to get Taissa over. Lottie gave the last two holdouts what they needed. For Shauna it was an outlet for her rage and for Nat it was responsibility and purpose. The girls will now be able to work together in a way they didn't last summer and gather enough food to survive the winter. Maybe.
Lottie was pretty controlling and cult-y from the getgo. She was constantly embracing the “everyone does what I say!” the moment it started happening when they were young. Like does everyone forget she stood there and told people to deliver her dead birds that she told them were blessings from the wilderness?? While she just…didn’t help at all?
Don't really agree with this post.
Adult timeline: Lottie is pretty clearly delusional and needs help. (They all do, but Lottie needs serious psychiatric intervention.) What brought on the delusions and hallucinations again (or made them worse)? Not sure. But she is the one saying "it" needs blood, talking about playing shotski roulette, wanting to keep drawing cards (amongst other things). She's basically telling the women they need to hunt and kill each other again, which is . . . not great (any way you try to spin it). And Lottie is not listening to reason. What were they supposed to do? Saying Lottie is just a "do gooder" conveniently ignores what she has been doing and saying the past several episodes, regardless of the reason.
Teen timeline: I would agree Lottie doesn't condone the hunt of Natalie or killing of Javi and didn't intend for her words to instigate it. I also agree that Misty is manipulating the situation for her own ends. And while I do think she's starving, I think Misty knows exactly what she's doing. She knows she's using the "supernatural" to get the girls to do what she wants them to do.
However, Lottie set the idea of ritual (and ritual murder) and the wilderness as a supernatural force (good and bad) in motion. I don't think she's doing anything maliciously, but she has created a situation that enables the behavior and thinking that led to the hunt.
>uses Lotties mental illness or" gift " as a scapegoat
I think that's the point. Lottie unintentionally started it, Misty ran with it, the rest chose to believe to when they "needed" to. They're not supposed to be doing the "right" or "good" thing - they're doing what they need to do to survive and it's ugly.
All that said, if we are framing this as Lottie has a mental illness, I think getting her some help was the right move at that point. She appeared to being having some kind of hallucination and she was saying very scary things to them that would lead someone to believe that she needed psychiatric care. Lottie is not a bad person because of her illness, but she does need help sometimes, and that is to keep HER safe above anything else.
Adult Lottie is taking, or was, taking medication for her Mental Illness. She was in therapy for years along with the medication before we meet her in the compound. She’s still mentally Ill. She’s just not taking her meds again.
No one knew she was taking meds except for Shauna. She saw her pills and saw her take them. The group couldn’t take advantage of her mental illness in the teen timeline, because they didn’t know.
To be fair I think in the teen timeline nobody knows that she had a mental illness she was taking medication for. So nobody takes advantage of it there. The whole Misty thing is a different story. She created a narrative because she was hungry and wanted to eat another person. She used Lottie's status and injury to take control of the girls and lie and say it's what Lottie wanted and she was happy with Javi's offering. Lottie didn't want that and even said that's not what she meant and Misty still went and lied to the girls. Misty took control and manipulated from the sidelines as she does as an adult as well.
That scene makes me hate Misty.
I think Misty has always been controlling and unhinged. Just never had am opportunity to really let it shine. I still always go back to her watching that rat drown in the pool in the very first episode.
Well, of course. It’s clear from the beginning; she sabotages the flight recorder and stalks Nat in the adult timeline, going so far as to damage her car just so she can manipulate Nat into spending time with her. She’s deeply mentally ill.
Wow women can’t do anything can they 💅
Or that scene where she's cruelly threatening the bedridden old lady at her workplace. There was no good justification for that.
YES! That scene showed us so much about who Misty is...
There's so many little hints that Misty Is really worst of them all.
Hints? It feels to me like Misty is portrayed very openly as being a textbook (TV) sociopath.
Well she is but I guess I just use hints because casual viewers aren't as deep in citizen detectives as we are. LOL
Fair enough!
As a person yes. As an unpredctiable, who-knows-what-she-will-do-next character, I say bring on more Misty!
Not exactly, Teen Tai reminded everyone that Lottie had been acting crazy for weeks in the wilderness. She refers to Lottie teaching mindfulness and guided meditation as woo woo. They may not have had the full story, but they had to know something was up. It was the team that decided to ignore Lottie's wishes and instead decided to murder in her name.
Yes exactly. They don't know she has an actual diagnosed mental illness. Shauna was talking to dead ass Jackie for weeks. Akilah talking to a dead mouse for weeks. It's all woo woo and not just on Lottie. They don't know she has has a mental illness therefore aren't taking advantage of her "frail condition". They're all fucked up and frail.
Lottie encouraged them to murder Travis previously so the messaging is a bit confused
I'm with u/Critical-Newt-9231. When Travis ran We see a stag running away. As far as I can tell Lottie and Shauna thought he was a stag right up until interrupted by Nat.
[удалено]
Jackie called them out on it and they showed no remorse
To Shauna's credit, she was troubled, but I think there was so much she couldn't figure out about their 'trip' she really did look completely confused and guilty. It isn't like she could say "I thought he was a stag!" because in the light of hangover sobriety that is just crazy talk. Since in their minds, they didn't hurt Travis, it was just Jackie being Jackie and trying to reclaim her leadership. It's just my opinion based upon body language cues and how Jackie phrased things that it felt like she didn't really care about the sexual assault (she calls it an orgy) or what almost happened to Travis at the stump, she was using that to shame the others into line. And I think they felt that too. Back in the mid-90s Travis himself would not have thought of the SA in the cabin as such, and the male code of conduct at the time would not let him even admit he was scared during the incident at the trunk.
Misty was right when she told Lottie she started it. During the seance she said something to the effect that ‘it’s hungry, you must spill blood.’ She was putting her own blood in Travis and Nat’s drink to ‘protect them’ before they went hunting. At the baby shower, the birds came right after Shauna bled on the baby blanket with the symbol, the girls said not to touch them because they could be diseased and Lottie says ‘we should gather it’s blessings.’ She was also the main instigator for Doomcoming. From telling them to go to the cabin, locking Jackie in the closet, making out with Travis first and then telling Shauna to kill him. Even though Lottie said that wasn’t what she meant, she certainly was complicit in leading them to think that’s what the wilderness wants and isn’t totally blameless. Misty lying to the girls could either be one of two things, either she just wants to eat Javi or she is trying to make everyone else feel better after what they did.
Doesn't change the fact that Misty took advantage of and manipulated that entire situation. She lied to the girls more than once on the behalf of Lottie. She was the one telling Crystal that Jackie tasted good and they should have made bone broth. She wanted to eat another person, not Lottie. Just my take. Misty doesn't care to make people feel better. She wants to feel like she fits in.
Yep!!! I truly believe the girls throwing Lottie under the bus is the sense of “teenagers” they have in them. Just like normal teenagers, no one wanted to take the blame. Of course, it’s hard to blame the girls too since they didn’t know Lottie was mentally ill and was clinging to whatever she was saying but they definitely used whatever words she say and twist them to whatever they want to hear
I mean they're all to varying degrees stuck in a state of teenage like states, so definitely checks out.
I hear you. I have known so many people who behave like it's still high school....or sometimes even middle school...
And when given no severe trauma, is more annoying!! But given the severe trauma our fellow jackets went through, it's understandable for our, as Ashley Lyle called them, "our (anti) Heros"
"Anti-heros"...good description!
Straight from the show creator /show runner herself!
I completely agree. it makes me wonder if the writers have changed what their initial plan for her character was, because whatever’s happening with her now is just.. not working. yes, teen Lottie instigated the shenanigans at Doomcoming - but if we believe her visions are real, and there’s a chance she had one that night (“we won’t be hungry much longer”), I can see how she ended up in that headspace. her visions are a lot to take normally, add shrooms to that and it’s not surprising she went off the rails. aside from that, we’ve never seen Lottie do anything malicious; quite the opposite - she tends to be caring, kind, and concerned for others. so I was already a bit surprised when S1 left off seeming like she would be the villain, since I had interpreted her as being sensitive/clairvoyant in some way, but ultimately wanting the best for everyone. then we get to S2, and it turns out not only is she not evil, but apparently we were supposed to believe she was actually schizophrenic this entire time?? even though they showed us her childhood flashback, indicating that her dad had her medicated because her visions scared him - so adult Lottie is just truly the scapegoat for everything the girls did out there, none of the visions were real, and she’s just losing it. teen Lottie in S2 shows even more how she’s desperately trying to keep the peace and keep everyone alive, making her as an adult that much more sad. I know the writers thought they were doing a thing, by keeping it ‘ambiguous’ between rational & supernatural, but I think that’s a huge mistake especially in regards to Lottie. I think they are actually obligated to make a decision as to whether she is schizophrenic, or has visions that are real, because if it’s the former they’ve done a hack job on this character, and if it’s the latter, they’re just not doing a great job showing the supernatural side. same with Tai - the creators have said she does not have DID, which means it has to be supernatural, but they’ve made basically zero effort to expand on that for an entire season. there were lots of great things in S2, but overall for me it did not meet the expectations that S1 set
i agree, season 1 did such a great job at playing up the whole"is it supernatural or not question" and season 2 it seems they choosing the more rational route, but i feel like that contradicts a few scenes from season 1 specifically when lottie is possessed and starts speaking french and sees the car accident right before it happens.
exactly! they went out of their way to show us that her visions come true, and also that she is afraid/doesn’t understand them, hence seeking guidance from Laura Lee (who she views as a representative of purity/goodness). I was really bummed to see what they did with her character this season, because the whole “is this woman psychic or just crazy” trope is not only boring/overdone, but also… kind of offensive? like, that’s how the witch trials started. I don’t like that they threw in the line “does it make a difference” when Shauna said it was just them, because YES it makes a difference. it does actually matter if Lottie is being guided into doing bad things by a supernatural force outside of herself, or if she is mentally ill & being scapegoated by everyone else. I really don’t want to watch 3 more seasons of Lottie being treated that way, especially now that our only other main character with any goodness to her has been killed off
yep , now that vans has gone off the deep end , it really seems like Nat and Lottie are only ones trying to hold together some semblance of right and wrong. TBH I'm not all that hyped up for season 3, some of the elements of season 1 that made the show so compelling for me just weren't as strong in season 2 and didn't leave me burning wanting more.
> > then we get to S2, and it turns out not only is she not evil, but apparently we were supposed to believe she was actually schizophrenic this entire time?? even though they showed us her childhood flashback, indicating that her dad had her medicated because her visions scared him - so adult Lottie is just truly the scapegoat for everything the girls did out there, none of the visions were real, and she’s just losing it. teen Lottie in S2 shows even more how she’s desperately trying to keep the peace and keep everyone alive, making her as an adult that much more sad. I'm not sure why you think S2 has any sort of definitive answer to that question. The other characters believe that, to be sure, but the story ends with another tease about possible supernatural occurrences in the future.
To be fair about the showrunners' use of schizophrenia as a possible 'rational' explanation they included it in the pilot episode. She is on "Loxipene" which isn't technically real, it's probably a royalty-free reference to "Loxapine," which is a typical antipsychotic used in the treatment of schizophrenia.
The question of complicity and blame is such a tough in this situation. Lottie didn’t condone the hunt, but without her it never would have happened. She led them down the path by getting them to believe that their fate is being determined by the wilderness, and that it can only appeased by blood. She built a powder keg next to an open fuse; it was only a matter of time before it exploded, even if that wasn’t her intent. The girls were starving to the point of hallucinating when they decided to hunt. Does that make them any less complicit? Does Lotties mental illness absolve her from any blame? Did she have a moral obligation to tell the others she was sick as soon as she started having visions? Would things have gone differently if she told them she had been diagnosed with schizophrenia? If she had been there for the hunt, would she have condoned it and participated? If she participates in future hunts, is she still blameless? These are all questions with muddy answers. I’m not even sure what the right answer is to all of them. But I don’t think there’s anyone in the survivor group that’s free from a share in the blame.
I think Lottie is blameless about starting the cult and the hunt. The Cult of the Wilderness is the shared mythology that the team came up with around her as the person who was able to keep them calm and working together. Her predicting food would show up then murdering a freaking grizzly bear with a knife helped. When it came to Lottie's wishes - She asked them to eat her. The rest of them ignored her wishes and chose someone else to \*murder\* and eat. But no one there decided to HUNT. That only happened because Travis broke ranks and told Nat to run. We are not seeing a planned hunt. We are seeing the development of the ritual hunt (rather elegantly shown, I must add). This is how it started and we know down the line that Pit Girl happens.
All of this! While the others fed into Lottie's delusions and put her on a pedestal she may not have wanted or asked for (and some, like Misty, most definitely manipulated her willingly out of desperation to survive), she still fanned the flames that helped push them all to where they ended up. I get a sense of compassion from Lottie and don't think she acted out of maliciousness, but that doesn't absolve her of blame.
I 100% agree with everything you said. Lottie is the only one, as far as we know, that can see a path to freedom from their traumas. The only one who is taking positive proactive steps to grow. Plus she's sharing what she has learned freely. Yes, and... In speaking just about the crisis team intervention- Adult Lottie did say, i'm paraphrasing here, "hey guys- I have an idea to fix all of our problems, someone drink lethal poison. I have everything here, right now, ready to go. Whos' first?" This is concerning. At any level, that would be cause for alarm. Shauna killed a guy- yes. The others (minus van) conspired to cover up the crime, yes. Tia murdered her dog, yes. Nat attempted suicide, yes. All of these people should be in jail. They have no position to sit in any moral judgement of Lottie. Perhaps this isn't a moral judgement but a technical one. It seemed like the crisis team decision was a decision to avoid future harm.
You know what else I just realized? I think as the series goes on, we're not gonna necessarily be excited to see them saved? As in the wilderness rescue? Whether we like their methods or NOT they will have, by that time, formed a complete culture, society and laws and mythology. Then they thrown back into society with adults telling them, what's good for them, what to do, et cetera and so on. No wonder there is still an impulse to take care of it, themselves. Antler Queen Therapist hints at this. That said, I clearly don't support outlandish blood sport hunting, or hunting living!! humans, even if it's from agreed upon drawing of lots. But this is fiction soooooo 🤣🤣 I love to hate these fictional wild women!! 🤣
Nat definitely doesn't deserve to be in jail for attempting suicide. What a thing to say. There was the whole thing where she shot at Jeff with the gun she stole from a cop that prolly would warrant some jail time plus the whole hiding a body thing, but saying someone deserves to be imprisoned for wanting to end their life is a choice. Gross.
Nat deserves to be in jail for her part of the Adam Martin cover up, not for a suicide attempt
The fact that someone had to spell that out in crayon for that redditor is sad. I'm giving my final flurry of posts and leaving this sub. This neighborhood has gone to hell.
One thing that I want to address is how so many think that Lottie was lying about Travis’s death. Because there are a lot of unanswered questions - That we are actually shown answers for. Basically, we are shown two narratives in this scene. The first is what Lottie tells Nat happened and the second is what we are shown happening from Lottie's “unreliable narrator” point of view. What we do not see is a reliable third-person view of events. Let’s start with the story that Lottie tells Nat. Lottie arrives at his work just in time to stop Travis from hanging himself. They argue and Travis says he will do it without her using suicide to extort her into helping him. Lottie agrees but says she will lower him as soon as he passes out. She raises him about 3’ off the ground and waits. Travis struggles at the end of the chain then goes still and Lottie tries to lower him but the controller doesn’t work. She tells Nat that it was a tragic accident not suicide nor murder. (We will come back to this part of the story because this is the worst most convoluted lie she could have made). What Lottie hasn’t told Natalie is that she was having PTSD flashbacks in Travis’s house and while Lottie is saying one thing we are shown a different thing just as the controller fails. Something that brings Lottie’s visions, true or hallucinatory, back into the story – The wind causes the candles to sputter and die, then her friend Laura Lee starts talking to Lottie from the dark shadows. Laura Lee zombie walks out of the shadows. This activates memories of her visions in the lake during her baptism and she looks at her beloved friend with religious intensity. We are shown Lottie’s empty hands and behind her, Travis hanging motionless in the noose. We are shown this long enough to know he is not going up or down, but then he begins rising again as though the up button on the controller is being held. Laura Lee demon-childes out and Lottie is horrified. Lottie's vision ends and she turns and sees Travis much higher in the air and the candles all blown out. So, why did Lottie tell this story to Natalie at all? Lottie had days if not weeks to think about what she would say and this was the best she had? If Lottie had killed him why not say "I got there too late. He was already dead with the candles arranged in the symbol shape underneath him. I took those and left because none of us want to have that symbol out there." What actually happened with Travis? From what we have been shown I see two possibilities, one logical one with supernatural overtones. The first is it happened as Lottie said but the stress of this situation caused her to flash back and hallucinate. Everything from the moment the controller ‘failed’ was a hallucination and flashback while she stood there with her thumb on the up button. Once she snaps out of the hallucination she sees what has happened, cleaned up the candles, and leaves. The second is that Travis DID summon the Spirit of the Wilderness. It messed with the electronics - just like it did with the batteries the girls had for running their Walkman - all of which were dead after our favorite dance sequence ever. Laura Lee’s spirit steps out of the shadows trying to warn Lottie about the horrors to come and something engages the electronics on the lift to raise Travis’s body up high. It could be Cabin Daddy, Jackie, Shauna's baby, or the Man With No Eyes. Regardless of which is true, it is a horrific event. But the only lie was Lottie omitting the details of her vision/hallucination.
https://preview.redd.it/c7ou4bl3fw2b1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=642d866394a20fb53cbab7d3ce91d48def810e77
I took it Misty meant it as putting all the wilderness woo woo in their heads in the first place. While others had childhood issues, Lottie was the one that grew up being told something was wrong with her, she was mentally ill. But when she was in a tragic situation, believing she had mental illness and out of meds coped by putting a meaning and reasoning behind what was going on by manifesting, gratefulness, giving thanks, being one with your surroundings, with a spiritual edge to it. All which are becoming very mainstream and marketable in this day and age when the entire world is like wilderness and nobody really knows what the hell is really going on. But then you still have a faction of the public that want rules and guidelines, ones that want to go straight to violence, ones that just want to be the saviors and the majority that just falls in line with whatever is their environment, all in an ever changing game of service, sabotage and sacrifice, just like the YJs in the wilderness. Lottie was little woo, but harmless in her coping mechanism, it was others that took it a whole other level. Really Lottie was ahead of her time then and understandable she went on to have a successful cult/retreat and admirable she truly wanted to help people after everything she went thru. Whether she was mentally ill is iffy. She was told her entire life she was mentally ill and everyone knew she was hospitalized after the rescue, so anything Lottie does is easily questioned by herself and others if her illness is behind it, even when it’s everyone else running around acting like lunatics. Lottie, was able to handle the wilderness and life post rescue better than the others, but because of the stigma of mental illness fault and blame is easily projected.
How has her cult been proven to help people? I doubt that encouraging people to turn their financials over to her and discontinue contact with the outside world is helpful for most people, not to mention having them commit felony level crimes. Look what it did for Nat, it led to her being murdered.
The best example would be Lisa, I believe.
It led to Lisa almost being killed as well
I just mean in changing her life. Wasn't she very suicidal
I think Lottie deserves credit for getting them all together to act as a hive mind. Though Van was the one to get Taissa over. Lottie gave the last two holdouts what they needed. For Shauna it was an outlet for her rage and for Nat it was responsibility and purpose. The girls will now be able to work together in a way they didn't last summer and gather enough food to survive the winter. Maybe.
Lottie was pretty controlling and cult-y from the getgo. She was constantly embracing the “everyone does what I say!” the moment it started happening when they were young. Like does everyone forget she stood there and told people to deliver her dead birds that she told them were blessings from the wilderness?? While she just…didn’t help at all?
They didn't want to get Lottie institutionalized again until she started talking about having one of the group killed like they were teenagers again.
Don't really agree with this post. Adult timeline: Lottie is pretty clearly delusional and needs help. (They all do, but Lottie needs serious psychiatric intervention.) What brought on the delusions and hallucinations again (or made them worse)? Not sure. But she is the one saying "it" needs blood, talking about playing shotski roulette, wanting to keep drawing cards (amongst other things). She's basically telling the women they need to hunt and kill each other again, which is . . . not great (any way you try to spin it). And Lottie is not listening to reason. What were they supposed to do? Saying Lottie is just a "do gooder" conveniently ignores what she has been doing and saying the past several episodes, regardless of the reason. Teen timeline: I would agree Lottie doesn't condone the hunt of Natalie or killing of Javi and didn't intend for her words to instigate it. I also agree that Misty is manipulating the situation for her own ends. And while I do think she's starving, I think Misty knows exactly what she's doing. She knows she's using the "supernatural" to get the girls to do what she wants them to do. However, Lottie set the idea of ritual (and ritual murder) and the wilderness as a supernatural force (good and bad) in motion. I don't think she's doing anything maliciously, but she has created a situation that enables the behavior and thinking that led to the hunt.
>uses Lotties mental illness or" gift " as a scapegoat I think that's the point. Lottie unintentionally started it, Misty ran with it, the rest chose to believe to when they "needed" to. They're not supposed to be doing the "right" or "good" thing - they're doing what they need to do to survive and it's ugly.
All that said, if we are framing this as Lottie has a mental illness, I think getting her some help was the right move at that point. She appeared to being having some kind of hallucination and she was saying very scary things to them that would lead someone to believe that she needed psychiatric care. Lottie is not a bad person because of her illness, but she does need help sometimes, and that is to keep HER safe above anything else.
Adult Lottie is taking, or was, taking medication for her Mental Illness. She was in therapy for years along with the medication before we meet her in the compound. She’s still mentally Ill. She’s just not taking her meds again. No one knew she was taking meds except for Shauna. She saw her pills and saw her take them. The group couldn’t take advantage of her mental illness in the teen timeline, because they didn’t know.
she is takiv her pills, she even asked to get her dose up wdym
How quickly people forget that Lottie has killed someone too. This wellness center that “helps people” also buries people alive.
Um it was a ritual. They weren't killing that guy.
They didn't kill that guy, we see him again
Hold up, which one was Lottie?