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killian-whump · 7 years

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do you know what it is that Prof Harrison whispered to Carrie? I tried hard to listen but I couldn't hear it. I know it was something "demeaning", so I assumed maybe like to call him daddy or something, but I'm still rather curious.

Okay! Here I am, locked and loaded, ready to make this post!

This question was driving me nuts as well, and I was full of ideas and guesses, but no concrete answers… so I got myself a digital copy of the book (perfect for searching through so I don’t miss a damn thing!) and set to work. This research, combined with multiple rewatching of scenes from the film and some recent comments made by Colin and the book’s author, has led me to…

Absolutely have no 100% concrete answer for you. Sorry!

HOWEVER!!! I have some pretty solid educated guesses that are close enough to sating my own curiosity… so hopefully, maybe they’ll sate yours, too.

First of all, I firmly believe there is not only one, but two things Professor Harrison asks Carrie to say. This is because, simply put, the book and the movie paint Professor Harrison and his relationship with Carrie in different lights. I had already come to this conclusion last night, only to find some Twitter comments made this morning that basically confirm it. When fans pointed out that they wanted to know what (a) the author intended Harrison to have said and (b) what Colin had in his mind when portraying the character on film, Caren Lissner said she knew (a) and that (b) was “probably worse” - to which Colin answered, “I know both.” Both responses imply that there is, in fact, two different (but similar, I’m sure) answers to the “What did he want her to say?” mystery.

And that makes sense, because the novel and the movie have wildly different takes on the relationship. In the book, there is no “first edition” book she loans him and he never returns. There is no big showdown with her father. There is no punch in the face. The book makes it much clearer that the relationship between Professor Harrison and Carrie is much more an equal meeting of minds that have a lot in common and have true depth of feeling for each other. Yes, both of them. Professor Harrison does not come off as much as a predator feasting on a young, inexperienced student. He comes off as a man who is likely as lost and lonely as Carrie, stunted socially due to a lot of the same issues, and while he enjoys her innocence and youth, it doesn’t come off as skeevy as the film portrays it.

However, both relationships come to the same end when Carrie refuses to say this “mystery phrase” he asks her to say to him in bed. The movie portrays this as a sudden request out of nowhere that leads to the immediate end of the relationship. In the novel, it is more of a slowly building maelstrom that eventually explodes, leading him to end things. Again, two very different scenarios are presented. So to answer the question “What does he ask her to say?” one needs to look at the two stories separately to really answer it.

We’ll look at the book first, since it is what the movie is (mostly) based on. The book is narrated in first person by Carrie herself, so everything we learn about Professor Harrison and their relationship is, of course, skewed by her own lens. But this style of narration also gives us some important insights into Carrie’s actual thought process and who she is. Within the first few pages, she states that she is asexual. She reiterates this multiple times throughout the entire book. Not only is she asexual, but she feels the rest of the world is “sex-obsessed” and she has some truly archaic thoughts about the moral bankruptcy of sex in general. At one point, she literally states to her friend Kara, “It’s immoral for a reason.” She never says what that “reason” is, and even admits she isn’t religious and doesn’t buy into the biblical reasons for the supposed “immorality” of sex. Still, it’s pretty safe to say that Carrie Pilby has some serious issues with sex.

The book also tells us that Professor Harrison was the first and only man Carrie has ever had sex with. They had sex multiple times over the span of the several weeks they were involved, though Carrie at one point refers to their lovemaking as “incidents” and reveals that they always left her feeling “sore and unfulfilled” afterwards. It is also made clear in her conversations with Kara about the affair that she never once enjoyed being with him sexually, though she didn’t think he was inept (Kara disagreed, insisting he must have been inept if he never figured out how to pleasure Carrie). She admits to her therapist at one point that she had sex with Harrison to “see what it was like” and so that people would stop assuming her inexperience is the cause for her lack of interest in sex.

To me, what Professor Harrison asked Carrie to do for him in the novel is fairly obvious. Over the course of their relationship, they seemed to have connected on a deeply intellectual level, but they simply could not connect sexually. It’s a very common problem in relationships between sexual and asexual people. The problem is that David Harrison thought the problem with his young lover was her inexperience and “prude” nature. He was obviously trying to get her to open up to him and become an active partner in their lovemaking by telling him what she wanted and how to please her. The book seems to be speaking less of one magical phrase he asks her to utter, and more of the kinds of things he wanted her to say. And, as with the movie, he prompts her to share these things with him by asking her, explicitly, “What do you want me to do to you?” She even begins to answer him, saying, “I want… I want you to…” and then she breaks down and can’t do it. The novel also states at one point that the things he asked her to say were “not only dirty,” but that the words were also “harsh” - But remember, everything in the novel is coming from Carrie, as the narrator. She does not tend to swear (if she ever does, I don’t think so) and she truly believes sex is immoral, unnecessary and unpleasant. Even the most benign phrases would be dirty, harsh and unnatural in her world view.

Further evidence that whatever he asked her to say was absolutely nothing unusual whatsoever, when Carrie reveals to Kara the reason why things ended with Professor Harrison, Kara confirms she’s better off without him and adds, “If you’re not a person who feels comfortable saying ‘boo,’ then you shouldn’t have to say boo.“ If what Harrison was asking her to say was truly heinous or unnatural, Kara would not feel the need to stress that it doesn’t matter what’s being asked or how common it is, if one doesn’t feel comfortable, they should not be required to do it.

I truly believe that novel Professor Harrison simply wanted Carrie to tell him what she wanted him to do in bed, and was unaware (or did not care) that Carrie simply lacked any sexual desires in the first place.

Which brings us to movie Professor Harrison. He’s a work of something, alright. He moves in on Carrie with practiced finesse and easily seduces her, persuading Carrie to give up her innocence literally (her virginity) and figuratively (the book). The movie goes out of its way to paint this character as a villain, changing him from an awkward middle-aged man to a smooth predator and adding in the final showdown where he gets his “comeuppance”. There is no comeuppance in the novel, because it really isn’t necessary. The closest the novel comes to it is when Carrie realizes Cy is “better at everything” than Professor Harrison was - the first time someone measures up against him and comes out on top, thus vanquishing the specter of his perceived perfection in Carrie’s eyes.

Mind you, this is not any kind of error on anyone’s part! No one misinterpreted the book or the script or anything. It’s an obvious change the filmmakers made to give the film a clear “bad guy” to get popped in the nose and zipped by a one-liner in order to let the audience know “look! everything’s right in the world again!” Which is why even the book’s author acknowledged that what she intended the Professor to say and what Colin envisioned the professor saying are two different things and the movie version is “probably worse”.

And as for that request made in the movie… I personally think it was very likely something related to age-play. The signs are all there. The movie is definitely painting him as a predator preying on a young student - a characterization supported by Colin’s own assertions that his character is pretty much an irredeemable scumbag. There’s also the scene in the restaurant, when he comments emphatically about how he “hated being treated like a child…” and then looks at her expectantly and asks “How ‘bout you?” That’s called fishing, folks. He’s feeling her out to see if the idea of being treated like a child is something she is okay with or not. He also is rather domineering with the wine glass, instructing her precisely how to do something as banal as sipping wine. (Book Harrison is also said to enjoy teaching Carrie things, but she also mentions loving how their every conversation left her feeling like they’d both learned three new things from each other. There is no give and take in movie Harrison’s instruction. He’s simply telling her how it’s to be done and she’s doing it.)

It’s also worth noting that in the novel, Carrie does not use the word “demeaning” to refer to the request Harrison makes of her. That is another addition made to the movie - and I think it’s a telling one, implying that what he is asking her is not something lovers normally say to each other (as the book seems to hint at), but something that would be humiliating for Carrie. The book makes it very clear that Carrie feels that she and Harrison were equals, misfits finding a place with a fellow misfit. There is no indication that Harrison ever made her feel inferior to him - nor wanted to. Movie Harrison, however, has a very patronizing way of talking to Carrie that makes a “demeaning” request seem entirely in character for him.

So there’s my educated guesses. In a nutshell:Book Harrison wanted Carrie to tell him how to please her in bed.Movie Harrison wanted her to say some kinky ageplay stuff.

#kw ask box #thedasiian #carrie pilby #kw writes a thing #oc

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oumakokichi · 7 years

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i love this blog too much for words!!! i'm a MASSIVE fan of both dr and umineko; i'm curious about how you're connecting ndrv3 to umineko, it's super fascinating to me! i'd just like to know more about how the idea of reality vs fiction is addressed in ndrv3 itself, because i haven't been able to play/watch it? thank you so much!!

Thank you so much! I’m so glad there have been so many WhenThey Cry fans coming to my blog lately; I was glad to know I wasn’t the onlyone noticing some parallels!

As far as the reality vs. fiction debate, ndrv3 handles it very similarly to Umineko. DR hasperhaps touched on the idea only once or twice in past parts of the franchise,but ndrv3 goes really all-out with the idea that truth is simultaneously anobjective to be reached, but also a weapon, and a very hurtful weapon at that.

Nothing illustrates better than Gonta’s execution in Chapter4, or the secret of the outside world in Chapter 5, the fact that sometimes byuncovering the truth, you are actually subjecting everyone to something verypainful, blunt, and unchangeable. Ouma has quite a few lines, many of themthrown out bitterly and emphatically in the Chapter 4 trial, about how everyoneelse in the group seems to hate lies somuch, even though lies themselves present infinitelymore possibilities than a “single, unchanging truth,” and even though lies areoften used to shield or comfort people from a harsher reality.

This itself is of course very central to the idea of “magic”in Umineko, where trauma and the harsh, unchanging realities of life are oftenso depressing and cynical that “witches” like Beatrice, Ange, Maria, etc. can’tactually live in the “real world” any longer and have no choice but to use magic as a source of comfort. Magic can be a toolof delusion and can often blur the lines between what’s real and what’s not toomuch—Maria breaking down when confronted with the “truth” of Sakutaro’s deathshows that complete immersion in magic isn’t quite the answer either. But it’strue that life is so hard, and soundeniably depressing, that magic is the only real source of comfort in that,and that people who aren’t “witches” don’t understand what it’s like to not beable to live without that sort of gentle lie being told to oneself.

I think one reason why I’m relatively okay with ndrv3’sending is because the note that it ends on—a very depressing, bittersweet notewhere no matter how you look at it, things have gone horribly, most of theirfriends are dead, and the outside world is still probably undeniably fucked, isbecause it’s very, very similar to the worldview in Umineko. Umineko is itselfa cynical work trying to find one underlying message of why it’s okay to liveon even though the world is shit, andndrv3 actually follows through with a tad more optimism than that, but thegeneral point is very similar.

If the entirety of Umineko was meant to actually be amessage to Ange all along, and a sort of cautionary tale on why she shouldn’tthrow her life away or decide that she’s already irrevocably broken andincapable of living on the way that Beatrice did, then ndrv3 treats all threeof its remaining survivors as “Ange”-like characters of a sort.

By the end of Umineko, Ange is desperately suicidal becausenot only did her entire family die on the island and leave her all alone in aruthless and depressing world, but the majority of them were also horrible people—unforgivable at worst,and amoral at best. When confronted with the red truth of their deaths and alsotheir status as mostly awful human beings, Ange is only able to find comfort inmagic—and in coming to a “truth” of her own, untouched by either the real,unchanging red truth, or the “magic” of others. Her own truth is unshakeable inthe end, because it’s something real and important to her, and it’s the onlyencouragement she has that can convince her to keep living when she’s literallyabout two steps away from throwing herself off a building.

For ndrv3, this message is reached with three survivorstogether as friends. All three of them are the Ange of this situation, and byvirtue of still being together, they already have a slightly less cynical andimposing situation than Ange herself might (then again, outside society and theworld itself wasn’t entirely messed up and thrown into a possiblypost-apocalyptic dystopian society in Umineko, so points to ndrv3 for extracynicism there).

Still, the decision the ndrv3 survivors reach is undeniablythe same as Ange’s own: that even in the face of being confronted with the “truth”that their existences are fictional, that their memories are fictional, thateverything they encountered in the killing game was fictional, fake, andtherefore “unimportant,” they choose ultimately to believe in their own truth.

Saihara as a detective struggles throughout the entire gamebetween the necessity of pursuing the truth, precisely because he is adetective, and in letting illusions and lies rest in peace where they are,because that’s the less painful way. Characters like Kaede encouraged him tofind the truth no matter what the cost, no matter how painful it was;characters like Ouma taught him the importance of lies, and how to distinguishtruth within lies.

By the end, Sahara progresses from a detective who is afraidof the truth itself into someone who pursues it without needing to kill or denyall lies in his path. He and the other two survivors make their own truth, andchoose very intentionally to view their experiences, memories, existences, andbonds with others as real and meaningful. No one and nothing, not even Tsumugiand all her “proof” that they are little more than fictional characters and “horriblepeople” for volunteering willingly to participate in the killing game in thefirst place, can deny the reality and importance of their experiences, and it’sa very, very Umineko message.

As with Umineko, there of course has been controversy withthe ending in particular because many people have taken the message as a sortof slap in the face to fans who just wanted to enjoy the series. But the realunderlying feeling of these messages seems less to me about making fun of fansof the series in general, and much more about the frustration both Ryukishi andKodaka felt in trying to convey certain messages or points across withouthaving these things thought about critically, or people who only want thespectacle of the thing.

The endings of both Umineko and ndrv3 are supposed to leave the reader/playerfeeling very uncomfortable, because you’re supposed to want these characters’journey to end. After an entire journey from start to finish full of pain andsuffering and the depressing reality of life, you’re supposed to want to givethese characters a chance to rest and “put the lid on the catbox,” as it were.Both Umineko and ndrv3 encourage theorizing and critical thinking from thereaders, but don’t want that kind of thinking to only be put in terms oftheories that miss the point or the themes that each series was trying toconvey.

Both are complicated, both are extremely meta works, andboth are very, very fun. If you liked Umineko at all, I think you’ll likendrv3, though certainly ndrv3 has its own flavor of wacky-funky DR times andcan be drastically different from Umineko on some fronts.

But I can say that the series seem very, very similar, andthe recent tweets from someone at the DR staff party confirming that Kodakasaid “ndrv3 was meant as a love letter” only makes me even more certain thatthese similarities were very intentional. After all, Umineko has muchdiscussion about how any mystery is technically a “love letter” from the authorto the fans, and that the mystery itself can only be solved “if one has love.”

If you go into ndrv3 determined to hate it, determined tonot listen to anything from the characters as true or meaningful, anddetermined that Kodaka is just messing around and didn’t make the mystery to besolvable at all, then it probably will stay unsolvable. But if you go inconvinced that all the clues have to be there, and convinced that characterslike Ouma and others have very specific intentions beyond just being evil ormalicious (much like Beato), then suddenly so many possibilities open up, andit’s likely you’ll have a very fun time trying to solve things.

I hope you definitely give ndrv3 a try when the localizationcomes out, or else read a reliable translation when you get a chance! Many of thepeople I’ve seen enjoying ndrv3 the most are also Umineko fans, so I think it’llbe right up your alley! Also Ouma is definitely, undeniably a witch, I can’tstop with this meme because it’s hilarious and also just…true.

#ndrv3 #drv3 #new danganronpa v3 #ndrv3 spoilers //#umineko spoilers //#my meta #okay to reblog #the ending of ndrv3 doesn't faze me much as being 'too depressing' because umineko's was still far more depressing #it's the same as when people think ouma is evil #episode 2 beato goes harder and crueller than anything ouma ever threatened but is universally loved so #morally ambiguous llama

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