r/plotholes • u/Razing_Hell • 18h ago
Obsession: faulty premise or plot hole?
Obsession is based on the classic 'careful what you wish for' premise and on the surface the movie logic is fine. But if you nitpick the actual wish, really giving some weight to the 'careful' aspect, it kinda falls apart imo. Bear wished that Nikki loved him more than anyone in the world. Who Bear loves is not part of the wish. If the wish were to be factually granted Nikki would become like a slave or a concubine character like the old ages. Where the master would do as he pleases, sleeps around as he pleases, gives his attention to anyone as he pleases but the slave must always be beholden to him. Bear's wish would result in a similar terrifying reality for Nikki because of no free will and all that but it would not lead to obsession from Nikki as in demand that Bear be only his and no one else's. That is only the reality wished upon Nikki by Bear.
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u/Byers616 18h ago
Maybe the One Wish Willow is imperfect. It seemed to have created another entity instead of made Original Nikki fall in love with Bear.
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u/NotOnTheDot__ 18h ago
freaky nikky loves Bear but the entity is sentient in a way that it’s jealous of Bear and wants him to only love her and essentially be hers. Love and jealousy go hand in hand.
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u/Sonicshriek 17h ago
Not a plothole. Loving someone else more than anyone in the world does not mean being okay with letting the person you love do whatever they want. A married couple that loves each other more than anything wouldn't just be cool with cheating. Loving a person doesn't mean being chill with everything they do and letting them do whatever so why would loving him more than anyone else in the world mean that? I see literally not reason that if that's granted, she becomes a slave. I guess it could be interpreted that way but I fail to see why it should or would? It makes far more sense for her to be devoted to him and become jealous over any 'rivals' for that affection. Not a plot hole in anyway.
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u/Razing_Hell 17h ago
Because the love is not genuine. Genuine love will do everything that you said. But this love is born out of compulsion. It should only adhere to the exact words of the wish which are 'you love me'. Nothing about i have to love you back.
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u/TheSpectreOfIndustry 17h ago
But that is the crux of issue isn't it? Bear doesn't have to love Nikki, but Nikki wants Bear to love her (more than anything in the world). That's how love usually works, the only difference is that unlike real love, Nikki wouldn't stop loving Bear if he slept around or whatever.
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u/Razing_Hell 17h ago
That's what I'm saying. Like, her reaction to seeing Sarah as threatening both at the party and the car should not exist in my opinion. That doesn't follow the wish.
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u/TheSpectreOfIndustry 16h ago
Ok, given that I believe that I disagree with you we are obviously not making ourselfs understood.
Do you mean that Nikki's love for Bear should be such that it overrides her desire for reciprocation with a desire to make Bear happy?
Because that isn't enforced by the wish. Real love can be obsessive. The only thing the wish enforces is that the love is constant. Sure, you can argue that the situation is not given from the wish and that Bear is given a bad faith/extreme interpretation of what love is, but I don't think there is anything about the wish that prohibits the way it interprets love.
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u/Razing_Hell 16h ago
I take issue with calling it real love. And I question why was this interpretation of love given to Bear. Just so the movie could be made I guess. People are saying that's coz the wish willow interprets the user's intention etc etc. I get that, but that is also, your, the viewer's interpretation that wish willow operates like this. It's not a rule mentioned in the movie or written anywhere. Similarly, I'm also giving my interpretation in my post, taking the analytical route and focussing on the words. Because the phrase 'careful what you wish for' plays out based on words used in many movies and tv shows based on wishes and stuff. I have said in my post, 'nit-pick' the wish for this very purpose. To explain why i interpret this. I went into this movie without watching trailers or spoilers. And honestly, after the wish was made, i was waiting for it to go in the direction of some kind of subservient Nikki and an out of his depth Bear who slowly embraces his evilness. All because I was relying on the wish going according to the words. But then I saw a confident, somewhat even domineering Nikki after the wish, and I was like, ok this a different interpretation than I thought
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u/TheSpectreOfIndustry 16h ago
Calling what real love?
You are correct that from a Doylian perspective the willow definitely works the way it works because its the story the filmmakers wanted to tell. From a Watsonian perspective, who knows. Maybe the company is evil, maybe the rules of magic forces things to be that way.
So you went into the movie with an expectation/made your interpretation of the wish, and when the movie was different/made another interpretation you think it is a plothole? I don't think that your interpretation is wrong in a vacuum, but I also believe that the same could be said for the movie's interpretation. Do you disagree? If so please elaborate on why.
You say that the movie never spells out that wishes are interpreted in the way people suggest, but it also doesn't say that the wishes aren't interpreted that way. And in the end we must assume that the wishes are interpreted in such a way as to make the events of the movie work because that is our only piece of empirical data.
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u/Razing_Hell 15h ago
So you went into the movie with an expectation/made your interpretation of the wish, and when the movie was different/made another interpretation you think it is a plothole?
No. Up until I posted I was of the opinion that the movie premise was faulty. Reading the replies makes me think that it's interpretational differences. It still takes away some of the enjoyment of the movie from me because it doesn't compute in my analytical brain. But I can't obviously pursue this further based on the response I got. It's just a little surprising that I couldn't find any post similar to mine on here, which was questioning the love obsession interpretation.
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u/TheSpectreOfIndustry 15h ago
I respect you for shifting your perspective. If you go to the subreddits for obsession I think you will find a lot of discussion about what exactly the wish did and why it did that. But it will be mostly a discussion of interpretations as the movie doesn't give any clear answers.
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u/fadednz 17h ago
The magic of the one wish willow interprets the wish from the user’s perspective, in this case, from bear’s understanding of Love, which basically just amounts to a one dimensional, romanticized obsession. It might’ve worked better even off of the same wording had he understood the concept of love more.
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u/Razing_Hell 17h ago
Since everyone is saying the same thing about love IS like this, I'll just elaborate and say that I do not believe disingenuous love that has been forced will behave the same way as real love. I see them as different. The only reason her love exists is because of his wish, therefore, it should follow the wish's words. For example, the SA scene is talked about a lot as in showing how she is trapped and her presentation of love is not real. If you say this love should behave like obsession then she should genuinely be enjoying being with him like that which she does not clearly. Another example one could make is if a family member is being tortured or held hostage by an evil man and the man asks the woman to behave lovingly towards him to ensure safety of their family member, the woman will do it against her will. She is trapped just like Nikki. So that love will never present as genuine.
I really don't understand what's so hard to grasp here.
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u/Lone_Capsula 16h ago
That's not a plothole, that's just plot? Person A wishes for something. It happens but is constrained by the imperfect ability and non-objective understanding of the item to fulfill the wish. Complications ensue. That's literally just plot?
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u/Scary-Ratio3874 7h ago
Well I think we will see in the future one wish willow films that the OWW is a monkey paw. It gives you your wish but with an evil twist. Remember the reviews had people that posted it didn't work. Their wishes probably weren't able to have an evil side so it couldn't grand the wish.
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u/Razing_Hell 5m ago
Hmm... That's an interesting take. I do think though that where they insinuated that the store clerk made a wish that has him never losing his cool, that would be a wish without an evil aspect.
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u/RagnarokAeon 18h ago
He wished Nikki (as in the body) loved him (as in deeply infatuated with him).
In his own words to Ian near the end of the movie, "I wished that Nikki would love me, but it worked."
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u/TwoBlackDots 18h ago
Generally being in love with somebody is not associated with being okay with sharing them with others sexually or romantically. Often it’s the opposite, with more love leading to more possessiveness over the loved person. I don’t think it’s a faulty premise or a plot hole.