#i hate allison hargreeves | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

lunannex · 2 years

Text

Allison Hargreeves and the Effects of Grief

At this point, I think most people know that I’m an avid Allison supporter. It’s one of the things I’m most known for. And after witnessing these vile reactions from the fandom thanks to her actions in S3, I figured I’d try to pick apart her arc as best as I can.

So, where’s Allison at the start of this season?

Well, for starters, she’s just spent the last two years in the segregated south during the 60’s. But let’s rewind: what got her there in the first place? Technically, it was thanks to her brother. She had to pay the price for his mistakes. While trying to help him, she lost her voice and was launched back to decades in the past just when she was starting to build a life for herself amidst her divorce and custody battle. She thinks she’s all alone, so she does all she can: she builds yet another life for herself. And for the first time in her life, everything she has, she’s earned. Including the love of her husband and a great community that has her back.

Not that it lasts long because then she’s faced with an impossible choice: either leave this life behind (which includes the love of her life), or go back to her actual timeline in the hopes of MAYBE getting her daughter back.

She knows the risks, she knows that she might be going back for nothing, but she still makes the choice. She leaves everything she spent two years building, she leaves the man she loves, all because of a “maybe”. She goes back because she hopes with her entire being that all of this hasn’t been for nothing, and that’s her entire motivation to keep going.

Turns out, she was right to be doubtful. She does end up going back for nothing. That “maybe” turns into a “will never be”. Her daughter doesn’t exist, she never did. And what do her siblings do? They brush it off like it’s nothing. Luther at this point has been kidnapped by the Sparrows and is focused on getting closer to Sloane; Diego is preoccupied with Stan and Lila; Klaus and Five are off on a road trip and then embark on different journeys…so that just leaves Viktor. Really, he was the only one who initially seemed concerned over Allison. When he saw that the rest were just going about their days as if nothing had happened, he reminded them that Allison was upstairs grieving her daughter.

To all those who say that Allison was a terrible mother and that maybe it’s better if Claire doesn’t exist…how does it feel to miss the point of Allison’s entire character? Yes, she lost custody of Claire because she was an unfit mother, but from the moment she was forced to separate from her child, all she’s been trying to do is to be a better person. It took losing Claire for her to realize how much she loved her. She tried so hard to be a good person for the person in this world that she loves the most, and that still wasn’t enough. She meets a man who she really, truly loves in a way that I don’t think she ever loved Patrick. A man who loves her just as much, who accepts every part of her and whose devotion to her is never-ending. So, she leaves him. Because leaving her husband means that she gets to get her daughter back, and at the end of the day, Claire’s always been her number one priority.

We see Allison’s trauma as early as Ep.2. While she and Viktor are waiting for Marcus in that cafe, Allison starts experiencing a PTSD attack. Like she tells Diego, the others don’t understand what it was like for her as a Black woman in the 60’s. She woke each morning knowing that it could be her last, because she knew the cost of speaking out. After having everything handed to her on a silver-platter for so long, she was suddenly thrown into a time that denied people who looked like her basic human decency, a time where most of them could end up dead or in prison just for wanting to be treated as equals.

She reaches this point where she’s even attempting to rumor HERSELF. She looks in the mirror and tries to do the same thing she spent years doing to other people, but it doesn’t work. My theory is that she stopped it before the rumor could affect her in fear of losing control over who she is. At the end of the day, even if the rumor had worked, she’d still be grieving. Because how sustainable really are they? How long do they last? Who’s to say that it wouldn’t be worse after the rumor wore off?

Despite what S2 seemed adamant on denying by having Allison sweep the whole situation under the rug, we see that she’s still suffering the consequences of Viktor’s actions as well. I think the only mention of it that we got in S2 was when she mentioned to Klaus that she couldn’t speak for a year. But in reality, she would have nightmares about the whole incident, and it’s clear that it was such a common occurrence that Ray would immediately rush to reassure her that she still has her voice.

Ray was her shining beacon of hope during such a dark time. His optimism even when faced with so much oppression showed her that she was capable of so much more than she ever imagined.

There seemed to be this focus on having the characters emphasize on how Allison has always been among the best of them. They say that she’s the calm and cool one, the nice one, the one who never jumps into situations without thinking, because that’s the box they’ve stuck her in. But the truth is that she BECAME a better person after realizing her wrongdoings. She made the CHOICE to be kind, because once upon a time she was nowhere near as good of a person as the woman we meet at the start of the show.

You see, from the moment we meet Allison, we learn that she’s spent the last eight months or so trying to atone for her actions. Prior to her divorce and losing custody of her daughter, she would use her power to get everything she wanted. Love, stardom, a well-behaved child, etc. She always took the easy route because who wouldn’t? Who wouldn’t take the easy way out if they had the power to manipulate reality to their will with a single sentence?

Really, I think she only changed because she got caught in the act by her ex-husband. That put everything into perspective for her and she realized that she couldn’t carry on like that if she ever wanted to be the mother Claire deserves. Everything got so out of hand that, in the end, she ended up realizing that nothing in her life was real, none of it truly felt earned.

In S1, when Viktor states that the reason he was isolated from the rest as a child was because Reginald forced him, Allison responds by telling him that he can’t blame his problems on anyone but himself now that he’s an adult. Allison had never blamed anyone else for everything that’s happened to her. Even when Viktor slit her throat and nearly killed her, she still said that it was her fault, almost saying that she was basically asking for it. Like she tells Viktor, she’s always the one that has to meet him halfway.

But see, here’s the thing about Allison: she doesn’t like losing. She doesn’t like not feeling in control. She prefers taking things too far than not far enough. Even in the 60’s, she still had the civil rights movement. She had something to fight for and Ray was always there to urge her on and remind her why this cause is worth fighting for.

Now, this brings me to the most controversial part of her character, and the reason she’s at the top of nearly everyone’s hit list (and trust me I understand why): the part where she rumors Luther into wanting her. I think we can all agree that this was an uncomfortable scene to watch. At one point, Luther asks her if she would even be there if Ray and Claire were still around, Allison never denies that she wouldn’t. She just tells Luther “but they aren’t here, are they?”

When asked about this scene, Emmy Raver-Lampman and Tom Hopper described this scene as Allison wanting to cling onto the last bit of control she has left. No matter what, Luther has always been one of the biggest constants in her life. They’ve always shared this mutual understanding and connection that they just never had with any of the others, and something that she’s always been able to count on is Luther’s love and acceptance. So, when Luther tells her that he’s going to meet with Sloane, she sees it as a betrayal. She sees it as just another thing that’s being taken away from her and that she can’t do anything about it…except, yeah. She has the power to do just that. It’s not really what she wants, she regrets it almost immediately, but again, she’s desperate to find comfort wherever she can, and she’s not used to being told “no”.

During their conversation, Allison tells Lila that nothing stays. She tells her that none of it is real. At least with Ray, she has their wedding ring, but with Claire? She doesn’t even have a picture of her. And the original timeline feels so far away at that point. It’s been YEARS since she last saw her daughter, so who’s to say that she ever existed at all? She tells “Ray” during that scene on the swings that she feels like she’s losing her mind. She even asks him “were you ever real?”. She tells Diego that she’s never felt so hopeless in her life, because no matter what, she’s always had something to cling to. A reason to go on. But what does she have now? How can she fight for someone who’s already dead and another person who never existed?

So throughout the season, she slowly regresses into the person she used to be before Patrick caught her in the act. She makes bad decisions, she’s selfish, it’s clear that she has consent issues and she ends up turning to unhealthy coping mechanisms. Whenever we see her in S3, it’s either with a drink in hand or with a cigarette. Klaus says in S2 that Allison deals with her issues by lying to herself. Like Viktor, she’s almost a ticking time bomb in this sense. Allison tells Diego in Ep.4 that she doesn’t know where to put any of her anger, so she decides to take a physical approach. She finds people she can hurt without feeling guilty because they’re the same people who’ve hurt her. From white supremacists to the man who’s responsible for the death of their mothers.

Then the focus shifts. She finds a new reason to be angry at Viktor. He lied to her about the man who, in her mind, is responsible for her daughter never existing in that timeline. And that drags up a few old wounds that never got the chance to fully heal. Their argument starts off with Allison telling off Viktor for lying about Harlan to her face, but it quickly escalates.

When Allison says that her siblings are always so quick to tell her to suck up her pain and yet so worried about fixing Viktor’s…she’s right. When it came to Allison losing her daughter, they all turned a blind eye for the most part, but then, when it came to Viktor’s transition, they were rushing to make him feel like part of the family. When it comes to Viktor destroying the world, they’re all rushing to “fix” him and absolving him of any blame because “they all played a part”. It’s been like that for a long time and a lot of them have almost reached a point where they treat him as if he isn’t a grown adult who doesn’t need to be coddled. So Viktor can tell Allison that she ruined his life by rumoring him into thinking he was ordinary (as a FOUR year old, might I add), but Allison can’t tell Viktor that he’s taken everything for her time and time again? She can’t tell him that a part of her wishes they’d left him behind? I’m not comparing their situations here, this isn’t a competition. They both have a right to be angry.

She knows her pain doesn’t give her the permission to hurt others, she acknowledges that they’ve all had to mourn people and that she isn’t the only one who’s lost it all, but that’s just how grief works. Allison tried to be a good person. She tried to make amends and to forgive and forget but, like she says herself, look at where that got her. I think she saw Viktor’s lie as another betrayal, the same way she interpreted Luther choosing to be with Sloane (someone he met a few days ago) instead of her.

Something that I think is interesting about Allison is her pointing out on numerous occasions how unfair certain things are.

This is just one example. But in S2, when Luther tells her that they’re not meant to live normal lives, Allison has the same response. Even after all the hardships she’s faced, we have to remember that she spent her entire life up until losing custody of Claire getting everything she ever wanted. She never even had to worry about these minor inconveniences that plague us daily but now…everything is ending and she can’t do anything about it.

And then, Reginald offers her a deal. A way out. A full-proof solution to all her problems. And so, she gets her focus point back. She’s finally feeling hopeful again. She decides that she HAS to do something, she has to at least TRY to get her family back, because otherwise, all of it will just slip into nothingness. It’ll all be for nothing and who’s to say that it was ever real at all? Allison doesn’t know what she’ll do if all those memories they shared are insignificant, if she doesn’t find a place to put all this love she has for two people who no longer exist.

So, she accepts the deal. Again, who wouldn’t?

Now, the way this was framed was different from Five’s deal with the Handler in S2, but the situations do hold a lot of similarities. They both feel like, by that point, they have nowhere else to turn. They’d already tried everything else. Still, the narrative treats Five’s actions as this decision that he’s making for the greater good of his family. Him killing the board is just a means to an end, and it’s clear that he doesn’t enjoy it but he’d do anything for his siblings. Meanwhile, they frame Allison’s decision as being with malicious and selfish intentions. As if she had a hand in what happened to Luther and Klaus just because she’s been “unraveling ever since she got to the timeline”. Which, again, is a massive disservice to her character. Like she tells Viktor, the deal she made with Reginald was meant to have their siblings’ protection in mind.

Really, I think her arc would have benefited from the deal being shown from her point of view. We know that Reginald manipulated her just like the Handler manipulated Five, but, again, the way it’s portrayed makes it seem like Allison was involved in making these decisions.

Even so, you can clearly understand where she’s coming from. To me, Allison had the most realistic reaction to finding out that the world is ending. While most of the others are content with living the rest of the time they have together to the fullest, Allison just can’t bring herself to. Even when they think that they’ve found a solution to containing the Kugelblitz, Allison’s not celebrating. How can she? Sure, the world is saved, but she’s still alone.

Even at her worst, Allison still has so much kindness and humanity left in her. When Luther gets killed and Sloane is mourning him, Allison never invalidates her feelings. She never accuses her of grieving someone she’s only known for a few days. When Reginald tells the rest to step on the sigils and Allison sees that she’s draining the life out of them, she immediately tells him that this wasn’t part of the plan. If Allison truly didn’t care about her siblings, she would have let Reginald carry on with his plan. This was the only way to get her husband and daughter back. But still, she stops him.

The season ends with her back in her LA home. She not only gets her daughter back, but she gets her husband back as well. She achieved everything she’d been fighting for throughout the whole season. She finally gets her happy ending…or does she?

Now, Allison has to grapple with all the decisions she made to get to this point. She has to come to terms with the person she is now, and she has to figure out how to move forward from there. She has to see if this is truly everything she wanted and decide what to do next.

All in all, Allison is a deeply fascinating character. To me, she’s the single most interesting character on the show. And I’m so ready to see what direction the writers take her in during S4. Her grief made her into this version of herself that she always wanted to steer away from. It’s ugly and horrible but there’s something so human about it. Everything about Allison feels so real and I love her.

#luna talks #long post #allison hargreeves #neverrrr underestimate my love for her lmao #i’m just so Tired #tua #the umbrella academy #tua allison #just for the record #i’m not defending her actions and i don’t hate any of the other siblings #i just think she deserves better

471 notes · View notes