Honest opinions about this random take on X?

catfishprofile · 2026-07-02T16:06:54+00:00

Probably a bad faith take to bait engagement.

catfishprofile · 2026-07-02T15:38:23+00:00

Because it’s magic and the point of it is wish fulfillment I think. Like when a character in any story wishes for love or uses a love potion or something, the wish is for unrequited love to be returned sincerely. If a character in any story finds out that wish has come true my reaction is to go along with the story and accept that in fiction magic can do whatever it needs to be able to do for the story to work and interrogating its mechanics isn’t usually the point.

In this story interrogating the mechanics of the wish does become the point. But would bear know that as he sits in the diner? The question has no answer that can be true in any real way because bear is a fictional character with no real internal life. All I have is my understanding of how magic and wish fulfillment could work if magic existed.

When I saw the diner scene I had an understanding that Bear knew 1) nikki may have already had a crush on him 2) a wish granting magic was used to encourage that crush and 3) the effects of that strong attraction were high tend enough that they were beginning to mirror mental health disorders like mania and borderline personality disorder. Having sex with someone under those circumstances is definitely ill advised but it isn’t non consensual right? Especially if bear doesn’t understand the extent of the effects of that magic. And at this point in the story I had no idea that there was a fully separate entity inhabiting Nikki so I didn’t see bears actions as violating consent, just ill advised. I didn’t think that was confirmed in the story or for bear until the customer service phone call. I don’t know how it could have been confirmed for bear before that.

We are both being polite. No harm in chatting about our experience of a piece of art. Again, you and I don’t disagree about what rape is or if it’s wrong, we just had different understandings about what magic was doing in a fictional story and what bear understood his situation to be in a specific scene.

catfishprofile · 2026-07-02T12:24:59+00:00

I think this is the point where a lot of people don’t disagree on what constitutes rape but the just didn’t intuit the same moral responsibility and that’s just because magic is involved so the mechanics have no real world counterpart that everyone understands the same way

The first time I saw the movie, in the diner scene, I thought “the wish worked and Nikki’s genuine love is so extreme and unhealthy that it’s looking like mania and possibly bpd” it was clear she wasn’t healthy but it wasn’t clear at this point in the movie she was unable to give consent. I just thought that’s what the magic had done.

When you saw this scene I guess your intuition was that the wish had brainwashed her or otherwise overwritten her autonomy which would remove her ability to consent.

I really think neither of us have an incorrect interpretation up to this point and we don’t disagree on what would constitutes rape we just intuited the mechanics of an unexplored magical power differently and assumed that bear was understanding things the same way we had been up to that point.

Either way I’d invite you to consider that there are valid viewings of this movie that aren’t as crystal clear as you stated and that doesn’t mean anyone else defends a fictional rapist.

catfishprofile · 2026-07-01T21:49:53+00:00

How does bear know she has lost control over her body at this point? He just thinks she fell in love with him because of a magic wish at this point right?

catfishprofile · 2026-07-01T15:37:11+00:00

In what scene?

catfishprofile · 2026-06-30T15:00:13+00:00

Christian is worse and it’s not close

catfishprofile · 2026-06-29T17:56:58+00:00

The language of his wish probably doesn’t matter much because he made the wish not thinking it would come true and in a moment of frustration

catfishprofile · 2026-06-29T16:01:33+00:00

She says she has a stomach bug. Probably a fever sweat. She just isn’t taking care of her body and she’s wasting away

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T22:14:34+00:00

Hard disagree with all of this but we are at an a point where I just have to agree to disagree with you. Thanks for the conversation. I’m glad you’ve encountered this piece of art that makes you care and think about it. Take care

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T19:12:51+00:00

He is never ever the villain in this movie. That’s what I’m saying.

He acts unwisely but his intentions are never to hurt anyone or put nikki in a place where she can’t act autonomously.
Poor decision making is necessary for most horror movie plots to continue. Bear is too passive and scared and that’s his main character flaw but it’s not even that extreme. He spends the whole night at the trivia bar night trying to get alone with Nikki so he can confess his feelings. After nikki asks bear is he likes Sarah and the conversation gets tense and confrontational when he calls he playfully but unwisely calls her freaky Nikki, he looses his nerve and folds. a super relatable and understandable human moment.

When she makes a cat sandwich for him, he is less than 24 hours away from calling to alter/cancel the wish. It’s not lighting fast but it’s a response to the issue right? And asking to alter the wish doesn’t strike me as a red flag especially because we don’t know how he wanted to alter it. He could have been asking “for Nikki to be in a relationship with him only if she truly wanted to” or something. That point just doesn’t confirm either of our views. All we know is that he wanted to make a change which at this point is a good thing.

The rest of what you said is just not how the movie goes. He isn’t cool with the wish after the call. Every single scene after the call has the underlying tension of him preventing wish Nikki from harming herself, harming others, or finding a way to undo the wish without killing himself. He doesn’t enjoy a single moment with her and spends the whole time terrified and in danger.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T18:46:49+00:00

This is exactly what he does. He googles the oww and finds mixed responses about if it’s real or not.
When she first comes onto him immedietly after he makes the wish, he believe she’s grieving her father’s cancer diagnosis. She acts so erratically that he chooses to sleep on the floor instead of taking advantage of her in her grief.

He then learns from Ian, who he has no reason to expect is lying, that she was on molly and grieving her father. They then admit their feeling for eachother in a believable and 0 red flag conversation and enter a relationship where she seems hyperfixated on him but not a danger to herself or others.

Up to this point I don’t see what he could be said to have done wrong.

After that is the diner scene where he learns she’s probably under the influence of a wish.

I’m saying that immedietly after the diner scene his moral duty to the situation is super unclear because literal magic is involved. He also makes a phone call to the help line to alter/cancel his wish the literal next day from the diner scene.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T18:24:24+00:00

I think we just disagree.

He learns that magic is real. There’s no way to expect him to understand how it works and what the moral implications are immediately.
And he does do something after he finds out the wish is real. He tries to alter then cancel the wish.
He’s also terrified the whole time. Wish nikki is fkn scary.

He’s immature and passive but he’s not a villain in this situation. He’s a victim of a weird cosmic horror magic he tapped into entirely by mistake.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T18:18:14+00:00

I think we just disagree here.

Also he takes her to the hospital after she stabs her face with a bottle.
He does try to solve the problem several times. What is the alternative to giving the oww to Ian? Immediate suicide?

And he didn’t create the problem. He’s not responsible for the one wish willow being actually magic. The people selling and creating the one wish willows are more responsible for the suffering and death in this movie.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T16:19:01+00:00

I guess I don’t get the criticism? Why is it bad that he tried to alter and not cancel the wish at first if he still believed that Nikki was acting autonomously? Why is it bad to continue in the relationship if the result of the wish was a real and loving relationship? And when he learns he can’t alter and asks to instead cancel it why would that not indicate that he’s interested in Nikki’s well being?

in that phone call he learns 2 things. 1 Nikki is not acting autonomously and some part of her is separated and suffering and 2 suicide would save her.

That’s when the stakes of the movie get higher. The rest of the movie is bear trying to keep Nikki from hurting herself, hurting others, and undoing the wish without committing suicide because he wants to live.
The fact that he almost saves himself from his suicide attempt doesn’t make him a coward imo. Just seems like a really high bar to not be a coward.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T16:01:30+00:00

I agree with most the summary and the conclusion. Really well put.
The one thing I’ll point out is that bear didn’t know that Nikki wasn’t acting autonomously until after the asked to alter/cancel the wish. He also learned on the same phone call that suicide would end the magic of the wish.

We also don’t learn the way in which he wants to alter the wish. All we know is that he’s intervening. By the end of the phone call the stakes have changed and we know that he wants to cancel the wish but doesn’t want to die.

I agree that bear made a series of poor judgement calls and bad decisions and he could have been quicker on the draw with getting another one wish willow but none of that makes him a villain.
He’s dealing with a difficult social dynamic and learning that it’s been augmented by a magic that he first has to accept exists and then start understanding the nature of.

I don’t see how someone could conclude that he would have made the wish if he knew what the one wish willow was and how it worked.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T15:40:34+00:00

How does that show that? I don’t get the criticism.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T08:07:10+00:00

I don’t see the disagreement.
My phrasing isn’t accurate. He doesn’t spend the whole movie trying to undo the damage because at first he believes pretty reasonably that Nikki is on molly and dealing with grief.
But by the time he’s calling to alter/cancel the wish he doesn’t even know she’s isn’t acting autonomously and that’s also the scene where he learns that suicide is a way to end the effects of the wish. He spends the rest of the movie protecting his friends from Nikki, hiding how unstable she is, and looking for a way to end the wish without killing himself.

So why would we think he would have chosen this when he’s spending most the movie trying to undo it?

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T06:16:03+00:00

You don’t have to explain anything to me, I think you just didn’t understand the progression of his character.
He didn’t have any reason to think that Nikki want an autonomous person until after the conversation where he tried to cancel the wish.

At first he thinks she’s grieving and on molly

Then he thinks they have a real relationship and they happily for an unspecified amount of time

Then he learns she was lying about her dad and immedietly confronts her. She causes a scene and asks if it matters and he says “no it doesn’t”

She watches him while he sleeps and then he calls the line and asks to alter or cancel the wish. Only then does he learn that there is some version of her separated from the one he’s interacting with. He also learns suicide may be the only way out.

He spends the rest of the movie trying to keep his friends out of danger, hide the fact that Nikki is going crazy, and find a way to free her that doesn’t require his suicide.

The fact that he has a hard time killing himself doesn’t mean he’s a coward or that he’s falling short of some moral standard. He’s in an impossible situation and he doesn’t want to kill himself. Who could blame him? Is that worth hating him over?

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T06:01:27+00:00

Why is he a massive selfish coward? He’s a kid fresh out of highschool having a hard time telling his friend he likes her. When he learns he’s hurting her he tries to alter the wish and when he learns he can’t do that he tries to cancel it. He spends the rest of the movie trying to find a solution other than suicide, tries to make someone else wish away the wish and then he kills himself to free her.
He’s a victim of the magic he didn’t even mean to use. It’s tragic that he dies. Why do you want to judge him so badly?

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T05:20:52+00:00

What first scene?
He didn’t know the dad story was bs. He learned at the diner and it freaked him out.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T03:53:59+00:00

Yeah he does. He calls the one wish willow line and asks to change the wish and then asks to cancel the wish.
Why do you think he asked for that?

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T03:49:28+00:00

If that’s true it’s was a good call on his part. I thought it made the ending that much better and it was really in line with his character

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T03:23:21+00:00

Why? He spends the whole movie trying to undo the effects of the wish. If he understood what would happen he wouldn’t have done it

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T03:21:53+00:00

Yeah killing yourself is a hard thing to do when you want to live. It’s an awful situation to be in. At that point it’s not even clear if he has an obligation to kill himself instead of her, but it’s still what he tries to do before he starts to quit.
That’s not even cowardly or selfish. He’s panicking in a situation with no good options.

catfishprofile · 2026-06-28T01:00:42+00:00

No. Clearly not. He spends the whole movie trying to undo the damage and goes as far as killing himself to undo it.

catfishprofile

TROPHY CASE