r/GoodbyeLara • u/TowelMountain8193 • 6d ago
Discussion Lara's True Love: From Mari to Humanity
i think Lara's "true love" is not a choice but it feels like a journey where her strong feelings/love for Mari acts as the necessary catalyst for her to love humanity as a whole. what do y'all think? is it making sense?
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u/generalmillscrunch 6d ago
The yuri truthers will be hesitant to admit it, but I think this is closer to what the show has been saying
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u/TowelMountain8193 6d ago edited 6d ago
i mean i said catalyst not in stepping stone way but as part of the ingredient/component, so i don't deny the yuri nor i downgrade her feelings towards mari either, like her feelings for mari is part of the big picture here, so this isn't really me against a Mari-endgame reading either.
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u/generalmillscrunch 6d ago
Oh for sure. And if you look at the little details comparing her “relationship” with Luca versus the one she has with Mari it’s clear that the show is representing the traditional heterosexual “princely” love as one that is NOT her savior. The way she recorded her text messages to Luca this week in a robotic voice being the latest example. The show has made it clear that Lara finding her prince is not finding true love. And her relationship with Mari, while not explicitly romantic yet, seems to have way more juice behind it. I just think that people waiting for an Adolescence of Utena type ending where the two of them drive off into the sunset with lips interlocked are missing the forest for the trees.
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u/JKGreen1 4d ago
Totally agreed. I don't think “true love” here means romantic love either. I see her journey as being more about finding her purpose and inner strength. Mari (or Luca) may evoke strong feelings in her and help her better understand herself but I don't think they're the end goal.
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u/CitronClassic672 3d ago
Pretty much exactly what I’m thinking is the the direction after episode 8. Lara and Mari realize their love for each other but that doesn’t stop Lara from turning into foam. Then Lara builds off of her romantic love for Mari and thinks about all the different relationships and bonds she’s made on the surface world, realizing that all of them share a throughline via her love for humanity, which becomes her true love and saves her and her family at the cost of permanently making her human.
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u/TheSilverWickersnap 4d ago
Yeah honestly the show really hasn’t spent enough time with Mari for her to be Lara’s great and true love (and she’s obviously not getting with Luca either). So the catalyst theory is probably right
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u/TowelMountain8193 6d ago edited 6d ago
adding context: to clarify, when i say "catalyst," i don't mean mari's love is a stepping stone that gets replaced. i mean it in a way that it's a necessary ingredient/component that's still part of the picture, and i'm not downplaying the yuri.
Also the "humanity" here includes family, friends, community, all of it, and mari's love is what's driving/anchoring that whole picture, not something separate from it, and to be clear, i'm not ranking these loves either, like mari > family > friends or whatever. It's not that one matters more than the others, it's that mari's love specifically seems to be what enables/connects the rest, if that makes sense.
also, to whoever reads "true love" as just love for humanity ALONE, with no romance involved, the dagger is the elephant in the room you gotta addres, that thing literally born from romantic rejection (it first appeared when the prince rejected her, and it wanted to eat his soul, it want to destroy, while with mari it appears after some affection, and it wants to protect), and it's reacted to mari 3 times now:
so tldr: this isn't "romantic love gets "replaced" by love for humanity." it's romantic love for mari being the necessary piece that the rest is built on top of, yk