Archer Writes Words

My best friend and I saw Iron Lung three times within a week of its theatrical release. This wasn’t our initial plan, I promise. We grew up watching Mark, so naturally, we had to see it on opening night. I don’t think either of us expected to fixate on this movie as much as we did, but after the first showing, we immediately booked tickets for two more viewings. Almost every conversation that week was something Iron Lung-related, whether it was observations or fanart or theories. I walked away from this movie with a *lot* of thoughts.

Spoilers (obviously) below:

• Simon’s tree pendant (and with it, hope) was ripped away from him the only way he knew: violently, bloody, and not without a fight.
• The blood leaking into the Lung was so oxygen-rich that the oxygen meter went up; the same thing trying to kill him was also keeping him alive.
• That ocean of blood was *hot* and *thick*. So hot that the walls and metal pipes were dripping with condensation, so thick that Simon nearly drowned in the crawl space.
• Concrete objects as ties to hope and humanity. A brother’s pendant. A mother’s knife. A ship’s blackbox. A speaker’s unblinking light.
• His (now missing) knife and its sheath were a gift from his mother. “Your mother wouldn’t even recognize the killer she spawned. Or maybe she’d be proud. Is death the only thing she taught you?” Simon reached for the lifejacket protecting the blackbox, and in self-comfort, by instinct, (in his dying moments,) his hand lands on the sheath. “Keep it safe for me, okay, Mom? It’s more than me. It’s *more* than me.”
• His sheath is empty. The COI took his knife (his mother, his past, his identity [“The Butcher”]) when he was imprisoned. They didn’t get his name. Simon had no name, just a title. Simon’s name, his title, his identity died with him. “If you see anyone looking for Simon… tell them” he is still down there. Tell them “I’m here.” He was a role to play, a thing to blame, a face and voice to hate. “You sent me down here to die… and you don’t even know my name?”
• “‘If it was up to me,’ you’d know more. But you don’t deserve it.”
• “Ava, is that you?” There was emotion, connection, humanity in that plea. The lost voice of the SM-8 knew Ava by name, was maybe even her friend in this already limited pool of options. The COI knew better than to risk another life, and Ava learned better than to risk another friend. Putting a name to things forces you to identify, to resonate, to *care*. A name means attachment. Ava finally screams Simon’s name in desperation, like maybe saying enough times will finally get through to him. From “I don’t think we ever got your name” to pleading to what’s left of his sanity in her final moments. “Her blood is on your hands.”
• “Is that a skeleton? Are you *sure* that you saw a skeleton?” Not a matter of disbelief that something managed to live and breathe down there, but a matter of uncertainty as to whether those were dead bones. The Skeleton was startled by the Lung’s rattling chain and sudden rise (after all, linear, slower movement disrupts oceans less than multiple sudden movements all at once). It “attacked” the sub in self-defense. “Attacked” is aggressive; it bit down gently, not enough to puncture or harm—just enough to say “go away.” 
• Simon and the Skeleton are parallel(ish) victims of the eel: not part of this ocean by their own free will, simply placed there by a higher power; both prey for the eel, both hunted and claimed; both wishing to be, to exist, to fight back for their own right to survival.
• Every breath Simon took was infested with blood and rust. Every inhale was coppery, bitter, thick, choking. He never got another chance at fresh air.