Unreliable Narrator / Mass Delusion (Long Post)

I have put on my glasses and poured a glass of wine because there is a matter I need to run by you all. Even though this is long please bear with me.

The setup with the huts and tables and animal enclosures we see in the Wilderness is not real.

This is not me just saying I do not think a bunch of handy lesbians could build the structures they have — no, I don’t think any of them could pull it off but that’s not the point. I can suspend disbelief about that the same way I did with Van’s face being fine and Laura Lee actually getting a plane to fly.

A few reasons it can’t be real, ignoring the fact that I simply don’t think they could have built it all:

For one, you have to understand how bad it would have gotten after the cabin burned down. If you haven’t already, seriously take a few moments to really consider how bad that situation was and how long it went on. On top of the trauma they have from literally everything else that has happened and continues to happen. On top of eating their friends - not to mention a kid. None of them are okay in the slightest.

The wilderness timeline this season literally starts with Van telling a romanticized story about, as Shauna says, “our adventures in the wilderness.” Van talks about how resilient they are and how they all survived — when 3 of them famously didn’t survive, not including the baby and not including that they think Ben is dead. Shauna in this moment is writing like “how can they do this like they don’t even know what we just went through, how are they seeing it this way?”

Further, Van tells us only one thing about the time jump, that they kept the fire going. Did the writers just not think that a reasonable viewer would want to know literally any further information about what happened in the time between? Did they not expect reasonable viewers to say “hm a bunch of kids who just lost everything in a fire couldn’t build a whole community” …. No. Because we aren’t supposed to know what happened in between yet (which I’ll get at later at how this will all end up).

Also this is overall irrelevant and there are 100 other explanations but for thoroughness: see also how Ben says he did not notice a fire going on for 12 days.

This is my favorite part. Has anyone else noticed the new fuck ass yellow filter in the wilderness timeline? I attached the photos at the top of this but the first one is in S3, the second one is S1. They are arguably the same time of year so it’s not like they’re trying to convey temperature or season. This filter is new. Anyone familiar with “rose colored glasses” ?

Similarly, how about that weird shot of Mari running in the opening scene where it randomly goes split screen, which we’ve never seen done before? I can’t find it right now but I’ll try to add it in later.

Lastly. Remember the Jackie feast montage? How about Akilah’s pet rat that we knew and loved, then suddenly we discover is a skeleton?

So what does this all mean to me — we are seeing the wilderness from either a) the teen’s active perspective of the situation, a mass delusion they have as a response to the trauma, particularly what I believe to have been a horrid post-burn time; or b) how they all remember it as a way to block out how bad it was. For mines / mercury poisoning truthers I will also include the possibility of the mercury poisoning delusions, although I don’t love that theory.

NOW - how do I think the show will reconcile this unreliable narrator view with what’s really out there? A few ideas:

Several things have alluded to a failed rescue attempt this season. Depending on how that goes, maybe the perspective changes from the teens’ to the potential rescuers that come across them. I’m thinking of the real life Andes crash rescue photos. They are really, really upsetting and the rescue team has talked about just how horrid it was. Half eaten body parts astray, bones, feces, just a mess. How utterly bleak would it be for the perspective to change and we see the Yellowjackets living in similar conditions, while thinking they have a beautiful home and system worked out?

Similarly, it could be when Ben is brought to the girls’ area for what we think is his trial. Maybe we see the reality of it from his perspective. I would also love this as it was his point of view that broke us out of the Jackie feast montage into what it really looked like.

Lastly, though I don’t think they’ll drag it out this long, just IMAGINE if it’s when they are actually rescued. An aircraft arrives and they snap into reality, they get on and look back at their “home” and see it for how it really was.

I would like to add that in Lord of The Flies, the boys see themselves as vicious giant beasts that rule the island. Rescue arrives in the middle of them trying to kill a boy, and when it does, they look around at each other and see each other as a bunch of children with face paint on and begin to cry.

Either way, I fully believe this is the situation and it is going to be an absolute jaw dropping moment when we do see it from another perspective. Thank you for sticking this out with me if you have made it this far.