#helena egan

[aingeal98]

Helena's most convincing moments as Helly being her laughing at the Lumon bullshit, admitting she doesn't like who she is on the outside, and her burning desire for connection and love. Only to fail because she wasn't convincing enough, because Helly has many traits they both share, defiant and angry and snarky and longing for love and connection, but she wasn't cruel the way Helena is. There is good in Helena but how much does it actually matter when the cruelty always wins out?

[cicatrixtwigs]

Not seen anyone talking about the fucked up Helena / Mark S power dynamic. She really used her exec power for a full Girlfriend Experience. Gross as fuck.

Fantastic character choice for a woman who has clearly never been loved and holds too much control over her life to ever let herself be loved... But. Ew.

[cringedog]

she is NOT beating the ancestral sin allegations

[fraudue]

are our lives truly ours to undo?

[ehlihr]

helly

[wykart]

The Grandfather would cherish what you've done. And one day you will sit with me at my revolving.

[kyown]

Can we talk about how Lumon and Helena were obviously trying to instigate a rift between the core four by collectively punishing all of them for “Helley” and Mark laughing at the Dieter story? It was so twisted seeing Helena push it further by hitting Irving where he hurts most. Fuck, Lumon is the pinnacle of “smart but not too smart” bc while they almost succeeded in breaking up their friendship/family they didn’t account for Irving being willing to go that far to bring them back together.

[frogsinflannel]

This is a dream, Helena thinks. The thought burns, stark and cold in its clarity.

"Not a dream," Helly says. She is standing in a white room, with white walls and a white floor, the lights above her clean and inoffensive and bright. Sterile. There is nothing in the room but the two of them, but the same body doubled. "I'm not a person, and this is not a dream." Her mouth curls up at the corner, condescending, and it's an expression Helena can feel the echoes of in her own face.

She is wearing a plain white blouse and a blue pencil skirt in a fine wool blend. Helena remembers ordering Helly's wardrobe, meant to say nothing about her. She doesn't know where the clothes came from. Where the faceless assistant she'd tasked with dressing her had selected them or what specific criteria they'd had in mind.

"That's my face," Helena says.

"They think it's me."

Helena clenches her fists. Her chest hurts. Her eyes are cloudy. "It's my face," she says again, the words seeping out like smoke through her clenched teeth.

"I didn't ask to be born," Helly says. She steps forward and the sensible, taupe heels she's wearing make no sound. "I'm not a person." She stops inches away. Helena blinks water out of her eyes. Her hair clings to her cheeks. Why is the room so empty. Why is she so cold. "They think it's me," Helly says.

You're not a person. Helena can't speak. She can't breathe.

"They think it was me."

You're not a person.

"They wanted it to be me."

You're not---

Helly steps closer, nose to nose, until they're speaking with the same mouth. Helena feels the shape of her pressing in, feels the stretch of Helly's fingers, the bloodless curve of her cheek, the twitch of her toe in the softly pointed cap of her shoe. Helena cannot move her body. It is not her body. "It was my body he was touching." There is a rushing in her ears, and a choking rush of liquid in her throat. "He wanted it to be me.

---a person.

Her eyes go wide. There are worn rocks with smoothed, blurry edges on the bottom of the river bed. This is the last thing she sees.

[hesbuckcompton-baby]

L O V E I N H B O W A R

[jacobdenness]

Helly or Helena

On the is it Helly or Helena point something has occurred to me, Lumen knows Helly knows. If that really is Helly down there Lumen know she knows she's an Egan now so it's a little suspect that they haven't done anything to manage that knowledge. In terms of it being Helly or Helena I still thinks it's difficult to know either way but that's a point to the Helena side.

[aingeal98]

Helena and Mark awkward silent laughter one of the best scenes from last episode. He thinks she's feeling nervous and giddy because of the kiss but that they're on the same page and meanwhile she's trying to figure out the right password to get him to kiss her again. Is there a button she has to press or something? She's smiling and nodding and saying nice things mostly so why is he not kissing her like he kissed Helly? She's stuck here for hours hunting for his not so dead wife while posing as his current lover and she's not even getting any fun brand new experiences like kissing someone who cares about you. (Or thinks he cares about you because he thinks you're the version of you that you consider subhuman)

And of course she's not getting that kiss. Helly was decisive and always ready to take risky action meanwhile Helena is too scared to even say anything slightly mean because it becomes way too hard to stay in character if she lets that bitterness escape for more than a few seconds. So instead it's just she and Mark staring at each other for a embarrassingly long pause while she tries not too look too angry/hungry/anything but sweet and nice.

I do want Helly back but I'm loving Helena's adventures in pretending to be a good person. She's terrible at it and it's so entertaining.

[josephinekhawaja]

'More Romance!'

So promised a Non-Spoiler Review of Season 2 from a critic I follow on YouTube who got screeners for I think the first half of the season. And I could have lived with Mark x Helly being one-and-done even if they are my Severance OTP -- but I do feel heartened by all my fellow shippers popping up lately since the season premiere. As somebody who compulsively joined the one Severance Discord to mind-if-I-scream after the Season 1 finale, like…it is a pretty solid community from what I remember of it, but I would be a dead woman if ever I talked about OTP in there🤣🤣🤣🤣. We may never be a sizeable department, but I am just glad our ship has a growing team. Thank Kier for our Macrodata Uprising.

[croix-meridies]

IRVING MY MAN

[jessaerys]

im way too high to put this into a coherent theory but:

battle of cold harbor: 1864 confederate victory over the union >

the clear homage/nod to get out with natalie and milchik, a movie about the ruling class preserving themselves by using (black) bodies as a resource to be harvested >

"fetid moppet", a particularly old timey insult >

> the halfway sterile environment of the goatroom like something out of a weirdcore/liminal pinterest search: the harsh contrast of corporate blank states and the primeval, muddy, terribly physical task of raising warm blooded animals turning the goatroom employees into a kind of prehistoric tribe >

> for how sterile it appears to be, severance makes a point of crossing the mind-body dualism event horizon: the focus on the visceral transformation of their faces when they ride the elevator; helly threatening helena's body as her only bargaining chip, irving worrying about the forbidden nature of his burgeoning love for burt in s1 discouraged not because they're gay but because it's against the rules to have relationships at all (and what is the key crux of a cult if not the control of their member's bodies via sexuality and reproductive beliefs). mark identified gemma's body but she's very much alive, the wax figures, the sexual nature of dylan's reward in s1, how we made a point of /seeing/ peteys dead body being desecrated to reach the severance chip; mind, body.

>the board is an unembodied preservation of all past ruling eagans, including kier egan OR working towards bringing kier egan back. either way, they will eventually need bodies.

> this is how markpetey can still win

[weirdero]

I want to talk about Helena’s performance as Helly and her deep rooted misunderstanding of who Helly is as a person. And just in general how I think she perceives her especially after yesterday’s episode.

Helena is incredibly attentive, almost to the point of being terrifying. In the short moments she interacts with anyone, everything in her head is already scripted, calculated, and premeditated. She’s also a great method actress, reacting based on the energy around her. It’s like a stand up comic, constantly adjusting their performance to make sure their actions land. If something doesn’t click, she shifts.

Throughout the past couple of episodes, Helena spends most of her time just trying to go with the flow move with the water, trying to fit in without standing out, constantly monitoring the group and their reactions at every turn. And so far, she was good at it. She can play the part, until her own emotions towards helly start to blind her.

In these two pics she does a quick scan of Irving’s and Marks faces trying to analyze their reactions

Helena knows the group loves Helly. She knows Mark loves Helly. And honestly, I’d bet every dollar in my bank account that it genuinely makes her want to kill herself. She has zero respect for Helly, and she doesn’t need to. To Helena, Helly, and by extension, the group, are low value. Insignificant. At her highest, Helly is just a worker, a cheap extension of herself created with the sole purpose of just being a good employee to be displayed to the public as a little shining lumon puppet. But shit, the bitch can’t even do that. She’s done quite the opposite. So yeah, not a person to be respected or valued.

This particular disdain (and fuck it, I’m just gonna say hate) that Helena carries for Helly spills into the bonfire scene with Milchick.

While Milchick is reading the story, enunciating every word like a second grade elementary school teacher, showing pictures like they’re in a reading circle, I kept wondering to myself if Helena ever experienced something similar to this as a child. How many times has she heard this same story? Or hell, any other old Kier mythology? Lumon, Kier, the Eagan legacy, it’s all she’s ever known. This world is nothing new to her.

Even though I believe Helena is a loyal servant, she probably didn’t love all the weird shit she had to put up with in her childhood. The weight of the Egan legacy probably suffocates her. But she accepted it either way because that was the life she was given. Unlike fucking helly. Fucking helly who’s forced her into this situation to begin with. In my opinion, all of these particular feelings make their way into Helena’s reaction to the story as Helly, which could only be described as a middle schooler who suddenly thinks they’re too old for camp.

I saw this post someone made about this scene, and like shit, yeah, that’s probably right. Helena had one chance to shit on the weird religion that’s been shoved down her throat since birth and she took that chance.

Helena, in this moment, settles for crude, mocking jokes. She probably does this partially out of her own selfish need for Mark’s validation, as well as playing her role trying to fit into the group but I also think it’s a great reflection of her own personal feelings toward Helly. Helly, who would’ve never acted that way. Helly, who is many things, but never cruel. Helena doesn’t seem to understand that. For the moment, Helena takes a step back, flanderizes Helly, reducing her to this cheeky, crude, disruptive little jokester. That’s how Helena views her. With no respect. No nuance. Helly has layers Helena does not care to see. Helly doesn’t just break rules; she actively causes chaos, subverting everything around her. She’s purposefully, and happily, malcontent. A bitch, dare I say, an ungrateful bitch, most likely from Helena’s point of view.

Irving, who keeps testing her, makes her slip a little more. I talked about this a little bit in my last post about severance, but Helena doesn’t take well to being disrespected. She shifts from wanting the group’s (and mostly Mark’s) validation to just wanting to put Irving in his fucking place. These people aren’t equal to her in her mind. They aren’t cut from the same cloth probably not even made from the same fabric. There are levels to this shit, and they are not on her level.

She says what she says. It’s cruel. Mostly, it’s stupid on her part.

And just like Irving said later, and what I said earlier Helly was many things, but…

What Helena did at the bonfire was a fuck up. An especially surprising one coming from a woman as controlling and calculated as her. I’m fully convinced all those little mistakes came from a deep frustration within her. Much of that anger, in my opinion, is stewing from the realization that Helly, someone created by her, literally the source of all of Helena’s recent problems, someone who will stop at nothing to take her down, that person, the woman who’s literally locked up inside her, is more free than she will ever be.

Yes, Helena has no respect for Helly. Yes, she most likely hates that bitch. But when she herself is acting as Helly, it gives her the opportunity to almost let go. She gets the chance to essentially kill the bitch that’s been fucking up her life whilst simultaneously getting a chance to talk to this man who cares so deeply for a version of herself she hates, Even if it’s not the most ideal of situations (it’s not), it’s still something. I think, at the bonfire, she reflects on the ridiculous situation she’s found herself. All this shit caused by some other version of herself that she created, that situation plus all the other shit going down at Lumon is probably alot. And it just all bubbles up inside her. And when she’s given even the smallest opportunity to let anything out, she’s going to take it.

Idk it’s therapeutic in a way I guess.

She’s unfiltered, blunt, and almost carefree in a way that’s shocking almost unsettling. It’s clearly how she sees Helly to some degree, but also her own need to scratch an itch she’s never dared to before. And even though it’s an act of “Helly”, it still leaves a clear aftertaste of Helena.

Keep thinking about these two little moments whilst she’s making her jokes she not only keeps checking on mark’s reaction but also seems to laugh at her self in a way that just seems so genuine almost self deprecating. She acknowledges the ridiculousness of her situation and this dumb ass story she’s probably heard a million times

In my last post about Severance, I mentioned that Helena is the master of speaking her truth without outright saying it. She hides behind walls, but as Helly, she’s free to speak without restraint.

(Also her having sex with mark is a clear way of her expressing this new found freedom with in her role as helly but ima talk about that later)

[anguilliforme]

helena "i am a person you are not" egan playing the tape of her innie kissing someone over and over again like she's never had such a human connection before