#md analysis

[velvet-vox]

V and Doll; trauma, mental disorder, and low empathy.

(Warning: this post is slightly outdated and contains some incorrect medical terms that don't correspond to the modern classification of ASPD. You can still read it if you are curious, but don't take anything stated here as hard facts. They are not.)

Very recently on my notifications I received a reblog by @aroaceweirdos101 to a response I've made to a post talking about how Doll went through so much more pain than V, and it made me realise that the response in question was actually, like, really good.

I had genuinely forgotten and underestimated how good of an analysis of both V, Doll, mental health and societal stigma it really was.

Now, of course, I disagree with the sentiment that Doll suffered more than V and fully believe that out of the two V endured way more pain and trauma than Doll; yet, although the responses in the comments checked out with what I previously said, they felt... meaner?

Like, the answers went to the opposite extreme of the original comment and tried to downplay Doll's trauma in comparison to V's, almost implying that Doll was a b##ch (which she was) for snapping as hard as she did when V still managed to retain a sense of restraint; and I disagreed with that, so in response I wrote this:

*Look, I believe both Doll and V are interesting characters, and although I feel more sympathetic towards Doll, I definitely believe V went through so much more pain than Doll and had way more reasons to snap and be the way she is now, but I just really hate people who use that as an excuse to label Doll has the more evil of the two or "she was always just a psycho, she just needed an excuse to snap"; it's especially disheartening when people straight up interpret her as unreademable or pure evil, when V and N's body count is 10 times higher than Doll's.

Also, I'm sorry but I really can't stomach the possibility of Liam redeeming the genocidal war machine and not the broken orphan created by said psycho, it literally would be the fictional pinnacle of "since these are the protagonists, they can get away with as much as they want and are always in the right"; I'm fine with the way Doll died because it was done by Cyn and there wasn't any moral lesson to be gained from our protagonists about it, but if it was done by N, Uzi, or worst of all V again, it should have played out like "we have reasons to do the things we do, and you have yours, unfortunately we're on opposite sides and you are hurting us so we must kill you now".

The human (worker drone) mind is extremely fragile, and some people, due to a probably inherited and undiagnosed mental illness or a particular personality type, are more at risk of snapping then other people, yet instead of being understanding towards those who are born with more issues than others (especially women, look up Azula or Ashley Graves) we tend to isolate, demonize and then kill them because they were incapable of fitting into the larger societal standard of acceptable social behaviour, even when said society never did anything to help them meet its unreachable standards because it required too much work from society's side to give you the special attention you needed in order to make you work and fit in.

V was a quiet kid because she was shy, Doll was a quiet kid because she was introverted. Those are two very different types of people and one of them (Doll) was inherently more at risk of developing mental health issues than the other due to their personality type and how it's stigmatized.*

Here's also the original post made by an anonymous user on @md-confessions

Also, here's the link to another post still talking about V and Doll. I made two comments in response, but neither of them is particularly well thought out and since you can't correct them I left them as they were.

Now, back to the highlighted part:

I want to use this response as a springboard to talk about the main differences between Doll and V when it comes to their different handling of their decaying mental health and why it's unfair to say that one of them was worse than the other based on their actions and attitude towards the problem.

(Also, all of the Murder Drones characters are extremely complex, and the fact that the show doesn't have filler makes it harder to get a good grip on one's particular mindset, so if it seems like I'm talking more about Doll than I am about V, it is because V is the most complicated character in the cast and I'm not as confident to talk about her as I am with Doll; it took one entire year to finally understand Doll as well as I do now, so V is a touchy subject for me that's why I might not do her justice).

First of all, it has to be said: Doll is a sociopath, V isn't, despite appearing like one. And that's ok.

When I say that I feel more sympathy towards Doll than I do for V, this is what I mean: I don't sympathise with Doll heartlessness more than I do with V jackassery; rather I understand and relate with Doll's low empathy since I also have low empathy as well, and it is quite common for people like us to be misunderstood for uncaring individuals.

It's the same reason why I and many others tend to like villains and sympathise with them more than we do with the heroes (Lord Shen from Kung Fu Panda 2 is the perfect example for this); it's quite common for villains to be written as individuals with low empathy, as an highly empathetic individual tends to be harder for the audience to buy as an antagonist, since you need to justify why someone this caring is committing all this heinous and terrible stuff, but if that person is already unemphatetic by nature, than it's just a matter of establishing their goals and motivations. These people also tend to be ostracized by their environment and go through a gruesome and violent death because it's socially acceptable to let these despicable individuals find comeuppance through death since they lack the traits that make a person traditionally good.

So, when people use the "So what? She's got dead parents. Many others do, including Uzi, who's also infected with the Absolute Solver, yet they have not become cannibalistic serial killers obsessed with revenge" as a slight against Doll it's not entirely fair because from what we've gathered in the show the other worker drones don't suffer from sadistic impulses and sociopathy like Doll does, even if they (Rebecca) are pretty uncaring. (Side note, Uzi also suffers from sadism/sadistic impulses, but not from sociopathy, hence the main difference between the two).

V, on the other hand, despite what her introduction and psycho girl persona might trick you into believing, was never a sociopath nor did she struggle with low empathy, she was, instead, a pretty timid maid who suffered through unspeakable physical and psychological trauma that led her to adopt this fake identity to cope for the atrocities that she was now committing for the company (Absolute Solver) and the safety of N; V cared about N in a pretty normal person kind of way: she kept N at arms length and hid the truth from him so that he wouldn't get hurt, all while detaching herself from the actions she was now committing, not saying Doll wouldn't or didn't commit any of these actions, but V did them in a way that better aligns with someone who doesn't suffer from sociopathic disorder.

Speaking of N, since he has been mentioned, I'll say that while Uzi suffers from sadism but not low empathy (she has shown to be pretty empathetic many times), N doesn't suffer from sadism but from low empathy; as better explained by a section of this post made by @melissa-titanium :

N x Doll

Don't believe me? Then maybe you should rewatch the series again because N's unemphateticness is his own can of worms to delve into.

But back to Doll, it's time to dissolve (😏) one of the oldest misconceptions surrounding her character:

Doll reached out for help. A lot. She just didn't have any luck with it.

Call me crazy, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised that the fandom wide spread belief that Doll rejected all the help that was handed to her to be a massive lie, and in fact, Doll actually tried to reach out way more than you thought, arguably, even more than Uzi:

The impact that Yeva's education has had on Doll's life can only be noticed in this way: Yeva extended her hand to Nori and she accepted it, thus, it is fair to assume that Yeva taught Doll to be pretty open to others and to give a hand to someone in need (the show was rewritten after the pilot, so ignore the incongruences with Doll's initial characterization), and in fact, after enduring the trauma of watching her parents die, she opened up to Lizzie for help and support, unfortunately, Lizzie wasn't exactly the right person to talk about these things (no offence to her, all of Uzi's classmates suck for one reason or another, including Uzi herself, I guess that's what happens when you are stuck inside a bunker your whole life), after all, Doll was still killing and cannibalising her classmates.

Then, before she went back to gain her revenge, she tried to get Uzi on her side, which wasn't an attempt to open up, but she was still willing to connect, even if for the wrong reasons. Finally, once she discovers that Uzi also has the Absolute Solver, she promises to help her out, and at this point, Doll wishes to talk it out with Uzi, but because she is surrounded by the Disassembly Drones (V), she can't.

And now, for the most interesting discussion, there's this brief and frankly weird moment in episode 5 where Doll compliments Khan for raising Uzi, and while Khan laughs it off immediately, since he is a dumbass, this could have been a perfect opportunity for him to reach out to Doll and reason with her, since she's clearly putting aside whatever her objective actually is to talk to him, but he doesn't catch on, and this leads Doll to immediately closing herself off again and returning to the mission, and like, maybe we all kind of underestimated how much significance this moment carried, but consider this:

Doll, at this point in time, has been living out in the cold for what... a month? Six months? A YEAR? If we exclude J and Cyn from the equation, this is probably the only social interaction she ever had since The Promening, yet, because of Khan's lack of touch, she immediately reminds herself of the massive disconnection between her and the other workers (eh ehm sociopath) and thus storms off rapidly; this moment is actually quite painful when you look at it from this perspective, yet it's also, the only interpretation that makes sense? Otherwise how do you explain the existence of this moment when Murder Drones is a show infamous for his high plotting and lack of filler? They had to go out of their way to animate this, so why did they play it off in this way?

Tessa is a meanie

Penultimately, and again, I want to bring up a post by @capnsaltsquid since that's where I got the inspiration to write this paragraph off, Doll opened up to J and Tessa to get the answers she was seeking, yet not only Tessa shot her in the face for s###s and giggles, but then proceeded to fraternise with her parents murderers, and at this point, she closes herself off enough to realise that she might have to unintentionally kill Uzi and leave everyone in the dust if she wants to get anything at all.

But unfortunately, that is not the case, she dies of a lonely, meaningless, gruesome death, and at this point, she still tries and finally succeeds in reaching out to Uzi, and yet, like all of her previous tries, this is unsuccessful, as Uzi has other things in mind right now.

To wrap things up nicely, both V and Doll went through severe amounts of trauma and handled said trauma in a similar yet also different way, since they are different individuals who process emotions and love differently, thus the actions they took made sense for the person they were and should only be judged in the context of their writing and characterization.

Want more?

[mandareeboo]

N didn't infect Uzi with murder drone syndrome...

In my last theory, I posited that N may have accidentally infected Uzi with the murder drone virus. This new episode has given me pause to reflect and realize it's much, much worse.

He didn't infect her with robo-vampirism. He infected her with Cyn.

"Home" gave us a lot of interesting backstory and details, but in this case I think the fact that Cyn can control murder drones- hell, she seems to have built them from scratch- is what we need to focus on. V and J both were taken over by Cyn's control, and they were forced to do some wack shit under that power.

But some robots weren't. N seemed entirely out of Cyn's control, beyond some gentle manipulation of his emotions. This explains why N was considered the worst murder drone- unlike the others, he was always of full sound mind.

We don't know why, exactly. There's plenty of possibilities. Maybe something in N's hardwiring rendered Cyn unable to. Maybe she just enjoyed his company as is, and that's why she wiped his mind over and over again- to keep that dynamic. The point is- while Cyn wants to be close to N, she shows no interest in taking over his body.

Which means she has to go elsewhere.

JC Jenson may or may not know about Cyn. It doesn't really matter. What we know they're aware of for sure is that an entire party was ripped to robo-shreds by a herd of self-healing robots with metallic wings. Who better, they decided, to become their soldiers? The acid seems to be something they put together- something Cyn has since decided to evolve a tail to mimic.

Cyn wants to be free. She wants to keep chatting with N, and to do whatever her heart desires. There's very little she can achieve as simply a program inside of every murder drone. She needs a body.

When N stabbed her (or when he healed her, it's hard to say; but I'm banking on the former for a reason I'll get into soon) Cyn was inside his body. She's inside of every murder drone- it's why they heal. And part of her escaped into Uzi.

Uzi's showing every sign of slowly being infected.

THIS is what Cyn does. THAT'S how Cyn controls every murder drone. She's a virus, infected them and turning them into puppets OR a fancy new suit for her to wear.

And Uzi's not the only one! Doll's afflicted too, and I think it comes from V murdering her family. It's entirely possible that Doll cut herself on some claws, or escaped with "only a dent". I think Doll's taking longer because she's not in close contact with N. But does it matter? They're both suitable hosts. And I think...

I think this is the result.

[incandescent-mushroom]

House has definitely sent Wilson a dick pic or several but he sends them by email because they are both old men and the titles are things like ‘URGENT: please identify if lung cancer’ or ‘patient biopsy results - respond ASAP’ so that Wilson’s guilt complex makes him feel obligated to open each one just in case someone’s life is actually on the line

[housepilled]

i don't know if anyone has talked about this before but i've been thinking about the symbolism of cancer in connection to house and wilson and. i am going insane.

wilson has a stage II thymoma and he's given a 5 month sentence. from my (limited — i am not a doctor nor particularly good at science) research, this seems unrealistic; everything i've read about them says that thymomas are rare and slow growing. it seems incredibly unlikely that a stage II thymoma could only be treated by chemotherapy and would only give wilson 5 months to live. so why did the writers decide to do that? it's like the medical version of an anachronism — something (in the real definition of an anachronism, historically) inaccurate used to make a specific point. so what is the point?

well, thymomas are cancer of the thymus gland, which is right in front of and above the heart.

and then that got me thinking about house's (faked) cancer in season 3 (e15 half wit). he pretends to have brain cancer.

so their cancers are literally in the heart and head.

cancer in HOUSE'S HEAD AND WILSON'S HEART.

david shore i am in your walls

[the-mighty-e]

While I'm drawing a small nuzi confession comic (on paper sorry) have this thing I noticed

When N patted Uzi's head for the first time ever, she slapped his hand away

BUT THE LAST TIME????

SHE ALLOWED HIM, SHE JUST WANTED TO HUG HIM, SHE DIDN'T CARE ABOUT A HEADPAT, SHE WANTED HIM WITH HER

I hate them so much WHY ARE THEY SO CUTE??????

[atomicradiogirl]

i find it a very interesting choice that house md ends on enjoy yourself rather than you can’t always get what you want or maybe even the actual lyrical version of teardrop by massive attack.

enjoy yourself is the most optimistic of the songs and i’ve seen people complain that it kind of comes from nowhere and the actual meaning of the song especially considering that post-canon, wilson will die and house is dead figuratively (and will probably die literally with wilson), the song is not only a call to the viewer to live their lives to the fullest but asks house and wilson to enjoy the time they have left as they drive away from us, their stories are fundamentally over.

enjoy yourself is only referenced one other time in the show when hallucination amber sings it to house at a restaurant just before the hallucination finale of season 5. this presentation of enjoy yourself by “ghost” amber, someone who haunts house from his guilt over her death and near destruction of his relationship with wilson as a result is also a callback to her death in the first place. house is so scared by hallucination amber singing this song to him he begs wilson over the phone to pick him up, the exact request that killed amber. the optimistic song about living out your life to the fullest sung by the manifestation of his guilt, someone who died too soon also coupled with kutner dying 3 episodes prior to this, just makes the final use of this song so fascinating. the house writers obviously called back to this moment because it was house’s fear of death and change that made the initial scene scary. meanwhile house accepts wilson’s death and his death in the finale after healing and growing. this is why i think enjoy yourself is the perfect finale song. the house writers are telling us that they accept that their time is up and we should too, even though death is horrible and tragic and scary at the same time, everybody dies.

[imagopersonal]

They could have been happy

[astal-art]

This is so fucking funny there are so many things about this oh my god

[starjunkyard]

Sorry i genuinely feel like im going fucking crazy What do u mean wilson's ex-wife named their dog after an anagram for Doctor Greg House What do u mean she'd resented house since the very beginning of their marriage solely because wilson was always there for him but never for HIS OWN WIFE "You always needed him, and he was always there for you." "You knew he had a wife waiting at home; you didn't care." "I'm not saying you broke up the marriage, but you didn't help." Is anyone else hearing this .am i going crazy

"When we had people over, he'd nip at their ankles." Ohhhhhhhhhthefuckiiinnggggggg THEFUCKING That statement being a metaphor for how house drives every prospective spouse of Wilson's away Theway house growls and snaps and bites and lashes out at anyone who even shows a single shred of romantic interest towards wilson. Allof wilson's ex-wives canonically actually fucking hating house's guts because of how close he was (and is) with wilson in a way that he was never able to be with them

House gives out bribes so he can acquire confidential personal information about and to blackmail wilson's girlfriends Willgo to their workplaces so he can Talk AboutWILSON Will bark and snap at anything and everything and protect wilson from NOTHING Willscare away anyone who even tries to get close to wilson instinctively intrinsically irrationally Almost AnimalisticallyKILLS YOU KILLS YOU KILLS YOU KILLS YOUUUUUUUUUU))/!!:):):7/)£:);6:£7:7:

Animal motifs OHHHHHHHAnimal motifs FUCK . Fuck. House loves wilson like a dog. Masters will abandon their dogs in the middle of dirt roads and drive off and their dogs will chase after them until their paws are oozing bloodied raw and numb Masterswill shun and kick and starve their dogs and maybe the dog will fight back. Maybe the dog will bare its teeth growl and bite But a dog's loyalty isn't something you can ever beat out of it . Loyalty is hardwired into a dog's dna Loyalty that is blind irrational and suffocating that transcends logic and reason that is Branded and Burnt into their genetic makeup until it becomes their achilles heel; the thing thatwill end up killingthem The thing that keeps them crawling back to their masters no matter what no matter what No Matter What

[hugeegosorry]

house on house violence

[irenespring]

So I rewatched the House episode about the autistic child wherein Wilson correctly diagnoses House as being on the spectrum and then seemingly goes back on it for no valid reason. The most likely reason for this is writer cowardice (they didn't want to have to deal with a canon autistic character), but allow me to present a conspiracy theory: Wilson is autistic.

He has only one friend, who is also on the spectrum, because that friend alone can see and appreciate the side of him he usually hides. He has the same random interests as this friend. He seems to be the only one to understand what his friend is trying to say. He gives House second chance after second chance because he knows what it is like to miscommunicate/tries to give benefit of the doubt.

Most of his social interactions are extremely surface level: he has a pleasant script he sticks to, either for flirting, talking to a patient, or just talking to any random nt person. He gets married to people he doesn't let past the mask both because he wants to conform to social standards. He does it again because he thinks he just messed up the script last time and this time he will get it right. He cheats because he doesn't instinctively link sex and intimacy--what he grasps as a standard mistake is actually a betrayal. This also might explain why his most intimate relationship is with House, the person he doesn't script around, even though they never have canon sex.

He wants to be needed because when he can help people he feels like he is doing socializing right. When someone no longer needs him, he panics, because he either has to stop scripting or increase scripting, and both scare him.

He is also extremely specific about his routines and preferences, and gets annoyed when they are disrupted. He is paralyzed by open-ended decisions: when he is turned loose in a furniture store, he can't make a single choice because there are so many.

Wilson is extremely invested in scripting, to the point where he flees relationships when it no longer works. He spends all day every day trying very hard to be the picture perfect doctor, spouse, friend, etc. So when House is dealing with sensory issues around the carpet, he helps by explaining to Cuddy something he alone of the other characters understands. But when he talks to House about it, he blows this understanding off. In his mind, he works so hard to be so nice, so therefore it is possible, even if damages him. He probably doesn't know it damages him to the extent it does. Therefore, he insists House's behavior isn't because he's autistic, but rather because he's just an ass. Because if autism is an excuse to not mask, he hasn't needed to mask this whole time.

Not saying I'm wholly invested in this theory, but *imitates House's voice* "it fits."

[jamesevanwilsonirl]

James Wilson has an anxiety disorder and I’m going to tell everyone about it.

That was a really long title and pointless. I could have stopped after the first six words.

Anyways, hi, hello, if you don’t know me, my name is James and I really like James Wilson. I also like writing a lot. I also have an anxiety disorder. That led to this amalgamation of headcanons and thoughts about James Wilson.

So, I don’t even know how to start this. Fair warning, I have completely canon divergent headcanons with no canon evidence and just pure projection. I also use commas way too much.

Besides projection, why do I think he has anxiety? Well, I relate to him a lot and lots of his canon social behaviors do reflect my experience as well as others’ experiences with GAD or SAD. I think it goes ignored a lot with Wilson that a lot of his behaviors like people pleasing or having few friends is actually symptom of anxiety. Also, anxiety and depression are often comorbid or associated. In the show, specially that Social Contract episode, it’s SUPER apparent. As someone who headcanons he has both, his “I don’t have to worry around you” monologue to House could be read as a symptom/sign of GAD or ASD. I’m not going to get into my personal social anxieties and such, but I relate to that monologue HEAVILY. Stressing about what you say and having to mask your anxiety around people who don’t understand is a lot. There’s like, two people I can talk to without stressing the fuck out. Back to Wilson, though. His fear of breaking rules is also Anxiety™️ Symptom #1000. He is the most typical man ever on the show, or at least outwardly appears as one. He often fidgets with his hands while he talks and I know that’s because RSL is a stage actor but a guy can dream, alright?

People pleasing. Oh, boy. I could talk about this one for hours. James Wilson loves pleasing people, it doesn’t mean loving people for some but it does for him. He constantly needs to be needed, he always has to be helping, yet he’s never helped. He doesn’t want to speak the things he’s feeling because he feels that means being a burden!! that means being wrong!! that means letting people down!! He likely enjoys being with House so much because he knows it’s impossible to let him down, he doesn’t have to necessarily worry about pleasing him because House is like, very aware of what he’s thinking. House doesn’t give a fuck about what people feel most of the time.

Onto the less canon stuff and just more headcanon and/or projection stuff:

He has obsessive interests he uses to cope, like films. I’m basing that off of his posters and also… myself. This is projection, here.

He cannot do a lot in a short span of time. Worrying takes a lot of his energy and he needs recovery days. He’ll often just sleep for over 12 hours because he had to talk a lot and that means worrying and preplanning everything he was going to say.

He was either late-diagnosed or doesn’t even realize he has anxiety. Yes, he’s a doctor, that sounds odd but let me explain. Men around his age, but also in general, aren’t too open about their mental health struggles. They just think it’s normal. If he was late diagnosed, it was likely when he was seeking out a depression diagnosis. Off topic but can we talk about that for a moment? The show ignored that after the one mention. Season four spoilers ahead so skip to the next bullet point if you’re not there. Here are some filler words so people can scroll. Yadda yadda yadda. HIS GIRLFRIEND DIED!! THAT WOULD FUCK WITH ANYONE BUT ESPECIALLY SOMEONE WITH MDD!! Also, he’s medicated. Medication typically means it was affecting his day to day life. Medication means admitting something wasn’t right and that was likely very hard for him!! Anyways.

His first panic attack scared the living hell out of him. If he was young and still living with his family, he didn’t want to be a burden. He sat in his room sobbing for hours on end because he didn’t understand why his body was doing this. (Chest pain, shaking, not listening to him repeating Calm Down like a mantra, etc.) If he was older, I imagine he likely still didn’t tell anyone but it scared him for a different reason. It meant to him that he was broken. It meant to him that he needed something. He needed help and that scared him.

Intrusive thoughts. I imagine they got worse after S4 finale happened. That’s really it.

Coping? What’s that? He just ignores it.

Once again, breaking rules horrifies him.

That’s all. Goodbye. I do see the possibility of a lot of these being interpreted as ASD but I have a whole other post for that, maybe. Comment any thoughts and feelings. Be nice.

[designation-zi]

Something that makes me even sadder about what happened to V is how she went from being hostile and threatening towards Uzi to becoming actually pretty protective over her in the last episode

It initially seems like a quick shift, but it actually makes a bit more sense when you know most of V’s hostility to Uzi was because of the Absolute Solver. V was scared and distrustful of Uzi because of it and the traumatic events that happened with Cyn at the mansion, so she wanted to get rid of her (and Doll too) since she knows the AS is dangerous

But I think what started to change V’s view was the Worker saving her alongside N from getting their minds digitally wiped, since technically Uzi could have just saved N, but she helped V too

Ironically, since it involves the AS, another factor I think was seeing Uzi later overexerting herself with her powers from fear of N getting hurt, and then seemingly stopping the Sentinels from getting to V despite being practically unconscious (at least that is what I think happened when watching the episode)

I think all of that played some role in V beginning to realize that yeah, despite the very real threat the Absolute Solver is, Uzi herself is genuine and is someone she can put trust in

Which makes the scene where she calls Uzi by her name for the first time and tells her she trusts her more sad and impactful 🥲

[lovely-cherubs]

Am I the only one who thinks that a good portion of the murder drones fandom lacks media literacy? Like some of these takes and opinions seriously make my head hurt. From people saying things like "N is obsessed with Uzi and vice versa" to "N had no character development" and even "Uzi ruined N's character", I'm seriously starting to believe that either people didn't actually watch the show or they watched something completely different.

[housepilled]

yes i am thinking about the c word again. this episode is my roman empire. but right now i’m specifically thinking about how house literally goes against his nature for wilson. cuddy says “everything you’ve ever done is to avoid pain — drugs, sarcasm, keeping everybody at arm’s length so no one can hurt you” yet he gives wilson the rest of his vicodin, willingly detoxes, so wilson can be in less pain before he throws them up again. house is rational; in his book in any other situation, this would be a stupid decision. it wouldn’t cause much relief to wilson and would deprive house of a lot of it. it’s completely irrational. i’d wager that house would mock it in anyone else. but yet he does it anyway for wilson.

in my humble opinion (with no nuance) house is a good person, but, nonetheless, he will defy that and hurt people if it will cause him less pain. nobody likes pain, of course, but house has experienced so much of it from such a young age, an issue only compounded by his infarction, that (while he does subconsciously inflict it on himself as punishment because said pain from a young age made him think it is necessary because it made him think there is something broken in him that needs to be violently fixed — i could talk for hours about how much i hate john house) he will go to any lengths to avoid it. it is a pattern we see time and time and time again. house constantly hurts others, himself, as long as it can possibly lessen some potential short- or long-term pain.

but then he gives up his vicodin for wilson. he endures the pain, not just of his leg without painkillers but also of detox, for wilson. cuddy says “you’ll choose yourself over everybody else over and over again, because that's just who you are” and yet house chooses wilson. he gives wilson the last of his vicodin. he’s willing to let wilson die on his couch because it’s what wilson wants. he endures wilson saying he should be the one with cancer. he accepts that wilson will die and lets him go the way he wants. he accepts that he will never be able to go back to practicing medicine, will probably cut his own life short as well, and goes off with wilson for his last five months. he literally transcends his own nature, his base instincts from his childhood, for wilson. and if that isn’t incredibly poetic then i don’t know what is.

[oblivion-wonderlust]

teaching my sister the concept of a critical lens by making her rewatch house md after informing her of the hilson ship