Note: this article contains spoilers, but spoilers do not affect the viewing of this play.
Does free will really exist? Netflix’s German drama "Dark" can shake even the most determined people who believe this.
The third season (the final season) released on June 27 th closed the distorted old and new worlds, and the complicated puzzles in the 28 episodes of the third season were put back in place. The tragic fate of many characters’ cycles dissipated in the fog of the god of time, and the "Original World" resumed the simple linear flow of time.
Poster of Diablo Season 3
In the last shot, we saw pictures of the wall that once haunted everyone in Wendeng town, most of whom never existed. On June 21, 1986, the clockmaker mistakenly turned on the time machine, which destroyed his "original world" and split the old and new worlds. Since then, the residents of Wendeng town have fallen into a closed loop, and the reproduction of life has become a mother-daughter paradox. Incest, killing relatives, killing children and killing themselves from another time and space have occurred constantly, and everyone has sipped the bitter wine that fate has already prepared.
In the first two seasons, the jumping timeline gradually pieced together the scene that "everything is closed loop and everything is destiny". Many characters have a sense of "Déjà vu" at a certain moment, and the experience of peeping through the tree of life is actually a cycle of fear. The town of Wendeng, a place of tragedy. Everyone has the pain of bereavement, and the motive that drives them to kill is attachment, and they want to save their loved ones/everyone by changing the "past".
The philosophical, religious and scientific system of Diablo is based on the evolution of the West in the past thousands of years. The religious view of birth-death-rebirth in ancient Egypt observes the life and death of the characters in the play, and the study of time by modern physics has become the theoretical basis of time machine and parallel universe. Classical dualism: life and death, light and darkness, corresponding to the fission of the old and new worlds, and two teams of time travelers headed by Adam (Jonah) and Eve (Martha) with contradictory goals.
From this point of view, Diablo is a master. It not only rarely combines the fatalistic closed loop of time travel with the fate bifurcation of the parallel universe in genre dramas, but also tortures the root of fatalism by tracing the fate trajectory of the characters in an extremely cold way.
Every character that Wendeng appeared on the stage has its own epic. The best part of the script is that a character has the opportunity to meet himself at different ages, or confront, cooperate or even kill each other. When the fog was still heavy in the first two seasons, the audience could not tell whether the elderly Jonah, Martha and Claudia were lying to their younger selves, nor could they know their intention of crossing frequently. There is only a vague feeling that the old man is like a pool ball, guiding fate to realize his intention. They don’t care who they kill, just let everything repeat, what’s the point of taking the "right" road at the critical turning point?
As I said before, every character in Diablo is sad. Tragedy can be roughly divided into two types: 1) the young self can’t understand it, and at the same time tries to avoid becoming the old self, but in the end, the course of life repeats itself and the hateful cycle can’t be broken. 2) Everyone who wants to change the story and save their loved ones has failed, either here or there, and finally tragedy is always staged.
But they are all fighters, and no one becomes a numb fatalist after repeated crits, willing to accept the "fate arrangement" calmly. Young people struggle with their old selves, and those who see the mystery of the cycle resist flagrantly. The fate of Nelson and his wife will surely remain in their hearts long after the end of the play.
Ulich Nelson, who traveled through time to find his missing son, was imprisoned as a madman in a madhouse for decades. Finally, I found my son, and my father and son fled to the mouth of Time Cave because of a little magic trick, which almost succeeded and eventually failed. When ulich’s wife, Katrina, robbed the time machine, she found old ulich and tried to save him from the madhouse. Unfortunately, it happened again. She was killed by a young mother who was not pregnant with her (she didn’t know her and mistook deja vu for a sign of the devil) and became a female ghost in the lake.
In the third season, the more accelerated and fragmentary timeline clips clearly show everyone’s futility and despair to the audience. Because of the situation, talent and destiny, the Wendeng people trapped in the closed loop gradually divided into four types. The first one, represented by Katrina and Hannah, has not yet discovered that the world is closed-loop, acting on instinct and realizing the true meaning of life little by little in pain. The second is represented by time travelers, who find the existence of closed loop, realize how the tree of life was created, and personally promote the kindness and incest needed for reproduction; Have faith, stand with Adam or Eve, and understand your responsibilities in the old and new worlds. The third is Jonah and Martha, that is, Adam and Eve. They have a firm belief in the cycle, and the process is like the birth of religion. One group prides itself on the light, and the other believes in nothingness, all driven by love. Adam wants to end the cycle. His ideal heaven is forgetting and nothingness, and everyone doesn’t have to suffer again and again. Eve hoped that the cycle would never end, so that she and Adam’s son could be born again and again. The fourth kind has only one person, Claudia, the "white devil". Only after collecting enough pieces can she complete the whole puzzle, find out the real origin of the cycle, and have the courage to eliminate two worlds that should not exist, so that her daughter Regina in the "primitive world" can live.
The most ignorant are the Catalina, but they break through their fate like warriors in an attempt to save their loved ones. They are most like the tragic heroes of ancient Greece, who fought against fate with the determination to realize free will and won the greatest respect from the audience. The most unfortunate thing is that travelers in time and space mistakenly believe in Adam and Eve, always carrying out orders and never breaking the rules. The deepest implication is Jonah and Martha. Their enemies and mentors are always their older selves, symbolizing the human beings who have repeatedly had youth and repeatedly become rigid and old-the old always want to keep things as usual, and the old always want to control the young.
Adam and Eve, who became similar religious leaders in self-reinforcement, could not see the real crux. Only Claudia, who is eager to save the woman, is single-handed and pure-minded, and neither wants to destroy the two worlds nor promote the cycle indefinitely. How did she guess the origin? The secret can’t be leaked. The screenwriter hid the secret, perhaps to imply the existence of higher power. If time itself is God, he doesn’t need to pay attention to this mischievous joke. Let a person find the "knot" and break it, and there is no need for a reason.
Diablo seems to describe the appearance of modern religion, and there is not necessarily an omniscient and omnipotent god. In other words, time is God, and he may not have the will that human beings can understand, but human joys and sorrows, life and death are all decided by him.
This "god" will not pity the sadness of the two worlds born like a tumor, and will not make any noise, give no guidance, and be completely silent. Finally, Jonah and Martha decided to go back to the real origin-before the watchmaker’s son died in a car accident, so as to prevent the watchmaker from building a time machine to bring back the dead. The price is that they and all the people born in the distorted world of the old and the new will disappear.
Jonah and Martha’s consciousness and self-sacrifice contain the philosophy of eastern and western religions. Let go of your obsession and admit that you are the product of mistakes, as if you were taught by Buddha. Sacrifice yourself, break the cycle, let the "primitive world" return to normal, and embrace the spirit of Christ.
Regardless of whether the God of Time exists or not, the sinful and bloody town of Wendeng, which witnessed numerous human crimes, should not cease to exist like the last toast of Katrina. Even if Jonah, Martha and many others were never born, they were just dreams or deja vu of others. It is meaningful to fight and seek like this.
In the last scene, in a thunderstorm, Hannah, Katrina, Doppler and others who have never experienced all this have dinner. Hannah, who is pregnant, suddenly wants to name her future child Jonah. There are more than one way to understand this ending. Behind the sense of deja vu that everyone will encounter may accommodate such a magnificent epic. Another possibility is much darker: Hannah gave birth to Jonah and started the cycle again, but it didn’t end.
[Specially published by Shanghai Literature and Art Review Special Fund]
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