Thread by @TalHobiSun

🧵ATSV SPOILERS #MIGUELOHARA #AcrossTheSpiderVerse||

I think an important part of Miguel's trauma is being overlooked.Yes, losing a daughter is what affected him, but I think we are not taking into account that he also feels guilty of annihilating an entire reality. Real guilt +

You're going to tell me that it's obvious, that we all know it, but I don't think it's taken that serious. As already mentioned, Miguel must have lost his daughter less than a year before ATSV. So he is not just grieving his daughter death. He is grieving the death of +

an entire reality. We don't know what cultures would be in that dimension. What artists there would be and what works of art. What history it would have. What music, what politics, what books. Nothing. And we have no way of knowing because that reality has gone PUFF +

Even if there were only a few differences with others, those will be gone forever. If an asteroid were to destroy our planet Earth, have you ever stopped to think what would happen to our cultures and History? No one will ever remember it +

Not even a high-tech alien would be able to recover Da Vinci's name. Perhaps in another dimension Da Vinci, to use a example, was never born. Perhaps our dimension is the only one in which he is famous. That means that if our reality disappears, so does he.And so with everything+

Any uniqueness that Gabriella's universe might have, proper to the development of that reality, would be impossible to recover. The only one who might have a little of information is Lyla. Because it is impossible for Miguel to know everything about that place +

So an entire reality of people has disappeared. Entire families that no one will be able to remember because they may not even exist in other realities. And even if they existed they would still be people with their own desires and singularities. +

Gabriella's reality collapse was a complete and total annihilation. Hundreds of cultures have dissappeared bc of this event. Families that could have been something more in the future. And Miguel thinks that's bc he wanted to be a father. +

He thinks that the annihilation of an entire reality was his fault. Only his fault. I actually doubt it was but that means he is algo grieving bazillions of deaths. Not only his daughter's. He grieves everything and everybody. +

The weight Miguel carries on his shoulders would have driven anyone crazy. Bc no, I'm sorry, but Miguel is not crazy. Unstable sure, but not crazy. Until Miles arrived, from what the rest of the characters imply, he was a good boss. Strict, but good +

He strove to keep infinite realities alive. Because that's the punishment he put on his shoulders. He has annihilated an entire reality. So now he will have to protect each and every one of the infinite realities that exist +

He has self-imposed himself the punishment of holding up the universe. I don't know if in Mexican/Aztec/Irish mythology there will be a simile but to me it reminds me of Atlas in Greek mythology. The difference is +

that Miguel has self-imposed this punishment, and that instead of just one world, he is sustaining infinities. I'm sorry, but his back is that strong for holding infinity on his shoulders. And that's why he is projecting more than Lyla, a literal projection, onto Miles. +

Not only because he is seeing someone who wants to risk annihilating an entire reality, but also because, as we all know, it reminds him of himself. +

Miguel only sees someone who is going to make the same mistake as him. And all that rage, that guilt he feels for what happened, that hatred he feels for himself, explodes with Miles +

He hates himself. He blames himself. Seeing what Miles is going to do all those memories, the guilt, have come back to him when he was still in the process of fixing it. +

Unpopular opinion, I don't think he's a bad person. Not deep down. Because otherwise he wouldn't act like this. He wouldn't go out of his way to fix his own sins. He feels guilty and hates himself for what he did. +

For thinking that wanting a family, that by wanting to be happy, he has annihilated an entire reality. That countless people have died because of it. Let's remember that it wasn't just the Earth. That whole reality. If there were aliens, they're gone too +

And he can't fix it. He can only try to avoid other future events. And Miles threatens to destroy the little progress he had made in trying to calm his guilt, which let's face it, he will never fully calm. +

But I do not justify Miguel's attitude. I have said it before, I wanted to simp for him in the cinema and I couldn't because he really scared me. As I said, he's not crazy, but he's not well either. He hadn't blown up before because the other Spiderpeople listened to him +

They believed him bc it calmed their own guilt.Miles is not only the exception,but the reason Miguel started dimension travel.Miles represents for Miguel his own guilt. It is not Miles' fault that he was bitten by that spider. The first dimensional opening is also not his fault +

More importantly, it's not Miles' fault that Miguel started traveling. That was Miguel's own decision. Miles didn't even know him. He did not pressure him to travel. Miguel was the one who pushed the button to travel to another dimension +

And he knows it. And it kills him inside. Because of his decision an innocent girl has died in his arms. Countless others have died around him in less than a few seconds. And he can't stand it. He can't stand himself, and he's not +

going to put up with someone who threatens to cause the same disaster he's guilty of. He can't let there be another Miguel O'Hara. He can't let there be another Gabriella O'hara. Because he is the one who is supporting infinite dimensions on his shoulders, and +

if someone trips him, they all fall down. It is a responsibility in which he feels alone. He is accompanied by hundreds of Spiderpeople, but none is like him. None of them is Miguel O'Hara. It is discussed in the film. That he is not like the others +

He separates himself from the rest of his colleagues. He has a good relationship with Peter B. Parker, but he is physically separated in the film. He is estranged from them. +

The whole building glows, but he is in the dark because of his sensitivity to light. All the spiderpeople are together, in a concrete maze that they can walk through and join together. But Miguel separates into a flying trapdoor, where no one else can climb through. +

He's in a position of power, high up, yes, but alone. Because that's how he feels, like a titan holding everything up so it doesn't fall to the rest.

The comment Gwen makes about the slowness with which he descends the platform, I don't think it's just a joke. +

Accidental or not the screenwriters convey how Miguel can't blend in with the rest because he literally feels alone. He gets wrapped up in his own sadness, while he feels that the rest, much more jokers than him because let's remember, there is no other Miguel O'Hara, +

don't take the seriousness of the problem seriously. Because none of them have committed the same crime as Miguel.

The thing is, Miguel is not really alone.

Lyla is with him. Peter and Jessica are his friends. I'm sure he must be Mayday's godfather because it's obvious he knew and trusted Peter from before. But Miguel still thinks he is completely and utterly alone. +

Now imagine all that frustration of carrying the world on shoulders, the guilt he must feel, and a more than clear self-loathing, exploiting everything against that kid who still has the idealism typical of a Spider-Man. +

(reviewing the movie Miguel says it in a quite literal way, but I think it is interesting to analyze the weight of his words). +

Both Miguel and Miles have the same desire at heart. To save lives. To be happy. The difference is how they believe it is possible to do it. They are too much alike and that's why Miguel projects so much onto him. +

Maybe it's not on purpose, but even Miguel calling him a mistake is still a huge projection. Miguel wasn't supposed to be a Spider-Man. If we follow his origin from the canons Miguel, in every sense of the word, he is a mistake. In his logic both he and Miles are mistakes. +

And those mistakes are the ones that can annihilate entire realities. One already has, and another is about to make the same "mistake" as Miguel. And it is something Miguel cannot allow. +

Miguel is scared. Scared that his history will repeat itself. Because even though he feels alone for being the only Miguel O'hara, he can't let there be another Miguel O'hara. For his history to repeat itself means the death of entire universes.

So if that means being alone, far away, without family, without home, without another one like him, so be it.