By Obsession was a deserved commercial success, but with great popularity comes inevitable bad takes, and I’ve been a bit discouraged by the number of people who seem to have missed the point of the film.
This post is a bit of a follow-up / companion post to my first Obsession post in which I analyzed the ending of the movie. Today I want to talk about why Bear is the primary villain of the movie, which for whatever reason, some people don’t seem to pick up on.
(See the brilliant minds in the comment section of this post)
Yeah, I’m tired of the Bear defenders.
Bear is the villain of Obsession. While you can certainly make the argument that he was initially victimized by the makers of One-Wish Willow (I wonder if they will ever face a class-action lawsuit in the Obsession universe), his character is made clear as the story progresses and his actions after the wish takes effect show how he really views Nikki.
Obsession is a movie about sexual assault and coercion, which is something that some people seem to have trouble understanding. Bear from Obsession is a rapist and has the mindset of a rapist. The fact that the One-Wish Willow people made a dangerous product does not absolve Bear of his behavior throughout the movie.
In this post, I will be going through the main plot points that cement Bear’s status as the main villain of Obsession, as well as analyzing how his choices throughout the story gradually reveal his true character.
Nikki Was NEVER Romantically Interested in Bear
A lot of people have said that at the beginning, Nikki was leading Bear on. However, in my opinion the movie makes it extremely clear that Nikki did NOT reciprocate Bear’s feelings.
- At the beginning, Nikki talks openly about crushes — implied to be on other people– with Bear in the car after the bar, which is something that most people wouldn’t do around their actual crush. She even insinuates that Sarah might have an interest in him. Their conversation is reminiscent of relationship-advice conversations I’ve had with platonic friends many times myself.
- Nikki teases Bear, but it isn’t sexually charged at all. In fact she makes jokes that poke fun at him.
- When Bear offers to drive Nikki home after the bar at the beginning, Ian jokes that he is “taking his girl home” and Nikki, disgusted, says, “Ew, don’t say it like that.”
- When Bear and Nikki start dating after the wish, the other members of the friend group come to Bear with concerns about the relationship’s suddenness and intensity, specifically citing past comments that Nikki had made signalling a lack of interest in Bear. She had told one of their friends that he was like a little brother to her, for example. They’re concerned that her behavior seems inconsistent with the Nikki they knew, and worry that either Nikki is using Bear without having real feelings for him, or Bear is taking advantage of some type of mental breakdown Nikki is having
- In the party scene later, fake-Nikki reads a bizarre incest scene that she wrote, which is an allusion to real-Nikki telling other members of the friend group that she saw Bear as a little brother before the wish
- Nikki was actively hooking up with Ian prior to the wish, indicating that she was a) okay with casual sexual relationships among friends and b) was not interested in having one with Bear
Was Bear’s Original Wish Immoral?
I’ve seen some people asserting that Bear was immoral from the start and that his wish was inherently wrong. However, I actually disagree with this.
The exact wording of Bear’s wish was: “I wish Nikki Freeman loved me more than anyone in the fucking world.”
It’s certainly not the most thought-out wish, but he was wishing on a gimmicky stick thing from a new age type store. I wouldn’t be thinking that carefully about my wording either. He obviously didn’t think that the wish would genuinely come true, certainly not in the pedantically literal way that it did, and he was clearly speaking from emotion.
Bear’s immorality is revealed in his actions after the wish, not in the wish itself.
Bear takes advantage of Nikki while knowing she is in a vulnerable state
Bear recognizes Nikki’s abnormal behavior immediately, but initiates a relationship with her anyway. Even before knowing that she was being possessed/coerced, he was willing to have sex with a girl he thought was on drugs, in the midst of a mental breakdown, or just generally not in a clear state of mind.
During their very first sexual encounter, as they are making out, real-Nikki snaps back in control for a second, launching herself away from Bear and screaming in disgust. Though fake-Nikki regains control and insists right after that she is fine and they should continue, a responsible person would not feel comfortable continuing any activity the same night after an incident like this. However, Bear was fine with it, and continued to be fine with the burgeoning “relationship” with Nikki even as her strange behavior continued past the first night. He was completely willing to blur the line of consent so long as he got what he wanted.
Bear only regrets the wish when it starts to have negative consequences for HIM
When it becomes clear that Nikki is not Nikki— that she is being metaphysically enslaved to love him against her will, and that the real Nikki is in agony trapped in her body with no autonomy— Bear still continues to have sex with rape her.
Bear only starts to regret the wish when Nikki’s obsession becomes too unsettling for him. He was fine with having coerced a woman into a relationship, but when she’s popping out from corners and watching him sleep, it’s gone too far.
And even then, after he’s been freaked out enough to try to contact the One-Wish Willow makers, he asks to MODIFY the wish, rather than undo it. This is clear evidence that it isn’t the coercion that bothers him—it is the unintended side effects of his wish’s wording.
He’d be fine if Nikki was magically compelled to love him… just not when she’s acting so creepy!
The most damning moment, however, is definitely when Real-Nikki regains control while Fake-Nikki is sleeping, and begs Bear to kill her. Bear stares in confusion and horror at what he has inflicted on the woman he loves oh-so-much, and then he says… “What’s so bad about being with me?”
Instead of caring that he has caused such suffering to Nikki, he takes it as a hit to his ego that Real-Nikki doesn’t want to be with him. He is literally pouting about his own insecurities. This is the moment at which Bear’s immorality—and the parallels to some real-life people’s attitudes about women—are more obvious than ever.
Bear does not love Nikki
The ending scene hammers home what we as the audience could already clearly tell— that Bear never truly loved Nikki. When Fake-Nikki fears that Bear isn’t reciprocating her love, she uses the final One-Wish Willow— implying she used it to wish that Bear loved her.
Bear was about to abort his suicide attempt, but when Nikki’s wish takes effect, he stops trying to throw up and goes to hug Nikki before dying. The abrupt change in his behavior shows that her wish changed how he felt about her, implying that he didn’t love her before. If she hadn’t made the wish, he likely would have chosen to save himself and keep her under the spell of his own wish. At the end of the day, Bear always cared about himself, not Nikki.
For more Obsession analysis, see my post on the ending scene here!
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If you read Emily’s ‘about’ section you realise why she is writing radicalised leftist rubbish.
It’s there in black and white, she’s never studied Journalism or creative writing. She’s been brainwashed at University. Definitely a future cat mom 😂
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