honestly I've had these same questions since i watched it i love not knowing what was a hallucination and what was gaslighting

Not sure what was going on, but you better say you're fond of the lobster.

What I got out of it honestly was just the madness that can come about from such sheer and intense isolation. Even in the scenes where they are seeming to connect with one another instead they just end up getting locked into a grand delusion together, almost feeding on each other's mental breakdown.

In the end I don't actually believe anything supernatural was going o rather that just serves as a good visual for how the characters were feeling in their states of madness. I think the end shot really highlights this as the two are shown in the state that they are in.

Yeah

I think Eggers couldn't figure it out and just put some stuff in there that can be interpreted in many ways as a solution to his problem. I'm not kidding at all here, I think he couldn't figure out exactly the lore or story or meanings, is it a test or something or magic, and just kinda tossed it all there and said, yeah, whatever, let the audience deal with it.

Fish sex? I never saw it, but I heard RP knocked boots with a mermaid.

After the other dude violently raped her. It's pretty disturbing.

Alright. Have it yer way. I like ye cookin

I think Dafoe just loved the light because he was crazy. Pattinson wanted his approval and Dafoe would never let him tend to the light no matter what. So he went mad and did anything he could to see it, convincing himself it did have some power over Dafoe. It's also worth keeping in mind that isolation, no water, booze, repetitive shitty meals, no smells but salt air and farts, hard labor, verbal abuse, and no sounds but waves and seagulls drove them both mad. I think both really just want love. Dafoe is divorced if I remember correctly and Pattinson ran away from a man, even "taking his name," which I took to mean he couldn't understand or confront his feelings about him. They both decide to get love from the light since Neptune knows they aren't gonna get it from each other.

Here.. might help mad as a hatter

Good times. That’s a warn out trope🥱

Not really sure, maybe some kind of Purgatory thing for Pattinson's character? You should try checking out The Flannan Isle Lighthouse Mystery that it was semi-based off of, creepy shit.

I think it’s about a man struggling with his self identity, I think Thomas Howard is struggling with his sexuality and murderous past. As his alcoholism gets worse Thomas Wake becomes a manifestation of the guilt and disgust he has for himself. As Howard begins to drink again Wake becomes increasingly more unhinged and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think Howard is projecting his true self onto Wake, he views Wake as a disgusting man because he is disgusted with himself, he pretty much admits this when he confesses he changed his name to Winslow to give himself a clean slate.

Like I alluded to before I don’t think that Winslow actually died in an accident. I think that Howard had sexual relations with him and couldn’t take the guilt of this anymore so he murdered Winslow and covered it up with some bs story about a logging accident. Winslow’s ghost haunts Howard throughout the movie (his face appears on the face of the mermaid he is fucking and I don’t think that’s a coincidence at all) if Howard was so unbothered by seeing his death like he said he was why would Winslow be haunting him? It doesn’t make sense. To go back to the point of Howard’s guilt of his sexuality, this was made clear to me when he almost kisses Wake but then fights him instead. He rejects his homosexual urges and “re establishes his masculinity” by fighting him which is typically seen as a very masculine act.

By the end of the movie he gives in to these homosexual urges like he did with Winslow and he rapes Wake in that scene where he tells him to roll over (this is a little bit out there but you can see him fiddling with his crotch and he’s stood over him as he tells him to roll over). I think the ending is supposed to represent Howard attempting to come to terms with the truth (finally seeing the light) but he can’t handle it so he rejects it and dies.

It was a great reimagining of the Prometheus myth combined with a descent into madness movie where you don’t know whether one or both men were pretty crazy at the start.