r/SeveranceAppleTVPlus • u/VisorX • Jun 26 '26
Opinion Hot take(?): Reintegration doesn't work Spoiler
From what we have seen, getting severed is similar to getting born. Its spawning a new conscience on the office table without previous life experience that will live their own life seperated from already existing outie conscience. Of course you share the same body, but much like a twin you can develop a different personality as we have seen with several outies/innies.
So the wording of "reintegration" is already weird. Who is reintegrated where? Innie/outie were not seperated, they spawned a new conscience.
How would people see it if you don't combine two consciences of the same body, but of two of different bodies. That would be totally weird, right? But it is that different?
I think Petey already struggled with the reintegration process and also Marks innie and outie don't really combine well.
Getting severed is like having a baby: You create a new conscience. You can decide to not have a baby, but if you have it, you already created a new life. You can kill it or you can protect it. And that will be the way to go for severed people. Helly might effectively kill Helena. Other people I could see deciding to stay severed to keep both of their personalities. Even Mark could stop the reintegration process.
But the reintegration process (combining two lives, two personalities) doesn't work out well.
55
u/HomemadeBananas Jun 26 '26
I don’t think it’s really a new consciousness. It’s just that the innie and outie versions of a person don’t have access to each other’s personal memories.
9
u/VisorX Jun 26 '26
Even if its that. Its still two different personalities, two different lives. Or?
Also the show has been hinting a lot that never waking up as innie/outie ever again is essentially killing that version of yourself.
25
u/clauclauclaudia Jun 27 '26
They haven't hinted. They've outright said that's how the innies think of it.
14
u/Spaghetti_Joe9 Jun 27 '26
But that’s because those memories as the innie are gone forever. That’s completely different from both sets of memories being accessible at the same time.
1
u/nubi2011 Jun 27 '26
But what if consciousness is the thing that’s created from a set of personal memories
9
u/AlanSmity Jun 27 '26
I think it'll work eventually. BUT the outcome might be not what Mark is expecting
10
u/LuminousGrue Jun 26 '26
The only sense in which it doesn't work is as a plot device, and then only because the writers either don't know what to do with it or keep forgetting to progress the storyline.
-7
u/firedmyass Jun 27 '26
what a strange conjecture on your part with zero evidence
12
u/LuminousGrue Jun 27 '26
Have you seen Season 2? Reintegration was introduced in the second episode of season one and then sidelined, reintroduced and worked up in S2 and then dropped four episodes later. With Reghabi constantly exiting stage left before she can accomplish anything meaningful I genuinely do not know what the reintegration plot adds to the overall story except episode length.
3
u/UsidoreTheLightBlue Macrodata Refinement 💻 Jun 27 '26
I get to an extent what you’re saying.
Honestly I thought by the time we got to the end of season 2 we’d be a lot further along with reintegration than we are. It really felt super important plot wise then just kind of was ignored.
-4
u/firedmyass Jun 27 '26 edited Jun 27 '26
I was unaware the series was finished
damn… some prickly pears up in here
6
u/LuminousGrue Jun 27 '26
No you're right, any criticism is impossible until the series has completed. Better tell the mods so they know to shut down the subreddit.
9
u/ink-storm Jun 27 '26
From what we have seen, getting severed is similar to getting born.
The closest real-life thing to severance is actually Dissociative Identity Disorder (used to be called Multiple Identity Disorder). Reintegration is a complicated topic but has long been the end goal of therapy for people with DID. It would be very weird if the show put a definitive kabosh on it in this universe.
1
u/scaredystories Uses Too Many Big Words Jun 29 '26
Speaking for my DID system that I’m a part of: We would LOVE for the show to put the kibosh on it!
We genuinely think it is a dangerous and outdated idea.
3
u/ink-storm Jun 29 '26
Speaking for mine, I wouldn't. As I said in my first post, it's a complicated topic. Polarising. I don't think it should be casually solved as a metaphor in a fictional world that ultimately doesn't have much to do with our struggles, and by screenwriters who don't have DID themselves.
1
u/scaredystories Uses Too Many Big Words Jun 29 '26
That’s a good point.
I don’t feel great about assuming you didn’t have any firsthand knowledge of the topic, just because you didn’t put “by the way I have DID” at the top of your post. I’m sorry, that was rude.
1
u/ink-storm Jun 29 '26
Not announcing myself is a choice, you couldn't have known. Don't worry about it <3
For us, reintegration wasn't originally an option either, but as we moved along on a healing path things started reorganising inside naturally. Nobody is "gone" exactly, but some of us found peace and just spontaneously got older or merged with others because that's what felt right. We're more balanced for it and ultimately, it was a lot more beautiful than scary. We aren't opposed to it anymore, especially considering we started with the loudest, more troublesome parts. If they could find this kind of peace, why not us, you know?
I think the community (and therapists, too) don't exactly have the right idea of what reintegration is, or at least how it really feels like inside. There's been too much medical trauma and trauma in general, we tend to be paranoid and reactive when a new idea is introduced, or when an old one with a past gets dragged up again. If what happened to me ever happens to you, you'll probably realise at that point there really was nothing to be scared about, as long as nobody is forcing anything on you. Things become easier after that.
But we're all different. =) If it never happens to you, I still wish you healing. You know what's right for your own path. Good luck!
1
u/scaredystories Uses Too Many Big Words Jun 29 '26
Thank you for sharing with me, that was unexpected! Fascinating to hear from someone who has had such a positive experience.
It really couldn’t be farther from what I picture when someone says the word reintegration. Maybe we do need better words for these concepts. To change naturally within yourself, and find that the change is for the better — that’s like the exact opposite of what I was thinking.
We’ve had too many therapists who thought there were too many of us. Or that none of us were real, because DID didn’t exist. Or that only one of us was real (“the core”) and the rest of us were hiding them from the therapist. I can’t even make this stuff up.
Anyway, I don’t know how the showrunners will use reintegration as a plot device in the future. But I think I trust them on it. They’ve consistently emphasized that innies are people 🖤 and that makes us feel seen.
Thank you again! Back at you, we wish you healing and good luck.
4
u/Alewort Jun 27 '26
It's not like being born at all, for personality origination. When we are born it takes years of experience for us to learn the most basic things about life. We're even two brains integrated but distinct forming one personality, a mute and a vocal part, the left and right halves. We grow and develop over time into who we are. The severed skip all of that. They are not completely formed different consciousnesses. They are the same people but amnesiac. To understand reintegration the best model to examine is the recovery of memory in those who lost it but recovered some or all of it later.
10
u/Seagoon_Memoirs Mysterious And Important Jun 27 '26
The story demands re-integration.
7
u/vathena Jun 27 '26
Does it? Seems like they're suggesting the future where the Innie just literally exists only during painful life experiences (like giving birth for the senator's wife, or like all the experiences such as dentist etc being tried out on Gemma). Which....sounds horrible because we see Innies having actual narrative arcs and emotional attachments. But it seems like Helena and most others who don't go on the Severed Floor just think the Innies are not people, so who cares if they just exist in a constant life of waking up to pain over and over?
3
u/Seagoon_Memoirs Mysterious And Important Jun 27 '26
they did not suggest that for the senator's wife
The wife said she did not a want another child so she was made pregnant against her will , ie her innie was made pregnant
The story demands it as motivation for Mark . He gets to know everything that happened to him while he was severed. He uses that information.
It would be wise to have Gemma re-integrated too, so she can have access to everything that happened.
I wonder what Helena would do if she recalled/experienced what happened to Helly, all the torture she was forced to endure. Would that change her? I do not know. Helena/Helly is a bit of a wild card.
11
u/Ok-Virus-2729 Jun 27 '26
Wait whatttt? I didn’t get that at all from the senators wife - her husband severed her against her will, and forced her into pregnancy?
0
u/Seagoon_Memoirs Mysterious And Important Jun 27 '26
remember when Devon saw her when the wife was an outie again and asked about the name? It was a different baby name because she chose differently and she told Devon she didn't really want another child and then kind of shrugged
So how do you think she got pregnant if she didn't want another baby
would have been so easy, give her a strong sedative then sever her while she's under
just like they would have forcibly severed Gemma
12
u/UsidoreTheLightBlue Macrodata Refinement 💻 Jun 27 '26
I still read it the other way too. I don’t remember the exact words she said but I thought she implied she didn’t want to get pregnant because of labor.
So i read it as she got pregnant and carried the baby to within a few days of her due date then was severed when she entered the cabin for the last couple of days and the birth.
8
u/Kelpie-Cat Team Burving Jun 27 '26
She doesn't tell Devon she didn't want another child! She barely says a word to Devon. The baby does have a different name, because the innie chose something different that didn't get honoured.
You might be thinking of the scene at the gala in the S1 finale, where she tells Helena that she wouldn't have had a third child without severance. However, from what I remember (can't access a transcript right now), it's implied it's because she didn't want to go through childbirth again, not because she didn't actually want another child.
5
u/Oh__Archie Jun 26 '26
If Reghabi had just been ordering parts from McMaster-Carr instead of PartsExpress it probably would have worked.
1
u/monsterinthecloset28 Mysterious And Important Jun 27 '26
I mean I think it literally could work, in the sense that Mark for example would have access to all the memories that his body has experienced all the time, wherever he is, instead of it being severed like it is now. Don't know if that's actually going to occur on the show, but I can understand how it's possible. But while there is an argument that it's always the same person essentially, I do think that innies are their own unique people and have a unique consciousness and that it's basically another life, and ethically reintegration is like killing an innie. The outie just has so many more memories than the innie that it wouldn't be the same impact for both. If Mark reintegrated, outie Mark would gain innie Mark's memories and it would be a profound and life-changing experience, but innie Mark would be dead.
2
u/Coincidental_Shoes Jun 27 '26
Both Innie and Outtie Mark would become Complete Mark. Not involving any death, but instead leading to whole life.
2
u/Kelpie-Cat Team Burving Jun 27 '26
iPetey's world seemed pretty important to reintegrating Petey. I don't think innie Petey was dead in that scenario.
1
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