What do this movie and graphic novel series have to do with emotional abuse? A lot! Take one look at Ramona running from Gideon and tell me what you see. Today I'm going to talk about why this series and movie do an excellent job of illustrating emotional abuse in a unique way I've never seen before.
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The plot of Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is not all about Ramona because it focuses on Scott defeating her seven evil exes, yet the whole situation is clearly all about Ramona's love life and past. Gideon makes it impossible for her to easily move on with life after their break-up by contacting six of her exes (not ex-boyfriends, exes) to create a league. This league then has to be defeated by anyone who wishes to date Ramona (counting Gideon as the seventh ex). This is what Scott runs right into when he meets Ramona and is enthralled by her. She has already run away from New York to Canada to avoid Gideon and her past. Still, we see it catch up with her all thanks to Gideon.
There are several points that show Gideon was emotionally abusive to her. For one, Ramona references that he paid no attention to her when they were together. When she left he became possessive of her. In the books he actually dresses Envy up like a dress-up doll and treats her badly, too. Envy, too, is a victim of Gideon because he manages her later on in the books (post -Todd being defeated). He even put a chip in Ramona's head (film version) to control her right back to him. The evidence is overwhelming. The league is more than enough to show you what lengths he'd go to to keep her with him.
Inside Ramona's Head
Here is where the people who only watched the movie miss out on imagery. Scott sees inside her bag (insides her head) twice. Once was an accident and she was highly embarrassed. Twice was the last battle against Gideon, in which the parts of Ramona, shown as duplicates of her, finish off Gideon. What Scott sees is a part of Ramona that is sitting at Gideon's feet in sexy underwear and later shackles. Gideon himself is on a large throne in a dark corner. That image speaks volumes on how much damage Gideon had done already and how she wasn't quite mentally past him. As shown in the last book, the other duplicates of Ramona had just about had it with Gideon (demonstrating her attempt to try to move on).
This is all significant for two reasons. The first is that she is sitting chained at Gideon's feet, revealing that she is not free of Gideon and he holds control over her. They even showed her at a level just below Gideon at the end of the movie (chaos theatre as Scott enters). It explains why she'd go back to him after running all the way to Canada to get away from him. Also, she is wearing sexy clothing which indicates that he uses her instead of loving her. The way he treats Envy Adams tells me he plays with women like toys and doesn't like to share.
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The second is that Ramona has to defeat Gideon on a mental plane. In order to truly be free of the man, she has to deal with all of it mentally. The movie ending didn't do this (because I suspect it is easier to draw in a book than film). That is the only real difference between the two forms of Scott Pilgrim, other than the chip. Either way, we do see Ramona take a shot at Gideon. She kicks him in the balls in the movie and Scott does the defeating with Knives because Gideon kicked her down the stairs. No matter what, though, she did defeat him in her head in order to take a shot at him. The book is a better ending, but I digress.
The League
We need to talk about the league itself in all this. Gideon went to the trouble of doing "two hours" of research to get contact information, contact her exes, and get them to agree to this whole fiasco. The book says one wouldn't agree to it, if you look, so at least one of her exes wasn't ridiculous. This involves slander. Yes, Ramona didn't end things well with the majority of her exes, but to go this far requires some form of slandering her. This is talking behind her back and plotting to destroy her love life forever, at the risk of being killed and turned into quarters.
Did Gideon consider that he was destroying her life as all this happened? No. He didn't even consider it. She was an experiment to him. While I will point out that some exes contacted him in the book, he didn't have to go this far. Not only this, but the book goes farther than this, showing that Gideon freezes and collects his girlfriends so he can thaw them, then date them at his leisure whenever he wants. His plan was to add Ramona to his collection, as well, and possibly Envy.
Also, Gideon alters Scott's memories, too. He damages Scott and Ramona to sabotage the relationship. He is pure, unadulterated evil. People are just pawns in his mind. He uses his powers to manipulate everyone. The paragraph below, from the Scott Pilgrim wiki fandom, describes it perfectly.
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"In many ways Gideon is a typical case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder: he possesses a highly grandiose, idealised and very unrealistic view of himself, and reacts with extreme anger and defensiveness whenever reality even slightly contradicts his illusions. His entire perception of the world is filtered through his ego, and this extends to his relationships, which are emotionally abusive, over-demanding, and devoid of any real affection. Instead, he views the girls he dates as accessories to his greatness, giving them the bare minimum emotional attention and otherwise neglecting and exhausting them, yet his messed up ego causes him to react violently when they dump him, wanting to punish them for suggesting he is anything less than amazing."
As you can see, Gideon isn't quite right. He is likely a high-functioning sociopath.
Emotional Abuse Defined
Looking at all of the above, let's take a look at the definition of emotional abuse and the ways it shows itself. Psychology today says the following:
"Emotional abuse is a pattern of behavior in which the perpetrator insults, humiliates, and generally instills fear in an individual in order to control them. The individual's reality may become distorted as they internalize the abuse as their own failings."
First of all, the image of Ramona at Gideon's feet is literally internalized abuse. Already we see this definition come into play. Another thing about abuse is that the person gets in the way of your personal goals, and what better way to do this than sending your other exes after your current boyfriend. Jealousy and being possessive also come into play here, which reminds me of the bio frozen exes of Gideon. He watches Ramona in both the book and movie. A huge red flag is that he also dresses Envy up like a doll. This guy takes abuse to a whole new level with his mind powers, as well, so he has already defined himself as the worst abuser Ramona, Envy, and the frozen exes in the ceiling could ever meet. I think my debate here is finished. Ramona will forever be a hero for defeating him with Scott at the end of the series.
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