Nocturnal Animals: The One That Got Away

From Weakness To Strength And Its Underlying Nuances

This will be divided into four parts: I will summarise the movie, break down three key scenes, and provide an overall analysis of the core themes, adding my conclusion at the end.

I] SUMMARY

The movie starts with the gallery opening of one of the two main characters: Susan, a successful but emotionally distant art gallery owner living in Los Angeles. She's shy, elegant, and seems to have everything, but she feels deeply unfulfilled.

After the gallery opening, Susan returns home to her sleek, modern house, where her distant relationship with her husband (Hutton) becomes evident.

Soon after, Susan receives a manuscript titled Nocturnal Animals from her ex-husband, Edward Sheffield. Along with the manuscript is a note saying he dedicated it to her.

Hutton comes into the Kitchen and queries about the novel, Edward, Susan's husband, whom he did not even know was a writer. Susan is emotionally moved in the scene. When Hutton suggests they have not spoken in 20 years, she corrects him, saying it was 19, confirming by the same token that she remembers the years they parted and his emotional relevance still to this day.

This contrasts with Hutton: he is a wealthy, handsome businessman who is distant and often absent, both physically and emotionally. Their marriage appears cold and strained, lacking real intimacy. Hutton represents Susan as one of comfort and status, but ultimately shallow and unfulfilling.

Interestingly enough, she confirmed that she tried to contact Edward a few years back, but he hung up on her. Yet, the intrigue is that he dedicated the manuscript to her.

Susan then challenged Hutton about why he did not attend the gallery opening. She was disappointed he did not even bother, as it would have taken 15 minutes of his time despite his busy schedule. She also seeks to understand why he did not come to bed the night before, to which he replied he did not want to wake her. This alludes to potential cheating, but it is too early to confirm.

She suggests a romantic getaway, which he declines because he supposedly has to close a deal. The couple is struggling with money, potentially going broke despite their lavish lifestyle.

The next scene shows the couple having dinner with friends and other socialites. Susan had already confided to one of her friends the struggles she was going through in her marriage and finances; we then learned that she had leaked it to her husband, Carlos. Susan regrets doing so, as keeping appearances is key in that world, despite being told by her friend that she is “too hard on herself.”

Susan asks her how she does it, to which she replies she is totally cool being with a gay husband: “It is not such a bad thing, we are best friends, we love each other completely, I am the certainly the only woman in his his life, and that lasts longer than lust, doesn’doesn't

This is an excellent insight from a decade ago, where it is now commonplace to hear wives talk about their husbands as their “best friends” in their efforts to turn masculinity into gay poodles.

Susan then confirmed that she and Hutton never had that, and they wanted different things. She does not answer her friend's question about whether she still loves Hutton (she never did) and does not reply before her husband leaves for that business deal.

Susan is then seated next to Carlos, who compliments her gallery opening greatly despite her brushing it off, saying it was junk. He agrees with her and reframes it as the tales of our times.

There is this insightful exchange:

Carlos: “No one really likes what they do.”

Sus”n: “Then why do we do it?”

Carlos: “Because we are driven. Maybe a bit insecure. We get into things when we are young because we think they mean something.”

Sus”n: “Then we find out that they don’t. Enjoy the absurdity of this world. It is a lot less painful. And believe me, our world is a lot less painful than the real world.”

Susan then goes back to her house and starts reading the manuscript sent by Edward:

Tony Hastings drives through a remote desert highway late at night with his wife, Laura, and teenage daughter, India. They’re approached and harassed by a car full of aggressive young men, including the unsettling and dangerous Ray Marcus.

The encounter escalates when the men force Tony onto the road, block them in, and begin taunting and manipulating them. Ray and his accomplices, Lou and Turk, pretend to offer help, but it quickly becomes clear they’re playing a psychological game.

They separate Tony from his family, sending him off in one car while Ray and the others drive away with Laura and India. Tony is abandoned in the desert, helpless and panicked, before he finally reaches a remote farmhouse to call for help.

After the traumatic desert incident, Tony contacts the local police, and Detective Bobby Andes, a rugged, no-nonsense officer, takes up the case.

Andes is sympathetic and immediately suspects foul play. They eventually discover the bodies of Laura and India, brutally murdered and abandoned in a desolate shack. The grief and guilt Tony feels are overwhelming — he’s scared, haunted by his inability to protect his family.

This scene is filled with raw tension, fear, and helplessness and marks the start of Tony’s personal and psychological unravelling. It's when Susan realises Edward's is dark and personal, showing that he did not heed her previous advice not to make it about the author.

We then have a flashback to how Edward and Susan originally met. After reading the harrowing first section of the manuscript, Susan is visibly disturbed, which triggers a flashback to her younger days with Edward, back when they were still married.

This scene shows a softer, more idealistic version of both characters. Edward is warm, creative, and deeply in love with Susan. He speaks passionately about his writing, and she initially supports him.

There are two key scenes, which will be broken down below: the dinner scene between Edward and Susan and the scene between Susan and her mom.

We then get Susan in real time writing to Edward with the following message before going back to the manuscript:

The novel continues, showing Tony’s formation. With the help of Detective Andes, they track down Ray Marcus, the man responsible for the brutal attack on Tony. Andes, who is terminally ill and no longer bound by legal constraints, becomes more aggressive in his pursuit of justice.

Eventually, Tony and Andes capture Ray, and in a tense, emotionally charged confrontation, Tony kills Ray, but not before being injured himself. After the act of vengeance, Tony stumbles away, alone, wounded, and emotionally drained. He eventually collapses — his fate ambiguous, symbolising the cost of revenge and the hollowness that can follow it.

We also get a couple of interesting flashbacks, including the breakup between Edward and Susan after Susan drops her support for Edward. The former will be broken down.

Susan also remembers when she went to Planned Parenthood with Hutton to abort Edward's child for Edward to witness it in the background whilst getting rained on.

The end scene shows Susan going to their original restaurant to meet Edward 19 years later, only to be stood up by him.

II] SCENES BREAKDOWN

A) The First Date Restaurant Scene

The meeting is a pure product of serendipity, where the way the meet-up happens carries weight in the relationship narrative.

While in the restaurant, they look intensely at each other, and the tension can be felt, as they clearly have an attraction.

Susan admits to Edward that he is her gay brother's first crush, who also happens to be Edward's friend. This low-key admission underlines the feminine and sensitive nature of the main male character of the movie.

His reaction was that of empathy, showing his comfort behind the fact that another male was attracted to him, which Susan contrasts with most stereotypical male archetypes who would have freaked out, especially in the conservative South, which Texas represent.

There is then the undermining of Susan by her parents’ criticism of being bigoted for not accepting Cooper for being gay. Edward's defence of them shows empathy and his emotional sensitivity in the matter, also due to the mother's role during his father's death.

Susan's “really” is one of surprise, and it can be inferred that she did not expect it because his consideration towards her parents may not be shared.

Another key comment from Susan is that parents see a reflection of themselves in their children. Edwards champions this when he states the similarities between Susan and her mom, demonstrating his higher natural sensitivity (“from when I was a little boy”) to “iner details and what it can be the name of.

Despite Edward’s compliment that her eyes are beautiful, she just warns him not to compare him to her mom. She is still in that rebellious phase of separating herself from the identity her upbringing de facto associates with her, and she does not want to end up like her parents.

Another theme behind the deterministic aspect of the path people take, already pre-shaped based upon their personality, genetic, or social background, comes from the subject of keeping appearances and the impostor syndrome that Susan feels.

When she admits she never felt “perfect” as she was portraying herself to be, she brings her authenticity, which Edward saw as “perfect.” True internal beauty is shown in the admission of our flaws and the acceptance of them by others. Edward understood this through his innate intuition, which drew him to her even more besides her “beautiful eyes.”

She is being seduced and is not willing to take the compliment. Edward then challenges Susan to explain why she has given up on being an Artist. This encompasses her internal identity struggle and her unwillingness to go the whole way with her rebellion from what her parents expect of her. Edward is the enabler because he believes in himself and his craft and wants Susan to do the same. He follows his path to act upon her desire to fully emancipate herself from her parents' influence instead of keeping appearances and letting her express her true self.

She eventually welcomes his support, realises that he is what she needs to develop herself further, and finally admits that she had always fancied him.

This scene gives the perfect background image of where Susan is coming from:

She’s intelligent, sensitive, and aware of the world’s realities. However, she’s been taught that emotional idealism is a liability, especially for a woman of her background.

So even as she talks with Edward, you can feel the tug-of-war happening inside her:

One side wants to believe in love and art and to stay with this kind, vulnerable man.

The other side is whispering: he’s not strong enough, you’ll hurt him, you want more stability, not struggle.

This is determinism at work — not fate as in magic, but the gradual erosion of authenticity by pressure, upbringing, and fear.

B) The Mother And Susan

She tells her mother that she is moving back to Texas, which her mother is unhappy about. She learns she is going with Edward, and despite the family knowing him very well, she disapproves of her choice: “Where is this going to go?”

You can tell from her attire, hair, and elocution that Anne, Susan’s mom, comes from Texan high society. While she tries to gaslight her daughter, Susan calls her out, bolstered in her faith thanks to Edward's background of choosing the authenticity route and emotional sincerity rather than going for the stale taste of security through social conventions and family duty.

Anne emasculates Edward, calling him sweet and too weak, in contrast to Susan, who is strong-willed, before indirectly castigating him as below Susan.

Susan distinguishes between sensitive and weak and then categorises her mom as lacking any, like the other family members outside of Cooper.

This is where her mom is future pacing how her seeking comfort will trump her emotional idealism, priming her towards the choice of reason, which she expects Edwards won’t be able to meet. She calls him a brokey, and all of the other euphemisms the average post-wall broad looking for financial security puts forward: ambition, driven character. This is where the young and idealistic Susan does not mind, as the beauty of the idea of love trumps the reality of what adulthood young couples will have to confront.

Anne does not buy into Edward's type of strength, which her daughter supports. She also admits that he is actually stronger than her in many ways. This is where Susan brings forward the self-belief he has, but also something her parents have not fostered in her, the belief and confidence that she has what it takes. This is not something to underscore, as people lacking self-belief value those who believe in them.

Despite being insensitive, her mom has experience and is willing to bet it will peter out, but begs Susan not to marry him. Her mom shows Susan a side she has never shown before, demonstrating what she never would have thought her mom would do by calling Edward a “romantic.” The subtext is “I was like you before, but you have never seen that part of me.” This emphasises that she kept her appearance so good throughout the years that it fooled Susan.

Anne warns her not to do it because Edward is fragile. It will fail and only hurt him in the end. She then follows up:

"The things that you love about him now are those you will hate in a few years.”

Many divorced men will tell you how much veracity there is in that statement.

She then pokes at her by stating that they are alike, only emphasising the duplicity behind her character and how she has shielded her true identity from the outside world through her inauthenticity.

This ties in with Edward's compliment on the date that Susan and her mom have the same cold, yet beautiful eyes. Edward already felt and foresaw the similarities, but did not want to conclude that doom would be the conclusion of their union, ignoring the deterministic nature of the individuals at play.

There are four main themes in that scene:

1. Emotional Determinism

"We all eventually turn into our mothers.” - Anne.

This is more than just a warning—it’s a statement about emotional inevitability, about how the values and fears we grow up with shape us even when we think we’re fighting against them.

Susan sees herself as different from her mother—more sensitive and independent. But Anne, composed and ruthless in her delivery, sees the writing on the wall: Susan is already drifting toward the same compromises.

This scene powerfully advocates emotional determinism, suggesting that we will repeat the same patterns we inherited unless we actively fight them.

2. Identity And Self-Deception

Like her mom, she prioritises control, structure, and emotional distance.

Like her mom, she ends up in a loveless marriage built on social compatibility.

Like her mom, she looks back regretfully, understanding the cost too late.

This conversation becomes a mirror that reflects not who Susan is now, but who she’s becoming.

3. Fear Of Vulnerability

Edward represents emotional risk—loving him means embracing uncertainty and vulnerability. Anne sees that and immediately shuts it down. She’s a Voice of fear disguised as wisdom, convincing Susan that following her heart is unsafe.

Susan inherited this fear of emotional exposure, so she loses what matters most to her.

This scene functions like a quiet prophecy. It’s the moment we realise that Susan's life isn't circumstantial—it's deeply rooted in her upbringing. Anne chose safety over soul and is passing that philosophy down.

4. Authenticity vs Conformity

Anne criticises Edward as weak, idealistic, and impractical and warns Susan that a man like him cannot provide the life she wants. In Anne’s world, success is measured by status, money, control, and social image, not emotional connection or artistic expression.

This is the clearest moment where Susan is faced with a binary choice:

Choose authenticity (with Edward, and possibly struggle)

Choose conformity (and live in comfort, but possibly regret)

Anne's warning is harsh but clear: “You’re not the kind of woman who marries a man like Edward”. It plants a seed of doubt that later grows into Susan’s decision to abandon him, ultimately defining the rest of her life.

C) The Breakup

After Anne, Susan’Susan'splanted the seeds in her daughtdaughter's and Edward, still in a similar situation to which they started the relationship, she realises, as her mom predicted, that the bohemian lifestyle will not be enough for her.

What she does here is recraft the narrative to suit her best. She lives in the real world now, which means they are no longer compatible. Compatibility is contingent on her emotional state, which makes any path to a sustainable future wonky. She assumes, then, that the financial safety and structure will provide her with that peace of mind, where the uncertainty and fragility of her situation are proving too heavy to bear despite her love for Edward.

She then admits she is not the person he wants her to be and admits defeat to confirm Anne’s prophecy. She then deceives herself by saying she is not scared, but Edward sees through it and tries to reassure her before she gives the standard four-word knockout: “I am not happy”.

She then tries to smooth the blow:

"You are so wonderful and sensitive and romantic” wher” he cuts her and call her bullshit as he sees Anne speaking through her by calling himself “weak” which she defends herself from saying.

Edward, understanding what is going on, realises that for him to really come to closure, he asks her the following:

"Do you love me?” is a question she does not want to answer before finally confirming that she still does, to eventually be called out for metaphorically running away. This is where Edward gives this ominous warning, which will carry a powerful message throughout the movie, entertaining her later yearnings:

“When you love someone, you work it out; you don’t throw it away. You must be careful with it; you might never get it again.”

This scene will resonate with many men. There comes a point in life when you don’t meet their long-term needs, and she gradually switches up and starts not liking you as much because of it. It is her re-narrating of their story.

This goes back to Anne’s words:

"The things that you love about him now are those you will hate in a few years.”

With the help of her family and/or friends, she will start convincing herself that who you are is rubbish to her. Your sensitivity, she loved, becomes weakness, your ambition becomes aspiration, and your couple becomes trouble.

She will build up that resentment to eventually break it down to you.

Despite Susan’s rationalising, she still loves Edward. Even though she says all of the negative stuff, she consciously wants him to fight it, which he does. But unconsciously, it eventually only confirms her choice.

This breakup scene is about choosing fear over love, silence over trust, security over passion, and ultimately losing your soul to gain the world.

This is when two people who once loved each other fail to bridge the emotional gap. Edward is still emotionally present, trying to hold onto their relationship and understand what’s what. Susan, meanwhile, has already emotionally detached — her expression, tone, and words are calculated and distant.

Susan abandoned her authentic self, who once believed in emotion, vulnerability, and art. In choosing security and image, she begins betraying who she once was.

The breakup is less about incompatibility and more about Susan breaking from her own emotional truth.

This is where we see the consequences of the earlier mother-daughter scene come to life. Her mother's sense—the fear of instability, weakness, and emotional exposure—is now entirely in control.

Susan believes she’s making a rational, adult decision. However, this is emotionally pre-programmed—a product of years of subtle conditioning. Her breakup with Edward feels inevitable, and she is not empowered.

This scene marks when the bridge between Susan and Edward collapses permanently. Neither of them realises at that moment how final this will be. This is very much like in real life, where breakups often occur out of nowhere from at least one of the participants, but that lack of foresight creates the limerence born out of the lack of closure.

The irony is that this isn’t a fight. It’s controlled and polite. And that makes it more painful—the kind of breakup where everything meaningful dies in silence.

The emotional core here is about the pain of losing something real before you know its value and being unable to get it back.

This breakup scene also foreshadows Edward’s novel Nocturnal Animals. Susan’s story—especially what she does afterwards (which we later learn includes an abortion and never telling him)—becomes the emotional engine of Tony’s story in the manuscript.

Her emotional abandonment becomes, metaphorically, the murder of Edward's emotional life, just as Tony loses his wife and daughter in the novel.

The tragedy here isn’t anger — it’s the sadness of indifference.
It’s here that the two lives pivot. Edward goes inward and eventually turns his pain into art, while Susan goes outward, climbing into a shell of success that ultimately leaves her empty.

III] THE ANALYSIS

A) The Parallels Between The Manuscript and Real Life

In the previous chapter, we broke down the flashbacks, but to completely address the movie and the underlying message, we must link what happened in the novel to Edward's personal Journey.

Nocturnal Animals represents is Edward’s nickname for Susan she she is someone who makes hurtful choices in the darkness of self-interest whilst also addressing the animalistic behaviour of the protagonists, involving rape, murder and revenge.

Tony represents Edward, who dreams of a peaceful family life with Susan and is represented by Laura and India, who are going on a trip. This is the life Edward hoped for: simple, loving, and full of potential. When he gets run off the road by Ray and his gang, Susan’s emotional betrayal. The violence symbolises Susan’s choice crashing into Edward’s dream.

When Tony hopelessly watches his wife and daughter being taken, it represents Edward's helplessness as Susan ends their relationship and aborts his child. He feels emasculated, unable to protect the “family” he wanted. Laura and India being raped and murdered is the representation of her monkey branching with Hutton who assisted in the murdering of his child and the alleged cheating that occurred. That also emphasises how Edward had his emotional cord and family future destroyed.

Tony is consumed with guilt, which represents his years of suffering in silence, inability to move on for years, being weak for not having fought harder, and being too passive. This is when he meets Detective Andes, who represents the manuscript as a tool for revenge, but also his inner sense of justice system, where closure happens through the weapons of the word from a personal cleansing perspective, but in the bigger scheme of hurting the person who was responsible for his emotional shutdown.

Tony's tracking down of Lou and Ray is when Edward confronts his demons in the novel. Ray represents Hutton, and Susan’s complicit role, and even though Tony kills Ray, he dies in the process. He gains emotional revenge, but revenge comes at a cost: the cost of emotional shutdown. It’s the “death” of the old Edward, where he loses himself despite having grown in experience.

Tony dying alone is Edward telling her he is on his own, foreshadowing not wanting or needing her anymore. This eventually translates into him not attending the date they set up at that restaurant, which is the ending scene.

Edward gained the closure but not the reconciliation, which he did not need from Susan; he let her have a test of her own medicine. He felt 19 years ago. Revenge is a dish best served cold. Susan finally understands her loss, so she decides to make up for lost time, thinking it is not too late, until she reads ’dwards’ final’ message: You destroyed me, and you will live with that regret which is the underlying message behind the silence she feels whilst sitting on her own in that restaurant.

B) The Surface Level Lesson From Nocturnal Animals

That Ending Scene has Susan dressed carefully, waiting for Edward at a top-end venue. She is alone, vulnerable, maybe even hopeful, and while she waits, Edward never comes. This can be looped back to when she previously exchanged Edward for Hutton, thinking she could do the same, realising her mistake, not having listened to her husband's voice in the breakup scene.

The lessons Edward learned from Susan are that love without strength and self-respect leads to destruction, that blind romanticism isn't enough, and that being passive in the face of betrayal or emotional abuse is a form of self-erasure. He learned that being “too soft” or “too forgiving” devastated him. He had to rebuild himself, and he did, but not as she imagined.

By not showing up, Edward showed he took back control and was not to be used emotionally again. After years of silence, this is a mic drop. She gives Susan a taste of what he felt while showing growth. He is not the emotionally fragile artist craving her validation; he no longer needs her.

The irony of the situation is that now that Edward has become strong, he does not need her anymore, while she misses him. The staleness of her marriage to the unfaithful Hutton is another loop back to how she behaved with Edward 19 years ago. What goes around comes back around.

Letting go was his best revenge, as the powerful words are the silence surrounding her. Yet, revenge can be the most cathartic catalyst in the production of art, which only blossoms through the transfusion of emotions, a choice Edward made early on and kept with until he finished his production for him to disappear physically and spiritually after his work was done.

C) Reason vs Emotion

Susan chose reason because stability, social standing, wealth, and predictability were eventually what she was conditioned to choose. Edward lived by emotion; he believed in love, art, vulnerability, and the creative unknown. In choosing reason, Susan avoided the potential chaos of the struggling artist’s life, but she also abandoned authentic emotional depth, with love that’s raw, imperfect, but real.

Even though Hutton was the perfect match on paper- handsome, wealthy, and dashing- there was never anything real, just some empty Ken toy.

The life of reason will look alluring from the outside to better hide the emptiness from within. This is a perfect analogy for the surface-level strength of avoidance from the outside appearance, which covers up the deep-seated insecurity of feeling exposed from within.

Avoiding pain is preferred to the passion missed, as emotional depth requires risk. To feel deeply is to be willing to get hurt. In real life, regrets only happen when it is too late, so Susan chose to follow the safe path to become as hollow as the environment she decided to integrate into.

Reason is not bad, but reason without emotion leads to emptiness, and emotion without strength leads to destruction. The balance is where one can learn to protect their heart without closing it for Edward, but Susan must learn to limit how much protecting her image can cost her her soul.

The bigger lesson is that you can’t feel deeply if you don’t risk deeply. If one plays it safe emotionally, creatively, or relationally, they will never experience the full spectrum of being human. Edward suffered because he felt, and Susan suffered because she did not—until it was too late.

D) The Cleansing Effect Of Revenge

Revenge does not heal, it reveals. It does not restore, as Edward did not get back with Susan; it only makes the other person feel what you felt. Revenge is the sublimation of the being through elevation from turning pain into a masterpiece. Art becomes his weapon, silence his power.

The best revenge is becoming untouchable. Everything is in the subtext, and whilst it is the indirect transfer from pain to hurt, it is also the lagged unloading onto others of the bad debt they incurred, which gets paid with interest. The real return is processing the pain to be singled out and addressed.

E) The Subsurface Lesson from Nocturnal Animals

This is the movie's most misunderstood but powerful theme: emotionality is not weakness—it is strength.

Edward was being told, “You are too emotional,” “You are too sensitive,” and “You are not strong enough,” even by Susan, the person he loved the most. Yet she saw his emotional depth not as beauty but as fragility. So he tried to be what she wanted, and it destroyed him.

Being emotional does not make you weak. It means you care. Edward felt and suffered, but from that suffering, he created something beautiful, honest, and lasting. Meanwhile, those who were too strong to feel—Susan and Hutton—ended up alone, cold, and haunted.

The so-called strong choose the choice of safety behind the big walls of high society, sheltered from the struggles normal people go through, something Carlos reminded Susan at the beginning of the movie. Enjoy the world's absurdity, because there is no meaning to what you do, and you must laugh at what is around you to make it palatable. The part left unsaid is that if you don’t, the introspection will introduce you to despair if not despondency.

IV] Conclusion

There is this idea that there is one single idea of being strong, as if men are homogenous in their personality, when we have our differences. Trying to go against our nature or conditioning is thinking we can beat the force of the environment when it is not genetically constrained limitations. It is crucial to play to our strengths. Edward was never going to be the stereotypical meathead who would be impulsive with a low EQ. Nevertheless, his words hurt deeper than any uppercuts, and his craftiness, patience, and vindictiveness stood the test of time, leaving Susan feeling the same level of powerlessness he felt in the past. This is where wise women use their femininity to gain the most leverage because it is their competitive advantage, when low-frequency ones try to emulate the men they are not, only creating resentment in the process with others and cognitive dissonance within themselves.

The idea that emotionality is weakness is adopted by one-layered people, not realising that empathy can be weaponised through a hurtful angle. The individuals who are unaware of it are only the most vulnerable to it. Eventually, the shield of being closed off to avoid being hurt is one of actual fear rather than strength. Running away is the best smokescreen from addressing accountability in our misery and despondency and fostering even more mistrust in others, if not self-destruction, like Edward suffered, and missed opportunity, Susan eventually realised 20 years later.

More importantly, it is not to say reason is wrong, had Susan played into Edward’s tune and staid the course with him, she would have not been happy either despite being in love, she would have most likely fell out of it while yearning for what she may have potentially missed out with Hutton. Edward would not have produced his masterpiece because pain is the best source of inspiration and growth, but each growth is not equal, and some may have a pyrrhic victory, as Edward's emotional shutdown proved.

There is a certain level of emotional availability or willingness to open up available for both women and men, but it disappears when they have been hurt in the past; they lose the capacity of opening up again based on the extent or number of times when they were betrayed, abused or suffered identity loss. It is not that they are using a defence mechanism against doing so, it is that their love to give bank has been depleted, and at best, through therapy, they can restore some portion of it, like some rusty generator. Still, it is a pale version of what it originally was. Otherwise, numbness and self-preservation takes precedence over humanity, where the hollowifcation of the individuals acts equally as a self preservation mechanism as the cementing of their emotional bankruptcy, prompted by fearful individuals portrayed as strong when they were at best lacking self-awarenes, at worst purposely repressing their vulnerability to make everyone meet them at their rock bottom, the level at which one is cooked.

Denying emotional vulnerability eventually leads to hollowness.
Carrying alone the connection burden eventually leads to destruction.