#hi nautilusopus I'm so sorry for the tag but your post was the main thing that inspired me into writing this

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This is just a doodle but I feel like not enough people are talking about this part of the movie so allow me????

Alright look if you're gonna sit here and tell me Sofia didn't have a single part in Katya's betrayal then you're WRONG. I saw another post by @nautilusopus already talking about this but people seem to forget how she gradually lost herself throughout the film, becoming more and more jaded with her actions and motives further on contradicting themselves until she eventually folds in on herself. Katya was the only person who was able to have an influence in how fast this progressed- even though all she did was merely delay the inevitable with how horrific it got. Katya ADORED Sofia and always wanted to make sure she was loved, no matter if Sofia didn't reciprocate at first. When they went to the dinner, it was Katya putting her pearls around Sofia's neck, it was Katya buying her that gown, it was Katya who said every woman should be allowed to feel they are looked at beautifully, knowing full well she was referencing a lower-class girl at an upper-class establishment. Of course at the time Sofia is freaking the fuck out in embarrassment, but it also opens the door to growth. We see Sofia has never been quite out of the rough- she struggles and struggles and is barely able to make her monthly expenses each time. She never bothered to reach out for more bc for all she knew, it was IMPOSSIBLE. But Katya is showing her opportunity, a glimpse of what a better life could feel like, and that yeah, she COULD be looked at beautifully too. And when they talk after the dinner where Katya makes that remark about "keep the dress, I have plenty more", while Sofia is annoyed, she sees it more as a challenge of "let me get my own dress then" rather than "oh of course a dress of this expense is irrelevant to you you pretentious fuck." Which is HUGE bc then we see Sofia start to work harder and try new things, and while the pawn shop is going under she's gone into higher employment (as high as you could get it in the early 1900s at least) and stops leasing herself to Goncharov for laundry duty, and Katya is actually PROUD of her bc she's managed to do something her husband was currently failing miserably at (at least before he got it all back together through cough cough sussy means).

SO IMAGINE THE SHOCK WHEN YOU SEE YOUR BELOVED BURNING AN EXPENSIVE CHECK AND DECLARING THAT GROWTH TO BE LIES AND MANIPULATION??????

Of course we know Lorenzo was a controlling mf and we're cheering that she's not falling for his bullshit, as tragic as that bullshit may be. But that's the beauty of dramatic irony babyyyyy. Katya has no idea by this point; her focus is more on Goncharov and what he's up to, and she hasn't so much as bat an eye in Lorenzo's direction since he hasn't done anything to her yet.

But Sofia HAS seen and experienced it, and when she sees it for the thirst for power that it is, she burns the check as a stance against the corrupt. But not only is it that, it's her having her epiphany of realizing that she's just doing the exact same thing. Everyone she's involved with at the top is only there bc they lied and cheated their way in, or they just happened to be affiliated with someone with the money. And to stay there, they hurt others and act like nothing has happened because they have all the power in their hands and can control everything anyone says out loud about them. Even though she may have started humbly, as she acquired more she also learned about the shady side of things, and wound up relying on making bad deals or cutting corners to get that wealth faster, bc god how she loves being rich now. Except, this wasn't her. This was never supposed to BE her. Now that she looked back, she realizes she herself was following this same path with the deals she's made to date and the things she's done to people around her, and she HATES that. Even if Katya told her her efforts were genuine, even if she told her she was entitled to respect as a woman, even if she told her that she was sincerely proud of her... she wanted to believe it, and she did for so long, but had that ever really been the case..? So she burns the check.

MEANWHILE Katya, who adores Sofia and all she's done, who's proud of her, who gave her that necklace and that dress and even though the necklace led to ruin she STILL doesn't dare ask for it back because she wants Sofia to have it, is now sitting in the hall watching her burn the check, watching her cry and call everyone a snake and cursing them for what they did to her?? She can't imagine why. Sofia seemed to be so happy with her new life, with this new world of possibilities, with how she was no longer scorned upon, but now she's hates herself and hates everyone around her and is burning the check she could have used to advance herself even more? The check that she was just fawning over receiving because she could finally buy her own version of that dress with that?

If you saw your beloved crumble like that and say that everything they had done was meaningless and that it should have never happened, and that YOU were the reason that happened, what would you think? I'd imagine that you'd wonder if their despair WAS your fault, right? She WANTED Sofia to see through those rose-tinted glasses, and she invited her to that dinner and gave her that dress and those pearls to do so, and when she did rise up she was SO PROUD and she felt SO ACCOMPLISHED... But is that what Sofia herself wanted? She was always uninterested in being rich until that night, she NEVER cared about her status and settled with being at the bottom of the barrel bc that's just what she thought she was capable of. And yet like a shepherd herding sheep, she continued to insist and insist and push her toward this gate of upperclass-hood just because she could, and because she wanted to. She truly did want that life for Sofia, but did Sofia ever want it..?

Katya wants to comfort, she wants to come to her side and tell her she's wrong, that she IS a good person and that she CAN be what she wants, but that would only be adding salt to a wound she herself created. So we get that shot- a shot of the light from the flames bouncing off Sofia's blistering red hair and Katya shrouded in darkness for the first time in the film. Sofia scorns herself and tries to burn herself away, and Katya is in the shadow of it, no longer the light she and everyone saw her as. What went wrong? What started it? Where could she go?

That lighthouse was nothing. THIS is where the betrayal began.