#i've said it before but this is why i think hera should write poetry. because it's about saying what can't otherwise be said.

[commsroom]

"such a big, big universe, and you only ever gave yourself the tools to think about a tiny portion of it" is such a striking line because at its core it is - like everything in am i alone now? - about loneliness.

i think a lot about the writers saying that eiffel tends to drive conversation in a scene, while hera more often resists it - that eiffel is defined more by what he says, and hera is defined more by what she doesn't say. eiffel is good at getting hera to open up, but he can take things at face value, and really listening to hera means he needs to learn what she says isn't all of what she means. she has to navigate both vocal restrictions and social barriers that he does not.

and hera's monologue in am i alone now? lives at the heart of what she can't say. it's this contrast of emotions between the connection she desires and the isolation she feels doomed to. the frustration that she's always there, but equally feels she's never really anywhere. she wonders aloud if she'd miss eiffel, but she doesn't really wonder. she's rationalizing her loneliness, current and dreaded future, but she knows - when she talks to nobody, she's talking to him. she observes the last gasp of a distant star, and her thought is of him; she watches a solar storm, and wishes she could describe it to him in a way he could understand. she calls him doug.

the irony, of course, is that hera's perspective is also very small and very personal, and that her desire is not to understand more of the universe, but for her part of the universe to be understood. the idea of giving names to colors no one else can see is a powerful metaphor when taken in the context of being surrounded by people who, even if they care, fundamentally cannot understand what it's like to navigate the world as a person like you. and i think there's something equalizing (and humanizing) in acknowledging that every person's experience is individual and subjective, and that all communication is just an attempt to bridge the gap.

so i don't think it's an appeal to the big picture, or even so much a statement of wonder, as much as it is an expression of a very simple, very human desire: i wish you were really listening to me. i wish you could see the world as i see it.