In the 2010 filmScott Pilgrim vs. The World, the relationship between the protagonist Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera) andthe drummer of garage band Sex Bomb-Omb Kim Pine(Allison Pill) raises far more questions than answers. It’s hard to tell whether Kim’s remarks towards Scott are part of her sardonic personality, or if there are some hard feelings between them.The lines are hilarious, with standouts like “If your life had a face, I would punch it,” but one begins to wonder about the nature of their relationship, and how it got so fraught. We’re given some hints in the film, but there aren’t many. Scott and Kim dated in high school, ending in a way that left behind some hurt feelings that Scott doesn’t address until the end of the film. The rest is pretty up in the air, butwith Scott’s penchant for making incredibly stupid romantic decisions,it’s safe to say that it was probably his fault.
We got more of a clue from one of the strangest of places, that beingScott Pilgrim vs. The Animation,a four-minute cartoon that premiered on Adult Swim to promote the film. The short covers the opening pages ofBryan Lee O’Malley’s second graphic novel, appropriately titled “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” with Scott, Kim, and the oft-forgotten Lisa Miller (Mae Whitman) in their high school days in Ontario. Lisa Miller is a high-school friend who was romantically interested in Scott in the graphic novels, but Kim is the one he ends up dating.They were each other’s first loves, both romantically and sexually, but it all ends quite suddenly when Scott moves away to Toronto. One might think this is pretty open and shut, but if you crack open the original graphics and dive deeper into who Scott Pilgrim is, you’ll see thatthis is a break-up to rival any that formedThe League of Evil Exes.
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
In a magically realistic version of Toronto, a young man must defeat his new girlfriend’s seven evil exes one by one in order to win her heart.
Scott Pilgrim Is Revealed as an Unreliable Narrator
In the graphic novels,we start to realize that Scott’s perception of events isn’t necessarily the truth.It’s true that he got into a fight, he and Kim were high school sweethearts, and he moved away. At face value, there’s not a lot Scott could do about the situation. He was a teenager who was moving to another city, so why would Kim still be upset about it? We learn that’s not all there is to it. Scott didn’t heroically defeat a megalomaniac who was holding Kim hostage, he just beat up some dweeb from a rival school who had a crush on her. Most importantly,Scott never told Kim he was moving to Toronto. He told Lisa, who then told Kim, before leaving without a word.
In general, it’s not a great thing to do to someone you’re close with, either platonically or romantically. Leaving for another city and not telling someone, especially with the time it usually takes between deciding to move and actually moving. We’ve all had someone ghost us or drop out of our lives.It feels like a betrayal, as if the relationship meant so little that it was easy to leave. There’s also a deeper level of betrayal in this specific situation.Why would Scott tell Lisa he was leaving, but not his own girlfriend?There was always this simmering romantic tension between the two of them, so it would be understandable for Kim to assume there was something going on behind her back. Worst of all, she ends up moving to Toronto after college, and while she ends up reconnecting with Scott and joining a new band with him, he seems to have forgotten the whole thing.There was no conversation, no apologies, he completely dismissed what he’d done to Kim— which shows he either didn’t care or was completely oblivious to the pain he caused.
Scott Pilgrim vs. His Own Perception
It’s not just the break-up with Kim that is wildly misremembered and suppressed.What happened between Scott andhis college girlfriend Natalie “Envy” Adams(Brie Larson) is considered the most devastating heartbreak of his life, with Envy going through a monstrous personality change. Then we learn the actual cause of the breakup in the sixth graphic novel:Scott Pilgrim’s Finest Hour:an argument that Scott started when he was drunk. You start to then wonder if Envy is really so evil, and her corruption by fame so severe,or if Scott just didn’t like or accept it, and by extension like or accept her.
Scott’s abandonment and dismissal of Kim is a perfect summation of the flaws he has to overcome in the story, and thankfully does.The way Scott treated Kim was incredibly unkind, and she was fully within her rights to be hurt by it.But what allowed that pain to linger was the total avoidance of responsibility even after she came back into his life, the expectation that everything would be fine and normal after he abandoned someone who loved him. Ramona also has her fair share of bad breakups, but they’re all caused by the same thing:She tends to run away from things when she believes there’s a potential to get hurt.This at least hurts her in return, with her struggling to have meaningful relationships. This is something explored a lot on Netflix’sScott Pilgrim Takes Off.
Scott doesn’t get the closure he desires from Envy or Kim by punching the issue or defeating more evil exes.He gets it when he finally wakes up and realizes that he has messed up, and he has messed up a lot.This takes human form in Nega Scott (also played by Cera in the film).In both versions,Scott doesn’t defeat this dark reflection of himself, but he reconciles with it or even combines with it.Because you can’t make the worst parts of yourself disappear, they are as much you as your best assets. Scott can no longer run away from his mistakes, and he can’t completely fix all of them, but what he can do is make peace with them and finally give the apologies that are long overdue.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The Worldis available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.
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