I’m not too interested in Bear because don’t see him as an awful villainous guy because every straight guy I know would do the exact same things Bear did; and yeah they were bad, but he at least did the right thing at the end, unlike most men. He just did it too late.

I’d start my defense of Bear with the fact that he doesn’t believe in crystals and spirituality the way Nikki does. He scoffs at the idea of a crystal bringing her positivity, and goes as far as to say “she would hate that”. However, if he’d given the one-wish-willow to Nikki instead of using it himself, she’d likely have understood its power and been more careful about her wish. The fact that he didn’t believe in it was the reason this whole thing happened. He googles what a one-wish-willow is only after using it— so he didn’t understand what he was doing when he was doing it. He ideally believed it was about the same thing as wishing on an eyelash or a shooting star— and honestly, I’ve wished on eyelashes for girls to like me too. The real question is— would he still have done it if he had known it would work?

Honestly, I don’t think he would have. The question he keeps asking is, “Is it real?”. He wanted her to like him out of her own free will, he explicitly expresses aversion to the idea of her only being with him because of the wish. Of course that too is out of selfishness, because he wants her to like him for him, not out of respect for her autonomy— but that doesn’t change the fact that he made a stupid wish in an emotional moment which he wouldn’t have done otherwise.

So is Bear a rapist? Honestly no, he was a rape victim. He was trapped in the relationship as much as the real Nikki was. I’ve read multiple articles here that portray Bear as a rapist for continuing to be with her after he realised that it wasn’t real. But what could he have done? He did try to break up with her, and every time she emotionally manipulated him into staying. He wasn’t sleeping with her out of free will but because he’s visibly scared of her. He’s coerced into staying in the relationship— coercion is rape too. While defending Nikki to his friends, he sounded exactly like a victim in an abusive relationship who can’t leave; Ian should’ve noticed that immediately. She cooked his cat that he was grieving and tried to feed it to him for lunch. She threatened to hurt herself if he left— so much so that he was constantly scared of going literally anywhere without her because he didn’t want to come home to blood stained walls and the weapon in her hand (which is exactly what happened). She literally blew up Sarah’s head simply because she was interested in him. That’s one of the most common abuser tactics: getting rid of the friends (though usually not by murder). And while he was grieving his friend, he couldn’t express any of his grief to her because he’s afraid she’d accuse him of having feelings for Sarah and throw another fit of rage. There’s also the additional factor that he feels like he has to bear the responsibility of her because of his wish, and this guilt is furthered when the customer care guy of one-wish-willow explicitly tells him that he now has a duty to “take care of her” for as long as he lives. Meaning he has no escape except death, which I don’t blame him for not immediately choosing. He was a young man with a bright future, which he ruined for himself with one stupid decision that he could not reverse; his suicide truly was a tragedy that he did not deserve.

That being said, he wasn’t a good person and he would not have been a good boyfriend to the real Nikki even if she had liked him. First of all, the whole wish catastrophe happened only because he couldn’t grow a spine and tell Nikki he liked her when she asked. She gave him multiple opportunities to tell her, but he was too much of a coward to do it. He also bought the willow for her only to be seen as a thoughtful potential boyfriend in her mind, not because he actually cared about her losing her crystal. If he cared about her crystal then he would have bought her another crystal, but he didn’t understand her connect with crystals; therefore he bought her the gift he liked rather than the thing that she very obviously likes simply because he thought it was stupid. He also didn’t offer to drive Nikki home to be nice, he did it because he wanted to be alone with her hoping that would lead to something. Pretty much every nice thing he did for her was out of selfishness, except for his death. He could not comprehend Nikki’s suffering because as a narcissist, he thinks of himself as the only victim in the situation; he does not even realise that Nikki is not in control of her own body which is what is so scary it makes her want to die. He says, “What’s so bad about being with me?”, because he believes he’s a great boyfriend and therefore Nikki’s being with him against her will is not equivalent to his own suffering. Even the fact that he immediately asks about himself when Nikki is telling him that she is suffering confirms that he only cares about her with respect to himself. He also called that customer care company only when her actions affected him, he should have done that the moment he realised it wasn’t real. But I don’t blame him for not killing her when she asked, and I don’t blame him for not killing himself until it was too late; he’s only human, anyone would hesitate if they were told that their only ways out were suicide and murder.

For all his flaws though, he did do the right thing for the right reasons at the end. He didn’t kill himself because her emotional abuse made him want to die. He didn’t truly want to die, which is why he can’t pull the trigger of the gun; he does it because he knows he has to in order to save Nikki. It’s why he looks at her with deep love after coming out of the bathroom and kisses her passionately knowing that she would finally be free when he died. The actor who played Bear did a good job with his emotional turmoil, showing without explicitly saying it that Bear’s death wasn’t truly a suicide but a self sacrifice.

Bear is a deeply flawed narcissistic dirtbag, but he was also a victim and he didn’t deserve what happened to him.

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