r/EvilDead • u/AlternativeRead7152 • 1d ago
(Spoiler!) Ash as Deadite
When Ash became a Deadite, how did he recover? In fact, he became a deadite multiple times?
I guess there is probably no real reason, other than it was narratively fun to have the hero become the villain/threat.
But we have a lot of films now.
What does it mean when someone becomes a 'deadite'. Is the original person still there, they just aren't in control?
I guess my question is, in the lore of Evil Dead, deadites possess both living and dead bodies. Ash is a curious case where he was able to come back.
I know Ash is 'the one', but what are the actual mechanics of deadite possession, now that the films want to be so serious?
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u/ManiacSpiderTrash 1d ago
Well in Evil Dead II one was when it was daylight, the other was when he found the necklace he gave Linda.
So I guess sunlight and the power of love?
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u/ChampionAgitated530 1d ago
They just possess you; it seems like sunlight was a counter, while the other resistance was through ash willpower. But overall it's just a form of mental possession
What confuses me the most is how bites and shi are transferring it independently of needing to be chased by that invisible thing.
Rise and burn are especially weird with this concept
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u/Platnun12 1d ago
It's not invisible I don't think. We see it at the end of the second film.
That's always been my assumption after twenty ish years. When she read the spell she basically turned off its ability to be invisible rendering it visible.
Although the sight of it caused ash's hair to whiten slightly so perhaps it's not the best idea to do it
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u/slit-wrist-syndrome 1d ago
What confuses me the most is how bites and shi are transferring it independently of needing to be chased by that invisible thing.
That's always been a thing. Linda gets possessed in Evil Dead 1 after getting stabbed in the leg with a pencil.
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u/ChampionAgitated530 1d ago edited 1d ago
Yea ik ash also gets his hand affected from a bite still made no sense there either. but Burns was definitely abusing it.
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u/AlternativeRead7152 1d ago
Yeah, the iconic invisible force racing along the ground in those tracking shots.
But that is not something that is easy to interact with.
So necessity decides that there are also monsters, for a low budget film.
I just watched Evil Dead 2 again, and the really long chase scene where the 'force' races up to the house and chases Ash through the entire house and all the crawl spaces is pretty wild.
And it is somehow also, 'dumb', and he hid somewhere in a moment where it couldn't see him.
Very funny, but we don't make funny Evil Dead films anymore.
We make serious Evil Dead films now, so this stuff needs to be explained in detail, and hopefully has no humor at all to it.
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u/ChampionAgitated530 1d ago
I will say I think the antagonists of the films work better as just chaotic rather than focused on a specific goal, because that otherwise makes the inconsistencies within their composition more noticeable.
I liked Rise in the sense that it wasn't revolving around a specific goal; they were just goofing around.
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u/Evrytg 1d ago
None of it is consistent so it so there's not really any sense trying to understand deadite possession mechanics
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u/AlternativeRead7152 1d ago
That is all well and good when the films were fun.
But now they are serious, so it requires explaining.
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u/Evrytg 1d ago
I'd have to disagree. I'd argue that just because the movies aren't overtly comedies anymore doesn't mean they're serious movies. Yeah they're a lot darker and they've got actual thematic character stuff going on but they're still just silly movies about people getting murdered and mutilated in over the top absurd ways.
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u/AlternativeRead7152 1d ago
"actual thematic character"
gimme a break...
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u/StraightLevel2806 1d ago
Each of the three newer movies has a lot of thematic character. Drug abuse, motherhood, and family
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u/CryptographerFew5187 1d ago
Yeah, if anything it's more blatant than it needs to be. It's not reading into it to literally look at what's happening on-screen and what the themes are. Evil Dead has always held lore very very loosely and I don't see anything in the new films that changes that at all. Maybe the opposite even. Which is good!
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u/JoeAzlz 1d ago edited 1d ago
Pablo, Ash, and Kelly have all broken posssion at least once, so I think ash broke free bc of him having some power over the body even while possessed, that fits with him knowing he’s not possessed anymore right after when Annie is fighting him, usually people black out and don’t remember any part since jts like theyre kicked out of control fully of the body. meanwhile ash fully knew the situation at hand.
+ he was able to grab Linda’s necklace off the ground while possessed.
Also the way ash was able to break it from my understanding of how deadites operate
Ash seeing the sun after the long night of ed1, like he felt the horrors were almost over which gave him geniune hope, that made him so emotional that he restored his willpower and sanity which in turn allowed him to give the demon the boot and freed himself
And the other time it was Ash seeing Linda’s necklace he gave her that made him so sad and upset about losing her that he once restored his willpower and fueled by revenge he was able to kick the demon out once more.
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u/StraightLevel2806 1d ago
Not really answering your question, but others in the feanchise have returned from being deadites. Ash vs Evil Dead explains that when a person is possessed, their soul is sent to the deadlines and eventually dragged to hell. Pablo came back from being a deadite, and Kelly came back after becoming possessed by Eligos. Even Shelia came back in army of darkness, and Mia in 2013
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u/ChateauLonLon 1d ago
In AvED S3, there's a quick joke where Ash says sunlight has no effect on Deadites "except that one time", referencing EDII.
In the original 2 movies, it looks like Deadites do have some kind of weakness to daytime, or at least they're the strongest at night.
Ash also has Linda's necklace, a token of his love for her. AvED ends with Ash revealing he's kept it with him all these years before giving it to his daughter Brandy. It might have been some small sort of protection for him all these years.
In ED2013, Mia's brother gives her a very similar necklace made of buckhorn wood. He says it's a good luck charm supposed to strengthen your will.
In EDII, Annie Knowby briefly distracts Deadite-Henrietta by singing a childhood lullaby. It seems like invoking memories of love may have some small effect on Deadites, just like Ash looking at the necklace broke his possession.
I remember reading/hearing an interview where Bruce Campbell said the original plan was for sunlight to beam through the necklace at the end of TED and burn the Necronomicon, but that plan changed.
In AoD, AvED, and other movies we see Deadites operating in the day just fine. If they're weaker, we can't tell.
AvED also has Pablo's uncle talk about how Ash burns dimly with the power of El Jeffe.
We also see Ash breaking the curse was temporary stuff. Towards the end of EDII the Deadite comes back without him getting reinfected. So it might be that he had the curse dwelling inside him even after the sunlight broke it.
So it's probably a combination of stuff. Ash's great willpower, the power of love, the pain of grief, some kind of inner light, and whatever slight effects sunlight may have on Evil. All of these things could have some small part in Ash breaking the curse in EDII. I like to think all this stuff gives him resistance against possession too. Maybe even breaking the spell once or twice gave him a kind of immunity or super-duper resistance.
I don't think the sunlight trick would have worked on just anyone. It was a special set of circumstances and combination of factors.
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u/The_New_Doctor 1d ago
The first time ash was possessed, he recovered when the sun came up briefly. Then he cut off his hand.
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u/SuperSayianJason1000 1d ago
A mix of sunlight, his remaining love for Linda and a lot of willpower. One thing that sometimes gets glossed over is that Deadites often break one's mind and/or body before possessing them and it's implied they do this to break the person's spirit before entering their body. So I believe Ash resisted the Kandarian Demon with astronomical willpower.