Hereditary and Beloved

(Contains some spoilers for the movie Hereditary) In the movie Hereditary, a family's fate is seemingly being controlled by a Paemon, a king of hell. Only at night, in her dreams, is the mother free from his grasp. Unable to protect them by day, she tries, multiple times, to kill them in her sleep. This was a form of protecting them, and it was the only thing in her power that she could do. (She didn't succeed in this.) I was reminded of this last class when we were talking about Sethe's reaction to recognizing the hat and springing into action to kill her children. She too wanted to protect her children. Both characters go to the same solution to protect their children, and both feel it's the only thing they can really do. As the demon controls the lives of the family in hereditary, and tears it apart, Sethe and her family are torn apart and controlled by the slave owners. There is a lack of free will in both situations; even physically, the slave owners try to control and oppress Sethe and her family, and Beloved controls Paul D's actions at one point, while the demon in hereditary controls the family's physical actions and decisions.