Dimension of Thought
What would happen to you if you spent 30 years isolated at the bottom of a well?
You would be utterly shattered—your humanity eroded to the barest fragments. Every sense you once trusted would unravel into chaos, becoming meaningless and distorted. Time would dissolve into a timeless void, an endless nightmare where experience itself ceases. You would exist, yet cease living—forever severed from connection, from warmth, from even the smallest glimmer of hope. Buried alive, you'd be reduced to a ghost of consciousness, lost to the world, drowning slowly beneath the crushing weight of absolute isolation.
This is what Sadako and Samara went through. In their well, their pain, past, and trauma all emerged to create a terrifying force of nature—the curse of the well, the curse of Ringu.
If you're reading this, chances are you've seen The Ring or Ringu. You already know the legend of Sadako Yamamura—the vengeful ghost who emerges from the depths of a well, her long, tangled hair obscuring her face, her presence heralded by static and distorted images. You know the tape—the cursed recording that dooms anyone who watches it. Seven days later, when the fear has settled deep into their bones, she comes for them, crossing the boundary between the supernatural and reality, crawling out of their television screen to deliver her fatal judgment.
But Ringu wasn’t just a horror film—it was a cultural earthquake. It didn’t just scare people; it rewired their perception of fear itself. It reshaped an entire genre, unleashing a wave of J-horror that gripped the world with its psychological intensity and unshakable dread. The film made televisions—objects of comfort and familiarity—into portals of terror. Videotapes, once mundane, became ticking time bombs. Every flickering screen, every burst of static, every eerie silence took on new meaning, as if she was waiting just beyond the glass, watching.
Sadako wasn’t just a ghost—she became a force of nature, an entity that transcended death itself. She was more than a terrifying figure, having become an idea, a myth, a creeping inevitability. She embodied the horror of the unknown, the terror of things left buried, and the inescapable consequences of past sins. Unlike traditional horror monsters, she didn’t chase or stalk—but waited. Fear did the work for her, growing like a poison in the minds of her victims until, at last, it was too late.
But what's lesser known is what's behind the horror—behind the static and the death. Behind all the fear, all the paranormal moments. What's lesser known is that Sadako was a misunderstood, vulnerable young woman with a deeply tragic backstory, who had profound hopes and dreams like the rest of us. Tragedy defined her life, extinguishing her hopes and dreams like a thorned boa crushing a small fowl. Her life is a tragedy untold, and hopes deferred, grinded to dust. Her soul was left to wither in sorrow, stripped of everything that could have given it light. A girl forgotten life, by society, and even by her loved ones.
Sadako had very few chances in life—and even the few opportunities for happiness that she did have wisped away like smoke. Her story was tragedy after tragedy, each tragedy compounding on the previous ones. Her life culminated in being thrown into a dark well by her own father, a place more desolated and lonely than solitary confinement, and was left to die there over the course of 30 years.
In the well, she experienced a form of isolation and suffering that we cannot even begin to imagine. She was alone, unable to even eat any food, talk to any person.
But the well wasn't the beginning of her isolation—it was the culmination. Throughout her life, Sadako was a wanderer of a desert, searching for connection, but was misunderstood, neglected, and rejected.
For all her life, Sadako never had a stable environment or community. While others around her had deep roots, hers were very thin, constantly uprooted and replanted, too weak to stay in one place for a long time. She never knew her birth father. Her mother, Shizuko, was misunderstood and falsely accused of scandal, and because of that, Shizuko committed suicide and threw herself into the volcano.
Like her mother, Sadako had incredibly powerful psychic abilities. But her powers far surpassed even her own mothers. Her mother could read words, but for Sadako, reality around her was tipped precariously on a balancing scale. Her powers could give life. She was able to heal an old man from paralysis, and . But her powers could also be destructive. Sadako possessed the power to kill with a mere thought. When she was emotionally overwhelmed, her powers could go haywire, causing tragic accidents. And everyone feared her for it.
This made her an outsider, someone to be feared rather than understood. The people who should have protected her instead reacted with fear and rejection.
She was caught between two aspects of herself—the normal life she yearned for, and the reality of who she was and what she was going through—never fully able to reconcile or express either. Sadako wanted to connect, to be an actress, to live a normal life, but society's fear of her difference ultimately led to her brutal end.
Ultimately, she was thrown into her well by her own father—and was buried away, and erased of her very existence.
It was because of this that her curse formed. Death did not truly erase her, it only left her story to churn like magma. And like a volcano's impending eruption, her well would one day erupt. Sadako would manifest in ways that reflected the horrors that she went through. Like Mount Mihara, the mountain her mother threw herself into on the day it erupted. Her curse, in many ways, is the eternal echo of that injustice—a supernatural, unconscious cry for understanding, that continues to be interpreted as merely a harbinger of fear.
If her story ended here, it would be a tragedy. Fear wins, falsehood wins, leaving nothing but the gaping void of her tormented past. That's what most horror movies do, after all...
But what if it didn't have to be this way? What if Sadako could be different? The one outlier. That this would be a game changing movie for horror—not just fear. If the power of love won, transformed, and redeemed
Perhaps this is the key to the curse, the answer to the horror. If everyone is so afraid of her, and yet fear of her—fear of the unknown, fear of the unknowable, is what caused all this in the first place, then what if people reacted differently to her? What if instead of screaming and losing posture?
But what if she could be known? She may be distant, being trapped far away, but perhaps she is not as distant as it seems to us after all. What if she could be understood, after all? When Sadako crawls out of the TV, what if there's a part of her that's desperately reaching out for connection? Given her past, she very well may be, at least deep down—and if someone embraced her, understood her, and made a place for her. If they refuse to be caught up in the fear that others were, if they refuse to be fazed by the paranormal, and instead saw her for the young woman she once was?
If their love was so strong, it would anchor their soul to the world, and instead of falling to Sadako's eye, they would look directly into it—a look of unwavering love, of invitation. If someone were to to descend into the well, reach into it, and pull her out, then Sadako may, for the first time, part her hair, and show her face.
What if the monster is not evil, but forgotten? What if the well is not her prison, but the world’s tomb for the misunderstood? What if vengeance was never her true nature—but an echo of brokenness longing to be healed?
Can we seek the real Sadako?
I believe the answer is powerful, deep, and resounding: Yes. And here's why.
Where is Sadako? The real Sadako?
In the original Ringu movie, contrary to what we may expect of the "villain," she is hardly there. In fact, we don't even see her face. Nobody does, not even the characters in the. Even in flashbacks of when she was alive, her hair still covers her face. Eventually, we see her skull and her bones, but never her face. It's not even in Sadako's final, dramatic, spectral in one of the final scenes, her hair covers her face. Despite how iconic that final scene is, we still don't know what she even looks like. At most, we only see one eye. It's her one disfigured eye full of profound, trauma-fueled hatred. She's one of the few characters—if not the only character—whose face we never see. In fact, we don't even know she exists until about halfway into the movie.
Yet, in the sequel, something changes. After Sadako's remains are uncovered, the examiners take her skull and forensically reconstruct what her face looked like. Her uncle goes out to sea, with the model of Sadako beside him.
He confronts his guilt about what he did to her, saying, "Why won't you just take me too?"
He holds onto them longer.
Then, he says, "I know you want to be reunited with the sea." The uncle drops her model into the ocean.
However, what's strange is that in the first Ringu movie, we are told Sadako actually had an intense fear of the sea. Being lost at the ocean would be a larger well, and a far deeper one. And her being dropped into the ocean does not resolve the curse.
Later, when they look at Sadako's presence by looking at how water behaves in a cup. The water rises, defying gravity. We see the curse, like a tide slowly rising, crawl up their backs. They have supernatural encounters. One was a mirror with phantom vision of Shizuko, where she glares at the camera in a deeply unsettling way. It's not malicious, but you can feel the profound trauma through her eyes. Shizuko appears in scenes that distort time and space. The mirror shatters.
Finally, they go to the pool. Somehow, the box with the Sadako model in it reemerged from the water—but wasn't it dropped into the ocean earlier?
Then supernatural chaos insues. And when the chaos dies down, as if transported into a dream formed into concrete, they are somehow within the well.
There, the protagonist Mai has a profound encounter. She's there, and she must save the young boy Yoichi too. All they have is a rope that leads to the top of the well. Carrying the weight of Yoichi on her back, holding onto her tightly, Mai must pull them both all the way up.
So she does. And she struggles greatly.
But suddenly, hair bubbles up from the well water. It's Sadako's reconstructed head, which looks upward. Then, somehow, the model fully animates and climbs toward her. Very quickly. She somehow climbs just by grabbing the good stones.
Mai sees this. She's horrified. A crashing wave of terrified adrenaline overwhelms her. She climbs faster and faster. She must get to the top before Sadako grabs them.
Sadako keeps chasing after her. She grabs the walls of the well, not even needing a rope. She's too fast for them to run from Crawling to them in a tragically disfigured, terrifying way. She crawls up the well.
She climbs far too fast.
The model's face is just inches from Mai's. The gap between their eyes was smaller than her hands. Mai lets out a horrified scream.
She will attack her and drag her down into the well. All this way...and the curse still prevails, even against the most determined heroes. Of course, it would end this way. It always ends this way in horror movies.
...
But no. They don't have a scratch on their bodies. They're unharmed.
Sadako doesn't do anything.
Unbelievable. Sadako didn't attack her. Instead, she lingers for a moment. She holds onto the rope, face to face with Mai.
Then she says, "Why is it that only you were saved?"
Then, as if all life left from the model, Sadako plunges back down into the well waters, crashing heavily against it. As if her life and essence had just given up.
We thought Sadako was going to to attack her. Right there and then to be the echo.
But look—for once, they were holding onto the same rope. For once, Sadako spoke. The only time she spoke up to this point. She lets go of the rope that Mai was holding onto, the rope that would save Mai and Yoichi, and as though the model had it's soul leave, it falls back into the water. As if it were just clay, and nothing more.
It isn't until the next movie, Ringu 0: Birthday, the prequel to the other two movies, that we finally see her full face—her soft skin, her delicate features, and her gentle, yet deeply expressive eyes. We see her whole human self.
The tone of the movie is completely different. In many ways, it feels Shakespearean, as it reveals Sadako was part of an acting troupe, seeking to flourish in it, and meets the one and only lover who cherishes her. This prequel is lesser known than the first and second Ringu. And unlike those movies, Ringu 0 does not have an American counterpart. Yet, its impact has been profound.
For here, we see the 19-year-old young woman Sadako once was, and through that, we see who she really is. In seeing her, we come to understand everything we've watched in a profoundly new way. We come to understand the person behind the curse. We come to understand her, and we come to know her. The real Sadako.
We see how Sadako just wants to connect and be a part of a community—have a place to express herself, do what others love. But nobody embraces her, which leads to their deaths, and they blame and ostracize Sadako even more for that.
The movie begins with her sitting alone on the floor against a wall, watching from a distance as the main lead actress, Aiko, performs her role. But Sadako looks envious of her.
The psychologist tells her keep acting. She's without her mother—because she committed suicide a long time ago, having thrown herself into the volcano Mount Mihara.
Sadako often has a look on her face—a soft, vulnerable look, yet with a deep emotion underneath. We can see her tenderness and her earnestness, with a shy, almost-hesitant proactiveness.
Yet, we also see mysterious, unsettling shots of a little girl who always seems to be following Sadako around. One time, Etsuko encounters her.
Etsuko and the older woman director are both in the dressing room. That's when they both discuss about Sadako. They both have a dream of a well with Sadako crawling out of it. And she has the same dream. They both think something is seriously wrong with Sadako. They think, "Ever since Sadako's been here, everything has been going wrong. Aiko's died."
A journalist named Miyaji harbors a grudge against Sadako. In the first Ringu movie, we find out about Sadako's history, and what happened at the news event? Back in Ringu, in Shizuko's demonstration scene, we find out about how Sadako's psychic powers killed one of the journalists.
Everyone blamed Sadako and Shizuko for that, but how could that possibly make sense? Sadako was just a child. A little girl, standing in a room full of cold, skeptical eyes, watching her mother strain to prove herself—watching the only person in the world who understood her being ridiculed. The pressure in that room must have been suffocating. The weight of humiliation. Of rejection. Of the unspoken fear that she and her mother would never be accepted.
And then—the journalist dies. Sadako's power went out of control. This was a tragic death.
But why think Sadako did it on purpose? That a child—terrified, confused, overwhelmed—would have the presence of mind to choose such destruction?
The YouTube video Is Sadako Evil? explains this well—Sadako’s power wasn’t a weapon she wielded. It was an eruption. A force beyond her control, fueled by trauma, unleashed in a moment of unbearable tension.
Blaming Sadako for what happened that day is like blaming a thunderstorm for striking down a tree. It wasn’t cruelty. It wasn’t evil. It was grief made manifest. And for that, she was cursed.
Everyone blamed Sadako and Shizuko for that. But this was unjust. Is Sadako Evil? says it very eloquently—Sadako was just a kid back then, which happened during a very intense moment. She was watching her mother performing her powers in front of everyone, and in a moment where she could have been embraced for that, everyone instead turned against her in public. She saw all of this happen to her mother with her own eyes. Her powers were incredibly powerful, fueled by her trauma, and it would be incredibly difficult for a child to control those powers.
That journalist was Miyaji's husband. Ever since that tragic incident, Miyaji held a grudge against Sadako. She vowed to kill Sadako.
Etsuko misunderstands her and thinks she's a problem—that she's to blame for all the incidents and tragedies happening around them. Etsuko tells Toyama not to spend time with her.
While everyone else is misunderstanding her, behind her back.
However, one young man among the troupe steps up, defying the other's rejection of her. He sees Sadako—he doesn't see her as just the disasters happening—no, he sees past that. He loves Sadako.
His name is Toyama, and he commits to be her brave knight in shining armor, here to rescue her, defend her, and cherish her through all this.
Sadako leans on him as the one person who supports and understands her. They develop a romantic connection, and he supports her as she grows as an actress.
Things look like they're going well. Sadako's growing as an actor. She's found love.
Right before the performance, When the director finally turn against Sadako. one of the play directors attacks Sadako and tries to strangle her. Toyama rushes in to defend her, and he takes blow after blow, fighting to protect Sadako.
Soon after, Toyama and Sadako confess their love. Sadako puts her hand on the glass wall, reaching out to Toyama and caressing him through it. Oh, how they see each other. How they feel each other's love through the glass, like a pulse through veins. This is the point where you see that life Sadako longed for is on the horizon—she found love.
Shortly after, we see the performance. Now is the critical moment. The moment where she's put her entire heart and soul into it. This was the culmination. Toyama's been supporting her up to this moment, and he's watching her performance.
She comes on stage, about to perform, about to express her deep heart to the world.
But suddenly, she clutches her head. She gets disoriented, as if her mind and heart are having seizures. She collapses in the middle of the performance she's prepared for such a long time.
A little girl laughs unsettlingly in the background. It's that little girl the one that follows Sadako around. Sadako screams to the little girl, "I know you want to protect me, but get away from me!"
Then, Miyaji, the journalist who vowed to kill her, comes in and starts taking pictures of Sadako. Sadako was already having a breakdown in this critical moment. Now imagine having a news reporter suddenly snap photo after photo of you during that moment.
The audience realizes this is not part of the performance and screams, scrambling out of the room.
This is terrible. The same thing that happened to her mother is now happening to her—a crucial public event where something deep is expressed.
Sadako runs away to the dressing room, but they follow after her. They look at her menacingly, holding up items, saying "We won't harm you," while raising those items as if to beat her. And then they beat her terribly. They physically restrain Toyama, who cries out as he struggles to break through to protect Sadako. When Sadako's finally beaten unconscious, Toyama takes her to get treated. When Sadako wakes up, she insists that she must leave. Toyama caringly goes with her, and they walk out to the wilderness.
But Miyaji is following after them, bringing her gun like a rogue police officer, relentless in her pursuit to murder Sadako and exact the vengeance she held since Sadako was a child.
We soon find out that there's more than one Sadako. At some point in her life, Sadako split into two forms. It's reminiscent of deeply difficult mental health conditions, like Dissociative Identity Disorder and complex PTSD. It's easy to think of them as two separate individuals, as if Sadako split into twins in that moment. That's even what the characters in the show seemed to think. But I think that it being a supernatural manifestation of two aspects of the same person is a more complete interpretation that accounts for more.
Dr. Ikuma, Sadako's adoptive father, reveals what he did to Sadako's other half. And he explains more about Sadako's backstory, and the little girl that once was her other half. We see the room—it's just the a dark room with nothing except a TV. Fearing what that Sadako would become if she grew up, fed that Sadako growth-inhibiting drugs. But as for the normal Sadako, Dr. Ikuma allowed her to go out and live life.
It hits us—that little girl who was constantly following Sadako around, and causing all those deaths? That was her other half. That was her suppressed self. It represented her deep trauma and hurt, but was never healed. Instead, her growth was supressed.
Toyama is accompanying Sadako as they escape to the wilderness. Suddenly, we hear child Sadako's voice—"Are the people attacking us?" Sadako screams for the child to get away. But the child doesn't.
Sadako slowly crawls towards the edge of the cliff. Oh no. She looks like she's about to throw herself down. Will she? What will she do? There, she's confronted with the vast sea before her in the distance. She looks at the sea from afar—the very thing she feared as a child. The symbol of her past and all her hurts. It's all coming at her now. Everything she repressed confronted her. It's utterly overwhelming.
This is a pivotal shift in her internal state. Everything she's buried is coming up. So, she gives into her child self. Second Sadako, the version of her that Sadako feared and her father repressed. Second Sadako wrapping her hands around the main Sadako's waist. As the camera zooms into her face, showing the wind blow her hair into her face, enveloping her head in a vortex of flowing hair. Sadako is literally losing her mind, and looks more and more like how we saw her in the first movie Ringu.
This is while Toyama is telling her, "I love you." But it doesn't go through to her. Because in this moment, Sadako isn't herself anymore. All the rage, all the trauma, all the grief is churning up, boiling up like magma. It's coming together to unleash a terrifying, supernaturally-powered, hurt-driven force of vengeance.
And tragically, Sadako with this supernatural state overtaking her, unintentionally kills Toyama, the one who loved her the deepest.
She then goes off, killing the troupe members one by one. We hear their bone-chilling screams as the camera pans away, leaving us to only imagine what happens.
After her supernatural outlash, she returns to normal, and we see her lying on the floor next to the two of them, crying over everything. She must have been incredibly devastated by everything that unfolded while her emotionally driven supernatural state took over.
Her father comes in and takes her home, appearing to care for her.
Then, he injects Sadako's arm with large syringe, the yellow liquid moving into her bloodstream. He appears to comfort Sadako, saying "Here, this will calm you down."
Immediately after, Sadako asks her, "Who is my real father?"
And he responds, "I am, of course."
But suddenly, Sadako starts to weaken. She drops. And the camera slowly moves outward—revealing Ikuma standing still, faced away from her, with an ominous look, as if he had set this up.
Then her father says, "Let's end this now."
This was not a calming veil. It was poison.
Her father poisoned her. After Sadako went through terrible trauma, after a supernatural overwhelm took over her, her own father.
Sadako tries to run away, but collapses from the poison.
"Forgive me, Sadako," he cries. Then he
Sadako tries to break free, but she's weakened from the poison.
Her father brings her to the abandoned, old well—the same one that Etsuko and the play lady dreamed of. The same one that they feared her so much for.
Her father grabs the axe, and slashes her head with it. Blood trickles down her face.
...
There was a cozy room, intimate and warm, with decorations over. Toyama is standing over a bed. "Sadako, wake up!" he says, gently soothing her. In the bed, Sadako is in a warm, comfortable bed, completely healed. She wakes up. Her eyes open , .
"Toyama-san," Sadako says, gazing at him lovingly.
They're finally alone together.
And she reaches out to touch him, to love him, and be with him forever.
Wrong.
That is a hallucination. Her hand meets nothing, but cold, hard rock.
"Toyama-san?!" she calls, as realizes she's at the bottom of the well.
"TOYAMA-SAN?!!?!"
And then she looks up—her father's face looking down at her, and she screams. And her screams were utterly unbearable. I could hear her heart shatter from the remnants she had of connection, into despair. And yet, when she looked up and saw her own father.
And instead of her father plunging in after her to rescue her, her father closed the lid.
This was the last thing she saw. Her father, and the lid closing on the well, everything around her slowly becoming darker and darker, knowing it was her father who closed the lid. As her cries and screams were slowly muffled and became more muffled by the lid as it enclosed on her—they echoed within the well's interior. And her cries traveled up the well, through the hole where the well meets open air. But as the lid enclosed, the space for her cries to come out of the well was smaller and smaller. Until there was no more space. The lid on. And then complete darkness. Utter darkness.
By then, along with darkness, her cries are completely enveloped within the well and echo within it. Met by nothing else . Her cries were completely chambered with the well, only to have her profound heart-cries echo in the well, like the sound of an explosion echoing through a closed prison cell. Like magma gathering in a volcano and intensifying over time. And she'd have nothing except that echo in the dark to keep her company. And then she could see nothing else. I doubt she could even see her own face in the darkness. How disorienting that must have been.
Indeed. I cannot bear the immense weight of her tragedy and suffering. Her tragedy floods over me, like a sea over land. And it is drowning my heart in sorrow. She was innocent. She didn't deserve this. In Ringu 0, as we see her, we realize that . She was 19 year old girl who just wanted connection and .
I heard it in the scene where. I felt it... I saw it... I knew it...
Sadako has been crying out for life. Everything—from Sadako's curse, the comments on Youtube, cries with her.
There are countless people on YouTube who are devastated by Sadako's tragedy, and even cry out for a better ending for Sadako. Some even imagined better headcanon endings for her.
One of them imagines, "Sadako never had both her selves merged, and Toyama was never killed. Sadako's other self stayed down the well. She and Toyama ran far away, and went on to live a happy life, but it's the other Sadako that became evil and bitter at the main Sadako for leaving her in the well."
Countless people yearned to help her, saying that if they were in there, they'd do everything to help her and care for her. They'd even reach into the well and pull her out.
There is even a video called "The Tormented Past of Sadako Yamamura". It's a quick edit of the true backstory of Sadako. The comments section is full of cries for Sadako.
The Curious Archive wrote, "...the story of a neglected little girl (referring to Samara, Sadako's American counterpart) who was failed by all figures of authority and murdered in such a horrendous way deserves a bit of a redemption arc." They can see and feel the stream of tears that came from everyone.
Yet, within the horror genre, having a life-transforming redemption arc for the "monster" would be an unprecedented move. Horror has been a genre where villains have generally been dehumanized. I haven't heard of another complete redemption arc for Sadako. When I googled, "Sadako redemption arc," I found that this article you're reading right now is the only one that shows up. There were other results, but they didn't really undertake the journey to champion the idea. Given how tragic Sadako's story is, and how much sympathy people feel for her, I was very surprised to find that seemingly no one already had formally proposed a redemption arc for her!
I'm not sure if anyone has even thought Sadako could officially have a redemption arc. Maybe it's daunting to write a redemption arc for a character like Sadako, and especially daunting to do so in an industry where horror characters rarely get redemption arcs.
But more recently, the industries have been recognizing this: good horror stories don't simply evoke fear for fear's sake. They evoke fear to tell a powerful story.
I believe good horror stories make you fear the things that truly ought to be feared. For example, you should have a healthy fear of pride, fear of the ephemerality of life, and fear the kind of bitterness that consumes you and takes over your life. Good horror stories can be cathartic. Good horror stories make you confront the fear, suffering, and evil of the real world. Good horror stories shows the darkness in order to make the light shine brighter.
We all know that elements like action, comedy, romance are actually elements of deeper story. As all stories have a heart. It doesn't matter whether it's a comedy, a romance, sci-fi, thriller—it's all drama. There is a core emotional conflict that has lasting meaning and purpose. But a deeper personal story. Some kind of conflict or journey to a higher good. Horror would be, like everything else, an aspect that serves the broader idea of meaning. Only then would it be meaningful. Otherwise, it's just either a tragic plot with little lasting meaning. Or, as Michael Jamin says, it's just "stuff happening."
It's strange that one particular genre, horror, has been emphasized for its own sake, rather than like other genres where it's ultimately about the most deeply human substance—the emotional story.
But does the genre of a story matter more than the story itself? And what defines a story in the first place—the genre of the plot or the characters?
All of this is what drives the curse. It's Sadako's trauma, that Sadako.
So, let's ask ourselves—what is the story of Ringu really about? Is it mainly a horror narrative and a warning, about escaping a curse? Is it about the prospect and inevitability of death? Is it about vengeance? About fear?
Or, is it also tragedy, a tragic figure that is doomed to suffer for eternity? Is it about a girl who wanted life, a girl who was robbed of life? About the most extreme cruelty? About failed relationships?
If the story ended there, it would be a massive, profound tragedy. A young woman who wanted nothing more than to love and thrive erased by reality, lost to the darkness.
But if the rope of light could be descended again, and anyone willing to show her that love and connect with her, then. Think of how many people have transformed throughout history this way.
What if the story of Ringu could also be about redemption? What if it could be about healing? About showing how light, no matter how dark one's life and condition is, can shine through darkness? About how light, no matter how deprived and wronged one has been, can shine beams of unconditional love through?
After all, Sadako herself in Ringu 0 healed an old man who was paralyzed. She had enormous potential for good. Imagine how many more she could have healed. Imagine if she could also heal Alzheimer's patients, which would also be fitting for her psychic powers given it's a neurological, deeply psychological and emotional disease. Perhaps it wouldn't just be physical healing, but she could have used her psychic powers to understand and communicate with people on a level nobody else could understand. Not even therapists can do that.
Imagine how many people that could heal. Imagine how many people could be comforted. Imagine how many could be motivated. Imagine how many people could find a sense of hope and purpose in their lives. Imagine how many relationships she could have healed as well. Imagine how many divides she could have mediated. And imagine all the other Sadakos she could have healed. Imagine if she could even heal deep cultural and emotional divides.
She had the potential to be incredible.
She had the potential to mend bodies and souls, mend relationships and communities, and perhaps even mend societies.
She could have helped people mend their pasts, presents, and futures. She had the potential to be a unifying figure, one who called everyone to action, and one who called everyone to confront their deepest fears and live for a greater purpose. Imagine what she could have done and who she could have become if she was given the chance to grow more. If her story hadn't been cut short. Sadako wasn't just robbed of what she wanted, she was robbed of who she'd become. All her future selves—gone. Every good thing she could have done, and every precious moment that another person's life was touched—gone. And those lives she could have touched instead were cursed, cursed by a manifestation of Sadako's terrible trauma through the cursed tape, as she was deeply entrenched in a curse. Her future legacy—gone.
Every abandoned well was once a great hub for community. Every well had a story. A story of people drawing out waters to sustain themselves. But over time, and as communities shift, wells become abandoned. The store up mud, and the water within reeks, bacteria fills it.
They become a symbol of what's left behind from the communities that left it. When communities leave wells, either they elevate the water, or they leave the water there to fester. But Sadako's well was not elevated. Sadako's well was left to fester. It became forgotten. And as such, Sadako was thrown in it to be forgotten.
What if Sadako lost all hope? Can we bring her hope? Or is she lost forever? Can nothing convince her? Is her darkness so great that no light can shine it?
Is this all worth it? Absolutely. It is worth it for Sadako, a unique human made in God's image, a human gone through so much injustice and tragedy.
We have to be willing to stick with her in the suffering, and confront it with her. She may resist, or push back. It will be intense. We have to set out to find Sadako, we have to know where she is in the deep, dark realm of the curse, and in the deep depths of her heart and mind. The realm will be intense.
And who knows how the curse would manifest? If you're seeking after Sadako, could it manifest in new, unforeseen ways? Everyone else will still believe she’s the scary ghost well girl, just a harbinger of doom. Our protagonists will have to see her as human in the face of immense pressure from many others. Others may not believe them. They may be skeptical of them. They may even think that the curse is overtaking them, and the same skepticism and ostracism that Sadako herself faced. But unlike Sadako, who had no one, they will have each other.
Is she gone forever? I hope she's not. Can someone like her be redeemed? Is she even conscious? Is she still herself, somewhere, deep down? Can Sadako—the real Sadako—be reached? Or is it too late, and she already transformed into something else entirely?
Is there anyone willing to do this for her? Is anyone able to look past merely her past and her unusual story? Anyone able to step outside of the fear that the cursed tape spreads, and see Sadako? Are we willing to step into a world of unknown, confusion, and profound hurt? For her sake? Are we willing to cfonrt past history ?
What character would be willing to do that? Who is willing to descend into the well for her sake, and step into the murky, diseased, water?
What if the protagonist, instead of reacting in fear, spent 7 days to reach her?
stepped into her world.
To reach her.
To connect with her.
To make an intentional effort, instead of just watching tape for curiosity, one does it for Sadako's solace.
For understanding. For connection. For healing. Not merely to break a curse but to love the person behind the curse.
But this would not be without a challenge. The character could grapple with the decision to explore and find out, respond in fear, respond by hiding, or respond by understanding. The character could grapple with whether to be distant and not deal with emotion, to stay physically safe.
Perhaps even the character could have technically been safe another way but then chooses to enter Sadako regardless.
So what if we did what wells were? If, like wells once were, we draw out the broken past, and draw out Sadako's life and love? If we draw out her memory. If we draw out her desires, the ones long lost?
If we all come together and gather around the well as a sustaining force. Then we can join hands to form a Ring of community and connection around her.
That we should seek to see Sadako—the real Sadako, behind the her hair, and see her face-to-face. That one day, because of the protagonists of the story, because of us, Sadako will part her hair, and show us her face.
Knowing all this, I feel it deeply in my heart. My heart cries out, along with Sadako, for justice. For her to live life. To live the life she never could, and to become the person she could have been. This is why I've taken it upon myself to write a very comprehensive case on why Sadako should have a redemption arc. Not just in a spin off or as an alternate take—a redemption arc in the main Ringu continuity.
Sadako deserves justice. Sadako deserves dignity—the dignity that we all share as human beings made in the image of God—and the dignity she was deprived of in her life. Sadako deserves a second chance at life.
I want to be one of the people who take the call and descend into the well for Sadako—to draw out Sadako. I want to be one of those who join hands around Sadako's well, and form a Ring of connection, those who descend into the well and draw her out.
With all this, I present to you my heartfelt proposal:
A Sadako redemption arc,
A Sadako resurrection arc,
Justice for Sadako,
Love for Sadako,
New life for Sadako.
