I'm So Glad Someone Else Brought Attention To This! Firstly, I Think You're Referencing The Still Face

I'm so glad someone else brought attention to this! Firstly, I think you're referencing the Still Face Experiment by Tronick. As far as psychological experiments have gone, I will say this one isn't as bad as others are, especially because there was a point afterwards to ensure the babies in the experiment were comforted by their parents to work on reversing the affects there. (as far as I remember, at least, I'm working on my master's in counseling so my brain's sometimes fried)

Anyways! So to me, this experiment did a lot to help show that neglect is, in fact, a form of abuse that ends with psychological and emotional issues in the person/child.

A big thing I think they do well (intentional or not) is showing how Maomao is in her relationships. She loves and cares for the people in her life, but she shows it in what we end up seeing as a "Maomao way". I think, however, she has an avoidant attachment style. Many adults who have this style tend to come from neglect, emotional or mental abuse. There's also two subtypes of this; dismissive and fearful. I don't see Maomao falling into the fearful category, so let's look at dismissive.

Signs in adults tend to be higher levels of self-sufficiency, and independence. They also tend to be far more mature faster because they have had to rely on themselves. Vulnerability isn't easy to come by, in any type of relationship. There's a lot of need for space and alone time.

Now I think a lot of that can be seen in Maomao, but not overly so. Why? Because people can have more than one type of attachment style, and because she also had Loumen, I believe she also has some level of secure attachment style in her.

That looks like: feeling comfortable trusting those one's close with (we see several strong friendships she has and maintains, even if she appears semi-closed off in them, with her internal monologue she trusts these people, cares for them, and enjoys being around them), strong emotional regulation (she slips a few times throughout the show (I'm guilty of s1ep4 when she slaps the one lady in waiting in the crystal pavilion) but overall she has a great level of control over her emotions), feeling comfortable with their independence as well as in their relationships.

Overall Maomao is a very well written character, and I could go in further detail psychologically picking her apart (I've done it with other characters lol) and the way she is as we see her is a mixture of her struggling with her biological parents, with her sisters from the verdigris house, and her adopted father, Loumen.

Not sure if any of my word vomit made sense, but if it did and you've never looked into the things I mentioned before, I say do so! It's also rather interesting, and considering I've dedicated my entire college career to psychology, I'm not biased at all!

Still Face Experiment Video

Interesting Reddit thread for SFE

Attachment Style Test

Man, sometimes i wish i hadn't taken Psychology in high-school-

TW//mentions of unethical psychological experiment involving babies-

So, we learn something new about MaoMao's childhood.

And that is, by the time she was a toddler, she was left alone till the cortizans where done with work. And that could take, a while...

Because of this our MaoMao learned from a young age crying wouldn't do her any good. Thus causing her to have trouble telling if people are interested in her, in almost any context.

And there is like, a psychological reason for this outside of 'character with a sad backstory'

So there was this 'Forbidden Experiment' performed on young children, babies to be exact, a long time ago, where the caretakers where only allowed to tend to their physical needs, and not the emotional.

It was a psychological study of sorts for emotional deprivation

I won't get into the heavy details, it's honestly a disturbing case all things considered.

But the reason why I bring it up is that those babies shut down. They stopped crying to have any of their needs met. And nearly half passed away simply from emotional neglect. Those who survived were left with lasting truama that still impacted them for as long as they lived.

And honestly?

I can't help but feel MaoMao is feeling those same effects the kids that survived did.

Obviously, her situation wasn't as bad,

But it left lasting scars on her psychologically.

And we see it in the way she handles affection from those who do care about her.

She responds to it, gives affection herself when prompted, or has a reason(like getting rare medicine ingredients), but when it comes to getting it herself, MaoMao is apathetic.

She is not ungrateful but keeps a respectful distance.

This is also probably what caused MaoMao to be as independent as she is now. Or at least contribute to it.

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All in all, I love the show and its commentary. It doesn't truly sugarcoat things and doesn't blatantly spell stuff out for the viewer or reader. It's trusting us to be smart, make connections and figure the mysteries out ourselves, and determine how these bits of information influence the characters and their choices.

God, why did I take psychology-