The dr who explains what happened implied they were identical twins who "never fully separated."
But identical twins---ones that are from a single zygote that divides---are the same gender. Male/female twins are fraternal and are from separate zygotes that were never jointed to begin with.
They weren't identical twins or even conjoined twins according to this movie.
shareThe dr. in the video tape says something about them being joined in the womb and "not separating" implying they were identical/conjoined."
otherwise how did they "share a brain" and become connected?
I don't know about all that but it was said that he is a tumor and I think it was specifically stated they are not conjoined twins, hence the title and all that stuff about the tumor getting cut off.
shareIt was a bit messy in how they explained it. The doctor referred to Gabriel as a teratoma. But in real life, it can be hard to differentiate a teratoma from a conjoined twin. And the doctor subsequently did reference Gabriel as a parasitic twin, an embryo that didn't fully separate.
She said they weren't "conjoined", but her reasoning for them not being conjoined was because one was living off of the other, hence the parasitic part.
The title, and the reference to "cutting out the cancer" are all plays on the idea that Gabriel is a tumor, but fact of the matter is, Gabriel and Madison are twins.
That's wildly confusing...either he's a teratoma or he's not. Teratomas are not twins that have failed to develop properly, and cancers by definition are cells that are growing out of control. Presumably he was supposed to be a cancerous (malignant) tumor hence the title, although I don't think cancers have set developmental points. I don't think a tumor can be considered to be a "parasite", I'm assuming this is just silly movie logic or layperson use of the terms and has no real basis in biology.
shareThat's why I said the language was sloppy. It's silly cinematic nonsense.
But most explicitly, Gabriel is described as a parasitic twin.
Other than the title, the overdramatic line "time to cut out the cancer", and the initial reference to a teratoma...all other descriptions and behaviors ultimately point to Gabriel being a parasitic twin. Gabriel isn't a tumor that gained sentience.
You're right about this. Them referring to him as a malignant cancer is not literal. However, there have been tumors with teeth, hair, even eyes, before, so the line is a bit blurrier than you might think. It may be difficult to tell sometimes if an occurrence is a teratoma or a parasitic twin, at least until in-depth tissue analysis is completed.
Although interestingly, take a look at the first article, where it cites an example of a fused twin that wasn't identical, but genetically different, resulting in her giving birth to two children that didn't share her DNA, but that of the fused twin instead. And based on the third article, parasitic twins aren't necessarily identical if the result of fusion.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/27/teratoma-tumour-evil-twin-cancer
https://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/canres/1/11/896.full.pdf
https://ncjs.us/seeing-double-a-look-into-twin-types-and-twin-studies/
https://www.sciencealert.com/a-tiny-brain-skull-and-hair-have-been-extracted-from-a-teen-s-ovary
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208714/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11754238/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2213576615300208
https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/parasitic-twin
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
Yes...That is true. So what's the issue?
shareHow would male/female i.e. fraternal twins..... be joined in the womb?
shareohhhhh!
Gabriel is ostensibly male from the voice and the name...but both the voice and the name are completely artificial. I think we can just assume that Gabriel technically is her identical twin.
It's not like gabriel ever formed any sex organs (or vocal cords lol), so all that is just like a narrative smoke screen to hide the eventual plot twist. But in reality, Gabriel isn't male.
It is rare, but quite possible, for split embryos to fuse back together and become conjoined, or even completely encased, back into their sibling in the womb. This remerging can be so extensive that the sibling is even completely reabsorbed to the point of only being detectable genetically, producing a single person with two distinct sets of DNA, two genetic makeups in one body.
The below article cites an example of a fused "twin" that wasn't identical, but genetically different, resulting in a mother giving birth to two children that didn't share her DNA, but that of the non-identical fused twin instead (a major shock that led her husband to at first think she’d cheated on him). So although medical science might often describe parasitic twins as "identical", there is at least this one case where a "fused" twin wasn't. And I think anyone would be hard pressed not to label that as "parasitic".
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/27/teratoma-tumour-evil-twin-cancer
In a case from Boston, US, a woman had gone to the hospital for blood tests ahead of a kidney transplant. Her three biological sons were potential donors. But the tests said that two of them were not actually hers, though her husband was their father. That, she knew, was impossible, so further checks were done. They discovered that her body was composed of two genetically distinct groups of cells. It seems she had actually been one of a pair of non-identical twin girls whose embryos had fused, very early on. Presumably her blood was carrying DNA from one twin, while other tissues carried DNA from the other. In which case, genetically speaking, her unborn twin was the parent of two of her boys. Like Karanam’s benign tumour – not evil, but you might say, she sort of found her twin.
The thing could transmit its thoughts via radios. There is probably a greater chance that fraternal twin zygotes could somehow participate in a "vanishing twin" event than that mental words could telepathically be transmitted to electronic machines analog-wise
If you are gonna try to flex your science knowledge then make sure you are thorough or else it'll look like your knowledge is limited and you could only spot ONE "gotcha" when, in reality, there are many
Conjoined twins have to be identical.
Are they https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitic_twin as in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conjoined_Fetus_Lady ?
Not a case of chimerism?
shareAnd you assume Gabriel was biologically male because..... why?
When in every way Gabriel was only a brain, and therefore quite literally female (sharing the same body as Madison). So they'd both be biologically female, would they not? The male persona could either have been Madison mistakenly thinking her imaginary friend was male, or Gabriel herself may have adopted a male identity to disguise the true nature of her existence. Regardless, Gabriel had the same female body as Madison, so there's no getting around that Gabriel was undeniably female, at least on a physical level.
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
Gabriel is referred to as a male by his mother and his doctor. There is no way he was female.
shareIt's true that everyone pretty much refers to Gabriel as "he", with one exception I'll mention below. That's part of the sleight of hand of the screenplay to fool the audience. In-universe, clearly Gabriel identifies as a boy. Not sure why, but "he" has no sex organs so the designation of "he" is more of a placeholder, a non-physical gender identity, as opposed to something biologically derived. We could surmise that the doctors simply defaulted to "him" in the absence of Gabriel having "his" own genitalia.
Although, when they're watching the video the scientist explaining Gabriel says, verbatim, "So what exactly is Gabriel? Gabriel is an extreme version of a teratoma. A tumor consisting of tissues, hair, muscles, bones. But more specifically in this case, it's a parasitic twin. When two embryos develop in the womb don't separate like they should, one twin is dominant, while the other is underdeveloped. It's not considered conjoined because the underdeveloped twin is dependent on the body of the other."
She says this right after we see Gabriel, and "he" clearly has no sex organs, or lower body at all. "He" is merely ribs, spine, arms and head, but no organs of "his" own (they even share the same brain). One could argue that the movie takes advantage of the current climate of identity politics run amok to fool the audience, but regardless, we're quite literally shown that Gabriel has no physical sex organs, i.e. Gabriel itself may technically be an "it", despite the fact they refer to him as "he". I'm not sure "he" is even androgynous since there are no sex organs to speak of. He/she/it, i.e. Gabriel, is the embodiment of a purely psychological gender identity.
Still, though, Gabriel shares Madison's sex organs, so by proxy “he” is biologically female, even if psychologically male.
As an interesting side note, take a look at the below article, where it cites an example of a fused "twin" that wasn't identical, but genetically different, resulting in a mother giving birth to two children that didn't share her DNA (a major shock to her, I'm sure) but that of the non-identical fused twin instead. So although medical science might describe parasitic twins as "identical", there is at least this one case where a "fused" twin wasn't. And I think anyone would be hard pressed not to label that as "parasitic".
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/27/teratoma-tumour-evil-twin-cancer
In a case from Boston, US, a woman had gone to the hospital for blood tests ahead of a kidney transplant. Her three biological sons were potential donors. But the tests said that two of them were not actually hers, though her husband was their father. That, she knew, was impossible, so further checks were done. They discovered that her body was composed of two genetically distinct groups of cells. It seems she had actually been one of a pair of non-identical twin girls whose embryos had fused, very early on. Presumably her blood was carrying DNA from one twin, while other tissues carried DNA from the other. In which case, genetically speaking, her unborn twin was the parent of two of her boys. Like Karanam’s benign tumour – not evil, but you might say, she sort of found her twin.
Pretty much this. And let's be real, Gabriel was like, a face, some trex arms, and some mutant brain matter. Gabriel didn't even have his vocal cords.
But if we really wanted to be precise about it, Gabriel is chromosomally female.
Boom!
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.