YMMV / The Sun Will Come Up, and the Seasons Will Change

• Alternate Aesop Interpretation: "Fictional characters can be terrible role models, and acting like them will not improve your life." Greg learns this the hard way when he realizes that being like his favorite video game character made him a bully, driving away his friends and contributing to Mary running away.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Dr. Goldman's "words of wisdom" to Dana obviously "confirmed" her fears about what Mary's autism diagnosis meant for herself. However, was Dr. Goldman the first doctor she spoke to about the diagnosis, or did she keep going to doctors about Mary until Dr. Goldman told her what she already believed? Chapter 12 confirms that it was the latter.
  • Is Nora really a Neo-Nazi? Or is she just trying to impress Xander, who is one? Does she comprehend what she’s doing is wrong, or does she not realize her actions? Chapters 19, 20 and 21 seem to imply the latter.
    • There is also the idea that Nora is far more of a victim than the narrative suggests. While chapters 19-21 do try to suggest she’s Beyond Redemption, she is also a teenage girl who was lured in by Xander, an older and far more dangerous individual who preyed on her insecurities and fostered her own negative feelings for his own satisfaction. To say nothing of the fact he and his friends supplied a minor with drugs and alcohol in the first place. Meanwhile authorities in her life seemed more interested in punishment rather than rehabilitation. True, they tell her to stop, but it mostly involves shouting and threats, rather than actual effort. And ultimately she dies, believing herself to be unloved and only wanted as a ”slave,” while Xander survives. In this light, Nora herself becomes a far more tragic figure, especially given her age compared to Xander.
  • Does Xander really care about Nora or is he just using her? Tellingly, he hasn’t appeared to contact Nora, despite her having her phone until she loses it in Chapter 20 and she’s been getting messages from her mother.
  • Did Dana leave the Summers and cut off contact besides child support checks out of remorse for how she had treated them (especially Mary), or was it just another way for her to avoid responsibility for having been such a bad mother, considering she didn’t delete the blog (Mary and Todd did that) or even confess that she lied about everything on it? Or did she just decide that abandoning everybody who knew her was the best way to escape Irene without considering other options, such as a restraining order?
  • There’s no mention of Irene in the Distant Finale. Is this a sign that the Summers forced her out of their lives for good (considering Todd, Reagan, and Mary hated her), did Irene decide not to bother with them anymore since they’re not legally her family anymore (since she hated them for Todd standing up to her and his daughters weren’t “perfect” ‘50s girls in her eyes), did she die during the six-year Time Skip, or did she leave Pittsburg to try to find Dana again? And if Irene is still alive, is Dana’s fear that Irene could track her down again the reason why she’s only been sending child support checks in the mail ^note  Child support payments tend to be handled through the government, including Pennsylvania where the Summers live?
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Dana has frequent mood swings, a short temper, and constantly rewrites events in her life to make herself look like the victim. Fans speculate that she has an untreated mood disorder.
• Fridge Brilliance:
  • One of Dana's fears is that Mary will grow up to be a violent, uncontrollable Wild Child who hurts her family and attacks classmates. She has no such fears for Reagan, who's neurotypical. When we see Nora's memories, we see that her family is similar to the Summers (two parents, a neurotypical older child and an autistic younger child). However, the neurotypical Nora is everything that Dana fears Mary will become, as she is violent, abrasive, and willingly threatens/attacks classmates and family members with no remorse. Julius, who's autistic, has none of these issues and (other than the trauma of living with Nora and having to deal with her death and all of the complicated emotions surrounding it) grew up to be a stable, well-rounded man. This is another demonstration of just how wrong Dana’s worldview is.
  • It's hinted that the Train put Nora and Mary in relatively close proximity so that the former would be forced to interact with the latter and hopefully start to shed her hateful views. Unfortunately, Nora doesn’t. However, it’s also possible that the two meeting was a Secret Test of Character for Mary herself; through her interactions with the Neo-Nazi she learns how to stand up for herself and against ableism, that she’s not responsible for other people’s choices and actions, and to value the kindness from those who actually care about Mary. This opens up Mary’s exit portal so she can leave the Train and be reunited with Todd and Reagan.
• Fridge Horror: The reveal that Dana plans to sterilize Mary implies that she doesn't only not want an autistic child-she doesn't want autistic grandchildren. And since genetics can be a factor in autism, Reagan's not safe either. While Reagan is only a teenager with a boyfriend, Dana might monitor Oliver's family to make sure neither of them can have autistic children.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Dana Summers has shown to be an abusive mother to her daughter Mary because the latter has autism. Dana refuses to understand her daughter and blames her for all her problems. Dana tries to make her daughter's behavior and autism worse than it is and tries to find ways to cure Mary's autism; even if there is no cure, some of those so-called cures are dangerous, and there are ways to deal with them. But in Chapter 9, when Dana's husband Todd and their older daughter Reagan read Dana's blog, they were horrified and outraged to learn how much Dana hated Mary. They also discover that Dana truly believed Mary would grow up to become a potential school shooter and is even considering having Mary sterilized once she turns 18.
  • Nora crosses it both in Chapter 19 when she tried to kill her brother Julius twice, first by dumping him outside in -2 degree weather with no coat and then slamming him into a table when their parents confront her. Then in Chapter 20, she gives Mary a Breaking Speech before shooting her in the shoulder, leaving Mary for dead as she takes Blanca hostage.
• Narm: Nora is revealed to be a neo Nazi in her debut when she walks across the snow, and the cut of her shoes leave swastikas in her footprints. It's meant to be a shocking moment, but the image of a hate symbol being molded into the bottom of someone's shoes with the purpose of actually leaving footprints in that shape comes off as so sudden and over-the-top it rolls into hilarity.
• Realism-Induced Horror:
  • The fallout of Mary's disappearance into the Infinity Train is explored here, with Mary's family and friends freaking out and being worried sick about her.
  • At one point, Reagan's boyfriend Oliver suggests with some hesitation that Dana kidnapped Mary herself or hired somebody to do so to get rid of her. While Reagan denies that out loud, she can't help but wonder if Dana indeed did have a direct hand in Mary's disappearance. Edith and Mr. Bryant also suspect that Dana had a hand in her disappearance.
  • After Todd finds out about Dana wanting to sign up Mary for chelation therapy in another effort to "cure" her autism, he researches it to discover that some autistic children have died from it.
  • Todd and Reagan get a massive dose of it in Chapter 9 upon reading Dana's blog, which reveals how much she has come to hate her daughter. Dana sees her as nothing but a money-sucking freeloader and even a potential school shooter in the making, culminating in the reveal that Dana has considered forcibly sterilizing Mary once she turns 18.
  • If you take the events of Chapter 19 from the perspective of Nora’s parents, there’s the terror of watching your loved one become radicalized into a violent hate group and them becoming a monster and a danger to you while your pleas to stop and any attempts at rehabilitation fall on deaf ears. And then Nora is found dead and dismembered, with the police unable to figure out how or why her violent death happened.

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