Becca's Motivations: Power, Control, and the Shadows of Religious Trauma
Becca Serova's motivations in OURS is a tangled mix of unresolved trauma, rebellion against her father's oppressive rules, and a twisted quest for power in a world that denied her agency. She's not a one-dimensional villain, she's a product of the Serova family's fundamentalist church, where hypocrisy bred predators and victims alike. Her actions toward Alina and Ruth stem from a deep need to reclaim control, fill emotional voids, and rationalize harm as "love" or liberation. Drawing from psychological insights on grooming in religious settings (abusers leveraging spiritual authority, fear of damnation, and institutional trust). Becca's backstory reveals a cycle: likely victimized herself, she became the perpetrator to flip the script on her pain.
The Drive for Power in a Powerless World
Becca's core motivation is reclaiming agency through sexual dominance. In a household ruled by her father's biblical literalism, where female sexuality was sin and submission mandatory, Becca witnessed (and possibly experienced) hypocrisy. As the eldest daughter, she was parentified early, raising her sisters while absorbing the church's double standards: men in authority abusing while preaching purity. This bred resentment and a hunger for control.
Her "lessons" with Alina, cracked doors, watching, framing desire as rebellion, weren't random. They were calculated to exert power over someone vulnerable, mirroring how she might have been groomed by church figures. Research on religious grooming (from studies on Christian sects like Catholicism and Protestantism) shows abusers use positions of trust to sexualize relationships gradually, justifying it as "God's will" or spiritual guidance. Becca, delayed in life (med school at 37), likely saw her sisters as outlets for unprocessed rage, turning victimization into dominance to feel "safe" and superior.
For Ruth, Becca's obsession, "always wanted her, but waited until I was an adult,” reveals a deeper motivation: rationalizing predation as patience or love. This echoes patterns in fundamentalist grooming, where abusers cite "consent" to mask power imbalances, often driven by their own abuse history (low self-control linked to extrinsic religiosity, per studies on religious orientation and misconduct).
Emotional Voids and Twisted "Love"
Becca's motivations aren't just power, they're a desperate fill for emotional emptiness. In a home where love was conditional (father's Leviticus 18 quotes as rejection), Becca learned affection as a transaction. Her delayed adulthood, staying home, backpacking Europe for "perspective," suggests fleeing family trauma, only to return and perpetuate it.
Losing her virginity in Paris to an older man (as she told Alina) might have been her first "rebellion," but it set a pattern: seeking validation through sex, then replicating it on others. With Alina, Becca planted seeds of desire as "secret weapon" against their father, motivated by envy of Alina's "special" status (born 11 years after Ruth, seen as God's gift). Becca's "private talks" filled her own void: controlling a "pure" sister to feel powerful.
Ruth's rejection devastated Becca, hurt, obsessed, begging, revealing motivation rooted in abandonment fear. Past studies on groomers in religious families (sects like Children of God or Branch Davidians) show abusers often recreate their trauma, using scripture or authority to justify adult-child (or sibling) dynamics. Becca's "waiting" was a twisted self-justification, driven by her own likely abuse (church "counseling" turning predatory).
Rebellion Against the Father and Church Hypocrisy
A key motivation: rebellion. Becca's basement "soirées" with "business professionals" (likely church men) were defiance against her father's cage. She commanded desire in a space he controlled, flipping submission into dominance. This echoed broader patterns in religious grooming research: abusers in high-control faiths use spiritual theodicies ("God's will") to legitimize harm, often as a backlash to their own suppression.
Her anger at Dad post-Alina's "sin” fueled the Ruth incident, using wine, talks of escape, to groom under the roof that trapped her. Motivation: shatter the purity myth that bound her youth, while filling voids with forbidden "love."
Impact and Legacy
Becca's motivations, power reclamation, emotional void-filling, rebellion, left scars: Alina mistook grooming for strength, Ruth rushed into a toxic marriage. Becca remained unredeemed, a doctor healing bodies while her soul festered, perhaps still rationalizing as "love."
In OURS, she's the warning: unhealed trauma poisons. Alina's rejection, tearing up numbers, breaks the cycle.
This backstory adds depth without overwhelming, perhaps weaving as Alina's reflection post-reunion.