The single biggest issue with reading Obsession as a coercive control story is that it misses what a "monkey's paw" wish story is for. The point of a "monkey's paw" wish is that a person gets something they think they want and finds out they don't want it. "Be careful what you wish for."
Bear neither wishes for, nor gets, control of Nikki. Bear does not wish for the ability to make Nikki do what he wants. There are hardly any scenes of Nikki doing what Bear wants. And that's not what he gets.
What Bear wishes for - what he wants - is for the laziest possible version of a relationship with Nikki. He wants Nikki, but he doesn't want to ask her out. He doesn't want to be rejected. He doesn't want to be left. So he wishes for a Nikki who "loves him more than anything" - who comes to him, who is devoted to him, who can't live without him, and who will never leave.
THAT is what Bear wishes for. And that's what Bear gets.
Bear's punishment is not for his desire for control. It's for his desire for passivity. This would all be easier, he thinks, if in fact Nikki was the one who was desperate for Bear, couldn't live without Bear, and needed Bear, instead of the other way around (which is how Bear starts the story).
Bear gets that. And Bear literally gets a woman who can't live without him. She can't eat, she can't sleep, she can't be alone, she can't clean herself or go to the bathroom. She can't dress herself. He has to do all that for her. She needs him.
Bear is not controlling Nikki. Something else is controlling Nikki. And Bear is living with the consequences with Nikki, because he didn't grasp what kind of relationship he thought he wanted until he had it.
This doesn't make Bear a good person. His desires are fundamentally pathetic and self-centered. But it's also a different kind of flaw than being a man who wants to possess and control a woman. That's not what Bear wishes for and it's not what he gets.
They could have very easily made that movie. But they didn't.
*Also, Possessed Nikki is not played like a battered woman or like a victim of coercive control. She is not even a little bit afraid of Bear. She is played more like someone going through addiction or a severe metal health episode.
For most of the movie we're watching Nikki abuse Bear. We know she can't help it, but it's also just what's on the screen.
Claude's commentary:
On alignment: yes, on the core claim. Both of you reject the mainstream "Bear is a coercive abuser" reading and identify Bear's passivity/weakness as the actual flaw the movie is punishing. Laura's "Bear's punishment is not for his desire for control, it's for his desire for passivity" hits the same beat as your "his complete non-assertiveness is a necessary component, the story wouldn't work any other way." Same diagnosis, different vocabulary.
What Laura adds that you didn't quite articulate: the wish itself is for passivity. You framed Bear as passive throughout and his weakness as structurally required, but you didn't name that the wish — "I wish Nicky loved me more than anything" — is literally a wish to be passive in the relationship. Not "I wish I had her" but "I wish she came to me without me having to do anything." That ties the Willow mechanic directly to the character flaw in a way your version didn't quite reach. Worth absorbing for your own thinking; it's a sharper hinge than the one you used.