Release: June 5, 2007, October 23, 2007 (re-release)
Directed by Michael Maxxis
The video begins with a little girl walking over to her parents. They all smile and hold hands. They begin to dance in a circle, still holding hands. The faces are visible and there is a focus on the parents' eyes looking at their daughter. The music is acoustic at this point. All of these things are meant to represent a happy family.
The band playing are wearing your typical style of clothes for a rock video: Black hair, black clothes. It's conventional because this mimics what teenagers usually wear (goth/emo) as their main target audience are teenagers.
Also keeping to the tradition are the instruments the band are playing: guitars and drums. These are also typical to see in a conventional rock music video as most rock music videos have some form of performance within them.
When the chorus begins, the guitar distorts and the director cuts to a scene of the girl as a young woman. Her hands are held, as was the little girl but this time, it is against her will. She is struggling, resisting the nurses' efforts to drag her along. The young woman looks back as she is dragged and tears are shown on her face. The viewer sees through the woman's eyes as she watches her younger self with butterfly wings holding hands and dancing in a "ring around the rosy" circle. This is done to further emphasize that the little girl was happy. It cuts back to the woman's face, who is still watching, her expression sad. We see the little girl dancing with her parents again but this time, her wings are partially black. This foreshadows a future stage for what those wings symbolize.
With the start of the next verse, the parent's let go of the little girl's hands slowly. The girl's hands stay outstretched as if they didn't want to let go. The little girl walks forward, as she did in the beginning of the video but this time a faceless man approaches her instead. He kneels in front of her to indicate a familiarity with her and we see a part of his smile but we are not shown the eyes. Both man and girl are replaced by shadows with the male shadow gesturing with his finger to the girl with a back and forth motion as if to "suggest something not to do." The director is giving the first clue that there is a secret between the man and girl.
The video cuts away to show the little girl sitting on the floor with her hands in her lap and her head lowered. The man is still faceless, and his hands are on the girl's shoulders. There is a flash of shadow and then the man's hands are reaching out towards the girl with a brief hesitation. He rests her hands on her shoulder but she does not look up at him. The verse ends with this uncertainty. Despite the tension raised by the shadow scene, the writer wants to make it clear that this person is not immediately recognizable as a hero or villain.
The video cuts away with the chorus and shows the tortured face of the young woman again. A flash to a girl running to hide beneath the bed. It cuts away to the dancing parents and the girl as before, but this time there are plasters placed over the smiling parent's eyes. This is done to indicate that they are "blind" to what is happening to the girl.
We see the young woman being strapped to a bed. Then we see the faceless man approaching the same bed that the little girl just hid beneath. These back and forth flashes are meant to explain that the present is a direct result of this particular past so that we can tie them together as a viewer. The straps on the young woman are now seen as men's hands, wearing the sleeve of the sweater of the faceless man. It is no longer the straps holding her down, but the man's grip on her. The director is making it clear that it is not just physical bindings keeping this woman a prisoner, and as the man's hands are not real, it can be summerised that while the straps are of the physical world, that the hands are only in her mind, but just as imprisoning. As the bridge begins, the man flips over the bed that the little girl is hiding beneath. And stands over her. This reveals that she cannot hide from this man, because he will always find her.
We cut back to the faceless man resting his hand on the girl's shoulder as if to comfort her. These scenes cut back and forth again, tying them together until the little girl looks at the man, his hand on her shoulder and then stands up. The man does not move, or lower his hand. It is done in an effort to demonstrate that the movement for the girl is an internal action and not a physical one. The girl walks forward and black feathers fall from above her. She smiles, and there is an angel with black wings flying in place, the girl watches him and then smiles. This shows a form of intertextuality here as this "angel" can somewhat be typical in conventional rock videos. Because of it's black wings it can assumed it represents death and most rock songs lyrics are based on sorrow and pain. This is also used to target teenaged audiences as their life can be described as "difficult" and having thoughts of killing themselves and therefore resorting to death.
The demonstration of internal action is re-enforced by the producer cutting from the angel to the little girl seated once more with the man's hand on her shoulder.
There is an interrupted verse next. The young woman is still tied down and we can see a variety of pills scattered on a tray. A monarch butterfly, (same as the little girl's wings before,) was resting on that tray but begins to fly away. The young woman watches this happen. The butterfly is important because the director is demonstrating the difference between the monarch wings and the black wings. The winged angel that the girl saw before is linked to death, while the monarch symbolizes life. Having established by the nurses, pills and restraints that the young woman is in a hospital, it can be assumed that she is suicidal, and we are being shown the events that have caused this desire.
The video cuts to the little girl on the bed again, but this time there is a black handprint on her face. As the camera pulls back, we see that her entire body has these handprints, and as the camera pans a bit more, the walls and bed as well. There is nothing untouched by these black hand-prints and then the camera pulls back enough so that we see the faceless man's arm hanging by his side, his hand smeared with black paint. The paint is a representation of his actions and the marks they have left. Since black has so far symbolized death in the video, the man's handprints are black to represent the "death of innocence" of the girl.
The chorus begins again, and the girl lies on the bed, her hands tucked beneath her head. She is watching the angel with black wings wrestle/fight with the faceless man. This fight is meant to demonstrate that her painful memories and suicide are equally strong. Feathers start falling again, and sometimes the fight is shown as two shadows instead. This is meant to show again that this sort of internal struggle isn't always something we see clearly, even if we think we know what's going on.
The feathers continue to fall and then they are seen falling over the young woman, still strapped to the bed but no longer struggling. The woman is watching the black angel and the faceless man and as the shadows fight, the angel flies away, feathers falling as he goes. The faceless man smiles again, letting go of the girl's shoulder and stepping away from her, backing up but not turning around. We see the hands on the young woman's wrists and ankles let go, releasing her. Because of this, we can see that she was held hostage by both angel and faceless man but has now been freed from them both.
The young woman curls up into a fetal position, and both faceless man and black angel are gone, with feathers ceasing to fall. The woman uncurls and steps away from the bed, and the little girl is moving towards her own bed. The music video ends with the young woman smiling, black feathers in the distance, leaving the bed and feathers behind. Out of the faceless man, the black angel and herself, only she remains. The camera focusing on her at the end is how this is indicated. The message this conveys is that while neither man nor angel was truly defeated; the young woman has found her freedom from both.
