⚠️ Spoiler warning: This post contains plot details from the film Obsession. If you haven’t seen it yet and want to go in blind, maybe save this one for later.
If you‘ve seen Obsession, you probably came away feeling complicated about the main character.
He doesn’t seem like a bad guy. He‘s not cruel. He’s not aggressive. If anything, he‘s a bit of a pushover. He likes the female lead, but he can never quite bring himself to say it. Early in the film, he walks into this quirky little crystal shop, originally just to buy her a stone. The shopkeeper shows him amethyst — for calmness. Then sunstone — for stability and energy. He says no to both. He doesn’t think she’d like them.
Eventually he picks up a wishing willow instead. Still meant to be a gift for her. But he never gives it to her either. He hesitates too much. When she straight-up asks him if he likes her, he still can‘t get the words out. So the wishing willow stays with him. And one day — maybe out of curiosity, maybe just thinking “what the hell” — he makes a wish on it. He wishes that she would become obsessed with him.
Now, the wishing willow is a metaphysical object. Anyone who’s seen a horror movie knows that these kinds of “wish-granting” items always come with a catch. But the guy probably wasn‘t thinking about any of that when he made the wish. He just figured, well, it’s here, might as well give it a shot. He wasn‘t trying to “control” her. He just wanted her to like him back. A timid person, solving a problem he didn’t know how to face, in the laziest way possible.
And then the wish comes true.
She becomes obsessed with him — but not in a romantic, warm way. It‘s the unhealthy kind. The all-consuming, push-everyone-else-away, make-your-entire-life-revolve-around-one-person kind of obsession. She eats bugs. She cooks cat meat. Her behavior gets weirder and weirder. And how does he react? With eerie calm. He just watches it all happen, almost blankly. No fear, no confusion, no urge to save her. He just starts living with this unhinged version of her, eating her cat-meat dishes, accepting her pathology, going about his days like nothing’s wrong.
At one point, the real her — the part of her that‘s still aware — begs him: “Kill me. End this.” He coldly replies: “What’s wrong with being with me?”
That‘s when it hits you. He never really knew her. He didn’t know what she liked. He didn‘t know how she’d genuinely react to things. He didn‘t know her desires, her boundaries. He was in love with her image — the version he’d built in his head — not her actual self. So when this deranged, distorted version of her shows up, he can‘t even tell the difference. He doesn’t see anything wrong, because to him, there probably isn‘t much of a difference.
That tiger’s eye stone — the one her mother gave her — was meant to symbolize her free will, her true self. She gave it to him, but he never really possessed what it represented. He never saw her. Not once.
Wishing Is Scarier Than You Think
I keep coming back to this story because I think it‘s worth sharing with D&D players. Not because it’s magical or spooky — but because it exposes something about the nature of wishing.
In D&D, there‘s the wish spell. It’s one of the most powerful spells a wizard can learn. But anyone who‘s played for a while knows one thing: your DM never lets you get away with a free wish. Every wish gets twisted in the most unexpected way. You wish for a fortune, and a pile of gold coins falls from the sky — right onto your party member. You wish to defeat the enemy, and you do — but the whole city crumbles along with them. The wish spell operates on a basic principle: wishes are dangerous, because you can never word them precisely enough.
But the wishing willow in Obsession shows a quieter kind of horror. You don’t articulate a careful wish that gets twisted. You just vaguely want something, and then it happens — and you realize that what you actually wanted and what you thought you wanted are two completely different things.
He wanted to be loved. What the willow gave him was a deranged person‘s sick obsession. He probably didn’t even know the difference himself — until he sat across from this crazed woman eating bugs, and just… sat there. And accepted it.
He spent maybe three seconds making that wish. A casual decision. And the cost was that he could never see the real her again. And he didn‘t even care.
Rolling and Wishing Look Alike, but They’re Opposites
Now think about what happens at the D&D table.
A player faces a crucial check. They hold their die, give it a shake, cup it in their palm, and maybe mutter a little prayer. They‘re thinking: “Please let this number be high. Please.” Then they roll. The number lands. They accept it — or they don’t, and the DM shuts them down.
On the surface, it looks a lot like wishing. You‘re hoping for an outcome. You’re asking for something to happen. But there‘s one key difference: you’re only hoping. You‘re not demanding. The only thing you control in that entire process is the moment before you roll — you decide what you’re going to do. Then you release the outcome and you live with it.
The wishing willow works the opposite way: you skip all the choosing and go straight to the result.
That‘s essentially what the film’s protagonist did. He couldn‘t confess. He couldn’t face the risk of rejection. He couldn‘t make himself vulnerable in any real interaction. So he took the path of least resistance and let an external force do all the work for him. He did get his obsession — but the person he got it from wasn’t her anymore. By bypassing the risk of rejection, he also bypassed the vulnerability and authenticity that a real relationship requires. He bypassed the chance to ever see her as she really was.
But you never get to do that at the D&D table. You can‘t bypass the roll. You can’t bypass a failure. You can‘t bypass the embarrassment and frustration of a natural 1. You just have to face it, and then decide what to do next. In a way, that’s the most important thing this game teaches you: accept what you can‘t control, and keep making your own choices anyway.
Why Tiger’s Eye Isn‘t Just a Pretty Stone
In the film, tiger’s eye is set up as a symbol of free will. In Western metaphysical circles, it‘s always carried a more specific, quieter meaning — it’s seen as a protective stone. Not the kind that stands in front of you and takes the hit, but something more internal: it helps you pull your attention back to yourself, stay grounded in chaos, and tell the difference between what‘s real and what’s an illusion. Traditionally, it‘s used to ward off external negativity and other people’s ill will — and also to help you see your own mind clearly. It‘s linked to the solar plexus chakra, which in that framework governs confidence, willpower, and decision-making. So tiger’s eye is often understood as something that brings you back to center. It doesn‘t tell you what to do. It just helps you hold steady once you’ve decided.
The more I thought about this in the context of D&D, the more I realized that this might be one of the most fitting meanings a set of dice could carry.
Not because it‘s magical, and not because it’ll make your rolls luckier — but because the physical texture of the stone itself reminds you of certain things. It‘s natural, and every piece has a different grain. It’s heavy — when you hold it in your palm, it has a real weight to it. When you turn it in the light, a silky band of light moves across the surface like flowing silk. When you set it down on the table, it makes a low, solid thunk — a stone-on-wood sound, not the light rattle of plastic.
You hold it, and you can feel that it‘s real. It came from underground, formed over a very long time to become what it is now. In the metaphysical understanding, tiger’s eye brings you that sense of stability — the kind that comes from something that took ages to form. And that sense of stability is exactly what you need most when you‘re facing a crucial roll. Not because it blocks anything for you, but because it lets you still feel yourself in those few seconds before you let go.
Then you release it. It gives you a number. You accept it.
The timid man in the film never truly possessed the tiger’s eye. He got the girl, he got her obsession — but the stone was just handed to him, and he never really paid attention to it. That stone represented her true self, and he never knew her, never intended to.
But if you‘re a player sitting at a table, holding a die in your hand, you know that feeling. That moment of gripping it, shaking it, letting it go — that’s your choice. Not a wish. Not a shortcut. Not something doing the work for you. You chose your direction. You accept the outcome. You decide what comes next. And a tiger‘s eye die — something that in metaphysical tradition is understood as a thing that “helps you hold onto yourself” — sitting there on the table, might just be exactly where it belongs.
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