Carlos's Affair and other questions

What an awesome film!! Totally the kind of movie designed for discussion. Here are a few of the questions and theories I had:

What was the exact poisoning method?
Is it ever implied that the blackberries were really a deadly poisonous species that could be mistaken as edible? Or, more likely, were they laced, and, if so, then with what? Blackberries are fairly bitter, so there's some leeway for disguising the taste; I'd be interested to know what Benigna had access to...

Any connection between the scarecrow and Tomas's mask?
Upon first seeing Tomas, I mistook him as either a manifestation or a pastiche of the scarecrow shown in the beginning scene and later replicated by Laura in the lawn. I thought it would have had more significance, because that thing was plain creepy-looking. On that note -- why was there a scarecrow in the middle of the front lawn? I don't recall scarecrows as having a history of being lawn ornaments.

What's the significance of Laura seeing her younger self at the end?
(I believe it was Laura's younger self...) The obvious explanation is the link back to what the paranormal expert said about Doppelgangers -- as present Laura did indeed die -- but why was she running towards the lighthouse? And why the shot of the little girl making sure older Laura saw her from the window? Is it because they can't coexist in the same timeline? It also makes me question whether that was young Laura's ghost, as Laura hadn't died, but of course the film loans itself to joint paranormal and psychological theories.

Was there any possibility of an affair between Carlos and Pilar?
This was one of the predictions I had seeing the two grouped together so often. There's a predominant us-vs-them mentality between the hallucination and supernatural theories of Laura's experiences. An affair would serve as a huge metaphor of Carlos's "disloyalty" in siding against the mediums and thus the only lead they have in finding Simon.

It would be more an affair out of his skeptic resistance to change until the end of the film than one of literal lust, though there are also a lot of subtle signs of a disjointed relationship -- the symbol of the piano duet being interrupted by Simon and eventually progressing to Carlos playing a solemn few notes alone; the way each parent responds to their child and interacts with him; how Laura is portrayed as a "strong mother," in the words of the medium, while Carlos is virtually absent (think the scene where's she's telling him the story when he's really in the bathroom, or the way he falls asleep instead of tending to Simon); his eventually decision to leave the home and, effectively, the search for Simon; and the body language between them (she offers a quick kiss upon his departure, then crosses her arms and turns away as he drives off in silence).

Did anyone else have any similar thoughts?

Why the decision to emphasize "Got you!" in the opening scene?
This would imply Laura's being marked for some certain destiny or trapped, which adds an entirely new overtone of fatalism to the film.

Something interesting to note is that Benigna means "benign." Could this somehow imply that the death of the children was ultimately "benign," in some intangible, worldly sense -- "the ends justify the means?"

Tomas as a villain
My initial perception, until I saw the discussions here, was that while Tomas saw Simon as a companion, he also wanted to replace him out of envy -- the two are incredibly similar, yet while Tomas dies out of apparent cruelty and neglect, Simon dies having had a fairly normal life with loving parents. I had believed the boy in the corridor was Tomas, and that he, in showing Simon his games and knowledge, had both trapped him in the basement and gave him the mask to wear, while the other children are able to haunt Laura throughout the rest of the house.

The idea was for Tomas and Simon to "switch places," a concept compounded by their apparent interchangeability (i.e. there is heated discrepancy over which one appeared in what scenes). A notable indicator of this is the comparison between the two photos, the one of Simon and Laura used in the scavenger hunt, and the one of Tomas and Benigna in the basement (though I may have seen this incorrectly): disabled sons and passionate mothers who each express their grief in reciprocal ways, via self-sacrifice or the sacrifice of others, respectively.

There are those, however, that argue the will of the director was to paint a picture of disparity in the emotional mind, as opposed to a story of literal ghost children leading Laura throughout the movie. This creates the opportunity for a new analysis, a parallel universe theory.

The medium said something to the effect that when a great tragedy occurs, there is left a trace, like an echo, that marks the point "between two timelines." This theme is never again directly referenced as far as I know, but perhaps the reality of the situation is that we see from an alternating viewpoint of two simultaneous worlds: the literal/secular, wherein the situations were a result of hallucinations or real-life tampering (Simon overhearing the conversation between Laura and Benigna, for example), and one explained by the influence of the otherworldly.

It's an interesting idea.

anyway thanks 4 reading my wall of text, if you are in fact still alive over there. please discuss if you have any of your own theories!