In the beginning of the movie Naim is scared of the snake (biblical reference to sin/the devil) while Ryan actively plays with it and laughs. Ryan also wears the snake ring which could represent his acceptance of his identity and being upfront with it
since the start. At the end of the movie Naim ends up with his ring, accepting "the sin" because it was Ryan's and he loved him enough to face that plus At one point, they are taken to a priest who is supposed to help or ostensibly purify them. That is when an entity intervenes, and they begin to view each other as threats. The love they feel turns into fear and a survival instinct they no longer see the person they love, but a distorted, dangerous version one that, in their eyes, wants to kill them. By assuming the appearance of the beloved in an attempt to destroy them, the entity symbolizes the most violent mechanism of rejection: learning to fear one’s own feelings to the point of wanting to eradicate them. The metaphor here is that it is not love itself that is dangerous, but the fear associated with it. The true battle is not against an external monster, but against the notion that loving is somehow wrong. To me the entity represents the fear of being oneself the fear of loving someone of the same sex instilled by society (particularly in the past, and still today within religious contexts). The fact that it takes the form of the beloved illustrates just how much this fear can distort reality, transforming love into a threat
The fact that it takes the form of the beloved illustrates just how much this fear can distort reality transforming love into a threat...