Im of the full (possibly delusional) belief that Durge is not the species that they physically appear to be.
You’re telling me this being crafted from nothing but bhaal’s flesh and his blood - this demigod - is actually a dragonborn/tiefling/human/elf/etc.
No. This thing is bhaal’s flesh and it just happens to look like that. They’re an imitation of a species, they’re not truly a (full)mortal being, they have no heritage aside from bhaal.
As a result I’m sure there’s some…oddities.
For example, a demigod child, not fully mortal. I doubt they adhere to the lifespan of whatever species they look like. Looking younger than they should. (less so perhaps with long lived races like elfs and half-elves where that is par for the course).
A dragonborn durge that by all accounts looks like a blue dragonborn but their breathweapon is acid. A tiefling durge that seems to be a Mephistopheles tiefling but they cannot cast mage hand, instead smiting like a zariel bloodline tiefling.
An elf or tiefling durge that doesn’t read as fey or infernal trough identification spells. Because they aren’t either of those things. Perhaps they could read as divine but not quite.
Members of a race that durge is supposed to be looking at them and sometimes when making eye contact they read as wrong. And some kind of uncanny effect triggers in their brain.
Give me more freaky durge who isn’t really what they appear to be at all. Just a little murder demigod crafted from dead god flesh to be the shape of something else.
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Mizu's spectacles, and the levels of her disguise
In drafting some more Blue Eye Samurai meta posts, I find myself writing out the comparisons between what Mizu can and cannot hide about herself, and how that affects how she moves through the world.
Like, I get the jokes about Mizu's glasses, if only color contacts had existed back then, etc. etc., and I think (hope) that most viewers don't take the glasses jokes seriously, as in "I don't care about the suspension of disbelief because BES is a cartoon." But I wanted to write these thoughts out anyway without burying them in a text post about something else.
I think the points I'm going to lay out here are viewed very differently by different people, so please feel free to add to this post, reply, or put your thoughts in the tags!
Not only do Mizu's glasses not actually help her that much, there's surely more to Mizu's mixed race appearance than just the color of her eyes.
In my view, this was pointed out in episode 1:
I'm willing to bet most of us were expecting young Taigen to say "blue eyes," not "ROUND eyes."
Obviously this is still about Mizu's eyes, but not even spectacles can hide their shape.
I don't think the show is obligated to point out everything about Mizu's face that isn't quite as Japanese as the people around her expect. Though the creators have said that they specifically designed Mizu - and her clothes - to read both as "white" and as "Japanese," as well as both male and female. I think there's more about Mizu's features that read as "white" than just her eyes.
This is where my own headcanons start entering the picture, but it's my impression that people can just tell that Mizu looks different, whether or not they can put a finger on exactly how.
There's the little girl who looks at Mizu and then hides on the way into Kyoto:
When there's more to your face you'd like to cover up than just your eyes, big hats are a big help!
By the way, most of these examples have to come from the first half of the season, since by the second half, either Mizu is too preoccupied with fighting henchmen, or everyone Mizu is facing knows who she is already, and she therefore has no reason to hide her mixed race identity.
It's worth mentioning that the mere fact that Mizu has to hide multiple aspects of her identity - her mixed race and her sex - results in her having to choose clothes that really, really cover her up, which doesn't win her any favors either:
(Zatoichi reference, anyone?)
If it were as easy as, for example, tying her glasses to her head and wa-lah, nobody would ever know she was half-white - then (1) Mizu would've just done that long ago, and (2) Mizu wouldn't be so on guard and on tenterhooks 100% of the time the way she's depicted in the show, even when her glasses are on.
Her spectacles sure don't help her in the brothel, which is full of observant women who are trying to seduce her, meaning they get good long looks at her:
Mizu never takes her glasses off, but they still send a woman to her who has light eyes, thinking that must be what will interest a blue-eyed man:
No wonder Mizu gets mad after this, lol
So Mizu never takes her spectacles off in the brothel, it's dimly lit inside, and the women can still tell that she has blue eyes. I'm getting the sense that Mizu putting on her spectacles isn't a guarantee that people suddenly can't tell that she looks different.
And yet no one spots that she's female.
Mizu can hide her breasts, can wear her hair in the right style, can hide what's between her legs, can walk and talk and behave like a man - and she's been doing it for almost her entire life, to the point that not only is she very good at it, but the threat of being found out as female is deadly, but isn't presented in the show as omnipresent.
Let me explain.
She threatens Ringo for nearly saying the word "girl" out loud, because while she's constantly ostracized for being mixed race, being a woman traveling without a chaperone, carrying a sword, and disguised as a man will get her killed or flogged or arrested or some combination of these things.
But in addition, it's been drilled into her since she was a child that if she is discovered as female, the combination of her being mixed race and female will identify her as someone extremely specific, someone known to some bad people, and she will be killed:
I think of it as Mizu thinking to herself, "Being found out as mixed race means I'm treated badly. Being found out as mixed race and a woman means I'm dead."
Mizu's hair is cut as a child. But she isn't made to wear a big hat, or cover her eyes somehow, or anything like that. Because hiding her sex is a more successful endeavor than hiding her race.
Ringo finds out she's female by accident, but once Mizu accepts the fact that he won't rat her out, she relaxes pretty early on in the season. Because the threat of being found out as female is mitigated pretty much 99.9%, since Mizu has gotten so good at being a man. And also, because most of the time, people see what they want to see. Even if Mizu's face makes her stand out as "not 100% Japanese," no one in the world of BES looks at Mizu's clothes, her bearing, her sword, hears her voice, and will ever in a million years conclude that she is a woman, because expectations around gender roles in the Edo period were so rigid and so widely enforced.
One detail that proved this to me is after the Four Fangs fight:
Ringo takes off Mizu's clothes so he can stitch her up, then leaves her clothes off even after he's done. He doesn't even throw her cloak over her as a blanket or anything. There's a little a straw (pallet?) as a divider there on the left, but anyone could just peek around it and see Mizu and her chest bindings. (I think it's mostly there as a windbreaker.)
And Taigen is right there, but he doesn't give a shit:
Opinions probably vary hugely on this, but my impression is that because the show doesn't make any kind of deal about Taigen being in the room with Mizu here, my guess is that Mizu isn't in any danger of Taigen thinking she's female. Even when I watched the show for the first time, I assumed that Taigen had seen Mizu out of her clothes here, and that he thought nothing of it.
Eat your heart out, Li Shang (Mulan 1998). I actually do think that this scene is a direct and purposeful side-eye to that movie, lol
There's obviously some nuance to how "severe" being mixed race is compared to how "severe" being a woman is for Mizu:
After all, Swordfather can't bear to listen to Mizu confess to being a woman.
So a Japanese man can go wherever he wants, whenever he wants in BES. A Japanese woman has limited options: marriage, religion, or a brothel. A mixed-race man is an eyesore in this story. A mixed-race woman is a death sentence.
May as well eliminate the female aspect, and do what you can about the mixed-race aspect. Because that's just realistic.
Meaning Mizu can avoid the strictures Edo society places on women. But she can't avoid the repercussions that come with being mixed race. And I truly don't think that it's just because "there's no brown contacts yet."
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ok sure i'll talk about farleigh start. i'll talk about his tragedy of never being enough as it were and then having to deal with fucking oliver. sure. disclaimer: it's about class (and race) and the horrible reality of the rich. the horrible reality of living as farleigh.
another disclaimer: i'm white! and poc definitely pick up on everything i'm talking about here as it is, and better. i was and am specifically interested in farleigh vs. oliver but it's impossible to examine without considering race. definitely let me know if anything abt this sucks!
farleigh and oliver are similar. it's annoying because every intruder that is not himself is annoying, partly because felix's attention swaying from farleigh is dangerous; there is always a threat of being discarded, even if no precedent existed. the potential is terrifying.
but you'd think he's seen this before, every summer (if venetia is telling the truth) or at least often enough to learn to recognize it fast, so he should know this will pass. part of it is i think still the deep anxiety, and i think he hated every boy that was there before, and it is sort of routine.
but definitely a huge factor in farleigh's annoyance is the fact that he's a biracial (black for cattons, that's all they see) man in a white rich household. he's alert and exhausted all the time. of course he's angry at oliver, regardless of whether he's the first to crash at saltburn for the summer or the fifty-first.
but the important thing is this.
farleigh is very jealous of and angry and pissed at oliver because farleigh sees all the similarities between them. outsider, in financial trouble, whatever it is, in need of cattons; and yet oliver is preferred. and farleigh seems to be the only one to really consider it. felix does not pick up on the hint when farleigh brings up the birthday party vs. his mother. felix's clumsy "different or... anything like that" is as much about race as it is about class, of course. the "we've done all that we can" bit is felix absolving himself of guilt because surely they had, surely the mysterious collective cattons that he's not really part of had tried all they could do. to him, farleigh is different from oliver, because farleigh has been helped. felix is rich and white and twofold uncomfortable with farleigh, even if he's nice about it, even if he genuinely enjoys his company; he doesn't look too close at farleigh because he feels too guilty to come too close. and farleigh can't do anything about it. he can't nice himself into it. the fucking tragedy of him is that he's never enough in the world of the ultra-rich white, even if (especially because!) he's born into it.
farleigh is very pissed at oliver because farleigh also sees all the differences between them. you know who can be nice poor white enough to fit in? fucking oliver. felix says "just be yourself, they'll love you" when oliver first moves in. farleigh was also probably told the same thing, and felix also probably believed that farleigh could just be himself, but even if the cattons were magically not racist at all (impossible), it wouldn't make a difference to farleigh. he would still self-censor, keep in check, be in dangerous waters (because racism is not just about the individual, but about the system). we see that he'd won himself leeway by years of trial and error by the way he speaks to the family, but it's still within the boundaries of acceptable, built by the cattons. he's part of them because they allow it, and farleigh is very, very aware.
the annoying thing is oliver can be himself. like, truly, genuinely, he can just be. and farleigh can't help but envy that.
as a side note, oliver is obviously jealous of farleigh in the beginning as well, because regardless of the reality of farleigh's situation, he was born into it, and hence, at least in oliver's mind, has his position solidified. oliver's whole thing is unquenchable thirst and hunger for whatever and everything the cattons have (including themselves!). he wishes to have been a catton from birth. to oliver, at first, there's nothing farleigh can really do to lose it. and until he figures out the cattons completely, he can't help but envy that.
but i think farleigh senses something different about oliver early on. at least on the level of the text, we have "you're almost passing [for] a real, human boy", which is so important because farleigh is the first to point out oliver's weirdness. the next to do so is venetia in the bath scene calling him a freak, but it's too late. farleigh is too early.
and i like to think he clocks oliver too early because he sees the jagged edges that he recognizes in himself. i think that one other thing that farleigh envies is oliver's freedom to let go. freedom to let go is very similar to freedom to be, but not quite the same.
to be is about perception: farleigh knows he cannot fall out of line, but would like to, and oliver does not have to worry about it at all (i mean, he does, because oliver also performs for felix, but farleigh doesn't know that).
to let go is about the self: farleigh is too scared to even want what oliver eventually does, to even consider the possibility. oliver can let himself want. oliver can let himself act. oliver just can do things and want things. i'm not sure farleigh can.
and so in this scene, when oliver's wants and actions have landed him nowhere with farleigh, felix, venetia, the cattons, of course farleigh gloats. he can let himself do that, because if the cattons are slowly discarding him, farleigh can allow himself this one small victory. he's relieved because despite the dangerous similarities, oliver is, thankfully, not really the same as farleigh, right?
but like. this movie is a love letter to all things gothic. oliver is a white man. he prevails. the brief performance that oliver put on did eventually end up more effective than farleigh's lifetime of constraint. my heart fucking breaks for him to be honest.
the issue that remains is the fact of farleigh's survival. i like to think that oliver came to respect him. oliver is smart, but farleigh is clever. he picks up on everything oliver does (to refer back to the karaoke scene, farleigh immediately retaliates in the cleverest way, in the moment), and he's the only one to do so consistently (venetia, again, for example, comes close, but too late; oliver doesn't like that, there's nothing to work with). hence, stay with me for a little longer, the paradox: farleigh survives because he was never enough for the cattons, but he is very worthy of oliver's attention. in his own freaky way, oliver wants him. look at that.
so. farleigh. farleigh might come back. he always comes back. and i think oliver wants to try harder next time.
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