#I never understood that scene as having connotations of death until I watched it with the Spanish closed captions

[brainwasheddd]

i LOVE watching things in other languages cause even though sometimes the translation is shitty, sometimes people actually put effort into it and it puts meaning behind scenes that don’t come across the same in english

#I’m watching captain America civil war rn with the audio in english and the captions in spanish #and (minor spoilers maybe?) #the scene where what’s his face says to Steve #‘please tell rogers when you gotta go you gotta goo’ #but in the translation they didn’t use ir for to go like if they did a direct translation #they used morir #to die #I never understood that scene as having connotations of death until I watched it with the Spanish closed captions #I just thought it meant physically leaving #anyway #I love languages I might become a linguistics minor

[chalkrevelations]

So, Word of Honor, Episode 36 (and “Episode” 37) again, because I want to do a little bit more unpacking of this, particularly with some of the extra material and information that people have been able to point me to.

Spoilers, obvs. For right now, I mainly want to pull out this bit of my initial reaction to 36 & 37, because I think it remains a key point for me:

It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, show, some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues …

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot – queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands … So are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening in the story at the end of Ep 36 – what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling, isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told – by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level – is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? 

So, that’s a lot, but the reason I wanted to pull it back out is because I feel like this no-homo, surface-level, smoke-and-mirrors effect that gets layered over a queer bedrock of “reality” is precisely what the show did with its ending, and I want to approach that on a couple of different levels. Particularly since I’ve seen several reactions from other people who didn’t seem to have seen/didn’t have access to the extra of “Ep” 37, or who also found it difficult and vaguely unsatisfying to make the leap from Ep 36 to full belief in, and commitment to, “Ep” 37.

When I first posted this, I was really leaning on the idea of a classic Rashomon effect, given that we see – imho – a final Zhou Zishu/Wen Kexing scene in Ep 36 that’s filmed to lead us to believe that Wen Kexing died, with a subsequent cut to Zhang Chengling wrapping up a telling of the “story” of ZZS and WKX to his disciples. The easiest fanwank on this is that all of what we’ve seen so far has been Chengling telling the story of ZZS and WKX to his disciples, making him an unreliable narrator who in fact doesn’t know the truth of what really happened. I was actually reminded of the contrast in The Untamed (god, I don’t need to warn for spoilers for The Untamed, do I, we’ve all seen Chen Qing Ling at this point, right? Anyway, SPOILERS FOR THE UNTAMED) between the cliff scene in Episode 1 when they make it look like Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei Wuxian, leading to his fall off the cliff, and you go back later and realize this is the version that the storyteller was telling to the people in the teahouse vs. Episode, god, what is it, 33? When we see the cliff scene in “real” time, and discover that’s not what actually happened, that what happened is that Jiang Cheng stabbed a rock and Wei Wuxian shook himself free of Lan Wangji’s grip to fall to his death. You can’t trust what you hear. Also … well, we’ll get back to Chengling in a minute.

The second level of uncertainty to unwind is Gao Xiaolian calling bs on Chengling’s story. So, I felt like the kid who’s practicing his forms in the snow and being coached by ZZS in “Ep” 37 might actually be someone, not just a random kid, and that might be important, but I could not for the life of me figure out who he might be. I wasn’t aware until I watched some of AvenueX’s wrap-up of the show (I think that’s the first place I heard this info pointed out) that this kid is supposed to be the son of Gao Xiaolian and Deng Kuan, and the dad who comes to take him home is Deng Kuan (formerly Da-shixiong of Yueyang Sect, who – let’s face it – Gao Xiaolian really wanted to marry). Seriously, I spent so much time making fun of ZZS’s stupid facial hair tricks in this show, and then they actually do just put a dumbass mustache on a guy, and I completely don’t recognize him. I have to admit, the mustache threw me enough that I had no idea that was Deng Kuan (well, and maybe only seeing him for three episodes also helped). But if that’s Deng Kuan, and if the kid is his and Gao Xiaolian’s son, then she would have some reasonable standing to know a story detailing WKX’s death was bs.

 Finally, and most crucially – thanks to everyone who directed me to resources (including AvenueX and other fans who were able to do some translation) who were able to talk about the voiceover work in this final ep, because when I talk about how you can’t trust what you hear, but if you speak the language well enough and have a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on? When I talk about de-queered words being put into these character’s mouths? Apparently, this is what happens to Chengling in the final scene. That last scene - and the story he tells his disciples - apparently DOES provide the connective tissue from Ep 36 to Ep 37, but you can’t trust what you hear. Apparently, this is one of the places where you can see something different from what you hear if you’re able to lip-read, with Chengling telling the disciples something much closer to the idea that two people who love each other equally can equally support each other through this cultivation technique and both come out alive.

In the AvenueX discussion of this (Livestream #21, starting around 1:22:30), there’s an additional tidbit about the use of the word “cauldron” – I believe by Ye Baiyi - to describe one person in the pair, a word with a specific and widely-understood meaning within the genre that’s not necessarily known outside of the genre with, yes, sexual connotations. (Come on, slash fans, don’t tell me you don’t giggle every time you pass a perfectly innocent Jiffy Lube auto shop, at something that the mundanes don’t think twice about.) Apparently, “cauldron” is in the script, I believe it’s in the English subs, and it apparently was in the original Chinese subs, until too many people started talking about it and how it had been slipped past censorship, because it’s a perfectly common Jiffy Lube auto shop, right? and then it appears Youku went back and changed the character in the Chinese subs to something that doesn’t even make any sense. So again, we get an example of a case where if you’re a good enough speaker of the language this show is being told in – in this case the vernacular of wuxia – with a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on. Something that then gets no-homo’d. And has some nonsensical de-queered meaning laid over top of it. How many times do we have to do this until we learn the lesson that you can’t trust what you hear?

 ANYWAY, I’m wondering if the visuals are important, too: Something we see in the last scene with ZZS and WKX in Ep 36, when WKX is either unconscious or dead (CLEARLY UNCONSCIOUS), is that ZZS – twice – doesn’t let WKX’s hands fall. He catches him by the wrists and then catches him again by the hands as WKX’s hands start to slip away from ZZS’s hands – aaaannnnd end scene. I have to wonder if that’s not a subtle but important detail, that we see ZZS refusing to let WKX physically slip away, and maybe, by implication, refusing to let WKX slip away from him into death.

Also, again with Ye Baiyi – in the flashback when WKX is yelling at ZZS, Ye Baiyi says “No one dies!” as he comes bursting into WKX’s sickroom. And then even reiterates it – “No one dies before me!” But then the voiceover during the qi transfer, he’s supposedly going on about here’s how WKX is going to have to kill himself to save his husband? I think the script has dropped the ball in a few places, but that would really be a tremendous flub. That also deserves some unpacking, but I’m running out of free time right now.

So, just some additional thoughts. I will probably have more, but next up, I think, will be a re-watch from the beginning.

One last thought, tho’: What’s the likelihood that Nian Xiang is Actual A-Xiang and Goa Xiaolian’s/Deng Kuan’s kid is Cao Weining, reincarnated?

#zhou zishu #wen kexing #zhang chengling #gao xiaolian #deng kuan #ye baiyi #word of honor #word of honor episode reax

[ariainstars]

Did Princess Leia Love Her Son?

Warning: long post. (And possible unpopular opinions ahead.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This entry is slightly more personal than my others; I might be kicking up some dust but I will try to approach a subject that to most people is unthinkable. I went through psychical abuse for decades, so I believe I know what I’m talking about. 

Some mothers don’t love their children. 

I am aware that most people on this planet are convinced that a mother, any mother, will love her child no matter what. Unfortunately, the idea is seen through very rose-tinted glasses.

Some mothers don’t love their children because they can’t. 

The reasons can vary - honestly, I don’t see many parallels between Leia and my own mother. But I know the signs. And the more I think about it the more I get the distinct impression that Leia did not love for her son, if we define “love” as the faith in someone’s goodness. Padmé knew that there still was good in her husband until her last breath, and Luke believed the same of Vader, even though his father had done nothing but hunting and terrorizing him and his friends. Leia, on the contrary, feared her son since before he was born, and her conviction of his evil nature never abated although he never hurt anyone for many years. The fact that her fear runs so deep says volumes; even more so when we consider that she is the only one who did not directly get hurt by him. Han was stabbed through by his son, before Chewie’s eyes; and Luke was left by his nephew for dead, even if the tragedy at the temple had not been intentional on Ben’s side (see The Rise of Kylo Ren by Charles Soule, the story therein is officially part of the canon).

I anticipate, again, that I think one of the sequel’s worst faults was to explain so little and leave so much to the audience to deduce from things unsaid, hints, and parallel situations throughout the saga. (One of the reasons being, I guess, the release of The Last Jedi: we saw from the general audience’s reactions on social media what can happen when unpopular though realistic things are said.)

Leia - A Princess Without a Realm

Let us recapitulate what we know about Leia. She grew up serene and protected on a beautiful planet with adoptive parents who loved her and gave her a good education. She is an intelligent, confident woman, strong in her ideals and beliefs. She never shows fear or sorrow, not even when her home planet is blown up before her eyes, when she is held prisoner and tortured, when she has to watch the man she loves being frozen in carbonite before her eyes, when she finds her brother crippled, when she is held by a disgusting lecher like Jabba, or when she learns that Vader is her own father.

Being raised a princess, Leia was probably taught very strong self-control: no matter what she had to endure, she never buckled down or lost her countenance. It cannot be denied however that much of her adult life was traumatic. What we euphemistically see as “adventures” and “all’s well that ends well” in the classic films would leave any person with a huge post-traumatic stress disorder; and Star Wars is, as far as I can judge, a psychologically well-studied story. 

From the novels we learn that Han and Leia got married shortly after the battle of Endor, and that their son was born about a year later. One year is not much to recover after a war that cost so many lives and made all of them suffer so much. Han was probably more resilient than the twins due to the life he led before he met them; but he had been through a lot, too. Even if they loved their son with parental instinct, they both were not ready for the task of parenthood. And Ben was not an easy child: from his adult self we can deduce that he was always oversensitive and very intelligent. His family, like many well-meaning families, chose his future (his profession, we might say) and never explained his family’s past to him. But like any child with an emotional nature, Ben sensed that something was wrong about him; he did not know what it was since nobody told him about his grandfather; and wanting desperately to be loved, he began to blame himself, accepting the connotation “I am a monster” since he was still a child. 

Leia had felt both her son’s power in the Force and Snoke’s influence on his mind since he was still in her womb. Let us only try to imagine the horror she must have felt, knowing that a new Darth Vader might come from her! It is difficult to say for whom she feared most - her son, herself or the galaxy at large. Leia was adamant that he had to become a Jedi, hence her quarrels with her husband, which their son sometimes overheard. But since he was ultimately sent to training with his uncle, he also understood that his father had not managed to prevent his being sent away, like a defective item that needed to be fixed. 

Kylo told Rey that “Han would have disappointed her” and later said to her and Finn “Han Solo can’t protect you”: so, he obviously felt Han had come short of a father’s primary duty, i.e. keeping his child safe. Let us remember for a moment how crucially important this message always was through the saga: Shmi let her son, the only thing that had made her happy, join the Jedi so he could be free. Owen and Beru sacrificed themselves to prevent the Imperial stormtroopers from finding Luke together with the droid. Anakin betrayed the Jedi order in his despair to keep his family (wife and unborn children) safe. And Ben fell to the dark not due to Snoke’s influence, he resisted him for over twenty years; he only rebelled and left his uncle’s temple after an attempt on his safety. 

We do not learn (to my knowledge) whether Ben was in contact with his parents during his years at Luke’s temple. It is not mentioned however, so I assume that even if he was, nothing noticeable happened. Han sees his son again when he is a grown man… and I find it interesting that the scene has a sexual connotation. Ben does not notice his old man at all, although he can sense him in the Force (later on Starkiller Base he does), he only cares about securing Rey. And Han sees him carrying her away like a bride, probably wondering how his little boy grew to be this unknown, dark, hooded figure, who wreaks terror on Takodana yet is surprisingly gentle with a girl.

From The Rise of Kylo Ren we learn that Ben had not intentionally caused the fire at his uncle’s temple; but he had been blamed for it by his surviving fellow students and chased by them off the planet. In TFA, we learn Leia did not doubt for one moment that Luke’s narration of the night at the temple was true. She blamed Snoke, but it never occurred to her that Ben might be innocent - her own son. She did not try to communicate once in all the years he was Kylo Ren but left him alone while he damned his soul committing crime after crime. Luke never told her the truth, even when he met her again one last time, and she did not question it. Leia did send her estranged husband to “get their son back”, but obviously she did not consider actively participating in this task. We only see mother and son “interact” emotionally from time to time; they never meet and never talk. Ben sees his father, has a conversation with him, Han even touches him; Luke does not touch him and they don’t exactly have a dialogue, but at least they meet. To me, that is significant. 

When mother and son sense one another on two different ships at the beginning of The Last Jedi, Leia’s mind is perfectly silent. We merely see that Ben feels his mother is aboard, which makes him pull his finger from the trigger. But his expression changes: from belligerent and angry, he becomes vulnerable, shy. He even looks more boyish. Ben is aware that his mother disapproves of his choices, but he has no chance to explain to her how things could come this far.

„You can’t go back to her now. Just like I can’t.” Kylo (intending Leia) to Rey in The Rise of Skywalker 

Leia does not know her son. She wants him back “home”, but to her, that means fighting by her side; it does not occur to her that her son is fighting for his life, that he became a war criminal without having wanted it, and that he can’t simply go back and put himself to trial: he is aware that nobody would believe him. Fatalism caught up with him and his family the way it already had with Anakin. His mother and uncle always felt that he was doomed; and since they believed it, the galaxy at large believes it, too. Snoke knew that by pushing Ben to patricide he would shut all remaining doors for his apprentice - nothing but self-hatred left for him, no way to go back even if he had found the courage. What was he supposed to do, go back and say, “Hi mom, sorry I killed dad (your husband)”? It baffles me to this day how many fans believe that he that he “chose the Dark Side” and that he could just as easily switch sides, like nothing had happened. 

Leia never trusted anyone who was not on her side. In ANH she immediately hit it off with Luke, who not surprisingly turns out to be her twin brother; and as we learn in TFA, she and Han fought all through their marriage, though that didn’t prevent them from loving one another. Leia either expects someone to think the way she does, or to be only just so different that she can keep him in check. 

“Han - don’t do it.” “Do what?” “Whatever you have in mind - just don’t do it!” Han and Leia in The Force Awakens

This reaches a sad and somehow grotesque turn when Leia takes Rey as her apprentice. With her brother dead, Leia is the only one left to do it; and though it is understandable that someone must carry on the Jedi knowledge, I myself would be extremely wary of training a girl who is none other than the flesh and blood of the man I fought against for years and who caused so much death and terror throughout the entire galaxy. 

Leia had not met Palpatine though; her horror of the Dark Side was embodied by Vader, who had imprisoned and tortured her, forced her to watch while her home planet was blown up before her eyes, frozen her boyfriend in carbonite and maimed her brother. Leia never forgave Vader, and even if unconsciously, she probably blamed him for having somehow come back in the son she was carrying. I doubt whether Luke ever talked to his sister about Vader and told her about the broken, sad old man he found behind the mask. There is nothing suggesting that they did, and besides Luke and Leia both do not seem to me like two people very prone to introspection, they always look to the future. (Which is of course a good thing, but then again denying traumata always backfires.) 

„Skywalker, still looking to the horizon. Never here�� The need in front of your nose.” Yoda in The Last Jedi 

Leia did not want to repeat with Rey the mistakes she had made with Ben and that’s good and well; however, she feared her son but was not in the least afraid of Rey. Maybe she “always knew who Rey was”, but she obviously never knew who her own son was. As Count Dooku once said to Obi-Wan, the Dark Side clouded her judgement - preventing her from seeing the human in Ben, and from seeing the monster in Rey. This is not due to their respective bloodlines, but because Rey’s uncompromising attitude is familiar to Leia, while her son’s stormy, questioning mind is unfamiliar and frightening to her. 

Though Leia did not actively order Rey to kill Kylo, they were on opposite sides of the war; and Rey practically kills him with his own mother’s help and thanks to her training. Both women know what they are doing and they are acting on their own initiative. Obi-Wan and Yoda also had wanted to groom Luke into killing Anakin, but this one was not aware of his connection to him; and Obi-Wan in particular was not plotting against his own flesh and blood, even though he did raise Anakin like a younger brother. 

Comparing Leia with the other Star Wars mothers makes her failure even more evident. Shmi was an ordinary slave, probably not even learned, but she raised her son to be a good boy and always believed in him; giving him away was a sacrifice for her. Her son was everything she had, which is why she gave him so much in return. Leia has her background as a princess, her military and political career, her husband, her brother, her friends: so, of course her son wasn’t everything for her. Leia gave Ben away hoping that Luke would form him into a powerful ally for her Cause. The mistake both women made was thinking that growing up as Jedi would be good for their sons. When Anakin left his mother, he had everything to gain: freedom, a place in life, and (he hoped) the chance to come back and free his mother as well. When Ben left home, he had everything to lose: his family to which he most probably had no contact, his wish of becoming a pilot, the chance of a family of his own since a Jedi is not supposed to get married. The ways of the Jedi let each of them down, although their backgrounds couldn’t differ more. 

Many fans criticize that in RotS Padmé, the brilliant strategist and brave fighter of the first two prequel films, is ostensibly reduced to “barefoot and pregnant”. It is true that Padmé has laid down her mandate and of course she wants to protect her unborn, but that does not make her passive: shortly after having witnessed a political putsch and with it the end of all her political aims, she walks into the lion’s den on Mustafar, vulnerable and alone, to get her husband out of there, although she was told that he committed a carnage at the Jedi Temple and knew that he was capable of that (years prior, he had told her about the Tusken village himself). But she still believed in him. 

There is an obscure flashback scene in The Rise of Skywalker, where during their training Leia says to Luke that she will become a Jedi only on the death of her son. This makes perfect sense: a Jedi always must face his own darkness to finish his training. Being in a way the reincarnation of her father, her son is her Dark Side, the one she refuses to face. Leia already knows or senses that she and her son will be on opposite sides, and that in order to become a Jedi and become one with the Force, she will have to confront her own child. The act is physically carried out by Rey’s hand: Rey was her pupil, she was like an adopted daughter in her son’s stead to her, Leia had sent her on the mission to retrieve the wayfinder, she was the one who called Ben when they were dueling, so in a way, it actually is Leia who kills Ben. It is her incapacity to love her son for being himself, as a person and not as a projection of her own darkness, that causes his tragic fate. 

Leia is oddly distanced from her son; she expects him to deliver, i.e. become a good Jedi, or at least submit himself to her mercy. She never understood his dilemma in the slightest - that he never wished to be a Jedi, and that he also had not wanted to become an evil warlord but was pushed into it when there was nothing left for him to do. He had to become a Jedi or nothing; she would not have accepted him simply for being himself (the way his father did). 

 Ben - Child and Grandchild Of War 

Leia and Luke fail to rebuild the “better world” of the Old Republic because they both don’t acknowledge that this world does no longer exist and that it can’t be restored. Leia is a princess, but Alderaan is gone; Luke is the last Jedi, and the Jedi are extinct. It is their refusal to accept that the past is over that ultimately leads both of them to disaster. And in a way, Ben understands that the way Luke does, eventually. 

“Let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. It’s the only way to become what you were meant to be.” Kylo Ren in The Last Jedi “It’s time for the Jedi to end.” Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi

Ben is a child and grandchild of war; both generations before him had to watch people they cared or were responsible for suffer and die. He grows up in a period of peace, but like any child whose parents have not overcome war traumata, their pain is handed down to him like a cursed heritage. His family keeps him warm and fed, clothed and instructed, but they fail capitally when it comes to his emotional needs; as for any questions he may have, they choose to simply ignore them. They fail him long before the disaster at Luke’s temple: it is only the last drop. Like Anakin before him, he feels betrayed, abandoned and left behind by the ones whom he chiefly ought to be able to put his trust into. 

We are confronted over and over with the strength of the Light in Ben: even when he commits the patricide he hates what he is doing, and afterwards he is traumatized, his self-hatred deeper than ever. While Anakin projected his anger and frustration to the outside, Ben will rather hate himself. But their emotional reaction to their mothers are the same - both could not be by their mothers’ side in her dying moment, and both feel like they let her down, taking the blame on themselves. 

Remember how Ben turns around immediately, on the Death Star ruin, right in the middle of a fight with the girl he loves, who is in the throes of the Dark Side, who he wants to protect from herself at all costs - all because his mother calls him? It looks like she is trying to prevent him from doing evil; but if that is the case, it only proves how little she understands him. Her son was not doing anything bad, on the contrary, he had found the girl whom she herself had trained under the influence of her own malignant self, and was trying to make her reason and accept herself instead of projecting her fears and her anger onto him. 

“The Dark Side is in our nature. Surrender to it.“ Kylo Ren in The Rise of Skywalker 

In TFA, Han faced his son personally; on that fatal bridge on Starkiller base Ben at first walked away from him although he sensed him, when Han called him he did not turn around, and he resisted Snoke’s order to kill him as long as he could; he would not have managed to do it had Han not understood what was going on and allowed his son to kill him so he could save his soul with his forgiveness and unconditional love.

On the bridge of the ruins of the second Death Star, Ben does not struggle at all when his mother calls him. Maybe because he feels that she’s dying; but I also believe that it was what he had waited for all along - his mother finally reaching out to him. In that moment his fate is sealed: Rey stabs him through, annihilating his Kylo Ren persona. From now on, he’s Ben, the name his mother called him by. This is the moment of his redemption and also the beginning of his end.

Ben did need Kylo. Kylo Ren was his Dark Side, and like his grandfather Anakin, Ben Solo was meant to be the Balance. We could already have guessed, in this moment, that he was not meant to survive; in order to live he ought to have learned to reconcile both parts of himself, Light and Dark, not to shed one of them. His moments of heroism on Exegol, thought few, show us how powerful he can be when he is in balance. But neither Rey nor Leia (or Han, for that matter) ever acknowledged Kylo’s right to exist, or understood the importance of Balance for lasting peace. 

This scene just proves how desperate Ben was for his mother’s approval. All it needed was one gesture, one word. He did not want to be a Jedi; my guess is that he accepted to be his uncle’s apprentice in hopes that this would teach him to become more the kind of man his mother wanted him to be. Luke was an unreachable role model before his eyes; no matter what he did, Ben was always aware that he could not come up to his standard. Luke was a galactic legend, a savior, a saint-like figure ever since Ben was a child, and Ben neither was that way nor did he want to: in his heart, Ben is a normal boy who wants to be seen as a person. Anakin and Luke were affectionate and searching for emotional connection, too, but both also wanted to prove themselves. Ben does not strike me at all as being ambitious. He is neither truly hero nor villain but, in the first place, someone who wants to love and be loved. He wants to live his own life, make his own choices, have control over his own fate, protect his dignity as a human being and as a man. This is often misinterpreted as being “power-hungry”, but to me, these are very natural desires. And he has to carve his own way; he can’t simply embrace the path of the follower, because he is by nature both blessed and cursed with an extraordinary power which sets him apart from others. This is nobody’s fault. And it is much more frustrating for him than for the world around him, where, each in his way, everybody seems to think “If only he would behave!” 

Ben is aware of the fact that he never was first for anyone in his life. His parents and uncle were much more attached to one another than to him. Ben is someone who tries so hard to change, only to realize over and over that it’s not enough. And this reaches a sad and terrible peak that night at the Jedi temple, when he has to learn that despite all his efforts, Luke thinks he would be better off dead. No wonder all of his anger and frustration come to the surface when he sees his uncle again on Crait, this is obviously a rage born from a conflict of long standing. From his point of view, Luke destroyed his life. And although Luke had not wanted that, it cannot be denied that in a way he did, and worse, that he ran from his guilt instead of trying to repair the damage. 

The alternative, Ben has to find out, is not better though: the Knights of Ren and Snoke make him give up all the rest of what he is, and Snoke keeps demanding more - the ultimate sacrifice of his father, the person who was closest to him, by his own hand. 

I am aware that many fans find Kylo / Ben “embarrassing” due to his emotional tantrums. His mother, his father or uncle, or his grandfather would never have behaved like this! When they killed someone, it always had style, so it was justified… even if Kylo’s tantrums are directed towards machinery and not taken on people. Few seem to consider that he is not “immature and childish”: he is a man who was pushed to the limits of emotional endurance throughout his life. (This is also a bit personal for me - I know situations like that from own experience, smashing household articles simply because I couldn’t take it anymore. Lifelong abuse is no laughing matter.)

Ben is in a vicious circle: his strong emotionality makes him vulnerable, the abuse makes him even more emotionally unsteady, and so it goes on and on. He has no way out, except for the faint hope to find someone who will see him as a person at last. 

“I have no choice and I never did... Whether it’s Luke Skywalker or Snoke, neither one sees me as a person. I’m just a legacy, a set of expectations.” Ben Solo in The Rise of Kylo Ren, 4

That Ben loves both his mother and Rey despite the fact that one took the other as her apprentice and the other uses this training to kill him only proves the depth of his dedication. At no time we see him being jealous towards Rey, or angry at his mother because of her double standard. Ben’s love for his mother is unconditional. And his love is also unconditional for Rey, whose soul and body he saves giving up his own although she took everything from him, including his life the moment he lowered his defense.

Rey and Leia represent the general audience’s point of view: how could anyone not wish to be someone as cool as a Jedi, and getting the chance to fight against the bad guys? Ben is the other point of view, someone who indeed does not want it at all. It takes him a long time to find out what he actually wants to do with his powers: “Give a new order to the galaxy”, together with Rey. When she refuses and leaves him, he feels not only betrayed but humiliated. All he is left with is the maddening desire to burn the house down for good, the ultimate sin his uncle saves him from by sacrificing himself on Crait.

  Conclusions

One of the troubles with a weak, absent, violent or otherwise dysfunctional father figure is their repercussion on the mother figures: Padmé can’t be a mother because she is physically absent, and Leia can’t because she is emotionally absent. Much as Ben may love Leia, he knows her. He knows that to her he always was more a burden than someone she loved having around; he is aware of her fear of him, which is why he rightly assumes, after the tragedy at the temple, that she will never believe it was not his doing. 

And this is what brings me to my first point: a mother may not be capable of loving her child. She may nourish fond memories of the sweet baby and cute toddler she used to take care of, but the more the child grows, the more a traumatized mother will be terrified by the emerging personality of an intelligent child which might see through her carefully built-up walls, and even more scared of the child’s emotional development into a person she can no longer keep in control, who might doubt her, and want to make his own choices. Of course, being born with the Force is a huge responsibility. However, it cannot be denied that the Jedi Order failed, and that both Leia and her brother did not question their ways; instead, they did everything to prevent Ben from questioning them.

The actual tragedy of a dysfunctional mother-child relationship is that a mother may not really love her child, but a child instinctively loves the mother because its psychological balance roots in its faith in the mother’s love.

If unavoidable, in extreme cases the child can of course learn to let go, accept that its own mother could not love it, and that this was neither her nor the child’s fault in the first place; but that takes time and effort and needs a lot of support from other sources. Things Ben never had, because he had to fight for his life while his own mother was the general of the Resistance, each and every member of which would have killed him in cold blood had they had the chance. (Remember how Poe tried to shoot him in the back in TFA, and Rey shot at him in TLJ when he was in sickbay, wounded and unarmed? And these are the good guys.) He’s the Bad Guy, remember? Not Leia’s son. Just like Rey is the Good Heroine, not Palpatine’s heir. Nobody questions what the Good Guys do.

Leia may have loved Ben to a certain extent, but of one thing I am fairly sure: unconditional is not what her love for him was. Leia knew that there was still light in her son, but she did not realize that he was desperately searching for Balance between both sides. Leia did want him back, but only if he was willing to embrace only the Light Side and to shed the darkness in him, like that was even possible. Luke and Leia, like almost all the Jedi before them, pretended that there was no darkness in them… which made the darkness all the more powerful in someone who was closely connected to with them. 

Ben, like his grandfather, is more honest and authentic with his feelings than the people he knows. That he so often errs results from lack of judgement; Ben reminds me of someone who keeps stumbling because he’s left in the dark. His grandfather’s is also the story of a human tragedy, precisely because Anakin, too, did not know what was going on behind stage. Luke’s story is eventually a success because Vader tells him the truth, which first shocks him but then makes him develop a strong and mature personality. 

Star Wars is about a family made unhappy by a distorted idea of masculinity; an idea mostly brought up and propagated by the Jedi. Both the detached type like Mace Windu, Obi-Wan or Yoda and the cruel and sardonic Vader are a product of this attitude. We have until now never seen a happy family during the course of the whole saga, with a united couple of parents growing and protecting their children together. Anakin became a villain simultaneously with being a father; I find it interesting that his son Luke seems to have escaped this fate partly because he never was confronted with fatherhood. 

Leia wants her son back as her child; she does not expect him to become a grown man who makes his own choices. One of the things that make the final trilogy of the saga so dissatisfying is, to me, that a Skywalker man again was denied the dignity to be on his own, to develop a healthy masculinity and to make his own choices instead of being expected to simply do what he was told. 

Not surprisingly, Ben is saved by his father, the most human of the bunch. Smuggler, adventurer, “nobody”, cheater, thief, war general… Han Solo was always first and foremost himself, which is why he understands his son’s human side best. As Luke is a Jedi, Leia is a princess. She never is a mother above everything else, the way Shmi was. Unconsciously or not, she places power above family. Ben calls his father “Dad” in TRoS (in TFA he referred to him by his name); he never calls Leia “mother”. 

Of course, like Luke, Obi-Wan and all the Jedi before them, Leia has no truly bad intentions. She does want her son to be safe and happy - on her conditions. She cannot understand his desire to reconcile with the darkness inside of him, respectively to take Vader’s skeleton from the family closet; she accepts only a part of him. When Ben finally “comes home”, in death, it is as Han’s and Leia’s child. And this also, unbeknownst to her, causes Rey’s lonely fate since her mate, her other half in the dyad, is gone. 

The heroes of old have proved incapable of giving their son and heir the support he would have needed; when they faced their guilt it was too late; and still after death, none of them accepted the Dark Side’s right to exist. Ben “comes home” purged from his sins, without having integrated the two parts of himself, and leaving the greatest power in the galaxy in the hands of a young woman who is very far from understanding Balance in the Force, or only the necessity and importance of it.

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

What does all of this mean for us, as the audience? Maybe that it’s time to grow up. Becoming an adult has much to do with seeing the limitations of the people (heroes) you used to trust blindly when you were a child. Many people never accept that, or feel let down for life. I think the wisest course is to learn how to grow and mature together with your people you used to admire, to learn from one another precisely because none of us is perfect, but we all can grow and mature the ones through the others.

The Rise of Skywalker told us, among other things (though not saying so openly) that even a positive and universally liked character like Princess Leia is not immune to the Dark Side of the Force, and that she may support it fully convinced of doing the right thing. It does not make the good she did undone, and does not deny her positive sides. And it does not say that we can’t love her any more. Anyone is entitled to be annoyed by these revelations. Leia is not a bad person, she’s human. But waking up from our ideals of heroism and happy endings may be more to the point for our own growth. 

Our parents, our heroes, anyone can err for many reasons. To see their mistakes does not mean giving up on their or our ideals; the good things they stand for are still valid. Yet seeing their weaknesses and finding our own way to honor those ideals is perhaps a better way to get on with our lives than thinking that there is someone, anyone in the world we can look up to because they are, and always will be, perfect. 

  Side Note: Speculations 

Although many affronted fans claim so, the heroes of the OT were not dismantled by the ST: Luke, Han and Leia each in his own way show their heroism again in their respective situations. But it is also made abundantly clear that where they failed was their duty towards the next generation. The thought is of course disturbing because a mother is supposed to give affection to a child, a father to offer it protection and advice, a mentor to foster its capacities. In Ben’s case, all three of them failed blatantly. That they managed to do so with Rey, a perfect stranger to their family, would be acceptable if she were not the offspring of Palpatine of all people. As it is, her “inheritance” of the Skywalker legacy feels as unearned as Ben’s failure and death feel undeserved. 

Parents in Star Wars always have failed their children because they were in some way absent. Anakin, Luke and Ben, all three generations of Skywalkers, suffer from a father trauma. Anakin was always a father, never a son; Luke always a son, never a father. Which brings me back to the point I can’t give up on: a healthy father figure, someone who was a son and becomes a father, who went to the Dark Side but came back, who was not only redeemed but also rehabilitated, and finds an equally strong mother figure by his side, is essential if the galaxy is ever to find lasting Balance. I am not giving up hope. 😉

#star wars #leia organa #ben solo #kylo ren #han solo #luke skywalker #anakin skywalker #darth vader #palpatine #the force awakens #the last jedi #the rise of skywalker #padme amidala #shmi skywalker #dysfunctional family #read more #princess leia #motherhood

[panic-and-procrastinate-writing]

Chapter 5: The Investigation

The two of you did research for the rest of the morning, and well into the evening. The vigilante had made a list of all the things that stuck out to him about the painting and asked you which details felt like leads, and if you should follow them.

When you looked over the list and the painting, you became unsettled from the amount of feelings you got from so many little clues.

Some of the clues drew you in, made you want to research and investigate for hours on end, to never leave a road unturned until you had thoroughly searched it, until you knew everything about the lead.

Other clues left you angry, made your blood boil and fists clench, made you want to rip that painting to shreds and then burn it in a dumpster. The detail and time and planning that monster took in hurting someone like that, the pleasure that psychopath got from it. It made you furious.

But most of the clues left you terrified. Made your chest tight and the air too thick. Left you sweating like you were in a heatstroke, but covered in goose bumps and all your hairs on end like it was the coldest night of the year.

Those clues, the terrifying ones, were the ones that would lead you straight to him. So, you followed them.

The leads were: The plants, that wrapped around the body and cushioned it against the paved road. The cotton tunic, that the victim wore when she bled to death. And the weapons, that killed the victim and held her in place for all to watch as she died.

The location meant something too, but until the next murder happened, that clue would have to wait.

So, you got on with the investigation. You discussed and brainstormed each lead, and how they felt, and he listened.

He actually listened.

You thought that he would be more serious and do the investigation in a more conventional way than listening to the word of psychic, but apparently, you actually can’t judge a book by its cover.

Either way, you were making some progress. You had taken down the cork board from in your kitchen and hung it in your living room, to make your own crime board, and on it you hung everything you discussed.

You talked about the spears, and how they were not meant for actual battle, as the gold and silver was pure and much too soft for any kind of conflict. Therefore, they were for decoration, and the intricate carvings in the spears meant nothing other than to make it look pretty.

The sick bastard wanted to make her murder look pretty.

Disgusting.

But this meant that they were expensive, and since there was 6 spears in total, that meant a hell of a lot of money. And the only people able to really afford to buy or make those spears was the high-class of Gotham, and you didn’t get the vibe that the murderer was living in luxury, so you made the call that he wasn’t high-class, and that he probably stole them.

The vigilante had told you that if the murderer stole them, then there was probably a police report, and so you had generously made a post it note on the crime board to remind him to hack into the GCPD database.

He chuckled after you, and you had smiled to yourself, proud of making something so serious a little silly.

But you weren’t done.

You continued and talked about how the gown was simple, but you could feel it being a constant. You made another note saying how the next victim was probably going to be wearing a gown too, and the one after that as well. Actually, every victim was going to wear one, and every gown was going to be covered in red.

It was frightening, but there was meaning behind it.

So, you got out some plain white paper and made a mind map of all the things a white cotton tunic could mean, and stuck that to the board too.

With the mind map in place, there were many ideas on the board. The vigilante piped up and said that whilst meaning was great and all, unless it could tell you where the murderer was, it was practically useless.

You gave him a look of annoyance and told him to stop being small minded, you weren’t done.

You made some more notes on the cork board, circling the phrases of pure and innocent underneath the word white. You then wrote the word ritual and made a small note underneath it of how it almost looked like a sacrifice, for people would be forced to wear simple things when these things happened, and usually virgins, who were connotated as pure and innocent, were usually sacrificed.

The vigilante then understood and let you carry on, but remained focused on you.

Feeling proud and confident, you stuck another note on the board with the idea to find out where the gown was bought from, and to see where it was delivered too, because the chances were that this guy probably bought in bulk with more murders in mind.

With the gown lead at its limit for the time being, you moved on to the plants.

The plants were a whole other lead. There were 6 types of plants in the scene, and all of them meant something. You told the vigilante that all of the main leads had something in common, that they were beautiful, but had deeper meaning behind them. They weren’t just for appearances.

He told you again, meaning can only go so far in helping you catch a murderer.

You gave him the middle finger.

You wrote a list of all the plants at the scene, and actually had to do some research on what some of them were.

That intrigued you.

The fact that you couldn’t instantly recognise the plants meant that they weren’t local, and he put effort into getting those specific plants.

Also, the arrangement was ugly. You weren’t a florist or any kind of master flower arranger, but with your creativity you could tell that the colours and placement were all wrong, and the flowers and plants that he used didn’t belong together at all.  

What was he thinking?

But when finding out what those specific flowers were, you came across the language of flowers, and it suddenly clicked in your head.

Everything had a double meaning.

In the 19th century floriography became more apparent, and everyone was using flowers to say what they were really feeling.

And the murderer was doing the same thing.

He was leaving a message.

And the vigilante said meaning was useless.

You noted ‘flower language’ down and stuck it to the board. You had to see all your cards.

The victim was laid down on a bed of wheat, impaled by silver and gold spears, covered with beautiful intricate carvings.

You dug a little deeper and found out that wheat symbolised wealth and prosperity. So did silver and gold.

Well that didn’t make any sense.

The victim was just a civilian, and yet he pinned her down to die on a bed of wheat.

A bed of wealth.

But she was stabbed with wealth too.

So, what? Wealth killed her and left her to sleep on money?

But the killer wasn’t living in luxury. You knew this. But he insisted that money killed her.

Was money the motive?

He killed her for money?

No, she didn’t have money, she was just a civilian, a normal person. Like every girl in Gotham she was probably working 3 jobs to keep herself afloat because wages weren’t rising.

And yet…

You got a feeling there was more to her.

You made a post it note to ‘find out more about the victim’ and stuck it to the board.

There was a reason behind everything he did, and you had to find out if you wanted to catch him.

 A cup of coffee was held in front of you, and you were brought out of your thoughts. The vigilante stood next to you, offering you a drink, and you generously took it.

You sighed after you sipped it, the warm drink soothing you and energising you at the same time.

God, how long had you been at this? You checked the clock next to you and read 3:28. Jesus, it had been at least 5 hours, and then some. Sighing, you walked over to your sofa and collapsed, desperately needing a break.

The vigilante followed you and sat next to you, his eyes watching you as you relaxed.

“You know, you’re pretty good at this, this being your first investigation an all.” The vigilante’s mechanical voice complimenting you as you continued to revel in the comfort of coffee. You hummed in agreement, his praise making your cheeks warm.

“Well, you did say that being psychic is perfect for detective work.”

He smiled at your smug tone, and the apartment was comfortably quiet, save for the ticking of the clock and the cars on the street.

But your thoughts were still racing. You still hadn’t broken down what any of the other plants meant, and yet you were already stuck. It was frustrating.

Sighing, you thought about the other leads, and wondered how they would pan out. Actually, you thought a lot about how the vigilante would get the details you needed. Without the answers to the questions on the board, you were never going to get any further.

You decided asking him was the best option.

Except he cut you off before you could even speak.

Rude.

“It’s going to start getting dark at around half 8, are you going to be okay with me leaving around then?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I be? You’re not a prisoner.” You said, all the while slurping up that sweet, sweet caffeine.

“I just, don’t want you having another panic attack or something.”

That made you pause.

You weren’t sure how feel about that. On one hand, it felt kind of insulting that he thought of you so fragile after you had literally accused him of murder whilst thinking he was a murderer, on the other hand, it felt nice that he cared so much. That he didn’t want to leave you in case you got into trouble again.

That he wanted you to be okay.

You also weren’t sure if your cheeks were flushing from anger or from fondness.

Either way you wanted to tell him to go fuck himself. But you didn’t, instead you answered calmly and said “I’ll be fine, unless the murderer literally knocks on my door then I don’t think I’ll have another panic attack.”

He hummed in thought before saying “Okay. I’ll leave at half eight then.”

He went quiet again, but you could feel him holding back. He wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how to phrase it, and you knew that the longer he waited the more his confidence would drift and he would never be able to say it, so you asked him:

“Is there anything else?”

He gawked at you for a bit before smiling to himself, he was starting to appreciate your sixth sense. But then he turned serious and said “Are you sure you want to help with this investigation?”

You gave him a look that said ‘really?’ but answered seriously and said “Of course, I literally have a crime board on my wall and the meaning of flowers favourited on my home page, I’m in this and I wanna be.”

You placed your cup on the coffee table and turned to him properly so he could see you were being serious, but he was still doubtful.

“Are you sure though? It’s dangerous, getting involved with this kind of life. You could be seriously hurt if anybody knows about you. Are you prepared to take that risk?”

You contemplated his words, but your mind was still set. You understood, and you were prepared.

“I think I’ve been scared since the day I was born. I’ve always had anxiety; I don’t actually remember a time when I didn’t have anxiety. I’m always scared of being hurt, or killed. And for my entire life I’ve hidden away and never helped anybody when I could have. I could have done so much, and prevented so many bad things from happening, but I didn’t. I just stayed indoors, scared of my own shadow, and pretending that I can’t do anything because I’m not enough.”

You paused, and let him take in your words, before continuing.

“But then a drugged up stubborn vigilante crashed through my window and died on my floor.” He chuckled and you smiled to yourself. It really was that crazy.

“I was terrified. A person who I had never met before that was ten times bigger than me invaded my safe space and decided to die in it. I didn’t know what to do, and I cried. But I got over it, and knew if I didn’t help you then you would be worse off. Besides, you were literally in my house, it was either help you or throw you out the window.” You both laughed quietly at that.

“And then I thought you were a murderer and I almost killed myself panicking. But then you stopped me from suffocating and brought me back down to earth. You took care of me and cleaned up what mess I had made and got me clothes and just, helped.”

“It felt nice. I really appreciate you helping me.” Your cheeks flushed as you smiled and played with the hem of your shirt. But then you bit your lip in thought and said “I was going somewhere with this, what was it?”

He snickered and reminded you “You were convincing me why you want to be a part of this investigation.”

“Oh, yeah. Right, the point is, I thought you were a psychopath who was going to kill me and I still confronted you. I literally faced my fear, and it turned out to be okay. I’m scared all the time, of literally everything, and for way too long it has stopped me from doing the right thing.”

“But now, I have you.” Your face lit up like a traffic light, but you ignored your growing embarrassment and continued. “Your proof that I can get over it, that I can face my fear and do the right thing, even when I think I’m going to die. And I can do more. I want to do more. I want to make up for all the times I could have done something but didn’t, and I want to do the right thing. Isn’t that enough?”  

He looked at you fondly as you peered up at him, and your face grew brighter.

Why was he looking at you like that?

“Yeah, that is enough. I’ll leave at half eight, but I’ll be back tomorrow night to see if you have any other visions or if you come up with anything else, okay?” His voice was monotone, but his face still had that smile on it.  

You squeaked out a small “Yeah” and then got up to go to the kitchen. If he wasn’t going to stop looking at you like that then you were going to not look at him period. Besides, you were starving, and you were craving the donuts Neveah had bought you yesterday.

*

After your conversation with the vigilante, you had had a small something to eat and then got back to work. You did eventually ask him how he was going to continue to follow the leads, but he just said something about having the right friends and that was it.

Either way he promised he would get answers.

And you decided you would too.

Continuing your translation of the flowers was difficult when you focused on one flower at a time. With each plant you translated, you just got more and more confused. They made no sense; the meanings had no relation and sometimes they even contradicted.

Wheat implied wealth, but thyme, which wrapped around her head and ankles, implied thriftiness. Thriftiness meant being careful with money, but she died on bed of money? Money killed her, but the victim was careful?

It made no sense.

Until you stopped translating each and every meaning, one at a time. You rationed that flower language was like every other language, and a word on its own would be useless, until it’s put in a sentence. And if every flower was one word then the solution was obvious.

Translate the whole sentence.

So, you did. You searched every flower and plant and leaf that was in the scene, without stopping to pause and ponder what each meant, and came up with some more confusing messages, and some that cleared the air.

The body was pinned to a bed of wheat, impaled with silver and gold spears. Three bouquets of thyme crowned her head, and acacia choked her. A single red dahlia rested between her breasts. From her neck down to her ankles, a sprinkling of tulip tree leaves and acanthus flowers covered her, but the white gown turning red was still visible. A bouquet of thyme was strapped to each of her ankles.

That was the scene, and each placement of the plants meant something, and now you knew what it was.

Wheat meant wealth, as did gold and silver. Thyme meant thriftiness, and acacia meant secret love. Red dahlia meant betrayal and dishonesty, tulip tree leaves meant fame, and acanthus meant art. The white gown symbolised purity and the blood symbolised hatred and death.

If you were to put those meanings in the scene, some of the fog was lifted.

The victim slept on a bed of money, and it was money that killed her. Thriftiness crowned her, and a secret love choked her. Betrayal and dishonesty were at her core. She was covered in fame and art, but it couldn’t hide the corruption of purity. Thriftiness was also at her feet.

You knew there was more to the victim. She may have been just a civilian, but everybody has secrets, and you made the guess that she was having an affair.

Secret love? Betrayal and dishonesty? The corruption of purity? It just made sense.

The fame and art? From the moment you had the vision you knew he was an artist. Or at least that’s what the murderer thought he was. He was psychotic. He actually believed he was creating a work of art, and now he thought he was famous.

To be true, he kinda was. With every murder he would be on the news, and all his work would be available for all to see.

But the money? And the thriftiness? It still confused you.

 Sighing, you dragged your hands down your face and groaned into them, venting your frustration.

You hated when you got blocked. Whether it was art block or writers block or even a psychic block, you hated it.

And you couldn’t afford to get blocked, not when the pyscho was still out there, probably already primed and ready for another murder, waiting to act out his deepest fantasies.

Groaning, you stretched and clicked your back. Deciding you needed a break, you walked over to the bathroom to refresh. You peed, washed your hands and face, and brushed your teeth.

It was small acts of hygiene that cleared you up, but made you feel much better. With your body rid of waste, your face cleared of dirt and your mouth renewed with fresh minty taste, you were okay again.

Feeling better, you walked back over to the board to look at it again. If you were blocked, then there was something you were missing. You were lacking inspiration, and that wasn’t allowed.

When facing writers block, it was usually just some paragraphs that needed rewriting because the story didn’t flow well enough. You just needed to look back and find that something that needed to be rewritten.

Something that didn’t sit right, and needed to be changed.

You looked back over the crime board, looking out for any ‘feelers’, things that might have triggered your sixth sense and screamed they weren’t right.

The spears were an okay lead. You felt a little iffy thinking about them, but other than that it was fine.

The gown was going to go somewhere, that was for sure.

But the plants…

It needed to be further broken down.

You took down all the scribbles and notes you had made about the plants and put them on the coffee table. Collapsing on the sofa, you sorted through them and looked over each one, trying to find the source of your discomfort.

You made two piles, one of facts that were right, and facts that were wrong.

Most of the facts were right, the plants were sending a message, the murderer was telling the world that she wasn’t as innocent as everyone thought the victim was. She had a dirty secret, one that probably hurt somebody.

But how did the murderer know that?

Either he had a personal connection with the victim, or he stalked her. You figured he must have stalked her, because you knew that he was going to kill again, and unless he was going to kill everyone in his life, then he wasn’t targeting people he loved.

He was targeting people with dirty secrets.

You wrote another note and added it to the ‘right’ pile.

Besides, the murderer was a loner. He was working alone, and living alone. He couldn’t kill anyone he loved because there was nobody he loved. He was your usual, over imaginative psychopath.

 There were two notes left. Wheat and thyme. Wealth and thriftiness.

The wealth was right, you were sure of it.

She was killed with money, and then left to die on it. But being an average citizen in Gotham, she couldn’t have had money.

Except… That idea felt off to you. The idea of this victim struggling for money, working 3 jobs just to survive, coming home exhausted every night, it wasn’t truth.

She came home perfectly fine because she was working only one job, one that definitely didn’t pay enough, but she was still okay.

So, who’s money did she sleep on?

Who was she sleeping with?

Her secret love, the bed of money, it was all linked. She actually had a sugar daddy. And she was lying about it. Cheating on someone who probably adored her just for money?

Bitch.

You made more notes, writing down how she wasn’t struggling for money because she was sleeping with some who had it. That’s why she slept on wealth. The bed of money wasn’t hers.

 But the spears? She was killed with money, you were certain.

But you knew that the murderer wasn’t living in luxury, you felt it. In your vision he had a scrappy rusted van that was barely working, he was wearing scratchy clothes and he felt greasy and tired like he hadn’t showered for at least a week.

He could have been some homeless guy for all you knew, because that’s what it felt like when you had your vision.

But the thought of saying he wasn’t high class, the thought of saying he wasn’t rich… it wasn’t the truth either.

You had guessed earlier and said he wasn’t high class because of your vision, but after channelling your sixth sense and properly focusing it you could tell that guess was wrong.

Which infuriated you, because what? Some rich, respected guy liked putting on a homeless outfit to kill liars? You had no idea who this guy was, and he was really starting to piss you off.

You couldn’t get a proper feel for this guy at all. He wasn’t high class, but he wasn’t poor either. He didn’t have a status or a class, he just existed and never made a mark or an impression on the world until he killed somebody. Which didn’t help narrow down who he was at all.

It was infuriating.

But you put the idea on the board, along with everything else. You couldn’t leave anything unturned; you had to look and understand every possibility.

The only thing that was left, was thyme.

The meaning, it wasn’t right. Thyme didn’t mean thrifty; the victim certainly didn’t have any problems with spending the money her sugar daddy gave her.

Which meant that thyme meant something else.

There were 3 bouquets of thyme at her head, and 2 at her feet. What did that mean?

If everything had a double meaning, then thyme had to as well.

Words sometimes had double meanings, did thyme mean something other than the plant?

Was he talking about actual time? Were the 3 bouquets referencing when he started placing the body, at 3 in the morning?

Was the 2 referencing when he was going to place the next one?

Yes, it was. It made sense, and you could feel it being absolutely correct.

This was the thing that needed to be rewritten, and now the story made sense.

The victim was a dirty little liar, a cheater and materialist, greedy for money. The murderer had been stalking her, and knew that she was bad news. He killed her, but left a message. Telling the world who she was, but at the same time, letting the world see her as beautiful and pure for one last time.

But the murderer couldn’t help himself, and hinted towards who he was too, and when he was going to place the next body.

But only the smart would be able to decode the message, or in your case, the psychic.

*

The vigilante had praised you when you told him what you had discovered, what all the flowers meant and how you could build a profile of the victim from them and your senses. How you knew what time the next body was going to drop, and when you got your next vision, you would know where it was.

Unfortunately, you didn’t know what day it was going to be, but you promised him when you next had a vision you would pay attention to all the details, and try your hardest to find out.

But either way, you were one clue away from catching him. You had the time, you would eventually have a vision of the location and maybe the day, all you had to do was wait.

You were so close.

You were vibrating with so much energy and pride, that when the vigilante left at half eight like he said he would, you were only a little sad to see him go.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, you couldn’t decide if it was good thing or not, the vigilante had to take all your notes with him.

He said he needed them so he could make copies, and you assumed it was to make his own crime board. You understood and got a folder, and basically created a case file.  

After giving it to him, you made him promise to give you copies of any new notes about the leads, and he promised he would. He assured you that you were apart of this now, and considering how far you got in only a day, he would be stupid not to include you any further.

You beamed with pride and did a little dance in your living room when he finally left, you were so close!

You were so fucking awesome.

Your phones jazzy ringtone filled the apartment, and you were brought out of thoughts. Skipping over to the coffee table, you picked it up and squealed when you saw it was Neveah.

Today just got more and more awesome.

“Halloo?” You answered in a funny voice, happiness coming off you in waves.

“Heeeyyy!” Neveah answered back, her mood just as bright and as cheery as yours. “How’s you?”

“I’m good, I’m good.” You replied, crashing on the sofa and putting your feet on the coffee table, “What about you?”

“Yeah, I’m okay, had to do a little over time to earn the raise I need, my feet are killing me from running around all day, but I’m good.” You heard her sigh over the phone, and you imagined she was in her car, finally sitting down and ready to go home. “What have you been up to today?”

You cringed at the thought of telling her the truth, but then you also cringed at the thought of lying to her. It wasn’t fair, but at the same time, the truth, you felt, was worse.

“Eh, not much, I’ve just been online trying to find someone who wans to buy my paintings, no luck yet, but it’ll be okay.” It was a half-truth; yeah you hadn’t actually been searching, but you hadn’t found a buyer either sooo…

“I’m sure it will,” she agreed “some goth or horror fan always loves your paintings.”

You hummed in agreement, and your phone call became quiet.

But something was wrong. Your happy demeanour suddenly vanished and was replaced by sickening tension.

Usually when you and Nevaeh fell quiet in conversations, it was natural and comfortable. You could just exist in each other’s presence and not need to say anything, being perfectly okay with who you were.

But this quiet was not comfortable.

This quiet felt like Nevaeh was thinking about something.

Thinking about something she did.

Thinking about whether or not she should tell you.

Ignoring the growing panic, you called her name.

You had to sort this out, now.

“Yeah?” She answered.

“Is there something you need to tell me?” You questioned, playing with the hem of your shirt nervously.

She was quiet for a while, and then “We need to talk.”

“I’m listening.” You replied instantly, hoping it wasn’t as bad as you felt it becoming.

“No, it, it needs to be face to face.” You heard her sigh, and you pictured her running her hands down her face in frustration.

You hated this. You felt utterly powerless.

What was so important that you needed to talk face to face?

Was she mad? Was she disappointed? Did she find out about the vigilante? Did she know about you lying? Did she-

“Can we meet tomorrow? I finish work early and I can pop round and make lunch?” Her voice cut through your rising panic, and you took a deep breath to calm down. She wasn’t allowed to know how much power she held over you; you would feel pathetic if she knew that one sentence could cause you to spiral.

Clearing you throat you answered “Yeah, lunch sounds good. But nothing too heavy okay?”

You were actually proud of how steady you kept your voice.

“Make it light, got it. I love you, see you tomorrow.”

“I love you too, bye.” And with a click, she was gone, and you were left alone, again.

What did you do wrong this time? 

#Jason Todd #jason todd/reader #dc #writing #fanfic #ao3 #batman #dark #anxiety #depression

[hydrangeathief]

quartet (ch. 1/?)

Summary: Soulmate tattoos are the link between those destined to be together, words scrawled onto skin in the other person’s handwriting, the first words a soul pair will ever speak to one another. It’s romantic, in a way, to think that fate itself has decided to so clearly and visibly knit couples together. Or at least, it would be, if Virgil didn’t have three different, distinct soulmate tattoos, all of which delivered far from positive messages. Human college AU. Pairing: LAMP/Polyamsanders CW: brief self-deprecation, some minor cursing, small and brief mentions of blood due to a broken nose, a panic attack but i kept the description light, and please please let me know if i missed anything!

Virgil wakes up on the floor, face mashed into the carpet, sunlight streaming through the blinds, apartment still and silent. He blinks a few times and groans, rolling over. He’s tangled in sheets and his entire body aches. Great. So he fell out of bed in his sleep. It’s a miracle he slept through it.

Slept through… oh shit. His alarm. Virgil sits up, heart pounding, and glances toward the alarm clock that sits on his bedside table. The clock itself is nowhere to be found, and he fumbles around the floor for a moment before he finds it, blank and unplugged, having been knocked over in the tumble out of bed. A quick check of his cell phone reveals that he has about fifteen minutes until his first exam starts, and he launches to his feet.

It takes him about three minutes to tug on a hoodie and shove his feet into beat-up old shoes, another two to fiddle with the child-proof cap on his anxiety medication. He swallows them dry. He’s going to need it today, especially with how late he’s running. Finals week is a bitch, and missing his first exam of the day isn’t going to make it any easier.

He spends the short drive to the university white-knuckling the steering wheel, but Virgil ends up making it to class just as the TA is handing out exams, breathless and shaking but miraculously in one piece. He spends the next hour alternately bubbling in the scantron and pausing to take deep breaths. Somehow he finishes the exam and retreats, making a beeline for his car.

Usually, he grabs lunch at the student center, but today is definitely a Bad Day, and on Bad Days Virgil usually goes home and sits in the dark until he has to drag himself back out for his evening class. Today, he has another exam in about an hour, so he’s going to have to settle for laying down in the backseat of his beat-up old secondhand car with his hoodie over his eyes to block out the afternoon sun.

“Whoever decided to schedule more than one final on the same Monday is a sadist,” he says to the discarded half-empty water bottle on the floor of the backseat. It does not respond, and he triple checks the alarm on his phone before closing his eyes.

He doesn’t sleep, but he manages to get his heart rate under control, which is a plus. The alarm goes off and he sits up, sweeping bangs out of his eyes, and steels himself for the walk to the math building. It’s not a long walk, but he thinks he must have bruised his hip when he fell out of bed last night, because it’s been aching all morning. He rubs at it absently, wincing when his fingers dig in. Yeah, it’s definitely bruised, right under where the soulmate tattoo is.

Hey, watch out! it says in thick, curling script. It had faded into existence sometime around his sophomore year of high school, and he’d been absolutely overjoyed. To think that someone as much of a mess as he was could have a soulmate! He’d spent days running his fingers over the ink, wondering just who it could possibly be. He didn’t really talk to people much, but someday someone would say those words, and they’d be absolutely smitten with one another. It was the light at the end of the tunnel that was his life. Sure, the words might not be entirely positive, but he was extremely lucky not to be one of the many with “Hi welcome to Chili’s” or “How can I help you?” printed somewhere on his skin.

And then, a month later, he’d woken up one morning to find I think my nose is broken scrawled messily on his right wrist, and he’d nearly died on the spot. Two soulmates wasn’t unheard of, of course-- people broke up or died or got tired of each other all the time. But two people being capable of loving Virgil? Laughable. The concept was entirely alien to him. He was a wreck, and it didn’t take long for him to realize that this second tattoo had far more negative connotations than the first. Hey, watch out! could mean anything, but what kind of person would meet their soulmate right after their nose was broken?

The third was a big enough surprise that he’d had one of his worst panic attacks to date about it. He’d gone to take off his shirt before bed one night and happened to glance in the mirror and frozen entirely, eyes locked on the rounded letters and bubbly script. You almost killed me! it exclaimed, and he’d felt the world drop out from under him.

Nobody had three soulmates. Nobody on Earth could be so unloveable as to need three soulmates, and absolutely nobody had three tattoos with so much negativity. He’d spent years almost hoping he’d never meet them. Clearly, his existence was not going to be a positive for any of them.

Virgil sighs and pulls himself out of his reverie. He needs all the focus he can muster if he’s going to scrape a passing grade on this differential equations final. He clambers out of the car, wincing as he tilts his right wrist in at a strange angle. He must have bruised it when he fell out of bed too.

The exam passes in a haze, but he’s pretty sure he managed that passing grade, so he doesn’t feel too worried when he makes his way back to his car. The sun is out, his heart isn’t pounding, and he doesn’t have another exam until Friday, so life is pretty good, or at least as it can get for Virgil. All he has to do is walk through campus and back to his car, and he’ll be home free.

He rubs at the skin over his heart with a frown. Man, he really must have done a number on himself falling out of bed. It’s a miracle he didn’t wake up.

That’s when he sees an orange blur out of the corner of his eye and someone screams, “Hey, watch out!”

Virgil hits the grass without a second thought. The blur--a frisbee--goes sailing over his head at a very high velocity, and he glances up just in time to see it smack directly into the face of a dude in a tie, who doubles over, clutching his face.

“Sorry, sorry,” says someone who Virgil presumes to be the owner of the frisbee. He’s tall, muscular, beautiful, and wearing a rather tight t-shirt with Greek letters on it. He offers Virgil a hand. Virgil takes it and hauls himself back to his feet, hissing at the pain in his hip. Yeah, it’s definitely a Bad Day. First he managed to bruise himself to hell and back, then he had to deal with a mad scramble to campus and survive two final exams in classes where he rarely understood the subject material, and now he’s experiencing near-death by frisbee. Lovely. Perfect.

“I think my nose is broken,” says the guy who took a frisbee to the face, and Virgil’s heart actually stops.

“What did you say?” he tries to say, but he can’t quite get the words out past the growing panic in his throat.

“You almost killed me!” someone yells excitedly, and yeah, Virgil is having a Bad Day. He’s also having a Strange Day, and quite possibly the Best Day Ever.

“Hold on, what did you just say?” says Hey, watch out and I think my nose is broken sucks in a gasp. Virgil shoves his hands into his pockets and wishes he had one of his fidget cubes to mess with, or even some loose change. His knees are already shaking, and he’s considering counting his breaths.

“I said, you almost killed me!” shouts the third guy, bouncing energetically over to where Hey, watch out has his hands on I think my nose is broken’s shoulder. There’s a thin trail of blood dripping down his thin face, and the skin there is already swelling. “Ooh, that looks bad. Are you okay?”

“I believe my nose to be broken, or perhaps severely bruised,” says I think my nose is broken. He tenderly prods at it, frowning, before giving himself a little shake.

“Oh, good!” says You almost killed me, quickly putting up both of his hands. “Not good that your nose is broken, of course! It’s just that you might be one of my soulmates!”

You almost killed me tugs back the sleeve of his gray cardigan, revealing a messy scrawl of letters that look exactly like those on Virgil’s own wrist. He sucks in a breath of surprise, heart skipping a beat, and shuts his eyes momentarily. He starts counting to four, then seven, then eight, dedicating the rest of his attention to the scene unfolding around him.

“Excellent!” shouts Hey, watch out. Curiosity forces Virgil’s eyes back open. He’s holding up his own wrist, and the words are an exact match. Both of the others stare with open grins. 

“I’m Patton,” says You almost killed me.

“Logan,” I think my nose is broken says, holding out a hand for a handshake. Patton takes it enthusiastically.

“My name is Roman,” says the third. “And I can’t bring myself to apologize for hitting you with my frisbee. Not if it means meeting the two of you.”

“Hey, about that,” Patton says. “I have a third tattoo. Either of you?”

Both nod, and Virgil is going to have to sit down. His knees are far too shaky, and his vision is starting to tunnel. He thinks that if he doesn’t sit down right this second he might actually die, but that’s when Patton notices him for the first time, and a concerned look takes over the smile on his face.

“Hey, are you okay?” he asks, taking a step toward Virgil.

“Yeah, I’m good,” is what Virgil tries to tell him, but desperation seizes control of his mouth long enough for him to blurt, “I’m having a panic attack,” and then he goes down.

Patton makes a startled noise, but Virgil is too busy pulling his knees up to his chest and choking on his breaths. He buries his face in his knees and tries to focus on the feeling of the damp grass, and gentle tug of wind through his bangs, the slight chill to the air. He counts to four. He counts to seven. He counts to eight. He does it again and again, struggling to get himself under control, but he finally manages to even it out enough to glance up.

Patton is there, kneeling in front of him, hands hovering nervously.

“I’m fine,” Virgil croaks. He’s not, not yet, but he’s fine enough to have a conversation, if not make eye contact.

“Here.” Logan appears over Patton’s shoulder, face still dripping blood, holding out a water bottle. Virgil takes it with a shaking hand and drums his fingers on the cap, making no move to open it. He sighs.

“Sorry,” he says, but Patton shushes him immediately.

“No, kiddo, don’t be sorry!” he says hurriedly. “It’s overwhelming! I’m overwhelmed! I’m sure they’re both overwhelmed!”

He throws a meaningful glance over his shoulder, and Roman nods enthusiastically. Logan tries to, but hisses through clenched teeth, hands going back to his face. A bubble of hysterical laughter rises in Virgil's chest, but he tamps it down, trying for a smile instead.

“I can’t believe this is my first impression,” he mutters, but his voice is stronger now. Patton is still sitting in front of him, staring at him not with pity or condescension, but with genuine concern. It’s nice, to have someone actually worried for him, and not just out of a desire to escape the situation.

“You think you made a bad first impression?” Roman laughs. “I broke his nose.”

“Yes, you did,” Logan complains.

“Yeah, we should probably get you to a hospital for that,” Patton sighs.

“I have a car,” Virgil offers, but immediately wants to kick himself. One of them probably has a car, and they definitely don’t want cram themselves into his tiny backseat. Plus, all his CDs are loud and aggressive, and none of them look the type to want to jam to that.

“Oh, good!” Patton says, eyes lighting up, and Virgil feels his heart do a funny little hop that has nothing to do with fear. No, he just really likes the way Patton looks when he smiles. “I do not want to brave the bus!”

“You probably should not be the one driving, though,” Logan says.

“I’ll drive!” Roman offers, and just like that, Virgil finds himself leading his three soulmates to his car and pulling up Google Maps to find their way to the nearest walk-in clinic.

((supposedly there’s a tag list somewhere of people who want to be tagged in specific types of fics in this fandom and if anyone knows where i can find that pls lemme know? thanks! <3))

#polyamsanders #my writing #a post from me #if people like this pls lemme know bc i want to write a Lot more #i want to make this into its own entire au

[alixofagnia]

Get to know your fellow Reylos meme

This will be fun! Thanks for the tag @emperorren.

Answer these 10 Star Wars related questions, reblog and tag your favorite Reylo blogs to join in!

1) Who is your favorite Star Wars character of the new trilogy (excluding Rey and Kylo)?

Wow, that is so unfair because Rey and Kylo are truly my favorites from the ST so far.

Since TLJ came out, I would say Holdo. I love how she was introduced: you didn’t quite know what her deal was (or if that was all just in Poe’s head), but you gradually understood that there was way more to her than met the eye. Some people think she was a wasted character –because apparently showing up for the first time and then dying in the same movie amounts to a wasted, pointless character (Qui-Gon, hello, is that you? Rogue One squadron, are you there?). But I saw TLJ four times in the theater and every single time people literally gasped into the silence of Holdo’s death.

So, yeah, fuck off.

2) What is/are your favorite quote(s) from a Star Wars movie?

The OT movies were my “stay-home-sick” movies when I was a kid – I played the shit out of those VHS tapes, let me tell you. So, there are a lot of quotes from the OT that are just kind of pure nostalgia for me. I’m not a huge fan of the PT and since dialogue is one issue I take with them, I hardly ever quote them except to mock “she’s lost the will to live” because I find that line so problematic, and I just hate it.

It hasn’t been until the ST that certain lines of dialogue have actually resonated with me, probably because I’m seeing them as an adult. There are a lot of terrific quotes from TLJ, but I gotta let them stew a bit longer. So the two I picked are from TFA:

Maz Kanata: The belonging you seek is not behind you. It is ahead. I am no Jedi, but I know the Force. It moves through and surrounds every living thing. Close your eyes. Feel it… The light… it’s always been there. It will guide you.

My liking this quote probably has a lot to do with Lupita N’yongo’s lovely voice and line delivery, because I remember tearing up in the theater when she started talking about the Force, and I swear to you I was not high. I just think it’s so beautifully spiritual, and when you put it into context with Rey’s journey and Kylo’s journey, or any SW character’s journey, really, it carries this deeply profound message of hope and faith.

The entire bridge scene dialogue, but mostly the moment when Han touches his son’s face:

I know it’s not a quote, but so much is contained in that single gesture.

It wasn’t shock at Han’s skewering that made my breath catch and bring a tear to my eye. It was the utterly heartbreaking grace of his final action. It’s such an unexpectedly visceral reaction and, actually, far more profound than I previously believed Han Solo capable of since he was largely a one-note character over the course of his SW career. This moment has taken on much more depth and meaning since TLJ’s release, in terms of Ben Solo’s arc, and I think it will continue to do so after Episode IX.

3) Do you think Kylo/Ben will survive Episode IX?

I have a lot of thoughts about this. Well, mostly just one.

YES.

As is obvious, Kylo Ren is one of my favorite new characters. That has nothing to do with Adam Driver, whom I had never watched before, and nothing to do with what I knew about the character, which was zero. [Srsly, I was in such an ‘I heart SW’ bubble for TFA that I did not even think about, let alone suspect, his heritage until literally the moment he was talking to Vader’s helmet.]. 

No, it has everything to do, instead, with the complex villain story-line and Byronic heroes. I love complex villainy. I adore Byronic heroes, with their tortured souls and black clothing. OF COURSE I was going to fall for Kylo/Ben. Just a bit.

But he’s also the son of Han Solo and Leia Organa and I love them, too. So, out of loyalty and like the good SW fan I am, I care about their son and what happens to him, and there’s just no hope to be found in Kylo’s death. There’s no good message in it. Even say that he’s “redeemed” or finds salvation or suffers through atonement, fine, whatever. Death is too simple. Vader was not a complex villain. Maybe in his youth he was supposed to be, but after his fall? No. He made his choice, and he chose the wrath and the Dark every day for 20 years until his son came along to rile up the long-buried conflict in his heart. No one conflicted Ben Solo more than Ben Solo himself. He’s his own worst enemy, as we all can be at some point in our lives. 

It’s repeated all the time, so I’ll say it again: 

Star Wars is a saga predicated on hope. 

The message with a dead Ben Solo at Episode IX’s end is simply that of ‘well, you can find a way back from hell, but only if you die’, and that’s really bleak. Yet, it worked for Vader because, in the OT, he was largely an unsympathetic, “more machine than man” character.

Consider: How was Darth Vader going to find salvation and atonement for 20 years’ worth of galactic terrorism and oppression?

Answer: He wasn’t. His crimes were so great and extensive that 10 minutes of “goodness” couldn’t even begin to ease them. Narratively-speaking, his story was complete and it was time for him to meet his end. Character-wise, fueled as he was on hate and anger, and sustained by machinery for so many years, you have to also wonder if Vader wanted to die, ever since the moment he was told that he’d killed his wife and, by extension, his child[ren].

This greatly contrasts with Kylo Ren.

Consider: How is Kylo Ren going to find salvation and atonement for 6 years’ worth of galactic….wait, what?

Answer: The FO as a military and political threat is fairly new. It was not a fully realized organization during the events of Bloodline, though it was (if I remember correctly) in progress in the far regions of space. Ben, aged 23, was still with Luke at this time; he’s 29 by the start of TFA. So, in the span of 6 years, Kylo Ren canonically

destroyed a temple, killing a handful of classmates

started training under a Dark side master

became the leader of a mystery group

killed an old man from his past for withholding information during war time

ordered the mass killing of a small village during war time

interrogated some prisoners during war time

committed patricide during war time

fired on his mom’s ship during war time

killed his abusive master

led a full-scale yet futile attack during war time

tried to kill a projection of his uncle during war time

all while exhibiting acute internal conflict. It’s important to consider the majority of these crimes strictly within their context of war, primarily because it’s in the damn franchise title, but also because it again contrasts with Anakin’s crimes, which were not always within the context/name of war. It’s such a different villain treatment from OT Vader that I think Kylo not only deserves, but demands an equally different resolution. 

Therefore, here’s a much more hopeful message on which to conclude the complex villainy of Kylo/Ben and, thus, the entire Skywalker saga:

You can find a way back from hell, if you live well.

4) What is your favorite scene featuring Rey and Kylo?

Ah, shit.

Well, the throne room battle was amazing and the closest to definitely-on-the-same-page as they’ve ever been to date. But I think I have to say the fourth Force bond scene. Hand making-out aside, this scene truly can be read as merely platonic, which I actually love because it’s another example of how this movie as a whole is so versatile and open for varying interpretations and discourse, for years to come! 

AT THE SAME TIME, I personally feel that the hand touch (from the skin-on-skin contact, which the camera lovingly and reverentially sexualizes, to the forbidden connotation of Cock-block Luke) sent these two really rolling on a romantic trajectory. This scene also won over many viewers, whose previous feelings about Reylo were lukewarm at best and are now overwhelmingly positive. And that’s because of one undeniable thing: 

This is the most emotionally vulnerable we’ve seen either Rey or Kylo.

It’s a major turning point in both their shared interactions and as individual characters. There’s a lot of amazing meta out there right now about Rey and Kylo, articulated far better than what I can produce. So, what I want to quickly add is that, for me, this scene reveals how utterly unselfish they can be with one another. Born from a place of intense, mutual knowing, they offered one another sincere support and reassurance from opposite sides of a political and ideological war. We later learn that this moment of reaching out yielded a shared vision, one where they saw themselves together. 

A key takeaway is that they not only acknowledge this vision as truth, but earnestly –almost desperately– welcome it.

For me, this scene alone transcends the depictions of other cinematic romantic pairings within Star Wars itself, the wider genre of sci-fi, and the scale of big-budget franchises. I know I’m biased, but it’s quite frankly unbelievable how much was established and advanced between Rey and Kylo in two and a half hours of screen time, which they had to share with two other interwoven plot lines. For comparison, we have a good 80-90% of AotC entirely devoted to Anidala, and the most I’ve ever felt for them is a tepid interest because George Lucas and the OT said I had to. Written on paper, the Force connection scenes honestly sound super corny, this one especially. That they’re actually some of the film’s strong points is a testament to the story-telling/directorial abilities of Rian Johnson as well as the chemistry and talent of Daisy Ridley and Adam Driver, of course.  And the great thing is Reylo isn’t even over! Think how much screen time will be devoted to them in IX and what they could do with that! 

This is bound to change upon repeat viewings and/or after IX comes out. But for now, yeah, this is my favorite Rey and Kylo scene.

5) What order did you initially see the saga films in?

I think I was 5 or 6 and I think it was Return of the Jedi first, then A New Hope and Empire (in that order) shortly after. The rest I’ve seen as they’ve been released.

6) If you had a lightsaber, what color would you want it to be?

Maybe like an ice white blue…I’m not much of a lightsaber gal.

7) What are your top 3 favorite Star Wars films?

I’m tentatively going to say Empire, Force Awakens, Last Jedi.

8) Which droid would you most like to own/ have as your sidekick on intergalactic adventures?

What’s that Empire/FO “mouse” droid called? Maybe that one.

9) Which Jedi master would you most like to train under: Luke, Yoda, Qui-Gon or Obi-Wan?

Pfffft. Please. Reylo, obviously.

10) What is your ideal ending for Reylo in Episode IX?

So, I really try not to look at a Reylo ending through rose-tinted glasses. Reylo is a pairing that at this point cannot be taken lightly: it’s dark, it’s deeply complicated, and it’s very imperfect. In other words, it’s an honest, unfeigned pairing and I identify with it so much more because of its mesmerizing humanity.

We inevitably hurt the ones we love; shit happens, people miscommunicate, feelings get hurt. Kylo and now Rey have exercised misguided, even manipulative, behavior toward each other and failed in basic ways to understand and accept one another’s differences despite having shared and attained a powerful moment of clarity in their way forward. People call this ship abusive; I’m not that sorry, but they’re wrong. At worst, it’s unhealthy.

Well, guess what. You can get healthy.

Since I can’t even begin to predict or shape an ending for Reylo, I would just say that I wish for them to be sound in body and sound(er) of mind, and preferably together in some way. I personally want to see that union be romantic, but I will also accept a platonic union. I love and respect these characters so much that, honestly, I just want them to finally find what they’ve been longing and suffering their entire lives for. Now that they’ve at least partially found –and briefly possessed– that, I hope they also find a way to hold on to it in whatever way they can.

So much for not looking at it through rose-tinted glasses.

Tagging:  @maleficentrox; @crez0le; @reylotea; @adambenkyloren; @paper-radio; @violet-is-maybe; @mooshygirl; @dr-porkchop1; @him-e

#reylo #rey #kylo ren #ben solo #star wars episode ix #can you guess at what i actually wanted to talk about #complex villains #byronic heroes #humanity #meta

[emmagreen1220-blog]

New Post has been published on Literary Techniques

New Post has been published on https://literarytechniques.org/epiphany/

Epiphany

Epiphany Definition

Epiphany is Greek for “manifestation” or “showing-forth,” and, in its original, religious sense, it denotes the manifestation of God’s presence in the world. James Joyce, however, appropriated this term and introduced it into literary criticism to mean a secular revelation in the everyday world—though one which still has some mystical, almost otherworldly, connotation, owing to its atemporal (Nichols), “expansive, mysterious, and intense” nature (Martin Bidney).

An epiphany is, basically, the moment when all the pieces come together, and things suddenly become clear as they have never been before. It is—as explained by Joyce in the unpublished first draft of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—“a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself.”

In a moment of epiphany, as Umberto Eco says, “a thing becomes the living symbol of something else,” or, to go back to Joyce, “its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant.”

This is precisely what happens at the beginning of Welles’ cinematic masterpiece Citizen Kane. Holding a snowball, tycoon Charles Foster Kane utters the word “Rosebud” and dies. At the very end of the movie, the camera reveals that “Rosebud” was the name of Kane’s childhood sled, the one he had been playing with on the day that he was separated from his family.

It seems that the last thing Kane experienced on this planet was a chilling epiphanic moment, grasping the whatness (Proust would say “the essence”) of his “Rosebud” sled, which suddenly became for him the living symbol of his lost youth, of the unfortunate and ultimately fateful break with his family.

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Epiphany Examples

Epiphany in a Sentence

Example #1: John Keats, “Letter to Benjamin Bailey” (November 22, 1817)

O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! […] The simple imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent Working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness—to compare great things with small—have you never by being surprised with an old Melody—in a delicious place—by a delicious voice, felt over again your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your soul—do you not remember forming to yourself the singer’s face more beautiful that it was possible and yet with the elevation of the Moment you did not think so—even then you were mounted on the Wings of Imagination so high—that the Prototype must be here after—that delicious face you will see—What a time!

For the Romantic poets, as pointed out by Robert Langbaum in an essay on William Wordsworth, epiphany was all but a “substitute for religion;” in retrospect, it seems that most of the Romantics understood the full extent of its artistic and developmental significance more than a century before Joyce. There’s not only much truth in Wim Tigges’ description of Wordsworth’s Prelude as his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but also a case can be made for M. H. Abrams’ claim that Wordsworth was the pre-eminent poet of epiphanic experiences, foreshadowing both Joyce and Proust (Morris Beja). At one place in The Prelude (XI.258-9) he describes them beautifully as “spots of time,/ which with distinct pre-eminence retain/a vivifying virtue” and, at  another (VIII.543-54; reference) he shows them at work. In a manner similar to Joyce, Wordsworth’s younger contemporary, Percy Bysshe Shelley, described all poetry as “the record of the best and happiest moments… arising unforeseen and departing unbidden.” As can be seen in the excerpt above, John Keats, the youngest of the six great Romantics, had a profound understanding of the concept of epiphany as well; and his “Ode on a Grecian Urn” undoubtedly records one such epiphanic experience.

Example #2: Walter Pater, “The School of Giorgione” (1873)

Now it is part of the ideality of the highest sort of dramatic poetry that it presents us with a kind of profoundly significant and animated instants, a mere gesture, a look, a smile, perhaps—some brief and wholly concrete moment—into which, however, all the motives, all the interests and effects of a long history have condensed themselves, and which seem to absorb past and future in an intense consciousness of the present.

One of the foremost stylists of the English language, Walter Pater was an English art critic of the 19th century, whose studies of the Renaissance are so poetically written that W. B. Yeats decided to include his prose description of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa as an introductory poem in his Oxford Book of Modern Verse (reference)! In Pater’s opinion, just like poets, the Venetian painter Giorgione and his followers were capable of selecting “such ideal moments… exquisite pauses in time, in which, arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the fullness of existence, and which are like some consummate extract or quintessence of life.”

Example #3: John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1874)

I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel’s Mémoires, and came to the passage which relates his father’s death, the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be everything to them—would supply the place of all that they had lost. A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone. I was no longer hopeless: I was not a stock or a stone.

It is a little-known fact that John Stuart Mill might have been one of the earliest authors to describe the emotional nadirs of a terrible mood now known as depression. He slipped into it at the age of twenty, a period during which he was frequently pondering suicide. Fortunately, six months into it, while reading the Memoirs of the French historian Jean-François Marmontel, “a small ray of light broke it upon [his] gloom.” Interestingly, it is an epiphanic scene which induces his own epiphany: a boy experiences “the sudden inspiration” to take the duties of his dead father upon himself. Even though this bore no relation to Mill’s reality, the power of the scene overcame him and gave him a reason to live. It also profoundly altered the worldview of Mill, who was unexpectedly able to read some poets he didn’t like before. One of them, Wordsworth, eventually all but cured him of his depression.

Epiphany in Poetry

Example #1: William Blake, Auguries of Innocence 1-4 (1803)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

As we hinted above, the Romantics believed in epiphanies much more than they believed in God. As a consequence, we could have chosen any number of Romantic poems to illustrate how epiphany works in a poem, but, ultimately, we opted for the first four lines of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence. Written in 1803—but not published until six decades later—we believe that these lines serve as both a definition of epiphany and a demonstration of what it does to the constraints of time and space—namely, annihilate them. “Indeed,” writes C. C. Barfoot, “this is an evident example of one of the ways in which a Romantic poet may experience the amplification of time and space as an epiphany in which the most commonplace of material objects and a mere portion of the day give direct access to an experience of the universe in which all physical experience is forever out of the reach of change and decay.” No wonder Morris Beja paraphrases Blake to define one form of epiphany as “eternity within the pulsation of an artery”!

Example #2: Kenneth Rexroth, “Proust’s Madeleine” (1966)

…[I] do a coin trick To amuse my little girl. Suddenly everything slips aside. I see my father Doing the very same thing, Whistling ‘Beautiful Dreamer,” His breath smelling richly Of whiskey and cigars…

When a poem bears the title “Proust’s Madeleine” you can be more than convinced that it deals with some sort of an epiphanic experience involving involuntary memory. In Kenneth Rexroth’s case, the madeleine is actually an old poker chip inscribed with the letters b.p.o.e. (standing for the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks) and a picture of an elk’s head on it. One day, while doing a coin trick for his daughter, the subject of the poem realizes that this is something he has already witnessed himself, performed for him by his drunk father, quite possibly with the very same chip. In a second, all of his father’s life passes before his eyes—from “him coming home drunk/ From the Elks’ Club” up to “him dying of cirrhosis/ of the liver and stomach/ ulcers and pneumonia.” Unlike Proust’s epiphany, Rexroth’s is not a particularly pleasant one—but it is an epiphany, nevertheless.

Example #3: Elizabeth Bishop, “The Moose” (1972)

Taking her time, she looks the bus over, grand, otherworldly. Why, why do we feel (we all feel) this sweet sensation of joy?

The “she” in the stanza above—the penultimate of Elizabeth Bishop’s long and famous poem “The Moose”—is the titular creature: a female moose which suddenly appears “out of/ the impenetrable wood” in front of a crowdy bus, in the middle of the moonlit road bent along the coast of Nova Scotia. “Towering, antlerless,/ high as a church,/ homely as a house,” the moose sniffs at the bus’s hood and spends a few moments watching the passengers watching her back. And then something happens, something magical, something which overcomes all passengers with a “sweet/ sensation of joy.” Why? “The answer is never given,” writes Toby Eckert. “For Bishop, it seems to lie in the curious power of nature to transform a rather ordinary moment into a transcendent one.” A similar epiphany, points observantly Kerry McSweeney in The Realist Short Story of the Powerful Glimpse, seems to happen in Raymond Carver’s short story “Feathers,” the opening short story of his collection Cathedral (1983), in which the animal in question is a rainbow-tailed peacock. Now, there’s some homework for you, right there!

Epiphany in Literature

Example #1: Marcel Proust, Combray I (“Overture”) (1913)

No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. (Tr. C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)

Even though not many can claim to have read Marcel Proust’s gargantuan masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, from start to finish, almost everybody who has heard of him knows how it all begins, and has at least a passing familiarity with the phrases “involuntary memory, “the madeleine episode,” or “the Proustian moment.” Proust was no Hemingway, so it is rather difficult to quote the entire episode—you can read it here if you’d like to—but the three sentences excerpted above should give you just enough taste (pun intended) of Proust’s madeleine, and maybe demonstrate to you how even trivial everyday objects such as a cookie and a cup of tea can sometimes send shivers across your spine and, moreover, imbue your life with meaning and significance. In Proust’s case, as it is almost too well-known, “the whole of Combray and its surroundings [spring] into being, town and gardens alike, from [his] cup of tea.”

Example #2: James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird […] Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird’s, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove […]—Heavenly God! cried Stephen’s soul, in an outburst of profane joy. He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.

Edward Quinn’s Facts on File Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms calls this “probably the best known of [Joyce’s] epiphanies.” It occurs near the end of the fourth chapter of Joyce’s debut novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, soon after the main protagonist, Joyce’s alter-ego Stephen Dedalus, is singled out by his Jesuit supervisors as an exceptional student, ripe for priesthood. However, while roaming about and considering this offer, in a moment of profound crisis, he happens upon the unnamed girl described in the excerpt above, wading in the waters along Dollymount Strand. Suddenly, his limbs all a-trembling and his heart a-thumping, Stephen is overcome with a desire “to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him… To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” In the blink of an eye, he sees that religion is just too ascetic and austere for his taste: he had been born to translate the ethereality of beautiful things into memorable words. “This vision of a girl wading in the surf becomes a moment of truth for the novel’s young hero,” notes Quinn, “a realization that he will become an artist, a servant of beauty.”

Example #3: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)

Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was—her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.

In the first part of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe is a young, inexperienced painter trying to draw a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay and her son James at the Ramsays’ summer home on the Isle of Skye. A decade later (when many of the characters, including Mrs. Ramsay, are dead), she finally has her vision and finishes the portrait—at the precise moment when Mr. Ramsey, James, and Camilla reach the lighthouse, a trip that should have taken place ten years before. Since this is the final paragraph of the book, and since the problem of the painting resembles the structure of the novel (both seem to be organized in the manner of “the letter H”), the paragraph is self-referential as well. So, in a way, this epiphany works on two levels, capturing both Lily’s and Woolf’s realization that there is more to being an artist than leaving a legacy—namely, executing your own, original, and uncompromising vision.

(Further Reading: Top 10 Examples of Epiphany in Literature)

Songs with Epiphany

Example #1: The Drifters, This Magic Moment (1960)

This magic moment, so different and so new Was like any other until I kissed you And then it happened, it took me by surprise I knew that you felt it too, by the look in your eyes.

Popularized by the 1993 movie The Sandlot—which is why This Magic Moment, in the minds of many, will forever be associated with Michael “Squints” Palledorous and Wendy Peffercorn (reference)—This Magic Moment is one of the best-known songs in the repertoire of pianist Mort Shuman and lyricist Doc Pomus. Originally performed by Ben E. King and The Drifters, as noted by Victor Robert Kennedy, This Magic Moment makes use of all of the main qualities of epiphany, describing an intense and mysterious moment which arrives suddenly and has the power to negate time (“This magic moment while your lips are close to mine/ Will last forever, forever ’till the end of time”). The real epiphany, however, is left unuttered, hiding beneath the word “it” in the quatrain above, ethereal, describable only in terms of comparisons (“sweeter than wine/ softer than the summer night”).

https://youtu.be/bacBKKgc4Uo

Example #2: The Monkees, I’m a Believer (1966)

Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer Not a trace of doubt in my mind I’m in love I’m a believer, I couldn’t leave her if I tried

Written by Neil Diamond and first recorded by the Monkees in 1966, I’m a Believer tells the story of one of the most common—and yet, also, one of the most potent—epiphanic experiences a person can go through: that of discovering the whatness of a person. In the case of I’m a Believer, this finding leads to an even more important revelation: namely, that love exists. “I thought love was only through in fairytales,” sings Micky Dolenz here, “meant for someone else but not for me.” However, merely seeing the face of a certain unnamed girl immediately changes his point of view. Now, there’s “not a trace of doubt” in his mind that love exists and that, moreover, he has found her. He is, as the title states, a believer.

https://youtu.be/wB9YIsKIEbA?t=27

Example #3: KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See (2005)

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) This is what I wanna be Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) Why the hell it means so much to me

According to KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See is a song “about the photograph of Patti Smith on the cover of Horses.” If you have ever seen that image, then you already know what KT Tunstall means when she says that “she fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white” or that “she holds you captivated in her palm.” If not, please take a few moments and have a look (reference). Back here? Is it not obvious to you now why Tunstall had an epiphanic experience and was inspired to become a musician after first laying her eyes upon Patti Smith’s unisex pose on the cover of Horses? “Oh, she makes me feel like I could be a tower,” Tunstall sings, “a big strong tower.” Camille Paglia is absolutely right: that has to be “one of the greatest pictures ever taken of a woman”!

https://youtu.be/9AEoUa0Hlso?t=40

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[ohnofairsadface]

“I have already waited two years now… why not more? Why not wait till it’s so painful, that it is only measurable by its sheer unbearability?”, the Stranger was theorizing as like an experiment in pain that squares upon itself through time. He returned to his present to find the clerk in a baffled state, trying to figure out what just played out in front of him. The Stranger, not having any friends but viewing this clerk as like a friend that never really understands you nor is capable of classifying you, felt it was important to recognize his astute observation. “Did you see that? What do you think that was about?”, the Stranger said in a perplexing connotation to provide him with assurance it was not of his imagination. The Stranger tilted his head to the right and covered one eye, as if to view his friend through a lens. “What will be the perception? What will be his reasoning?”, the Stranger wondered in the same manner as the audience members wondered about the Stranger. The friend who became an actor through an eye, walked forward and placed his hands on the counter as like to support himself before giving up some monumental insight. Yet, in his accustomed response, the fly by night friend shrugged his shoulders and thought that the Stranger also didn’t understand it. Unfortunately, the Stranger fully understood it. He understood it in a manner in which it caused psychosomatic expressions on the body. “She is the only reason I come to this miserable place.”, he internalized as a slice on his back appeared from no physical cause. “Was that to be regarded as her killing blow?”, he thought. “No. I have only been maimed. So am I to play dead for her then?”. The Stranger was trying to solve her riddle, but there was no answer to be found. The riddle was a form of annoyance, which circled around indifference, and when he unlocked that truth, his heart dropped into an unrecoverable cavity of the body. Just like a pilot who lost power to his engines and in the most exquisite state of denial, continues to pull back on the controls till the very last second of impact, the Stranger was also in such a freefall position. His heart felt like it could plunge in perpetuity, and so in an equivalent state of delusion, but in opposition of a pilot, he pushed and chose to willingly nosedive into a fantasy and dream beyond responsible dreaming. ”I will psychologically flagellate myself by her abstraction, which I will make more beautiful then what is realistically possible for me now. I will wait for her here, knowing she will never come to get me, nor send any word through her audience members who will study me on occasions, and this doppelganger will comfort me as my Jungian anima would, and I will dote and build upon her, and love this imitation until I can no longer bear its falsity.”, and so the stage was set when he swore an oath to her, which was also stipulated from the beginning. The Stranger looked over and nodded to a shadow in the corner, who nodded back with delight that he had placed himself into such a predicament. “My unholy homunculus which will prolong a hex already upon me, must be constructed with complexities upon complexities and wrapped in adorable eccentricities, so that my love for her can never wane, and any superficiality will remain concealed even to me, till the very last second.”, he demanded from the shadow, whom nodded assuredly and opened an addendum titled “Reference Volume Three” to a page numbered twenty-five. This meticulous shadow was very accommodating in a way that exceeded what was required, but the Stranger wasn’t at all taken aback by this. In fact, he always felt an odd familiarity from it as it stood in the corners of rooms over the years, as shadows usually do, and so he held no concern as this shadow dragged its transparent finger down from the top of the page to a heading called “Section 37”. Its planchette like finger then moved in a jagged motion until it stopped on the seventh paragraph which stated: “At no time, until the time determinable by the particular factor requested, will the signatory of the operative agreement be made aware of any shortcomings in the proposed projection. Reality shall switch with the dream, and the dream shall supersede and block any attempts of reincorporation.”. The Stranger turned away from the book, and then toward the ceiling to think, “Will this actually cover all contingencies?”. “Do I need to think of anything else here?”, he said in a serious yet acute angle that even a shadow could chuckle at. The Stranger looked toward the table and signed the pact without even reading the multitudes of terms or definitions, or even caring as to whether this would lead to pleasure or pain, because he always knew they were one and the same in a laugh out loud way. “Oh what such a sad sad face for me to know, that what I long will never show.”, the Stranger said as he finalized his signature with a pointless flare that no one would ever see. The Stranger then bent around the fourth wall, looking for the sleeping projectionist deep in the darkness. “What a spectacular tragedy I have been casted into, you duplicitous fuck.”, the Stranger said in perfect timing for a transition into the next scene. He was reminiscing in black and white, back to the dream he had the night before he saw her, and then the next day when he was first in her physical presence. At that instance, the Stranger knew he had stumbled into a killing field, like the Trinity test sites or the Tunguska Valley before their desolations. Her eyes were like a blinding flash in the sky that signaled the coming negation and breaks the bonding of atoms. Her heavy particles were twisting in all directions until they shot through his retinas, becoming as bottle rocket representations in his mind. He felt a force that was capable of rendering all into waste and muck drive through his body, just like with field test dummies fixed in scientific assessments. “I can feel the exposure is clearly past my lethal limit here.”, he suppositioned as he started to feel sick. “I think I can hear my bone marrow hissing from the insides.”, he said in a panicked manner, before checking to see if he even had a pulse anymore. The Stranger was feeling around his left wrist, acting like he knew what he was doing. “Nope, nothing here.”, he said as he moved to his right jugular. He kept feeling around again and again, and testing each area just like a well-trained nurse checking geriatric patients before calling in a gurney crew. “Nope, Nothing here either.”, he said in a disappointed, yet knowing way. “So I am just like the muck then?”, he questioned as he gazed at her from a distance in the days that followed this extinction level event. “I have become like the fallen trees or the shadows of Hiroshima. She has brought down obliteration with a glance and then salted the wounds of my world as her parting joke to me.”. The Stranger laughed, finding bliss in musing of her in such ways, before noticing he was just standing with his clerk friend, who couldn’t distinguish the transition back to color. The Stranger tugged on his left sleeve and looked at a watch that didn’t exist, to check for a time that only mattered in a dream. “Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow.”, he said to his friend as he walked out the door knowing this night was just another night for the hypothesis cult. So over time, and in the third year of waiting day after day, and week after week, the Stranger began to actually forget what she looked like and that also compounded upon the particular factor he requested, so he memorialized that aspect in a way the Stranger imagined she would enjoy, if she wasn’t actually imagined of course. Now skipping over many interesting developments, all different and worthy of notation in their own way, but some things can’t be expanded upon at the end of a story, so let’s just fast forward through another year of the Stranger waiting on a partly melted VHS tape, that someone originally set fire to by a recently abandoned building. Around this particular point, after waiting three years in one location, and also waiting at this more than middle of the way spot for two years, the Stranger actually witnessed someone who appeared to resemble her, but in truth, he wasn’t really sure at all anymore. “Has so much time passed now, that if I did ever see her, I wouldn’t even recognize her?”, the Stranger thought as he examined this person and attempted to reconcile the remaining memories with possible new information. “I don’t think that’s her.”, he thought as he watched this familiar, yet different person walk out the door without saying a word. “That could have been her, but it wasn’t. Was it? If she said something I would have known for sure, I think. Wouldn’t I?.”. The Stranger’s thoughts stalled on the same tracks that the unstoppable train from the other story was riding on. Except this hurtling train around the bend wasn’t driven by dread like before, but the realization that he wouldn’t even be able to identify her now if she was even standing in front of him. This epiphany broke a fundamental element within the Stranger’s heart, and in its disguised accompanying agreement with the shadow, and so the requested factor entirely emerged and then impaled it outright. He memorialized this new type of heartbreak as an idol with the last visual pieces of her that was left in him. The Stranger then gave life to her image so that others would see and worship its likeness, and say, “Who is like the one who causes ohnofairsadface such suffering? She was the amputator of his limbs, and then rejected the pleas of death. Who is like the one who causes the Stranger to seek death by pulling mandrakes night after night? She was the mutilator of mentality, who sends others to critique her work, a limbless carcass that rolls and waits. Who is like the one who causes this carcass to roll about on the shores alone? She was his Sibyl of Snares, an Omen for Intangibilities, his Chimera of Prayers, and then a Ferryman who brings finalities to the shore and then carries him out to sea. So who was he then and why did this occur? He was just an unclaimed body in the morgue, who danced a performance of malignancy for ideals. Why didn’t she ever come to identify this body? She detested him and didn’t understand it, so there was no need to pay respects. So where has the body gone to now? It floated for four years until it gave in to the waves.”. So, two weeks after making the unending idol, the Stranger began to write this story, trying to incorporate multiple things together that he imagined she would enjoy because of the peculiarities it contained, but of course everything about her was always imagined anyway, and so it didn’t really matter what the truth is, or what the reality was, or whether anything was to anyone’s particular tastes, because the Stranger was changed by the pain that became unbearable. His exhaustion had finally caught up with him and he couldn’t continue to wait on an abstraction that wouldn’t ever reciprocate. All that mattered now was to fill in some plot holes for the audience before the Stranger stopped waiting and just disappeared. He suddenly wondered if anyone would question what his dream was all about. “It was the most beautiful dream I ever dreamt. It was essentially spooky action at a distance, and it governed over our inarticulable comprehensiveness. So I no longer felt alone through time, because I finally found her in space, and that is what it was all about. It was about travelling and twisting, and wandering and nearing, and then finding my totality, by being alongside her equivalence.”, he had convinced himself of this madness over those years. “But, that was the simple answer then. The more complex one today, which I have presented through an elegant experimentation in elaboration, is that it may just have been a creative snipe hunt designed from unconscious contemplations.”. A terrible tune rang out from the grandfather clock in the next room. Its melody marked that the final hour had arrived, and so the Stranger knew that his time, which he always viewed as a joke, had ended, and now delivered a terrible punch line for him. The Stranger rose from his desk, put on his coat, and then walked out the door to go wait for her in vain for the last time. “I will be there one more night waiting just for her, but if she doesn’t show now, I will post my new piece and stop waiting. I will then vanish from there forever and that will be her live display, and that display will be viewed as like the actual final piece I made for her. It will be the only one she wanted all along, and in a sad and strange way, I will be happy since she will cherish at least that final one, which personifies the death of my dream as a tangible loss.”.

Ohnofairsadface - 12/7/17

[lit-bee-blog1]

‘Pretty’ by Stevie Smith

Written in 1966, ‘Pretty’ is a post-modernist poem comprising nine stanzas of blank verse, each stanza is a quatrain.  I shall focus on each individual stanza, analysing them individually and also as a whole.  I shall also look briefly at the poem in it’s historical context.

   Smith’s use of repetition in this poem seems mild, complacent almost, with a definite simplistic quality until the climactic final two stanzas where the word ‘pretty’ implodes almost, and we discover a certain disgust and anger at the naiveté of mankind -  The voice of the speaker wanders through the poem, judging all the time and restricting and thereby reducing everything to a single point - the word ‘pretty’.

   Interestingly, the poem begins with a ‘fall’ then the speaker wanders through nature as the observer in a seeming state of blissful ignorance to it’s inner truth’s.  Judgements as to degree’s of ‘prettiness’ or not are made continually,  then the voice changes and, in the final two stanza’s, in first person - the poem speaks directly to the reader. This has a Biblical quality.

    The poem is striking for the repetitive use throughout of the title word ‘pretty’. Smith has taken a word in everyday use and holds it up to magnify, disorientate and question us, the reader, causing us to reflect on the use of language.  I believe that this is perhaps the single most important feature of the poem.

  In the opening stanza, Smith asks why it is that the word pretty is so ‘underrated’.  She then moves into an almost childlike, reflection on a leaf and how ‘pretty’ it’s fall from the tree is. This is perhaps setting the scene for the sense of ‘disconnectedness’ that the speaker has from the realities of life.  A child might hold a leaf and, without the full panoply of the english language to express feelings for it, comment that it is ‘pretty’, whilst feeling all the while that it is quite something else. By repetition of the word throughout, Smith limits us, just as a child’s vocabulary limits their ability for true expression.

The speaker then reflects on a pool of water becoming ‘pretty’ after the rain. A slightly more ominous tone is adopted at the carnivorous pike that ‘stalks’.

    In the second stanza, the pike continues to stalk his prey. This is a commentary on how there is, at first, escape before the prey succumbs, just as the leaf has, to the inevitability of the natural world.

    The move from the second to the third stanza has a shift, as Smith moves us into it by capitalising the word ‘And’ to begin her reflection on the water rat as not being pretty. She glances back at what has happened in the water; the triumph of the Pike pursuing it’s prey and decides that this is not what ‘pretty’ is.

   In the third stanza, she speaks of the Otter having no choice in habitat. Again, this is an allusion to the inevitability of the natural world, coupled with deliberate ignorance at nature’s cruelty, for the water rat cannot close it’s nostrils.

        In the fourth stanza, hunting is once again predominant, as the owl moves over the water, seeking its prey. However, the tone changes as Smith speaks of the frost coming from the ground, intimating that as this is where all things come from, it is ‘pretty’, emphasising in the final line that ‘it could not be prettier’.

In the fifth stanza, She then glances back, as in stanza three and decides that ‘Yes, it could be prettier’. The poem then moves from the storybook quality of the word ‘pretty’ perceiving the animals and for the first time Smith uses a word that has many meanings, but for the purpose of this essay, I shall use it’s connotation as meaning ‘uneasy’.

The eye that has watched the animals, commenting on how ‘pretty’ they and their actions are, and to what degree, suddenly becomes self-conscious. ‘the eye abashes.’

      It cannot see enough and so, it moves upwards to the sky, taking the field with it as it does so, becoming free from the constraints of the world below; it chooses to ignore and shift it’s perception.

   The sixth stanza finds the focus moved from the world below to the world above, as though the poet has taken the entire scene and tilted it upwards to escape the reality of what is happening below.  The final two lines comment on how easy this may seem but how extraordinary both this action is, and how extraordinary it is to be so ‘pretty.’ Here, the word’ pretty’ becomes a force of escape from the mundane. Not liking what is changing below, the gaze shifts upwards and takes it’s ‘world’ with it.

   The seventh stanza speaks of the carelessness of nature, it’s indifference to Mankind. At this point in the poem, the word ‘pretty’ has assumed some power, as though a child-like voice has definite ideas about what is and is not ‘pretty’ From the animal world and the world of predator and prey, the poem moves into a comment on the difference between the animal world and that of nature which are one and the same to the outsider - the eye of the human, and how indifferent to their gaze nature really is.

  There is a change in voice in the final two stanza’s, as Smith alludes to people coming into the world of nature, cloaking it with their misguided perceptions and then moving on, like  a thief who having glanced at something, steals it by having done so. An exclamation mark now punctuates her sense of how easy it is to watch a scene, comment on it with  mundane word’s yet be unable to grasp what goes on beneath the surface, perhaps by choice.

‘Now a person can come along like a thief - pretty!- Stealing a look, pinching the sound and feel.’ The word ‘pinching’ is interesting here, as it is this is another word for theft. The watching eye has wandered along ‘stealing’ as it moved, unable to let the realities simply be.

So, by the eighth stanza the eye deliberately rejects the truth, having looked only for prettiness in the natural world.  Now the idea of using words to describe nature seems shallow and cruel, as the world of Man is compared to the easy natural world of nature and the animals and scenes that exist within their own laws.

‘Lick the icicle broken from the bank, and still say nothing at all, only cry pretty.’

Here, Smith seems to be saying that we break the ice, we steal the ice to experience something of the natural world, but have to ‘break’ it to do so, thereby ruining it. Unable to appreciate the realities of nature whilst holding its beauty, the imperfect eye of Man can only move to its inevitable death, and perhaps here Smith is making an allusion to how language evolves and thereby enables freedom and existentialism. Just as words ‘die’ and others take their place in common use, she seems to speak directly to the wanderer in the woods as she warns that soon they will not even be able to cry the word ‘pretty’.  It is an angry stanza, speaking as it does in the final two lines of deliverance from humanity being ‘the prettiest thing of all. ‘

        Pretty is an unusual poem. Smith keeps us emphatically within the word from one stanza to another, as she shows us why it is that this quite mundane word is important. She shows it’s versatility throughout the poem simply by the fact that she holds onto the word so utterly; it’s playfulness, by the way in which she cleverly brings us into the world of the childlike, where animals are taken as being ‘pretty’ because their true nature is not only never understood - there is an implication of the darker aspects of the word - that true knowledge of it would spoil perhaps the misconceptions that we have about reality. The message is ‘do not take things at face value’.

     I have looked at the individual stanzas that comprise this poem and also at the allusions to Man’s imperfect view of the world.  Stevie Smith has taken us on a journey in this poem, and has questioned the perhaps mundane eye that looks at nature at being ‘cute’ or ‘pretty’ lulling us into a  sense of false security until, in the final two stanza’s, she turns angrily on the idea of ‘prettiness’, asserting that the voice that speaks pretty will cry pretty and then be annihilated; thereby unable to cry at all.

  Interestingly, this poem was written at the height of the “Swinging Sixtie’s’ - A time where looking ‘pretty’ was considered more important in mainstream culture than ever before.

‘Pretty’ could be considered as a commentary on certain value changes that occurred in the 20th century, resulting in a certain superficiality.

CC Lit-Bee 2016

#stevie smith #poetry #contemporary #poem #essay

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Epiphany

Epiphany Definition

Epiphany is Greek for “manifestation” or “showing-forth,” and, in its original, religious sense, it denotes the manifestation of God’s presence in the world. James Joyce, however, appropriated this term and introduced it into literary criticism to mean a secular revelation in the everyday world—though one which still has some mystical, almost otherworldly, connotation, owing to its atemporal (Nichols), “expansive, mysterious, and intense” nature (Martin Bidney).

An epiphany is, basically, the moment when all the pieces come together, and things suddenly become clear as they have never been before. It is—as explained by Joyce in the unpublished first draft of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man—“a sudden spiritual manifestation, whether in the vulgarity of speech or of gesture or in a memorable phase of the mind itself.”

In a moment of epiphany, as Umberto Eco says, “a thing becomes the living symbol of something else,” or, to go back to Joyce, “its soul, its whatness, leaps to us from the vestment of its appearance. The soul of the commonest object, the structure of which is so adjusted, seems to us radiant.”

This is precisely what happens at the beginning of Welles’ cinematic masterpiece Citizen Kane. Holding a snowball, tycoon Charles Foster Kane utters the word “Rosebud” and dies. At the very end of the movie, the camera reveals that “Rosebud” was the name of Kane’s childhood sled, the one he had been playing with on the day that he was separated from his family.

It seems that the last thing Kane experienced on this planet was a chilling epiphanic moment, grasping the whatness (Proust would say “the essence”) of his “Rosebud” sled, which suddenly became for him the living symbol of his lost youth, of the unfortunate and ultimately fateful break with his family.

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Epiphany Examples

Epiphany in a Sentence

Example #1: John Keats, “Letter to Benjamin Bailey” (November 22, 1817)

O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts! […] The simple imaginative Mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent Working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness—to compare great things with small—have you never by being surprised with an old Melody—in a delicious place—by a delicious voice, felt over again your very speculations and surmises at the time it first operated on your soul—do you not remember forming to yourself the singer’s face more beautiful that it was possible and yet with the elevation of the Moment you did not think so—even then you were mounted on the Wings of Imagination so high—that the Prototype must be here after—that delicious face you will see—What a time!

For the Romantic poets, as pointed out by Robert Langbaum in an essay on William Wordsworth, epiphany was all but a “substitute for religion;” in retrospect, it seems that most of the Romantics understood the full extent of its artistic and developmental significance more than a century before Joyce. There’s not only much truth in Wim Tigges’ description of Wordsworth’s Prelude as his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, but also a case can be made for M. H. Abrams’ claim that Wordsworth was the pre-eminent poet of epiphanic experiences, foreshadowing both Joyce and Proust (Morris Beja). At one place in The Prelude (XI.258-9) he describes them beautifully as “spots of time,/ which with distinct pre-eminence retain/a vivifying virtue” and, at  another (VIII.543-54; reference) he shows them at work. In a manner similar to Joyce, Wordsworth’s younger contemporary, Percy Bysshe Shelley, described all poetry as “the record of the best and happiest moments… arising unforeseen and departing unbidden.” As can be seen in the excerpt above, John Keats, the youngest of the six great Romantics, had a profound understanding of the concept of epiphany as well; and his “Ode on a Grecian Urn” undoubtedly records one such epiphanic experience.

Example #2: Walter Pater, “The School of Giorgione” (1873)

Now it is part of the ideality of the highest sort of dramatic poetry that it presents us with a kind of profoundly significant and animated instants, a mere gesture, a look, a smile, perhaps—some brief and wholly concrete moment—into which, however, all the motives, all the interests and effects of a long history have condensed themselves, and which seem to absorb past and future in an intense consciousness of the present.

One of the foremost stylists of the English language, Walter Pater was an English art critic of the 19th century, whose studies of the Renaissance are so poetically written that W. B. Yeats decided to include his prose description of Leonardo’s Mona Lisa as an introductory poem in his Oxford Book of Modern Verse (reference)! In Pater’s opinion, just like poets, the Venetian painter Giorgione and his followers were capable of selecting “such ideal moments… exquisite pauses in time, in which, arrested thus, we seem to be spectators of all the fullness of existence, and which are like some consummate extract or quintessence of life.”

Example #3: John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1874)

I was reading, accidentally, Marmontel’s Mémoires, and came to the passage which relates his father’s death, the distressed position of the family, and the sudden inspiration by which he, then a mere boy, felt and made them feel that he would be everything to them—would supply the place of all that they had lost. A vivid conception of the scene and its feelings came over me, and I was moved to tears. From this moment my burden grew lighter. The oppression of the thought that all feeling was dead within me, was gone. I was no longer hopeless: I was not a stock or a stone.

It is a little-known fact that John Stuart Mill might have been one of the earliest authors to describe the emotional nadirs of a terrible mood now known as depression. He slipped into it at the age of twenty, a period during which he was frequently pondering suicide. Fortunately, six months into it, while reading the Memoirs of the French historian Jean-François Marmontel, “a small ray of light broke it upon [his] gloom.” Interestingly, it is an epiphanic scene which induces his own epiphany: a boy experiences “the sudden inspiration” to take the duties of his dead father upon himself. Even though this bore no relation to Mill’s reality, the power of the scene overcame him and gave him a reason to live. It also profoundly altered the worldview of Mill, who was unexpectedly able to read some poets he didn’t like before. One of them, Wordsworth, eventually all but cured him of his depression.

Epiphany in Poetry

Example #1: William Blake, Auguries of Innocence 1-4 (1803)

To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

As we hinted above, the Romantics believed in epiphanies much more than they believed in God. As a consequence, we could have chosen any number of Romantic poems to illustrate how epiphany works in a poem, but, ultimately, we opted for the first four lines of William Blake’s Auguries of Innocence. Written in 1803—but not published until six decades later—we believe that these lines serve as both a definition of epiphany and a demonstration of what it does to the constraints of time and space—namely, annihilate them. “Indeed,” writes C. C. Barfoot, “this is an evident example of one of the ways in which a Romantic poet may experience the amplification of time and space as an epiphany in which the most commonplace of material objects and a mere portion of the day give direct access to an experience of the universe in which all physical experience is forever out of the reach of change and decay.” No wonder Morris Beja paraphrases Blake to define one form of epiphany as “eternity within the pulsation of an artery”!

Example #2: Kenneth Rexroth, “Proust’s Madeleine” (1966)

…[I] do a coin trick To amuse my little girl. Suddenly everything slips aside. I see my father Doing the very same thing, Whistling ‘Beautiful Dreamer,” His breath smelling richly Of whiskey and cigars…

When a poem bears the title “Proust’s Madeleine” you can be more than convinced that it deals with some sort of an epiphanic experience involving involuntary memory. In Kenneth Rexroth’s case, the madeleine is actually an old poker chip inscribed with the letters b.p.o.e. (standing for the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks) and a picture of an elk’s head on it. One day, while doing a coin trick for his daughter, the subject of the poem realizes that this is something he has already witnessed himself, performed for him by his drunk father, quite possibly with the very same chip. In a second, all of his father’s life passes before his eyes—from “him coming home drunk/ From the Elks’ Club” up to “him dying of cirrhosis/ of the liver and stomach/ ulcers and pneumonia.” Unlike Proust’s epiphany, Rexroth’s is not a particularly pleasant one—but it is an epiphany, nevertheless.

Example #3: Elizabeth Bishop, “The Moose” (1972)

Taking her time, she looks the bus over, grand, otherworldly. Why, why do we feel (we all feel) this sweet sensation of joy?

The “she” in the stanza above—the penultimate of Elizabeth Bishop’s long and famous poem “The Moose”—is the titular creature: a female moose which suddenly appears “out of/ the impenetrable wood” in front of a crowdy bus, in the middle of the moonlit road bent along the coast of Nova Scotia. “Towering, antlerless,/ high as a church,/ homely as a house,” the moose sniffs at the bus’s hood and spends a few moments watching the passengers watching her back. And then something happens, something magical, something which overcomes all passengers with a “sweet/ sensation of joy.” Why? “The answer is never given,” writes Toby Eckert. “For Bishop, it seems to lie in the curious power of nature to transform a rather ordinary moment into a transcendent one.” A similar epiphany, points observantly Kerry McSweeney in The Realist Short Story of the Powerful Glimpse, seems to happen in Raymond Carver’s short story “Feathers,” the opening short story of his collection Cathedral (1983), in which the animal in question is a rainbow-tailed peacock. Now, there’s some homework for you, right there!

Epiphany in Literature

Example #1: Marcel Proust, Combray I (“Overture”) (1913)

No sooner had the warm liquid, and the crumbs with it, touched my palate, a shudder ran through my whole body, and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, but individual, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory—this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was myself. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, accidental, mortal. (Tr. C.K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin)

Even though not many can claim to have read Marcel Proust’s gargantuan masterpiece, In Search of Lost Time, from start to finish, almost everybody who has heard of him knows how it all begins, and has at least a passing familiarity with the phrases “involuntary memory, “the madeleine episode,” or “the Proustian moment.” Proust was no Hemingway, so it is rather difficult to quote the entire episode—you can read it here if you’d like to—but the three sentences excerpted above should give you just enough taste (pun intended) of Proust’s madeleine, and maybe demonstrate to you how even trivial everyday objects such as a cookie and a cup of tea can sometimes send shivers across your spine and, moreover, imbue your life with meaning and significance. In Proust’s case, as it is almost too well-known, “the whole of Combray and its surroundings [spring] into being, town and gardens alike, from [his] cup of tea.”

Example #2: James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916)

A girl stood before him in midstream, alone and still, gazing out to sea. She seemed like one whom magic had changed into the likeness of a strange and beautiful seabird […] Her slate-blue skirts were kilted boldly about her waist and dovetailed behind her. Her bosom was as a bird’s, soft and slight, slight and soft as the breast of some dark-plumaged dove […]—Heavenly God! cried Stephen’s soul, in an outburst of profane joy. He turned away from her suddenly and set off across the strand. His cheeks were aflame; his body was aglow; his limbs were trembling. On and on and on and on he strode, far out over the sands, singing wildly to the sea, crying to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him.

Edward Quinn’s Facts on File Dictionary of Literary and Thematic Terms calls this “probably the best known of [Joyce’s] epiphanies.” It occurs near the end of the fourth chapter of Joyce’s debut novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, soon after the main protagonist, Joyce’s alter-ego Stephen Dedalus, is singled out by his Jesuit supervisors as an exceptional student, ripe for priesthood. However, while roaming about and considering this offer, in a moment of profound crisis, he happens upon the unnamed girl described in the excerpt above, wading in the waters along Dollymount Strand. Suddenly, his limbs all a-trembling and his heart a-thumping, Stephen is overcome with a desire “to greet the advent of the life that had cried to him… To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life.” In the blink of an eye, he sees that religion is just too ascetic and austere for his taste: he had been born to translate the ethereality of beautiful things into memorable words. “This vision of a girl wading in the surf becomes a moment of truth for the novel’s young hero,” notes Quinn, “a realization that he will become an artist, a servant of beauty.”

Example #3: Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse (1927)

Quickly, as if she were recalled by something over there, she turned to her canvas. There it was—her picture. Yes, with all its greens and blues, its lines running up and across, its attempt at something. It would be hung in the attics, she thought; it would be destroyed. But what did that matter? she asked herself, taking up her brush again. She looked at the steps; they were empty; she looked at her canvas; it was blurred. With a sudden intensity, as if she saw it clear for a second, she drew a line there, in the centre. It was done; it was finished. Yes, she thought, laying down her brush in extreme fatigue, I have had my vision.

In the first part of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, Lily Briscoe is a young, inexperienced painter trying to draw a portrait of Mrs. Ramsay and her son James at the Ramsays’ summer home on the Isle of Skye. A decade later (when many of the characters, including Mrs. Ramsay, are dead), she finally has her vision and finishes the portrait—at the precise moment when Mr. Ramsey, James, and Camilla reach the lighthouse, a trip that should have taken place ten years before. Since this is the final paragraph of the book, and since the problem of the painting resembles the structure of the novel (both seem to be organized in the manner of “the letter H”), the paragraph is self-referential as well. So, in a way, this epiphany works on two levels, capturing both Lily’s and Woolf’s realization that there is more to being an artist than leaving a legacy—namely, executing your own, original, and uncompromising vision.

(Further Reading: Top 10 Examples of Epiphany in Literature)

Songs with Epiphany

Example #1: The Drifters, This Magic Moment (1960)

This magic moment, so different and so new Was like any other until I kissed you And then it happened, it took me by surprise I knew that you felt it too, by the look in your eyes.

Popularized by the 1993 movie The Sandlot—which is why This Magic Moment, in the minds of many, will forever be associated with Michael “Squints” Palledorous and Wendy Peffercorn (reference)—This Magic Moment is one of the best-known songs in the repertoire of pianist Mort Shuman and lyricist Doc Pomus. Originally performed by Ben E. King and The Drifters, as noted by Victor Robert Kennedy, This Magic Moment makes use of all of the main qualities of epiphany, describing an intense and mysterious moment which arrives suddenly and has the power to negate time (“This magic moment while your lips are close to mine/ Will last forever, forever ’till the end of time”). The real epiphany, however, is left unuttered, hiding beneath the word “it” in the quatrain above, ethereal, describable only in terms of comparisons (“sweeter than wine/ softer than the summer night”).

https://youtu.be/bacBKKgc4Uo

Example #2: The Monkees, I’m a Believer (1966)

Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer Not a trace of doubt in my mind I’m in love I’m a believer, I couldn’t leave her if I tried

Written by Neil Diamond and first recorded by the Monkees in 1966, I’m a Believer tells the story of one of the most common—and yet, also, one of the most potent—epiphanic experiences a person can go through: that of discovering the whatness of a person. In the case of I’m a Believer, this finding leads to an even more important revelation: namely, that love exists. “I thought love was only through in fairytales,” sings Micky Dolenz here, “meant for someone else but not for me.” However, merely seeing the face of a certain unnamed girl immediately changes his point of view. Now, there’s “not a trace of doubt” in his mind that love exists and that, moreover, he has found her. He is, as the title states, a believer.

https://youtu.be/wB9YIsKIEbA?t=27

Example #3: KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See (2005)

Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) This is what I wanna be Suddenly I see (suddenly I see) Why the hell it means so much to me

According to KT Tunstall, Suddenly I See is a song “about the photograph of Patti Smith on the cover of Horses.” If you have ever seen that image, then you already know what KT Tunstall means when she says that “she fills up every corner like she’s born in black and white” or that “she holds you captivated in her palm.” If not, please take a few moments and have a look (reference). Back here? Is it not obvious to you now why Tunstall had an epiphanic experience and was inspired to become a musician after first laying her eyes upon Patti Smith’s unisex pose on the cover of Horses? “Oh, she makes me feel like I could be a tower,” Tunstall sings, “a big strong tower.” Camille Paglia is absolutely right: that has to be “one of the greatest pictures ever taken of a woman”!

https://youtu.be/9AEoUa0Hlso?t=40

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