#how many religious parallels can I force into a tv show

[heartnell]

Wikipedia page on John the Apostle & The Terror & Crying Angels (Giotto, 1305-1313) & John Irving's Letters & St. Francis Preaches to the Animals (17th c.) & John 19:26-27 (NRSV) & The Archangel Michael (1299) & Hadewijch van Antwerpen (c. 1250)

#john irving #the terror amc #the terror #he is my sweetest best boy #how many religious parallels can I force into a tv show #john the apostle #christian medieval spirituality

[kaypeace21]

Rebel Robin podcast (ep 3 &4 analysis)

For those who haven’t read them yet. Here’s the analysis for podcast ep 1&2. Analysis of Rebel Robin book-here. And eastereggs from rebel robin novel- here.

So the main things I noticed in ep 3 was how Robin spying was shown as a huge NEGATIVE-and Mr Hauser got upset over her doing so. Robin listens to mr. Hauser’s phone call (like Karen with Mike in s3/ us gov spying on calls in s1) & on a different occasion Robin also eavesdrops on a private convo he is having with someone else in his classroom ( like El spying on Mike talking to Lucas in s3). And when he finds out about this he tells her how wrong it was to spy on other people like that. In the past, I also talked about how the theme of spying is shown for many other st characters ( in the show) and how it  isn’t romanticized like people think it is- here .

Anyways , Ep 3 ends with a call from a h*mophobic teen( Dash) telling Robin to “stay away” from Mr. Hauser cause he’s “dangerous”. Why he thinks he’s dangerous is solely for the fact he’s gay.I think this theme may come into play in s4 Hawkins (in relation to the satanic panic). In ep 4 Robin jokes to (gay) Mr. Hauser  : “ So what are you into... satanism?” (Sadly most queer people have been told over and over we’re going to hell for being gay/lgbt+. it’s sadly an almost universal experience.) For those unaware- the ‘satanic panic’ was a right wing christian movement in the 80′s that WRONGLY associated certain things with supposed satanism.  Just some of the many things they demonized : rock music , stephen king , wearing black,  horror/fantasy media, and of course queer people and d&d (hellfire club - the name is a a xmen ref but in the show it’s probably an inside joke about the satanic panic and people being scared of d&d). We see foreshadowing of the satanic panic hinted in s3 (in relation to d&d)- on tv the narrator asks if “satanism” (pans to d&d set) is to blame for the odd occurrances in Hawkins. And given how the s4 el-trailer had the clock say 3:00am for the “witching hour” also called “the devil’s hour” since it’s supposed to be a subversion of jesus dy*ing at 3:00 pm. And the possibility s4 may take place around Easter.  I think we’ll see that religious (Christian) extre*sm  causes many people in Hawkins to interpret the supernatural as ‘satanic’. And no , I’m obviously not talking poorly about all religious/christian people).

After this Mr. Hauser jokes how Hawkins is like “lord of the flies” and how he “worries” what would happen if teens were left to their own devices-like in the book. The themes in the book mostly focus on the dangers of ‘mob mentality’ and how human beings can become v*olent and turn on each other- if the safety of civilization disappears...

This I believe is foreshadowing - i mentioned in a post a while back (here). How movies on the s4 list had the theme of :  a supernatural event indirectly causing towns people to act irrationally and turn on eachother v*olently. Despite literal monsters attacking them from outside (they chose to turn on eachother instead). In the end some townspeople become the real monsters via mob mentality/v*oence/false witch hunts (the mist, the birds, etc). In ‘the birds’ (while people are hidding in a store)- they wrongly  blame certain characters for the supernatural chaos. Similarly, in ‘the mist’ (crowd of townspeople are trapped in a store) and some  start interpreting the monsters as being sent as punishment by god- some town’s people start quoting the bible and saying the only way to stop the punishment is to start “sacrificing the s*nners and nonbelievers”. BIG YIKES.ST references mapple street (where the wheelers and sinclairs live). It’s based on the twilight zone ep of the same name “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” .The ‘monsters’ of that episode -were the townspeople turning on eachother because they incorrectly think their own neighbors are part of an invading supernatural army. The enemy was actually the paranoia/mob mentality-not the supernatural force they feared.  And yes i do think this concept is linked with 80s satanic panic and will cause some town division/obstacles for our heroes to deal with . **I also think the s4 bts of the Hawkins blood clinic-may be used to show h*mophobia (linked to satanic panic) in the town. Like in one s4 movie “paradise lost”the punk rock boys who were into black clothes, rock music , horror/stephen king books- were accused by the town’s people of being gay AND have demonic powers that are k*lling fellow town’s people.

Mr Hauser says he thinks steve Harrington is Ralph from lord of the flies. And Robin disagrees saying he’s Jack. Personally- since this was when Robin didn’t know/hated Steve. I think Mr hauser is right that Steve is Ralph (one of the oldest boys) who’s “commitment to civilization and morality is strong”. But Jack  (perhaps the popular s4 kid Jake?) and his savage crew take control of the group and start trying to attack Ralph and his friends (steve’s crew- over satanic panic?). How this begins is -

 Jack, torments Ralph and others. And some kids begin to develop savage personalities, after someone claims to have seen a Beast (demongorgan?) in the woods. This creates fear among the boys, which allows Jack to access more power.Ralph gets into an argument with Jack, who splits from the tribe. Many of the other boys follow Jack, who uses fear to manipulate the boys into leaving Ralph. And Jack’s crew begin attacking Ralph and his friends.

----------------

Ok, next topic of ep 4- the sentimental part of my brain got emotional when hearing how upset Robin was. And than Mr Hauser-telling her she’s wrong and she’s not “broken” or “rotten” and “nothing about her needs to be fixed’” (got me right in the feels) . As a queer person- I feel like every lgbt+ kid/teen needs to hear what Mr. Hauser said to Robin. 

However,  the analytical part of my brain -did notice some easterggs/ series parallels.

The convo starts with them talking about music Mr hauser likes (such as Bowie). And transitions to Mr Haauser asking about things she likes, whether she’s being bullied, and he later tells her “ DON’T let other people’s small mindedness make you fell bad about yourself. you don’t need to change yourself-no matter what anyone else says” . And Mr Hauser than says him calling her the “weirdest girl in Hawkins” was a compliment (not an insult-like she initially assumed). 

This is remarkably similar to certain scenes in s1/2. In s1, Jonathan mentions musicians he likes such as Bowie, asks Will about what he likes,  and tells Will “don't like things cause people tell you you’re supposed to-especially not him (their dad who called him h*mophobic names)” . In s2, Jonathan tries to cheer Will up after asking if he's being being bullied. And calls Will  “a freak” (and says it’s a good thing) and he should be content with being a “freak “ and compares Will to Bowie ( who was openly queer since the 70s) . 

In ep 4, Robin also mentions how sad she is that her parents won’t let her ride her bike anymore cause their paranoid about her safety  (like what happened to Will in s2).

Robin (before Mr. Hauser comforts her) says she feels like she has a “rot” inside her  . This is a s2 eastergg that could be linked to either Will or El. Will says his now-memories are “growing”, spreading”, and killing.” Later Kali says the emotional pain caused by her father  caused a “wound” to “spread”. Later allusion-Brenner tells El she has a “terrible wound “ (“a rot”) that Will “grow, spread, and kill.”

The reason Robin rants about feeling like she has a “rot” inside her is because she’s being bullied, and  lost all her Hawkins friends and says  “maybe I’m broken maybe there is just something about me that drives people away? I’m the only common denominator-there’s something wrong with me! There’s something inside of me that’s just rotten and there’s nothing i can do to fix it”. Which 1)-poor Robin. 2) I feel like could easily be How Will feels in s4(who will be the same age as Robin is here in the podcast)- his dad abandoned him, all his hawkins friends are gone , the st s4 movies have h*mophobic bullying in them (and he was bullied in the past). In a interview Noah said Will in s4 “doesn’t really get along with people-it’s just him and Mike.”  I think it fits more so with Will than El . But they may feel similar:  it’s implied in s4 audition tapes she’ll be bullied too,  she moved away from her friends,  and her father (Hopper) fake “passed away.” It could easily be how both Will and El feel in s4- that there is  something “broken”/ “rotten” about them . In fact, in the rebel Robin novel there is even a character named Sheena. Sheena reminds me a bit of a mix between Will and el . She is very quiet, queercoded, and is often bullied. And she finds mean notes and other things stuffed  in her locker- placed there by bullies. A bit like how Will found the zombie-boy note in his locker. A teacher doesn’t stop her bullying just blames her and says “ This wouldn’t happen if you made it just a smidgen easier for PEOPLE to understand you.”(sort of reminding me of that Noah quote about s4 Will not getting along with most people/Jonathan saying not to change himself cause “people” say to). But sheena can be another name for Jane (there was also a 80s show character named Sheena who was psychic) so ...maybe foreshadowing of el/jane being bullied in highschool? Along with Will?

*It’s not a eastergg/parallel...just speculation. Unlike the rebel robin book... in the podcast (in multiple episodes) almost every time she opens up to Mr Hauser about her problems she says it’s ok for him to do the same and she’ll be supportive and listen. However, Mr Hauser (so far) always rejects her offer-much to her hurt/frustration. In ep 4, she asks if he has someone his “own age” he can talk to about his problems-which he says he does. Now... since in ep 4 Mr hauser is paralleled to Jonathan maybe Jonathan will have someone his own age to talk to about his problems (maybe his new friend Argyle?) We see similar to Mr Hauser giving advice/pep talks to (gay) Robin. Jonathan is always giving advice/peptalks to our (gay-coded) Will. But so far- Jonathan has no one he really emotionally leaned on in the same way (Will does with Jonathan). I also wonder if Will in s4 starts gets tired of how he always confides in Jonathan (but Jonathan never does the same with Will  in return)? Like Robin with Mr. Hauser?

#robin buckley #steve harrington #will byers #el hopper #jonathan byers #stranger things #stranger things theory

[twh-news]

'Loki' Full Season 1 Review: The Most Frustrating Thing Is How Incomplete the Story Feels

Editor's note: The following contains spoilers through the Season 1 finale of Loki, "For All Time. Always."

[TWH-NEWS note: Tom is NOT confirmed to be on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness even though the article so claims. Marvel hasn't confirmed it.]

The Loki season finale is perhaps one of the most vexing episodes of television I have seen in quite some time. The Disney+ sci-fi drama, tracking the events following Loki's (Tom Hiddleston) escape from the pre-established timeline, was never confirmed to be an ongoing show versus a limited series, with rumors of a second season on the horizon from the beginning, so the biggest twist delivered by "For All Time. Always." ended up being confirmation of a Season 2 with a post-credits title card.

However, while there were other key reveals made during the episode, those reveals left behind plenty of story to explore in future seasons. Too much story. There's a difference between a few dangling plot threads and a mess of string, and the staggering number of questions left unresolved by "For All Time. Always." crosses a line when it comes to completion — especially given the fact that there's no clear sense of when the show might return, and the real story being told is much bigger than the fate of one mischievous scamp.

In general, every episode of this show was beautifully made, with immense credit going to director Kate Herron, head writer Michael Waldron, and the creative team. The cast of known all-stars like Tom Hiddleston, Owen Wilson, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw, blended with new all-stars like Sophia Di Martino and Wunmi Mosaku, did a remarkable job of grounding even the most fantastical moments in raw humanity, and the writing popped with verve and wit. Also, Loki does come full circle on what was its original raison d'etre — the redemption of a character who literally was plucked out of the timeline at his worst, having attacked Manhattan with an alien force so destructive that the Earth needed a whole damn team of superheroes to stop him. On this score, the show was wildly successful, breaking down Loki's sense of grandeur and purpose in the first episode and then slowly but surely rebuilding him into a man capable of evolving beyond his past. Loki did more to examine a single character's psychology and motivations than we've ever seen in the context of the MCU, and all of the progress and growth made by the character, as a result, feels truly earned.

However, if Loki's redemption was the only thing this show had been about, it would have been a very boring show, and Loki was far from boring. The official theme of the series was "What makes a Loki a Loki?" but the real issues being raised were far more existential; in so many ways, this was a show about faith and free will, an undercurrent that deserves more exploration and frankly appreciation, especially after the questions and themes left dangling by the last episode.

This element proved to be key to so much of the show's construction, especially when it comes to the TVA, which basically functions as a religious order — its devotees slavishly sacrificing their lives to the cause of protecting the Sacred Timeline. It's not subtle, especially when the dark side of it is revealed, those devotees learning that their service happened against their will. "We can't take away people's free will, can't you see that?" Mobius pleads with Ravonna in their final scene together, before she walks away in something resembling agreement with him, telling him that she's going in search of free will herself.

Loki Season 1, by the end, becomes a show not just about a crisis of faith, but about an apocalypse. Every time a story about apocalypses comes up, I find it impossible to forget that the Greek word from which the term originates actually means "revelation." That's why the part of the Bible about the world ending is called the Book of Revelations, but beyond that, the definition serves as a reminder of why endings can matter. Endings are beginnings, in some ways. A painful breakup reveals the flaws in what might have seemed like a loving relationship. Extreme climate change is a revelation regarding humanity's callous attitude towards its impact on the environment. For the characters of Loki — perhaps the entire MCU — the apocalypse they're facing following the destruction of the Sacred Timeline also means the revelation of what lives they left behind.

Certainly there's a ton of room for speculation as to what lies ahead for these characters, but the fact is that the next chapter of Loki's journey won't even be told on Disney+, as Hiddleston is reportedly in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, and there's no telling when we might return to resolve the events of the Season 1 finale. Cliffhangers are one thing; anyone who grew up watching '90s TV learned the hard way how to handle the dramatic season endings of The X-Files or Star Trek: The Next Generation. But Loki didn't dangle its characters off a cliff — it pushed them off the edge, leaving them suspended in mid-air for who knows how long.

Back in the days of The X-Files you at least knew that whatever jaw-dropping cliffhanger the season finale had just delivered would be addressed by the season premiere in just a few months. (Maybe as many as six months, depending on the baseball season.) That's a sense of certainty that Loki fans do not have the luxury of enjoying; based on where the conversations around a second season currently stand, it could be a while before the contracts are even signed. Conservatively, at this point, it feels unlikely that we'll get a second season of Loki until near the end of 2022, and given that the first season took over two years from its announcement to now to actually debut, 2023 doesn't feel like too much of a stretch. Maybe Owen Wilson and Gugu Mbatha-Raw get to make cameos in Doctor Strange 2 as well? Nothing is possible and everything is possible. We just have to wait for the answer, and in the meantime stew in dissatisfaction.

"Only one person gets free will. The one in charge," Ravonna tells Mobius — implicitly referring to He Who Remains (Jonathan Majors). Who, speaking of, is now dead, Sylvie having completed her one primary quest to revenge herself upon the ones who took her life away. That, combined with the Wizard of Oz parallels, makes this a show that's fascinating to parse (Sylvie literally killed God!), but frustratingly incomplete in its themes. Literally as the episode officially ended on the visage of Kang enshrined as the ruler of the TVA, I said out loud "Well, there's going to be a Season 2," and I suppose that thanks are owed to Marvel and Disney+ for not leaving that element in suspence for more than two minutes and two seconds.

But if I have a religion, it's my belief in the power of storytelling, how the myths we create for ourselves and others can shape lives and hopefully make them better. One tenet of that is the idea that great stories deserve some sense of completion. So, the first season of Loki committed a pretty grievous sin.

#There's no confirmation on Tom being in the next Doctor Strange film!!! #loki #loki series #review #article #collider #loki spoilers #spoilers #loki series spoilers

[murasaki-murasame]

Thoughts on Higurashi Sotsu Ep13

The true mystery of this show is trying to figure out how to even talk about each episode without just repeating myself or talking about other parts of the franchise, lmao.

Anyway, thoughts under the cut. Plus probably spoilers for both Umineko and Ciconia.

I’m not even sure where to begin talking about the fundamental issues this show has at this point, lol. It’s easy to just say that Sotsu on it’s own is bad, but I feel like it’s highlighting the fact that right from day one there were problems with the show’s structure and it’s intentions that have just become more and more of an issue as time’s gone on.

At the very least, I think that it was a huge mistake for them to have the gun cliffhanger happen midway through Gou, and to then spend so much time on backstory stuff and answer arcs. That just cast a negative shadow over all of those arcs because everyone was just impatient to get back to the cliffhanger. At this point I think they shouldn’t have even had Nekodamashi be in Gou to begin with. If they transitioned straight from Tataridamashi to Satokowashi then you could keep the general cliffhanger of revealing that Satoko’s the culprit without making people so impatient to go back to it and see what happens afterward.

But there’s also the issues like how Satokowashi revealed everything we needed to know about the howdunnit of the mystery, or how the whole gimmick of reusing the same scenarios as the VN in order to play both sides and make it technically accessible to new fans really wrote them into a corner and forced them to spend more time on the answer arcs than they needed to.

If we at least assume that the whole story ends in this arc, I think you easily could have condensed it all into one 2-cour season if they’d just committed to aiming this at old fans.

I guess there’s still a chance we’ll get some sort of continuation, but at this point I feel like the only way to get that much more content is if it ends up mostly retreading Satokowashi from a different perspective, which might actually drive me insane, lol.

In general it just feels like we’re already at the climax of the story one way or another, and there’s not many ways to keep it going for much longer without it seeming super forced. Like, Eua and Hanyuu are having their big confrontation with each other, and now Rika and Satoko are both on the same page, so they’re going to basically be stuck in a stalemate until one of them gives up. There isn’t really any mystery left to answer aside from giving more info about what’s going on between Eua and Hanyuu, so I’d rather they just cut to the chase and not drag this out.

We also know from TV listings that a different show is going to taking over Sotsu’s time slot next season, so unless it changes time slot for some reason, we’d probably have to wait until at least January to get a continuation, and I just dunno if that’d even be worth it.

I’ve already gone over my general ideas for how I think this will end, but I still think it’s entirely possible to wrap things up in just two more episodes. At the very least, if we get another full cour out of this then that’d probably just end up only having a few more episodes of actually new content, so my point still stands, lol.

I don’t think this episode did much to change my mind about where this is going, but it did at least clarify a couple of things. Like how Eua explicitly calls Hanyuu a ‘part of her’, which means that I’m probably right about my interpretation of them being two halves of the same being. There’s still a lot of different ways they could explain it, but at this point it’d basically still just boil down to the same idea of them being two parts of the same person.

It’s also more clear now that Rika more or less didn’t really know about Satoko being the culprit until the last minute, and was starting to get flashbacks to the end of Tataridamashi. I’m not entirely sure how to feel about that. It’s kinda hard to believe that Rika wasn’t at least suspecting Satoko by that point, but I do like the implication that Rika wasn’t fully dead when Satoko arrived, since that at least feels like pay-off for Satoko being so cocky and openly monologuing about how evil she is when she thinks Rika’s dead and can’t hear her.

I guess this episode also shows that there wasn’t anything particularly special going on with how Takano decided to confess to Rika in this one specific loop, which is also kinda underwhelming. Basically it seems like it just boils down to her feeling guilty about all of the stuff she remembers doing, but it’s still kinda weird that she didn’t confess to her in any previous loops. One of the weird issues with Gou/Sotsu’s storytelling is that Rika seemingly put no real effort into trying to investigate Takano even though she remembered her being the culprit, and I think that could have been really easily resolved if there was a scene like this in Onidamashi where Takano confesses her sins to Rika and leaves the village, since that would at least give a reason for her to not try and investigate them, and to assume that somebody else is behind these new loops. They could have even just had that happen off-screen and only be shown in Oniakashi if they didn’t want to spoil new fans. It just seems like a really easy change to make that would have made Rika’s passivity and hopelessness in this series way more understandable.

I think we’re also meant to assume that Satoko reacting to the box in this episode was just her faking it, since there’s no real indication that her conscience has returned or anything. But I’m not really sure why Satoko would go out of her way to fake that, when the trap box hadn’t even come up in that timeline. Maybe it would have made more sense if we saw her inner thoughts in that scene, but it kinda feels like they had to come up with some sort of scenario where Satoko would accidentally display knowledge that only a looper would know. Compared to how she’s been almost overpowered and hyper-competent in this series compared to Rika, it has a weird vibe of her being stupid because the plot demands it, lol. Either way it just seems kinda weird and contrived.

We also ended this episode on the gun cliffhanger again, which I saw coming, but it still kinda stings, lol. Hopefully the payoff is worth it. Realistically I think Satoko will just immediately shoot Rika, and we’ll cut to them having a proper confrontation in the meta world. With how they compared it to the ‘miracle’ scene with Takano in Matsuribayashi, it’s possible that they’ll somehow stop Satoko from shooting her, but I dunno. The stuff Hanyuu said about how this ‘isn’t the world that Rika fought for’ makes me think we’re probably not gonna stick with this loop for very long anyway, so I’d rather they just cut to the chase and get to the part where the two of them fight it out in the fragment world once and for all. Which at least seems to be what that one part of the OP is teasing at.

On that note, the only other mysterious part of the OP [and the key visual] left is the older club members in new outfits, which still feels like a bit of a loose thread, but it’s entirely possible that it doesn’t really mean much. For one thing, it could be as simple as it being related to an epilogue scene back in the Matsuribayashi timeline where they’re in different outfits to the ones we saw them wear last time we saw them. Either way I don’t really think the other club members are going to be super relevant to how this all ends, so one way or another whatever that stuff is related to could still just come up in the next two episodes.

Basically the question is just how exactly the big conflicts are gonna get resolved, and what note we’ll end things on. Which also ties into the larger question of whether or not this is genuinely meant to tie into Umineko [and maybe Ciconia] like they’re indicating, or if that’s some kind of elaborate troll.

I know i’m biased, but I think all the Umineko and Ciconia stuff is totally sincere, and Ryukishi really is using this as a way to start tying the wider WTC-verse together in a more concrete way, so that’s what I’m basing my theories off of.

With that in mind, I still think this will end with Rika and Satoko officially abandoning their humanity and becoming witches together, with the sword maybe being an in-universe plot device to depict that process. And with the reveal that Eua and Hanyuu are for all intents and purposes two parts of the same person, I feel like their side of things will probably end with them merging together in a way that creates Featherine, which would at least explain why Featherine’s personality is more mild than Eua’s, and also why Bernkastel is her miko, and why Featherine’s whole name is a giant pun about Hanyuu. It’d also fit with the whole religious motif that Hanyuu has going on if she basically ‘sacrifices’ herself to neutralize Eua. It’s at least the closest I think we’ll get to seeing Eua be ‘defeated’.

And on that note, I don’t really think this will end with anyone like Eua or Satoko being used as a villain who everyone else defeats so they can go back to their happy ending, since that’s the exact sort of thing that Ryuukishi regrets doing originally, and is why we’ve gotten so many redemption arcs for people in Gou/Sotsu. So I think at most we’ll see Eua get turned into Featherine so she’s less actively hostile towards everyone else, but I think this will ultimately end with Rika and Satoko reconciling and mending their relationship.

Over on the Matsuribayashi timeline side of things, I feel like this is gonna end up paralleling Nekodamashi a bit, and we’ll find out that Satoko ended up planning to kill herself in the Saiguden, but Rika and the club will show up at the last minute and she’ll choose not to. Then we’ll probably see her and Rika talk things out properly, and maybe Satoko will find out that Satoshi woke up from his coma or whatever, and that way they’ll all still get their happy ending, while also simultaneously we can still have Rika and Satoko split off their witch selves into separate entities that become the Bern and Lambda we know in Umineko.

It’s possible they’ll do something with the idea of Satoko losing her game and being sent to a world without Rika, but that also might just not happen at all. So who knows.

If they really lean into the idea of this directly setting up for Umineko, then it’d be neat if we also see Satoko and Rika meet Ikuko in the future of the Matsuribayashi timeline.

There’s also the Ciconia teases to think about, but they seem to be going in the direction of Ciconia taking place before all this even happened, so I think that’ll be kept kinda nebulous and unexplored until Ciconia itself finishes. Ryukishi might announce a release date for phase 2 after Sotsu ends, but I think it’s way too early for anything like an anime adaptation of it. I’d rather they wait until at least after it’s finished before they do something like that.

On the other hand, Umineko’s been over for like ten years, so it’d be much easier to do something like a remake for it after this. I have a lot of thoughts about how that might go if they do that, but I’m gonna wait until Sotsu ends and then make a separate post about it.

Anyway I guess now I just have to wait and see what happens next week, lol.

#murasaki rambles #higurashi #higurashi sotsu

[dandivinity]

Madokannon: Religious Symbolism in Madoka Magica

If there’s one word I’d use to describe the show, Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica, it would be deceptive. If you’re wondering how a cute Sailor Moon rip-off with even brighter colors and a moe art-style is deceptive, congrats, you fell for the deception. As the series continues, it becomes clear that the show is not a cut-and-dry monster of the week where good always triumphs. Rather it is a pastel-colored Faustian bargain where even the best intentions can lead to dire consequences. In the end it is only through the titular characters unshakeable hope and faith and no small amount of divine intervention that the series reaches it’s bitter sweet conclusion. This is obvious upon a first viewing. What is less obvious is the nature that this divine intervention takes. While the show occasionally makes direct connections to Christianity, It seems to me that the theology implemented is Buddhist through and through complete with Four noble truths, samsara, vile rebirth, and an allegory of the bodhisattva Kannon. 

Let’s start with the basis of the show, the wishes. This is one of Madoka’s most prominent aspects and the largest concern from the beginning of the series before the villain’s true underpinnings are revealed. For those of you not familiar, 1). Why are you reading this? And 2). The set-up of the Madoka,  like most magical girl anime, involves a cute animal mascot offering the girls magical powers in order to fight monsters. What makes this set up unique however is that the oh so cute cat-bunny-thing known as Kyubey also offers the girls one wish as an incentive so that they would accept it’s “contract”. Now the use of the word “contract” is an obvious red flag meant to alert us to the Faustian nature of the deal. And yes, the agreement comes with several hidden clauses that Kyubey conveniently leaves out such as the fact that becoming a magical girl involves having your soul removed from your body and placed into a gem because it’s “easier to protect”. But Kyubey’s not exactly stealing it like a Christian devil would. More importantly than the hidden clauses though, is the wishes themselves.

Now stories of the devil tempting people with promises of wealth or power are quite common in Western literature, as are tales of djinn or monkey paws providing wishes that always go wrong in Near Eastern lit. But what’s extraordinary about Madoka is that for the most part the wishes the girls grant are simple in nature and rather generous. Our main focus point, and the only wish we see pursued from beginning to end in chronological order is that of Sayaka Miki. Sayaka is established to be crushing on a boy who was a former violin prodigy before a car accident left him paralyzed with no hope of playing ever again. Sayaka wishes for him to be healed, and just like that, it’s done. 

The boy does not relapse, nor does he lead into another accident. He simply starts a miraculous yet slow path to recovery, until the series finale where he is shown without crutches and playing beautifully for a wide audience. The problem? Well as pointed out before Sayaka even makes the wish, she’s wasn’t actually doing it for him: she was on an unconscious level hoping that he’d be forever grateful to her. Does she hold this over him? No. Does he reject her? No. She simply doesn’t ask. Sayaka is too busy with her new responsibilities and ashamed of what she has become to ask. 

And frankly the importance of Kyosuke in Sayaka’s fall is largely overstated by the fanbase. Yes, he’s a large factor but even more so than wanting to heal him or his gratitude, Sayaka wants to be a hero. This is heightened when their magical mentor dies within the first three episodes. Sayaka now feels like it’s her responsibility to protect her city as no one else will. Unfortunately, she’s simply not as strong as her former mentor or the new morally unsound magical girls that seeks to dispose of her (both Kyoko and Homura). This is really what leads to Sayaka’s downward spiral as she comments, “The world doesn’t need a magical girl who can’t even kill a witch”. Sayaka wants to be a hero, and she wants to get the guy and she gets neither. Her desires, both fulfilled and unfulfilled, all lead to her suffering. This is the First Noble Truth of Buddhism. 

I realize this isn’t the most convincing argument on its own but let’s zoom out a bit here. What is desire if not earthly attachments? Attachment and inability to let go of attachment is a concept found in nearly all the wishes in the show. It doesn’t matter if it’s Sayaka’s wishing for her friend’s health, Mami literally trying to cling to life, or Kyoko (in the most directly religious moment in the show) wishing that people would come to her father’s sermons so that her family could have enough to eat. All of these desires are moral in some way and yet they are still desires. More importantly, they all involve a longing for what once was, and are attempts to return things to how they were rather than moving on. This inability to let go is characterized not just in the wishes but in the reason they’re implemented in the first place. 

When Kyubey finally explains why they knowingly cause suffering to countless adolescent girls throughout time, they explain it’s to harvest enough renewable energy from the emotions of magical girls to stave off the entropy of the universe. The whole process is rather convoluted and -let’s face it- an excuse to deconstruct magical girl tropes, but that doesn’t change the fact that preventing the heat death of the universe is still Kyubey’s number one goal. That combined with their inability to truly understand the suffering they’re causing has caused some of the community to question their villain status or at least say they’re a villain with a just cause. And while postponing the heat death of the universe may be noble in the long run, it is a literal fight against the impermanence of the universe. A fight that we know from Buddhism is doomed to only lead to personal trauma in the face of inevitability of a changing world. But it is this fight against impermanence that kyubey embodies so well, and one that is baked into the wish-based magical girl system they run. 

Ok, enough beating around the bush. It’s time to talk about Homura. After spending most of the show as a mysterious red-herring villain that knows far too much, Homura finally gets an episode dedicated to her near the end of the show where it’s revealed she’s a time traveller who restarted the timeline over and over again in order to make her wish come true; to be able to save Madoka. Specifically  Homura has to replay the same month over and over again until she can succeed in saving Madoka’s life and cannot escape until this goal is reached.  This obsession leads to a very literal samsara, by repeating the timeline again and again Homura is actively choosing to trap herself in endless cycles of suffering, death, and rebirth all because of her attachment to the mortal world. Through this process we can see Homura fall apart becoming more and more monstrous in her single-minded focus to save Madoka at the expense of everything else. By the time she arrives at our main timeline that the rest of the show takes place in, Homura is comparable to a hungry ghost. She’s directly accused of walking through the world as if dead, unable to feel anything except for the desire that damned her in the first place, her obsession with Madoka. When even this too seems lost, she nearly becomes a witch. 

In Mahayana Buddhism, rebirth on earth is not the worst thing that can happen after one’s death. If one leads a sufficiently desperate life they can be reborn as an animal, hungry ghost, or in hell. This is where Madoka’s witches come from. Perhaps the most tragic twist in Madoka Magica is that if a magical girl falls into despair (usually due to her wish’s inability to make her happy), her soul gem will transform into a grief seed which then becomes one of the monsters they fight. These nightmare collage monsters have new names separate from their old identities and live in pocket dimensions where they lure people in. These pocket dimensions often in someway manifests the desires of their old lives being filled with sweets, TVs, or (in Sayaka’s case) violinists. Interestingly, when Sayaka first dies and is reborn as the witch Octavia in a train station, her labyrinth is also full of railroad tracks. She relocates to a concert hall and the labyrinth follows suit, but train wheels remain despite having no apparent bearing on her previous life. This could be a reference to Buddhist beliefs about your final thoughts and which direction you look when you die having bearing on which realm you’ll be reborn into. 

Homura’s obsession in contrasted by Madoka’s ability to let go. Madoka’s final wish and subsequent ascension has often been compared to Jesus’s sacrifice on the cross, and rightfully so. Madoka’s wish to become a cosmic force that can take on all the despair of magical girls before they become witches at the cost of her own mortal life has many strong parallels to Jesus suffering on the cross to redeem humanity. However that idea only works if Jesus is suffering. Madoka is stated to be taking the grief of every magical girl who ever became a witch onto herself and we even see a far future version of her becoming a witch large enough to destroy the world. But before it does it is shot down by another version of a truly ascended Madoka in a white dress. This version states paradoxically that since her wish applies to all magical girls that would become witches, that includes herself. The fluidity of time and direct denial of the necessity of suffering or sacrifice are at odds with Orthodox Chriastianity, or at least its perception of Jesus. Rather I argue that the way Madoka saves all the magical girls, her subsequent erasure from existence, and even such mundane symbols such as the white dress all link her closer to the Bodhisattva, Kannon. 

Let’s take a closer look at the scene where we see Madoka actually ascends and manifests to relieve the potential witches of their grief. We see Madoka split herself into thousands shafts of light, all of which appear above different suffering magical girls in different places and time periods. And above all of them Madoka appears, she touches their corrupted soul gems which are then purified before shattering, allowing the magical girls to die in peace. A rather sad ending, but one that’s better than rebirth as a witch, which we already identified as equivalent to the hell realm. So while it is unclear where the magical girls are going to go after they die (or even if they go anywhere at all as we just saw the gems holding their souls shatter, possibly destroying them), we can know that Madoka is saving them from a worse rebirth. This directly parallels miracle tales that surround the Bodhisattva Kannon, especially in her Chinese incarnation as the white-robed Guanyin. 

Kannon is the primary example of Bodhisattva or one who has put off Budhahood to aid those still on earth. Kannon in particular swears to never ascend until all living things have been freed of samsara. She’s often depicted as having 11 heads and a thousand arms to better reach all those suffering in the world at once, like how Madoka splits herself into a myriad of forms. Many of these tales have devotees of Guanyin spared from tragic fates such as beheadings or shipwrecks. However a few, adapt these stories to instead refer to a more metaphorical salvation, especially in the pure land tradition popular in Japan which then says that anyone who calls out to Kannon on the verge of their death will be still die and be reborn to the pure land rather than wherever else they were supposed to reincarnate. Madoka’s god form even highly resembles the Chinese incarnation, Guanyin. Wikipedia states, “Guanyin is generally portrayed as a young woman wearing a flowing white robe, and usually also necklaces symbolic of Indian or Chinese royalty. In her left hand is a jar containing pure water, and the right holds a willow branch.” While we never see Madoka with any water; the flowing white dress, red gems along her collar bone, and branch-like bow (though on that seems to be more of a sakura branch) all bring to mind Guanyin.

Finally Madoka’s ascension ends with her body dissolving into glimmers of light as she explains how no one will remember her, but she’ll still be there. This dissolution of the her spiritual body is a visual symbol of ego-death. Madoka recreates a word where she does not exist, and had never existed, yet still manifests as a concept and virtuous force that leads others to salvation rather than as a sentient entity. This is the Nirvana. Madoka hadn’t just ascended to godhood, she had surpassed it and achieved nothingness, as her buddha nature radiates throughout the world, ultimately changing it into something better. This is the paradox of Buddhism and the goal of any buddhist practitioner, to achieve an inner peace so strong you become a part of the universe like madoka had. And the new world she created was better for it. 

That is at least until the show decided to  make a movie sequel and trick madoka into descending. At that point she stops acting as a Buddha and instead as Pistis Sophia in line with the obscure belief system of 2nd century Gnostics. But that will be a conversation for another time. 

#madoka magica #buddhism #madoka kamane #kaname madoka #kannon #guanyin #kuan-yin #samsara #homura akemi #pmmm sayaka #pmmm #Essay #Religion #Religious studies #I should've submitted this two months ago when it was still relevant. #oh well

[lo-lynx]

The Nordic influences in His Dark Materials

TW: Eugenics, racism, sexism

Spoiler warning: The whole His Dark Materials book series (but mainly The Golden Compass/Nothern Lights), minor spoiler for La Belle Sauvage, very minor spoiler for His Dark Materials the tv-show.

 When one of my favourite podcasts Girls Gone Canon announced that they were going to start covering the His Dark Materials novels in preparation of the launch of the TV-show this fall, I got very excited. I had read the first novel, The Golden Compass/Northern Lights, as a child but remembered very little so I decided to re-read the entire series. Reading the novels now, as a nerd in my twenties that’s working on getting a master’s degree in gender studies, and is born and raised in Sweden, I quite quickly got very interested in some aspects of the series’ worldbuilding. Namely, the way “The North” and its people are portrayed. Phillip Pullman’s story takes place in several different worlds, but we start out in what I’ll call “Lyra’s world”, a world similar to ours, but also quite different. Over the course of the first novel our heroine Lyra, travels with a group of gyptians (a people that seems to be inspired of our world’s Roma people) to “The North” to recover children that a corrupt religious government agency has kidnapped. Now, exactly what counts as “The North” is slightly unclear, but the group’s first stop is the town of Trollesund in Lapland. In our world both Trollesund and Lapland exists, but Trollesund is most definitely not in Lapland. The northern most states/regions in both Sweden and Finland are called Lapland.  On the first map bellow Trollesund is marked out, and on the other two the states/regions of Lapland in Sweden and Finland are marked.

Regardless of exactly where Trollesund is, I’ve always assumed it to be in a Swedish speaking area based on the names given to characters and places in the novel. These are for example Martin Lanselius and Einarsson’s Bar (Pullman 2007, 179). These names definitely sound more Swedish than Finnish. Lanselius could possibly be Norwegian as well, but the Norwegian version of Einarsson should be Einarsen (I have no specific source for this… but Swedish last names are often constructed as [name]sson, and Norwegian ones as [name]sen.). In the television adaption of His Dark Materials Trollesund seems to be in Norway however (Cremona 2018). Now, even if I’ve tried to figure it out, it remains unclear exactly where the Lapland of Lyra’s world is, but my guess is that it’s somewhere close to the Laplands of our world. It should be pointed out that in Pullman’s other novel that takes place in the same universe, La Belle Sauvage, a character visits the town of Uppsala (also a real town), which is stated to be in Sweden (Pullman 2017, 45). So, the state of Sweden seems to exist, and be separate from the state of Lapland. Now, why do I care about this so much? Am I just curious because this is “my neck of the woods”? Well, partly yes. But I also find it very interesting that Pullman has decided to create a separate state of Lapland and have several important parts of the plot take place there.

In our world, the word/name Lapland (or Lappland in Swedish) means l*p land/country. What does l*p mean you might ask? Well, it is a derogatory term for the Sami people, a people indigenous to North Norway/Sweden/Finland/Russia. Their own name for this land is Sápmi. The Sami people have lived in this area for several thousands of years and have traditionally (and still today) used that area for reindeer husbandry, hunting, and fishing (Samer, n.d. a). For a long time, they have been a nomadic people, which has been exploited to claim that they have no claim over the land, even though they have dwelt there. To write an exhaustive account of the exploitation of Sami people is beyond the capabilities of this essay, but I recommend the site www.samer.se which is a site run by Sametinget (the parliament representing the Sami people in Sweden, that also functions as a state agency), which can be translated into English. However, it should be noted that this exploitation has been sanctioned by the Swedish state pretty much since the time of the unification of Sweden in the 16th century (Samer, n.d b). At the same time the missionary work of the Swedish church started in the area and by the 17th century Sami people were forced to attend church (Samer, n.d. c). By the end of the 19th century racist ideas of eugenics/racial biology started gaining traction in Sweden, which also impacted Sami people:

It began being claimed that the Sami were born with certain "race characteristics" that made them inferior to the rest of the population. Therefore, they could not live as "civilized" people in real houses. If they did, they would become "lazy" and start neglecting their reindeer. That would result in all Sami people having to become beggars because they did not have any skills besides reindeer husbandry. The [Swedish parliament] decided in 1928 that the Sami who were not reindeer herders would not have any Sami rights either. For example, they were given no special right to hunt and fish in the areas where their ancestors had lived. In this way, the state drew a sharp boundary between the Sami living on reindeer husbandry and those who support themselves in other ways. The Sami schooling was also affected by racism. A law about a special nomad school came in 1913 which stated that teachers would wander around the mountainous regions in the summer. There, the youngest schoolchildren would be taught in the family's cot for a few weeks each year during the first three school years. The rest of the school time consisted of winter courses in regular schools for three months a year for three years. The teaching would only cover a few subjects and it had to be at such a low level that the children were not "civilized". Children of nomadic Sami were not allowed to attend public primary schools. 

[my translation] (Samer n.d. d)

This eugenics movement did, however, not just result in substandard schooling and rights in general. I have previously written about the ideas of eugenics, as well as the way the Swedish state sanctioned them, but some aspects of it is specifically relevant to highlight in relation to the Sami people. In 1922 The State’s Race Biological institute (Statens rasbiologiska institut) was created in Uppsala in Sweden, by the “scientist” Herman Lundborg (Hagerman 2016, 961). He wished to research the Swedish race, and the mixing of races in Sweden. This was done in several ways, both by looking at records of marriages and birth (often supplied by church officials who had access to so called “church books” that recorded this), and physical examinations of people. He, and other “scientists”, travelled around Sweden to examine the Sami people and other groups that were considered inferior (such as Finns, Roma people, Jews, disabled people etc). The physical examination of Sami people often happened in collaboration with local churches or schools (Hagerman 2016, 984). Another part of the eugenics movement in Sweden that is worth mentioning here is the forced sterilisations that took place during this time.  As Hübinette and Lundström writes:

(…) a sterilisation law to hinder the reproduction of the lower classes, and simultaneously to increase the birth rate among the ‘better stock’ (…) The sterilisation program was in effect between 1934 and 1975, and turned out to be one of the most effective in the democratic world, resulting in the sterilisation of over 60,000 people. Moreover, it was both racialised, gendered, classed and heteronormative, as national minorities like the Travellers and the Roma were proportionally more targeted than majority Swedes, and as 90 percent were women, mostly belonging to the lower- and working-classes, and many deemed to be sexual transgressors of the patriarchal order of the day. (Hübinette & Lundström 2014, 428)

So, in conclusion, these eugenic practices had profound consequences for several groups of marginalised people in Sweden during this time. These “scientific” practices were state sanctioned and supported by officials from The Swedish Church.

Now, lets get back to His Dark Materials and Lyra’s world. I want to start by pointing out some more “obvious” parallels between people and custom’s in Lyra’s world and the Sami people and culture, and then move on to some more theme-based comparisons. Firstly, if one compares a map of Sápmi with the map of the Witches’ land in Lyra’s world, there are striking similarities:

(Nordiska museet n.d.)

(His Dark Materials Wiki n.d.)

So, geographically there seems to be similarities between the Witches’ lands and Sápmi. But it’s not exactly the same, just as the Witches obviously aren’t exactly Sami people. However, they do also seem to have partly the same religion. The Witches (at least Serafina Pekkala’s clan) have a death goddess that they call Yambe-Akka (Pullman 2007, 305). This figure also exists in Sami religion (Oxford Reference n.d.). Her name can also be spelled Jábbmeáhkko (Samer n.d. e). Furthermore, the Witches in general seem to be very close to nature, and not as focused on material wealth etc as other humans (Pullman 2007, 299). This seems quite similar to a sort of stereotypical view of Sami people and indigenous people in general. On multiple occasions the books also describe how the Witches live close to the veil between worlds and can hear the undead whispers from beyond it (ibid, 174). This seems similar to the Sami beliefs in how a nåjden/noajdde (a shaman) could communicate with the spiritual world, including communing with Jábbmeáhkko (Samer n.d. e). However, there is no mention of actual Sami people in His Dark Materials. This seems somewhat odd, considering how other peoples from our world are called out, such as the Samoyed and the Tartars. Nevertheless, their culture does seem to have inspired Pullman’s depiction of the Witches.

I now want to look at some more comparisons between the North in Lyra’s world and Nordic/Swedish history in our world. In the story Lyra travels north to free children who have been kidnapped by The General Oblation Board (GOB) and taking to the station Bolvangar (Pullman 2007, 169). At Bolvangar the children are subjected to different medical studies and experiments. The children who are kidnapped seems to mainly come from lower classes and/or ethnic minorities (such as the gyptians). This is sadly very similar to the groups of people targeted by The State’s Institute for Racial Biology in Sweden. In both cases it was easier to experiment on people who had less power in society. As I outlined before as well, many Sami children were studied at schools and in collaboration with church officials. This seems very similar to a religious government agency taking of children to The North to experiment on them. Another thing I want to highlight is the comparison between the severing of children and dæmons, and sterilisation. In the books, children’s bond to their dæmons (their soul) are severed by the GOB in order to prevent “Dust” settling on the children (Pullman 2007, 275). Dust is considered dangerous and sinful, something that according to the church started infecting humans after their fall from the garden of Eden. Sterilisation in our world, on the other hand, took place in order to make the population “cleaner” and of “better” stock. Groups who were in different ways considered degenerate were targeted, including women who were perceived as promiscuous/sexual transgressors. In Lyra’s world a spiritual connection is severed by the Church in order to curb sinfulness. In our world a biological connection is severed by “scientists” (in collaboration with the Church at times) to control sexuality and reproduction. There is a definite similarity here.

Quite a lot more could probably be written about the similarities between the North in Lyra’s world and ours, but I have to stop somewhere. What I have tried to show here is how Pullman seems to have been inspired both by Sami history/culture, and Nordic history in general when describing the North of Lyra’s world. He also seems to have pulled quite a lot of the racism targeted against ethnic minorities in this area. However, neither of these influences are as explicit as they could have been. In the case of the Sami culture I feel like this is a shame, especially since he chooses to call a country/state Lapland. One would think that since he seems to have done some research on the Sami people, he could have chosen to call it Sápmi instead, or even just include mention of the Sami, as he does with other ethnic groups. However, many of the parallels between the experiments that takes place in the North in Lyra’s world and the experiments that have been taking place in our world are interesting, as well as horrible. I want to end this text by being clear that the sort of discrimination, exploitation and racism that I have described here is not just a product of history. Similar things still happen throughout our world. In the United States latinx children are kept in terrible conditions in concentration camps by the border (see for example Sacchetti 2019). In Chechnya there have been reports about concentrations camps for LGBTQ+ people (see for example Steinmetz 2019). In China reports state that Muslims are being kept and tortured in concentration camps (see for example Ioanes 2019). And in Sweden Sami people are still being denied rights to their land (Torp 2016; Jonsson 2018; TT 2019). We need to stay vigilante and keep fighting.

EDIT: Since Girls Gone Canon mentioned this in their excellent episode about episode 4 in the TV-show I felt compelled to make this small edit. In Trollesund we also meet the character of the sysselman. This post seems to be based on the office of “sysselmann” that exists in parts of Norway and the Faroe Islands, which is sort of like a sherrif. I didn’t consider this until after the last episode because when I re-read The Golden Compass I did so in Swedish, and the word didn’t stand out as non-Swedish. I also confused it with the Swedish word “syssloman” (which is more similar to an attorney). After realising that it wasn’t translated in the English version of the story I looked it up and realised that the word was actually Norweigan, but with a slightly more Swedish spelling (sysselMAN instead of sysselMANN). This seems to be in line with my other analysis that Trollesund has both Swedish and Norweigan influences, while Lapland as a whole also has Finnish influences. So basically Lapland seems to be a mix of Scandinavia and Sápmi... 

EDIT 2: I recently realised that in Nothern Lights/The Golden Compass they mention that the “Norroway” government has influence in Trollesund (Pullman 2011, 170). Once again, this hints at the fact that Trollesund is in what in our world is Norway, as well as makes me even more confused about which states exist in the North. But I still think that Lapland is some sort of mix of Sápmi and other parts of Scandinavia. 

References

Cremona, Patrick. 2019. “Where was His Dark Materials filmed?”. Radio Times. https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-11-18/his-dark-materials-filmed-location/

Girls Gone Canon. 2019. His Dark Materials S1E4: “Armor”. https://girlsgonecanon.podbean.com/e/his-dark-materials-s1e4-armor/

*Hagerman, Maja. 2016. ”Svenska kyrkan och rasbiologin”[The Swedish Church and the eugenics]. In De historiska relationerna mellan Svenska Kyrkan och samerna: en vetenskaplig antologi [The Historical relationships between the Swedish Church and the Sami people: a scientific anthology], eds. Lindmark, Daniel & Olle Sundström. Skellefteå: Artos och Norma bokförlag [accessible online here: https://www.svenskakyrkan.se/filer/770f2627-57e5-4e06-b880-4ca6c4f94799.pdf ]

His Dark Materials Wiki. n.d. “Lake Enara” Accessed November 22, 2019. https://hisdarkmaterials.fandom.com/wiki/Lake_Enara

Hübinette, Tobias & Catrin Lundström. 2014. ”Three phases of hegemonic whiteness: understanding racial temporalities in Sweden”, Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture 20 (6): 423-37. [accessible online here: http://www.tobiashubinette.se/swedish_whiteness_2.pdf ]

Ioanes, Ellen. 2019. “Rape, medical experiments, and forced abortions: One woman describes horrors of Xinjiang concentration camps.” Business Insider. October 22, 2019. https://www.businessinsider.com/muslim-woman-describes-horrors-of-chinese-concentration-camp-2019-10?r=US&IR=T

Jonsson, Berno. 2018. ”Stor oro bland samer när kommunen säljer mark.” [Large concerns among Sami people when the municipality sells land] SVT. October 8, 2018. https://www.svt.se/nyheter/lokalt/vasterbotten/stark-oro-bland-samer-nar-kommunen-saljer-mark

Nordiska museet. n.d. “Vem är same? Vem är svensk? Varför vill du veta?” [Who is Sami? Who is Swedish? Why do you want to know?] Accessed November 22, 2019. https://www.nordiskamuseet.se/utstallningar/sapmi

Oxford Reference. n.d. “Yambe-akka”. Accessed November 22, 2019. https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803125245136

Pullman, Phillip. 2007. Guldkompassen. Stockholm: Bokförlaget Natur och Kultur [this is the Swedish translation of The Golden compass]

Pullman, Philip. 2011. Northern Lights. London: Scholastic

Pullman, Phillip. 2017. La Belle Sauvage. New York: Knopf

Sacchetti, Maria. 2019. “1,500 more migrant children separated from parents at US border than previously admitted, ACLU says” Independent. October 25, 2019. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-us-mexico-border-family-separation-migrant-children-aclu-a9170636.html

Samer. n.d. a “Sápmi.” Accessed November 22, 2019. http://www.samer.se/1002

Samer. n.d. b “Drömmen om outtömliga rikedomar i norr.” [The dream of inexhaustible riches in the North] Accessed November 22, 2019. http://www.samer.se/1229

Samer. n.d. c “I Guds tjänst” [In the service of God] Accessed November 22, 2019. http://www.samer.se/4441

Samer. n.d. d “Samepolitik i rasismens tidevarv” [Sami politics in the time of racism] Accessed November 22, 2019. http://www.samer.se/1042

Samer. n.d. e “Kontakt med andarna” [Contact with the spirits] Accessed November 22, 2019. http://www.samer.se/1139

Steinmetz, Katy. 2019. “A Victim of the Anti-Gay Purge in Chechnya Speaks Out: 'The Truth Exists'” TIME. July 26, 2019. https://time.com/5633588/anti-gay-purge-chechnya-victim/

Torp, Eivind. 2016. “Girjasmålet – rättsprocessen” [The Girjas case- the trial proceedings] Accessed November 22, 2019. http://www.samer.se/4997

TT. 2019. ”Tvist mellan sameby och staten avgörs i HD” [Dispute between Sami village and the state to be determined in the Supreme Court] Aftonbladet. September 2, 2019. https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/e8XrOl/tvist-mellan-sameby-och-staten-avgors-i-hd

*this is a chapter from The Swedish Church’s white paper about its treatment of Sami people.

#tw: racism #tw: eugenics #tw: sexism #his dark materials #his dark materials spoilers

[qwanderer]

Crowley & Aziraphale are unique in their world because they are a communally focused demon and an individualistic angel.

I've been having a lot of thoughts recently about the angels and demons of the Good Omens TV universe and their relationships to the concepts of individuality and community. In a lot of ways, what distinguishes the two groups is that angels are focused on a concept of what is Good that prioritizes the larger narrative of the universe without regard for the individual, and demons are focused on a concept of what is Evil that revolves around getting individuals to defy that narrative. 

Crowley is unique as a demon because he is drawn to community. He invents ways of not just drawing individuals away from the path of Good, but steering whole communities in devious directions. He seeks out Aziraphale's company not because of any advantage he can get from it personally (although he frames it that way now and again) but because he simply enjoys the company. He even fell, ultimately, because he was drawn to the company of the other rebel angels rather than because of any personal conviction of his own. 

Aziraphale is unique as an angel because he is drawn to individuals and their narratives. He sees his duty as an angel from the perspective of having his feet on the ground with the humans and seeing for himself what they are like. He collects and treasures and shares the stories they've written about themselves and has personal relationships with them. One of his first acts on Earth was to prioritize the needs of individual humans over the general gist of the orders he'd received. 

I started thinking about this because of Neil Gaiman’s post about the animals demons have on top of their heads sometimes in which he implied that it would be just as accurate to say that the demon is riding around on a humanoid body. In one of my fic serieses, I’m playing with the idea of demons as inherently plural - as if when they fall, they splinter, and become vessels for the clashing of multiple contradictory perspectives. This makes them the natural counterpart to angels, who tend towards uniformity and a lack of questions or doubt.

Angels bring many together into one, and demons turn one into many.

It’s interesting to look at this in terms of some of Crowley and Aziraphale’s most notable actions.

It would seem to be a typical action of angels to inspire people to sing religious hymns, to bring many together with one voice to say something Good. This seems like the equivalent of forming the M25 into the shape of the sigil Odegra, so that many humans join together to add power to the message, “hail the Great Beast, devourer of worlds.”

It’s a typical action of demons to possess humans, thereby turning what was one into many. Aziraphale possesses a human the same way, if more politely. There’s an interesting parallel between the exorcism of Legion by Christ (which is also an example of demonic plurality) and the exorcism of Aziraphale by the Antichrist.

It’s interesting how the show backs this dichotomy up with the imagery used for the two sides. With angels, it’s done by creating a strong association between heaven and a corporate office - the way they dress, the way they speak, the attitude of “follow the party line or else,” as well as the use of the words “discorporation/corporation” to describe their physical states.

With demons, of course, it’s done by having them all look incredibly different, and by giving them plural bodies of various kinds. I almost wonder if having multiple bodies acts the way a horcrux would, as a backup plan - all their bodies must be killed before they lose the ability to influence the physical world. Holy water may be an exception because it is not acting on the body.

I’m not sure of every instance of the word “corporation” versus “body” in the show but it does feel like “corporation” gets used a lot more by and for the angels and “body” when humans or demons are involved. Aziraphale definitely refers to Crowley as having a body when he briefly contemplates inhabiting it.

I think if any other angel and any other demon attempted to inhabit the same body, it would explode, simply from the force of the dichotomy between a single perspective versus multiple minds. But perhaps the reason that Crowley and Aziraphale were able to coexist closely enough to switch bodies was because this dichotomy already exists, to some extent, inside them both. 

Crowley is a demon who has a taste for unity. The plurality of his body seems to be a side note, in the form of his tattoo, and perhaps also in terms of his multiple gender presentations. He does still like to be one person at a time, and he does like to share perspectives with other beings.

Aziraphale is an angel who has a taste for individuality. Although he presents himself consistently over the years, he doesn’t dress quite the way the other angels do, doesn’t always stand entirely behind the party line. And as an avid reader, I think he probably has quite a number of differing perspectives living inside his head.

The two of them work so well together because, in many ways, they already operate more like the opposing side than like their own.

#good omens #good omens tv #aziraphale #anthony j crowley #ineffable husbands #meta #I was thinking about going into my Swedenborgian upbringing and how it contributes to the 'angels as communities' idea here #I was also considering making a 'corporations are people' joke #but I elected to keep it a little more succinct

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: Tomás Nochteff (Mueran Humanos)

Mueran Humanos, an Argentinian duo now based in Berlin, mixes post-punk, industrial-inflected synth explorations, garage rock and psychedelia. Carmen Burguess and Tomás Nochteff share vocal duties and play a very basic line-up of instruments: bass, synths, drum machines and samplers. In his review for Dusted, Andrew Forell called their latest, Hospital Lullabies, “a thrilling concoction of electronic, industrial, bass-driven body music fueled by the transgressive spirit of a DAF or a Psychic TV.” Here, Tomás presents his list of visionary music.

A list of visionary music

What is a visionary? Visions can come in dreams, in journeys to other worlds, in hallucinations. They can be the product of will, of a derangement of the senses, or they can come uninvited to save you or to haunt you and destroy your mental balance, even your life. It can be heavenly, or hellish, but to be authentic visions they have to be otherworldly. And to be visions rather than just imagination, they must have an element of truth. Not literal truth, like “that wall is green,” but a different kind of truth, the one that´s expressed in symbols, in metaphors, in omens and obsessions. In “Heaven and Hell,” Aldous Huxley analyzed the visions of people under the influence of psychedelic drugs, the visions of mystics and the visions of schizophrenics. He found fundamental parallels and concluded that they must have been visiting the same places. These people are not merely hallucinating, but they are perceiving another reality, visiting a different world, or maybe they are perceiving the world as it really is. And he quotes Jung on this: “schizophrenics and mystics are on the same ocean, but schizophrenics are drowning and mystics are swimming.” A visionary could be a mix of all these archetypes. Like Philip K Dick: was he on drugs? Yes. Was he mad? Yes. Was he seeking enlightenment? Yes. Had his visions an element of truth? No doubt about it. Were his visions revelations? To some extent, yes.

On our last album, Hospital Lullabies, the songs deal with all these different experiences on the journey to another world and on the invasion from another world into everyday life, with its horror and its beauty, the agony and the ecstasy. And how one copes, or doesn´t, with it.

So to celebrate it, I made a list of music that I do consider visionary. There’s madmen, there’s mystics and there’s psychonauts, all possible combinations of the three archetypes and everything in between.

Pharoah Sanders—“The Creator has a Masterplan” (Impulse)

I don´t know much about cosmic jazz, or any jazz for that matter, but what I know is that this record is pure bliss. “Harvest Time,” on Pharoah is another masterpiece. Alice Coltrane and Don Cherry are also incredible. This is music of the spheres; it has the touch of God.

Rudimentary Peni—CacophonyI (Outer Himalayan Records)

One of the few perfect punk bands ever, for lots of reasons. The bass lines are extraordinary, for example. But they belong here because of schizophrenic member Nick Blinko: incredible artist & novelist, obsessed with Catholicism and the supernatural horror. A guy who stopped his medication to force himself into a psychotic crisis just to write an album. Hero. Martyr.

Nico— “Janitor of Lunacy” (Cherry Red Records)

For me, Nico was the best and more underrated of all Velvets (and we love Velvet Underground as much as anyone). Also, the production from John Cale on her records is probably his best work too, or at least among his best. I feel that she is not appreciated enough. Iggy said that meeting her changed him. I suspect that´s true for all her famous friends: Bowie, Lou Reed, John Cale, Leonard Cohen, etc. They were all larger-than-life characters. And we know there is an element of self-built mythology on all that, a bit of acting. There is nothing wrong with that; rock and roll at its best is a complete artform and we must appreciate this self-built mythology as part of their craft. But with Nico you don´t get that feeling. She seemed that she didn´t care about her image, she was born Nico and I suspect that in that sense she inspired them all to no end. She was the genuine article. One of our main loves in music. Essential with a capital E.

Coil—“I Don’t Want To Be The One”

Jhonn Balance wanted to be a magician, and he died trying. I think he succeed in building a shamanic body of work with the help of the great late Sleazy and a myriad of brilliant contributors. Coil´s music at its best it´s like a plasma between worlds, or a very, very good psychedelic drug. My most beloved electronic/industrial/post-industrial project ever and one of our main influences. This performance is superb.

Lungfish — Feral Hymns

I´m not interested in DC post hardcore per se, and I don´t have any tattoos. I shouldn´t care about Lungfish the way I do, but they knock me out every single time. Daniel Higgs is a seer. I don´t know what he is talking about, but at the same time, my gut knows exactly what he is talking about. He speaks in images, like Tarot, like the religious painters, like Rimbaud and San Juan de la Cruz. His delivery is supreme. Raw and fragile, yet powerful and precise. Over circular, repetitive, minimal structures of music that have a haunting, arresting effect. Hypnotic, magical, devotional music. Either you get it, or you don´t. I can´t explain it. That´s the beauty of it, I suppose. And the truly mark of the visionary artist.

Ghedalia Tazartes—“Une Éclipse Totale De Soleil Part 2”

Ghedalia for me represents the pure, untouched, sui generis artist. Applying the techniques of musique concrete to the ancient folk music of the Sephardic Jews with a raw energy that usually you can only find in punk, or blues. I see in him an archetype, the Fool card in the Tarot. The madman that opens the gates of heaven and hell, gives himself to these supreme energies and survives only because of his perfect innocence.

OM—“Sinai (live at Sonic City)”

Maybe the greatest rock band of the last 20 years. Here with Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe to maximum effect.

Charlemagne Palestine—Live in Holland 1998

Like Ghedalia, Charlemagne Palestine is a Jewish artist that works in the avant garde field but subverts it with the tradition of his folk music instead of sticking to the cold, cerebral, rational program of academia. He has his own world. Watch this and you will understand what I am talking about.

Virgin Prunes—Excerpts from Sons Find Devils/“Walls of Jericho”

There is a VHS tape called Sons Find Devils, comprised of live shows and short experimental films (some of them made by Balance, from Coil). I had it as a teenager and watched it countless times. Sadly, it is not complete on YouTube or elsewhere but here are some small extracts. With their heretic mix of Irish Catholic imagery, Irish Paganism, Bataille, performance art and post punk, the Virgin Prunes made a unique and extraordinary body of work. A testament of its importance is that Gavin Friday was guest singer of two bands in this list: The Fall and Coil. And Mr. Scott Walker himself invited him to sing on a play. Maybe the historians ignore them, but Mark E. Smith, Scott Walker and Coil knew where it’s at, didn´t they? Their record If I die I die is a masterpiece. Produced by Colin Newman from Wire, no less, if you need more validation.

Boredoms—Vision Creation Newsun

I like some of the more comical, early work of Boredoms, but with Super AE and this one they got me. They got serious and spiritual, channeling Alice Coltrane, tribal drumming, kraut rock and noise into a glorious, euphoric sound. Maybe they are not visionaries, but their music can produce visions. I saw them around 2005 (on acid) with the three drummers line up, still in this phase. I remember thinking “this is what cavemen had in mind when they invented music.” I actually saw it, with my eyes closed. Early humans. In caves. Inventing music. God bless LSD.

Aphrodite´s Child — 666

The one record I bought for the cover only, it cost me 50 cents, best deal of my life. A concept album about the apocalypse. Easy contender for the best psychedelic rock album of all time. Pet Sounds? Get outta here. An absolute masterpiece.

Tim Buckley—Starsailor

Tim Buckley is a mystery. He died too young. How he went from his L.A. folk rock first album to the absolute unique sound of Starsailor and Lorca is impossible to understand and a miracle of music. All six records in between are masterpieces. He was possessed by genius and has the most beautiful voice. I don´t know much about him, but his music put me out there.

Sun Ra—Night Music 1989

Watch this. Space is The Place, indeed.

Pescado Rabioso—Artaud

This guy, Luis Alberto Spinetta, is considered by many to be the most important rock musician in my country. So being an arrogant teenage punk, or whatever, of course that alone was enough to reject him altogether without even thinking. But a couple of years ago I was blown away by a book of poems he published in 1978. Incredibly beautiful, unique and sophisticated poetry. I recently started, too late, to listen to his music. This is one of his most famous and revered records. It´s dedicated to, and inspired by Antonin Artaud, who tried and failed to reach the mystic enlightenment, generating a body of work in the process which is a testament to his spiritual ambition, his radical rejection of the material world and his pain. Spinetta understood this, he said the record was trying to find an answer to Artaud, a way out of it, a way out of the pain. It´s psychedelic music of the highest order. The lyrics are incredible but you can enjoy it even without understanding them.

Dead Can Dance—Dyonisios

I kept forgetting this band exists. This new album is great. I listened to it non-stop during last Winter/Spring. It´s the perfect time because the record is about Dyonisios, so as a soundtrack for the rebirth of Nature it´s perfect. Probably their best work in years. Sublime.

The Fall—“Garden” (Live at the Hacienda, Manchester, UK, 1984)

No list of visionary rock and roll would be complete without Mark E. Smith. Famously he said, “I used to be a psychic but I drank my way out of it.” Indeed, there was a time, between 1978-1990, when he was possessed by something, injecting realism with mysticism, mixing high and low planes, exposing the supernatural forces that hides in the cracks of everyday life. He never talks about hell neither heaven, but rather the way they mix and manifest here on Earth. You’ve got countless of bands using occult/mystic imagery, and you know it´s nice but it´s just a game. You’ve got thousands of bands referencing Burroughs and the cut-up technique, but no one can write as Burroughs did. MES did it. MES wasn´t playing. He was a realist of the augmented reality, he told it like it is, in his fragmented, hallucinatory, unpretentious, visionary prose poetry.

There is a lot in his lyrics that can be read in a mystic, occult way. He left a lot of clues for the ones that can read them. His texts are kaleidoscopic, and they reflect what´s in your mind, really. I think he will be recognized with time as the great experimental writer that he actually was rather than merely an angry Mancunian punk. He had more in common with someone like Iain Sinclair than with any other rock musician. One of my favorite web sites is The Annotated Fall, where fans analyze his lyrics in depth. Pay a visit if you can, I can´t recommended it enough. In many ways, he was too intelligent for rock and roll, and that´s why he was misunderstood, but he didn´t care, he believed in constant work, never explain, never apologize. The Fall took all the best things in rock and roll: Can, Velvet Underground, punk, Captain Beefheart, and pushed it to the next level. Our favorite rock group ever.

Huun Hur Tu — “Prayer”

I tried to stick to Western, modern music but I can´t help including this.

#dusted magazine #listed #tomás nochteff #mueran humanos #visionary music #pharoah sanders #rudimentary peni #nico #coil #lungfish #ghedalia tazartes #om #robert aiki aubrey lowe #charlemagne palestine #virgin prunes #boredoms #aphrodite´s child #tim buckley #sun ra #pescado rabioso #dead can dance #the fall #mark e. smith #huun hur tu

[reallyawesomecostumes]

Dean Winchester in his Coffin

A comparison between Queequeg’s coffin in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Dean’s coffin in Supernatural

(screencap from Home of the Nutty)

In Supernatural 14x11 ‘Damaged Goods’, Dean Winchester builds his own coffin. 

It’s not really a coffin, it just looks like one. The box is a ma’lak box designed by Death herself to secure Dean and AU-Michael at the bottom of the Pacific for all eternity*. We as viewers of a long-running episodic television show are pretty sure the  Winchester boys will find a way out of this mess in the next couple episodes, but Dean built it, so we have to talk about it. 

There are closet metaphors inherent in this coffin-building (I recommend @drsilverfish here); there are show-internal parallels to Amara being locked away, Adam’s current fate in The Cage, the wall in Sam’s mind in season 6; the list goes on. I wanted to talk instead about how Dean’s coffin-building compares to some coffin-building in classic American literature: the story of Queequeg’s coffin in Herman Melville’s “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale.” 

Moby-Dick, published 1851, is a book that many of us were forced to read in high school or college. I escaped this fate but had to read “The Scarlet Letter” and “Bartleby the Scrivener” instead. I did watch the Patrick Stewart TV miniseries version as a teenager, of course. For some dumb reason** I became a Moby-Dick reader because I was a Queequeg/Ishmael shipper, so know that I have a fairly biased perspective on the book as a whole.

In Moby-Dick, our narrator Ishmael (a depressed unemployed Yankee) meets Queequeg, a cannibal

(Queequeg as a character is a jumble of noble savage tropes, the author’s own knowledge of Pacific Islanders met during his whaling experience, and ideas pulled from other contemporary books both fiction and non-fiction), when they become accidental bedfellows at Peter Coffin’s inn (Coffin is a prominent name among the whalers of Nantucket, in real life and in the world of the story). Ishmael wants to go whaling, and Queequeg’s a guy who is very good at whaling. They have similar life goals, if not similar life experiences . They’re textually married***. 

Queequeg catches a chill crawling around belowdecks on the Pequod moving barrels to find a leak (the hold is described as an ice-box). While he’s dying Queequeg says he doesn’t want his body to be wrapped up in his hammock before being thrown overboard like an ordinary sailor, but put in a canoe-style coffin like the harpooneers from Nantucket use. He convinces the ship’s carpenter to make one for him. Queequeg kits the coffin out with food and water and his (most precious possessions) harpoon and paddle, and puts earth from the hold at the foot of it . He lays in it, and Pip the cabin boy sings nonsense briefly (a la the Fool in King Lear). Ishmael sort-of suggests that watching this guy die would make him start a religion. But then Queequeg decides not to die. He throws off the fever with his own will, and recovers (for plot reasons, but also so Melville could add more Noble Savage tropes). He uses the coffin as a clothes-chest. He starts carving the lid with the pattern of the tattoos on his body (these tattoos are religious in nature, but are unknown and unknowable, ‘a complete theory of the heavens and the earth’), making it into a sort-of body double for him.

Some time passes. A guy falls from the rigging, and the stern life-buoy is thrown to him, and both the man and the old, rotting cask that serves as a buoy sink and drown. It is suggested that the nice new well-built no longer needed coffin can be made into a new life-buoy. This re-purposing is lampshaded in text:

“Here now’s the very dreaded symbol of grim death, by a mere hap, made the expressive sign of the help and hope of most endangered life. A life-buoy of a coffin! Does it go further? Can it be that in some spiritual sense the coffin is, after all, but an immortality-preserver! I’ll think of that.”

-Captain Ahab, in a theatrical aside, Chapter 127: The Deck.

After the whale drags Captain Ahab down and sinks the Pequod, the very well-made coffin/life-buoy shoots to the surface, and the only surviving crewmember (Ishmael, our narrator) clings to it until another ship picks him up. 

While Queequeg’s coffin is intended for mundane use (to preserve his body from sharks after death) and is eventually used for mundane purpose (Ishmael’s life preserver), Dean’s pseudo-coffin-building serves a more esoteric purpose - to lock himself and his angel double away from the world said angel wants to destroy (“for all angel is not’ing more dan de shark well goberned” - Fleece the cook, Moby-Dick). The ma’lak box is Dean and Michael’s “immortality-preserver”. We have two pairs of characters, and two death-coded vessels that serve to preserve them.

Remember that time Ishmael and Queequeg got married? Some authors have characterized this wedding as "the first portrait of same-sex marriage in American literature". That it causes some readers 'uneasiness'. The line 'our heart's honeymoon', describing the time post-marriage, was censored in the original publication. Other readers have taken the marriage esoterically, relating Ishmael and Queequeg's earthly marriage to the internal marriage of the self to the Jungian shadow-self.

Shadows**** follow the two protagonists of Moby-Dick, Ishmael and Ahab. Ishmael accepts and marries his shadow, Queequeg the cannibal, and learns the customs of the whaling-ship from him. He admires the unknowableness of the ocean and sky as well as Queequeg's unknowable tattoos. He frees himself from his initial depression, and is literally saved at the novel's conclusion by Queequeg's pseudo-body. Ahab, conversely, pushes away Pip the cabin boy (who serves as Lear's fool through the story, and speaks unknowably) and turns towards Fedallah the Parsee (described as Ahab's shadow in the book) who speaks concrete but awful truths. Ahab rejects reality and stays on a path of revenge even though warned multiple times that he will fail. He eventually dies, and brings most of his crew down with him. His lack of acceptance of his good shadow and of his true place in the world brings about destruction. Self-actualization results in being saved.

The (current) protagonists of Supernatural have shadow selves as well. Again @drsilverfish has an excellent post about this. Castiel's shadow is The Shadow/The Empty, which has appeared in his own form, and wishes only for sleep and nothingness. Dean's shadow, AU!Michael, only wants to destroy the world that Dean keeps sacrificing himself to protect. Sam's shadow, Nick, went through the same dark experiences Sam did, but unlike Sam wound up horribly twisted and murderous. We haven't seen Jack's shadow-self yet, but I suspect current sweet and kind graceless!Jack will have a foil in future uncaring soulless!Jack. The idea of marrying oneself to one's shadow, in Supernatural, is nearly unthinkable: they are destructive, inhuman entities. However, in 14x11 Sam managed to accept the reality of his shadow self and release himself from responsibility for Nick.

At this point Dean's plan is to death-wed himself to Michael for eternity, sharing one body and one coffin-bed at the bottom of the Pacific. We know from Jung and from Melville that the only way to survive the confrontation with the shadow is to accept it - to 'Know Thyself', without misconceptions about your place in the world. 'Gain[ing] the perspective on [your] soul and the universe that will make balance possible.' The coffin will become a life-buoy.

I suspect the ma'lak box will be used to trap something other than Dean or Michael (soulless!Jack, probably) at the end of this season. Even if it's current purpose is untenable, it is a tool that can be used in the future.

Comparison between Moby-Dick and Supernatural can occur on a number of different levels. Ishmael and Dean (and Castiel whose human vessel, Jimmy Novak, is of the line of Biblical Ishmael) are the heroes of the bildungsroman part of the story and are hangers on to Ahab/John/Sam's Shakespearean revenge quest. Each story is a very American depiction of a masculine world. Each mirror the world in a smaller vessel, a ship and a car. Jung's concept of the shadow self, however, holds as the key to this season through all of these eleven episodes, and the shadow self is one of many keys that promote understanding of Melville's Moby-Dick. Self-actualization saves the day.

* Note that geologists cry whenever people suggest indestructible things sent to the bottom of the ocean will stay there for all eternity.

** It was Yuletide, and I’d just binge-read the entire Aubrey-Maturin series.

*** I wrote about this last year when Yockey dropped Led Zeppelin’s Moby Dick into the story. Moby Dick, song, has nothing to do with Moby-Dick, book, except their mutual length, but Supernatural and Moby-Dick share quite a few themes. 

**** yes, Melville does make the shadows of his white protagonists literally dark-skinned

References:

@drsilverfish, “A Fridge-Locker, An Enochian Puzzle Box, a Ma’lak Box… and the Closet (14x11 Damaged Goods)”, http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/182296360214/a-fridge-locker-an-enochian-puzzle-box-a-malak 

@drsilverfish​, “The Shadow (14x08)”, http://drsilverfish.tumblr.com/post/180906003584/the-shadow-14x08

Brashers, H.C., 1962, "Ishmael's Tattoos": The Sewanee Review, v.70, n.1, p.137-154, http://wwww.jstor.org/stable/27540756

Halverson, John, 1963, "The Shadow in Moby-Dick": American Quarterly, v.15, n.3, p.436-446, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2711373

Horton, Margy Thomas, 2012, "Melville's Unfolding Selves: Identity Formation in Mardi, Moby-Dick, and Pierre": doctoral dissertation, Baylor University

Melville, Herman, “Moby-Dick; or, The Whale”, project Gutenberg ebook, http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm

#spn 14x11 #spn meta #spn spoilers #my meta #moby dick #yep i actually wrote it #themes are for eighth grade book reports #and also for relating personal experiences to fictional experiences #as well as higher concepts #spn #supernatural

[flying-elliska]

Skam France End of S3 Questionnaire - my own.

I am so ready to enjoy Imane’s season, I will also never stop talking about s3 (I think we can all do both!!). Ever. It’s one of my favorite seasons of TV and media experiences and I can’t wait to analyze it to death. (I’m going to do the s4 questions in another post bc i want ppl to read them and this is already super long, fair warning) 

Favorite “big” clip : I already said Jeudi 17h32 (the bus stop farewell) but it’s such an understated scene, idk if it’s a ‘big one’. Apart from that, I love them all but ‘Vendredi 20h27 “T’es plus tout seul”’ just...did something to me on an almost spiritual level, I will remember it forever. It also give me a push on a personal level to reach out and explain some stuff to people. It made me believe in Love as the most important thing in the universe. I felt all my misgivings about being mentally ill and being worthy of love fall through the basket of my brain for one moment. Yeah. Also the parallel between God’s love and the Church and gay love, and that song, and seeing Eliott like that, and Maman Lallemant, and Lucas’ epic run, and the flashbacks, and the whole Petite Ceinture thing falling into place, dark/light and and and...yeah. Never will be over it. 

Favorite “small” clip : Several come to mind but I have such a soft spot for “Lundi 08h43 - Terre Promise” where they uncover the mural ? First of all that thing was much more beautiful than I thought it would be, aesthetics on point, and Lucas and Eliott being so open and unashamed like that made me feel so warm and fuzzy after all of Lucas’ repression of his own feelings and sexuality. The music and the filming are great in this clip, and I loved learning Imane knew Eliott already and seemed so happy for them, and the whole ‘you ask about politics on Christmas’ gave me such a family vibe. The whole ‘it’s a butt - yeah we gave it our all, body and soul’ was super ridiculous but in that way you don’t even care about when you’re so high on love. It was just super cute. 

Favorite romantic moment : There’s so many but I just can’t get over Lucas buying flowers and croissants for Eliott in “Samedi 9h53 - T’es pas comme les autres” even though he knows he might not appreciate it because he just wants to bring color and beauty at the edge of Eliott’s life ? As a mentally ill person the constancy and care and tenderness of it just moved me to tears. And it represents so much for Lucas’ journey beyond toxic masculinity too, and not being his dad, and letting his caring side out, and just. uggh. 

Favorite kiss : The first one, still. The symbolic of it is just...ahhh. It’s a kiss but it represents so much more - going beyond comfort zones, mutual recognition, stepping into each other’s worlds, understanding, the meeting of two souuuls. And the whole under the rain at night thing is cliché but it just works so well for them because it makes you feel all the relief and strangeness and right-ness of the moment. Their love is like a force of nature. 

Favorite line of dialogue : ‘Lucas, je t’aime.’ 

Favorite (non-Elu) character : Alexia Martineau, absolute bicon, I wish she was more present in the end of the season tbh. I love how colorful and confident and funny she is. Her style is goals, and as a bi plus-size woman the whole character is just therapeutic to me. 

Favorite set : La Petite Ceinture ! I just love the creepy-cool-poetic vibe of it, how well it is used as a character building tool for Eliott, how it shows a different side of Paris as a place, gives them a place of their own, how they go back to it later, what they did with Polaris, etc etc. I love the whole poetry of decaying secret places in general, it reminds me of places I used to take refuge in as a teenager, and now I really, really want to visit it. 

Favorite frame : The candlelit dinner in 19h25. That clip is a punch in the face, but visually, it’s so on point. It’s incandescent. The whole aesthetic of the clip (and the next) manage to be both romantic, and unsettling as hell. The whole idea of the houseboat with the fairylights and the light reflecting on dark water and the sounds of the boat moving.The intimate scenes that make them look like renaissance paintings with that golden light. The shots of that table in particular, with the candles behind the glass, and the two of them with the shotgunning and the blown pupils and the champagne glasses full of golden bubbles. The aesthetic is almost like religious iconography with the dark/light contrasts, light through glass ( the candle motif is repeated in the church scene) and the way it frames their feelings - it’s so f*cking intense, exhilarating, almost too much. It makes you feel both Lucas’ awe at being loved like that, how in tune they are, and the fact that Eliott’s manic episode is really about to surface, the brief descent into darkness to come. It does so many things. It’s gorgeous. 

Favorite Lucas character arc moment : Well, the whole of the season obviously, and things I’ve said above, how he cares for Eliott after his episode, the Remember scene, living his love out loud, etc. But in particular what sticks out to me is the articulation of the Jeudi 1h48 night scene, his coming out to Yann, and the Intervention clip because that’s where his self acceptance goes through the hardest point and makes it through. He lets himself come to terms with his emotions, and figures out that even though the reaction of the world might be hard, his own self expression is still the most important thing. He’s so brave in those clips, and the acting brings it to an incredible level. 

Favorite Eliott character arc moment : Again, the moment he says to Lucas he loves him. Because this is him, seeing Lucas and reaching out through his insecurities and telling him that what they had was real. But it’s also him validating his own feelings, believing in them, letting himself have this after a whole season of going back and forth out of fear of messing it up. He’s putting his own fears aside too, fears of being seen and vulnerable and daring for something better than a relationship that is just ‘okay.’ He’s finally going for it 100% and accepting Lucas’ love and his own capacity for it. It’s just...wow. 

Favorite other character arc moment : Daphné’s gaining confidence through the foyer made me super happy. But tbh, my favorite is Yann. He’s very underrated in general, I feel. He’s not as ‘ideal bff’ as Jonas or Skam It’s Gio, but his arc feels very important and meaningful to me. Seeing someone mess up and admit to his mistakes is super important. Because I feel there are soooo many straight guys who can learn from this - that casual homophobia is in the water of our culture and sometimes you just don’t realize what you are saying. And i feel, even though this isn’t directly adressed (and i wish it was) that Lucas also learns from this re: his words about ‘crazy people’ and what compassion and growing up means. I love Leo’s acting in general. Yann has a very compelling presence, calm (but a bit loopy at times), he feels deeply, and his betrayal at Lucas’ not sharing and subsequent realization he had messed up felt very real and mature for a 16 yr old. And how he embraces Lucas afterwards made me feel all fuzzyhearted. I wish we saw more of their friendship tbh. 

Favorite Axel acting moment : ummm every single minute he was on, like. He never once felt false. That guy is going places. One of my fave things is just the look on his face in certain scenes Lucas has with Eliott - how it completely lights up, and the contrast with his more closed off persona in the beginning. It’s like he’s a completely different person - younger, wilder, more alive, daring, unafraid, and absolutely thrilled to have found his soulmate. It’s beautiful. And the crying difficult scenes, how he’s not afraid to ugly cry and just go there and make it a real gut punch. He just goes through such a transformation throughout the season, too. It’s nuts to me they didn’t even film in chronological order. Lucas just seems so much more grown up and at ease in his own skin at the end of the season. Mind blown. But if I had to pick one : the look on his face at the end of Jeudi 17h32 - sadness to see Eliott leave, but so much happiness, and also like he’s coming to terms with his own journey and breathing for the first time ? So much in one frame. 

Favorite Maxence acting moment : tbh i was a little less sure of him in the beginning, but I feel like his restlesness and slight awkwardness and being a little too forceful at times (which some might have called ‘bad acting’) was actually a good acting choice ? Because Eliott feels so much, he’s so sensitive, and it would lead to feeling a little out of place around others, there’s so much emotion brimming under the surface he can’t always regulate it properly (I would know. it was painful to watch at times.) He really outsold it in the scene in “Lundi 17:21 “On verra bien.” where Eliott talks about his illness. That pain in his eyes when he says “I’m going to make you go through hell.” ? Ouch. He’s really good with his eyes in general, esp in the beginning when Eliott is the ‘mysterious new guy’ and the way he looks at Lucas at the end of ‘Not necessarily a girl’ ? Daaaaaaaaamn. 

Favorite (non-Elu) acting moment : Marilyn Lima as Manon. She was so good in every clip she was in. It almost made me want to watch s2 even though I hate Noorhell plotlines with a fiery passion. She just sold how bruised and sad and let down she was and it was a doorway to Lucas’ own empathy and feeling his own feelings, and reflecting on how true love should be supportive in the dark moments. Especially in the night time clip, they were so good together. 

Favorite social media moment : they were really good at it (we could have had more clips though) and my absolute fave is what they did with Eliott’s insta - the hunt for it at the beginning with the code, the cool drawings, the queer culture references, the somewhat alarming poetry, it all helped flesh out Eliott’s character in a way that we didn’t have with Even and made us fall in love so much more. The moment where we were all waiting for Lucas’ to discover Eliott’s insta (and the hilarity of the (probably made up) moment where Matteo/German Isak followed him first) with baited breath, was the most brilliant bit of intermedia storytelling I have ever seen. It was so cool. Also Emma and Alex’s insta stories made me like a Chriseva pairing for the first time, lol. 

Favorite music moment : Remember, obviously. The chorus, timeless feeling, epic rythm ? Just perfect. And Fête de trop : so powerful, thematically on point, made me discover Eddy de Pretto. Also brilliant use of piano music and how it’s related to them. I want a social media vid of Lucas playing ‘I love you’ again for Eliott at some point. 

Favorite bts/cast&crew moment : so many of them. But tbh I am especially grateful for Maxence’s openness about his own issues and his process on how he worked on the Eliott role. His Actor Factory interview where he talked about how mental illness can be so fucking lonely but life can still be beautiful had me cry like a little baby in my favorite café. It just made me want to be around creative ppl more, and dedicate myself to my own creative process seriously ? And his lives are also so cool. The dude in general is so effing relatable. (well, and cute tbh ahahaha). I also really, really loved Niels’ insight in the writing process. I haven’t stanned a cast this hard in forever and now I want to give everything up and try to write my own series lmaooo. 

Favorite fandom moment : all the theorizing and staying up late and shit was golden. I love talking with ppl and sharing the love. And it’s given me a lot more confidence in my own writing. But special love to the @renewskamfrance team and the whole thing, it’s been completely nuts and I am so happy we started this. 

…

Most romantic moment : I am realizing this question is a double but whatever, there’s no shortage of them. Eliott drawing Lucas as a hedgehog, the smooth artsy motherf*cker. And the insta in general. If someone made a cartoon animal version of me, that was also that fitting to my character, I would just ask them to marry me on the spot. I live for that artsy shit. I understand why Lucas was so into it right from the start. And of course the timeless cloud of queer intimacy that was Samedi 09h17. 

Moment that made you fall in love with the season : The piano scene, because it showed so much more depth in Lucas’ character. We were all Eliott then, falling in love with him and the season, and their ability to mix things up compared to OG. 

Most heartbreaking moment : Tied.  “Samedi 14h32 Intervention″ - I don’t think I’ve cried so much all season.  I’ve been there, too, and Lucas’ anguish at being ostracized and judged for something he can’t control, and his thinking that Eliott didn’t care about him, and Mika saying ‘you will have to keep coming out for the rest of your life’ all felt so impactful but the ‘fuck them’ at the end, so empowering.  It was heartbreaking in a good way, incredibly cathartic. Meanwhile “Vendredi 23:37 Une putain de lubie” is heartbreaking in the bad way lol, it stomps on your heart, the contrast with how happy they were only moments before absolutely brutal, and Lucille’s cruel words on top of it. Watching Lucas lose it like that was so difficult to watch, the panic of it, the absolute despair. But it was so well done. And of course “Jeudi 01:48 Viens on en parle pas″. So simple, so powerful, and we were all so tired when we watched it, it was super effective. 

Most funny moment : The ‘discovery of the butt’ moment was hilarious, also loved the boys’ reaction to Lucas telling them Eliott was his bf, the vodka sunday scenes, and the entirety of the scene in the second-hand shop with the scary dolls, but I just can’t get over Imane and the tampons in “Lundi 8:53 Quoi moi et Emma” , that was just pure gold but it also shows how good she is at embarassing nosy ppl and inventive and it made me want to know so much more about her. 

Most enlightening moment :  The season as a whole has made me think so much about my own relationship to my emotions and love and self-expression. After the ‘Remember’ sequence I really had this moment of....I can’t hate myself anymore ? It was so powerful. And episode 10 in general. But in earlier episodes, ep 5/6 in particular made me realize how much I was also repressing my own feelings and how unhealthy that shit was. The whole thing was just in general a process. And after the last clip I had such a feeling of general tenderness towards the show, the world and wanting to give love more of a place in my life.  

Best aesthetics moment :  Like I said houseboat scene. The use of light throughout the season, incredibly beautiful, But of course the painting thing. It was just such a perfect use of aesthetics to make a point in the story (i don’t really care if it’s not realistic). Now they are finally living out loud in all the colors of life. It was such a radiant affirmation of love and pride and joy. And the mural actually looked really cool, suprisingly (I was expecting a brown-ish mess lol). 

Best change from OG: The show was at its best when it changed things up. I love especially that they made their own symbolism. I love the whole concept of the Foyer and how much more integral they made it to the story than Kosegruppa, how it comes to stand for togetherness and diversity. I love the girl squad being more present and the role they gave Alexia. I love Lucas being a pianist and taking more initiative in going after Eliott (it’s not a diss against Isak, his awkwardness was so endearing and it made sense) but it made them their own characters. But I think my favorite thing is how they changed around the sequence of events slightly in the last episodes - Lucas coming out to his mom after Eliott’s episode and Basile’s talk is tying it together better, it feels like he’s thinking about how he’s treated his mother in the past because of her MI and it makes it part more of the learning process ; his mother’s loving reaction is a perfect example of ‘you have to let MI ppl speak for themselves.” And them spreading the ‘minute by minute’ concept over several clips gave us a more in depth look into Eliott’s condition, which I will be forever grateful for, the talk with Lucille as well as Lucas learning he needs to take care of himself, too. 

Best similar scene to OG : Overall I liked that they kept the story structure of the OG, because honestly, it just works so well - the Isak character’s trajectory from repression to openness to compassion. Sana/Imane’s speech about  hate coming from fear, not religion. The few episodes that focused on Lucas’ self-acceptance more than the love story.  

Best group dynamics scene : Intervention. Loved the complementary of Mika as queer guru, Manon as nurturing presence, and Lisa as comical outsider point of view being so out of it. But also loved the ‘vodka sunday’ dynamics with Manon, Lucas and Emma getting wasted, complaining about their love lives, the sadness but also the solidarity, Lucas talking about his love life so openly and making gay jokes about himself, Emma’s whole messy girl thing and ‘he’s just a p*nis”!!!” had me laughing for hours. 

Best glow-up : Lucas of course. More in terms of character perception, Mika. He really annoyed me in the beginning of the season, he was mean and uncaring and lacking in boundaries, it was toeing the line of cliché, and I love how they showed us more depth to him, that they let him be deservedly angry, and how caring with Lucas he became, while still being slightly annoying, and their sibling dynamic in general, slightly antagonistic but super supportive. 

Best social awareness moment : Mika’s speech, Yann’s apologies, and Lucille and Basile’s talks about mental illness. 

Best symbolism : Polaaaris. Also God is gay now. And the first clip/end clip parallel, with them counting minutes. 

Best editing/filming/technical moment : the Remember sequence, and how they made the scenes used in the flashback a little longer, giving us the impression that their relationship is actually so much deeper than what we’ve already seen ; the parallels with the priest’s speech, the sunny vibe of Eliott laughing vs. his face in the ending shots, the music, the acting, the running, all of it.  

Best/most interesting cultural adaptation : The Foyer storyline and especially the sit-in moment. So French. It gave me flashbacks to my whole class staging sit-in protests in middle school (at 13!!!!) already for the wackiest of reasons, already practicing saying fuck off to authority and being rowdy little shits. It made me miss my country. 

…

Least favorite clip/moment : Mercredi 13:38 annoyed the shit out of me lol. It started out so well, with the summer of love aesthetics and Elu being all cute, but that lasted all of 40s and then we had an extremely unpleasant moment of Basile disrespecting Daphne’s boundaries and Arthur and Yann pressuring her to ‘give him a chance’ and how the misogynistic song he sent her is actually cute’ and we’re supposed to feel sorry for him ? I liked the end of season glow-up for him, but this scene was just gross. And I don’t mind having a POV that’s a little bit more loose than in OG but in this clip, it just felt jarring, how Lucas just flat out disappeared. I wanted to see Eliott interact with the squad more, and I resent the idea that seeing them just be happy and cuddly is not worthy of screentime for some reason. UGh. That was the one moment that the show pissed me off. Also, in the scene where Chloé offers her apologies (good) I feel like they validated her outing Lucas so he had to come to terms with his feelings. (which is a really bad message and I wish they’d written that with a bit more nuance.) 

Least favorite change from OG : Overall, this remains my least favorite boy squad. The insistence on Basile’s gross, creepy humor felt overdone, and I feel they spent too much time on him. The idea that he’s been taught bad things by society about what a man is, fits the overal theme, but did we really need to know that he wanted to bang his cousin ? Yikes. And Arthur and the 35-yr old too, what the hell ? I just felt that their banter was a lot less natural and flowed less well than in OG. 

Least favorite similarity from OG : Really don’t know about this one. Most of what they kept was good. 

Most disappointing scene : the banter scene between the boys in 18:14, I always loved the banter between the boys in OG. Magnus saying stupid shit about gay s*x and being shut down felt educative without being heavy. Here there was way too much of Basile being gross again. And it just didn’t flow as well, the pacing was way too fast. A lot of the scenes that were a bit disappointing to me this season had to do with timing tbh, too fast. 

Something you wish they’d added :  I wish they actually had Lucas say he realized he’d say messed up stuff about mentally ill people.

Thing you wish the fandom would take away from this season : Chill a bit before drawing conclusions, wait for the whole season ahahaha. 

…

French word you will remember : I am French but I have never felt so validated in my overuse of the word ‘putain’. also saying mec/meuf a lot more. 

If you could steal one item from the set : Eliott’s camel jacket, I want one too, what a look. 

Scene you wish you could live in your own life : a lot of the romantic ones but also ? I wish I’d breaken into my high school to have a party at least once in my life lol. There’s a club next to my place in an old renovated school i reaaaally need to check out. 

Character you identify the most with : Eliott in general, Daphné for her overenthusiasm and awkwardness and spontaneity and optimism and drive to organize things. Lucas because of the whole trying so hard to control his image, being spiky on the surface and soft inside. 

Character you want to be like the most : Honestly, Lucas. Not in the beginning but his courage and his emotional intelligence and openness as the season progressed really are goals. It made me want to use my past painful experiences to extend compassion and be there for others, and learn how to be better at it. He’s going to grow into such an amazing man. And honestly his newfound pride in his relationship and pettiness are also goals lol. Imane as well, for how protective she is of her friends. And Alexia in terms of demeanour and confidence and funky vibe. 

Most relatable character moment : Lucas’ eyeroll. Emma and her lava lamp. Lucas being so immediately smitten with Eliott, because like, same. 

Fave fandom theory : lol I cracked up so hard at the whole ‘Eliott is a ghost’ thing, thx Billy Maier. I really don’t know why we were all so set on a bullying plotline, like why do we do that to ourselves lol ? 

Whew ! Well, if you read through all of that, you’re one hell of a nerd, and I love you !!! I’m doing S4 questions in a separate post because this is wayy too long !!! 

#skam france #elu #lucas x eliott #skam #review #my meta #skam questions meme #skamfr s3

[maxarobson-blog]

Historical Religious Practices in Game of Thrones

Introduction

The world of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones is one of magic, violence, and power. Driven by a universal struggle for absolute rule, the story follows a number of main characters throughout the Seven Kingdoms across the continents of Westeros and Essos. Though alike in their ultimate goals — a seat upon the Iron Throne  — the different armies and peoples participating in this conflict all follow different religions that they believe will lead them to their shared goal.

                                         Game of Thrones World

For thousands of years, these various religions coexisted in the world until their balance was upset by the death of the former king at the very start of the series. War breaks out with the different parties all claiming their own basis of rightful succession, and eventually the political conflict of succession turns into a religious one. Though many elements of Game of Thrones are clad in fantasy, the writers of the series reinforce the fact several scenes within the series have some claim to realistic depictions of actual historical beliefs and events [1]. This artifact analysis will examine several examples how George Martin parallels real-world, religious events in history in order to create drama and facilitate several plot points in his fantasy series, Game of Thrones.

Brief Example: Faith Militant vs. Knights Templar

                                     Faith Militant in Game of Thrones

The first  example that will be examined is the one between the Faith Militant and the historical Knights Templar. The Faith of the Seven is one of the main religions in Westeros and long ago two military groups existed that brutally “dispensed the justice of the Seven”. These military groups were disarmed several centuries before the beginning of the Game of Thrones story, however Cersei Lannister, the widow of the late king revives the Faith Militant in order to undermine the power of the Tyrells, an opposing house. These religious mercenaries, draped in dusty robes, are supplied with arms and discretionary power by the former queen, and begin to relieve their old ways of using violence to enforce the values of the Faith of the Seven.

                                                  The Knights Templar

The Knights Templar was a militia Christi that formed after given approval by the pope for a group of knights to dedicate themselves to the defence of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem [3].  Like the Faith Militant, this military group was also spurred into creation after a spontaneous legalization by a higher power. Both military groups required severe self-discipline from their members, vows of obedience, chastity, and poverty. Both were comprised of commoners as well as noblemen, both considered killing the enemies of God as an “act of grace”, and both declared that all the sins of those who joined their cause would be forgiven [4]. George Martin used this religious parallel in order to create turmoil within the Capital, demonstrate the extremism of religion in the series, and to eliminate Margaery Tyrell from the race to the throne once Cersei realizes she must put and end to the militant.

Brief Example: Religious Desecration after the Red Wedding

                          Catelyn Stark’s murder at the Red Wedding

A second example of a parallel to historical religious beliefs and practices occurs after the Red Wedding when Robb and Catelyn Stark were murdered by the Freys. The Frey men-at-arms behead Robb Stark’s body, sewing his direwolf’s head in its place and parading the desecrated corpse around for all to see. Though this didn’t bestow the Freys with any sort of strategic advantage, the act was simply meant to mock the defeated enemy and to serve as a warning to others.

                                         Robb Stark’s desecration

During the religious wars of the mid-sixteenth and seventeenth century in Europe, historians and anthropologists historians found that both the Catholics and Protestants committed similar acts to the Freys in order to equate the enemy with an animal and deny their humanity. Creating a man-beast hybrid demonstrates the enemy’s monstrosity, and suddenly legitimizes any amount of violence. Turning the image of the enemy into one of an animal would allow soldiers to feel somewhat less immoral and irreligious, as they were no longer slaying a fellow man, but simply an animal. Anthropologists have called these kinds of acts “unveiling violence”, as they draw attention to the enemy’s inner beast, and the threat that they pose to their opposing army’s forces[5]. 

Like how Catholics used to label Protestants as “wolves” in order to create a similar effect to the desecration, the Freys of the Faith of the Seven referred to Robb Stark as the “Young Wolf”, and created propaganda about him eating the flesh of his enemies. Martin used this historical religious act of desecration and propaganda in order to illustrate the brutality of the Freys, end Robb Stark’s war in the north, and push Sansa Stark, Robb Stark’s sister, even closer to the edge of madness and terror.

Close Reading: Shireen’s Sacrifice

                                                 Princess Shireen

One particular scene that deserves special attention is the public sacrifice of Stannis Baratheon’s daughter, Princess Shireen. Stannis Baratheon is a follower of R’hllor, the Lord of Light, who follows the advice of Melisandre, a priestess of the religion in order to appease their god and gain favour in the war. When Stannis, outmanned and unarmed, is faced with an impending battle in which his frostbitten, starving soldiers are sure to lose, Melisandre suggest to him the committal of the ultimate sacrifice of his young daughter, Shireen. Stannis places his crying and screaming daughter upon a pyre, and she is burned at the stake on display for Stannis’ entire army to witness. The next day, Stannis wakes to find a significant number of his soldiers had mutinied, and is killed in battle along with the rest of his army.

                                        Shireen being placed on a pyre

This scene is the most representative and influential depiction real-world, historical religious practice in Game of Thrones. Human sacrifice toward a greater cause is an almost exclusively religious event, in which the people of the sacrificed are hoping to appease their gods and receive good fortune. This is encapsulated in the latin phrase, do et des, meaning “I give to you so that you will give to me” [4]. Though observed in countless examples from the Chinese Shang Dynasty beginning in 2000 bce. [2], to the traditional pictures of Mayans and Aztecs, the most similar example to what had happened in Game of Thrones is in the Greek mythological tale of King Agamemnon and his daughter, Iphigenia, whom he burnt alive. Agamemnon committed this act in order to tame the wrath of Artemis, and gain favourable winds for his armies to sail to Troy [5]. Agamemnon, like Stannis, was convinced to sacrifice his daughter by those who served him.

                                           The Sacrifice of Iphigenia

Further evidence to support the claim that Shireen’s sacrifice was a reenactment of historical practices is the Biblical practice of “Moloch Sacrifice”, in which a first-born child was cast into a fire. Scholars found that beginning in the ninth century, the practice of Moloch sacrifice was being implemented throughout the kingdom of Judah, where children were being offered to the Phoenician and Canaanite god, Moloch [4]. Shireen’s sacrifice can be seen as a type of Moloch sacrifice that served the plot by making Stannis lose the war due to the desertion of his soldiers, a way for Melisandre to join a cause other than Stannis’, and as another testament to the fanaticism of the followers of the Lord of Light, R’hllor.

                                                 Moloch Sacrifice

Production and Reception

When producing the aforementioned scenes, and in particular the sacrifice of Shireen, the directors of the Game of Thrones TV series were faced with strong reactions from reviews. The words “disturbing”, “traumatic”, and “upsetting” were used on ew.com, causing heated debate in the media. The purpose Martin employed these religious practices was for exactly this reason. Though during the translation from book to film the directors took consideration into the graphicallity of the scenes, many of these events were to demonstrate extremism, dedication, or brutality. Naturally, the more of a reaction one can elicit from a viewer, the more extreme the viewer will interpret the characters who committed the events to be. The producers made a conscious choice to make these scenes extremely graphic and disturbing, and crossed into a visual realm where few other shows venture.

                           Cinematography during Shireen’s death

Religion is a fantastic tool that writers often use for character and plot development, and Game of Thrones is no exception. George R.R. Martin used parallels of actual religious practices in his series in order to make it the captivating, emotional, award-winning show that exists today.

Works Cited

[1] Young, Helen Victoria. Fantasy and Science Fiction Medievalisms: from Isaac Asimov to a "Game of Thrones". Cambria Press, 2015.

[2] Gideon. “The Qiang and the Question of Human Sacrifice in the Late Shang Period.” ScholarSpace at University of Hawaii at Manoa: Home, University of Hawai'i Press

[3] Carraz, Damien. “Precursors and Imitators of the Military Orders: Religious Societies for Defending the Faith in the Medieval West (11th–13th c.).” Viator, vol. 41, no. 2, 2010, pp. 91–111., doi:10.1484/j.viator.1.100793.

[4] Pavlac, Brian Alexander. Game of Thrones versus History: Written in Blood. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2017.

[5] Hughes, Dennis D. Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece. Routledge, 1991.

[skydancer610-blog]

EARTH ONE CALLING: DISSECTING THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE OF TRUMP’S GOP

Dear GOP:

• You can no longer lecture us about divisiveness, or lambaste the Democrats foR “playing politics” when your warped media ecosystem has disseminated the very GOP talking points that have routinely tarred and feathered anyone left of Karl Rove on the daily for the past three decades.

• You can no longer drone on about why we should not prosecute your dearly departed Fuhrer "For the good of the country" when your elected representatives are focused only on their own narrow self-preservation and fund-raising. Let’s face it: you don’t give a shit about this country. If you did, you would have stood up to a president who has been actively destroying it for five years.

• You can no longer posture about unity or bipartisanship, especially when Trump’s GOP just spent four years exhibiting telltale fascist tendencies in the dogged pursuit of one-party rule, all the while waging a holy war on the main institutions entrusted with discovery and discernment of truth: the media, the judiciary, science, and education.

• You can no longer plead for civility on the part of Democrats when your representatives and media have spent decades shouting down anyone who isn’t on their side (here's looking at you Jim Jordan). And you especially can no longer lecture us about civility in the aftermath of your own supporters openly advocating-and then enacting-Civil War in the failed 1/6 fascist coup designed to keep your exalted Dear Loser as President.

• You can no longer shout from the top your soap boxes about leftist extremists, radicals, socialism, or communism when your party has veered so far to the right over the last three decades that it now teeters on the edge of a nihilist rightward cliff, about to plunge into full-on fascism.

• You can no longer lecture us about the dangers of violent Antifa and BLM protesters, especially given that a) over 95% of BLM protests were peaceful, b) so-called ”lone wolf” assailants have committed horrific acts of violence (i.e. racially motivated mass shootings) in the name of Donald Trump, and especially c) thousands of Trump supporters committed an act of mob violence on 1/6 so heinous that it has traumatized an entire nation and many of its duly elected Congressional representatives, Be there Republican or Democrat.

• You can no longer claim to be the party of "Law and order.” Don't even try it. Not when the leader of your party is a career criminal who spent the entirety of his presidency rigging the legal system to avoid consequences for his neverending litany of crimes, including Bank and tax fraud, conspiring with Russia to get elected, conspiring to withhold much-needed aid from Ukraine unless their president would ”dome a favor though,” committing election fraud in a call with the Georgia secretary of state, and especially for knowingly inciting the violent insurrection that resulted in over 140 law enforcement officers injured and three dead. Add to this Bill Barr’s politicization of the judiciary, the systematic rigging of our legal system at every level, and the countless Trump administration officials who were caught red-handed violating Federal laws and ethical standards, we need to call the GOP what it is: a lawless party led by angry White men to whom the laws of the land do not apply, and whose nakedly partisan judicial Philosophy has become “the law is whatever I say it is.”

• You certainly can no longer continue to demonize the mainstream media, facts and evidence-based reporting as "fake news", particularly since you have created a parallel media universe whose very existence demands that the brains of your legions of supporters must remain steeped in a toxic cesspool of mendacious venom in which warped talking-head drivel has wholly supplanted the reporting of actual news.

• You can no longer continue to channel Reagan’s dictum about how “government I s the problem,” especially since it has become glaringly obvious that most Republican politicians have no interest in governing to begin with, save for overfunding our military and police, under my name a woman’s right to choose, and squandering precious time and resources on such pressing matters as trans bathroom access and an umpteenth hearing on Benghazi. Once elected, GOP legislators routinely produces budgets that starve government agencies of funding, effectively reducing them to the status of a broke and emaciated pauper begging for spare change. These agencies are offered up as sacrifices to the God of lower taxes. Your anti-government rhetoric has thus morphed into a self-filling prophecy: you spout tired talking points that demonize government, then you get elected and cripple government, only to proclaim "look ma, government doesn’t work anymore". Aside from culture wars, your “Governing” it is not limited to gerrymandering, voter suppression, raising funds to get re-elected, and lining the pockets of your rich cronies. As our country rots away and the public good deteriorates, it is not a stretch to suggest that YOU have become the problem.

• You definitely can no longer claim the mantle of pro-life, not when you denounce science, support the death penalty, oppose access to healthcare, restrict funding for social services, and rationalize away the murder of Black Americans by an increasingly militarized police force. Truth be told, yours is a party that has become decidedly anti-life during the pandemic, first by downplaying the severity of COVID, then refusing to wear masks in the face of a deadly pandemic that has now killed roughly 1 in 700 Americans. Add to this a presidential administration that knowingly lied to the public about the risk posed by the coronavirus, and then systematically failed to address it. President Trump opted instead to corrupt the CDC and wage a public relations campaign rather than performing the necessary governmental function of tackling this deadly disease.

• You can no longer position yourself as the party of ”faith” and family values when you openly show hostility toward non-Christian religious and spiritual orientations, demonize entire races of putative “children of God,” or oppose expanding access to healthcare for families across the nation. Whatever God you are serving, it is certainly want for compassion. Additionally, your politicians and conservative media ritually engage in bad faith arguments in lieu of addressing to the many problems that plague our nation.

• You can no longer drone on about patriotism, or label some Americans as patriotic and others as unpatriotic when you have blindly supported and enabled a President who openly conspired with Russia to get elected, and who unflinchingly professed blind loyalty to the leader of the most hostile foreign power facing the US today. When confronted with credible evidence that the Russian autocrat put bounties on the heads of American soldiers in Afghanistan, Trump even refused to hold Putin accountable. Seriously. And of course you can no longer call yourself patriotic when you fan the flames of the Great Lie of a stolen election that gave rise to the seditious assault on the Capitol on 1/6. Then 86% of the GOP Senate Caucus voted to acquit Trump on charges that he incited the insurrection. Let's face it: you only hide behind the flag when it provides you political cover.

• Most importantly, you can NEVER lecture Democrats and their supporters about accountability, or responsibility, or pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, or traffic in tired caricatures of crime-plagued inner cities and welfare moms. Why? Because the deficit always increases during Republican presidential administrations. Because Congress passed a tax act that will cost American taxpayers $1.5 trillion over the next decade. Because the GOP has shifted from being a party that believes in small government to a party that has ceased even trying to govern. Because the Republican Congressional Caucus fecklessly supported an administration that did virtually nothing about the pandemic, except to claim it was just another hoax, or to state that “one day it will just go away,” or to host super-spreader events in Tulsa and on the White House lawn. How many lives could have been saved by a serious and coordinated federal government response? No GOP, you are neither responsible nor accountable to anyone except the interests of yourselves, the wealthy, and corporate donors you serve.

But nowhere has Republican irresponsibility been more clearly on display then the 1/6 attack on the US Capitol, where the whole world saw a violent mob of conspiracy-driven Trump supporters wage a vicious terrorist assault on the most sacred hall of American democracy and civil parliamentary debate. It is clear that these insurrectionists were spurred on by the spread of the Great Lie that somehow a legitimately conducted election—one that was unsuccessfully challenged in 61 US court cases—had been stolen from their Dear Leader. The Great Lie was supported by the majority of the Republican House Caucus, a dozen US Senators, and a parallel media universe that has become as unhinged as the power-mad President Trump himself—who was visibly pleased as he watched the unrest unfold on live TV. But as the world watched in horror, the whole web of lies undergirding Trumpism was exposed, unraveled, and irrevocably shattered for all to see.

And yet, in the face of overwhelming evidence that Trump’s violent rhetoric led directly routinely insurrection, when the GOP finally had a chance to hold Trump accountable for his actions, 43 out of 50 Republican US senators punted. They abdicated their Constitutional duty to hold the President accountable for the most reprehensible violation of our democracy in our nation’s history. Although Minority leader Mitch McConnell was deeply troubled, and felt that Trump was directly responsible for the insurrection, he characteristically seized upon the wiggle room afforded by a technicality in order to weasel out of performing his Constitutional duty to prevent Trump from ever holding public office again. Like a grocery clerk telling a customer that quote that is not my department,” McConnell—who tried to thread the needle between retaining hi-dollar donors and appeasing Trump’s base—reasoned that the US criminal justice system that Trump just spent four years attacking and corrupting was the more appropriate forum in which to address the former President’s crimes. One can only hope. Finally, even though they amplified the lie that the November election was somehow stolen from the ex-president, it is safe to say that Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Fox News, Alex Jones and their ilk will never assume an iota of accountability or culpability for the nearly diabolical consequences of their words and actions.

• But the lack of Republican responsibility and accountability is most clearly embodied by President King Baby himself. True to form, despite issuing a vitriolic speech that explicitly and repeatedly called for the mob to “fight” for him, Trump claimed no responsibility for inciting the directly consequential insurrection for which he was impeached a second time. Predictably, Trump wrung his hands of this. Moreover, to hear him tell it, it is safe to s ay that Trump has never done anything wrong and never feels the need to atone for anything. Predictably, like many rich and powerful White American men—over the course of his life the silver spoon-fed Trump has seldom had to face the consequences of his actions.

• No GOP, you can no longer do any of these things anywhere that serious people frequent and the pursuit of truth is held to be sacrosanct. You’re probably just have been revoked. 1/6 and its aftermath shall go down in American history the pivotal moment in which your entire parallel universe of bullshit was finally exposed, and where the web of lies upon which it has been built was irretrievably refuted. It is now time to hold you accountable for your systematic, longstanding, and wholesale war on facts, truth, reason, rational discourse, and even reality itself. So no more false equivalencies, whataboutism, both-sides-ism, performative outrage, disingenuous spin, or just plain bald-faced outright lies. This is not simply a matter of opinion. The lies that you have perpetrated and propagated have had deadly consequences, be they for victims of hate crimes, the many people of color murdered by police forces, or the countless additional deaths due to coronavirus misinformation, or the death of three Capital police officers.

• But the GOP will continue to do all of these things and more because their very existence depends on it. Additionally, Fox News, OAN, Newsmax have way too much invested in their viewers for that to ever happen. The disinfo-meter must be cranked up to eleven, because the conservative media ecosystem has reached a point of no return. To call bullshit on their game now would me more than assuming responsibility: it would mean that the whole web of lies upon which the identities and worldviews of those who inhabit the parallel universe of conservative media would have to be debunked. The mass cult of Trumpism-which extends far beyond QAnon-would have to be painstakingly deprogrammed and deradicalized. The fascist White supremacist elements of Red America—including those in our government, military, and law enforcement—would somehow have to come back from the nether reaches of 8chan and Parler to the ostensibly objective, fact-based reality inhabited by the sane. A massive media literacy campaign and cultural inoculation against demonstrable bullshit would be needed, maybe even a wholesale cultural the programming would become necessary. In the meantime, the only way to combat the parallel universe of Trump’s GOP is by holding people accountable in the pursuit of truth and justice—by shedding light upon lies, crimes, misdeeds, and the pathological creation and dissemination of a hostile alternate reality that continues to threaten to tear our country apart.

#fake news #media disinformation #donald trump #fox news #conspiracy stuff #republicans

[i-may-have-a-point]

Review of 14x04 “Ain’t That a Kick in the Head”

Sorry for the delay in posting!  Life.   Amelia - I mentioned this last week, but I want to say again how surprised I am that Amelia’s brain tumor story moved so quickly.  I guess her real story this year will be figuring out who she is without this tumor impacting her actions and decisions.  Marlana Hope is a welcome addition to the writing team after seeing how she wrote this particular story in this episode.  Dr. Koracick is arrogant but likable, Amelia’s reactions are realistic, and humor is interjected well for a story about such a tough topic.  April being Amelia’s POA and explaining, “What?  Was I supposed to say no?” added levity to a scene where Amelia said her good-byes to her loved ones.  “In this moment, I love you people tremendously.”  What a perfect line.  The scene transitions to Amelia and her team standing in the superhero pose, and Dr. Koracick speaks for all of us when he whispers, “I love this,” over the stunning instrumental music.  “With surgery, you worry that you won’t wake up.  With brain surgery, you worry that you will wake up, but you won’t be there when you do.”  That is a beautiful way to explain Amelia’s fear.  Who is she without this tumor?  Well, we are about to find out as we watch Dr. Koracick cut her tumor out while singing along to the Beach Boys.  The contrast of the music with the seriousness of the scene could not have been better.  Whoever chose the music for this episode should choose the music for the rest of the season.  After surgery, Amelia being aware of what was happening but not being able to communicate was terrifying to watch but a nice nod to Derek’s death.  I also thought Deluca  was a nice addition to this story.  He never quite found his place in seasons past, but so far, I like him in neuro with Amelia.  The scene where he forced her to sit in the chair because she made him promise to do so was brilliant.  Amelia screaming in her head while collapsed against his chest, weeping, was one of my favorite scenes of the night.

I think Caterina has done an amazing job with this story, but I have to mention my issues with the story as well.  Using a brain tumor to rewrite Amelia’s personality is frustrating to me. I didn’t think her personality was THAT bad, and it’s unrealistic.  My dad passed away from cancer a little over a month ago.  It spread to his brain, and he had his brain tumor removed in April.  His tumor may have been different from the one Amelia has, but brain tumors don’t just make people act a little odd.  They are debilitating.  They affect memory, speech, vision, and motor skills.  They don’t just cause you to make poor life choices..  I  know I have to look past reality to accept this story, and that’s fine because it’s a TV show, but a part of me wishes they hadn’t depicted brain tumors so inaccurately.  

Bailey/Webber/Interns - Some of these scenes were funny, but I know we are all side-eyeing these new interns wondering how they are going to shake up Grey-Sloan Memorial.  Part of me doesn’t want to know.

Megan/Nathan/Meredith - I have been so impressed with how this story has been written.  I was not feeling Griggs last season, mainly because it was written so poorly.  This season has been just the opposite.  This story has been written so well that I want Nathan with both Megan and Meredith.  Not in a sister wives type way.  It’s just that they are all handling an unimaginable situation with maturity and class, and I want a happy ending for all of them.  Megan is incredibly likable.  She is understanding of Nathan moving on, she adopted an orphaned child and raised him in a war zone, and she has been through hell and back.  She deserves happiness.  Meredith has been understanding of Nathan’s history with Megan, she helped him bring Farouk to Megan, and she also has been through hell and back.  She deserves happiness.  I am genuinely interested to see how this story plays out.  I still assume Meredith will get the man in the end because she is Meredith, but if they keep writing this story this well, I will stay invested for as long as they want.  (Side note:  I like the parallel between Meredith telling Megan that she kidnapped her own daughter and then Meredith helping Nathan, in a way, kidnap Farouk.)

Catherine/Webber/Jackson/Koracick - I laughed out loud when Koracick said he wanted to make sure Jackson wasn’t his and Jackson said, “Nope,” and walked away.  I’m not entirely sure what the point of adding in the Koracick/Catherine connection was, but it was a funny little moment.

Jo/Alex - Either Jo is going to decide to put her name on the article despite her husband possibly finding her, or I think he will be at the Harper Avery awards.  He feels like a shadow closing in on Jolex.  We are all just waiting for him to step out of the darkness.  But what a refreshing switch it is to see Alex be her rock as opposed to last season when she feared Paul alone.  This is a more realistic portrayal of their relationship and who Alex is.

April/Arizona/Alex/Mer/Maggie scene - I like scenes like this.  I always have.  I think this particular scene is another way the writers are taking jabs at the terrible stories of last season.  Alex says, “I just wish I had a tumor to blame my stupid crap on,” and they proceed to yell out stories from last season that we could have done without. As if wishing all of them could be explained away by tumors.  “Deluca, I’m sorry I hit you. Tumor.” “Riggs. Tumor.” “Minnick!”  It was a subtle jab at the ridiculous writing of season 13.  Thanks Marlana.

Jackson/April/Maggie - After watching this week’s episode, I stand by what I said last week.  Jackson and April are both going to have individual journeys (for the most part) this season, but they will find their way back to each other.  I expect some of you to call me delusional or say I am wrong, but I only write what I see.  The first time we see Jackson and Maggie interact, she comments on his suit only to quickly realize he was at a funeral.  Again, I saw no flirting there.  And after she awkwardly walked away, Jackson very noticeably adjusted Alex’s collar.  I’m not sure how the writers/directors/show could send a more intentional message to the audience than that.  Jackson and Alex don’t touch.  That two second gesture was put in there in response to Maggie fixing Jackson’s collar.  Because that is what colleagues/friends do.  It doesn’t mean that Jackson wants to drag Alex to an on-call room, and it didn’t mean that for Maggie either.  Yes, they are intentionally toying with the audience by throwing stuff like that in there, but so many people are taking the bait and crazy tweeting about it, so why wouldn’t they?  That moment leads into Jackson’s talk with Meredith about the Harper Avery award, further supporting my thoughts from last week that Jackson will spend a good deal of the season figuring out what it means for him to be an Avery.  He is visibly annoyed that he cannot be considered for an award since he is a great surgeon and deserves recognition.  

It was nice to see more of Webbery’s home.  How many of us have forgiven Catherine Avery all her sins after the way she seemed annoyed at Maggie’s very presence at their dinner?  We feel that on a spiritual level, Catherine. When Jackson walked in, he said, “Oh. Hey,” the way I greet acquaintances.  Again, nothing.  He looked a little surprised to see her maybe, but that’s about it.  And the couple of times he smiled at her in the episode did not scream romantic feeling to me.  She is his step-sister and friend.  He should smile at her.  It would be weird if he didn’t.  He smiled at Meredith the exact same way before stealing her chips.  Awkward, boring scenes aside, I think the main point of these scenes was for the audience to know how much money Jackson inherited.  The discussion centered around the money and what he should do with it.  I suspect we will see something come of Jackson inheriting this money.  This was brought up for a reason.  

The scene that I think most people were so angered by was when Jackson said, “I appreciate you,” to Maggie.  Guys.  Come on.  If that was supposed to be a “moment” it would be the most lackluster romantic scene in the history of Grey’s   I appreciate you?  I appreciate the guy with one tooth who held the door open for me this morning.  I appreciate when my waitress refills my drink.  I appreciate when someone lets me merge on the interstate.  However, I have absolutely no romantic interest in any of these people.  That was not a Grey’s line that starts a romance.  Grey’s starts a romance by two people being drawn together in a bar, spending the night together, and then finding out he is her new boss.  Or two people connecting over their mutual understanding of what it means to lose the love of your life.  Or two people understanding that having demons in their past (drugs, ptsd) does mean you are unlovable.  Or two people who were beaten and broken down and told they were nothing can rise out of their circumstances.  Or best friends turning into soul mates who only need “me and you” to make it.  Epic love stories on Grey’s don’t begin with “I appreciate you.”  

Were they thinking about it?  Yes.  April planted the idea in their heads, and they had to at least consider what the other was thinking or feeling.  But, once again, the writers called them family in this episode.  Catherine called Maggie his sister.  SISTER.  Last week, Harper called April his wife.  WIFE.  The writers are feeding us crumbs, and that is damn annoying, but no matter how little we are getting, there is a big difference between being called the sister and the wife when it comes to Grey’s writing.

Seeing April in the chapel just feels right.  And I love that Marlana covered all aspects of who April is - religious, a fiercely loving mother, funny, and someone who feels things deeply.  April is such a complex, well-developed character. Hearing April pray “Please don’t make me have to unplug her,” was both funny and true to her character.  She wants Amelia to survive, but she has the strength to do what she needs to if it comes down to it.  We also saw that April is continuing to evaluate her life, what she wants, what makes her happy, and where she goes from here, just like last week.  Arizona seemed to be talking April into dating or having “new grown-up fun,” but I think most of that was just Arizona speaking for her own experience.  April may or may not date this season as part of her journey, but if she does, I don’t think it will be anytime soon.  She is focused on herself right now, as she should be.  Like she said, she doesn’t want a new normal.  Right now, she is surviving and that is the best she can do.  There was a quick line in the scene where they were all drinking coffee outside that caught my attention and may be insignificant, but I think it is another example of the introspection and reflection April is doing.  Meredith commented on how Riggs packed his bags and left to which April responds,  “Riggs panicked.  People panic.”  n that line, I heard April relating to Riggs because she packed her bags and left once, too.  That’s just one more part of her past that must be on her mind lately. And the chapel scene.  How is it that Sarah Drew can have a ten second scene where she says two words, and it is breathtaking? When April is unsure, hurting, or troubled, she turns to God.  But here, she went for a different reason.  April is thankful.  And not just that Amelia survived.  Despite all the hurt and heartache in her life, April is thankful.  And that just makes me love her even more.

I know many of you are angry and even jumping ship, but my feet are still planted firmly on the deck at this point.  Japril has a long journey, which is frustrating, but it’s only because they can have a story like this and remain one of the most popular couples on the show.  They have had two scenes together in six months, yet Grey’s posts are full of fans talking about Japril on every form of social media.  They are strong enough to get a story like this, and I hesitantly say, the writers this season are strong enough to make this into an amazing story.  

#grey's anatomy #japril #jolex #griggs #omelia #14x04

[themostrandomfandom]

Hey JJ, I was wondering what is your opinion on Klaine and the relationship between them and Brittana. Also I have a friend whose really obsessed with you and your blog and she reads it religiously so that must mean that your stuff is good ;) hope your day is going well :)))

Hey, @ruskinino​!

First off, thank you forthe sweet message. Sorry it has taken me so long to post a reply.

Second, in response to yourquestion:

While both TPTB at Glee and fanon might like toimagine a close and straightforwardly friendly bond between Brittana andKlaine, I think that, in reality, things are much more complicated, and,unfortunately, less positive. 

The two couples don’t hate each other, but thereis certainly a degree of caution in the way they interact, with both sides having been burned in the past.

We can break the issues down after the cut.

WARNING: I am writing this response as a fan of Brittany Pierceand Santana Lopez and a Brittana shipper. Though my intention isn’t to bashKurt Hummel, Blaine Anderson, or Klaine, there are elements of my analysis thatare critical of their behavior and which discuss some negative views which I believethat Brittany and Santana hold towards them. If you ship Klaine, proceedcautiously. What follows probably won’t be your cup of tea.   

___

Brittana, Klaine, and Glee’s Writing

First, let’s talk aboutBrittana and Klaine on a production level.

In terms of Glee marketing,Brittana and Klaine were very important. For a show that prided itself on itsdiversity and forward-thinkingness, having two same-sex teen couples at itsfront and center was a big deal. While a lot of the critical praise for Gleedied off before the first season had even ended, the show continued toaccumulate awards from GLAAD, the Trevor Project, and other LGBTQ organizationsthroughout its run thanks, in no small part, to Brittana and Klaine’sprominence.

For PR purposes, Brittanaand Klaine were often paired together in promotional materials and paralleledin episode structures. RIB loved putting them side by side because when they did,it got everyone’s attention. If having one same-sex couple getmarried on TV was a huge thing, then having two same-sex couples get married onTV at the same time was an even huger one. It was all about doubling up, and thepowers that be at Glee took the opportunity to put two and twotogether when they could.

That said, Brittana +Klaine was often better executed in idea than in practice.

The truth is that asidefrom being LGBTQ and participating in show choir, Brittana and Klaine were twovery different couples, and Brittany, Santana, Kurt, and Blaine were four verydifferent characters. While in theory there exists a fictional universe wherethey all (or at least most of them) could have been friends—a point which manyexcellent fanfics well prove—the canon Gleeverse wasn’t it, mostly because thewriters never put in the work to really establish those interpersonal dynamics.

Brittana and Klaineran in the same circles and frequently orbited around one another in terms oftheir storylines and character development, but the narration never truly allowedthem to get to know one another or to form stable bonds.

Despite various comingstogether, at the end of six seasons, shared wedding notwithstanding, one nevergot the sense that Brittana and Klaine were actually very good friends. Sure,they didn’t hate one another, but there was also no deep love between them.Klaine were still questioning Brittana’s motives. Brittana were still mockingKlaine’s clothing, mannerisms, and relationship status.

Glee had failed to provethat these kids actually liked and related to one another on any special level.It was just another instance in which Glee kept trying to tell us that thesecharacters were friends, but they never showed us that such was the case (see here).

For as much as fanon lovesto imagine what might have been, canon shows us a much more convoluted—and muchless pretty—picture, one in which, due to a history of bullying and hijinks,Klaine never got comfortable enough to drop their guards around Brittana, andso, after years of repeated rebuffs and rejections, Brittana eventually grewfrustrated with Klaine’s distrust of them and emotionally disengaged.

So now let’s talk aboutthese relationships “in universe.”   

Kurt and Brittany

The truth is that KurtHummel, like most of the characters on Glee, never really gets Brittany Pierce,and his view of her doesn’t change much between S1 and S6 (see here).

To Kurt, Brittany is simpleand strange—“a girl who thinks the square root of four is rainbows” and talks openlyand unironically about unicorns.

He tends to accept what hesees from her at face value, buying into the early stereotype she perpetuatesfor herself, namely that she is slutty and dumb, in some ways unaccountable forher own actions because she doesn’t understand what she is doing (see here).

Because Kurt’s initialimpression of Brittany is that there is not much to her, he never really thinksto look at what might be going on beneath her surface, and his opinion on hercharacter remains generally static. Consequently, he has trouble comprehendingher more nuanced behaviors, and he oftentimes patently misunderstands herbecause he is unaware of what her true motivations are and where her emotionalstakes lie.

Initially, the fact that Brittanyis one of the most popular girls in school is somewhat intimidating to Kurt, andespecially because she and the rest of the Unholy Trinity don’t mesh well withthe New Directions. For a long time, he doesn’t understand Brittany’smotivations for joining the glee club and so doesn’t entirely trust her. Whenshe is revealed as a spy in episode 1x13, he feels his distrust of her hasbeen validated (“You leaked the set list! You don’t want to behere. You were just Sue Sylvester’s little moles!”).It is well into S2 before he begins to trust that Brittany really wants to bepart of the glee club and that she isn’t just out for herself.

As time goes on andBrittany becomes more integrated into the group, Kurt tries to be nice to her inthe same way that people try to be nice to infants and pets, but oftentimes hispatience with her shenanigans wears thin, which is something that we see fromhim both when she serves as his beard in episode 1x18 and when she becomes his presidentialcampaign manager in episode 3x02.

When the things she saysbaffle him or when her behavior comes across to him as particularly nonsensical,Kurt has a tendency to snap at Brittany and drive her away. Lack ofunderstanding and patience for Brittany notwithstanding, Kurt does seem togenerally like her and is sometimes even protective of her. If asked, he wouldprobably say that he considers Brittany a friend, albeit not his closest one. Attimes, he even calls her by an affectionate short name, “Britt.”

Kurt and Santana

Kurt’s dynamic with Santanaover the years is similar to his dynamic with Brittany, in that it is alsopredicated on an initial poor first impression and the inability to advance thoseinitial views, even given an accumulation of new evidence.

To Kurt, Santana is thequintessential mean girl, motivated largely by malevolence and spite.

When she initially joinsglee club, he doubts her loyalties, just as he does Brittany’s. However,whereas the biggest fault he finds with Brittany is that, in his view, she isstupid and has a bad taste in friends, with Santana, he finds that she isvicious and even dangerous, particularly as she has a tendency to makehomophobic comments towards him (K: “Can we talk about the giant elephant inthe room?” S: “Your sexuality?”).

While there is some debateas to whether or not Kurt realizes that Santana is gay prior to her S3 outing, thefact is that, no matter what he knows or doesn’t know, he remains fairly alooffrom her throughout S1 and S2, and, in the few instances when they do interact,he is openly wary of her intentions.

In his mind, Santana isinherently selfish, so the idea that she would put herself on the line forsomeone else without expecting anything in return just doesn’t add up to him. Why does she protect him from Dave Karofsky? How come she goes out of her way to get him back to WMHS from Dalton? What gives with her suddenly using her prom queen campaign to protect him when for the lastseveral years she has taken every opportunity to bully him for being gay?

His cautious attitude towardsher continues into S3, when he doesn’t know exactly what to make of herattempts to be nice to him and behaves towards her as one might a cat that hadpreviously attacked him but is now purring. Though after her outing, he has abetter idea of why she does some of the things she does—such as going with him,Blaine, and Brittany to confront Sebastian Smythe after Dave Karofsky’s suicideattempt—much of her behavior still remains a mystery in his mind.

Why, for instance, does shenot appreciate his and Blaine’s attempts to serenade her during Lady MusicWeek?

In S4, when Santana becomeshis roommate in NYC, Kurt finds her behavior invasive and at times infuriating,though he generally gets along with her better than Rachel does.

In S5, he feels forced to choosebetween his loyalties to Santana and his loyalties to Rachel, and he inevitablychooses the latter.

In S6, he regards Santanaas a friend, though he still struggles to reconcile her behavior with what hethinks he knows about her basic motivations, which is why it so surprises himwhen she seemingly “out of the blue” decides to share her wedding day with himand Blaine.

As I discuss elsewhere,

Santana spends much of S1 and S2 making homophobic comments aboutKurt, so, to him, Santana is a mean girl, and he never really allows her togrow out of that role in his eyes. 

Though in later seasons she becomes his roommate and tries tobecome his friend, he always keeps her at arm’s length and will side withRachel over her in a heartbeat, even in situations where Rachel is in thewrong. 

At best, Santana is his fun, bitchy lesbian acquaintance. Atworst, she is his caustic, bitchy lesbian acquaintance. 

He seems convinced that she is an awful person who sometimesmasquerades as a sweetheart rather than a sweetheart who sometimes masqueradesas an awful person, and he treats her accordingly, for the most part—though, infairness, he seems somewhat more amiable toward Santana than is Rachel, on thewhole.

Kurtand Brittana

As stated above, Kurt’sopinions of both Brittany and Santana remain fairly static throughout theentire series. When he first gets to know Brittana, he observes that Brittanyis a ditz and Santana is a bully, and his views on them don’t much change overthe course of the next six years.

If he encounters behavior fromthem which deviates from what he thinks he knows about their characters, then hecounts that behavior as aberrant and doesn’t shift his schema to allow for thenew evidence.

In other words, if Brittanydoes something undeniably clever, then he is likely to suppose it was anaccident—an exception rather than the rule. Ditto for if Santana does somethingcertifiably nice. 

By S6, he knows enough torealize that, generally speaking, he and Brittana are on the same side.However, he continues to doubt their intentions, and, even up to the pointwhere they are graciously sharing their wedding day with him and Blaine, hestill questions their characters, failing to understand that they have grownand changed a lot since they were fifteen years old.

Overall, he does notunderstand Brittana’s dynamic. He either assumes that they function like he andBlaine do (see episode 6x03)—which they don’t—or else just plain fails to wraphis head around how they behave and what they feel for each other,underestimating the strength and depth of their bond. At his core, he can’t seewhat they see in each other. Why would someone like Brittany want to be withsomeone like Santana? Why would someone like Santana want to be with someonelike Brittany? What do they have in common? How do they make things work?

Brittana really are amystery to Kurt, but one he doesn’t spend too much time trying to unravel.

The fact that he soadamantly opposes their engagement even after six years of knowing them showsthat he doesn’t really get what they’re all about because, if he did, he wouldrealize that through all the ups and downs and changes with them throughout thetime that he has known them, they’ve always been each other’s only constant,and their bond with each other is strong, deep, and mature.

Brittany and Kurt

In S1, Brittany primarilyseems to pity Kurt Hummel—and especially because she very much understands hisunderlying motivations at that time.

Brittany is out long beforeKurt is, and she seemingly never wrestles with her own sense of identity in theway that Kurt does (see here).However, she does still feel for Kurt, and particularly as she recognizes thathe and Santana are essentially in the same boat. 

Though at this point in theshow, few people would see similarities between an unpopular, virginal gaychoir boy and a popular, slutty “straight” cheerleader, Brittany knowsthat Kurt and Santana actually share much in common, albeit below thesurface. 

Both Kurt and Santana carrya secret that that they’re desperately trying to suppress. Both Kurt andSantana worry that if they are honest about their identities, they will losethe love of their family members. Both Kurt and Santana perform socialgymnastics in order to maintain a sense of equilibrium in their lives, tryingdesperately to balance who they really are with who they think they need to bein order to survive.

Brittany is aware longbefore Santana says it out loud that Santana looks to Kurt as thequintessential canary down the mineshaft and that anything she sees happeningto him, she fears will also happen to her. Whenever Kurt faces homophobia orsuffers a setback as he negotiates his outness, Santana takes note, andBrittany, by extension, does, too.

In my view, that is why throughout S1 we see several instancesin which Brittany helps Kurt to interact with his father on his own terms, suchas in episode 1x04, when she and Tina convince Burt that Kurt is on thefootball team so that Kurt can save face (see here),and in episode 1x18, when she acts as Kurt’s beard so that Kurt can prove toBurt that he is “straight” (see here).

At this point in herdevelopment, Brittany is still very much in the business of helping Santana tomaintain the illusion of their straightness, and she essentially does the samething for Kurt. While she may not personally feel the need to hide her same-sexattractions, she knows that Kurt and Santana do, and she doesn’t hesitate toplay along in their schemes to convince the world that they are “outstandingheterosexuals,” no matter how overblown and ineffectual said schemes may be.

It is only as Brittanystarts to change how she relates to Santana during S2 that her relationshipwith Kurt also changes, and she becomes less about trying to help him obfuscate his true self and more about helping him to celebrate it.

Nowhere is this attitudefrom her more apparent than in episode 2x20, when she acknowledges how strongKurt has to be in order to be himself and encourages Santana to stand by him inhis time of trouble (“Go back out there and be there for Kurt. This is gonna bea lot harder for him than it is for you”).

While there is an element of self-service to Brittany’s actionsin this situation—Santana helping Kurt to feel comfortable with himself in turnhelps Santana to feel comfortable with herself, and a comfortable Santana isone who will be able to date Brittany—there is also some genuine pride andappreciation underlying them.

Brittany is glad that Kurt has gone from being someone who wouldlie to his father about having a girlfriend to being someone who can takeownership of a shitty situation by saying, “I’m proud to be who I am.” She seesthe progress he has made, and she applauds his real bravado.

Though she hasn’t said so out loud, to this point in the show,Brittany has considered herself to be in a position to “help Kurt up.” While hehas struggled to accept himself and later to forge his identity as an out gaykid at a conservative school, Brittany has already been there, and she has beenquietly watching him, lending him help when she can, and rooting for him fromthe sidelines.

Come S3, she feels that Kurt has finally peaked and that theyare now on equal footing in terms of being comfortable in their own skins.

That’s why she turns to him as an ally in her quest to make WMHSa safe place for other, potentially still-closeted LGBTQ kids, includingSantana—because she assumes that she and Kurt are both in a position to helpothers reach the point they’ve gotten to and that they’re on the same pageabout the importance of activism in their community (see here).

Her assumption is a mistake not because Kurt doesn’t care aboutLGBTQ causes but because he doesn’t understand her and her motivations.

For one thing, like most people at the school, Kurt doesn’t seemto think of Brittany as bisexual, her openness concerning her orientationnotwithstanding (see hereand here).Particularly given that Brittany and Santana are not yet openly dating at thetime when episode 3x02 takes place, Kurt doesn’t get that Brittany has theproverbial dog in this fight. In his mind, she is an ally at best, so it’s nother personal safety, comfort, and wellbeing that are going on the line in thiscampaign, just his. He is the out gay kid, so he’s the one that will have to facethe backlash, not Brittany, who, according to his understanding, is ostensiblystraight.

For another thing, because Kurt views Brittany as naïve, he believesthat she is wildly oversimplifying the matter at hand and that she doesn’tunderstand the grander implications of her own actions. He assumes that shethinks that running a campaign of this nature will be easy and that no one willpush back against it because her world is all rainbows, puppies, andbutterflies. He doesn’t realize that Brittany has been watching how peoplereact to him for as long as they’ve known each other. He also doesn’t get thatshe is smart enough to know what happens to anyone who dares to be toodifferent at their school.

While Kurt is finally to the place where he is comfortableclaiming his identity as a gay man and publicly being in a relationship withBlaine, he isn’t eager to become the face of the gay rights movement atWMHS—and especially not after being driven to Dalton the year before. The waypeople react to him is different than the way people react to Brittany andalways has been. While she may be comfortable associating herself with ProjectUnicorn, he isn’t, and so he and Brittany butt heads.

Whereas in the past when Kurt has snapped at Brittany (see episodes1x18 and 2x02), Brittany has typically backed off and done as Kurt says, in S3,Brittany actually stands up to Kurt, and the fact that she does so isreflective of her own personal growth during the Back Six of S2.

That said, it is also reflective of her changed view of Kurt nowthat he is out and more at ease in his own skin. In the past, Brittany viewedKurt as delicate, so she was all about being gentle with him and going alongwith things at his pace so as not to spook him. Now she knows that he isconfident in himself and that he can handle tough love. In her mind, that meansthat she can take the kiddie gloves off with him. So she does.

When Kurt says he doesn’t want her to run his campaign for thesenior class presidency, Brittany comes back swinging. Though she initiallyshows shock and disappointment about his decision, after a pep talk fromSantana, she tells Kurt that she is going to continue the campaign without him,becoming a candidate herself. While she isn’t mean about what she says, she isfirm, and she doesn’t back down.

This action represents a major shift in the way Brittany relatesto Kurt. No longer does she pity him or look at him as someone she has to baby.

—and that point is important, because going forward into S3,Brittany really seems to take off her rose-tinted glasses when it comes toKurt and how he treats her.

Brittany has always been aware that everyone aside from Santanathinks she’s stupid. Some people are meaner about it, like Finn, while somepeople are nicer about it, like Mercedes. It’s the difference between outrightdisdain and condescension versus “being too gentle” with her. Kurt was alwayson the nicer end of the continuum. Brittany knew he didn’t think of her as anintellectual equal, but she was willing to let it slide because at least mostof the time he was kind.

But as their political campaign heats up, Kurt starts to getannoyed with Brittany’s antics—and particularly as she gains over him in thepolls—and his interactions with her become noticeably harsher. Whereas beforehe always at least tried to hide the fact that he thought she was as dumb as abox of rocks, now he is much more open in his patronization, and Brittany isn’thaving it (see episode 3x03).

Between the disrespect he shows Brittany as a political rivaland his participation in Santana’s humiliating public outing experience (seeepisode 3x07), Brittany starts to get a bit passive aggressive towards Kurt. Ofcourse, it’s not that she outright hates the kid—she still likes him wellenough—it’s just that she is no longer giving him a free pass in how he treatsother people.    

That attitude is the one she carries into S4 and S5, as Kurtgraduates and moves to New York, where Santana eventually becomes his roommate.While Brittany doesn’t have much direct contact with Kurt during this time, shehears through the grapevine about how he is treating her girl, and, honestly,the reports leave her troubled.

That Rachel and Kurt would kick Santana out of first the Loftand later Pamela Lansbury when Santana wants nothing more than to be theirfriends doesn’t sit well with Brittany. That Santana always seems to have tobeg for Hummelberry’s acceptance and friendship even though she freely givesthose things to them hurts Brittany’s heart.

In episodes 5x12 and 5x13 especially, Brittany sees just howmuch of a toll it has taken on Santana to constantly have to be on her guardaround Hummelberry, and she feels frustrated because things didn’t have to bethat way.

If Kurt had just dropped his guard, Santana would have been hisfriend to the end. Couldn’t he see?

Again, Brittany doesn’t hate Kurt for his behavior, but she alsodoesn’t entirely excuse it. In her mind, Kurt can be a nice guy when doesn’thave his head up his ass. It’s just that Kurt does have his head up his ass alot, and particularly when he is caught up in the constant drama that seems tosurround Rachel and Blaine.

Honestly, Brittany is never a big fan of Blaine, a point whichwe’ll discuss in more detail later. 

Come S6 when Brittany starts interacting with Kurt on theregular again, her m.o. seems to be that she wants to remind him to be true tohimself and to heed his better impulses. She goes about doing so by behavingpassive-aggressively towards Kurt when he fails to toe the line (see episode6x02) and calling him out when he crosses it (see episode 6x03). Throughoutthis season, we see her use more tricksy troll!Brittany behavior on him thanshe ever has before, usually with the intent to take him down a peg or two whenshe believes he is getting too full of himself (see here).

At this point, Brittany knows that Kurt will probably neverfully get her and Santana and that their relationship will never be superclose, even given their shared history at WMHS. Still, she wants to be ondecent terms with him, and she wants him to show her and Santana basic respect,even if he doesn’t understand them or their dynamic at all.

As for Brittany’s push to share her wedding with Kurt andBlaine, suffice it to say that there’s a lot more to that story than meets theeye, and, despite what she professes, Brittany is no Klaine shipper (see here).Brittany has her eye on a prize in that situation, and Kurt is just in thedetails. She is on her way to a happy ending, and if she has to let him mooch herwedding venue to do so, then so be it.

Her attitude in that episode is indicative of her overall attitudetoward Kurt to end the show: She feels like she and Santana tried to connectwith him, but it never worked out. At first, she was hurt by the fact that Kurtnever came to understand her—and especially that he never came to understandSantana—but now she’s over it. She can be friends with him on a superficiallevel as long as he’s nice to them, but she’s not going to sit back and let himtreat her or Santana badly anymore. She knows they’re worth more than that,whether Kurt sees it or not. In the end, Kurttany has become a fairly neutralrelationship, and Brittany’s m.o. with it is to do no harm and take no shit.

Brittany and Blaine andKlaine’s Relationship

As I discuss elsewhere,

While Brittany doesn’t hate Blaine like she hates Rachel, she alsoisn’t his number one fan. In general, Brittany doesn’t take well to anyone whobelieves that they’re better than everyone else, so Blaine going after everysolo and role and class presidency with aplomb, regardless of whom he steps onto do so, doesn’t sit well with her. Brittany believes in being a team player,and, the way she sees it, Blaine isn’t one. He will always put himself in thepoint position, even if he isn’t the best person for the job.

—which brings us to his treatment of Kurt.

Historically, Brittany has been protective of Kurt, as she cansympathize with him (see here, here, and here).Brittany likes to see Kurt succeed because she likes the idea that someone whomarches to the beat of his own drummer can make it in a world that tries tomake everyone conform—hence why she helps Kurt with his campaign and why sheacts as his background singer for his NYADA audition and why she is generallynice to him, even though they’re not necessarily close friends. 

Of course, just because Brittany generally likes Kurt and wantshim to succeed doesn’t mean she always agrees with him and his choices or willrefrain from giving him a little bit of tough love should she feel the need todo so.

Enter her “advice” to Kurt in episode 6x02 “Homecoming.”

Brittany has watched Kurt’s relationship with Blaine from thestart, and, honestly? I don’t think she likes most of what she sees.

For Brittany, a real partnership is about two people supportingeach other and helping each other to fulfill their dreams, and from Brittany’sperspective, I don’t think she sees Blaine doing those things for Kurt, thoughKurt often does them for Blaine.

In her eyes, when Kurt and Blaine both want the same thing—i.e., asolo in glee club, a role in the school play, a prestige spot at NYADA, acertain rule to be honored in their relationship—Blaine almost inevitably endsup getting whatever the thing is, with Kurt stepping aside or bowing out inorder to allow him to have it.

Add on the fact that Brittany has undoubtedly heard all about the“Klaine can’t live together without fighting” fiasco from Santana, and,frankly, I think Brittany probably views Blaine as a negative factor in Kurt’slife rather than a positive one.

That said, Brittany is all about respecting the choices peoplemake for themselves, so for as passive-aggressive as she may be about and eventowards Blaine, she isn’t going to stand in Kurt’s way once he decides he wantsto be with Blaine forever.

If Kurt loves and wants to be with Blaine, then Kurt loves andwants to be with Blaine, and Brittany will accept that Blaine is Kurt’s person,even if she doesn’t understand the appeal (see episode 6x03 and 6x08).

Santana and Kurt

Santana’s relationship with Kurt follows a similar trajectory toBrittany’s.

However, while Brittany runs through the cycle of sympathizing withKurt, wanting to befriend him, realizing that a deep friendship with him is notpossible because he never makes an effort to understand her, and then gettingover it mostly over the course of S1-S3 (at least on her own account),Santana’s cycle runs over the course of the whole series, and it runs on higheroctane than Brittany’s does overall. 

Santana is the more emotionally reactive half of Brittana, so shetends to take things with Kurt harder than does Brittany on a whole, and especiallybecause her relationship with him is wrapped up in her own sense of identity asa gay person and in her dynamics with Brittany, Rachel, and her feelings abouther future, and it is marked by insecurity from start almost to finish.

As I say elsewhere,

Santana’s relationship with Kurt iscomplicated. 

On the one hand, she spent much of high school wishing she couldbe him: i.e., the out gay kid who persisted in being himself no matter whatopposition he faced. 

On the other hand, she spent much of high school terrified to behim: i.e., the out gay kid who got thrown into lockers and roughed up andtossed into dumpsters and hated on and threatened because he was gay (“I mean,you know what happened to Kurt at this school”). 

Kurt was simultaneously an object of both devotion and fear forSantana. In spite of herself, she identified with him very strongly. She sawhis successes as successes she could possibly have and his failures as failuresshe could potentially experience (see Santana intervening to save Klaine fromKarofsky’s wrath in 2x18 and Santana’s panic after Kurt becomes prom queen in2x20).

That’s part of why she worked so hard to make WMHS safe for Kurtin Season Two, long before she herself came out (see here).

During Season Two, Kurt was more of a symbol to Santana thansomeone with whom she had an actual relationship, but during Season Three, shemade her first overtures of real friendship to him, reaching out to him whenSebastian and the Warblers tried to hurt him and Blaine (“Today is your luckyday, because Auntie Snixx just arrived on the Bitch Town Express”).

In her mind, Santana had done Kurt several solids by thispoint—i.e., forming the Bully Whips on his behalf, bringing him back to WMHSfrom Dalton, singing to him at prom despite her own fears, taking downSebastian after Sebastian hurt Blaine, etc.—and the fact that she had done soplus her and Kurt’s shared experience of being out gay kids at WMHS should havebeen enough to make them friends.

We see Santana operate under the assumption that she andKurt are friends throughout Season Four, answering his summonsto stage an intervention for Rachel in 4x12 and bringing him Christmas presentsin 5x08 (the events of whichtake place during Season Four chronologically). Though Santana stillcalls Kurt names, she assumes he knows that she only does so because she likeshim.

That being the case, she fully expects him and Rachel to welcomeher into the Loft with open arms (and particularly as Rachel actually invitedher to live in the Loft during the events of 5x08).

Unfortunately, that’s not what happens.

From the very first time Santana does something nice forKurt—i.e., forming the Bully Whips in 2x18—Kurt questions her motivations in sodoing. Why is the girl who openly mocked him and attempted to sabotage the gleeclub during their sophomore year suddenly buddying up to him in their junioryear? Surely someone as selfish as Santana can’t have altruistic motives. Shemust have either lost her mind or stand to profit from helping Kurt somehow.

Even when he learns that Santana is gay come Season Three, Kurtstill views her largely as an outsider, and his distrust (andmisunderstanding) of her continues well into Season Four, when she moves intothe Loft.

To be fair, navigating the Hummelpezberry dynamic is trickybusiness, and particularly for Kurt, who often finds himself in theuncomfortable position of mediating between Rachel and Santana, both of whomget up to some pretty wild hijinks and who often butt heads with each other.

Kurt is a natural peacemaker, and he dislikes having contention inhis home, so he will try to counsel Rachel and Santana through their disputesas much as he is able.

That said, at the end of the day, Kurt is Rachel’s best friend, notSantana’s, so while he may try to maintain his neutrality concerning theirdisputes, when push comes to shove, he almost always sides with Rachel in theend, as per what we see during the Pezberry Funny Girl disputeof early Season Five.

As I say elsewhere:

While there is certainly no shortage of wittybanter and fun musical numbers between roomies Kurt, Santana, and Rachel, thereis a shortage of “relationship-building” scenes—or at least a shortage oflasting “relationship-building” scenes that the Glee writers don’t subsequentlyrescind, ignore, or negate.

For every one friendly gesture Hummelberry andSantana make towards one another—such as, for instance, when Santana helpsRachel through her pregnancy scare in episode 4x15 or when Rachel encouragesSantana not to give up on her dreams in the first scene of episode 5x09—thereare at least two or three scenes that then show how very unstable their dynamicactually is—such as when Hummelberry kick Santana out of the Loft in 4x16 andSantana and Rachel are at each other’s throats throughout most of 5x09 and5x10.

Just as it was always the case that the UnholyTrinity broke down into units of Brittana + Quinn, it is also the case thatHummelpezberry breaks down into units of Hummelberry + Santana, with Santana asthe odd one out.

Not only do Kurt and Rachel frequently form ranksto outvote Santana, but their bond as Hummelberry can exist independent of her,whereas her bonds as part of Pezberry and Kurtana are largely dependent onHummelberry’s bond with each other—i.e., Kurt serves as a necessary peacemakerbetween Pezberry, allowing their friendship to exist, while a common interestin and exasperation with Rachel and her antics is what keeps Kurtana united.

Santana’s bond with Kurt is more stable thanSantana’s bond with Rachel, which is to say that Santana and Kurt are lesslikely to fight than Santana and Rachel are. However, Santana’s bond with Kurtis also weaker than her bond with Rachel is, which is to say that Santana hasless in common with Kurt than she does with Rachel and also that Santana feelsthat Kurt needs her less than Rachel does.

Of course, both Santana’s bond with Kurt ANDSantana’s bond with Rachel are relatively weak compared with Kurt and Rachel’sbond to each other.

If it comes down to it, Hummelberry’s tendency isto have each other’s backs. Though they like Santana to a degree, she is extraneousto them.

And the thing is that Santana knows it. 

Santana knows the difference between a secureattachment and an insecure one, and she knows that while Hummelberry aresecurely attached to each other, they are, for the most part, insecurelyattached to her. Santana knows that Hummelberry will tolerate her as long asshe is on her best behavior, and she fears the implications of theirtoleration.

Frankly, Santana is terrified of stepping one toeout of line, lest Hummelberry kick her out of the Loft again—because for asmuch as Santana says that she needs her job at the diner, she needs her placeat the Loft equally as much.

So while Santana ultimately fights less with Kurt than she doeswith Rachel, her relationship with him is just as tenuous and one-sided as isPezberry’s.

She ultimately never achieves the kind of intimacy and secureattachment to Kurt that she craves.

So cut to Season Six, when Kurt objects to Santana’s proposal toBrittany (see here):

Santana is angry that she tried for years toprove to Kurt that she was his friend, and he responded by evicting her fromthe Loft, questioning her intentions in auditioning to play Rachel’sunderstudy, kicking her out of his band, making her feel like a stranger in herown home, being ungrateful when she saved him from his high school bully anddefended Blaine against Sebastian Warbler on his behalf and scored him a job atthe diner and brought her girlfriend into his band and participated (graciouslyand quietly) in his proposal to Blaine and spent time socializing with andgetting to know him, being kind to him in his down moments, giving him soundadvice in a way that no one else was honest enough to do, etc.

Santana is angry that despite her trying herdamnedest to show Kurt that she was not the same girl he knew in highschool—that she wasn’t wrathful anymore, that she was generous, that she waswilling to share her heart in friendship with anyone who would treat it withcare—he never believed her. He always thought the worst of her. He kept her onthe outside, when she so desperately craved (and worked hard to earn) histrust.

Santana is angry but mostly she is hurt.

Santana is hurt because she genuinely cares aboutwhat happens to Kurt, but he has just shown her that he doesn’t give a damnabout what’s most important to her in return.

She showed him her precious things, and hetreated them like they were garbage.

Kurt was supposed to be Santana’s friend, and itbreaks her heart that he isn’t.

So while Santana’s capacity to forgive is muchgreater than most people generally give her credit for—and often even greaterthan those who wrong her might deserve—she does inevitably reach a point whereshe just can’t take it anymore.

And so when Kurt fucks up something that isimportant to Santana, that is sacred to her, that’s supposed to be beautifuland happy and pure, by lecturing her about learning from his mistakes? Sheloses it.

To Santana, it’s just another example of howeverything about the Kurtana relationship has always been about Kurt.

It is no coincidence that Santana spends the months that herrelationship with Brittany is at its most tenuous chasing after Kurt’sapproval. Throughout S4 and early S5, she is desperate for a place to belongand something to hold onto, and she keeps hoping that Kurt will take pity onher. She has always envied the courage he has to be himself, and now that sheis scrambling to figure out who she is outside of high school, she seeks toally herself with him, thinking that maybe some of his self-determination willrub off on her and help her find her direction.

It takes until episode 6x03, when Kurt objects to her proposal toBrittany, for Santana to realize that she should stop killing herself to winKurt’s love and approval, as, in the end, she is probably never going to getit. Going forward, she doesn’t bear Kurt ill-will. She just isn’t as hung up onwhat he thinks of her, largely because she has found where she belongs and shehas a better sense of who she is, regardless of what anyone might think. Thesecurity she feels in her relationship with Brittany makes up for the insecurityshe feels in her relationship with Kurt (and also Rachel). She’ll be friendlywith them on a superficial level, but when they inevitably do something todisappoint her, she isn’t going to take it personally—not anymore.

This attitude towards Kurt is the one that Santana carries intoher wedding day, and it is what allows her to offer up her nuptials for Klaineto take part in as well. Everything that has happened between Santana and Kurtover the years is water under the bridge now, so if Brittany wants Klaine toget married at her and Santana’s wedding, then Santana is cool with it. She’sgame. She can be altruistic, and if Kurt notices, then awesome, but if not,that’s his deal. She doesn’t need his validation anymore. She is just going tobe herself.

Santanaand Blaine and Klaine’s Relationship

The central dynamic between Brittana and Klaine is always mostlybetween Brittana and Kurt, as neither Brittany nor Santana has much of apersonal relationship with Blaine beyond his being Kurt’s boyfriend/fiancé/husband. 

To this end, Santana and Blaine don’t often interact on a one-to-one basis, andmost of their exchanges center on and are filtered through Kurt.

On the few occasions when Santana does take notice of Blaine forreasons not directly related to Kurt, her interactions with him are notnecessarily positive.

In episode 2x12, Blainetana get off to a bad start when Blainesingles Santana out at BreadStix, singing to her that she may never find loveat all and compounding her already horrible, awful, no good, very badValentine’s Day by drawing attention to her loneliness and (inadvertently)playing on her fears.

Things get worse in S3 after Blaine transfers to WMHS from Daltonand immediately starts grabbing up solos left and right, exacerbating Santana’ssense that there is no place for her in an already crowded New Directions (seeepisode 3x04).

That said, though Santana does not have much love for Blaine on apersonal level, she is willing to tolerate him for Kurt’s sake.

In general, Santana follows the same rule as Brittany when itcomes to how she treats Blaine and his relationship with Kurt, which is to saythat, though she may not personally see Blaine’s appeal for Kurt or think that Blaineis a particularly good match for him, she acknowledges that if Blaine is Kurt’sman, then Blaine is Kurt’s man, and so treats him like a friend for Kurt’s sake.In her case, “treating Blaine like a friend for Kurt’s sake” translates to hersnarking at him as she does at Kurt but also protecting him like her own whenneeds be.

The place where this behavior from her is most apparent is inepisode 3x11, when she “goes to battle” against Sebastian Smythe after hethrows rock salt in Blaine’s eye, sending Blaine to the hospital. Her musicalduel against Sebastian and the reconnaissance work she does against him is allfor Blaine’s benefit, a way to prove that Sebastian is guilty and get him backgood for what he’s done.

To Santana, that’s just how one treats a friend’s significantother—and it’s what she would expect Kurt to do for Brittany were the situationreversed.

Note: Santana’s expectation that friends should respect theirfriends’ relationships even if they don’t necessarily like or “get” themunderlies her hurt when Kurt objects to her proposal to Brittany in S6. No matterhow she feels about Blaine, she would never undermine Kurt’s right to be withhim or place her objections over Kurt’s feelings.

Overall, Santana seems to view Blaine as conceited and feelannoyed with him for his grandstanding, but she still accepts that Kurt loveshim, and that’s good enough for her. The only time she ever truly “goes after”Kurt and Blaine’s relationship is in episode 6x03, after Kurt objects to herproposal to Brittany. In that case, she is lashing out to hurt Kurt because hehurt her first. In her mind, he broke the “your friend’s relationship is sacred”rule, so she’s punishing him for it, plain and simple. The fact that she laterforgives Kurt enough to let him and Blaine share in her wedding proves that herdiatribe was mostly a nervous reaction and that, underneath everything, shebears Klaine no real malice. Again, she is over it, and if Kurt wants to marryBlaine, then that’s his business, and she’ll respect his decision.

Blaineand Brittana

As stated above, Blaine doesn’t have many individual interactionswith either Brittany or Santana, as he knows them mostly through Kurt (and, inBrittany’s case, through Sam). 

That being the case, his views of the girls andtheir relationship seem mostly to fall in line with Kurt’s: He thinks Brittanyis dumb, Santana is mean, and Brittana is somewhat inexplicable. In general, heseems to be amused by the strangeness that is them, and he doesn’t really gettheir whole “thing,” but he plays it off because, well, why not?

On the few occasions when Brittana do nice things for him—such as when Santana protects him and Kurt from Karofsky in episode 2x17 or when Brittany invites him and Kurt to share in her and Santana’s weddding in 6x08—he is grateful, if befuddled, as he doesn’t really understand where the niceness is coming from.

Following Kurt’s lead, he never really pushes for a deeper or more intimate friendship with either Santana or Brittany or with Brittana as a couple. He seems mostly fine with the pleasant but superficial status quo and with Kurt being closer to the girls than he is. Whatever history is there, he’s not going to poke at. There is nothing that really personally compels him about Brittana, one way or the other.

Conclusion

Brittana and Klaine end the show as neither friends nor enemies.

Santana’s early bullying and Brittany’s seemingincomprehensibility put Kurt off on them early on, and Kurt’s inability tochange his opinions put them off on him later. Though over the years, they singplenty of songs together and show occasional care for one another, ultimately,they fail to achieve true understanding. To Kurt, Brittana are still asimpleton and a mean girl. He doesn’t recognize Brittany’s cleverness orSantana’s ooey-gooey center. To Brittana, Kurt is impossible. They feel theyhave tried to win his friendship to no avail, so now they’ve given up. Their relationshipstops just short of real intimacy. They have shared history, but they don’tbare their souls to one another.

In the end, Brittana and Klaine represent a failed experiment bothinside and outside of their fictional universe.

The writers tried to make “two same-sex couples as buddies” fetchhappen, but they never truly allowed the groups to overcome their rocky startswith each other. Their inability to scaffold and build up this friendshipcorrelates to a larger failure on their parts in the way that they wieldedSantana as a character—namely, that they never quite knew what to do with heronce they could no longer just straight up treat her as a villain following herdevelopment in S2.

They knew that Santana could be nice, but she made such aconvenient heavy that they were reluctant to label her a hero. Their attitudetoward her is reflected in Kurt’s treatment of her, and it accounts for many ofthe starts, stops, and stalls that she and Kurt experience over the years.

The same is also true to for Brittany and Kurt, as the writerswere never able to gracefully transition Brittany between what they had firstenvisioned her as in S1 and what they eventually made her into from S2 on, and,consequently, Kurt was never able to advance his views of her, either.

Since Kurt’s attitudes eventually became Blaine’s, the wholeBrittana and Klaine friendship stalled from the onset. For every one bondingmoment they experienced, there was always a fight or a misunderstanding or agrudge that prevented them from truly drawing close. Klaine keep their guards up. Brittana have hurt feelings and eventually move on.

Of course, none of this analysis is meant to discourage peoplefrom enjoying the idea of a Brittana and Klaine friendship in fic and fanon. It’sjust to say that, in canon, I think that the Glee writers choked in theirexecution and that the whole situation is a lot more complicated than itappears on the surface.

As for my own views on Klaine, I don’t personally ship them,though I respect those who do.

Sorry this answer turned into such a monster piece.

Thank you for the question!

#Crazy Brittanalyst answers #ruskinino #Also @dive-right-into-you: I got your question and I'm working on a response