#(And dig a little deeper with actual quotes to support my theories)

[thecoleopterawithana]

What does your tag "Paul is a concept why which we measure our pain" mean?

Hello, Anon dear!

I applaud your sharp eye! You know, I actually thought twice about adding the tag to that particular post; even going as far as deleting it and then putting it in again. My reticence came from the fact that the reference was quite oblique (even for my standards). Nevertheless, this is a subject that I’ve been mulling over lately, so I thought, “Whatever, these tags are mostly for me, anyway!” 

But you caught me! (Though I appreciate that you did.)

I first came across this brilliant phrase in a tag by none other than the ever-insightful @amoralto. I’ve since found out that Rob Sheffield has a chapter of the same title in his Dreaming the Beatles (2017), though he doesn’t go exactly where I thought he would with it; I don’t think we give it the same meaning. 

It is, of course, a variation of John’s “God is a concept by which we measure our pain”, whose meaning didn’t hit me fully until I read his 1971 interview with Robin Blackburn and Tariq Ali (the post in which @amoralto used the tag). Here he describes how Janov’s Primal Scream Therapy had been for him until that point about acknowledging and facing his own pain, going to the root of it, instead of seeking refuge in the usual distractions and God-like figures absolution. I can not recommend this quote enough. It is, in my opinion, essential to understanding John Lennon. 

In fact, the deeper understanding about this side of John was so important to me that I made a whole post about his patterns of disillusionment immediately after. There, I try to express, among other things, what the phrase "Paul is a concept by which we measure our pain" means to me.

In short, what all this God/Idol/Parental-figure talk boils down to is Agency and the existence or absence of a conscious exercising of it. It’s about the perception of control and how that translates to notions of power.

To reach the absurdity of quoting myself:

“I can’t say that I’m familiar with theology or the exploration of the purpose of faith, but I see John as addressing how people use God - and all the other things he claims he doesn’t believe in anymore - as coping mechanisms for the pain in their lives. The greater the pain, the more you cling to these “distractions” from reality.

Though, this is not simply about distractions, like drugs, sex and success, as a means of escapism. When the despair is overwhelming, you want someone or something you can hand it all over to, and an all-powerful entity to whom you can just turn everything in and absolve yourself of the responsibility. And this Father figure will either make it better and make the pain go away, or it will tell you that there is a grander purpose to the pain, life works in mysterious ways, and it is as it is destined to be.

But the main point here is John’s need to hand over responsibility.” 

My hypothesis is that John was made to feel so unloved, his self-esteem was destroyed in such a way as a child, that he doesn’t believe himself to have agency over his life, to have the power to actually chose. Or if he does, he’d rather hand-over that power to someone else and be simply taken care of, instead of having to face the world alone and vulnerable, a possible victim of his own mistakes.  

But if John’s strategy in the face of pain and fear was to give up control, Paul’s response was to seize it.

I have explored the possible origins of this coping mechanism in a post about Paul’s childhood. There I propose that the pain of suddenly losing his mother and then feeling he couldn’t count on his father in the aftermath convinced him that he couldn’t really rely on anyone but himself.  

To quote myself again:

“Not only had the only reality he’d ever known been destroyed by his mother’s sudden death, his own father – who was supposed to be this strong, unshakable pillar in his life – couldn’t be relied on to hold it together.

Paul had been let down. He was on his own.

Fear steems from a feeling of powerlessness. You feel painfully vulnerable to whatever life might throw at you, at constant risk of being hurt again, and the only solution is to be on the lookout. Be prepared.

Paul was caught unawares because the people he’d counted on to always be there suddenly weren’t. And with his compassionate and reasonable nature, he probably didn’t even blame them at all. But the facts were that Paul had been left hanging, not once but twice, when he needed them the most. So he kind of lost his faith in everything.

Life is chaotic and unpredictable; and people, through no fault of their own, are just as inconstant.

And so, in order not to risk being let down again, Paul took matters into his own hands. He tried to escape the pain and dread of being powerless by seizing control of whatever he could. And that was mostly himself.

And so begins Paul McCartney’s saga of isolating independence and other control-issues.”

It’s that last bit about the “isolating independence” that I haven’t explored fully yet, though it’s something I hope to put out soon. 

The thing is, Paul got really good at being self-sufficient. He was confident and had his hands firmly placed on the steering wheel of his own life. He felt he had agency; he had control; he had power. 

In a world where people mostly feel afraid, lonely, and powerless, someone who presents such strength is magnetic. You can’t help but admire and love them; you want to be watched over by them and be loved in return. 

And there were those who felt rejected from the start, and so grew hateful of their Idol (Yoko Ono, Allen Klein, Phil Spector, Jann Wenner). 

But then there were those who felt the Grace of God shining upon them, but by then, they didn’t want to feel such an imbalance in the relationship. Anyone can be a god, after all. 

So now Paul’s self-reliance didn’t just mean strength; it meant detachment. As John put it in that Blackburn interview:

“The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them.”

John’s biggest fear and hurt was that of feeling like he needed Paul a lot more than Paul needed him. 

That’s why we reach a point where Paul’s way of showing love (especially by trying to help and “ease the pain”) is no longer welcome because it only served to increase the perceived imbalance in the relationship. Paul was seen as always fine and unbothered, so much so that he could afford to be “charitable” with his bandmates. It made them feel inept and redundant. 

And this is not just in John’s “head”. This was exactly George’s main complaint during the breakup: that even though Paul always helped him with his songs, he never took George’s own suggestions, which made George feel infantilized, unappreciated and no more than a “backing band”.

Of course, things get infinitely more interesting once we also look at them from inside Paul himself! But I’ll leave that to its own post; I feel I’ve given enough spoilers as it is. 

In summary, that tag is used when I feel there is an instance of people treating Paul like God: an unknowable, generally-benevolent, omnipotent being, whose grace you seek so he may deliver you from pain and fear. 

And you both adore his steadfastness, his unconditionality, and resent him for being invulnerable, unaffected by your behaviour. 

And when you suddenly feel abandoned by this God, if you no longer feel his love or as if he didn’t do his job of saving you from harm, you may as well cast him and his “religion” away; accuse him of being a false idol and everyone who still loves him to be ignorant mislead fools.

(Of course, needless to say that Paul was no unshakable god. But like I said, more on that later.)

[sk1fanfiction]

the many faces of tom riddle, part 2

 -you dislike frank dillane’s portrayal of tom riddle only because you don’t think he’s attractive-

FULL DISCLAIMER THAT THIS IS JUST MY OPINION OF A CHARACTER WHO DOESN’T HAVE THE STRONGEST CANON CHARACTERIZATION, AND THUS ALL THIS IS BASED ON MY CONCEPTUALIZATION (and this time, featuring a bit of armchair child psych from a student).

Wait, don’t clutch your pearls just yet. Compose yourself.

I am about to explain why it’s not actually that bad, and Dillane’s portrayal is vastly underappreciated.

I definitely agree that his portrayal comes off as ‘creepier’. It’s not helped by the stylistic decisions in the scene -- the smeary, green filter gives the scene a sinister quality. 

Even Slughorn looks suspect here, which is somewhat appropriate, given that he is complicit in this crime. 

Again, this scene is very much intended to be slightly off.

You’ll notice (and I’ll discuss this again when I talk about Coulson’s portrayal) that Dillane is almost always shot from at least slightly below, which makes the lower third of his face look bigger (and thus more menacing). The lighting also makes his eyes glow in a really unnatural way. There’s an echo-y effect to make his voice (and not Slughorn’s) sound unnerving.

People talk about how Coulson would have looked in this scene, and if he was filmed in the same way (monotone, smeary/shadowy filter, and always from below), he’d look a bit creepy, too.

But all of this, imo, is for a pretty good reason. Slughorn isn’t the POV character. Harry is. Harry is learning about how a young Lord Voldemort wheedled the secret of Horcruxes out of an unsuspecting teacher. Unlike in COS, he expects Riddle to be evil. And, so, Harry’s new perception of Tom Riddle literally colors how we perceive him.

Take this shot, for example: he does that head-tilt thing that Coulson does, and it’s actually... kind of... cute???

Imagine Dillane filmed from slightly above, like Coulson usually is, and it looks even more innocent. (I mean, come on, he does not look like he’s killed four people, does he?) It’s not hard to imagine teachers being taken in by this kind of act.

Even that little smirk he does when the camera (aka, Harry’s gaze) pans in, is for Harry’s benefit. No one else noticed that. 

However, I still fail to find this creepy, like, at all. Yes, it’s a fake smile, but he’s portraying a different side of Tom Riddle to Coulson. Whereas, in COS, he’s in his vindictive, murderous element, where he’s free to express himself, in this scene, Tom Riddle is doing what he does best -- manipulating and managing appearances. 

This entire scene is an act. And because Harry knows it’s an act, it should look a bit stilted. 

From the Hepzibah Smith scene in the books: Voldemort smiled mechanically and Hepzibah simpered.

So, Harry is pretty adept at parsing Tom’s fake expressions.

But just look at the expressiveness in his face: he goes from brooding, he blinks, and his entire face changes to this charming (fake) smile. 

At the risk of sounding elitist, I’m a bit tired of seeing the word ‘psychopath’, which is not an actual medical diagnosis recognised by any psychological or psychiatric institution, being tossed about, especially with reference to Tom Riddle (and from a neuroscience perspective, it’s doubly annoying). There’s no such thing as ‘insanity’ or ‘psychopathy’ or being ‘crazy.’

-although I use it too a shorthand in conversation to distinguish ‘canon’ Tom from his ‘softer’ OOC counterparts, I really shouldn’t-

Unfortunately, I’ve seen the ‘psychopath’ comment used time-and-time again as an excuse or a full explanation of ‘why Tom Riddle went evil’ (JKR in fact, has made a weird comment in an interview, basically saying that ‘psychopaths can’t be redeemed or learn adaptive coping skills’ or whatever), which really just goes to show the lack of understanding and compassion when personality disorders, especially, are concerned.

But what I like most about the opening of this scene, actually, is that first, listless expression. And this is where we get slightly into headcanon, but Tom Riddle is the opposite of a happy, mentally healthy teenager. By Dumbledore’s own admission, he has no real friends. He has no parental figures, no real attachments. Yes, he might derive some pride or enjoyment from being good at magic and top of his class and all that, but I really don’t think even Tom finds that truly fulfilling. There is nothing that makes him happy. 

In fact, although some might perceive it as ‘creepy’, I think that listless expression is an accurate window into Tom’s psyche. 

I know people aren’t big on Freud, but I think that he does make some interesting points (also, cut the guy some slack for being relatively open-minded for the Victorian Era, and inventing psychoanalysis and while yes he did say some sexist stuff, good luck finding a field of science that isn’t male-focused and makes crazy generalizations about women, especially back in the day) about the possible origins of thanatophobia, the fear of death.

According to Freud, thanatophobia is a disguise for a deeper source of concern -- he did not believe that people were capable of conceptualizing their own death to that extent. Instead, he believed that this phobia was caused by unresolved childhood conflicts that the sufferer cannot come to terms with or express emotion towards.

Now, I know Freud almost always attributes mental distress to childhood experiences, but I think in this case, it really has some merit.

According to attachment theory, the basis of how we form attachments in adulthood is dictated by learning it from experiences with caregivers in the first two years of life. We know Tom was born in an orphanage, and that he didn’t cry much as a baby, and subsequently, probably received very little attention. Compounded with possible genetic factors and his caregivers being afraid or wary of his magical abilities, he later struggled to form attachments because of this -- I would actually go so far as to say that by the time Dumbledore meets him, Tom Riddle is severely depressed. 

And that flat affect and anhedonia, I think, comes over very well in Dillane’s portrayal. There’s kind of this resignation -- a very deep sadness and loneliness to his character.

Of course, he doesn’t derive any comfort or fulfillment from human interaction, because (to borrow the description from the Wikipedia article on ‘Reactive attachment disorder’, which Tom meets all the criteria for) he has a “grossly disturbed internal working model of relationships.” In other words, he is unresponsive to all offers of attachment because of this unacknowledged trauma.

(You could arguably class Tom as having an avoidant attachment style, but I think in his case the trauma and its effect on him are severe enough to call it disordered.)

RAD isn’t particularly well-characterized (especially neurologically) and quite new in the literature, but here are some links if anyone is interested in doing a bit of digging: Link 1 | Link 2 | Paper 1 | Paper 2

And, instead of trying to resolve this conflict in a healthy way, or at least recognize that this is why he can’t be happy and try to learn how to cope from there, he (a) represses the desire for human attachment and (b) funnels that negative emotion into being the fault of Death, the Grim Reaper (again, to borrow Freudian terms). 

And we all know how that turned out...

(And now, this should go without saying, but psychoanalyzing fictional characters has nothing to do with assigning a morality to mental disorders. Mental illness is neither a cause nor an excuse for criminal behavior -- in the same way that the cycle of violence is a phenomenon, not an excuse. Tom Riddle did not become a genocidal murderer because, in common parlance, he was a ‘psychopath’ -- he was not necessarily ‘predisposed’ to evil and could just as easily chosen to not follow the path that he did -- instead, he willingly made poor choices. This is a descriptive analysis, not a justification -- a ‘how’, not a ‘why’)

Here’s a Carl Jung quote that articulates it better:

“I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become.”

Yes, he’s a bit stiff (and a lot more formal than in COS during his *conversation* with Harry). But, and here comes the controversial bit, this is appropriate for a portrayal of a schoolboy in the 1940s. The upright posture is accurate -- respectful, polite -- everything Tom Riddle would have been expected to be (and even Coulson, in that scene with Dumbledore in COS, is quite stiff). Even the way he looks at Slughorn and maintains eye contact is very *respectful.*

And, Dillane (I think he’s seventeen or eighteen here) actually looks like a believable sixteen-year-old. I’m sorry, I love Coulson’s portrayal as well, but he looks around nineteen in COS; so in HBP, he probably would have looked at least twenty-two or so. (Sorry, not sorry).

This may be influenced by my own interpretation of the character (because I imagine Tom always looks young for his age, and Dillane fits that archetype, but I don’t think that’s very popular), but I think young Tom Riddle is supposed to be *cute* and a bit stiff/shy/awkward (being charming and awkward is very much possible), if you consider the way Dippet and Slughorn treat him. 

To support this, he says very few words to Hepzibah Smith (in the book, that scene’s not in the movie), and is very... bashful and coy during the whole interaction? I think yes, he’s charismatic, but he’s not loud, suave, openly flirtatious or particularly verbose. Tom Riddle should have a quiet magnetism, and to me, that came across in Dillane’s portrayal.

"I'd be glad to see anything Miss Hepzibah shows me," said Voldemort quietly, and Hepzibah gave another girlish giggle.

...

"Are you all right, dear?"

"Oh yes," said Voldemort quietly. "Yes, I'm very well. ..."

Even the ‘ugly, greedy look’ described in the books, when Slughorn starts spilling his secrets, is there. This is how he’s supposed to look! Slughorn glimpses it, but doesn’t understand its significance. Harry does. 

“Slughorn looked deeply troubled now: He was gazing at Riddle as though he had never seen him plainly before, and Harry could tell that he was regretting entering into the conversation at all.”

Remember the context of this moment, as well: He’s just discovered how to create multiple Horcruxes. Excuse him for looking a bit creepy (if not now, then when?).

Here’s two direct quotes of Harry’s impression of Tom Riddle in that scene: 

“But Riddle's hunger was now apparent; his expression was greedy, he could no longer hide his longing.”

“Harry had glimpsed his face, which was full of that same wild happiness it had worn when he had first found out that he was a wizard, the sort of happiness that did not enhance his handsome features, but made them, somehow, less human. . . .”

Tom Riddle’s Horcruxes are a direct metaphor for his refusal to allow himself to heal from his trauma -- instead, he continues to inflict destruction on himself and others.

His desire to continue creating more Horcruxes sort of resounds with the fact that self-harm can also become a compulsion.

I’d also like to digress a bit to discuss the Gaunt Ring, while we’re at it. While we’ve talked about his attachment issues in general, this discussion is particularly pertinent to father figures. And while Tom’s attachment issues are extensive, I think there’s ample evidence that as a child, he craved acknowledgement and acceptance from a father figure -- the man who gave him the only thing Tom truly owned -- his name. He would have had a vaguely defined mother figure in Mrs. Cole, perhaps.

"You see that house upon the hillside, Potter? My father lived there. My mother, a witch who lived here in this village, fell in love with him. But he abandoned her when she told him what she was.... He didn’t like magic, my father ... He left her and returned to his Muggle parents before I was even born, Potter, and she died giving birth to me, leaving me to be raised in a Muggle orphanage ... but I vowed to find him ... I revenged myself upon him, that fool who gave me his name ... Tom Riddle. ..."

We know that by June of 1943 (COS flashback) Tom has already uncovered the truth of his parentage; he knows he is the Heir of Slytherin via the Gaunt line, and he describes himself to Dippet as ‘Half-blood, sir. Witch mother, Muggle father.’

In Part 1, I discussed the high probability that as a presumed ‘Mudblood’, Tom Riddle was treated rather poorly in Slytherin House. But by this scene in the fall of 1943, he is surrounded by a group of adoring hangers-on. Why?

In my opinion; the Gaunt Ring. We know that Tom stopped wearing it after school, so its sentimental value couldn’t have been that great. We know he likes to collect objects (which I believe stems from his attachment issues -- he seeks comfort in things instead of other people).

Signet rings (such as the one belonging to Tutankhamun seen above) were used to stamp legal documents and such, in order to certify someone’s identify -- like an e-certificate, if you will. Like Tutankhamun’s ring, the Gaunt Ring bears an identifying symbol -- Marvolo Gaunt tells us proudly that it bears the Peverell family crest.

By the Middle Ages, anyone of influence, including the nobility, wore a signet ring. Rings in antiquity were auspicious -- they signified power, legitimacy, and authority. And so, I believe that all the Sacred Twenty-Eight families would have worn these, too.

And so, bearing the Gaunt Ring would have established Tom Riddle, symbolically and in the eyes of the Sacred Twenty-Eight (his future supporters and followers), as the legitimate heir to the House of Gaunt. This is why, I believe, Tom coveted the ring as soon as he saw it -- not just because it was a family heirloom, and not just because he thought it was a pretty toy for his collection.

(He curses it so that no one else but him can wear the Gaunt Ring safely.)

This is why, to make the legitimization literal as well as symbolic, Tom murders his father and grandparents. It’s not just an act of vindictive, murderous rage due to his perception of being rejected by his father (although it is that, too). And so, Tom, abandoning his search for a father figure (and possibly also giving up on the possibility to allow himself to heal from his own personal trauma rather than continue to inflict it on others), ‘cleanses’ his bloodline, to make himself truly legitimate. It’s rather telling that instead of affirming his legitimacy as a Riddle, which would have put him in line for a nice inheritance, and hey -- money is money -- (thus accepting his half-blood status), he simply kills them all. He has done all the murdering he needs to become immortal (and he hasn’t had the discussion about multiple Horcruxes yet); but yet, he does it again. Frightening stuff. 

(Just look how the others look at Tom. All but the one to his left -- possibly Nott, Rosier, or Mulciber -- have their torsos turned towards him. Their attention is on him, while he knowingly regards the viewer/Harry. Tom seems a little uncomfortable with the attention.).

“And there were the half-dozen teenage boys sitting around Slughorn with Tom Riddle in the midst of them, Marvolo's gold-and-black ring gleaming on his finger.”

...

“Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed and cast him admiring looks.”

...

“Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. Harry noticed that he was by no means the eldest of the group of boys, but that they all seemed to look to him as their leader.”

The ‘gang’ are true hangers-on; Tom doesn’t seem to pay them much attention. 

So, if not via careful flattery or charisma, the attraction must be status.

And perhaps yet more telling...

"I don't know that politics would suit me, sir," he said when the laughter had died away. "I don't have the right kind of background, for one thing." “A couple of the boys around him smirked at each other. Harry was sure they were enjoying a private joke, undoubtedly about what they knew, or suspected, regarding their gang leader's famous ancestor.”

That, in my opinion, is as good as we’re going to get as proof that Tom’s shiny new signet ring (and by extension, his new status) made a big impression on his fellow students.

So, when he returns to Hogwarts, he is ‘pureblood’. He is cleansed of his Muggle roots, and becomes the legitimate heir of the House of Gaunt, now well on his way to becoming Lord Voldemort...

Watch the scene again, with a critical eye, and imagine Slughorn’s perspective, instead of Harry’s. There’s nothing creepy about Tom Riddle... unless you know what he is...

Strip away all the effects of Harry’s gaze (and notice, here he’s still looking at Harry), and he’s quite the charmer, actually.

(I will concede that I don’t like the promotional images where they have him looking like he’s up to no good. And I do wish he blinked once in a while.)

My challenge to you: Rewatch the scene with an open mind, and let me know if you agree that Dillane’s portrayal comes off as depressive rather than ‘creepy.’ And if not, why do you dislike his portrayal?

[stormcloudrising]

The Secret Song of Florian and Jonquil Part 7: Sansa Stark, Daughter of Coincidences and Honey Bees

June 6, 2020

Rulers of the Underworld by IrenHorrors/Deviant Art/Creative Commons

Many months ago, I ended the last chapter in this essay series by proposing that Jonquil was both the female progenitor of House Stark, and the corpse queen. I will be discussing this idea in-depth in a future chapter but before I get to that topic, I want to show how George has strongly and symbolically connected Sansa Stark not just to the ancient mystery of the corpse queen but also to the one surrounding Nissa Nissa.

To show this connection, I have to discuss a curious amount of symbolic coincidences that’s coalesced around Winterfell’s daughter. And so, while the title of this chapter probably seems a bit strange for an essay series about Florian and Jonquil, it’s actually not because at the center of those coincidences I mentioned, are bees and honey.  Those of you who have read some of my previous writings maybe familiar with this idea. 

However, this essay is a much deeper dive into the theory as I connect most if not all the dots. As is usually the case, it’s a pretty long with lots of supporting quotes. I’ve bolded the interesting parts for easy reference.

I’m always hearing that Sansa does not have a role to play in the magical side of the story and Lady’s death is usually given as proof that this will be the case. Supposedly, with Lady’s death, Sansa connection to magic was curtailed and so her role now is limited to the political side of things. To say the least, I find this to be an extremely shortsighted theory as book evidence strongly suggests that Sansa at least still has her skin changing abilities.

In actual fact, I happen to think that the killing of Sansa’s direwolf is probably one of the strongest pieces of evidence in support  of her continued connection to magic. However, I’ve discussed the important symbolism of Lady’s death in other essays, including Do Direwolves Dream of the Weirwood Net and so I don’t want to linger on the topic.

In my essay titled, Of Bran and Sansa Stark, I broke down all the many ways that George compares Sansa to Bran, highlighting what I argue are her greenseer abilities.  Now I want to discuss the synchronized list of coincidences that he uses to connect her character to important magical ones of the ancient past and how her landing in the Vale of Arryn bears this out. There are so many of these symbolic and mythological coincidences that to think she won’t be a big part of the magical storyline is to me at least, kind of silly.

Before I get into the many coincidences, I want to ask you to keep in mind a little rule of grammar and speech and that is how in many languages, *i* and *y* are often used interchangeably. The pronunciation of *y* sounds like an *i* and words with a long *i* sound are often spelled with a *y.* It’s also why words that end in *y* are changed to *ies* when made plural.

As an example, pinky becoming pinkies in its plural form. George even does this switching a few times in the text like in the spelling of Varamyr vs Varamir. Think of how Tolkein spells a similar sounding name, in his case, Faramir with the *i* as opposed to the *y.* This little spelling quirk will be of importance later but for now, let’s dig in.

In ASOIAF, George borrows from many real-world myths to flesh out his story. One of the important ones he plays with is that of the mythological underworld. There are many symbolic underworlds in his story, starting with the caves of the COTF, which are ultimately symbolic of the realm of the Weirwood Net, as the metaphysical realm is called by the fans.

In addition, there is the labyrinth beneath the House of Black and White in Braavos, the tunnels beneath the Red Keep, and the icy Eyrie to name just a few. All of these locations are represented as symbolic underworlds.  However, as others before me has pointed out, the most important underworld symbol in the story is the North with Winterfell and the crypts where the dead Kings of Winter reside, as its center.

While Martin plays off the legends of numerous real-world myths, Greek and Roman mythology is often front and center.  This he has done with the North set up as a symbolic underworld in the style of Hades and the Lord of Winterfell as the king of the realm. Martin even gives the Stark kingdom its own version of the River Styx, which must be crossed in order to gain admittance. Not all are welcome in the underworld and it’s difficult to cross the river without guidance.

The northern underworld version of the Styx is of course the Neck and its Charron or Ferryman is the Lord of House Reed. Here is a description of the real-world mythological Styx.

In Greek mythology, Styx is a deity and a river that forms the boundary between Earth and the Underworld (the domain often called Hades, which also is the name of its ruler). The rivers Styx, Phlegethon, Acheron, Lethe, and Cocytus all converge at the center of the underworld on a great marsh, which sometimes is also called the Styx.

The Last Ferryman by Jay-Jazziart/Deviant Art

And here is the description of the Neck.  Martin’s creation sounds a lot like the marshlands of the Styx river.

It was the North and the North alone that was able to keep the Andals at bay, thanks to the impenetrable swamps of the Neck and the ancient keep of Moat Cailin. The number of Andal armies that were destroyed in the Neck cannot be easily reckoned, and so the Kings of Winter preserved their independent rule for many centuries to come.

The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Arrival of the Andals

A marsh, a swamp, and a bog are of course different words for the same type of watery forest landscape. Do you want to know the location of another swampy area in Westeros? I’ll tell you. The unnamed river that is fed from the Gods Eye, which is located by the unnamed town that Yoren and Arya passed through.

The river was a blue-green ribbon shining in the morning sun. Reeds grew thick in the shallows along the banks, and Arya saw a water snake skimming across the surface, ripples spreading out behind it as it went. Overhead a hawk flew in lazy circles.

A Clash of Kings - Arya IV

How do we know that it’s a swamp? Well, the water snake provides a hint but the abundance of reeds is the bigger clue. Reeds, both literally and in the case of Howland and his house, symbolically, grow in swamps and bogs. And so, it’s interesting that there is a marshland and a swampy river in the vicinity of the Gods Eye Lake with the Isle of Faces sitting smack in the center. We don’t know much about the Isle but it may turn out to be the second most important symbolic underworld after the North and Winterfell.

As with *i* and *y,* I want you to keep in mind the description of swamp and marshes as it will also come into play shortly. Now back to the symbolic usage of Greek and Roman mythology in George’s tale.

One of the most famous Greco-Roman myth is that of Persephone, her abduction by Hades, god of the underworld and the search by her desperate mother, Demeter to find her daughter.  In ASOIAF, there are repeated echoes of this myth throughout the books in one manner or another.

There is the “abduction” of Lyanna Stark by Rhaegar Targaryen, which led to the eventual downfall of his house. We also see it in Petyr, a pseudo Hades’ abduction of Sansa, and him taking her to the Vale of Arryn. And of course, there is the ancient tale of Bael the Bard with his demonic name, who absconded with the Winter Rose of House Stark and hid out in the crypts of Winterfell, which as I mentioned is the center of the most important symbolic underworld in the story.  

Many will no doubt argue that Lyanna is the main representation of the abducted princess in the story but they would be wrong. Lyanna is not part of the story proper and she suffered a permanent death, which was not the case with Persephone, or Proserpina as she was called by the Romans. The Greco-Roman goddess suffered a symbolic death when she taken to the underworld but she did not die.  No, the most important Persephone in our tale is Sansa Stark.

George sets Sansa up as the strongest personification of Persephone in the story when he placed her in the Eyrie a symbolic icy underworld that’s located in the *Vale* of Arryn.  I told you to keep in mind how *i* and *y* are often used interchangeably in words. Another couple of things you should remember is the mythological importance of George placing Sansa in the Vale.

Vale is another word for valley or dale located between hills or mountains, and as we will see shortly, one plays a major role in the abduction of Persephone.

To reinforce the idea that Sansa is the most important Persephone character, George has Petyr, a pseudo Hades tempt her with pomegranate seeds, which unlike in the real-world myth, Sansa refuses. I call Petyr a pseudo Hades because he is not the ruler of the North, the true symbolic underworld in the story and as such, can’t be the true Hades. This suggests that Sansa still has to be “stolen” by the true Lord of the Underworld.

Now let’s get to those coincidences I mentioned as we look at some of the many ways in which real world myths and George’s tale intersect in regard to Sansa. The first coincidence I want to discuss is a tale from the ancient past, which has surprising resonance and importance to Sansa’s storyline.

The story is told in TWOIAF and it only encompasses two lines. One of the great things about TWOIAF is that other than being a great addition to the myth building of the world he created; George also dropped a ton of clues about the story proper and the ancient mysteries at the heart of the tale. Two such clues are stories of two of the daughters of Garth Greenhand, the legendary God King like deity from the Dawn Age.

The story of the Reach begins with Garth Greenhand, the legendary progenitor not only of the Tyrells of Highgarden, but of the Gardener kings before them...and all the other great houses and noble families of the Green Realm as well.

A thousand tales are told of Garth, in the Reach and beyond. Most are implausible, and many contradictory. In some he is a contemporary of Bran the Builder, Lann the Clever, Durran Godsgrief, and the other colorful figures of the Age of Heroes. In others he stands as the ancestor of them all.

Garth was the High King of the First Men, it is written; it was he who led them out of the east and across the land bridge to Westeros. Yet other tales would have us believe that he preceded the arrival of the First Men by thousands of years, making him not only the First Man in Westeros, but the only man, wandering the length and breadth of the land alone and treating with the giants and the children of the forest. Some even say he was a god.

There is disagreement even on his name. Garth Greenhand, we call him, but in the oldest tales he is named Garth Greenhair, or simply Garth the Green. Some stories say he had green hands, green hair, or green skin overall. (A few even give him antlers, like a stag.) Others tell us that he dressed in green from head to foot, and certainly this is how he is most commonly depicted in paintings, tapestries, and sculptures. More likely, his sobriquet derived from his gifts as a gardener and a tiller of the soil—the one trait on which all the tales agree. "Garth made the corn ripen, the trees fruit, and the flowers bloom," the singers tell us.

A few of the very oldest tales of Garth Greenhand present us with a considerably darker deity, one who demanded blood sacrifice from his worshippers to ensure a bountiful harvest. In some stories the green god dies every autumn when the trees lose their leaves, only to be reborn with the coming of spring. This version of Garth is largely forgotten.

The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand

We are not here to discuss Garth as that subject would require its own essay. I posted the above excerpt to show that he was considered a god by many. Garth was a fertility god and some of those flowers he helped bloom were not just of the plant variety. Garth is said to have impregnated many of the daughters of the Reach…hence why practically all of the regional Houses can trace their ancestry back to him. Garth actually sounds a lot like Zeus, the father of Persephone in this manner.

My mentioning of Garth is also to introduce you to the legend of one of his daughters…actually two but the first one is the most important for this essay. The daughter in question is Ellyn Ever Sweet. In all the books that comprise the story of ASOIAF, there are only two brief sentences that mention Ellyn. Nonetheless, if you look deeply, you will discover that George packs a lot into those two sentences.

Ellyn Ever Sweet, the girl who loved honey so much she sought out the King of the Bees in his vast mountain hive and made a pact with him, to care for his children and his children's children for all time. She was the first beekeeper, and the mother to House Beesbury.

The World of Ice and Fire - The Reach: Garth Greenhand

These two brief and simple sentences really don’t seem to say much but there is actually a lot of textural clues buried in them.  Would you be surprised if I told you that Ellyn was part of a triangle involving one of her sisters and quite likely the “King of the Bees?” Can you discern that from the two sentences above? Well, I didn’t either until I came across a major clue that George dropped a bit later in the book.

This original triangle might also quite possibly be why George has included so many romantic threesomes throughout his story. Aegon and his two wives; Rhaegar, Lyanna and Robert; Daario, Dany and Hizdahr; Jaime, Cersei and Robert; and Petyr, Cat and Ned to name just a few. History repeats…just not in the same way. Most of the modern threesomes seem to involve one woman and two men as opposed to the original and so, George seems to be flipping the script this time around.

The second daughter at the center of the ancient triangle is this one.

Rowan Gold-Tree, who was so bereft when her lover left her for a rich rival that she wrapped an apple in her golden hair, planted it upon a hill, and grew a tree whose bark and leaves and fruit were gleaming yellow gold, and to whose daughters the Rowans of Goldengrove trace their roots.

As with the Ellyn Ever Sweet, George barely tells us anything about Rowan Gold-Tree. In addition to this brief passage, her name only appears one other time in the text in any of the published books that encompasses the world George created. This second reference is in TWOIAF when she is mentioned as the possible mother of Lann the Clever. You are probably wondering why I’m proposing that she was the third wheel in the triangle involving Ellyn and the King of the Bees?

Well, as he’s wont to do, George drops the answer a little bit later in TWOIAF when he tells us the story of a daughter of House Reyne. This is of course the house that was famously extinguished by Tywin Lannister, which led to the equally famous song, The Reynes of Castamere that was played at the Red Wedding.

The most significant death by far that stemmed from the Peake Uprising was that of King Maekar himself, but the chaos this caused has been abundantly chronicled elsewhere. Less well-known, but no less baleful, are the dire effects the battle had upon the history of the west. Tywald Lannister had long been betrothed to the Red Lion's spirited young sister, Lady Ellyn. This strong-willed and hot-tempered maiden, who had for years anticipated becoming the Lady of Casterly Rock, was unwilling to forsake that dream. In the aftermath of her betrothed's death, she persuaded his twin brother, Tion, to set aside his own betrothal to a daughter of Lord Rowan of Goldengrove and espouse her instead.

Lord Gerold, it is said, opposed this match, but grief and age and illness had left him a pale shadow of his former self, and in the end he gave way. In 235 AC, in a double wedding at Casterly Rock, Ser Tion Lannister took Ellyn Reyne to wife, whilst his younger brother Tytos wed Jeyne Marbrand, a daughter of Lord Alyn Marbrand of Ashemark.

—TWOIAF, The Westerlands: House Lannister Under the Dragons

Hmm! So, Ellyn Reyne stole the fiancé of a daughter of House Rowan. The same house whose lineage can be traced back to Rowan Golden-Tree. Do you think that George was trying to tell us something? And don’t you just love how he very subtly includes the word baleful in his description.

Why is this probable ancient triangle important and what does it have to do with Sansa’s arc? Well, while the story of Rowan is of symbolic importance that I plan to discuss a bit more in future essays, as I’ve mentioned above, Ellyn is the important daughter of note for this particular analysis. And the answer to the question of why she is important to Sansa’s storyline is bees, honey, the identity of the King of the Bees and the location of his vast mountain hive.

In mythology, the bee, found in Indian, ancient Near East and Aegean cultures, was believed to be the sacred insect that bridged the natural world to the underworld.

Bee Mythology - Wikipedia

"Aegean civilization is a general term for the Bronze Age civilizations of Greece around the Aegean Sea,” which is of course the time of period of time when Greek myths were popularized—one of the most famous being that of Hades and Persephone.

As I’ve mentioned in previous essays, in mythology, honey is like ambrosia or nectar, which were considered the food of the gods. In fact, Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher, a German classical scholar who specialized in the studies of Greco-Roman mythology proposed just this theory.

W. H. Roscher thinks that both nectar and ambrosia were kinds of honey, in which case their power of conferring immortality would be due to the supposed healing and cleansing powers of honey,which is in fact anti-septic, and because fermented honey (mead) preceded wine as an entheogen in the Aegean world; on some Minoan seals, goddesses were represented with bee faces (compare Merope and Melissa).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambrosia

In ASOIAF, George uses honey as his symbolic food of the gods. I suspect that this is because if he used the term ambrosia, it would have been a bit too obvious and he doesn’t like making things too easy for readers. Here are two great examples of Dany and Bran eating different version of weirwood paste, which opens both their consciousness to visions of the higher plane.

Dany raised the glass to her lips. The first sip tasted like ink and spoiled meat, foul, but when she swallowed it seemed to come to life within her. She could feel tendrils spreading through her chest, like fingers of fire coiling around her heart, and on her tongue was a taste like honey and anise and cream, like mother's milk and Drogo's seed, like red meat and hot blood and molten gold. It was all the tastes she had ever known, and none of them . . . and then the glass was empty.

A Clash of Kings - Daenerys IV

______

He ate.

It had a bitter taste, though not so bitter as acorn paste. The first spoonful was the hardest to get down. He almost retched it right back up. The second tasted better. The third was almost sweet. The rest he spooned up eagerly. Why had he thought that it was bitter? It tasted of honey, of new-fallen snow, of pepper and cinnamon and the last kiss his mother ever gave him. The empty bowl slipped from his fingers and clattered on the cavern floor. "I don't feel any different. What happens next?"

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

Ellyn Ever Sweet being such a lover of honey and bees, hints at her being a warg. In fact, all of Garth’s children should probably be seen as skin changers. The description of Ellyn strongly indicates that she was the “queen bee.” As bees were also seen as sacred creatures who travel between the three worlds, her being the *first* beekeeper also suggests that she was a greenseer, and not just any greenseer, but quite possibly the first. Now what about this pact between Ellyn and the King of the Bees?

Well, let’s consider the types of pact that existed in real world medieval societies and how George has utilized the practice in the same way in his story. Pacts are generally about ending wars or joining two Houses in harmony though marriage. And often times, these two types of pacts are one and the same.

We’re told of the ancient conflict between the Children of the Forest and the First men that lasted for generations. This conflict only ended when a pact between the two sides was forged.

Regardless, the children of the forest fought as fiercely as the First Men to defend their lives. Inexorably, the war ground on across generations, until at last the children understood that they could not win. The First Men, perhaps tired of war, also wished to see an end to the fighting. The wisest of both races prevailed, and the chief heroes and rulers of both sides met upon the isle in the Gods Eye to form the Pact. Giving up all the lands of Westeros save for the deep forests, the children won from the First Men the promise that they would no longer cut down the weirwoods. All the weirwoods of the isle on which the Pact was forged were then carved with faces so that the gods could witness the Pact, and the order of green men was made afterward to tend to the weirwoods and protect the isle.

With the Pact, the Dawn Age of the world drew to a close, and the Age of Heroes followed.

The World of Ice and Fire - Ancient History: The Coming of First Men

Curiously, we’re also told of a second pact from this ancient period, and that is the one between Ellyn Ever Sweet and the King of the Bees. Is it possible that these pacts were connected and might the two have been even one and the same? I propose that the answer is yes and that like in medieval times and in instances in the story proper, this ancient pact between the two rivals involved a marriage between the first greenseer and daughter of the COTF, and a representative of the First Men. I also theorize that this King of the Bees was in fact a dragon lord.

The world book tells us that Ellyn made the pact with the king who lived in a vast mountain fastness and promised to care for his children and their children for generations. Sounds like a marriage union to me.  She’s also described as the first beekeeper and it is here that we start seeing those coincidental connections to Sansa kick in.

Here is the thing! There is only one mountainous region in the story connected to bees and that is the Vale of Arryn. Cat, Tyrion and Sansa all think to themselves how the Eyrie looks like a honeycomb. Here are a few passages that I think support my theory as well as what I think the symbolism of the King of the Bee implies.

Catelyn looked up. Directly overhead, pale in the dawn light, she could see the foundations of the Eyrie. It could not be more than six hundred feet above them. From below it looked like a small white honeycomb. She remembered what her uncle had said of baskets and winches. "The Lannisters may have their pride," she told Mya, "but the Tullys are born with better sense. I have ridden all day and the best part of a night. Tell them to lower a basket. I shall ride with the turnips.”

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VI

The Arryns kept the only dungeon in the realm where the prisoners were welcome to escape at will. That first day, after girding up his courage for hours, Tyrion had lain flat on his stomach and squirmed to the edge, to poke out his head and look down. Sky was six hundred feet below, with nothing between but empty air. If he craned his neck out as far as it could go, he could see other cells to his right and left and above him. He was a bee in a stone honeycomb, and someone had torn off his wings.

A Game of Thrones - Tyrion V

"AWAY!" came Ser Lothor's shout. Someone shoved the bucket hard. It swayed and tipped, scraped against the floor, then swung free. She heard the crack of Mord's whip and the rattle of the chain. They began to descend, by jerks and starts at first, then more smoothly. Robert's face was pale and his eyes puffy, but his hands were still. The Eyrie shrank above them. The sky cells on the lower levels made the castle look something like a honeycomb from below. A honeycomb made of ice, Alayne thought, a castle made of snow. She could hear the wind whistling round the bucket.

A Feast for Crows - Alayne II

It’s interesting that Tyrion considers himself a bee with clipped wings and it’s the cells that are compared to honeycombs. It suggests some type of imprisonment of the queen.  Ok! I think that’s sufficient evidence to support the idea that George wants us to see the Vale and Eyrie as the residence of the King of the Bees. Let’s now look at what his moniker implies.

There is no such thing as a King Bee. Male bees are drones, whose only job is to mate with the queen. Male drones are expelled from the hive in late autumn as the its focus changes to one of warmth and food conservation. They also die soon after mating with the queen because the “penis and associated abdominal tissues are ripped from the drone's body after sexual intercourse.” By the way, I think the eunuch theme running throughout the story may tie into this aspect of the male drone.

Also, unlike female bees, drones do not have stingers and they don’t gather nectar nor pollen. They are pretty toothless without the queen bee. This means that for there to be a King of the Bees, he would have had to kill the queen and usurped her throne in some manner. And it would have been in a magical manner because the female worker bees of the hive would not accept a male king.

Just who was this King of the Bees? Well, I theorized in one of my older essays, On the Hunt For Azor Ahai and the Bloodstone Emperor that he was Symeon Star Eyes. While some of my theories have evolved, I still hold that Azor Ahai/Bloodstone Emperor and Symeon Star Eyes were one and the same.

George plays on the idea of the male bee usurping the queen with Petyr’s killing of Lysa. In Littlefinger’s case, he is attempting to take over the hive by using and controlling a new not yet fully-grown queen by the name of Alayne Stone. There are also echoes of the ancient triangle between Ellyn Ever Sweet, the King of the Bees and Rowan Golden-Tree in the story of Lysa, Petyr and Cat.

As Tyrion realizes, Littlefinger has a liking for sweet things.

"If there are any Tullys left when we are done."

Littlefinger looked like a boy who had just taken a furtive bite from a honeycomb. He was trying to watch for bees, but the honey was so sweet. "Harrenhal and all its lands and incomes," he mused. "With a stroke, you'd make me one of the greatest lords in the realm. Not that I'm ungrateful, my lord, but—why?"

"You served my sister well in the matter of the succession.”

A Clash of Kings - Tyrion IV

Remember how Sansa makes note of Littlefinger’s breath smelling like mint? I think that little detail is George playing with the fact that mint is a bee balm. Mint attracts bees and Petyr is symbolically using mint to calm and capture the queen so that he can take over the hive. It succeeded with Lysa but it won’t with Sansa. As a young queen, the mint momentarily tempts her but she is stronger that Petyr realizes, and resists.

"Your mother was my queen of beauty once," the man said quietly. His breath smelled of mint. "You have her hair." His fingers brushed against her cheek as he stroked one auburn lock. Quite abruptly he turned and walked away.

A Game of Thrones - Sansa II

Sansa tried to step back, but he pulled her into his arms and suddenly he was kissing her. Feebly, she tried to squirm, but only succeeded in pressing herself more tightly against him. His mouth was on hers, swallowing her words. He tasted of mint. For half a heartbeat she yielded to his kiss . . . before she turned her face away and wrenched free. "What are you doing?”

A Storm of Swords - Sansa VII

The interesting thing about Lysa’s name is that it’s a shortened version of Alyssa as in Alyssa Arryn, the ancient queen of the Vale.

Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear. So in death, the gods had decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried. Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below. Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died. "Tell me the rest of it," she said.

A Game of Thrones - Catelyn VII

Both Lysa and Alyssa are two of those words that can also be spelled with an “i” as in Lissa or Alissa. They are also shortened versions of Melissa, which finds its origin in the Greek language and surprise, surprise, means bee.

Melissa is a given name for a female. The name comes from the Greek word μέλισσα (mélissa), “bee", which in turn comes from μέλι (meli), “honey". In Hittite, melit signifies “honey.”

According to Greek mythology, perhaps reflecting Minoan culture, making her the daughter of a Cretan king Melisseus, whose -issos ending is Pre-Greek, Melissa was a nymph who discovered and taught the use of honey and from whom bees were believed to have received their name. She was one of the nymph nurses of Zeus, sister to Amaltheia, but rather than feeding the baby milk, Melissa, appropriately for her name, fed him honey. Or, alternatively, the bees brought honey straight to his mouth. Because of her, Melissa became the name of all the nymphs who cared for the patriarch god as a baby.

Wikipedia

Melissa in her caring of Zeus sounds a lot like Ellyn Ever Sweet…doesn’t she? It’s almost as if George wants us to associate bees and honey with the Vale for some reason—a location where he has coincidentally plopped the eldest daughter of House Stark. Let’s look a bit more at these coincidences.

It so happens that there is a mythological character strongly associated with Sansa Stark that is also connected to bees and honey. This would of course be Persephone who was known as the “honeyed one.”  Bees are also associated with Persephone and her mother Demeter through the Eleusinian Mysteries performed by the cult that worshipped the two goddesses. You can read more about the mysteries here.

Demeter rejoiced, for her daughter was by her side/Public Domain

Persephone’s nickname among the ancient Greeks was Melitodes or “honeyed one” and the priestess of Persephone and Demeter’s cult were known as Melissai or “bees.”  

In addition, the ancient Greek philosopher, Porphyry (233 to c. 304 AD) wrote of the priestesses of Demeter, known as Melissae ("bees"), who were initiates of the chthonian goddess. The story surrounding Melissae tells of an elderly priestess of Demeter, named Melissa, initiated into her mysteries by the goddess herself. When Melissa's neighbors tried to make her reveal the secrets of her initiation, she remained silent, never letting a word pass from her lips. In anger, the women tore her to pieces, but Demeter sent a plague upon them, causing bees to be born from Melissa's dead body. From Porphyry's writings, scholars have also learned that Melissa was the name of the moon goddess Artemis and the goddess who took suffering away from mothers giving birth. Souls were symbolized by bees and it was Melissa who drew souls down to be born. She was connected with the idea of a periodic regeneration.

Wikipedia

Now this is where things get really interesting. Remember I told you to keep the interchangeable usage of “i” and “y” in mind. Well, it just so happens that Persephone was abducted by Hades from the *Vale of Nysa.* 

Hmm! Do you think Nysa could possibly be spelled Nisa or even Nissa? Might Persephone’s abduction from the Vale of Nysa have inspired George in the naming of the ancient female character at the center of the mystery that permeates in the current storyline. I would say that the answer is yes.

Was it the only inspiration?  As we will shortly see, probably not.  However, as George is on record as stating that he can’t write a character until he knows their name, I strongly suspect that the name of the location from where Persephone was kidnapped was one of the relevant inspirations for Nissa Nissa’s name.

In the Homeric “Hymn to Demeter,” the story is told of how Persephone was gathering flowers in the Vale of Nysa when she was seized by Hades and removed to the underworld. Upon learning of the abduction, her mother, Demeter, in her misery, became unconcerned with the harvest or the fruitfulness of the earth, so that widespread famine ensued. Zeus therefore intervened, commanding Hades to release Persephone to her mother. Because Persephone had eaten a single pomegranate seed in the underworld, however, she could not be completely freed but had to remain one-third of the year with Hades, and spent the other two-thirds with her mother. The story that Persephone spent four months of each year in the underworld was no doubt meant to account for the barren appearance of Greek fields in full summer—after harvest, before their revival in the autumn rains, when they are plowed and sown.

Encyclopedia Brittanica

Persephone becomes Hades’ wife and Queen of the Underworld after her abduction. Sansa is Queen/Lady of Winter of the Northern Underworld but she ran to the South, the Summer Kingdom and away from her identity both literally and symbolically. She does have the blood of Summer in her but it is not her place. She can visit but it is not hers to rule, which is what she intended.

Winter queens are weakened in summer and this is what happened to Sansa. The North is the dominion of Winter as the South is the realm of the Summer Kings. However, Bran who like Sansa is of both the North and South has been marked as the ruler of Summer, not Sansa. This is indicated by the name Bran gave his direwolf upon waking from his coma. And Sansa is marked as the Lady of Winterfell when Ned sends her direwolf bones back home to be buried.

Jon also has been marked and like Sansa, his true identity is in the North. Sansa ran from hers and Jon is afraid to claim his. However, they both must do so if the war is to be won.

Robb took them all the way down to the end, past Grandfather and Brandon and Lyanna, to show them their own tombs. Sansa kept looking at the stubby little candle, anxious that it might go out. Old Nan had told her there were spiders down here, and rats as big as dogs. Robb smiled when she said that. "There are worse things than spiders and rats," he whispered. "This is where the dead walk." That was when they heard the sound, low and deep and shivery. Baby Bran had clutched at Arya's hand.

When the spirit stepped out of the open tomb, pale white and moaning for blood, Sansa ran shrieking for the stairs, and Bran wrapped himself around Robb's leg, sobbing. Arya stood her ground and gave the spirit a punch. It was only Jon, covered with flour. "You stupid," she told him, "you scared the baby," but Jon and Robb just laughed and laughed, and pretty soon Bran and Arya were laughing too.

The memory made Arya smile, and after that the darkness held no more terrors for her. The stableboy was dead, she'd killed him, and if he jumped out at her she'd kill him again. She was going home. Everything would be better once she was home again, safe behind Winterfell's grey granite walls.

A Game of Thrones - Arya IV

Arya’s happy memories of playing in the Winterfell crypts hints not just at Jon’s death but also his return as a King/Lord of Winter. He is covered in flour like a ghost but he also steps out of one of the tombs that are specifically reserved for the Kings and Lords of Winter.  

In addition to hinting as Jon’s death and return as a King of Winter, there is symbolic importance in Sansa running away. She runs away from Ghost Jon who as the Winter King in the scene is also a symbolic Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. And so, Sansa’s running out of the crypts is metaphorically as if Persephone was attempting to escape from Hades and her place at his side as Queen of the Underworld where she belongs.  

This is why Sansa doesn’t eat the pomegranate offered to her by Petyr. He is not her Hades or rather Pluto as I think that Jon is symbolic of this more favorable aspect of the Lord of the Underworld . It’s also why when Jon descends to the lower levels of the crypts, I expect Sansa to be by his side. They both have to descend to claim their identity.

I’m going to end this section here because this has turned into an extremely long chapter. I’m splitting it into two with the second part coming tomorrow where we will pick right up with Persephone’s abduction from the Vale of Nysa, discuss a certain honey making tree and explore the role jonquils play in both her myth as well as Sansa’s arc.

Read Part 2 HERE.

[kitsoa]

So, about your Theory ...

So, we talked on Reddit a while ago, Kitsoa, and I have some more thoughts about your theory. It’s more rambling and longer than what I previously intended – my apologies for this.

Kitsoa- Hello again! I’ll reply in brief through quotes though I’m not interested in doing a solid defense of my theory. Mostly it’s a lot of creative stretching using the crumbs of the narrative and I’m not feeling particularly impassioned to bring out the counter citations nor do I think it necessary.

Also: I have written and re-iterated upon this meta theory of mine multiple times so if I am not referencing the correct Original Post in question that’s probably because I never bothered to do a big manifesto and I will take the fall for that confusion.

It’s certainly very interesting but parts of it seem to not only be unsupported but outright contradicted by the games. For instance, take your surmise that Xehanort’s villainy is motivated by his knowledge of the KH world as fictional and his self-knowledge that he has to play the role of the villain to create a conflict and thus sustain the universe. His actual speech in Re:Mind after Dark Road’s world tour points to something else:

“All around the world people live seemingly peaceful lives. They believe themselves to be moral and virtuous, but it’s all an act. Darkness lurks in the pit of everyone’s heart. Their light is a total farce. Those who are weak, and who desire greater power, simply strip the strong of their power, and convince themselves they’ve earned it. That’s how people become tainted by darkness. They believe what they want them to believe, using hollow reasons as justification. They repeat this cycle, and their darkness grows. No, its better they be ruled by darkness. People carry delusions of having power, but it’s a lie. They are but sheep pretending to be wolves. Though I can admit, I can understand why.”

This edgy little diatribe isn’t about the nature of the universe or Xehanort’s own origin … it’s about his view of human (or talking animal, w/e) nature. It’s a similar theme to his final speech in KH3, and ends not with him concluding that he needs to play the role of a villain to create conflict ,,, but that to prevent the KH universe collapsing into chaos, he needs to become its absolute godlike ruler. Which is what sets up the conflict, yes, but his goal isn’t explicitly to create conflict to keep the universe going.

Re: Xehanorts motive aligning with a meta-awareness on his ‘role’ as a villain. This is a theme I was definitely playing with. Xehanort is clearly symbolic of the corrupting pursuit of knowledge and we have a god-like encounter spark stranger behavior yet. It’s a fascinating trope yes? Corrupted by the Truth. Saving the world by sacrificing the world. That was my angle. The World Tour from Re:mind had him summarizing his villainous disdain and I’ll agree that it gives him no direction towards a ‘role’. But I also take note of the fact that this enlightenment comes directly from the actions of the chessmaster MoM who could feasibly manipulate Xehanort towards a conflict-sparking war. If Xehanort isn’t directly and consciously responsible for fulfilling the metacontextual requirements for a ‘story’ then MoM is. And as I’ve stated it probably comes from a more experimental god-mode type motive.

And again, your argument that time doesn’t really exist in the Disney worlds until Sora arrives and this is related to them literally being stories that he’s diving into. I don’t know where you get this from, at all. We go into Disney worlds and experience plots unrelated to the films (KH1 Olympus, Halloween Town); we go into Disney worlds in medias res (too many to count); we go into Disney worlds before the movie’s events take place (BBS Deep Space, Neverland); we even go into Disney worlds in-between or after the movies’ events (KH3 Toy Box, San Fransokyo). Which rather gets in the way of a simplistic “Sora arrives in the Disney world, time starts flowing forward and the movie starts” look at things. You’d previously characterized this as “every world has its unique story” which IMO would be a more reasonable way to look at things rather than the stronger “the worlds literally are the stories and nothing else”.

I’ll defend this a little. The entire concept of the Worlds as Stories demands only that we recognize a higher reality. A reader/audience/ creator relationship with the happenings. When I say ‘time doesn’t exist’ I’m saying it doesn’t matter. The only thing that does matter is the time spent there by Sora (or his subsidiaries). Time is going to move between visits but not at a pace that runs independently of Sora (and co). And all of the events within those worlds are unique to the source material-- on the virtue of having Sora. But when I say the worlds are the stories, I mean it... metaphysically. The relationship between the greater kh multi-verse (and no greater) and these literal planet world island things is that of stories given form. Most all of my KH musings come from the very simple concept that formless metaphysical concepts like love, bonds, imagination, memories etc are literal, tangible things. Tangible. In this, Worlds are not so much another universe equal to other universes. They are a story, fictional and potentially subservient to a greater reality. It’s only from that understanding that I add the extra layer upon KH (and Quadratum by later extension) itself. 

The exact logic behind this reasoning is cyclic. KH is a fictional story to the literal higher reality (us) and seeing how there's a parallel within the narrative, I just applied that logic within the universe and used my understanding of the ‘literal metaphysics’ theme going on with other lore concepts.

Power of Waking ejecting Sora into “real reality”: This analysis is based on the idea that Sora is “waking himself up” out of dream states until he “wakes up” out of KH reality into “real reality”. But YMX tells him (and implicitly us, via the conventions of this kind of villainous exposition) that Sora is repeating the same error he made in 3D and sending himself into the abyss at the bottom of the Realm of Darkness, not doing the opposite thing and “waking himself up” out of KH reality.

I’ll just punt Power of Waking stuff. There is a lot of stuff with the power but I take most of the speculation from the name and the results. There’s a big interweave of darkness that can support or deny my thoughts within the next sentence and I’m electing now to wait and see. Sora abuses the power of waking-- ends up in another reality. Waking--> realities--> dreams--> sleep. Run with the word association. I like to think the ambiguity with sleep and the darkness of abyss has more to say about the nature of reality as a whole ergo: “everything is a dream” concepts that are hard to swallow. What is waking up, if you find yourself deeper in sleep? Nonesense stuff like that.

MoM as Creator of the KH universe/Quadratum as the “higher reality”: Not only is he presented as a clear villain figure; given that the rest of the Foretellers are based on the Seven Deadly Sins, MoM as their leader would clearly represent the sin of pride. We also have him saying in Back Cover that he “might” disappear from the KH world, suggesting that it was beyond his control; and Luxu’s report suggests that the KH3 Keyblade War was engineered to open a means for him to return to the KH universe, presumably via Sora going to where he is in Quadratum/”unreality”.

I believe strongly in this still. MoM can be a villainous figure and at the mercy of universal laws while still being the Creator and denizen of a higher plane. I try not to dig into scenarios too much but follow me here: Creator of the world, literally self-inserts himself into a world of his own creation. He’s a verified Mad Scientist who of course likes to experiment and test his creations and he does so directly, physically, to them. There, he put them on auto-pilot and is watching Characterization carry on. I am not claiming that he is breaking the rules of his own universe and traveling in and out with ease. Nor am I saying if he is exercising any sort of Creator-granted power over their will. He’s there, he’s interacting with them, and he’s watching them. I find it to be an intentional obstaining of power. Self imposed limitations OR an understood sacrifice for this meddling (think, giving up ‘divine’ form to live amongst his ‘mortal’ creations in divine parallel. he is at the will of his universe but not out of control.)

When he says he ‘might’ disappear not only is he being vague on purpose to terrorize his high-strung apprentices but he’s made no indication that it’s something against his intention. And the actions taken by Luxu in formulating his return mean nothing to his plan or his ability or his potential Creator status. I can’t stress how Long Game I perceive MoM’s actions to be. All in the effort to observe, toy, and curate the perfect... something. And since I am talking about the literal nature of stories, I mean the ‘perfect’ story.

Also, we may note that if it was truly a “higher reality”, Quadratum wouldn’t be noted as the fictional Verum Rex video game in KH3 – there’d be no explicit sign at all of its existence, as it would be the higher reality generating the lower one. Which suggests that what may actually be the case, if the series is going meta, is that KH-verse and Quadratum view each other as fictional – in which case MoM would be somebody falsely claiming or believing to be the Creator, which makes sense in relation to the sin he represents.

Not that I’m saying KH-verse isn’t generated by a higher reality/being; but I don’t feel that the higher reality is Quadratum or that the higher being is MoM. There was a fairly interesting post on Reddit comparing KH to Plato’s world of the forms; in which case Kingdom Hearts would be the higher reality from which both regular KH-verse and Quadratum are generated. Or “unreality” really is a “lower reality” than the regular KH-verse, which TBF seems a bit less likely than “’reg. KH-verse’ and ‘unreality’ view each other as mutually fictional but are actually ontologically equal”.

I think my theory posts predate most of the Quadratum reveal so the details of the reveal haven’t been accounted for in my words but I did call it when breaking down Remind’s Yozora scenario. That said yes, I think there is a higher reality and I feel like you mentioned it outright. I see KH and Quadratum as equal fictional realities, segregated but connected through creator. Some of my earlier meta posts before re:mind saw Quadratum as the “higher reality” (or like “host reality”) until the presence of an author between them became apparent enough. We can potentially consider MoM=the author as a separate subject in this respect as it’s not entirely dependant on that reveal. Ultimately, my point in this caveat of the theory is that the relationship between KH and Quadratum strikes an intentionally meta-referential parallel to the actual creator Nomura. That’s an angle that is very audacious and I have full understanding in the denial but it’s my supporting evidence to a higher power within the re:mind secret episode alone.  As for the ‘unreality’ I literally think that is just a way for them to say ‘fictional’ without saying the word, not necessarily an indication of ‘rank’ (for lack of a better word). I use a little reverse logic on the reveal in Melody of Memory when I claim they are ‘equal fictional realities’. No one thinks to assume that they themselves are also “fake” so it;s not a stretch to believe that the reverse assumption could be true. This putting KH and Quadratum on the same level and almost guaranteeing a connection through a mutual creator. 

Now, you also talk about the Whispers in FF7R, but in that they’re in-universe contextualised as “guardians of destiny”, essentially manifestations of the Will of the Planet. Which just goes to show what I talked about earlier – the meta-level of a story can’t exist without a surface-level narrative. We know that the Whispers out-of-universe represent fan anger at changes to the plotline; but they’re presented as something in-universe, which can be defeated by in-universe forces (another reason I doubt it as it seems to leave no room for our heroes’ victory in the confrontation with MoM that’s being teased as the next saga).

I bring up the Whispers to note a synonymous use of the words ‘destiny’ and ‘fate’ to ‘story and ‘narrative’ Not explicitly of course, that would break the 4th wall, but its a subtext that's easier seen in a ‘remake’ because of direct references and deviations being drawn. I think the same synonymous use can be applied when brought up in KH because of their common creative entity.

Finally: How do you see this “metapocalypse” of yours playing out as an actual KH game? We know the conventions well enough by now – a trip through Disney worlds fighting monsters and villains in flashy shonen-style combat, being stalked and looked over ominously from afar by a council of villains with mysterious schemes. Then an invasion of the villains’ lair by the heroes with a final serving of flashy, SFX-heavy boss battles, a number of dramatic plot twists and arc resolutions, and an ending with the villains’ schemes having been at least forestalled. Then we get the ending credits; with an epilogue, a superboss and a secret ending all hinting at more to come.

Well I’m glad you asked! Honestly, I’m basically writing a fanfiction about it. I’m writing the story in part to engage some of these theories/speculations into a serviceable game narrative. So I’ll be vague:

Thematically: This breaking the 4th wall has the power to thematically drive home concepts of free will, defining your personhood and defying expectations. Furthermore, you have questions like... what makes something real? What makes it matter and what’s important? With growing up and the sanctity of youth being a constant struggle as the series and the characters age, the reverence in imagination and growing connections to things that aren’t stereotypically ‘real’ is a strong concept. If I were to break down the big message simply: As long as it’s real in your heart it doesn’t matter.

Overall, the reveal doesn’t really have to impact the basic formula. You can have Disney World Hopping and Villainous characters scheming and manipulating a greater force. I personally think the world-hopping parallel can become more direct with the context of it being movies/stories adding a different understanding of the process of visiting those worlds and meeting those characters. The episodes can be more about fate and predestination and can speak directly to the importance of the connections to those worlds. And the dramatic stakes are the literal threads of reality and godhood! 

If I am to be more detailed and imaginative (without substantial evidence)  I might say... MoM’s experiments in manipulating his own created world(s) are aiming to shape Sora (or 2nd favorite son Yozora) into some kind of perfect conduit for the marraige of reality and fiction and the success or failure of that process might weaponize his ability to connect with other hearts... real and not, all to the greater ascention of one chessmaster. 

(That’s not even mentioning how I have a personal reason to dislike it as it reminds me of an old theory that the KH plot was actually SRK imagining it all up in their childhood games or to put a darker twist on that idea, Sora dreaming it all up in a coma or while dying. I hated reading those ideas when I was younger and still do.)

I’m gonna sympathize hard with this. I hate ‘it was all just a dream’ theories. They are cheap and they trivialize the journey. That is not what this theory is saying. There is a higher reality in this concept and that is used as a proxy for our relationship with the series. The imagery of dreams is only a small facet of the reality/unreality theme so there is no ‘waking up’ or ‘end of story, goodbye’ attitude. The commentary is broader and it can potentially speak on the power of dreams and reality. The ‘realness’ of fake things. I’m sort of calling out KH for what it is: an imaginative story that expands upon what it means to truly experience stories.  Anyway, I rambled more than I thought. I haven’t written anything about KH in months so this was a little caffine shot for me. I’m not gonna be too stuck in the details and nor do I care exactly. I’m a story teller first and I just so happened to have predicted some things not so much because of the hints being dropped but because I understand some of the thematic intent behind the lore and certain narrative beats. The rest is just me having fun and finding the best reading. Sometimes I’m right. 

[blackjack-15]

Hauntings, Messages, and the Mansion — Thoughts on: Message in a Haunted Mansion (MHM)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: MHM, TRN, SAW, non-spoiler quote from CAP, non-spoiler mention of GTH.

The Intro:

Message in a Haunted Mansion is the first “real” Nancy Drew game in that it a) isn’t hard to run on a new computer, unlike the first two, and b) it introduces things that would become staples of the Nancy Drew games: a historical plot/characters foiling and echoing the real life events (or at least giving context to them), a cast of characters who are there for more than just reciting their motives, important phone friends, hauntings both real and fake…the gang’s all here, folks.

We’re finally home.

Along with all of those wonderful things, MHM has a frankly incredible atmosphere that scared me back when I first played alongside my sister and scares me to this day, 18 years later when I play it with my friends.

It’s also the first game that establishes one Perennial Truth in the Nancy Drew world: there are supernatural forces at work, and they are real. Sure, most of the hauntings can be explained away easily — but not all of them can be, and this is reinforced by game after game (most pointedly in TRN and in GTH, but in other haunting games as well).

In the Nancy Drew Universe, ghosts are real. Sometimes people fake their specific ghosts, some use the rumors for their own benefit, and some ghosts “don’t have to be real to haunt to haunt you” — but there are ghosts, and they can haunt you.

MHM is an incredibly solid game, and is widely held as a fandom classic for good reason. Nostalgia might make this game a bit better for a lot of us, but that’s not what makes it good.

If you’re starting the series for the first time — or starting a friend or partner on it for the first time — MHM is the best starting point, bar none. It works on most computers, its sound card doesn’t have issues playing the audio, and it’s not SCKR. It’s the quintessential classic Nancy Drew game — maybe not intuitive, modern, or overly difficult, but it’s the one that all other games are based off of.

The Title:

It’s a very effective title…that unfortunately doesn’t describe the plot at all. The titular “message” is a note warning Nancy to “leave the mansion NOW”, but it doesn’t really affect Nancy, nor is it an important part of the game.

The central piece of the game is actually a poem hanging in Nancy’s room, but “Poem in a Haunted Mansion” just doesn’t have that alliterative appeal, nor does it sound like a very spooky game. Her Interactive wanted to sell this game as the spooky little masterpiece that it is, not evoke visions of Lord Byron plopping down next to Nancy and reading Don Juan aloud.

If I had been naming it back at the Turn of the Century, I probably would have gone with “Terror in a Haunted Mansion”…but the audience for Nancy Drew games was significantly younger back then, and “terror” might have spooked some parents into avoiding it.

Plus, the acronym would have been THM versus MHM, and MHM looks so much better that it’s hard to argue with it. Mythos in a Haunted Mansion? Meandering in a Haunted Mansion? Money in a Haunted Mansion?

Those are horrible, wow. “Message” it is. 

I guess if you really stretch, the poem could be a “message’….or the “message” from Valdez…or maybe “gum bo fu”? Lots of messages, one mansion, a few hauntings, here we go.

The Mystery:

Hannah’s friend Rose has sunk her entire life’s savings into an old Victorian mansion in San Francisco and is trying to renovate it into a Bed and Breakfast.

Unfortunately, strange incidents keep happening to delay progress and raise costs, so Hannah sends Nancy down to ostensibly help with renovations, but also to snoop around and figure out what’s going on.

Nancy does a bit of reno work, but mostly spends her time poking around and asking intrusive questions (not to mention sneaking into people’s rooms while they’re elsewhere and invading their privacy), and seeing the various “hauntings” that the house has to offer.

The secondary mystery (we’re now advanced and confident enough to handle two plot threads! Huzzah!) is discovering the secret of the house and its treasure, which requires Nancy to do a bit of historical digging into the original owner of the house, Elizabeth “Lizzie” Applegate, a famed actress, business owner — and the suspected lover of El Diablo, a notorious outlaw who pulled off a heist on Christmas Day of hundreds of gold coins.

As Nancy digs deeper into the mystery of who’s haunting the mansion, she finds out more and more about El Diablo (whose real name is Diego) and Lizzie’s romance and the treasure they hide together, leaving behind the vital clues to the treasure in a poem hanging in the Chinese room in the mansion.

In the end, in a bit of a “twist” for the Nancy Drew games (perhaps even a retroactive twist, since this is only the third game), it’s the B plot that solves the A plot, as Nancy loses total interest in the main mystery to focus on the historical treasure. Finding that treasure exposes the person behind the “accidents”, who has been causing the accidents in order to find the treasure.

Yes, this does confirm that the only person focused on the B&B is, in fact, Rose. Poor Rose.

The Suspects:

Rose Green is the first suspect you meet, as she’s Hannah’s old friend and the one in charge at the Golden Gardenia. She’s poured an obscene amount of money into the old mansion and likes to make comments that make it seem like she’s Super Guilty.

We’re at the stage in Nancy Drew games where subtlety isn’t a right, it’s a privilege.

Rose is one of our two main suspects, and keeps to herself and her spot in the dining room, ensuring that Nancy can never snoop through her stuff. She also has a mile-long to-do list and never does anything on it over the course of the 3+ days that Nancy’s there, so we have that to be skeptical about as well.

Ultimately, Rose isn’t evil — she’s actually the only one not doing anything suspicious — but I have to think that she’s not a very good businesswoman. As a character, Rose is barely 2D, a trait she shares with Louis. It’s no wonder they’re the two most suspicious characters — we’re not given any help in understanding them.

Abby Sideris is Rose’s second-in-command and helped her afford the mansion in the first place. She’s also the one who insists that it’s haunted by ghosts unable to Move On who cause the clattering and sobbing and moaning in the night. It is, of course, Abby who’s causing the more ghostly hauntings, but she insists the mansion is haunted anyway, and she’s simply helping it along.

She’s the only the only character with business sense, knowing that they have to drum up business for this bed and breakfast, not wait for people to come to then. No wonder Rose needed Abby’s money — she obviously comes by it with a heap of common sense.

Her sizing-up of Nancy shows she has talent as a cold reader, as does her distrust of Charlie, who really is being suspicious, albeit for different reasons than she thinks. She’s got the business smarts and the people smarts…wait, what does Rose bring to this partnership?

Speaking of Rose and Partnerships, there’s a fan theory — and it’s got some evidence in canon — that Abby and Rose are romantically involved.

Nancy asks Hannah about Rose and Louis, and Hannah laughs it off, which is a point in favor of this theory — how would Hannah know that Rose isn’t interested in this specific man who just came into Rose’s life? An easy explanation is that Hannah knows Rose isn’t interested in this man because she knows Rose isn’t interested in men.

Abby also invests her whole life into this bed and breakfast, moving out with Rose to California from Illinois at the drop of a hat. It’s a choice that would make sense if she was just as passionate about the bed and breakfast…but none of her dialogue nor her role in the game shows us that passion. Thus, the other thing that would make sense is that she moves with her partner to help support her.

As far as fan theories go, this is a fairly solid one — it’s not contradicted by canon, which is always a plus. It serves to deepen Abby’s character, giving us multiple motivations and heightens the stakes for the bed and breakfast to succeed…but it doesn’t do anything for Rose.

Charlie Murphy is Rose’s (or Abby’s? He says he works for Abby, she says he works for Rose) handyman, helping to fix up the mansion for rock-bottom pay.

He’s also secretly living in the mansion’s basement through a secret door and using the mansion to write his term paper, and thus doesn’t get much done handyman-ing-wise. 

There’s a point very early on in the game where he won’t talk to you if you haven’t talked to Louis. Louis can sometimes be difficult to make appear/catch, and is really easy to miss, so this is a frustrating facet for Charlie’s character.

Charlie’s a bit shifty for a character who’s literally doing one (1) thing wrong (slumming it in the basement without asking), but he’s also super rude to Nancy. Nancy doesn’t even deserve it this time, so it’s a bit odd that they chose him to be the “innocent but mean to Nancy” character when Abby the Spiritualist is the logical choice.

He’s also voiced by Scott Carty, the perennial voice of Ned Nickerson, so it’s a bit weird to hear him telling Nancy to piss off when Scott-as-Ned worships the ground she walks on and makes any problem between them his fault. 

The variety’s nice, but the variety’s weird as well.

Other than his shifty and sort of mean notes, Charlie has no character. He’s not a bad character, he’s not a good character — he just has no character at all. It’s like the developers had no interest in him other than “fourth suspect to make it an even number and harder to tell who the culprit is”. He’s 3D, but just barely.

Finally, Louis Chandleris a man specializing in antiques and history, who is helping Rose to sort through the hundreds of vintage items left behind in the mansion.

He’s actually mentioned as someone who showed up on the doorstep wanting to help and, well…I know 2000 was a different time, but I knew enough in 2000 to distrust someone like that, and I was a kid. Rose is a grown adult, and has no excuse for accepting this weird man.

Louis is a know-it-all, lying little son of a gun, and is there to run Rose et. al. off the premises so that he can search for the gold in peace and quiet. He, instead, stumbles upon Nancy with the gold coins, and decides to knock her out and steal them, not taking the basic precaution of tying her up or anything.

He’s easily foiled by a chandelier to the face — though, in his defense, I’m pretty sure that would foil anyone.

There isn’t a lot of meat to Louis’ character, but more than the rest of the cast because he has a slightly bigger role in the game. And even though Abby’s the one responsible for most of the spooky noises and the things that go bump in the night, it’s Louis who delivers one of the creepiest moments in the game.

It’s that moment where you’re on the phone asking Emily about gum bo fu, and the door opens for a bit, then shuts again behind you. It’s implied that Louis is checking in to see what you know, and it’s honestly terrifying the first (and second, and third…) time you play the game. It’s a rare moment where you may actually be in for bodily harm, and there’s nothing you can do about it — not even look around for the threat.

So kudos to Louis about that, but the rest of him doesn’t deserve much praise at all. Except maybe his line if you fail to stop him: “So long. Losers!”

How very turn-of-the-century of him. Heh.

The Favorites:

There’s quite a lot to love about MHM, as it’s obvious how much time and effort and heart was put into it to make it a really great game.

Even though there’s not a ton of the historical story, it’s very well done, and gives you just enough characterization of Lizzie and Diego to really care about them and to be…well, charmed by their love for each other. As a story, it feels really earnest, and while it’s not the Ultimate Best Historical Love Story that Her Interactive will ever do in its 30-odd Nancy Drew Games (that honor rests on a future game), it’s good enough to rank in at least the top 5.

Most of the puzzles are fun and engaging, whether it’s discovering hanzi that lines up with the Poem, chipping away old wallpaper to reveal a hidden attic, or solving a puzzle that took Abby and Rose two hour to place two pieces in under five minutes.

My favorite “puzzle” is definitely the hanzi, but figuring out the secret room in the library or the secret room in the basement or the secret attic (the Victorians loved their secret rooms) are definitely up there too.

One of the biggest pluses of MHM is the Haunting part. Abby’s responsible for a lot of them — the odd sounds, the projection of the woman in both the séance and in the mirror outside her room, and the incredibly creepy “I see you~” that can play while you’re in the hallway upstairs.

There are a few that you don’t discover as being her, but that could reasonably be chalked up to Abby’s attempt to market the mansion as haunted: the inflating/deflating cushion (which could be remote-controlled), the shadows at the doors/windows (projections or cardboard cutouts), and even the painting who blinks could theoretically be Abby (though that one’s a little harder to conceptualize).

However, the wooden phoenix/swan/winged creature in the parlor is wooden, and thus can’t move the way it does through human power. There’s also no evidence of Abby ever messing with it — no speakers, no motion sensors, no nothing — which makes it stand out even more.

Above, I mention the fact that in the Nancy Drew Universe, ghosts exist. This isn’t a debatable point; it is fact. The phoenix is just one of the many proofs that the series gives us. What makes Nancy special as a skeptic (which Abby calls her out for) isn’t that she’s a skeptic; it’s that she’s a skeptic in a world where ghosts exist.

As a character who has to be right for the game to end, this is a fascinating trait to have, and I love the relationship it gives Nancy with her world — an almost antagonistic relationship, versus what you expect: a Nancy who “bring[s] order to a scattered world”, to borrow a phrase from CAP.

My other favorite thing is the mansion itself; in quite a few Nancy Drew games, the location itself is almost a character, and MHM is one of the best examples of this. The mansion almost seems like it doesn’t want to divulge its secrets, like it wants to protect Lizzie and Diego, and will only let the worthy discover them and their treasure.

You’ll feel slightly unsettled throughout the whole game, picking one or two “safe spots” (usually your room) that you can run to when things get a bit too creepy, and that’s one of my favorite things as well. This unsettled feeling is independent of Abby’s hauntings, and really reinforces the house as a character unto itself.

The Un-Favorites:

There are a few things that do bug me in this game, though none are really game-breaking.

Once again, the culprit is obvious from the 1/3 point on, even though all of the characters say things that are supposed to incriminate them (Rose honestly says that the mansion might be worth more “burned to the ground”, which is a Bit Yikes and Very Incriminating).

You can write off Abby right away, as she’s obviously causing a lot of the hauntings, but she’s also the secondary investor and isn’t (per her and Rose’s conversation about the fire clause in the insurance claim) the beneficiary of the insurance agreement on the house. Once you know that — and it happens early in the game — she’s off the list.

Charlie’s the other suspect that’s cleared basically right away. It’s set up so that he has absolutely no reason for wanting the mansion destroyed or destitute — it’s providing him money and housing – and Abby mentions that, though she suspects him, it’s due to his straight-up incompetence, rather than any malicious intent.

So you’re left with Rose and Louis almost immediately — a character who never leaves her post, and a character whose stuff you can snoop around in and has a password-locked computer. 

Yeah, no prizes for figuring that out.

My least favorite puzzles are the slider puzzles (though that’s true in any game) and honestly the staircase “Diego” puzzle, as it bothers me enough to just pull up the walkthrough rather than trying my hand at it. I wouldn’t say these puzzles are bad puzzles, just that they’re the type that I hate (and that I suck at majorly, which doesn’t help).

The Fix:

MHM isn’t a game where a lot of fixes are needed, honestly. Updated graphics/other QoL improvements, widening the screen, etc. might be nice, but they’re not necessary at all to enjoy the game. The only thing I can think of interface-wise that would be nice is a journal/notepad that you carry around with you, rather than the one in your suitcase that is No Help At All if/when you get stuck.

Emily — a phone friend who Nancy apparently once solved a case for, as per the little booklet that comes with the game — is another spot that could be tightened up. While she gives you info that you desperately need in order to progress, her relationship to Nancy is never mentioned in the game, giving most players no clue who she is or what kind of information she can provide

Charlie is a character who just wasn’t done with any care, honestly. He’s a college student, putting him roughly at Nancy’s own age in a house full of people decades older than both of them, and yet no mention nor reference to this fact is ever made! She’s not the closest to Charlie; she doesn’t speak to him any differently — in short, even though he’s the one she should feel the strongest kinship to in a house of a suspicious antiques dealer, a psychic medium, and, well, Rose, Nancy has nothing unique to her dealings with Charlie.

This is especially egregious as you look at Nancy’s relationships with other suspects her age/who are the youngest in the game as the series goes on; she’s noticeably more playful and warmer towards them, or agrees to help them/let them help her in situations where she’d suspect an older person.  Charlie’s somewhere between about 18 and 25 (probably closer to 18 than 25), and not only does Nancy not treat him differently, but Charlie doesn’t seem to notice her age either.

Charlie’s age would have been a great way to tie him to Nancy, to give him an actual character (or at least an actual characteristic), and possibly to give a reason why he’s snappier with Nancy than anyone else — he’s worried this girl his age will see what those who are older overlook, or possibly that she’ll out-do him and Rose will find out that he’s not really a great handyman and has been spending him time researching rather than fixing things.

These fixes aren’t necessary to make a good game, or to make it ‘more playable’ — they’re just “fixes” to make the game a slightly different experience with a stronger focus on characters. 

Luckily, as time went on, Nancy Drew characters became deeper and more complex, and so MHM’s characters come across as full of potential and ripe for fandom headcanons, rather than seeming flat like SCK’s or STFD’s characters.

[sobdasha]

Can you talk about the relationship dynamics between the Mabudachi Trio? It’s obvious Ayame adores Ayame and practically worships the ground he walks on and Hatori takes an exasperated, but caring, mentor role to him But what about their relationship to Shigure? You’ve mentioned before how you think Shigure has a limited capacity to care, do you think he truly cares for his friends? As much as Akito?

“Iwas gonna hop right on this one and then look what happened”-words which, 7 months later, I found I’d left for myself at someunknown point in the draft to answer this

Ohboy oh boy time for another round of weasling around Shigure by me!As I try to reconcile “well I certainly have no faith inShigure!” versus “But now that I’m leading these anonsastray I should consider the canon, which does consider Shigureworthy of at least a little faith” lol

Ithink Shigure’s number 1 priority is Shigure. Number 2 goes to Akito.Number 3 is Hatori and Ayame.

Theseare his best friends. He cares for them, for a given value of care.Does he want to see them unhappy? No, he would much rather they behappy! He made a big production once of somehow accidentally ropingHatori into a lakehouse vacation, so as to make it a bit less obviousthat he was trying to distract Hatori from any potential moping inthe wake of Kana’s wedding. And it feels like it wouldn’t be astretch to assume that Shigure facilitated Ayame and Yuki, er,pre-bonding (it sounds like Yuki never had any real contact withAyame while Yuki still lived in the Main House; but it’s also impliedthat Yuki and Ayame have definitely come in contact a few timespre-Tohru, because Yuki has a very good idea of what Ayame is like atthis point and also Yuki once quotes Ayame quoting Mayuko aboutShigure).

Onthe other hand, would I trust Shigure to put his friends abovehimself if it came to a choice? Would I trust him to consistentlymake the effort to care and go out of his way? Absolutely not,I wouldn’t trust that garbage as far as I can throw him which is notat all.

Anyway,dynamics!

Ayameand Hatori-You’ve already discussed this but there’s no reason I can’t discussit again lol-Yep, Ayame adores and admires Hatori for having qualities Ayamewishes he had. Namely, Hatori’s empathy and “you always sayexactly what I want to hear” kindness, nothing like Ayame’sgood-intentions-gone-completely-wrong(Tangent, sudden thought,I wonder if this is why Ayame tells Yuki that his weakness andkindness are very precious. I can’t remember now if he says it morethan once, or if it’s something Yuki recalls, but I feel like it gotharped on a bit and I’d been thinking of it as Ayame being supportiveand saying nice things but I wonder if it’s actually him expressingadmiration that Yuki is kind, which doesn’t come naturally to Ayame,and that Yuki can admit his vulnerability, which also doesn’t comenaturally to Ayame, and when wielded for good these make Yuki acompassionate person like Hatori.)- Before Ayame hecked up atthe end of high school and realized he was not, in fact, a goodperson…I expect their dynamic was more that Ayame felt Hatori wasgood for teasing. Too uptight for his own good, and obviously being astick in the mud just to spite Aya and Shigure, and so it clearlymust be their job to fix that!!- And I think Hatori probablyput up with it mostly because it was expected of him, they all justhappened to be thrown together by circumstance, and I feel likeHatori is an introvert but also gets lonely without a regular dose ofmeaningful human interaction (which he certainly wasn’t getting athome). He needs a balance of quiet time to regain his sanity andstanding-near-some-extroverts-who-are-doing-all-the-social-interaction-heavy-liftingtime to keep grounded.-I think once Ayame started making an effort to change himself, ithelped Hatori become fonder of him. Ayame’s still too much at times,but I bet Hatori admires Ayame for his efforts.

Ayameand Shigure-I think their dynamic is basically Fun Buddies. Classic trademark“alright!” and thumbs up bros. They indulge each other’sshenanigans, they are never bored, they’ll be best friends sitting injail beside each other (while Hatori is the one to bail them out.Maybe. Eventually.)-My theory is that when they were younger, Shigure was not a greatinfluence on Ayame. Given how Ayame’s incident with the girl in highschool went, I suspect Shigure frequently egged Ayame on when Ayamewas being unthinkingly cruel and Shigure thought it was funny. Bothat the expense of the person Ayame was hurting, and also at Ayame’sown expense (I’m pretty sure the “one-man sumo wrestlingmatch” was not, as Ayame assumes, about the girl, but was infact about Ayame. “Hah you don’t even need an opponent to fightbecause you’re handing your own ass to yourself” as Ayame digs his hole deeper. Ayame’s justtoo clueless and self-confident to realize the person Shigure islaughing at is him). Young Shigure probably thought it washilarious to watch Aya make an ass of himself.- I think thatkind of thing stopped in part because Ayame tried to change (and thuswas less likely to be in those kinds of situations) and in partbecause Shigure focused more on his own life goal (so it’s almost asif he actually matured).

Hatoriand Shigure-I think their dynamic is basically saltmates. Ayame just doesn’t havethe jaded cynicism in him that these two so naturally possess inabundance. It’s very ironic because like Hatori and Shigure arealways off having these very Mature, Adult discussions whichbasically come down to “Shigure you might be a borderlinesociopath asshole but you get shit done so I’ll be standing over hereout of your way” while everyone’s discussions with Ayame seemvery childish but are actually mature because Ayame is overhere trying to be a good grown-up person. It’s that, grittyautomatically = adult misconception lol.-I don’t think these two have the same kind of, like, respect andadmiration. Well, maybe respect, but like “I respect you havethis quality which I have absolutely no desire to cultivate inmyself” kind of respect. A fondness that’s not born out ofadmiration, but mostly because they’ve just hung around together forso long. I can’t think of a good reason why they’d be friends,expect perhaps that they have always been friends.-Though it probably helps that Hatori and Shigure share more commoninterests than Hatori and Ayame. For a start, book club. Alsoprobably disaster bachelor club (since Ayame is surprisingly the mostput-together capable adult who has moved out, owns his own business,doesn’t need a maid to pick out his clothes or clean up after him orfeed him, and got a secret girlfriend he kept successfullysecret).-Plus, Shigure might be a bastard but he's easier on the nerves thatAyame. He's only Too Much some of the time; he's quite capable ofbeing toned down. And he's got that whole "good with people"thing going on. So when it comes to "I just need some humaninteraction time" Hatori might prefer Shigure.

[michaelpatrickhicks]

Review: Fear: Trump in the White House by Bob Woodward

My rating: 3 of 5 stars Fear: Trump in the White House breaks absolutely zero new ground. Anybody who has been following the Trump trainwreck already knows everything they need to know about Donnie Small-Hands and then some (for instance, today's big news stories revolve around Stormy Daniels's allegations that Trump has a small mushroom-shaped dick, news that is also not very surprising in and of itself). Those who are part of the Resistance will find nothing fresh within these pages. Those who are Trump supporters will, of course, brush Bob Woodward's account off as little more than "fake news" and part of the on-going "witch hunt" within the media and the whole wide world at large. Woodward's accounting, though, does lend further credibility to ousted White House staffers who have used their executive positions to pen their own tell-all novels, and further solidifies those stories published in legitimate mainstream press outlets (i.e. not Fox News). As half of the reporting team that took down Nixon, Woodward's reportage on the Trump administration is certainly welcome, as he is a credible voice, a reporter with a through-line of integrity that has been a member of the press for decades. His writing here gives us a fly-on-the-wall picture of life in Trump's Oval Office, quoting a number of administration officials such as Gary Cohn, Rob Porter, Lt. General Michael Flynn, Secretary of Defense James "Mad Dog" Mattis, Reince Preibus, and others. Woodward lets the words of these men tell the story, free of any colorful commentary or opinionated editorializing. All of the principle players paint a strikingly similar portrait of Trump, and it's a familiar view, one that anybody who has been paying even the absolute most minimum amount of attention since the 2016 primaries would recognize. Trump is inarticulate, incurious, brash, addicted to Twitter, quick to anger, both wildly ignorant and profoundly stupid, unimaginative, and dead set in his ways. He's inflexible and unwilling to change his mind or opinions on anything, including his own deeply racist attitudes, as exhibited throughout his presidential campaign, again in the wake of the Charlottesville rioting, and yet again when discussing African nations, their inhabitants, and immigrants, as well as resolutely sexist. He has not a single shred of understanding of government, diplomacy, the military, or the economy. And, again, none of this news, nor is any of it surprising. Because of the author's singular focus on the White House and its central players, Woodward forgoes any deeper examinations of Trump and his attitudes. Rather than an in-depth profile of the man who invented Birtherism conspiracy theories, we get the popular sketch version we see every day on the nightly news and live on Twitter. What we're told fits the common vernacular surrounding Trump, but there's never any attempt to dig deeper. Part of the sad thing (if one can ever manage to drum up anything resembling sympathy for such a rotten and disingenuous figure as Donald Trump), of course, is that any of Trump's own depth is merely skin-deep artifice. Simply put, there is nothing deeper to him. What you see is literally what you get. At the end of the day he's just another bitter, angry old man stuck in the past, sitting around watching Fox News and trying to convince everybody he's as great as he thinks he is, complaining about all the non-white men in the world. There's no question Trump thinks highly of himself, just as there's no question that his opinion is completely unfounded in fact. Facts, we know, are the one thing Trump hates perhaps more than anything, and his staffers routinely commiserate over how difficult it is to convince Trump of reality and how pointless it is for them to prepare daily briefings for him because he refuses to read anything . So, is Fear worth reading? Honestly, I'm not entirely sure it is, particularly if you've already been following along since the oaf took his oath. It's a quick read, the writing breezy but plain, and Woodward certainly lives up to Christopher Hitchens's criticism of being little more than a stenographer to the stars. More than a year and a half into this national nightmare, Fear: Trump in the White House offers little in the way of actual news, and Trump's detractors will certainly find all of their worst suspicions and fears about the man confirmed. Trump's blind supporters, though, I suspect, aren't likely to ever bother reading this thing to begin with. The target audience, then, is simply the curious among us, those hoping to uncover revelations or maybe look back at the early days of this administration and chuckle knowingly to how things have played out since Jan. 2017. At one point, for instance, Trump is reported to have asked his staffers, responding to allegations in the Steele document, if he looks like a guy who needs prostitutes. I'm sure we all had our suspicions on that front, and, well, we definitively know the answer to that now, at least. View all my reviews