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supercantaloupe · 3 years

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okay yeah actually, i’ll bite. i’ve got some of my own thoughts about the unsleeping city and cultural representation and i’m gonna make a post about them now, i guess. i’ll put it under a cut though because this post is gonna be long.

i wanna start by saying i love dimension 20 and i really really enjoy the unsleeping city. i look forward to watching new episodes every week, and getting hooked on d20 as a whole last summer really helped pull me out of a pandemic depression, and i’m grateful to have this cool show to be excited about and interested in and to have met so many cool people to talk about it with.

that being said, however, i think there is a risk run in representing any group of people/their culture when you have the kind of setting that tuc has. by which i mean, tuc is set in a real world with real people and real human cultures in it. unlike fantasy high or a crown of candy where everything is made up (even if rooted in real-world cultures), tuc is explicitly rooted in reality, and all of its diversity -- both the ups and downs that go with it. and especially set in new york of all places, one of the most densely, diversely populated cities on earth. the cast is 7 people; it’s great that those 7 people come from a variety of backgrounds and identities and all bring their own unique perspectives to the table, and it’s great that those people and the entire crew are generally conscious of themselves and desire to tell stories/represent perspectives ethically. but you simply cannot authentically represent every culture or every perspective in the world (or even just in a city) when your cast is 7 people. it’s an impossible task. this is inherent to the setting, and acknowledged by the cast, and by brennan especially, who has been on record saying how one of the exciting aspects of doing a campaign set in nyc is its diversity, the fact that no two new yorkers have the same perspective of new york. i think that’s a good thing -- but it does have its challenges too, clearly.

i’m not going to go into detail on the question of whether or not tuc’s presentation of asian and asian american culture is appropriative/offensive or not. first of all, i don’t feel like it’s 100% fair to judge the show completely yet, since it’s a prerecorded season and currently airing midseason, so i don’t yet know how things wrap up. secondly, i’m not asian or asian american. i can have my own opinions on that content in the show, but i think it’s worth more to hear actual asian and asian american voices on this specific aspect of the show. having an asian american cast member doesn’t automatically absolve the show of any criticisms with regard to asian american cultural representation/appropriation, whether those criticisms are made by dozens of viewers or only a handful of them. regardless, i don’t think it’s my place as someone who is not asian to speak with any authority on that issue, and i know for a fact that there are asian american viewers sharing their own opinions. their thoughts in this instance hold more water than mine, i think.

what i will comment on in more depth, though, is a personal frustration with tuc. i’m jewish; i’ve never really been shy about that fact on my page here. i’m not from new york, but i visit a few times a year (or i did before covid anyway, lol), and i have some family from nyc. nyc, to me, is a jewish city. and for good reason, since it’s home to one of the largest jewish populations of the country, and even the world, and aspects of jewish culture (including culinary, like bagels and pastrami, and linguistic, like the common use of yiddish words and phrases in english colloquial speech) are prevalent and celebrated among jews and goyim alike. when i think of nyc, i think of a jewish city; that’s not everybody’s new york, but that’s my new york, and thats plenty of other people’s new york too. so i do find myself slightly disappointed or frustrated in tuc for its, in my opinion, rather stark lack of jewish representation.

now, i’m not saying that one of the PCs should have been jewish, full stop. i love to headcanon iga as jewish even though canon does not support that interpretation, and i’m fine with that. she’s not my character. it’s possible that simply no one thought of playing a jewish character, i dunno. but also, and i can’t be sure about this, i’m willing to bet that none of the players really wanted to play a jewish character because they didn’t want to play a character of a marginalized culture they dont belong to in the interest of avoiding stereotyping or offensive representation/cultural appropriation. (i don’t know if any of the cast members are jewish, but i’m assuming not.) and the concern there is certainly appreciated; there’s not a ton of mainstream jewish rep out there, and often what we get is either “unlikeable overly conservative hassidic jew” or “jokes about their bar mitzvah/one-off joke about hanukkah and then their jewishness is never mentioned ever again,” which sucks. it would be really cool to see some more good casual jewish rep in a well-rounded, three-dimensional character in the main cast of a show! even if there are a couple of stumbles along the way -- nobody is perfect and no two jews have the same level of knowledge, dedication, and adherence to their culture.

but at the same time, i look at characters like iga and i really do long for a jewish character to be there. siobhan isn’t polish, yet she’s playing a characters whose identity as a polish immigrant to new york is very central to her story and arc. and part of me wonders why we can’t have the same for a jewish character. if not a PC, then why not an NPC? again, i’m jewish, and i am not native, but in my opinion i think the inclusion of jj is wonderful -- i think there are even fewer native main characters in mainstream media than there are jewish ones, and it’s great to see a native character who is both in touch with their culture as well as not being defined solely by their native-ness. to what extent does it count as ‘appropriative’ because brennan is a white dude? i dunno, but i’m like 99% sure they talked to sensitivity consultants to make sure the representation was as ethical as they could get it, and anyway, i can’t personally see and glaring missteps so far. but again, i’m not native, and if there are native viewers with their own opinions on jj, i’d be really interested in hearing them.

but getting back to the relative lack of jewish representation. it just...disappoints me that jewishness in new york is hardly ever even really mentioned? again, i know we’re only just over halfway through season 2, but also, we had a whole first season too. and it’s definitely not all bad. for example: willy! gd, i love willy so much. him being a golem of williamsburg makes me really really happy -- a jewish mythological creature animated from clay/mud (in this case bricks) to protect a jewish community (like that of williamsburg, a center for many of nyc’s jews) from threat. golem have so often been taken out of their original context and turned into evil monsters in fantasy settings, especially including dnd. (even within other seasons of d20! crush in fh being referred to as a “pavement golem” always rubbed me the wrong way, and i had hoped they’d learned better after tuc but in acoc they refer to another monster as a “corn golem” which just disappointed me all over again.) so the fact that tuc gets golems right makes my jewish heart very happy.

and yet...he doesn’t show up that much? sure, in s1, he’s very helpful when he does, but in s2 so far he shows up once and really does not say or do much of anything. he speaks with a lot more yiddish-influenced language than other characters, but if you didn’t know those words were specifically yiddish/jewish, you might not be able to otherwise clock the fact that willy is jewish. and while willy is a jewish mythological creature who is jewish in canon, he isn’t human. there are no other direct references to judaism, jewish characters, or jewish culture in the unsleeping city beyond him.

there are, in fact, two other canon jewish characters in tuc. but...here’s where i feel the most frustration, i think. the two canon jewish humans in tuc are stephen sondheim and robert moses. both of whom are real actual people, so it’s not like we can just pick and choose what their cultural backgrounds are. as much as i love stephen sondheim, i think there are inherent issues with including real world people as characters in a fictional setting, especially if they are from living/recent memory (sondheim is literally still alive), but anyway, sondheim and moses are both actual jewish people. from watching tuc alone you probably would not be able to guess that sondheim is jewish -- nothing from his character except name suggests it, and i wouldn’t even fault you for not thinking ‘sondheim’ is a jewish-sounding surname (and i dislike the idea/attitude/belief that you can tell who is or isn’t jewish by the sound of their name). and yeah, i’m not going to sit here and be like “brennan should have made sondheim more visibly jewish in canon!” because, like, he’s a real human being and it’s fucking weird to portray him in a way that isn’t as close to how he publicly presents himself, which is not in fact very identifiably jewish? i don’t know, this is what i mean by it’s inherently weird and arguably problematic to portray real living people as characters in a fictional setting, but i digress. sondheim’s jewish, even if you wouldn’t know it; not exactly a representation win.

and then there’s bob moses. you might be able to guess that he’s jewish from canon, actually. there’s the name, of course. but more insidious to me are the specifics of his villainy. greedy and powerhungry, a moneyman, a lich whose power is stored in a phylactery...it does kind of all add up to a Yikes from me. (in the stock market fight there’s a one-off line asking if he has green skin; it’s never really directly acknowledged or answered, but it made me really uncomfortable to hear at first and it’s stuck with me since viewing for the first time.) the issue for me here is that the most obviously jewish human character is the season’s bbeg, and his villainy is rooted in very antisemitic tropes and stereotypes.

i know this isn’t all brennan’s fault -- robert moses was a real ass person and he was in fact jewish, a powerhungry and greedy moneyman, a big giant racist asshole, etc. i’m not saying that jewish characters can’t be evil, and i’m not saying brennan should have tried to be like “this is my NPC robert christian he’s just like bob moses but instead he’s a goy so it’s okay” because...that would be fuckin weird bro. and bob moses was a real person who was jewish and really did do some heinous shit with his municipal power. i’m not necessarily saying brennan should have picked/created a different character to be the villain. i’m not even saying that he shouldn’t have made bob moses a lich (although, again, it doesn’t 100% sit right with me). but my point here is that bob moses is one of a grand total of three canon jewish characters in tuc, of which only two humans, of whom he is the one you’d most easily guess would be jewish and is the most influenced by antisemitic stereotypes/tropes. had there been more jewish representation in the show at all, even just some neutral jewish NPCs, this would not be as much of a problem as it is to me. but halfway through season 2, so far, this is literally all we get. and that bums me out.

listen, i really like tuc. i love d20. but the fact that it is set in a real world place with real world people does inherently raise challenges when it comes to ethical cultural representation. especially when the medium of the show is a game whose creatures, lore, and mechanics have been historically rooted in some questionable racial/cultural views. and dnd is making progress to correct some of those misguided views of older sourcebooks by updating them to more equitably reflect real world racial/cultural sensitivities; that’s a good thing! but these seasons, of course, were recorded before that. the game itself has some questionable cultural stuff baked into it, and that is (almost necessarily) going to be brought to the table in a campaign set in a real-world place filled with real-world people of diverse real-world cultures. the cast can have sensitivity consultants and empathy and the best intentions in the world, and they’ll still fuck up from time to time, that’s okay. your mileage may vary on whether or not it’s still worth sticking around with the show (or the fandom) through that. for me, it does not yet outweigh all the things i like about the show, and i’m gonna continue watching it. but it’s still very worth acknowledging that the cast is 7 people who cannot possibly hope to authentically or gracefully represent every culture in nyc. it’s an unfortunate limitation of the medium. yet it’s also still worthwhile to acknowledge and discuss the cultural representation as it is in the show -- both the goods and the bads, the ethically solid and the questionably appropriative -- and even to hold the creators accountable. (decently, though. i’m definitely not advocating anybody cyberbully brennan on twitter or whatever.) the show and its representation is far from perfect, but i also don’t think it ever could be. still, though, it could always be better, and there’s a worthwhile discussion to be had in the wheres, hows, and whys of that.

#sasha reviews #sasha speaks #the unsleeping city #unsleeping city #long post #dimension 20 #gd i stayed up way too late to write this #tuc #the unsleeping city chapter 2 #the unsleeping city 2 #tuc2 #antisemitism

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thewatsonbeekeepers · 4 years

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Chapter 5 – Hey, Soul Sister: Who is Eurus?

Do you get it? She’s his sister? But metaphorically, she’s a part of his soul? I was very impressed with myself for this title. Anyway…

This chapter of the meta is going to deal with the various times we meet Eurus before TFP and what this might mean, which will help us to understand who she is once we have stripped off the disguises.

Before series 4, we had real!characters and MP!characters set up as distinct entities, particularly in TSoT, which distinguishes between MP!Mycroft (the deducing brain) and real!Mycroft, as well as MP!Irene representing desire and real!Irene, who doesn’t come near the episode. The MP section in TSoT, for a lot of people in the fandom, broke down Sherlock’s psyche into MP!John vs. MP!Mycroft – and John is clearly winning.

However, I want to suggest that Sherlock’s psyche isn’t nearly so straightforward as a tug of war between the brain and the heart. Whilst MP!Mycroft undoubtedly represents the oppressively reasonable part of Sherlock’s psyche, that’s not the only thing repressing him – it can’t be. If it were simply a rejection of ‘sentiment’, this wouldn’t be the powerful queer love story we know it to be – there is a lot more internalised homophobia being dealt with than just love being illogical. That’s where Eurus comes in.

Eurus and Mycroft are parallel oppressive forces in Sherlock’s brain, but they’re oppressive in different ways. Having family members and childhood trauma be the psyche’s symbols for repression is particularly poignant in a queer love story, for obvious reasons. However, I want to take you through my reasoning behind Eurus being the most secret and troubled part of Sherlock’s soul.

The first clue is that her prison is called Sherrinford. We all assumed that the third Holmes sibling was going to be Sherrinford back before s4, and it seemed that way in the beginning, with Mycroft mentioning speaking to Sherrinford several times, construing it as a person rather than a place. This is no coincidence – for those who aren’t familiar with the history of the stories, Conan Doyle’s original name for his protagonist was Sherrinford Holmes, which he later changed to Sherlock. That Eurus is trapped inside Sherrinford is a clear suggestion that Eurus is something that’s trapped inside Sherlock – a dangerous MP entity. More important than that, Sherrinford is the version of Holmes that never made it into the books. Plenty of people have worked on queering the Holmes canon and working out what ACD might have been implying and leaving out and arguably none more so in an adaptation that Mofftiss. Let’s think about the implications of this. A kind of second self, not shown to the public, buried inside your mind and forgotten since childhood, which is bursting out into a moment of acute psychological distress. Gee, I don’t know what that could be about. The Sherlock that Sherlock thinks he is has thus far been dominated by MP!Mycroft, but this series is about uniting canon!Holmes with the non-canon, queer Sherrinford who has always existed, judging by the name, and who is currently dominated by the destructive MP!Eurus. The other important point to note here is that Sherrinford is an island in the middle of the sea – that’s not a coincidence, given how much water imagery abounds in this series. I spoke briefly in Chapter 2 X about how water represents Sherlock sinking deeper and deeper into his own subconsciousness – this is the deepest he can go. In Greek mythology, Eurus was the name of the wind most associated with causing storms at sea X – this isn’t a coincidence either. She’s very deliberately tied in with water.

(In real life terms, of course, all this means that a real!Eurus probably does or did exist in some form, although I can’t begin to hazard a guess about this. However, I’m trying to refer to her as MP!Eurus when she’s in her normal form in the MP, in case we get a series 5 with Sian Brooke as real!Eurus, and also to distinguish her from therapist!Eurus etc.)

This is my reasoning as to why MP!Eurus represents Sherlock’s innermost trauma. She is not merely the fact that he loves John – he deduced this in TSoT without her appearance. She is the trauma that he needs to come to terms with. A running theme through our analysis of Eurus will be that her gender is particularly important; her representation of Sherlock’s repression cannot be but as a woman, because for most of s4 he is only able to process his identity through the most heterosexual of lenses. We see this hinted at quite early on in TST, when Sherlock takes on a case called ‘The Duplicate Man’, warning John that it is never twins. The word ‘duplicate’ here, removing twins, leaves us with the only real possibility that it is in fact the same person. Eurus’s gender makes that more difficult to see; she needs to be female, but it’s much more difficult to elide the two characters without employing a Cumberbatch doppelganger. However, this hint that Eurus is not only male but an actual ‘duplicate’ of her brother should give us pause for thought. With this in mind, I want to use the rest of this chapter to analyse her three forms before TFP.

1.) Faith!Eurus

I’m certainly not the first to point out that Faith!Eurus is a mirror for John, nor will I be the last – people jumped on it pretty much as soon as TLD aired. There are a few good reasons for this. Firstly, she walks with a cane, a throwback to ASiP – in case we’d forgotten, however, Sherlock has a flashback to John walking with a cane to make the link explicit. We are supposed to link these two characters, the authors are saying pretty clearly. Faith!Eurus is also suicidal, which John was at the start of ASiP, as made clear by the fact he carried a gun – and Faith!Eurus does the same. Sherlock also takes her out for food (for more on the food/sex metaphor, see here X) which he doesn’t with anyone bar John, and we certainly never see him talk so easily with someone who isn’t John. An eagle-eyed tumblr post that I can’t find now also broke my heart in pointing out that Faith!Eurus’s unseen self-harm matches long-sleeved John Watson a little too well.

This isn’t just the show trying to remind us of what John was like in ASiP, however. MP!Eurus is the trauma prodding Sherlock’s sexuality – it’s going to be hell to get through it, but he absolutely needs to do it. This is Sherlock’s trauma, not reminding him that John was suicidal, but forcing him to acknowledge it in the first place, something which Sherlock has buried. We know this because of the way the image of John forces its way into Sherlock’s mind – it’s much like the way Moriarty breaks into TAB. His brain is making a connection that he’s not quite capable of making and it’s knocking him. His deduction that Faith!Eurus is suicidal is accompanied by that image of John, and he then re-enacts the food ritual he completed with John the evening John left his cane behind, before throwing Faith!Eurus’s gun into the Thames – proving that it was Sherlock himself who stopped John from taking his own life.

This is trauma, however, and Sherlock can’t process it in full – hence why the image of John that breaks in is shaky, and Sherlock tries to push it out of his head. It’s also why Faith!Eurus, who in Sherlock’s subconscious could take any form, specifically takes the form of a woman. His gay trauma means that he first has to process John’s suicidal ideation in a heterosexual dynamic, before fully grasping and applying it to his relationship with John. (Chapter 9 X explains how that plays out over the rest of TLD in full detail.)

2.) E!Eurus

Taking a jump back to surface level plot here, the first thing that grabbed me about E!Eurus was just how minor John’s flirtation with her was. In the terms of a television show which really rides on very high drama (multiple faked deaths and insane cliffhangers for a start), the emotional peak of John’s emotional arc with Mary being that he texted another woman – not went out for lunch, not kissed, not slept with – is bizarre, particularly when we know next to nothing about E!Eurus at this point. It’s incredibly anti-climactic as a means of John falling short of Mary’s view of him. Maybe we can accept it as in line with John Moral-Principles Watson, but it’s difficult to accept as in keeping with the nature of a show whose intent is nearly always to shock.

With this in mind, let’s delve back into the MP to see how that might give this moment greater emotional significance. Chapter 10 X is on the hug scene, and that will deal with John’s revelation of his infidelity in greater detail. For the moment, the most important thing to remember is that John Watson is not real!John – he is heart!John. In other words, we are seeing a similarly heterosexualised re-enactment of Sherlock’s relationship with John.

I will talk a lot in Chapter 10 X about how MP!Mary is linked to Sherlock’s compulsory heterosexuality; at the end of TST, Sherlock substitutes Mary’s body for his because he cannot conceive of John’s queer grief without breaking himself. This is interesting because the E of Eurus actually stands for Elizabeth in this scene (certainly in the credits, and possibly elsewhere, although I can’t remember Sian Brooke actually saying it). Elizabeth is Elizabeth is Mary’s middle name in BBC Sherlock, which looks like another of those shared name links our creators love so well. If so, this begins to justify how Sherlock’s heart is conceiving of its emotions. We will see in TLD that heart!John’s relationship with fem!John in the form of Eurus is aligned with Sherlock’s sexual desire in the form of MP!Irene. Both are hidden and exist only in texts – i.e., they cannot be spoken yet. But they will be.

3.) Therapist!Eurus

This one is perhaps the most straightforward on a symbolism level, but also possibly the most significant moment in the series. Therapist!Eurus, plain and simple, is Sherlock’s trauma prodding at John, interrogating him like a therapist would, trying to work him out – and largely failing, right? She can get basically nothing about how he feels about Sherlock out of him. But this is part of MP!Eurus’s ongoing project to get Sherlock to wake up – the Gay Trauma is interrogating John, trying to suss him, and failing.

Except, in the final scene of TLD, without the help of Therapist!Eurus, Sherlock has finally sussed John – it has taken until Culverton’s confession to recognise that John is suicidal without Sherlock (Chapter 9 X). The sigh of relief that is the hug scene (Chapter 10 X) is a kind of acknowledgement of that relief that he’s finally worked out what he’s been trying to cover up with drugs – so much so, that he misses the obvious, which is that John is suicidal again. When John leaves his cane with Sherlock in the hospital, it is a reminder of the first time he is suicidal, and Sherlock doesn’t make the immediate leap in his comatose haze that this is what his psyche has been trying to tell him. Hence you have this moment of immense relief and fade out at the end of the hug scene which suggests the end of the episode, and could feasibly end Sherlock’s life, except we’re started awake with a much more abrupt and troubling ending scene – Therapist!Eurus shooting John. Because, of course, if Sherlock is gone again, John must be suicidal again, and it has taken a few scenes of cognitive dissonance for this to clock. Indeed, it’s not Sherlock himself who clocks – Gay Trauma in the form of Eurus!Therapist returns and shoots John for us. This shooting isn’t, of course, permanent (in one of the worst cliffhanger resolutions in TV history), but that’s because it’s not real – it hasn’t happened yet. It is Sherlock, through MP!Eurus, finally recognising the problem – John.

This is particularly poignant in light of the opening and closing shots of TLD. Although there’s the fucky not-blood red that fills the screen at the end of TLD, apart from that the shots of Norbury shooting Mary and Therapist!Eurus shooting John are one and the same shot. It’s also a stylish shot (what I call split screen, but given that I never went to film school I think that’s just my name for it) and it’s repeated enough times over TLD that it’s pretty clear the creatives want it to be memorable. By the time John gets shot, then, we shouldn’t be caught up in the drama of it – we should be thinking, as so many did, “something’s fucky.”

And it is – but it’s brilliantly fucky! Head over to Chapter 7 X if you want to read about Norbury shooting Mary, but TLDR it’s a metaphor for Mary shooting Sherlock as understood from Sherlock’s warped and depressed perspective – and he’s finally realised what it means! The version in which Mary shooting Sherlock means John losing Mary (the Norbury version) is one in which John is sad, goes to therapy, and the world moves on. Now, however, that Sherlock has recognised that John was suicidal, he can also recognise that Mary shooting Sherlock will make John suicidal again – hence why it’s the same shot. Mary shooting Sherlock is the same as John dying – and the latter is much more important in Sherlock’s mind.

[It’s worth noting that the identical shots we see in TST and TLD don’t match the shot in HLV, although admittedly that one’s not in the MP – it does strike me, however, that the sounds are reversed – HLV sounds like a dart, whereas the MP shots sound like bullets. If anyone has any thoughts on that, do let me know – it has me flummoxed for the moment. If you want meta explaining why the shot from TST is the same as HLV, Chapter 7 is here X, and I’m certainly not the first to hypothesise this. For me, the TLD shot being the same is therefore a logical extension.]

#tjlc #chapter five: hey soul sister - who is eurus?#eurus holmes #meta #my meta #mine #bbc sherlock #johnlock #tjlc is real #bbc johnlock #e #mary #queer theory

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nettlestonenell · 5 years

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If you don’t like Peggy Carter, you don’t like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Buckle up, Gentle Readers. You may have thought this blog was done vomiting Peggy Carter meta, but you’d be wrong.

It’s still out there, you probably know, this concept that Peggy Carter is [just] Steve Rogers’ girlfriend. It doesn’t even have the sense to lurk in the shadows of the fandom. It’s front and center whenever she’s brought up. And whether that’s because those posting and perpetuating it think the notion weakens whatever/whoever they ship with Cap, or comes from a place where it’s only supposed to be men that matter in fandom/comics/Marvel/the universe at large, it’s simply, aggressively wrong.

If you don’t like Peggy Carter, you don’t like the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Why would I say that? I’m so glad you asked.

Peggy Carter, as portrayed in the MCU (that’s all we’re going to be talking about her representation in, here), was introduced in CA:TFA (we know that, if we’re reading this we know that). That film was not an origin story for her character. She had already originated, and her character came to that film fully-formed (insert Athena reference).

(and what a form it is)

She had a job, at which she was very good. She had a sense of self and service, she had (as close as anyone could get to it) the respect of Tommy Lee Jones’ character. She already had a moral compass and a mission.

In fact, it could be supported from the narrative that Steve had to take the super-soldier serum to complete his origin so that he could become Peggy’s equal (at least physically) in both the fight and in love. CA:TFA doesn’t show that Peggy needed to change in any way.

And here’s where some people seem to start to feel rubbed the wrong way. Marvel wasn’t finished with her. In fact, Marvel decided that actually, they wanted to take Peggy Carter and craft from her the actual freakin’ bedrock of their cinematic universe.

How many MCU films/series has Peggy been in? Six. (I count Civil War, even though it’s only her picture.) Sure, some of those are merely cameo appearances. Cap scores eight by the same counting, but two of his appearances are cameos. Cap has three films in which he’s the main character (I could debate that in Civil War with you, if you like, but not here), roughly six hours of film. In three Avengers movies he’s one of many characters, we’ll give him two hours (though his screen time is likely far less). We’re up to eight hours. His three cameos account for 15 minutes. So, for Cap The Literally Freakin’ First Avenger, we get 8.25 hours of film with him.

And for Peggy? Her five cameos equal about 30 minutes. Her time in CA:TFA gets her about, 45 minutes (maybe a little less). BUT Marvel, in using her as the foundation of their cinematic universe (Peggy’s existence and skin in the fight pre-dates Cap’s) they gave her a series. It ran two seasons. She was the main character. It started with a short. Add fifteen minutes (we’re up to 1.5 hours, now). The series aired thirteen hours of footage. That’s 14.5 hours on-screen about Peggy Carter. That’s an awful lot to develop and write and shoot and produce to be dismissed as merely fan service, or (as it more frequently is claimed at least on tumblr) to solely try and establish that Steve Rogers is Straight-y McStraighterson b/c Peggy Carter.

Fourteen and a half hours across multiple plot lines and platforms. There’s the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D cameo. (Forgot about that one, didn’t you?)

Her appearance in Ant-Man.

Hours and hours and hours of plots and storylines that don’t deal with Steve Rogers at all, in any way. [Caveat: Some of S1 does masterfully deal with the loss of Captain American AND Steve Rogers--for both her and Howard Stark* (*also more than Cap’s boyfriend)]

Do you know who founds S.H.I.E.L.D.? Howard Stark and PEGGY CARTER. Are we gonna argue now that S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t foundational to the MCU? Are we gonna handwave Coulson and Fury, Maria Hill b/c “they just work for Cap’s girlfriend”?

Marvel’s Agent Carter spent literally AN ENTIRE SEASON schooling us on the fact that dismissing Peggy Carter, Steve Rogers’ Liaison (she’s his handler, he’s her asset) as ‘Cap’s Girlfriend’ was not only reductive but wrong-headed. Six hours of listening to bonehead boys-club agents at SSR belittling Peggy for being female, claiming her entire professional existence was courtesy Cap.

And yet Peggy is already in the military when she is assigned to Cap’s unit. She’s already giving orders, and working for Tommy Lee Jones—don’t think she wasn’t getting told she was probably sleeping with HIM--(and dealing with idiots who can’t yet dismiss her for being Cap’s girlfriend, so they’re glad to sneer at her for being a female in power).

Peggy Carter doesn’t work under Steve Rogers, she works for people above him. She’s the one who, as they say in the spy world, ‘brings him in’ by encouraging him to break-up with the USO and use what Dr. Erskine gave him for a greater good. She works alongside Howard Stark, possibly the brightest mind on Earth at the time.

And let’s not forget the fact that Steve and Peggy are not ACTUALLY dating. They’ve never been on a date. Once, she visited a bar where he was, and then left after a short period of time. Alone.

It is actually illegal in the Midwest to leave this dress out of any posts where it can feasibly be used.

They may have spent hours together in work-based situations, but insofar as we’re shown, they never even so much as brushed hands. Yeah, her picture’s in his compass. And they look at each other like they’re ready to make love despite the full room crowd around them, but recall: There’s kissing, and only Tommy Lee Jones there to witness it.

What’s that mean? Well, I doubt it means TLJ’s character was interested enough or indiscreet enough to get that event posted in the base newsletter. What it means is that even if she had not been, Peggy’s sex immediately (long before anything happened between her and Steve) caused people to assume she was Steve’s girlfriend. Her grief following his loss? Not allowed to just be grief for a colleague, a lost asset. Nope, had to be love (even though to those making that qualification of their relationship little evidence existed to reach that conclusion). Peggy had no chance to be seen as other.

And had Steve lived/not crashed—she never, ever would have been able to extricate herself in-story from people assuming and tagging her with that label, negating all her personal triumphs as “Cap’s girlfriend’s” un-earned accomplishments.

But you know what we’re shown instead? Steve on ice—able to save the world later, but Agent Peggy Carter saving the world NOW. She’s ground-zero for dealing with the superpowered. If we’re told Cap’s the First Avenger, then Peggy Carter is the First Avenger’s handler. She writes the textbook for dealing with superpowers, and the supernatural showing up on earth. She builds the agency designed to deal with items like the Tesseract and people like Cap. Gate-keeper of what becomes the MCU.

I just love Dum Dum. Did I need another reason to use this photo?

In fact, there’s only one MCU character with more screen time than Peggy Carter. It’s the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen. In his series, where he’s the main character, he clocks about 31 hours of time (roughly twice Peggy’s). And he’s in The Defenders ensemble as well. (I’ll generously award him two hours there, for a total of 33 hours in the MCU). But Matt Murdock stays in Hell’s Kitchen, and his adventures occur there. He’s not been allowed to run around in the broader mythology. He’s contained. Claustrophobic, even.

But Peggy Carter has been deliberately given vast MCU connections, and developed as a thread that runs through every earth-bound MCU journey (save Spider-Man thus far). In addition to her connection to Nick Fury, Black Widow’s Red Room training (via early Widow-prototype Dottie Underwood), SSR/S.H.I.E.L.D., the Howling Commandos, Howard Stark, and the original human Jarvis. She’s even dealt with Zero Matter, a similar entity to Thor’s Aether. She’s connected to Hank Pym, and personally knew Bucky Barnes in WWII. And almost certainly has an unexplored-in-canon connection to Tony Stark.

Arguably, Peggy Carter also wins Most Well-Developed character in the MCU. We’ve been shown Peggy has:

Parents who have appeared on-screen

Multiple named friends and acquaintances (many not even there to advance the plot!)

- Two significant frenemies (Dottie Underwood, Jack Thompson)

- Close confidantes with whom she shares multiple scenes

- A backstory/origin story given in her series that pre-dates her appearance in CA:TFA

- An ongoing narrative that laid the basis for the MCU

- A funeral attended by lots (a whole church-load) of people

- A broken-engagement fiance

Dated a man NOT Cap, following Cap’s ice dive

A husband

A brother

- Children

- Grandchildren

A niece

- A rich, whole, life outside her brief time with Cap

CONCLUSION: You know who dismisses Peggy Carter as Steve Rogers’ girlfriend? (And also suggests that she’s slept with Howard Stark, her former co-worker?) Loser SSR Agent Krzeminski.

Do you know what happens to him? He gets shot in the head. By a girl.

Who he probably just thought was some guy’s girlfriend.

#agent carter #marvel's agent carter #peggy carter #mcu #steve rogers #cap won't mind #is my marvel superhero #girlfriends #only a girlfriend #i grind my teeth in disgust

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mancomplanblog · 6 years

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For Gaikotsuger

Information on Angels, might edit later.

Amanda: Alright, so like different sources, different places people are talking about what the situation is.

Julia: For example, Maimonides in his Mishneh Torah, establishes that there are 10 ranks of angels. So meanwhile, in Christianity, the book of De Coelesti Hierarchia, which is On the Celestial Hierarchy, which is a beautiful title for a book.

Amanda: In Latin?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: Cool.

Julia: Was written in the fourth or fifth century, and it acts as one of the most influential works defining the angelic hierarchy for Christianity.

Amanda: Wow.

Julia: The angels are later organized into orders that are known as Angelic Choirs.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I always read Angelic Choir in the Bible as like some nice voices.

Julia: No. It's the literal hierarchal structure of the angels.

Amanda: That is wild.

Julia: Yeah. This whole episode is gonna be like that, where you're like, "That's not what I thought it was." And then you're wrong.

Amanda: Jules, you're such a good friend.

Julia: Using the New Testament, especially Ephesians and Collosians, Thomas Aquinus developed a schema that uses three spheres of angels.

Amanda: Thomas Aquinus, he's like, "How can I make sure motherfuckers 300 years from now are still quoting me every day?"

Julia: He wrote a lot of stuff down!

Amanda: He lived his whole life that way.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: It is ...

Julia: Bless him. Literally, bless him.

Amanda: I know, I'm making a lot of noises but his writing is incredible.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: And I cannot imagine having that much influence over so many people's lived experiences.

Julia: Yes, absolutely.

Amanda: Amazing.

Julia: So we're going to kind of talk about ... Specifically, what I'm going to talk about are the spheres, as defined by Tomas Aquinus.

Amanda: Alrighty.

Julia: So first thing, we're going to talk about the first sphere, and these are angels who are defined as, "Heavenly Servants to God." Specifically, one on one face time with God Himself.

Amanda: Yeah, like the hand-maiden, right? Or like the attendants, the butlers, the dressers?

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I've been watching a lot of The Crown season two. What up? They're right there.

Julia: How's it going? How's The Crown season two going?

Amanda: It's a lot darker.

Julia: Okay.

Amanda: World War Two happens.

Julia: I mean, I understand.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: At least they know what World War Two is now, because that was a thing in the first season.

Amanda: This is true.

Julia: Okay. First, on top of the sphere, are the Seraphim, which have references in Christian, Jewish and Islamic texts. Traditionally, they are the highest rank in the Christian hierarchy of angels, but they rank fifth of the 10 in the Jewish angelic hierarchy.

Amanda: Interesting.

Julia: Which I think is cool. I'm just like, "Oh, there's some mix-up here. I'm into it."

Amanda: Yeah, I wonder if it's like the different scholars ordering them on importance, or closest to God? Or is it the same sub-type of angel that is being differently ordered, or is it like the name being assigned to different groups?

Julia: In my mind, I'm thinking of it as like the standard in which the hierarchy is based off of -

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: - is different. So in Jewish angelic hierarchies, going to be holding different standards than the Christian angelic hierarchy.

Amanda: Yeah, like what makes a good servant?

Julia: Exactly.

Amanda: What is God, and when, and how, and where?

Julia: Yeah. So the Book of Isaiah describes a six-winged being that can fly - obviously, it's got wings - with two of the wings said to cover their faces, another two to cover their feet, and then the last two used to fly.

Amanda: Fascinating.

Julia: Their name literally translates to, "The Burning Ones".

Amanda: Oh man, are they like aflame?

Julia: In some imagery, they're portrayed as flying Asps that also have human characteristics.

Amanda: What is an Asp? I'm forgetting.

Julia: It's a snake.

Amanda: Okay.

Julia: So they're like snakes, but they have human faces.

Amanda: That's in Cleopatra, it's in Cleopatra, and I'm terrified.

Julia: Yep. You should be.

Amanda: Nope.

Julia: Modern Christian theology has developed the idea that Seraphim are beings of pure light that directly communicate with God.

Amanda: I mean, fire? It makes sense.

Julia: Absolutely. So the next that we're going to talk about are the Cherubim.

Amanda: Cherubs!

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: Yo! Pudgy babies.

Julia: No. Incorrect! So they are said to directly attend to God. They have four faces, one of a man, one of an ox, one of an eagle, and one of a lion, which would later become the symbols of the four evangelists.

Amanda: Whoa.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I didn't know any of that.

Julia: They have four wings that are covered with eyes, they have a lion's body and they have the feet of an ox.

Amanda: Okay, I'm pretty sure this isn't true.

Julia: It's 100% true. Don't doubt me.

Amanda: What?

Julia: So the Cherubim, in modern interpretations, are often conflated with the Putti, which are human baby or toddler-like beings that are depicted with wings. So the Putti come from the Renaissance, basically. They're the classic, modern interpretation of what an angel should look like, this innocent, sweet thing that has little angel wings.

Amanda: Not a freaking Griffin-eagle hybrid.

Julia: I love the Griffin-eagle hybrid, though. It has eyes on its wings, like hundreds of eyes!

Amanda: I was blocking that part out, Jules.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: Like a scary, scary butterfly. First you give me snakes with human faces, now you give me should-be-a-baby-actually-a-four-faced-monster?

Julia: This is why we did this episode.

Amanda: And like, listen, I don't want to come down too hard on it. It sounds freaking badass.

Julia: Yeah, it does.

Amanda: But that's just very surprising. Also what are the eyes on the wings for?

Julia: Seeing into your soul.

Amanda: Better to see with, my dear?

Julia: Yeah, basically. So, interestingly, the imagery for this angel is said to come from the Hittite Griffith.

Amanda: Hold on, hold on. Now I'm thinking about the wings are like tiled in the eyes, and for some reason my brain just went to like, "How dope would it be if Baba Yaga's house also had like a tiled roof made of eyes?"

Julia: It would be horrifying.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: It would definitely fit into her aesthetic.

Amanda: Thank you for validating my idea.

Julia: She has it on a mood board somewhere.

Amanda: It's in her Pinterest.

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: Please continue.

Julia: So the Hittite Griffin is actually a really interesting character, just in mythology in general, and it definitely pre-dates the idea of the Cherubim. It's said that it was the guardian of holy things, which really fits into the imagery for the Cherubim itself.

Amanda: Yeah. Guardian, fierce protector.

Julia: For sure.

Amanda: And also a watcher, speaking to the eyes.

Julia: Absolutely. So it was said that between the Cherub's heads, glowing coals moved between them, could be seen, and their fire went up and down and lightning burst from it.

Amanda: So like the inside of their head is coals?

Julia: No, like between the heads, so like the body.

Amanda: Oh no, it's all four heads at the same time? Oh, man. Oh, no.

Julia: Oh, yeah.

Amanda: I was picturing a cube-head situation, with like the faces rotating, which, arguably, is scarier.

Julia: That's pretty good, too.

Amanda: Yeah. And so I was picturing magma on the inside, faces kind of like glue-sticked to the outside, and when they turn you can see the coals.

Julia: That's amazing, but no.

Amanda: So all four heads, same time, human ... What are they?

Julia: Human, ox, eagle, lion. Yeah. Cherubim were also said to move like flashes of lightning. Which is really ...

Amanda: That makes me think of the Weeping Angels, and that's terrifying, as always.

Julia: According to Thomas Aquinus - cool, cool dude, love him -

Amanda: And like, listen, I love that you chose him to do this lens as well, because he was obviously such a student of history and theology, and so for him to kind of be like, "This is all the stuff that I think probably it is." He's read everything that there is, he's coming up with his own interpretation, and we get to kind of like live in that head-canon for a minute. I love it.

Julia: Yeah, so according to Thomas Aquinus, who is a real bro, Satan was a fallen Cherub.

Amanda: Huh. That's a pretty satanic image. We were raised, in Catholicism, to think of Satan.

Julia: Definitely.

Amanda: I mean, mostly we think of him as - at least I did - as like a humanoid, in the way that we think of God as a humanoid, but if we're thinking about hellfire and creatures and demons, you know? Look at a Cherub in this sort of body, and that's what you pictured.

Julia: It does kind of mess around with later interpretations, where people are like, "Oh, well Lucifer was the most beautiful of all the angels." But we're not talking about Lucifer, we're talking about Satan. Different person.

Amanda: For our listeners who certainly aren't me, who don't understand the difference, what is the difference?

Julia: So, interestingly, in the Bible, originally, Satan is a title, not a person.

Amanda: Oh. That makes sense.

Julia: Satan, in the literal translation, means, "The Advocate".

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: So he was someone who would put people through trials, in order to text their commitment to God.

Amanda: Wow. Like Lucifer-person, Satan-title, originally?

Julia: Not necessarily ... Lucifer, not necessarily in all contexts, was a Satan.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: Yeah. Sometimes he just rebelled, sometimes that was just a thing.

Amanda: Fascinating.

Julia: It depends on the source, and Lucifer is ... Supposedly, is probably an Etruscan God. He means, "The Light-bringer".

Amanda: Wow.

Julia: It was probably one of those situations where his name was ...

Amanda: Got adapted into, yeah.

Julia: ...was adapted into Christianity, because they were like, "Well, they can't worship him."

Amanda: Let's make him bad.

Julia: So now he's bad.

Amanda: Huh, I really gotta read Paradise Lost one of these days, huh?

Julia: Yeah. The last type of angel in the first sphere are known as either Thrones or Elders. They're first mentioned by Paul the Apostle in Colossians, and are said to be the living symbols of God's justice and authority.

Amanda: What do they look like?

Julia: So they're referred to as Thrones, because that's one of their symbols.

Amanda: Okay.

Julia: It's just a throne.

Amanda: I was gonna say, it's one of their forms. I was gonna be like, "Wow, very specific."

Julia: Well, they're also depicted as flaming wheels at times, even appearing as a wheel within a wheel, and the rims of those wheels are covered in hundreds of eyes.

Amanda: We keep coming back to the hundreds of eyes.

Julia: There's a lot of eyes.

Amanda: And I cannot emphasize enough, Thomas, how terrifying is this?

Julia: Goddammit, Thomas.

Amanda: Thomas, Thomas, my buddy.

Julia: My dude.

Amanda: My dude.

Julia: My real bro.

Amanda: My friend, my good, good friend. Please stop with the eyes. But also, this version of the Thrones - Julia is crying, laughing on the floor - Reminds me of sick rims.

Julia: Sweet rims, bro.

Amanda: Like Pimp My Ride, style.

Julia: Some real Fast and Furious bullshit, here.

Amanda: I mean, I think that's the conclusive proof we need that the Fast and Furious franchise is, at least, one tier of God's will on Earth.

Julia: Okay.

Amanda: Prove me wrong.

Julia: I can't.

Amanda: Mic drop.

Julia: With all of my background in history and religion, I can't.

Amanda: There's sick rims, there's [imitating Vin Diesel] family.

Julia: No!

Amanda: This is a perfect melding of me having an impression, and also me knowing what happened in a movie, and it just took Julia by surprise.

Julia: Oh, no. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Amanda: And to cap off that sentence, there is also an inexplicable jaunt in Tokyo, so ... Fast and Furious. That's me.

Julia: Did we go to Tokyo yet?

Amanda: No, but like we will.

Julia: Oh, okay. Cool. I mean, eventually, on this podcast again, yeah.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: Okay, so hundreds of eyes. In modern Christian theology, they appear as adoring, elderly men, who will listen to the will of God and present the prayers of men to God.

Amanda: Okay, alright.

Julia: They are also said to be the carriers of the throne of God, which is another reason that they have the name Throne.

Amanda: Like the physical carriers?

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: Alright. Alright. I see the wheel, you know? Makes sense.

Julia: So we're moving on to the second sphere.

Amanda: Alright.

Julia: And the second sphere are specifically known as, "The Heavenly Governors of Creation". They guide and rule spirits.

Amanda: I mean, that's a translation that makes sense.

Julia: Yeah, I believe so. So the first one are Dominions, or Lordships, and they are in charge of watching over the duties of the lower angels, and having very little interaction with actual human beings.

Amanda: They're managers?

Julia: That ... Literally, I wrote, "They are the middle-managers of the angels."

Amanda: Nice.

Julia: I love you. So it's extremely rare that angelic lords make themselves physically known to humans, they are said to look like beautiful humans with a pair of feathered wings, but are also distinguished from other groups of angels by the orbs of light that they wield, which are attached to the heads of their scepters, or the pommels of their swords.

Amanda: Sounds like a Shillelagh in Dungeons and Dragons.

Julia: That's correct.

Amanda: Love it.

Julia: The next group are called Virtues, or Strongholds, and they are angels in charge of making signs and miracles known to the mortal world.

Amanda: So the traditional, sort of like heralding of a Divine Pronouncement?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: Or like a Divine Interaction with the physical world?

Julia: Here is an actual description of the Virtues from the De Coelesti Hierarchia, which is kind of rambly but here we go. It's like all in Latin, so ...

Amanda: Classic Thomas.

Julia: This wasn't Thomas, but yeah.

Amanda: Classic Thomas.

Julia: The name of the Holy Virtues signifies a certain power and unshakeable virility, welling forth into all of their God-like energies. Not being weak and feeble for any reception of the Divine Illuminations granted to it, mounting upwards in fullness of power to an assimilation of God. Never falling away from the Divine Life through its own weakness, but ascending unwaveringly to the super-essential Virtue, which is the Source of Virtue.

Amanda: Wow. That probably was more poetic in the original.

Julia: Probably.

Amanda: But I do like that idea of whether you're talking about power or holiness or magic or whatever, being so powerful that like a puny, human body can't handle it. You know? Like we talk all the time about Ark, and a love of like physical and grounded magic.

Julia: Hell yeah.

Amanda: And in the Dresden Files, or other books where you get completely worn out after performing big magic, I think that makes total sense. And so, to have these angels sort of praised for their physical fortitude, because they are able to kind of go back and forth between those worlds and hold the fullness of God or whatever in their bodies, that's pretty dope.

Julia: That reminds me of the book that I'm reading right now, which is called Children of Blood and Bone. It is excellent, very, very good book. But in that book series, magic is almost like a muscle that you have to keep working and flex, and if you don't use it for long enough, you basically can't use your magic.

Amanda: Wow.

Julia: And in order to refine your magic, you have to use it more and more and more, and practice to make perfect. Which I like the idea of physical exertion the more it works better.

Amanda: Yeah. It's a good example of practice, right? That's a thing that we try to teach kids, but especially as an adult, where I think either I'm good at it or not, that kind of absolute thinking is very easy to do when you fail at a thing once. Like it's just hard for our brains to grasp the idea that we're gonna try and try and try, and fail and fail and fail, and that helps us succeed more, not to fail more. You know what I mean?

Julia: I know.

Amanda: So it's cool that that's kind of reinforced here.

Julia: I like that, that's a good interpretation. Thank you, friend.

Amanda: Thanks.

Julia: So the next and last group of the second sphere is the Powers, or Authorities, and they were meant to supervise the movements of the heavenly bodies in order to ensure that the Cosmos remain in order.

Amanda: I love it, the air-traffic controllers. I love it.

Julia: It's really, really dope. So they are also warrior angels, and oppose evil spirits, especially those that make use of the matter of the universe, and are often cast evil spirits to detention places of sorts.

Amanda: I love that. They're not just the, "Boring, office types that keep everything running on time." Which is like my job as an actual person, but also they are badass warriors.

Julia: Yeah, and that's usually how they're represented. So they're usually represented as soldiers wearing full armor and a helmet, and they're usually carrying either defensive or offensive weapons, such as shields, spears and chains.

Amanda: Amazing.

Julia: Powers are also said to be the keepers of history, and were completely loyal to God, whereas other spheres of angels could fall from grace, Ephesians says that no Power has ever fallen from Heaven.

Amanda: Incredible, yes. 10 out of 10, I am one of them, they are me.

Julia: Me. Yeah, same. I was gonna be like, "We should tag ourselves at the end." Like, "I pick Powers." So they also oversee the distribution of power among mankind, which I think is so cool!

Amanda: That is, especially if you think of them as like ... Picture like a nuclear power plant or something, where someone is sitting at like a big desk with lots of valves and things that they can adjust, and they're making sure that the Cosmos operate on schedule, you know? And that they are correctly distributing energy in the worlds, of course that will translate to power amongst humans as well, because human actors are like little mistakes waiting to happen, and little balls of chaos that you have to kind of keep contained. I think it's so logical that those things would go together.

Julia: Yeah. This kind of reminds me, and again, I'm gonna go on a little bit of a tangent of a really interesting character, actually one of my favorite minor characters in Our Fair City.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: Which, if you've heard our episode with Geoffrey Gardner, you know a little bit about Our Fair City, but post-apocalyptic, basically like a business ... A life insurance company takes over a city, and is running it in sort of this dystopian way, and one of the characters is known as The Switcher. So they're having power outages and stuff like that, and there's a problem, and he's this character that kind of takes over and uses his powers for good because he controls where the power goes. And he's like, "You want to take power away from the hospitals? No, we're not gonna do that, and I'm gonna make sure that people get fed in these times of need."

Julia: And it's like just a really interesting character, and that's kind of how I picture the Powers.

Amanda: Yeah, and if we want to get really big about it, and why not? Big wars are fought in small places, you know?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: And it's like municipal government, right? And local representation, and advocacy, and door-to-door voter engagement that actually wins elections and changes governments, and like changes the way that a country operates, and so it is super not a sexy thing to work in logistics, or to work in management, or to do these things that we think of as just kind of like taking care of themselves, but that's where true heroism and altruism and advocacy happen. Like yes, you have to have figure-heads, yes you have to have big, daring, heroic acts, but lots and lots more people can and do make a difference on the sort of smaller scale.

Julia: Yeah. I think that's a really, really good point, and I think that the Powers aren't the highest in the spectrum of the hierarchy here, but they play a really important role, and they're also the most badass, I think, on this list, but that's just me.

Amanda: I love it.

Julia: We're gonna get into the third sphere in just a second, you want to get a refill?

[Theme music]

Amanda: Let's do it. Julia, this week we are sponsored by Rx Bar, which several of our listeners tried last time, and said that they absolutely loved it, which I'm so stoked about, because I also love it.

Julia: Yes!

Amanda: Actually, today, going to Easter brunch, I was very hungry and I happened to have a coconut flavored Rx Bar in my backpack, which I ate, I didn't get any weird indigestion, I didn't get a bizarre, unsustainable sugar high, because Rx Bars are super transparent, and they are made of actual ingredients, egg-whites, dates, nuts, etc. Cacao, coconut, whatever the flavor is, they just print it right on the label, that's what's in it. No weird stuff, and they're delicious.

Julia: Yeah, I actually, every time I go to the gym, I like to work out with a little bit of something in my stomach, but not a lot of something in my stomach, otherwise I get all nauseous and stuff, you know what I mean? Rx Bar is the perfect pre and post workout snack for me, I just down those peanut butter flavored ones in a heartbeat, they're my favorite thing in the world.

Julia: And the nice part is it turns out real food is actually good for you, and also tastes good. Shockingly, you can actually ... When you bite into an Rx Bar, taste the cacao, taste the real fruit, taste the spices, and that's because they're not hiding behind all of these ridiculous, fake ingredients, they're real and up front.

Amanda: Yeah, just like us, there is no b.s., there's no added sugar, they are gluten-free and soy-free and dairy-free, which is really nice, because I am lactose-intolerant and there is milk and wey and stuff in pretty much everything. So whether you're into sweet or savory, or like chocolatey stuff, or fruity stuff, there are flavors for you. And Spirits listeners can get 25% off their first order at rxbar.com/spirits with the promo code, "Spirits" at checkout.

Julia: Yeah, get a peanut butter one on me, or get a coconut one on Amanda.

Amanda: Yeah, and tweet us and tell us what flavor is your favorite. Like the texture's great, the flavor's great, I'm honestly such a big fan of these things.

Julia: Yeah, they're awesome and we're so glad that they're sponsoring Spirits.

Amanda: Yeah, so thank you again, that's rxbar.com/spirits, with the promo code, "Spirits", for 25% off your first order. Now, let's get back to the show.

[Theme music]

Julia: So Amanda, we're going into the final sphere, and this is the third sphere. Those members of the third sphere act as heavenly guides, protectors, and messengers to human beings.

Amanda: Alright, so the sorts of angels we probably read about in the New Testament.

Julia: Exactly.

Amanda: Yeah.

Julia: So the first one is the Principalities, or Rulers, and they are angels said to guide and protect nations, groups of people or institutions, such as the church. A single Principality rules over abandoned angels, and is the one that gives them orders in order to have them fulfill the Divine Ministry. Do you know what I mean?

Amanda: Yes, like the person issuing what we're gonna be doing.

Julia: Yes, they're the divine administrators.

Amanda: Hey!

Julia: Which is adorable. So they are the middle-managers of angels.

Amanda: Okay.

Julia: They are shown wearing a crown and hold a scepter, and they also are said to carry out orders given to them by upper-sphere angels, and give blessings to the material world.

Amanda: That is very cool.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: You know, Jules, I really want to know where scepters came from, like where did this idea come from, power for people?

Julia: I have no idea.

Amanda: You know? Like between Moses, it has often like a stick as he's leading people through the desert, and like parting the ...

Julia: He has a staff, yeah, but that's like ... He's a poor man.

Amanda: And so I understand, from that perspective, that like a walking stick is useful, and that's probably where that comes from, or like a staff for fighting or herding cattle and stuff.

Julia: Yeah, but a scepter is just like ... It's very ceremonial.

Amanda: Elevated staff, like what is the origin?

Julia: I don't know.

Amanda: People who know more than us about this, please email us, spiritspodcast@gmail.

Julia: Jim probably knows.

Amanda: Jim, let us know.

Julia: So they are the educators and guardians of the Earth, and they inspire living things to create both in the arts and the sciences.

Amanda: Oh, man!

Julia: Yeah!

Amanda: Thanks. I like creating stuff.

Julia: I do like creating stuff, that's why we do this.

Amanda: Hey!

Julia: We have a good Principality looking over us. You just did a fist bump to your chest and then peaced at the sky.

Amanda: I did.

Julia: Just for our listeners' sake.

Amanda: I did, and now when I see football people doing that, players, in fact, I will ...

Julia: I love those football people.

Amanda: I will ... Maybe the coaches, maybe the Gatorade boys and girls, I don't know. But I'll picture them looking up at the sky and thinking of Principality.

Julia: Next are the Archangels.

Amanda: Oh, these guys I've heard of.

Julia: I was gonna say, they're probably the most well-known of the angels, but they're actually only slightly above the common angel.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: In the Bible, the term, "Archangel" only appears twice, in Theolosians and in Jude, and only one Archangel is given a name in the New Testament, and that is Michael.

Amanda: Yes.

Julia: Yes. You were pointing at me, were you going to interject, and say Michael?

Amanda: I was gonna say Gabriel.

Julia: Nope.

Amanda: But then I recovered.

Julia: So later Christian traditions say that Gabriel was also an Archangel, as was Rafael.

Amanda: Yes. One of the Ninja Turtles.

Julia: Yep, one of the Ninja Turtles.

Amanda: As is commonly known.

Julia: There were said to be ...

Amanda: I'm really sorry about the Gallagher. I really tried to listen at the time.

Julia: There were said to be seven Archangels all together, the others included Uriel, who was never mentioned in the western Christian Bible, but plays a really large role in Anglican and Russian orthodox churches.

Amanda: Huh.

Julia: These seven Archangels are said to be the guardian angels of nations and countries, and are concerned in the politics, military-matters, and commerce and trade.

Amanda: It makes a lot of sense that there would be a smaller group, or like round-table, of these Principalities. Of these Archangels, if they are influencing such huge events.

Julia: I agree, yeah, 100%. I should have probably gone into more, you know, Michael is known as the Angel of Death and stuff like that, and I wish I did but I didn't. Sorry. The next are just angels, just plain angels.

Amanda: Common angels.

Julia: So they are the lowest order of angels.

Amanda: No.

Julia: They are concerned with the affairs of living things, and are primarily just the messengers to humanity, appearing to people with messages from the heavens.

Amanda: But those are the angels that human beings talk about and pray for, you know?

Julia: Yes.

Amanda: And like wear necklaces of?

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: So I think there's an interesting thing to be said here, too, where if you're running a business, you can be in the board room all you want but the way that people form opinions about your business is the folks that they interact with every single day.

Julia: That's true.

Amanda: The cashiers and the bank-tellers and the gas station attendants, those are the people that represent to the average person the sum-total of your entire organization, it's not the CEO.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: It's like who you talk about every single day.

Julia: Right.

Amanda: I think that's a valuable lesson that more people at companies should think about. I don't know, like paying your workers fair wages and ...

Julia: Livable wage.

Amanda: Their benefits, and vacation, and maternity leave, and parental bonding leave.

Julia: No one cares that you flipped over your m's to make w's for women, McDonald's. Just saying, just saying.

Amanda: Capitalism's a lie.

Julia: Capitalism is a lie. Personal guardian angels are probably fairly well-known, at least in western culture, these are not any specific order from the plain angels, but rather are given a specific human to watch over their day-to-day affairs.

Amanda: So it's not like a special kind of angel, it's just like, "Hey angel, this is your person."

Julia: It's just regular angel, and then they're like, "Hey, you watch that guy." It is a common belief that they are assigned to every human being, whether or not they're religious in the Abrahamic sense or not, it is never specified whether or not they guard multiple humans during their existence or just one. Which, you'd have to assume that they're ... If their person dies, it's not just like, "Well, I'm done. I don't have to watch any human being ever again."

Amanda: I mean, population is only growing, so I assume they would be given a newborn babe, but eight billion angels is a lot of angels.

Julia: Yeah, that's a lot of angels.

Amanda: At the same time though, you really want to connect ... What if the angel had a really boring person? That would suck. What if a person had a really bad angel? That would also suck.

Julia: Well, can the angels be bad, though?

Amanda: I suppose you're right, it's the whole Christian ...

Julia: Because that's how, supposedly, we get demons. But I'm like, "Whatevs." It's fine.

Amanda: You better ask Dan Brown about that.

Julia: We should ask Dan Brown about that angels and demons specification?

Amanda: Boom.

Julia: I hate you.

Amanda: I love you.

Julia: In Zoroastrianism, each person has one guardian angel, which is known as a Fravashi, and they manifest God's energy and don't convey messages, specifically, but rather just the energy of Ahura Mazda, which is their God-like figure.

Amanda: That's pretty cool though, like you decide for yourself what you do with that energy? They are here to make sure that you are inspired and connected, sort of like plugged into the bigger source of the universe.

Julia: To the Matrix of the universe? I agree. So that's angels.

Amanda: Wow, angels are a lot more complex in the tradition we were raised in than I realized.

Julia: Yeah.

Amanda: I know, I pictured just kind of like in white robes, blonde, male figure, coming down to herald some kind of pronouncement. But I love this idea of angels having managers and meetings.

Julia: Or being wheels with hundreds of eyes?

Amanda: Again with the hundreds of eyes, I'd forgotten it temporarily.

Julia: It's what we're here for. Nope. I'm here to remind you about the hundreds of eyes.

Amanda: Read The Seventh Tower by Garth Nix, it's very important.

Julia: And remember, stay creepy.

Amanda: Stay cool.

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