#and the dynamic was inherently father and daughter. and not all the easy parts!!!!!!

[elizabethrobertajones]

Did Bobo really create the Wayward Sisters? If so, why weren't Jack and especially Cas included in that episode? That's my biggest issue with that pilot honestly, I mean, the fact that the show abandoned Claire and Cas' bond after season 10 and gave that storyline to Salmondean. Her bond with Cas is more interesting because of their connection to the Novaks. I also think that Claire and Jack would've made a more engaging dynamic and spin off together, I think they're strong characters & actors

Hi there!

Bobo isn’t the “creator” of Wayward so much as it can even have one, as it was a very organic idea, which even involved a healthy amount of fandom input. The original campaign in season 10 was for Wayward Daughters, and the idea picked up so much steam the altered title for, I guess, a mix of copyright and thematic relevance was the Sisters one. I’d say 10x08 was the real genesis of it as something that could be really solid. Once Kim and Briana were put together the chemistry and star power they could have had together was really meteoric as far as our small SPN world was concerned. Phil Sgriccia directed 9x13 and wrote 10x08 and was more of the parent of Wayward than any specific writer in that sense. Jody and Claire were pretty much common property of the show by that point. Claire was really introduced again in relation to plotlines and questions about Cas and less to do with them really going out of their way to re-launch her. I think they’d have been much cornier about it from the start and while YA protagonist diary writing her way through the end of Wayward Sisters was cute, it’s the sort of cutesy that really has to be earned. If she STARTED that way, like maybe me and 3 friends would be stanning her and everyone else would be revolted :P

(I am a YA fantasy novel author, but I do think everyone should make room in their hearts for this level of cheese)

In any case, Bobo just threw his hat into an already crowded ring with Alex, but obviously loving the characters and having his own personal wayward child to contribute did help elevate him to the prospective showrunner seat, but also all the other writers who’d written these characters except Dabb had left at that point. If Bobo was going to shepherd them through to their new show, he’d be the legacy writer, even though he was a new baby writer in the season Donna was introduced... Attrition aside, he did genuinely write them very well, loved their stories and was great with writing Jody when he could get her, so he would also have been a good choice even if all the others were left still... 

But anyway. Season 10′s subplot for Cas was about Claire and learning some stuff about himself along the way, but she was used very much for his personal development and for Dean as well, being a mini Dean herself in a season where he had lost a lot of his sense of self. It’s a total accident of scheduling but Angel Heart (10x20) being the last episode before 10x22 is a nice touch in that regard. And while Cas tried really hard with Claire and awoke his inner Dad side so that he’d be more prepared for fatherhood next time, it was pretty insurmountable between them to have anything more than a bittersweet relationship where the best he could do was make up with her and see her somewhere safe. The fact of him looking like her actual dead father is horrendous the more you think about it and while she managed to see him for who he was instead of a horrible monster, that’s more than enough trauma to inflict on an already traumatised girl for the sake of helping Cas’s manpain and tidying up the sticky question of Jimmy and Cas’s right to the vessel. 

Angel Heart very specifically ends with TFW mailing Claire to Jody because they know she’s already good with Alex in a genuine way and can handle these sort of issues and has done it before. And also because she can be a guardian who will not constantly remind Claire that her father is dead but something is walking around wearing a perfect reconstruction of his face. Carver era did a few things here and there with bodily autonomy and the problem of angel and demon vessels, but it was also really hit and miss. They’d get random waves of feeling guilty about it but then by necessity go back to stabbing angels in their still-living vessels an episode later. Claire was a way to address at the very least that whatever Cas was being put through was only a punishment on Cas and not on Jimmy as well, which is probably why we got such sappy Heaven scenes. We NEEDED to be shown he was in Heaven and largely okay with what was going on so that the show could justify using Cas at all as a character without breaking the code of ethics they tried to make their own characters adhere to. Aside from that it also gave Cas a side plot for when he wasn’t needed in the main plot, and any emotional connection to anything that wasn’t Sam and Dean.

Anyway 10x20 caused this huge fandom high which was followed by one of the lowest lows of the fandom immediately after, and both centred on female characters (in fact, now we know, 2 lesbians even! Though I’d wonder if, The Gay Agenda aside, Bobo spite-wrote that specifically because of the roots of Wayward) and I think that galvanised the whole movement of fans and hopefully some self-reflection in the show. They DID start making an effort in season 11, which shows some of the early signs of better inclusion but also backtracking or edging nervously away from the more intense Carver era stuff. Not just because Dean didn’t have the Mark any more but in general it was like someone had opened a window and let in some fresh air... Even before Carver bailed somewhere around the midseason to go do a different show and Dabb started to step up. 

All this to say that the Wayward stuff was always about the female characters and making up for the past sins of the show. It’s even a riff on the “wayward son” line which obviously centres around male protagonists and their journey. Claire stumbled into being a part of it in the lucky way of being in the right place and time, but the journey had already started even in the season 10 momentum with earlier work and it was that which suddenly made the prospect that Jody had two young women living with her now seem like a starter for the next generation of the show as it was a mirrored format to season 1 in a way, if you took Alex and Claire as the new Sam and Dean. It was exciting but people flipped out after Angel Heart because stuff had been bubbling since season 9 and earlier in season 10, so this was just pouring more candy into an already visibly full bowl of potential tasty gems. It made a possibility seem real that hadn’t before because we already had Kim bitterly complaining that the CW refused to hear the case for a Jody spin off because she was too old. The next best thing was a Jody spin off where she was the Gandalf to some CW age appropriate characters.

(the CW is and always has been garbage)

Anyway in season 13 Jack was introduced as a Claire 2.0 but as a male character with staying power for that reason, but he was filling the space she left for Cas. He couldn’t be a father to her and neither really wanted that set up anyway. But thematically it had created the possibility of Dadstiel and the space he had in his heart for that. Since the show was in its waning years they would be looking for endgame and handing Cas an easy win with a son he could unconditionally love who would love him back unconditionally absolutely filled that gap. It was a non SamnDean thing that Cas could have for himself outside of whatever happened with them. Not sure the memo came back that he was supposed to have mORE than that but oh well it’s not real if you don’t watch it :))) But yeah Jack was always going to be linked to Cas’s endgame, he wasn’t a free-floating character such as Jody who could go where she wanted and do as she pleased. He was main story relevant from start to finish and tied inexorably to another main character’s fate. Because the show wouldn’t do that with its female characters they could be bundled into spin offs but in practical terms Jack was both never what the Wayward as envisioned by fans or writers was about, nor would he have been free to go. 

Since it would have been about centering the stories of people overlooked by the main story, Claire a case in point that she had her life ruined in season 4 and it was a footnote until season ten, and then metaphorically more the concept of having queer and non-white characters in the mix of main characters, it would have represented a future of the story where the main show was unable to tread. Probably because of the CW. Also inherent biases in the writers. Bad cocktail. Jack is both too white and too male to fit the brief to ever leave SPN, and not only that but he is so as a precise mirror to the main white male characters, being passably any one of their sons if you squint, and meant to be instantly instinctively read as such... he was one of the safest bets of representing the show as the network wanted to imagine its target demographic.

So I really don’t think that Jack has any place being in a spin off of the show unless you want more of the same. They tried to give us something different and the CW didn’t like it because it wasn’t more of the same. Ironically a Jack spin off, with or without Claire, would have more chance of being greenlit and more chance of success. But the spin off they put their heart behind was Wayward Sisters as it was. And I think it was absolutely correct that never mind leaving Jack out of it after his work was done in the lead up episode to help set the table, but honestly they could have cut all the middle scenes of Sam and Dean wandering in the woods and gained precious seconds with the girls and still had a functioning story with those guys. It was like some cowardly missive was sent that the show couldn’t actually go more than 10 minutes without showing a flesh and blood Winchester or the whole thing would spontaneously sizzle out of syndication and the money tree would wither on the spot. And in the mean time, we could have been having Banter with the girls. Or Claire and Kaia holding hands some more. The good stuff :P 

[isayhellooxx]

Donor Conception

(a response to questions on anonymousus.org)

Hello, I know that you both did not ask for a reply so I preface this response with a clear statement that my opinion is not, nor will it ever be, a fact. Neither of you have any obligation to listen to my opinion nor do you even need to read this. I simply found both of your perspectives intriguing and relative to my own thoughts and opinions on anonymous donor conception. However I will use your statements to frame my own experience, and I hope that is okay with you both. I will start with my personal childhood as a donor conceived child.

I am currently a 21 year old college student; a girl trying establish her career path and discover her passions. At 14 years old, my fully related sister (who was 20 at the time) and I were told of the origins of our conception. Our parents married very young at age 18 and decided to have children. Unfortunately, after years of trying, they remained unsuccessful and discovered that my dad was/is infertile. They chose to use an anonymous donor for the conception, and did not tell their family members as their initial discussion of the topic gained negative feedback. When I discovered what my parents chose to do to have both my sister and I, I have never been more grateful. My dad selflessly raised 2 daughters of no biological relation to him, yet I could not ever picture a man more worthy of the title, "best father in the world." I know it sounds corny, but this man gave up his entire life for his girls. He coached soccer teams, he went to dance practices, he spent every moment of his life that he could with us, as did our amazing mother. I will never be more grateful for the childhood I had with two incredible parents who devoted their entire lives to raising us. Finding out that I wasn't biologically related to my father made me sad only because he is such an extraordinary person and I was disappointed that I did not inherit his genetics. However, knowing of  the selfless decision by my parents to conceive a child through sperm donation, made me realize how truly wanted and loved I was. My parents have given me everything in the world, every opportunity to succeed and I will forever be honored to be a part of such a loving family.

With that being said, a part of me always knew. I questioned whether I was adopted, whether I was a part of an affair, or something along those lines. I always buried those thoughts as I knew that my mother would never have an affair, and I looked like her spitting image so I was definitely her child, but something felt off. I pushed these thoughts far away, until the day my parents came to us with the origins of our conception. I actually sat there and guessed and said, "what, are we sperm donor babies?" and they replied with only a nod. This fact alone, I believe, proves that children are intuitive. Whether or not you tell them, a part of them knows. In my parents' day, sperm donation was not something that was openly discussed. Along with that and their parents' disapproval, their decision to remain anonymous was absolutely logical and comprehendible. I do not and will never fault them for their decision to choose an anonymous donor.

For future prospective parents, however, I encourage you to be open with your children and to choose a donor that is willing to have an open relationship. I may not have fully understood the dynamics as a child, but at 14 I was mature enough to understand that my father is and ALWAYS will be my father. He is an irreplaceable part of my life regardless of whether or not I am biologically related to him. I will always and forever be the child of the mother and father who raised me, and I love them more than I can ever describe in words.

Along with this deeply rooted connection and love for my parents, I also have a connection to my donor. It may not be a father-daughter connection (in fact I am certain that it is not). However there remains a biological connection to this person and it subconsciously eats away at me more than I would like to admit. I am mostly curious about my family history and my medical history. All 4 (so far) of my half siblings and my fully related sister from the same donor have struggled with some degree of mental health issues that my own parents don’t fully understand. Whether it’s depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, or others, we all have experienced an uncontrollable sadness in our hearts. By finding each other, I believe that we have learned more about ourselves and revealed pieces of our own puzzles that create a more whole picture as to who we truly are.

Yet without our donor, there will always be one large puzzle piece that is missing. I don’t speak for all of my siblings but for me personally, I feel a bit lost and afraid of how my life will turn out without being able to consult someone who truly knows my personality, for they’ve experienced it themselves. I have an innate desire to know the full truth to every situation (hence why I am attracted to law as a profession) and because of this, I am troubled constantly by the possibility that I will never know my full genetic makeup. I understand that adopted children struggle with this as well, and their situation may be worse than my own, but I don’t believe that a system that monetizes my conception should be allowed to fabricate and/or withhold information that I believe I have a right to. The Cryobank that my parents used has been accused of fraudulent documentation, falsified medical and educational background information on donors, and deception when it pertains to contacting donors while representing donor offspring. I hope and pray that the system is more regulated now, but currently I live in constant anxiety, fearing that the cryobank never actually contacted my donor, that his medical information was false, and that I may be at risk for diseases that were not listed on my paperwork.

Although I am fearful of the industry, I would like to address the author of the passage, “It’s not easy- I agree!” I understand your struggles to decide whether or not to use either an embryonic donor. As a sperm-donor conceived child, I too struggle with my emotions towards my own conception. However, I would like you to know that I, as a DC child, understand and appreciate the decision my parents made so so much. Family is 100% who loves you and looks after you. My parents are and always will be my family through and through, and I don’t believe that your child, should you choose to go through with donor conception, will ever resent you or feel less like your family if they aren’t biologically related to you. However, I personally feel a desire to know my own biological information. I want to know the origins of my conception and to understand my genetic and family history, for my own purposes. Some people may not care about these bits of information, but I think the withholding of them creates an even more passionate and fierce desire to know. In this case, I think it would be beneficial to have an open relationship with the couple whose embryo is donated. They will not be the mother and father of your children, but they will be able to provide your child with information that they have a right to should your child choose to seek it. Pain will not be caused in your child as long as he/she has the option to know their own genetic information. Otherwise, he/she may feel (as I do) that it is unfair to withhold information from the person who has the most inherent right to it, especially when their life was actually monetized.

To address the author of the passage, “I’M GOING TO DO IT,” I agree with you almost entirely. You are correct in that a DC child not knowing their genetic information is almost equivalent to when a couple breaks up and a mother moves away before the child is born. This does happen, however that child likely will still search for his birth father, and on top of that his conception wasn’t the result of an industry that profited from his conception. This makes it seem a bit unfair to the child that someone outside of even his/her own family is in possession of information about him/herself, yet he/she is forbidden access to it. And yes, I recognize that parents who don’t share information with their adopted children likely have it way worse, which is why I feel guilty even feeling any type of negativity towards donor conception. I want to let the donors in this situation know that you are truly doing a wonderful thing, you are providing a life to a family that desperately wants to raise a child. That is the most beautiful gift you could ever give someone and I am eternally grateful for the life that my donor provided me. I only encourage you to think of the child who had no say in the situation that craves his/her own genetic information. They know it’s out there, they know that someone has possession of it, yet they can’t access it with anonymous donors. I know that it is scary to think that a child might consider you a father when that is not the role that you signed up for, and I truly hope that no one ever puts you in that position. An open relationship, I believe, will help you establish a relationship that is not father-daughter/father-son, but one that is still a form of family. I hope that potential donors do not feel discouraged by my experience, but feel increasingly comfortable with an open donor relationship with offspring, as I think that it could be a very special bond and one that benefits all involved.

[script-a-world]

(1/3) Do you have any resources or advice for writing about a ruler who has multiple wives? I have an idea for a book where the MCs father married the daughters of the kings of three neighboring kingdoms with the idea that while the heir might not be of the blood of all of them if they are raised together with their half blood siblings and by their step-mothers they will view all four kingdoms as being home. In addition, the first three children besides the main heir will, regardless of gender

(2/3) will either be heir to their mother's respective kingdoms if there isn't already one or will be added to the line of succession and given advisory roles to their oldest sibling. Basically, regardless of which child sits on the main throne their will have strong ties to the neighboring kingdoms creating a coalition through blood as well as treaties. The wives will have equal power to the king but, I'm more than a bit concerned that no matter how I right them the very act of making the three(3/3) queens sister wives will make the whole thing extremely misogynistic or at the very least I will be accused of insulting middle eastern/Indian culture by either unintentionally using racist/bigoted tropes or just being plain ignorant about the subject. I have tried looking for information of the subject but, I've had a hard time finding information that isn't written with a western bias or isn't flat out porn so any help you guys can give me would be much appreciated.

Werew

I’m sorry it took so long you get to your question, nonnie! As it’s a delicate subject, I wanted to attempt to do it justice, and it took a little longer than most!

Disclaimer: I am not polyamorous, Have only some background knowledge about this, and I am in no way an authority. Nonetheless, here are some thoughts that I have about this situation. Though the arrangement sounds like a great idea to promote peace and prosperity between the kingdoms, it also, at face value, dings all my 'implausible' alarms. In order for this situation to have arisen peacefully, it seems like the kingdoms will need to be such close friends/neighbors/allies that they are all chill with this arrangement and its ability to bring them closer together politically... and even the possibility that this single, highly powerful family that has been formed will one day just straight up decide to amalgamate the kingdoms. Most nations are separate from their neighbors because there are inherent cultural, ideological, etc differences between them, and even if they like their neighbors, most sovereign nations are not going to be chill with the possibility of one day being dissolved into another nation. I'm not saying that the situation is impossible, but I do think that you need to answer the following questions in order to make it seem plausible:What event or events have made these nations so friendly? Were they once part of a singular entity, and if so, do they still share most of the same culture? If they're culturally close enough to potentially tolerate a merger, why aren't they already one nation? If they were ever one, why did they split? Is there an outside force for them to unite against that makes their differences seem minor? Do they still have quibbles in spite of their friendly status?Or, if the above questions don't seem like the situation that you want:What events lead to the king with the three wives being in his position of greater power? Were the other kingdoms forced to cooperate with this arrangement? Are there forces threatening to tear it apart, or forces threatening them all if they don't somehow force themselves to work together? What are the opinions about this among the other three nations' courts, and how do they differ from one another?Basically, what I'm getting at is this: I don't see this marital situation as being entirely impossible, but it doesn't sound to me like something that a bunch of kingdoms are just going to arbitrarily agree to unless there are some major forces at play that make this alliance more appealing than the alternatives. Though simply marrying off some daughters to the same guy won't immediately grant him a significant amount of power, because of the potential for his children to inherit other thrones, there's a chance down the road that one or more of these kingdoms could essentially forfeit their sovereignty by agreeing to this. Generally, different nations have their own interests to look after, and even if none of those interests are cruel, or corrupt, or overly greedy, they are still going to conflict in some ways just because each kingdom's situation (resources, population, requirements, etc) is going to be different. It is normally in a nation's interest to keep sovereignty so that nothing in their borders can be controlled by an outside force and they cannot be forced into a disadvantageous situation.For this reason, if I were to read this book, I would be disappointed if there wasn't any tension created by this marital situation, or by the reasons for it in the first place.Now, on to the more personal situation of the royal family: again, I don't think it's impossible for this to be a happy, advantageous marriage for all of them, I just think that it's implausible and that, like with the political situation, you're going to have to do a little work in order to make it believable.

This is definitely a political marriage, and it’s up to you whether you want it to remain strictly political or include some degree of romance between the king and the wives.

Having multiple people involved in a romantic relationship, in a political marriage, or in a marriage that is some of both is going to require a lot of careful thought, and there are going to be a lot of dynamics at play--and this complexity will only increase as the number of children increases. First of all, it seems unlikely that the king and all of his wives consider this to be the best possible situation for them personally and romantically. Maybe one or more of them is happiest in a polya relationship, but maybe one or more of them would 100% prefer a monogamous relationship. Maybe they don't all love each other romantically, but cooperate in a friendly manner for the sake of the children and their various kingdoms.

Also, think about how they solve conflicts between themselves, whether personal or political. Having a ruling duo can result in the rulers being on opposite sides of a political issue, or even just at odds because of a fight they’ve had recently. The opportunities for conflict multiply when there are four people involved.

What I'm getting at is something like this: if I read this book and all three wives saw each other as friends/sisters, each loved the king, he loved them all back, and they all lived happy, carefree lives... I would probably throw the book across the room. I think that it is unlikely that all of the wives will be in this for the romance, definitely not above all. Maybe they all get along, all live pretty happily, and all see each other as family... but keep in mind that their different personalities (reinforced by different cultural backgrounds) will mean that between any two members of this marriage, there will be a completely unique dynamic. I would be much happier if, instead of the above example, any number of these situations was the case:

The king had a favorite or at least a certain amount of preference between his wives.

Two or more of the wives had romantic and/or sexual attachments to each other

At least one dynamic between them is purely political; maybe one wife has no romantic feelings for the husband but agreed to the marriage for other reasons

One or more of these people are unhappy about some aspect of their lives pertaining to the marriage.

This is not to say that I don't think that happiness is possible among these four people; I just don't think that it will be easy and natural, I don’t think they will all have the same views about their relationship, and I don't think it's likely that they were all 100% down for this marriage before it happened. Because of the political nature of this marriage, one or more of them might not have had a choice. One or more of them might have had a choice, but their decision was based entirely on political factors or some other logical reason rather than an emotional one.Keep in mind that different people will want different things in life. One wife might be uninterested in being in power, but is happy when she and her children are well taken care of. One wife might be interested in nothing other than running the country, and her main reason for having children is to further her own position. One might be in love with the king. One might be in love with one of the other wives. One might be aromantic or asexual or both, and is happy in a loveless marriage because it provides other things in life. Any of the things I just listed could also apply to the king instead.

As for whether this is inherently misogynistic... my honest answer would have to be “I’m not sure.” With your situation as it stands, there is no getting around the fact that the king holds more power than his wives, but I think that with some context, you can reduce the implications of this. If you mention a historical example of a queen having power and having multiple spouses/consorts (male or female) to show that this situation is not purely patriarchal, that might have the effect that you’re wanting. I would suggest changing one or more of the wives into a husband instead--but if that person is cis, that would remove their ability to have biological children and might get in the way of the point of the marriage in the first place. Having a trans man as one of the king’s spouses might have the effect you’re looking for, but I am honestly not sure whether having a trans character in that situation would be invalidating of that person’s identity; I suspect it would depend heavily on how you present it.

I highly recommend going to @scriptlgbt with your question and further questions you may have about representation; even if you choose not to make any of the possible changes that I have listed, your original situation at least has things in common with polyamorous relationships, which they are able to discuss with a lot more knowledge than I am.

Also, keep in mind that there’s nothing wrong with having misogynistic elements and situations in your story, as long as you address them as such. Having a perfect situation can make your story less interesting than some good conflict and tension over inherent issues present in the system. There is a difference between having the characters hold certain beliefs, and condoning them as the author. Depending on what POV you write from and your style, it can be fairly easy to make it clear that the characters’ views are not correct.

@scripttorture had some more background knowledge on this subject than I did, and had the following suggestions: “I think that jumping just to modern polya relationships might not........cover it exactly. I know that multiple partners was a big thing in Western Africa, China and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire would probably be easiest to find stuff on and the West African stuff I know most about is errrrrrrrr complicated in that the King could have several thousand 'wives' most of whom were basically just the female branch of the army. Reading through the question in its entirety it actually screams 'Ghana' to me, which had both polygamy and matrilineal inheritance. I can't think of a book title off the top of my head but Yaa Asantewaa the Queen Mother who led the Ashanti army against the British might be a good person to look up.”

I'm sorry for the length of this reply and the rambliness of it, but I hope that my reasoning makes sense and helps you to write your story a little better!

[ghoultyrant]

Azula: Sympathetic Monster?...

(Cross-posted to Vigaroe)

I was really jarred by how the end portion of Avatar: The Last Airbender handled Azula.

For most of the series, Azula's characterization was very consistent: she was someone whose relationship to socioemotional considerations was that those are a weakness other people have. Azula and Zuko shared parents, but their respective relationships illustrated this dynamic through contrast:

For Zuko, his mother was a warm and loving parent, and when she disappeared this was a bit of trauma that seems to have permanently changed how he interacted with the world. His father was someone he respected and wanted to impress, and even after he was permanently scarred by the man he still seemed to desire to gain Ozai's respect. These relationships mattered to him on a deep and inescapable level, and even his relationship to Azula built on this idea: though virtually every interaction we see between the two is one where Azula makes Zuko miserable, when she first showed up in the show and acted like a caring sibling, he wanted such a scenario to be real desperately enough that instead of being suspicious on the basis of her past behavior he actually bought this inexplicable change completely up until an officer made the mistake of referring to Zuko and Iroh as prisoners.

Zuko can't stop craving positive familial relationships even when there's a persistent pattern of open and deliberate abuse.

Azula, meanwhile, is abhorrent to her mother and doesn't seem terribly bothered by this idea. Her father's unpleasant treatment of her brother is something to smile about, or even help arrange to happen. Zuko's suffering is a game, not something to be bothered by, because she doesn't care about him. She doesn't seem to care about any of them, or indeed about anyone at all except perhaps herself -and that's more assumed than actually illustrated.

This extends much further than just their immediate familial relationships. Azula's 'friends' are minions she coerces/terrorizes into working for her. Zuko starts the series with no peer-type friends that we ever see unless you count the edge case of Mai, but with a sister who treats emotions and social connections as a weakness to be picked on it would be pretty amazing if he did have any friends.

This is a very consistent point of contrast between the two characters, one that tells us a lot about Azula's character, and it's a character that's pretty difficult for most people to sympathize with. She's the kind of character that often gets labeled a psychopath or sociopath, and which is often treated as unambiguously an evil so dark that the audience is not intended to feel even slightly bad if justice comes in the form of a gruesome death or the like.

... and then the end of the series tries to tell us Azula wants the love of her parents. That she tormented Zuko because their mother always loved him and not her, and she couldn't understand why. That she did everything she did because she desperately wanted her father's approval, so much so that when he leaves her behind to go be Phoenix King this is pretty much the last straw for her sanity. That she actually did care about her friends, and tormented and terrorized them because... she thought making them fear her would do a better job of ensuring loyalty than making them love her?...

The whole thing is bizarre. In the first place, it's irreconcilable with literally everything about her character prior to this interpretation being invented. In the second place, the story is actively undermining it as it's introducing the concept: we get a flashback showing that Azula was a horrible little monster all the way into early childhood, and also get flashbacks implying that Ozai was actually a pretty okay father prior to his wife being taken away from him -and these flashbacks are happening after the series has started trying to sell us on the idea that Azula wasn't born evil. The first flashback I'm referring to directly undermines this idea by depicting Azula being a monster for no clear motive in early childhood: the second undermines it indirectly, by making it so you can't explain L'il Azula's awful behavior as being a product of her desire to chase her father's approval, since it goes back to before he was modeling/encouraging awful behavior.

More than the actual plothole/narrative plausibility angle, though, what bothers me most is... a thing that needs a bit more grounding.

So let's get to that.

One of the major background elements of Avatar is being humanizing and sympathetic. Our first 'antagonist' is Zuko, and though he's on the 'bad guy' side the show quickly lets us know what is motivating Zuko and makes it clear he's a figure deserving of sympathy and potentially even pity. He's not simply the enemy who we must defeat/foil/evade/etc, but a person who has good and reasonable reasons for his own actions, and it's just unfortunate they place him at odds with the protagonists.

Zuko is the strongest example of this, but especially in the first season it's fairly typical for entities to start out framed in a manner that suggests straightforward 'bad guy-ness' and then the story reveals that it's not as straightforward as that, or is entirely untrue. A rampaging spirit monster assaulting innocent villagers for no obvious reason turns out to be hurting and angry because of real metaphysical harm done to them, and once they are made to understand that things will get better and that the people they've kidnapped weren't behind it the rampage stops and the kidnapped people are returned. An insane and hostile king turns out to be an old friend playing tricks. Etc.

Unfortunately, the writers seem to have struggled to hold to this consistently. This humanizing, sympathetic approach to people is applied to a fair amount of entities, but... not to everyone, and even the people it gets applied to it gets caveats. With the semi-exception of Zuko's sympathetic backstory not showing up until the episode after the two pilot episodes, generally a hostile character is either revealed to be sympathetic before the episode they were introduced in ends, or the story never tries to humanize them. Zhao is a straightforward gloryhound villain whose karmic death is treated as wholly deserved, and no attempt is ever made to follow up on any possible tragedy in his death. We never meet any of his loved ones, let alone see them being heartbroken by his death. We never see him have any friends, or at least not any friends who aren't themselves treated as fairly one-dimensionally villainous. The one-off Fire Nation officers running prisons in the Earth Kingdom and the like are generally one-dimensional villains we're pretty much supposed to view as deserving a righteous punching. When we meet the Dai Li and their master, the whole thing is an Orwellian nightmare that's never suggested to have a sympathetic reason for existing, and which deliberately keeps its own king out of the loop on important matters because... it's a sinister Orwellian organization, that's just what you do if you're an evil power behind the throne.

Azula and, to a lesser extent, Ozai, end up suffering because the writers seem to have spent most of the story running on Villain Tropes Logic, and only later on remembered that this is supposed to be a narrative in which everyone is a person deserving of humane and sympathetic treatment. Ozai's handling is plausible enough, but this is more due to the fact that while Ozai's influence has been made apparent all the way back to the third episode of the series, Ozai himself has been a largely undefined shadow figure, motives and goals inscrutable enough you could drape just about anything over what we see and end up with something plausible.

Azula doesn't benefit from this murkiness. She's had a strong and consistent character that has been developed consistently and clearly on-screen over a notable number of episodes, and attempting to rework her into being a Terrible But Sympathetic Person is like building a house in a swamp and then when you realize you're not happy living in a swamp you... change the wallpaper.

This is obviously bad practice in the first place, but there's also a subtle dehumanizing element to this attempt to humanize Azula, and that is the thing I'm uncomfortable with. In effect, the story's handling tells us that the Azula we knew is not someone who it's okay to view with sympathy, or treat humanely or with empathy. It has to invent a new version of Azula who, instead of being essentially exempt from the usual socioemotional experience, is actually deeply tied into it and just being awful as part of that.

This is frustrating, because the Azula we knew could be treated in a humane and empathic manner. Just because Azula doesn't really value these kinds of connections and experiences doesn't mean she's inherently destined to be a monster where the only acceptable response is to put her out of everyone else's misery. A different environment could have shaped Azula differently -it's likely that she'd always have had a streak of pragmatism or ruthlessness to her, given what we see, but it's easy to imagine how Ursa could have made more of an attempt to understand why her daughter was eg torturing small animals for fun and then adjusted how she handled Azula's upbringing. The Azula we got has a backstory that paints her as almost feral, with a father who's barely present, a mother that doesn't really want to have anything to do with her, and no evidence of any replacement parental figures to shape Azula into thinking about the world differently.

If you take a girl who isn't all that interested in social connections in the first place, give her tremendous latitude and power simply because of who her parents are, and then never allow her to experience anything like a partnership to see the benefits it brings and understand what is necessary to reap those benefits, is it really a surprise when she ends up viewing the world through a lens that makes human relationships a weakness? She got all the power she could want without ever having to befriend anyone, and she got to see her father become a broken man when her mother was taken away, not to mention see how wimpy Zuko was as a child coddled by their mother.

This is easy to use as a base to keep Azula's awful canon behavior while framing her as a human being we should try to empathize and understand. Restructuring her motives into being pretty much the exact opposite of her entire character up to this point is unnecessary, a bit disheartening, and while the show could potentially have tried to make some 'No So Different' point about Azula and Zuko it... didn't. There's kind of an interesting point that the show is consistent about having them both be Sympathetic Evil when it's framing them as seeking the approval of their father, but it gets lost in just dismissing Azula as crazy where Zuko's behavior was treated as completely sane when he was doing pretty much literally the exact same thing.

It's a frustrating finish to one of the series' strongest characters.

[nanlanmoarchived]

On Jessica’s relationship with her father figures:

So last night’s bit was about Jessica and her canon romantic relationships and today we’re digging in on Jess and her relationships with her respective fathers.  Also, this is my invitation to anyone who’d like to write Bill to come and join me to explore this dynamic. 

Jordan: Starting with the heaviest of the relationships, it’s her biological father! In canon we don’t get much of a look into Jordan Hamby but there’s a few telling symptoms of just how much of a piece of trash this dude is. Starting with Jessica, the most subtle of tells is the dress she’s wearing when she’s turned. That dress is obviously handmade and the shoes are non-descript Mary Janes. Comparing this to the house that Sookie takes Jessica to, they’re clearly not hurting for money. Jordan seems to be the type to withhold things from his family, even if there’s really no reason to, creating a dependency on him even though, I personally headcanon that it’s the dependency that he rages against and inevitably abuses his daughters for. The second is the obvious upset he flies into when Jessica arrives back home. He’s been on the news teary-eyed and worried that his daughter is gone, but he jumps to physically assaulting her and emotionally blaming her for their emotional upset (primarily Ellen, her mother’s). They’re adults. They are responsible for their emotions. But Jordan makes it Jessica’s responsibility without even asking what’s happened to her, why she was gone, just instantly jumps to: you are a problem and deserve to be punished for it. Which leads me to the third and most blatant problem in their relationship: Jessica goes for her father’s belt to kill him with. This is a two fold thing; Firstly, he obviously uses the belt as a weapon and secondly, he does this frequently enough that her instinct isn’t to disarm him (which she could’ve done easily) and leave, it’s to remove him as a problem all together. Between all of this and Eden’s deflection of Sookie’s compliment, clearly this man spent 17 years beating and breaking down the women in his life. Through explosive physical abuse to under the rug psychological abuse, the girl’s learned to tip toe around him to avoid being hurt. This translates into Jessica’s vampire life easily. As her own person she avoids conflicts like the plague until it cannot be avoided in which case, much like her father, she explodes (see her bazooka-ing the witches in season 4). She learned that her anger is a weapon, that if she feels anything close to it (anxiety, upset, etc.) she needs to violently force her way past/through whatever it is she’s experiencing. This hot-headedness isn’t just inherent, it’s learned, and she hates it about herself, which leads to a very strong dichotomy between who she is everyday versus who she ends up being when she’s upset. In her everyday self she’s sweet, gentle, seeks to make herself as small of a threat (or target) as possible, but when upset she’s large, aggressive, and often times chooses to hurt the other person first before they can hurt her. Most times she can avoid the conflict and deflect it, but when she can’t, watch out because she will hurt you before you can hurt her. 

Bill: Jessica’s relationship with Bill was, obviously, tumultuous to begin with. Bill’s obsessive behavior with Sookie, his rejection of making another vampire (and vampirism as a whole), and his emotional unavailability while Jessica was just ecstatic to be away from her home, quickly followed by fear and instability and a need for emotional connection, it made for an unlikely compatibility. Their rocky beginnings made for a lack of trust on Jessica’s part (especially after he attempted to release her the first time) but over time it became easy, both of them filling a role the other hadn’t realized they’d needed: For Bill, a daughter he could raise up and for Jess, a father who would let her mess up and not be violent or angry with her for it. Admittedly, it took Sookie’s disappearance for the two of them to truly come together, because with Sookie around, Bill really didn’t understand how to share his attention and it’s once Sookie comes back that we see their relationship start to falter some. With Sookie’s love on the horizon as a possibility we see Bill’s obsessive nature come back full force and it’s that obsessive nature that ends up spoiling the relationship between Maker and Progeny. The biggest issue often being that Bill is so focused on achievement that he often overlooks what that means for Jessica. With the witches Bill is wiling to put his life on the line to save Sookie and the others, with Lilith he is so determined to become the person that she chooses that he not only destroys the whole of True Blood (immediately putting Jessica in danger) but ultimately becomes a carbon copy of Jessica’s human father, abusing her for not falling into line with what he believes or what he wants her to believe. He then chose (after all they’ve been through together) to die, to (in her mind) give Sookie the life he felt she deserved, setting aside the fact that she needed him and (canonically) handing her off to someone who hardly knew her instead of standing by what they’d grown together. It’s this choice (compounded with other experiences) that makes it hard for her to truly feel comfortable in relationships. She fears that no matter how good or strong or smart she is, that in the end someone else’s needs will have to come before her own and that terrifies her. She doesn’t know how to give herself fully to someone meanwhile she absolutely craves the closeness that she and Bill had for a moment. She’s constantly looking to fill that void because he was the first to ever step into any sort of parental position and care for her. Not only is she looking to fill the physical void (the emptiness of where her bond with Bill used to be) but the emotional sense as well. His betrayal, though, stops her from turning anyone for quite some time.

[writingwithadinosaur]

“Intervention” - Part 4

“Intervention” - Requested Oneshot 

My Masterlist - Here

Tag List - Here

( Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 )

 Father!Tony Stark x Reader

Word Count: 2,900-ish

Key: Y/N = Your Name, H/C = Your Hair Color, E/C = Your Eye Color

Warnings: Self Harm, Anxiety, Self Hatred, Intense Drinking, Mental Issues, Blood. If I missed any, please let me know.

Summary:

Author’s Note: This is technically the last part, but there is an epilogue cause I wanted to end on a really happy note.

If you would like to be tagged in any of my future pieces (All Works, Specific Fandoms, or Specific Multi-Parts), please let me know! And as always, feedback is greatly appreciated!

I hope you all are okay. If you ever need a friendly conversation or need someone, please talk to me. If you can’t confide in me, please reach out to someone. There are people to help you through any situation. You are not alone. You are loved.

<3

- DreaSaurusREX

One by one, everyone read their notes. Each one was personal and talked about how much they cared about you and how your self harm and drinking hurt them. You were already in tears and then it got to Steve, Bruce, Natasha, and Tony.

Usually when Steve talked in front of everyone, he stood and took a leader-esque position. But tonight, he stayed seated. He was trying his best to be like how he usually is, but you could see that this wasn’t an easy speech for him.

“(Y/N). Like many of us have said, you are family. You are a part of our team. We care about you as if you were our own blood. 

I know your strength and potential. When you train with Natasha and I, you are strong, fearless, and you go until you got no more fight left in you. Which is a good thing and a bad one. It’s made us think about you joining the time on more than one occasion. You’re a fighter. 

So hearing and seeing how bad things have gotten for you behind closed doors, hurts. When Tony was carrying you out of your room last night, I was walking besides him to try and see what was going on. All I saw was the washcloth that was slowly turning more and more red, and the look on his face. I don’t know if I have ever seen him look that pained and scared before.

I can’t pretend to know what is going on in your head, but I know that I, along with everyone here will try our hardest to help you get through this. You have the strength and ability to fight. You just need to let us in and let us help you. I love you too much to see you fall further.”

When he finished reading his note, he folded it back up, looked at you, and then had to look down to wipe a tear away. That’s what hit you with him. Steve Rogers, Captain America, your older brother figure, was crying because of you.

Bruce was next. With the two of you being a bit closer than some of the others, you knew that this was going to hit the both of you very hard. He looked at you, then his piece of paper, took a deep breath, then began.

“I’m going to try to keep this short, but it’ll probably run long because I love you and have a lot to say. Family isn’t dictated by bloodlines and DNA here. While you are genetically tony’s daughter, you are more. You are a friend, a daughter, a sister, a niece, and most importantly, you are you.

When you came to the tower, I couldn’t believe you were a Stark. You two are nothing alike. But that isn’t a bad thing. If you were a copy of Tony, this tower would be chaotic. Your differences help make this group, this family, more dynamic. You have helped out and made this family better than it’s ever been. Whether it be cooking for all of us, helping in the lab, helping with documents, or even just watching and giving support when we need it. You have been there, helping and caring for each one of us.

But then you don’t do the same for yourself.

When Friday woke me up last night and told me to get to the lab for a medical emergency. I was startled, but this isn’t the first time that this has happened, so I wasn’t scared. But then I saw Tony carrying you in with your arm bleeding and a washcloth on your thigh that was originally white, and I froze. I know what those marks meant. I knew they were self inflicted. I know because I went through that. But not to the extent that I saw last night.”

Bruce had to pause to take another breath or two and wipe a tear away. You wanted to go over there and hug him. He never got this emotional. He apologized and then continued.

“Seeing you bleeding as bad as you were, seeing how much you drank, seeing how scared and heartbroken Tony was… It was awful.

I don’t want to guilt you. I don’t want to make you feel bad. I know you are already making yourself think that way, even though you shouldn’t. I don’t know what is going on in your head, but I do know that Carolina can help you. And you have a large support system behind you. Please take this help. Please. You deserve to be happy.”

Bruce wiped another tear that had escaped and then looked at you with a loving but sad smile. You had just let the tears come as they pleased tonight. To see Bruce this emotional because he wanted you to get help broke your heart. You honestly didn’t think you were this bad.

“Natasha, would you like to go next?” Carolina asked. You looked at the redhead sitting next to you. She took her hand off your back and pulled out her letter.

“I knew this would be a bit overwhelming, and you know I like to be concise and get to the point. So here we go.

I could talk about how much of a sister you are to Wanda and I. I could recall stories of us and the team. I could even talk about how much I love training with you and Steve, seeing your potential and whatnot.

But that wouldn’t be beneficial in my opinion. What we are here to talk about is you and the help we think you need. I know you are strong. I know you are caring. I know you. But I don’t know what is going on in your mind to drive yourself to do this type of damage to yourself and steal drinks. I know things can get really shitty, but there are ways to get through those times that don’t include isolation, self harm, or drinking.

I agree with everyone that you should give Carolina and the help center in California a try. I know it’s going to suck being far. I know that it’s going to be a rough road, but you will come out happier, healthier, and ready to take on the world. I cannot wait for that day to come so I can see my little sister be the wonderful woman I know she can be.

I love you, (Y/N/N). I want you to love yourself as much as we all love you.”

Natasha didn’t cry. You had never seen her cry. No one had. But when she put her letter away and looked at you, you saw a tear fall down her cheek before she put an arm around you. Everyone’s letters had struck chords in you.

“Thank you, Natasha. Now, Tony is the last one to speak and then I will let (Y/N) say anything she wants to before taking her into the other room with Tony and talking about specifics. Unless anyone has any objections.” Carolina took a moment to look around the room and see the various no’s from everyone before continuing. “Alrighty then, whenever you’re ready Mr.Stark.”

Tony took your hand in his and gave you a kiss on the cheek before looking at his phone for his note. (Of course he wrote it on his phone.) He took a shaky breath in, already emotional for being in this situation.

“From the moment I found out you were my daughter, I knew I would do my best to try to clean up my act and help you live a life that you were safe in and happy with. I’m sorry I didn’t see this sooner or help you enough.”

You squeezed his hand and cried a bit more. He squeezed back and took another breath in.

“I love you, but I need to read this and if I look at you right now, I’m not going to be able to make it through this.

I have seen you getting more and more tired and just out of it lately, but I didn’t ask you if you were okay or see if there was anything wrong. I assumed it was sleep problems and went about my day. I went to check on you last night to see if you were sleeping or if you were having trouble sleeping. And we know what happened then.

I was scared shitless. I was trying to be strong and figure out the best way to help you in the moment. Even then, I knew it wasn’t enough. I knew that I alone wouldn’t be able to help you. Bruce was actually the one that brought up the idea of getting professional help. So that’s what I’ve been doing since last night. I found Carolina and the center in California and flew her out here so she could help.

She is the one that told me how not only is the drinking an addiction to you now, but the self harming is also an addiction. I know I have dealt with the alcohol problem in the past, so I know you can get help for that. But I had no idea what to do about the self harming and whatever is going through your head. So Carolina and her facility are here.

I know you are scared and overwhelmed. I know you probably feel like I am just shipping you off so I don’t have to deal with it. But that isn’t true. I know I can’t do as much as Carolina can. I know that this place will be able to get you back. And you won’t be alone. I will be there for the first couple of weeks. Then the rest of the team and I will be flying out there to make sure you know that we aren’t abandoning you.

We will never abandon you. You’re not only my blood, but you are one of the many misfits that make up this team. You’re one of the reasons we are all functioning properly. You just don’t see how important and loved you are.

I know that this all seems like more trouble than it is, but we know that this is going to help you. Think of this like training. You need to work at getting in a better mental state in order to grow. And you need to grow in order to fight and win battles. This battle is all you, and I know you’ll be able to win in the end.

I can’t wait to see you progress and grow into the strong young woman we all know you are. You are a Stark, which means that you are inherently a badass. We just gotta bring that inner badass out.”

You were full on crying now. As soon as Tony finished talking, he looked at you and let a few tears fall. You couldn’t help but wrap your arms around him and hug the shit out of him. You buried your face in his neck and cried as he kissed the side of your head and helped you calm down a bit more. He was sort of rocking you and whispering to you.

“It’s gonna be okay, sweetheart. I promise. We are going to help you.”

You didn’t think you had a problem. You thought it wouldn’t affect anyone else other than you. But hearing everyone tonight changed that. It wasn’t that you were physically harming them. Instead, you were making them sad and preventing them from helping you. You didn’t realize how much they actually noticed and cared about you and how you helped around the tower. They really loved you. And they wanted the best for you.

“We want to help you, (Y/N). But we cannot force you. You have to be willing to change.” Carolina spoke after a minute or so of you and your dad hugging. “You know how much love there is in this room for you. You know their thoughts on all of this. But now we need to hear yours.”

You pulled away from Tony, but he held your hand in his. Natasha brought her hand back to your back. You looked around at everyone in the room. Your family. All of those chords that were struck early rang out again, and you knew you needed to change.

You looked at Carolina and just nodded “yes.” You could see one or two deep breaths being let out and a couple of thankful smiles spread around the room.

“I need to change. I’m sorry that I somehow hurt everyone with this stuff. I didn’t think it would and I thought I had it under control. I love you all so much.” A few more tears fell down your cheeks. Carolina stood.

“I’m glad that you have realized the need for change. I know that this will be a tough thing to get through, but you will come out stronger.” She then addressed everyone around the room. “Thank you all for being here and sharing your thoughts. I’m sure you all want to hug and such, so I will let you all do that. Mr. Stark, when you and (Y/N) are ready, we can go over the specifics.”

As soon as you were able to move, you stood and had your dad help you. He got your crutch so you could move more freely. Going around the room and exchanging hugs and kisses with everyone brought happy tears to your eyes. These people are your family. They really love you.

Bruce and Steve walked over while you hugged Natasha. They were the ones that were the closest. All four of you talked for a moment or two before you made your way to others.

Wanda practically ran up to you. You, Wanda, and Natasha were as thick as thieves. So you understood why she was so concerned. 

“It is going to be just as Natasha says. We will all visit when we can and this place will help you better yourself.” You nod and hug her again. Then you turn and see Vision behind her. He hugs you because he knows that it’s custom to do so. 

Clint and Thor both give you big brotherly hugs. 

“Lady (Y/N), I may not know what exactly goes on in these types of situations, but I know that you will come out superior after this escape.” You kind of laugh at Thor’s lack of understanding, but love that he tries.

“Yeah, it’s gonna suck not having you around as a practice buddy, but you’re gonna show California how kick ass you are.” Clint was teaching you how to shoot and he said before that you were quite good at it. It was definitely going to be weird to readjust.

Bucky was the last one to hug before you went back to your dad. You knew you wanted to hug your dad last because it was going to probably be one of the most impactful ones. Bucky was like Steve in the way that he was an older brother figure, but you would be lying if you said you didn’t have a crush on him. And little did you know, he had some feelings for you too.

You and Bucky had gotten close because you were one of the few that he opened up to and was comfortable really working with. And he knew a bit about the self harming, but he didn’t think it would get to be as big of a problem as this. 

“I’m sorry I didn’t step in sooner. If I would have known about the drinking or that this would get this bad... I didn’t think...” You quickly shushed him with a hug.

“James Buchanan Barnes, do not blame yourself for any of this. If anything, you have actually helped this from getting worse.”

You both pulled away, but not completely. Bucky then kissed your cheek, pretty close to the side of your mouth. You looked at him in surprise and he was slightly blushing. 

“We will talk more about that when you come visit me in California. I just... I need to be in a better mental place before any of that happens. Okay?” You asked. You hated yourself for asking that, but this was not the right time to talk about these types of feelings. 

“I figured this would be weird timing. I can wait. Just let me know when you want me to visit and I’ll be there.” His genuine smile melted your heart. God he is wonderful. 

You hugged him one more time and kissed his cheek. Then you came back to your dad, who has a questioning look on his face.

“What was that all about?”

“Nothing right now. I’d rather not talk about that problem while still figuring out this one.” You gave him a pleading look and he just nodded and brought you in to a bear hug.

“Alright, kiddo. One step at a time.” You dad squeezes you a bit tighter and kisses your forehead. Carolina then comes in at perfect timing.

“Are you two ready?”

Tony looks down at you and you look back up at him and nod. Then the three of you walk to the conference room while everyone else gets dinner together.

This was going to be a long ride, but you new the destination would be worth it.

Tags: @goodnightwife @the-witching-hours12-3 @theeactress @sebby-staan@feelmyroarrrr @tomorraw @marvelous-imagining @melconnor2007  @raindancer2004 @sexysamsungl @hopelesslywaitingforfood@latibulemark @thetigersclaw @sarcasticvodka @ashenfallsof

[nehapatel64]

I Hate You Like I Love You

Scene 1. Sona vs. Khatri

Scene 1. Sona vs. Khatri

Why does Sona take Jatin’s help? Who does Sona have to help Ishwari? To answer the first question, Sona had walked out of the Dixit house in search of the man who was standing outside. She suddenly ran into Jatin, who asked her what was going on and why she looked so panic-stricken. This is how Jatin very fluidly became involved in this before Sona knew how serious it even was. Jatin is her best friend and the one person she can count on to have complete faith in her and her desire to help the Dixit family. This was something not even Saurabh was on board with as he was considering his sister’s safety over her concern. Sona cannot take on such an important situation alone, not only due the complexity of the situation, but the danger. Now coming to why Sona helped Ishwari. Sona has a remaining emotional connection with the family that she can’t escape. Love and hate are easy emotions to surface, but indifference is much more difficult. You only feel for the people who have affected you in any way- whether it’s a positive or negative emotion. Becoming unaffected is usually next to impossible, and leaving someone’s life doesn’t mean leaving their heart and mind. Moreover, the desire for acceptance and the motivation to protect her loved ones has always been a huge part of Sona’s personality. If that wasn’t and inherent part of her, she may have given up on the Dixit family long before she did. Sona knew what Ishwari was like before she even married Dev but thought she would be accepted if she tried hard enough. It wasn’t until infertility and countless impossible challenges (which often resulted in temporary solutions) that Sona was able to realize she could never genuinely satisfy Ishwari. However, by that time, her emotional connection with the family had already strengthened. More than hating them, she is disappointed in them. Her problem with Ishwari even today isn’t the woman herself but the fact that Dev was unable to balance the two, and Ishwari did nothing to help the situation. Sona got married to the man, but stayed married to the family. Once she got married, she was never able to treat them as two different entities. That’s why even in today’s scene, Sona emphasized to Khatri that he couldn’t hurt “MY FAMILY”. Not just Ishwari. Not just the father of her child. Her family. Relationships are complicated, and have to be treated as such. Pure hate and pure love are both very rare feelings. There are very similar motivations between why Dev took on the blame for the robbery and Sona is taking on the tensions of this mystery that have nothing to do with Sona indirectly paying Dev back. You can’t understand one and not the other. 

Just to recap, here is what I’ve gotten from Khatri’s mysterious case so far...

     Dev knows his mom used to carry a blunt knife around as protection from some man- a knife what wasn’t actually dangerous (meaning she meant no physical harm), but was enough to scare someone. This holds a bit contradictory to Khatri implying she devastated an entire home in the street that she WORKED on (not lived). We also learned that Khatri’s referred incident happened 20 years ago, much later than the flashbacks of 8-year-old Dev that we have gotten to see. It’s possible that age 8 is turning point of Dixits’ lives for the worse and 20 years ago something happened for the better. Which, according to Khatri is related to Dev’s rise to financial power happening in some corrupt fashion. Up to now, we have seen Dev pride his success on his hard work and more importantly, his mother. There is no contest that Ishwari was a strong mother, but he made Dev her dependency after making him her strength. Ishwari credits Dev on all his sacrifices for the family, but never fails to remind him he’s never freed. It will be interesting to see if and how all or any of those conceptions fall apart. This may partially be why Sona’s initial reaction to Khatri’s news was so paradoxical. Sona gave a defiant “she would never do that” but also looked extremely terrified. On one hand, she can’t accept that all the things she believed about the Dixit house- their hard work, their success, their morals would be a lie. On the other hand, she knows to what extent Ishwari can go as a mother. Add in Khatri’s relentless efforts towards Ishwari’s destruction and his question of how someone can rise to so much power, and you have a recipe for subconscious suspicion and fear. 

Bose Family

We see that the two Bose couples had very similar actions and reactions throughout this episode-from coming to the same hotel, ordering the same food at the same time, to mild flirting and being sorely disappointed by their experience overall. While Bose family scenes lent to some comic and romantic relief in the midst of Devakshi’s angst, they also depicted the marriage situation that Devakshi could only dream of. Asha/Bijoy are their own kind of couple goals, and they are indirectly influencing Saurabh and Ronita. Behind Bijoy’s anger is a desire to provide his loved ones with the best life. Behind Bijoy is a balanced woman who knows how to calm him down and make him see reason. Saurabh had the same level of anxiety and anger today due to desperation to give Ronita the best. Ronita on the other hand, was level headed and calmed him down with the most sincere coaxing and compliments. Bijoy and Asha is a couple that taught us so much, including that love isn't everything in a marriage, but neither is compromise. Asha tolerates Bijoy’s anger in exchange for his love. Bijoy despite presenting his anger never fails to shower her with love. This was the dynamic we saw between Asha/Bijoy and Saurabh/Ronita today. Devakshi failed in many ways, but due to lack of balance than lack of love. They repeatedly forgave and forgot for the sake of their love, but the compromise part of their relationship ended when the circumstances made it a near impossibility. As opposed to Sonita, they faced a mother who only tolerated a short honeymoon when her selfish reasons were at play. Here two parents who would give up even their dinner plate for their son’s perfect experience. Ishwari called Devakshi repeatedly in Shimla to make sure the trip was more functional than leisurely. Bose parents were honestly mistaken in following the couple to their honeymoon. These very literal differences symbolize how even Devakshi’s attempts at rekindling their doomed love were hindered by external efforts. The most poignant contrast of all was seeing Ronita and Asha say the same thing to their hubbies after their hubbies did the same thing at the same time. Sonita are getting a mentor and mirror that Devakshi never had. Ronita got a mom in law that exemplified all the dreams Sona had for her and Ishwari. 

“Tum Papa se itna pyaar karte ho?”

We saw Dev come home feeling extremely dejected about the possibility of Sona and Jatin being together. We saw Elena try to be his source of solace as someone who has insight into both the Sona and Dev side of matters. However, Dev was only able to walk around the rim of his actual problems by saying "Chupate woh hain jhino ne kuch galat kiya ho" and implying Soha and Jatin together was distastefully wrong. However, the person Dev needed the most , as always, was his best friend- his Sona. No amount of Elena’s coaxing, patience and understanding could get him to open like Sona used to. But Sona was the one person he couldn’t talk to at the time. This is why Dev’s first meeting with daughter after so long was so well timed. He found the exact temporary solace in Soha that he was looking for, especially when she indirectly assured him of how much she loves him. Her positive outlook on the chicken pox situation was the exact kind of positivity and love Dev needed in that instant, and we saw that radiating on his face. His smile was a tell tale of his happiness, his choked voice was a sign of surprise, and the tears in his eyes were his gratitude that someone will always be there to love him unconditionally. BUT Sona’s presence broke him out of that reverie in no time. When Sona came in, his happiness became less genuine and became more about him holding to together for Soha. By the time Soha, left, this entire euphoric feeling had vanished. The fact that not even Soha could keep him at peace was solid proof that Dev couldn’t even PRETEND his problem was Sona leaving a sick Soha alone to see Jatin. The excuse of “I’m here for Soha, I care for Soha” was completely vanquished. Once again, Dev attempted the flimsy old tale of my house and rules, but couldn’t help but add that breaking promises had become a habit of their relationship. While seeming to “break” his deal with Sona, Dev was referring to past promises of staying together forever, of never loving another again. Up to this point, Sona thought it was Dev in one of his moods. She focused on the “house rules” and “deals” that were separating her from her daughter, because her mind was still in the zone of the last few days. Until they walked into the other room, Sona had no idea that the problem was no longer one parent to another- it was one ex against the other. It was about the shadow of love for each other, not love for their child.

D: “Tumhari asliyat kaho gi ya yeh bhi jhoot hai?”

Dev establishes the surety in his accusation upon entering the room. He’s spent days pondering on who Jatin really is for Sona, making excuses regarding his “house rules” the blanket the jealousy that was brewing. This wasn’t jealousy because he thought he had a chance with Sona. This wasn’t jealousy from realizing he still loved her. This was confusing limbo between having some shadow of love from 7 years ago and unknowingly falling in love with this Sona all over again. It was a jealousy that Sona seemed to be easily moving on when he couldn’t. Dev was at a point where he wasn’t sure if he was right but he wasn’t sure if he was wrong either. He was desperate for an answer to the question gnawing at his brain, so he followed Sona and found her with Jatin. When Dev walked into the room today, he thought he had all the proof he needed. He had seen Sona and Jatin together before and had seen them meeting in the car, but this time, he had overheard multiple phone conversations that sounded like a secret between her and Jatin. This time, she went to meet him in the middle of the night after such a conversation and didn’t even see Khatri until after Dev had left. 

D: Enough of your tumi tumi

We have always seen the “tumi” exchange happen in anger, but I was still not expecting it in a tension scene of such caliber. It was endearing to see this exchange, and it sort of lent into the fact that this conversation was going to open up some feelings and discussions of the old days. 

D: I hate it. I hate you.”

Notice that Dev said this as soon as he struck the first implication that Sona and Jatin are together. At this point he had given no excuse or reason for his stalking them or why it bothered him. This I HATE IT was not in reference to how Sona was as a mother or any other old tale but an open confession that he hates to see Jatin and Sona as a couple. Hate is a very strong word, and the accusations he was striking for the past few days hadn’t reach anywhere near that. He told her she should stay with Sona, he was suspicious that she was with Jatin but believed it when she called him a best friend. Yes, he was jealous, Yes he was wary about Jatin’s rights in Sona’s life. But it wasn’t until this photo capture that the possibility of them together hit him as a genuine reality. Today it was about his pain not Soha’s. That’s why today, he didn’t fake judge Sona as a mom (fake because he’s in reality always admired her for it) but as her husband. It was as if for a moment, he had forgotten that there was a 7 year lapse in their relationship. It was as if Dev Ki Deewangi was back with ten times more force, a force created by years of agony and hidden emotions. The last time Dev or Sona talked about hating each other was at summer camp, when Dev had very recently found out he had a daughter. Discovering Soha had reopened some old wounds and created some large, fresh ones. This “I hate you” was also said in reference to big, new wounds and reopening of the old. The summer camp “I hate you’s” were said seconds after they remembered each and every intimate moment they had spent together. Even this "I hate you” was seconds after Dev’s indirect reminder of all the promises they had made and didn’t keep. Back then and now, something significant shifted in Devakshi’s relationship. Which is why I couldn't help but title this piece- I hate you like I love you. 

D: “Sirf main nahi, puri duniya janegi”

Dev has no real intention of telling the world Sona is with Jatin. If he did, he would have been able to tell Elena  yesterday, when she was coaxing him. He would have been able to tell Soha that Sona was with Jatin uncle. Dev had no plans to tell the world, but felt the burden of the world with just him knowing. He wanted to cry, to show his frustration, to show his heartbreak. But the only person that he could unload on was the person who he had made, as he said today, “the most important person in his life.” That was the only person who could know and would get what he was saying even when he wasn’t sure how to say it. 

D: Iss baat ki hairani hain ke tum tumhari che saal ki choti bimar bachchi-

S: Shut up! Maine aisa kuch nahin kiya jis pe much sharminda hone chahiye

D: Of course, independent strong ladki ho, kuch bhi kar sakti ho

S: Tum mere character pe ungli...

I love that Sona didn’t even wait for the classic “bimar bachchi” excuse to work again, nor did she bother to justify her motherhood in any form or fashion. At this point, both subconsciously knew that this had nothing to do with Soha anymore. Sona stating that she didn’t do anything to be ashamed of caters to the fact that she was actually out trying to save the Dixit family. In Dev’s mind, this is translating to “so what if I am seeing Jatin? There is nothing wrong in it. There is nothing between me and you.” This is confirmed by the fact that he pulled his independent girl card again. Dev had fallen in love with the strong and independent Sona, so him using it so often in anger now seems ironic. It’s almost as if he’s pointing out that the strength that was so fluid and natural is being made an actual showcase in the form of “obodroism”. Him using this term today was a special indicator that his real hairani was not Sona leaving Soha but Sona and Jatin being a couple. Because a strong, independent ladki wouldn’t be a poor mother. However, she would, as Dev is implying, have the strength to power up and move on. While I was typing this, I started to think - but being strong and independent has nothing to do with being able to move on from a romantic relationship either. Yes, it may help, but it doesn’t make it a definite thing. So why does Dev associate that? That’s when Sona’s following line about “ilzaam and character pe ungli” hit me. Sona was wondering the same thing I was. She was shocked to think that Dev considered her someone who could EASILY get over her memories, her feelings and her deep-rooted love. Dev has many times mentioned that Sona left him, almost as if he thought she could have and should have fought through impossible odds in which he and his family failed her. Today, he showed her that he considered both leaving him and moving much easier for Sona than they actually were. As I said before, Dev knows there is nothing between him and Sona but was in full “husband” mode today. The idea of another man taking his place, the idea that his love would be nothing more than a distant memory is ironically making him assert his old haq on her even more. It’s almost as if he’s forgotten that they have broken up and is behaving according to that. 

D: Aasoo aa rahe hain? Kis ke liye ? Jatin? You? Sympathy for me?

S: I’m telling you, munh band rakho

There was a palpable sarcasm in each word of his sentence. The reason I loved this line so much is because, people often ask if someone is crying and paining sarcastically, but the fact that they even notice or care to mention is a sign of love masked in anger. I was surprised to see Dev even put himself on the list of reasons for Sona to cry, even if out of sympathy. Given his surety that Sona had moved on, even this comment seemed to be soaked in sarcasm. It was because of this tone that Sona took extra offense and told him once again, to shut up. It’s interesting that she stopped right there, because she could have tried to clear his misunderstanding on her own. But she had learned that it was futile with all the “proof” Dev thought he had and the unchangeable assumptions that he was making based on them. 

D: Main kitna pagal hoon na? Yehi karti ho na? Hum bhi toh pehle dost hi thi. Yehi tumhari chaal thi.

Dev reaches that staple point of every large revelation- the one where you tell yourself you should have known all along, and shame on you. This is the classic move in the book where you soften the blow of feeling cheated by claiming that there was nothing surprising about the cheater. Dev was quickly able to draw a parallel between their friendship turned love story to this new supposed couple. He is confirming to himself that his subtle suspicion on the “best friend” title being a dupe was proven right. So why is he saying “Yehi tumhari chal thi”? This “thi” is very significant, because it signifies that “leaving” is Sona’s habit more than her plan, and that history is going to repeat itself.

 D: Itna dard diya ke mujhe dard mehsoos hi nahi hota

S: Agar tum ko dard nahin hota toh ye sab drama kyun kiya

D: Tum jaan na chahti ho? (I was tired of your daily lies and your facade of being a responsible adult) Tum jaan na chahti ho? Main jaan na chahta tha ke jis ladki sey maine itna pyaar kiya woh kaha jaa rahi hain, kya kar rahi hain?...Lekin woh ladki thi hi nahin. Yeh sab to jhoot tha

Second half of the first line is about as real as Dev the Casanova. Dev first convinced himself that he doesn’t need Sonakshi, then convinced himself he needs no one but himself. He went from that to saying he needs nothing but Soha and is trying to tell himself now that he does’t need Sona. In each and every one of those scenarios, a part of him has always needed Sona. He just didn’t know it, and the idea of accepting it and potentially facing more difficulties scares him. Sona normally went along with this facade and did it herself too. But today, she wasn’t able to resist making him admit that farq padta hain. It’s as if for the first time, the denial of feelings, the misunderstandings and these harsh accusations were hurting more than just facing the fact. Dev’s response to this was very interesting to me, because he partitioned his lies from his truth without realizing it. DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? I was tired of your lies, I was tired of you pretending to be a responsible adult (in reference to motherhood)...DO YOU WANT TO KNOW? I wanted to know what the girl I once loved so much was doing, where she was going. Dev wasn’t tired of lies, he was scared of the truth. He doesn’t think Sona has transformed into someone who would be a bad mom. He thinks she has transformed from the love of his life to the woman who could easily do without him. Yes, her exterior has transformed into something he can hardly recognize. But he isn’t able to, or doesn’t want to, grasp that the woman he once loved immensely is still under everything being seen at face value. 

 D: Ek baar tum Dev Dixit ko tod chuki ho, ab nahin tod sakti. Ab mujhe batana padega, even though main sab janta hoon...kya lagta hain tumara?

S: Dost tha, dost hain, dost rahega aur tum kuch nahin jaante ho

D: Jhoot bol rahi ho. Agar maine apni aankhon se nahin dekhta to yakin kar leta

S: Main sach bol rahi hoon.

Dev within the same sentence admitted that he had completely shattered without her and tried convincing himself and Sona that she couldn’t affect him any longer. It was as if he started prepping for his next challenge: hear the truth from her mouth and let it sink in once and for all. He was so sure of the truth that he couldn’t imagine the revelation being any different. Sona replying that Jatin was, is and always will be a dost established for Dev that Jatin was a big part of her life, is still important and will continue to be her friend (and just her friend) no matter what Dev thinks. The irony of Dev saying he would have believed her if he didn’t witness it is that he only witnessed it because he didn’t believe her. He tried his hardest to trust Sona, but the sketchy phone conversations, rightfully, did him over. It was this that made him witness the thing he now claims to “seal the deal”. But when Sona looked him in the eyes and defiantly said she is telling the truth, even Dev Dixit was take aback for a second. 

D: I’m sure main akela nahin hoga jo inh aankhon main dekh kar din ko bhi raat maan le. Tum to jaanti ho tumhari aankhon kitni khoobsurat hain…lagta ki duniya rukh gayi sab kuch ther gaya. 

This is a super poetic line in which Dev momentarily loses the divide between his compliments and his accusations. Dev tried to express how Sona trapped Jatin by expressing the thing he happily fell for to begin with. Because only UNAFFECTED men can tell you exactly why someone would fall in love with you. This line is so beautifully complex, because it implies that Sona can enchant a person but confuse them as well. Eyes that can make you mistake night for day imply both euphoria and trickery. 

D: Tum ne mera dil thota hain Sonakshi Bose. Sahi kehte hain-insaan surat badal sakta hain lekin apni fitrat nahi. Tumhari fidrat main jhoot hain. 

In case anyone still had any questions on if Dev hates or loves Sona, if he is being resentful or speaking from a place of real agony, he gave you your answer. Yes, Dev thinks Sona and Jatin together. No, he didn't mean the things about her character. If he did, he wouldn’t admit after everything he said that, in the present tense, she has broken his heart. With tears in his eyes, he cycles back to the same place that he had indirectly started this conversation: the promises she had made and didn’t keep. There is an implication of deceit in his “sahi kehte hain” line, and telling her that he expected this from her makes him feel like he’s holding it together when he’s actually at his weakest. It makes it easier to transform his pain into anger, because anger can be released in a way pain can’t. 

S: Maine socha tha iss se zyada Dev Dixit mujhe insult nahi kar sakta, hurt nahi kar sakta. Lekin aaj tum ne cruelty ki had paar kar di. 

Compared to the other times Dev and Sona fought, this fights bore open very raw and real feelings to a great extent. This was a fight that, though accompanied by some empty words, was also paired with some real pain rather than habitual hatred. This time, Sona was doing some more important for the Dixit family than she had potentially ever done and was being accused of something very opposite. Moreover, to see Dev’s hatred turn from annoyance and taunts to a real feeling of deceit shocked her. That’s why Dev Dixit has never stooped this low in her eyes. After this sentence, we see Dev ask Sona one last time what the truth is. In a desperation to clear both of their hatred, pain, misunderstanding, she almost tells him. However, she remembers how Dev might react knowing the truth and how Khatri my react to Dev and finds the strength to keep mum. Naturally Sona���s silence makes Dev assume he’s right once and for all. It was a truth that but deep enough for him to not want to stay a second longer. Sona grabbed his arm to stop him only to get the question...with what right? Dev’s “husband right” illusion had officially been shattered, even though remnants of deceit were still there. He then asked..”kyun”. Dev asking Sona why he should stay is proof that Soha never was the reason for everything he does. If she was, then the question of why he should stick around would never come up. Part of him wanted to know why Sona needed him after having Jatin.

Papa sad the?

This was another “coffee shop” moment. Yesterday, the waiter innocently told Sona that Dev hadn’t come to the coffee shop in years, implying that this place was as meaningful to him as “Devakshi’s place” as it was to her. Dev used to even come after the initial break up, but this time the end was too final and painful. In this scene, the kids innocently made Sona realize that just like coffee shops, this habit of theirs was the same. Sona asks them “Papa sad the?” almost as if she’s taken aback that a man who could have so much hate for her, who told her everything she was to him was a deceit, had the same sadness. This was the point when Sona agreed that this Khatri situation did form to look really bad in Dev’s eyes but “khabhi khabhi, kuch jhoot rishto se bade hotey hain”. This was a line that worked both ways. Though Sona meant that she sacrificed her cordiality with Dev for the sake of the Dixit family, it also applies to the fact that Dev forgot his past and present relationship with her to believe the lie he thought he had the perfect proof for. 

[katebushwick]

The 2,753 victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City were business people, lawyers, janitors, bond traders, electricians, secretaries, food service workers, firefighters, police officers, engineers, computer specialists, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, cousins, lovers, friends, spouses, and community members. The remains of 1,113 of them have not been identified. Of those who were found, all but 293 were recovered from among 21,900 bits and pieces scattered throughout the debris of the fallen towers: a tangle of steel beams, rebar, pulverized concrete, asbestos fiber, plus the contents of thousands of offices and retail outlets.1 Buildings that were once 110 stories collapsed into the space of just eleven, seven of which were below street level. Rescue workers initially picked through the rubble by hand, frantically searching, first for survivors and then for victims’ remains. They were choked by dust and smoke and the stench of death. Soon, giant bulldozers and grapplers took over the job of removing debris, and rescue workers dedicated themselves solely to finding remains, including their own brethren. The World Trade Center was attacked just as large-scale DNA identification efforts were becoming possible. The biotechnology boom of the 1990s had produced technologies that could be used to rapidly extract and analyze genetic material from biological specimens. Simultaneously, scientists involved in the investigations of large-scale accidents and mass atrocities were learning how to apply these tools to the damaged and degraded forensic specimens recovered from complex graves. Human rights advocates and activists also realized loved ones not just spiritually and psychologically, but also socially and legally. Without identification of their loved ones, relatives cannot access financial and social services, dispose of personal property, or seek compensation for their loss. They can also become socially marginalized. 2 These advances led New York City’s chief medical examiner, Charles Hirsch, to promise that he and his staff would attempt to identify and return to families every human body part recovered from the site—even those that were heavily damaged by the collapse of the towers and the underground fires that raged at the site for weeks. The job would not be easy—it would require a bewildering mix of technological expertise, statistical acumen, and persistence. More than $80 million has been spent on the effort thus far, and the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner has committed to continuing in perpetuity the effort to identify remains as new techniques become available. The primary goal, of course, is to link even the tiniest fragment of human remains to a person in an effort to provide proof of death for those families that hunger for such knowledge. 3 But the massive forensic effort was also undertaken to demonstrate that Americans, as individuals and as a society, were dramatically different from the terrorists who so callously disregarded the value of life. It was as much a political and moral statement as it was a scientific and legal one.4 This is not a book for the faint of heart. It tells the story of the recovery, identification, and handling of human remains in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. It also delves into the contested efforts to memorialize the victims of the attacks both at the World Trade Center site and at the Fresh Kills Landfill, where much of the debris from the Trade Center was taken for sifting and disposal, and the controversy over the storage of remains at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It exposes the raw grief and persistent anger that motivated a small group of families to continue to contest redevelopment and memorialization efforts at the site more than a decade after the 2001 attacks. In addition, this book seeks to explore the impact and legacy of efforts to recover, identify, and memorialize the dead on the families of victims, the City of New York, the nation, and the world. September 11 was the first time since the Civil War that such a large number of dead bodies had to be dealt with on American soil. 5 Yet the United States had a history with the issue outside its borders: its complicity in dissident disappearances in Latin and South America during the 1970s; Introduction 3 in lending scientific expertise to the identification efforts in those same countries in the 1980s and early 1990s; in leading the international effort to identify the missing after the Balkan wars of the 1990s; through its efforts to recover the remains of American soldiers missing in foreign wars; and in the blatantly political efforts to uncover mass graves in Iraq in order to justify the invasion of the country in 2003. Analyzing the U.S. response to mass death can help Americans better understand similar events around the world, and to empathize with people confronted with such atrocities. Global policy cannot be developed based on the uniquely American response to 9/11, but the United States can no longer turn a blind eye to the psychosocial, political, and scientific needs of societies struggling to cope with mass death. Policy makers can no longer assume that locating bodies and reburying them is enough—the World Trade Center story amply demonstrates that the exhumation and identification of human remains is inherently political and fraught with controversy from beginning to end. Human remains have political, cultural, and emotional power. 6 The death of a loved one in a mass disaster or an act of terror can leave relatives of victims and the missing feeling emotionally and spiritually drained. But it can also give them special status within society and a voice that can be used to make demands on government institutions that would ordinarily not listen to them. 7 Emboldened relatives of the dead and the missing, especially women, often speak out on social and political issues with little regard for negative repercussions. They are fighting for justice and the return of their flesh and blood, and littleelse matters to them. This is true of mothers, wives, and grandmothers of victims of war, disaster, and mass killing around the world. 8 Since 1977, for instance, the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo don white scarves and march in the center of Buenos Airesevery week to demand information about, and accountability for, their children who went missing during the 1976–1983 military junta in Argentina. 9 Similarly, in the aftermath of the 1995 genocidein Srebrenica, family groups in Bosnia successfully demanded that international actors identify and return bodies of their missing loved ones rather than just gather demographic profiles for use in war crime prosecutions.10 New York City witnessed thesamesituation after September 11, when wives, sisters, and mothers became advocates for the missing and the dead. Many men also became advocates for the victims of 9/11—especially firefighter fathers searching in the rubble for their firefighter sons. In addition to the actions of relatives left behind, mass death necessitates broader social, political, and cultural responses. Families and communities look to honor the dead and, in some cultures, ensure their smooth transition from the realm of the living to the realm of the dead. 11 The state hopes to reassert its control over society, especially when it played a role in—or failed to prevent—the disaster. It seeks also to demonstrate care and concern for the lives of its citizens and the nation as a whole.12 For everyone involved, and especially forensic scientists, there is a more general desire to ensure that the violation of the dead does not remain permanent. 13 While forensic identification cannot bring the dead back to life, it can restore some sense of normalcy to families and communities whose loved ones have died in traumatic and violent ways. Individual Identification and Collective Commemoration In many places, including the United States, violent mass death can stigmatize the location where it occurs, and the site must be cleansed, destroyed, or transformed into a memorial. 14 Thereis also a practical problem: what to do with the bodies and body parts, particularly when a substantial portion cannot be identified and returned to families? In the case of the September 11, ownership and control of unidentified remains greatly affected debates about the future of the sixteen-acre World Trade Center site. Thus, beyond the forensic dimensions of identifying the missing, this book explores how human remains became central to the memorialization process at the World Trade Center site. The mere possibility of eventual identification means that the bones can never be buried and forgotten. Instead, they must be maintained in an active repository, keeping both the remains and families in a state of extended limbo. We are only beginning to address this dynamic, the salience of which has increased dramatically in the age of DNA identification. After the attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the vast majority of the 1,177 navy and marine personnel who were killed on the battleship USS Arizona were classified as buried at sea and left in place underwater. While the victims could have been recovered— the ship rested close to shore and its parts and materials were salvaged throughout the war—they were assumed to be unidentifiable due to their fragmented and burned condition. 15 In the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings, human remains that went unidentified were referred to as “common Introduction 5 tissue” and collectively buried in a memorial tree grove near the state capital. 16 After the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, on the other hand, each remain was stored separately and treated as an individual entity that might one day be identified as new forensic techniques became available. This policy ruled out collective interment. It also meant that the creation of a “tomb of the unknowns,” such as had become popular after World War I in Europe and the United States, would be unlikely. 17 Historian Thomas Lacquer argues that several factors led to a shift in Western (and particularly Anglo-American) conceptions of what ought to be done for the victims of violent death, especially in combat. Prior to the twentieth century, war victims were generally left in place to be eaten by scavengers or buried in mass graves. 18 By World War I, there was a concerted effort to bury them individually in marked graves and to memorialize them by inscribing their names on grand monuments after the war. One reason for this change was that, by the twentieth century, soldiers were fighting on behalf of democratic nations and were thought to deserve equality of treatment in death as in life.19 But democracy and politics on their own are not sufficient explanations for this change. Lacquer argues that the sheer magnitude of the slaughter in the trenches demanded a new response. The Great War monuments attempt to make sense of the scale of deaths, while making manifest their ultimate incomprehensibility. Perhaps most poignantly, Lacquer notes that many who fought in the battles, as well as commentators who wrote and spoke about the Great War, were worried that the sacrifices of these young men would soon be forgotten and all evidence of their deaths would be subsumed by nature retaking the land. “There is evident here a powerful anxiety of erasure, a distinctly modern sensibility of the absolute pastness of the past, of its inexorable loss, accompanied by the most intense desire to somehow recover it, to keep it present, or at least to master it.”20 The fears were compounded by the condition of remains on the battlefield that resulted from the new machinery of war. Shelling, land mines, artillery bombardments, and machine guns produced not complete bodies with bullet or stab wounds, but mounds of flesh, and disarticulated arms, legs, torsos, scalp, blood, and tattered uniforms. In other words, if the dead were not buried as individuals and their names were not recorded on massive monuments, then Nearly a hundred years later, this fear of erasure seemed to motivate at least some of the families of the World Trade Center victims and their allies. In the aftermath of World War I, nature would reclaim the battlefield and render the events that took place there—and those who died there—invisible. This time, redevelopment would be the culprit, as well as the desire of city residents and city leaders to put the horrible events of 9/11 behind them and get on with business and life. In many ways, this tension between the desire to memorialize and remember, and the desire to move on would animate debates about the site for much of the next decade. Further, new genetic technologies have changed the way we remember the dead. The emergence of DNA identification means that it is far less likely that there will be unknown soldiers in future wars. As a result, monuments to unknown and unnamed war dead will no longer be a way to honor their sacrifices. 21 Similarly, in theera of DNA identification—and in keeping with the nineteenth century belief that dying an anonymous death and being buried in an unmarked grave was a sign of social exclusion and despair—it is no longer enough to produce a single collective memorial to ordinary people killed in mass conflict events. 22 We are compelled to remember them as individuals and push technology to its limits to identify their remains. Yet, just as collective memorials and tombs of the unknown served to tie the nation together in the past, these individual stories—underwritten by DNA identification—now serve as conduits for collective understanding of conflict as they become threads of a collective tapestry. 23 They have social and political power that can be called upon when needed. An important motive for memorializing the dead at the World Trade Center is to justify the military and diplomatic actions taken to protect the United States and its citizens from similar attacks in the future. To downplay the human toll of terrorism is to lessen Americans’ willingness to put up with war and intrusions on their civil liberties. In a nation that exalts individualism, knowing the names, faces, and stories of each of the victims makes it hard for citizens to accept inaction. While humans are generally able to shrug off the deaths of thousands of strangers—we do it every day while reading, watching, or listening to the news—it is difficult to ignore the death of even one person we have come to know as an individual. Introduction 7 The challenge of memorializing the victims of 9/11 as individuals is that narratives stressing communal sacrifice cannot be made too overtly— visitors, viewers, or readers of these memorial efforts must arrive at this conclusion without noticeable coercion. When the link between individual and nation is made too obvious in the context of 9/11, many victims’ families and other stakeholders have protested and actively intervened— especially when the events of 9/11 were used by the Bush administration to justify the war in Iraq and policies that many believed further eroded Americans’ privacy and civil liberties, and by activists to shine a light on what they saw as the global struggle for freedom and liberal values. Ironically, though, efforts by relatives and stakeholders to depoliticize the victims of 9/11, and the memorialization process as a whole, have served to reinforce the use of these victims for political purposes. For example, when the New York Times published “impressionistic sketches” of the victims of the World Trade Center attacks in its “Portraits of Grief” feature, it sought to portray them all as living the prototypical American dream or on the way to achieving it. 24 The Times editors responsible for these portraits were fully aware of what they were doing. “We recognize,” they wrote in an unusually candid commentary on the “Portraits” project on October 14, 2001, “the archetypes that define the ways these stories are told. The tales of courtship and aspiration, the ways these people relaxed and how they related to their children—these are really our own stories, translated into a slightly different, next-door key.”25 Such representations not only erased the diversity of the victims, but also elided the fact that many of them were not U.S. citizens, including at least a few who were undocumented immigrants. The ways in which the New York Times—and so many other voices in American culture—used the events of September 11 to tell “our own stories” about America, good and evil, and right and wrong, made it impossible to see the lives of the victims through anything other than a political lens. For different reasons, investigators also sought to identify the remains of the suspected perpetrators of the attacks. The presence of remains at the crash site would solidify their connection to the crime. Further, families were adamant that the remains of their loved ones not be comingled with those of their murderers—and demanded that these remains be separated as much as possible. 26 For the U.S. government, there was also the more vexing question of how to deal with the identified remains of the hijackers who used their bodies as weapons and actively rejected the set of international norms and laws that govern conflict among states, including the disposition and treatment of enemy remains. Such decisions simultaneously invoked law, conceptions of punishment, obligations to victims and their families, the projection of the country’s image to other nations and other would-be terrorists, and emotion.27 The handling of the perpetrators’ remains had to be done in a way that neither glorified them nor treated them with the level of respect accorded their victims. Yet there are still no defined policies for dealing with this challenge. After the killing of Osama Bin Laden by Navy Seals, for instance, the U.S. government decided to dispose of his body in the ocean in accordance with Islamic practices when burial on land is not possible.28 American officials noted that they could have handled the body in a less respectful way—for instance, by dumping it from a helicopter without washing the body or wrapping it in a white sheet—but they determined that a proper burial was the right thing to do. While Muslim scholars disputed the propriety of the effort—burial at sea is generally reserved for individuals who die at sea and cannot be brought to land—at least one called the decision “pragmatic.”29 In the context of the September 11 attacks, this responsibility involves long-term, or perhaps permanent, storage, because, while technically permitted to do so, neither the perpetrators’ countries of origin nor their families were willing to claim their remains once they had been identified. For foreign governments (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates—all U.S. allies), claiming the remains would be tantamount to admitting that one of their citizens was responsible for the murder of 2,753 people. And in many ways, the decision to become a violent jihadist is a de facto rejection of belonging to any one country in favor of joining the community of believers who answer only to Allah.30 For families, claiming the remains would be an admission that their kin was indeed a terrorist. As such, the remains of the perpetrators are interred separately from victims’ remains in an undisclosed location under the control of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). Controversy While this book focuses extensively on the controversies that emerged over efforts to recover, identify, and memorialize the victims of the World Trade Introduction 9 Center attacks, I do not wish to suggest that controversy itself is bad—in fact, controversy is perfectly normal in this situation.31 The intersection of personal pain, anger, and grief with commerce, real estate, and politics ought to provoke debate and disagreement in a democratic society. To think otherwise would be, as historian Edward Linenthal writes, a “strange assumption.”32 Controversies give us a window into what people care most about and how things might have worked out differently. They also help us understand how cultural meaning and memory are produced around painful events of the past. 33 By studying controversies as they occur, we can see how disagreements were—or were not—resolved, and how and why certain groups continue to contest the matter at hand after the dispute has been formally resolved. We can also see why these groups are occasionally successful in reopening debate, and why they usually are not.34 Ownership The desire of local and national leaders to rapidly repair the hole in lower Manhattan’s fabric was challenged by the multiple meanings of the site. For rescuers, it was a disaster area to be tamed; for military and national leadership, it was a thesite of an enemy attack; for residents, it was a shocking and traumatic violation of their homes, communities, and everyday lives, not to mention an environmental nightmare; for families, it was a place of mourning, where a loved one breathed his or her last breath, and a cemetery; for the public, it was a place of absence where buildings once stood and lives were once lived, a place of protest, a tourist site, a place of national trauma, a (re)construction site, a neighborhood, a commercial district, and the center of global capitalism; for the architecture community, it was an opportunity to make an architectural and urban planning statement while remembering the victims and revitalizing lower Manhattan. The presence of so many stakeholders with so many agendas meant that the World Trade Center became a new kind of battleground: an economic, legal, and moral one over who could claim ownership of the site.35 At the most basic level, there were significant contractual and financial battles over proprietorship and control of the property. More conceptually, there was strong disagreement about the overall uses to which the site should be put (in which authority was based on expertise, whether professional or lay, and asserted by urban planners, architects, residents, or business owners). Finally, there were ethical debates about what ought to be done to honor and respect the thousands of lives lost on September 11 (in which authority was moral, political, and nationalistic and asserted by all parties, but most forcefully by the families of victims and their advocates). Sacred Space Soon after the dust and smoke settled, the question of whether the World Trade Center site would be preserved as a sacred space or brought back to life as the heart of a vibrant, revitalized neighborhood came to the fore.36 For those who did not see the site as inherently sacred, the best option was to clean up, rebuild, and get on with living. For those who did, the site had to pay homage to the victims of the attacks and could not simply be redeveloped as if nothing had happened there. Ultimately, the design and planning of theredevelopment of thesite was about balancing thetwo—and most of the disputes about the remains revolved around the extent to which the activist families believed the planners did or did not recognize the sacredness of the site. So, in what sense can thesacredness of the World Trade Center be understood? Religious studies scholar David Chidester and historian Edward Linenthal highlight two broad theoretical frameworks that can be used to answer this question. One argument holds that sacredness is physical and emerges from the place itself—either as a result of events that happened there, or from some essential property of the site that projects power or spiritual qualities that elevate it above other locations. This is the view held by many family members who lost loved ones on 9/11. The other argument, which emerges especially from the work of French sociologist Émile Durkheim, is situational.37 In this view, sacredness is not inherent but is produced through human action for specific social ends. The sacred is produced through the cultural work of sacralization. Chidester and Linenthal go on to argue that there are three main characteristics of sacred space: it serves as a place for rituals, which they define as formalized, repeatable symbolic performances; it causes visitors to focus on questions of what it means to be a particular kind of person in a meaningful world; and, finally, its power makes it socially valuable and the subject of contestation. Control of sacred space thus becomes an exercise of power. Indeed, a key aspect of the story told in this book is that of families of victims who were fighting to preserve a space for their loved ones’ Introduction 11 memories, free from other interpretations or stories of anyone else’s suffering. At the same time, other stakeholders sought to erase what happened, or at least to provide alternative meanings that enabled life, and commerce, to resume at the site. In the end, a sort of compromise was reached and the World Trade Center site was divided into gradations of sacredness: the OCME repository was completely sacred; the memorial and museum less so but still partly sacred; and the rest of the site was profane, but still requiring some degree of reverence and respect. Museum studies scholar Paul Williams invokes the concept of “secular sacredness” to discuss memorialization, precisely because of the complex, ambivalent nature of these remains and the numerous religious understandings of the “sacred” that exist around the world. In contexts like the World Trade Center site, traditional notions of religious sacredness break down for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that visitors come from numerous religious traditions, and that one religion or another is also implicated in the atrocity being remembered. Even when this is not the case, religion rarely provides an acceptable explanation for why people commit inhuman acts. Further, most memorial museums ultimately put forth a universalist vision that all human lives have value and that secular, rational support for human rights is our best hope for a more peaceful and just future. 38 Williams notes the often-contradictory effects of displaying and/or housing remains within memorial museums. While the presence of human remains signals the importance of the site and enables rituals regarding the dead to take place (such as pilgrimage, prayer, and mourning), the display of these remains may render them profane by preventing traditional (and religiously bound) funerary rites. There is a sense in which the remains lend the site authenticity and connect visitors to the tragedy that happened there, but that the use of remains in this way can further reinforce their profane condition. Ultimately, the 9/11 Memorial Museum decided to thread this needle by storing the remains out of view of the public with the public’s knowledge. The designation of the repository as a “separate space” walled off from the memorial museum denotes both its power and importance to the site overall (in that the remains make it impossible to deny that death occurred there) and the potential the remains have to taint the site in some way if not handled appropriately. This placement became a contentious issue for many victims’ families. They felt that their loved ones, or the loved ones of other families in their position, would become a museum exhibit and therefore be debased, or rendered mere objects. Nationalism Complicating matters even more is the nationalist dimension of 9/11. While the victims of 9/11 may not have died in direct service to the nation, and many of them were citizens of other countries, their deaths took on a broader meaning for all Americans because they were targeted by enemies of the United States. When the city opened a viewing platform at Ground Zero at the end of December 2001 to allow the public to see the progress being made in the Pit and to pay tribute to the victims of the attacks, and to bring tourists back to lower Manhattan, outgoing mayor Rudy Giuliani promised visitors a moving experience: “This gives you all kinds of feelings of sorrow and then tremendous feelings of patriotism. I really urge Americans to come here, and everybody to come here, and say a little prayer and just reflect on the whole history of America and how important democracy is to us.”39 Further linking the site to notions of patriotism and sacrifice, Giuliani noted that that denying the public the right to view Ground Zero would be like “denying people access to other sites of [national] historic significance, like Gettysburg or Normandy.”40 It was in this vein that New York governor George Pataki decided to recite the Gettysburg Address, the speech that Abraham Lincoln delivered in 1863 dedicating a cemetery for Union soldiers killed in the Battle of Gettysburg. In introducing Pataki, New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg noted that “139 years ago President Abraham Lincoln looked out at his wounded nation as he stood on a once beautiful field that had become its saddest and largest burial ground. Then it was Gettysburg. Today it is the World Trade Center, where we gather on native soil to share our common grief.” In these two sentences, Bloomberg situated the victims of the World Trade Center attacks within what Linenthal describes as the “comforting narrative of patriotic sacrifice”—the notion that freedom has a price, and the individuals who died on that day sacrificed their lives for all of us. 41 Pataki then recited the speech verbatim: “Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.” Introduction 13 Invoking the definition of sacred space as a place that is inherently meaningful because of what happened there, Pataki continued, “We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. . . . But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.” Pataki finally read the speech’s conclusion, which demands that the soldiers who perished on behalf of the Union not die in vain and that “this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.” The decision to recite the Gettysburg Address was seemingly an effort to rise above politics and to place the dead at the forefront of the commemoration, yet its inclusion in the ceremony suggests that state authorities felt obliged to acknowledgethe dead in some public way without overtly making political capital out of the event. It is interesting that the common grief and national sadness was forcefully articulated not by President Bush or other national leaders, but by local politicians with grand aspirations— Bloomberg, Pataki, and former mayor Rudy Giuliani. In this way, the nation was brought together in a shared sense of grief to form a political community of mourners. 42 This community was not always tolerant, however. Individuals and institutions with actual or suspected ties to Islam or the Middle East became targets of harassment and violence.43 Thus, the dead were not remembered in a politically neutral manner. Linking the World Trade Center attacks to the bloodiest battle that had ever taken place on American soil had serious political ramifications. It placed the World Trade Center attacks among the most important events in the history of the United States. It also signaled that the United States, as a nation, was engaged in a battle between good and evil in which the future of freedom and the democratic way of life were at stake. And, given that the core of the Gettysburg address is an explicit acknowledgment of the sacredness of the Gettysburg site, Pataki was formally stating that Ground Zero was in a very real sense hallowed ground—a place where patriots sacrificed their lives for the nation. Yet this decision was odd in many ways. The Civil War pitted Americans against one another, with the very survival of the nation at stake. The 9/11 perpetrators were an amorphous group of terrorists who belonged to no one particular country—thus the United States was not at war with itself, another nation, or with any one clearly defined entity. What’s more, the victims at Gettysburg were soldiers who went into battle knowing that they stood a good chance of death or injury. Except for the uniformed service personnel who rushed into the twin towers, the victims of the World Trade Center attacks were civilians in every sense of the word. They had gone to work that sunny, warm morning expecting to do their jobs and then return home at the end of the day to family and friends. They had no intention or expectation of dying, and certainly were not representing the nation in any way other than as ordinary citizens. Yet, none of that seemed to matter to those hungry for retribution. The rhetoric and actions of politicians made them into de facto martyrs whose lives, and deaths, needed not just to be remembered and honored, but also avenged. 44 Further, Lincoln went to Gettysburg to consecrate a cemetery for the dead. One year after the World Trade Center attacks it was clear that the site would be neither a cemetery nor principally a memorial to the victims of the attacks. Unlike the battlefield at Gettysburg, the World Trade Center was not a placid piece of farmland. It was an urban center, and not just any urban center. The World Trade Center was at the heart of the nation’s largest and most important city—capital of the arts and finance, a canyon of majestic skyscrapers, the home of the Statue of Liberty and the symbolic font of America’s rich immigrant tradition, and generally the place that defines what it means to be successful in the United States. It was also hometo eight million people who were fiercely proud of being New Yorkers. There were simply too many stakeholders involved for the stated sacredness of the site to last. At Ground Zero, we can see the interests and dignity of the dead (and their families) clashing with broader local, national, and global interests. This tension is evident in the progressive reduction of space that was devoted to commemorating the victims of the attacks. Mayor Giuliani and many family groups initially argued that the entire sixteen-acre site ought to be devoted to remembering the victims, but most of them quickly settled for eight acres. Soon, “sacred ground” became limited to the “footprints” of the towers. According to cultural studies scholar Marita Sturken, “The idea of a building’s footprint evokes a sense that a structure is anchored in the ground. It is also anthropomorphic, as it implies that the building left a trace, like a human footprint, on the ground.”45 This notion that the Introduction 15 space where a building once stood is a suitable place to mourn the dead is also the seen in the Oklahoma City memorial. “The emphasis on the footprints of the two towers demonstrates a desire to situate the towers’ absence within a recognizable tradition of memorial sites. The idea that a destroyed structure leaves a footprint evokes the site-specific concept of ruins in modernity. In the case of Ground Zero, one could surmise that a desire to reimagine the towers as having left a footprint is a desire to imagine that the towers left an imprint on the ground.”46 Other than the presence of Mayor Bloomberg, former mayor Rudi Giuliani (who began the name reading), the governors of New York and New Jersey, and the regional accents of many of the people who read names, allusions to New York City were notably absent. The rest of the more than two-and-a-half-hour anniversary ceremony consisted of dignitaries, survivors of the attacks, and relatives of the victims of the attacks reading the names of the 2,753 people who perished in the attacks on the World Trade Center. In the background, a string ensemble, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, played wistful, mournful music. The pain in the voices of the readers was palpable and one can see the grief in the faces and bodies of families who were in the Pit. The scene remains nothing less than heartbreaking. Only one other speech was given that day: New Jersey governor James E. McGreevey closed out the ceremony by reading excerpts of the Declaration of Independence. Thus, at least at the one-year anniversary of the attacks, 9/11 was framed in terms of martyrs and a threatened democratic nation, reinforcing the notion that the deaths of the victims (even foreigners and the undocumented) was a patriotic sacrifice and not a random act of murder—and that the entire nation belonged to a single community of mourners united by common grief (for the victims), common principles (democracy and freedom), and common purpose (to avenge the deaths of the victims, to defend our principles, and to defeat the terrorists and terrorism itself). Grief and Mourning The aftermath of 9/11 also made plain the reality that grief is both an individual and a collective phenomenon which, contrary to popular belief, does not operate on a regular schedule. While some people pushed their lives forward in the aftermath of 9/11, others remain focused on the events more than a decade after their occurrence. One of the goals of this book is to understand the actions of the small group of families that have remained active in seeking to influence the memorialization of the victims and the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site more than a decade after the attacks. It is tempting to pathologize the actions of these individuals, first dubbed the “memorial warriors” and later the “grief police” by New York Magazine, to make it seem as if they have not “moved on” from their loss, or that they are seeking to gain control of the rebuilding and memorialization process as a way to compensate for their inability to bring back their loved ones. 47 To do so, however, would be to assume that that their demands are unreasonable and that those in power have truly made a good-faith effort to accommodate their needs and desires. Numbering no more than a few dozen a decade after 9/11, this group was made up primarily of middle-class wives, mothers, and sisters of victims and firefighter fathers of firefighter sons, almost all from the New York metropolitan area. This group self-consciously refused to relinquish their ownership claims or moral authority over the human remains associated with the World Trade Center attack victims and indeed the site itself. They also claimed to speak for a sizable population of 9/11 families that agreed with them but were unable to speak out publically on 9/11 matters for reasons of emotion, family duties, economic hardship, or geographic distance from New York. They also seem to have been ordinary people before 9/11 who had previously shown little desire to be public advocates. Loss, anger, and a feeling that the Bloomberg administration and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) simply didn’t care about them transformed them in fundamental ways. “I was a different person before 9/11,” Sally Regenhard, mother of firefighter Christian Regenhard, told journalist Deborah Sontag. “I tried to speak out, let’s say in Co-op City, where I lived. But now—I’m fueled by adrenaline, outrage and love for my son and that has made me a bigger pain in the ass than I ever was before.”48 How should we try to understand their activities and the intense mainstream media interest they received? Linenthal highlights four narratives that came to predominate after the Oklahoma City bombings: a progressive narrative (in which the city recovered from the event and came back stronger than ever), a redemptive narrative (that God had a plan for those who died and those who lived), a toxic narrative (that the city had suffered a great trauma from which it would never fully recover), and a traumatic narrative (that the city had suffered a great trauma from which it had to recover). 49 These four narrative structures have many parallels in the con- Introduction 17 text of 9/11, with the addition of a fifth narrative structure that focused on the political dimensions of the attacks and the emergence of a long, global war against terrorism. For Linenthal, the Oklahoma City bombing is an “unfinished bombing,” in that it continues to “claim people through suicide, to shatter families through divorce, substance abuse, and the corrosive effects of profound and seemingly endless grief. It is a toxic narrative, and it exists alongside of, and intermingled with, the other story lines.”50 Despite the existence of this toxic narrative, Linenthal notes that “there seemed throughout the city— indeed throughout the culture—an unspoken statute of limitations on mourning. The failure to ‘get on with it’ or ‘be back to your old self’ after a prescribed period indicated, according to the traumatic vision, the presence of an illness and the need for treatment.”51 In other words, grief and mourning were defined by what was considered socially acceptable. This included when, how, and for what time it was appropriate to be despondent, which types of behaviors were normal and which were not, and when one should be done with the mourning phase and transition to the getting on with life phase. Linenthal notes that this perspective is most consistent with the regenerative and redemptive narratives, but only the toxic narrative encapsulates the reality of chronic affliction and an inability to ‘put the past behind you’ that so many of the bereaved felt. The toxic narrative suggests not a return to the old self or putting one’s life back together, but rather a shaping of a new self in the aftermath of such an experience. Linenthal demonstrates that there were strong differences of opinion within the bereaved community about how public grief ought to be. For some families, it was a private matter that was nobody’s business. Others, however, wanted the world to know who their loved ones were and offered a public eulogy by speaking to the press, making the funeral open to the media, or both. Those who opened up to the media gave voice to a kind of communal grief. Other families responded by retreating into the woodwork, while still others took on outspoken, often strongly political, activist roles, advocating for particular forms of memorialization and remembrance or changes in public policies regarding the legal system, victims’ rights, and the death penalty. Whatever the case, it is clear that all of the people who were killed in Oklahoma City and on September 11, 2001 died “culturally significant public deaths,” setting them apart from the thousands of people who die every year from everyday, usually invisible, violence. 52 As such, their deaths were re-experienced on a daily basis by family members confronted with news stories of the bombings, and then during the trials of the perpetrators in the case of Oklahoma City and the nearly daily invocations of 9/11 in the mass media and by politicians during the decade after the event. The publicity associated with these deaths created an extended bereaved community, and hence a community of mourners that both comforted and intruded into the lives of the families of the dead. Thus, the identity of the victims “not only signifies the relationship between a name and asset of physical remains but also encompasses the social ties that bind a person to a place, a time, and, most importantly, to other human beings.”53 The creation of this community of mourners highlights the three different ways that victims of mass atrocity become recognized: first and most obviously, scientifically through the actions of forensic science and DNA identification; second, socially, when family, friends, and communities accept the scientific claim of identity made by the authorities; and finally, collectively, when the person is recognized by the broader national and international community through public commemorations and memorials, and fitted into a historical narrative about the past.54 Thereis, of course, spatial and temporal separation between each of the three moments of recognition, but they are interwoven in ways that will be explored throughout this book. Memorials and the Nation Memorials to tragic events are expected to serve many purposes: to remember the event; to explain its historical importance; to mourn the deceased; to remember their lives and give their deaths broader meaning; to highlight the threat of terrorism and violence; to tell the perpetrators and the world that the goodness of humanity was not defeated by terrorism or violence; to serve the local community through nature, the arts, and public space; and to serve the nation as a source of pride, resilience, and political meaning.55 Memorials fundamentally remember events that were unexpected and create a disjuncture in our understanding of history and ourselves.56 They also suggest that the future should be different in some way. The decision to memorialize a set of past events plays a part in narrating what type of future should exist, both at the site of the memorial and in the society doing the remembering. Introduction 19 When an event is memorialized, there is a certain appeal in focusing primarily on the redemptive narrative identified by Linenthal in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombings—showcasing the better side of human nature, the pride and work ethic of a city or region, the essential goodness of the nation and its people, and the capacity for regeneration and redevelopment in areas affected by terrible events. Perhaps because of the desire for redemption, since World War II, and especially since the 1980s, American memorial culture has been expanded and democratized, both in the sense of which events get memorialized and who has a say in how the memorialization will be done. The time that passes from event to memorial has also been compressed.57 Rather than discussions about memorialization taking place years or even decades after something happened, they often start days after an event.58 There is an intense desire not to forget tragedies and lives lost, and to convey some sort of message—especially a positive one—to future generations about the event.59 The recovery, identification, and memorialization of the victims of the September 11 World Trade Center attacks brought science to bear on questions of identity, politics, and memory. The promise of identifying human remains through genetic technologies has fundamentally altered the way we will memorialize the dead in the future. These changes are not unambiguously good. Will the value of victims be measured by how much technology is applied to identify them? Will the loss of memorials to the unknown dead, and the lack of a clear end to identification efforts, change the way we remember traumatic events—both individually and as communities? How will the culture of memorialization change when there are no longer anonymous remains that belong to the collective, but only remains awaiting ever more powerful technologies to be identified and repatriated to families? These questions cannot be answered yet, but the response to the September 11 World Trade Center attacks can at least provide us with some clues. It is to this story that we turn now.

[macaroni426-blog]

Critical Thinking: Are Certain Celebrities Causing Women To Sexually Objectify Themselves?

Unless someone has been living under a rock for a number of years, they will have most likely heard about a certain family that receives a fair amount of media exposure. In this family, there are a number of daughters who routinely strip off for different magazines.

That is, of course, when they are not showing their bodies off on different social media sites. It has also been said that a few of these daughters are the main reason why so many women want, and have ended up getting, bigger behinds.

All Real

Yet, although their faces and appearances have changed over the years, they have done their best to make out that most of it is down to their genetics. It is then as though getting surgery is perfectly acceptable, but that there is something shameful about openly admitting it.

The trouble is that as these daughters have shared so many pictures of themselves online over the years, it is not hard for the average person to spot what has changed as time has passed. Merely spending a few minutes on a search engine will make it clear – one doesn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to do it.

A Big Impact

Not only have these daughters had a big effect on the type of body shape that many women aspire to, they have also had a big impact on how thousands of women behave online. There is also the impact that they have had on how young girls behave online.

In general, it is going to be far easier to influence a young girl than it will be to influence a grown woman. But, the fact that women from broth groups are being influenced by these daughters shows that women of all ages are vulnerable to this influence.

One Outcome

What also needs to be emphasised is that these daughters are not the only women who have played a part in all this. Nonetheless, these daughters have most likely played the biggest part, and they have helped to spawn a whole new line of women who are having the same impact.

So, thanks, in part, due to their impact, it is not uncommon to come across young girls and women on social media who present themselves as sexual objects. Consequently, a lot of the images, and even the videos that they share, won’t be of their face, and they won’t be wearing much in a lot of them either.

Hypersexualized

A lot of the pictures that they share can be of their body and of their behind in particular. A woman could then be a student or simply have a normal job, yet she can create the impression that she is a soft-core porn star.

At the same time, someone may only come to this conclusion if they grew up without the internet. The reason for this is that what was classed as explicit in the past is often seen as being normal now, with this partly being result to how accessible porn is nowadays.

A Hungry Body

Based on what a woman like this will share online, it can be as though her body is starving for acknowledgment. Receiving attention and approval for this part of her is then going to be more important than having any other part of her acknowledged and affirmed.

Deep down, she may believe that her value as a human being depends on what her body looks like. Her emotional state is then going to be completely dependent on how her friends and strangers respond to what she shares online.

More Than an Object

Through spending so much time on her appearance and on editing the images that she uploads, it can cause her to overlook other parts of her being. By neglecting these other parts of her, it can result in her experiencing even more pressure to look right.

There are also bound to be plenty of older women out there who are incensed with what is going on. For years, these women will have tried to stop women from being objectified by magazines and other sources, only for later generations to objectify themselves.

One Cause

It would be easy to point the finger at these daughters, and other women, for how so many women are behaving online. The problem with this is that it absolves other people of personality responsibility, creating a victim/perpetrator dynamic.

In order for woman to have gone down this route, it is likely that there was already a weak point within her. And, the reason why she went down this route could be for the same reason why these daughters did.

A Closer Look

If someone is out of touch with their own inherent worth and, therefore, finds it hard to feel good about themselves, it can set them up to look towards others to compensate. With this in mind, perhaps a woman found it hard to feel good about herself, which is why she has ended up using her body to regulate how she feels.

It would be easy to say that this she feels this way because of the messages she has absorbed from society. What this would do is totally overlook the effect that her earlier years had on her life.

Emotionally Malnourished

One idea that could be put forward here is that this woman grew up without a father, or that her father wasn’t emotionally available. This then stopped her from getting the feedback that she needed to develop confidence, to feel capable and to believe in herself.

Hearing this can be hard if someone has been conditioned to believe that a man just provides the sperm and offers absolutely nothing to a child’s development. For quite some time now, it has been well-documented that so many people are now growing up without a father.

A Narcissistic Family

On the other hand, what this could show is that this woman was brought up by caregivers who were unable to love them for who they were. Instead, they would have only love them if they did want they wanted.

This would have set them up to become a human doing, with them believing that their value was based on what they do, not on who they are. They would have had to fulfil their caregiver’s needs, overlooking their own needs in the process

The Fallout

This type of upbringing would have caused the woman to feel as though her true-self was inherently worthless. Her value is then going to be something that resides outside of herself.

Ergo, unless she receives positive feedback from others, she will end up having to face the toxic shame that is within her, along with other painful feelings. Shame is a feeling that is not like any other, in that it is incredibly painful to experience.

Conclusion

Receiving positive feedback from others may keep her pain at bay, but it will come at a great price. For one thing, the level of attention that she receives won’t last forever – time will take its toll on her appearance.

Being dependent on other people in this way is also going to make it hard for her to experience inner peace. And as was mentioned above, there can be other areas of her life that she will neglect.

Focusing purely on her appearance can stop her from becoming a well-rounded person, with her having more than her looks to offer. This then becomes a vicious cycle, with her experiencing even more pressure to look good.

If a woman can see that this is something that has got out of control, and she wants to change her life, she may need to reach out for external support. This is something that can be provided by a therapist or a healer.

Source: http://EzineArticles.com/10049741

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