#cw:child abuse mention

[agentargus]

//Ages back, @spookylilmoonpie asked for more information about Dante and Murmur. Started on some lore but I’ll post a small part of it here now:

Audio transcribed and translated from the Italian (with exceptions where necessary) by [REDACTED]. Timestamp states place the recording took place at 3:33 PM on the 10th of January [DATE REDACTED]

“This is Father Dominic Lawrence, acting chaplain of the St. Olympius Residential School , documenting on behalf of Repubblica Dei Lupi. The day is the tenth of January, Feast of St. Peter Orseolo. Optional Christmas vacation ended one week prior to this day. As the students of St. Olympius have returned to school for spring sememster, they have begun reporting strange happenings—well, stranger than usual—concerning two students enrolled on the fourth of December, Feast of St. Giovanni Calabria. The following interview is to be conducted with the older brother. Mother Superior currently records her questioning of the younger sister in the parish hall...”

Transcriber’s note: Father Lawrence now opens the door, the creaking of which can be heard on the original recording.

Good afternoon, son.”

“Good afternoon, Father Lawrence.”

“Please sit down and help yourself to the cookies.”

“Thank you.”

“What is your name, son?”

“Dante Feliciano Argenti.”

“And how old are you.”

“I don’t know. Mother says I’m roughly three years older than Giu-Giu—my sister, but Mother doesn’t like talking about it.”

“How old do you think you are.”

“Most of the people in my class are fourteen or fifteen—except Estella. She just turned 3049 years old yesterday. I told her she didn’t look a day over 2000, but I don’t think she understood that I was joking...”

“Sister Madalberta claims you’ve been sleepwalking.”

“If I have, I don’t remember.”

“Then you don’t remember the things you said to little Francesco?”

“That he could have my marbles because I’d already lost them in the figurative sense?”

“No, though that was very kind of you and he’s very thankful. I mean when he found you sleepwalking out of the dormitory and tried to wake you up...Dante, you told him that a thousand centipedes waited for him in hell, that they would crawl beneath his eyelids while he slept and...”

“I didn’t say that! I promise, I didn’t say that. Centipedes wouldn’t even go to hell anyway, they’re perfectly nice creatures...”

“Yes, the boy was quite sure that it wasn’t you, even if the words came out of your mouth. Didn’t have your energy, he said. You know he’s an empath, yes?”

“Is that like a psychic?”

“Sort of...”

“I really should apologize to him, if only for the bad things he’s probably seen in my head.”

“Tell me about the bad things in your head...”

“I don’t think you really want to hear them, Father. Mother says I think exactly the way she expects from a teenage boy...”

“You’re probably right, let me rephrase: tell me about the bad thing in your head that isn’t you. Tell me about the thing that hurt your mother.”

“Why would you want to know about him? I’d call him a turd, but I don’t hate toilets so much that I would force him upon them.”

“Have another cookie, Dante.”

“Thank you. Mother never let me have seconds.”

“Why do you hate him?”

“Because hurt my mother, obviously. He would have hurt my sister if he’d had the chance...”

“Did he ever speak to you?”

“Only in my nightmares...can I go now? Please?”

“Did he pretend to be your friend.”

“No, he pretended to be me...”

“What do you mean?”

“I grew up in a haunted mental institution, Father. I would like to think I’m well-versed in the difference between the voices that exist within one’s own mind and those that belong to outside forces, between madness and malus, if you will...”

“...but...”

“...There were no voices in my head at all, at least, none I could distinguish from my own thoughts. Do I have to talk about this?”

“Just explain a little more...”

“I had bad thoughts. I still do. Everyone does, I think. I want to think it’s normal. Sometimes, I’d have very vivid night terrors where I...where acted on those bad thoughts. I wanted to be good, I couldn’t be good all the time, but I tried. Every bad thought would be locked away somewhere, and my nightmares would feed on them, the way eating soy beans or chicken can feed a growing tumor with the hormones but are harmless if you don’t have a tumor. I think I was fighting myself too hard to realize that I was also fighting something else.”

“The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

“Yes, exactly. I thought it was just my guilty conscience and nothing more, which made me feel all the more helpless to fight back. Guilt isn’t productive, Signore Pantalone told me when he rescued Giu-Giu and me. It traps you so that you become convinced you can’t do better, and if you think you can’t do better, you don’t. I think the bad thing that lives inside me was waiting until I stopped trying to do better, until I couldn’t tell the difference between my nightmares and reality...and now, I guess he can’t tell the difference either if he wakes up when I’m asleep.”

“How would you feel if I put you to sleep so that I could talk to him?”

“I thought you were maybe trying to put me to sleep right now, but sedatives don’t work on me. Why else do you think I’ve been eating the cookies even though I’m pretty sure you drugged them?”

“You’re a smart boy.”

“Thank you. You didn’t have to lie to me, you know. Bearing false witness is a sin, father.”

“I never lied to you, son...”

“A sin of omission is still a sin. You think I’m stupid. Everyone thinks I’m stupid. I was trying to be polite, but trying just made me look like an idiot...”

“I didn’t drug the cookies, Dante. I’m telling you the truth. I didn’t want to put you to sleep, I wanted to make you angry, because being angry makes you feel guilty, and when you feel guilty, you want to disappear...”

“And nothing can stop me...”

*muffled static*

Transcriber’s note: at this moment, the radio in Father Dominic’s office appears to have been switched on. The song “Duke of Earl” by Gene Chandler plays in the background of the following conversation:

“˙˙˙lɹƎ ɟo ǝʞnD ǝʞnD ǝʞnD lɹƎ ɟo ǝʞnD ǝʞnD ǝʞnD”

“Dante?”

“Dante’s inferno...”

“Who are you?”

“Siehst, Vater, du den Erlkönig nicht? Den Erlenkönig mit Kron' und Schweif?"

“Excuse me?”

“I’m the Duke of Erl, I sing, come and I’ll show you the Erl King.”

“What is your purpose?”

“I’m gonna love you ¿sɹǝʌoɔ ɹnoʎ ɹǝpun ɹǝɥ ɟo ʞuᴉɥʇ noʎ ʍouʞ poƃ ɹnoʎ sǝoD ¿ɹǝɥʇɐɟ 'ɹǝɥ ǝʌol noʎ ʍouʞ ǝɥs sǝoD ‘cause I’m the Duke of Erl.”

“Why are you here?”

“It’s nighttime. Time to sing a lullaby.”

“Why didn’t you manifest sooner?”

“I’m always there when good little boys are sleeping. Are you thinking of Sister Claire while you’re sleeping? Mich reizt deine schöne Gestalt. Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch' ich Gewalt. Come on, let me hold you, darlin’...”

Transcriber’s note: According to Father Lawrence, this lull in the conversation occurs when he unplugs the radio, though the song keeps playing.

“Why did you manifest when he was awake?”

“ʞɐǝʍllᴉʇssǝɥsǝlᴉɥʍǝʇuɐpʎqɐqǝɥʇllᴉʞ ˙ǝʇuɐp 'ʎqɐq ǝɥʇ ǝʇɐɥ ʇ’uop 'ǝʇuɐp 'ʎqɐq ǝɥʇ ǝʞɐʍ ʇ’uop ˙ʎqɐq ǝɥʇ ǝʞɐʍ ʇ’uop sʎɐs ɹǝɥʇoW. Dante says don’t wake the baby, mother, don’t hurt the baby mother, don’t hurt the baby. In seinen Armen das Kind war tot...”

“Tell me your name.”

“I’m the lɹƎ ɟo ǝʞnD ǝʞnD ǝʞnD lɹƎ ɟo ǝʞnD ǝʞnD ǝʞnDoh yeah yeah yeah yeah...”

“I-in the name of the Father, I command you, tell me your name...”

“Aaaaaaa-I’m the lord of the night, master those spirits who cannot rest, Duke and earl and duke and earl and...”

“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy S-Spirit, I command you, tell me your name.”

“...Murmurmurmurmurmurder you in your sleep, while you’ve got your pants down and you’re thinking of Sister Claire...”

“Shut up!”

“That wasn’t very nice, Father. Have you been a bad boy? Good little boys must go to bed. Bad little boys must stay there. Never waking up again. In his arms, the child lay dead...”

“In Jesus’s name, once more, your name.”

“No.”

“Your name...”

“No.”

[several seconds of unintelligible static]

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven...”[more static] “The power of Christ compels you, tell me your name!”

“...Murmur.”

“Murmur, go back to hell.”

“Already there. Nothing can stop me...”

“I command you, in Jesus’s name, go back!”

“Dante’s inferno. Dante’s hell. Don’t hurt the baby, mother! Over and over again...”

“Go back!”

“Hell is home. Dante is home. Dante is hell. Can’t kill the baby, it’s okay to hurt the baby, Dante, she won’t die.”

“Go back!”

“People who cannot die cannot go to hell. People who cannot die are already in hell. Hell is where the the good little boys go to bed.”

“Murmur, I command you, go back to hell!”

“Daylight is fire. Fire is hell. It’s nighttime. Dante is daylight. Daylight is hell. I am in hell. We’ll walk through my dukedom and a paradise we’ll share...”

“The sun is rising, Murmur, go back to sleep...”

“Duke Duke Duke Duke of Erl Duke Duke Duke of Erl Duke...is everything alright, Father? You look like you’ve seen a ghost...literally.”

Transcriber’s note: the recording ends here.

[painted-starlight]

Sometimes Parents are Wrong: How Older Children’s Media Needs to Stop Making Excuses for Bad Parents

AKA How Refusing to Hold Bad Parents in Fiction Accountable can Hinder Child Audiences Ability to Recognize Abuse

Content Warning: child abuse mention, anti-frozen, and very mild in passing spoilers of Frozen 2 

Summary/tl;dr: The gap between the way parents are depicted in young children’s media to older children’s media is too large. We need child psychologists to be consulted when writing parents in older children’s media too. Because older children’s media doesn’t always take child psychology into account when portraying parents actions toward their children, it can lead to child audiences believing all adult behavior is inherently right, even if it’s abusive. 

Iduna and Agnarr from Frozen are an example of the dangers of refusing to hold abusive parents accountable for their actions toward their children. As it can cause children to rationalize abusive behavior from parents. 

Introduction

Like I’ve talked before about how young children’s media usually has parents who are borderline angelic because it has a function as a reference for children to understand what is appropriate responses to childhood behavior behavior (adults being patient and understanding when their child has a tantrum). This helps a child recognize what is and isn’t appropriate behavior from adults. It also demonstrates what a parents should do when a child faces a problem. 

Less Oversight, More Problems

But as animation skews to older children, their problems become more complex. As a result, sometimes parent characters actions become more complex too. There is however, more of a lack of consideration in older children’s media in regards to how parents treat their children. 

And as a result, the message goes from “an adult should be careful how they raise their child so they can grow up feeling loved” to “parents can do no wrong and what they do is always right.” 

Maybe it’s because there is less oversight in the writing process as demographics skew older. But because there is a pretty large gap between children’s media approach to parenthood to older children’s films, this is what children can take away from more complex parent behavior when presented with a situation that is morally wrong. 

And sometimes child audiences can’t bridge the gap. They are not able to recognize inappropriate adult behavior toward raising their children because there is no consideration for childhood development in older children’s animated films. They are taken from media that carefully depicts appropriate adult behavior, to one that essentially doesn’t take this into consideration at all. 

Iduna and Agnarr are Bad Parents and The Story Refuses to Hold Them Truly Accountable

For example: What Elsa and Anna’s parents did was abusive. They actively deprived their children of resources, refused to celebrate holidays, birthdays, and separated their children while forcing the older child to take on an adult responsibility to manage herself. 

This is portrayed as them being “flawed.” But because there was no consideration or advisement from a child psychologist in portraying this act as inherently wrong, we as an audience are seeing them as being “right.” 

No amount of retcons, excuses, or denials can refute the text of the film. They are bad parents. But child audiences are not taught that their behavior is wrong by the story. It’s almost as if the story can’t admit what they did was inappropriate in a recognizable, understandable way. 

This is dangerous, as it can lead to a child rationalizing abusive behavior from people who are supposed to protect them. And in some cases, they can believe that the adults who hurt them are doing so for their own good, because it is the child’s fault when it’s not. Elsa’s powers might be a more complex factor, but she as a child is someone young audiences project upon. 

The narrative of Frozen also doesn’t meaningfully link their abuse to Elsa’s self hatred. They are never seen as totally wrong for doing it. Flawed, yes, but ultimately benign. And this is wrong. 

Edit 11.28.19: Misspelled Iduna’s name, corrected.