Striga Tenebricosa

In Merricat's creepy fantasy about her family worshipping her, one thing I noticed is the emphasis she places on being loved. And to her there's clearly a strong connection between "we love you" and "you must never be punished;" to Merricat, punishment or disapproval equals a lack of love. It's left ambiguous whether this is a result of egotism or whether she was a genuinely unloved child. I kind of lean towards the latter based on the very dismissive and uncaring way Uncle Julian talks about her supposed death and the hints that her brother was favoured over her.

And it's also interesting that they're not saying they won't punish her no matter what she does. They're saying that they won't punish her because she would never do anything to warrant punishment. She's not just concerned with avoiding punishment, she also doesn't want to deserve it.

I'm wondering whether Merricat undergoing frequent punishments as a child influenced her obsession with rules and rituals as an adult. She frequently says that she's "not allowed" to do things, and by the end it's heavily implied that these are self-imposed rules rather than ones enforced by Constance. And obviously a lot of the "not allowed" things relate to the murder of her family - preparing food, entering Uncle Julian's room, handling knives, etc - she's imposing certain strictures on herself to make sure she doesn't do the same thing to Julian or Constance. But also -

Her family punished her, she was always in disgrace, she's a murderer, the villagers hate her, she can't integrate into adult society or behave the way someone of her age is expected to. She's unable to adhere to the external codes of behaviour created by the people around her. By their standards she is at first a bad child who deserves punishment, and then someone who has committed a horrific crime. But she wants to feel like someone who would never allow herself to do anything wrong. So she develops her own code of behaviour, one that she can adhere to, one that is alien to everyone else in the world.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔐𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔠𝔦𝔞𝔫

ℭ𝔬𝔫𝔧𝔲𝔯𝔞𝔱𝔦𝔬𝔫 𝔬𝔣 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔉𝔢𝔱𝔠𝔥

the fetch is the part of the witch

that sits opposite your mortal soul;

incubus, werewolf, vampire,

the locus of control;

it feeds on the numinous,

terror and the sublime;

languishes with/in you

when deprived of rite and rhyme—

it sometimes finds itself outside

your mortal body, roams

looking for pretty women

and following them home.

higher, deeper, daemonself,

the slothwoman rides through,

takes a page from out your book

and eats it. and then you.

body made of deathless earth,

and soul of smokeless fire;

use dream logic when you talk to it;

incubus, werewolf, vampire.

O, left-hand,

O, shrouded face,

O, tell me of thy faerie race;

O, dream forgot, to thee I pray,

to be forever young and gay.