crotchety old bag

[It’s the spiritual opposite of John Galt’s radio speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged. Which is not the only way those two novels are diametrically opposed to one another, but that speech in particular is the prime example of an author mistrusting her audience and frankly her own writing talents (… not unmerited) and so presets a 20 page diatribe as a “climax” of the book in lieu of, you know, presenting an interesting story or showing-not-telling her values.]

ANYWAY. The Sapling Cage is such a balm to read. The world is not perfectly accepting and the MC has to navigate the complicated and generally well meaning but still sometimes hurtful responses of her friends and new family, but it’s not trauma porn in the slightest and instead is a really hopeful portrayal of a young trans woman’s experience. Strongly recommend if you like fantasy and want some queer joy in your reading list.

I especially like how the discussion of medical transitioning (or its metaphorical equivalent of magical transitioning) is not fully resolved: it might be a good idea, it might not be; it entails sacrifice and research and effort and that might be worth it, but it does not change whether or not Lorel is a girl. She is, whatever shape her body takes. She is a member of the sisterhood because she joins them to become their sister. Seeing the option of transitioning seriously considered, even viewed as a sort of final resolution at one point, only for that to be ultimately rejected NOT bc medical/magical transition is bad but bc it should be a choice - oh, Margaret Killjoy, you are absolutely brilliant. Especially because it does feel apt to the character and the story as it develops. Lorel learns of new possibilities and she weighs and considers them. Her characters development is pushed along as much by these internal debates as the external action.

I listened to it again recently and was struck by the fact that in “Wedding Song” Orpheus seems hopelessly naive in his assumption the birds, the river, the trees will provide what he and Eurydice need. It seems like such a contrast with Eurydice’s anxieties in the song and what seems at first like straightforward economic analysis in “Way Down Hadestown”

Every little penny in the wishing well

Every little nickel on the drums (on the drums!)

All those shiny little heads and tails

Where do you think they come from?

But we have already seen that Eurydice is at least as naive as Orpheus about the good of Hadestown- her first verse in the song is

Everybody dresses in clothes so fine

Everybody’s pockets are weighted down

Everybody’s sipping ambrosia wine

In a gold mine in Hadestown

Whereas Orpheus, in contrast, is remarkably clear-headed about what Hadestown entails, suggesting he made a choice to gamble on the vagaries of the overworld over the horrors of the underworld:

Everybody’s hungry, everybody’s tired

Everybody slaves by the sweat of his brow

The wage is nothing and the work is hard

It’s a graveyard in Hadestown

It’s only when Orpheus offers this clear rebuttal to Eurydice’s fantasies that she articulates (parrots?) her analysis of the source of wealth in their local community.

It reminds me so much of the ways defenders of capitalism defend the status quo- paint any thought of an alternative as utopic wishful thinking, present themselves as hard-nosed realists while simultaneously entertaining absurd fantasies of prosperity while ignoring the actual suffering capitalism requires and engenders. Of course, Eurydice isn’t a capitalist, just a defender of it, so she’s chewed up by the machine just like everyone else. I really admire how much compassion the story has for her even as she is this avatar of some of the worst parts of the system.

The b’ys taking on the b’y b’ys and teaching them to be vulnerable not as some sort of hazing ritual but because public embarrassment means nothing in the face of true connection?? That even if he never got the girl, there is value in a group of older men mentoring younger men and making connections and having fun with one another? Be still, my heart.

Striking, in watching the intergenerational dynamics of shoresy season 4, is the lack of older generations in either show. The millennials are the adults in the room, and even if they don’t always feel equipped to manage it, they’re going to have to step up. I wonder if JK or JT has ever commented on this because it’s a haunting absence but also speaks to the way that modern masculinity is facing challenges and issues elders could hardly have dreamed of.

FL is the most delicate of blondes, ML has the steeliest of blue-grey eyes, Franze is the next country over, the architecture and other details feel very Germanic, with fashion references decidedly European, spanning broad period of time, at least 1890-1910.

The story takes on interesting themes of privilege, class, atonement, blame, violence to self and others, power and gives interpersonal relationships room to breathe and grow.

The whiteness is interesting because the story makes it very, very clear that these people are both monsters and very human, albeit in different ways. He is a murderous spy who is deeply aware of his failings, and also a revolutionary hero; he unfairly projects all his trauma and hope onto her, putting her on an impossible pedestal she could never live up to. For her part, she is well-intentioned but completely unable to comprehend how the cost of her happiness is a horrific level of sacrifice (at least until she has been emotionally ground into the dirt). The latter part is interesting, to me, because the story is clear that her ignorance does not make her innocent of the horrors committed by others, because her ignorance was cultivated - first by her father/family, but later by herself. She turns away from the commoners upset at her gate and speaks in stock phrases when she meets someone who just lost all of his comrades in a mission. She doesn’t see, but she also doesn’t want to see.

There’s an argument to be made that she didn’t choose to do better because she wasn’t aware of the choices she was making as choices; she did as was modeled to her. But that’s why the audience is shown in at least two ways how her callousness hurt others - sometimes we need forgiveness for what we did not do as much as what we did do.

Recognizing the moral failings of both leads is crucial because it makes the redemption of *both* characters meaningful. It’s not the same- they don’t have the same debts and deficiencies to make up, and the paths to repair diverge from one another - but it’s meaningful that both need to get their souls right before they can approach a non-tragic ending.

I think it’s really important to have narrative models that show (1) not all privileged/white people benefit from existing power structures- indeed, the underclasses are fodder given an ephemeral hope of improving their station to make them buy in (2) white innocence comes at a cost- a cost to one’s humanity/soul, one that you are lucky to live/grow enough to understand and begin to repair. It’s not the same as straight up murder, but it’s moral poison in its own right, just a poison with subtler effects.

there’s obviously a lot that can be critiqued about specific production/intervention choices, the show’s advertising placement, and the way the format prioritizes sound bite interventions and emotional growth spurts, etc. but I do appreciate the direct material interventions in peoples lives; they can’t say it outright, but capital injections into housing/livelihood paired with a positive emotional experience has the potential to be genuinely helpful in a way other reality tv shows aren’t. for emotionally cathartic, sentimental television, its decent fare.

Generally, weddings are ciphers for class values (hence why DIY is so important to some people who value thriftiness, whereas going all out is important to others who want to show their financial stability) and while I don’t think that’s the thesis of the episode, it’s a truism undergirding so much of what’s going on- Tannis questioning why she’s drinking a vodka soda, “we don’t fight at weddings,” etc.