~Richard Siken

Ophelia as a character is shown to be restricted as women were in her environment to her relationships with men. Her father, her brother, and her romantic interest. She isn’t just The Girl in this story- she can easily be interpreted as any woman of her standing at this time.

And because of this- as women were, and still often are- her personhood was reduced to the context in which she served others: a daughter, a sister, a lover. She is nothing else because all she is allowed to be, all she CAN be, is what she can offer, what she can PROVIDE, the esteem in which she is held by those men.

So we see a person whose personhood is, in effect, a shadow cast by the relationships in which she belongs. “Belongs” in the possessive sense, because she has no agency, no worth or value beyond those relationships, and it doesn’t matter if she is happy or not because she couldn’t live any sort of meaningful life apart from them.

In this circumstance in which Ophelia has been raised, in this society, in this position, the Existence of Ophelia is a shadow cast in the light of three candles. Her father, her brother, her lover, who can shine their lights and cast as many shadows as they wish while she cannot.

Her brother is leaving. He is no steady pillar. If she is not sistered, she is not a sister.

And then her lover, he loses his mind. He goes hot and cold, loving and then cruel and then kind and then completely nonsensical. If she is not loved, she is not a lover.

And then her father is killed. And if she is not daughtered, she is not a daughter.

Physically, emotionally, spiritually, the context she exists within is taken away, and so she is nothing. Just the shape of a girl left adrift in a vacuum.

She is a construction of other’s perceptions, and when she is no longer perceived in a way that is stable, she loses her stability. She’s never been truly alone in herself- never seen herself outside the eyes of those who see her, patronize her, value her, and so her fate is tied to their perceptions. Her value is what they find her value to be; her personhood is what they find her personhood to be.

Ophelia dies covered in flowers, singing in a river. A nonsensical caricature of what a girl should be- beautiful, whimsical, lighthearted, young, left literally and figuratively adrift. Desperately grasping to fulfill the role she was shaped into despite no longer possessing the context in which it has function. Like post-traumatic stress, all that’s left of her is the flinch-and-run response to the bang of a gun you hear on the radio a hundred miles from the battlefield. A reaction to an action that is no longer happening.

She is reduced to Madness as Madness truly is- the rational, logical, straightforward actions of a hero suddenly dropped into the wrong story, giving the right answers to the wrong questions.

I’m not an academic, so my interpretation might be way off, but I love Ophelia because broadly speaking she is an answer to the question of what makes us who we are. If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If a tree is not perceived, is it even a tree? If your only value is to others, what are you when there are no longer others to value you? What happens when their value of you wavers? Fluctuates madly without reason? What are you then?

When you read the text and then the lyrics, what the song is essentially saying is "Ophelia died because in her society, a woman without a man was as good as dead. Fortunately I have a man, so / don't *need* to be a fully actualized person in my own life. Hashtag girlboss". Which so wildly misses the point that it’s sort of amazing that the construction of the song itself betrays absolutely no rational reasonable shred of a clue that it’s anything less that 100% sincere in this interpretation.

I heard you calling On the megaphone You wanna see me all alone As legend has it you Are quite the pyro You light the match to watch it blow

So the only thing I'm getting from this is the sexual undertones of "watch it blow" when he sees her "all alone." Is Taylor the match? It feels like she's turned herself into a metaphorical faggot [of the burning stick or cigarette variety] and she only casts light because a man "light her match." She seems to frame herself here as an it, an object, not a her, and it's kinda deeply sad to me? Not exactly "girl power" anthem over here.

And if you'd never come for me I might've drowned in the melancholy I swore my loyalty to me, myself and I Right before you lit my sky up

Same business here -> she explains that, despite swearing loyalty to her own selfhood, it wouldn't have been sufficient for her to avoid drowning in melancholy without a saviour.

All that time I sat alone in my tower You were just honing your powers Now I can see it all (see it all) Late one night You dug me out of my grave and Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia

Girl's still on her "I love being a saved woman" thing, which, now that I've typed it, sure has some intetesting religious tones too. It feels kinda bizarre to be going through Swift lyrics that are so complimentary to her male partner, I feel like it's been roast after roast ever since Love Story dropped in '08. Something ghoulish about her musical career being this transmutation of a woman into a spectacle, and how we could imply she didn't find a meaningful relationship for like 18 years of songs.

Though this song does have a sort of slanted necrophelia energy the way he digs her objectified body out of her grave, implying she's already dead. The "I can see it all" piece feels almost like she's having some kind of gender revelation, and it makes me skin crawl because this is kinda like when your unstable addict friend tells you they've syarted listening to the voice of god.

Keep it one hundred On the land, the sea, the sky Pledge allegiance to your hands Your team, your vibes Don't care where the hell you been 'Cause now you're mine It's 'bout to be the sleepless night You've been dreaming of The fate of Ophelia

I think I hate "keep it one hundred." It's so vapid, like "give it your all," very sports centric. And I guess she does love her sports man, so OK.

The eldest daughter of a nobleman Ophelia lived in fantasy But love was a cold bed full of scorpions The venom stole her sanity

Like Teaboot said, Ophelia's in a world where she only has meaning through the way men in her context find it, and I'm kinda wondering to what extent Swift & her writers are aware of that with the line "daughter of a nobleman." What fantasy does she mean, really? Because the read is the fantasy of men and how they inaccurately see her, but then she goes all lovey with it in the next line and it confuses me. She sort of implies her loyalty to herself was a fantasy, too, but it's quizzical in its execution.

I wonder, with Taylor being this superstar with all this money how have her relationships been, actually? I hope it hasn't been people after her money, but surely that plays a significant role in her life. Power twists your experience of your fellow human beings.

And if you'd never come for me I might've lingered in purgatory You wrap around me like a chain, a crown, a vine Pulling me into the fire

Sure is making her man the thing that's goving her power [a crown]. Fire has this symbolism as a light of truth & passion, but also destructive force.. Sure is twisted how this use feels more like she's burned away herself and her own light, while she seems to intend to say she's now passionate and living her truth.

All that time I sat alone in my tower You were just honing your powers Now I can see it all (see it all) Late one night You dug me out of my grave and Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia

I'm so distracted by the phalic image of the tower rhyming with "honing your powers." So fucking bad.

Keep it one hundred On the land, the sea, the sky Pledge allegiance to your hands Your team, your vibes Don't care where the hell you been 'Cause now you're mine

It's 'bout to be the sleepless night You've been dreaming of The fate of Ophelia

So she's both quite possessive of him "now you're mine," and ready to take sexual possession of him "It's 'bout to be the sleepless night/ You've been dreaming of." She's just pledged allegiance, like you would to a flag, to this man's hands, team and vibe, and is gonna fuck him. And because the team is involved, kinda feels like she's servicing the whole team here, but whatever, I'm a pervert, she didn't say that.

The way fantasy is used here is interesting, like she lives in fantasy before the man, and now she's saved so she'a gonna create or become his sexual fantasy? Seems like she's still living in fantasy...

'Tis locked inside my memory And only you possess the key No longer drowning and deceived All because you came for me Locked inside my memory And only you possess the key No longer drowning and deceived All because you came for me

Lock and key imagery sure is sexual. He sure comes for her twice in this stanza after realizing he can penetrate her lock with his key. What's locked in her memory, exactly..?

All that time I sat alone in my tower You were just honing your powers Now I can see it all (I can see it all) Late one night You dug me out of my grave and Saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia

Powerful necropheliac man, I get it. Boring. At least Herbert West seemed gay.

Keep it one hundred On the land, the sea, the sky Pledge allegiance to your hands Your team, your vibes Don't care where the hell you been 'Cause now you're mine It's 'bout to be the sleepless night You've been dreaming of The fate of Ophelia

You saved my heart from the fate of Ophelia

Still stuck on the edge allegiance line, in this cultutal moment & political context, it's not a neutral way to frame your love song. This whole song feels fucking gross, like a tacit indorsement of the Trump era, rising fascism and restrictive gender norms, but with enough cutesy Taylor poetry on top to secure plausible deniability if you accused her of doing that.

Imo, this Taylor era is catagorized by the tongue and cheek anti-feminist symbols in her work, and it makes my skin crawl the way she's so popular and played all over like some kind of girl-next-door. This ain't the girl who published the embarassingly candid Love Story, this is some other thing; a homunculus grappling with her own reality as a socially constructed icon, leaning into conservative mythology to help avoid orienting herself towards the shallowness of her power.

That's my read anyway, I'm a pretty big Satoshi Kon fan, so you know I'm bringing that Perfect Blue reading to this analysis.

I feel bad for her in some ways, but in others she represents less a person, and more an icon that's been raised up by the people who support her.

As of this morning I was reluctantly looking for jobs because I love my job and don't want to leave it, but see: $10k raise problem solver.

As of noon today this was no longer an issue, because my boss called me with the news that I was getting a $10K merit raise.

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. This is roughly $200 extra per paycheck. Enough to pay off debt faster, rebuild my savings, and spend a weekend a month in Milwaukee getting obscenely laid. The sex I'm going to have on $200 extra per paycheck. You can't even.

i HATE self-censorship for a lot of reasons, but being in crisis work makes it even more frustrating. who are you censoring for? like i am being so fr, WHO are you censoring for? have you even thought it through? people who have been raped know that they have been raped. if someone attempts suicide or is grieving someone who did, saying "sewer slide" isn't going to protect them from any of the feelings. a murder victim's family isn't going to feel better bc you said "unalived" instead of murdered. if anything, it's just extremely invalidating and othering. it's saying "what happened to you is so bad that i won't even say the word," which is NOT trauma-informed care. you are not protecting survivors/victims when you self-censor. the ONLY things you protect when you self-censor are the puritanical ideologies that are being encouraged by rich fascists who want your money and obedience