B

On 10 January 2016, English singer, songwriter and actor David Bowie died at his New York City apartment, after having liver cancer for the past 18 months. His death occurred two days after the release of his twenty-fifth studio album, Blackstar, which coincided with his 69th birthday.

We’ll miss you forever David.

but *far fewer* people seem to grasp/acknowledge that the final incantation, the line that Sarah could never remember until she understood it, ’you have no power over me’ ties into that element of Jareth-as-antagonist, on the level of both learning and fantasy.

the relevant element of the lesson being that men can’t actually make you play along in their romance games, no matter how much it feels like they have that power, or like you got yourself into this and now they define the terms of engagement. this is a growing-up Lesson about setting coherent boundaries that Sarah takes away for relationships generally, but because of how romantically coded that last exchange got it becomes very specifically freighted, as a lesson for a teenage girl moving into adulthood and adult romance and its dangers.

“Somehow, she had to reach Toby. She began to work her way down a flight of stairs. A movement below her caught her attention. She peered beneath the stairs and saw Jareth walking parallel to her, apparently upside down, like a reflection in ice. Or maybe she was upside down.”

Oil Paintings by Kim Jakobsson

Sarah: Yes, I'm upset about something.