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hi, actually i am gonna read into it by leading into more of a discussion on how i read trc with an indigenous ecoerotic lens:
trc is a book which promotes environmentalism, and particularly critiques dominational narratives on how we are meant to be the stewards of the environment that we do not exist as a part of nature but rather as the rulers of it. ie cabeswater being an entity alive and feeling of its own but also equally relying upon ronan as a source of power. there is an interconnectedness to cabeswater which is in and of itself a feature of a lot of indigenous ecoeroticism. additionally, you see adam making a deal with cabeswater, an equal and respectful exchange. adam gives his hand, eyes, his body to cabeswater and is rewarded and cared for in turn. adam and cabeswater care for one another, another sign of the indigenous ecoerotic principles. this is the emphasis on "getting dirty" found in indigenous environmental principles (and i can link several articles here which back this up) but working on how one can surrender and feel viscerally the sensation of the land about them, merging the body and the land.
what does that have to do with blue sargent? first, i'm clickbaiting you with pynch. second, i'm emphasizing that mstief is showcasing this relationship between humans and the environment as one of nourishment and reciprocity. i am amphasizing that indigenous relations with the land are ones which emphasize our ancestry and connection to the ladn around us. the land is family, not something to be plundered and dominated. it is not a resource to take from ruthlessly. it is a living and breathing network of systems which we must care for as it promises to care for us in turn. this is more so a segway, not implying that adam is indigenous coded, and i want this explicitly understood: my emphasis here is to say that maggie stiefvater may not have intentionally written this with indigenous coding, but that she emphasizes this interconnectedness critical to indigenous ecoerociticism, so you know i'm not crazy when i interpret blue as indigenous in turn.
it's been a while since i read this aspect of bllb and trk, but blue and her body in connection to not only cabeswater but the land around her is so fundamentally intertwined in indigenous ecoeroticism in my mind, that ofc i initially presumed she was indigenous. it is her envisioning herself as part of the trees, it is feeling alive in the soil, it is her connection to her family and the land. which is her family.
artemis as an entity of nature as well as someone with whom maura has had a romantic relationship reads very much so like the oral traditional stories i was brought up hearing and learning about as i dive further into indigenous practice. i'll link this podcast episode to emphasize what i mean, but to quote Dr. Melissa K. Nelson and this podcast/essay on ecoeroticism: "a way of understanding and connecting with the world as kin, not as resource" "the power of our sensuality and intimacy with the world" "what awakens when we let ourselves get dirty-when we surrender ourselves and feel deeply with the land". it is often touted as a strategy to decolonize our relationships with the land around us. blue as a child of a man who came from a tree, essentially, as finding the land not only as kin, but something upon which she sees as part of her skin as living and breathing and fundamental to who she is, then further understanding that maura feels similarly about the land around her, and artemus as well. blue as being essentially one of the trees or part of the trees through artemus and through her mother is just a relationship with the land which has always read so especially indigenous to me. and i don't think it was intentional, nor would i presume to steamroll confirmations or fandom accepted assessments of what blue's race is supposed to be. but i do think viewing blue and trc through an indigenous lens provides a lot of depth to the series.
(not meant to in anyway steamroll, either, over the welsh ancestry or folklore which i am not especially well-versed in, and i admit that. this is more my personal lens and connection to the series and why i have held onto the conceptualization of blue sargent as an indigenous girl with a native american mother etc etc and how this not only interprets her and adam's conflict over privilege, the underlying conflict and implications of blue as poc in a predominantly white town and how this is enriched if blue is part of a henrietta indigenous community, but how these themes of indigenous ecoeroticism can be woven through the book's themes of interconnectedness and reciprocity in nature)
