#astronic

So so sooooo Bella Saltzman,,,,,,oh she drives me up the wall. The way she's talked about in the show I've got a handful of issues with, but I'll get to it when I get to it. Bella is a character who we are told how she lived. She never properly shows up. Only through the lens of the two men who hurt her the most do we ever get glimpses of her personality and who she once was. I'll just give you the basic rundown of the times we hear about her in the show

We only really first hear about her first from Arthur Lester as simply being his daughter's mother. Faroe had to have come from somewhere, but her death haunts him way, wayyyyyy more than his wife's demise. Regardless, he does say "my wife" at one point, but I think that was before the creator, Harlan Guthrie, properly cemented his ideas on how to write her. So, Arthur simply calls her "Faroe's mother" and whatnot when referring to her. We also learn that she passed in childbirth and that Arthur raised Faroe along with another caretaker, a woman named Tess. When Kayne pops up, he says that Arthur "liked" Bella rather than loved her, something that'd be followed up later in Part 31: "The Nightmare" where,,,,,sigh..

We get a flashback of a moment where Arthur sits at a bar. James, an old friend of his, is berating him for not being there with Bella. In this moment, we learn that Arthur never properly loved Bella. He cares for her and thinks she's a wonderful person, but there's something fundamentally wrong about being married to her. James yells at him and says that he's just got cold feet and that, if he's even half the man he wants to be, he should GO AND SEE HIS WIFE WHO IS IN CHILD BIRTH RIGHT NOW AS THEY SPEAK. Arthur Lester, I repeat, is AT A BAR GETTING DRUNK WHILE HIS WIFE IS GIVING BIRTH!!!!!!

Arthur is my favourite character. I like him a lot. His issues with apathy and freezing up that ultimately cause him more harm than good I relate to an unfortunate amount. This, as well as the Faroe moments, are bits in the show that are so nightmarishly defining to me for how Arthur feels about the people he loves. Faroe obviously is a character who's death haunts him like a second shadow, but one thing I constantly feel is missed potential is having Bella also be a lingering regret of his. Faroe of course is the primary cause of his grief, but it's the deliberate choice from Arthur saying that he doesn't feel as much guilt over LETTING BELLA FUCKING DIE ALONE IN CHILDBIRTH as he does leaving Faroe entirely alone for an hour. Arthur sweetie I know you love your kid but your baby can survive for an hour without you YOUR GODDAMN WIFE WHO YOU AT LEAST LIKE AS A FRIEND IS DEAD!!!!

But that's besides the point. We later get a conversation between Bella's father, Daniel, and Arthur. Arthur is here mainly for other reasons, but also to make up to him since he does feel responsible for ignoring Bella's death and being the one who let Faroe drown. Daniel and the way he speaks about Bella is possessive and cruel, a characteristic we know Bella talked about him having when she was younger, and how he speaks of Faroe makes it sound like he treats her like an extension of his late daughter and that it's Arthur's fault for stealing her away. We then get the reveal that Bella never truly loved Arthur and have closure on that. This mini Bella arc is then interrupted by the homosexual 50 year old Irish petplay enthusiast breaking down the door and the show continues from there. Bella is only ever brought up a handful of times more, mainly to reiterate that Arthur feels grief over the things he didn't do in life over indifference, and....yeah that's it

Bella Saltzman, despite being such a non-character, haunts me due to how tragic she is from an outsider view. We never get to properly learn about her. Malevolent has issues with its female cast obviously, and I'm 97% certain the way Bella is handled is influenced by Harlan's personal life and his first wife, but goddamnit if she doesn't torment me so

Bella Saltzman was a young, bright woman. Her mother passed on at some point in her life and that caused a shift in her father's attitude, causing him to be more domineering and shifting more towards religion. He had high expectations of his daughter and had her go to university, where he thought she would get a proper higher education and make something of her life that he would find satisfactory. She would've been 17-18 around this time, same age as a new, dreary-eyed British immigrant who also just arrived on campus. They hit it off and became friends. I like to think they were both just young, stupid kids who wanted to escape the nightmarish existence that was their life back home and clung to the first person they saw and thought they loved. I wanna believe Bella saw Arthur and thought that he was everything that Daniel would've hated to see in a suitor. Perhaps that was enticing in some sort of way. She had already considered dropping her pursuits of education to follow her actual passions: sewing and becoming a seamstress. Perhaps this could be a better life

We both know that's know what happened though

One thing leads to another and they had sex, conceiving a child. Daniel, an extremely religious man, insisted that they get married. Neither Bella nor Arthur wanted it, but it was to be expected. This is the late 1910s and premarital sex is deeply controversial still in the wider eye of society, especially when it involves a bastard child. Bella was unhappy. She was the one who approached Daniel and told him that she didn't want to marry Arthur. Arthur is a man who is better off a friend than a romantic lover perhaps. He's apathetic and disinterested. He's negligent and arrogant, plunking keys on the piano and writing up sheet music as though he's anything more than a mediocre pianist. She knew that the life ahead of her would be one that she would hate: being condemned to a life that her mother suffered. She would wake up every morning to an unloving, selfish man who cared more about that goddamn piano than anything else. I wonder how many nights she would lie there in bed alone and weep--the only sounds filling the room being her sobs and the muffled piano coming from downstairs. He never knew how much pain she was in. It's all about him after all. It's why he froze up and selfishly thought of his own needs over her when she was giving birth. It's why he sat there in a bar getting drunk rather than trying to be there for her. It's why he never went to her funeral

Bella died as the wife to a man she never loved and who never loved her back either. She died Bella Lester. That's the name etched upon her tombstone. She would've around 19/20 years old when she died. A young, intelligent, beautiful woman who's life was cut short and who's story is only told by the men who hurt her the most

I'm regularly haunted by the plights of housewives in the 20th century and Bella Saltzman carries all that grief and sorrow I feel towards them and compiles it into another victim of my favourite character's mistreatment and ignorance. I think regularly about her. I think about her life. I think about what could've happened during her childhood and teen years. I think about what kind of person she might've been. I think about her relationship with Arthur and the eventual pregnancy. I think about her alone in that hospital, terrified and fearing for her life. I think about the flatline that comes as she draws her final breath. I think about the Dark World and perhaps what she's doing over there. I like to imagine she's still kicking somewhat, even if she can't properly recall bits and pieces of her life. I want to think she's doing okay. I want her to be okay.......