I picked up Burned thinking the synopsis sounded like a Baby Bugs song, and I. Was. Right. The lyrics of The Dove can be likened to Pattyn and her sister Jackie's relationship with their controlling Mormon father, and can apply to both Burned and its sequel Smoke. Conveniently, the fire imagery in the novels and the song align as well.
It's funny, because for a while in Burned the vibe was more akin to the Crazier montage from the Hannah Montana movie with the way Pattyn was coming of age and falling in love with Ethan on Aunt J's farm. Obviously that's not a good representation for this duology as a whole, but if I really wanted to break these books down into a full playlist, that song would also make the cut, despite the glaring difference in tone.
This post will contain spoilers for both books. Book TWs include religious trauma, child abuse, spousal abuse, and sexual assault.
He's full of righteous anger
Makes me bleed and then explains it later
Ooh-ooh-ooh, I've become unlovable
I have become his entertainer
Pattyn's and Jackie's father is a devout member of the LDS Church, or so he claims - he also drinks and abuses his wife and children, both things the church condemns. He is strict with his children and demands their respect, so when Pattyn starts to act out he sends her off to live with his sister for the summer as punishment for her disobedience. Pattyn's mother is also pregnant with her eighth child, her first boy, so removing Pattyn from their already crowded house is no problem for him as he's finally getting the son he's been waiting and hoping for. All things considered, Pattyn has become "unlovable" in the eyes of her father.
And I can't quench his thirst
So weary of his dirty work
He's flying too close to the sun
Oh, help me do what must be done
Their father has a history of "dirty work," warning away (read: threatening) any man who takes an interest in his female family members, starting in his youth with his sister Jeanette. Having learned of how he threatened and beat Aunt J's beau Kevin, Pattyn keeps her relationship with Ethan as quiet as she can. When her father discovers their relationship, he does everything in his power to end it, enlisting his friend on the police force to chase them down. The resulting chase ends in a car accident and Ethan's death. With Pattyn feeling like she has "nothing at all to lose,/ and not much/ to gain but revenge" she begins to form a plan...
He's the smoke, I am the fire
He gave me the gun and called me a liar
Ooh-ooh-ooh, but I can't deny it
I shot down the dove to keep him quiet
I shot down the dove
...that plan being to shoot her father and anyone else she feels had a hand in her life veering so drastically off course. Pattyn’s father ironically was the one who taught her how to shoot, and she’s “a dead-on shot,” something her father is well aware of. Still, he calls her bluff while staring down the barrel of her gun, jovially asking "What/ are you going to do, little/ girl? Shoot me? You/ haven't got the balls."
He's one step behind me
Everywhere, his watchful eyes will find me
Ooh-ooh-ooh, hypnotized by every word
Because his voice struck me like lightning
After her father's death, Jackie still expects his fists to find her. She feels that "His absence/ hangs heavily, an incense of malice/ reminding us of his regulations, the threat/ of his punishment" and wonders if that feeling will every fully go away. She's especially cautious in the shed where he died, hearing footsteps and immediately fearing her father's approach, despite knowing without a doubt that he's gone for good. He still controls Jackie's life and she cowers to rules he set in place that she isn't beholden to any more.
He's the smoke, I am the fire
He gave me the gun and called me a liar
Ooh-ooh-ooh, but I can't deny it
No, I shot down the dove to keep him quiet
I shot down the dove
As Jackie recovers from the altercation in the shed, her memories start to return as well, and she realizes it wasn’t Pattyn who shot their father but her. While Pattyn had every intention of killing their father, when faced with the opportunity she couldn’t bring herself to pull the trigger as she still loved him despite all he’d done, a revelation their father only laughed at. Fearing for their lives, Jackie took the gun from Pattyn and shot him before she could overthink it. Once fully remembered, Jackie can no longer deny reality and confesses during testament to all in attendance that she is the murderer, not Pattyn.
Waiting for his next command
While the world burns in his hands
Just another hit and run
I only do what must be done
Pattyn thinks of their father as a war of which they are the casualties. Being almost entirely at his mercy, Jackie did what she felt she had to do to in order to protect her and her sister, truly believing in the moment that they would die at their father's hands if something wasn't done to stop him. Pattyn did what she felt she had to do in light of Jackie’s actions, taking full responsibility for the murder to give her sister a chance at a normal life, stressing to her before she ran away "I did/ this, not you. Without Ethan I/ have no life. I did this. Understand?"
Baby Bugs made a post on their Instagram breaking down the lyrics of this song, and their personal interpretation of the lyrics still works for Pattyn and Jackie's stories. Both sisters come to question the teachings of the LDS church and refute their father’s assertions about a woman’s role in the home and how they will be “ruined” if they become involved with any boy before marriage. Jackie feels that those in their church are brainwashed into thinking these things, and Pattyn questions how God could be so cruel as to allow the abuse and death that she has witnessed to occur, going as far as to think of it as punishment for her daring to question her place. More in keeping with the original meaning of this song (though of course with a more literal interpretation of the “I shot down the dove” line), the girls put a stop to the lies their father told them about their worth and purpose as young women of the Mormon faith and revealed to the world that their father’s adherence to God’s teachings was all an act, as he was anything but peaceful behind closed doors.
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Where there’s desire, there’s gonna be a flame, and where there’s a flame someone’s bound to get burned, but just because it burns, doesn’t mean you’re gonna die.
