#edith galman

So an early decision I made was that I could not get hung up on the Historical Accuracy(tm) of the music I used in my Temeraire playlists because that's how I would create a bunch of playlists I would never ever listen to. But that doesn't mean we can't do a little bit of folk/traditional music! I am not a music historian by any means so I'm not saying these are Period Accurate(tm), but rather that they are all Tradition from the current day's POV.

Okay into the good stuff. Laurence's was actually the hardest to get- I went through like 8 million sea shanties and a whole rabbit hole of trying to find a song about Robin Hood that wasn't the Disney one that also sounded fun to listen to. But none of them fit the Vibe exactly! The Trooper And The Maid actually came to live in this playlist during ren fair season, because Laurence might not have a woman in every port, exactly, but he does keep leaving situations worse than he found them in, and it's a fun little nod to all the children that he Does keep adopting. Plus it's a bop, and maintains the energy of the playlist really well.

Tharkay gets two, because Tharkay is special, and I wanted to balance his playlist in the same way he balances his identity: at odds with each other. So there's a beautiful Nepali instrumental at the beginning of the day, a memory to begin with, and an incredibly well-known Scottish ballad that not only has lyrics, but a spoken explanation at the beginning of the song, at the end of the day and the metaphorical life of the playlist. Heads up: the version on Tidal has a different prologue than the version on Spotify/YouTube. I think the dissonance is fun. Alastair MacDonald's Loch Lomond explanation also speaks to that same kind of duality that Tharkay has in him so much: the condemned man and the reprieved man, the homeward bound and the exiled, the dead and the living, etc.

Roland, my beautiful wife who has only ever been a soldier, of course gets The Parting Glass (but a cover done by a modern queer band to inject her gender subversion) for the sheer weight of how many goodbyes Jane Roland says over the course of the series. The cost of doing her job, and doing it well, is to say goodbye, again and again and again with only the hope of seeing them in the future and the knowledge that war is rarely so kind. The Parting Glass has an Irish rap, but it is actually Scottish, and of course now thanks to diaspora is known the world over. I've always imagined that Jane was more or less raised in Loch Laggan, but that's neither here nor there: The Parting Glass's life as a song is as much of a world traveler as Jane's life is.

Did you think that I, the captain of the Edith Galman Fan Club, would not make an Edith Galman character introspection fanmix? You fool. You absolute fool. Oh, you did expect it? Yeah that's fair I don't blame you. Anyway, The Driving of the Deer actually name drops Sir Peverel, who may or may not be the same William Peverel that is listed in the Domesday Book as owning Greasley Parish, which is where Beauvale Priory is, and Beauvale Priory is where I pulled the Galman's title name- anyway. This is a song also about changing culture, and civil conflict, and the city versus the country, and the people who straddle those lines, and all of that sits at the heart of Edith Galman (or Edith Woolvey, or Edith Laurence) for me.

Temeraire technically only has one folk song but I'll talk about The Fighting Temeraire, which is an instrumental inspired by the painting (and perhaps the various poems) because the poems Have been set to song, but the melody is a little variant, and also kind of whack. But this song nods at all of that. The Little Birds, however, comes from a Smithsonian project to document Chinese folk songs. The liner notes of the album (available here) describes this song as "a dance-song" where the singer is a child who is saying goodbye to the migrating birds. Temeraire, like Laurence, spends a lot of time Leaving Places, but especially China, which isn't exactly his literal childhood home, but certainly is his emotional childhood home, alongside the concept of the ocean. So reframing him as both the child saying goodbye and the birds which are leaving makes me! A little weepy.

Anyway the folk songs were important to me because they impart a sense of Place and Location and Belonging and History to these characters who are so often defined by their Comings And Goings. And yet place is such an important concept in the Temeraire novels, and also in real life, and also to how people develop! And I, personally, really like folk music. :^)

Hammond: Papers and quill for writing and speaking, since he's a diplomat. He's also the most annoying unicorn ever.

Edith Galman: The bow represents her skill of using her femininity to both fitting in in society, and her knowing how to use it to her advantage.

Demane: He's a skilled hunter, and he cares for and protects his brother, and later on Kulingile, fiercely. One of the first scenes he's in he had just caught an antelope, so it seemed kinda fitting! Both hunting and protecting your herd. He got his cutie mark very recently.

Mrs Pemberton: The flower is similar to Edith's bow. The soft femininity expected by society. But the dragonfly is ruthless, and Alice is a lot tougher than people think.

Neighpoleon Ponyparte: Golden eagle, pretty self-explanatory. There were many ideas for ol' Ponyparte, but the eagle felt like a good motif for a cutie mark. Shout out to @captaincupkirk for coming up with the name.

Ferris: A medal for his status, goals, and expectation. Which makes it extra juicy when he loses it all.

Forthing: He's a skilled gunman, but guns kinda don't exist in MLP, so bow and arrow it is! Plus it makes for a good motif.