#lasher

Won’t lie and say that it wasn’t satisfying as hell to watch Michael beat Lasher to mulch with a hammer.

“Cool story, but too fucking bad.”

Lasher: “wait, you don’t feel sorry for me?” (Shocked pikachu face)

Okay, so “Ashler” has to leave Scotland when the C of E is warring on the Catholics. While he’s in Italy, the Catholics were back in power and “killing witches” (Queen Mary’s time). Then he gets called back home years later for Christmas, and the Protestants and Calvinists were in power (Queen Elizabeth’s time), and it’s the Catholics who are the “witches.” It makes a point of how in danger the Catholics in Donnelaith were, because of the Puritans in the area:

“Do not be so humble, my son, that you lack courage. Cowardly priests in this valley we have already, trembling down there in the sacristy, terrified that they will be snatched from the very altar by the town’s Puritans and thrown into the Yule fire.”

This is what Ashler’s father, the Laird tells him.

Yet they decided to go through with the Christmas festivities.

… except, it turned into this weird mating ritual and human sacrifice thing when the Puritans came in, involving Ashler mating with “a hag” who immediately birthed a full-grown Taltos, and then continued until they had a few brand new adults they could toss in the fire. And the whole crowd cheered, and Ashler’s dad physically restrained the one person who was trying to get Ashler to leave the area before it got weird. So … he was in on it? It was a trap to trick his son into this weird ritual? But then, why was “the Laird’s face, full of wrath and horror, his head shaking as he cried out to me”?

And then the Protestants crashed the party and killed everyone.

… I feel like I lost track of something here. Also it was the arrival of the Puritans to the festivities when things went from Christmas festivities to “literally breed our human sacrifices.” Like, in a general sense, I can see a possible interpretation of Christianity being “birth the child who will grow into a sacrificial adult,” but I wouldn’t expect the historical Puritans or Catholics to go that route.

There’s also a part saying that Ashler and his sister’s mother was Anne Boleyn, and that’s where the “witch gene” came from, and why his sister and Queen Elizabeth wouldn’t mate with anybody. I’m guessing the use of the term “witch” is meant to be symbolic and metaphorical in this section, because Ashler was raised Catholic, and it was the Catholics here in the end performing what he defined as “witchcraft”. Okay, cool. BUT WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING HERE PLOTWISE??? What was his dad trying to achieve and why did it look like he flipped positions midway through? Why was it the freaking Puritans, of all religious groups, to start the creepy “breed for usssss” part of festivities? I would think they’d barricade the doors and burn the place down rather than bring in the “witchcraft.”

I feel like the whole concept of how people perceive “the other kind” to be witchcraft is what’s circling all this as a point, but the metaphor is a million times stronger than what’s actually happening.