I've been rewatching Motherland: Fort Salem because sometimes you just need to see Tally thirst after General Alder... and well because Alder continues to be one of the most intriguing characters in recent media. She gets to be a hero and a villain all at once, and while she makes a lot of dubious choices, there is just a part of me that understands why and wants to excuse her for it all.
She is so pivotal to the series, even when she is in the background in the first season, this very world is what it is because of her choices. She saved and doomed witches in the same breath. She made them a home, and protected them, while putting all their lives in the line of fire. Anyway, before I get too side tracked...
It struck me on this rewatch just how desperate Alder gets in S2. I don't remember noticing it as acutely before just how much she starts to crumble the moment Wade makes it clear she will take away her army from her - a line she repeatedly throws around as a reminder to anyone trying to oppose her. The first crack in the armour is Anacostia, her choice to disobey orders and play into Petra's hand. The way we see her trembling and close to breaking at this betrayal. S2 Alder is isolated and has her back up against the wall. Petra Bellweather has stopped hiding her ambitions, pushing at every turn to get rid of Alder, and her one ally seems to agree.
And then there is Tally who keeps pushing, who was so intimately connected to her and who she felt genuine affection for, but even she who was inside her mind only came out seeing the worst of her. S2 Alder is held down by her own decisions. Years of needing to compromise at every turn, to see the worst of humanity and to push through it for her witches whose faith she sealed along with her own. Her warning to Petra when she is stripped of her position is a visceral one. Petra does not know what she is taking on at all, and it shows instantly as everything starts falling apart around them the moment Alder is gone.
It's a curious thing she mentions later to Petra that the accords are more than words, and the accusation that Alder knew a way around them regardless. Would she have been able to do more? Stop more of Silver's manipulations even if she had to Push or Puppet to do it? Would anyone have blamed her then if she had done so or would they have seen that yes, stopping Silver was worth it. Stopping Wade was worth it in Sarah's mind too because they were taking her witches from her. Her army - how many times does she repeat that during this season? Petra accuses her of having lost her humanity, but I don't think she ever did. I do think she lost her connections to humanity. So many generations of witches she has watched die or grow old and be replaced, so many battles and each of them worse, each of them making it a little easier to justify her actions. Until that ultimate moment where she felt her control slipping, where those around her only saw the worst of each choice without seeing the patterns she could see forming. The return of the Camarilla who would once more take everything she held dear and seek to destroy all witches like they had destroyed her family and her coven before, Wade's persistence that Alder had to go when Alder more than anything felt that her work was not done and Petra who she saw as unprepared to take on the weight that Alder had carried for centuries.
It makes it all the more striking when the execution scene comes around. Alder taking up the scourge to condemn one more witch. A witch who brought them all to the brink, but whose motivations were entirely her fault. The fact that she is the one to take this action rather than Petra who was about to take over, only to then have Tally Craven stand up against her. To have the witches' army that was hers mere moments ago move against her.
There is such desperation in that moment when you see her realise how many she would have to hurt to follow these orders that she is bound to. Wade pushing her even then when these young soldiers are putting their lives on the line and Alder's desperation in that moment. I love that it's Anacostia who breaks the moment, who moves forward and gives Sarah permission to stop and walk away. Permission that centuries of following orders and walking that line could never have given her. Seeing her realise that even if she couldn't be there anymore, then perhaps she had left this army strong enough to go on without her anyway. I feel like there is pride there as much as there is heartache, all of it granted with a touch to the shoulders from the one witch she saw as her own daughter. Tally's look as Alder walks away speaks volumes as well, the moment she realises what she has done only for the world to fall apart. Her goodbye to Alder in the next episode shows it so much, giving Alder permission to put down her burdens and I don't think anyone ever told her that. She has gotten used to being revered and loathed at once, to have people judge her but rarely to have them sympathise with her. You see it even more as Nicte keeps pushing at Tally, telling her the old crone had to go while Tally is more and more realising that Alder going was like a dam breaking. And we get to see a different Alder after that, once the moment is gone and she has lost control. The Alder who steps up to Petra and says "how can I help", who never resents her the title of General and only gives her deference because she knows the weight of it, and maybe it hurts because it isn't her army anymore, but in a way... it will always be. It says enough how much hope she brings when she shows up at Fort Salem and the witches see her and even Petra is strengthened by her there. She might not be their General anymore, but she still is their hope and their strength. It echoes in her conversation with Khalida later on when she talks about how the cabin she grew up in was the last time she felt safe and it was the last time she felt free to simply be. I needed to make sure we lived. And Sarah Alder first meant her sister, but when she lost her as well, it became all witches. She became a leader not because she was born into it, but because no one else would fight for them so she did. And any time she failed and lost again, she got up and fought harder. She sang The Mother into being, their ultimate salvation (even if I find the resolution kinda meh). There's one more bit of her conversation with Khalida that stands out though: These moments could have destroyed us, but they did not. And we need not endure this pain alone, we are stronger together. It's sad to think that for good chunks of her time, Alder was alone. When her sister was murdered and she signed the accords. When her coven was taken, and she was alone again, but she kept going. She built an army around her, but how much was she alone in her pain? I think she was at the end there, a loneliness of her own making by pushing people away and a loneliness that grew when she was surrounded by those who resented her decisions (rightly so on many occasions), and yet... She was a mother to Anacostia and she saw something in M and gave them a place to call home. Petra is so very wrong when she tells Sarah that she lost her humanity, but she isn't wrong that Alder might be on her way of losing the connections that let her feel that humanity so keenly. Alder made mistakes, but it was her humanity that pushed her as far as it did and that kept her going, and watching her be able to embrace it fully again in S3 is so fascinating because it is a very different Alder there who looks at Tally and holds her when she worried for Raelle, and it a softer Alder who finally can connect with Khalida rather than be at odds at her, because she finally has time to slow down and not focus on the bigger picture she was trying to reach.
