#poe analysis

Rereading Poe chapters so!!

Call me crazy but this scene tells me THREE fun facts about Poe i will be cosplaying as headcanons because I dont wanna misinform!!

I SWEAR, this shows Poe's history of being a sniper... i swear!! The way he was so easily able to track where Ranpo and Chuuya were in a scene which was blink-and-you'll-miss-it!? I think he only used the binoculars to see the shock on Chuuya's face and amusement on Ranpo's, otherwise I think despite the headcanons against this (Poe needs glasses) he has a keen eye, thus being able to view Karl.

Poe has trained Karl to pick up objects for him, and maybe even out of murder/crime scenes, Karl just watched 2 people disappear and simply grabbed onto the book.

Following onto that, Poe probably trained Karl to be gentle with anything he holds. I'm taking a bite out of "And all I loved, I loved alone" here and saying that Poe can minutely feel the paper's emotions and thus doesn't want to be victim to their screams.

Another TWO headcanons I'm going to gain from here.

This book challenges Ranpo, and seeing he wrote this for Ranpo the plot will be well written, aswell as Poe just being a haughtily behaving author who refuses to not give any detail its full justice (which we see when he's talking with Mushitarou, even if something falls into the broad idea of 'Mystery' if it doesn't reach his ideal, than it becomes null.) So I'M going to say, Poe believes his work is his right to live, YEA I KNOW THAT GOT INTENSE FAST, I LIKE IT THAT WAY.

Poe likes to take away his victims prized possessions, when writing, I'm going to say this is due to his past as a high ranked guild member, and his ability being good for interrogation(al torture) he learned to hold items hostage to not only convince the person he's getting info out of more-- but also because most people find comfort in their own items especially if they have history, if you remove that from them they get psychologically weaker.. we see this hear with Ranpo's glasses, AGAIN, being gone and so is Chuuya's hat.

If the weretiger is Akutagawa's ideal, then Poe's is Ranpo.

Poe is a madman, he was in a state of delirium due to the fact he became insecure from his defeat to Ranpo, this wasn't entirely because he thought of himself as second place, but also because Ranpo's words were mocking, even if they were to acknowledge Poe's intelligence, Poe is an author and knows second meanings, he see's no reason for Ranpo to have goodwill, he took the first meaning.

One of the reasons I didn’t watch The Prince of Egypt for a year — between early-2018 and early-2019, though the emotional buffering probably began in late 2017 — was this juxtaposition.  I’ve been struggling with my mental health, and call me oversensitive or over-think-y when it comes to this film and its modern real-world connections and applications, but I was beginning to dread the prologue, among other parts of the film.  That sense of dread only worsened over the summer of 2018 when the United States started separating families at its southern border, and I saw that some people (namely white American Christians) were starting to say they’ll save adopt the separated babies and children, which would in fact only compound the trauma, not address the underlying injustice, and cement their own complicity.

It’s always been hard to watch child-theft and infanticide unfold onscreen, knowing that this has happened off-screen throughout history, and that it is happening now, and to be left to wonder if I’m supposed to believe that Tuya is simply a benevolent figure who saves Moses via adoption.  Rather than run away from the story, or have it become totally unbearable to me, I’ve been asking myself: how to reconcile the images above and also create something constructive and practical from it, learn from it?  Here’s what I’ve been thinking about:

The “Deliver Us” prologue shows us Goshen, where women are being pushed aside and having their infant sons taken from them to be killed.  It’s violent and terrifying.  We then watch Yocheved part with her baby, put in a position that no one should be put in (on top of slavery and the threat of infanticide).  The scene eventually shifts to the water garden, a harbor where the Queen of Egypt is playing with her toddler son; there’s no threat to her or to him.

The contrast is stark.

And honestly, on the one hand, maybe the film is really just trying to show the audience that Moses has reached a safe place away from the brutality, the edict, and life as a slave (a visual answer to “Do you know somewhere he can live free?” / “River, deliver him there.”).  Maybe the contrast is an attempt more to counterbalance the legitimately distressing opening sequence.  Miriam gets to see her brother survive, and that’s crucial as well.  Perhaps these things might all be the case, but I’m left wanting.  For a way to process these images: the violent and the peaceful, the persecuted and the powerful, the vulnerable and the sheltered.  For something to glean from them.  [An important aside: I’ve also been wondering/arguing with myself if I should view Tuya’s initial action toward Moses as not-oppressing-the-stranger, or as preserving-a-life — Would it be better if I interpreted things this way?  Is Tuya doing her part?  And what if I’m still skeptical (again, left wanting)? — I feel the not-oppressing and the saving gets undermined, overshadowed, reversed, by her erasure of his identity, because through that action she’s perpetuating the violence and oppression done to him and his people.  And Moses may gain physical safety, but he’s not given a life where he’s in full dignified possession of the truth, his truth.]

What I take away from these images of the Hebrew women and Tuya is a lesson about the dangers of complacency and willful ignorance.  For both in the prologue and in the later, parallel water garden scene with Moses, Tuya strikes me as someone who, even if she is aware of what’s happening around her, chooses to, can afford to, remain unaware and unquestioning.  It’s a luxury, and easier that way.  I just can’t shake the images at the top of this post.  Tuya’s comfortableness, her nonchalance, as this genocide is occurring in her backyard.  Doesn’t she see?  I’ve been thinking about, revisiting, this: “Forget and be content” is something she tells Moses to do, regarding his origins and his adoption, but what if that(’s because it) reflects her own attitude, not just about her son and where he came from, but about his people and their oppression, which she benefits from.  It’s something she practices.  (It’s no wonder Moses has to unlearn the mindset of “not seeing because he doesn’t wish to see”; it’s something he learned from both parents.  And it makes me reconsider the moment right when Tuya tells him to “forget and be content” [top left gif]: I wonder if that look on his face is him... seeing her in a new way, cluing into the implications of that attitude for the first time.)

Another central takeaway is that I refuse to be or become complacent like her.  “Forget and be content” has never been my attitude regarding the injustices in this world; neither is it something I believe in regarding adoption and the injustices in adoption, and I won’t let it become my attitude.  Challenging complacency and the powerful is necessary.  I know I need to, will, continue to fight.  To see, to act.  To continue to question, even the blessings that come my way, because they just might have come at the expense and pain of others.

Aaron - The Character Who Stands For The People

But is also slows down time we see this when Ranpo and Yosano are transported into “House of tragedies” they spend around 1-2 hours there, but in the real world only 10-20 minutes have passed. (Like a rip off Little Woman! [Louisa’s Ability])

That, and it can change a victims state— I think, or at least keep them regulated even if they are damaged, this is shown in chapter 83.5 when Fukuchi aims to attack Atsushi, but instead hits Ranpo— Ranpo then reads Poe’s novel and is able to use the ability, which brings us onto our fourth thing.

IT CAN BRING PEOPLE INTO NOVELS. IT TAKES PEOPLE INTO ANOTHER WORLD. WHAT HAPPENS IF YOU BURN THE BOOK WHILST SOMEONE IS IN IT?? WHAT IF YOU ERASE AND WRITE WORDS?? (Kinda like Lucy’s ability except… uncontrollable)

Poe’s ability is able to be used by all he allows, this is used a LOT by Ranpo so I won’t use any examples, but this is the same way Akutagawa gave rashomon to Atsushi to create “Black Claw” I’m assuming it’s like Akutagawa’s in a different way, as Akutagawa’s was combined with Atsushi’s, what I mean by this is that Poe’s ability isn’t automatically created as soon as someone reads his work, this is again found out when we see Louisa proof checking Poe’s stories. (So, like.. Rashomon… kinda)

Poe’s ability is long distance too, meaning if he were to simply leave a poem out or send a text message with his story— he could activate it, this uses two examples, with when he uses it on Mushitaro in the car, and literally every other instance than the first time we see him use it. (So does this mean he gains a point on Dazai?? Well never know)

Poe can write a short story and tape it to a pole and still activate it as long as they read one word.

If there is a person near the victim of Poe’s ability they may also be drawn in, but this isn’t a fact. Im assuming this from when Ranpo fights Chuuya, seeing only Chuuya read the words, not Ranpo.

As long as a person understands it’s words or text of a sort, his ability can still be activated, so if he went up to someone who doesn’t read/speak English, and showed them his book, it could still be activated, again this is from Mushitaro.

Poe’s ability is painful by the way, upon activation it feels like your floating in a place between reality and fiction, your throat is blocked and up your unable to breathe, having too much air and too little a once, your ribs are closing in on you like your own death sentence before your freed into his world.

In Exodus/Shemot 2:5, the Egyptian woman who rescues Moses from the river is identified as “Pharaoh’s daughter,” not Pharaoh’s wife. For the longest time, I assumed that The Prince of Egypt’s alteration of the story to have the Pharaoh’s wife adopt Moses was purely a narrative choice. In order for Moses and Rameses to see each other as brothers, they had to be raised as brothers with the same parents.

However, in the Quran’s version of the story, it is Pharaoh’s wife who adopts Moses. In the Torah, Pharaoh’s daughter, who is named Bithiah by midrash, is given little characterization. By contrast, the Quran’s account says that Pharaoh’s wife, whose name is given as Asiya, was so compassionate and loved her adopted child so dearly that she eventually joined the Israelite religion.

The Prince of Egypt quotes the Quran in the ending credits, and the artbook lists four sources on the Quran that were consulted for the film: The Holy Quaran: Text, Translation, and Commentary by A. Yusuf Ali, The Message of the Qur’an by Muhammad Asad, Tafsir-Ul-Qur’an: Translation and Commentary of the Holy Qur’an by Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi, and Prophets in the Qur’an by Iftekhar Hussain. 

Given this, it’s likely that the filmmakers were aware of the Quran’s version and that it influenced their writing of Queen Tuya. Tuya’s royal position and love for Moses (complicated though it is by the ethics of his adoption) are drawn from the Quran much more so than from the Torah or the Christian Bible. 

originally posted in 2017 [x].

Throughout The Prince of Egypt there are many effective, and affective, parallels to “Deliver Us.”  While watching the movie the other night, I was struck all over again by this one:

[A few other angles are pretty similar, but I think this is the most obvious/direct.]

Soon after Moses recognizes the “River Lullaby,” he runs away, tracing parts of the path that his family took, with him in tow, about eighteen years earlier.

It’s interesting, especially when the scenes are placed side-by-side, to watch Moses the prince dash across the exact same place.  The parallel really makes me feel (recall, reflect on) the peril of the family’s flight through Goshen, and Yocheved’s effort to preserve her son’s life.  It helps emphasize something that has always impressed me about the well scene: how this initial meeting drags the siblings’ memories forward — we see in their interactions/dialogue the impact of their individual experiences of the morning they were separated — but also throws them all back to that time.  Painfully, past becomes present… becomes past……

When Miriam sings their mother’s lullaby, Moses stops, and Aaron turns, and the frantic tension between the three of them just kind of shifts.

And for a brief moment, they are united, finally, for the first time in the entire scene.  Around the song, around Miriam, around their mother.  Their positions remind me of this:

[Also, Moses... leaves a lot — at the end of the prologue, at end of the well scene, after he accidentally kills the guard.]

I’ve always thought of Miriam as the guardian of the lullaby: the way it passes from Yocheved to her, the way she takes their mother’s place.  With the song and her full memory of that day, she’s a guide, a maternal figure, to both Aaron and Moses.  (Related to that: Aaron may not trust Moses in the beginning, but I believe he trusts Miriam fairly implicitly.  I want to write more about this later.)