#sarastro

"Sternness" is the best word I can think of to describe the most troubling quality of Sarastro and his followers. Even beyond their misogyny, or the fact that they have slaves, the difficult aspect of these supposedly wise, benevolent men is how rigid and sometimes ruthless they can be in the name of the greater good. Sarastro has kidnapped Pamina, and when she speaks longingly of her mother in Act I, he responds with stern shutdowns instead of compassion. He sentences Monostatos to seventy-seven blows on the soles of his feet (although some of us might argue that for sexual harassment and death threats toward a young girl, this is a light sentence). He lets Pamina suffer suicidal anguish by not telling her about Tamino's trial of silence and letting her misunderstand his refusal to speak, all for the sake of testing Tamino's strength to resist her pleas. His would-be initiates face trials that could genuinely cost them their lives, and when one priest expresses concern about this fact, he simply, calmly responds that if they die, then they'll be in paradise with the gods. Nor do his priests have much patience for any man less "manly" than themselves, as we see from their impatience with Papageno's fear and vulnerability. Even our hero, Tamino, takes on this sternness after he chooses to become one of them, parroting their misogyny in the Act II quintet, snapping disdainfully at Papageno's weakness instead of showing him any empathy, and of course withdrawing from Pamina and letting her suffer for the sake of passing the trials and proving his "manhood."

In my novel An Eternal Crown, I've slightly toned down this sternness in Anaia and her Sisterhood, yet I also explain it by giving them a traumatic backstory of persecution that isn't found in the opera. @leporellian's novel Song of the Sky takes a different approach and evidently keeps Sarastro's sternness intact, but portrays him in a more negative light. But of course these two yet-to-be-published novels are retellings, not the opera itself.

personally i don’t! i find the idea of pamina not being sarastro’s daughter (which was how it was in the original libretto) more interesting and thematically relevant. reasons being:

the queen and sarastro’s mortal enemyhood, to me at least, is more interesting when it ISN’T a divorce spat… i think that simplifies what should really feel more like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object. plus there is something distinctly weird about seeing a non-romantically-involved man and woman fighting and going Omg what if it was an (ex-)romance thing, at least to me; i think a woman and a man should be able to do all the crazy psychological two-hamsters-in-a-tank enemyhood stuff without it being romantic.

i like the idea of pamina kind of (at least initially) hating sarastro and the idea of him being her mother’s mortal enemy who ABDUCTS HER TO INSINUATE HIS OWN IDEAS INTO (without any sort of familial connection) really adds 2 that

the whole thing, at least imo, is really rooted in the idea of the eclipse- two opposites coming together and welding as one. if pamina is the offspring of the queen of the night and sarastro, she already Is that unity; tamino hence loses his relevance as a character. which doesn’t feel right (and i am also the one and only tamino fan i love that little guy)… in my mind pamina is the moon tamino is the sun and they inherit those positions from the queen and sarastro respectively. their union is the eclipse and the balancing of the sides, not either of them specifically. also i feel like there’s some cool potential to parallel tamino and sarastro’s relationship in act 2 w/ pamina and the queen’s…. why does nobody ever jump on that…….

Because while I know it wasn't intentional and he's supposed to be the misunderstood good guy (masonic themes, enlightenment, weird 18th century "ancient" mysticism, etc, etc,) but he 100% reads as an evil despotic cult leader to me (also sexist). Just two manipulative assholes locked in an insane custody battle over their daughter and dragging everyone into their bullshit.OR you could up the scale and play it differently: two opposing forces of nature (light/dark, sun/moon etc etc), neither of which is good or evil and both of which are necessary for life, locked in a battle neither of them should win. (Sarastro and the Queen of Night = anthropomorphic representations being assholes, each declaring themselves superior & trying to disrupt the balance and generally messing with mortals)

Pardon my incoherent and potentially stupid thoughts on the matter I just feel there's so much unexplored plot potential here.