#screaming thrashing

*i will grant the possibility that i’m not reading ascension correctly—5 does make a definite point of trying to unsettle the audience by casting doubt on the cat’s character and i don’t think it’s clear yet whether that’s intended as obvious foreshadowing/dramatic irony because the girls trust the cat but shouldn’t, or if it’s the narrative relocating itself back into the girls’ perspective and the cat coming across in this more suspicious way is because the girls are so rattled by the revelation of this huge thing that isn’t in their guidebook at all. but until we get an answer regarding the hawker i stand by what i said in 1-4, i don’t think the ever after is sinister and i don’t think the cat is its puppet master and consequently i think we can approach the cat telling the truth as a serious possibility even if we don’t immediately take what they say at face value (which we shouldn’t, because the point of the cat is to invite skepticism).

my own inclination is to trust what the cat says, mostly on the grounds that i find their explanation completely congruent with my initial reaction to herb’s departure (<- ngl i was pretty thrown by all the fandom chatter about him being ‘punished’ or ‘removed’ bc the scene reads very strongly to me as the herbalist leaving. like he just decided he was done with this situation and peaced out.) there’s a certain casualness to the whole affair; the herbalist remarks sheepishly that he’s always been a bit of a workaholic and then seems to be thinking aloud about what a huntress is as the ground opens beneath him, and then he drops without any shift in demeanor or emotional state, no startled cry, no scream, no scrambling effort to catch himself. and then in the next episode the cat explains that: 1. when a denizen breaks or gets used up, the ever after calls them back; 2. the ever after had been calling to herb in this way for quite some time, but herb couldn’t hear it because his heart had grown too weak; 3. until the cat shared a little of their own; 4. herb will be made into “the herb he wanted to be when he was still herb” and then come back new; and 5. herb might return to his old purpose or he might choose a different one. now the cat doesn’t say so explicitly, but their explanation very strongly implies that this process is entirely voluntary: the herbalist got ‘used up’ a while ago, but didn’t ascend despite being called to (=ascension is not automatic and answering the ever after’s call isn’t mandatory).

this also squares with what herb says and the sequencing beforehand: first the cat interrupts the trial to defend ruby, then the herbalist coughs on his own smoke and comments ruefully on his own error, then the cat makes their speech and shares a bit of their heart, and lastly the herbalist calls himself a workaholic before he ascends. i think the most salient piece here is that the herbalist recognizes that something is wrong before the cat says or does anything besides intervening for ruby; to me “oh, i do apologize, i… always was a bit of a workaholic” reads as a clarifying extension of herb’s original thought (“oh, my! that’s a bit much!”) <- so the cat’s role in this isn’t to change what the herbalist thinks so much as it is to draw out an idea that the herbalist felt but could not fully articulate.

i think the cat might not be quite correct on why the herbalist chose not to ascend earlier—they say herb couldn’t hear the call, but the herbalist earlier in the episode really stresses importance of knowing and being certain of what you are now before you try to change, or else risk becoming someone you never intended to be, and prior to ascending we get this beat of a distressed exclamation with no specificity becoming a calm and clear-eyed articulation of what’s wrong with him. “too much!!” clarifies itself as “oh, i’m a workaholic,” cue ascension. and like, essentially the first thing the herbalist says to the girls is “i’m the herbalist, at least… hmm, until i’m not anymore.” what this adds up to for me is that the herbalist knew he had a problem, knew he wanted to change, but hadn’t yet identified precisely what or why—and being keenly aware of what might happen if he tried to change without a clear understanding of what he wanted to be instead, he chose to remain as he was until he figured it out.

and if we do see him again—we might not—i suspect he won’t be the herbalist anymore. because ascension makes you into the you you wanted to be when you were still yourself, and the herbalist was all used up, consumed by his purpose, a workaholic doing things by rote, right. he’d lost his passion. he felt frustrated and stuck. and then he found the insight he needed through interaction with these four strangers whose chosen purpose is new and yet familiar: he is a herbalist, he makes remedies to help people, and they are huntresses, they protect people who can’t protect themselves. now herb does not have all the context on what a huntress is, denotatively, because it’s a profession designed to meet a particular need that the ever after simply doesn’t have. but he does know what the girls told him (a huntress fights monsters, protects people, learns from her failures and takes pride in who she’s become while also looking forward to her future, embraces complexity and connection, and refuses to be defined by the perceptions of others; peculiar things indeed) and he certainly seems to be interested in the concept. he’s bored and tired of being a herbalist, but he does still want to help people—he is earnest in his desire to help the girls—and here’s this new purpose that while different also rhymes. the cat shares a bit of their heart and herb gets this spark of insight (=becomes himself again) and then makes two remarks, the first a statement of what he is now (a workaholic) and the second, perhaps, musing on what he might be instead (a huntress). so if we take the cat’s description of what ascension does literally then i would expect herb to return as a huntress, as defined by the girls when he questioned them, with perhaps the key difference that rather than fight monsters (of which there are not an abundance in the ever after!) he might seek to protect people from other kinds of dangers with which he’s more familiar, such as rushing to change before you’re truly ready—both a return of a kind to the worthwhile parts of his old purpose and a complete shedding and correction of the workaholism that put him in a rut and led him to rush people who sought his help. (<- the reason i think we might see herb again is this obviously has some narrative salience to ruby’s struggle with what a huntress is and whether she can be one or even wants to be one, and herb choosing to become his idea of a huntress makes for an excellent hook from which to hang a reprise of oobleck’s “why?”)