#we?

The Wind in the Willows: a New Musical, premiered in 2016, is a wonderful musical based on the The Wind in the Willows written in 1908 by Kenneth Grahame. You know the story, you love the story. But here is a very brief overview of the musical. Toad is a speed fiend and falls in love with automobiles, which he crashes a bunch. He also has some friends, Mole and Ratty, who are definitely in love, but we don't worry about that. Eventually, Toad steals a car and goes to jail, then he jailbreaks and there's a manhunt (toadhunt?) but he ultimately gets away. He then has to retake his house, which has been overrun by animals from the Wild Wood. Toad learns his lesson about family, Mole and Ratty don't kiss but have been living together for a year, and we get a happy ending.

I specifically watched the BroadwayHD filmed version from 2018, and so my takes and info will be based on that.

This musical is near and dear to my heart. It is so fucking good. The music, the choreography, the costumes (oh god the costumes), the sets, the actors, it's all gorgeous, it makes me cry. (this show was also the first piece of media I sat and watched and completely independently thought "oh, that was gay", and I didn't even notice the rabbit dads or lesbian rodents the first time, so happy early pride I guess) But one of the things that always stuck with me was the interaction of animals vs humans in this world. And I'm sure that this is a problem for any interpretation of this story, because it makes no sense, but we are talking about the musical today, babes. Here's my disclaimer that this is all in good fun, I do not consider any of what I'm discussing as problems in the story or show, I just like to overthink things. So I am going to present the questions and oddities, and then my two theories that would explain everything.

Most of the characters are animals: a toad, a mole, a river rat, a badger, otters, weasels, etc. They interact in a sort of understandable fairytale/fable way. They have society and tea and caroling and boats and swimming club, but they also eat bugs and live in holes in the ground and all that. A big point is that they do also eat other animals. There's an otter pup named Portia who gets captured by the wild wooders, who are foxes, weasels, and stoats from the wild wood who have a bad reputation. A reputation pretty well deserved, seeing as they kidnap Portia and spend months fattening her up so they can eat her. She gets rescued and it's fine. An important note is that after she goes missing, her mother, Mrs. Otter, is very sad, but makes no attempt at getting any level of authority involved. It's seen as a tragedy, but also a natural part of life. This in and of itself makes sense, again it's that sort of fairytale/fable setup, they're humanoid, but still distinctly animal.

The problem in this is the inclusion of human characters. There's a washerwoman, a bargewoman, a man with a motorcar, police officers, and a judge who are all humans. These characters interact with the animal characters as though it is totally normal. After he steals a car, Toad is charged and jailed like any human would be. And really this is the biggest issue, right? Portia goes missing and is assumed dead, but no one calls the police. Toad runs off with an automobile and goes to jail for 20 years, judged by a jury full of the wild wooders who have already KIDNAPPED PORTIA. The difference, of course, is that Toad's illegal activities affected a human, instead of an animal, so the authorities decided to get involved. Additionally, after Toad gets away and tries to return home to Toad Hall, only to find it full of wild wooders with Portia in a cage. Instead of calling the authorities, Toad, Mole, Ratty, Badger, and Mrs. Otter decide to lay siege upon Toad Hall and beat the weasels up. They don't even consider legal recourse or any other option. They have to take care of the problem or the problem won't be solved. But there's no humans involved in the situation, so I guess it doesn't concern them?

There's another issue with this legal system as well. Eventually, we find that the judge let the wild wooders be the jury to purposefully rig the case, and then the charges are ultimately dropped because the judge is confronted about that and intimidated by Badger. There are no legal proceedings, the judge just runs off? And tells the police to stop chasing Toad? So the judge seems to have almost complete and total control over the police force as well as the legal system. While some of the confusion here can be blamed on an obvious separation between the human and animal communities, there is obviously something else going on here.

My first theory is that this musical is set in a post apocalyptic world, where animals have mutated to be more humanoid and human society has collapsed and is in the process of being rebuilt. I know it sounds absurd but go with me here. The animals don't have any sort of government structure, but they have a lot of societal quirks, picked up from stories and interactions with humans. In the wake of this mass near extinction, the humans are still trying to reorganize and rebuild, so the justice system is a bit of a jumble. Who has authority and how is it exercised? They're still figuring it out. And since the animals are somewhere between animal and human, there's a lot of confusion over whether they should be held accountable in human court. When they impact humans there's more obvious means of justification, but when they are minding their own business, it's less clear cut. And the animals still have those instincts and processes. Getting eaten by another animal is just the way things go sometimes, even if it is terribly sad. There also may be some animals that have not mutated. Bugs seem to still be normal, and Mrs. Otter talks about catching and eating fish as though that's not a problem, even though Ratty has just explained to Mole that the wild wooders are dangerous and scary because they eat other animals. And even though some of the wild wooders are foxes, we do see a fox interview Toad about his cars at one point. So it's not just the type of animal that dictates being a danger here. Now, it could be hypocrisy, but maybe there are some animals that remain unmutated and the wild wooders are choosing to still eat sentient animals, which is what gives them their reputation. Even calling it the Wild Wood, implying that they are maybe holding on to their more wild side instead of settling into civilization, could be an indicator of a general shift towards more human like behavior in the animals.

There is also an interesting line from Badger at one point. Badger lives in solitude in the Wild Wood (but he's very respected for being wise if not a bit intimidating, he's not a wild wooder), and Mole and Ratty go out to find him to get his help for Toad. When they get there they marvel at how large his home is and ask if he dug it all out himself. Badger talks about how humans used to live in these tunnels, many years ago, but does clarify that badgers had been there before the humans. So badgers lived in the ground, then humans came and built out great tunnels with living spaces, until they died or left or were driven out and now Badger lives there. Maybe the humans moved underground in order to escape whatever big event happened, but eventually they moved back out when the world became safe again.

Another one of my big pieces of evidence is the technology. Toad is a speed demon, but he starts out with boats. He and Ratty both spend their time on the river, but enjoy it in very different ways. At the beginning of the musical, Toad discovers a horse-drawn caravan and goes on a road trip with Mole and Ratty. He's always moving on to the next big thing. While on the road, their caravan gets hit by a passing motorcar, and Toad is instantly enamored. He orders his own car and drives it around like a crazy person, nearly running multiple people over and getting in numerous car crashes, and every time he crashes he just buys a new car. Pretty quickly automobiles become a relatively common mode of transportation, for humans at least. There's a little song where a family of hedgehogs are trying to cross the busy road. While it is possible that Toad, separated from most of human society, was just unaware of the existence of cars, it seems more likely that cars just weren't around or weren't popular yet. See the hedgehogs for proof that cars impact the animal world as well. So cars as a technology have recently been developed. That makes sense, the original story was written in 1908, the same year Ford was really taking off, and the musical's design takes a lot of inspiration from early 1900s style. However, at the very end of the musical, they are having a big party celebrating spring and Toad decides to make a big entrance. He comes flying in on a jetpack.

Now, a jet pack was designed in like 1918, which would be a reasonable time if we acknowledge that it probably took some time for Toad to get access to cars. However, that design was never actually built or tested. No jet packs were actually realized until the 60s and they were not as cool and efficient as the one Toad is using here. Even today, we don't really have jet packs that act the way we see Toad's does. If this is technology that hasn't been invented yet, how does Toad get it? Well, if this is in the future after a mass catastrophic event, maybe the jet pack has been invented already, a long time ago. Maybe cars haven't just been invented recently, maybe the technology has been rediscovered. If humans are working on redeveloping technologies, instead of inventing them in the first place, it makes a lot more sense for such a rapid escalation. They are remembering and reworking stuff, not coming up with it in the first place.

Everything about this world feels like it's stumbling around and feeling itself out. The distribution of wealth, the concept of private property, the human legal system, the fashion and technologies presented. It's a society rebuilding itself and still being unsure of morality.

I’ve been given a small notepad tho, is that normal here?? :0

The asylum? If you're speaking of the asylum then we will need to disagree. I find it hollow and anxious. I've gotten better at not jumping everytime someone screams, but I'm still caught unaware at times. They echo horribly... Although there have been attempts to brighten it up. I believe there is a new pair of curtains somewhere, albeit not anywhere we would be able to see them regularly. I've only heard whispers.

And 'tide pods', is this a fish...? You do laundry with...? If it is a fish I would not mind having one for myself. I need the flesh and I know the insects yearn for their next blood filled... fleshy form... ha. Anyhow. We haven't need to concern ourselves with laundry. That is taken care of, and quite thoroughly done to! I'm missing a button on my shirt due to their thoroughness!

Dracula does not deserve a tide pod. HE DOES NOT DESERVE ANYTHING! HE SHOULD STARVE AND DIE AND BURN IN HELL!

I know why they give us grades

I understand it

But

Why am I crying then

I failed one subject,

On the card there is not graded

A big thick text

Did I not try hard enough? It was only one subject, I did my best. If even after doing my best I still failed, does it mean I am not enough?

Maybe I'll never be

But I know all this, I should stop crying then.

I can't

Why did I start crying in the first place?

Oh, I know.

Hm?

It's Poe's fault, they did it. That oversensitive dumb child.

Yea, it was their fault.

And in the end, it's always their fault,

When we cry, people think we're childish and dumb and

Too sensitive.

We're only annoying them.

Maybe

Maybe if we died they'd be happier.

All of them would.

Another

Part of their life would be easily.

So the voice was right, when she told me to kill myself.

I don't want to.

Somehow

Somewhere deep inside myself,

I don't want to kill myself.

I know it won't really help them.

It could though.

No, it couldn't.

| the board for this:

Con

Xen

Luna - Nova

So who is "WE"???????