#1899 olek

[rubyxjames]

🚨 OLEKS BACK STORY 🚨 I REPEAT OLEKS BACKSTORY🚨

[powermove102]

I sometimes wonder if 1899 people know Olek's name is Aleksander. Just an observation bc I've never seen him called that anywhere.

[nikalibres]

the way olek fell in love with someone who killed someone and took their place on his way to get revenge on someone who tried to kill him and took his place

[rotzaprachim]

the fun game where I look for yiddn in 1899 for personal enjoyment

note that pretty much none of this will follow canon and I am doing it for my personal Jewish enjoyment. It’s a boat full of Europeans fleeing Europe in 1899 what can I even say

a) Olek - by far the most likely, considering the absolutely mass immigration of Jews from Galitzia (where the postcard Olek carries is addressed to) to New York, where he wants to move. Olek being a secret jew is something I’m 99% the writers didn’t intent but that lines up incredibly well with what’s suggested of his story, the actual history of 1899, and the consistent thematic resonance of people concealing or lying about their ethnic or national origin, including not only Ramiro but Ying Li, olek’s deepest parallel and love interest. (Seriously like… these two parallel each other so deeply in everything and the cantonese speaking prostitutes’ daughter pretending to be Japanese aboard the white western ship and the Eastern European Jew pretending to be a polish Christian aboard the western Christian ship are such a fascinating parallel in nation and region and power relational to the West, as well as a negotiation of the brutal anti-Chinese and anti-Jewish immigration sentiment in the U.S. at the time.) The scenario would place Olek as a polish and Yiddish speaking Jew who was attacked by an antisemitic coworker at the oil refinery where he worked or something, or who had survived a pogrom or displacement, and ended up stealing his attackers identity and postcard after he killed him in self defense. This would be a Ramiro and a ying li parallel, and show the repeated and clearly heavy postcard metaphor in a new light - this isn’t a hopeful golden lit coming to America metaphor, as it seems in the first couple scenes, but a physical realization of olek’s guilt at what he did to survive AND a heaviness that lurks around where he took the postcard from (the coworker on the oil field.)

verdict: both totally unwritten and completely contingent with what we know of canon. JEW

b) unlikely but funny as hell: Ramiro. Ángel thinks he has problems having to pretend to be straight and here we have Ramiriko struggling every fucking day with having to pretend to be STRAIGHT and SPANISH and also remember the order of the mass and not get the paternoster mixed up with shmah yisrael. Absolute comedy act. (He also seems consistently bewildered by Catholic canon or how to even do the priest act.) Adds fucked up flavour and nuance to whatever the fuck is going on with Ángel and Ramiro and the “you aren’t even Spanish” line, although does Ángel know Ramiro is a Jew? Probably not. Had he ever worked out he blows kosher dick? Story suggests Ángel doesn’t blow enough sick to really know, nor that that kind of thing would ever occur to him. This one is kind of unlikely, given there were very few Jews in Portugal in the 1800s and the portuense inquisition didn’t officially end till the 1820’s, but it is technically possible - Judaism began to be legal again in the 1800’s and Portuguese jewish communities began to form again. Furthermore, Ramiro being a jew, particularly a descendant of conversos or marranos, could be the context of the showdown where ángel says that he’s never pretended to be anything other than what he is (unlike Ramiro.) they’re both clealry so fruity that whatever he’s talking about isn’t sexuality. (Ramiro is symbolized by the cross, but the cross, along with he background outline of a church, also shows up as a significant element in his Trauma Room, so it might even be the identity he was forced to take on and then casts off). (The crucifix is also the symbol of the priest Ramiro killed it seems, although I think by drowning. A Jew killing a priest - who might have been ángels abuser - would launch such an incredible amount of antisemitic deicide let’s hunt the godkillers backlash they’d have to leave immediately) verdict: unlikely but not technically against canon. Both hysterically funny in light of being a catholic priest winging it for 8 episodes and absolutely heartbreaking

c) eyk. Oh boy. Unlike the other two nothing to suggest it but also nothing to not suggest it, right, although the concept of a German Jew whose family burned to death in a house he keeps seeing is. Oh boy. Assimilated yekke who turned to piloting as a way to work his way up in the world (and part of why his crew disrespects him.) His wife’s name is Sarah which could be pretty Jewish. Nína isn’t like, Jewish, but also isn’t NOT Jewish, and we don’t know the names of his other daughters, which could be like, Rochel and Shoshana. (Or not! Considering the assimilated yekke thing.) clearly lying about a million things. Is this one of them? Is he even real? verdict: the fire was his maybe-automaton wife knocking over the shabbes candles. Possible yid. Who even knows? Not eyk, for sure.

d) you could spare a thought for Daniel, who actually has a Hebrew name that directly parallels the figure of Daniel in the Hebrew Bible what with seeing visions and being trapped in the den and all that but he and his wife (maybe) buried his son with a cross and that cross keeps repeating with some of the most objectively Christian imagery in the show. Also they’ve buried their son beneath the cross. This could be playing the machine but unlike Ramiro it doesn’t seem so performative. verdict: goy

e) clémence

nothing to suggest it and nothing to not suggest it. Who even knows? Not us. Not clémence most of all

[anamxii]

olek & ling yi🕊️

[paddysnuffles]

[felicitykings]

1899 (2022) ↳ 1.06 The Pyramid

[rumpled]

Every time, they make the same mistakes. And every time, they die. Because they can’t get rid of their emotions. But that’s what makes them weak. It’s human nature’s ultimate flaw. One shouldn’t base a choice on love, anger, hate. They’re just silly feelings that cloud the mind. — 1899, (fuck you netflix)

[yellow-dejavu]

Dark 1.01 (2017) | 1899 1.08 (2022) | Dark 3.01 (2020)

[the-girl-in-the-high-castle]

[rubyxjames]

Uh oh, the basement is flooding!

Making newish content of them because I miss them and want them back.

[partiallypearl]

"— and you’ll see how nice I can be." Jean-Paul Sartre, No Exit

[dovetalez]

ik we don’t know much about olek’s backstory, but I personally love to headcanon that he sees some father/family figure in eyk… think abt it 😔

[prometheus-ghost]

Okay so now that it's confirmed Olek has a twin brother (and a fraught relationship with him to say the least), whom do we think Ling Yi sees coming out of the oil drum and going into the portal in episode 8??

[w0lfinsheepscl0thing]

Ling Yi: Olek, I'm sad. Olek: *Holds out arms for a hug* It’s going to be okay. Clémence: Lucien, I'm sad. Lucien, nodding: mood.

[rotzaprachim]

have a vague and crack pot but possible theory that ángel was actually fleeing Spain - of the 1970’s (and the same period as Maura.) and that Olek was also fleeing Poland of the 1970’s to get to New York - or else Poland of the 2070’s or 2090’s. I think there were multiple time continuums even if no time travel, as run by the simulation