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the-signs-of-two · 8 years ago

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The East Wind: Understanding Eurus (3 of 3)

In the third and final part of this meta series, we will be looking at the events of TFP through the interpretational lens introduced previously, that is in the first and second part of this meta which can be found here and here. In those metas, I argued that the main conflict of the entirety of BBC Sherlock is the conflict within Sherlock to choose to be either a good man with John or a bad man with Jim. I also argued that Sherlock is well on his way to choosing the good man and John by the time of series 3 and that the ending of TAB shows him taking the final step in this process, metaphorically hurling Jim (and the side of Sherlock that Jim brings to the surface) down into the abyss. Finally, I argued that when Sherlock, rather than staying on the precipice with John, follows Jim into the abyss, he is literally following Jim into the deepest, darkest corner of his own mind to confront that bad man, that side of himself that Jim brings to the surface and in a way represents. And that side of Sherlock is personified by Eurus.

For simplicity reasons, I won’t go into minute details with every scene of the episode, but will merely be discussing the most important scenes as well as the overall interpretation and significance of TFP. Then maybe later I’ll return with more specific analyses of particular scenes or plot points.

The first scene I’ll be discussing is this scene, in which Mycroft gives some crucial information about Sherlock and Eurus. Mycroft has always represented pure logic in Sherlock’s mind palace and that is how he appears in this scene as well. Sherlock has buried his capacity to become a bad man so deep within himself that he has ceased to remember that it is even there on a conscious level. That’s a very emotional response. On a subconscious level, though, Sherlock has never allowed himself to forget what he is capable of and has thus kept a close eye on how well suppressed that side of himself has been.

Sherlock: So there were three of us. I know that now. You (logic), me (the good man), and... Eurus (the bad man). A sister I can’t remember. Interesting name, Eurus. It’s Greek, isn’t it?

John: Mm. Yeah, literally the god of the East Wind.

Mycroft: Yes.

Sherlock: “The East Wind is coming, Sherlock.” You used that to scare me.

Mycroft: No.

Sherlock: You turned my sister into a ghost story.

Mycroft: Of course I didn’t. I monitored you.

John: You what?

Mycroft: Memories can resurface. Wounds can re-open. The roads we walk have demons beneath... and yours have been waiting for a very long time. I never bullied you. I used, at discrete intervals, potential trigger words to update myself as to your mental condition. I was looking after you.

We also gain an insight into how Sherlock’s mind works and how it could have worked.

Mycroft: You realise I’m the smart one? (Mycroft = Sherlock’s logic/intelligence)

Sherlock: As you never cease to announce.

Mycroft: ... but Eurus, she was incandescent even then. Our abilities were professionally assessed more than once. I was remarkable, but Eurus was described as an era-defining genius, beyond Newton.

Notice how Mycroft seamlessly leaves out saying a word about how Sherlock’s abilities were assessed. That’s because the whole being that is Sherlock is split into three people in this episode and the side of Sherlock represented by Sherlock himself (the good man) isn’t a genius. The good man is the man who sacrificed logic for emotion. Sherlock as the good man is emotional (Sherlock) and his intelligence is “remarkable” (Mycroft). But if he had chosen differently, if he had sacrificed emotion for logic rather than logic for emotion, if he had chosen to become the bad man rather than the good man, he could have been “an era-defining genius, beyond Newton” (Eurus).

I’d like to clarify that I don’t think intelligence like the one we see Eurus possess is actually possible. I don’t think Sherlock would have been able to predict the next terrorist attack after an hour on twitter. But the important part is that Sherlock believes so. He believes that he can achieve a much higher level of intelligence without his emotions. And as we see throughout the entire series, especially in the beginning, that prospect has always held an enormous appeal for Sherlock.

Mycroft: You do remember her, in a way. Every choice you ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today... is your memory of Eurus.

We are told that Eurus took Sherlock’s dog, locked it up somewhere and refused to tell where it was. We’re later told that this wasn’t actually a dog, but Sherlock’s only friend, Victor. And after a while, she started calling him Drowned Redbeard because she chained him to a bottom of a well and let him drown as the water rose. This had a dramatic effect on Sherlock.

Mycroft: Sherlock was traumatised. Natural, I suppose. He was, in the early days, an emotional child. But after that he was different, so changed. Never spoke of it again. In time, he seemed to forget that Eurus had ever even existed.

Afterwards, Eurus burned down the house and we get a glimpse of the many images she has drawn right before she lights the match. In every image that Eurus draws, we see Sherlock somehow dead or dying beside other, unharmed members of the family. The obvious conclusion is that Eurus murders Redbeard and sets the house on fire not because she’s simply psychotic and has a desire to kill and destroy in general, but because she hates Sherlock in particular and wants to destroy him in every way she can. Mycroft and their parents escape, both on the pictures and in “the real world” (or as real as you get when you’re in the middle of a flashback within a mind palace within a mind palace with people who are personifications rather than actual people), unhurt.

Let’s translate. As I just said, logic and emotion are opposing forces in Sherlock. What we hear himself and others say time and again throughout the first couple of series is true - emotion stands in the way of logic, at least where Sherlock is concerned. Being an emotional man reduces Sherlock’s intelligence to “remarkable” when he could have been “an era-defining genius, beyond Newton”. That’s why Sherlock can’t be both a great man and a good man: being a great man equals being an unemotional man and therefore being a great man is only a small step away from being a bad man.

When Sherlock was a child, he was quite emotional and even had a friend, Victor Trevor. (Notice that Victor Trevor was a fellow student that Sherlock befriended during university in ACD canon, so the “friendship” with Victor definitely also have some romantic connotations.) This emotion, though, stood in the way of his logic and the side of him that wanted to be a great man thus wanted to rid himself of that emotion. Eurus killing Victor is a symbolic representation of Sherlock’s desire to get rid of his emotions. And he did so by shutting himself off from it and ending his friendship with Victor Trevor. I’m not saying that he killed the person Victor Trevor, I’m saying that he killed what he represented, that is, emotion and the capacity for friendship and love. And he destroyed the areas in his mind palace that contained his happy, innocent childhood (the ancestral home, where there was always honey for tea).

That is how Sherlock was at the beginning of the series in ASiP. A man shutting off his own emotions in an attempt to enhance his intelligence. The great man, equally likely to become the bad man as the good man.

Mycroft: Every choice you ever made, every path you’ve ever taken, the man you are today... is your memory of Eurus.

But not anymore. Sherlock has changed over the series and in TAB he’s finally accepted his own emotions. The person responsible for that change within Sherlock is and has always been John. So in TFP, Mycroft represents Sherlock’s logic and John represents Sherlock’s emotion.

And it’s time to face Sherlock’s inner demons. They’ve been waiting for a very long time.

Mycroft: There’s a place called Sherrinford, an island. It’s a secure and very secretive installation whose sole purpose is to contain what we call “the uncontainables.” The demons beneath the road - this is where we trap them. Sherrinford is more than a prison or an asylum. It is a fortress built to keep the rest of the world safe from what is inside it.

Sherrinford is an area of Sherlock’s mind palace designed to keep all his inner demons that he can’t stand to be confronted by away from his conscious mind. In there, he has locked the most unpleasant, self-destructive parts of himself away and thrown away the key.

I mean, look at it. Sherrinford looks ridiculous for a real life location, both inside and outside, but it makes perfect sense for the deepest, darkest corner of Sherlock’s mind palace to look like this. Sherrinford is just the bigger version of this room.

The name Sherrinford, a name that Doyle considered before settling on Sherlock, also points to Sherrinford being a part of Sherlock rather than a real life place.

Sherlock goes to Sherrinford along with John and Mycroft. At this point, in order to avoid confusion, let’s briefly examine what each of these people represent. Sherlock is Sherlock as a good man, but by this point in time, after TAB, Sherlock and the good man are one and the same and thus Sherlock is simply Sherlock - “remarkably” intelligent and emotional. Mycroft is Sherlock’s logic/intelligence (which is “remarkable” but not “incandescent” as it could have been). John is Sherlock’s emotion. The balance between John and Mycroft’s influence on Sherlock’s decisions in the following scenes thus represent the healthy balance between logic and emotion that Sherlock has achieved by this point in time.

Sherrinford’s governor, David, is, in my opinion, a Sherlock mirror. I was asked to explain why I understand him as such in my last meta, so here is a quick summary. Firstly, David is in charge of Sherrinford, which I understand to be an area of Sherlock’s mind palace in which he locks away “the uncontainables” of his own mind. It makes sense that the one charged with the security there would be himself. Secondly, the security of Sherrinford is compromised because Eurus was able to talk to David and get inside his head. Now she is running Sherrinford and is able to leave any time. It’s very over the top if taken literally, but on a symbolic level, it makes perfect sense if David is a Sherlock mirror. Sherlock has created Sherrinford as a place to store Eurus/bad multigenius Sherlock in his mind palace and he thinks he has it under control. But Eurus is an enticing prospect for Sherlock. He’s a good man, but he could become an era-defining genius if he just shut off his emotions and that has always been a difficult desire for him to master. Just listen to how David describes Eurus’ ability to manipulate people.

David: Everyone we sent in there, it’s... it’s hard to describe. It’s ... it’s like she...

Mycroft: ... recruited them.

David: Enslaved them.

David: She kept suggesting to Doctor Taylor that he should kill his family.

Mycroft: And?

David: He said it was like an earworm. Couldn’t get her out of his head.

David has been enslaved by Eurus as well. With David as a Sherlock mirror, the situation makes sense: David/Sherlock was meant to keep Eurus in check, but he was so fascinated by her (David: She’s clinically unique. We had to try.) that he couldn’t help listening to her and now she has control over him. Sherlock can’t listen to her without being “compromised” because he can’t listen to her without being tempted to shut off his emotions in order to further his intelligence.

While David, John and Mycroft discuss her ability to manipulate people, Sherlock finally comes face to face with Eurus. Sherlock wants to know how Eurus escaped in order to prevent it from happening again because she symbolically tried to kill Sherlock’s emotions (shot John) when she was not locked away deep inside Sherlock’s mind (Sherrinford). But notice how Eurus immediately begins enticing him. In fact, during the entirety of their conversation here, every single thing she says illustrates and is meant to illustrate that Eurus/the bad man is a thousand times brighter than Sherlock/the good man. Here are some of the most obvious examples.

Sherlock: How did you manage to get out of this place? How did you do that?

Eurus: Easy. Look at me.

Sherlock: I am looking at you.

Eurus: You can’t see it, can you? You try and try but you just can’t see. You can’t look.

Sherlock: See what?

Eurus is using the exact same degrading words that Sherlock usually uses when talking to people less observant than himself.

Eurus: What do you think?

Sherlock: Beautiful.

Eurus: You’re not looking at it.

Sherlock: I meant your playing.

Eurus: Oh, the music. I never know if it’s beautiful or not, only if i’s right.

Sherlock: Often they’re the same thing.

Eurus: If they’re not always the same thing, what’s the point in beauty?

Sherlock is emotional, he considers the music beautiful. Eurus is purely logical, the only thing she pays attention to is whether it’s right or not. And she berates him for paying attention to beauty rather than objective correctness.

By the time John realises that Eurus is capable of manipulating people Sherlock and tries to warn him, Sherlock is already too enticed to pay attention to John his emotions.

Sherlock: So clearly you remember me.

Eurus: I remember everything, every single thing. You just need a big enough hard drive.

John: Sherlock.

Sherlock: Not now.

John: Vatican Cameos.

Sherlock: In a minute. (breaks off the connection)

Eurus: Let’s continue. Did they tell you to keep three feet from the glass?

Sherlock: Yes.

Eurus: Be naughty. Step closer.

Sherlock: Why?

Eurus: Do it. Step closer.

Then Eurus gives some more information about Sherlock’s inner workings.

Sherlock: Tell me what you remember.

Eurus: You, me and Mycroft. Mycroft was quite clever. He could understand things if you went a bit slow, but you... you were my favourite.

Sherlock: Why was I your favourite?

Eurus: ‘Cause I could make you laugh. I loved it when you laughed. Once I made you laugh all night. I thought you were going to burst. Then Mummy and Daddy had to stop me of course.

Sherlock: Why?

Eurus: Well, turns out I got it wrong. Apparently, you were screaming.

Sherlock: Why was I screaming? (Pause) Redbeard. I remember Redbeard.

It is all too easy for me to imagine this mechanic in Sherlock’s mind. That Sherlock had a friend that he gave up so he wouldn’t care so much because he thought being clever would make him happy (Once I made you laugh all night), but really it only made him horribly lonely (Well, turns out I got it wrong. Apparently, you were screaming.).

And then Eurus and Sherlock are finally conjoined again.

Eurus: You think it’s a trick. You look so... unsure. You’re not used to being unsure, are you?

Sherlock: It’s more common than you’d think.

Eurus: Look at you. The man who sees through everything... is exactly the man who doesn’t notice... when there’s nothing to see through.

Eurus and Sherlock are both Sherlock. They are two halves of the same whole, the Sherlock that could have been and the Sherlock that ended up being.

Now compare that to the image we get when Eurus meets Jim.

Eurus is Sherlock, but Eurus is also a reflection of Jim. Eurus/the bad man is the part of Sherlock that Jim loves, just as Sherlock/the good man is the part of Sherlock that John loves. Just look at Jim and Eurus. Their faces are reflected in one another’s and they’re practically making love through the glass. And, as I’ve argued before, just as John has brought the good man to the surface, Jim brings Eurus/that bad side of Sherlock to the surface.

David: It’s obvious when it all started. Well, she was never the same after that Christmas. It’s as if you woke her up.

Eurus has been that dark little voice in Sherlock’s head all his life, but Sherlock was the great man, somewhere between the bad man and the good man, until he met John and Jim. John pulled him in the direction of the good man, but Jim also awakened certain sides inside of him. It’s those sides that he has to confront now and put back to rest.

But things don’t go according to plan. As always, Sherlock can’t quite control those dark little voices in his head and now Eurus flips the tables on Sherlock. So what we see is actually Sherlock fighting a war within himself because the two sides of him want different things. As they always have.

Sherlock wants to lock Eurus away so she can never get out again (he also wants to save the little girl on the plane, but we’ll get to that). Eurus wants Sherlock to give up his emotions and become her. It’s actually a perfect parallel to the actual plot. He wants to keep her locked up, she wants to get out. And the way to get out is to turn Sherlock into her by making him give up his emotions.

It’s difficult, but try not to think of her as a person. Try to think of her as that dark voice in Sherlock’s head, telling him that love is a chemical defect found in the losing side and that there’s no point in beauty if it isn’t right.

The first part of her plan is to make Sherlock choose between vilifying his emotions or his logic.

Eurus: You want to save the governor’s wife? Choose either Doctor Watson or Mycroft to kill the governor. You can’t do it, Sherlock. If you do it, it won’t count. I’ll kill her anyway. It has to be your brother or your friend.

Notice that if David is a Sherlock mirror, this first part of Eurus’ plan is actually a mirroring on a less significant scale of her overall plan. She is threatening to kill the governor’s wife, which if Sherlock is David then John must be his wife, and the only way to save her him (or more exactly Sherlock’s relationship with him) is for Sherlock to kill himself using either his emotions or his logic. And notice that David never hesitates for a second. He just accepts that he is going to die to save his beloved.

While they discuss what to do, Eurus states quite explicit what it is she’s putting Sherlock through.

Eurus: Withholding the precise deadline will apply the emotional pressure more evenly. Where possible, please give me an explicit verbal indication of your anxiety levels.

Eurus: I’m particularly focused on internal conflicts, where strategising around a largely intuitive moral code appears to create a counter-intuitive result.

Sherlock first chooses Mycroft (logic), but Sherlock is unwilling to use his logic to do bad.

Mycroft: I will not kill. I will not have blood on my hands.

This, we also see throughout the series. Yes, Mycroft might seem out of character, but Sherlock’s logic is perfectly in character. He’s always wanted to use his intelligence to solve crimes, not make them.

Instead, Sherlock turns to John (emotion). John is horrified, but as Sherlock’s emotions, he actually represents the part of Sherlock that loves John and therefore he tries to go through with it. Additionally, he tries to comfort David Sherlock and tell him that it’s the right choice.

John: You are a good man, and you are doing a good thing.

John: I know that you’re scared, but you should also be very proud.

In the end, though:

John: I can’t. I’m sorry. I can’t do it.

Sherlock: I know. It’s all right.

David Sherlock, though, isn’t prepared to live without his wife John and commits suicide entirely by his own hand in an attempt to save her him.

It doesn’t help, though, because now comes the whole point.

Eurus: Dead or alive... he really wasn’t very interesting, but you three... you three were wonderful. Thank you. You see, what you did, Doctor Watson (emotion), specifically because of your moral code... because you don’t want blood on your hands, two people are dead instead of one.

Eurus: What advantage did your moral code grant you? Is it not, in the end, selfish to keep one’s hands clean at the expense of another’s life?

What Eurus is doing is essentially turning the argument on its head to show Sherlock how illogical, vulnerable and, actually, how cruel he is because of his emotions.

Eurus: Enough for now. Time to play a new game.

The second part of Eurus’ plan is designed to do two things. First, Sherlock has to solve a case with the aid of both his logic and his emotion and see what actually proves useful to him. Second, Sherlock has to not just solve a case, but actually condemn the person responsible to death. He has to do it consciously and willingly. And here as well, Eurus have some points to make.

First:

Eurus: Please, make use of your friends, Sherlock. I want to see you interact with people that you’re close to. Also, you may have to choose which one to keep.

Sherlock: What do you make of it?

Mycroft: Am I being asked to prove my usefulness?

Sherlock: Yes, I should think you are.

Mycroft: I will not be manipulated like this.

Sherlock: Fine. John? John?

John: Yeah, I think I’ve seen one of these. It’s a buffalo gun. I’d say nineteen forties, old-fashioned sight, no crosshairs.

Mycroft: Well done, Doctor Watson. How useful you are. Do you have a suspicion we’re being made to compete?

Second:

Eurus: Now, as I understand it, Sherlock, you try to repress your emotions to refine your reasoning. Iâ€™d like to see how that works, so, if you donâ€™t mind, Iâ€™m going to apply some context to your deductions.

Eurus: Once you bring in your verdict, let me know and justice will be done.

Sherlock: Justice?

John: What will you do with them?

Eurus: Early release.

Sherlock: You’ll drop them into the sea.

Eurus: Sink, or swim.

John: They’re tied up!

Eurus: Exactly! Now there is context. Please, continue with your deductions. I’m now focusing on the difference to your mental capacity a specified consequence can make.

Sherlock: Alex.

Eurus: Say it. Condemn him. Condemn him in the knowledge of what will happen to the man you name.

Sherlock: ... I condemn Alex Garrideb.

And Eurus has a last point:

Eurus: Does it really make a difference, killing the innocent instead of the guilty? Let’s see. *drops Alex into the sea* No. That felt pretty much the same.

Into the third and worst part so far.

Sherlock has to convince Molly to tell him that she loves him before the time runs out or her flat will explode.

Sherlock: Molly, please, without asking why, just say these words.

Molly: What words?

Sherlock: I love you.

Molly: Leave me alone.

Sherlock: Molly, no, please, no, don’t hang up! Do not hang up!

Eurus: Calmly, Sherlock, or I will finish her right now.

Molly: Why are you doing this to me? Why are you making fun of me?

Sherlock: Please, I swear, you just have to listen to me.

Eurus: Softer, Sherlock!

Sherlock: Molly, this is for a case. It’s... it’s a sort of experiment.

Molly: I’m not an experiment, Sherlock.

Sherlock: No, I know you’re not an experiment. You’re my friend. We’re friends. But... please. Just... say those words for me.

Molly: Please don’t do this. Just... just... don’t do it.

Sherlock: It’s very important. I can’t say why, but I promise you it is.

Molly: I can’t say that. I can’t... I can’t say that to you.

Sherlock: Of course you can. Why can’t you?

Molly: You know why.

Sherlock: No, I don’t know why.

Molly: Of course you do.

Sherlock: Please, just say it.

Molly: I can’t. Not to you.

Sherlock: Why?

Molly: Because... because it’s true. Because... it’s... true, Sherlock. It’s always been true.

Sherlock: ... Well, if it’s true, just say it anyway.

Molly: You bastard.

Sherlock: Say it anyway.

Molly: You say it. Go on. You say it first.

Sherlock: What?

Molly: Say it. Say it like you mean it.

Eurus: Final thirty seconds.

Sherlock: I-I... I love you. I love you... Molly? Molly, please.

Molly: ... I love you.

But Eurus always has a point to make.

Sherlock: Eurus, I won. I won. Come on, play fair. The girl on the plane: I need to talk to her. I won. I saved Molly Hooper.

Eurus: Saved her? From what? Oh, do be sensible. There were no explosives in her little house. Why would I be so clumsy? You didn’t win. You lost. Look what you did to her. Look what you did to yourself. All those complicated little emotions. I lost count. Emotional context, Sherlock. It destroys you every time.

And this is when Sherlock breaks.

I don’t really need to explain this part, do I? This is just too painful.

And now we’ve arrived at the final part of Eurus’ plan.

Eurus: You’ve still got the gun, haven’t you? I told you you’d need it, because only two can play the next game. Just two of you go on from here. Your choice. It’s make-your-mind-up time. Whose help do you need the most? John or Mycroft? It’s an elimination round. You choose one and kill the other. You have to choose family or friend. Mycroft or John Watson?

And just so there can be no doubt what it is Eurus is asking Sherlock to do:

Mycroft: There’s no question who has to continue from here. It’s us, you and me. Whatever lies ahead requires brainpower, Sherlock, not sentiment. Don’t prolong his agony, shoot him.

Eurus is asking Sherlock to choose between his logic and his emotions. This is the moment when Sherlock could become Eurus. But that’s not what he chooses. He can’t live without his emotions now.

Eurus: Jim Moriarty thought you’d make this choice. He was so excited.

Jim: And here we are, at the end of the line. Holmes killing Holmes.

People assume that Moriarty means Sherlock killing Mycroft. But his wording is made deliberately ambiguous and I believe the correct understanding is actually Sherlock killing Sherlock.

And it would be. While it’s obvious that Sherlock killing his emotions and becoming Eurus would be horrible, Sherlock also needs his logic. No matter what he chooses, he will live as an amputated human being. Both his logic and his emotions are such huge parts of him by now that he can’t live without either. Which is why he chooses to do what David as a mirror foretold. He chooses to shoot himself.

And Eurus panics. Because she is Sherlock. And if Sherlock shoots himself, it’s all over. That includes her. She can’t allow that.

Sherlock: Ten...

Eurus: No, no, Sherlock.

Sherlock: Nine... Eight...

Eurus: You can’t!

Sherlock: Seven...

Eurus: You don’t know about Redbeard yet.

Sherlock: Six...

Eurus: Sherlock!

Sherlock: Five...

Eurus: Sherlock, stop that at once!

Sherlock: Four... Three... Two...

And we’ve finally arrived at Musgrave Hall. Whether this was actually Sherlock’s childhood home, I couldn’t say, but at least it is the area of his mind palace he associates with his childhood and thus also where he stores his childhood memories. This is where he can find the truth about Eurus and himself.

This part will not be as chronological as the rest of this meta because everything is happening at once and it just makes it a lot easier if we go through this topic by topic. So I’ve separated the four main things happening in this scene and I’ll go through them one by one.

First plot point, Sherlock’s childhood and Victor Trevor. As I’ve said before, no, I don’t think Sherlock killed his best friend when he was a child. But what we see Eurus do is a symbolic representation of what Sherlock actually did. Victor was Sherlock’s friend and he drew out Sherlock’s emotions. But that’s not who Sherlock wanted to be.

Eurus: You were inseparable. But I wanted to play too.

It’s never directly stated in the episode, but I believe that even though Sherlock and Victor were “inseparable”, they were not as close as Sherlock would have liked. There are two reasons why I think that this is a possible interpretation. First, Eurus says that she wanted to play too, but wasn’t welcome. Second, the relationship between Victor and Sherlock is set up as an almost perfect parallel to the relationship between Sherlock and John - they are inseparable as friends, but Sherlock (and John, but that’s irrelevant here) wants it to be something more. And one of the main reasons why it hasn’t happened (yet) is because John didn’t see Sherloc’s emotions clearly.

Maybe Victor had other friends, paralleling that John has other romantic relationships. Maybe Victor never truly understood who Sherlock is and just wanted to play, paralleling that John only too late has realised that Sherlock is also an emotional being and started off only wanting to be friends and solve crimes. In any case, Victor and Sherlock were inseparable, but not enough so that some part of Sherlock didn’t feel alone.

Sherlock: You killed my best friend.

Eurus: I never had a best friend. I had no one.

So what do I believe happened when Sherlock was a child? I believe Sherlock ended the friendship with Victor because he couldn’t stand having his emotions laid bare and because he wanted to be more intelligent. But without that friendship, he was just incredibly lonely. So I believe that what Sherlock killed was that childhood emotion.

Mycroft: He was, in the early days, an emotional child. But after that he was different, so changed.

And I believe that what he burned down was the area in his mind palace where he kept the memories of that friendship and of that period of careless emotion in his life.

Second plot point, John in the well. In the move from Sherrinford to Musgrave Hall, Mycroft is no longer present. That’s because everything is now boiled down to what it’s really all about: Sherlock’s emotions (John). Just as Victor is simultaneously Sherlock’s childhood emotion and a real person who was Sherlock’s first friend/love, John is simultaneously Sherlock’s current emotion and simply John, a real person who is Sherlock’s second friend/love. This means that what is at stake is both Sherlock’s relationship with John and Sherlock’s ability to feel his own emotions.

John is in the same well as the one Victor drowned in because there’s only two ways to go from here. Either Sherlock solves the Musgrave Ritual and saves John/his emotions, becoming the good man, or Eurus will drown John/his emotions and Sherlock will become the bad man/Eurus.

Eurus: I’m letting the water in now. You don’t want me to drown another one of your pets, do you? At long last, Sherlock Holmes, it’s time to solve the Musgrave Ritual.

Eurus: Deep waters, Sherlock, all your life. In all your dreams. Deep waters. (cue water=emotion subtext)

Third plot point, the girl on the plane. I’ve so far clumsily side-stepped the girl on the plane but now it’s all coming full circle and it’s finally time to discuss what this episode’s resolution actually is.

As I said before, Sherlock has two objectives throughout the episode. One is to recapture Eurus and make sure that she can’t escape again. Another is to save the girl on the plane. But Eurus is that girl on the plane. And that’s because, all along, Sherlock’s subconscious has been aware that just locking Eurus away again in the deepest level of his mind palace isn’t enough. She can’t be contained, she’s too intelligent and Sherlock is too receptive to the promises she presents. He can’t deal with his own darker nature by just shutting it away as he always has. He has to face himself. He has to save himself.

Sherlock: Does the river look like it’s getting closer?

Eurus as the girl on the plane: A-a little bit.

Sherlock: All right, then. That means you’re nearly home. (cue water=emotion subtext)

I am lost. Help me brother. Save my life. Before my doom.

I am lost. Without your love. Save my soul. Seek my room.

Because deep down, at the deepest level of the deepest level, deep down Sherlock isn’t two forces pulling in two different directions. Deep down, there’s just him. And he is a lonely little boy who was always too intelligent and too vulnerable and so he always wanted to be something he’s not: an emotionless thinking-machine free from pain, heartbreak, loss, death.

Eurus: You were upset. So you told yourself a better story.

And finally...

Sherlock: I’m here, Eurus.

Eurus: You’re playing with me, Sherlock. We’re playing the game.

Sherlock: The game, yes. I get it now. The song was never a set of directions.

Eurus: I’m in the plane and I’m going to crash. And you’re going to save me.

Sherlock: Look how brilliant you are. Your mind has created the perfect metaphor. You’re high above us, all alone in the sky, and you understand everything except how to land. Now, I’m just an idiot, but I’m on the ground. I can bring you home.

Eurus: No. No, no. It’s too late now.

Sherlock: No it’s not. It’s not too late.

Eurus: Every time I close my eyes, I’m on the plane. I’m lost, lost in the sky and... no one can hear me.

Sherlock: Open your eyes. I’m here. You’re not lost any more.

Look how brilliant Sherlock is. His mind has created the perfect metaphor. He’s high in the sky, too intelligent for his own good. He’s surrounded by people, all day every day, but he is unable to interact with them, get a response from them, get any of them to just look at him. He understands everything except how to free himself from being so very alone above everyone else. That’s who he really is deep down.

But now that he knows that, now that he is reunited with Eurus and is one whole person, he does know how to land. He does know who and what he needs.

Sherlock: Now, you... you just... you just went the wrong way last time, that’s all. This time, get it right. Tell me how to save my friend. Eurus... Help me save John Watson.

Sherlock being one whole being and choosing with his whole being to save his emotions and let them be a part of him is the Sherlock who is a good man. He is a complicated man, but now he has the emotional context he needs to be who he really is.

John: Well, you gave her what she was looking for: context.

Sherlock: Is that good?

John: It’s not good, it’s not bad. It’s... It is what it is.

Fourth plot point, what happens to Eurus. Now, I could actually end it here, because that the whole point and meaning of this episode and meta series. But I thought it best to address what happens to Eurus afterwards, because it really brings it all full circle.

Eurus doesn’t go home. Because, sadly, that part of Sherlock is just not compatible with who he wants to be.

Mr. Holmes: Where is she?

Mycroft: Back in Sherrinford. Secure this time. People have died. Without doubt she will kill again if she has the opportunity. There’s no possibility she’ll ever be able to leave.

But something has changed.

Mycroft: She won’t talk. She won’t communicate with anyone in any way. She has passed beyond our view. There are no words that can reach her now.

Eurus was always dangerous because she talked. Yes, in the episode we also see her kill people, but in the context of Eurus as that suppressed, dark part of Sherlock, the reason she is dangerous is because she could manipulate him by talking to him and lure him in with promises of an incandescent intellect. Now she doesn’t talk anymore. Thus, she isn’t dangerous anymore.

And slowly, Sherlock gets her to respond to him through another medium. The violin. Slowly, these two parts of Sherlock, who have always been opposites, who have always been the good man and the bad man, who have always been an emotional man and an intelligent man, who have always been the Sherlock John loves and the Sherlock Jim loves, learn to play the same tune together. A tune that is both beautiful (emotion) and right (logic).

Because that is who Sherlock is. He will always live with the traumas from his young years, the traumas that created Eurus. They will always be a part of him. He is not all good or bad, all emotional or logical, he is who he is. But if he can live with his traumas without those traumas overtaking him and preventing him from being with other people, he can be one whole human being. And if he can be with John, who understands and appreciates everything that Sherlock is, he can also find happiness.

Thank you so much for reading this meta series.

#Sherlock #BBC Sherlock #Sherlock Meta #Series 4 #The Final Problem #TFP #Johnlock #TJLC #my meta

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surveysonfleek · 8 years ago

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212.

1. When you have cereal, do you have more milk than cereal or more cereal than milk? more cereal than milk so the cereal doesn’t get too soggy too quickly.

2. Do you like the feeling of cold air on your cheeks on a winter day? the first hit of cold is always nice. after awhile it gets annoying.

3. What random objects do you use to bookmark your books? nothing too interesting, random pieces of paper etc. or i’ll just fold the corner.

4. How do you take your coffee/tea? coffee: two sugars with milk. tea: one sugar and milk.

5. Are you self-conscious of your smile? i’m happy with my teeth, they could be a bit whiter though.

6. Do you keep plants? my mum loves plants, our backyard is huge and there’s gardens everywhere. there’s also some plants inside in the front lounge and then our dining room. none in my room, not enough sunlight lol.

7. Do you name your plants? no.

8. What artistic medium do you use to express your feelings? none. do tumblr surveys count?

9. Do you like singing/humming to yourself? only if i’m really into the songs.

10. Do you sleep on your back, side, or stomach? side or stomach.

11. What’s your inner joke you have with your friends? there’s too many but one of the more recent ones is millus. there’s a guy at work named milos and it’s correctly pronounced ‘milosh’ but everyone says ‘mi-loss’ which is also fine. one of our workmates called him ‘millus’ the other day ever so innocently and we thought it was hilarious. so his name is millus now. lol.

12. What’s your favourite planet? earth.

13. What’s something that made you smile today? getting a new candle!

14. If you were to live with your best friend in an old flat in a big city, what would it look like? definitely loft style. huge space with high ceilings. our room would be open on like a second level and then everything on the first level would be studio-like, not many walls apart from the bathroom.

15. Go google a weird space fact and tell us what it is! no.

16. What’s your favourite pasta dish? ugh i hate pasta. if i had to choose, probably gnocchi.

17. What colour do you really want to dye your hair? nothing in particular. wouldn’t mind some highlights. but my hair is super dead, it needs a break.

18. Tell us about something dumb/funny you did that has since gone down in history between you and your friends and is always brought up. tomorrowland and coachella alwayssss come up in conversation.

19. Do you keep a journal? What do you write/draw in it? nope.

20. What’s your favourite eye colour? hazel is always pretty.

21. Talk about your favourite bag, the one that’s been to hell and back with you and that you love to pieces. hmmm i change handbags every year and they all go through hell and back with me lol. but i’d have to choose my hand carry luggage. that shit is super old, one of the zips are broken, the handle struggles to pull up but i still take it with me everywhere. one time i checked it in and it went missing. i thought it was the end of it but thankfully it was found and delivered to my front door lol.

22. Are you a morning person? nope. but if i have to wake up early i can do so easily.

23. What’s your favourite thing to do on lazy days where you have no obligations? i clean my room a bit, rearrange stuff, cook something new and watch netflix.

24. Is there someone out there you would trust with every single one of your secrets? probably my boyfriend.

25. What’s the weirdest place you’ve ever broken into? i don’t think i’ve ever broken in anywhere.

26. What are the shoes you’ve had for forever and wear with every single outfit? i have a lot of favourites that i’ll wear until they eventually break lol.

27. What’s your favourite bubblegum flavour? watermelon.

28. Sunrise or sunset? sunset. but sunrises are just as beautiful.

29. What’s something really cute that one of your friends does and is totally endearing? when my boyfriend geeks out about certain things like game of thrones lol. loser.

30. Think of it: have you ever been truly scared? yes, of course.

31. What is your opinion of socks? Do you like wearing weird socks? Do you sleep with socks? Do you confine yourself to white sock hell? Really, just talk about socks. i only wear socks when i’m wearing boots or sneakers or if it’s winter and my feet are cold. i own more black socks than white coz of work.

32. Tell us a story of something that happened to you after 3AM when you were with your friends. that’s what i call a dope games night hahaha.

33. What’s your favourite pastry? i honestly love all pastry.

34. Tell us about the stuffed animal you kept as a kid. What is it called? What does it look like? Do you still keep it? this cabbage patch doll. she was black with dreads and had a flower tee. my grandparents got it for me, not once did i think she was different coz she was black, i just loved her! i have no idea where it is now sadly.

35. Do you like stationery and pretty pens and so on? Do you use them often? i love stationery, i just don’t use them enough to buy heaps.

36. Which band’s sound would fit your mood right now? no idea. none right now.

37. Do you like keeping your room messy or clean? organized chaos tbh.

38. Tell us about your pet peeves! i could make an entire list. but my main one are people who cough without covering their mouths.

39. What colour do you wear the most? black.

40. Think of a piece of jewellery you own: what’s its story? Does it have any meaning to you? my diamond bracelet my boyfriend got me for my 21st birthday. i love it but it’s super flimsy, it’s broken twice now so i don’t wear it anymore.

41. What’s the last book you remember really, really loving? harry potter. all of them.

42. Do you have a favourite coffee shop? Describe it! starbucks.

43. Who was the last person you gazed at the stars with? i feel like i’ve never done this before lol.

44. When was the last time you remember feeling completely serene and at peace with everything? ugh idk never.

45. Do you trust your instincts a lot? yes.

46. Tell us the worst pun you can think of. i’d tell you but it’s not very punny.

47. What food do you think should be banned from the universe? none.

48. What was your biggest fear as a kid? Is it the same today? dogs. haha no, i love dogs now.

49. Do you like buying CDs and records? What was the last one you bought? i don’t buy them anymore. i don’t even remember the last cd i got.

50. What’s an odd thing you collect? nothing weird.

51. Think of a person. What song do you associate with them? marc, get buck. so random.

52. What are your favourite memes of the year so far? haha idk. i like memes but not as much as everyone else on my facebook feed.

53. Have you ever watched The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Heathers? Beetlejuice? Pulp Fiction? What do you think of them? none.

54. Who’s the last person you saw with a true look of sadness on their face? omg this girl at work last night. no customer service whatsoever. i hope i don’t look like that.

55. What’s the most dramatic thing you’ve ever done to prove a point? idk lol.

56. What are some things you find endearing in people? just their dorkiness.

57. Go listen to Bohemian Rhapsody. How did it make you feel? Did you dramatically reenact the lyrics? i didn’t listen to it. but i do enjoy that song.

58. Who’s the wine mom and who’s the vodka aunt in your group of friends? Why? this is incredibly fitting. sara is the wine mom 100%, and irene is the vodka aunt, she’s even russian ffs hahaha.

59. What’s your favourite myth? unicorns lol.

60. Do you like poetry? What are some of your favourites? no. the only time i ever read poetry was in school.

61. What’s the stupidest gift you’ve ever given? The stupidest one you’ve ever received? idk lol. there’s been plenty both ways.

62. Do you drink juice in the morning? Which kind? nope.

63. Are you fussy about your books and music? Do you keep them meticulously organised or kinda leave them be? not fussy at all. i used to be when i was younger. my itunes library would have all correct details and i managed to cut the genres down to under 10. now i don’t care. my books are everywhere too.

64. What colour is the sky where you are right now? black.

65. Is there anyone you haven’t seen in a long time who you’d love to hang out with? yes.

66. What would your ideal flower crown look like? white, pink and purple.

67. How do gloomy days where the sky is dark and the world is misty make you feel? i love staying inside during those days.

68. What’s winter like where you live? it’s nice during the day and freezing at night.

69. What are your favourite board games? cranium. its an everything boardgame lol.

70. Have you ever used a ouija board? no.

71. What’s your favourite kind of tea? honeydew milk tea with pearls.

72. Are you a person that needs to note everything down or else you’ll forget it? no.

73. What are some of your worst habits? i get annoyed easily. i also have no patience.

74. Describe a good friend of yours without using their name of gendered pronouns. i am theirs and they are mine.

75. Tell us about your pets! he’s my first and probably last pet dog, sky. he’s sooooo cute and super old but he still has the spirit of a puppy. physically you can see signs of old age in him but i hope he’s okay.

76. Is there anything you should be doing right now but aren’t? nope.

77. Pink or yellow lemonade? neither. they’re too sour.

78. Are you in the minion hateclub or fanclub? neither?

79. What’s one of the cutest things someone has ever done for you? organized a present for me overseas. lol.

80. What colour are your bedroom walls? Did you choose that colour? If so, why? turquoise and light grey.

81. Describe one of your friends’ eyes using the most abstract imagery you can think of. striking.

82. Are/were you good in school? yeah i was good i guess.

83. What’s some of your favourite album art? all of rihanna’s shit.

84. Are you planning on getting tattoos? Which ones? nope.

85. Do you read comics? What are your favourites? nope.

86. Do you like concept albums? Which ones? is lemonade one?

87. What are some movies you think everyone should watch at least once in their lives? sound of music.

88. Are there any artistic movements you particularly enjoy? modern shit. cubism, futurism, surrealism, pop art.

89. Are you close to your parents? fairly close, yes.

90. Talk about one of your favourite cities. san francisco is a dream. it’s the first city my boyfriend and i ever went to overseas. i love it so much, i want to go back.

91. Where do you plan on travelling this year? this year nowhere, only coz i’ve traveled twice this year already.

92. Are you a person who drowns their pasta in cheese or a person who barely sprinkles a pinch? it depends on the pasta and the cheese.

93. What’s the hairstyle you wear the most? ponytail.

94. Who was the last person you know to have a birthday? my boyfriend’s dad.

95. What are your plans for this weekend? no ideaaaa.

96. Do you install your computer updates really quickly, or do you procrastinate on them a lot? procrastinate, duh.

97. Myer Briggs type, Zodiac sign, and Hogwarts house? i forgot, sagittarius, ravenclaw.

98. When’s the last time you went hiking? Did you enjoy it? probably diamond head lmao. i hated it but the view up top was amazing.

99. List some songs that resonate to your soul whenever you hear them. noo.

100. If you were presented with two buttons, one that allows you to go five years into the past, the other five years into the future, which one would you press? Why? errr neither. i guess i’d lean towards going back though. i don’t wna miss all the things the next five years could bring me.

#survey #surveys #quiz #bored #questions

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maddiviner · 8 years ago

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The World of Grimoires Part III: Grimoire Styles

I’ve talked about choosing your supplies and the physical (or not so physical!) book itself. Now, let’s discuss some of the options you’ve got for structuring, organizing, and keeping your grimoire updated. I’ve experimented with most, but not all, of these styles over the years, and I’ve talked to witches who made each of them work. They all do work, but each requires a different sort of person. Which one is right for you? Only you can answer that! Even if none of these styles sound useful to you, you can always create a new and different way of doing things uniquely tailored to you!

Daily Journal

A daily journal is, of course, just that - a journal that you write in roughly once a day or so. Lots of people keep journals for all kinds of reasons, but here, I’m referring to keeping one centered around your magical practice. Each night, you might reflect on the experiences of the day and write your thoughts, as well as recording any magical work you might have done, spells, rituals, as well as anything important you’ve learned.

Such an exercise of unwinding one’s mental spirals at the end of each day onto paper can be extremely cathartic, and the task of writing daily entries can become a grounding and centering ritual in and of itself. I’ve known witches who kept daily journals and integrated their writing time into other witchcraft-related activities such as ritual bathing and meditation.

This style of grimoire is ideal for those of us who like to have tangible records of our self-development, as well as of our maturation processes and general thoughts. This can be both a blessing and a curse, though - if you keep such a grimoire, be prepared to look back on some of your writing years later and cringe at what you didn’t understand or thought you knew.

Another issue arises simply from the level of discipline and regularity required to keep up with daily journaling activities. If your schedule is very erratic, it may be difficult to find time to write, and also an easily forgotten task. Even for those with a more predictable lifestyle, it does require some discipline and motivation to maintain. I personally don’t consider a daily journal to be incredibly difficult (at least, not compared to some of the other grimoire styles I’ll discuss).

Still, I can think of many situations in which it would quickly become quite a problem to keep journaling. Health issues like depression or arthritis might make writing daily almost impossible for some people. The bottom line is that everyone is different, and if this style isn’t working for you, or doesn’t feel right, examine why. If it’s purely a lack of discipline, goal-setting can help, but for those of us with health issues or other concerns interfering, this style might not be the best approach.

When I was in my first semester of college, I began my first attempt at a true daily journal of my witchcraft practices. I’ll admit that with class and work, I didn’t always write every single day, but I gave it my best. I would sit and think for a bit, then write down my reflections for the day as a retrospective in the evenings, or whenever I was preparing for bed. It really didn’t differ much from the journals non-witches might keep, except that the subject matter was always at least tangentially related to the Craft and my experience of it.

Not all of my grimoires have survived over the years, but the one mentioned above, did. Looking back at it now, it contains precious little by way of practical information (such as correspondences, etc); the bulk of it describes my journey into college from a magical perspective. The picture below is one of the few entries I made in it that I’m comfortable sharing here - much of what I wrote was intensely personal.

It was related to magick and witchcraft and certainly aided my development, but was still more to do with me myself than with any studying of magick I’d been doing at the time. I’ve learned a lot rereading what I wrote during this period, and while I left off keeping a daily journal-style grimoire during my second year of college, I’m still glad I kept one at that particular stage in my life.

Magical Diaries

The term “magical diary” was popularized by Aleister Crowley. As part of his work in founding the magical order known as A.’.A.’., he urged his students to keep a regular record of all rituals and magical exercises performed. He even provided examples of the exact format he himself found most advantageous, and you can see such an example in his short text, John St.John, which I’ll quote a brief passage from below.

12.0. Have finished bath and massage, during which I continued steadily but quite gently, “not by a strain laborious and hurtful but with stability void of movement,” willing the Presence of Adonai.

12.5. I ordered a dozen oysters and a beefsteak, and now (12.10) find myself wishing for an apple chewed and swallowed by deglutition, as the Hatha Yogis do.

The distaste for food has already begun.

12.12. Impressions already failing to connect.

I was getting into Asana and thinking “I record this fact,” when I saw a jockey being weighed. {12}

12.12. I thought of recording my own weight which I had not taken.

Good!

12.13. Pranayama [10 seconds to breath in, 20 seconds to

12.24. breathe out, 30 seconds to hold in the breath.] Fairly good; made me sweat again thoroughly. Stopped not from fatigue but from lunch.

[Odd memoranda during lunch.

Insist on pupils writing down their whole day; the play as well as the work. “By this means they will become ashamed, and prate no longer of 'beasts.'”]

I am now well away on the ascetic current, devising all sorts of privations and thoroughly enjoying the idea.

12.55. Having finished a most enjoyable lunch, will drink coffee and smoke, and try and get a little sleep. Thus to break up sleep into two shifts.

2.18. A nice sleep. Woke refreshed.

John St. John is chiefly the diary of a ceremonial magician and student of Thelema, and thus a lot of the words and practices mentioned within it might be unfamiliar to the modern non-ceremonial witch. I quote it, though, to emphasize the level of detail.

Notice how the author (Crowley himself, in one of his many ritual guises) has recorded almost every activity he performs during this period of time, from eating and smoking to ritual activities. This may seem excessive to a lot of us (it certainly did to me, at first), but even today, many ritual magicians, especially Thelemic aspirants to the A.’.A.’., keep such detailed diaries.

This type of diary is well-suited to practitioners of all sorts (including witches) who both have the fastidious nature to record all this and a reason to do it, such as undergoing a so-called “magical retirement:” spending a few days or weeks free from most obligations and focusing on magick. I realize that for the everyday practitioner, this level of detail may seem nigh impossible, but I myself thought so, too, prior to actually beginning such a record in December 2013.

It was difficult at first, but gradually became second nature. I recorded it all in a binder full of paper, arranged chronologically with tabs for each month, and noted all details of my mental state and activities. Had things not gone bad with my teacher at the time, I probably would have given the magical diary over to him to review, as is traditional and expected in these situations. As I said, though, things went badly between us, and some other people involved, so I ended up not doing that. Thankfully, too - that diary had a lot of private information in it, and who knows what could’ve been done with it!

Keeping this kind of journal is not for everyone, obviously. If you decide to give it a go, more power to you, but I strongly suggest only showing it to those you trust. In a situation where you’re officially studying under someone and they request to see it, you should already be in a position where you trust them. If not, I would recommend working with someone else or going it alone.

Oddly enough, while this format is traditional for Thelemites and other magical practitioners, I also find this method incredibly helpful if you’re going through any sort of mental distress or coping with mental illness. I realize many mental illnesses make keeping a detailed diary difficult, but if you can manage it, just charting your moods with that level of intensity can be very useful, even if you only do it for a week or so. I know that when I was doing it, I noticed patterns that helped me develop coping strategies better, and it made me more aware of how deeply affected I am by sleep interruptions and other similar issues.

Commonplace Books

A “commonplace” book is sort of like a written scrapbook, where the writer records snippets of things they’ve read, thoughts, and general observations in a very loose format. Wikipedia has a good article on the phenomenon, and notes that they were common in Early Modern Europe among the philosophically- minded as a way of compiling information and thoughts in both long and short forms.

Nowadays, the format is as popular as ever, though not everyone has heard the term. Many seem to erroneously think, as well, that commonplace books only contain quotations, when in reality they can include your personal musings, outlines for writing, or really anything else you want. There’s no real system to it, either - it can be as freeform, or structured, as you want.

This has been one of my favorite methods for recording information for many years. I began my first commonplace book as a young teenager, just prior to becoming involved in magick. My AP English teacher at the time introduced me to the concept, and I’d read about it, oddly enough, in a Lemony Snicket book, as well. If you’ve read A Series of Unfortunate Events, you’ll know that several characters keep them.

My early commonplace books were almost entirely focused on philosophy, particularly Rationalism and Empiricism, which was my favorite subject at the time. I don’t know why, but the English teacher I mentioned was fairly obsessed with philosophy and had us reading Voltaire instead of Moby Dick or whatever else normally would have been on the slate. As I got more serious about my Tarot studies, and began to delve into magick, notes on that naturally flowed into my commonplace book, and gradually took over until I had a sort of commonplace book of shadows on my hands.

I currently keep a commonplace book in an orange Moleskine journal, and it’s mostly where I go to outline articles I’m writing for my blog, and sections for my book. In fact, as I type this, I’m looking over at the page where I’ve an outline for this very article. Other pages include notes from my reading of Donald Tyson’s books, and notes on the Thelemic Holy Books. I date every entry into this book, small and at the top of the page, so that I’ll know exactly when I was working on a particular outline, article, or reading a certain book. I find this extremely useful as a writer, and I can’t recommend this format more if you’re interested in writing anything.

As to Craft, though (because this article is about grimoires, remember?) if you choose to use a commonplace book as a grimoire, it’s useful to not only include dates in the notebook, but also title each section with a few words on it’s focus. You might write, “1/12/17 Notes on Soul Flight” at the top of the page, just to give you an idea of where you are each day. I also have taken to leaving pages blank at the beginning of the notebook and filling in each section or topic in a table of contents, as well. I really wish I had done this with my older commonplace books, as it can be difficult to find what I’m looking for in those these days.

Spellbooks

Some witches just keep a notebook, either alone or in tandem with another for records, for spells and magical information. By this, I mean that these books dispense with anything resembling a diary format and are instead just organized around topics. A typical spellbook-style grimoire might include a section for prosperity, one for love, one on astroloy, and so on and so forth. These are incredibly hard to organize unless you’re using a binder system where pages are removable, because it’s hard to set up sections and you never know just how big one section will become.

The summer before I went away to college, I set up just such a grimoire, using pages I’d typed and printed, organized, and threw into a three-ring binder. I included some spells and rituals I’d found online, as well as a section devoted to pertinent excerpts from occult texts I found meaningful. It was relatively impersonal, which is probably why I ultimately ended up giving it to a friend. Still, for the period of time when I kept it, I found it rather useful and easy to update, organize, etc. I couldn’t imagine having done it in a traditional notebook, and highly recommend a binder format if you decide to go in this direction.

Nowadays, I do have a small-ish notebook where I exclusively record spells. As you can see below, I illustrate it as lavishly as I personally can, but I only include spells here, not correspondences or other magical information. I have a separate, similar book which details magical information and spells exclusively related to hedgecraft, and I call this, lovingly, my Book of Thorns. Both are useful, but I couldn’t imagine them in the same notebook, so maybe for spellbooks, it’s best to separate them by topic, or use the aforementioned binder technique.

#magick #witchcraft #witch #grimoire #book of shadows #eliza.txt

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gamerszone2019-blog · 6 years ago

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses Directors Aren't Sure Why The Series Is Popular In The West

New Post has been published on https://gamerszone.tn/fire-emblem-three-houses-directors-arent-sure-why-the-series-is-popular-in-the-west/

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Directors Aren't Sure Why The Series Is Popular In The West

“I don’t know.” I’m on the phone with Toshiyuki Kusakihara, one of the directors of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Shadows of Valentia, and an art director on many others. And that’s what he tells me through a translator when I ask what he thinks is the reason the series has suddenly skyrocketed in Western success over the last decade. It’s a pretty amusing answer. “I actually don’t know why it’s been so accepted by so many people all over the world.”

Nintendo’s turn-based strategy RPG franchise has been popular with Japanese audiences ever since its inception in 1990, but outside of Japan, few had ever heard about it until two anime swordsmen named Marth and Roy made an appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Following Melee’s release in 2001, a number of Fire Emblem games made their way to the West on GameCube, DS, and Wii. But it wasn’t until 2013, when Awakening released on the 3DS, that Fire Emblem actually exploded in international popularity, an occurrence that reportedly saved the series from imminent cancellation.

Lucina and Chrom, Fire Emblem Awakening (2013) for Nintendo 3DS

Maybe it was just the rapidly growing install base of the 3DS; the handheld was beginning to really hit its stride after a poor launch, and the new 3DS XL had recently gone on sale. Maybe it was a renewed interest in tactical strategy games; Firaxis’ excellent reboot of XCOM, Enemy Unknown, had also been a recent and popular release. But Kusakihara genuinely couldn’t point to anything remotely definitive. “We don’t have the confidence to say: ‘Oh! As long as we keep doing this thing, then the game will be popular!’ There’s nothing like that.”

Since Awakening, the development team at Intelligent Systems has pulled Fire Emblem in a couple of interesting new directions. First was the ambitious Fates for 3DS, a title that was divided into three separate products. Then came Shadows of Valentia, a remake of the second-ever Fire Emblem game from 1992, which stood out for its notable tweaks to the strategy combat mechanics and featured third-person dungeon exploration, of all things. There was Fire Emblem Heroes, which refashioned the tactical battles to suit a surprisingly good bite-sized mobile game with an all-star cast. Now, Three Houses has been released for the Switch, and its narrative flow revolves around a yearly calendar schedule, coupled with a military academy where your protagonist is a professor and your class of students are your troops.

“We don’t have the confidence to say: ‘Oh! As long as we keep doing this thing, then the game will be popular!’ There’s nothing like that.”

When Three Houses was officially revealed, I (and I assume many others) saw the academy component and instantly made the connection to another Japanese RPG which saw an enormous spike in popularity–the Shin Megami Tensei spin-off, Persona. Persona games always revolve around students in high school across the course of a year, so naturally, I assumed that the Fire Emblem development team looked at Persona’s incredible success and attempted to tap into that formula. Of course, like the foolish Westerner I am, I was wrong.

“‘Genealogy Of The Holy War‘ was what we directly drew inspiration from,” Kusakihara stated. “This was a game for the Super Famicom that released in 1996, and it’s the fourth in the Fire Emblem series.” It was never released in English, though a fan translation exists. “In this game, you have an Officer’s Academy where there are best friends who really develop their relationships there, and the story was centered around them. So [Three Houses] was kind of an attempt to create that kind of setting in more detail.”

Fire Emblem: Geneology of the Holy War (1996) for Super Famicom

Building beautifully aspirational lifelong relationships through an extravagantly romanticized depiction of high school life is a huge component of Three Houses. Across the course of a campaign, you’ll spend a couple of dozen hours with any number of students at the academy, sharing meals, training and fighting alongside them, getting to know each other through laughter, loss, and love. Later on, as Fire Emblem games typically unfold, you’ll go to war, and how the game’s bloody conflicts unfold and affect everyone might just change how once close friends see one another. Across the course of development, a number of different methods to help articulate this experience were explored, but the team’s natural conclusion just so happened to resemble the popular Shin Megami Tensei spin-off. “We had a lot of talks about how we could distinguish the passage of time at the monastery. If you have one year, we really want the player to feel each of those days passing and make them valuable to the player,” Kusakihara explained.

“We didn’t have a calendar at the very beginning of development. We did a lot of builds where we were trying to make systems that worked but it just wasn’t fun. So we added that and the element of activity points.” In Three Houses, a set amount of activity points, tied to your Professor Level, restricts how much one-on-one tutelage you can give students, as well as how many extracurricular activities you can perform on your days off. “[Activity points] would really focus the player on what they should do every day, whether that’s exploring or going on missions, etc.”

When Sunday rolls around in Three Houses and you don’t need to spend your day teaching your students, there are a number of valuable things you can choose to do, but you won’t have enough time to do them all. You can get your own one-on-one training sessions from fellow professors to improve your own skills, you can set off to the battlefield and fight sorties to complete side missions, you can fish, you can garden, you can sleep in and do nothing, but most importantly: You can hang out with your students and cultivate those personal relationships. Having a close-knit camaraderie in your class will provide a significant advantage on the battlefield, of course, but off the battlefield, these social links can blossom into deep friendships and sometimes the suggestion of romance, providing a wealth of insight to the backstories of the characters. Between the three different classes of students, the professors, and other academy staff, Three Houses has 35 characters with storylines that tie the majority of them together.

Professor Manuela teaches a class in Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)

Kusakihara breaks down the production of the social simulation: “There were three scenario writers from Koei Tecmo that helped out with a lot of the writing, and as you know the game is fully voiced. So we definitely had a lot of content to work on. The work took over three months and there was at least five times as much content as there was in Echoes [Shadows of Valentia] for the Japanese version.”

The involvement of Koei Tecmo (responsible for another enduring tactical strategy series, Romance Of The Three Kingdoms) in the development of Three Houses was already a known factor, but what was surprising to me is just how much of the legwork the studio was responsible for, especially because Fire Emblem is so closely associated with Intelligent Systems. Kusakihara: “With the composition of the team, I stood in as a director representing Intelligent Systems, and then we had Mr. Takeru Kanazaki working as a sound director. We had a few members helping with programming and also sound, but many members of the development team were from Koei Tecmo, so they really did a lot of the work.”

“…there was at least five times as much content as there was in Echoes.”

“I provided the world settings and the character settings and some of the systems and scenarios from the game, and we would hand this over to Koei Tecmo and then discuss further detail and develop from there.” It’s a curious revelation, if only because it invites speculation about what kind of projects the rest of Intelligent Systems might working on. It’s also interesting that Koei Tecmo, responsible for the Dynasty Warriors action series (as well as the spin-off Fire Emblem Warriors), was also heavily responsible in another Nintendo title that released a week prior to Three Houses–Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3.

Among the fresh new faces to contribute significant work to Three Houses was illustrator Chinatsu Kurahana, who served as the game’s new lead character designer. Kurahana’s previous work most notably includes designing characters for the popular Japanese romantic visual novel series, Uta no Prince-sama, a game revolving around a teenage girl’s budding relationships with a group of aspiring male pop idols.

Dating idols isn’t really that much of a far cry from the social aspect of Fire Emblem, and with the new direction of the series, Kurahana was an easy choice. “A lot of this game takes place at the Officer’s Academy and there are a lot of nobles there. So we want to kind of depict a glamorous, aristocratic society,” Kusakihara told me. “Kurahana, who we had already been in talks with, seemed like she would be a good fit, and she definitely had a big impact of the hairstyles of the characters.”

“We also wanted a bit of a refresh because we were putting this game out on the Nintendo Switch, which is a new platform and, well, we wanted a new image for the game.” Hairstyles aren’t the only huge makeover for the series, naturally. One of the biggest mechanical restylings in Three Houses is the removal of Fire Emblem’s Weapon Triangle, the rock-scissors-paper system that has been the core foundation of combat in every entry since, well, Genealogy of the Holy War.

That’s a pretty funny, serendipitous coincidence–the new Fire Emblem game, which returns to a relatively minor idea found in Genealogy of the Holy War, also completely discards that entry’s most influential and longest-lasting legacy. The reasons Kusakihara gives me are pretty understandable: “We think that the weapon triangle is somewhat of a stylized system, it isn’t really realistic,” he said. “If you have a situation where a novice axe user takes down an advanced lance user, well, that makes sense? Probably not. So, we wanted to make something that comes across as more realistic to warfare and have players develop their weapons skills individually.”

Caspar punches a monk in Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019)

It also came down to the series’ continuing focus on its personalities, especially given Three Houses’ setting of an academy where teenage students are only just coming into their own. “We wanted to center on developing the skills for these characters, and also give them a lot more freedom in terms of how they develop. So we’re really creating a weapon system that is less restrictive than our previous games.”

That’s not to say that picking the right unit or weapon for a battle isn’t an important matter in Three Houses. There are still situations where one approach might give you a massive advantage, like using arrows against flying units. And, if one of your units becomes increasingly proficient in a certain type of weapon type or discipline, you might unlock an option to equip them with passive or active combat abilities that help give them the upper hand against other certain weapons types or disciplines–an advanced swordsman might have an “Axebreaker” ability, for example, which will increase both their avoidance and chance to hit against that weapon.

“…the weapon triangle is somewhat of a stylized system, it isn’t really realistic.”

But the new system of having the freedom to mold your combat units into whatever you like also creates some interesting social-level predicaments that might in turn ask you to rethink the long-term strategy for your troupe. During my first campaign, for example, I had Dorothea in my class. She excels in black magic and swordplay, her lifelong ambitions are to be a badass warlock, and she hates the idea of learning faith-based healing magic–it’s for weenies, after all, and she even harbors an innate learning disadvantage towards it.

Toshiyuki Kusakihara

But, if you’re dedicated enough, by spending a large amount of your class time to some serious one-on-one tutelage on Faith, Dorothea has the capacity to eventually uncover hidden potential. She’ll get early access to an ability that even advanced Bishops would covet, and eventually turn that learning disadvantage into a buff. There’s some contentious subtext in this example, but regardless, the system allows you to foster unique narratives for your class–it was a tough decision to give one of my favorite students (and my most effective magic user) a hard time in class for a couple of months instead of honing her strengths even further. But it was worth it.

Kusakihara doesn’t play favorites, though. Toward the end of the conversation, I tried to get the developers on the call to dish dirt on the team’s most hated students (mine’s Lorentz, he sucks). Everyone laughs: “As the director of the game, It’s almost like, you know, I am the teacher because I helped to create them. So I have to say that I love all the students.” Genki Yokota, the other director for Three Houses, representing Nintendo, was the only one who threw me a bone: “You’re supposed to be helping out the students, so it’s hard to say that I hate any of them. But outside of the students, I can say that I really like the character Shamir.” I like Shamir too, so this was a good answer.

It’s pretty common to hear stories about developers responding to audience feedback and using that data to shape future projects. Kusakihara left me with the impression that his team is on the other side of that coin. They don’t know why their game has attracted the fanbase it has in the west, so they’re just going to just keep doing what they’ve done since Awakening. Changing the structure. Reinventing foundational mechanics. Welcoming the talents of new teams and artists. “When we develop the game, we just strive to make it something beyond what people can imagine,” he said. “That might help in making it popular.”

Source : Gamesport

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