#Yes. I am very well aware that this level of hurt is disproportionate to the actions that “Caused” it.

[professor-rye]

One of my biggest frustrations with brain fuckery and self awareness is that so often I will see people talking about problematic behavior that I am feeling, only to not really offer a solution for how to stop feeling it. Which, to be fair, is not really their responsibility. For many people, awareness is more than enough for them to start the process of restructuring their beliefs and stopping the problematic attachment. But I am already aware, and that apparently isn't enough to get my brain to let the fuck go.

Creators made a choice, which is their right, and for some reason, my brain decided that was a betrayal and now I am hurt beyond belief. This is unreasonable, and I know that.

Every other time something like this has happened before, I can just acknowledge that I didn't like that choice and move on. But for some reason, these creators and these choices are different, and I can't seem to get my brain to behave anymore.

And anytime I try to talk about it, either the listener has no advice they can give (I still appreciate you listening though, I promise) or they just tell me "But hey. That's parasocial and unreasonable."

[asherlockstudy]

Rhett and Link’s problems with the Enneagram

I have now watched both Enneagram EBs and the second one actually set my gears to work (So Anon here it comes! I promise it was spontaneous).

After listening to Link and mostly Rhett talk about the Enneagram again and again, I realised I have a problem but I can not place its exact root. There is either something fundamentally wrong with the Enneagram itself or maybe it’s Rhett and consequently Link who talk about it in a way that made me feel a little uncomfortable.

My problem and cause of concern was that everything that was said during the two podcasts had a clear negative tone to it. I will have to bring in myself to it to give you an example so bear with me for a paragraph. I did the test and I am a 5 (Investigator - Observer, something like that) which suits me rather well, especially since it agrees perfectly with my Myers-Briggs INTP type. The results said I was a 5w6 (essentially an emotionless analytical robot) which is definitely wrong as I am clearly a 5w4 (a sad mess who analyses the world and searches pointlessly for the true meanings in life and wants to come up with the ultimate all-encompassing philosophy). I mean, OK, they are not described exactly like that but trust me, that’s the point. But despite all the flaws associated with it, especially in the fields of socialising and tremendous procrastination due to an insane fear of failure, I am actually very much in touch with it. I revel in analysing, in trying to see the bigger picture, to make up my own theory about life and the world. It gives me fuel to go on, it fills me with excitement, it gives me a purpose.

Now, what I kept hearing from Rhett and Link are the things they would hope to run away from. I can’t seem to remember a single positive thing they said about their personalities. All traits they mentioned ( which were all pretty one-dimensional for both I dare say) were presented in the context of torturing them and having to confront them. With these insights in their personalities and the spiritual deconstructions earlier, their old (surprising back then) statement that they are “fundamentally sad people” makes more and more sense. Some of their traits, like Link’s care for perfection to the smallest detail and his moral concerns could have been neutral or positive but, no, they are almost all given as clear negatives or at least as things that have an emotional toll on them.

This gives me the impression that Link and especially Rhett have found comfort in studying the Enneagram and try to find an explanation for what they are like, to feel part of a group, represented in their misery. In short, they focus on the analysis of the flaws of their personalities as a part of who they are and avoid dealing with the root that caused said flaws. Link is more self aware while Rhett still struggles to reach the root of it, which is his childhood. Not that he doesn’t know it but he can’t just deal with the people and the situations that impacted him enough to make him a three. For instance, Rhett seems to believe that he is a natural three that his parents made manifest even more strongly. It could be the case or the threeness we observe in him is the direct product of his parents’ constant judgement. By keeping chanting he needs to “be” instead of “do”, I am not sure Rhett will achieve much. Honestly, the one impactful step he needs to take is to stop caring about what his father thinks and I am sorry to say he is still not near achieving this. Especially when I take into account how scared he was during his videocall with his dad in GMM and how relieved he looked after the call was over without drama. In short, my problem with their take in the Enneagram is that it seems that Three is Rhett’s pack of unresolved issues rather than his complete personality type.

Furthermore, Rhett speaks knowingly about all numbers / personality types which proves he consumes passionately all Enneagram information that is available. For a man of his level of active lifestyle, hectic schedule and impatience, this shows that he indeed seeks comfort in finding a detailed description and an explanation for his personality, for the way he feels and acts. What does this mean? Well, that he does not like the way he feels about himself a lot. Not only that, but he is actually in a search of self. At this point, he is no longer cryptic about it but it is more serious than he lets on. He tries to make sense of himself and he tries desperately to find something in himself to love. I hope there are people in his life who let him know that he is worthy of their love, friendship and appreciation even though he is so deep inside his head that even the affectionate feedback can only help so much. Rhett will start finding some peace only if he takes the one step I mentioned above.

And then it seems that Link’s personality type is also exclusively a byproduct of his childhood and is aggravated by his relationship with Rhett. Link’s perfectionism doesn’t cause him enthusiasm - he just dreads the disturbance of his supposedly perfectly stable world. In all honesty, Link doesn’t strike me as an ambitious person. Link would just love to have his dear routine and a loyal person to share it with. Link needs stability and companionship. He is fine with just one person as long as this person contributes to the stability of their bond. Who that one person is in Link’s life is another story…

Link doesn’t care that much about the creative process and, frankly, he doesn’t care all that much about the comedy. Link cares to keep the environment Rhett and he work stable and safe. For Link, judgement from the audience is not as alarming as Rhett’s frustration because of it. Link cares to ensure that Rhett’s idea will be successful enough to keep working and to keep working together. So Link’s entire self-identification as a one seems to stem from his fear of abandonment and worthlessness only. Link fears he has not much to contribute to Mythical and he tries to counteract that by becoming the ultimate source of management and control. Because if he didn’t even manage the company, then what would Rhett need him for? Hence, Link’s obsession for control is a consequence of his fear, he doesn’t necessarily love to be in control for the sake of it. This is proven by his plane example, which shows that he finally relaxes when he does NOT need to be in control.

Link has been working hard most of his life to ensure his position next to Rhett. This brings even more insight in his resentment for Rhett that explodes from time to time. Link resents Rhett because he tries so hard to be always by his side but due to Rhett’s opportunitism, he can’t tell whether Rhett wants his companionship or he simply needs it for their brand. Even worse, Link dreads that the reason Rhett is his friend is because Link feeds his ego with his loyalty and admiration, because he takes Link for granted and not because he loves Link for who he is.

“Do you care for me or do you revel in the fact that I care for you?”

Now, I can’t get inside Rhett’s head but I doubt he uses people. I believe his genuine care for Link can be found in the weirdest examples - those from which Rhett has nothing to gain i.e getting frustrated when Link doesn’t enjoy food as much. Yes, this is a sign of love. Rhett enjoys food so much that he wants to share that enjoyment with Link. He can’t realise Link’s tongue works differently - he thinks Link is missing out and it frustrates him. Another silly example is Rhett buying Apocalypse equipment for a clearly disinterested Link and probably never getting its money’s worth back. This is important to Rhett for some reason and he is concerned enough to protect careless Link as well despite having no personal gain from it.

The truth is that these two men feed off each other; Rhett keeps Link attached to him to always feel worthy and Link keeps Rhett attached to him to always feel safe. However, the fact that Rhett is almost his entire source of safety and that Link is Rhett’s biggest calibrator of worth is indicative of the levels of love and need. Nevertheless, Rhett and Link are not independent people. They were constantly in search of support from one another and they lost themselves in the process of satisfying others or being safe. This is something they are realising only now.

Link’s fear of abandonment is so big that it frequently leads him to an almost paranoid behaviour. It is crazy that he felt left out when Rhett communicated with the audience during a podcast whose key purpose is to… communicate with the audience. His fear here has two sides: 1) that Rhett didn’t consider him an equally important business partner so he preferred to speak directly to the audience and 2) that Rhett isn’t emotionally invested in him in order to open up to him. And by saying he can deceive people if he needs, Rhett doesn’t help Link overcome his huge insecurities. This is why Link begs Rhett to talk to him about his feelings more. He does not understand whether Rhett loves him or uses him. The notion that Rhett doesn’t truly love or appreciate him is one of his biggest fears in life.

As for Rhett, it is certainly huge growth that he starts opening up and being vulnerable to a few thousand strangers yet it all still derives from his need to be accepted by said strangers as I am afraid that the late disproportionate criticism he gets for silly stuff on Twitter and Tumblr surely don’t help him deal with his issues, no matter how hard he tries. Therefore, Rhett is trapped in a vicious circle. Besides, Rhett was overly sensitive to be hurt when Link stated the obvious; that he was being vulnerable in hopes to be understood and accepted, because that was clearly what Rhett was openly doing. However, having someone discussing openly his vulnerability immediately made Rhett retreat back to his shell because no matter how hard he tries, Rhett hasn’t managed to separate vulnerability from weakness in his mind yet.

Long story short, Rhett and Link might be Three and One respectively but I am not sure they have a good understanding of themselves anyway. They may have figured out their types correctly but they certainly narrow their entire sense of being to their unresolved issues and phobias. They entirely lack a sense of self-worth and they probably have not realised the extent of the traumas in their youth. In the Enneagram language, the nine personality types have nine levels of development. I believe Rhett and Link are either in the average levels or the mildest unhealthy level. They are certainly not in the healthy top three levels.

Their obsession with the Ennegram helps only superficially but they seem to have based an illogically huge part of their self exploration on it. The Enneagram might offer some insight but won’t offer the resolutions they long for and badly need in order to find some relief. The ones that come when you confront your environment instead of overanalysing yourself and beating yourself up because of it.

[vivithefolle]

Love isn’t a Deus Ex Machina thing, it’s literally the core theme of the series, hence why Love Magic exists

Love Magic is never a concept at any time in the series. It’s only about “Lily Potter’s spell”. But what’s so special about Lily Potter? What’s so great about her? She did the thing any halfway decent mother would do for their child: she gave her life for them. Molly would’ve done it for any of her sons. Narcissa would have done it for Draco. Mrs Granger the nonentity would have done it for her daughter had she not been lobotomized instead. Lily Potter’s sacrifice isn’t anything special. It’s only special because Rowling decided so, because the Plot needed it to be.

Love isn’t a Deus Ex Machina thing? Then how come Quirrel conveniently burned to death at Harry’s hands? How come Harry had to live at Privet Drive because reasons so he could be abused so naive readers like you could feel very sorry for the poor widdle orphan and pat themselves on the back because wow, aren’t you special for feeling sorry for the poor widdle orphan?

And I didn’t misunderstand Harry. I literally explained him to you

If you don’t like him, I don’t care. Just stop giving his uniqueness to other characters

And you literally showed me exactly why you don’t understand him.

Harry’s superpower isn’t teh special uniqueness of his luuuurve, or the absolute pure pureness of his heart, it’s that he has FRIENDS. Friends who’d die for him, friends who’d sacrifice themselves for him, friends who’d do anything for him. THAT’S the power of love, not some bullshit ~special pure pureness of the heart of Harry Christ our lord and savior~. Harry isn’’t unfailingly kind or uniquely loving or whatever the shit. Harry is a run-of-the-mill teenager who has such obscene luck I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was conceived under the influence of Lucky Potion.

You just showed me you’re a member of the Church of Harry Christ and I’m not interested in joining. Dear God I thought I was too attached to fictional characters but wow am I glad I’m not at your level.

Also one more thing: “tortured” someone?

Sure. A painful stunner is DEF torture (that’s legit all his Crucio did; it acted as a painful stunner. It threw Carrow backwards and hurt him while it did. Crucio isn’t even close to that when performed properly)

............ you... you fucking little hypocrite.

You filthy, lying, little bitch cunt of a fucking hypocrite.

Remember when I said the next person who’d try to lie to me to pity poor wee widdle Hawwy would be sorry? You pathetic little piece of shit. If you’re so in luuurve with your precious cuntfuck of a camera archetype you’d accept EVERYTHING about him, wouldn’t you? Haha, but noooo. “Oh wee poor Hawwy only used a painful stunner :)))))))” you fucking little bitch. Oh you accuse ME of trying to “make Hawwy not special :(((” but you... YOU... Hahahaha sorry everyone. I have a slight aversion to people blatantly trying to gaslight me. You may find me getting a little bit angry if you happen to trod on this trigger of mine.

Let’s see that again shall we? Open your eyes and your chakras, bitch, we’re going for a ride.

“It’s not a case of what you’ll permit, Minerva McGonagall. You time’s over. It’s us what’s in charge here now, and you’ll back me up or you’ll pay the price.” And he spat in her face. Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand, and said, “You shouldn’t have done that.” As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!” The Death Eater was lifted off his feet. He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain, and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass, he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor. “I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.” - Deathly Hallows

If I could reach through my screen to force you to look at the relevant bits, I would. And I’d also slap you in passing. Yknow, just so you think twice before being a stinking fucking hypocrite again in the future.

Now, let’s do some actual literary analysis that isn’t your ~wah hawwy puwe of heawt luuurrrve~ diarrhea you’re still trying to paint my poor innocent blog with.

Now let’s see that PaInFuL sTuNnEr in detail:

He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain 

In bold so you can see it very well. Admire the curve of each letter, the angles and the lines. And most of all, interpret the meaning of each and every word. Watch how he’s compared to “a drowning man”, do you know how excruciatingly painful and distressing it is to drown? How the air fills your lungs as you claw desperately for the surface, trying to find something to cling to, anything, the feeling of your lungs filling with this foreign substance you cannot spit back out? The feeling of fading away as all your oxygen is consumed by the futility of your hopeless flailing, your muscles losing their strength, your panic dulling as you slip into unconsciousness and water claims yet another victim...

Of course, drowning people don’t thrash and howl in pain. Because all they’re focused on is trying to BREATHE. But Amycus’ focus isn’t on trying to breathe. Amycus is only focus on Harry’s Crucio and the pain it’s bringing him.

But sure Anon. A pAiNfUl StUnNeR. Fuck you.

and then, with a crunch and a shattering of glass 

Now I’m aware Dummywood has made you believe that glass can be traversed easy without any consequences but real glass doesn’t work like that. Real glass takes some force to shatter. Real glass shatters into hundreds of tiny pieces that embed themselves into your flesh and skin, kinda like... oh! Kinda like that glass chandelier that fell on Hermione, once. After she herself was Crucio’d if I remember well. Hmm, by whom exactly, I have it on the tip of my tongue...

“I see what Bellatrix meant,” 

Ah yes. By the woman who tortured to insanity Neville’s parents and whom Harry is literally acknowledging as having taught him this particular lesson.

Harry himself is TELLING US HE LISTENED TO BELLATRIX’S ADVICE. ON FUCKING TORTURING PEOPLE. But “a PaInFuL sTuNnEr He’S aN oRpHaN :’‘‘(((((”. Fuck off. Fuck off, Anon. Fuck off and learn to fucking read.

Ah but I got ahead of myself! We’re not even CLOSE to the point!

he smashed into the front of a bookcase and crumpled, insensible, to the floor 

So Amycus gets tortured - or, as Anon astutely put it, pAiNfUl StUnNeR - smashes through a sheet of glass, and gets knocked out.

Hmm. Now if Harry just took out a knife and brought it to Carrow’s neck, he’d be worthy of being called Bellatrix’s faithful apprentice.

And now I’m gonna quote one of my Quora answers again because my followers deserve better than to see me completely lose my mind at some anonymous cowardly cunt trying to lie to my fucking face.

On the topic of Harry’s Crucios:

This could mean that Harry is scarily proficient at casting Crucio, that Amycus has low pain tolerance or that he was knocked out when he fell, but regardless of the meaning, IT’S NOT GOOD. EVEN IF IT’S A DEATH EATER, EVEN IF HE PROBABLY DESERVES COMEUPPANCE - IT’S NOT HARRY’S JOB TO GIVE OUT SAID COMEUPPANCE.

(Like, can I please remind everyone that Harry is supposed to be the Jesus Christ of his story? In the Bible we never have Jesus Christ torturing the pharisees or any of those who didn’t believe in him. Just… you’re telling me Jesus “Peace and Love” Christ would torture people… what the hell, Joanne?)

“I see what Bellatrix meant,” said Harry, the blood thundering through his brain, “you need to really mean it.”

…………………….. Um. Harry, what the fuck are you doing???! He’s taken Bellatrix’s advice! He actually relates to the insane sadistic terrorist! He is capable of using a curse that literally requires sadism to work!

(Again, when someone tells me “Jesus Christ”, “sadism” isn’t the first word that would come to my mind.)

At least there’s some sort of reaction. “the blood thundering through his brain”. But that’s a very… nondescriptive reaction. Is it the “adrenaline pumping in my veins” blood? Is it the “holy shit what have I done” blood? Is it the “I could get used to this” blood?

We don’t know. We’ll never know.

Alright, skipping to the part that interests us -

She struggled to pull herself together. “Potter, that was foolish!”

Eh, I’d have said “tactically unsound” (what if Amycus wasn’t knocked out), “monstrous” (that’s Bellatrix’s favourite curse you’re using, Harry), “insane” (re: Bellatrix), but yeah, I guess “foolish” would also cover it.

“He spat at you,” said Harry.

Ever heard of Disproportionate Retribution, Harry? A few fascists regimes all over the world were especially fond of it.

Then I’m skipping over the one thing that causes the most outrage because I’ll go back to it soon, just let me finish with this:

“[…] but don’t you realize — ?” “Yeah, I do,” Harry assured her. Somehow her panic steadied him.

I guess we can imagine that McGee is saying “don’t you realize what you’ve just done?”

Harry “assures” her he realizes. Harry knows. Harry has just used the literal goddamn Torture Curse and he’s totally cool with it. Or, if he was uncool with it, now he’s cool with it. Because “her panic steadied him”. So seeing McGonagall panic makes Harry think “yeah, using Crucio was the right thing to do”.

Well then! Onwards then, Dark Lord Potter! First it’s just one Crucio, then it’s just three, then it’s just one little murder of one lowly little naysayer, then it’s only a little more murder…

And now we’ll go back a smidge, because how are we supposed to react?

How are we supposed to reconcile the idea of Harry, who’s supposed to save us all through his Power of Love, with the Harry that has just tortured a man into inconsciousness?

Even if that man was a Death Eater, Harry is supposed to be the Christ-like figure. He’s supposed to be love and forgiveness incarnate. Heck, not a hundred pages later he’ll offer forgiveness to freaking Voldemort! He forgives Draco Malfoy, he forgives Albus Dumbledore, he forgives Severus Snape!

So how do we reconcile Harry Potter The Forgiver with Harry Potter The Torturer? Tell us, O Author! Tell us how to navigate the murky, twisted depths of human morality!!

“Potter, I — that was very — very gallant of you — […]”

…

…………………

………………………………………………

That was… gallant?

Gallant?

Wait, doesn’t gallantry imply some form of honor?

As in, not taking your opponent by surprise -

Harry pulled the Cloak off himself, raised his wand…

As in, facing your opponent head-on instead of hitting them in the back -

As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted…

As in, not torturing your opponent???

He writhed through the air like a drowning man, thrashing and howling in pain

That’s… unless the definition has changed, nothing about this is gallant…

Let me just -

(of a man) polite and kind towards women, especially when in public

showing no fear of dangerous or difficult things

Alright, so, Amycus isn’t a woman, so Harry can’t, by definition, be “gallant” to him.

Still, being “polite and kind” to a woman didn’t involve “torturing someone who disrespected her”, last time I checked. Punching an asshole harrassing her, definitely *pats Ron*, but torturing that asshole… no, just no.

And well, I guess casting Cruciatus is a difficult thing to do… and Harry didn’t seem very afraid to do it… that’s not supposed to be a good thing, but apparently, now it is…?

What made that

As Amycus spun around, Harry shouted, “Crucio!”

more gallant than

“What else did you take, what else? ANSWER ME! CRUCIO!”

After all, they’re the exact same thing. Torture. Inflicting tremendous pain upon someone for the heck of it.

Why do people lose their heads over Harry using Crucio, when they seem to neglect the fact that Draco Malfoy cast it?

Well, easy enough - Draco Malfoy is an evil little cockroach. The guy wished death upon people, he bragged about the fact that his Daddy dearest was a terrorist who killed people. It’s not too surprising that an evil little cockroach like him would find it acceptable to torture someone he considers “not human”, isn’t it?

What’s more surprising however, is that the hero, Harry Potter, who has been subjected to the Torture Curse, whose only use of the Torture Curse previously was when he felt distress and pain unlike any other, that Harry Potter whom is supposed to be a hero and some sort of role model, would actually manage to use said Torture Curse even though it requires real sadism to actually work.

And what’s even worse is that Harry Potter casts that curse, that literal Torture Curse, and instead of being rightly horrified, instead of being terrified by the boy’s use of such a heinous spell, instead of saying “alright Harry, you’re not doing this again, ever, right?”, instead…

Instead McGonagall calls Harry “gallant”, instead of telling him off for using such a curse. She briefly calls him “foolish”, but it doesn’t register, really, since she ends up calling him “gallant”.

That’s what angers people. That the Torture Curse is the most horrible, awful thing you can do to people… unless you’re Harry Potter, in which case it is a little “foolish”, but mostly “gallant”.

......................

But of course, little Anon over here isn’t angered. Because little Anon is a faithful devoted member of the Church of Harry Christ Our Lord And Saviour. Little Anon can say enormities like A pAiNfUl StUnNeR and believe it with the whole force of their little Anon heart, because uwu Hawwy speshul orphan pure lurve uwu.

Little Anon, please get the fuck out of my blog and never, ever come back. I’m sure this arrangement will be beneficial for everyone involved.

[anotherkindofmindpod]

I just read both interviews, Part 1 and 2 of Jann Wenner's Rolling Stone Interview of 1971. It sounds as though John and the other Beatles DID have a realistic gripe about Paul taking over, directly projects, handing out musical assignments, etc., etc. and I'm sure he had the ego by this point to match! I would probably have become irritated by Paul as well. And no hints or even reading between the lines of John being emotionally hurt by Paul with regard to loss of intimate relationship.

Hello and thanks for writing in, Listener!First, I’d like to point out that we haven’t reached the Lennon Remembers portion of our Break-up Series, and will dig into it much more thoroughly in a future episode (stay tuned!).  

Presumably this ask isn’t in response to anything we’ve actually discussed on the podcast, in which case I feel that I should explain that what we do on our show is reevaluate conventional wisdom and contextualize public statements within the realities of actual behaviors. In other words, not taking things like Lennon Remembers at face value is AKOM 101.

If what we were doing on this podcast was as easy as simply reading the most infamous interview John Lennon ever gave (the one upon which the conventional story of the Beatles break-up is founded), it wouldn’t be much of a podcast or a very groundbreaking analysis, would it?

Second, I’d like to mention that listeners/readers can hear the entire (3.5 hours!) interview on You Tube.  Very evocative with audio!  Wenner’s editing in the print versions often make John sound more coherent and less vitriolic towards everyone but Paul than the audio reveals (i.e. the shitty comments about Paul are always printed but the ones about George, Brian, etc often aren’t).

Next, we’d like to state the usual disclaimer (which everyone is probably already aware of but is a good reminder anyway!):  John later disavowed this interview.  In fact, he was so angry at Jann Wenner for publishing it as a book, it apparently created a permanent rift between the two.  You may choose to view/value this interview as John being super honest, but please consider that in this allegedly “truthful” book/interview, John:

claims George is musically/creatively inferior to John

declares the McCartney album “rubbish”

reveals his belief that he and Paul’s confidence levels are intrinsically, inversely related to one another

says George was so aggressively rude to Yoko that John wished he would’ve punched him over it

proudly admits that he “maneuvered” the other Beatles to get Klein in as manager

bemoans the fact that everyone says Brian Epstein was so great “just because he’s dead” and that Brian cheated and robbed the Beatles

makes derisive comments about “fags” at least five times in the printed version alone and calls Lee Eastman “a wasp Jew, man, that’s the worst kind of person on earth.”

admits to lying in interviews and deflects accountability on the basis of being “just a guy” who mouths off about stuff

As for Paul, John is admittedly all over the place, swinging fairly wildly from nostalgic (reminiscing about having “a good mind like Paul’s” on his side and co-writing with their “fingers in each others’ pies”) to bitter (”Paul thought he was the Beatles,” etc).

As for the accusations that Paul was tyrannical, we��ve addressed these before (particularly in Break-Up Episode 2).  Just as Geoff Emerick, Michael Lindsay Hogg and Doug Sulpy (and even John, when he was feeling more generous) have articulated, we too feel that Paul stepped up and led the band in a time of need and deserves unequivocal credit for that.  We believe much of the subsequent complaining from the other Beatles is akin to the kind of griping one directs at a colleague who gets promoted (“who died and made you king!?”) and while some of it was likely based in genuine irritation at Paul’s communication style, much of it was probably petty.  This is why we are looking at the situation from all angles, to get a better sense of what is reality v. spin.  In any case, we don’t dispute that there were power struggles within the band.Any reader is free to choose John’s side in any/all of these battles.  But our overall takeaway from this particular interview is that John was unloading a lot of pent-up rage; against teachers, fans, Aunt Mimi, his mum, critics, Paul and anyone else who didn’t properly recognize his genius and praise him for it.

“That’s what makes me what I am. It comes out, the people I meet have to say it themselves, because we get fuckin’ kicked. Nobody says it, so you scream it: look at me, a genius, for fuck’s sake! What do I have to do to prove to you son-of-a-bitches what I can do, and who I am? Don’t dare, don’t you dare fuckin’ dare criticize my work like that. You, who don’t know anything about it.”

Based solely on Lennon Remembers, one could reasonably believe John didn’t like anyone but Yoko and Allen Klein (of whom he also speaks with reverence).  Fortunately, John gave a million other interviews in his lifetime, so even though this one is given a disproportionate amount of weight (probably b/c it is the most inflammatory and “raw”) we can compare John’s comments, behavior and art over a broad spectrum of time.  We feel this gives us a better, more thorough and more authentic portrait of John’s POV.  This is a good idea with ANY public figure, but especially important in John’s case, since, by his own admission he has a tendency to say what he feels in the moment and doesn’t necessarily stand by his own statements afterwards.

John in 1976:  “I get a bit absolute in my statements. [laughs] Which sometimes get me into deep water, and sometimes into the shallow.”

To your other point, our overall impressions about John’s feelings regarding  “loss of an intimate relationship” with Paul certainly do not hinge on Lennon Remembers, nor have we ever suggested they do.  In fact, LR is commonly used as the primary proof-point by McCartney detractors and Lennon/McCartney deniers (those who willfully and sometimes passionately  ignore and/or deny the deep love between John and Paul, as described by John and Paul themselves and everyone in their lives) that Paul was a tyrant who destroyed the Beatles with his massive ego.  

We have never disputed the existence of Paul’s ego.  But consider this: John refers to himself as an egomaniac REPEATEDLY throughout this interview.  Why is there a loud faction of people who consider John being an avowed egomaniac perfectly reasonable (sexy even!), but find it unforgivable that Paul is the same way?  Consider these excerpts from Lennon Remembers:

Do you think you will record together again?

I record with Yoko, but I’m not going to record with another egomaniac. There is only room for one on an album nowadays.

How would you assess George’s talents?

[…] Maybe it was hard for him sometimes, because Paul and I are such egomaniacs, but that’s the game.

Who do you think is good today? In any arts…

The unfortunate thing about egomaniacs is that they don’t take much attention of other people’s work. I only assess people on whether they are a danger to me or my work or not.

[Tangential]

But the Beatles were artists, and all artists have fucking’ big egos, whether they like to admit it or not […]

Yes, John rants repeatedly about Paul’s ego during this interview- while he simultaneously declares his own genius and artistic superiority over others. We find it mind-boggling how this irony continues to evade some people, but there it is.  

George Harrison has repeatedly complained about BOTH John & Paul’s egos (and their shared ego IRT “Lennon/McCartney”), but again, this is often ignored in favor of singling out Paul as the villain.  

Furthermore, it’s helpful to bear in mind when consuming Lennon Remembers that John and Yoko had received training in media-messaging by this point and were very savvy at Public Relations.  We know from people close to them that they drafted their stories in advance before offering them to the public. This fact, combined with Lennon’s tendency to “mouth off” means we have the right and responsibility to question and examine John’s claims rather than simply  parrot them mindlessly.

If you are genuinely interested in our take, we recommend our Break-Up Series. We think you will find it well-researched and thoughtful, even if you disagree with some of our conclusions.

Or if you simply dislike McCartney and find him “irritating,” that’s fine too.  Not everyone has to like everyone!

For additional discussion/analysis of Lennon Remembers, I recommend any of several threads on Erin Torkelson Weber’s site, the Historian and the Beatles.

the flawed lens of Lennon v. McCartney

Jann Wenner’s bio

how Rolling Stone shaped the breakup

discussing a podcast appearance

Thank you so much for this ask!  It is always a pleasure to share information.  Have a wonderful day.-The AKOM crew

[relbyshock]

Amy Winehouse, Princess Diana, Britney Spears, Marilyn Monroe, Aileen Wuornos, Angelina Jolie, Adolf Hitler, Darrell Hammond, Pete Davidson, Winona Ryder, Vincent Van Gogh, Tommy Tiernan….

What do they all have in common? Apart from being famous figures, they all suffer(ed) or were rumored to have suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder.

Hey, me too.

I’m over the moon to have something in common with Princess Di (apart from our shared plight with bulimia), but I have to say, I’d rather not have anything in common with Aileen or Adolf…..

Borderline Personality Disorder is a confusing term to say the least. On the borderline of what and what? Well, in the ‘30s, it meant you fell somewhere between psychosis (untreatable) and neurosis (treatable).

Great, that’s reassuring.

Come the ‘70s, BPD sufferers were described as being very emotional, needy, difficult, at risk for suicide, and to have an “overall unstable level of functioning”.

Check. *sings “Welcome to My Life” by Simple Plan*

We also have rapidly fluctuating mood swings, unstable self-image, and a fear of abandonment. This disorder wasn’t even recognized by the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) until 1980.

Today, we know far more about BPD – “neurosis” is no longer used in the diagnosis, and BPD is no longer considered a psychotic disorder.

 So what are we then?

Crazy?

Hormonal?

According to my family, yes. But in reality, the problem lies within our brains. Let me nerd out here for a minute:

The Amygdala (Ah-mig-dah-lah) is composed of two almond-shaped parts of the brain, deep in the medial temporal lobe, that regulate fear and aggression. People with BPD have amygdala’s that are noticeably smaller than that of a healthy person. The smaller the amygdala, the more overactive it is.

Like short guys with bad attitudes, or what I like to refer to as “little man syndrome”.

And then we have the Hippocampus – no, not pachyderm college. The hippocampus is responsible for spatial orientation (not falling over), long and short-term memory, and emotional regulation. Put simply, the hippocampus chooses the correct response to environmental events: Fight or flight.

You may be wondering if I was dropped on my head as a child. The answer is yes – frequently – but the chances of minor brain trauma causing BPD are slim.

The causes of Borderline Personality Disorder are unclear. It seems to involve genetic, brain, environmental and social factors. There are rumours that people with BPD have issues with serotonin production, which has been linked to depression, aggression and having a hard time controlling “destructive urges”.

As for environmental factors, those who have been a victim of emotional/physical/sexual abuse, as well as being exposed to chronic fear or distress as a child have a high likelihood of developing BPD. This is because our relationship with our parents and family has a HUGE influence on how we see the world, and how we feel about other people.

Gals are also diagnosed 3 times as often as guys. You’ve gotta wonder if that’s due to the fact that men tend to be more weary of the doctor, therefore avoiding a diagnosis altogether. This is pure speculation.

Shall we take a dive into the “Signs and Symptoms” as listed by Wikipedia?

-Markedly disturbed sense of identity

-Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment and extreme reactions

-Splitting (black and white thinking)

-Impulsivity

-Intense and uncontrollable emotional reactions that often seem disproportionate to the event or situation

-Unstable and chaotic interpersonal relationships

-Self-damaging behavior (ie, substance abuse)

-Distorted self-image

-Dissociation

-Frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, anger, substance abuse or rage

We are also aware of the intensity of our negative emotional reactions, and since we can’t regulate them, we shut them down completely. What my doctor and I refer to as feeling “flat”.

BPD sufferers are also extremely sensitive to real or perceived rejection. Let’s explain with a meme, shall we:

*looking at an unanswered text from 12 minutes ago*

You: They must be in the shower or just busy, they’ll respond when they have a chance.

Me: Ok well they were active on Instagram 6 minutes ago and they just posted a snap story….they’re ignoring me, why do they hate me? What did I do? Are they mad at me? Should I send another text to get their attention or is that too needy?

If you’re annoyed just reading that, TRY LIVING IN MY BRAIN.

I annoy myself.

I feel grief, overwhelming shame and humiliation where others would feel mildly embarrassed. A minor inconvenience such as cancelled plans takes me from excited to absolutely miserable.

In the past, an unflattering photo on Facebook has caused me to reevaluate my self-worth, and even my life.

The Sickboy podcast explained it beautifully: Borderline Personality Disorder is like having a third degree burn on your emotions. I feel that. Everything hurts me just a little bit more than the average bear (or human).

Why am I telling you this? Because boys and girls, today is Bell Let’s Talk Day here in Canada. I’ll include the link at the bottom. Basically, in 2010, Bell began a new conversation about Canada’s mental health. They’ve enlisted such figures as Howie Mandel, Michael Landsberg, and Clara Hughes to share their stories of struggle and strength in the face of mental health.

I thought today was as good as any other to address the stigma surrounding mental health, but more specifically, the stigma around BPD.

I can’t pretend to know all the answers – I’m not and won’t pretend to be a psychiatrist. But this is what the world looks like through my lens.

If someone honks at me while I’m driving to work, I’m upset ALL DAY. I never want to drive again, I want to pull over and cry, or turn around and go home.

If I get a moderately rude email, my brain fills with cutting, angry, and just plain mean remarks to respond with. “I’m sorry your father never hugged you as a child” is not a suitable response to a professional email, but that’s where my brain goes.

When I make plans with friends weeks in advance and they bail 10 minutes before, I am a heap of inconsolable sobs for the rest of the evening, and even into the next day. This plays into the fear of “real or imagined abandonment”. My BPD brain does not care that something came up or you’re feeling under the weather. BPD tells me that you hate me and you never want to see me again and you were just pretending to like me this whole time and you’ve finally made your escape. My logical brain tries to tell me that it’s ok, and we’ll plan something for another time, but usually, my BPD brain wins the fight.

When I get nervous and start to ramble trying to tell a story and my mom cuts me off with “Anyways.” I want to crawl in a hole and die, but I also sort of want to throw a plate at her face. My mother is a saint, so why do I feel this way about her sometimes?

Let’s get back to the causes of Borderline Personality Disorder. Dad, Mom, maybe stop reading here…or don’t…but here’s your warning. You aren’t going to like this next part.

I was severely neglected as a child. Not physically – I had food to eat, clothes to wear, a roof over my head – but emotionally and mentally. The minor relationship I did have with my father was marked by him coming home from a long shift (as a firefighter) and starting a fight with me about my weight, my shoes at the front door, my marks in school, and more often than not, “why are you always crying?!”. My mom also worked full time at a stressful sales job. So by the time she got home, she didn’t want to have to deal with anyone else’s issues.

So when I would have issues with anything from being bullied at school to just having a ‘bad mental health day’, I had nowhere to turn.

See, my brother and I were latch-key kids. We got home from school at least an hour before my parents got home from work. He and I never got along, so some sort of fight would ensue, and by the time our parents got home, he had made me cry. I was deemed dramatic and sent away to my bedroom, while the 3 of them would eat dinner together (usually something I refused to eat – like meat – which would be another reason to fight).

I’ve voiced this to my mom before, and she remembers my childhood very differently than I do.

As long as I have been alive, I have come second to my brother.

No, honey, we can’t go to (insert activity I wanted to do) because Maxx has hockey/a book report due/needs a ride to the bike track, etc.

Every dinner or event we went to was with HIS friends and THEIR parents, who ended up becoming my parents’ best friends (still to this day). I was always the only girl; so naturally, I stayed with the adults, because the boys wouldn’t have me.

But the adults didn’t want me there either. I felt like a constant annoyance.

Thinking back on it, I realize that I may not have been as unwanted as I perceived myself to be. Remember, BPD brains are sensitive to even slight facial expressions and tones of voice. But, when I voiced this to my parents, that I felt unwanted, and why couldn’t we do things with my friends and their parents, etc. I was told that I was being ridiculous.

Enter: Invalidation

Invalidation is the number one cause of BPD, according to my psychiatrist. Growing up in an environment where nothing you do is good enough will cause you to internalize everything.

I have no memories or examples of healthy emotional behaviour or relationships. In our house, we got the point across by screaming at or just plain ignoring each other. So when I get hurt, or I feel let down, I have absolutely no idea how to deal with my feelings. Further reinforcing my belief that the world is full of bad people who are out to ruin your day and be unkind, because that’s all I’ve ever known.

Research shows that if you already experience these difficulties as a child, experiencing trauma as an adult could make things worse.

Dad - now is really the time to stop reading.

(Sometimes I feel like I live inside the DSM definition of BPD)

At the age of 21 – fresh out of college and trying to start my career in the fashion world – I was sexually assaulted. Cue the downward spiral.

I didn’t report. I didn’t seek help. I confided in a close friend, and was called a liar. But that’s a story for another time.

So I buried that part of me so deep, that sometimes I could convince myself that it never happened. Sometimes.

I reached the end of my rope in 2016. I knew that if I didn’t seek help, I would not survive. I finally went to my doctor and spent hours with her, just sobbing and telling her everything.

She hooked me up with a psychiatrist, and put me in Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, and started me on an SSRI (anti-depressant) immediately.

As of today, it has been 1172 days since the assault. I only told my mother this past summer.

Since reaching out for help, I have begun to repair the relationship with my parents. My mom and I are closer than ever, and my dad and I are working on it.

As I write this, I feel the judgements pouring in. But I have decided that this year, I don’t care. I am not ashamed of my story. I will no longer hide the things I have been through in order to make others more comfortable. I will not keep my pain to myself because it’s easier for others if I stay silent. If bearing my soul can help even one person seek the help they need, then I have succeeded, and all this pain has been worth it.

The long and short of it is SPEAK UP! There is nothing embarrassing about mental illness. If you aren’t feeling right, there are people who care and are here to help you, including me. The first step is to tell someone.

The best advice I can give is to find your people. People who trust you, who lift you up, who validate your feelings, who listen and take you seriously when you say you’re having a bad day. I have spent the past year painstakingly building my support system, because the truth of the matter is, I can’t do this alone. And that’s ok.

Today and every single day, be kind to each other – it’s the only thing that matters.

https://letstalk.bell.ca/en/bell-lets-talk-day

[yasbxxgie]

In the wake of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, the consequences of the 2016 election are settling in at a whole new level for white women. As a result, many are revisiting the post-election statistic that showed 53 percent of white women voted for the candidate who spewed racial vitriol and actively emboldened violence against people of color, tolerating his vile misogyny in the process.

We know Trump’s election only exposed more brazenly what’s always been true: White women have always sided with white supremacy.

Now we’re reckoning with another devastating truth, and this one pertains to all white women—including that other 47 percent of us. If we had ever collectively worked to create sustained solidarity with women of color, instead of consistently aligning with white men, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. Why? Deep, robust multiracial women coalitions would be an unstoppable force.

Another report knocked the wind out of some us. Though swarms of white women rose up publicly enraged, it was only among women of color that a clear and strong majority believed Christine Blasey Ford. A Quinnipiac poll showed that white women only broke 46 percent for Ford (and 43 percent in favor of Kavanaugh, a statistically insignificant difference). On the question of whether Kavanaugh should be confirmed anyway, 45 percent of white women said “yes.” Wow.

Here we sit, with ever more evidence that massive racial failure on the part of white women is at the center of this political crisis. At the root of it all is our collective choice to not learn, prioritize, or consistently live in public antiracist solidarity with communities of color, and especially with women of color.

In short, we’ve never bothered to learn calculus.

(For clarity’s sake, please know I’m purposely not talking about white men — yes, the ultimate perpetrators — here. I am not blaming white women for white male violence. I am also not disparaging the incredible courage of all survivors, including Blasey Ford. I am simply focusing on what white women collectively do and do not do, have and have not done, when it comes to race, racism, and antiracism.)

This is where (one) peril sets in. The longstanding failure to choose calculus that allowed this crisis leaves us wholly unprepared for a political moment where nothing less than brilliant mathematical abilities are required.

For women of color, that cuts deeply.

As we reel, more white women seem to say, “Oh shit! I really do need to learn calculus.” But women of color don’t have the time, energy, or patience to teach us. They certainly can’t trust us. And while women of color have distinctly individual perspectives on and responses to white women in this current moment, it’s safe to say that collectively they’re beyond outraged and all but done with us. Why? Because they’ve been demonstrating the life-or-death urgency of white women learning calculus for decades now.

And yet here we are.

Ongoing apathy toward making the work of antiracism a central priority of our lives as white women has allowed the school building to burn.

My fellow white women, there is nothing not bad about this moment.

Calculus is hard to learn in a regular and relatively calm school situation. Now we need to learn calculus in a school building that’s on fire.

Even for the most willing and earnest student, there’s no way around it: It takes a long time to learn calculus. And, yes, so many of us are deeply hurting, furious, raw, triggered, and afraid. But the building’s still on fire.

Students, sometimes have to actually screw up math problems to actually learn calculus. Screw ups are part of any learning process. But, again, the building’s on fire. And every white woman’s mistake pours more gasoline on a blaze that’s consuming us all very quickly.

The task here is as essential as it is herculean. We need to stop pouring more gasoline on this fire at the same time that we get belatedly serious about the long, slow, mistake-laden work of learning calculus—and we have to do it at lightning speed.

From one white woman to another, here are 10 concrete steps to take right now if we hope to ever do math with women of color—which is not optional if there is any hope of calling into existence the deep, robust, multiracial coalitions all our lives depend on.

No particular order here. Some of these steps fall in the category of “for the love of god, stop pouring gasoline!” Some fall in the category of our long, slow work. None are adequate. All are critical.

1. Stop saying ‘women’ anything.

When the phrase “women must…” or “women are…” is about to come out of your mouth: Stop. Commit to the discipline of being racially specific in your speech. “White women must…,” “white women are…,” or “women of color and white women seem to be…”—at which moment you may notice, “Oh, wait. I really can’t say anything about women of color because I don’t know.”

You may not understand why this discipline is important. Do it anyway. It’s important because there is no non-racialized woman. Committing to this practice will make you more likely to notice gaps in your awareness. You’ll be more likely to notice the racial assumptions embedded in your own claims. This will help you gain clarity about where you need to focus as you do your homework. It will also necessarily rein in your claims about “generic” women, which is one small but critical way to stop pouring gasoline on this fire.

2. Do not participate in any public action called by white women with a reflexive ’yes.’

Stop, seek out, and then listen seriously to what women of color say about it first.

That “women’s blackout” action? Serious douse of gasoline. Yes, a very small number of women of color in my life sent me the invitation, too. (Remember. People of color don’t speak in one voice on anything.) If more white women had slowed down and listened to what women of color had to say publicly about all the problems with that “black out,” well — I don’t need say more about its problems. Go read what feminists of color themselves said about it. They were clear.

3. If you didn’t take a knee during the anthem in support of Black lives for the last two years, don’t share the meme suggesting all women and girls should now take a knee (see item number 2).

Even better, invite other white women sharing this meme into public conversation about why this is a problem. Don’t yell at them. Ask them to talk it through.

But make sure some version of what’s wrong with this does get explained: If we haven’t been taking a knee for Black people already, then kneeling now exposes whose humanity we actually care about. Not to mention white people co-opting a Black people-led movement is a problem, along the lines of what happened to Tarana Burke. Gasoline.

4. Transfer the vast majority of the time you spend reading and engaging in media to reading and engaging with feminists of color.

Literally and almost exclusively read feminists of color (feminist men and other genders of color too) every single day as you try to figure out what the hell is going on in our country right now. Don’t worry, you’ll still get the news. But, you’ll get it through the analysis you’ll need if you want to move beyond basic addition. Do an audit of who is in your feed; choose to follow the many diverse and brilliant people of color who are public thinkers, writers, and activists. Engage their knowledge and wisdom (and their disagreements with each other). When you don’t understand what they’re saying or why they’re saying it—keep reading. Know that it’s going to take a while before the basic vocabulary of calculus makes sense to you. But it will come, if you stick with it.

5. When women of color write about white women, do not privately message them with questions or rebuttal…

…Unless they explicitly tell you they are cool with that.

If they invite public response and you decide to say or ask something, cool. But be ready then to just sit and listen deeply to the response, whatever it is. If the response makes you uncomfortable or isn’t in the tone you were hoping for, don’t proceed to tell them how it made you feel (more gasoline). Sit with those feelings and then keep reading, thinking, and engaging. If you need to talk about those feelings, cool. Find another white person who’s also trying to learn calculus—maybe someone who’s been at it for longer than you have—and talk it through with them. Then keep reading and listening and sitting with your feelings some more.

6. Don’t just sit there with your feelings. Take your actual physical self to an organization led by people of color who are working for justice—and show up in person.

(Assuming that organization welcomes white participation, of course; most do.)

Don’t say you’re too busy. If you volunteer at your kids’ school, do stuff for your church, are part of a book club, spend time on Facebook, whatever else—this is the moment to transfer hours in your given week from white people (even time spent at your own kids’ school; your kids are going to be fine) to people of color.

The obvious reason for this is to put more labor toward the disproportionate heavy-lifting people of color are already doing for justice. The added benefit is that you’ll start to learn calculus in a way that reading alone doesn’t make possible. Show up. Do what is asked of you. Listen carefully. Don’t overspeak. If you’re uncomfortable being one of the few white people in that space, good. Do it anyway. Don’t flake out.

(Join the NAACP—they’re doing voter mobilization all over right now. Put in volunteer hours to people of color groups working to decrease the presence of police in schools. Get active in a sanctuary network for which Latinx activists are calling the shots; white people with citizenship are needed desperately for all kinds of work. Show up. Wherever people of color live, they are organized and acting. Figure out where and go.)

7. Read ‘So You Want to Talk About Race’ by Ijeoma Oluo.

Seriously, do this right now. If you have the means, buy a copy for another white woman in your life; for all the white women you know. Read it alone. Read it together. Talk about it. This book is a crash course in calculus. It’s brilliant, truthful, funny, loving, difficult, nuanced, and more. Read it with your teenager. Ask your teenager what they think about it (start inviting them to learn calculus, too). See if your co-workers will talk about it with you over lunch.

8. Make a concrete commitment to reallocate resources to women of color organizations. Donate to women of color running for elected office.

Now I am talking about money. This part isn’t so much about you and calculus. It’s just the right thing to do. It also may be the best hope we have to save this “democracy.” I don’t mean that in a “women of color are going to save us” kind of way. But, seriously, we don’t get to just run around giving Facebook shoutouts to Black women voters in Alabama for saving us from predators like Roy Moore, and then not go all in for them. We owe women of color something, and this includes being all-in in terms of having their backs as they step up and out into leadership (taking huge risks as they do so). We owe actual time, energy, and resources. Get your white women friends (and the men) to give money too. Do it.

9. Some white women, white queer folks, and a handful of white feminist men have been working for a long time to learn calculus. Find and follow them, too.

They are imperfect and make mistakes. But being white and trying to learn calculus is different from being a person of color and learning calculus. There are unique challenges. Your learning will speed up if you engage some of the white people who have been on this learning journey for a while.

Be careful who you listen to. Vet those white people to be sure their calculus-learning is legitimate and on the right track. See who they’re in dialogue with. Notice what feminists of color say to and about them. (Hint: If mostly only other white people like their work, don’t learn to do math the way they’re doing it.) Find the white folks who are obviously in relationships of accountability with people of color—these people do exist. Get with them.

10. Take an inventory: Where do you shop? Who cuts your hair? Where do you take your kids to the dentist? Where do you eat out?

Find ways to move your personal participation in the economy over to Black, Latinx, and other businesses owned and operated by people of color. This includes medical offices, stores—as many establishments as you can. Urge others in your life to do so, too. This not only actively reallocates resources you are already expending to communities of color and their economies, it also brings you into more frequent contact with people who our deep and wide white-segregated enclaves typically prevent us from being in contact with.

That’s no quick math formula. But it is critical pre-context for calculus-learning.

***

Here we are.

When you’re in a burning building, every step you take must be purposeful. We’re not going to be collectively calculus-fluent anytime soon. We’re also going to have to live with the consequences of our collective behavior. Namely, we’re going to be divided from women of color for a very, very, very long time. And there are no guarantees here. When I said there is nothing not bad about this moment, I meant it.

But I also know this. Standing still in a burning school building isn’t an option. And I know there are lots of white women and white queer folks (and a few white feminist men) right now who want to take purposeful steps. As much as we don’t quite know what to do, don’t totally get it, are ourselves hurting, fear making mistakes that pour gasoline—there are many of us ready to roll up our sleeves and learn the math. Let’s get purposeful. Together.

If this is you (and I commit to you, it is also me), know you are not alone. I offer this essay in a spirit of love, anger, urgency, and partnership. Let’s pull out our pencil and paper now—and a shitload of erasers. And let’s get to work. [x]

[the-signs-of-two]

Families, TFP and Representation p. 2

In which I’ll be talking about Eurus. If you haven’t read the first part of this meta series, the point of it was to establish the main message of the fourth season. In my reading, season 4 is about the hurt suffered by LGBT people in cases where their families don’t accept them. It’s about saying that it’s never your fault if your family rejects you based on your sexuality and that it’s never okay for them to reject you because of something like this. But it’s also about moving on and forgiving each other and, most importantly, finding a family that makes you happy and accepts you as you are.

In this part, I will be focusing on how to analyze the Eurus plotline.

Be aware that some parts of this meta can be triggering for some. Thankfully, I’m blessed with a most loving and supportive family, but I know that not everyone in this community have been as lucky as I am and this may be really difficult to read if you belong to that group. I know it was difficult for me to write even though I haven’t personally been affected by these things.

There’s no way I can cover everything about Eurus now, both because it would be very long and because I haven’t had time to analyze everything in depth. So this is just a quick introduction to how I read the whole Eurus plotline.

First of all, it’s important to establish who Eurus is subtextually. Before the events of TFP, we know of three key things she has done.

1. Killing Sherlock’s childhood best friend. 2. Meeting with Moriarty and discussing Sherlock’s downfall. 3. Introducing herself to John as the woman on the bus and the therapist and introducing herself to Sherlock as Faith.

Based on these three actions, I believe that the point of the whole Eurus plotline is this: Eurus is meant to represent the unaccepting family of an LGBT-person (Sherlock). Eurus’ purpose is to create landmark representation for LGBT people by having Sherlock Holmes face one of the ultimate problems facing LGBT people: dealing with your family, the people you love, being unaccepting of who you really are.

Here are those three actions seen in that light:

1. Eurus damaged Sherlock horrendously when he was still very young by killing his best friend. This had a profound effect on who Sherlock would become as a grown-up. His reluctance to acknowledge how much he cared about his new “best friend” stood between Sherlock and John until TAB. Subtextually, Eurus (the family) damages Sherlock’s (the LGBT person’s) capacity to become happy with someone they love by reacting negatively and/or violently to the first time Sherlock (the LGBT person) fell in love with someone of their same sex. 2. Eurus met with Moriarty to make preparations for Sherlock’s downfall. Moriarty has already been established as a subtextual stand-in for the powers keeping Sherlock and John apart. He’s in control of the media and he’s the Sherlock Holmes fan who wants Sherlock to be an unemotional machine completely focused on the cases. Subtextually, Eurus (the family) is in alliance with Moriarty (the heteronormative mindset) and she uses this to bring Sherlock (the LGBT person) down. 3. Eurus introduces herself to John in two ways: as a woman flirting with him on the bus and as his new therapist. She also introduces herself to Sherlock as Faith, who praises him and pretends to have fun with him. Subtextually, this demonstrates that Eurus (the family) is willing to go to great lengths to ensure that Sherlock (the LGBT person) does not end up with the one they love. Think about it. What purpose is there in Eurus doing these things if not to underline that Eurus is trying to prove to Sherlock and John that they don’t need each other? Trying to prove to John that he doesn’t need Sherlock to get sex and romance. Trying to prove to John that he doesn’t need Sherlock to have someone to talk to. Trying to prove to Sherlock that he doesn’t need John to have a friend. And just so we know that it doesn’t work, we’re told that the woman on the bus reminds John of Sherlock and that “Faith” reminds Sherlock of John.

Going through TFP with the mindset that Eurus represents unaccepting families helps explain A LOT. I will now try to go through the main highlights of the episode and explain their meaning according to my reading, but please keep in mind that I believe this to be strictly subtextual. It doesn’t have a meaning to the characters on a textual level, it only has a meaning to the audience on a subtextual level. That is to say, of course Eurus isn’t literally locked up for being unaccepting of Sherlock’s homosexuality.

Everybody on board with this? Then let me give a couple of examples of this theory applied to the episode.

1. Sherlock has blocked Eurus from his memory. Textually, over the top. Subtextually, Sherlock (the LGBT person) has blocked the memory of the hurt he suffered because of Eurus (the family). It’s common. You convince yourself that you were the one in the wrong when it was your family who didn’t treat you as they should have done. 2. Sherlock continuously wants to reconcile with Eurus. Textually, disproportionate to what she has done. Subtextully, Sherlock (the LGBT person) just wants to be close to Eurus (the family) again. That’s also common. Your family is your family and you ultimately seek their approval. If we look at Sherlock throughout the episode, we see that he wants to meet her, then he wants to understand her, then he wants to forgive her and finally he wants to mend her. Apply this to the relation between an LGBT person and an unaccepting family and it’s quite the exact parallel. 3. Eurus straps a bomb to a drone and makes it fly right into the heart of Baker Street. The bomb is activated by movement. Textually, over the top. Subtextually… Need I say more? Drones are typically associated with spying on someone, especially after Mycroft’s camera drones stalking Sherlock through the streets of London in TLD. This is a symbolic parallel to families keeping a close eye on LGBT people, waiting to explode if they should make one wrong move to confirm their sexuality.

Now let’s talk about the actual “cases” Eurus puts Sherlock through.

In the first case, Sherlock has to choose either John or Mycroft to shoot the governor or else Eurus will shoot the governor’s wife. Eurus is asking Sherlock to choose either John (love interest) or Mycroft (family) to shoot a man. Notice her wording:

Eurus: 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.

Sherlock chooses Mycroft first, but Mycroft backs down from taking responsibility, so Sherlock has to choose John instead. John is close to going through with it, but backs down at the last moment because he is a good man and the whole thing ends in a tragedy that causes John to blame himself either way.

Subtextually, Sherlock is asked to place the blame on either Mycroft (family) or John (love interest). He chooses to place the blame on his family, but his family doesn’t take responsibility, so the blame has to shift to the love interest instead.

Notice that, subtextually, both Sherlock and John do all the right things and they still lose. Sherlock doesn’t blame John, but then he’s forced to do it anyway. John accepts responsibility (the right thing to do), but then also reveals that he is emotionally comprised by that (also the right thing to do). And he still ends up blaming himself in the end. Eurus (unaccepting family) gives Sherlock and John (gay couple) no chance of winning. The gay couple cannot win. Is it truly John’s fault that it ends in a tragedy? No, of course it isn’t. The only one to blame here is Eurus. But John considers it his fault. This is very, very common. If you love someone and their family rejects them because you love them, you blame yourself despite the fact that the family are the real ones to blame.

In the second case, Sherlock has to figure out which of the three Garrideb brothers was the one to kill Evans, but the real point of this case is for Mycroft and John to prove their usefulness to Sherlock. This is what Mycroft says after John has examined the gun:

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

Both Mycroft and John help Sherlock in his deductions, a fine example of family and love interest being of equal importance to an LGBT person, and Sherlock gets it right. But does it help? Not in any way. The two innocents are killed first and then the guilty is killed when John tries to protest.

Again we see the same pattern. Sherlock (the LGBT person) cannot win. It doesn’t matter that he does everything right, he’s still going to lose. In this particular instance, he listens to both family and love interest, proving that he is capable of maintaining a balance between family and love, but Eurus doesn’t accept that. It’s the same as the first case: Sherlock does everything right, but he still loses. And it’s still actually Eurus’ fault, even though it’s made to look like it’s Sherlock and/or John making a mistake.

In the third case, Sherlock is forced to convince Molly to say “I love you” and, while trying to get her to say it, he’s also forced to say it himself. By the end of this problem, Molly is left heartbroken and Sherlock breaks down.

Subtextually, this case shows what actually happens when unaccepting families force an LGBT person to enter a relationship with someone they don’t love all for the sake of appearances. Yes, Molly and Sherlock say “I love you” to each other and Molly actually means it. But does that make them happy? Does it make her happy? No. Because both Sherlock and Molly know that it’s not genuine. This is a love confession being forced on Sherlock, so it’s insincere and it makes both of them miserable.

A lot of people are upset at this scene because it seems to make Molly’s feelings irrelevant. In fact, I’d argue that this is a powerful scene because it shows the futility of forcing a straight relationship on a gay man. This is Mark and Steven writing in big fat marker across the screen that yes, it does matter who Sherlock is. You can force Sherlock to confess his love to a woman, but that won’t magically make their love any more real. That won’t magically make them into a happy couple. They never will be. Not because Sherlock doesn’t care about Molly, because he obviously does. He gives his everything to save her life and he tries to spare her heartbreak by quite firmly saying that they’re friends, she just has to say this, it’s meaningless, it’s just a little favor. But they’ll never be happy together because Sherlock is a gay man and he loves someone else. And by having Molly react in this way, I actually think it proves that the creators very much care about both Sherlock and Molly’s feelings. They aren’t irrelevant. They’re complex.

And again, same pattern.

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 Sherlock breaks down. He did everything right and he still lost. He did as Eurus wanted him to and all he ended up doing was hurting everyone.

Now it’s time for the fourth and final case. Sherlock has to either shoot John or Mycroft. And I don’t think I can be much more clear than Eurus about what this means:

Eurus: You have to choose. Family or friend. Mycroft or John Watson.

This is the ultimate choice. If, as we saw in case two, having both family and love is not an option, do you cut off your family or your love?

It never was much choice. Mycroft, who has always wanted the best for Sherlock, tries to make it easier for Sherlock to choose love over family by repeating what every unaccepting family has told their gay son:

Mycroft: You shame us all. You shame the family name. Now, for once in your life, do the right thing.

Sherlock sees through it and still aims the gun at Mycroft, but he can’t go through with it. He’s being made to choose between his family and the love of his life and he can’t do it. So he chooses what too many homosexuals in his place have chosen before him. He chooses to commit suicide.

And even this respite, this way out, is denied when Eurus tranquilizes them.

In short, the cases at Sherrinford shows Eurus (unaccepting family) putting the following choices to Sherlock (the LGBT person):

1. Make either your family or your love interest into the bad guy. 2. Work with either your family or your love interest. 3. Enter into a relationship with someone of the other sex. 4. Choose either your family or your love interest.

Throughout the cases, we see Sherlock repeatedly proving it doesn’t have to be a choice between Mycroft and John, family and love, that the two can coexist. We see Sherlock (and John) repeatedly making the right choices and doing the right things. And yet we also see them losing repeatedly. The whole point is that they’re trapped and that nothing they do will ever convince Eurus to play fair, subtextually to let them get their happy ending.

In the end, Eurus makes sure that the only way to save John’s life is to make it all about her. The only way Sherlock can save John is if he decides to prioritize saving Eurus over saving John. That’s why the episode does not end with them together romantically. Eurus has still won this round. The episode ends with Sherlock being reunited with his family in every way, but not united with John romantically, only as a friend. Again, he has done everything right and he has still lost.

And this is why we need episode four.