#because it's a sad song it's a sad tale it's a tragedy. but we're gonna sing it anyway 💃🕺

[thegreatyin]

to put it another way:

if the scoundrel's ultimate goal is to achieve eternal happiness, and the scientist's ultimate goal is to serve his dead lover (and maybe kill himself on the side), the songbird's ultimate goal is to Get Extremely Rich and Immediately Leave

[silmforrookies]

Chapter III. Of the Beginning of Days, or the Valar Are Making Me Feel

Well, fellas, congratulations! We are now officialy done with Ainulindalë & Valaquenta and are diving right into the main course, Quenta Silmarillion - or the History of Silmarils. Prepare your swords, napkins, and whatever else should you need on your endeavour.

It's an old song! It's an old song from way back when; it's an old song, but we're gonna sing it again! It's a sad song; it's a sad tale, it's a tragedy! It's a sad song, but we sing it anyway... (©Hadestown)

The first chapter of the Quenta Silmarillion is called "Of the Beginning of Days". In short:

Sigh. Alright. Let's see what we could have and what Melkor made us loose.

The chapter starts with what we already learned: that Melkor and Valar were at war, and that the Valar were losing drastically. Melkor was dominating Arda, and most of its land were under his power; of course, the Valar couldn't shape the world as intended in those anti-creative circumstances and were slowly starting to despair. However...

In a small hole in the wast fabric in the Universe, just under Eru's throne, lived Tulkas. And Tulkas looked down at the Little Kingdom of Arda, and saw Melkor, and said: "Nice little dominion of darkness you have over there. Would be a shame if something... happened to it"

(Quenta Silmarillion, Tulkas, sometime before the Age of Lamps, probably)

Tulkas spared a glance towards Arda, saw that things were not looking great for his buddy Manwë, and decided to single-handedly turn the tide of the war. What a fella. What a pal. What a chad. Seriously, get yourself a friend like Tulkas, you won't regret it.

Anyways, the second Tulkas stepped into Arda, Melkor had no choice but to turn and run. Tulkas' laughter was like a wind that cleared everything dark from its way, and his face didn't promise nothing but a good old ass-whooping. Melkor was so scared of Tulkas he didn't just run away - he abandoned Arda completely. All hail Tulkas. All hail my man.

So, Tulkas was busy searching for Melkor (I expected a good fight, man, come on), Melkor was busy sulking in the Outer Darkness (space?) and being number one Tulkas hater, and Valar were just happy that they finally, finally were able to create, unbothered by any abomination of anger, hate and envy. They happily accepted Tulkas into their ranks and got right to work.

Of course, they had to deal with the hell of a mess left after Melkor. They fixed lands and oceans, moved mountains, stabilized volcanoes and so on. Then, Yavanna could finally bring to life her most sacred project: plants. Well, not then exactly - plants need light to grow, after all; so the Valar came together and created two lights, two magnificent Lamps - Illuin and Ormal. They placed Illuin in the North of Middle-Earth, and Ormal - on the South; they were the work of Aulë and Varda, blessed by Manwë, and loved by all. And when the light of the two Lamps filled Arda, seeds that Yavanna planted started sprouting. Multiple mosses, grasses, bushes, trees - it all came to life, and the most beautiful they were in the middle of Arda, where the light of two Lamps mingled - and the Valar decided to live there. That time is called the Spring of Arda.

Those were happy times, and the Valar finally thought they could rest. Their home was an isle in the middle of a Great Lake, named Almaren; and Manwë called all the Valar and all of their servants to a grand feast, to celebrate their work and their victory. Tulkas wedded Nessa, Oromë's sister; and she danced before the Valar, and they were merry, and they all lived happily ever after...

... is what would I say if it wasn't for our good old friend, Melkor, Moringotto, the Dark Foe of the World. Who was sulking in the Outer Darkness. Or so we thought.

In reality, Melkor was busy recruiting spies and gathering intel, because Melkor can't simply let people be happy - he's just silly like that. It came to his knowledge that Ainur were planning a grand feast, and that Tulkas and Aulë would be tired as hell (because they, unlike someone, were busy helping others) - and he decided that there would be no better day to attack and to destroy the Valar once and for all.

So he started preparing for a new war - and his first step was to build an indestructible underground fortress, Utumno. His presence was so vile that Arda started marring - the plants started vaning, swamps - appearing, animals in the forests became ugly dangerous abominations who were out for blood. And the Valar, looking at this, knew that Melkor was back, and that they should brace for an attack.

Melkor striked faster than they could manage to do so. He destroyed the Lamps, and the places where they stood turned into oceans, and underground fire came forward, devouring Arda - that great was their fall.

Melkor fled - he achieved a victory, but was still too much of a coward to face Tulkas or Manwë; so he ran away and hid deep in Utumno, confident in its durability.

Valar were too busy preventing multiple major apocalypses to chase him or to vage a full-scale war; the balance of lands and waters was ruined, plants were dead, and the Lights - gone. Their home in Almaren was destroyed; everything they worked so hard on was wiped away by Melkor's sick whim, and they, yet again, had to start over.

They traveled to Aman, the most western land of Middle-Earth. Since Melkor was back to Arda, and they couldn't defeat him, they decided to fortify their positions; they surrounded Aman with Pelóri, Mountains of Aman, the greatest mountains in all world. Its highest peak, Taniquetil, is where Manwë and Varda reside. Behind Pelori, the Valar founded Valinor - their secure kingdom. It was a collection of most fair and beautiful things in Arda, its most wonderful place; so they built their palaces there, and founded a first city - Valimar, the City of Thousands Bells.

Near Valimar, there was a hill called Ezellogar; and one day, Yavanna came there, and sang. She was sitting there for a long time, singing and singing about plants, about her creations; and Nienna was crying, silently watering the ground with her tears, and the other Valar were listening.

Then, two sprouts came to being.

It is told that no sound was heard during that time - only Yavanna's song. Those two sprouts, fuelled by her voice and will, started growing - higher and higher, mightier and mightier; until they became two Trees, the greatest Trees ever created - Laurelin and Telperion.

Telperion's leaves were dark green, and they were glowing with silver, and from them the silver dew was ever falling; Laurelin's were bright, glimmering with gold, and her branches ended with golden flowers, glowing with yellow flame and spilling yellow rain, and they produced light and warmth. Those were the great Trees of Valinor, Yavanna's most magnificent creation, catalysts of Arda's history - in life and death.

Each Tree would glow for seven hours, and each would start glowing an hour before the other would start fading; so twice a day the Lights would mingle. A day in Valinor was twelve hours long.

Alright! Back to Earth. Let me remind you, Melkor is still roaming Arda, and Valar aren't fans of Melkor roaming Arda, though they can't do much about it.

Aulë's palaces were in the middle of Valinor, and he started creating metals, minerals, etc. He is called the friend of Noldor, for he was the one who taught them crafts.

Manwë, however, dwells on Taniquetil, and his thoughts are always with Middle-Earth. He established the first news agency - he gets his own newspaper in form of spirits who look like birds and travel back and forth, from Valinor to Middle-Earth. His favourites are Vanyar: he loves their poems.

Ulmo ditched Valinor and lives in the ocean, where he governs the waters. He thinks of his own music, great and terrible, and it echoes theough the whole world. His faves are Teleri, though he's also the only one to regularly check on those who live in Middle-Earth, as we learned already.

Wait.

Is it just me, or...

... AS I WAS SAYING, the next one is Yavanna, who left most of her work in Middle-Earth, and who would visit it sometimes to heal the wounds Melkor did; every time she would return, she would claim they needed to finally defeat him, until the Children of Ilùvatar come. With her, Middle-Earth was often visited by Oromë; he would hunt the dark servants of Melkor, and they would scatter from him, but come together once he would leave.

This was the state of Arda as it awaited Elves and Men. None of the Ainur knew when will they arrive, for Eru kept it secret. Similarly, only he knew the difference between them.

Elves were to be fair and wise, skilled in all arts and crafts, immortal and untouched by age or illness; their fates, however, would be forever bound to Arda, similar to Ainur, and if they die, they would heal in the Halls of Mandos and live again. Sorry, elves. No escaping the narrative for you.

Men, however, had the opposite gift - Death. Their days in Arda were limited, and their souls would long to go away from the Circles of the World. They were short-lived, but it was them who would finish the world the Ainur started, and it was them who would sing in the Second Song of the Ainur.

The tragedy of it all was, death was meant as blessing; as libertation, as a way to new possibilities; Melkor, however, in his hatred made humans fear it, and made it associated with him instead of Eru. This is why some claim Men are Melkor's servants, though he hated humans greatly.

However, let's leave the Children of Ilùvatar for another occasion. Let's relax in the Bliss of Days, and lets not think of all the upcoming tragedies.

taglist: @none-ofthisnonsense

[applepixls]

the penultimate song in the show is a reprise of the very first song where hermes introduces all the players except this time because we've seen the story its much more tragic.

even in the opening number he's singing "its a sad tale/its a tragedy" and they say (this is the very last line) "we're gonna sing it again!" the original road to hell is very upbeat and energetic

but the reprise at the end of the show starts much slower and super low energy. in both songs they say "its a sad song/but we sing it anyway" which has so many layers cause why do they keep singing this sad song? is it to tell the sad story because all stories have importance? are they stuck in a loop and they have to keep replaying tragedies over and over? (cough cough, a bit like how the life series works. everyone gets tossed into tragedies and rather than learning or changing they keep on coming back for more) and hermes literally says the lines from the opening number, eurydice does her part as well "anybody have a match? gimme that" and as always they say "its a sad song" "its a love song" "its an old song" "and we're going to sing it again and again and again and again"

so obviously there are and have been (and hopefully will be?) many iterations of the life series but i want to bring attention to how many versions echo past ones.

like how 3rd life, double life and secret life all feature an ally telling the other person "i want you to kill me"/sacrificing themselves for the other person to get the win (in double life and secret life both of them are past winners so like... they're spreading the love in cc! logic but in c! logic its like. they're literally burdening them with the win. they arent learning from how much it hurts to have that much blood on your hands.) and taking a page from the hadestown book, they say its an old song that was written long ago but keeps being told over and over and over. maybe this is a comment on how myths are old but are frequently retold because while we might not all trek to the underworld humans fall in love etc. these stories get told over and over because they arent about the specifics, they're about the broad brush strokes. they're a study of human nature. and because humans will continue to be this way and continue to relate they will continue to tell the stories in ways they relate to. in different iterations.

orpheus and Eurydice aren't dressed in togas and speaking greek, they're dressed in button ups and singing new orleans jazz. the last two living aren't in love, they haven't been each others only allies all season and they're not about to beat each other to death in a cactus ring. they've hated each other all season and only became allies as the last yellows and the one to sacrifice himself did so successfully.

still. the broad strokes remain.

orpheus went down to the underworld because he loved eurydice and he turned around because he loved her.

scar wanted to sacrifice himself because he thought grian deserved to win more than himself. his dying words were "I'm sorry" scott said "you deserve this more than me" and died saying "tilly death do us part"

hey guys. have you heard of hadestown.

(its a musical that meshes the myths of orpheus & eurydice and hades & persephone)

orpheus is a naive (sorta sheltered?) bard who acts on his whims while eurydice is a realistic and tough girl who's doing all she can to survive

hades is king of the underworld and keeps persephone there a lot of the year meaning there's a lot of winter up above

now hear me out.

3rd life.

scar as orpheus, grian as eurydice.

wedding song as scar proposing they take over the desert, the second verse being grian suggesting they take the dark oak. now, imagine all I've ever known as a dark night dancing in the desert not to mention, "its a sad tale, its a tragedy" (bonus: in a gathering storm eurydice calls for orpheus and he isn't there because he's off writing his song, narratively similar to grian calling for scar in double life when everyone was digging around for their sugar cane while scar was off accidentally lighting the place on fire and petting the jellie pandas)

extra bonus ideas:

persephone sounds like bdubs? like, listen to livin' it up on top. the gritty voice/singing and all her attitude (/pos) and some of the lyrics "who makes the summer sun shine bright?/thats right! persephone!" (he was the esmp2 sun god!) she sort of reminds me of the vibe bdubs gave off when he was ren the king's guy in s9 (my impression was he was kinda frantically running around at ren's whim, its not at all the same with hades and persephone but there's the sort of obeying a king thing)

leading me to my next thought of ren as hades. someone i was listening with said "winter has come" which made me think of "red winter is coming" dfhj

but another thought is just the last life ethubs divorce? seems very relevant with bdubs persephone parallels

also in hey little song bird hades refers to eurydice as a canary and we all know whos a canary

hermes (conductor of the train on the road to hell) and the fates play a narrator type role except hermes is more explicit while the fates are the humming in the back of your head they weave the path of how everything goes and you cant defy them

martyn throughout all the series is a sort of nomadic no solid home kinda guy and always self aware (he makes the lore-) which connects him to hermes for me but at the same time the fates are very much watcher/listener things so like bigb and martyn? (i don't know the lore sorry lol) i'd also say that somehow impulse's littlefinger flip floppy triple double agent character in third life gives a vibe like he knows whats going on in all the groups also connecting him to them for me

(i will say scar could fit hermes as well in being a sort of travelling sales person in last life and a bit in double life? also I've read dirges in the dark which means i see him and the devil and making deals with complicated clauses as very interconnected)

my final note (and being a devils advocate)

scar could also parallel hades.

if you watch his perspective he's very happygolucky and doesn't seem to get the real weight of the situation and such but from other perspectives his and grians deal seems kinda like he's had grian sign away his soul or he's kidnapped grian and there's some stockholm syndrome happening (its actually grians guilt but i digress)

hades convinces eurydice (scar is a silver tongued man) to sign away her soul to him and also the story of hades and persephone is that he kidnaps her and she eats some pomegranite and has to stay in the underworld for part of the year

sooo yeah. paralells between hadestown and 3rd life/life series. enjoy.

[deadlyflames]

Swanfire Month Day 14: Classic fairy-tale that reminds you of Swanfire: Orpheus and Eurydice

Emma was a poor girl. You might say she was touched by the gods. She would to bring the world back into tune, and fix what was wrong.

Baelfire was a hungry young boy. A runaway from everywhere he’d ever been. He was no stranger to world, no stranger to the wind.

It's a love song. It's a tale of a love from long ago.

It's a sad song. We keep singing even so.

It's an old song. It's an old tale from way back when.

And we're gonna sing it again and again.

This one is a bit of a weird connection. You can blame my obsession with Hadestown. I drew a lot of comparisons between Orpheus and Eurydice and Emma and Neal. Both work in either role. But I went with this interpretation.

I have this very specific image of a Swanfire version of the Underworld storyline. Like, it’s so easy for me to picture that arc being done for Swanfire. I mean, Rumplestilskin would obviously help Emma get to the Underworld for his son. Henry would follow for his dad. Regina would follow for Henry and Snowing would follow for their daughter. Even Hook would go with them for Baelfire.

But I think a really interesting way they could have used the Swanfire relationship in the Underworld was for Emma to do the Orpheus test. Because it makes so much sense for them.

(I think that’s what they were trying to reference with the true love test? Maybe? but it fell kinda flat in my opinion, but that’s a whole other thing)

Because it’s a test of trust and with their history, that trust was shaky, and still in the process of being rebuilt.

Just picture it though.

Emma walking through the dark.

She can’t look behind her and, for added uncertainty, Neal can’t speak either.

You can hear the echoing of footsteps and you can see the shadow behind her, but it’s uncertain. Maybe it’s a trick. Maybe it’s not.

Maybe he only said he would be behind her because he wanted to get her out of the Underworld.

She’s talking about all the hurt she felt after he abandoned her. All the pain they’ve gone through since they reunited. How he broke her heart and how she’s not even sure if he’s there now.

From Emma’s perspective, her and Neal are always being separated by powers beyond their control. When he left her when they were young, because of her destiny and his father’s curse. When he fell through the portal after being shot. When the curse was erased and they were ripped from each other again.

Why should this be any different?

It takes all her strength not to look behind her. To take that leap and believe that this will work.

When she’s just about to exit the underworld and return to the world above, she hits that pivotal fork in the road.

She can let her doubt take route, and turn to look behind. She can loose him one final time, and this time will be for good. But it will be the last time she gets her heart broken.

Or she can continue on. She can reach across all that hurt between them, and put her trust in him once again. She can open her heart up, even though letting him in risks the chance of losing him again.

The trust vs doubt dichotomy would be so interesting to tackle. Because that kind of blind faith is something that Emma has always struggled with, and it would be especially relevant to her relationship with Neal. It either ends in tragedy or a happy ending. I would lean towards happy ending because I feel like Emma choosing trust would be a good moment of growth.

Xxxx

Though the tragedy angle would break me. Can y’all freaking imagine. Emma turning back and Neal is there. She’s stunned and horrified.

“It’s you?”

He’s shocked but gives her a broken, comforting smile before he fades away.

“It’s me.”

Emma’s next arc is about the aftermath of guilt and grief. And then we all cry forever.

Anyway, sorry this part of the post was totally incoherent. The Underworld plot was a total missed opportunity. Hadestown is great, listen to it if you wanna cry.

[queenlucythevaliant]

PLEASE get started on Hadestown!

Alright, you asked for it 😊

So, I’m not sure how much you know about the show’s history, but Hadestown was in development for ages. I find it fascinating to contrast the different theses (as it were) of the original concept album (kinda), NY Theatre Workshop version, and the final Broadway version. I think it’s the best way to understand any one of them.

The original concept album was something of a commentary on greed, poverty, and economic desperation through the lens of myth. It’s a lot looser than the conceptualizations of the show that were actually meant for theatre.

The NY Theatre Workshop version’s thesis is something to the effect of We need to try (to keep our promises, to make the world better), even though it’s likely futile.

The Broadway version’s is something like We tell sad stories, even though their endings are fixed, because in the telling of them there’s hope along the way

I find both theatre versions very compelling in somewhat different ways because of the fact that they have these different theses. I think the contrast is most explicit in “Road to Hell II”/”Road to Hell (Reprise),” both of which try to interpret the meaning of the show that’s just been performed for the audience.

In the NY Theatre Workshop version, we get:

Everybody looked and everybody saw/ That spring had come again/ With a love song/ With a tale of a love that never dies/ With a love song/ For anyone who tries

Whereas in the Broadway version we get:

[…] It's a love song/ It's a tale of a love from long ago/ It's a sad song/ We keep singing even so/ It's an old song/ It's an old tale from way back when/ And we're gonna sing it again and again/ We're gonna sing it again

(Emphases mine)

It’s worth noting a few things here: 1) The Theatre Workshop’s Hermes (Matthew Saldivar) performs the role with a lot more warmth and compassion for the characters than Andre de Shields does in the Broadway version. Broadway’s Hermes is much more of an observer/narrator, more detached from the events themselves. This is particularly clear in the closing number. 2) The Broadway version of the show has the events/dialogue of “Any Way the Wind Blows” repeating under the lines about how “[Orpheus] could make you see how the world could be in spite of the way that it is.” The Theatre Workshop version doesn’t do that; it emphasizes these lines.

Both versions of the show end with a feeling of optimistic futility, but the Theatre Workshop version’s perspective on this idea has to do with trying, just trying, and then maybe there’s a kind of victory in the attempt. The Broadway version isn’t concerned with victory at all. The hope is found in the fact that the story repeats, and that the hopeful parts at the beginning and the middle are worth repeating, in spite of the fact that tragedy is inevitable.

I find both of these themes incredibly, incredibly compelling. Both have a lot to do with why I love a good tragedy in the first place.

The Theatre workshop version also places a great deal more emphasis on broken promises. In “Chant II,” Persephone is given a verse where she basically tells Euridice, “Don’t trust men. They break their promises.” In Hades’s second verse, he makes a similar complaint about Persephone: “One day she's hot, the next she's cold/ Women are so seasonal/ Women leave again and again.”

Then, in “Epic III,” Orpheus confronts this issue directly. Hades has broken his promises of love to Persephone. He doesn't treat her with the love that he promised her as a young man. This is the problem that he needs to fix.

The dialogue between Hades and Persephone in “Wait for Me II” gets a lot more emphasis in the Theatre Workshop version. It’s in the Broadway version, but there’s a lot of other stuff going on around it. In the Theatre Workshop version, they get to have their conversation uninterrupted. Hades let Orpheus and Euridice try. He and Persephone are going to try again next spring. Who knows if they’ll succeed, but they’ve made a promise.

Backing up a bit, the Orpheus and Euridice characters also have an emphasis on broken promises and trying again in the Theatre Workshop production. It’s crystal clear in the first half of “Promises,” which gets cut in the Broadway version of the song:

[Euridice: ]Promises you made to me/ You said the rivers and the trees/ Would fill our pockets and our plates/ Promises you made/ You said the birds would blanket us/ You said the world was generous/ And wouldn't turn its back on us

The river froze, the trees were bare/ And all the birds, they disappeared/ So me too, I flew away/ From promises you made

[Orpheus:] Promises you made to me/ You said that you would stay with me/ Whatever weather came our way/ Promises you made/ That we would walk, side by side/ Through all the seasons of our lives/ 'Neath any sky, down any road/ Any way the wind blows

Both of them tried. They failed. Now, they reaffirm their love and make new promises as they prepare to try again.

They fail. Does it really matter? the show asks. See how hard they tried! See how noble that effort is! This is a story for anyone who tries, even if they fail; especially if they fail. Try to keep your promises. Try to make the world better, in spite of the way that it is.

The Broadway version, as I said, puts its attention elsewhere. It's about the hope that can be found in telling sad stories over and over.

Accordingly, there's a lot more emphasis placed on the plight of the workers in Hadestown. "Chant (Reprise)" is as much about the workers as it is about Hades and Orpheus.

Why do we turn away instead of standing with him?/ Oh, keep your head-/ Why are we digging our own graves for a living?/ Oh, keep your head-/ If we're free/ Tell me why/ We can't even stand upright?/ If we're free/ Tell me when/ We can stand with our fellow man

And then, of course, there's a frantic hope in the worker's chorus during "Wait for Me (Reprise)," which is entirely new to the Broadway version. It's not just about Orpheus and Euridice trying to escape; it's about "if they can do it, so can we." It's the workers' "show the way" refrain that overshadows the Hades/Persephone dialogue. The hope of the workers is a tangible force in the Broadway show, where it was all but absent in the Theatre Workshop version.

The Broadway version also draws really clear parallels between Hades's relationship with Persephone and Orpheus's with Euridice. In the Workshop version, you get an older couple trying to advise a younger couple. In the Broadway version, there are specific bits of imagery associated with both couples, showing how history repeats. Orpheus draws this parallel explicitly in "Epic III." "I know how it was because he was like me," he sings.

Both Hades and Orpheus both "wanted to take her home"; both "saw her alone against the sky and it was like she was someone [they'd] always known."

It's also a lot clearer that the la la la la... melody is Hades's song to Persephone and that Orpheus is rediscovering it throughout the show, motivated in large part by his own love for Euridice.

These explicit parallels add to the cyclical feeling of the Broadway show. Hades and Persephone, Orpheus and Euridice, again and again. It takes on a universal feeling, applicable to all lovers.

They were in love long ago and they lost each other. Another couple was in love long ago and they lost each other. Every time we tell the story, we remember their love, their hope, the hopes of those around them, and it makes the tragic ending worth it. So we keep singing, for all the tragic lovers in the world, and for all those who had hope and then lost it. To keep the hope alive, in a sense.

You leave both versions of the Hadestown production feeling very differently. The Theatre Workshop version makes you want to keep your promises, to try in the face of futility. The Broadway version makes you want to remember and to keep hope alive. They're very different kinds of bittersweet.

Yet they are both the same story; both the kind of tragedy that I love most. In order for a tragedy to be worth telling, it cannot be utterly bleak. There must be a striving, for something good, true, or beautiful. There must be hope, even if only momentary. The ending can be as devastating as you like-- everyone dead, dreams shattered, nothing accomplished. Yet tragedy sprinkled with striving and with hope is probably my favorite literary genre in the world.

I think both versions of Hadestown have some of both; I don't want to present a false dichotomy here. But the Theatre Workshop Hadestown leans into the striving while the Broadway production leans into the hope. I find both of them heartrendingly beautiful.

[avesseloflanguage]

" 'cause here's the thing: to know how it ends and still begin to sing it again as if it might turn out this time... i learned that from a friend of mine"

this line from Hades town has been looping in my head non-stop since seeing the show and for some reason the current loop is fixated on the thought that, if you consider the concept of repeating the same sad, tragic, heartbreaking tale over and over again a problem (it's not inherently a problem, but bear with me), one that we keep falling into no matter what, the solution is... fanfiction.

fanfiction is the solution.

it's a beautiful, unique art form dedicated to exploring the stories we know and love, but fanfiction is the medium where the artist is finally able to tell the story differently.

no matter how many times we watch our favorite musicals or movies or shows, he always turns around, and the rebellion always falls, and she always tells their story, and his dad always catches him at the play, and they always run into the burning church, she never wakes up before he takes the poison, and he always gets on a boat with Levar Burton and never comes back. and that's just how the story goes.

"it's a sad song, it's a sad tale, it's a tragedy. it's a sad song, but we sing it anyway"

but then we turn to fanfiction. because it has the power to change the story. it can give it our favorite stories and characters a different ending. it can give us a different ending.

and sometimes that's exactly what we need.

"it's an old song, it's an old tale from way back when. it's an old song, and we're gonna sing it again and again.

we're gonna sing it again."

[firstofficerrose]

The whole musical is sung through, you get the full story in the album, and it's incredibly layered. You can really tell that Anaïs Mitchel spent the whole 9 years she did working to bring it to Broadway. The whole thing is gorgeously poetic, and to my way of thinking, it has three Choruses. Hermes serves as a Shakespearean Chorus, the Fates are kinda like a Greek Chorus, and the ensemble are also sort of Greek Chorus but also definitely Chorus in the Broadway tradition. It's such an interesting show from a... I suppose a dramaturgy perspective, you know? And it's existed in many formats in the nine years it took to get to Broadway, there's multiple versions of everything. A little like folkloric traditions, there's many ways to tell the story and many ways to hear it and I love it immensely. I hope to see it one day; I hope you get to see it as well. It's also the only play I know of that diegetically *knows* that it's being performed over and over and over again, it comes up in the lyrics in the opening song and one of the closing songs. "It's an old tale/it's a tragedy/but we're gonna sing it again" and "it's a sad song/but we sing it anyway/because to know how the tale ends/and still begin to sing it again/as if it might turn out this time/well, I learned that from a friend of mine/Orpheus was a poor boy..." there's just so many layers to it, and that's leaving out musical analysis like all the tiny places the theme to Wedding Song comes up, or how the instrumentation in the song where Eurydice goes to the underworld had a drumbeat in a rhythm like a heartbeat that cuts out when she "dies". It's just. It's sososo good.

And have fun with (edit: fixed the album name) Ulysses Dies At Dawn! I found it like two weeks ago, and it squishes a bunch of myths together in SPAAAAAACE. Very different flavor, tons of fun.

@grammarpedant said:

ooh, if you have any texts you'd recommend i'd be all ears!

I will keep you posted for sure then! It’s funny, it’s been like ten years since I’ve actually read any Greek Classics. I read Antigone and Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy for high school lit class, and Iphigenia in Aulis just because I wanted to read anything about Iphigenia, but I don’t remember who did those translations. I also read sooooo many YA and Middle Grade Greek Mythology retellings and fantasy inspired by it, but I can’t honestly remember which were actually good and which I loved because I was 14. (I do remember reading Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad and thinking it was weird and trying too hard… that may have been just me being 17 but that was my impression.) The interest had to lie fallow and restore nutrients for a fixation to grow I guess haha. So. Join me on this journey of rediscovery!

@firstofficerrose said:

I'm guessing the answer is yes, but have you heard Hadestown? And perhaps also the album Odysseus Dies At Dawn? Both fun retellings

Hah, I actually haven’t listened to the music from Hadestown at all—it was very much a “oh I want to see that on stage!!! That means I cannot listen to the music beforehand because I gotta see it On Stage.” Which… is silly because I don’t exactly have any plans to see it anytime soon. I still really want to though! How is it to listen to without having seen a staged production?

I had not heard of Odysseus Dies At Dawn though, I will definitely look that up! Thanks!

[barelypresentablearchive]

Here are my final thoughts on Presentable Liberty for the night (in which I segway into Hadestown, for some reason): In my Greek Mythology class, we talked about the inherent appeal of tragedy. Why do we return to the same stories when we know that they will end in heartbreak? Is it some sort of catharsis? Do we simply enjoy the ideas? Do we imagine a world where one day, everyone finally succeeds? We didn’t really come up with a satisfying answer. I know I return to PL because I find the world and characters incredibly intriguing. And yes, sometimes the series is cathartic to me. I think Hadestown said it best when they said “It's a sad tale, it's a tragedy / It's a sad song / But we sing it anyway / Cause here's the thing / To know how it ends / And still begin to sing it again / As if it might turn out this time… And we're gonna sing it again and again”.

[illuminated-in-darkness]

29. three songs that influenced you most (some songs change or save lives)

ahhhhh this is so fucking hard but thank you so much <3

1. Changing My Major from Fun Home My oblivious, repressed self missed a lot of things when I first listened to this musical, but I do remember this song in particular, which is after the main character has sex with a woman for the first time, and it's cute and happy and awkward and funny and so baby gay - and I was just crying. I don't remember if it made me sob the first time or if that was after I realized I was queer but I definitely cried, and I remember the lines that destroyed me in particular were:

I don’t know who I am / I’ve become someone new

I’m scared / Am I falling in to nothingness / Or flying into something so sublime?

I thought all my life I’d be all alone

And my heart feels complete

2. Anyway by Kerrigan-Lowdermilk Specifically the Emma Hunton version, this song just absolutely changed what I thought was possible with music in terms of expressing emotions and experiences, this one in particular about grief. I don't even know how to put into words what this song does to me, and I can't even pick specific lyrics because it's just this song as a whole- that video as a whole, because the acting that Emma Hunton is doing through her singing is just. It's entirely something else.

3. Road to Hell (Reprise) from Hadestown André De Shields. That is all. This whole fucking musical, but this song. And the choices André De Shields makes in terms of singing, speaking, yelling, voice breaking... the devastation, and the hope- it's everything everything everything.

It's a sad song / It's a sad tale / It's a tragedy / It's a sad song / But we sing it anyway / 'Cause here’s the thing / To know how it ends / And still begin to sing it again / As if it might turn out this time / I learned that from a friend of mine

He could make you see how the world could be / In spite of the way that it is / Can you see it? / Can you hear it? / Can you feel it? like a train / Is it coming? / Is it coming this way?

We're gonna sing it again

fuuuuckkk I went back and forth so much on these and I'm still not totally convinced on the three I chose but. definitely go listen to these three :))

three song ask set