#certified Wife Lover Odysseus

[dabeth-is-dead]

"How will you sleep at night"

Was so painful after all of the "all I hear are screams" recently but this is not nylon string Odysseus, this is electric guitar Odysseus so he had that clapback

"Next to my wife"

[bethgreeneishopeunseen]

Gimple’s Pantheon: Freyja

Gimple loves to incorporate literary and mythological allusions into his story, the story he’s been telling since he took over as showrunner for season 4. For example, Bethyl and Carzekiel both have similarities to Hades/Persephone. He wants his story to ultimately be timeless. Glenn and Maggie’s search for each other in 4b is compared to Ulysses/Odysseus (X). During season six, @bethgreenewarriorprincess noticed two Easter eggs that connected Michonne to the Norse goddess Freyja/Freya. She suggested that Richonne was partially based off/modeled off of Freyja and Odr. Freyja and Odr are believed to be the same as Frigga and Odin, due to linguistic and narrative similarities (X). Christy planned on writing up a Richonne meta, but she decided to leave it alone, so with her permission I took the two Easter eggs she showed me and researched the idea myself, diving into 4x09 and 4x11. Along the way I discovered parallels and eggs related to Beth’s story. This meta will be split between Michonne/Richonne and Team Delusional, as warning for those who aren’t TD.

Before I go any further into my findings, I want to make something clear: Gimple seeds storylines in advance. Sometimes years in advance. No prop or other cinematographic element goes wasted in a scene. In 4x09, when Carl finds a boy’s room filled with video games, there is a Swedish eye chart (X). It foreshadowed Carl losing his eye exactly two seasons later, which is further supported by other similar props showing up in seasons 5 and 6. In 4x11, while recuperating, Rick reads a collection of Jack London’s short stories, which includes theme of cannibalism (X). This was right before Terminus was introduced to the Grimes family’s arc. In 7x12, the Richonne “Honeymoon” episode, Gimple symbolically marries the couple. During the opening montage, Rick finds a wedding dress, then he and Michonne are shown having sex, “consummating” the marriage (X). The rest of the episode is filled with romantic imagery, tropes, and them sharing intimate conversations about their relationship. All of this takes place in an episode called “Say Yes”. Gimple is a certified nerd.

The two main storylines in 4x09 follow Carl and Michonne on their own, learning about themselves and how they’ve changed. Carl declares that, “I can take care of myself,” before launching into a grief-filled monologue about Rick’s failings. With his father unconscious, Carl sets out on his own to find food. Beth told Daryl the same thing when he tried to take her back to their suck-ass camp. Like Carl, she was grieving, and Daryl was shut-down, emotionally as comatose as Rick was physically. She wanted to find a drink, to give herself a purpose and to live for once. She and Carl share parallels as their stories are both apocalyptic Bildungsromans (coming-of-age). Christy found a plaque that read “Fredag”. Much like the eye chart, the plaque is also in Swedish. It means Friday, but more specifically, “The modern Scandinavian form is "Fredag" in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish, meaning Freyja's day” (X).

The sign is even next to the can of pudding, so the audience is primed to notice to it.

The other Freyja egg that Christy discovered is in the Alexandria Safe-Zone tour. Near the mantle, where Michonne hung her katana, is a horse statue. Freyja is a goddess of beauty, love, lust, fertility, war, and death. Horses fit all of these attributes, and one of Freyja’s titles even means “Mare of Vanir”. Michonne also had a pet horse, Flame, during 4a.

In my research, some traits of Freyja immediately jumped out at me:

“A pair of cats work together to draw her cart, proving her sovereignty as a goddess. Diana Paxson suggested the names Bygul and Trjegul - "Bee-gold" and "Tree-Gold" - for Freyja's cats, to honor her connections with honey and amber.”

“Freyja's power and beauty are symbolized most strongly by the necklace Brisingamen. The four dwarven smiths, the Brising brothers, forged a golden necklace of unsurpassed beauty, which Freyja could not bear to let pass from her grasp.”

Freyja has many lovers/commits infidelity against Odr. (Source: X).

She and Freyja share similar traits and symbolism. The cat connection is obvious. But Michonne also has a deep appreciation for art, most famously embodied in her cat statues from 3x12 and 7x10.  In 3x13, she explained to Carl that, “I just couldn't leave this behind. It's just too damn gorgeous.” Like Freyja, she values beauty. She decorated her home with paintings, went to galleries, and dressed fashionably, before the apocalypse (X). She was also very opinionated about art, indicating that she had a developed interest in that world. In the dream sequence from 4x09, she and Terry debate the merits of an exhibit. The Brisingamen necklace also fits as a trait of Michonne, because she’s worn the same gold necklace since she was fully introduced in season 3.

While the last bullet point doesn’t fit TV!Michonne, it goes along with the history of her comic book counterpart. Comic!Michonne has had the most lovers of any character in the comics, and she came on to Tyreese when he was with C@rol.

Michonne’s appreciation of art parallels Beth’s love of music and overall appreciation for beauty. They both push their men to see beyond survival, to make choices that will allow all of them live. They’re both compassionate, warrior women who came from a low period of mental/emotional instability. One symbol connected only to Beth, the ladybug, is even a symbol of Freyja (X). Freyja is described as being fair-haired and blue-eyed, like Beth, and her general attributes could also fit Beth. As I mentioned earlier, Bethyl and Carzekiel parallel Hades and Persephone, but Bethyl fits this mold the most. Gimple parallels both Michonne and Beth with Freyja, but Michonne is his main focus for this allusion.

With all of that in mind, there were also Beth eggs in 4x09. After Carl found the pudding, he went upstairs and passed some eggs, and he then had to escape from a walker, losing his shoe in the process. First he passed a box labeled “Peanut Butter”. People don’t just label a box “Peanut Butter”, especially since there was no actual peanut butter in the episode. The label refers to “Alone”, as peanut butter and jelly has become Bethyl symbols, and Beth chose the peanut butter. The peanut butter jar even reappeared in 7x08, in a Daryl-scene that mirrored his character development in Alone.

The second egg was actually a trifecta of eggs. The first room upstairs opened into an empty bedroom, and it contained a horrible sight. There was a dead canary on the carpet. The birdcage and bird caught my eye, as the last time a birdcage had appeared in the show, it appeared in Beth’s cell in 4x01 (X). Her birdcage had a number “4” inside of it, referring to 5x04 or Slabtown, which was her “cage” as she is the show’s songbird. The Beth connection goes further, as it is a yellow canary. Yellow is Beth’s signature color, as the color surrounds her and was part of her main costume, and the color keeps reappearing in moments and characters that parallel her. The same kind of yellow canary appeared in a season-4 Daryl poster, as reference to his search for Beth (X).

The fact that two yellow birds appeared in the same season cannot be a coincidence, especially since they both appeared in relation to other Beth-related imagery.

Then of course, there is the box on the bed labeled “Shoes”. Shoes, especially lone shoes, were established as a motif in this episode and continued into season 7, culminating with Boots. Who is Beth, no matter how you cut it (X). Carl loses his shoe escaping the walker upstairs, leaving a sign that references the lost shoe. TPTB wanted the audience to notice the shoe. I think all of these Easter eggs allude Beth's arc: peanut butter, dead song bird taken from its cage, and then Carl losing his shoe escaping the walker. Bethyl in Alone, Grady and Carl getting there when Beth is “dead”, and then her surviving the 800-walker herd, escaping from death, and returning as Boots/Binoculars Bethfoot. 4x09 contained symbols to outline Beth’s arc post-season 4, before it transitioned to full on parallels/rehearsals in 4x11. (In a previous meta, I already outlined how Glenn and Rick’s arcs in that episode foreshadowed Beth’s story: X.)

Overall, the house that Rick, Carl, and Michonne stayed in from 4x09 and 4x11 had Scandinavian elements. There was Nordic-looking artwork, which made me think of Rick as Odr/Odin, the supreme god in Norse mythology and a warrior god.

There is also a recurring water bottle from a company called “Wolford Springs”. The name itself sounds Scandinavian/Germanic, but I had never heard of it. The show has created fake brands in the past, so I looked up “Wolford Springs” and nothing direct came up on Google. Most results led me to a European company called Wolford that is known for its lingerie.

And Freyja is the goddess of lust and beauty.

Antlers also popped up in the background as decoration, which probably means the image is to be associated with Michonne. I looked up Freyja and antlers, and I was not disappointed. Freyja had a twin brother, Freyr, and they had a relationship.

On the god’s Wikipedia page, the introduction mentions that:

“The most extensive surviving Freyr myth relates Freyr's falling in love with the female jötunn Gerðr. Eventually, she becomes his wife but first Freyr has to give away his magic sword which fights on its own "if wise be he who wields it." Although deprived of this weapon, Freyr defeats the jötunn Beli with an antler. However, lacking his sword, Freyr will be killed by the fire jötunn Surtr during the events of Ragnarök” (X).

Gimple combined Freyja and Freyr for his story. Antlers appeared around Michonne because they refer to her katana, her signature weapon and her most iconic feature.

(Notice also the silver wind chime on Carl’s left. The D.C. spoon is one of the central symbols foreshadowing Beth’s survival.)

Before I go more into the other Beth eggs in 4x11 I found this time, I want to wrap up the Michonne/Freyja parallels. Freyja and Odr/Odin were a power couple in Norse mythology. They were both warriors, both rulers. Odin is probably most known for ruling over Valhalla, the celebratory hall meant for people who died in battle. Well, Freya had her own, in a sense, to compliment her husband’s:

“Freya is living in Asgard (the home of the Gods), the name of her house is Sessrumnir and it is located by the field Fólkvangr which means “field of the host”, “people field” or “army field”[.] It is a place where half of the people who dies in a battle go for the afterlife, while Odin will receive the other half. Freya is always given the first choice among the brave warriors, after she had picked the ones she wanted, the rest were sent to Odin” (X).

Makes you think of Rick and Michonne ruling Alexandria, doesn’t it? If you need further proof, here you go:

When Rick gets into bed to read that Jack London book, he sets his watch on the nightstand beside a tube of lipstick and a gold necklace. The gold necklace goes back to Freyja’s prized necklace, and in this set-up, the bed is a domestic space. It foreshadows Rick and Michonne sharing a bed for real two seasons later.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this meta, Gimple seeds plotlines early on. In this episode, Carl and Michonne scavenge through a house. There was a sunflower painting and a painting that resembled Mary from Terminus. Even major media sites picked up on these eggs (X). The other paintings, and the scene itself, allude to Beth. Michonne opens up to Carl in 4x11, revealing pieces of a past she had long kept locked up, but to keep herself from getting overwhelmed, Michonne has Carl play a game:

“Okay. I'll answer one question at a time, one room at a time, and only after we've cleared it. [...] You know, you could be a spy. Or a cop.”

The game parallels Zach and Daryl’s game in 4x01, about Daryl’s job. Zach even asked if Daryl had been a cop before the Turn. It’s been theorized that Beth would spy for Team Family, if she were in an enemy group. I believe that Beth is taken shelter, intermittently, with the Scavengers/the Heapsters. She’d become a spy for her family. Michonne also looks at a painting of a dog looking up at a full moon. My mind immediately jumped to Beth, who would be following the North Star in order to reach Virginia. There were full moons in 4x01, 4x12, and throughout season 5 (X).

Carl is eager to learn more about Michonne and impatient, so he asks, “Does this hallway count as a room?”

Michonne: If you can find a something we can use.

And this exchange takes place in a yellow hallway, one filled with Easter eggs. Tunnel imagery surrounds Beth, and the theme of “usefulness” is all Grady. Back at the house, Rick escaped from the Claimers through a yellow bathroom. Two yellow rooms, in completely different houses. Again, not a coincidence. As Michonne was meant to become a queen who would co-rule with her husband, Beth was meant to return.