#i actually thoroughly disagree that old age is the ideal way to die

[theseerasures]

For the meta thing, how about big sisters with absent mothers: Winter and Yang? Like, how they dealt with things differently and what a friendship between them would look like

anon i just want you to know that as soon as received this ask i barged into my girlfriend’s room to be like “is this you???” because this ask is so EXQUISITELY tailored to my personal interests that i was like “literally who else would cater to me like this” and it was not her, apparently!!! so thank you very much for this ask.

of course i have SO MANY thoughts about this topic that it took me a complete month to marshal them into something faintly coherent, if staggeringly long, so. i hope it’s worth the wait.

S(chnee)-side: how to lose brothers and alienate sisters

let’s start from some well-trodden ground: the season 5 character shorts, and their subsequent caricaturization via Chibi, which posit the Yang vs. Winter dichotomy as something like “Yang loves Ruby by diving into a monster’s mouth for her, and telling her she always has her back, and Winter does the same for Weiss by...siccing monsters on her, and telling her that she won’t always be around to save her from them.” much hay has already been made about the reasons why the two of them would act in the ways they did, so for the purposes of my own meta i’m going to skip over those, and concentrate on how content since season 5 has updated these conceptions.

and on Winter’s end of things, these conceptions have been updated by showing that she’s, uh.

...full of shit.

we’ve now had TWO instances of Winter going above and beyond to protect someone vulnerable. the first time was for Penny, with whom she has a sisterly bond, and the second time was for Ren, with whom she has...exchanged a few lines of dialogue. if she’s so ready and willing to hurl herself bodily into the path of an aggressor for someone who is basically a stranger, then why all the pageantry with Weiss about how she can’t (or won’t) save her? did she carve some kind of blood relative exemption into her saving people thing? does it only apply to people who wear a lot of green?¹

to properly address this question--and to bring in the Willow of it all--i think we should step back and ask: how does Winter actually feel about the Schnee name?

not Jacques’ name, mind. nor anything he did to besmirch it. Willow’s name, and Winter’s birthright.

because what has always been interesting to me is that while Weiss has talked about reclaiming or rehabilitating the Schnee name from their father’s meddling and still clearly wants to reconcile herself with it, even after being disinherited, Winter has only ever talked about distancing. it’s entirely possible that she had similar aspirations when she was around Weiss’ age and was just more thoroughly disabused of them, but my point stands: Winter shows a discomfort with the Schnee name overall in a way that Weiss has yet to. you don’t have to look any further than Winter’s combat style to see how this discomfort is telegraphed, as she barely uses any Dust, or Glyphs, and the one aspect of her Semblance that she does use and tout are Summons, which just so happens to be the part that emphasizes her own individual ability to conquer foes. something about the Schnee name feels irreconcilably tainted for Winter,² and while i’m sure a large part of it has to do with her father, who can make her explode into emotion confetti by just being in the same room as her for thirty seconds, a not-insignificant part can probably be chalked up to the fact that...

Willow Schnee was probably never all that good a mother.

granted: we’ve have exactly one scene (two if you count the 8.2 sneak peek) with her, so i’m fully ready to be called Boo Boo the Fool if we get a flashback and Willow was some kind of crusading super-mom prior to her descent into alcoholism, but. the idea that she hasn’t ALWAYS had to compromise herself and her children just to get by feels facile. this is not to victim blame, but to say that Willow is an imperfect person (in that she is. a person) placed into a horrific situation, which means that she could not always deal with the situation perfectly. it’s important to remember her agency--both before and after she became an alcoholic--but it’s just as important not to idealize it into something it’s not. Willow was by no means a co-abuser to her children, but she was probably always inconsistent, because living with your abuser for years on end does that to you. personally, i’ve always envisioned pre-alcoholism Willow as...well-meaning and much more perceptive and intelligent than people give her credit for, but beset with her own flaws that grew in proportion to her hurt and bitterness. she was capable of shielding her children from her husband’s worst excesses, and often did; but she was just as capable of retreating when she might have fought, of excusing Jacques’ actions to try to keep the peace, even of lashing out at those who shouldn’t have to handle her negative emotions.

her descent into alcoholism exacerbated these tendencies, but Willow has always been a complicated woman, and the idea that there was a prelapsarian time when Willow was an unmitigated good, before...idk, her Good battery ran out and she became Drunk Victim Non-Mom, is...well, it’s definitely something that a ten-year-old who had an ENORMOUSLY traumatic birthday would believe (and blame herself for), but Winter might disagree. i don’t think her view would be any more objective, if only because the day Winter Schnee has an un-myopic thought is the day i pass gracefully into the West, but her view is probably more complicated and less flattering, because Winter knew her mother more as a person, and that’s something we’re gonna talk about more with Yang and Ruby, later.

the point i want to make now, with Winter, is that her determined inconstancy, where she’ll readily jump into the jaws of a monster for her siblings in one breath and berate them and caution them against needing her in the next--that comes from her experience with Willow. the lesson she wants her siblings to learn is not just “the people who are supposed to love you are cruel, so get a helmet,” but “the people who are supposed to love you disappoint you, which is worse, so it’s better to not rely on them at all.”³ better for them to learn it from her than firsthand, but also--better for herself, because when she does disappoint them (and she did. she left.) at least she can take comfort in the fact that surely it doesn’t hurt as much; she warned them, after all.

in Winter’s mind, this kind of disappointment is an inevitability, so what’s paramount is to make sure that when it does happen her siblings are at least prepared for it. in the face of that the fact that she would actually risk life and limb to help them if they ever need it falls to the wayside; i don’t think it was a mindful decision that Winter consciously made--like, i don’t think she ever thought “i’m going to withhold the fact that i would die for them because that would contradict the whole social Darwinism thing i’m trying to drill into their heads,” because Winter’s just...not that kind of deliberate rational actor, in any arena. rather--and maybe even more damning--i think she just assumes that Weiss and Whitley already KNOW, that it’s a given for them the sacrifices she’d make for them in the same way it’s a given for her. but they don’t! because you have to say these things, and Winter has been force-feeding them the precise opposite.

ultimately all of these contradictory impulses stem from Winter’s deep-seated need for control--both of herself, and of the environments around her, and those in turn come from the fact that she was a) repeatedly wounded as a child and b) had to shoulder responsibilities far beyond her own ability as that same child, which...continues to this day. from this perspective, what matters is less keeping her siblings safe, and more her own ability to save them. she knows that’s imperfect, so she compensates by enforcing what worked for her onto them, and also by keeping them away from anything that could harm them, without their input. i never thought much of the contrast in environments for the character shorts--like of course Weiss would spar with Winter’s Summons at home like the untested shut-in she was--but what did take me aback was that in season 7, after Weiss has waltzed across an entire continent and been promoted to a full Huntress, Winter...still exclusively trains Weiss with her Summons up in Atlas, while Ruby and Yang are traipsing across Mantle killing ACTUAL Grimm. i have no doubt that this was for foreshadowing reasons, but still: it points to the fact that for all Winter loves Weiss and would fight giant monsters for her, there’s a part of her that...doesn’t trust Weiss, and wants to maintain control over her.⁴

this, i think, is part of the reason why Whitley treats her basically like an un-person: it’s not just that she left when he was too young and Jacques filled in all the gaps with lies and slander, it’s also that even when Winter was around the bigger age gap made it much easier for her to reconcile keeping him out of the loop, for his own good. she can’t ever be vulnerable around either of her siblings, but especially not Whitley, because he’s too young; he might let something slip when they’re around Jacques, and she shouldn’t be putting that kind of burden on him anyway. if he resents her when she’s just trying to protect him--except you said that you wouldn’t, Winter you absolute moron--then that’s his prerogative. it doesn’t change her own responsibilities. they can be miserable and Byronic in their own separate cubby holes and it’s fine.

(it’s not fine.)

R(ose)⁵-side: tonight, the role of Replacement Goldfish will be played by...everyone

let’s get one thing out of the way: Yang is a GOOD big sister, and some of the ways that she is good can be chalked up to the fact that she had a better home life, but only some. her character short ends with her promising Ruby that she’ll always have her back after spending the short proving it, and she has--until recently, and we’ll get to that--lived up to it. people get caught up on how much time Yang spends with Blake nowadays, but it’s important to remember that the entire impetus for Yang reuniting with anyone during the Mistral arc was about Ruby. so is the thing that separates a Yang from a Winter is that a Yang preaches what she practices, and isn’t firing a million zillion mixed signals at all times?

well--yeah, basically, but we’re gonna make a big thing out of it anyway.

what made Yang and Ruby different from the Schnees--even before the character shorts--was a sense of parity. in contrast to Winter insisting on maintaining a) the most unapproachable facade in the world, and b) a death-grip on every situation at all times, Yang was characterized from the outset as...chill (ironically). despite her Semblance being LITERALLY hotheadedness, Yang’s passionate energy never manifested in any real desire to take charge. the fact that she was fine (even happy!) with Ruby being bumped up to her year and then becoming leader speaks volumes to how much Yang trusts and respects Ruby’s judgement. rather than try to mask her flaws, she exudes this kind of...radiant fallibility and lets Ruby take care of her, or keep her in line. they complement each other: Yang takes care of more grounded concerns like individual fights and making friends, while Ruby--again, until recently--set more abstract goals and gave them moral direction.

a lot of this can be attributed to the smaller age gap, but i think it also comes from growing up as two motherless free-range children on an island--and the motherlessness is obviously a huge deal for both of them. when i started writing this i honestly thought i’d talk more about Raven, since she’s the mom who’s actually a character already, and her absence plays a huge role in how Yang deals with her abandonment issues in the present, but to be honest: the loss that cut the deepest for Ruby AND Yang is Summer, because Summer was actually around enough to be lost. despite the show frequently dividing custody of Team STRQ right down the middle between Ruby and Yang, where Ruby “gets” Summer and Qrow and Yang “gets” Tai and Raven, it’s the admixture of Rose and Branwen that makes the two of them who they are.⁶ Yang spent more time with Summer, but Ruby spends more time with Qrow, who is Yang’s blood uncle, so the dichotomy between nature and nurture is fascinatingly blurred.

i know this is an unpopular opinion, but i hope Summer really is dead, because the ways that her daughters interpellate their own identities from her absence drives so much of the story. that SUMMER was the first mother Yang lost--not Raven, because Yang didn’t even know about Raven until Summer died--is what shapes her relationship with Ruby, but also her relationship with Raven. what’s always simmering just below the surface of any Yang-Raven confrontation is that the person Yang actually wanted to find the whole time she was looking for Raven was Summer, because she wanted a mom, and a mom looked like Summer. Raven’s not stupid--it might be her one redeeming quality--so it’s likely that she’s always known and resented this. it’s not an accident that the moment Yang stopped looking for Raven for Raven and started looking for her for an easy conduit to her real family was the moment she actually found Raven.⁷ it was the first step to Yang outgrowing her old habits, of waiting for a mother to return--a classic “she needed a hero so that’s what she hurdy blah”

in a way that’s what she’s been doing this whole time. in contrast to Winter, who compensated for her mother’s flaws by ratifying them into universal law, Yang did the same by defying their supposed truth: people might leave her, but she won’t leave Ruby, and Ruby won’t leave her. it’s telling that whenever Yang leaves--even as a literal child--she always took Ruby with her, even if she planned on coming back. (it’s just as telling that when Winter left she didn’t.) she’ll always be there for Ruby, to give her the boost she needs to become the Summer they all want her to be, which means being a little of Summer herself--the part of Summer that baked cookies and slew monsters. and in return Ruby gave her...a sense of certainty, i think: that Ruby needs her and therefore won’t leave, but also that Ruby has the parts of Summer that Yang can’t muster herself--the grand heroic ideal, the moral certitude, etc.

...and now we’re finally gonna talk about the Schism, which i honestly think is the best thing that has happened to their relationship, development-wise. by the end of the Mistral arc Yang has arrived at a healthier perspective with respect to her relationships with everyone: now it’s not about indiscriminately giving herself away to people in the hopes that they might not leave her, but about choosing to give herself away to the people she loves and trusts. on one level this should not conflict with her relationship with Ruby at all, because Yang loves Ruby, but on another...the fact that Yang no longer feels obligated to perform unending support, to be the grounded complement, to fill in the parts of Summer that Ruby can’t--of COURSE that’s going to bring about conflict. because it turns out Yang never needed Ruby to give her direction or discipline. she’s now had time to think of the things she herself values, and those...don’t exactly match up with Ruby’s--or Summer’s.⁸ Yang, having known Summer as a mother, having been confronted repeatedly with the fallibility of mothers, is starting to outgrow Summer, and grow separately from Ruby.

but growing separately doesn’t have to mean growing apart, and i think Yang, at least, knows this. she clearly feels Some Kinda Way about their disagreement (and Blake’s implicit alignment with Ruby), but she’s also confident enough in her own beliefs by this point to commit to them. Yang’s taking charge instead of deferring to Ruby, and it turns out that...she’s actually not a bad leader herself, since she and Jaune have pretty much split a lot of those responsibilities. for her it’s not a question of losing faith or love in Ruby as a person, but about discovering what she herself fights for.

Ruby...sees it differently, because Ruby sees Summer differently. if Yang has always defined herself against Summer by deciding that she can NEVER fully be Summer, so she’ll make do with what she can, then Ruby’s always defined herself against Summer by marking Summer as the endpoint of her personal trajectory. what Ruby knows of Summer--that she was a person who enjoyed life and did not believe in original sin, that had a magical special destiny that was totally fine and awesome and didn’t drive her to her death, that she was a baker of cookies and slayer of monsters--is what Tai and Qrow--and Yang--told her about Summer, because Ruby was too young to remember the real Summer. so Summer for her is this abstract paragon to live up to, and no more. she can’t possibly exceed Summer, because the Summer Ruby knows encompasses literally all that is good.

when Yang tells Ruby “i’ve always got your back” in the short, a lot of it is about Yang, and the ways Yang needed to be there for other people so they’ll be there for her in return. but it’s also something Ruby really needed to hear, because Ruby needed the security and comfort of knowing that even if she screws up there are people around her who can help shoulder the burden. that security already took a serious hit after Yang lost her arm, but Ruby, kind and generous person that she is, was able to reconcile with that, because YANG HAD JUST LOST HER ARM. it would be ridiculous to expect Yang to have her back the way she used to, and besides--it was time she grew up, and growing up means becoming more like Summer, all of Summer, by herself.

and...she gets pretty far, is the thing, because Ruby IS a lot like Summer, and is incredible and amazing all by herself to boot, but the point is that no one should feel this much pressure to be All That Is Good, especially when you’re a teen. Ruby’s not ready to recognize that, partly because at this point so many people are looking to her for leadership, but also because being Summer’s heir is the only real link she has to her mom.⁹ so she hunkers down and does the best she can, in a situation that has far spiraled beyond anybody’s control...and then Yang tells her that it’s not working out, that this time it’s not that she can’t have Ruby’s back, but that she won’t. in Ruby’s mind, this could only mean one of two things: either Yang no longer believes what Ruby believes--what Summer believed, or...Yang no longer believes in Ruby, because she wasn’t good enough.

and well. it’s Ruby. it’s not hard to guess which reason she’s picking right now, especially since she pretty conspicuously refused to call the shots during the Amity heist.

but this is of course a false dichotomy. it’s not about which one of them is right, or even more right, and the show does a very good job with the framing to show that both of them have a point. similarly, what Ruby needs right now is neither confirmation that her long-held beliefs are objectively the best ones, nor that she is good enough to become Summer after all. no; what she needs instead is the knowledge that she’s allowed to fuck up, to deviate from what people have told her about Summer, to become what Summer never was. that’s something Yang can--and will--help her work out.

oh no this analogy is breaking apart: how they’d get along

...oi.

look, even beyond the fact that Winter doesn’t get along with ANYONE over much, i don’t think there’s any universe where she wouldn’t immediately rub Yang the wrong way. not only because Winter’d initially treat Ruby with the same cold tyranny that she (up until very recently) treats Weiss, but also because Yang’s partner is Blake, and--to say nothing of Atlas/Schnee-on-Faunus oppression--she was personally made collateral during the fallout with Blake’s abuser.¹⁰ i myself wouldn’t say that Winter abused Weiss, but to Yang’s protective and skewed view...

well, can you imagine Weiss trying to explain the way Winter ~~~trained her to the Bees? “oh, she sent a pack of Beowolves to hunt me! it was a meant-to-lose fight and when i started doing well she just moved the goalposts. one of her wolves almost ate me before i begged her to stop but it...probably...wouldn’t have...it was fine! my Aura didn’t dip THAT much. Winter’s the best!!” Yang’s hair would have been on fire after the first sentence, is all i’m saying. this coupled with the fact that Yang would very likely view Winter leaving Weiss and Whitley through the lens of Raven doing the same thing to her, and i think it would take a pretty long time for the two of them to see eye to eye on anything.

which is not to say that they have nowhere to go but antagonism, because at their cores Winter and Yang both have a) no hesitation whatsoever when it comes to protecting the people they care about and b) a tendency to define protection literally, often bodily. the difference is that Yang’s Semblance weaponizes these protective instincts for her, and she learned the limits of taking that too far. Winter...doesn’t, and hasn’t.¹¹ that COULD lead to some interesting conversations, but i don’t think Yang has quite the emotional clarity and generosity to reckon with that yet, and they’re not about to talk about it inside the Giant Whale.

a necessary part of Winter’s development is learning to respect the people around her instead of instantly categorizing them into boxes labeled “to fight” and “to protect and order around.” her friction with Yang could be an intriguing way to explore that; i have no doubt, for example, that Winter would have hurled herself between Elm and Yang just as readily as she had between Elm and Ren. similarly, i think if Winter ever were in the same room with both Raven and Yang she’d last about ten seconds before trying to rip Raven’s hair out with her teeth, because Raven is neglectful and casually demeaning in ways that are instantly recognizable to Winter (in the same way they were to Weiss).¹² the issue is that her doing any of these things for Yang--y’know, the same Yang who IMMEDIATELY gave Blake the cold shoulder when she tried to pull the whole “i’ll protect you” crap--is that she would only find it confusing and frustrating, and likely wouldn’t mince words expressing that.

Yang’s a big sister herself, and therefore knows all the big sister tricks, and Yang has a consistent pattern of not wanting to rely on other people, particularly people she sees as adults. so the best path toward a Winter and Yang friendship is probably not the head-on approach, but obliquely through someone else. that someone else can’t be Weiss, because Yang would be already hypervigilant about the way Winter treats Weiss--but it could be Ruby. even putting aside the fact that she is now one of the most important people in the world for BOTH her sisters, Ruby herself is very easy to love, and Winter loves very easily, despite herself. what they have in common--idealism and a martyr complex--would also engender some cool interactions, and Ruby would let Winter take care of her, if only to make Winter feel better.

i could see that being the impetus for Yang tentatively, grudgingly forming her own friendship with Winter, because there ARE things that Winter can give Yang, even if Yang can’t (or won’t) admit she wants them. it’s nice to try out being the kid sister, once in a while.

still, even if they get that far: i can’t imagine their relationship as anything friendlier than this.

¹ tbh neither would actually surprise me; what Winter does and doesn’t let herself do is only knowable to the Gods Who Have Forsaken This Land, and they’re certainly unknowable to Winter herself.

² maybe she knows that the whole “the Schnees were up-from-bootstraps-good-capitalists until that guy Jacques came along” thing is stupid!! i don’t care that he’s Santa Nicholas Schnee ain’t shit

³ this i think is why the current thing with Ironwood is such a bitter pill to swallow, because...she thought she’d been so careful. not in thinking that she’d chosen a man who couldn’t disappoint her, but in caring so deeply about him and investing so much of herself into him, despite the fact she’s only ever let herself call him “sir,” or “General.”

⁴ though i will say, to give Winter some credit: she actually accepts the fact that her sister is totally her own person now with a lot more aplomb than i’d expected, both in the “you stole an airship” scene and during all of Sparks. i wouldn’t be so generous as to read subtle treason into her disclosure of Ironwood’s Winter Maiden plans, but it does point to Winter’s desire for control being much more easily unlearned than that of her boss.

⁵ geddit? it’s a joke about handed-ness because now they both have the Hand Tremor

⁶ Tai is, as always and on purpose, the stabilizing agent. “appropriately underwhelming,” as Winter might put it, but absolutely essential.

⁷ of course then Raven had the gall to resent THAT too, because she’s the worst, and...see above, about Winter Schnee’s self-unknowing.

⁸ curiously, the values that Yang most espouses now--the importance of knowing what you’re getting into, protecting what is tangible, what is within your ability--are a) hard-won from years of taking care of Ruby and b) ones that she shares with Raven. the only difference is that Yang’s circle of protection extends far beyond Raven’s, which only includes herself.

⁹ weirdly enough the best person to talk to Ruby about this might be Raven, who has a very skewed perception of Summer herself (because Raven’s perception of EVERYONE is generally fucked up), but probably won’t hold back when talking about Summer’s flaws. Ruby won’t want to hear any of it, but i think she needs to.

¹⁰ i do think Blake and Winter would have some interesting conversations, if Blake ever...was generous enough to deal with *gestures at all of Winter.* it’s easier to compare Blake to Willow given the shared nature of their interpersonal abuse, but Winter on the other hand knows what it’s like to be hand-picked and groomed by a charismatic man with a singular vision who ended up wholly compromising that vision for the sake of their personal ego. that the White Fang are a good force perverted while the Atlesian Military is rotten to the core would...make the conversation more lively? it’s probably fine?

¹¹ “i’m Winter Schnee and i have maladaptive coping mechanisms that i am currently clinging to, as a maladaptive coping mechanism”

¹² though there...probably IS a world where Raven and Winter end up getting along after the initial skirmish, and it disturbs Yang and Qrow to no end

[princesssarisa]

Some more “Little Women” remarks: the problem of Beth

I honestly think most commentary I’ve read about Beth’s character is bad, both academic and from casual readers.

I understand why. She’s a difficult character. Modern readers who love Little Women and want to celebrate it as a proto-feminist work need to contend with the presence of this thoroughly domestic, shy, sweetly self-effacing character, seemingly the opposite of everything a feminist heroine should be. Meanwhile, other readers who despise Little Women and consider it anti-feminist cite Beth as the embodiment of its supposedly outdated morals. Then there’s the fact that she’s based on Louisa May Alcott’s actual sister, Lizzie Alcott, and does show hints of the real young woman’s complexity, and yet she’s much more idealized than the other sisters, which often makes readers view her as more of a symbol (of what they disagree, but definitely a symbol) than a real person.

But even though the various bad takes on her character are understandable, they’re still obnoxious, and in my humble opinion, not founded in the text.

Here are my views on some of the critics’ opinions I least agree with.

“She’s nothing but a bland, boring model of feminine virtue.”

Of course it’s fair to find her bland and boring. Everyone is entitled to feel how they feel about any character. But she’s not just a cardboard cutout of 19th century feminine virtue. So many people seem to dismiss her shyness as just the maidenly modesty that conduct books used to encourage. But it seems blatantly obvious to me that it’s more than just that. Beth’s crippling shyness is actively portrayed as her “burden,” just like Jo’s temper or Meg and Amy’s vanity and materialism. She struggles with it. Her parents have homeschooled her because her anxiety made the classroom unbearable for her – no conduct book has ever encouraged that! In Part 1, she has a character arc of overcoming enough of her shyness to make new friends like Mr. Laurence and Frank Vaughn. Then, in Part 2, she has the arc of struggling to accept her impending death: she doesn’t face it with pure serenity, but goes through a long journey of both physical and emotional pain before she finds peace in the end. Her character arcs might be quieter and subtler than her sisters’, but she’s not the static figure she’s often misremembered as being.

‘She needs to die because her life has no meaning outside of her family and the domestic sphere.”

In all fairness, Beth believes this herself: she says she was “never meant” to live long because she’s just “stupid little Beth,” with no plans for the future and of no use to anyone outside the home. But for readers to agree with that assessment has massive unfortunate implications! The world is full of both women and men who �� whether because of physical or mental illness, disability, autism, Down Syndrome, or some other reason – can’t attend regular school, don’t make friends easily, are always “young for their age,” don’t get married or have romantic relationships, aren’t able to hold a regular job, never live apart from their families, and lead quiet, introverted, home-based lives. Should we look at those real people and think they all need to die? I don’t think so! Besides, it seems to me that the book actively refutes Beth’s self-deprecation. During both of her illnesses, it’s made clear how many people love her and how many people’s lives her quiet kindness has touched – not just her family and few close friends, but the neighbors, the Hummels (of course), the local tradespeople she interacts with, and the children she sews gifts for who write her letters of gratitude. Then there’s the last passage written from her viewpoint before her death, where she finds Jo’s poem that describes what a positive influence her memory will always be, and realizes that her short, quiet life hasn’t been the waste she thought it was. How anyone can read that passage and still come away viewing her life as meaningless is beyond me.

“She needs to die because she symbolizes a weak, outdated model of femininity.”

SparkNotes takes this interpretation of Beth and it annoys me to think of how many young readers that study guide has probably taught to view her this way. No matter how feisty and unconventional Louisa May Alcott was, and no mater how much she personally rebelled against passive, domestic femininity, would she really have portrayed her beloved sister Lizzie as “needing to die” because she was “too weak to survive in the modern world”? Would she really have turned Lizzie’s tragic death into a symbol of a toxic old archetype’s welcome death? But even if Beth were a purely fictional character and not based on the author’s sister, within the text she’s much too beloved and too positive an influence on everyone around her for this interpretation to feel right. This seems less like a valid reading of her character and more like wishful thinking on the part of some feminist scholars.

“She's a symbol of pure goodness who needs to die because she’s Too Good For This Sinful Earth™.”

Enough with the reasons why Beth “needs to die”! At least this one isn’t insulting. But I don’t think it’s really supported by the text either. If she were a symbol of goodness too pure for this world, then she wouldn’t forget to feed her pet bird for a week and lose him to starvation. She wouldn’t get snappish when she’s bored, even if she does only vent her frustration on her doll. She wouldn’t struggle with social anxiety, or dislike washing dishes, or be explicitly described as “not an angel” by the narrator because she can’t help but long for a better piano than the one she has. Now of course those flaws (except for accidentally letting her bird die) are minute compared to her sisters’. It’s fair to say that only “lip service” is paid to Beth’s humanity in an otherwise angelic portrayal. But it seems clear that Alcott did try to make her more human than other saintly, doomed young girls from the literature of her day: she’s certainly much more real than little Eva from Uncle Tom’s Cabin, for example.

“She’s destroyed by the oppressive model of femininity she adheres to.”

This argument holds that because Beth’s selfless care for others causes her illness, her story’s purpose is to condemn the expectation that women toil endlessly to serve others. But if Alcott meant to convey that message, I’d think she would have had Beth get sick by doing some unnecessary selfless deed. Helping a desperately poor, single immigrant mother take care of her sick children isn’t unnecessary. That’s not the kind of selflessness to file under “things feminists should rebel against.”

“She’s a symbol of ideal 19th century femininity, whom all three of her sisters – and implicitly all young female readers – are portrayed as needing to learn to be like.”

Whether people take this view positively (e.g. 19th and early 20th century parents who held up Beth as the model of sweet docility they wanted from their daughters) or negatively (e.g. feminists who can’t forgive Alcott for “remaking Jo in Beth’s image” by the end), I honestly think they’re misreading the book. I’ve already outlined the ways in which Beth struggles and grows just like her sisters do. If any character is portrayed as the ideal woman whom our young heroines all need to learn to be like, it’s not Beth, it’s Marmee. She combines aspects of all her daughters’ best selves (Meg and Beth’s nurturing, Jo’s strong will and Amy’s dignity) and she’s their chief source of wise advice and moral support. Yet none of her daughters become exactly like her either. They all maintain their distinct personalties, even as they grow. Admittedly, Beth’s sisters do sometimes put her on a pedestal as the person they should emulate – i.e. Amy during Beth’s first illness and Jo in the months directly after her death. But in both of those cases, their grief-inspired efforts are short-lived and they eventually go back to their natural boldness and ambitions. They just combine them with more of Beth’s kindness and unselfishness than before.

“She wills her own death.”

Of all these interpretations, this one is possibly the most blatantly contradicted by the text. Just because Beth’s fatal illness is vague and undefined beyond “she never recovered her strength after her scarlet fever” doesn’t mean it's caused by a lack of “will to live”; just because she interprets her lack of future plans or desire to leave home to mean that she’s “not meant to live long” doesn’t mean she’s so afraid to grow up that she wants to die. It’s made very clear that Beth wants to get well. Even though she tries to hide her deep depression from her family and face death willingly, she’s still distraught to have her happy life cut short.

I’ll admit that I’m probably biased, because as as a person on the autism spectrum who’s also struggled with social anxiety and led an introverted, home-based life, I personally relate to Beth. If I didn’t find her relatable, these interpretations would probably annoy me less. But I still think they’re based on a shallow overview of Beth’s character, combined with disdain for girls who don’t fit either the tomboyish “Jo” model or the sparkling “Amy” model of lively, outgoing young womanhood, rather than a close reading of the book.

[vernicle]

Portland's mayor took a stand against hate, but the ACLU is pushing back. Here's why.

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You won't be able to defeat despise with censorship, but that doesn't mean it has to acquire.

On May possibly 26, 35-calendar year-old Jeremy Joseph Christian allegedly stabbed a few men on board a Portland light-rail teach right after they attempted to intervene on behalf of a Muslim lady who Christian was verbally harassing.

Two of individuals men, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and Ricky Best, died when a 3rd, Micah Fletcher, survived.

Photos of Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche and Ricky Best in a memorial established up in Portland. Image by Alex Milan Tracy/AP Images.

Three days right after the incident, Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler weighed in with an crucial message for his town.

In the message, posted to his Facebook site, Wheeler calls on the federal government to revoke the permit granted to an "alt-ideal" group hosting an party in Portland's Shrunk Plaza in June.

He also appeals to the organizers of the white supremacist group to cancel the planned demonstration. "There is never ever a position for bigotry or hatred in our group, and specially not now," Wheeler wrote.

"I am contacting on every single elected chief in Oregon, every single authorized agency, every single stage of regulation enforcement to stand with me in blocking one more tragedy."

Here's the full text of Wheeler's write-up:

"On Friday a few men Rick Best, Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche, and Micah Fletcher stood up towards bigotry and hatred. Two paid out with their lives. A 3rd was very seriously injured.

Our group remains in shock and mourning. But we are also enormously grateful to our heroes and their family members for their selflessness and heroism. They will serve to inspire us to be the loving, courageous people today we are intended to be.

As Mayor, I required to update you on a couple developments:

1) I have attained out to all of the victims and their family members, which include the two women of all ages who have been terrorized and subjected to this sort of hatred and bigotry. I have offered my unconditional guidance and guidance, day or night.

2) I have confirmed that the Town of Portland has NOT and will not situation any permits for the alt ideal activities scheduled on June 4th or June 10th. The Federal government controls permitting for Shrunk Plaza, and it is my knowledge that they have issued a permit for the party on June 4th."

three) I am contacting on the federal government to Promptly REVOKE the permit(s) they have issued for the June 4th party and to not situation a permit for June 10th. Our Town is in mourning, our community’s anger is true, and the timing and matter of these activities can only exacerbate an already challenging predicament.

four) I am interesting to the organizers of the alt-ideal demonstrations to Terminate the activities they have scheduled on June 4th and June 10th. I urge them to request their supporters to continue to be away from Portland. There is never ever a position for bigotry or hatred in our group, and specially not now.

five) I am contacting on every single elected chief in Oregon, every single authorized agency, every single stage of regulation enforcement to stand with me in blocking one more tragedy.

six) When and if the time is ideal for them, I would like to function with the family members to come across an correct way to completely keep in mind their sacrifice and honor their braveness. Their heroism is now component of the legacy of this good town and I want long run generations to keep in mind what took place in this article, and why, so that it may possibly serve to equally eradicate hatred and inspire long run generations to stand up for the ideal values like Rick, Taliesin, and Micah did past 7 days."

The ACLU of Oregon, even so, doesn't agree with Wheeler, declaring that what he recommended is a form of censorship.

In a reaction on their have Facebook site, the firm explained (emphasis added):

"Our hearts are damaged, but government censorship is not the respond to. The government cannot revoke or deny a permit based on the viewpoint of the demonstrators. Interval.

It may perhaps be tempting to shut down speech we disagree with, but at the time we enable the government to choose what we can say, see, or listen to, or who we can assemble with, heritage demonstrates us that the most marginalized will be disproportionately censored and punished for unpopular speech.

We are all no cost to reject and protest suggestions we you should not agree with. That is a main, fundamental freedom of the United States. If we enable the government to shut down speech for some, we all will shell out the selling price down the line. We need to protect the Structure, even when it is unpleasant.

If the government has concrete proof of an imminent menace they can and should deal with it without the need of proscribing Initial Modification rights of other people."

The factor is ... equally Wheeler and the ACLU of Oregon are ideal in distinctive strategies.

So where does that leave us?

At his arraignment, Christian shouted, "Absolutely free speech or die. Get out if you you should not like no cost speech ... you simply call it terrorism, I simply call it patriotism ... die." Image by Beth Nakamura/The Oregonian/OregonLive.

Like a ton of matters in life, it's a little bit nuanced.

Right before you hop on #TeamTed or #TeamACLU, it's crucial to admit that fairly substantially everyone involved in this has very good intentions, is disgusted by Christian's actions, and doesn't want just about anything like it to come about ever all over again.

On just one hand, you can absolutely see where Wheeler is coming from. With tensions functioning high and the truth that Christian had just a short while ago attended a comparable rally, it helps make ideal perception that his impulse would be to shut down approaching rallies for worry of provoking or inspiring one more assault. With the town even now mourning this reduction, it's easy to understand that he'd look for strategies to de-escalate the predicament even so he can and send out a strong message towards despise and bigotry.

On the other, the ACLU is entirely ideal when it states the government won't be able to just revoke permits due to the fact of someone's political views. Responding to a comment on Facebook, the firm recommended that the mayor just take a additional calculated tactic that doesn't violate the Structure by speaking to the groups organizing to hold rallies and asking them to reschedule in light of the latest assault. The groups you should not have to, but without the need of outlining why these rallies pose an imminent menace, that is about all Wheeler can lawfully do.

Liberty of speech, even so, does not mean speech without the need of effects.

There are moments when regulation enforcement can and should intervene to stop speech from turning into action. For this, let us look at how the ACLU responded to the 2011 shooting exterior the business office of then-Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (emphasis added):

"It is crucial to keep in mind that when the Initial Modification thoroughly guards our liberty to converse freely other than in the most circumscribed situations, it is not a barrier to effective regulation enforcement towards individuals moderately considered to be involved in illegal action. ... In moments like these, it is organic to look for strategies to quell our horror and worry. But it is when people today feel most susceptible that our liberties are most at hazard. Unraveling the ideas that form the main of our democracy is not the respond to."

No make a difference what someone's individual politics are, no make a difference what group they belong to, it's crucial that they're afforded that critical ideal to freedom of speech. Even so, in heated moments with heated rhetoric, we — and regulation enforcement companies — have a duty to stop that speech from boiling more than into actual physical violence.

If the groups guiding individuals approaching "alt-ideal" demonstrations want to act in very good faith, then yeah, perhaps they should imagine about canceling their demonstration in light of latest activities. Up right up until Jeremy Christian pulled out a knife, he sounded just like them. To display that they do not condone his actions — and not hazard becoming observed as "moderately considered to be involved in illegal action" and held liable should one more assault come about — canceling may possibly be in their very best interest to maintain their freedom of speech.

Regardless of whether or not these demonstrations come about, it's on the relaxation of us to not allow an ideology of despise acquire out.

We can look to the brave men who misplaced their lives to this senseless violence as an inspiration to recommit to hunting out for just one one more and standing up towards despise. That may possibly just be the very best way to honor their reminiscences.

A memorial established up in Portland shares a message of adore and hope. Image by Alex Milan Tracy by way of AP Images.

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