#it reads to me not as ''the basic dignity you afford fellow human beings bc they're your fellows'' | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

fredoesque · 10 months ago

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the way franklin has silna's father's body disposed of in ep 3 is a really fascinating indication of how the english see the inuit to me.

because yeah, obviously it's incredibly disrespectful in ignoring the man's own burial traditions and even from an entirely english pov as a way to "bury" someone. but on top of that i find it very telling that they felt it was their place to bury him at all--if they truly didn't think he was worth the trouble, why not just give his body to silna?

they must have felt on some level they had a claim to his body and, perhaps in their seeing themselves as a last outpost of civilization, a duty to make sure it was taken care of. even though they clearly didn't care one bit about the man they were actually burying.

this moment is one of a few in the show where the english seem to assume, entirely without question, that they have authority over the arctic and the people in it. that just by virtue of being english they are naturally and immediately the highest (worldly) power present. which obviously betrays a deeply imperialistic worldview.

and in showing that insidious assumption of authority in interaction with more baldly racist disrespect and disregard towards a netsilik person, i feel this moments highlights the twofold superiority the english feel over the inuit: both as having an exclusive claim to power and as having an exclusive claim to personhood

#is this coherent. hopefully #the terror #obligatory disclaimer i've done some reading on relations between the inuit and victorians but it hasn't necessarily been extensive #so lmk if this is way off base #but i do feel there is sort of a paternalistic bend to the way the english position themselves wrt the netsilik throughout the show #that from what i can tell reflects actual victorian attitudes #like whenever a character (say goodsir or crozier) approaches the netsilik with more decency (especially nearer to the start of the show)#it reads to me not as ''the basic dignity you afford fellow human beings bc they're your fellows''#but as ''the burden of care you have towards those weaker than yourself''#for example in the same ep when goodsir tells the men to bury the talismans with silna's father #obviously he means well and is acting from a place of compassion and even attempted respect #but i do find it telling that he never questions whether it's HIS place to make that decision.#he assumes implicitly that he has both the authority and the knowledge to decide how the body should be treated. when really he has neither

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