#it's under a cut bc I put relevant lyrics for each song and that made it quite long whoops

[roominthecastle]

Okay but Sting’s Desert Rosé... I am officially fixated on this one

bc Cheers!!!!

bc I’m almost sure it’s Michael’s handiwork. He has the ability to construct such things + a history of hiding puns in them, e.g. “Strangers Under the Train” & “Bend It Like Bentham” can be spotted in the background in his trolley problem simulation (TPS)) + Janet doesn’t leave the tape room

bc it specifies that the bar serving as a framework for this (forbidden) meeting w/ Eleanor is named after Sting’s Desert Rose which Sting described as a song of romantic-sexual longing placed within a larger philosophical context - “romantic love as an analog for the greater love of God” [x] and thus redemption (see the “Redeem Yourself” poster on the wall by the door).

Now overthinking/reading into things is my forte, and that’s exactly what’s happening behind the cut, so beware:

The puns in Michael’s TPS have direct relevance not only to the “practical nature” of the simulation at hand (strangers are literally under the trolley as they keep mowing them down amidst spurting blood and flying body chunks that “curiously” only hit poor Chidi despite Eleanor’s close proximity), but also cleverly hint at Michael’s own feelings on the issue that won’t get revealed until later. Bentham’s famous “greatest-happiness principle” governs his actions when he chooses to sacrifice himself to give Eleanor & the others a chance to secure passage to the real Good Place where eternal happiness awaits. He “bends it like Bentham”.

IF we can take TPS as precedent (and that’s a big if, I know, but it’s fun), then Sting’s Desert Rosé is also likely to be more than just a simple pun. Then it is both relevant to the practicalities of the situation at hand (it is a bar that serves wine) and to feelings which have not been articulated yet and will come into play later. Michael’s solution to the trolley problem (self-sacrifice) develops silently and remains in the background until a situation demands its disclosure. The implication of Sting’s Desert Rosé is a feeling of deep longing for the love of a woman and even that of a higher being (God) - a painful desire to return to the “good place” (or the “pre-fall” condition).

Michael is already invested in how Eleanor sees him and he also wished to follow them to the real Good Place, but since he is still a demon, gaining both her & (the show’s version of) God’s love (=entry) must feel like a long shot at best. I think he became painfully aware of this as a result of those ethics lessons and his billion failed attempts to sneak into the Good Place. All this likely informed his trolley problem solution, too. Being made aware of how fundamentally disqualified he is hasn’t enabled him to change it, it just made him feel miserable since the longing is still there, a longing no other “sane” demon has. Yet it doesn’t stop him from trying to help the others, which makes me wanna wrap him in an eternal hug.

If we look at the lyrics and compare/contrast them w/ the show, several thematic similarities emerge. (ofc these could be entirely accidental and/or irrelevant, but they are still there, imo)

“I am looking for myself and my loved one”

The Algerian Arabic intro (which sounds almost like a prayer) sums up Michael’s journey of discovering what it means/feels to be human. Such a journey inevitably involves the pains & pleasures of choice, of identity forging, and the experience of love (returned or otherwise). Janet started out as an anthropomorphized mainframe and now, after a social “evolution” induced by environment interacting w/ some unique “susceptibility”, she is questioning what/who she is. Michael is in the same boat: he started out as an office drone demon but that’s not quite what/who he is anymore. Both were obedient workers “pre-programmed” to serve but now they make their own paths separate from their kind. They threw out the rulebook and are actively choosing the recipients of their devotion, even when those recipients can no longer remember them.

“I dream of love as time runs through my hand those dreams are tied to a horse that will never tire My life is for you”

Janet gravitates toward Jason and Michael toward Eleanor in particular. They have to let them go at the end of S2 as another round of experiment kicks off, but one connection, in form of ticker tapes, remains and we can see them holding and reading these w/ unwavering commitment. It’s likely just a coincidence but a very nice one still, so I am going there: the word “ticker” can refer to a watch (and thus time), the heart, and the machine connecting Michael and Janet to Eleanor and Jason respectively.

The titular desert rose is not without concrete relevance, either. All her life Eleanor lived in Arizona which is home to several deserts (Sonoran, Mojave, Chihuahuan). This is at the core of one of my favorite gags where Michael keeps asking the freshly rebooted Janet for Eleanor’s file, and she keeps handing him cacti instead. Then, when she finally produces the file, it still has a bunch of cactus pictures in them. If we roll w/ this desert connection, then Eleanor = desert rose def works too (+ she is wearing red in the bar scene)

“This memory of Eden haunts us all This desert flower This rare perfume, is the sweet intoxication of the fall”

The fall and Eden are key elements in Genesis. Eve shares the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil w/ Adam and they get booted from paradise. Something similar happens in the show, too, albeit w/ some neat twists. Eleanor insists that Michael attend Chidi’s ethics lessons (=“tree”) where they acquire knowledge (=“fruit”) of, yes, good and evil. She shares it w/ him and it changes Michael, which leads to his disobedience or “fall” and ultimate banishment as their “good place” gets completely disassembled.

Michael has a spark of deviance in him from the get-go, an innate urge to color outside the lines, but he starts to cross them in earnest only after Eleanor enters the picture. First, it’s in the form of 802 reboots, which is 800 more than he is authorized for, but he gets fixated on besting her. The 2nd big moment is when he takes his senior staff pin (the very symbol of everything he ever wanted) and pins it on her, irrevocably betraying everything he previously stood for. He pulls a sort of “reverse Lucifer” (his “rebellion” takes place in the show’s approximation of hell and is driven not by pride but by humbling himself) but it’s patterned on the fall of man. This mix of demonic and human heritage would be very in-keeping w/ his character: a demon longing to experience what it’s like to be human.

“No sweet perfume ever tortured me more than this.”

It is one of the greatest sources of irony in the show how the torture master ends up tormenting himself with and within the very framework he constructed for others. At the end of those 802 reboots, nobody is suffering more than Michael. His subordinates may be frustrated but they eagerly turn his failures to their advantage while the ultimate responsibility still rests w/ Michael who, already after the 2nd failed reboot, runs the very real risk of dying the only death his kind is able: the eternal shriek. The four humans endure a measure of psychological-emotional torture, but they forget all but the last week of their afterlife due to rebooting, whereas Michael remembers everything. He has to endure failure over and over again bc Eleanor keeps figuring him out, upping the pressure w/ each reboot, and, finally, exposing him to blackmail by his own underlings. This is when he reaches complete isolation which is a special kind of hell even within hell.

This 1st type of torture Eleanor (unwittingly) puts him through is mental in nature. She repeatedly hits him where it hurts the most at that time - his sense of intellectual superiority -, gradually evicting him from a life he’s known since forever. The direct continuation of this process is when she makes attendance of Chidi’s lessons compulsory, which again forces him to fully confront the fact that he’s not always the smartest guy in the room, not always in control, and - most importantly - that it’s okay bc the others are there to help and guide him when he’s in need.

This breakthrough gives way to the 2nd, more complex phase that involves (social) emotions that tend to develop as a result of cooperation (esp the kind Team Cockroach engaged in). We can already see their effect creep in when e.g. Michael is plagued by fear at the possibility of losing his friends or when he experiences the first sharp pangs of remorse. He is no longer immune to the full palette of “human suffering” bc he cares and even loves now, and it all stems from and loops back to Eleanor. She is the one he desperately clutches after the dangers pass, it’s her disappointment that slices through him even though he let the rest of them down too, and it’s her “progress reports” that fill his life after they have to part ways.

In this new phase he is forbidden to help or have any kind of contact, but when he can no longer stand doing nothing, he has to risk everything again in exchange for a few minutes w/ her. He could have easily nudged her in the right direction w/o revealing himself - the way he did when he saved her life. But no, this time he shows himself, prompts her to just ramble on about Kangaroo Jack, which, objectively speaking, is an insane risk to take when you can get caught every second, so you know Michael only took his feelings w/ him and left objectivity behind, and, at the end of it all, she still looks at him and sees a total stranger bc this is the only way for her to gain entry to paradise.

Now that’s some exquisite torture in a bar named after a song of romantic-sexual longing placed within a larger philosophical context.

[krshush]

Hey, I’m thinking a lot abt characters+music, so who wants some songs I relate to my back up gals? I would say Merit and the gals, but I’ve surely already rambled abt songs for him So

For Katiah

Box of Secrets by Zarif

Can't you--can't you show me? I'll be--I'll be waiting to see! Wanna learn, wanna learn, wanna learn, ohh, the secrets of the universe! Can't you--

Open up your box of secrets, take one out for me! I'll show the number on my ticket and take one home with me!

Are You Satisfied? by Marina and the Diamonds

High achiever don't you see? Baby, nothing comes for free They say I'm a control freak, driven by a greed to succeed! Nobody can stop me!  

‘Cause it's my problem if I wanna pack up and run away, It's my business if I feel the need to smoke and drink and sway

Weirdo by The Hoosiers

You don't stop for anyone And you only stop when you're done The fire in your belly burns in your eyes But it's not a war, it's just a little conversation It's not a war, you're just a weirdo

Mood to Burn Bridges by Neko Case

So if you want moral advice, I suggest you just tuck it all away 'Cause my mood to burn bridges might align with my mood to dig ditches Don't cross me on neither a day, baby

For Lyndon

The Plains/Bitter Dancer by Fleet Foxes

I should have known one day you would come All of us walk so blind in the sun Midnight feeder, beggar pleader I should had known one day you would come Tell me again, my only son, tell me again what have you done?   

A Dark Congregation by The Hush Sound

A dark congregation of familiar faces gathered around the quiet earth A red rose fell upon the soft snow, prayers were whispered so slow from our mouths Our breath rose in the cold, like a hundred souls escaping

Born to Hum by Erin McKeown

So as a gradual running, a kind of relief settles on my face Once in a while I complain to myself, Nothing gets done, nothing's in place I... I would rather hum...

A Reasonable Life by Ian Cooke 

Recommit to make the most of it   For the remainder of the hours allocated, permitted, or just taken, Which depends on what is understood about one’s fate, whether thought to be at work or not ever considered