#literally the dissociation we see in the feast scene

[sonnerly]

Something I thought about after last night’s episode: the real life Flight 571 crash-- or, how normal people behave re: survival cannibalism. screenshots from the Wikipedia section titled “Cannibalism”

[bitternanami]

YESSSSSSSSS EXACTLY !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! omg this is SUCH a good pull thats the key to the whole thing. holy shit.

hes someone who had to calibrate his entire mode of thinking and engaging with people around this horrible emotionally abusive patronizing dehumanizing style of communication in order to survive his adolescence and its like. its no wonder he dissociates like he does! its no wonder he doesnt know how to turn it Off until he is literally forced to after trying every trick he knows!!

it all circles back to the scene at the cliff where he takes that leap of faith in another persons intentions hopefully hopefully hopefully being as just as he needs them to be. its the turning point in his entire arc, in that it is the point at which he actively makes the terrifying choice to cast off the artifice, even if just this once.

(WHICH IS WHY THAT SCENE IS SET ON A CLIFF? OH MY GOD? kabru in that scene does not literally jump off it but in every emotional sense he absolutely does?????)

we see him try to put the rationalization back on after, at the feast, and it feels like an ill-fitting coat then, like itll never quite subsume him the way it used to, and its so GOOD its such a tantalizing indicator of his future development because he cant un-ring that bell. he cant forget the time he trusted someone else and it was the right choice to make, and all the retroactive well-of-course-i-was-right justification he can muster doesnt change the fact that in the moment he didnt know what laios would do. and he has to contend with that no matter what he says.

im soooooo delighted to see ppl call attention to the fact that the way he looks at and treats people genuinely fucking sucks up to this point. kabrus arc is a rly intimate look at how it feels to have to unlearn some truly rancid ideas, and how fucking scary it is to do when those ideas were the thing that have kept you alive up to now.

its so, like you said, its JUICY that the character in this cast who is most resolute about enacting social justice is Not Immune to the fact that hegemony works its tendrils into everyone. this is made all the clearer in his views on demi-humans, Especially in that kobolds side comic, and its fascinating to see that that impulse to write people off in part extends to everyone but himself. even when intellectually he is on-board with recognizing the agency and humanity of the people around him, emotionally he is still working on the level the elves put him on--this miserable solipsistic 'no one's intentions can truly be trusted but my own' shit. which is probably why he has no cognitive dissonance about working with kuro. the baseline level of trust for another person is none, so whats the difference, functionally?

hes so fucked up!!!!!!!!!!! i love that hes written to be fucked up!!!! even when you try your hardest to rail against the systems that have hurt you and people you love repeatedly you Still have to surgically remove their influence from your brain over and over!!

this post is so long now and im so sorry but like. i am also not. holds him up to the sky look at my BOY

it’s funny when ppl talk about the harpy omelet scene and say things like “why did he do all of that? he didn’t need to. JUST doing that for laios???” (seen these nearly verbatim on posts i’ve made.)

i don’t really get how you can hear his backstory & not understand that every decision he makes within the dungeon is fueled by a profound trauma borne out of horrific, structural negligence. of course he would do fucking anything to enact his plan? if he computes “getting in laios’s favor = proxy control of the dungeon” and he has very limited time to do so, he will jump at the chance. he’s already DIED for this.

kabru has maybe the clearest possible motivation that a character can have. he has a Protagonists Motivation, and it guides him forward in a very coherent way in the beginning of the story. things get more complicated in later acts that directly address how that motivation manifests itself/gets contradicted, bc ryoko kui is great at exploring this, but it’s still extremely present.

and as a labru fan i strongly dislike the implication i see from some ppl that his interest in laios is mostly personal or romantic (posts that range from pure joke to actual ship meta.) even when taking the “confession” at face value, where i think he was telling the truth, there’s still a lot more to it than that. i think at first kabru does see laios as a means to an end in a way that’s impersonal, partly because he tends to keep everyone in his life at arms length. but that “end” (preventing history from repeating itself) is something foundational to his psyche, and we should consider that potential sense of safety getting mixed in with his warring fascination/apprehension towards laios. he’s drawn to him for visceral reasons, and his stated motivations are so intertwined with his sense of self that untangling this push-pull is much more interesting than boilerplate Yearning, to me.

it’s just confusing when any meta or basic discussion of kabru diminishes the weight utaya has on his inner world and i’m really surprised every time i see it? like i understand that different types of meta will put other lenses on things intentionally, and in most cases i think it’s an interesting tool to work with. but it’s a massive disservice to his character to put the most foundational experience of his life on the back burner ESPECIALLY when it’s in favor of shipping. dissecting character relationships, romantic or otherwise, is at its best when you have their full personhood in mind!!

[thirdeyeanthology]

The Lighthouse (2019) - Symbols & Themes

I recently watched The Lighthouse (2019) and as an avid fan of literary analysis, I did the only thing I could: compile a list of notable symbols and themes from the film. These are ramblings, but I currently have neither the time nor ability to clean them up. In any case, I hope you enjoy! 

Beware! The content below contains spoilers!

The Light

Represents salvation, purity, knowledge, truth, power

The light is too much for the men. They become obsessed with it and lose their minds attempting to behold it

It’s also sexualized

Saint Elmo’s fire, fire of the gods

The light is the highest point on the island- heavenly, superior

Too much to behold, unendurable. After seeing the inner chamber of the light, Howard is cast down, away from the light, from salvation. He ends up on the ground again (hell)

Lighthouse as a panopticon 

Seabird

Considered bad luck to kill a seabird 

Think of the death of the albatross in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner

The gull as a test of Howard’s character- which he fails

Birds spotted on the open ocean may serve as guides, leading sailors towards land

When both men are dead, only the gulls and other sea creatures remain on the island. The gulls feast on Tommy; retribution, punishment, torment

Filth 

Water contaminated by human waste and decay

Emphasis on excrement

Things get dirtier as the movie progresses

Howard is literally getting shit on/treated like shit

The island and the house are both perpetually dirty. The cleanest part of the island is the light.

Signal that something is dirty, corrupt, wrong

Shadows

Draws focus to character 

Reveals something about their true, dark nature 

Plato’s allegory of the cave: human perception cannot derive true knowledge  

The scene where Wake’s shadow (with outstretched arms) appears behind Howard

Identity

Howard assumes the identity of the man he killed, seeking to abandon his old life and self. He tries to be someone he’s not

Howard and Wake share a name (first name Thomas)- not a coincidence, they’re meant to be seen as similar. The worst of each of them is part of the other 

Wake as Proteus

Howard as Prometheus 

The scene where Howard finds his own body- dissociation (his identity is split, he has gaps in his memory, can’t tell what’s real and what’s a delusion) 

Role reversal further indicates their similarities 

Howard defiles the body of the mermaid and breaks the figurine- “permanent loss of the anima means a diminution of vitality, flexibility, and human kindness” - Jung

Isolation

Starving and thirsty, stranded in the middle of the ocean

The open ocean can be seen as a desert. “Water, water is very where and not a drop to drink”

The proximity to the ocean should provide food for the men, but what they catch is usually small, scarce, rotten or contaminated by death

Wake gets Howard drunk and smashes the lifeboat to keep Howard on the island.

We all know solitary confinement in bad for the mind. I don’t think being with just one other abusive person improves the matter.

The Island

Rocky and hostile 

No trees to provide security or protection from the elements 

The island is bare and vulnerable, much like the characters at various points

The island does not provide enough resources for the men (coal, food, water)

Symbolizes purgatory and/or hell

The House

Small, cramped, suffocating, confining 

No privacy, nowhere to hide

The house, like many of the other structures in the island, is dilapidating  which suggests something is wrong, impending death and destruction 

As the storm progresses, the house falls into deeper disarray. It is flooded and leaks. The water is dirty (from the ocean, the cistern, and urine/feces). There is nowhere dry or clean, it offers no comfort or protection from the elements. The furniture is broken and thrown about- no organization- signifies the men losing their sanity.

Nakedness

Vulnerability

“True” human nature

Shamefulness; Adam and Eve once they realized they were naked

At the end, Howard is naked as the birds peck at his insides- he’s bare, vulnerable, degraded

The mermaid is also naked

Shame and Humiliation 

Howard’s shame surrounding his past life, the death (murder?) of his old partner, his sexuality (homosexuality, masturbation, “impure” thoughts) 

Tommy is regularly shamed and humiliated by Tom, contributing to his rage towards him

Dehumanization: Wake calls Howard a dog- he’s not a man, he’s inhuman, inferior. The pervasive filth also serves to further dehumanize the men.

When the two men fight and Howard gains control, he makes Wake the dog (even more severely than he was treated) 

“Do you feel shame when you lay with a woman?”

Perspective

Majority of the film is from Howard’s POV. Like the viewer, he finds himself in an unfamiliar situation. Howard and the viewer are invited to question the reality of what takes place on the island. Is this real? Did this happen? How much time has passed? We are all left to wonder if we can trust our senses and the people around us.

Some instances of Wake’s POV- rounds out the narrative, may also hint at the two mean as the same person, different aspects of the same person

When Wake gets angry he stands, but the camera remains at Howard’s level. This reinforces the power dynamic between the two and portrays a sense of power in Wake.

Howard is stuck near the ground, always looking up at Wake and the light

Plays with the construction of reality and time

Alcohol exacerbates their unstable memories

Eyes

Wake’s former assistant, the gull, and Howard are all missing an eye by the end of the film

They’ve seen too much and paid the price

There’s a real sense of watching/being watched in this film. Howard watches Wake engage in sexual acts. Wake watches Howard covertly and overtly. The gulls follow/watch Howard, they know what he’s done. The mermaid sometimes watches Howard, even when we are meant to think she’s dead. 

Eye imagery: closeup shots of both men’s eyes (usually a single eye); the light of the lighthouse like a sweeping gaze, the shot looking up in the lighthouse from the bottom resembles an eye as well. 

Light house as a panopticon, an all seeing eye of god

Mermaids

Anima: Inner femininity  

Temptation, relief

Fantastical, unreal

The Storm

Wrath of God

Prevents the men from leaving

Storms in film and literature are used to make the atmosphere dark and scary

Foreshadows/mirrors the calamity the men bring upon themselves.

This is by no means an exhaustive list and I would love to hear what you thought of the film!