#oh geez this is 1200 words long @ myself can you chill

[toushindai]

some thoughts on the order of Red's songs

I’m just a Steam Sale baby still piecing headcanons together, like under no circumstances should you ask me anything about the Country yet (let alone the nature of Cloudbank), but here are my thoughts on Red’s music. This started as a theoretical outline of the order in which her songs may have come out and then turned into some pretty extensive character analysis so uh, that’s what’s what.

“Signals” was her first song, the one that got her “discovered.” It has a comparatively sparse, acoustic feel because she produced it on her own. It’s also kind of a downer song, written at a time when she was feeling very raw and not particularly hopeful. The theme of “being one” (which features more heavily into “We All Become”) is how Red expresses a frustration with the city: a sense that the nature of Cloudbank encourages assimilative agreement rather than individual expression.

“The Spine” and “She Shines” came out around the same time as each other, maybe on the same album, hence similarities in some of the metaphors. However, they express very different moods and very different ideas that have been on Red’s mind. “The Spine” is a Mental Health Song, bridging between “Signals” and some of her later songs in both mood and musical style. In this song, she feels the city’s changes as a physical exhaustion mirroring her own depression, even though she can also see some of its beauty.

This open ambivalence is exactly what made “She Shines” so contentious. Fans who picked up on what they believed to be political messages in “Signals” and “Spine” (though Red would have said that they were her own emotions instead of political messages) felt betrayed by this comparatively uncomplicated love song to the city of Cloudbank. Some even suspected her, or someone working behind her, of writing deliberate propoganda in favor of the current state of affairs. This was a misunderstanding; the song was sincere on Red’s part, a look at what makes the city beautiful (in spite of its flaws). However, suspicions of propoganda became anger and unrest, leading to the riot at one of her shows and her temporary retreat from the limelight.

At this time, she had already met Boxer and began to build a friendship with him. He helped her get out of the venue unscathed during the riot, and his friendship also becomes a pillar of support in her low mental periods.

By the time she makes her return to the spotlight with “We All Become,” Boxer has become her semi-official bodyguard in case of further riots. Their relationship has also shifted into a romantic one, though perhaps in an unspoken way and decidedly still in secret.

“We All Become” is very directly about her retreat from and subsequent return to the stage. See especially the contrast between “Think I’ll go where it suits me/ Moving out to the Country” in the first verse and “Lying down never struck me/ as something fun” in the second. It’s also very deliberate about the messages it sends. Whereas “Signals” and “The Spine” were melancholy, “We All Become” is passionate, almost angry in tone, and gives the listeners commands about what to do about the state of the city. Now they’re not particularly rebellious commands–the song doesn’t scream “seize the means of production” so much as it insists on maintaining one’s individuality in the face of Cloudbank’s homogenizing democracy, by escaping it somehow. Or, if necessary, by externalizing the pain that would otherwise be hidden through what can only be taken as self-injury imagery in the latter half of the second verse.

Essentially, after her song caused a riot, Red felt responsible and believed that she was not conscious enough of the messages she was sending; her (perhaps sudden?) fame meant that even if she wrote a song purely to express her own complicated heart, it would mean something to others as well–perhaps things she didn’t intend. She considers retirement (“moving out to the Country”) but instead returns to speak up. And yet the courses of action she suggests are explicitly to leave. So…? I’m not sure how exactly that fits into things, other than serving as evidence that Red has always seen departure from the system as a legitimate form of resistance. Which is certainly held up by the end of the game, isn’t it.

After her triumphant return with the decidedly political “We All Become,” “In Circles” and “Paper Boats” are very personal in comparison. These two songs are not particularly about Cloudbank in any way I can find; however, they do suggest the complicated relationship with responsibility that Red learned over her hiatus. In “In Circles,” for instance, it is not only that she does not return Sybil’s affections; she can’t save Sybil, a declaration that is mournful, guilty, and defiant all at once. Red sees that she may be expected to act for Sybil’s sake, and she wants to do something–but what is asked if her is beyond what she is willing to do. The understanding that it’s not enough torments her but does not change her mind, even as she casts herself as unmerciful in the song.

Which brings us to “Paper Boats.” A love song. Her most recent song, I think, bordering on a public declaration of her relationship with Boxer. It’s certainly close enough to one to gall Sybil, who to make things worse just been turned down via song. So maybe it’s not so surprising that she blames Boxer for disrupting her chance to gain Red’s affections. (Cool motive, still murder.)

But even this song reveals a complicated relationship with agency and personal responsibility. Red describes herself both as someone pulled in by the inescapable forces of love and fate and as the one who pursues. “You can run, but you can’t hide” is not usually a phrase associated with a mutual relationship, and yet we see from the very first moments of the game that Red and Boxer’s love is very mutual. So why this phrase? I think it’s Red reclaiming some of the agency she relinquished when she acknowledged the unintended effects her songs could have on people. She is reclaiming her selfishness–actions for her own sake. It can be seen as aggressive, so she uses language that casts her as the aggressor–but wryly, perhaps, because the truth is she knows that her feelings are returned. So instead of the regret we hear in “In Circles,” “Paper Boats” is triumphant and sweet–a willing collaboration with the tides of love instead of something she has to fight against or answer in some externally assigned way.

…That got long and I feel like it deserves some kind of concluding paragraph. I think Red’s story is in many ways one of agency, and the conflict of trying to maintain agency when one is expected to exist for others, in whole or in part. As a public figure, and then as the only person who can do something about stopping the Process’ assault on the city, Red is forced to contend with that conflict despite her obviously strong personality. She is expected to behave a certain way; if she does not, her actions may cause people to get hurt. Which she doesn’t want–but how long can she mute her own desires for the sake of protecting others? Her songs reveal various attempts to wrestle with and answer these questions over time, and in the end, she chooses her unapologetic selfishness and her own happiness, and that, I think, is a kind of triumph.