3x09, "The Small Dark Movie of Your Life"

[Lioness]

There is a thing Solomon Todd said, in telling us everything he told us in this episode, where I think he is a tricksy truth-teller beast, and that is this:

A week passed. There was no change. I didn't leave.

There was no noble reason for this. I am a journalist and I stay where the story is no matter what.

No noble reason for this. Pull the other one, Sol. OK, maybe you don't have any use for the word "noble" and maybe you don't trust any of the definitions of it, but it's still clear to this reader that the truth matters a lot to you, and the story matters a lot to you, and that remembering and passing on that truth and those stories means a lot to you.

Because a story you don't tell doesn't exist, and because eventually our own stories turn and stab us in the backs: that doctors don't fail. That our plans will make us safe. That an old, broken man won't outlive a young woman. Eventually our heraldry and shorthands eat us all, and we have to just tell the truth like we saw it with our own two eyes.

Yeah. We do. As broken as it is sometimes, and as broken as we are, too, we just have to tell the truth like we saw it with our own two eyes.

I know love and respect when I see it -- and when I feel it banging against my own heart from the inside, and pushing tears out of my eyes.  I'm grateful for your words even when they hurt to hear. Thank you for standing vigil. Thank you, Sol, for your service - to truth, to story, and to Daphne.

[Lioness]

Aaaaand now I can cry.

Where the hell is that wake? I want a drink and the company of my heartbroken fellow Deltas.

[Emma Bull]

Thursday night at Fourth Street, if you can hold out that long.

[Lioness]

Thursday night at Fourth Street, if you can hold out that long.

Will do my best.

[Cole]

I was getting ready to write a post about how Daphne's life support is being disconnected on the solstice, and wondering what the significance of that would be¹. After all, as we learned in "Fair", June 14 was the day when Chaz told Tricia "She's not in there, T."  And T decided she was going to wait a week "So we can all say good-bye. And in case miracles happen."

So of course, today being seven days after June 14, this'll be the day that she dies. Assuming, of course, that Tricia did in fact wait a week, and that Sol was being a reliable narrator.<sup>2

1</sup> Because of course our PTB wouldn't pick that day out of a hat.

I had this thought, as well. Daphne passed on the solstice. Significant? (There's that thing we don't believe in...)
Every time I think I'm starting to feel better about things, something reminds me of her or someone says something here that bowls me over again. I don't mean that in a bad way; in fact, I've mostly been quiet because others have so ably expressed what I've been thinking/feeling. There's just this Daphne-shaped hole in my days....

[eschatonic]

I was getting ready to write a post about how Daphne's life support is being disconnected on the solstice, and wondering what the significance of that would be¹. After all, as we learned in "Fair", June 14 was the day when Chaz told Tricia "She's not in there, T."  And T decided she was going to wait a week "So we can all say good-bye. And in case miracles happen."

So of course, today being seven days after June 14, this'll be the day that she dies. Assuming, of course, that Tricia did in fact wait a week, and that Sol was being a reliable narrator.<sup>2

1</sup> Because of course our PTB wouldn't pick that day out of a hat.

I had this thought, as well. Daphne passed on the solstice. Significant? (There's that thing we don't believe in...)
Every time I think I'm starting to feel better about things, something reminds me of her or someone says something here that bowls me over again. I don't mean that in a bad way; in fact, I've mostly been quiet because others have so ably expressed what I've been thinking/feeling. There's just this Daphne-shaped hole in my days....

I don't know what the summer solstice is symbolic of in (Daphne's interpretation of) paganism. But to my mind, when you're brain dead you're dead. People who love you can keep your body alive as long as they want to hope for miracles, but and out of respect for the family we say your date of death is whenever they turn off the life support. But to me, she died last week.

[MadGastronomer]

In the most common versions of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year myth, the Summer Solstice, called Litha, is the day when the Sun God, at his moment of greatest strength and glory, dies.

[txanne]

*scrabbles for pen* No, seriously, it was right here a second ago!

[eschatonic]

In the most common versions of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year myth, the Summer Solstice, called Litha, is the day when the Sun God, at his moment of greatest strength and glory, dies.

Thanks, that does sound less like a coincidence.


.....I know, I could have looked it up on The Googles myself, but the internet is the least reliable way to learn anything about Wicca so I figured it would be faster and more accurate to ask people whose goodwill and intelligence I already have some faith in.

[DavidG]

In the most common versions of the Wiccan Wheel of the Year myth, the Summer Solstice, called Litha, is the day when the Sun God, at his moment of greatest strength and glory, dies.

I'd just been thinking about the solstice links when I saw this. The calendar I checked didn't mention the death of the Sun God, but it makes a strong connection stronger. Daphne was a Wiccan, the brightest of the team, and had reached a point at which she was living a remarkably complete life. Mythologically Complex Response?

We know the team are Trickster archetypes, but this makes me wonder if there is another set of mythological parallels we haven't previously stumbled upon. Or even more than one, Sol would make a remarkably appropriate Fisher King.

[DavidG]

There is a thing Solomon Todd said, in telling us everything he told us in this episode, where I think he is a tricksy truth-teller beast, and that is this:

A week passed. There was no change. I didn't leave.

There was no noble reason for this. I am a journalist and I stay where the story is no matter what.

No noble reason for this. Pull the other one, Sol. OK, maybe you don't have any use for the word "noble" and maybe you don't trust any of the definitions of it

There's appearing noble, and being noble, and Sol lives the second of those.

[MadGastronomer]

There's also the Oak King/Holly King narrative, where the Oak King rules from Midwinter to Midsummer, and is overthrown and dies, and the Holly King rules Midsummer to Midwinter, and is overthrown and dies. And we are kind of at the midpoint of the story arc...

So if Daphne, who started as our audience insertion character for the introduction, has been the Oak Queen and ruled for the waxing half of the story, who is now our Holly Monarch?



ETA Sidenote: There's at least one tradition that tells this story as a homoerotic myth, and I've seen it used as a framework for gay men's handfasting rituals. (No, don't ask.)

[CJ]

On a side note: I knew I was going to cry the first time Chaz posted after Daphne's death. And of course I did.

I hate not being able to hug people when they're hurting. Rather it's because they don't like that kind of thing or they're too far away or both. Chaz being fictional does not enter the equation.

[DavidG]

There's also the Oak King/Holly King narrative, where the Oak King rules from Midwinter to Midsummer, and is overthrown and dies, and the Holly King rules Midsummer to Midwinter, and is overthrown and dies. And we are kind of at the midpoint of the story arc...

So if Daphne, who started as our audience insertion character for the introduction, has been the Oak Queen and ruled for the waxing half of the story, who is now our Holly Monarch?

That strikes me as precisely the kind of literary and mythological architecture the PTB might construct.

[aj]

So if Daphne, who started as our audience insertion character for the introduction, has been the Oak Queen and ruled for the waxing half of the story, who is now our Holly Monarch?

That strikes me as precisely the kind of literary and mythological architecture the PTB might construct.

http://www.earthwitchery.com/holly-king.html suggests the holly king is about "withdrawal, lessons, life, rest" versus "growth, expansion" -- Renee's a pretty good candidate on the "withdrawal" side, and the name's meaning is "reborn" which fits the theme...

Ooo! From Providence: http://shadowunit.org/providence.html

She gestured to the oaks and evergreens of the Providence graveyard, to the still-green leaves of a wood of maple trees that held a slope down to the water just visible through their branches. The sun had slid behind the hemlocks that concealed Brady's side of the vehicle. Stars were beginning to prickle out in the cadet-blue twilight. "It's pretty."

Huh. And from Eight Second Rule (http://www.shadowunit.org/eightsecondrule.html), no mention of holly, but...

Nikki looked down at it. "Renee," she said. "How can I help you?"

But when she looked up, the chair across from her was empty, and she couldn't remember why she'd closed the file she was working on.

Early senility, Nik, she thought, and flipped the oaktag folder open again.

Of course, "oaktag" is probably just a Bear-ism and all this just means Holly Black will be writing lots more stories...