Latest Episode of Narrative Telephone
May. 31st, 2020 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
missizzyI'm pretty sure that AWNP and Narrative Telephone episodes played a huge part in helping critters everywhere get through this week. (I also finally finished Matt's Between the Sheets interview this morning, and wow.) But it's also left me with two thoughts, one of them kind of long:
Obviously the story Caleb told was an allegory of what happened to him and his two friends, but it also felt so much like a scary old-school German fairy tale that I can't help but think...what if it was an actual Zemnian fairy tale that did spread around the Empire, to tell children both to stay out of the woods and to accept sacrifices for the Empire, and Beau and Veth both grew up hearing it? Though maybe if Caleb retold it he changed some of the details to more suit his own history, which his fellow Empire kids would both note and recognize the significance of.
But before that, imagine it running through Beau's head when she returned home, faced her father, and then went to the hag in the woods. (Maybe the version she heard literally even made the witch a hag; I suspect it didn't have as much Zemnian in it.) Unlike the parents in the story, her father would happily sacrifice her to grow his grapes, possibly had even done so, and she knows it. And thus not being able to make the protest the children made to one of them being eaten, well, we see the offer she makes, to essentially be that child sacrificed, rather than let her companions give anything up.
It also puts Nott's offer in a new light. You know Veth would've grown up hating that story, and her offer might have even been a reaction against it, a declaration that a land that requires such sacrifice to flourish deserves to perish instead.
Also, it's a good thing Jester went in alone, and they didn't hear her offer to give up her hands before she'd pulled her trick off. That would've hit way too close to that old story. (Especially since what exactly the witch ate would be the most obvious part of the story for Caleb to change. Thanks to Sam I'm more inclined to think they lost their tongue or ears, but one of them could've lost their hands.)
My other thought: since Marisha pretty much said they're going to keep doing this even when we're all back to normal, can you imagine what it'll be like when they're having in-person viewing parties, maybe on the Talks Machina set with Brian and others also present? Talk about chaos.
Obviously the story Caleb told was an allegory of what happened to him and his two friends, but it also felt so much like a scary old-school German fairy tale that I can't help but think...what if it was an actual Zemnian fairy tale that did spread around the Empire, to tell children both to stay out of the woods and to accept sacrifices for the Empire, and Beau and Veth both grew up hearing it? Though maybe if Caleb retold it he changed some of the details to more suit his own history, which his fellow Empire kids would both note and recognize the significance of.
But before that, imagine it running through Beau's head when she returned home, faced her father, and then went to the hag in the woods. (Maybe the version she heard literally even made the witch a hag; I suspect it didn't have as much Zemnian in it.) Unlike the parents in the story, her father would happily sacrifice her to grow his grapes, possibly had even done so, and she knows it. And thus not being able to make the protest the children made to one of them being eaten, well, we see the offer she makes, to essentially be that child sacrificed, rather than let her companions give anything up.
It also puts Nott's offer in a new light. You know Veth would've grown up hating that story, and her offer might have even been a reaction against it, a declaration that a land that requires such sacrifice to flourish deserves to perish instead.
Also, it's a good thing Jester went in alone, and they didn't hear her offer to give up her hands before she'd pulled her trick off. That would've hit way too close to that old story. (Especially since what exactly the witch ate would be the most obvious part of the story for Caleb to change. Thanks to Sam I'm more inclined to think they lost their tongue or ears, but one of them could've lost their hands.)
My other thought: since Marisha pretty much said they're going to keep doing this even when we're all back to normal, can you imagine what it'll be like when they're having in-person viewing parties, maybe on the Talks Machina set with Brian and others also present? Talk about chaos.
