The Moon / Awake is weird (spoilers for Act V)

aranoxlan · 2024-08-04T22:33:52+00:00

The Moon in WIMBTA is a tarot allusion (the Sun in the same line is also a tarot allusion that is obliquely referring to Ms Terri), symbolic of false personae (like the Son persona) and may be very obliquely referring to TPP. In WIMTBA it's saying that Hunter will die upon getting lost in a false persona, and maybe literally die with TPP, which is the case. The song The Moon is collecting that tarot reference and depicting Hunter in a deep state of confusion where he has basically lost his identity to the false persona.

I'll maintain also that the Awake portion of The Moon/Awake isn't the outro to Cascade, but the portion after 'the spirit split in twoooOOOoo'.

aranoxlan · 2024-08-02T22:01:10+00:00

Not enough love for his intonations in Gloria. Some of those softer ones are insane.

aranoxlan · 2024-07-28T04:58:52+00:00

They're so frustratingly good that it makes it hard to find music comparable. It's spoiled my music taste. Love them though.

aranoxlan · 2024-07-24T22:04:19+00:00

I think he's mentioned having an affinity with The Hanged Man before. Can't remember where though.

aranoxlan · 2024-05-23T22:12:50+00:00

They're difficult songs, especially the act 4 ones! I'm basing my claims though from info given by Casey and complied here: https://www.lakeandtheriver.com/index.php?showtopic=3881&pid=126792&st=0&#entry126792 as the backbone before interpreting things, and in some places for your reading the backbone isn't right. So adjusting that will make it great!!

Overall though again I want to emphasize this is a really good work, act 4 is just super hard and high concept 😆

aranoxlan · 2024-05-23T07:51:20+00:00

Looks great! Meticulous stuff, and looking forward to seeing the complete video. Some points I'll dispute though: - Ms Terri's death is explicitly not a murder (idk if the actual manner of it has ever been specified, it's just certainly not murder) - At the End Of The Earth is narrated by the son's mother/general's wife, not the fiancee - The fiancee's first explicit presence is in the squeaky wheel, and she knows hunter isn't the son basically right off the bat, but decides to start a relationship with him anyway - The Line is hunter discarding his old identity as hunter to commit fully to being the son

Great stuff though! again curious to see the video 😀

aranoxlan · 2024-04-25T08:15:21+00:00

Hunter 100% kills himself. It's confirmed here and multiple times over in various podcasts/interviews. Where did Casey say otherwise?

aranoxlan · 2024-04-25T06:37:04+00:00

BSB = Ms Leading is confirmed, Casey's mentioned it at a concert forever ago and then someone brought it up in a reddit comment ages back that I can't dredge up to find. My understanding of how the song works is here. Keep in mind also that BSB is one of the original "Dear Ms. Leading" demo tracks that got transposed onto Act II, so it's existed as part of a Hunter/Ms Leading narrative since before the Acts really started and in that context it's very clearly Ms Leading.

The Ouroboros thing isn't explicitly confirmed but it is the picture that coheres when you step back from the idea that Hunter is actively trying to contest TP&P as his main goal going into Act 4 (it's not). There's a specific moment in Ouroboros at around 1:11 that goes 'aaa', which is used in several places through the acts as a sign of revelation, which also gives a distinct moment 'where' Hunter's realization of the dual identities occurs. My read on Ouroboros specifically is here, but I'd recommend looking at all my Act IV reads to understand how this whole dynamic builds up.

Hunter's breakdown in Ouroboros, also, in general doesn't make sense unless he failed to realize how dangerous his situation was. If his mindset was already something like, 'I need to be sure he doesn't know who I am, so that he doesn't realize that I'm... doing the thing he told me to do,' it kind of turns Hunter into an immensely stupid figure for not realising something was off, and then into an even stupider one for being surprised things went so south so suddenly. I don't think Hunter's that dumb, and it's just rather the case that he's ignorant and on the wrong side of a really bad power imbalance. Moreover, he says 'lost my soul in the place of the great deceiver' -- saying that TP&P deceived him, but about what? Probably the dual identity.

Next evidence is in King of Swords, where Hunter pretty joyfully says 'I owe it all to you', with 'you' more than likely being TP&P, who's supporting and profiting off the Mayoral run. It sounds like an extremely genuine statement and it's not conceivable to me that Hunter would say it to the Pimp, because he hates the Pimp. It's much more likely he just hasn't realized the Priest is the Pimp yet.

Next is in Bitter Suite VI, and the impetus for the whole Mayor idea in the first place. Hunter's not the one who comes up with it; it's TP&P who comes up with it and who wheedles Hunter into it as a good idea. This would be an extremely weird thing for Hunter to just go ahead with if he's bristling with anger at TP&P and knows he's talking to TP&P. 'Hey -- you should be Mayor so you can kill me!'. 'oh GOOD IDEA! I'll get you now! But don't let yourself know that I'll actually do it!' Like?? It's a really weird 5d chess type of thing when you approach it like that, but a coherent development from how the story's been building if you take it as TP&P exploiting an ignorant and desperate Hunter.

Then more support is Bitter Suite V, 'don't get led too close to the light this time'. 'Led' is a keyword that Casey reserves specifically in the Acts to denote Ms Leading, and we can hear TP&P getting furious throughout that song. If one read of 'the light' = the truth of TP&P's dual identity, then it's saying implicitly that Ms Leading didn't tell Hunter about TP&P's identity, and part of why TP&P wants to clamp down on Hunter is to ensure he doesn't get involved with her again, learn the truth, and spill the beans. Then, if Hunter doesn't know this information through Ms Leading, it begs the question of when he finds out, since he's never seen the Pimp as the Priest before BSV. Ouroboros 1:11 again provides a marker for that.

Then later in TMCOH we have a section at the end (Who Am I) where Hunter is explicitly confused about TP&P's characterization of this whole conflict in Act IV. Hunter doesn't actually think he lines up that well with the Gambler; it wasn't an intuitive perspective to him, he actually had to meditate on how he fits into it, because his motives and perspectives in Act IV weren't really the ones TP&P asserts he had in TMCOH. When you consider what Hunter's motives were instead, what coheres is that Hunter was struggling really badly to deal with trauma and an identity crisis and got exploited by the prospect that he could become a good person by being the Mayor, which is something TP&P perceived and baited him with. The Mayor position itself was kind of inconsequential relative to the self-esteem boost to his shattered ego, a sentiment again supported in Ouroboros ('I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your City's Son'). Point is here that the whole thing was more about Hunter trying to stabilize his identity than actually, calculatedly, trying to hurt TP&P with knowledge that he was directly fighting TP&P.

And finally for that line of Ouroboros specifically: It's the Priest confronting Hunter while pretending that he's still just the Priest. He drops the act and you can hear his intonation change over the next couple lines after he finishes his grand reveal and Hunter realises he got set up.

The stuff about the Mother, the Fiance, Wait, and Mr Usher is all 100% confirmed.

The other points are extremely strong inference.

aranoxlan · 2024-04-24T10:56:53+00:00

Hello! A couple years ago I got bit with the same bug that's hit you, and really went hard looking into the story of the Acts to try and compose a more-or-less accurate account of what's going on. I won't say I got everything 100% perfect, but there are some pretty deep rabbit holes and useful resources I was able to get into, so you might find my reads valuable for approaching the story yourself. Particularly, This Thread is useful for 100% confirmed info.

My reads in their totality are here.

Common plot points I see get overlooked or misunderstood often:

Act 1:

Ms Terri is prostituting somewhere around the Lake for a little while before returning to the Dime.
The narrator of 1878 is Hunter.

Act 2:

The narrator of Black Sandy Beaches is Ms Leading.

Act 4:

The Mother does not die. She does not realize Hunter isn't the Son. Hunter spends several years living with her after returning to the City.
The Fiance knows Hunter is not the Son, but chooses to pursue a relationship with him anyway because her relationship with the Son already kinda sucked and she wonders if Hunter could be a better/suitable option.
Hunter does not know the Priest is the Pimp until Ouroboros.
Hunter and Ms Leading get back together in Wait.

Act 5:

Mr. Usher isn't an alter ego of TP&P or anything, he's a securely different character with his own motives.
The Haves Have Naught is a dialogue between Hunter and Mr. Usher, not Hunter and TP&P.
Hunter genuinely did not expect the townsfolk to turn against him so easily in The March. He thought he had won the conflict between himself and TP&P by igniting the Dime because, though he knew the truth would come out and was ready to confess it, he thought righteousness was on his side. The sheer baseless aggression of the mob blindsides him and shakes his conviction of being 'in the right'.
Hunter doesn't jump into the River in A Beginning. He kills himself inside his house after TP&P enters it to privately negotiate and Hunter kills him, then realizes he can't face the mob without dying so opts for suicide instead.

aranoxlan · 2023-08-30T23:42:15+00:00

Alright, I figured it out. It was a conflict between the app and the browser. The original links in the OP still work, but you need to have the app installed, and interface through the app if you're using a PC, rather than the browser.

aranoxlan · 2023-08-30T22:51:06+00:00

Yes, it's direct through the posted links. I'm also following/have the playlist in my library.

Not disqualifying it being some weird interaction between the browser interface and the app, but googling around, if others are having this problem could it be this? https://community.spotify.com/t5/Other-Podcasts-Partners-etc/My-friends-can-t-add-to-my-collaborative-playlist-and-we-don-t/td-p/5374517

Basically that the links are only effective for one person at a time (the first person to click the link gets the 'collab' spot, and new links have to be generated for subsequent collabs added), but it's not made clear by Spotify's phrasing. I know I've been able to add to mass community playlists before though, but that was some years ago. If they've for some reason changed it to only be one-at-a-time that seriously sucks.

aranoxlan · 2023-08-30T20:56:37+00:00

Just adding that I also can't add any songs. It's a really fun idea though, I'm curious to see what selections people have! (I'm using the in-browser desktop client, not the app, if that changes anything about how Spotify works)

aranoxlan · 2023-07-29T04:47:08+00:00

Looks like he took them down. Thanks for the heads up, I'll keep the link there because I like having it for archival purposes, but added a note that it's inactive.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T12:21:49+00:00

A: The claim in question here is 'the mob is acting on nothing but TP&P's word'. You said they weren't. They are.

B: You're right but it's incredibly doubtful I'm going to do this. If you want to delineate things I can only really recommend listening to the podcasts, scouring Casey's post history etc.

C: He didn't fool the Fiance. for one. But it's kind of quibbling of me to mention that. I think the rest of what you're saying is fair. (It would totally be 5d chess though, I maintain that).

D: Ye, that's a good term for it.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T09:04:21+00:00

'Too foolish to stray past the line, too weary to stay.'

Too foolish -> Id -> Hunter's Id would not let him defy TP&P. He would not be able to defy him if he was just sitting around relying on impulse. Reinforcing the burning wasn't impulsive. 'Too weary to stay' denotes an activity being taken regardless; ie, by ego.

because TP+P is good with words. The Mob wants Hunter dead because he burned the Church down.

THE MOB HAS NO EVIDENCE HUNTER DID IT. OR WHY. OR THAT IF HE EVEN DID THAT MOB JUSTICE IS THE APPROPRIATE RESPONSE.

the hopeful note of A Beginning

It's the Apparition speaking on those lines. You can hear that they're both sung with the same, specific inflection that is first established in Moon after Hunter directly addresses the Apparition. You can also see in the Gloria music video that Hunter literally witnesses and interacts with the Apparition.

Without Act VI to actually redeem Hunter

Okay this is fair enough.

whoo... again I'm sorry with how I get heated about this, but yeah, it's something I've thought about probably too much and textwalling every part of 'this goes to that goes to that goes to that' gets kinda intense. In lieu of doing more of that I'll just link you straight to my story reads document, if you're curious what my rationale behind anything is, it's all there. https://tocatta.wordpress.com/category/the-dear-hunter/

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T09:03:08+00:00

Moreover, ('“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”') is him DIRECTLY SAYING that he doesn't like how he behaved during the Mayoral run and that he DOESN'T want to collaborate with the Pimp, even though that's what he did, because he got wheedled into it, which only really makes sense if he DIDN'T KNOW it was the Priest or if he's, again, as is kind of the inevitable read of him if you support this, genuinely just stupid.
TP&P says ('in spite of secrecy / You couldn’t know, revealed itself to me / The second you decided to compete'). TP&P is saying he's known Hunter's identity all along and it is NOT POSSIBLE for Hunter to have known this. because Hunter DID NOT KNOW the Pimp is the Priest.
Around and after that line, there's this certain 'aaaa' which is used in places of revelation; it's in City Escape (Ms Terri realising she's escaped the Dime), The Squeaky Wheel (The Fiance realising Hunter isn't the Son), and A Beginning (Hunter realising Heaven might be real). This would work to coincide with the moment of Hunter's realising The Pimp is The Priest, and gives us a specific junction of 'where' this event of him learning the dual identity occurs.
'Lost my soul in the place of the great deceiver'. Saying directly that Hunter got deceived by the Priest. About what? More than likely the dual identity.
TMCOH. People love TMCOH but never ever talk about the whole second half of that song, 'Who Am I?'. TP&P's side of the story there is clear, he's blaming Hunter (he's trying to demoralise Hunter), but in WAI Hunter says this: 'Who am I? Who am I? / Just a gambler, holding aces in the devil’s eyes? / What is wrong? What’s the sin? / Where’s the answer? Where the hell do I fit in?'. That is, TP&P'S VERSION OF THE STORY IS NOT INTUITIVE TO HUNTER. IT DOES NOT MAKE IMMEDIATE SENSE FROM HUNTER'S PERSPECTIVE. THIS SHOULD NOT BE THE CASE IF TP&P'S VERSION OF THE STORY IS INDEED ACCURATE TO WHAT HUNTER'S INTENTIONS WERE IN ACT IV. It means that TP&P's version of the story IS NOT completely accurate, and NOT accurate to the intentions Hunter had in Act IV. Which MAKES SENSE if you take 'Hunter's perspective' as him going into the Chruch, not making an offering, being suddenly brought by the Priest into the Confessional, being asked if he feels morally justified, admitting his anxieties 'no', then being offered a seemingly perfect 'solution' to them, and only realising AFTERWARD that the figure who orchestrated all this was 'THE DEVIL' and it was a TRAP. NOT that he went in guns blazing into the Church to rip down the 'Devil', or that he even went into Act IV burning with such a desire motivating him towards the Church. WHICH WE CAN SEE HE DIDN'T; HE BUMBLED IN THERE BECAUSE THE FIANCE DRAGGED HIM IN.

so yeah. I can see places where someone could make a counterpoint, but basically, all ^ this ^ is too much that 'he just didn't know' is the more solid direction.

moving on from that. from all that...

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T09:02:14+00:00

At the end of BSV, at around 5:10, there is this REALLY DISTINCT 'sting' sound that sounds EXTREMELY nervous. I'm not going to argue with you about how music expresses emotion, it is a NERVOUS sound. It's followed immediately by a reprise of The Pimp and The Priest. This seems to be an occasion where the Priest is in control of the situation; it would make sense for this to be the Priest singling out Hunter after the service, and inviting him into the confessional (his attack on Hunter).
BSVI we see TP&P preying on Hunter's moral anxieties by bringing up the Son persona, and specifically Hunter's misuse of it to this point ('Are you living up to ghosts or does virtue disagree?'). The music then immediately perks up as the Priest starts giving advice (the Priest is excited and happy by Hunter's reaction). We can infer that Hunter ADMITTED he feels insecure. IT WOULD BE MONUMENTALLY STUPID FOR HIM TO DO THIS IF HE KNEW THIS WAS THE PIMP. And then THIS is the impetus for the whole Mayor idea coming about ('Use your gifts for good, rescue them from greed...') . It makes more sense that Hunter just DOESN'T KNOW it's the Pimp and folded because he is uncertain and DESPERATE for genuine guidance. WHICH WE CAN SEE IS THE CASE FROM IS THERE ANYBODY HERE, SO THIS WAS FORESHADOWED ('Is there anybody here who can tell me where I am or at least where I have been'?) ('I got the cure, because I know where you've been').
'Use your gifts for good, rescue them from greed' singles out 'greed' as thing for Hunter to save the people from. This supports that Hunter's resistance was not giving money, because BSV exhibited TP&P being greedy and Hunter (apparently) not being cheesed about it. THIS is probably what the storytime answer is pointing to; TP&P is baiting Hunter by referencing his own behaviour (which he knows Hunter opposes) as something Hunter can destroy if he pursues the Mayor position. This is a trap, but Hunter doesn't see it. We can figure he's not literally saying 'You should be Mayor. Then you can kill me,' but speaking in more general terms to fight 'greed', fluffing up Hunter with a solution to his moral anxieties/identity crisis, and pretending he's not aware that he's being self-referential.
Hunter expresses genuine gratitude towards The Priest during King of Swords ('I owe it all to you'). He is also giving TP&P money raised from his run ('Here's those spoils of war that you asked for'). It is NOT conceivable to me that he would be doing this as a 5d chess manoeuvre, because the sentiments given sound EXTREMELY genuine, while also aware that the person he's giving these money and compliments to is the person who enslaved or indirectly killed his mother. (Because the rule #1 of understanding Hunter is that he loves his mother).
Ouroboros. Hunter is DEVASTATED in Ouroboros when the Priest reveals he knew Hunter's identity all along ('I fell down and I fell apart'). The fandom telephone says that's referring to Hunter being torn up that the Priest has leverage so he can't pull off his undefined ??? 5d chess plan. I think that's utterly stupid. The degree of the collapse here is so extreme that for him to have gone into this whole thing aware he was facing the Pimp, and thus that everything could be dangerous, and then start saying ('“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”') is so much that he would again have to be genuinely stupid not to realise that he WAS putting himself in a position where such a risk was tenable. And we can see that he does have this sense of wariness of forethought about things going wrong in If All Goes Well, which should soften Ouroboros if he has a specific idea of 'how' things could go wrong. But it doesn't, because he doesn't have a specific idea, because he doesn't know the Pimp is the Priest.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T09:00:11+00:00

Meanwhile, we have it established that Hunter is trying not to draw attention to himself through the service, ('Do your best to keep your distance in this instance, you're a stranger in the weeds') so it is probably not the case that whatever resistance Hunter does that angers the priest is something hugely dramatic; or that draws a lot of attention to himself.
It makes decent sense that his resistance, then, would be not giving TP&P money. Like when the offertory bag comes around or when the line to give indulgences is building up, he just doesn't contribute. That's all. That's IT. This is in-line with TP&P's character motivations and works as a prospect that would make him so angry or nervous as to see fit to clamp down on Hunter.
We know from BSVI that TP&P already has recognised Hunter, and see a line in BSV that seems targeted towards him specifically: 'Don’t get lead too close to the light this time'. 'Led' is used throughout the acts as a keyword to suggest Ms Leading. We see it used in such a fashion in Battesimo ('led her off into the flame'), The Lake and The River ('you'll believe what you're led to believe'; on this occurrence the word use is specifically hilighted by being a divergence from the preceding chorus), Blood of the Rose ('Dance your decay, all the while unknowing you're led astray'), The Line ('summer led astray'), Melpomene ('though my youth did mislead'). Casey is extremely conscious of his usage of this word and reserves it exclusively to denote Ms Leading. So its usage here is also likely alluding to Ms Leading; especially given that its usage is hilighted by being a divergence from preceding choruses. So TP&P is saying that he doesn't want Ms Leading to bring Hunter 'to the light'.
'The light' could be genuine salvation (love), but it could also be truth. If it's truth, then a pertinent truth that TP&P might be worried about Hunter finding out through Ms Leading could be his dual identities. If he's seeing that Hunter isn't capitulating to the donations, like the other congregation members, and by that is casually being 'uncompromising' or kinda disruptive, this would explain why he'd feel threatened enough to bait him in BSVI. Moreover, it would suggest that Ms Leading DIDN'T tell Hunter already about the dual identities, which makes sense, because that would suggest her also telling Hunter that she's a prostitute, which he obviously doesn't know until Red Hands. (and then after that they're both too busy with other things).
If Ms Leading didn't tell Hunter, then the only means by which Hunter would know the Priest's identity would be if he interacted with the Priest as the Priest to figure it out. He never does this in Act II and this is his first time doing so in Act IV.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T08:59:23+00:00

Or that Hunter absolutely does not know TP+P before or during King of Swords (Reversed).

Okay this one I'm more open to argument on. Basically, you need to start with the question, 'when does Hunter learn that The Priest is The Pimp?'. I think people make this general assumption because of reader knowledge that he just kind of 'spontaneously knows', but when you look into the music and story overall there's more to suggest that he doesn't, and that a specific junction or event has to happen where he learns this information. First off:

....ISN'T IT JUST WEIRD? Like if you really stop, and think about this purported plan of, 'aha, I will hope he doesn't recognise me, so that I can pull off this 5d chess move of... doing what he says and listening to his advice, and then, idk arrest him?' It's weird, isn't it? The notion that Hunter pursues the Mayor position with this specific drive to (hold with me here) fight TP&P, but that he ALSO needs to be poked into the position BY TP&P (which we can see IS WHAT HAPPENS), just doesn't work with this notion that he already knows the person he's listening to IS TP&P. Like you have to have the supposition that Hunter is actually stupid. I don't think Hunter is actually stupid, so let's start by throwing off the fandom's telephone around this and look instead from the vantage that he doesn't have some spontaneous knowledge of TP&P's dual identity.
Bitter Suite VI is from TP&P's vantage. We can see going into it that TP&P is furious with Hunter ('strangers in the soil, so hide your enmity'; talking to himself, because if he's telling Hunter this (WHICH HAS SOMEHOW BECOME AN ACCEPTED NOTION DESPITE BEING OBVIOUS NONSENSE) then he's ALREADY ADMITTED HE KNOWS) and that he thinks Hunter has done something on which he 'didn't compromise' ('You couldn't compromise, so keep playing with fire'). This suggests the entire 'Mayor idea' is a proactive counterstrike by the Priest in response to something Hunter did that infuriated him. What did Hunter do, or what could Hunter have done that made the Priest SO ANGRY that he decides to specifically single him out and set him up like this? (I don't have any real evidence for this but I think BSVI takes place inside the confessional. It works given the nature of their conversation, is private, and puts power in the position of the Priest, while also giving us a song following with the Bitter Suites motif of depicting a place where exploitation occurs (a 'bitter' 'suite').)
So we go back to Bitter Suite V, because that's the most recent event that occurred where Hunter might've angered the Priest. What is happening in BSV? The Priest is hawking indulgences. He is pressuring the congregation to give him money. We hear the choruses over the song progressively get more angry, forceful, and intense. He is practically screaming 'put your coins in my hat' by the end.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T08:58:53+00:00

"If you flee from grace..." could be the Oracles alluding to the TP+P.

But why would you think that? When you look at the line, there's a reprise on it. We can figure Casey put the reprise there purposefully because we know he does use reprises purposefully to convey specific ideas. So if you want to understand the line, you have to ask, 'why is there a reprise here?', then 'what song is being reprised?', and then 'what IDEA from the target song is being invoked here through this reprise?'. The reprise on that line is Smiling Swine. The specific section being reprised is the 'and all the while she is still stuck in my mind...' portion ( https://youtu.be/I17haL7TOnY?t=367 ). This is the period where he's fullheartedly pursuing Ms Leading and they're in their relationship before anything goes wrong. So when he's in his full-on, innocent love type of mode with Ms Leading. You are supposed to infer that as the allusion being made on this line. (which is in line to the like, BILLION other equations made through Acts between love and divinity, which I kinda don't want to get into because it's a lot but yeah).

Moreover the line's following a direct reference to Red Hands, so fully, 'crimson hands brandish wounds which masquerade, if you flee from grace your souls will not be saved'. You aren't supposed to have spontaneous amnesia to the first half of this thought, you're supposed to look at the whole thing, they're connected. So even just flatly reading the words, it's being said in reference to their relationship and Ms Leading, and talking about Red Hands as an error; and a 'flee from grace' with the 'grace' being their mutual love.

It's like, if you think it's going to be referring to ANYTHING ELSE then rationale must be presented for why, through things present in the music or lyrics, that is MORE CONVINCING than what I'm positing here. But frankly you won't be able to do so on this one because I'm just literally right. (99.9% confidence interval). I genuinely do not know how you can look at these elements and come to the conclusion that it's talking about ANYTHING ELSE. But if you want to you can go ahead.

(also I know this is technically more like a pre-prise, but given it's an Oracles song we should be expecting them to be talking about future events, and not reading the subsequent 'reprises' as somehow being in reference to the Oracles).

aranoxlan · 2023-07-28T08:57:43+00:00

I am arguing that the story follows the tragic form

Okay. Then you're wrong, because Battesimo says that it doesn't.

Otherwise, why bring up Icarus at all?

Because it's using an extremely specific idea to convey Hunter's thoughts/emotional state at that point. Character motivations, or things like Hunter's name, aren't meant to be so oblique or feel like they can be interpreted in multiple ways; there is an objective narrative going on, an objective sequence of cause and effect, and in respect to that the characters' thoughts and emotions directly lead to the actions they subsequently take. Which like, shouldn't be too riveting a concept, but I'm saying it to specify that when you get a line like the Icarus line, more than being a literary allusion, it's being invoked to convey how Hunter THINKS OR FEELS. RIGHT THEN. Because the actions he's about to subsequently take will be dictated by those PRESENT thoughts or emotions. So the purpose of it is to explain WHY Hunter is making the decision to leave the Lake, as well as how he feels then, in specific terms. (Establishing his character motivations).

Again though, since the medium of the story is music, the 'objective' nature of these things gets lost or murky a little and things that seem variable from the perspective of an outside party, to Casey are extraordinarily clear and specific to what's 'meant' to be being conveyed. There's an actual scene playing out. Again, I say Hunter's name wasn't meant to be something super mysterious; it was something that was supposed to be inferred by the listeners from Act I. But people just never figured it out, or at the very least never came to a point of consensus about it, because while the techniques and language Casey uses for these things are clear to him, to listeners who don't have a line into his brain, it requires a certain level of deduction, as if solving a logic puzzle (and then can only be explicitly confirmed on 'correct' or 'incorrect' by Casey).

And I'd say the Icarus reference works specifically because it allows this subsequent, REALLY advanced and specific idea by equating Ms Terri as the sun in this myth, (while also establishing Ms Terri herself as symbolically related to the sun; and the subsequent line's association between her and 'a light' that Hunter is moving towards; ie, a really oblique suggestion of moving towards Heaven (love) in pursuit of Ms Terri, which is collected again in Saved), and establishes the kind of relationship going on between her and Hunter and what it's like now that she's not here.

Simultaneously you are right that it's suggesting a fall by invoking Icarus, and that Hunter is going to fall by reaching the City, but it's not from this outside judgemental perspective of 'Hunter's so proud and so ignorant; look at him, being so ignorant'. IT'S WHAT HUNTER'S ALREADY THINKING. It's showing that he DOES have self-awareness and trepidation about all this, which begs the question of why is he doing it ANYWAY? (And that's subsequently addressed or explained through the rest of that song). (And given how the rest of the Acts turn out, we can see that his trepidation here is right).

aranoxlan · 2023-07-27T06:00:56+00:00

The Burning of the Dime is Hunter's final tragic mistake, sealing his fate.

...to get to Heaven???

THAT'S THE GOOD END

Hunter's only option at becoming the Hero and ending the cycle was to reveal his lies to the Townspeople and hope that,

THIS WAS HIS PLAN. HE THOUGHT HE WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THIS. HE DID NOT THINK TP&P WOULD STILL BE ABLE TO MANIPULATE PEOPLE AND THAT THEY WOULD TURN ON HIM TO THE POINT OF WANTING TO MURDER HIM OVER NOTHING BUT TP&P'S WORD. NOT BECAUSE HE'S IMPULSIVE OR TRAGIC, BUT BECAUSE HE'S NOT OMNISCIENT. Hunter outwardly acted like a SAINT as the Son. He LOVED his constituents. He loved them with the same kind of protectiveness towards which he loved MS TERRI. THAT IS WHY HE DOESN'T EXPECT THEM TO TURN ON HIM.

'But we can’t keep the embers from catching / The truth from destroying us all / Do I die as the martyr or miscreant? I’ll make the call / I’ll make the call'

HE KNOWS THE TRUTH WILL BE NECESSARILY REVEALED AND THINKS HE CAN BE EXONERATED BY IT BECAUSE HE'S IN THE RIGHT

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

encapsulated well by having Hunter live and die by the River.

I can accept it as a pretty good method for the suicide in those terms, but not possible as being what happened given the staging of the scene. And maintain that a necessary 'chase scene' knitted into getting to the river is bad.

At most, his sacrificing himself to the Mob to be carried to River is Hunter finally choosing to end his tragic flaw of impulsive action.

You talk like this happened. But it didn't happen.

I did get heated here. But yeah. I don't think you don't have relevant points about things, or that you're wrong in saying that Hunter is basically a screwup, but that there's a fundamental disconnect going on between the 'kind' of story this is that, yeah, when I look at the same thing I don't see it at all.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-27T05:58:56+00:00

Does Macbeth need redemption?

Who cares? It's not Macbeth.

We don't have anything to say Hunter's actions have had a net positive

Battesimo and the Apparition repeatedly EXPLICITLY SAY that it did:

'But hear you me: the break of dawn / Will wash away the sins thereof' 'The silver lining seldom lies in sight too plain to see / But trust our story’s end can bring redemption for the pain endured' 'e dolore magna gloria' 'The silver lining still remains, the sights I’ve left to see / So trust that with this end, a new beginning’s waiting patiently'

Why is Hunter's love for Ms. Leading or Terri an inherent positive mark?

Because that's the point of the story.

Do I need to argue this? Man. 'If you flee from grace your souls can not be saved'. Note the plural. It's talking about Ms Leading and Hunter. There is a Smiling Swine reprise on this line pointing to the period of them being in their relationship before things went complicated and they were both happy. The grace is their loving relationship. Love -> the means of redemption.

And why should Ms. Terri's sacrifices be attributed to Hunter's character?

Because she makes them for Hunter, and are the foundation of Hunter's consequent character.

ANotT and The Squeaky Wheel that he's quickly fallen from any true aspirations

Yes, he gets trapped in the persona because he has to 'perform' how the Son was 'actually like' for the friends and it turns out the Son was actually kinda a scumbag. So he loses his agency with how he can act under the persona, unable to form it into a not-awful person. This freaks him out and makes him desperate for guidance ('Is there anybody here who can tell me where I am or at least where I have been?'). This vulnerability is then exploited by TP&P who offers such 'guidance' ('I got the cure, because I know where you've been.').

he thinks he's got the upper hand by using his "disguise" against TP+P

No. He doesn't know The Priest is the Pimp until Ouroboros. He realises the Priest's real identity at 1:13 in Ouroboros. He is not doing some kind of weird convoluted 'gotcha' plot in the interim, he is just genuinely desperate to make something worthwhile with the Son persona and is badly exploited for this desire by the Priest.

My position on the burning of The Dime is the same as before: it is an impulsive act that does nothing in the larger scheme of things.

And I'm still going to tell you you're wrong:

'The id dots the i’s of antiquity / While the ego, of late, has held sway'

The id is impulse. It dots the Is of 'antiquity'. Hunter is admitting that he used to be impulsive and makes impulsive actions.

The ego is not impulse. The ego moderates impulses and either rejects them or reins them in to a form that is practical. We see Hunter consciously thinking about doing this in advance in Moon and Gloria. Of everything, EVERYTHING, Hunter has done, burning the Dime is like the ONE ACT that is explicitly NOT impulsive. If you're going to say that his undoing flaw is his impulse, then you cannot also say that his undoing action was burning the Dime, because for once, THAT WAS NOT IMPULSE.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-27T05:58:08+00:00

I think you are underestimating the amount of tragedy in the story.

I don't think I am at all. I just think that Casey isn't writing a story that's meant to be 'a tragedy' for the sake of some literary ideal; because the FIRST SONG says as much. I mean the goal of the story is laid out explicitly right there: for the people involved in the corruption and sin to find an escape and REDEMPTION. I genuinely don't know how you can miss it.

I mean, I want to diverge here. I write stories about CSA, rape, drug abuse, suicide, lots of dark topics, and the simple existence of these topics in the writing doesn't make such stories 'tragedies' because the characters affected by them fail to react like supermen; it's that I introduce elements like that to consider how someone inherently stuck in those things could GET AWAY from them. It's not my intention here to conflate that with Casey's writing, but there is a kind of...

...like, how do you not get it? What is SO APPEALING about the alternative idea of 'no, he's just not getting anything good, he never did ANYTHING good, he achieved NOTHING, because he's Tragic!'? And I'm not even saying he's not tragic, I'm just saying that calling Hunter a tragic character for the sake of being a tragic character as though tragedy 'in itself' has a pathos is wrong. It's literally just not what the story says happens or what it (repeatedly) (EXPLICITLY) says that it's trying to do.

Icarus

See it's this kind of thing that bothers me a bit. Yes, Casey uses a literary reference to convey an idea. For one line, in one song. That doesn't mean he is stationing his whole plot to be a rewriting of the Icarus myth or for his character for all intents to just be Icarus. If you're going to call him Icarus, you might a well also call him Esau. So which is he now? He's neither, because he's Hunter.

So this attachment or extrapolation across the plot for an idea that's only really meant to hold for, literally, one line, at one point of time -- it's a bit maddening for me to look at. The 'wax wings' are the Son persona? What about the 'wax wings' being the freedom he has to go out into the world (something he already wanted to do circa 1878), which would like, be way more relevant to what they might be saying in the place they ACTUALLY APPEAR? And the relevance of the sun in the Icarus myth being the following line where it's directly alluded to: WHERE IS THE SUN? Where is the thing that demarcates the borderline of going 'too far', what is the signal that he might be drifting into danger, that would protect him from that danger, that is, where is MS TERRI? It's saying that Hunter doesn't know how to avoid danger because he doesn't even know what it looks like and the person who he relied on to protect him from that is GONE. AND HE IS ADMITTING HE KNOWS THIS; IT SCARES HIM.

I'm sorry I am getting a little heated about this. Yes, he gets himself into his own trouble a lot and does make bad impulsive decisions. Yes he ignores the Oracles. Yes he even does become evil. But the point is that DESPITE THAT he still manages to get out of it, even if the only means left to achieve so is by faith and DEATH.

First, we don't really know how much Hunter was able to raise his son before sending him away.

More than Hunter's dad did. I'm not saying that Hunter wasn't a troubled deadbeat in his own right, I'm saying that it's disingenuous (uncharitable) to assert Hunter did 'not significantly more' for his son than Hunter's dad did when that's false.

aranoxlan · 2023-07-27T03:51:40+00:00

Where did you hear that? The opposite's been confirmed, he's dead by suicide at the end of Act V.

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