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Archive for Imagery

Not Just a Pretty Face

by Renée
July 4th, 2010

by anna tsogyal

When I first saw this image of Talbot I wasn’t sure who it reminded me of, and then I remembered this from Derek Jarman’s film, Carravagio. A younger version perhaps?

Caravaggio was a 16th century Italian painter, born in Milan, who spent some time in Rome where he painted A Boy with a Basket of Fruit, on which the still from Jarman’s picture is based. There has been some controversy about whether Caravaggio was gay or bisexual; however he did become something of a gay icon, which would have appealed to Jarman who was both a painter and film director.

The fruit in this painting is not perfect, some of the leaves are blemished or diseased which seems to be unusual as most painters of the time idealised whatever they painted. Caravaggio painted other naturalistic still lifes, and the table decorations in Russell Edgington’s mansion have centrepieces of flowers and fruit that look as if they were inspired by a still life painting.

Connections have been drawn between Russell as the Celtic god, Lugus, and Talbot as his companion, Rosmerta, so I’d like to add another tale to the mix. It seems that Julius Caesar was responsible for connecting Lugus to Hermes, and others have included Lugh and Llew Law Gyffes as counterparts as well. The Welsh Llew Law Gyffes doesn’t seem to have as many parallels but there is an interesting story about him in the Mabinogion. He was forbidden to take a human wife so a woman called Blodwyn was created for him out of flowers.

We’ve already learnt from Alan Ball and Daniel Minahan’s Frenzy commentary that they took some of their inspiration for Queen Sophie Anne’s palace from Pasolini’s controversial film Salò which is an examination of the abuse of power.

Since one of the themes this season is political extremism, it seemed to be worth looking at other Italian and European films which might have provided some kind of inspiration, conscious or unconscious.

Pasolini was closely linked with the neo-realist school of Italian cinema and one of the subjects of neo-realist films was Italian fascism. The neo-realist directors included Bernardo Bertolucci whose film, The Conformist, was a exploration of the mentality of those who became fascist and the possible causes of their involvement.

The Conformist tells the story of Marcello, a young man living in Italy at the time of Mussolini, who is desperate to create the illusion of normality by rejecting his past, which includes a homosexual incident with the family chauffeur and a murder. Marcello joins the Fascist Party and his attempt to conform to society’s expectations includes marriage and later, on the orders of the Party, the murder of an anti-fascist professor. His story is told mostly in flashbacks and on occasion even those flashbacks have flashbacks. After the fall of the fascist regime Marcello is prepared to accuse others of his own actions to save his own skin in another attempt to conform.

The illusion of normality sounds to me a bit like mainstreaming and the flashbacks and the unsavoury past of the young man in question also reminded me of how the writers are telling Bill’s story. Both characters use the veneer of civility to hide their inner selves. Marcello uses the conventions of bourgeois society, and Bill the manners of a Southern gentleman.

Categories allegory, Anna, anna tsogyal, art, Bill, Celtic mythology, characterization, commentary, History, Imagery, movies, mythology, Russell, themes, WWII
Comments (48)

Satan in a Sunday School Logo

by Renée
June 17th, 2010

by BobsGran

For some time I have been trying to wrap my head around the logo used by FoTS.  As many have said, nothing is accidental in TB. The FoTS symbol is a stylized trefoil with a sun at the center, its rays radiating into the trefoil.  To me, the logo represents a Catherine Wheel.

A Catherine Wheel, also called a Breaking Wheel, is a medieval torture device used for capital punishment  in the Middle Ages and into the 19th century.  It was used in France, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, and others, and colonial Louisiana. The wheel is typically a large wooden wagon or cart wheel with many radial spokes.  The condemned was spread eagle to the wheel and clubbed to death.


In France, if the condemned was accorded mercy, the strike was administered to the stomach or chest.  This was referred to  as the coup de grace or blows of mercy.  Between the years 1730-1754, the Breaking Wheel was used to execute 11 slaves who rebelled against their Louisiana masters.

The carousel in the Dungeon of Doom at Fangtasia also resembles a Catherine Wheel.  The circle at the top is the hub of a wheel, the long spikes hanging. We have already seen the carousel used as a device to secure prisoners.  At FoTS, Steve Newlins proudly showed off his “Research and Development” lab to Jason.  This room was filled with all manner of torture equipment specifically designed to eliminate vampires.

Note from Renée: If you have a strong stomach, be sure to read the account of the life and death of Peter Stumpp that Sunny included in the comments section. As you can see in the wood cut, it includes a werewolf connection and other ‘True Blood’ imagery.

Added 6/21/10

6/23/10


Categories BobsGran, FOTS, Imagery, Steve, symbolism
Comments (61)

The Missing Link

by Renée
May 18th, 2010

One  of the goals of  The Ancient Pythoness is to explore Sookie’s extensive library, the literature that the plots and themes that the Sookieverse is based on. Last year I explained how Maryann was much more than a maenad. She was also a were-hoopoe bird, and her story line was a mashup of  the origin myth of Dionysus and The Greek comedy by Aristophanes, The Birds. So the question is, what inspired Alan Ball to transform Callisto, the maenad in Living Dead in Dallas into Maryann, the beclawed were-hoopoe maenad in season two? While the theme of The Birds is Dionysian, linking the two is more than a strech. At least, that’s what I thought until a Sylvia Plath poem caught my attention.

Maenad

Once I was ordinary:
Sat by my father’s bean tree
Eating the fingers of wisdom.
The birds made milk.
When it thundered I hid under a flat stone.

The mother of mouths didn’t love me.
The old man shrank to a doll.
O I am too big to go backward:
Birdmilk is feathers,
The bean leaves are dumb as hands.

This month is fit for little.
The dead ripen in the grapeleaves.
A red tongue is among us.
Mother, keep out of my barnyard,
I am becoming another.

Dog-head, devourer:
Feed me the berries of dark.
The lids won’t shut. Time
Unwinds from the great umbilicus of the sun
Its endless glitter.

I must swallow it all.

Lady, who are these others in the moon’s vat —-
Sleepdrunk, their limbs at odds?
In this light the blood is black.
Tell me my name.

Not only does this poem link birds and maenads, it explains where the inspiration for other aspects of Maryann’s charcter and storyline came from. The figurative cannibalism that was traditional in the worship of Dionysus becomes literal in this poem with ‘eating the fingers’ and in True Blood with eating the hearts of Ms. Jeanette and Daphne. 

The theme of  transformation, in Plath, a coming of age reference, becomes the basis for Mariann’s were identity as a transformative creature, part woman and part bird. This poem is also the basis for Maryann’s black blood and with the line, “the dead ripen in the grapeleaves,”  the meat tree.

The cynocephalic creature in the poem is a reference to  Anubis, the Egyptian God of the Dead. For True Blood Ball turns this image into a  one that is bull-headed, which alludes to the Greek myth of Pasiphae, the mother of the Minotaur whose bovine disguise was used to attract a mate. Plath goes on to link Anubis, The God of the Dead, with Ammit, The Devourer of Souls. Ball links the bull-headed Maryann with Daphne who, because of her special affinity with pigs, becomes The Devourer of Western myth and folklore, in the incarnation of the  Caledonia Boar, charging around Merlotte’s wreaking havoc.

So, if Sylvia Plath’s poem, Maenad, was Ball’s inspiration for the maenad/bird mashup, what was Plath alluding to with avian imagery in her Dionysian poem of transformation? A line from The Birds, “I’ll make you a king and give you bird’s milk.”

Additionally I suspect that Alan Ball may be using Plath’s poem, The Moon and the Yew Tree, as inspiration for the upcoming Were Witch storyline, since Yvette, whose name means ‘Yew’ will probably turn out to be one or both of those creatures.

If Alan Ball is featuring a different Plath poem each season, any ideas which one inspired season one?

Categories Greek lit, Imagery, literature, maenad, Maryann, mythology, poetry
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Dawn by Another Name

by Renée
April 15th, 2010

Aurora e Titone by Francesco de Mura

If you thought the only Greek mythology in True Blood was connected to maenads, here’s an eye opener. This is Aurora, Goddess of the Dawn. She’s getting ready for work as her  aging husband gazes on. In some accounts, her job is to drive her chariot through the night sky carrying a pink torch that heralds in the new day. In others, she just pulls back the drapes in her palace and the pink light from inside spills out and lights up the night sky.

Remember that scene in season one when Dawn is getting ready for work, and Jason is tied to her bed? Aurora and Tithonus. He was a heroic prince of Troy. They fell passionately in love and married. When Aurora begged Zeus to grant immortality to her husband she forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. As a result, Tithonus couldn’t die but continued to age and grow ever more feeble until he lost the use of his limbs. Aurora kept him prisoner in her room until she finally turned him into a grasshopper. Tithonus is used in art and literature to symbolize passion untempered by reason and faded glory. Doesn’t that sound like a certain Stackhouse we know?

Jason as Tithonus

Jason as Tithonus

 

 

Notice the muted green backgrounds in both images. What  is Dawn doing with plain white sheets if they are not meant to mimic the clouds that pillow Tithonus? Then there are Dawn’s tragically 80′s rose chintz sofa pillows that look like they came right out of Mura’s painting.

Another connection to the myth is the grasshoppers heard outside Dawn’s house when Jason shows up on her doorstep in the middle of the night. They’re still chirping the next morning when an outside view of the house shows so much light pouring from the windows that they glow, outshining the daytime sun. The kicker? When Jason complains about being stuck in bed all day, Dawn alludes to Tithonus by retorting that he should be honored since she doesn’t tie just any old man to her bed. The sound of Dawn’s car pulling away tells us that she is off to light up the day of every good ole boy who walks into Merlotte’s.

Updated 4/16/10

Categories allegory, art, characterization, Dawn, Imagery, Jason, mythology, names
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The Red and the Black and the Silver

by Renée
January 5th, 2010

Sookieverse blog is doing some great analysis exploring how Charlaine Harris characterizes Bill and Eric’s love making and the significance of red to Eric.

Both of these issues relate to the alchemy that underlies Sookie’s character development and to the Christian allegory at the core of the series.

Alchemically Bill and Eric symbolize the warring couple, the chemicals sulphur (passionate, explosive, unpredictable, and willful) and mercury (dual natured, accommodating, passive, and wise). The characteristics associated with these metals are reflected in the way Bill and Eric interact with Sookie, even sexually. Since Eric is the vampire who takes Sookie from the white purified state to the red enlightened one, red is always associated with Eric. Alternately Bill is connected with darkness and the colors brown and black that characterize the nigredo stage of death and decomposition.

Allegorically since Eric is the Christ figure in the series, the color red is linked with him because of its association with both passion and blood.

Sookieverse points out that the only real color associated with Bill is the blue of the topaz earring that he gives to Sookie. Like everything else about Bill, this too is deceptive since topaz is not naturally blue. Blue topaz jewelry is actually made from pale yellow or gray topaz that has been irradiated, a fitting symbol of Bill’s fake persona. As the allegorical snake in the Garden of Eden who seduced the virgin, Bill is a master of disguise and an expert at deception.

Categories alchemy, allegory, Bill, characterization, Christianity, Eric, Sooke Stackhouse Novels, symbolism
Comments (10)

The Opening Scene Tells the Tale

by Renée
December 23rd, 2009

Nearly all of the major themes and the plot for the entire series is encapsulated in the opening scene of True Blood. It all starts with the Greeks. They are the ones drivingTrue Bloodfiguratively and literally. The series is is based on Greek mythology, philosophy, and dramatic elements. Brad is a blonde frat boy, and Kelly a blonde sorority coed. As they travel down a dark Louisiana highway, they introduce the theme of deconstructed stereotypes to the series. Kelly, whose name means bright headed, is in the driver’s seat, and Brad is asleep, foreshadowing the state of Sam and Sookie’s relationship at the beginning of the show. She goes for his crotch. This is the first of many times sex will be used as an escape. Like Sam, only the evidence of vampires in the area wakes up Brad. Despite the green lights on the road ahead of them, without forethought, Brad and Kelly detour from their journey and open Pandora’s box by entering the Grabbit Kwik and a world where appearances are dangerously deceptive. This is the same lesson that Sookie and Sam will lean from their interaction with the vampire world over the course of the series.

The dark haired clerk who will soon impersonate a vampire foreshadows Bill’s deception and false persona. The clerk is watching Nan Flanagan on tv, which points to Bill’s interest in civil rights. Her formal, high school debater delivery, is a marker to notice that Nan is using Greek logic and rhetoric to defend the American Vampire League. This scene may also foreshadow the AVL using rhetoric and faulty logic to mislead and obfuscate. The skull ring the clerk wears associates Bill with death. His jewelry also foreshadows the possible involvement of Bill in dark magic and the Witch War. Ironically, the vampire who is shopping in the store is not interested in what Nan has to say. Neither is he interested in the clerk or the couple. He is just goes about his business and foreshadows Eric’s position at the beginning of  the series.

The clerk rises from his seat to engage the couple in conversation when they enter. This relates to Bill involving himself in Sookie’s world. The clerk poses as a vampire to frighten Brad and Kelly. This is the mirror image of Bill trying to lull humans into a false sense of complacency by presenting himself as human-like as possible. When the clerk threatens the couple, Brad tries to diffuse the situation by telling him they are just drunk and meant no harm. This willt be the first of many times that mind altering substances lead to acting without considering the consequences in the series and the first of many times that mind altering substances are used as an excuse for behaving imprudently.

Foreshadowing Eric’s involvement in Bill’s affair with Sookie, the clerk’s deception draws the attention of the blonde vampire. He wears camouflage which is symbolic of the world weary Viking god persona that Eric displays at Fangtasia. On another level, the camouflage proclaims honestly that Billy Bob, as Brad calls him, is a hunter, which is also something that Eric does, never hiding his vampire nature. The confederate patch on Vampire Billy Bob’s cap could relate to Eric in a number of ways. Eric’s close association with his Viking heritage, his loyalty to his current home state of Louisiana, and his prejudice against humans are all suggested.

When he tries to buy V, Brad introduces the theme of human complicity with evil. Kelly brings in the themes of storytelling, gossip, and knowing when she tells about the effects of V. The couple’s bickering foreshadows the conflict in Sookie and Sam’s relationship. Sookie’s morality is hinted at by Kelly when she recoils at the idea of buying V.

The blonde vampire moves from being an observer to involving himself in the situation. This foreshadows Eric’s involvement in Bill’s affairs. The vampire also acts like Eric by protecting the vampire community from V buyers and users. When the vampire confronts Brad, he introduces the homoerotic motif that carries through the series. Brad sweeps Kelly from the store and forshadows Sam acting heroically to save Sookie. They exit the store and re-enter the human world, still together as a couple and hopefully a little wiser, as Sam and Sookie will be at the end of the series. Their departure also brings up the overriding theme of the show: truth can only be arrived at through a gradual ascent to enlightenment, something that the classical Greeks realized over two thousand years ago.

Next, Vampire Billy Bob turns his attention to the clerk. He is intimidating, but ultimately law abiding. The clerk promises to stop impersonating vampires. The blonde vampire threatens to kill him if he doesn’t. This could either foreshadow Bill’s ultimate death at the end for his involvement in the queen’s plan to deceive Sookie or Eric could show mercy on Bill if he learns his lesson. Vampire Billy Bob is revealed to be, not only the most powerful character in the scene, but also the only one with the infomation and judgement to idenfidy the true nature of all the other characters and figure out what is going on. Also, just like Vampire Billy Bob, Eric is a good ol’ boy at heart, with an equal emphasis on the good, old, and boy.

Because of the show’s circular nature, True Blood’s theme of the circle of life, and the circular nature of stories constructed with alchemy a circle motif is prevalent in the opening scene with Kelly’s hoop earrings and sunglasses, Brads conspicuous white necklace, bracelet, and oversized watch, the Grabbit Kwik’s surveillance mirror, and the vampire’s case of True Blood with its circular logo and Type O blood. The light and dark imagery that will come to represent enlightenment also begins in this scene.

While we don’t know all the conflicts that Sam and Sookie will have with Bill and Eric, the foreshadowing tells us that they will eventually leave the vampire world behind and resume their journey together.

Categories alchemy, Bill, characterization, Eric, Imagery, mythology, names, Sam, Sookie
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Sookie’s Sojourn

by Renée
November 24th, 2009

Updated 9/6/10

How could a show entitled True Blood be assumed to be totally lacking Christian content or to be treating the subject in a completely ironic manner? While there is much criticism of Christianity in the Sookieverse, the story is at heart a allegory retelling the fall and redemption of mankind.

Bon Temps is as close to the Garden of Eden as can be found in backwoods Louisiana. The names Paradise and Eden are derived from words that mean pleasure. It is the place for good times or, in French, bon temps. During their swim, Daphne and Sam explicitly make the point. She says it’s like when the world was new, and he calls it Paradise. To drive home the point further, the scene ends with plans to go to Acadia for pancakes. Acadia is the Greek version of Paradise.

Like Eden, Bon Temps is populated by two very special humans. The uniqueness of Adam and Eve, bodily made from the same stuff as the animals but imbued with an immortal spirit like the angels, is recreated in Sam and Sookie, both two natured, one associated with the animal world and one with the heavenly. Sookie and Sam’s unrealized romantic relationship parallels the unconsummated one between Adam and Eve prior to the Fall.

Bon Temps is obviously  not literally Paradise, after all, neither the place nor the people who live there are perfect. They have their problems, but until the night a master of seduction and lies entered town on a mission to tempt a virgin and secure her allegiance to an evil ruler, supernatural politics wasn’t one. The snake in the Garden of Eden knew just how to manipulate Eve to tempt her. Bill sized up Sookie the same way and for similar purposes. Season one of True Blood is Eve’s fall from grace replayed with Sookie and Bill. When Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, her were opened to sin. Sookie realizes the same thing has happened to her when she tells Bill that her association with vampires has opened her eyes to evil in ‘Scratches.’*

Before going further in this story, we need to establish the role Eric plays in this allegory. As sheriff (keeper of the peace) he represents the Prince of Peace, and as the priest at Russell’s wedding in the novels, he is associated with the High Priest, these are two positions that only Christ can fill in Christianity.** Like Christ, Eric is the heir to an earthly kingdom, in addition to being the son of God(ric). It is also becoming increasingly clear that he will ultimately become a king himself, and thereby assume another of Jesus’s titles, King of Kings.

In contrast to Bill’s character, Eric’s is transparent. Lafayette and Lorena point out that Eric is a horrible liar, and Isabelle and Sophie Anne immediately see his interest in Sookie. Also the three rednecks in the church saw through Eric’s human act to his true nature immediately. He even has a tell, silly little grin, to let everyone know when his plans are falling into place. Book Sookie knows Eric well enough to be confident that, while he may not give her the whole story, if she asks for the truth, he will not deceive her. TB Sookie will most likely come to the same conclusion.

The second season of True Blood depicts the human condition after the Fall. Godric, Eric’s maker becomes God the father. He is disgusted with the world and wants nothing more than to withdraw from it. He hides himself, and it is incumbent on those who love him to seek him out. Sookie is not longer Eve; she is Eve’s descendants who, according to Christian theology, can only find God by first establishing a personal relationship with his son. It is the son who sends Sookie to find God(ric). The fact that Sookie discovers him when she is trapped in a false church relates to the personal experiences of many Christians. It is not insignificant that her initial communication with God(ric), as she calls to him, knowing he will hear her, is one sided like prayers are.

When Sookie finally meets God(ric) face to face, she doesn’t know what to do or say. She stands uncomfortably by trying to cloth her nakedness, as Eve did in the Garden. Sookie watches Eric provide the example of what to do in the presences of one’s maker by genuflecting. To drive the point home further, Eric and Godric’s positions are echoed in the nativity figures behind them.

Eric’s devotion to Godric and his single minded focus on carrying out Godric’s commands again identify him with Jesus whose life was dedicated to doing the will of his father which included saving humanity by sacrificing himself. This is exactly what we see in Eric. To get Sookie out of the church alive, Eric impersonates an unassuming country bumpkin alluding to the incarnation when the second member of the Trinity became human and entered the world as the son of a poor country carpenter.

It may be unusual for a Protestant church to have an permanent altar, especially one substantial enough to support a man, but it is a requirement in Catholic churches. Since the sacrifice of the mass represents the sacrifice on the cross, alters are supposed to be able to hold the body of Jesus and Catholics are taught to imagine his body on the alter, as we saw Eric’s. His sacrifice on the FOTS altar is a manifestation of the sacrifice that Catholics believe takes place at mass.

From the genuflecting, to the altar, and on to what happens at Godric’s nest, this allegory is not just Christian but specifically Catholic. Personal beliefs aside, I think this is because a Christian allegory with magical healing blood is inherently Catholic since Protestants reject transubstantiation. Only Catholics believe that bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood of Jesus. That’s why vampire stories are inherently either Catholic or anti-Catholic. Contrast Eric’s healing blood to the Protestant vampires in Twilight who abstain from human blood. In Stephanie Meyer’s mythos it is the ancient Italian Volturi, stand-ins the Roman Catholic Church, who are cannibalistic blood drinkers. For the record, I am a Catholic convert with a great deal of gratitude to the Protestant churches that formed my faith, and I am also a fan of both True Blood and Twilight.

What happens to Sookie at Godric’s house recreates the Easter Vigil when adult baptized seekers join the church and are given a white garment to wear during their first communion.When Luke detonates his bomb, Eric provides protection to Sookie and falls backward, ‘covering her’ (Eric uses Christologic terminology),  with his arms outstretched in the position of a cross. After the bombing, Sookie drinks the blood of the fallen Christ figure while wearing her new white garment.

This is the true blood that the show is named for, the Elixir of Life Eric alluded to when he was at Lafayette’s house. This is the substance that will repair all the damage Bill has done emotionally and spiritually to Sookie. This is why Da Vinci’s Last Supper is hung front and center over the bar at Fangtasia in season 3.

When Sookie sucks the bullets out of Eric’s chest, she drinks blood from near his heart. The Sacred Heart of Jesus is associated with divine love for humanity, which is what Sookie represents to Eric. Season 1 sacred heart imagery is present in the wall sconce behind Sookie when she visits Fangtasia. The one behind Eric depicts the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

Book Eric is Christlike in offering Sookie unwavering and self-sacrificial love. He has always wanted to be her lover, but he does not pursue her. He waits patiently for times when she needs him to provide the opportunity to bring her into his proximity. He respects her free will in a way that Bill never did. His patience while he waits for his recalcitrant lover who irrationally fears him yet needs him for her survival is a beautiful depiction of Christ’s love for humanity, as is the pain Eric suffers silently because of Sookie’s thoughtless and even callous behavior towards him.

*Sunny Nala made the connection between the Tree of Knowledge and the scene in Scratches, when Sookie tells Bill, The more open my mind gets, the more evil I see.

**An objection has been made that Eric was serving as minister, not priest, at Russell’s wedding. However, since he made a blood sacrifice at the ceremony, he is, by definition, fulfilling the role of a priest, and yes, it is possible to become one through the internet.

***I originally speculated in this essay that Sookie would eventually return to her human life and Sam after Eric had healed all the damage that Bill had done. With s3 Sam turning out to be Bill in a Sam suit and DITF shearing Sam’s golden halo, Sam doesn’t look like a potential suitor any more. The snake centered over the bar is starting to look ominous.

Categories allegory, Bill, characterization, Christianity, Eric, Godric, Imagery, names, Sookie, symbolism
Comments (65)

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