The R&B group, Destiny’s Child named themselves after Destiny’s Child.

(Black Madonna and Child by Balinger courtesy of Art.com)

This is the child of prophecy in the book of Isaiah, most familiar to us as the text from Handel’s Messiah.

“For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon His shoulder; and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”

Destiny’s Child was born in a barn with the livestock and placed in a feeding trough because the purpose of his life was to be killed and to become food and drink for others to feast on. In other words, the Christ Child shared the same fate as Destiny, the stripper Bill procured for Russell and Lorena, to be devoured.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.

John 6:51

(Descent from the Cross by Alix Beaujour, courtesy of Artisan Arts Online)

The Japanese take the phrase, ‘my cup runneth over’ literally. A good host fills a cup of sake to the brim and then keep going so that is spills over the edge in a display of generosity and plenty.

Destiny’s life giving blood seeping out Russell’s limousine is surely a sign of plenty at a vampire feast, for her body contained enough of it to allow three vampires to drink their fill with the surplus spilling over onto the pavement.

This meal is quite a contrast to the processed and individually proportioned dishes on Talbot’s menu, which brings to mind Howard Nemerov’s poem to the God of  the Supermarket:

This God of ours, the Great Geometer,
Does something for us here, where He hath put
(if you want to put it that way) things in shape,
Compressing the little lambs into orderly cubes,
Making the roast a decent cylinder,
Fairing the tin ellipsoid of a ham,
Getting the luncheon meat anonymous
In squares and oblongs with all the edges bevelled
Or rounded (streamlined, maybe, for greater speed).
Praise Him, He hath conferred aesthetic distance
Upon our appetites, and on the bloody
Mess of our birthright, our unseemly need.

Could this meal have satisfied any vampire’s needs, physically or psychologically?

This is a meal for a vampire and “the bloody mess of our birthright.” That’s right, ‘our’ birthright. We are participants in this drama, and our bloodlust is just as much the point as that of the vampires.

If blood and death are our inescapable birthright, then this world is hell, but the feeding frenzy in Russell’s limousine contrasts with a similar scene from last season when three vampires fed on a another stripper.

The difference is that Lafayette survived the experience first because Eric expected his subordinates to demonstrate restraint and feed without killing and second because Eric healed him with his own blood.

Knowing when to stop is a vampire life skill that Eric obviously considered much more important to teach his child than Lorena or Bill did.  Even though Bill obviously picked it up somewhere, he refuses to pass his knowledge along to Jessica. And since a vampire cannot deny her nature forever, another death can be laid at Bill’s doorstep.

Lest you think one comparison isn’t enough to make the point about of Bill brining death and Eric conferring life, consider this:

True Blood presents two strippers who wear little more than cheap jewelry, a bra, leopard print, and some fur and catch the eye of two very different vampires.

One waits for the stripper to approach him, contracts with her to pay for her services, gives his body in a pleasurable exchange for hers, and turns her over to someone who will eat her, but it will be a meal that she enjoys and leaves her in  the world of the living.

The other vampire seeks the stripper out, deceives her about what he wants, takes his own pleasure from her body without a bit of consideration for her, and turns her over to be eaten, killed, and discarded.

One of the more cruel things Bill did in ’9 Crimes’ was tell Sookie that he enjoyed unrestrained sex with Lorena, “as only two vampires can.” The best liars in True Blood always reveal the palatable and socially acceptable truths in order to conceal the most shameful and ugliest ones.

It’s not unrestrained vampire sex that Bill craves (and Eric gives to Yvetta), it is unrestrained feeding, with no concern for the human who provides his meal. As far as Bill’s appetites go, Sookie is not a less satisfying lover than Lorena, she is a less satisfying meal than Destiny. Bill’s insatiable appetite, as both Diane and Lorena know, is for blood, not sex.

Destiny has no children for the same reason that Bill did not want to be a maker, because the world is ‘too fucked up.’ She also has no husband, and is alienated from her family of origin. Her childless state reflects her hopelessness. Her empty eyes have seen her fate, and she is resigned to it.

With a fire roaring in the background, she tells Bill that life is a hell and that she won’t escape from alive. This throw away piece of humanity, like the seer Cassandra, knows her own fate, and Bill realizes that she knows his as well.

Destiny’s vacant stare makes it clear that her soul is already dead even before Bill meets her, but in True Blood, even the dead can dream. She fantasies about true love, love that doesn’t turn to crap. Destiny may have been her professional name, but the one she chose for herself is Camilla, a beautiful name with a long line of romantic associations.

Camilla alludes to every hooker’s fantasy, Lady of the Camellias, the original Pretty Woman, the novel Alexandre Dumas, fils based on the life of his lover, Marie Duplessis. Verdi turned it into the opera, La Traviata, and numerous filmmakers have retold Marie’s story of the prostitute saved by true love, but they changed her name to Camille. Destiny knew that Camille doesn’t get a happy ending though. Her story ends with death, just like Destiny knew hers would.

Another Camilla is the heroine in Fanny Burney’s eponymous Gothic novel in which the impoverished protagonist searches for true love. The hero’s resemblance to Bill cannot be overlooked. He cares more about the appearance of virtue than its reality, and a judgemental, cold, shallow, and prudish nature hides behind his handsome and chivalrous facade.

This is one indication that dead-eyed Destiny is an alter ego for Sookie, from her identification as a member of the living dead to her mistaken notion that Bill was intestested in sex when he was really just carrying out a mission to procure something cheap and sweet with a hint of the exotic for his monarch.

The name has darker associations, as well.

What is worse than living the short life of an alienated murdered hooker? Rodin’s lover and sculptor in her own right, Camille Claudel, may have been able to answer that question. She was committed, by her family, to the living hell of a mental institution for 30 years, despite the advice of doctors and friends who knew that she was sane.

Is something like this what Sophie Anne is planning for Sookie? Could she be locked in the palace for the rest of her natural life on the word of  her cousin Hadley so that Sophie Anne  can exploit the gift that the world identifies as madness?

Since the names ‘Destiny’ and ‘Camilla’ are brimming with meaning, what can we make of this poor unfortunate’s real name, Ann? Digging deeper past the stripper persona and personal fantasies and artistic foreshadowing, who is she? She is a seer with a gift for speaking truth and understanding what it means for her.

“No point anyway, loving anyone, anything. It feels good at first, but it always turns to crap. I know the truth about life. It’s a hell I’m never get out of alive.”

It’s clear that in her life, Destiny has made mistakes, but, as Andy’s Nanny says, “In the kingdom of the blind, the one eyed man is king,” or at least can see a better than anyone else. Ann is prophesying. Lest this post get too depressing, Destiny’s truth may apply to herself and Bill, but it is not universal. Remember Eric and his life affirming actions and anticipate his joi de vivre. (It’s coming, I promise.) Paraphrasing Sophie Anne, “Destiny and Bill have convinced themselves they are in hell, so they are.”

(Rembrandt’s Mother as Biblical Prophetess Hannah courtesy of Olga’s Gallery)

We know that Ann is an oracle because her name, like the names of other seers in True Blood, is derived from the Biblical prophetess,  Hannah. The difference is that Ms. Jeanette and Nan (remember that an oracle is just a spokesperson for the supernatural) are both fake names used by liars. The opposite is true with Ann; it is her real name, and she speaks the truth.

At the beginning of ’9 Crimes,’ Bill identified himself as Death, or in Greek, Thanatos. In the middle of the episode, he explained Thanatos’s role as procurer, or psychopomp, delivering the living to the world of the dead, and at the end, Thanatos returned from his sabbatical and went back to work, escorting Ann to her destiny as a child made food and devoured.

It would be a mistake to believe that Destiny met her fate solely for the benefit of some hungry vampires. Russell invited us all to take part in the feast in a virtual communion when he looked into the camera and said, “Please join us,”  acknowledging that Destiny’s violation and murder is more for the benefit of our bloodlust than theirs, and making us willing participants in Russell Edington’s false religion, as complicit in murder as were the Weres who drank the blood of Russell’s previous victims during Debbie Pelt’s initiation ceremony.

The child of destiny was delivered unto her fate by Death. And what was the purpose of Ann’s short life? Why was she created, gifted with divine sight, and offered up for us to eat, as if she were Christ himself, a lamb lead to slaughter? Not for our pleasure, but for our edification. Alan Ball is taking Mircea Eliade’s words literally, that religion survives in the secular world through pop fiction, and he is using the tools the Greek dramatists did to develop the Greek character, not fictional characters, but the characters of the Athenians who experienced the drama as part of their religion and thus allowed it to shape who they were and what they believed. Make no mistake Alan Ball intends for us to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The only question is what does he intend to transform us into.

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