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In Arcady there lies a crystal spring
Ring'd all about with green melodious reeds
Swaying seal'd music up and down the wind.
Here on its time-defaced pedestal
The image of a half-forgotten God
Crumbles to its complete oblivion.
- Eleanor Farjeon, in "Pan-Worship"
Poetry. Wildness. Unexpected glimpses of the magical, the divine. The ephemeral sense of something half-remembered, lost forever. Talk to me about it.
~ Kristycat
13 comments:
Let me preface by agreeing that with the throw-it-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach taken by the writers, canonicity of any things that may have been intended but can't actually be determined from the episodes themselves is dubious.
Regarding the influence that the Ones have over the rest of the Cylons: I think this is somewhat vague. There is one important point about the Ones' power that I think you've skipped, which is that at some interbellum point, once the eight new models were established but long before the attacks on the Colonies, the Ones were able to exile the Final Five and meddle with the memories of models 2-8 so that they forgot who the Five were or what their significance to Cylon society was. We have no idea how this was achieved, but it represents a tremendous coup, which raises the question of whether he could only do that once, or if his future disagreements that don't get followed up with mind-hacking are because he has decided to try to win by ideology. We do know that the Ones are big on demonstrations, showing people things just to prove they are broken. The Ones appear to have quite a lot of secret knowledge, such as the presence of hidden resurrection tanks that can pick up the signal of a dying Final Cylon.
Regarding Natalie: I think this can be argued in two entirely different directions. One is that she has a name and we get no onscreen confirmation that she infiltrated the Colonies, therefore her name is unrelated to infiltration; the other is that she has a name and therefore must have been or prepared to be an infiltrator. The scripts, of dubious canonical value, support the latter interpretation, but if they are not counted, I'm not sure the balance automatically swings in favour of the former.
Regarding the religiosity of naming: I'm not sure these are evidenced to be very tightly related. It's true that the Sixes are more religious than most models, and that many of them have unique names, but the only models that might be more religious (Threes, and also Twos in a more pantheistic way) only ever seem to have any attachment to a single name each.
So regarding naming prior to human contact, it is clear from the conversation around Daniel that the Six line had an original name, just as all the other models do, but we never hear what that name is--we don't hear, from any Six we meet, that any of them have chosen to keep it. (It might be Gina, or Natalie Faust, but if so they don't bring it up.) I'm not sure we have evidence that any Cylon chose a name prior to human infiltration, other than the names they may have been given by the Final Five, and clearly the Sixes don't feel any strong attachment to that original name, whatever it may have been.
So, given that it's a name given to her by popular acclaim, given that Sixes seem to regularly choose new names that weren't their model-line name, and given that she seems to swiftly adopt this name and never act like it's anything other than her name, I'm not sure where the insistence comes from that 'Caprica Six' is only a nickname and not a valid name. (There's a Doctor Who tangent here, but I've probably written quite enough already.)
Thette, that was fascinating from a technical standpoint, and very evocative as well. I can quote poetry til the cows come home, but I can't write it. Thanks for posting it!
It reminded me a bit of some of the Irish poems for St. Brigid, who also cared about beasts and fowl, hops and honey.
Thette, that was fascinating from a technical standpoint, and very evocative as well. I can quote poetry til the cows come home, but I can't write it. Thanks for posting it!
It reminded me a bit of some of the Irish poems for St. Brigid, who also cared about beasts and fowl, hops and honey.
I love both the poems listed so far; Amaryllis, the one you quoted in particular resonated a lot with me. Thank you for posting it.
I love both the poems listed so far; Amaryllis, the one you quoted in particular resonated a lot with me. Thank you for posting it.
Thank you, it means a lot to me that it resonates with her devotees, too.
It bothered me, last year, that nobody seemed to be writing fanfiction about Marvel's Thor using Old Norse verse meters, so I started doing it. Turns out, I'm good at it. The old forms of poetry agree with me, they're natural and intuitive poetic expressions of mine. I _own_ those forms of expression.
It also turns out that when you write about the Old Gods in their own verse, they might have a thing or two to say. I don't like it, because I'm an atheist (and I like my non-belief, thank you), but I do get snippets of messages or images to convey.
http://bold-sartorial-statement.tumblr.com/post/38499720043/gift-of-life-from-ground-unfrozen-growing-strong
I can also get that buzzy shift from poetry
That's a good way to put it. And if I get started, I could quote all day.
But I'll confine myself to one of my favorites on the topic of poetry and wilderness,
The Wilderness, by Kathleen Raine.
I came too late to the hills: they were swept bare
Winters before I was born of song and story,
Of spell or speech with power of oracle or invocation...
Yet I have glimpsed the bright mountain behind the mountain,
Knowledge under the leaves, tasted the bitter berries red,
Drunk water cold and clear from an inexhaustible hidden fountain.
I can also get that buzzy shift from poetry
That's a good way to put it. And if I get started, I could quote all day.
But I'll confine myself to one of my favorites on the topic of poetry and wilderness,
The Wilderness, by Kathleen Raine.
I came too late to the hills: they were swept bare
Winters before I was born of song and story,
Of spell or speech with power of oracle or invocation...
Yet I have glimpsed the bright mountain behind the mountain,
Knowledge under the leaves, tasted the bitter berries red,
Drunk water cold and clear from an inexhaustible hidden fountain.
Oh. That poem makes me cry, in a good way. Thank you.
Oh. That poem makes me cry, in a good way. Thank you.
Glimpses of the divine... Sometimes when I'm listening to new music there will be a string of notes or a chord progression that makes me feel like my veins just lit up. Goosebumps and shivers and a sort of wonderful disorientation. It never works to listen to the same music again. I still love the bit that got me originally, but the reaction can never happen again.
Much less frequently, I can also get that buzzy shift from poetry, and even less frequently from paintings.
Oh, where do I begin...
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