#I could write an essay on it and I’m not even being hyperbolic LMAO | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sterwood · 6 years

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it's wild to see how so much of your content is relatively high-effort (you don't seem to just make claims and make it your audience's task to figure out what the fuck you're saying) and even wilder how homestuckposting is the exception to that. I fundamentally disagree that it's good, and I feel like if you had a good argument to the contrary you'd have posted it by now.

This is such a weird ask to me, since I’ve barely been postinganything of substance lately given that I’ve been so damn busy with grad schoolstuff. (And the stuff I’ve been reading, thinking about, etc., wouldn’t makefor very good posts here, since it’s a lot of stuff about Rawls and pragmatismand I just...don’t care, lmao.)

But at the same time: thank you! That’s a very nice thing to see,that one’s effort is recognized even if the culmination of that effort isdisagreed with.

As far as the homestuck stuff goes though, part of the reason Ihaven’t given any justification of it is that I don’t really see it needing anyjustification, insofar as I’m not often making claims about how great it isoutside of some obviously hyperbolic claims. It’s mostly a private interest,forged out of a depression-fueled quick-read of the comic and the fact that thecomic appeals to a bunch of personal interests/themes/etc. I do think it’sactually great, but I haven’t put forth any effort to flesh out that claim or convinceothers of it in any serious way, mostly because I figure that no one cares.

I’ll attempt to spell out a few reasons that I think it’s very good,or at least important, but I want to recognize at the outset that I’m at adisadvantage in talking about this. You say that you ‘fundamentallydisagree that it’s good’ and that I probably have some ready made argument ofwhy it is, in fact, good. Since you’re anonymous, there’s no set standardbetween us for evaluating this claim (good/bad how?),and so I kind of just have to jump in with some generalities about the comic.If you’re serious with your intent in sending this message though (and I thinkyou are, since you started out with a compliment that shows me that you’veprobably given a looking over at my blog and even, dare I say, follow me onhere), then feel free to message me after with something more specificabout why you don’t think it’s good, so at least there’scommon set of propositions that we’re working with (”I think it’s bad becauseit’s overly convoluted” to which I’d disagree; “I think it’s bad becauseof the whole tumblr parody which was really reactionary” to which I’d agree;etc.) and we could move from there.

Let’s move on though. (This will be along post, and I apologize, especially for those on mobile.)

Reasons why Homestuck is At LeastImportant

There’s two major reasons why I thinkhomestuck (HS) is important, or at least should be regarded as a significantmedia product. Firstly, I think it’s a unique contribution to what mediaproducts can do on the internet;secondly, I think it’s important by virtue of what it contributed to mediaculture generally. Note, in this section I’m not strictly saying why I thinkthe comic is good, but only why I think it’s worth paying attention to,especially if you’re a media studies student, say, or someone interested incultural studies generally or whatever. But let’s turn to both of those points.

A quick reflection: I remember howfrustrated I was growing up when I would read articles online that were aboutmovies or paintings or some piece of visual culture that would only pointtowards the media product. I was frustrated, because there seemed to be noreason to simply talk about mediaproducts when you could actually incorporate them into your discussions. Whyonly talk about a scene in a movie, say, when you could include a clip of thatscene in your essay to provide more exacting context? Media productions andcommentaries weren’t simply bound to text, but writers and creators tended to restrictthemselves to this without need. (There are some reasons for this, especiallywith the state of the internet 9 years ago or so [when homestuck began],principally that pictures and videos loaded slowly and would be overlycumbersome. Still, I was frustrated at the unrealized potential.)

I was similarly frustrated by the typeof content that popped up in most webcomics that I was reading at the time. In2010, I believe, I took an on-campus job working in a geology lab. There waslittle work to be done, and, being nineteen, I stupidly blew off the smallamount of work I had. Even in blowing off that work, though, I still needed tooccupy my time while I was working in the office, and for whatever reason Itook to reading a lot of webcomics. I read all of Questionable Content, xkcd,Diesel Sweeties, Achewood, and (most important for my appreciation of HS,coincidentally) Goats. I didn’t actually read HS at this time (that didn’thappen until 2015), but this set the scene for eventually reading it. And whilereading all of these comics, despite liking them, I was sometimes frustratedhow they still read like traditional comics. It was hard to see how thesecomics were webcomics: I couldn’t seeanything that made them particularly different from normal comics, except forwhere they happened to be located.

In this context, Homestuck is the firstpiece of media that I’m aware of (and certainly the largest) which actually expandedthe ways that a comic could operate. Instead of a series of panels with textincorporated, Homestuck is primarily single panel pages with lots of textattributed to them underneath (of course, this barrage of text is also why manydon’t care for the comic). But it is also a series of flash videos, embeddedvideo games, youtube videos, parody accounts (like the DeviantArt one), albums,etc. It really is astoundingly expansive. Again, this is neither good nor bad,but is a reason for its importance. This is the first media production that I’maware of that attempted to take up the internet as a medium for communicationin its full power (even including user generated actions up through parts ofAct 5). This, alone, would make Homestuck worth paying attention to, even ifonly antagonistically.

Now for the second (shorter) point. Isaw someone joke once that HS is ‘the comic of the Obama era’ since it spansthe whole of his presidency, more-or-less (2009-2016). In that time, it createda *massive* internet presence that simultaneously influenced the content,themes, style, and other aspects of many diverse media forms (the wholeUndertale experience is just one gigantic branch sprouting from this Yggdrasilof memes known as Homestuck). It’s impossible to account for the massive impactthat Andrew Hussie has had on the content and form of the internet as weexperience it today (I mean, for one minor aspect of this, just look atSB&HJ and how those aesthetics have informed a massive amount of memecreation).

In this sense, I think it’s impossibleto regard HS as anything other than important. The pure, impossible to measurecultural impact it has had on media artifacts that we enjoy daily—even if theydon’t seem connected—is hard to overstate. For this reason alone, readingthrough some of HS is probably something worth doing (again, even if it’s onlydone antagonistically). To put this somewhat polemically, at the very leastHomestuck should be read as many novels are: not as a great artistic work, butas a window into a certain kind of cultural logic operating during a given timeperiod. And if that is the approach taken, then it’s hard to try and movepassed HS: I can think of no other media product that has had more of asingular impact, more breadth, and more userinteraction than HS has had on popular culture (except for, perhaps, HarryPotter, though that’s in an entirely different way and also—here’s,potentially, my real polemic—HS is much better).

Now on to some reasons why HS may, infact, actually be good.

Reasons why Homestuck is Good

I’ll break this into a few (hopefullyshort) themes: pacing, conversations, villainy, coherence, characterization, and (most controversially) the ending. (I would urge you—thecollective ‘you’ that may have been foolish enough to get this far—to not readthat last section if you haven’t read the comic. I’m trying to keep thisspoiler free, by and large, because part of my purpose in writing this is tosuggest that you should read it aswell [keep in mind Kant’s claim that aesthetic judgements are normativejudgements, lmao], though I think the ending is too important not to tough onto some extent.)

Pacing.HS does one of the oddest and most interesting things I’ve seen with pacing inany sort of media production. Perhaps this is a reason why some people haven’tenjoyed the comic, but it’s one of the reasons that I find it so thrilling toread, even on my multiple re-reads. The comic tends to move at a snail’s pace,with conversations that drag on and don’t advance the plot much (but they dodevelop characters, so it’s notuseless dialog by any means). This pace is enjoyable, but can get frustratingwhen you can see elements of the story building up to…something. Then, in abrilliant flash, the story erupts with tons of action: many diverse strands ofthe story are woven together into a single tapestry, lending coherence,consistency, and progress to the story. And the contrast between the slowtextual pace and the hyperspeed of the flash videos. The most obvious case ofthis is [S] Cascade, though I’d rather focus on [S] Make Her Pay, because Ithink it’s one of the strongest moments in the comic. (You can see the videohere, if you’re interested: https://www.homestuck.com/story/2578.A warning, though: I believe the video still autoplays, and it has music, sojust beware before opening that link.)

I don’t think I’m spoiling much bypointing to this flash video, since I think that almost everyone that has heardof homestuck at least knows that characters often referred to as ‘the Trolls’play an important part. They show up at the beginning of Act 5, which isperhaps a quarter of the way through the comic (given that [S] Cascade isnearly the halfway point). Their entrance into the story marks a kind of ‘reboot’to the story, where similar themes, tropes, etc. that were built in earlieracts are redeployed with these new characters. Further, it marks a definiteincrease in the complexity of thestory, given that it focuses on 12 difference characters, rather than 4, as thestory had done so far. The whole of Act 5 up until [S] Make Her Pay had beentext-based storytelling: detailing the complicated and twisted history of these‘troll’ characters, their involvement in the ‘game’ that forms the basis forthe whole of HS, and exploring new depths for the comic. But it is alsoslow-moving: the comic even makes reference to this pace in multiple partswhere it coyly talks about how we, the readers, ‘don’t have time’ to exploresome such gag, or go into depth about some story point, or to develop a flashanimation for some aspect of the story (e.g. Karkat’s Strife! with his lusus). This all is cut through with theappearance in the story of [S] Make Her Pay, which weaves the whole of Act 5Act 1 together, filling in many gaps of history that were left intentionallyunexplored at that point, and advancing the story by leaps and bounds. Therhetorical and affective dimensions of this contrast are hard to emphasizeenough: going slowly through all this history, all this plot, all this teen drama, in one of the longesttext-only sequences in the comic, only to have that pace flipped upside down bya single short video that connects so many disparate strands is really,well…exhilarating. It’s one of the things that makes the comic so intenselyenjoyable, dynamic, and, I think, worthwhile. I’ve never seen another piece ofmedia do such wonderful things with pacing.

Conversations.Due to this varied pacing, the majority of the comic is comprised of longdialogues. These dialogues have strong rules of how they’re allowed to beconducted, though. Conversations (until a certain element is introduced intothe story) have to take place through some medium: through a chat client(similar to AOL/MSN messengers), dreams, sprites, hand-written messages, etc.No direct conversations can happen between two people. There’s always somethinggetting in the way of conversations. I’ve never seen anything other than HScapture this element of conversations in the 21st century,especially without taking some condescending tone about how ‘screens rule ourlives’ or something. The fact that all the speech in the comic is mediated bysome form of media isn’t meant as a critique, but an accurate representation ofmany actual dialogues that happen. Perhaps this is only a good part of HSbecause it appeals to some of my sensibilities, so I’ll keep this short, butit’s an aspect that makes me enjoy the comic a lot. Growing up in the late90s/early 00s (I graduated high school in 2009, for a sense of my timelinehere), and having forged many friendships—even with friends I knew‘IRL’—through similar chat clients and such, this aspect of the comic simplyseems very real and intimate to me. I know that weird sense of closeness withpeople that you only, or primarily, know through text, and the kind of yearningthat can engender—and I think HS captures that very well.

Villainy.In sending your message, I assume you were prompted by the post I rebloggedthat mentioned that HS features many of the standard tropes of a literary epic.Of those kinds of tropes, one that wasn’t mentioned (and which tends to beparticular to post-1940s epics or pseudo-epics) is the presence of some kind ofabsolute evil entity which corrupts and destroys beyond any realm ofrationality. A figure of ‘radical evil’ if you will: an evil which is cold,calculating, perhaps even intelligent in many respects, but which displays akind of horrifying excess of humanness which is warped into some kind ofabominable evil. HS has such a figure and fleshes him out very well, and healso ends up being one of the best characters in the story (best in the senseof developed, engaging, important, etc. – not ‘good,’ obviously): Caliborn.

Caliborn (and LE) is a reallyinteresting villain because, as Dave mentions at one point, he hasn’t had muchof a direct evil influence over any aspect of the story (“what kind ofvillain is someone you never met who hardly did anything evil to you or yourfriends directly/or even to anyone in your universe for that matter other thanthrough some vague insidious influence/who even is this guy and why should ihate him” (6385)). By and large, he’s been absent fromany direct engagement with any character in the story, and yet his evil isomnipresent. As his constantly tagline goes “he is already here.”

The major way in which Caliborn is evilis through excessively narcissistic he is, how thoroughly self-involved, andhow he desires to make his will reality in all instances. He bends the fabricof time around himself to propagate and ensure his own existence: hisimmortality is guaranteed simply because he will to continue existing. His evilis systemic: it’s the very (genetic) code of the gaming session that all themain characters of the story occupy, and all of its other instances as well.

Further, there’s a level of ambivalentcruelty mixed with enjoyment that we get in Caliborn’s character that’s hard tosee matched in any other literary figure that comes to my mind. Yes, much ofhis dialogue is full of jokes and statements that make him seem very, verystupid, arrogant, etc. But there are a few scenes where we get a sense that heis a kind of primordial, absolute evil, who sees the very purpose of hisexistence as that of wrecking pain and terror across many instances ofuniverses. Two such scenes suffice here. (Potential spoilers follow in the restof this section.) The first is from when Caliborn enters his own session:consumed with hatred for the only other living being he’s known (albeitdirectly), he kills off a part of himself and awakens with joy. He thenproceeds to remove his own leg forcefully (that kind of dedication through painis frightening), and initiate the game. While everything is being sucked into ablack hole behind him, while the whole of his world and life are beingdestroyed around him, he is seen smiling serenely with his eyes closed. He cansmile, because he knows that this is the beginning of his dominance overeverything: this destruction is a prelude to him carrying out his will todestroy everything forever and in all ways. It is, quite simply, chilling.

The second scene happens in a shortconversation with Jake. This comment comes across almost as a joke, but itreally highlights the depth of evil he occupies. In talking about what it meansto be a ‘Lord’ in terms of his class, and how he came to recognize hispotential within this class, he says that “NOW I KNOW. THAT WHAT ITTAKES FOR ME TO LEARN AND GROW STRONGER./IS EXCRUCIATING EFFORT./SO I HAVE ACHOICE. WHICH IS TO EITHER BE WEAK./WHEN WEAKNESS IS COMPLETELYUNACCEPTABLE./OR TO SUFFER. FOREVER. UNTIL NO ONE ELSE EXISTS.” (5671). Despitethe presentation (Caliborn’s manner of speaking often undercuts the severity ofwhat he’s saying, but it’s important for a reader to keep this in mind), thisidea that Caliborn is willing to endure infinite suffering and pain to ensurethat his will is carried out—a will that desire the utter elimination of allthings throughout all of existence—is honestly terrifying. He is a characterwhose evil isn’t marked by any singular action (again, as Dave mentioned), butby a relentless drive. To be a bit obtuse here, Caliborn is basically theLacanian ‘lamella,’ especially in the sense that the lamella “doesn’t exist,but persists.” Caliborn suffers beyond life and death, as a half-dead creature(I mean, to really put the point explicitly here, the lamella is a half-dead,abject excess of life, and Caliborn is a skull monster who through the sheerforce of will ensures the necessity of his continued existence): he is evilincarnate, and I’ve never seen such a radical evil presented in a better waythan through HS. This is honestly one of the biggest literary achievements ofHS, and that’s why I’m dwelling on it at length. But let’s continue

Coherence.This may seem like an odd category, since I believe that many see HS asexcessively chaotic and unstructured. I thoroughly disagree and thinking thatthe overwhelming coherence of this nearly decade-long story is part of whatmakes it so good. This is apparent in the many jokes and themes that arecarried through the comic, even at a distance of thousands of panels (twoimmediate examples jump out at me: the joke about how Sassacre’s text could‘kill a cat’ that’s realized after about 4500 pages, or the ‘bleating like agoat for ironic purposes’ gag that’s realized in about the same span). Further,this coherence is built into the overall structure of the comic: the fact thatthe first half of the comic takes place within about a day’s time whereas thelatter half takes place over 3 years (punctuated at the end by a lot of actionat the end) shows that the general structure of the comic follows the patternof pacing mentioned above. There is a lot more I could point to that would showjust how wonderfully coherent the whole HS story is, but I’m not sure if that’sa useful exercise upfront. It’d be more useful to talk about coherence inresponse to a dispute over whether some aspect of HS was coherent or not—absentthat, there doesn’t seem to be much of a point in detailing such here, otherthan to note that I do believe that the comic is generally very well puttogether (with the ending being a big bit of punctuation on this point).

Characterization.Andrew Hussie did two primary things with characterization that I appreciateand find worthwhile in the comic. The first thing he did was give a lot ofspace for characterization. We end up knowing a ton of information about thecharacters in the comic and a good 90% of it is relevant in some way to theplot (some of it is just interesting details, which is more or less fine whenyou have a character driven story where the characters are likable). Thesecharacters are dynamic and fully fleshed out in almost all cases (Nepeta is probablythe one major exception to this, though she even got a bit more development inthe end that pulled her away from just being a lolcat meme). Sure, any goodstory should have characterization like this, but I think the length ofhomestuck allows it to happen in really supple and subtle ways: the majority ofcharacters in the story are multi-faceted characters who develop in believableways over time that come into conflicts that sometimes just aren’t resolved.There’s also the willingness to have characters that are just irredeemablyhorrible people, without trying to shoehorn some kind of redemption arc in(Eridan is a nice example of this: he’s a thoroughly detestable and horribleperson, and there is no possible way to see him in a good light in a fairreading of the text [the HS fandom, which is not on trial here and should beexcluded from most all of these statements, has tried to make him into asympathetic character time and time again, and this is only possible becausethey’re reading the comic badly]). Further, and lastly on this point, due tothe depth of characterization, there’s also a lot of great between-characterinteractions in the comic: not great because they’re funny or witty orwhatever, but because they show the depth of character and work and a mutualrecognition of that depth between characters. The speech that Dirk gives aboutRoxy before their session’s versions of Derse and Prospit were destroyed is agreat example of this (and one of the greatest tragedies of the comic, from areader standpoint, is that Dirk never gets to tell Roxy any of that directly,at least not in any manner that we see).

Secondly, and this is heavily relatedto the first point, the depth of characterization that Hussie gives to theplayers in HS allows him to start with kind of obvious and one-dimensionalstereotypes of characters and morph them into something fully fleshed. And hedoes this not by simply inverting the roles of those stereotypes of something(which is common in a lot of ‘ironic’ pieces of media that try and overturn themajor tropes working within a given genre) but by fully fleshing outcharacters. I think this may be most apparent in someone like Dave. He beganthe comic by being a stereotype of some kind of hipster-bro, and almost all ofhis jokes, interactions, and conversations revolved around this stereotype. Itwas even folded into his personal mythology: because he’s the coolest, the mostcapable, etc., he’s the one that’s ‘meant to’ take down LE when all is said anddone. Slowly though, through confronting the stupidity that his mythologyforces him into (like having welsh swords as key items, for some reason) andalso confronting the death of his ‘bro’ and the feelings that stirred in him,he comes much more of a fully fleshed character. And by the end of the entirecomic, as he’s confronting issues of cross-cultural exchange, his ownrelationship to his abusive upbringing, his conflicted feelings about how tosituate his sexuality, etc., Dave has easily become one of the most thoroughlyrealized characters in the entirety of HS. That’s a hard thing to do when you’restarting with stereotypes of characters (which, it should be added, wasnecessary given the types of stories and games that Hussie was trying to riffoff of in developing HS) and end up with something thoroughly real, and HSshould be commended for being able to do such on many different fronts.

[I was going to add another piece aboutthe nice temporal dynamics of the comic, taking place originally over a day andthen over the course of three years, but this is already long enough and I’vementioned this part of HS a bit above, so I’ll let it be.]

TheEnding. I had a literature professor onceremark that the most conservative part of novels is the ending, because itforecloses on all of the openness and contingency at work during the otherparts of the novel. This is true for most pieces of media, and is why theendings of most things are bad (I’m replaying Mass Effect right now and it’sreminded me of two of my least favorite endings in media ever: that game, andBattlestar Galactica). I think HS, in many ways, gets around this problem.

To celebrate the ending of HS iscontentious, I know. It was mostly hated among the fandom. But I really thinkthat the ending is one of the most flawlessly executed pieces of the wholecomic. Many people were mad at the ending because it ‘left so many questions’open—but this is precisely why it’s good. It allows us to see that thecharacters continue to exist in some form or another, that their relationshipsdevelop, but it doesn’t answer every question that the comic poses, nor does iteven attempt to give us a rubric for evaluating those questions in anydefinitive way. Further, the ending is *genuinely surprising.* In a comic that’srevolved around a plot point of a ‘final boss’ that must be faced andvanquished, the comic surprisingly ends without this boss being defeated in anysimple manner. Instead, the main characters simply escape the confines of the ‘game’that they’ve been playing: a game that has brought them isolation, tragedy, andendless fear. The major resolution of the story comes through the charactersjust being allowed to live for a while, to enjoy their lives. That’s why theending text for the story isn’t “and they lived happily ever after” (or somesimilar cliché), but “Thanks for playing”—a sign that the worst is in the pastand that the lives of these characters is now truly beginning in a way that’s totallyup to them. That’s why, in the afterward,we get a snapchat story that shows various pieces of the lives of these characters,up through John’s 21st birthday. It was the best solution to such acomplex, diverse, and nearly decade-spanning comic: to allow the characters tohave some space to actually live on.

It was also the single best way ofdealing with this ‘final boss’—Lord English. In his form as Caliborn, as quotedabove, he’s a character that’s willing to suffer forever if it means that hehas complete control over the existence of the whole of reality. The best wayto ‘destroy’ such a character isn’t to have them killed (that would simply markan endpoint to their terror, but LE wouldn’t experience it as anything bad, torturous,etc.), but to have them trapped within a dimension all to themselves. By theend of the comic, LE is trapped in the game, with no means of escape, and isbound to the rules and logic of such a game. Sure, he’s omnipotent within thatsphere of influence, but all the characters have moved on to something else.This assigns him to a fate worse than death: to suffer forever without, throughthat suffering, attaining control and power over others. In this sense, I feelthat the ending that Hussie designed for HS is the only reasonable ending: andpulling off such a wonderful ending to such a long and complex comic is quitean achievement—especially since, as I’ve mentioned, this ending didn’t simply ‘tieloose ends’ or anything. It resolved the central tension of the story while(intentionally) leaving other tensions and questions unresolved and unanswered.It was—and this is rare for most any piece of media—a fully realized,thoughtful, and incredible ending to a story that I find to be one of the bestI have read in very many, many years.

And so that’s it. I was going toinclude another section about how HS is at least not-bad where I list common reasons that the comic is seen as badand show that they miss the mark, but this is long enough as is (9 pages inword). So I’ll leave this here. This isn’t a total justification of why I likehomestuck or why I think it’s worth paying attention to, I haven’t addressedmany of the major points, but I think I’ve made the case, at least partially,for why I think the comic might be worth taking a look into. Beyond that, I don’treally know what I can do, given that I’m only working with the message placed inmy inbox. But considering that most don’t care….that’s probably more thanenough, lmao.

#I got kind of tired near the end #hence why the responses start going less in depth (whoops)#homestuck #mine #Anonymous

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all-usernames-are-taken-swift · 7 years

Text

poetry analytical essay I wrote last year on ‘State Of Grace’

((This is super random and long I’m sorry lmao @taylorswift ))

Taylor Swift is an American singer-songwriter who, since the release of her debut album, has become a household name and a savvy businesswoman who has built a childhood dream into an empire. Predominantly renowned for narrating her romantic life, Swift’s song, State of Grace, is no different. As the fourth and final promotional single from her fourth studio album “Red”, State of Grace – when released – played an integral part in signalling the departure from Swift’s typical country/pop style. The song, instead, bears a more alternative rock vibe.

The underlying message of State of Grace, described by Taylor herself, is all about “…when you first fall in love with someone - the possibilities and kind of thinking about the different ways it could go… the feeling of falling in love in an epic way.” Taylor explores the idea of falling in love when you least expect it, without realising you have fallen for someone. When you do, you recognize that you will never be the same. She also engages with many other types of love; romantic love, impulsive love, new love, infatuation and sexual love, all through her ingenious use of poetic and song writing techniques.

It is safe to assume that the voice of the song is Taylor herself. We can assume this on account of her use of the pronouns “I” and “we”, which implies she is narrating her own story. The only other character prevalent in the song is her love interest, to whom, she seems to be singing to or about.

Throughout the first verse, Taylor makes use of rhyming couplets. Rhyming couplets are pairs of lines with the same rhyme and meter. Taylor introduces her song with the words “I’m walking fast through the traffic lights / Busy streets and busy lives.” Both lines have a distinctive beat and establish the song’s pace. The traffic lights could be meant in a literal sense, in which case Taylor is using imagery to set the scene of a crowded city street. At first glance, I was under the impression that the “we” in “…all we know/is touch and go…” was referring to the two characters in the song. However, I realised that Taylor is addressing the world in general. She seems to conclude that humans tend to rush through life, with no sense of what matters – we are unaware of what is to come. The following lines “We are alone with our changing minds/We fall in love ‘til it hurts or bleeds or fades in time” include examples of personification and they have a negative tone. As love is a human desire, we do not want to surrender. Even when we are given the chance, we won’t take it.

The pre-chorus “I never saw you coming/And I’ll never be the same” further reiterates the idea of love that catches you off-guard.

The second verse begins with the line “You come around and the armour falls/Pierce the room like a cannonball.” The armour falling is symbolic of the feeling of vulnerability we experience when falling in love. Taylor is saying that as soon as this person has come into her life, all the walls she built up, they tear down. The cannonball is both a hyperbole, since you can’t really pierce the room, as well as a metaphor, as a cannonball is sharp, dangerous and dramatic. This is the type of love being expressed in the song. The line following, “Up in your room and our slates are clean/Just twin fire signs/Four blue eyes,” contain the metaphor of the ‘clean slates,’ meaning a fresh start, with no previous impressions. The line “twin fire signs” is symbolic. The element for the astrological sign, Sagittarius, is fire. As Taylor is a Sagittarius and blue eyed, this line implies that the boy she is talking about is also a fire sign and has blue eyes. This gives an important clue as to whom the song may be directed at.

The third verse is simple and full of clever literary techniques. The lyric “We learn to live with the pain/Mosaic broken hearts,” again reinforces the overarching message of the song: that love is painful, but we persevere because we are scared to lose it. ‘Mosaic broken hearts’ is an oxymoron, simply because a mosaic consists of pieces put together and a broken heart is just that: broken and near impossible to put back together. The metaphor “But this love is brave and wild,” seems unusual, because despite all the risks, suddenly we will do anything for this love.

The fourth verse is where Taylor finally mentions the lyrics “state of grace.” The lines “This is a state of grace/This is the worthwhile fight” are paradoxical. A state of grace is pleasant and pure, whereas a fight is harsh, far from pleasant and worthwhile. Taylor also uses personification is the lyrics “these are the hands of fate,” to assure us that love relies entirely on fate – if it is meant to be, it is meant to be. By far the most significant metaphor in this song is the line “You’re my Achilles heel.” This is a direct reference to the Greek mythological character. According to Greek mythology, Achilles was taken by his mother to the River Styx, which had powers of invulnerability. Achilles’ body was dipped into the water so as to prevent his death. Achilles’ mother had held him by the heel, thus that was the only part of his body not washed over by the magical river. One day, a poisonous arrow was shot into Achilles’ heel, killing him instantly. There are other versions of this myth, but the expression “Achilles’ heel” refers to weakness, which Taylor has interpreted into her song to mean an internal weakness.

Although the song is primarily interpreted as a love song about a boy, some argue that it could be related to Christianity and the love of god. ‘State of Grace’ is referenced in Christian theology and can mean being free from sin. In many other religions, ‘State of Grace’ is the process of becoming holy or pure.

Despite the controversy, Taylor Swift’s main message in the song is simple. Love is risky. You have everything to lose, but you jump anyway because the fall is just that good.

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LMAO this is how obsessed I am, I even sang the song before I read the essay out in class hahahahahahah send help..!!! #swiftieforlife @taylorswift

#this is how obsessed I am #swiftie and proud

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