One of my favorite Rick moments are when someone is almost dying (or really dying) or has been hurt (badly) in some way and then Rick is all tender with them and emotional and sad that it happened. I just love those moments so much. It shows how much Rick cares, how he thinks it's all his fault (which is sad) and how much he loves people around him. And hand holding also. Touch. With Aaron. Him gently stroking Maggie's hair. Rick holding his son's hand. Oh, when Rick holds Bob's hand. Or with Hershel, the hand holding moment. It's all so beautiful. And the conversations also. Rick being tender and caring and loving is the best. Best and most sad times! Team Family truly is the best.
I’ll never claim to be an expert on predicting what will happen in the narrative of the show. However, when it comes to predicting future symbolism, I’m starting to acquire a somewhat decent track record. I’ve previously explained how I correctly predicted a second Blue Heron painting years in advance (Noah's T-Shirt Theory), and just recently I’ve explained how I predicted a Blue Bird yellow school bus as well as the reference to a Crowned Victoria Pigeon (a nod to Rick’s Ford Crown Victoria Interceptor police car) to occur as symbolism in TWDU (here and here).
I can now add a new symbol to my list of correct predictions; a Jim Morrison of The Doors cameo, or rather one of his tombstone from Cimetiére du Père Lachaise in Paris.
Last year, after the series finale, I wrote a post about the “red” symbolism on the show (Red Is The Living Color). I’ve been tracking the “red” symbolism for years, and wrote about it as early as in 2018. Those old posts are super cringe and I’d rather die than link to them, but I’m mentioning them to illustrate how the symbolism has been here for years and years.
I always interpreted “red” as a reference to "resurrection", or “coming back” from the dead. And in 11x24 RIP, tptb pretty much confirmed that it was, by utilizing a song by the band Living Colour. If that’s not on-the-nose, I don’t know what is. Is red the color of dying? No, it’s the color of living, it’s the “Living Colour” (British spelling on the word "colour"). And where is the reference to red? It's on the actual record itself, it's red. Red Is The Living Color!
While working on the "Red Is The Living Color" post, I kept thinking about how perfect a reference to The Doors would have been. It’s not unheard of for tptb to incorporate references to music and pop culture, especially in relation to the “resurrection” symbolism around Beth. For instance, we saw that as early as back in season 3, when we heard Beth sing a Tom Waits song. We later saw her sing another Tom Waits song about how she wished she was a dog, which is Sirius symbolism galore. Sirius means “return” or in other words, “resurrection”.
So when writing about how the red symbolism often appears in combination with various representations of doors or gates, it made a lot of sense for a The Doors reference to occur at some point, especially when we learned that the Daryl Dixon spin-off were to take place in France and Paris. I knew Jim Morrison had died in Paris, and that his tombstone at the Cimetiére du Père Lachaise was a famous tourist attraction.
Fast forward to TWDDD 1x3. Daryl and Isabelle arrive in Angers. We remember from last episode, they had a bit of an argument on whether to go straight to Paris, or take the longer route through Angers. Isabelle insisted on going via Angers, because she had a contact there who supposedly had a radio (Sirius symbolism). Once they arrived however, it appeared their contact had gone mad and used the radio parts for his hobby project, an orchestra consisting exclusively of dead people. Daryl was unimpressed, and they soon left. The detour to Angers didn’t amount to much, which is peculiar given how much screen time it was given. And the crazy conductor insisted the music was still alive, even if those musicians looked pretty dead to me…
While it was a spectacular show with some truly incredible walkers, it didn’t move the story much further along. So why did tptb include this little dead-end (literally and metaphorically speaking) storyline in the episode? I believe it was to set the tone about “music” and whether it is “dead or alive”…
…because pretty much the next thing we saw was this:
In my post "Red Is The Living Color" from last year, I hypothesized that tptb use “gates” and “doors” as a metaphor for the liminal space "between the realms", where the characters can move from the “realm of the living” to the “death realm”, and sometimes back again. And we tend to see something of the color red nearby, because as I described in my post, red is the color of resurrection. When tptb utilize the "Red Controls The Gates" (RCTG) symbolism, it indicates that the veil between the realms is particularly thin. This is not necessarily a bad thing. In a show like TWD, people “come back” from the dead all the time. We’ve seen Rick “come back”, first in 1x1 Days Gone Bye, and more recently in 11x24 RIP. We saw Glenn “die” in 6x3 and “resurrect” a few episodes later. We’ve seen Madison from FTWD “die” and “resurrect”, and we know that Troy, who was left for dead in Mexico years ago, will return to the final half of FTWD season 8. The RCTG symbolism indicates that "resurrection" is not only possible, it is outright likely in some circumstances. This is why I was so excited about the record from 11x24 RIP. It was tptb telling us that red is the color of resurrection, Red Is The Living Colour!
And like I said, I remember thinking that a reference to The Doors would be absolutely perfect for this type of symbolism.
Et voilà!
After the spectacular though frustrating detour to Angers, the next thing we saw was…Jim Morrison’s tombstone, with a record and three red roses (three tree/trunk symbolism). If a tombstone doesn't represent the "gate" between the "realm of the living" and the "realm of the dead", I don't know what does.
And as we know, the "gates” between the realms goes both ways. People can move in and out through the gates, as we've seen with multiple characters.
(ETA: I also now realize there's a vase next to the record, so perhaps this applies...)
The gates between the realms appear to be wide open!
Hi i have a question please why is there a warning given if you write for bio siblings?
hi lovely!!
i give a warning because if a fic is requested with bio sibling’s, i like to warn that it might not be POC friendly! if a fic is not requested, they are usually POC friendly.
say someone requested a dustin henderson sister/brother bio fic, it wouldn’t be POC friendly unfortunately, as that particular character is white.
my blogs will always be POC friendly, if requested for a bio sibling of course, it may not be unfortunately, though skin colour is not usually mentioned in my posts, its going to be assumed when writing for bio siblings. like i said, skin colour usually wont be mentioned, so you can always read it as though the o/c or reader is adopted!
thank you for the question though, i hope this answered it! 💕