#i know one of brenda's sisters has said that when allen dies basically that both god and brenda will hold him accountable for failing to

[alliluyevas]

have you read/watched Under the Banner of Heaven? curious for your thoughts on it! If you already posted about it in the past pls feel free to link me

Thank you for the question!!! I have in fact both read and watched Under the Banner of Heaven. It was actually the first Mormon-history book I read way back in spring of 2021. I had just watched a Hulu documentary about FLDS and I wanted to read more about modern-day Mormon fundamentalists so I checked it out from the library and was hooked! I wanted to find out more about the origins and history of Mormonism, having had my interest piqued by the book, and the rest is history. I haven't reread the book since and I definitely know way more about both historical and modern Mormonism now, so it would be interesting to reread and see if it holds up. (One quibble: after reading about the 1988 Singer/Swapp siege more recently, I don't know why Krakauer didn't include a discussion of this event in UTBOH. It would have been a natural fit with his discussion of Mormon fundamentalist violence.)

I saw the show, on the other hand, when it came out and I knew way more about Mormon history. I thought it was fantastic. Very strong acting, writing, directing, deeply compelling, etc. I think the addition of Andrew Garfield's and Gil Birmingham's characters and the storyline about Jeb's faith deconstruction and Taba's Native American perspective really added a lot of depth. I also liked the way that their stories and the story of the investigation were woven together with both the recent history of the Lafferty family and the 19th century history of the church.

I would say that my primary issue with the show is that Allen Lafferty is written much more sympathetically than I find the real-life Allen, who was aware that his brothers had made death threats against his wife to a much greater extent than is portrayed in the show and did absolutely nothing about it. I think Allen bears a greater degree of responsibility for Brenda and Erica's deaths than the show would lead you to believe, and I know that Brenda's parents and siblings feel/felt that way, while the show depicts him going to stay with them in the final episode. (Also, while I don't know if Allen's religious struggles as depicted in the show are inaccurate to what he was going through at the time, he and his current wife are very much orthodox LDS, to the point where his wife has a Youtube channel with the two of them giving testimony, which I feel like doesn't really reflect well on him given like. everything.)

Edit: oh, and one issue I have with the historical flashbacks is that it kind of lampshades the conspiracy theory about John Taylor being in on Joseph Smith's murder which I think was kind of irresponsible of them because it's literally fringe nonsense and my behated.

#i know one of brenda's sisters has said that when allen dies basically that both god and brenda will hold him accountable for failing to #protect her :(