#it feels like it undermines it somehow. when that confrontation is about shifting narrative perspective and autonomy and control.

[commsroom]

Hi, you’ve probably already addressed this at some point and I’ve simply missed it, but what’s your thoughts on Hera’s ending? (Particularly, how Pryce just removes the ‘I can’t do this, I’m not good enough’ line, and she stops glitching?) Personally it always felt rather… bad, honestly, given the whole “they could’ve made me better, they made me me” thing, if that makes sense?

hi! first: that absolutely makes sense, and i'm also very sensitive to anything that seems to "fix" disability or trauma, so i understand where you're coming from. that was not personally my takeaway about hera in the finale; i'll try to explain why:

pryce didn't remove that loop from hera's head. i don't think she could have - even if it's technically possible for her to do (and she is capable of a lot more than maxwell), she just had her mind wiped and wouldn't have access to that information, and even if she did retain it on an instinctual level, that would require allowing pryce access to the most vulnerable parts of hera's mind. and she would never allow that. there's a reason pryce is still a prisoner.

hera speaks to pryce not for reconciliation, but for reclamation. she's lived her whole life in fear of what pryce (and people like pryce) can do to her, with every aspect of who she is and what she does controlled and dictated by anyone with power over her. the finale opens with pryce telling her life's story from her perspective - at once self-mythologizing and self-victimizing - and, the final time we ever hear from or about pryce, hera is about to tell her own story. we never find out what was actually said, or how pryce reacted, because it doesn't matter. hera gets to take control of her own narrative. hera gets to confront her abuser, and feel in control and safe from harm.

it's worth keeping in mind that hera doesn't glitch consistently. that's one of the things i think also makes it a useful comparison to chronic illness. when, why, and how much hera glitches was an intentionally crafted part of the sound design. it happens more often, and more intensely, when she's stressed out, overwhelmed, or upset.

and, with that in mind... the ending leaves the characters on a generally positive note, because it's the end of the show and that's the feeling it wants to leave you with: that everything will be more or less okay, in the end. but it isn't the end of their lives. once they get back to earth, a lot of things are going to be very difficult for hera. even in the final scene, she says she's not ready to go back, but "when has that ever stopped us before?" when she's able to honestly say she's good, i don't think that means she's good forever. just, in that moment, that's a crucial step in her healing process, and i hope in the future she'll have a lot more moments that feel like that one.

#wolf 359 #w359 #hera wolf 359 #i haven't been tagging asks or. even a lot of posts. but i want to file this one. anyway. #hi! thank you for asking. it's a good question and a topic i care about. #and i always love to talk about hera. she's so dear to me. #i think hera will still glitch post-canon. the fact she doesn't for that period of time is just an indicator of her emotional state. #it makes sense to me that hera would be the most okay she's... maybe ever been. knowing pryce doesn't have the power to hurt her #and i hope that remains true. but ultimately i think that's also why i don't personally want pryce to have a post-canon narrative at all #it feels like it undermines it somehow. when that confrontation is about shifting narrative perspective and autonomy and control. #who gets to tell their story. who gets to be heard. #i don't really care what pryce does as long as she stays away from hera. i'm not interested in a story about anything else. #that's a little tangential but. related. #and i hope this answered your question!! #asks

[nomdeguerreblogs]

Anon said…

Thank you for all the great analysis you put out there for us to dive into and enjoy! … I’ve been wondering for a long time about how you visualize the 2 years between s2 and s3? I’m talking about the tommy x grace dinamic/story. I would love to hear about your take on it xx

Hi anon! Sorry this has taken ages but the truth is you stumped me. I don’t visualise what went on then largely because I’m still really sad about s3 and kind of in denial that it ever existed. I’m pleased you liked the fic because it was my answer to that. Another way I’m dealing with it is channeling anger, I wrote thousands of words about how Peaky has undermined one of its plot threads by failing to deliver anything that felt authentic and real between the main romantic coupling when it had the chance. But it doesn’t feel that useful in this context, maybe. Anyway, what follows is the meta fill-in-the-gaps approach (plus a bit of indulgent headcanon) because what Peaky shows is only a part of what Peaky is, and it keeps telling us those years must have been golden, so. Here goes…

Episode 2.06 is for Tommy and Grace a recontextualisation of 1.06, and I think you could assume that “When you get back from the races I won’t be here,” becomes her staying and waiting by that tent until he gets there. The relief and joy is palpable. He talks Grace down from the ceiling after the delay and her confrontation with May and she relents because he’s so earnest and shattered. “That could change” becomes some kind of proposal, and the ‘all my love’ of the letter becomes words spilling from his mouth. It’s decided that Grace will pursue a divorce with Clive (who probably returns to the US while she stays, any sense of social propriety now definitely out the window). Tommy trots off to the office all buoyant and Alex Turner and announces his intentions of marriage to Michael (who probably thinks he’s gone utterly barmy). Then Tommy sorts out those bookies’ licences burned at Epsom and the Shelbys are quids in. Legal. And BOOM! Fucking everything: a legitimate (if slightly shady) way to make piles of cash, like he always wanted and promised Grace in 1919; and a life with the woman he loves who is carrying his child. Arrow House (suggesting the inevitability of Cupid’s dart, also the kingly pursuit of hunting which is relevant for other reasons) is purchased and is appropriately impressive (as well as rubbing the wealth of the nouveau riche in the faces of the gentry who needed to sell, something which would have no doubt pleased him - remember the ‘more money than all those toffs combined’ line).

Now you need to delve into imagination - Tommy and Grace live in Arrow House in sin. And like at the first series Garrison, she’s always there when he returns from somewhere to talk, and now kiss and hold. His domestic idyll come true. They talk about everything and nothing. They help each other in ways intentional and tangible - she does the Foundation, he does the racetracks; and ways ineffable. There is laughter. They ride horses, gallop across fields and jump streams feeling free and wild. They sip tea and read the papers. Sometimes they put a record on the gramophone and dance together. They go to the races and soirees and drink Champagne and sparkle and are almost never not touching somehow. He is incredibly proud to be with her. She lifts and lights him as he brings her to earth. They make love like it’s sacred and rise clean as air; pulse on pulse and breath on breath they become part of each other. They sleep softly and wake some mornings to the song of blackbirds - a sound that once gave Tommy hope at the mouth of a tunnel when light and oxygen hit his body after a long shift underground with the rats and smell of the dead. Hearing the sound in her arms brings him a profound sense of peace. Tommy is there when she gives birth and experiences that intense connection to his family (that was denied to Freddie and Ada *cough*); he’s a supportive husband while Grace struggles with the next few months of exhaustion. They sit for portraits. These are halcyon days in the bleak midwinter of existence. (I recognise I’ve written this largely from Tommy’s perspective but I don’t think there’s really any choice because we are talking about how it figures in his memory).

At some point, a trip to New York features and Clive kills himself, making the need for divorce redundant. Arthur is there with them and the suicide is a teeny bit murky, as is who knows about it. I suspect the trip happens towards the end of the Time Gap and finally paves the way for the wedding telegraphed in 1922. They are clearly together and happy in that photo in front of the Statue of Liberty (which possibly suggests their freedom to do what they want to because this is SK after all). And they get married, about a year after Charlie’s birth, on 26th December 1923 with a big noisy family ceremony because apparently Grace wanted it (I think it’s way more in Tommy’s character history to be the one wanting a public spectacle, and Grace’s cuckoldery would have made her wary of such things, but whatever). And we rejoin their story on this day, when the past is catching up like a steam train and Tommy can’t keep it out, because he was and is a criminal. We rejoin them cementing fucking everything in vows and, because theirs is a love story which relies on distance and uncertainty for tension, there is suddenly nowhere for their narrative to go. So Grace is killed the next episode. This is Tommy’s story. And he will need her, miss her, crave her until he joins her in the afterlife.

#ask #anon #tommy x grace #so there