#this feels very presumptuous of me disclaimer this is all thru the lens of my brain i dont claim to know anything about metamorphosis

[ladybeug]

hello!! i love your fanmix for metamorphosis! as a fellow mountain goat and metamorphosis enthusiast i was wondering what were your thoughts on heel turn 2 as an adrien song, considering both the lyrics and the definition of a heel turn in wrestling?

I would absolutely love to share my thoughts and I will give you the bottom line up front which is that heel turn 2 is not an Adrien song.

I’m guessing we may already be on the same page here, but you have given me a fantastic opportunity to talk about heel turn 2 and I am taking it!!

We’re talking about this at all because, as you and I know (but other people might want a refresher), heel turn 2 is a song about a good guy who decides to be a bad guy.

I can sum up why it’s not an Adrien Metamorphosis song with a quick look at one lyric, which holds the tone of the entire song: Throw my better self overboard, shoot at him when he comes up for air.

Consider: Adrien throws his better self overboard. But then when his better self comes up for air, he throws a lifesaver, and eventually grabs on with both hands and painfully hauls said self back on the boat, at great personal risk and injury. This is opposite to the spirit and point of heel turn 2.

We have now talked lyrics, let's talk wrestling metaphors, and for that I'd like to turn to Mr Mountain Goats himself. Indulge me with this, it's long but worth it:

The first time I ever heard Heel turn 2 was live in concert, at the filmore in SF 2015. I went to see the tour without listening to the album, I was there for the hits. I didn't know anything about wrestling, but before he sang heel turn 2, John Darnielle spoke for about two and a half minutes and I'll never forget it because I recorded it and I have that mp3 on my computer close to ten years later and I have just transcribed it for you here:

“The beauty of wrestling is that, you know… in life, you meet somebody, maybe someone you know, family, whatever… and you would like to say, that’s just a villain, that’s an evil villain! But you know, we also had some times that were special, that were amazing… but the evil, evil villain was genuinely evil! But then we did some things… and it’s complicated, it’s what makes your whole existence complicated! Because everybody you know is like that.

But you yearn in your spirit for the heroes and the villains, you would like to have somebody where you go: that’s an asshole, I don’t like that guy, I hate that guy. This is the gift that wrestling gives us. We have the heels.

Now they’re complex – but the question of good or evil is not complex. Either they’re bad or they’re good. Eventually, they boil down to that. You see the bad guy and you know that all he wants to do is hurt the good guy. It defines him, his desire to wound and injure, and cause the good guy to suffer.

And the good guy, you see him, you don’t know much about him besides that he’s good, because you know, good is sort of less magnetic than evil.

But one of the greatest things that can happen in wrestling is when the good guy – the ‘face’, which is short for babyface, when the good guy, in front of everybody, turns heel. And the reason it’s great is because you can relate, right, you watch him, and you think... oh man. He’s decided he doesn’t care if people hate him now. He’s going to get what he wants.

Neither you nor I will ever have that moment in our lives. This is not going to happen. Because you do care – yes, you do – you can’t rid yourself of that because if you do rid yourself of that then you’re a sociopath, so you have to live in the complex world.

But in wrestling you get to enjoy, vicariously, the sight of somebody going, “I am going to embrace evil. And get out of here alive. And that’s the only thing that matters in my entire life, at this moment, in front of all these people. This is called Heel Turn 2.”

Heel turn 2 is not about Adrien. Adrien in metamorphosis lives in the complex world, where he has to care about what people think of him or he’s a sociopath. He struggles nonstop with the evil evil villains who he had some amazing times with, but they were evil, and he also IS the evil villain, but... and it’s complicated, because everyone you know is like that!

In my mind, Adrien is one of us, the people watching wrestling, and listening to this song, who can feel the relief and vicious joy of somebody going “I am going to embrace evil. And get out of here alive.” because it’s something we can never have. That’s the connection for me, that the catharsis of heel turn 2 would land with him, rather than that heel turn 2 describes him as a cathartic figure for the reader.

Which is why it’s not an Adrien song, but why we are here having this conversation. Thank you so much for asking.

#have i thought about this??? yes #it was not the right song for the mix #but i felt the connection #the longing for conviction and righteousness in the face of confusion and loss of identity #thank you for asking honestly such a treat #GREAT question #great taste by the way in both mountain goats and metamorphosis :) #metamorphosis #this feels very presumptuous of me disclaimer this is all thru the lens of my brain i dont claim to know anything about metamorphosis #im just some guy #this is insane who let me do this #(jim carrey the mask voice) somebody stop me