Sometimes I like to scroll through the blog to review the # number one hits of my silly little skringos (in my opinion at least...half of them are probably post nobody remembers lol) and last night I happened to notice I really interesting theme of the characters trying to assign meaning to what has happened (and for a certain little seer, what he knows is going to happen)
The most popular example of this (also the most subtle? I don't think Zelda is direct about assigning meaning to her grief as the Hartells are imo) is Zelda's Prayer when she tells the made-up story about Rhoam bringing her springs to fix Terrako. She says it's a story she wishes she had for the slightest justification for things continuing on the way they are because if she had a story like that, it would prove that everything that she has done, her father has done, and everyone around her has done, has been out of love, something that is worthy of all of this pain. Zelda, however, ultimately resigns herself to the fact that, even if it was real, it would not make everything okay or worthwhile, there is no meaning to all of it.
(Also the scene where she vents to Urbosa about her frustrations with Link, she poignantly asks why Link had to lie to her, but it's not in the sense of "what was his reasons for keeping the master sword a secret" because she KNOWS that, but rather what does that mean about Link and what does it mean about her and their shared destiny and what was the purpose of it. Idk if this is even that relevant I just think it's a really good scene)
The next one I noticed was Larc in Roots Aren't Where the Birds Rest, he very bluntly says he does not know how to assign meaning to his malice in the way his brothers have and if he has not grown stronger or wiser from this pain, what has everything been for? Launo tells him that sometimes pain is simply painful and you can't assign some meaning to it, it means neither that it made you a better person nor that it's cosmic punishment from a fundamentally flawed person and that trying to assign meaning to everything will drive him crazy and just be content and Larc, against all odds, says he agrees with Launo, that there doesn't have to be a purpose for his suffering. (And then the most recent arcs might have undone all of this beautiful growth because what is there to be happy with if he has no family so....rip)
In what has been my favorite and most underrated arc, Astor and Mallory meet in Serenity's old house, and he...says something that is so unbelievably interesting to me.
"This is the best and only way, yes, yes. It has to be true. …Because if it’s not true, then my mother died of sickliness and grief out of never finding her runaway son. And that it’s my fault for any misery her other children experienced. If it’s not true, then that means you genuinely care, and will foolishly attempt to ruin this fragile, singular desire of mine. If that all isn’t true, then Elane, my truest and only friend, had honestly loved me. And if all those are truths, then it means you all just die to make the world a little more miserable, and nothing more. That there’s no meaning in it all. That there’s nothing of value to be found in that death and demise. And I can’t have that…Sacrifices have to be worth something."
To me, this is a man admitting that the entire reasoning for his actions is a ruse. Ganon had also been talking to Astor in the post I'm quoting and in previous scenes from this arc so... he listens to Ganon though he knows what he's saying is almost certainly wrong. And the reason he does that is that he has sacrificed the last 20 years of his life (a nice parallel to a certain queen doing the opposite) to serve Ganon to protect Mallory and if the world is not a horrible, cruel place like he has failed to convince himself of, it certainly will become one when the calamity comes and destroys everything as it is now. He is trying and failing miserably at giving his atrocities and what he has sacrificed a meaning.
I could talk SO much more about the last scene because it's absolutely amazing to me but this is already 800 words and I don't want to clog your askbox more than I already have. I'm also sure there's more examples of this with other characters I just haven't noticed or perhaps I've arrive at the wrong conclusion about all of this but regardless...I think your writing is pretty neat :))
