Hello there! I really appreciate you taking the time to explain what went into creating Dizzee and developing his relationship with Thor. Could you expand on the meaning behind Dizzee's lines: "I'm ready to die now! And experience my first opera!"? I feel like I get the overall meaning behind the Rumi story and what Rumi/The Opera are meant to represent (especially now that based on Dizzee's imaginings in 1x09 Thor's become a part of it too) but I also I feel like I'm missing some details lol.

Hey! Sorry for the delay! I’m a newbie to Tumblr, but I want to keep checking in so I can help us all solve some of the Dizzee riddles I hid in him.

“I’m ready to die now – and to see my first opera.” This really was the culmination of a philosophy I began inside Dizzee in that very first tunnel scene, when he nervously blurted out to “a perfect stranger” the secret story of his Alien in a Top Hat. And the “perfect stranger” just smiled, shook his head, and called him a “genius” – as though he somehow already knew the story.

The answer (ha, like all Dizzee and Thor answers) is complex, but two parts of it are contained inside immortality myths. I posted two of the most important – one from Plato and the other from The Egyptian Book of the Dead.

One is set deep in the mythic prehistory, when the earth was just “darkness moving upon the face of the deep,” and tells the story about losing your other half before your life even began – that we were born into the world living on “half a heart and half a lung” and that somewhere– somehow– the other half of you is out there, too, showing pictures of himself and asking strangers, “Have you seen this boy? He’s been missing since the day of my birth.”

The Egyptian myth occurs at the end of history and plays in paradox – that somehow, the entire collection of stories, spanning a life, can become lighter than its own history – lighter than a feather plucked from the wings of Anubis, “God of orphans, travelers, and the lost.”

But there must be, of course, some magical process that can make a human heart lighter than a feather. That process is a “middle myth” I haven’t had the time to explain yet. I will. But what we see in Dizzee and Thor is the middle myth that stands between “the oldest story in the world” and the “end of all the stories.”

One clue comes from the speech in Plato’s Symposium:

“So ancient is the desire of one another to make one of two, and heal the state of man. The tally-half (1) of a man is always looking for his other half.”

(1) “Tally-half = The Greek word “sumbalon” (or symbol) can means a token or tally. Anciently, if anobject was cut into two “symbols” and half given to “A” in one part of the world, and the other half to“B” in another part, then A and B could prove their identity to one another if they could find each other.

For instance…

I’ll present in my next a selection of mythographic portraits that help us understand that “middle myth” we watch unfold in real time as two boys find each other deep beneath the earth (a Bronx tunnel) and slowly move upward together towards “a shining city” and the “singing spheres” of Macrobius. Or, in the terminology of Dizzee: “The Opera.” The place where all art gathers.

Hope that gives you something to think about in the meantime.

Best,

Jameson

#dizzee kipling #dizzee x thor

jamesonworkman reblogged

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“I’m an alien in a top hat. Weighing his heart, it’s light as a feather. I’m an alien in a top hat. I’m ready to die now, and to see my first opera.”

jamesonworkman

Dizzee and Thor’s Symposium

“Dizzee Kipling Mythology: Session 2.”

“THIS MEETING AND MELTING INTO ONE ANOTHER...”

This was a big inspiration to me while writing Dizz and Thor -- so here you go, all scholars of Thizzee.

The Symposium (Platonic Dialogue in which Socrates and Aristophanes argue the philosophical purity and mythic origins of homosexuality and androgyny)

The passage in question is from Aristophanes’ speech, considered by many to the highest achievement of Plato’s prose style. Aristophanes tells a creation myth about sexual desire, arguing that the supreme, “undivided,” and original order of being was androgynous. The “Fall” in this instance was the division and partition of “being” into distinct sexualities -- and we’ve been trying to connect them into one ever since. In effect, the human story is one, long, frustrated crusade to end that original division in gender.

Below is the Aristophanes speech itself, from the Symposium.

It’s a literary clue from Thor to Dizzee that refracts the “original confusion” in our natures and the hope that they can be pieced back together through “eros.”

Translated by Benjamin Jowett from Collected Works of Plato, 4th Edition, Oxford U. Press, 1953 (189c-189d) p 520 to (193d-193e) p 525

“The original human nature was not like the present. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, of which the name survives but nothing else. Once it was a distinct kind, with a bodily shape and a name of its own, constituted by the union of the male and the female: but now only the word 'androgynous' is preserved, and that as a term of reproach. Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round because they resembled their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods...

Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Zeus declared: “I have a plan which will enfeeble their strength and so extinguish their turbulence; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two.”

He spoke and cut men in two. After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they began to die from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart...So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, seeking to make one of two, and to heal the state of man...Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the tally-half of a man, and he is always looking for his other half.

Zeus asked, ‘What do you mortals want of one another?’’ Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night in one another's company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt and fuse you together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul, instead of two--I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire and whether you are satisfied to attain this?'--

There is not a man among them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need.

So we must praise the god “Love," who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed.

Or, as Rumi (Neo-Platonic mystic) says:

“I just want to know you and then disappear.”

Have fun Thizzee scholars. Ask me anything.

#dizzee x thor #dizzee kipling

jamesonworkman reblogged

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starfaringships

not sure if others have pointed this out yet but something has had me very ????? about the mural dizzee’s painting during his looks better now ;) conversation with thor. namely:

HEART??

so i went looking for that BTS tweet of this scene. even though jaden’s wearing a shirt from a different scene, that’s obviously thor’s ripped pink shirt and the mural in front of them, which we can see a lot more of:

dizzee’s painting rumi and thor with THE WEIGHING OF THE HEART written overtop of them, which, okay, Anubis the Egyptian God of the Dead, weighing the hearts of those who determine if they could go to the afterlife. on the left looks like a depiction of the god Thoth, who recorded the findings of the heart weighing. if anyone wants to jump in and explain this better - please do!

the phrase makes sense because you can clearly see that rumi and thor are actually framed by a balance scale, with dizzee and thor’s bodies (sort of perfectly?) blocking the weighing pan on rumi’s side:

this fits really well with all of the references to death in this scene (the song that plays here, “i’m ready to die now,” etc.) and… i find it pretty reassuring?? i think it’s very indicative of dizzee’s last scene as a metaphorical death/becoming, and less about death and more about rebirth. it’s not foreshadowing; it’s a continuation of dizzee’s opera metaphor

especially because on April 8th stephen adly guirgis tweeted this to reassure fans about dizzee:

so, they left it open, but imo jaden’s coming back and this is all representative, as SAG says, of the journey dizzee’s taking to discover himself, sexuality, etc. dizzee’s also aware of how death has been a changing metaphor, ie: the construction of rumi the alien being killed at the opera, his development, he decides that rumi and thor are going to the opera, and dizzee just before this scene saying to boo “you gotta not apologize for being an alien”

and it’s fitting that most of this narrative happens around thor because that’s the only time dizzee’s allowed to be himself/free and with someone who understands him. also: you’re losing your vitamin C when they first meet to just one kiss from his lips is like taking vitamin C when they’re going to the party?? the fact that they’re literally, canonically confirmed to be in love with each other via dizzee’s POV??? dizzee and thor’s relationship being the entire reason mylene and the soul madonnas had their record played? the constant use of the word “free” in the show centering around them?? this show…. is not subtle about how important their relationship is

i could be pulling something out of nowhere, but TGD has always put significant thought into the details/art/music/dialogue/framing of each scene, so it feels important that this is here. if nothing else, it’s pretty interesting and i find it more comforting that dizzee is approaching the idea of “death” as a becoming and is entirely aware of it - the last scene being a hallucination makes a lot more sense imo with these visuals in mind

LOOK!! they are literally painting each other as their avatars here. the stripes on thor’s armour and rumi’s jacket. thor’s star. dizzee’s jacket cut into coattails. the tophat that thor puts on at one point and ends up by dizzee’s head on the mattress. they are in love and want to go on a journey together. we are blessed

jamesonworkman

shakespeareandbiscuits asked:

Hello! I just wanted to say, I'm really torn between asking ALL the question about Dizzee (my favourite character in TGD) and Thor, and just waiting in hope they renew the series (I'm going to be so gutted if they don't, skyrocketed in my top 5 favorite shows last year and I can't believe it's not getting more recognition.. you all - crew and cast and collaborators - did such a magnificent job). Aso - I found the "God Loves All The Little Brutes" sketch - on Dizzee's table, when he's drawing! :D

Ha! You found it!? Great eye. Don’t worry -- I wouldn’t answer anything that would ruin the story. Only things that help us all understand Dizz and his little “world within a world.” He is very special, isn’t he?

So feel free to ask away.

Jameson

jamesonworkman

Dizzee and Thizzee fans: I’m going to begin a series of “tutorials” here on the symbols and “stories within stories” that helped me write Dizzee Kipling for the show.

Call this “The Mythology of Dizzee Kipling, Session #1.”

I don’t know how to use Tumblr very well, so I’ll rely on everyone else to share and we can analyze together -- solve little mysteries and suggest new ones.

So, in the painting scene (and in Thor’s drawing when he and Dizz reunite) you’ll see on the walls and hear Dizzee proclaiming ideas inspired by the following, which is certainly one of his obsessions -- odd little pure hearted bird that he is:

The Weighing of the Heart,” from The Papyrus of Ani (Book of the Dead). Nineteenth Dynasty, ca. 1275 B.C. Papyrus, painted (London, British Museum EA 10470/3).

A grand format hieroglyphic mural from the Egyptian Book of the Dead in the British Museum.

The panel is called “The Weighing of the Heart.”

Here’s what it depicts: In this vision of Egyptian “eschatology” <the part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind> at the end of life, the human heart was weighed in the scales against a single feather.

If it was lighter than the feather, your soul would pass through happily to the next life.

I gave it to Dizzee so we could reflect upon the fact that as long as this innocent stranger passes through our world, he can bear any sad story, endure every insult, take a beating, and retain his innocence. He’s always better than the sad world. With Thor, he’s practically immune to it.

Note: This is NOT a comment on Dizzee’s final fate. It’s something he’s always loved and something he’s only shared and understood with Thor. This is what he and Thor draw each other -- a little secret code they share. They might be drawing as we speak.