Team Blanchmaine
Feb. 7th, 2019 11:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jadislefeuI'm a huge fan of Heather Dale*, and I've been listening to her Avalon album to sleep to a fair bit recently. Which means listening to her version of Tristan and Isolt--the better recording of it, imo, the one on May Queen is weirdly upbeat and bouncy for the topic. Here's a youtube link to the recording of it I prefer, here's a bandcamp link if that's better for you, or a spotify link, and here's a link to the lyrics.
But anyway, the point here: This song, while beautiful and well performed, makes me fucking hate Tristan and want to punch him in his asshole face.
The song is about how 'the cold air of the northlands let [Tristan and Isolt] lie at last as one', so it's a tragic love story. Cool. I'm down with that.
Except when Tristan goes to the field of battle to subsume his hopeless love for Isolt, "In the way of warriors rewarding noble heroes, fairest Blanchmaine of the Bretons was given for his bride". This would also be fine if he was willing to put aside his doomed love and at least act like he was a dude who had a wife who he had a duty to, a wife who had a right to expect a marriage out of her marriage. If he didn't want to marry Blanchmaine, he was the only one here likely in a position to decline! But no, "Blanchmaine knew no pleasure from her cold and grieving husband, for the marble face of mem'ry was his bride". That's being an asshole, dude. She didn't ask for this. It is not her fault the lady you're in love with had to marry someone else.
And then Tristan gets bitten by demon snakes or whatever, and sends away for the lady he's pining for, for "none could be his savior but the healing arts of Ireland and Isolt". So while "the woman he had married, but to whom he'd given nothing, sat her long and jealous vigil by his side", his actual wife is sitting with him on his deathbed, and he's like no I need this other lady that I love and who is the reason I have been fucking horrible to you our entire marriage. I need her to come and save me, tell me if she's coming. And they've got the whole classic greek tragedy thing with the white sails/black sails, "if his love no longer moved her, hoist the black into the rigging, but if white brought them together, he would wait". And he expects his wife to not only overlook but FACILITATE his reuniting with the lady he's been ignoring her in favor of the MEMORY of for their entire miserable marriage.
There is no way I am blaming her for "softly [telling] him, 'tis of night". And then it's sooo sad how Isolt runs up the strand but he's already dead and then she dies on top of him of grief or whatever and they are for some reason buried next to each other, even though they are married to different people from different countries, and "even yet they were divided by the morals of the world" because "the earth [was] their separation". Man, I don't know about you, but I have never seen two people just chucked into the same grave. I don't care if they loved each other better than any lovers ever have and were married for a thousand years and died on the same day, culturally, we don't do that, people get their own graves. This is not a sign of LOVE FORBIDDEN EVEN IN DEATH, this is a sign of burial practices existing.
And then "their spirits spiraled upwards, Ireland's briar and Cornwall's rose" or whatever. AND HOPEFULLY THEN THE WIDOW BLANCHMAINE GOT EITHER A HUSBAND WHO ACTUALLY WANTED TO BE MARRIED TO HER OR JUST GOT TO BE HER OWN BADASS SINGLE SELF WITHOUT BEING CONSTANTLY REMINDED THAT THE DUDE WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HER PARTNER IN LIFE ACTUALLY RESENTED HER FOR THINGS SHE HAD NO CONTROL OVER.
Team Blanchmaine, y'all. I am completely on her side in this.
*I've seen her live a couple times when she did shows with SJ Tucker, who's local to me, before the local venues where Sooj did shows shut down and ruined it, she's a lovely person.
But anyway, the point here: This song, while beautiful and well performed, makes me fucking hate Tristan and want to punch him in his asshole face.
The song is about how 'the cold air of the northlands let [Tristan and Isolt] lie at last as one', so it's a tragic love story. Cool. I'm down with that.
Except when Tristan goes to the field of battle to subsume his hopeless love for Isolt, "In the way of warriors rewarding noble heroes, fairest Blanchmaine of the Bretons was given for his bride". This would also be fine if he was willing to put aside his doomed love and at least act like he was a dude who had a wife who he had a duty to, a wife who had a right to expect a marriage out of her marriage. If he didn't want to marry Blanchmaine, he was the only one here likely in a position to decline! But no, "Blanchmaine knew no pleasure from her cold and grieving husband, for the marble face of mem'ry was his bride". That's being an asshole, dude. She didn't ask for this. It is not her fault the lady you're in love with had to marry someone else.
And then Tristan gets bitten by demon snakes or whatever, and sends away for the lady he's pining for, for "none could be his savior but the healing arts of Ireland and Isolt". So while "the woman he had married, but to whom he'd given nothing, sat her long and jealous vigil by his side", his actual wife is sitting with him on his deathbed, and he's like no I need this other lady that I love and who is the reason I have been fucking horrible to you our entire marriage. I need her to come and save me, tell me if she's coming. And they've got the whole classic greek tragedy thing with the white sails/black sails, "if his love no longer moved her, hoist the black into the rigging, but if white brought them together, he would wait". And he expects his wife to not only overlook but FACILITATE his reuniting with the lady he's been ignoring her in favor of the MEMORY of for their entire miserable marriage.
There is no way I am blaming her for "softly [telling] him, 'tis of night". And then it's sooo sad how Isolt runs up the strand but he's already dead and then she dies on top of him of grief or whatever and they are for some reason buried next to each other, even though they are married to different people from different countries, and "even yet they were divided by the morals of the world" because "the earth [was] their separation". Man, I don't know about you, but I have never seen two people just chucked into the same grave. I don't care if they loved each other better than any lovers ever have and were married for a thousand years and died on the same day, culturally, we don't do that, people get their own graves. This is not a sign of LOVE FORBIDDEN EVEN IN DEATH, this is a sign of burial practices existing.
And then "their spirits spiraled upwards, Ireland's briar and Cornwall's rose" or whatever. AND HOPEFULLY THEN THE WIDOW BLANCHMAINE GOT EITHER A HUSBAND WHO ACTUALLY WANTED TO BE MARRIED TO HER OR JUST GOT TO BE HER OWN BADASS SINGLE SELF WITHOUT BEING CONSTANTLY REMINDED THAT THE DUDE WHO WAS SUPPOSED TO BE HER PARTNER IN LIFE ACTUALLY RESENTED HER FOR THINGS SHE HAD NO CONTROL OVER.
Team Blanchmaine, y'all. I am completely on her side in this.
*I've seen her live a couple times when she did shows with SJ Tucker, who's local to me, before the local venues where Sooj did shows shut down and ruined it, she's a lovely person.
