belovedblabber:

 Okay so I want to talk about this passage from John 1:20, and what it says (in my opinion) about John and the earth and Alecto and creation:

So looking at that passage, I think it’s worth noting that John wanted the earth to use him. Like there are a million takes people have on John and Alecto and his ‘creation’ of her, but I think it bears mentioning that John didn’t go into it wanting to be in control. He didn’t want to take the earth as his own. He wanted the earth (or the spirit of the earth, however you want to put it) to purge him and to use him as an instrument. In this passage we’re seeing something very clearly; John didn’t want to make the earth his vessel, he wanted to be used as a vessel by the earth. 

I think that the way he describes this moment is fascinating. He describes wanting her like a caveman wants fire or the sun, and wanting to be purged and used by this (divine?) power. He describes wanting her to stop screaming. It’s all a very primal, frantic moment.

But again what I really take away here is that John wasn’t wanting to dominate and control the earth. He wanted the earth to take him. And further, I read it as that he wanted the earth to destroy him. He wanted to give himself up.

Again, he wanted to be purged, to be used as an instrument. Like a sword, one might say. Like the earth’s sword used as an instrument of…what? retribution? salvation? He doesn’t say and I don’t know that it matters. 

And when the earth didn’t take him, he tried to touch her, and hurt her, to try and grab at that connection. Like he says; caveman, wildfire. Neolithic priest, falling star. I don’t think there was a single part of him in that moment thinking past pure instinct on the most primal, awed, almost animal level.

And then let’s look at the rest of this scene and how it unfolds. When he lets go and goes nuclear, he, in his own words, put his hands around the earth’s neck, cupped its soul in his hands, and tried to make them one. And as he’s doing this he’s still trying to make himself into the earth’s vessel. The earth wouldn’t take him and purge him, so he tries to cram the earth into himself. He quite literally ate the earth, he shoveled dirt into his mouth. But the earth was too much for him. He couldn’t hold the earth entirely within himself. I think this is where the narrative goes tricky. Is there a desire to possess the earth? To protect it? To grab at that fire? I don’t think that there was any clear thought in John’s mind in this moment. Whatever he was doing and feeling was at a much deeper level.

When describing his attempted act of incorporation he notes that “It’s the human instinct, to take. When you burn your thumb, you stick it in your mouth, right? And there was still too much of me that was just a human being…” (this is on page 409 by the way).

But he didn’t ‘stick his thumb in his mouth’ (aka try to absorb the earth all the way). He notes that if he had, he probably would have burnt to death. He wanted to be the earth’s instrument, and in the way I’m reading it, wanted to be its vessel, but he doesn’t go through with the act of taking the earth in entirely (an act which would have destroyed him). And at some point during the scene where he creates Alecto, the dynamic is shifting. The earth wouldn’t, or in the moment he begged it to couldn’t, take him as its vessel and so he takes on the role of creator (in a very overtly biblical sense with the act of him tearing out his ribs) and consumer. But that’s still so interesting. Because he makes Alecto’s form from dirt, dirt that he’d been cramming into his mouth moments prior, and from his blood and vomit and bone. He wanted to make her, the earth, a beautiful form out of those things. He wanted to make her a vessel from himself, since he couldn’t fit all of the earth inside of his own form. Again on pg. 409 he says “From my blood and bone and vomit I conjured up a beautiful labyrinth to house you in. I was terrified you’d find some way to escape before I was done.”

John was terrified the earth would escape. This moment of forcing the soul of the earth into a body of his own creation (and made from his own matter!) has a LOT to talk about. The way John acts here reads to me as the sort of frantic half crazed actions of, to partially borrow his own wording from earlier, a caveman in awe of fire trying desperately to stop it from leaving him.

John wanted to be the earth’s vessel, and to be purged clean and used. But in this act of creation the earth becomes his vessel. Yet at the same time, he’s hers as well. As he puts it, he hid him in her and he hid her in him. He made that choice, as the earth was screaming. And then, then he says: “when we were together…once the shaman had claimed the sun…I became God.” (Again that’s page 409).

Together. Claimed. There is a LOT there. And here’s the thing. In the passage I showed at the start of this post, John wanted to be purged and used as an instrument by the earth. Like I’ve said, I think he wanted to be the earth’s vessel. To take the earth inside of himself and be purged clean. I think he wanted, terribly, to just let go and give himself over. I think that, in that moment, John was done. I don’t think he wanted to be John anymore. His words in that passage make that very clear, at least in my reading of it; “Show me. Come on. I’m ready.” In that moment, John was ready to give himself over to the earth. 

But when the earth didn’t take him in the way he needed/wanted it to, he tried to take the earth into himself. He reached out and grabbed at the earth, rather than begging the earth to make him its own (and keep in mind that this is happening all wrapped up in the same moment that the entire world is going up in nuclear fire). And in the process of that crazed, divine moment, the dynamic shifted. He tied them together, he made them a mutual vessel from each other. He metaphorically claimed the sun. I don’t even think that he was thinking beyond a storm of desperation and grief and crazed instinct and power he didn’t know how to even comprehend. He became God. No longer cowering in mindless frantic awe and need in the face of the fire, but taking it into himself and making it his own. Making them one.

I think that ideas of love and control, of bodily autonomy and loss thereof, of power and awe and again, LOVE in all of its fierce and beautiful, healing and hurtful, twisted and toxic and fucked up forms, underpin the entirety of this series. I mean just look at the necromancer/cavalier situation and then the amplified ‘pinnacle’ of that bond as exemplified with lyctorhood.

And I just think it’s very interesting and VERY worth noting that John didn’t go into the act of creation from a place of wanting to control and take. He wanted the earth to take him. He wanted the earth to purge and use him. I think he wanted to be remade.

And somewhere in the whole terrifying primal mess of the moment that John chose to let go and doom the world he’d tried so desperately to save, things got shifted and twisted and confused. And then the shaman claimed the sun and became God

Anyway, there’s so much to think about in all of this stuff from John 1:20 and I personally think that the reading of it I’ve seen a lot, that’s essentially like ‘John is an evil controlling misogynist who wanted to control the earth and make her his and shove her in a sexy body’ is just wayyyy less interesting than what is actually going on. 

What’s actually going on is its own wildly multifaceted brand of fucked up. But in the best and most deliciously fascinating way. 

So anyway, I hope at least one person enjoyed this semi-coherent ramble of mine. I feel like I got possessed and then sat down to write this and couldn’t stop until I was done. Bone apple teeth. 

Also endnote, this post originally had a whole section about Harrow and Gideon and John and Alecto and parallels, and about the act of trying to control and possess and about that act and love, and about not being able to go home again, and about making yourself a mausoleum for somebody, and I was going to have pictures of passages and everything and then I realized…that that needs to be its own post. And you better believe I’m going to make that post.