THE VOID IN HALSEY’S DISCOGRAPHY🕳️
the void is a permanent part of the landscape in halsey's discography - initially it represents the unknown destructive forces both in and outside of the self
on one hand, its a physical space - the garden grows from the black hole of your mind:
the hotel room (93) in outer space, the city (badlands) surrounded by a desert wasteland
once you enter there is no way out -
the void represents what you are running from, what you're trying to escape
it is also part of the self -
the director Chantel Akerman once wrote, “Often I repeat and work around the lack, the nothing” (the void) – this is how I understand the void as part of the self
just like badlands is a series of digital simulations layered on top of a ghost town, the self is layers of what has been created (halsey) around the ghost at the core of it all.
this is a way to understand the 3 faces: what is shown to the world (what is created), what is private (the creator), what no one sees (the ghost)
why are you running? there is a sense that this is all borrowed time. that in the beginning you tricked fate - you burst out of yourself (like a star) and started running into the universe that you created to escape into
the black hole at the back of your mind - created at the same time - represents time catching up (and the parts of yourself you left behind)
in HFK this becomes clear - the void isn't stagnant, it moves, it exists around the edges: the tunnel, the barrel of a gun, the eyes.
but what if it isn't hopeless? what if nothing here is as it seems? what if there is another way?
Manic marks a departure point. the void is no longer something you run from, but something you face.
it's time to turn around and wake up the devil in you
as halsey said, Manic explores "l'appel du vide" - the call of the void (the graveyard)
it is using the void as a mirror and where you expected to find anger and doom, you find growth and some peace of mind
it is finding something - someone - you recognize in the dark - "when you stumble upon who you used to be, they will be so happy to see you"
While Manic is a reflection - a breath after running from your shadow for so long
IICHLIWP is a confrontation with the shadow self on the other side of the mirror
It takes us to to the labyrinth to explore the journey it took to get here: the cycle of facing the dark unknown over and over again in the name of something far more powerful (love)
here the void takes a form: lilith
it takes 9 months for black moon lilith to move through a sign (much like a birth)
it represents the wound, the void, in you - the dark parts of ourselves that we've held captive and are afraid to acknowledge
but releasing them into the light, reclaiming every piece, allows you to step into your most empowered self
you can now look back, with love, from a place of power
and then you look forward again only to feel the rug being pulled from under your feet
while IICHLIWP is a reclamation of what we can control and choose, TGI is a revelation that forces us to recognize what we can't
the great impersonator is a shape-shifter (like lilith) - a void that is filled by the eyes of the beholder
creating the muse who is pulled apart and reassembled by fate and by man
the album sheds off what is temporary (every outer layer, every muse) in order to find out what remains - what is yours - when everything else (when everyone else) disappears
the part of you that feels chronically alone, that could feel the energy of the room before you could tell time, that walks straight into traps trying to help beetles on their backs, that still believes in magic...
the inner-child - the tender core (the void) - is forever
— holding both our darkness and our magic
in a sense i view it as the shadows' shadow - on the other side of the mystic shapeshifter is the child, the tender core
the one who makes all of this come alive - since the very beginning 🪄
while there will always be a void in our future
we can create (and play and rage) around it
we can kiss the sky before it falls
when an old star dies it sheds its outer layers, from which new stars are born
from the end, something new
during the for my last trick tour the black hole in the back of your mind is a rabbit hole - a worm hole
the great impersonator (the third, the ghost) exists and moves across space and time - the void connects to every mirror and screen and door in the halsey cinematic universe
while it may be something you fell into as a child, you've made it your own (a little piece of him, is in a little piece of me 🐇🪄)
where others chose to use their power to set traps, you've created a safehouse in the middle of the deep where we can meet (forever)
the void no longer exists as an omen of destruction, it's where the magic lives - it’s what you create out of
the end (until next time)
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
2087
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