So I actually think the Roti sharing scene is not about temptation and taking from the Tree of Knowledge as many are speculating, or at least not entirely.
Tanrak’s Eden precedes the timeline of the series. His childhood home had an apple tree in the yard (associated with The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, with even Fourth mentioning that association during his Based on 2 Stories interview). It’s an apple tree from which Cherry (we’ll just skip over the fact that her name can refer to virginity) fell and got scolded. Sound like any other important Falls in the Bible? Tanrak’s been banished from that destroyed realm of innocence and eternal life, instead filled with grief and shame. He works hard at all his studies and duties to assuage those feelings, hoping that he might be deemed worthy despite his expulsion from the happy life he used to have. The grief and shame and toiling come long before his sexual awakening with Barth and that offering of bread.
The Roti is not from the Tree of Knowledge. I’d suggest it’s the fruit of another Tree mentioned in Genesis but brought up with more significance in the very last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22.
“And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, 2 in the middle of its street. On either side of the river was the tree of life, bearing twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit every month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. 3 There will no longer be any curse; and the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and His bond-servants will serve Him; 4 they will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5 And there will no longer be any night; and they will not have need of the light of a lamp nor the light of the sun, because the Lord God will illuminate them; and they will reign forever and ever.”
The Tree of Life was a tree in Eden that conferred eternal life and Adam and Eve were only forbidden from it after the Fall, after which they were cursed to a purgatorial death until a savior is sent who, though “small is the gate and narrow the road” Matthew 7:13, offers Life once again (clock the width of the gate as Tanrak heads towards his bathroom bliss). Jesus refers to himself as the “bread of life” in John 6:35 for whom all those who partake will never hunger but will be raised up on The Last Day. That sermon is the basis for the sacrament of communion, and the restoration to The Tree of Life in Revelation echoes this important passage.
Barth is being visually linked to signs of Life: the roti; the tree behind him as he climbs the seminary walls and offers his hand to Tanrak; the light that falls on Tanrak’s face when he looks at Barth; saving the computer files for the assistant after she’s says “if the files disappear, I’m dead. Totally dead;” the flower painting framing his head as he watches Tanrak practice piano. Actually, he moves from the painting of Mother Mary (the theotokos or bearer of Christ) to the flowers, concealing or replacing the sign reading that “God sees you always,” like Barth’s being born into life from her and taking the place of a distant observing God into something more real and alive. In fact, earlier he walked into the choir room as the choir sang the exact words the angels supposedly sang upon the birth of Jesus, “Gloria in excelsis deo!” (Luke 2:14). Barth is being compared to Christ and offering Tanrak Life beyond The Fall. Tanrak’s emerging sexuality brought on by Barth is not The Fall from grace but a sign of Life.
And that reaching up! The way it could’ve echoed the Michelangelo “Creation of Adam” if Tanrak would’ve reached out—an image that links God to an image of the brain itself! But you’re right. Tanrak isn’t ready, so Barth brings him that holy communion, that manna from heaven, that Bread of Life, as a gift and a promise of what waits for him once he lets Love guide his faith.
in like twenty years time, when tanrak has worked through all his shit and him and barth are living somewhere happily, he’s gonna offhandedly mention some shit about his first time jerking off having been to barth that night they shared the roti and he’ll make fun of himself for how “dramatic” he was being at the time. and poor barth will be torn between sadness for young tanrak and aggressive horniness knowing tanrak was so horny for him before they’d so much as kissed that he gave into temptation despite himself
Thai reaction channels reacting to When Oranges Fall episode 1
I mentioned before that When Oranges Fall was surely going to strike such a chord with Thai Millennial viewers that International fans could never fully understand. But to give you an idea, I compiled and subtitled some highlights from the first episode reactions by Thai reaction channels Watchwhy Channel, IPOND TV, สายเลือด Y [My Blood Taste], NUNGNARONG and Channel Fanboys.
Here's some further context about the things they were commenting on:
1. The Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game was launched in Japan in 1999 and soon became a big hit in Thailand. At its peak, you could probably find students duelling in the corner in the morning before school started, as well as during lunchtime and breaks (providing they didn't cause so much disruption for the teacher to ban them). Since this part of the story is taking place in 1997, they're taking a bit of artistic license to fit it in there.
2. While Wall's ice-cream was already well established in the 1990s, Thai-style coconut ice-cream was also popularly sold by street vendors, especially in more rural areas. Paithong is one of the largest franchises, and having to run to catch the sellers' bike before it sped past is among everyone's childhood memories.
3. Both khru and ajarn are titles that have been used for schoolteachers, while ajarn is also used for university lecturers. Technically, there's a historical reason as the titles used to be associated with degree qualifications, though in practice, students usually just learned to call teachers khru in primary school and somehow changed to ajarn in secondary or upper secondary school. With educational system reforms in the 2000s, the ajarn title was officially discontinued, so today khru is officially used for all school levels.
4. We actually did have water pump-guns with reservoirs in the 1990s, though they were still a relatively fancy item. The PVC-pipe blasters, however, were a classic for 90s upcountry Songkran celebrations. They were the weapon of choice for charging through sois on the back of pick-up trucks while the dwellers defended their turf. They were so powerful - and dangerous - that they were banned in 2003.
5. Printing of the 10 baht banknote (recognizable by its brown colour) was discontinued in 1996. By the turn of the millennium, local mom-and-pop grocers' were already disappearing in Bangkok, but they held on for a bit longer upcountry.
6. Songkran really used to be a wild free-for-all where no one was spared, despite whatever attempts one might make to show one's intention of not participating. The situation is now much better, with both enforcement of regulations as well as changing social norms. (Nowadays, the worst offenders tend to be uneducated tourists, which has led to much online discourse.)
7. Dinsophong, the white powder/paste commonly associated with Songkran nowadays, is commonly translated as "soft-prepared chalk" or "white clay filler". Technically, the material is "marly limestone".
8. Channel 9's weekend morning anime broadcasts have long been a mainstay of shared childhood memories, especially in the 1990s when there were few other forms of entertainment.
9. The kitchen's set-up is indeed very archetypical of the setting. The rice cooker would have been quite a modern style for the time, though. Butter cookies in red round tins have long occupied a shared collective memory, with how they seem to come around every New Year's, and how the tins seem to end up with some sort of storage use in every household (typically for mom's or grandma's sewing supplies).
10. Taxi was a rock band active between 2001 and 2005 (so it's actually anachronistic for the series - the album cover in the poster is from 2002). Loso was active from 1996 to 2002. The poster is from their Superstar Project album, released in 2000.
11. You either bought school uniforms from specialty shops like this one, or if your school was big enough, it would have had a school supplies day where uniforms, textbooks and other accessories would be sold by contracted suppliers coming in to the school. I think these specialty shops still exist, though they've become much rarer as hypermarket chains ate up much of the back-to-school business.
12. Comic rental shops were another mainstay of entertainment that have all but disappeared nowadays. The official licensed print of Dragon Ball was originally published in 1995-1997 (so August must have re-read them several times already), while One Piece began serializing in Thai in 1998.
13. The Chok Dee paper bag became ubiquitous in the 1980s, being used by small shops for every kind of merchandise. Their use sharply declined with the introduction of plastic bags, though Chok Dee still exists today, now recognized as a classic vintage item.
14. Thai-style ice-cream would be served either on buns or in plastic cups, with an assortment of toppings, and things are still pretty much the same today.
15. The Apaimanee Saga referred to is a Thai comic first published in 2001. Naruto was printed in Thai under the title Ninja Katha. I couldn't find the exact date, but the cover seen here is that of volume 38, which was published in Japan in 2007.
16. The Language Basics text book series, commonly known as Kaew and Kla after the titular characters, was the official Thai-language primary school textbook series in print from from 1991 to 2002. While not regarded as so much of a classic as the preceding Mana Manee series, it has its place in most Millennials' collective childhood memories.
I think there is something in Tickets to Heaven about wanting to actually live
Barth acts so defeated. He seems like he has accepted that the world will never see him beyond the labels it has pushed on him and he doesn't feel like he has a future. The way he says he doesn't like anything, the way he says he is too lazy for a school, the way he knows no one will believe him
And Tanrak's whole thing is basically...waiting to die. To live the most devote life possible so he sees his family again after he fucking dies
And I think at the core of the story is less about faith or love winning, but more about both of them realizing that despite the bad hand the world has dealt them, they still can live. They still have a future. They have the ability to build their own family, here on earth
saw someone on tiktok (my first problem because tiktok always has the worst takes) complaining about people “sexualizing” the end of ep2 and while yes, on the one hand i’m sure there are people who are saying fucked shit and ONLY making it about the sex aspect, the scene also IS inherently sexual. like that’s the point i fear. shame and sexuality are going hand in hand. tanrak would not look like he’s walking into the gallows were it not for the fact that he’s stupidly horny. he’s going to jerk off. and he hates himself for it. that’s the POINT.
I’m dying to read the novel of ticket to heaven, but I also don’t want to get spoilers while the series is on going so I’ll just wait for it to finish, and binge read after
back in 2024, after the teaser was released, I made a ticket to heaven poster inspired by the priscilla a24 movie poster and it turned out to be my most adored design!! so many things happened since then, and I couldn't help but remake it now that the series is actually airing (thank GOD) hope you guys like it!
i saw the edges of some hashtag discourse on twitter that purported to be critique of p'aof as a director but was of course more ship war nonsense/gmmtv bashing from our generation's greatest minds. but it did get me thinking that i'd be interested in what you thought were some of his strengths and/or weaknesses in helming a series.
Aof, my beloved <3
Strengths:
Camera choreography—he loves a fluid, roaming camera, especially in first episodes, and was pushing this even in the early days when the Thai tv industry did not have budgets for the kind of equipment or time to could manage that easily.
His work is extremely dense with visual language
His dialogue is lyrical and realistic
He’s one of the best at an urgent sense of pacing, partly, though, because he depends more than almost anyone on Western narrative structures.
The performances. He works with a different acting coach, Meng Chaiyapat, (who actually played the choir teacher in the latest TTH episode) than the other directors, and the angsty psychological turmoil they bring the actors to convey is top tier drama.
There’s also just a way he can write and direct a character who’s trying to repress, not just their sexuality, but a really deep-seated loneliness that keeping their sexuality from others has caused them that hits so true to my own history with my sexuality. P’Med, Pran, Li Ming and Heart, Day, Tanrak. These characters are some of the most lonely in the genre. He took the “My Loneliness” monologue from Love of Siam personally.
He can write the fuck out of women characters. They have their own stories, their own goals, complex personalities. Ugh!
The reason I’m obsessed: He’s THE most philosophical writer/director in the Thai BL industry and possibly the whole of the genre. He’s deeply interested in the problems of queer epistemology and semiotics—How do we know queerness is real? How do we embody it? How do we represent it? And is it less real if it’s not enacted or acknowledged by others or even ourselves? And if it’s not less real if we don’t enact it, why should we enact it anyways when we could conceal it and remain safer? The absence of characters appearing in photographs in his early works! The death that pervades all his series! The separations! The doubts about sensory perception! Ugh! Literally considering writing a whole book about it. There’s no one in queer studies—period!—who’s theorizing about these issues to this extent, and they’re so endlessly fascinating to me, especially his use of Buddhist/Eastern philosophy to address them (and that’s one of the many reasons why I’m so excited about Ticket to Heaven; it’s really a return to some of the theological issues that caused the Reformation schism that I have books about on my shelf—the iconography, the scriptural analysis, the capability of the mortal perceivable world to reveal the sacred, the questions of what faith means, ugh!).
And on that note, he writes for multiple audiences at once, like Shakespeare. He’s doing deep philosophical shit but you can also ignore all that and get your fix of great romantic drama.
Weaknesses
He cannot do comedy, especially camp, that well. I actually think the original 2gether is better than Aof’s sequel because the original understood how utterly ridiculous all the characters were, and how the subversiveness of the camp undermined what would otherwise be generic BL tropes. The original makes clear that the homophobia at play is stupid and the butt of the joke. Making the characters more real like Aof did takes away that ridiculousness, at least imo.
He does not have the editing chops of someone like Jojo or Dome or Boss Kuno. He’s got that beautiful flowing camera, but he can’t do the rhythmic and playful cutting some others go for. It can make his work feel less hip and modern. Aof is at his heart a lakorn director. His works feel like musicals or old Hollywood works in their editing. I personally love it and can go watch other series if I’m looking for other vibes.
I’ve joked that he actually only knows 15 actors at the company because man loves to use his favorites. Like it or not (I personally don’t like it lol), Jojo seems to have a prerogative to use new and even challenged actors. Aof does not play around with his casting. He does not have interest in training stale actors on set. He’ll get new actors, but it would seem to be based on the insight that they will DELIVER (Mix is ATOTS or G4 in MLC).
He can be heavy-handed with his metaphors sometimes (see “Would you like me to relight the flame?” with AlanWen). I chock this up to him writing for multiple audiences. The less literary viewer can benefit from an obvious metaphor now and then lol. There’s plenty of subtlety throughout any of his series for me to appreciate beyond those moments.
“Did you know? They’re building a 7-Eleven where your house was. They tore it down? How long ago? It’s about to open. So quick how they demolished the house and built the store. What about the rose apple tree next door? Is it still there? That tree died before they even dore the house down. Bud do you remember when we climbed that tree as kids? I fell, and it hurt like hell. My mom scolded me for a whole week. You seem a lot quieter now, Tanrak. Really? Yeah. More grown-up.” — GLUM by HAYLEY WILLIAMS
the roti that barth offers tanrak simultaneously representing the temptation of the apple of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that causes the downfall of humanity and also the unleavened bread of the eucharist as jesus' body given up to redeem humanity ....... when the thing that ruins you is also the thing that saves you........
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