Person A owns a flower shop and person B comes storming in one day, slaps 20 bucks on the counter and says “How do I passive-aggressively say fuck you in flower?”
so you’d need a bouquet of geraniums (stupidity), foxglove (insincerity), meadowsweet (uselessness), yellow carnations (you have disappointed me), and orange lilies (hatred). it would be quite striking! and full of loathing.
Fighting not just as foreplay, but as fornication: a reading of the Agatha/Rio knife fight in Agatha All Along episode 1
Hello, silly billies. I'm realizing that I am NOT on this thing often enough, which is crazy because 2012 me was hitting post limit on here every single day, but alas… I’m realizing, as I type this, how that was over half my lifetime ago. Yikes. Does it every drive you crazy just how fast the night changes, etc.
However, I do like using this website to post some longer form content, and I've had several things swirling around my noggin for quite a while, so maybe I will become a little more active on here! Who knows. My motivation is being held captive by anywhere from three to five ADHD executive functioning goblins at any given moment, hence why the statement is conditional.
Anyway, one of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is the first episode of Agatha All Along and particularly the fight scene between Agatha and Rio. And I figured, since today is the one year anniversary of seeing that episode for the first time, I’d post said thoughts.
First, anyone who has been in this fandom for two seconds knows the “fighting is foreplay” phrase. Jac and Kathryn have both talked about how Agatha and Rio are invigorated and turned on by sparring with each other, and the first episode of the show is one of the best showcases of that (along with the eighth, of course). There are parts of this fight scene that really stand out to me on a meta level and I haven’t really seen people talking about it. (Though I am on Twitter the majority of the time, so if people are talking about these specific metaphors here, I honestly haven’t seen them!)
I’ll go in order of what pops up in the scene.
First, the knife.
Yeah, I’m making a dick joke. But can you blame me? Rio stabbing Agatha with the knife is practically begging for a penetration metaphor. And it’s not all that crazy to speculate on a knife as a phallic symbol. People have done it with Macbeth, Psycho, Mrs. Dalloway, and I’m sure much more. And these aren’t even academic sources— I found these on Google in about five minutes of shallow searching. I’m sure if I had the same kind of access to databases I did three years ago in the throes of graduate school, I’d find countless literary critics going, “Wow, look at the knife in this book. Look at the knife in this movie. It represents masculinity and power and desire and you know what else can represent that? Right. A penis.”
Obviously, we’re dealing with something slightly different than that, as the examples I gave are all of male characters wielding knives, and that's probably what most of the critics in this part of the literary world are yapping about. But is now the perfectly-timed friendly reminder on how Rio Vidal is a cosmic entity and therefore canonically genderless? And that her and Agatha are truly the perfect characters to explore gender non-conformity with? And how lesbians, by virtue of being lesbians, are inherently gender non-conforming anyway? Great.
I will say it is important that Rio is the one doing the penetration. Regardless of your stance in the ever-revolving door that is the top/bottom discourse wars (c’mon, y’all, witches be switches), at the end of the day, Agatha is the one that carried Nicholas. And that is a signifier that, at least one time, she was penetrated.
Even if you’ve decided known nymphomaniac Agatha Harkness decided to not make her and Rio’s creation of Nicky some sort of sex ritual (to which I would agree to disagree, because! What’s more homemade/from scratch than a baby made from sex?), the metaphor is still there. And also! Agatha receives when she drains people of their power. They have to strike her first, and then she siphons them. She’s compared to a succubus in the show: fun fact, the etymology of that word means “to lie under”. The succubus comparison coupled with the idea that Agatha’s powers and her extraction of them are absolutely meant to be read as erotic…
Needless to say, this show is rife with metaphors of Agatha taking and taking. And using those as a sex metaphor. My little dominant bottom.
As somewhat of a side note, I also think it’s relevant to point out the dagger itself does give off the length of six or so inches… I’m not really the type of dyke to know what six inches looks like just by looking at an object, especially on a screen and not in real life, but it certainly doesn’t feel like a coincidence. You can really see it in the image below.
Which, yes, the choking feels pretty self explanatory, and I’ve seen people talking about this one since the show was actually airing, but I can’t not include it. Agatha is choking Rio in a way that’s meant to be safe for sex, not actually cut her air flow. Which, not that it probably matters anyway, as Rio doesn’t need oxygen or the ability to breathe, but it’s the thought that counts. Considering the smile on her face, her goofy ass knows this, and is thrilled because Agatha is giving her attention.
I just really love this part because it showcases how much of a little brat Agatha is. And how she also, when feeling like she has nothing left in her arsenal, brings out the sex appeal. Remember, she tried to flirt a little with Wanda in Wandavision when she was knocked down (“Good girl” etc) and Wanda certainly did not give a fuck.
Rio? She folded like a licked envelope. Like a lawn chair. Like an origami swan. Big bad cosmic entity of literal Death did not stand a chance, I fear.
Now, the hand licking.
If you need a refresher, you should watch this clip from Twitter. Because the sound of Rio licking Agatha’s blood/healing her hand? Crisp and loud. Shout out to the Foley artist who probably went to town on an ice cream cone to deliver this sound to us, because, frankly, what the fuck.
So, I’m going to be making a metaphor that wounds are yonic. Aka… pussy shaped! I clarify because I feel as if phallic is more well-known as a term than yonic. Patriarchy at work, smh.
(Which, people in this fandom have already made yonic connections to wounds. Thank you to oomf who wrote the wound fucking fic all the way back in December. Your iconic work cannot be ignored.)
Anyway, wounds as something yonic has existed since… well, the literal Middle Ages. Here is an article about Christ’s side wound being depicted with some incredibly yonic imagery, and you’re welcome to give the entire thing a read if you wish, but I’m just going to paste a conglomerate of their example images below.
Like, is that not fucking crazy. Which, yes, we’re making Biblical references, because if I want to tote that this metaphor has existed since the Middle Ages, the only fucking books that existed at this time were the Bible and like three other things that are essentially just Biblical fanfiction anyway (looking at you, Dante!).
Which, the yonic imagery makes sense. Wounds spill blood. And by the way my uterus is currently doing its monthly cleaning, so do vaginas. The article also makes some hypotheses as to why the yonic depiction of Christ’s side wound seems to be a pattern— one of which is that Christ’s side wound expelled his resurrection in the same way vaginas birth things.
Also, if you did not know, the side wound is one of the five hold wounds Christ endures while being crucified. Four of them are from his hands and feet getting nailed. The side wound, the fifth, is a Roman soldier piercing him with a spear (retrospectively dubbed The Holy Lance) to essentially make sure he’s dead on the cross.
It’s a bit funny because in the original text, it’s just a regular spear. But of course there are about four places claiming to have the actual spear, there are plenty of replicas, and it holds a lot of significance in religious texts and practices today, almost like it was a special sort of weapon.
Kind of like Rio’s reality-tearing dagger!
More phallic imagery in the form of the lance, of course, which is what led me to this very funny and well-timed article title.
This is actually relevant to point out, because in the beginning of the fight, when Rio pricks (ha) Agatha’s sternum, that’s phallic imagery. So Agatha cutting herself on the thing we’ve already been told is phallic makes this wound explicitly meant to be read as yonic.
I think the symbolism in this show has been masterfully curated in many ways, and I absolutely think there’s purposeful symbolism in this scene in particular. And while I don’t necessarily know if Jac meant for it to be read specifically in the way I’m writing about it… I dunno. She’s a pretty smart and sophisticated lady, the kind that when you tell someone you like a show like Wandavision/Agatha All Along, you usually have to plug her name in there because you’re swearing to your highbrow media friends these shows are NOT what they’re presumably thinking a Marvel show would look like. I personally trust her writing skills and ability as well as her analysis in interviews about Agatha and Rio fighting as a form of foreplay that something is meant to be read here. More than just foreplay, but the actual acts of sex through the metaphor in Rio’s dagger.
So, let’s make the connection here. Rio’s dagger is phallic. The wound it creates in Agatha’s hand is yonic. And… RIO LICKS IT UP? With a sound effect so fucking loud you could probably hear it in another country?
Yeah, that’s cunnilingus.
And when the wound is healed… the yonic imagery is gone. And what does Rio do? She pretty much immediately leaves. Because, well, the sex is over.
From what we’ve seen, heard, and also mass-characterized ourselves, this is pretty normal for Rio and Agatha. They meet up, they spar and/or fuck, they leave. They have quite literally been doing this longer than the United States of America has been a country. (And may they do it for long after this horrible fucking place is torn to shreds. Amen.) We’ve explicitly been told that Agatha and Rio met up after Nicky’s death and before the events of the show; we aren’t told how many times or how frequently, but that’s fine. That can be left up to us.
What’s important is the establishment of a pattern. Part of the reason Agatha keeps coming back to Rio, even after all the heartache, is because Rio challenges her in a way that no one else can. Intellectually, physically, so certainly sexually. Kathryn said this, and I specifically remember freaking the fuck out because I’d used similar language to her months before the interview was released. So, eep.
Since this is a tumblr post and not an academic essay, I’m able to right-out say the conclusion I have here is not only is the knife scene meant to be seen as foreplay, it’s meant to be read as straight-up fornication. Agatha and Rio sitting in a tree, F-U-C-K-I-N-G, if you will.
Because, if we’re told by Jac and Kathryn that these two were meeting up and fucking and staying in each other’s toxic embraces for three centuries, but this is a Marvel show… on Disney. So I absolutely think Jac and the other writers would have wanted to showcase Agatha and Rio “having sex” without explicitly showing it, especially considering how many hints they dropped for us to show that Rio was Nicky’s other parent. We were given so much in the short amount of time the show was allowed to exist; why not have sex be a part of it?
Here are all the different scenes of the DVD commentary I’m translating. I’ll try to update it after every new post ! A huge thank you to @bereaving who’s the one who makes ALL the gif sets here. A true hero.
Céline’s words of introduction on the DVD/Blu-ray
Céline comments on the very first scene of the film
Céline talks about the boat + jumping in the water scene
Céline comments on Marianne’s arrival on the island
Noémie talks about how her costume helped her to get into the character of Marianne
Céline talks about the castle
Céline explains the importance of the workshop set
Céline talks about her new challenge with the sound reconstitution
Céline explains how she used light and candles in her film
Céline talks about Sophie’s role and the creation of a new horizontal dynamic between the characters
Céline comments the discovery of the faceless portrait and the match cut with the headless dress
Céline talks about the role of the countess and her horizontal relationship with Marianne
Céline on creating Marianne’s workshop and the importance of the curtain
Céline explains why and how she created the desire to see Adèle/Héloïse’s face
Céline talks about the first exchange of glances between Marianne and Héloïse
Adèle explained how she prepared for the role of Héloïse and how she perceived her character
Noémie looking like a tired kid at Christmas
Céline and her desire to show the work of the painter
Céline talks about the scarves and Adèle’s gazes
The beach as the end of the world for Héloïse
Céline talks about the first time she heard Adèle’s voice as Héloïse on set
Céline talks about the sound work on the waves and the unexpected good weather in Brittany
Céline Sciamma: “This is important. The character drinks beer.”
Céline talks about filming the painting
Céline talks about the first real exchange between Héloïse and Marianne and about a key sentence of the film
Céline talks about the difficulty of not having a model and the art of self portrait
Céline and Adèle talk about the first scene of intimacy between Héloïse and Marianne
Marianne is the first character to burn during the piano scene
Céline commenting on one of her dreamed scenes, that was the “but I also felt your absence” scene
Céline talks about how the first portrait is presented to the audience
Céline explains how she wanted to resolve conflict differently from most other films
Céline talks about guilt and fire
Céline comments on the portrait on fire and its meaning
Céline explains how she created the delay of conflict
Céline explains how the film dynamic changes after Marianne shows Héloïse the first portrait
Céline talks about the arrival of a third character in the frame
Céline talks about the relationship between Héloïse and her mother
Noémie explains how she approached the role of the painter
Céline on filming desire in the “look at me” scene
Céline comments the representation of menstruation in her film
Céline Sciamma : “New territory. A world without the countess, a three person world.“
How Totoro has inspired Céline Sciamma
Céline explains her love for the kitchen place and its signification
Céline talks about the difficulty of the sequence shot of Marianne preparing to draw Héloïse and the importance of the candles
Céline talks about the technicality of the scene where Marianne draws Héloïse in secrecy
Originally, the “if you look at me, who do i look at” scene was the scene of the first kiss
Céline talks about the one and only wide shot on Marianne
Céline comments on Adèle’s innocence when shooting the card game scene
Claire Mathon talks about filming Adèle and Noémie’s faces
Céline talks about her desire to film the art of embroidery
Céline talks about the representation of sorority in the film
Céline explains the importance of the reading scene of the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice
Claire Mathon comments on the silhouettes scene
Céline Sciamma and Claire Mathon talk about the bonfire scene
Céline explains the thought and making process of the first kiss scene
Céline talks about the new dynamic of the film after the first kiss
Céline comments on the first ghost apparition
Céline talks about her tribute to Persona in the second kiss scene
Céline explains the scene of intimacy in the morning
Céline and her pockets obsession
Céline talks about the complexity of the abortion scene
Céline explains why it’s important to represent the abortion within the film
Céline and Noémie talk about their chemistry with Adèle and how the environnement created by Céline helped them
Adèle explains why filming the sex scene was something she enjoyed doing
Céline comments on the second ghost apparition
Céline Sciamma : “we hope to democratize this method of hydration”
Céline, Adèle and Noémie talking about the scene of conflict
Céline talks about the beginning of the end of the love story
Céline said they picked the most emotional take for the “forgive me” scene
Céline explains how the silence she created helps the audience to focus on their own breathing and own emotions
Céline and her desire to talk about miniatures
Céline and Adèle talk about page 28 and the explanation behind that figure
Céline comments the mirror scene
Céline says she wrote the “don’t regret, remember” scene for the last audition of Noémie and how her chemistry with Adèle moved her
Céline comments on the last bed scene
Céline talks about the effect of seeing the man back in the frame
Céline explains the necessity of writing about women’s desires
Céline talks about Marianne and Sophie’s goodbyes
Noémie being very moved (and pale) during Adèle’s last day of shooting
Céline comments on the “turn around” scene
Céline comments on the first ending of the film
Céline commenting the exhibition/ Louvre scene, which was the last scene that was shot for the film
Céline reading the script of the final scene of Portrait (+ the audio)
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
She doesn’t think about Steve as much as she used to, these days.
He’ll always be there, an ache buried deep in in her heart that she can’t quite shake. But it doesn’t hurt quite as much as it did before. Whenever she thinks about it she can almost picture Steve’s grin, the way he’d bounce on his heels before saying I told you so.
That’s not relevant, to her situation with Barbara. Except that, of course, it is.
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