folklore tells different stories with different characters, it tells Rebekah Harkness story, Augustine story, but to me it tells mainly Betty and James’s love story.
The song Exile explains the end of their relationship. I’m not quite sure if they were actually a couple because of the lines playing hide and seek in cardigan. It feels more like they were in the beggining of something, in the pre-relationship phase. Betty and James lived in the same town, and went to the same school, therefore I assume they have known each other their whole lifes, maybe they were kind of best friends since they were little. folklore picks up their story when they are seventeen. Seven talks about two childhood friends, and one of them tells the other: your dad is always mad and what if seven is from James’s perspective. We know for a fact that Betty has a complicated relationship with his father and that James drew stars around her scars…
James watched Betty dance with another guy, maybe an ex of Betty’s, at the school’s gym, and if it is Betty’s ex I can see James thinking I think I’ve seen this film before and I didn’t like the ending, I’ve been left behind before and she chose him not me, maybe she doesn’t choose me now. So, James left before he got left, just like Betty said: Peter leaving Wendy. Wendy left Peter, not the other way around so that’s why he tried to change his fate. Betty saw James and she saw in his eyes that he wasn’t sure of their relationship, that he was already thinking she had gotten back with her ex if that was the case or that she just simply had found another guy. James was a deeply insecure person, he was so different from Betty who was confident about herself and about him, she knew him when he didn’t even know himself yet. He didn’t know anything, as he himself says in Betty but he knew he loved her, howewer, he didn’t believe she loved him back. That night at the dance was just as taylor said the insult to the already existing injury.
Their relationship ended because despite she gave so many signs, he didn’t see them. I think it makes more sense that they were broken up, or that they were never really together as I said before, than the whole cheating thing. Plus, Taylor never said he cheated, it’s not even official. She refers as Augustine as the girl James spent the summer with, not the girl he cheated on Betty with. Also, in cardigan Betty never said anything about cheating, she just said chase two girls, which could also mean than she and James weren’t even a real consolidated thing and they were obviously not together because they spent the summer appart. The thing is he didn’t cheat but it was still wrong. He gave up on the hard relationship, the one he had to put effort and work on, the one he truly wanted to be in though, and went to Augustine. Augustine seemed like the safe choice, the person who wasn’t gonna hurt him cause he didn’t have any real feelings for her. Let’s say she couldn’t see the smiles he was faking and his heart wasn’t breaking cause he didn’t feel anything at all (okay… enough). August was a classmate at school, maybe even Betty’s friend at school and she was very in love with James. She jumped into a relationship with him just living for the hope of it all but she knew deep in her heart, he was never her’s, he was Betty’s. August is the third person in every love triangle, she loves him and James cares about her and he will try to lie to himself and tell himself he’s alright but he’s not, he will always love Betty. However, when summer was over and they had to face each other again, James didn’t know how to talk to Betty, after she had known thanks to Inez that he had spent the summer with some other girl, that soon, without even trying to work on them. So him, a 17 year old stupid (affectionate, but yeah he was) boy spent days fantasizing about showing up at her party and about everything going back to the way it was.
The one picks up the story years later from Betty’s perspective. Betty is an adult now, she’s moved on and she’s supposedly happy with life. However, she can’t help but wonder what could her life have been if something had been different, if James would have showed up at her party just like James wanted to but he never did as we get to know in Betty. I also belive hoax is the continuation to the one. She sings I don’t want no other shade of blue but you. She rathers holding onto the what ifs and remember him and their story than let him go forever and and get him out of her heart.
The story goes on and on in cardigan. We know that Betty KNEW he’d come back, she didn’t know when but she knew he eventually would. She knew he would come back not only to her, but to the town. In cardigan Betty talks about leaving, running and stepping on the last train, and I belive she doesn’t only talk about that cruel summer but also about him leaving for good later on. And this leads us to this is me trying, James’s song. this is me trying is James’s cardigan, his 17 year old has Betty but he’s 30 something has this is me trying. James didn’t know if Betty still loved him: I didn’t know if you’d care if I came back but he sure did still love her and he regrets what happened, how their relationship ended, how he left her. Because that’s what he did, he left Betty and that’s what Betty cursed for the longest time. He now says that although he doesn’t know what to say he’s there on her doorway, just like Betty knew when she was young. James is not fantazasing anymore about being there, like he did in Betty, he is now confirming he’s there indeed. To him Betty is a flashback in his town, she is his town, BETTY= TOWN. James even calls her his town in exile too: You were MY TOWN. He can’t go anywhere but there cause all he wants is her. And that links to My tears ricochet (I don’t think this song is about them but some parts fit) cause he can go anywhere he wants to just not home and as I said before Betty=town=home.
Now, the songs that puts an ending to this love story are peace (James’s pov) and invisible string (Betty’s pov) Peace takes place after James and Betty had gotten back together and it starts with our coming of age has come and gone, see they’re not teenagers anymore. James has grown and he is now a mature person, the person Betty knew he could be. He has finally learn to communicate and to be honest and open with Betty, to tell her his insecurities like you’re integrity makes me feel small. Finally, in invisible string (I know it’s about Taylor and Joe but I like this ending to their story) Betty, an overthinker and a person who believed in fate, remember I knew you’d come back to me, replays what they have gotten through in their life and how all along there was some invisible string tying them together. It is so satisfactory that they end up together in the end.
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