#beth is coming

[stillaswind]

SPOILER for DCS3

✨✨✨

Emily has been spotted filming with Lauren on the set of Dead City!!! It appears to be a dream sequence. And she has her guitar. 💚

It looks to be set at Christmas time and JDM is also present.

Our girl is on her way back to us!!!

[bookqueenrules]

Did you all see this??? Emily responding to Norman with a ❤️!

Since this is from a French fan account with a few thousand followers, I wonder if Norman didn't let Emily know to go post a response. You will notice that she posted a day later.

@galadrieljones @marybethyl @wdway

Emily posted the SAME pic as Roman.

Photo credit to @obidala2 and @stillaswind

It's getting crazy folks. Tons of hints are being given! It's an exciting time to be a Beth fan! 😎

[marybethyl]

Ok Gimple is either messing with us or we re totally nuts.... Look what he posted a few hours ago....

Everything gets a return (flight)....

What do you think????

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Beth Returns to Dead City CONFIRMED — DDS4 Delayed & Team Delusional Was Right | Bethyl Asks 194

[4thenorthstar]

when ginny lost her doll, maggie found it. right?

if beth lost her sweater at some point, and if the stories align, maybe someone (carol) found or saw the so-called sweater but did not say anything? i'd say it's possible.

maggie -> carol

negan -> daryl

ginny -> beth

[galadrieljones]

Strange Things, Pt. 1: Ep. 10.18 "Find Me"

*Note that I will be posting my own voice recordings of these posts on my youtube channel, for your optional convenience. Since they're just audio recordings, you should keep this post nearby, so you can refer to my visuals if needed. Alternatively, you can just read the post, or scroll along as you listen. Enjoy!*

As a way of keeping things going, I've decided to put together a little series of Team Delusional posts called "Strange Things." Each of these posts will go through an episode of "interest" to Team Delusional and point out a number of "strange things" contained within: questions, observations, oddities, etc.. These posts are less about theories and more about fostering renewed interest in old material, to inspire research, and to point out lingering, unanswered questions. With so many new voices in our fandom, this seems like a good time to keep the discussion going and to discover updated points of view via fresh eyes.

For my first post, I want to look at episode 10.18 "Find Me." Here are some strange things.

Why is Daryl so on edge? If you watch this episode again, you'll notice that Daryl is noticeably, extremely on edge the entire time. At some points, he even appears to be fearful. For example, when he and Carol first enter the woods, he seems extremely concerned that they might get separated. Even Carol takes notice and tries to make a joke, but he is serious. Daryl is not typically fearful, so any time he expresses fear or anxiety, we should take interest in his context and environment. Daryl's fears also seem to have psychological roots. He isn't afraid of death or pain or walkers or people. He's afraid of his past, and the memories and hallucinations that haunt him. As is actually confirmed with Beth in "Still," Daryl's fears are almost entirely internal. So what is he so afraid of in "Find Me?"

What does Dog see? In "Find Me," Dog seems closely attuned to something in those woods, but more interestingly, I think he's closely attuned to something inside of Daryl. Whether it's in a protective capacity or an extension of Daryl's impulse as a "wanderer," I'm not sure, but Dog seems to understand something in this episode that we do not. Watch him closely, as Dog seems related to the sequence with the railroad spikes, which I'll get to in a minute. Dog is sort of like a guide, helping us navigate the darkest depths of Daryl's subconscious. Dog will once again lead Daryl down a "rabbit hole" at the end of "Acheron, Pt. 1" and then again in "Hunted." At the beginning of "Rendition," Dog is once again a direct vector to Leah. Dog is closely linked to Leah, as he "belonged" to Leah first. In some ways, they are one. It might explain why, when we first see Leah, her face is hidden, and her "red" hair blends in with Dog's red coat.

What do the railroad spikes signify? This is one of the most mystifying parts of "Find Me." In the present, after Dog takes off and leads Daryl to the empty house where he apparently once lived with Leah, Daryl encounters three railroad spikes hammered into a tree as he enters the clearing. These spikes seem to mean something to him, as he stops to look at them with consternation.

Later, in the flashback in which Dog appears in the woods and leads Daryl to Leah for the first time, the sequence of events is set off by two railroad spikes, also seemingly hammered into a tree, which Daryl, once again, regards with consternation.

Both instances are accompanied by the same otherworldly, haunting music, which swells up in the background, suggesting they're somehow related, and that something bizarre is going on.

At the time the episode aired, the repetition was so curious to me, I wondered if it wasn't the beginning of some sort of trauma loop for Daryl. I initially wrote about it as a "Three Prongs" theory, before I realized they were probably, actually railroad spikes. Perhaps he put the spikes there himself. It was around this time that we were theorizing that Leah could be a pure hallucination, due to the woolly nature of this episode, and certain things Norman hinted at in interviews, saying it wasn't what it "seemed." But when we learned that Leah was real, the theory changed, became muddy. We can see that the first time Dog leads Daryl to Leah, in the past, there are two spikes in the tree. The second time Dog leads Daryl to Leah, in the present, there are three spikes in a different tree. But the story is told out of order, so the sequence is as well. It was counting down to something in reverse. 3...2...? This lead me to believe that there had to be an instance of a single spike somewhere, hammered into a tree, which we haven't seen yet, completing the sequence: 3...2...1, or 1...2...3.

In terms of whether or not the spikes actually exist, Daryl acknowledges them, which would suggest they are real, or at least they are real to him. In any case, we still don't know why they're there, or what they mean, only that they seem to be a part of some bizarre sequence of events involving Daryl's psychotic break and also Dog that invariably lead Daryl to Leah.

Daryl's (in)sanity. In "Find Me," we learn that Daryl wandered the river, looking for Rick, for over five years. Aside from periodic visits from Carol, who would bring him supplies, suggesting that the Kingdom and ASZ are reasonably nearby, Daryl is completely alone for much of that time. Certain fragmented aspects of Daryl's flashbacks suggest that this may have, in some ways, fractured his perceptions of reality, placing him into a state of possible psychosis. We know from "Chupacabra" that Daryl is prone to hallucinations in times of instability. His psychology contains significant cracks that can be exploited and worsened by extreme mental stress. This is not new for him.

At the beginning of the flashbacks, Daryl meets little Dog wandering in the woods, perhaps a symbol of his own childhood innocence, which he cannot hang onto for long. Time passes in a confusing fashion. Years seem to go by in an instant. At one point, he encounters an overturned boat.

When he picks up the boat to look underneath, the walker doesn't look like Rick, or anyone he knows. He then stomps in the walker's skull in a sudden fit of rage. His chaotic mental state is communicated by quick, jittery jump cuts, which you must watch to fully appreciate. At this point, we know that Daryl is not in his right mind. Something is wrong, and we cannot trust what we're seeing.

We then immediately cut to the storm, which I believe symbolizes Daryl's full psychotic break from reality. He loses the map, all evidence of his search, which once again enrages him, and then his camp appears to be struck by lightning. Daryl hobbles away with his crossbow mysteriously, looks up into the sky and almost smiles, appearing to have some sort of epiphany.

Later in the episode, we will see Daryl walking in the woods once more, with the map intact, in his back pocket. Is it a new map? Did the storm actually happen? Was all of that imagined? We don't know.

The intermingling of Daryl's casual wandering, calm existence at the riverside camp, and then periodic upswings of psychosis and rage make the entirety of these flashbacks feel very unsettling. It is clear that Daryl was not in his right mind during that period of five years, which calls into question the verity of what happens in the episode. This means that we should treat everything we're seeing as a kind of symbolic dream sequence. Nothing should be read literally or taken at face value, least of all the character Leah.

Leah as "supernatural." I think it was @frangipanilove who talked a LONG time ago about Leah as a kind of witch of the Underworld, a supernatural creature. If the river is the Acheron, it stands to reason that she could be Hecate, whose temple stands on the banks. She could also be Circe, the temptress who swindles Odysseus's men on the island of Aeaea, turning them to swine, and with whom Odysseus lives as a lover for a year, not that far off from how long Daryl stays with Leah in those woods.

Leah also has Biblical significance, as her name derives from Genesis and the origin story of Jacob. In the story, Jacob meets Rachel, a farmer's daughter, and immediately falls in love with her. He agrees to work on her father's farm for seven years in exchange for his daughter's hand in marriage; however, when their wedding night finally comes, Leah, Rachel's older sister, comes to him instead, in *disguise,* and he marries her by mistake. After seven more years, Jacob is finally able to marry Rachel as well.

Though she doesn't initially appear to be "evil," Leah is a mysterious woman with military-style tattoos and a kind of superhuman control over Daryl. When he first enters her house, he enters through the backdoor. Keep in mind that any time someone enters through the "backdoor" in this show, not everything is as it seems. Recall that in "Alone," there was no backdoor. Daryl sealed the backdoor. There was only one way in or out. Daryl's first encounter with Leah involves him killing a walker in her living room while she throws a literal, disembodied arm at him. Then, after she holds him at gunpoint and asks him what he's doing on her "land," an odd question considering that land ownership means close to nothing anymore, this tiny woman somehow gets big, gruff Daryl tied to a chair. After some back and forth, Leah frees Daryl with her green(e) Swiss Army Knife and lets him go, but she will not tell him her name. The director then uses this cross dissolve transition in which Leah is posed as a visual parallel to the river itself.

Leah as a nameless creature once again parallels Dog, another essential "nameless" creature, making the episode feel all the more dreamlike, in which everything is simply a representation of something else. Leah will not develop a name until she and Daryl get too close for comfort in a hollow tree trunk. The highly pressurized experience of hiding from walkers in a "trunk" with a woman spooks Daryl, who tells her to stay away from him. "Name's Leah," she says before she storms off. But how much of this is real?

All of this is to say that that much of "Leah" as we see her in "Find Me" seems to be made up as Daryl goes along. She's an amalgamation of both Carol in the present and Beth in the past, and aside from some small specifics like her tattoos and the picture of her and a little boy she calls Matthew, we know very little about who she actually is. The whole episode seems to leak into itself, with callbacks, repetitions, and symbols that feel related and important but with no coherent explanation as to why. This is why I believe "Find Me" is foreshadowing for events we haven't yet witnessed on Daryl's journey.

Daryl's scar. It's in "Find Me" that we first see Daryl with his telltale scar, which crosses down through his eyebrow and all the way to his cheek. It's fairly dramatic, and it appears to be made by a knife. We still don't know how he got the scar, but it has become more prominent over the years, taking the shape of a fullblown crucifix. How Daryl got the scar could tell us more about this mysterious time in his life, and his relationship with Leah. I will talk more about this in my post about "Rendition."

The Solar Eclipse. In the episode, Leah and Daryl look at a solar eclipse, which feels massively symbolic. Since it's a solar eclipse, that means the sun is being blotted out by the moon. It seems to echo the sort of "liminal" space we're in at the moment, and also that the "brighter" part of Daryl's story may be hidden for the time being, but it will be revealed soon.

Echoes. There are multiple moments in "Find Me" in which Leah and the situations Daryl encounters with Leah seem to "echo" past conversations and experiences that Daryl's had, particularly with Carol and Beth. Some of them are immediate imprints of conversations we see with Carol earlier in the episode. For example, the conversation about not letting the dead "catch up."

There's also two fish-spearing scenes, in which both Carol and Leah experience "beginners luck." Even the composition of these shots is similar, suggesting further intentionality and prompting deeper analysis.

While looking at the eclipse, Leah also echoes Beth's line, "Don't you think that's beautiful?" This line is echoed quite often throughout the series, by multiple characters, communicating its overall importance to the theme of the show. It is rooted in Beth.

*Edit (not included in the video): This is not the only Beth echo. Recall the example above of Daryl and Leah hiding together in a "trunk" from walkers. As a direct though symbolic callback to "Still," this is one of our strongest indicators that Leah is in some way a Beth "proxy."

There's also this:

Leah also tells Daryl that she raised her "son" Matthew after her "sister" (close friend) died in childbirth. This story echoes the situation in which Beth raised Judith after Lori died in childbirth. Mysteriously, however, it also foreshadows Isabelle raising Laurent after her literal sister dies in childbirth. This communicates a strong intentionality on the part of the writers, ie: They're doing this on purpose. It also places Leah at the center of a strange triad of surrogate mothers, all of whom are involved with Daryl. Only with Leah, her "son" has sadly died.

This could exist to highlight Daryl's own frustrating role as a surrogate father (never a father of his own children) and/or for reasons we don't yet fully understand. 🤔

Leah's story. Leah's story in and of itself is extremely odd. Rewatch the scene to really feel how bizarrely specific it is, almost as if they're trying to help us to place certain events on the timeline through the use of known variables (like the "day that Dog was born") and to give us very clear, certain pieces of information that we might need or want to remember later. It communicates that when Daryl first meets little Dog, that would have been shortly after Matthew died, and Leah was already in the woods alone. It also communicates that Leah's story about how she "separated from her family" after some sort of walker inundation happened about two years after Rick's disappearance. There are also certain aspects of Leah's story that could echo the events of the Missing 17 Days.

Daryl's Note. Daryl's note seems to sum up the entire thesis of his potential "happy ending," ie: "I belong with you. FIND ME," accompanied by a simple map to his camp, where "x" marks the spot.

This note is mysterious, because we aren't sure why Daryl goes back to Leah. It could be foreshadowing for why he goes back to Isabelle. He is lonely, and he believes this may be his last shot at true love, so he is willing to settle if that's what it takes. It does communicate that Daryl desires romantic love, that it is something he wants to experience, deeply. It also echoes the story he tells Andrea in "Bloodletting," about the time he wandered into the woods and no one came to "find" him. Some believe that this story may be the culmination of what's going on in Daryl's season 3 flashbacks. Will Beth actually be the one to "find" Daryl?

There are probably a lot of things I missed or glossed over in this post. The truth is, "Find Me" is one of those episodes that keeps on giving. Every time you watch it, you'll discover things you previously missed. It's full of strangeness and goodies, but very few answers. Ultimately, I believe it and the Leah arc in general may be a foreshadowing episode for events to come in Daryl Dixon season 4. It communicates a clear focus on Daryl's psychological instability in times of grief, as well as Daryl's deepest desires, which involve romantic love, safety, and a stable home.

Thoughts? Leave a comment or send me an ask. If you have a specific episode you'd like me to address in this series, let me know! The next episode I plan to tackle will be 5.8 "Coda." 💫

[drewmoll03]

Weird Article about Beth

Hello guys, it's been a while since I posted anything!

Idk if someone else already covered this, (let me know if that's the case) but I found an article that was written about a month ago, and it seems pretty interesting.

I feel like it talks about stuff we have always talked about, obviously, but I don't think I've ever read it in an article. It mentions how Dawn shooting her in the head was accidental ( and they highlighted this part), the famous "I've survived and you don't get it" line, and then it talks about how literally no one mentions Beth ever again after s5, although they missed s10(?) When Maggie is talking with Daryl, even though it was only a slight mention.

It also mentions that Daryl still wears her shoelaces 🤧

I'll attach some screenshots, but it's worth reading it all.

Thoughts? @twdmusicboxmystery @bookqueenrules

When Does Beth Die on The Walking Dead?

The loss of Beth Greene took a huge hit on the survivors of The Walking Dead. Although unexpected, her death served a greater purpose in Sea

[xxx-theartofsuicide-xxx]

TWD:DD S3E1 Thoughts + Odyssean Parallels/Foreshadowing

From R. M. Rilke's wiki:

Rilke extensively engaged with metaphors, metonymy and contradictions in his poetry and prose to convey disbelief and a crisis of faith. Figures from Greek mythology, such as Apollo, Hermes and Orpheus, recur as motifs in his poems and are depicted in original interpretations that often double as analogies for his experiences.

Sonnets to Orpheus, written as a requiem to his friend's daughter who died tragically young (nineteen, just one year older than Beth), were Rilke's most famous works. Orpheus, like Odysseus, is one of the handful of Greek heroes who was allowed to visit the underworld and return. His music had power over even Hades. He was husband to Eurydice, and was given the opportunity to bring her back from the grave.

The quote in the beginning of this episode comes from Requiem for a Friend, and it's a beautiful read with a Bethyl lens.

Moving on, the "observe curfew" sign that Daryl and Carol see upon entering London cites curfew from 18:00-8:00

Matthew 18:8: "Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire"

This reference seems a bit too on the nose to be coincidental. In my opinion, Carol is the hand that will offend. There was a whole new slew of omens for Carol in this episode, so I'll list them in bullets:

The death's head moth on her portrait in the opening is a glaringly obvious foreshadow

Her scenes are yet again painted red

Her optimism is reminiscent of Denise, Noah, Glenn, and Beth

Carol has repeatedly used fire to terrorize the living (Karen and David's pyres, the people at Terminus, Negan's people + her hypocritical smoking habit and everything that preludes her lighting up) so to see her use a fire extinguisher to kill a walker is certainly symbolic of something

While Julian's morality test at first glance may seem like a pass for Carol as she was sensitive and beseeching, kind where Daryl was rude and brusque, it ultimately was another failure of her character. Daryl was honest where Carol was dishonest. An ugly truth is always more honorable than a pretty lie. An ugly truth would probably have kept Julian alive longer. Interestingly enough, Julien (with an "e") was the husband of Remy, the Frenchman who sacrificed Carol to Genet in the previous season. This does not seem coincidental.

Daryl's I Spy: he saw something "red"

I'll be focusing the rest of this post on Odyssey parallels and foreshadowing

In Book 12 of the Odyssey (exactly halfway through our hero's journey, just like S3E1) Odysseus and his men endure the surf and the smoke at the Planctae, before following the terrible strait between Scylla and the Charbydis. Wiki breakdowns below to provide a foundational context.

Planctae was London, the narrow street Carol and Daryl walked together was the terrible strait, and the "squid" were the Scylla. I suspect the storm itself was the Charybdis, and I don't expect we're done seeing this odyssean event play out. Like the lotus-eaters, I predict these monsters will have multiple manifestations.

At the end of Book 12, Odysseus is shipwrecked and isolated on Calypso's isle. This is Spain, and Calypso/Isabelle does not even need to be present to keep Daryl entrapped.

Julian's entire character is divine intervention personified. He appears just as mysteriously as he disappears, he comes bearing tests and gifts, and teaches lessons. Looking at this portion of the Odyssey, I'm inclined to say that this is Athena appearing to Odysseus as a Shepherd to tell him that he has arrived in Ithaca. In TWD:DD, Ithaca is a feeling, not a place. The shipwreck and Julian's unfortunate demise both to me are indicative of that this test of God was failed, and that Daryl is not ready for Ithaca yet.

Lastly, the end table Daryl interacts with in the London apartment has a trio of small Grecian statues on it. Thrinacia, where Odysseus and his famished and weathered crew slaughter Helios' cows and incur Zeus's ire, means "island of three heads." This is a small nod to let us know where we are so far in Daryl's Odyssey, and where we're going next.