Since we are on the subject of making the finale better, has someone mentioned that "Galadriel's share of guilt for Celebrimbor's demise and Eregion's destruction" should have been addressed by Sauron at their last confrontation?
Yes, mental palace. Yes, no one liners from Galadriel. But mainly: an entire season disastrous for the heroes because Galadriel was too ashamed of her partnership with Sauron to tell the other elves, including Celebrimbor, exactly who Halbrand was when she had the chance, by the end of season 1.
No way in hell would Sauron not use this to guilt-bind her to him further, nor should he do any different, storytelling-wise.
The emotional weight to Galadriel, nor to mention it keeps that dark twist that makes her an engaging protagonist.
I could argue it's the main theme of the season and perfect follow up to season one's: Galadriel, through her worst qualities, continues to resemble her enemy and further aid him.
The sudden realization that Steerpike first words to Fuchsia at their final meeting contrasts with the first one beautifully.
She finds him in the attic, but instead of making up a fantastical story about being an adventurer and discovering a pavement in the sky, he simply pleads "Help me. I'm starving."
It is true now just as much as it was then, when he was running away from the kitchens and in desperate need of a patron. Except now he is fully honest. The whole scene is about him being utterly vunerable towards Fuchsia for the first and last time.
WARNING! This post has spoilers for The Cage Trilogy by Megan Shepherd.
I will be pointing out parallels between the books and Netflix’s The OA. I’ve just finish the second book and probably won’t begin the third and last one, since it’s not available for free on the internet (but I’ve read spoilers for it, so expect that as well).
One day I might make a pretty gifset comparing the two ships - Hap x Prairie and Cassian x Cora - but for now this will have to do.
“I broke you. I know that. But I will fix you again. I will make you even stronger. I am not alone. We intend to hide you in a menagerie, but I will watch out for you there. I will not let any harm come to you. I will teach you how to control and focus your ability. Cora. We can change everything, together.”
That last word hung in the air. There was hope in his voice—hope her heart didn’t mirror.
She gave him a cold look. “Get away from me.”
What is it about?
For those who never heard of it, The Cage Trilogy is a YA scifi series about a group of teenagers kidnapped by aliens. The synopsis in goodreads reads as follow:
When Cora Mason wakes in a desert, she doesn’t know where she is or who put her there. As she explores, she finds an impossible mix of environments—tundra next to desert, farm next to jungle, and a strangely empty town cobbled together from different cultures, all watched over by eerie black windows. And she isn’t alone.
Four other teenagers have also been taken: a beautiful model, a tattooed smuggler, a secretive genius, and an army brat who seems to know too much about Cora’s past. None of them have a clue as to what happened, and all of them have secrets. As the unlikely group struggles for leadership, they slowly start to trust each other. But when their mysterious jailer appears—a handsome young guard called Cassian—they realize that their captivity is more terrifying than they could ever imagine: their captors aren’t from Earth. And they have taken the five teenagers for an otherworldly zoo—where the exhibits are humans.
By the end of the first book, we learn the purpose of their captors was not a zoo, but rather experiment on humans so they could develop psychic abilities. Species without mind powers are treated as animals and can be enslaved and sold by others. Only by proving humans can evolve they will be granted equal rights. Therefore, the director of the research, Cassian, is a scientist that, through unethical experiments on the woman he loves, is ultimately aiming for the benefit of humanity.
Who should read it
Every Hoap shipper, specially the ones that wanted a redemption arc. I’m one of the few shippers that could not ship it as anything other than unrequited and doomed, yet even I enjoyed it all the way.
“You accuse me of wanting to feel lesser emotions. You’re right. Is it such a crime to want to feel? I do not understand why we must always be at odds. Why we cannot be partners in proving humanity’s intelligence. Why that partnership cannot cross into what I feel in my heart whenever I think of you. Why you cannot love me, and why you feel such contempt for the fact that I love you.”
Critic to the 1th book
The main girl Cora, is instantaneously attracted to him, like in Hoap. But unlike hoap, it’s kind of cheesy.
The first book starts with a interesting premise but screams young adult through the middle, and only by the end the plot twist makes the reader’s patience worth it.
For instance, there is a scene when Cora is alone with her captor in his bedroom, getting all these unwanted goosebumps and mixed feelings about him, as if she hadn’t just witnessed enslaved, drugged and mutilated people walking on the streets, children included.
The other captives conform to their new reality like it’s nothing, and it’s clear such a unrealistic adaptation was forced by the author for the purpose of Cora’s character development as the isolated rebel.
Through most of the book you think Cassian is just the henchman following orders and will eventually help Cora escape.
Of course, I stopped reading.
I was promised villain x heroine and I felt cheated. He was an antihero turned hero in a single book, and there were more two books to go.
Months latter I searched for the person whom recommended me. If she hadn’t been trustworthy in her reccs so far, I’d not have troubled, but I knew her and she hated villains that were not actually villains as much as I did. So how could she be so wrong? She assured me you had to wait until the end - and that the ship reminded her of Hap x Prairie.
So a few days ago I resumed my reading. What I found, I’m going to show you now.
Parallels - parallels everywhere
Cora’s backstory has her almost dying when her father’s car crashed in the ocean and made her afraid of water.
There was no going back. The darkness was complete, a universe with no stars. And cold. The ocean really did go on forever. She imagined she was back in her father’s car with river water rushing in. What if he’d never broken the windshield?
- The Cage
Cassian made so that the exit to the cage was located in the ocean. Like Hap, he puts her through the experience of drowning and, as much as she hated it, it’s the reason for her powers:
“I wanted you to have to face all your darkest fears. I gave you more tokens so the others would grow jealous and turn on you. I planted the bone in the jungle to drive a further wedge. I thought, when you discovered your past with Lucky, you would leave him. When you still showed signs of caring, I offered him a bargain to stay away from you. I needed you to be alone. Terrified. Only then would your mind truly break.”
Before choosing Cora for the experiment, he knew from her personal story all the trauma had made her stronger. However she doesn’t see it that way. He sees her potential more than she does.
Your experience with captivity was somewhat unusual in a female of your age and your intelligence. Such resilience is highly desirable to us, after what happened to the previous cohorts.”
[...]It left me a shell of a person. I can’t face enclosed spaces. I can’t face water. It didn’t matter where I went or who I was around after that; I didn’t belong anywhere. Not at home. Not in prison either. It changed me, Cassian.”
There was a time when hearing from him that she was special when everyone looked down on her meant everything.
[...]before him, before this place, everyone thought of her as a victim—her family, her classmates, the media, even Lucky. But Cassian had never looked at her that way. He had always known that beneath the smile she’d been told to wear, she was strong.
- The Cage
“You think you’re unnatural, but you aren’t. You’re exceptional.”
- The Hunt
Ever since Russia, Prairie didn’t feel she belonged somewhere, not even with her family. Strangely enough, captivity gave her that. She had been lonely like Hap.
Cora had wanted so badly to feel normal for once. She hadn’t belonged in Bay Pines, and she hadn’t belonged back home either. Maybe she would never belong: maybe there were certain people, like her, meant to live between worlds. Cassian too.
She thought of that single chair in his quarters. Why hadn’t she seen until then?
Prairie’s first impression of Hap is that he was send by destiny in place of her father, to restore her life to the joy she lost ever since she left Russia. She was immediately enamored by him. She thought he was the man who would change her life and, in a way, she was right.
She had thought he was an angel once. There were no such things as angels—she knew that now. But he wasn’t a demon either.
- The Hunt
A beautiful face to chase away the nightmares. He was beautiful. But instead of taking her away from nightmares, he had brought her into one.
- The Cage
He hated deceiving her and almost gave up
“Lying to you gave me no joy. I almost aborted the mission”
There was connection that was not faked
“I’m sorry.” Cassian was speaking to her body, though her mind was hovering a few feet above them. “I had to betray you. [...] It wasn’t all a lie."
Right after Cora walks outside for the first time, Cassian doesn’t return her right back to her cage. Instead he takes care of her in his bedroom, much like Hap after Prairie’s attempted escape:
Cassian set her down on the soft cushions around the fountain. He removed his gloves and dipped his hands in the water, then touched them to her face, trying to cool her down, but his touch never cooled her. The water just made it spark more.
And right after that, Prairie begins to pretense her blindness:
Cassian disappeared into the bedroom; the sounds of cabinets opening and closing followed. Cora sank into the single chair, staring at the empty square glass. It felt like years ago since they had sat here, drinking and sharing stories about each other’s worlds. That night had been the start of something forbidden but undeniable between them, that had come crashing down when he’d betrayed her. And now here she was, her life and her future in his hands once more—but this time she was the one doing the lying.
Cassian’s species is very rational and can only express their emotions when at a certain psychological and physical state. They call it “to be uncloaked”. Much like Hap not letting his emotions show and having a “invisible self”
“[A kiss] It’s something special between two people who care about each other. It’s very emotional. Something you’d know nothing about.”
His hand had stopped flexing, but his eyes stayed on her lips.
“You do not know what I am like in private,” he answered. “When my emotions are uncloaked.”
"I’m sitting him in the remotest part of the world where nothing should survive. There was always some creature that was striving. It gave me hope”:
In the cage, you should have given up many times. You didn’t, even when it defied logic. And most incredibly of all, not giving up was the right decision.”
“It wasn’t,” she argued. “It didn’t work.”
“Your escape did not succeed, true. And yet not giving up was the right decision. It made you stronger.[...]It makes me not want to give up either”
- The Hunt
He leaned in, touching his forehead to hers, his lips a breath away. “You captivated me. I knew you were different. Strong. So full of potential. You baffled the researchers. You baffled me too. I did everything I could to understand you, and you were still a mystery.”
- The Cage
Cora and another captive, Lucky, start a romance, but Cassian gets jealousy and tries to break them apart by making him a offer. Reminds you of Cuba?
Before he could sit, the Caretaker was standing over him, one booted foot resting on his chest.
“I have an offer for you,” the Caretaker said
- The Cage
“He came to visit me last night. He said you were asleep in his bed. He didn’t say anything outright, just that I could have whatever I wanted if I left you alone. To tell him the type of girl I wanted and he’d give her to me.” He looked toward the sea, because it must have been easier than looking at her. “I told him the girl I wanted was you.”
- The Cage
Obs: He wasn’t really trying to break apart just out of jealousy. Cassian needed Cora to be isolated to break her mind and make her grow abilities. He choose Lucky as her match thinking she would leave him once she knew of their past connection.
More jealousy Cassian
“Boy Two cares for you, but he doesn’t know you. Not as well as I do.”
- The Cage
“[...]romantic liaisons are a bad idea between those working together.”
She cleared her throat. She’d been the one to tell him that.
“I understand the appeal of a bond with someone in your same situation,” he continued. “But you must not lose focus. Our mission is more important than everything else. It needs to be me you trust. Me you confide in.”
- The Hunt
He plays favorites
Fear and anger and exhaustion seized her body in a tight fist, and yet the worst of all of it was the way his black eyes shifted to her, always back to her, as though she was different. His pet.
- The Cage
And everyone can see it (even accusing her of sleeping with him like Scott did to Prairie)
“What, are you sleeping with the Caretaker or something?”
- The Cage
“I see why you are his favorite,” Mali said, ignoring her question. “I think at first it is just the color of your hair but it is more. You are determined. You have a sharp mind. That cannot help but intrigue him.”
- The Cage
Tries to make captivity more bearable, makes concessions for her
[...]“I will personally ensure the safety of everyone in this environment,” Cassian repeated more insistently. “We simply require you to follow a set of basic rules.”
- The Cage
“I would like to help you. Tell me what you require to sleep.”
- The Cage
She glanced at Lucky and Mali, who watched them but couldn’t hear past their own cells. A part of Cora wanted to lunge for this small comfort he was offering—voices on the airwaves, a link to home—but she didn’t want anything from him.
- The Cage
“In time, your hatred of me will diminish. You will come to understand that I brought you here for your own good. If a necklace is not enough, I can give you more.” Cassian closed his eyes.
- The Cage
She eventually stops trying to run away by conventional means - instead she is going to escape by playing his game
“I’m not talking about escape,” Cora whispered. “Cassian has a different plan. There’s a series of tests that’s happening in a few weeks. If I run them and pass, humans will be granted intelligent species status. They won’t be able to cage us anymore. That’s why he put us here, to train me in psychic abilities secretly so I can pass the tests.”
- The Hunt
“Our goal is, ultimately, the same.”
- The Hunt
There is a lovely moment when Cassian changes the night sky of the scenario so it’s full of stars. Hap had once send Prairie to Saturn - he took her to places no human being ever step foot on, to the edge of the universe and existence.
[...]Stars. He’d given her the stars.
And there is a part of her that wants to learn and craves for the knowledge he offers, only not by his rules
From somewhere even deeper than her fear, deeper than her gasping lungs, curiosity whispered. What was out there, beyond the walls? She didn’t want to be curious, but how could she not be? This was the stuff of legends, and gas-station tabloids, and dreams. This was the truth about the universe.
- The Cage
There was something about it all that made her skin tingle in an exciting way, urging her to take this chance—but then she saw that same flash of excitement on Cassian’s face too, and it killed hers.
All the hand touching. If Prairie had the guts to ask him that at the kitchen, I think he would have had a seizure right then and there.
“What does it feel like, when you touch me?”
“Very soft,” he said. “You are very soft. Cora.”
- The Cage
She still rested her hand over Cassian’s. She remembered the first time she’d felt the electricity of his touch, how he was so much warmer than she’d expected. For a second, she forgot this was all an act.“Say yes,” he whispered. “We can change the world, you and I.”
Prairie is a violinist; Cora is a singer
“So behave yourself, songbird,” Dane continued, “and sing for that Warden of yours”
Season 2 when Prairie sees Hap again and immediately jumps for his throat
Something deep within her pulsed with anger, and she sprang like an animal. Her fingernails clawed the Caretaker’s skin, splintering with sparks of pain as she dragged them across his chin and neck and uniform, ripping jagged lines that vanished almost instantly. If he felt any pain, it didn’t register.
His hand clamped over her shoulder as he shoved her against the wall, knocking the air out of her.
Hap locking Prairie in the asylum
"Consider what I’ve told you. This place will”—he looked around at the dirty floor—“give you needed perspective. You will soon realize that I am correct. If you have any hope of bettering your life, the Gauntlet is the only way.
[...]
She crossed her arms tight, trying to act indifferent, though the allure of the Gauntlet was still fresh in her mind. “Then find a different girl to run.”
“There have been other candidates—Anya, for one—but none of them worked out. Even if another human displayed potential at this point, that human would not be able to sufficiently develop his or her abilities in time. It must be you.” He paused. “I want it to be you, Cora.”
Guiding her around by the hand like when he thought she was blind
His only answer was to extend his hand. “Come. Soon you will be back exactly where you belong, Girl Two.”
He was waiting for her to take his hand, giving her this small measure of control. She took it hesitantly.
When Prairie learns about August in Hap’s bathtub
[...]in front of a metal table that bore a body, laid flat as though sleeping, long dark hair still stained with salt. On the body’s chin, a scar shaped like a lopsided heart.
Cora recognized the dead girl and screamed.
Powerful hands grabbed her from behind and lifted her to her feet. The Caretaker let her go, and she braced herself against the wall, head spinning. “What are you doing to her?”
The Caretaker’s wrist communicator buzzed incessantly, but he ignored it. “They are examining Girl Three’s body, as per protocol."
Tell me this is not when Prairie is freezing from her NDE and Hap is super excited with the results from the experiment?
She shoved off from the wall and dove toward the doorway, just as he lurched toward her.
She sputtered awake, shoving him away. “Don’t touch me!”
She stared at her shaking fingertips. What the hell had happened?
He ignored her. “Did your vision change? Were you able to read my thoughts—”
“Stop it!” She clamped her hands over her ears, trying to wrap her mind around what was happening.
“It’s true, isn’t it?” He reached an ungloved hand toward her, but she shoved him away again. “You perceived something. This will change everything, Cora. There are others like me, who believe humans are capable of intelligence, but we are a minority."
[...]
“I don’t care what you have planned,” she snapped, trying to catch her breath. “I’m done being your experiment.”
"Please, Prairie. I’ll take you wherever you wanna go”:
“I’ll get permission to take you there. I’ll show you an ocean, or dogs, or the stars—I’ll show you whatever you want, as long as you stay here.”
Hap still hopes Prairie will realize she doesn’t want a ordinary life, not when Hap is offering her the universe, to see beyond the walls. Doesn’t admit his personal reasons for keeping her prisoner:
“When you see what is beyond the walls, you will not be so anxious to disobey us anymore. You will find that life here—life with me—is far superior to anything out there.”
Her heartbeat throbbed in her veins. “Life with you?” she echoed.
The muscles in his throat constricted. “Life in the environment, watched over by me.” His hand tightened over hers.
- The Cage
“Answer me, Cora” Cassian said. “Agree to run the Gauntlet according to my rules. There is still time. It is for your own good.”
“Is it?” Her voice was dangerously soft. “We both know this is about more than the Gauntlet. You can’t stand the thought of your precious pet not obeying you.” She met his eyes with a challenging stare. “You can’t stop thinking about that day in the ocean surf when you kissed me. I bet you even want to do it again, don’t you? Feel desire, and love, and all those emotions that are denied to you. You never wanted me to be free. You want me to be yours.”
- The Hunt
That is, until he does admits it:
The muscles of his neck were tensing. He picked up the gloves again, tugging one on stiffly. “You understand nothing.”
“Don’t I?” She stood. “You might be wearing a mask, but I can still see beneath it.”
He turned on her fast enough to make her breath go still. He would never hurt her, she knew, but it was impossible not to be intimidated by him.
He leaned in until he could whisper against her ear.
“Can you? Well then, let’s both drop our masks.” He closed his eyes. The muscles of his face shifted beneath his skin. Tension drained away. Jaw softened. When he opened his eyes, they had cleared into the gray storm clouds that hovered just over his irises.
He blinked.
“This is bigger than what I want, and what you want.” His voice was rounder, more insistent, and it made her blood pool in her heart. “I suspected all along that you were not being honest with me, but I did not want to believe it. And I don’t blame you for wanting to cheat us, after we have mistreated you. But now, you must agree to do this the correct way. Then, once this is over, I’ll take you back to your solar system myself, so we can both learn the truth. And if the algorithm is right, and there is only a hole in the sky where your home used to be, you will truly know that there is no other place for you than with me.”
A shiver ran down her back. “Don’t talk like that.”
But he leaned in closer. “You accuse me of wanting to feel lesser emotions. You’re right. Is it such a crime to want to feel?”
