(Poiintheattic/poistills here) I'm super curious about what you said about Root and liminal spaces--what are your thoughts on that?
Hey! Really like your poi gifs/stills…good stuff!
So, my thoughts are a mix of canon and headcanon and this is the first time I’m trying to sort through them and write them down in a logical format, so bear with me.
Liminal spaces are spaces/places that are transitional, visited on the way from one place to another. Airports, rest stops, parking lots, waiting rooms, stairwells and elevators, hallways. They can also include places like hotels, or hospitals in some circumstances. Places where people visit only briefly, that aren’t destinations. (I’d also argue that trains, planes, and cars themselves can be liminal). Everyone experiences these places differently, but they can feel odd, off, out of sync with the world. Time doesn’t seem to flow the same way. The outside world is on pause until the visitor leaves the liminal space and arrives at their destination.
Root moves around a lot, presumably from the time she leaves Bishop onward. When she was a hacker/assassin she went where the work was. When she becomes the analogue interface she travels the world for the Machine. She’s never shown to have a place where she lives. So in a very literal sense, Root’s life is moving through a series of liminal spaces, never stopping or resting for long in one place. Never having a home.
Now, in a less literal sense, or a less physical sense (and this will go more into headcanon), Root herself isn’t a fixed space. Her identity is constantly moving, changing, a thing to get her from one state of being to the next, but never settling anywhere. It’s why she’s so good at assuming roles, changing identities. I’ve seen a lot of headcanons about Root not having a firm sense of self, and having her mind and body out of sync with each other. Maybe Root’s body, which is a fixed physical entity, and her mind, which is more changing and fluid, don’t mesh well with each other. (I want to think more about this point).
All of this fits into her character development over the seasons in an interesting way. In terms of physical locations, I see a lot of comments on how Root decorates her room at the subway in s5 like a college dorm because she’s never had a place of her own to personalize before. I tend to agree with this (also she’s a huge nerd and just really like lava lamps, okay). The subway is the closest she ever gets to a home that we know of.
As a character, Root arguably has the most dynamic character arc, evolves the most over the seasons. In terms of identity, working for the Machine keeps her changing identities, moving around like she’d been doing her whole life, but it also gives a focus to all of that. A goal. Even if she’s still in motion, there’s a destination to work towards then, a path to follow. She’s all these different people, but under that she’s the Machine’s analogue interface, a fixed identity with a purpose. Think about how lost and hollow she is at the end of season 2, and how the Machine’s voice fills her with life.
And then, of course, there’s Shaw. If Root has the most impermanent identity, Shaw probably has the most defined. Shaw’s a straight line, an arrow, she doesn’t need to change and isn’t particularly susceptible to being changed. (That she is incredibly fixed in reality is part of why the effects of Samaritan’s method of torture are so jarring to watch). There’s a very popular trope in poi fics of Root either moving into Shaw’s apartment, or Shaw moving her in and I think this stems from the idea that Shaw willingly or unwillingly becomes a place Root can return to. Shaw is a destination for Root. A way out of liminal space. In TDTWWA, Root talks about finally belonging somewhere. To me, that sense of belonging is the home she’s found with the team, the purpose she’s found with TM, and the relationship she’s found with Shaw. These aren’t things she’s using to get from one point to another. They’re her destinations.
The specific gif I had the tag on about root and liminal spaces wasn’t in itself a profound moment, but the juxtaposition of Root in the stairwell, running up endless spirals searching for Shaw, fit into a lot of this other stuff I’d been kicking around in the back of my mind for a few weeks. I want to reread all this a bit and think about it some more and come back to it, but that’s sort of where I was headed with that tag.
Sorry that got long.
