Speaking in general with the Cottage Core and Bunny Lore Group about the differences between the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina comics and the Chilling Adventures of Sabrina Netflix series, the issue of Evelyn Gardenia and Mary Wardwell came up.
The brief recap is that Evelyn Gardenia is, essentially, Mary’s counterpart in the comics. Although her fate is a bit different. She meets Madam Satan (Lola) at the movies, and is quickly befriended--then enchanted into a coma she would not wake up from. Madam (as she is called in the comics, being a different character than the show’s Lilith) assumes her teaching position, acting as Sabrina’s new drama teacher, Evangeline Porter.
I’d mentioned that if Mary were named Evelyn Gardenia--simply named as such, with the same plotline as Mary Wardwell--that it would be interesting to have Lilith deal with being called Evelyn, or even “Eve” or “Evie,” by Adam. Funny in theory, though a bit too on the nose.
[ A more serious post on this later, but... ]
Conversation mused into linking Mary to Eve symbolism, and the thought occurred that Mary is a teacher, and it’s very easy to link teachers with the American custom (is it solely American) of giving teachers apples.
Which... begs the question...
Essentially, American students give their teachers signifiers of sin? Even just symbolically, as thanks for teaching them? They give their teachers the equivalent of “thank you for teaching me! please have this reminder of how we, as a human race, have been bibically condemned for choosing rebellion/knowledge and have been exiled from paradise! thank you, I appreciate you!”
Edit: Okay, the actual reasoning for this, I’ve found with some modest research, is that produce (the literal fruits of labor, and the result of agricultural skill) was given in exchange for lessons (the educator’s skill). It’s the literal exchange of goods for services. However, it is rather ironic that the one produce item that has stuck out as the example has been the apple, associated with knowledge, but also with mankind’s first sin.
