Vi i would listen to you talk about orpheus and eurydice themes and laoft lamp for 5 days straight no bathroom breaks
The most haunting part of the laoft LAMP dynamic is that there are magical ways to preserve mortal life, but every last one of them is gilding the lily.
A ghost is in constant, insatiable misery. a ghost that becomes a Dragon/witch, as it were, is as well with the addition of being an increasing natural disaster with every moment of continued existence. The bunny rots inexorably and must be maintained, and then second the healing ends, the rot starts again, leaving it in continuous pain. An enchanted sleep is sometimes used for the mortal lovers of immortals in some mythos, maybe, only woken up on occasion (Endymion anyone). A beautiful cage deep in fairyland they can never leave again because their reentrance to the mortal realm would kill them instantly.
The thing is orpheus isn't leading eurydice in the myth, he's leading her invisible shade. I can't know, of course, what the original myth intended, but an interpretation that Eurydice might not be guaranteed a return to her body, which is likely long decomposing, only that her shade is permitted to leave the confines of the underworld, is very compelling to me.
Eurydice is dead, and she has spent months or years during orpheus's quest being dead. if bringing her back means she is permitted to linger among the living but not to truly live, is it not kinder to leave her?
I don't think grief is meant to be a clenched fist, something held onto tightly. I think it's probably meant to be more like turning around, waving, and letting Eurydice go back to sleep.
In laoft making this much more literal, mostly in the idea that it is normal to die (the fae may not have senescence, but they can and will still die eventually) and normal to grieve, but not to grieve so greatly, so preemptively, so tightly held onto that it ruins the experiencing of one's loved one in moments of joy, either before or after they die.
it comes down to - the dead must go, but they can still stay and haunt you if you let them. For a while or forever. Virgil and Logan can keep Patton and Roman forever but they can't keep them living. Eventually they'd be left with something rattling hollow, pristine, filled more with their own memories of Patton and Roman than Patton and Roman themselves. Shades thin as breathe.
All of which is to say that the inevitable conclusion, for me, was that Orpheus's descent into the underworld is, ultimately, selfish. Both Orpheus and Eurydice will die one day - this is obviously inevitable. If Orpheus's quest succeeds, he only postpones his grief, or he trades it to Eurydice.
and you know? for that, i would have looked back too.
