Short Takes: Dearest Familly
What’s in a Cake?
AO3
In all the wild shenanigans with Marinette’s family and Evil Tikki on a rampage haven’t seen a lot of discussion of the galette itself, and why Tikki responded so strongly to it.
This first thing we learn is that this is a collaboration between Tom and Roland.
This makes the galette is the mark of a new beginning and the restoration of Tom and Roland’s relationship in a new form and co-creators and equal partners.
They call it:
One of the tasks of the Hero, in the Archetypical story structure of the Hero’s Journey, is to venture into the realm of the New and bring back what is needed to revitalize the ancient traditions, restore the kingdom and create a new and better order.
The thing that sparks Tikki’s obsession is not just the smell and taste of galette but this particular galette which is redolent with inspiration and creativity as well as sugar and butter and chocolate.
That chocolate was her last obsession is fitting as the bitter beverage of Aztec god-kings and then European royalty became the silky bars we know today with the discovery in 1825 of how to extract then re-add the coco butter (the fat of the cacao bean) and cut the bitterness with alkali.
The ancient tradition was reimagined through an act of discovery and reordering from harsh liquid to sweet solid.
It’s not just sugar that sparks Tikki’s hunger but new creation.