Who's A Heretic Now?: A tale of curses and crones. Of magic and mischief. Of defiant, entrancing, bewitching love. // A Practical Magic!Everlark AU.
So I crafted a supposed "true love:" an impossible, non-existent, man of myth, to summon with my spell. It was a clear list: He will be marvelously kind, with entire worlds hidden behind his eyes. He will know my favorite food without being told. He will glimmer like the silver moon and weave golden fire. He will set me alight in body and mind. He will carry me with ease, as if I weigh no more than a feather, and in his arms I will finally feel safe, once more.
I wove the words together with the ash of mandrake and canada roots. Bathed them with the juice of cherries and oil of camellias. A drip of maple sap and honey to bind it together. Burned it all with the trilliums of true love in a beth birch bowl, letting the smoke disappear into the night sky — along with my last dredge of hope for romance.
I was lucky enough to rope @mandrake-mistakes into making me another piece of artwork! Specifically for my entirely self-indulgent witchy!everlark fic called, Who's A Heretic Now?, and we chose the moment Katniss casts her so-called 'True Love' spell! The moment all the events of our story were set in motion!
Mandrake is an incredibly talented writer and artist, and somehow, an even better friend! Go give her all the love and support she deserves! Also...a little birdie told me that her commissions are open, and her Etsy shop is up and running!
Thank you to @mandrake-mistakes for all the time, energy, and hard work you put into crafting this artwork! You truly created magic! And thank you to everyone who read this wonderfully, witchy, little story! I had far too much fun writing it and I'm so happy others enjoyed it as well! ✨💙
In ihr dauerte eine Leidenschaft fort, die sich immer an der Grenze des Schmerzes, der Schluchzer und des Wahns befand. Was die Traurigkeit zu einem Schrei erhob, wie eine hilflose Angst, zärtlicher als die Liebe, kaum aus dem tiefsten Innern der Nacht und der Wasser.
Gegen den Antisemitismus kann man nicht argumentieren, weil er nicht satisfaktionsfähig ist: Jede sinnvolle Argumentation setzt einen Gegenstand voraus, der sich mit den Mitteln der Vernunft erschließen lässt; der Antisemitismus jedoch entzieht sich dem Zugriff der Vernunft, weil er seinem Unwesen nach nichts anderes ist als rationalisierter Wahn. Das ist die Erkenntnis hinter Woody Allens Bonmot, wonach im Kampf gegen Antisemiten dem Essay der Baseballschläger vorzuziehen sei: Wo Argumente als Waffen stumpf sind, haben handfeste Waffen die bessere Aussicht auf Erfolg – der Umgang Israels mit seinen Feinden ist dafür das beste Beispiel.
...who gets a smackdown for questioning why they’re out there.
This scene is where we see Namaari for the first time after she breaks Raya’s trust. She’s now an intimadating warrior, apparently one with an explosively short fuse who smacks around her own underling for daring to question her. Her treatment of Wahn further frames Namaari as the villain of the story.
But I feel this picture doesn’t quite match up with the Namaari that’s revealed by the end of the movie—poised and well-mannered, passionate and expressive but restrained and disciplined. She’s certainly an angry teen (as the screenplay describes her)...
...but taking out her anger through physical violence like she does to Wahn? Namaari only shows such behavior towards one other person—Raya, her nemesis born of a complicated and traumatic history, the one pushes her buttons.
(In fact, while making the above image, I realized that even the angry faces Namaari makes are mostly directed at Raya. Of the 9 screenshots I chose, only the bottom right one isn’t—that’s from when Tong calls her “the one who slayed Sisu.” Namaari’s anger issues are definitely tied to Raya and we’ll talk more about that below.)
So I wondered why Namaari’s so mad at Wahn. What buttons did he push?
Then I noticed that Wahn isn’t dressed like the other Fang soldiers:
But there is someone dressed just like him...
...the guard watching one of the gates of Fang Palace.
So with this in mind, let’s talk about how Wahn may have triggered Namaari’s anger.
A. What Is Wahn?
Well, we can safely guess that Wahn isn’t just a soldier in the royal army—he’s a palace guard.
We can also speculate that he was probably the guard on duty when Raya infiltrated the palace to steal the dragon scroll, by incapacitating him and using his key to get inside (much like Noi and the Ongis). Being sent on the dangerous task of chasing the thief through Druun-infested lands would have been the punishment for failing his duty.
Supposing the above, we can explain the harshness of Namaari’s reaction when he suggests that they forget about Raya and the scroll. Instead of making up for his failure by capturing the thief and recovering what was stolen, he’s trying to shorten his punishment by convincing Namaari to abandon their mission.
What’s worse is that he’s still displaying the complacency and negligence that led to his failure to guard the gate and prevent the theft. He doesn’t even see that retrieving the scroll isn’t what’s truly at stake. Because what makes their mission worth the risk is keeping Fang safe by determining what Raya’s up to and neutralizing any threat may she pose by capturing her.
B. Why Is Namaari So Angry?
It’s important to note that chasing Raya is manifestly a threat response for Namaari. Twice, she fiercely demands to know what Raya’s up to, why she’s stealing gem pieces. To Virana, she worriedly insists that Raya shouldn’t be underestimated and must be stopped.
So first, Namaari shows anger, especially when Raya evades her. Then, safely at home and to her trusted mother, she reveals a more vulnerable underlying emotion—fear.
Yet Raya doesn’t seem to have done anything so very threatening. She did successfully infiltrate Fang, but only to steal a scroll that's not useful for anything. Stealing the gem pieces is more concerning, but it’s not like they do anything other than repelling the Druun (and Fang is well-protected from the Druun by water).
Virana (who’s all about keeping Fang safe) certainly isn’t very worried about what Raya's up to. She advises Namaari not to make emotional decisions, implying that her need to stop Raya is irrational. And Namaari, unable to offer evidence to the contrary, pivots her argument to the benefits of gaining more gem pieces, in order to convince Virana to lend her the royal army.
Then why is Namaari so afraid? Why does she view Raya as a threat that must be dealt with? Because she caused Raya so much harm and irreparable loss. Her attempt to take the dragon gem led to the breaking of Heart and the world. And Raya came back to life from presumed death, broke into Fang, and took what was used to lead her to treachery. And Namaari doesn’t know what this ghost risen from her past sins will do if not stopped. Guilt leads to fear and fear leads to anger.*
Namaari’s guilt is so deeply repressed that it mostly only surfaces in the form of fear and anger. And—rather than proving a lack of remorse—her treatment of Raya as a threat, her angry and fearful gestures of aggression, can be understood as the product of a deep and overwhelming sense of guilt that she’s unable to properly process or express.
(*That’s not to say that Namaari’s psychology can be reduced to this simple formula. There's more going on, like how the problem of scapegoating factors into her aggressive defensiveness. And the pull of shared connection and attraction, of course, which complicates things even more.
To dig a bit deeper, I refer you to an article by an actual psychologist: “Anger: How We Transfer Feelings of Guilt, Hurt, and Fear.” Applying this article’s insight to Namaari’s case, we can also explain her anger as a psychological defense used to distance herself from distressing experiences such as feeling afraid, powerless, accused, guilty, ashamed, untrustworthy, unloveable, etc.)
C. Back to Wahn
Let’s wrap up this discussion by counting the buttons that Wahn manages to push:
1. “the Tail lands are infested with Druun” (Yes, an entire land has been destroyed by a plague caused by Namaari’s actions. Duly noted. Two down, three left.)
2. “Benja’s daughter is as good as stone” (Might as well have said, ‘lol Raya’s totally gonna die and, hey, remember how she lost her father thanks to you?’)
3. "useless dragon scroll” (Not that Namaari believes Sisu’s still out there, like some 12-year-old, but nobody likes to be reminded that there’s no way to fix the world they broke.)
4. Putting their safety before before their duty and mission. (A quality that Princess Selfless-Hero-Complex wouldn’t appreciate in her palace guard, especially one who failed at his job.)
5. Failing to treat a threat to Fang seriously. (See sections A & B.)
Wenn die Liebe nur ein Wahnzustand ist, dann kann sie vielleicht geheilt werden. Aber wo beginnt der Wahn und wo endet er? Wo liegt die Grenze zwischen Liebe und Besessenheit?
- Dr. Maximilian Liebermann, Vienna Blood Episode 2
