#cr laerryn

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I’m gonna be annoying for a moment but I have to talk about how good of a choice Nessun Dorma was as a Laerryn song.

So in the opera that it’s from - Turandot - the main character is a traveling prince who is trying to win a princess’s hand in marriage. The princess has declared that she will only marry a man who can solve three riddles. Anyone who fails is executed. The prince succeeds, but the princess is furious, so the prince suggests a new challenge. If the princess can guess his name by the morning, she can execute him. If she fails, they will be married. The princess declares to her kingdom that no one will sleep (“Nessun Dorma”) until the prince’s name is found. Furthermore, if it isn’t found, she’ll execute everyone in the kingdom.

Nessun Dorma is the song sung by the prince after that declaration. He is essentially celebrating his victory, insisting that by the morning, he will have won. But there’s one (incredibly eerie) line of the song, sung by the chorus of townspeople: “Il nome suo nessun saprá, e noi dovrem, ahime, morir!” - “No one will know his name, and we must, alas, die.”

In other words, it is a song sung by a man bent on victory, with complete disregard for the lives of the ordinary people whose fates he has also sealed.

Obviously, Laerryn’s motives are a bit more complex and not as blatantly selfish, but I thought it was fitting.