#rooted in tragedy and grief
the THIIIING with the Titan being home to witches of the Boiling Isles and a provider of magic, a deity-like being in a very sort of…. fascinating micro-pantheistic way, both the world and the conscience behind it… like a sort of tutelary spirit mayhaps…. actually i’ll direct you to @buttercup-bug ’s AMAZING thoughts on the matter that they are typing up at this very moment (will link in replies once they post!!)
anyway THE THING about this is! how specific and special and sad and beautiful it makes Eda’s relationship with King and her motherly role… just something so special about something so, so big and powerful, the very thing that gave her home and the life that she knows and the freedom to interact with the world in beautiful magical ways, taking on such a vulnerable form that now sheis the one protecting it, nurturing it back to strength, taking care of it like the Isles have taken care of her and everyone else like herand with the titan genocide it’s like… whether the Titan’s relationship with the witches was ever meant to be protective and guiding on the Titan’s part, they were, either way, a creative force of the world, giving birth to continents and magic in their wake, letting life thrive off the remains of them, having their life continue through the witch- and monster-kind. so this world-shaping life form being hunted to near extinction is a damage done to an entire way of life, a relationship between people and the land they occupy, a form of connection with the world
and it’s just… so so heartachingly beautiful and heavy, how Eda and the entire Bad Girl Coven are fighting to keep this way of life alive. they are some of the few remaining wild witches; they are the inheritors of the glyph tradition, gifted by the Isles themselves. Eda now holds the palistrom seed, a key to reviving yet another way to engage with the world’s magic, with another form of soul. and for years now, she’s been raising King, who could possibly be the very last remaining titan
it’s just so interesting, how, if something that was meant to guide and protect and inspire gets attacked so viciously it becomes wounded and vulnerable, the people it was meant to guide and protect and inspire step in as its caretakers instead… not to gain anything self-serving from it, but to keep it alive
as someone who comes from a country that does not at all honour the diversity of regional and indigenous cultures, and has instead built a cult around dubious achievements and a culture of distrust and hatred towards countries chosen as our “enemy”, and basically only ever self-identifies through appealing to over-blown historical pride or the image of the “other” hostile to the “us”, i never, ever at all felt like my culture was there to teach me or guide me or help me, or connect me to my ancestors. i do have Jewish heritage alongside that, and identifying with That part of my ancestry always felt much more meaningful, because there is simply… more to it than just dangerous boisterous patriotism? there is a need to honour something that some would like dead and gone, because it is vulnerable and deserves to exist and persevere
and it just seems so so different for people who are tasked with keeping their cultures alive, in the face of a history of attempted cultural genocide, under threat of current discrimination and neglect. it just… reconnects the word “culture” with its true meaning, when you consider what it was originally meant to be: a whole language of engaging with others and the world; and how awful it is to see it attacked. and i just… think there is something extremely beautiful about people taking on the task of protecting something that, initially, was there to guide and raise them; choosing to nurture it and keep it safe, for the sake of the culture itself and the meaningfulness of their relationship with it
