Britomart. Honey. Let's talk about this.

[bedlamsbard]

*side eye* In lieu of actually writing this paragraph, since it's almost four in the morning, I thought, hey, let me make notes so it is less hard to write tomorrow!

I really wish I could just turn this in as the actual paper.

Any time that a character looks into a mirror the ghost of Narcissus is conjured up, whether it is done so explicitly in the text or implicitly in the subtext. [BRITOMART V. NARCISSUS: Britomart compares herself to Narcissus – she is once again queering herself, taking on a typically male role (Glauce’s examples are all of lovesick female heroines, besides Narcissus are there any lovesick male heroines that could be chosen whose situations are comparable?); the looking glass versus the pool – the pool is a natural phenomenon, while the looking glass is man-made (or magician-made, whatever) – it is normal and expected to look into a pool and see yourself, but it’s sort of weird to look into a mirror and see someone else, especially when you have been looking at yourself and bang! who the hell is that and what are they doing there? besides the difference between Britomart and narcissus is that Narcissues was, like, hel-lo, beautiful, come here often? and Britomart was just, okay, why am I seeing a dude when this mirror should be all about me? he’s pretty fine, I guess, but nothing to lose sleep over. but Britomart thinks she’s worse off than Narcissus – why? because he also finally kicked the bucket? Because she doesn’t know anything about the guy she’s infatuated with? (Also, presumably she doesn’t go and sit and stare at that mirror every day, since it’s never mentioned, so is narcissus lucky because he can sit and stare at himself every day but Britomart is infatuated by this guy she saw once in a magic mirror and may never actually see again?) krier 171 – Britomart is afraid of becoming Narcissus (who is a much closer parallel to her than the other three) and being infatuated with a shade/shadow/reflection – something that doesn’t actually exist, you know – but she’s also safe from becoming narcissus because of her sheer rationality. She knows she has a problem, she knows that this dude isn’t really here. And unlike Narcissus, she has people she can talk to about it (Glauce, Merlin, Redcrosse) so that she’s not talking to a reflection that won’t ever talk back (except for Echo’s interference, hey, is Echo relevant at all? she’s never brought up, and actually, she might be a better parallel to Britomart than Pasiphae/Myrrha/Biblis since hey! talking at a guy who can’t/won’t talk back! though still not a great parallel, and since she’s never brought up, probably not one to bring in. She’s not that much part of the Narcissus story, anyway, since Narcissus never notices her except for holy shit get this lady off me help.) - anyway, britomart is grounded to the world in a way that Narcissus isn’t. she’s got people that are like, britomart, honey. let’s talk about this. while narcissus just has his stalker. In other words: Britomart’s greatest fear is becoming Narcissus (not Pasiphae/Myrrha/Biblis), but she’s saved from this fate because she is aware of the literature. go team literacy! it saves lives! Except for when your daughter takes off to search for the guy she saw in a vision, whoops. also that Glauce points out it could be *worse* - thus pasiphae/Myrrha/Biblis. At least a vision won’t knock you up with a half-human, half-bull kid. Probably.]

Obviously translating it into aca-speak will be the difficult part, but clearly I can get at least a pargraph out of this. (Also I should add that I wrote this all in caps just so that it was really different from the rest of the page.)

Am sorry for the spam, but at least this is amusing, I hope?