alyshkalia
August 17, 2024, 9:03pm
3
Okay, I’ve compiled the quotes from the reviews that I found most striking (plus the one from my own that most sums up my conclusion). Spoilers ahead!
they all play on the same horror: the patriarchal horror of the man you sleep with. There’s no place to run because this is the person you’ve chosen to spend your life with. He is your life as far as the games are concerned. You either fight or become a victim.
…The confrontation between husband and wife over a dark secret may feel simple as a plot device, but it leads to profound interactions that reflect gender norms, the cycle of abuse, and much more. Many people, then and now, revisit the fairy tale [Bluebeard] because there’s something truly scary and compelling about not knowing everything about the person you’ve chosen to love.
…once again, the target of violence in the previous act is the one directing murderous menace at the new protagonist, and once again marriage is the site of this violence (red is getting married in the morning). …we’re left with cycles of violence and marriage as an institution that at best is incapable of stability in the face of the storms of emotions it generates, and at worst is actually conjuring up the abuse.
The ‘cycle’ in question seems deliberately named… each act is a different shade
…the variance in scenarios and motivations underline that the situations kind of don’t matter. Motivations and innocence don’t matter. These are all tones of a horrible, horrible rainbow whose overriding arc is impervious to its specific shadings.
All three feature a PC trying to get out of a dangerous situation alive, and all have only a single possible outcome—someone always dies. In the first one—the only one with a woman PC—you succeed, but in the second two, you don’t. …The trilogy is playing with the idea of victim and perpetrator—anyone can be either, or both—and showing how context-dependent our judgments of who deserves to live or die are.
And then some things I’m still wondering about… Does Act III take place after Act II, or is it a flashback? If Green in Acts I and II are the same person, how to reconcile the historical setting of Act I with the modern-day setting of Act II? Do these questions even matter for understanding/appreciating the series?
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