The Lizy Reviews: The Scourge by Jennifer A. Nielsen

Well, the bad news is, The Scourge did not turn out to be my new favorite book. The good news is, there were still some parts worth reading. Overall, the story didn't do much to catch my interest or create suspense. I guess part of the problem here is I'm a jaded twenty-something amateur critic and this book was intended for middle-grade audiences.

Tweens Read Too

There is not a lot of description for the setting of this story--we have a few mentions of guns and ships so I would guess the late seventeenth/early eighteenth century. The protagonists Ani and Weevil are from a minority group called the River people but there isn't a lot of explanation as to why they don't get along with the town folk. This world simply isn't developed enough to be satisfying.

The heroine, Ani, tests positive for a disease called the Scourge and she is sent to a colony for other Scourge victims. Ani is a stereotypical "tough" girl, and I couldn't really relate to her, but the feisty heroine has a loyal-to-death best friend named Weevil follows her to the colony.  I could understand Ani's point of view on the town girl she meets, Della, but Ani takes a while to make up her mind whether or not to trust Della. At the colony, the Wardens enforce strict rules and make everyone work, even though they are "sick". Though she is weakened by the sickness, Ani fights back against the Wardens every step of the way. There is a particularly stirring scene when Ani has to climb the treadmill as the other colonists watch and rally around her. Ani also defies the odds to uncover the truth and make her escape, including (my favorite part) climb out of a pit of venomous snakes. 

Huffington Post

The symptoms of the Scourge made more sense through Ani's observations of the other colonists, especially Della, whereas Ani had no time to sit around and feel sick. The symptoms were mostly internal pain and fatigue, not a fever or cough or something you would expect from a real pandemic disease. It's kind of not hard for the reader to guess what's really going on, but you have to give Ani and Weevil the benefit of a doubt for not having a lot of information about the disease in a world without internet and mass media news outlets. The Governor's evil scheme being revealed is kind of anticlimactic, and at first it doesn't seem to fit with the theme of contagious disease--but then you have to remember, spoiler alert, that this disease isn't real. And I think carries less of a punch because in the scene right before that, we have Ani and company commandeering a ship and it's amazing.

The Scourge is an improvement over Nielsen's last stand-alone book, A Night Divided. But I have yet to see a first-person female narrator in one of her books who actually catches my interest.

MovieQuote Meditation: "Rebellions are Built on Hope"

It would seem like hope is in short supply these days. I don’t really need to elaborate on why people think that the world is in a really bad place (or why I have to agree with them).

I’m going to tell you something that you might not believe:

There is still reason to have hope.

There are a lot of bad things happening now. And bad things will happen in the future. But there are still a lot of things in this world that are good. And many good things are still waiting to happen.

Last December, a little movie called Rogue One: A Star Wars Story came out. This film was about the team of Rebel spies who stole the plans for the first Death Star. Other than the obvious aim to make a profit, why would Lucasfilm want to go back and tell this story?

Wired

It’s like when a leader in my church brings up a story from the scriptures to make a certain point. We already know who wins. We know what’s going to happen. We already know the obvious moral of the story (the good guys win). But in the retelling there is a point being made that isn’t quite so obvious. Rogue One is about the battle against the odds that a mismatched team of heroes had to overcome to accomplish the feat that led to Princess Leia running from Darth Vader at the beginning of A New Hope--odds that included doubt from the leaders of the Alliance itself.

Lucasfilm’s point, whether or not intentional, was that everything those rebels worked for, everything literally fought and died for, was based on a shred of hope that the empire’s most dangerous weapon could be destroyed, and they could take down the empire and help the galaxy to be free of oppression.

My edit

Say what you will about the Empire’s ability to allocate resources and provide a system of order: it was a corrupt institution, run by corrupt people. The Empire didn’t care about what happened to the people it ruled over: it took what it wanted and punished those who disagreed with it. It controlled through the fear of force. Twenty years after the end of the Clone Wars, the Empire had finished constructing a superweapon that could obliterate entire planets. Now the Empire could not only punish dissent but destroy billions of innocent lives at the same time just to make a point.

“If the Empire has this kind of power, then what chance do we have?”

The Rebel Alliance council? They backed out because the odds of success were so slim. And because the Empire could do whatever they wanted. They didn’t have any way to compete with the Death Star. Not enough weapons. Not enough resources. Not realistic.

“We have hope,” says Jyn Erso. “Rebellions are built on hope.”

Cassian Andor had told Jyn the exact same thing when they were on Jedha trying to get a hold of Saw Gerrera. In her experience, there wasn’t really much reason to have hope, because she never had anyone in her life that she could count on to come through for her. Anything she hoped for never worked out. In spite of whatever efforts she made to have a life for herself, everything always went wrong. So she was kind of surprised to hear Cassian say that the Rebel Alliance operated merely on the hope that their contacts would come through for them.

Giphy

But what convinced Jyn otherwise? Seeing Chirrut Imwe stand up to a bunch of stormtroopers with just the Force and a walking stick helped her to see that anything was possible. Seeing Jedha destroyed by the Death Star had convinced her that she couldn’t turn a blind eye to the Empire’s atrocities any longer. And the hologram message from her father had given her the hint that, powerful though it was, the Death Star had a fatal flaw that could be exploited. Her father had only worked on the Death Star on the hope that by doing so he could keep Jyn safe and undermine the system he hated so much. He had built the flaw in the reactor. He knew that so much power in the hands of the Empire was wrong. And he knew that Jyn would understand that idea.

The Empire had troops and fighters and ships and endless resources. They had a weapon that could obliterate entire planets in seconds, and it was heavily protected so that attacking it would be futile. Being realistic, the Rebellion didn’t stand a chance. But Jyn and Cassian went ahead and got a team together to steal the Death Star plans from the heavily-fortified archive on Scarif because they knew that somewhere in those plans there was a key to destroying the Death Star and striking a blow against the Empire. If they could steal the plans and find the design flaw, then they had a chance to do something. At every step during the battle, everything could have gone wrong. Every main character--Jyn, Cassian, K2S0, Bodhi, Chirrut, Baze--had to find the hope to take the next step without the guarantee that they would succeed--without the assurance that they would live to see their effort rewarded.

“Do you think anyone is listening?”

The Battle of Scarif was actually a huge decision point for the Rebellion: either they took the opportunity to do something about the injustices of the Empire, or they just walked away. And when a small group of rebels decided that something needed to be done, there was no turning back.

Bustle

Sometimes winning a real victory is not about how many guns and ships you have. It’s about using your brains. And your heart.

“We will take the next chance and the next, until we win or the chances are spent.”

The fundamental thing is, rebellions are about hope. Hope that an unjust government CAN be overthrown. Hope that improving the system will bring provide life, liberty, and happiness for others. Hope that the risks to get those freedoms are worth it. Rogue One is a film about the sacrifices that heroes in a war-torn galaxy made so that hope could be possible.

Geek n' Sundry, via Pinterest

In real life, when it seems like everything goes wrong, it can seem more logical to think that there is no point making an effort to better your lot, because it won’t work out. But when you do whatever it takes to reach your goals, the little things day after day, your hope can become a reality, even if it takes shape slowly.

Whenever you see an opportunity to do something, to make a difference, to change the way things happen, take it. Do what needs to be done even if your chances of failing are astronomical. Take action or else your enemies will win. As a great Jedi master once said, “Do or do not. There is no try.” Either you take action or you don’t. The ability to act is in your control. To attempt the thing is to DO the thing. But you have to believe that your effort will be what is needed.

Favim

Sometimes hope is a lot less substantial than a message from your dad informing you of a reactor flaw and a thermal exhaust port. And sometimes you know that the odds of you getting whatever you’re hoping will happen are a lot steeper than someone being able to actually hit a two-meter exhaust port with a missle.

But it’s okay to hope that things will turn out for the better. Because it’s not unreasonable that they will. You don’t have any reason to believe that you’re going to fail. Your life can be as happy and rewarding as you want it to be. It IS within the realm of possibility. Even when the rest of the world is collapsing, there is still reason to have hope that things will be all right--that you will be all right.

When the time comes and you have the chance to make a difference, seize it. Even if you fail. Even if you lose. Even if you die, it's worth it.

Pinterest

Have courage.

Have hope.

Seven Favorite Films from BYU International Cinema

One of my favorite pastimes as a BYU student was going to BYU International Cinema. Sometimes I’d have the good fortune of going with friends, but like most things I enjoy in life for the most part I went by myself. The humanities department would release the semester’s film schedule and I’d eagerly devour the film synopses, but as life intervened I could only make it to so many of the films I actually wanted to see. And I didn’t enjoy all of the films I actually got to see. As it turns out, I don’t like Kung Fu movies: Hero and Jade Warrior were both weird and maybe my tolerance for action films only goes so far. The only Kurosawa film I was able to see was Kagemusha and I didn’t like it that much. In Hindi Bollywood musicals everybody cries too much. But here’s a list of a few--just a few--of the International movies I saw that I liked.

The Orphanage (El Orfanato)--Ok, this one is rated R in the states, but since it’s BYU they edited the one graphic scene (that’s the nice thing about BYU IC, since they edit the questionable stuff) so other than that it could pass for PG-13. Yes it is supposed to be a scary ghost story, and the ending is really sad. But the story is very well-written and centers around the mom trying to figure out the disappearance of her son and why the place is haunted, and it is very cool to watch how she solves it.

YTV

This was the one Spanish film that I reported on for my Spanish classes that I actually enjoyed--the other two were boring documentaries. And then I went to see Death of a Cyclist my last term just for kicks and it was downright disturbing.

Howl’s Moving Castle--Bear with me, I am not a Studio Ghibli fan. I saw parts of Spirited Away at a family reunion and I was totally weirded out. But Howl’s Moving Castle is Steampunk and had fantasy elements I was a little more comfortable with. Sophie learns to stand up for herself and Howl gets his...issues sorted out. Plus the supporting characters are fantastic.

Film Takeout

On the way out of the showing, I ran into a friend of mine who explained that in the English dubbing Calcifer’s line about the bacon burning is different. So last summer when I saw someone wearing this shirt I understood the reference:

Calcifer for President: May All Your Bacon Burn In 2016
Chickadee Solutions

The Hedgehog--I didn’t get to see nearly enough French films. This one was a gem. It is based on a book called The Elegance of the Hedgehog that my mom actually read once and I saw lying around the house, so I actually read the jacket summary. The story is about a girl who wants to commit suicide, but then befriends a Japanese gentleman who moves into her apartment building and then the grumpy concierge downstairs. Their friendships change all of them for the better.

Newtopia Magazine

Jodha Akbar--This is officially my favorite Bollywood movie. For a Hindi musical, this one didn’t have a lot of crying. What it does have is spectacular musical numbers, beautiful costumes, a great story rooted in India’s history, and spectacular action sequences. Princess Jodha is the strong female heroine that everyone deserves. Emperor Akbar is hot stuff but he is also a courageous, tolerant, forward-thinking monarch who takes zero crap from courtiers who plot against him. My favorite part? When they FINALLY fall in love and consummate the marriage (nothing shown but you get the idea).

Pinterest

twi-ny.com

New York Doll--The thing about BYU International Cinema is that sometimes they show American films that students might otherwise dismiss. This documentary from the Sundance Film Festival was a surprise favorite. It follows the conversion story of Arthur “Killer” Kane from the New York Dolls. Kane had a hard time dealing with the breakup of his band. After joining the Church, he asked Heavenly Father for the chance to make amends with his former band mates.  Now I’d thought after joining the Church Kane would put his old life behind him forever, but that wasn’t what the band reunion was about for him: it was about forgiveness. I learned that if something matters to us, then it matters enough to our Father in Heaven for Him to help us obtain it. All we need to do is ask.

Bliss (Mutluluk)--A girl from a small village in Turkey is raped. Local custom dictates that she must die to uphold family honor. She declines to hang herself so she is sent to Istanbul with a guy from her village who is supposed to shoot her. He chickens out. They go hide on a fish farm and then go on a cruise with a retired professor. Predictably the victim falls in love with the guy sent to kill her. The guy figures out who the real rapist is and justice is served. I love justice.

Slant Magazine

12--This was the only Russian film I had the chance to see. It was three hours long and it was worth every minute. A Chechen boy is accused of murdering his Russian foster father. The jury is locked up in a high school gym overnight to decide his fate. They go through the evidence and, one by one, they puzzle out the truth and their minds are changed. The story is incredible to watch unfold, and the twelve jurors each have different backstories and personalities and it’s fun to watch them interact. I would watch it again without hesitation.

New York Times

The Lizy Reviews--'Five Kingdoms: Death Weavers' by Brandon Mull

Spoiler alert: everybody dies but not really.

No, seriously. That’s the plot. In the land of Necronum inside the Five Kingdoms, you can visit the afterlife without actually dying. The dead, known as echoes, can go back and forth from Necronum as well. That’s a gross oversimplification of how the magic of Necronum works, but it’s interesting.

We will be delving into spoilers for this post so if you don’t want spoilers, come back later. Cole Randolph arrives in Necronum with Mira, Dalton, Jace, Joe, and his brother Hunter (I think that’s everyone--his crowd of companions is getting bigger) to find Mira’s sister Destiny. Cole makes a deal with an echo named Sando who turns them over to the followers of the arch-villain Nazeem. (I was totally going to write something about the plot being motivated by the hero doing something stupid but it’s been a few weeks since I finished reading). Cole escapes and then enters the afterlife, known as the Echolands, to save those who crossed over. Most of Death Weavers actually takes place in the Echolands, which is a little disappointing since I wanted or rather expected to see more of Necronum. I expected the Echolands to be dark and creepy, but then I guess everybody did, Cole most of all. It is a paradise, in some ways, but a perilous one. If the series has been about finding and saving Mira’s sisters, then I imagine most of the actual revolution will be in book 5, which comes out next year. So for Death Weavers, sit back and enjoy the ride through the Echolands.

Kernel's Corner

Typical of Brandon Mull, there are lots of random characters that are supposed to be cool. The weavers and magicians on both sides of Necronum are appropriately mystical and mysterious. The horse Thunder is amazing. I am also a huge fan of She Who Stands at the Summit. I wanted more Nandavi--why waste a villain with such an awesome name? Sando wasn’t terribly convincing as a villain, since the way he deceived Cole at the beginning I still expected him to not pan out. Nazeem up close and personal? Definitely worth the anticipation. As for the main characters, we get a little bit of development for Mira but I’m still not terribly attached to her. But Cole is getting more interesting, especially as he deals with his broken shaping powers and with his internal conflict.

But my favorite thing about the Echolands is that Mull wrote it to cross over beyond the Five Kingdoms, even to other worlds that he’s created. In other words, he finally delivered on that Beyonders crossover, but that’s all I’m going to say for now. While I regret not going to see Brandon Mull at Comic Con, I was worried about spoilers and I’m glad I avoided those, if any.

Yes, I know the first book in the Fablehaven follow-up Dragonwatch is coming in Marc h, but it could be a while before I get my hands on that. I the meantime I will see if I can squeeze in the time to reread Fablehaven, and of course I am ready for the conclusion to the Five Kingdoms series..

Note: the post originally stated that Dragonwatch had already come out but the author was unaware of the real release date at the time.

The Lizy Reviews: A Night Divided by Jennifer A. Nielsen

I waited a long time to read this book, a long time meaning since the book launch party last September for A Night Divided. But of course I'd wanted to read it before then. The Cold War and the Berlin Wall is one of the most interesting stories of the last century. Nielsen's story brings it to the attention of a new generation of readers through a fictional family, the Lowes, divided the night the wall goes up, a father and brother in the west, and a mother and brother and sister in the east.

Amazon

Most of the action takes place several years following the raising of the wall, when things are at their darkest and escape is the most impossible. Gerta and her brother Fritz grow up painfully aware that the East German government, under the thumb of the Soviet Union, is based on lies and propaganda and where any expression of dissent can result in imprisonment or death. It is a world without trust--not from the authorities, not the schools, not their neighbors, and not from people who should be their friends. Some people are resigned to things as they are, but for Gerta, waiting for the wall to come down isn't an option.

One day while passing near the Wall, Gerta sees her father pantomiming a digging song, and she receives a message to go to an abandoned building near the Wall. Gerta decides that she and Fritz will dig for their freedom through the cellar. But they're on their own for this impossible task. At any moment they could be discovered by their neighbors or the police, and their protective mother will surely refuse. They have little food and little money for buying supplies. They only have a few precious weeks of summer to dig before Fritz is expected to report for military duty.

russialist.org

(So, spoiler: they make it, but by the skin of their teeth. I wish there had been an epilogue or something to talk about how life was different after escaping East Germany, and what it was like for them in the West and where they went next. It was kind of dissatisfying for the story to just end.)

A Night Divided is actually very gloomy to read, even considering the subject matter.  The novel focuses very little on the actual history--the explanation of historical background reads more like a less sophisticated elementary school novel, but there is very little of it. Nielsen's real strength is in depicting the world and the original story. The pacing of the action is slow, but the odds that the protagonists face provide plenty of suspense. And once again,  Nielsen impresses the reader with the determination and fearlessness of her characters.

Bucky Bewitched? Getting Scholarly on 'Civil War'

The SparkNotes Version ;)

• The ten code words used to control the Winter Soldier are a modern/sci-fi twist on a magic spell
• The understanding of magic in the middle ages and today agrees that specific words or chants can create certain effects, including control over other people’s behavior
• In the middle ages, science and corrupted scientific understanding were seen as a form of magic
• In the popular imagination, magic is the unseen power behind events that are hard to explain or understand
• Scholar Rosalind Morris states that in the mid-twentieth century Russian communism was a source of misunderstanding and, hence, a source of fear and unexplainable events
• To certain scholarly points of view, elements of popular beliefs on about magic in Bucky’s story are effective in explaining how Hydra controls him and how he could possibly be saved

Warner Bros. Via Odessy Online

The Full Version: Get ready to LEARN

Okay, first let me make the disclaimer that I do not write this post to endorse certain worldviews or ritual practices.  I am only making a scholarly point.

Secondly, I don’t really have a good working thesis. This isn’t an official scholarly paper, but me using some of the things I learned at BYU to offer perspective. Look at these ideas more as the seeds of a scholarly dissection of some themes in the MCU. I don’t know enough about anthropology or folklore or medieval legends to know what I’m talking about, but I know enough to think I’m on to something

Third, if you haven’t seen Captain America: Civil War yet (and it’s been out for over a month), I would highly recommend that you do go see it before reading this.

Captain America: Civil War came out a few short weeks ago. While being the long-awaited third installment of the Captain America trilogy, like Marvel's other films it also came with some new symbols and motifs for the fandom to have fun with, notably the plums Bucky never got to eat and “Mission Report, December 16, 1991.”

Marvel via Moviepilot

And then there’s the ten Russian code words that trigger the Winter Soldier’s programming. There’s something different about this aspect of Hydra’s Asset--it’s not like anything we’ve seen in the MCU before, nor like anything in other recent action/sci-fi films. It’s more like something out of a twisted fairy tale or a horror story.

To be honest, I don't like seeing the fandom joking around about the code words. It's gotten to the point where something that hurts a fictional character shouldn't be spoken of lightly. But why did the fandom take the code words in particular and run with them?

Longing...Rusted...Seventeen...Daybreak...Furnace...Nine...Benign..Homecoming...One...Freight car…What’s going on here?

I was up late one night getting ready for bed but thinking intently about the “cursed” words as I like to call them. I thought jokingly to myself, those words are so evil they could summon Satan.

And then I realized: WHAT IF THEY COULD?

Disney via Rebloggy

My inner English major/Medievalist woke up.  I grabbed my copy of Richard Kieckhefer’s Magic in the Middle Ages and pulled up my old term paper on medieval magic and started combing for evidence. Because, let’s face it, Bucky’s arc in Civil War did not end on a happy note.  I needed answers.  And I found some.

A Summary of Medieval Perspectives of Magic

Magic itself, I argued in my paper, is behind the things that cause surprise and wonder because of its inability to be explained--both for good and bad. Rosalind Morris writes that belief in the supernatural is the cultural explanation for trends and events that are harder to understand. It is what undermines reason, creates illusion, and defies the laws of nature. It is a foreign element that possesses the individual and causes random or tragic events to happen.

“Witchcraft is, in fact, the discourse that turns accident into violence, attributing agency to seemingly random events.  In other words, witchcraft is cathartic theater in its purest form--tragic, universal, written in blood, and always failed.  That is what anthropology teaches us” (Morris 115).

In the middle ages, the understanding of most people was that regular, controlled movements and sounds create effects that are out of the ordinary. Magic charms to invoke the effects of nature and/or supernatural beings carried over from antiquity, and the rites of the medieval Christian church took a similar role in common and elite culture. When a person went to church, for instance, the ritual of the Mass produced the effect of Transubstantiation, and being in a ritualized, spiritual environment created spiritual elation and awe in the participants. To the medieval imagination, the repetitive sounds of liturgical chants (particularly in Latin) and music and the spiritual perks of the worship service had a cause-effect relationship. Magic among the common people was a mix of liturgical rituals and folk superstitions, to generalize it badly. Among the clerical elite, necromancy involved a perversion of liturgical material in order to control demons. What was being said or done in these incantations and controlled movements or behaviors--crushing rocks, mixing certain plants, drawing diagrams--could have little or nothing to do with what was actually being done or why.

Via Pinterest

The main distinction between the magical and the miraculous is that while miracles happen without human volition, magic invokes or controls supernatural forces. Magic is not religion or spiritual energy, but in some traditions, it can manipulate spiritual forces as well as forces in nature.  It is “the other.”

Kieckhefer explains that spoken words, the more mysterious the better, are central to the use of magic. “The use of arcane language, whatever other significance it has, at least suggests...mysterious ingredients or processes” (68).  He also cites the ideas of the writers of late antiquity and the medieval period:

“For the Egyptian writer Origen it is words that have magical power, and especially names. The names of demons, if pronounced in the right way, can be used to invoke them, command them, or exorcise them. Their names must be used in their original forms; they cannot be translated into different languages or they will lose their power” (39-40).

Monsters and Magic in the MCU

So, we have ten words in Russian, spoken to a brainwashed victim to control his behavior, usually while he is strapped to a chair. Specific words, in a specific language, in a specific order, spoken to a specific person. Even if it has been months or years since he has heard these words, they send him on a bloody rampage in seconds. He is helpless to resist the power of these words.  It must have taken years of torture and conditioning to get this to work on Bucky.  

Marvel via Propcake

It doesn’t look like the “magic” we see in the Thor movies or the “magic” that will be explored in Doctor Strange. But, in my personal opinion, a lot of the magic we see in the MCU isn’t literally magic, it’s moments when moments when unexplainable things happen--when Peter Quill grabs hands with the other Guardians in spite of being ripped to shreds by the Infinity Stone, when Scott Lang returns from the Quantum Realm, when Steve Rogers acknowledges the little kid who recognizes him at the museum.  And on the flip side, when Hydra does terrible, evil things to Bucky Barnes.

From the Medieval perspective, magic and science don’t have that much distinction.  The methods that Hydra used over the decades to subject Bucky to their will look like corrupted science, knowledge of psychology and conditioning and human behavior put to evil use. Kieckhefer emphasizes that magic that controlled the will was considered evil or at least frowned upon in medieval society, a misuse of what ought to be used for good (81).

Furthermore, in Captain America: Civil War we have two elements that popular culture and medieval mindsets associated with magic: Hydra’s secret knowledge of how to control the Asset, and the secret book that contains this knowledge. Part of what makes Helmut Zemo such a terrifying villain is that he went to great lengths to obtain this knowledge for his scheme.  He found the book buried behind a concrete wall and killed the guy he took it from. Medieval alchemists and magicians only shared or passed their knowledge amongst themselves, and what gave them their aura of mystery was the value they placed on their ideas. Their work was “cherished simply because it brings hidden things to light, or at least to the dim visibility of the shadows” (Kieckhefer 142). The books by which they accessed their power were prized highly and came to be considered talismans in their own right. They were not necessarily bloodthirsty for power, but people who didn’t understand what they were up to could have thought them to be.

Via Screenrant

The Russian language itself is one of the “arcane” languages of the modern age. Rosalind Morris points out that during the Cold War, literal magic and witchcraft became benign in popular culture, while the public menace ferreted by the McCarthy “Witch Hunts” was Communism (117). The Winter Soldier was housed in Siberia, his handlers spoke to him in Russian, and his metal arm still had a communist red star before it was torn off violently by Tony Stark. In the cursed words themselves, there are three numbers: one, nine, and seventeen.  One fan on Facebook pointed out that if arranged just so, you get the year 1917, which is the year Bucky was born.  More conspicuously, however, 1917 was also the year of the Russian Revolution. Human minds and cultures are wired for symbols. Communism, facism, religious fanaticism, and ideological movements of any sort are based on rhetoric, and from the rhetoric springs the heavily loaded words that identify the movement.

Communist conspiracies once took the blame for the misfortunes of the twentieth century.  In the twenty-first century, terrorism is the new witchcraft, being created by foreign extremists and causing mass destruction and societal chaos.  World governments struggle to control this insubstantial force with laws that are met with protests that they are encroachments on personal freedom. In Civil War, the governments of the MCU pass the Sokovia Accords to control not just the terrorists but the superheroes supposed to protect the masses from them.  No sooner has the signing ceremony begun than the building where the nations approving the bill is bombed by Zemo, masquerading as Bucky. The Winter Soldier is by all definitions in a world that closely resembles ours a terrorist--and it is a label he cannot escape. Terrorism is an unacceptable behavior, and yet Bucky becomes a terrorist as soon as someone says the “magic words.” Even without the specific triggers, Bucky Barnes is, by some scholarly definitions, a victim of sorcery.

Marvel via Vulture

The Search for the Cure

I heard it said recently that superhero stories are fairy tales for adults. Playing with the metaphor just a little bit, the ten “cursed” words are of interest to the fandom because they are a twisted, modern version of a magic spell. They are yet another connection that Bucky’s saga has to popular stories and fairy tales about enchantments and curses. And for me, anything I’m obsessed with gets automatically connected to fairy tales and magic. It’s easier to explain this different world in those terms.  

Any lover of fairy stories (like myself) knows there can always be a remedy for a curse. Bucky has already come across a few instances of “good magic” on his journey that significantly countered the effects of Hydra’s brainwashing and torture. If you remember in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Steve got the Winter Soldier’s attention when he called him by name. To quote the narration in the new Cinderella, “Names have power.” And Kieckhefer’s book makes the exact same point.

Via Tumblr

Then at the climax, Steve repeats the words “I’m with you till the end of the line” to Bucky. Those words sparked a memory: they meant something to him. The fandom has been nuts over the phrase “Till the end of the line” because of what they did. They changed his behavior: they changed his whole story. If those words aren’t magic, I don’t know what is.

While there wasn’t much evidence in the final cut of the film to back this up, Sebastian Stan spent the weeks leading up to the Civil War premiere teasing that Bucky’s backpack contains notebooks upon which he’s written his memories. The idea itself is powerful because it’s Bucky’s alternative to the trigger words and other secrets about the Winter Soldier written down by Hydra in that evil book Zemo had. You could say he’s creating his own “books” of good magic to counter the evil.

Definitely want to keep anything bad from happening to those notebooks--Via Tumblr

But, as far as the actual MCU is concerned, that’s the best that Bucky and Steve have been able to do so far. And it’s not enough to keep Bucky’s inner demons at bay. It’s not enough to help relieve the guilt of the terrible crimes that Hydra used the Winter Soldier to commit. It’s not enough to keep Bucky from feeling like a monster.  

The mid-credit scene in Civil War brings up more questions for Bucky than it answers--and leaving him hanging like that isn’t going to help anything.

Perhaps, like the way I have just divined the folkloric elements of the curse words that have power over Bucky, maybe the MCU will tap into a non-scientific or pseudo-scientific source for his remedy. I can’t help but think of the comment that the grandmother made in Leslie Silko’s Ceremony: “that boy needs a medicine man.” (Friendly reminder that the protagonist in Ceremony is a WWII vet with PTSD).

True, Bucky’s story is already trippy enough without bringing pagan and shamanistic remedies into the mix. But maybe there’s bits and pieces of something like that that could work for him. Wakanda is technologically advanced, but do they have traditional shamans and sorcerers who would know how to help Bucky? Do medical and psychological treatments in Wakanda involve a mix of traditional cures and modern medicines? It’s not unheard of in China, where according to a documentary I saw once acupuncture is mixed with modern medicine.

Via Superhero Hype

But...if Bucky’s back on cryo, there weren’t any doctors in Wakanda who had any ideas for treatment off the top of their heads, traditional or otherwise. I’d like to think I’m on to something. Maybe I am reading too deep into this. I doubt the MCU will go that route but it's worth putting out there. Traditional cures work best for people within their cultures because they believe in them.

But there’s more than one way to eat a plum, I guess. To Tolkien, the modern industrial world was one of terror and the inspiration for Sauron and Saruman’s evil machinations. To him, the alternative was going back to traditional stories and legends as sources of comfort. Looking at the MCU, Bucky is a victim of the evils of the late twentieth century, of corrupt science and mental manipulation and foreign ideology. Something more ancient--more magical--could be available to help him. Some magic from Asgard or some of Doctor Strange’s mysticism. Maybe even an Infinity Stone. ( I haven’t read the comics, but I am aware that it was the Cosmic Cube that fixed Bucky at one point). The final solution might not be that straightforward, but it’s something to think about. As I said before, magic isn’t necessarily an actual power or spells and illusions. It’s something unexpected. Bucky needs whatever help he can get, and it may come from some place even I haven’t thought of.

New Line Cinema via LOTR wiki

As for the cursed words, the fandom is just beginning to pick them apart. In the meantime, my gut reaction when I see them online or hear them spoken aloud is to cringe. I’m not saying the rest of you shouldn’t be writing them down and using them in memes to poke fun at Bucky. I am saying that it’s good to be aware of why the trigger words work in his story--and why I don’t like them.

Link: My Term Paper for ENGL 371, which I drew from heavily for this piece