Unraveling Silver Threads: in discussion w/ Richard Rohlin & Gareth Boyd on 'Queen of the Night' and more
Plus Derek's notes from the convo
All five episodes of the ‘Queen of the Night’ have been published and are streaming for free at the Dirt Poor Robins YouTube Channel. The modern sci-fi silent film fairy tale compacts several profound themes and symbols. In order to unpack the show’s deeper meaning, I invited Richard Rohlin and Gareth Boyd to help me unpack the themes and symbolism in the ‘Queen of the Night.’ We cover subjects like technocracy, trading logos for power, ancient mythology, symbolism of spiders & webs, ascending into divine realms, boldness versus brazenness, and more.
Richard Rohlin is a software developer, Germanic philologist, co-host of the Amon Sul podcast (Lord of the Rings lore), co-host of Universal History podcast with Jonathan Pageau. Host of the upcoming Rood Screen: The story of early English Christianity. Rohlin is spearheading the Finding the Golden Key project, a collection of essays which attempt to articulate the sacramental imagination.
Gareth Boyd is a returning guest to the podcast. He is a contributor and editor of the Symbolic World blog. Collector of ancient weapons of war and former soldier, Gareth brings the presence of a warrior philosopher - tender yet deliberate, poetic yet practical.
Derek’s Notes & Timestamps
My highlight was when Richard - the Lord of the Rings specialist - definitely declares the Queen unveiling darkness on the moon scene as better than the Galadriel’s temptation in LOTR.
These notes can also be accessed in Derek’s database of resources, using the outliner app Workflowy. You can watch all of Derek’s symbolic analysis videos of ‘Queen of the Night’ in the YT playlist.
Introducing Richard Rohlin and Gareth Boyd
Introducing ‘Queen of the Night’ by Dirt Poor Robins - 02:09
Capricorn Scale - trading logos for power - 05:13
Capricorn is an astrological sign of the first day of solar zodiac, December 22 - the first day Grave's rocket is launched.
A faint constellation, hard to see with the naked eye.
One of the oldest, most ancient named constellation.
Semitic mythology: seagoat (capricorn) associated with Enkai (God of craft, lore, language, wisdom) - Tower of Babel myth.
Grave's tower as tower of babel. One way to understand all scientific process: it is an attempt to undue the curse of the tower of babel, to get back to our original goal of uniting everybody by taking heaven by storm.
Enkai associated with the Watchers. Angelic beings who give technology to mankind.
Gives humanity technology that they are not ready for, to ascend too soon.
Inspiration for the QN "fairy tale" is the story of Icarus.
Main Character isn't flying too close to the sun, but to the moon.
Icarus uses technology made by Dedalus to ascend unwisely.
Dies from an act of hubris, like every Greek story - a basic failure of the Delphic maxim to know yourself - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delphic_maxims.
A scale is a little piece of star, of logos, of something divine.
Graves uses scale to ascend. The problem is in his method.
Graves trades scale for (electric) power, to empower the city with electricity.
Trades piece of the divine to do the things he wants to ascend into heaven
Proper/Improper ascension 11:23
Proverbs 30 - Who has ascended into heaven or descended? Who has gathered the wind with his fists? Who has bound the waters with a garment? Who has established the ends of the earth? What is his name? And what is his son's name, if you know?
Know your place.
St. Paul write in Romans 10 - Do not say to yourself 'who will ascend into heaven' (that is to bring Christ down from above)? Or who will descend into the abyss (to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say 'the word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith which we preach.
The "righteousness of faith(fulness)" is the proper ascent.
Don't ascend on your own. Graves wants to ascend on his own power to get his wife and bring her down to be with him. The proper way to do this is through the word, the logos of faith, the seed that's divine. Graves goes about it in the improper way - technocratically or mechanistically.
Eyesight - 14:27
St. Paul scales falling from his eyes after his encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus.
Graves is blind without his glasses (technology).
St. Paul is given a thorn in his flesh because his is allowed to ascend into the higher levels of heaven. Given a "thorn in his flesh" - debilitating eye condition, traditionally.
Graves told not to see because if he were to see at the wrong time, he would fall in love with the wrong one.
What leads to a fall? boldness v brazenness - 16:46
When does Oliver fall?
The difference between boldness and brazenness.
Bold to follow the moon child and brazen to put his glasses back on, which is the moment he begins to fall into his tragedy.
The Oliver in the end is the Oliver in the beginning, but the Oliver in the middle is bent and twisted.
The improper ascent is in full force throughout this tale - like with Actaeon, with Adam & Eve - when they reach for that which will make them like God.
When you brazenly barge into the throne room of God, you are cast down into a confused category that's usually lower than you were when you began your improper ascent.
The seagoat is a confusion of two things. It's not fully one or fully the other.
See Gareth's Symbolic World Blog article The Horse, And The Rider - https://thesymbolicworld.com/articles/the-horse-and-the-rider/
The horse and rider versus a centaur. The horse is elevated to a higher level of being with the rider than without him. The centaur is the beatification of man, the lowering of the body of man into the horse.
The fall of man in Genesis is a casting into something more beastial - ex Enchante lyrics
Queen of the Night is a story of a man, and of mankind as well. Oliver is all of us in a way.
Pinning Angels like butterflies - 20:53
Enchante lyrics - the angels were like butterflies to these men.
The quantification and mass production of our modern age is changing mankind.
When the angels are pinned like butterflies to be studied.
The ways of "enchantment" 21:28
Enchantment is a two-way street - ex The Golden Key by George MacDonald. Not everything in a fairy tale is going to take care of you. Also, MacDonald's Phantastes - the peril of enchantment
There are different kinds of enchantment. The enchantment of the old songs/ways. The enchantment of church bells - a happy enchantment, a Godspell (Gospel)
Technocratic/Hedonistic is it's own form of enchantment. It dulls our ability to perceive real spiritual reality - laying on us a spell of sleep.
Elon Musk meme - if I had a chip in my brain to pipe in music, versus using ears to enter our soul through the senses.
Our bodies play a part in our thinking as well (not just our brains). We are an embodied consciousness.
Low central hedonism (raising hell) and the technocratic ascent have a way of existing side-by-side.
Hedonism is the way of filling in what is missing from the embodied experience.
Spider Symbolism - 26:59
A spider lulls its prey to sleep. Sets a web to ensnare its prey and sucks the life from them for its own nourishment.
The scene with the queen is better than Jackson's Galadriel scene in Lord of the Rings!
There's something ethereal to what the spider constructs. Spider doesn't build a dam like a beaver. It builds a translucent
From above, everything Graves does is insignificant. He's a little bug hanging a frail web.
Ecclesiastes 12 - the silver thread being severed. vanity, vanity, everything is vanity. when
Plot summary = the itsy bitsy spider.
Freya Faire - 33:26
Second half of the itsy bitsy spider?
Freya in old Norse means "lady, the lady, the mistress" - an old Norse goddess, roughly equivalent of Venus or Isis. Husband is always distant from her.
War, madness, and poetry.
Her role was taken by the blessed Virgin Mary, "our lady"
Freya and Queen are two sides of the same coin that set up two opposing feminine choices for Oliver.
Queen is the higher, divine feminine. Freya is the lower, practical feminine.
Freya is the one who will keep Oliver from ascending too soon.
Winged brooch pinned on her dress indicates she may be able to help him ascend but in a proper kind of way.
Webs can also represent the relationships between things. Freya is the way that Oliver can leave the web he is caught himself in.
Hierarchy is an ontological ladder with relationships that are not severed.
One person gets an education does something to lift up the web of relationships (family).
Oliver destroys his web of relationships as he ascends.
Fraya Faire - the old spelling of fary.
Set up as the path that Oliver could/should have chosen.
There's something magical in the proper ascent, in the way that Oliver was supposed to ascend.
Magic is often pitted against technology. Magic and Fairy tales are old fashion.
This story is recovering the sacramental imagination, the enchanting worldview.
The sacramental imagination is about recovering a way of seeing. Seeing the created order in a way that it is capable of becoming the mediator of the divine.
When you don't, things are just things. No meaning beyond calorie counts, and raw materials.
If I can't find a way to ascend to the divine, then I will find a way to do it mechanistically - ex psychadelics.
Lunar Eclipse - 43:08
the moon cannot see the sun because the earth is between them.
what does it look like for the moon to be without the sun? for the divine feminine to be without the light?
Oliver's rocket destroys the whole world.
Oliver is a failed sun. He's trying to bring light to things but fails. He wants to be the mate of the moon.
Month - moon - menstrual - words are related.
Lunar eclipse is the cutoff of the masculine from the feminine.
Classic cultures had taboos for not having sex during a females period.
The Queen is approached by another suiter. It's a violation of taboo; then all hell breaks loose.
Things get Lovecraftian very quickly.
Ends in a luciferin fall. In the Book of Revelation, the star falls from heaven and lands in the sea and poisons the waters of the world.
Capricorn is in part of the sky known as the sea/waters.
Things come full circle: Oliver puts on his glasses to see his father turn and the angry mob approaching - this is what happens when you put on your glasses.
Photography, portents, PTSD - 49:06
Why photography? During sacred times, it's as though photography is robbing from the sacredness of the moment.
Flashbacks, or portents, create a PTSD response.
Any good fairy tale makes you feel its significance without fully knowing why.
'Gambit of Night' lyrics - cameras are acting like "the scolding father"
What Graves should do: marry Freya and give his father a grandson.
What if Graves circles had let his father hold him, and Graves never went out to meet the moon girl? What he was dreaming?
A list for future conversation topics:
Queen frozen on the throne
the cherubim statues
Com Jesu Com - a funerary hymn
spirits/alcohol enlightening
sub arcs of Lucretius/Pru
other characters as different halves of Oliver's nature
sacrifice and ascension