NOLITE TE BASTARDES CARBORUNDORUM (The Handmaid's Tale) [NSFW, unspoilered triggers]

YEP I WAS RIGHT

ohhhhhhhhhhh. jeez.

 

It is kind of interesting how in a lot of ways their society is set up to fail... or at least, the Handmaids are.

Spoiler

The Ceremony is incredibly awkward, the Handmaids giving birth don't get good medical care, and of course there's the whole 'hey the men could be sterile, that's still a thing that could happen' thing.

 

Oooh, finally a use for all my superfluous Bible knowledge. Raybot answered your question, but there's an additional thing about the story that may be... creepy? pertinent? creepinent?

Okay, so Jacob (the husband of Rachel, whose handmaid Bilhah was) actually had two wives. Leah and Rachel were sisters, he had the hots for Rachel and arranged to marry her, but the father of Leah and Rachel tricked Jacob and gave him Leah first (like... the bride was veiled during the wedding and Jacob had a surprise in the morning. ugh), because she was the older one and therefore had to marry first, in that guy's opinion. (He was a... biblical dick, honestly.) And then Leah had several sons and Rachel had none, so she told Jacob to fuck her handmaid Bilhah to give her a son. Which he did. Bilhah had two sons and Rachel was like "ah yes, I am better than my sister and I win".

And then Leah, who hadn't had children for a while, was presumably like "what the fuck" and did the exact same fucking thing. She gave her handmaid Zilpah to Jacob, and also got two additional sons this way. And Jacob's grandparents Abraham and Sarah also did the thing, where she didn't have children for a long while and used her handmaid as a proxy. Like... the handmaid thing was completely institutional in that family. Which probably didn't escape the Republic of Gilead. The thing was done at least thrice in the Bible, okay, we can do it too.*

In conclusion: Old Testament is fucking incredible. (Link to Jacob's story in the Bible, because there's still more, Jacob and his wives were terribly dysfunctional.)

That's... somehow even more disturbing than it was in the book, where the Handmaids were fertile women who had broken Gilead's laws. But the series stresses the infertility issues in pre-Gilead world more than the book did, so this does make sense.

Spoiler: more commentary on cA's commentary, spoilers up to episode 3

I also got the impression that they use these excecutions to kind of... let Handmaids vent their frustration on an acceptable target. Like, they play the man up as a complete monster, doing crimes that feel extra heinous to Handmaids. It's like the people with the power wind the Handmaids up so they'd be extra violent at that point and either sort-of-happy (yay, we did a justice :D) or compliantly horrified (we... beat a man to death with our bare hands D:) afterwards.

I don't think they have Handmaids kill every rapist and I also don't think the people executed by Handmaids necessarily committed the crimes they're publicly accused of.

Definitely felt like that.

I really enjoy the Commander's portrayal. He gives the impression of a... pathetic and moist little man, even though he's also the most powerful person in the house. Like, he has the power to do horrible things to everyone, but he's also kind of lukewarm, if you know what I mean. I haven't seen such a good combination of pathetic and terrifying since Gaius Baltar in BSG.

She really wants children combined with she has way too much power over Offred.

I have to admit, I kind of wanted Offred to play it like "I was late, but then electroshock and now I'm bleeding. Correlation is obvs causation". I would have enjoyed seeing Serena Joy plotting revenge, which she might've done, hearing it like this, I think. But it would have been uncharacteristic of Offred.

* ah yes. Fiction (or, y'know, literature) influences reality.**
** I couldn't resist and will show myself out now.

 

re: handmaids killing

Spoiler

i thought it was rly interesting considering like, The Ceremony is basically... also rape... but then like the man who they killed was acused of raping a pregnant handmaid and she ended up miscarrying, and Babies Are Valuable. handmaids are only as valuable as their babymaking abilities.

 

Spoiler: answer to raybot

I think they honestly don't see the Ceremony as rape. Like, it is one, objectively, but their moral and legal frameworks are so completely warped they probably consider it consensual (if they even care about this concept).

In the Bible, all three times the handmaiding thing happened, it is worded as the wife giving the handmaid to her husband as a wife. Like, yes, there's the obvious expectation that he'll fuck her to get his (first) wife a baby, but they still use marriage terminology. And I used to read a lot about American Fundamentalist Christians (presumably they or people like them founded Gilead) and among the more extreme of them there didn't really seem to be a clear understanding of marital rape. Saying yes once means saying yes for the rest of your life, all that jazz, except worded more euphemistically. So going by these two factoids they might honestly consider it consensual. At least legally.

Then again, they've kind of made it sort of... industrialized, what with the Handmaids being rotated, so maybe they've swept the "gave handmaid to her husband as a wife" under the rug with all other bible quotes they don't like.

An interesting thing is, I don't think I've seen any Econowives (in the book, poorer men's wives who were supposed to be domestics, childbearers and wives for their husbands, they wore three-color striped clothes) in the series. Is it because Offred lives in a very rich part of the city, so there are only Commanders and their extravagant households there?

Are there actually no Econowives, because all the fertile women are drafted as Handmaids and so poor men's wives couldn't be expected to have children? If so, where do they expect poor people to come from? Like, if Handmaids are reserved for Commanders, then non-Commander men don't reproduce and the next generation will skew very heavily towards upper-class people. Do they just... expect the Handmaids to have so many children that a lot of them can become lower-level grunts? Also, that would mean that all the Commanders' daughters who can have children would also be drafted as Handmaids when they're old enough, which is somehow extra appalling.

 

Spoiler: General spoilers

This actually makes a lot more sense? I dont know if theyre gonna go this route with the tv version and im only taking my assumption from context provided so far. That being said, the handmaids have quite a lot of "gender traitors", people who tried to run, and generally unruly or hot tempered women in their ranks. They havent introduced the concept of econowives yet (which i only know of from the book wiki i accidentally ended up on) and im not entirely sure they plan to.

This actually describes perfectly why he skeeves me out so much, i couldnt quite put my finger on it. Wishy washy people or people with no strong opinions either way in a seat of power scare the shit out of me because you never know what theyll do.

Yeah i got that too. The symbolism of them removing their wings for this, something that represents them being focused on obeying and completing whatever task like blinders on a horse every time they leave for a less controlled environment like outside, coupled with the fade out of the volume of the crimes being listed as offred stood there in grief for moira really drove the point home that aunt lydia could say literally anything about the man and hed still be beaten to death as the one and only form of self expression the handmaids have

.

 

Spoiler: reply to deresto

they adapted it to a "fertility trumps everything" rule, as a means to update the story for the times, so a lot of Undesirable (teachers, gay people, woc, etc) women were allowed to stay alive if they were fertile. bc in the book all the poc were systematically shipped away, but in this day and age they didnt want to make a show with Just White People.

src

i read elsewhere that that's also why they made ofglen a lesbian, because they wanted more non-straight representation.[/quote]

 

Spoiler: so uh.....

am.....I the only one wondering about STDs in this world?

 

Spoiler: also, question

so if the name of the Handmaids changes with each house they go to, does that also happen for like, Marthas and such?

 

hi I kind of hate the Commander

 

Iirc the reason so many people are sterile is because of a mutated std, so i imagine theyre a big deal and monitored fairly closely? Althouhg the opposite could be true because a lot of doctors seem to get killed so it could be a very science opposing kind of christianity

Hm, i think we're supposed to assume every martha is named martha and rita telling her name to june was kind of off script?

 

they do have doctors though (and seem to be aboe to access them fairly easily, when offred went there were several other handmaids there) and the doctor who was shown executed specifucally had a fetus drawn on the bag over his head, so i think it's not doctors entirely but, pro-choice doctors and especially abortion doctors.

 

Thats true, i just assumed baby doctors (if only for afab peeps) were the only ones allowed to hang around (besides the important peoples doctors) seeing how home remedy stuff tends to go hand in hand with christian stuff a lot of the time

 

*eye twitch*

 

s c r e a m s
THEY DON'T HAVE A CHOICE IN THE MATTER JESUS FUCK

 

eta: also the amount of reaching in that article just. screams.

 

But there is no such pressure in the series? I don't think we and the author of the article are watching quite the same show.

 

Talking about the whole Handmaids vs Wives classing and who gets put into what—

Spoiler: spoilers up through ep 5

One of the reasons June wound up as a Handmaid is because Luke was previously married. In their specific case, he cheated on his wife with her and divorced to marry June, but the implication is that divorce is not recognized and that remarrying is seen as an immoral thing. But being as June is "proven" fertile, having had her baby Hannah before, that means she "gets" to be a Handmaid. Similarly how Emily/Ofglen was subjected to FGM instead of killed because of her viable womb. Babymaking ability is just massively valuable when only 1 in 5 pregnancies produces a healthy baby, not to mention the difficulty of getting pregnant in the first place.

Going back to the Biblical story, too, the focus on Rachel and Bilhah over the other cases of handmaids given as wives was because Rachel couldn't bear her own (not until later, anyway). I imagine that if a Wife is naturally able to bear kids, that would be fine and celebrated and hey she's high status and everything, but those of lower status or who have broken laws and such get the Handmaid slot. So if you're a Commander (or other high-status man) and your Wife is barren, boom, you get a Handmaid. Iirc even being allowed a Wife is a status thing. (Granted, it's been a while since I've read the original book, and I forget how Econowives functioned. I don't recall there being a lot of focus on them, and we haven't yet been shown if they exist in the TV show's take on things.)

And then Marthas are infertile, but lower class, so they get saddled with the whole domestic servant thing doing the household chores.

 

I also noticed people talking about the general social strain between the women, and that is very much intentional. Handmaids are trained by the Aunts, because then they'll hate women instead of the men in power. Pitting the Wives against the Handmaids against the Marthas gives a more inward direction of strain and social frustration instead of pointing it at the Commanders. Having Handmaids work in pairs means they always have to be on guard, because you can't know if your partner will report you for failing to perform your expected role properly. Things like Particicution are a part of it too, because then all that violent anger and hatred is vented at an "acceptable" target—required, even—in a very set ceremony, setting, and length of time. Like a release valve to keep the pipe from bursting, except with your subjugated class of women who might start a violent uprising otherwise.

Edit: Of course, hating other women instead of men is more the goal than a guaranteed outcome. You can bet a lot of the characters aren't happy about the men being in power and doing this to them.

 

I haven't been posting because this show wrecks me, which I appreciate, but it's exhausting. Have to wait until I have the energy to engage. I'll try to backread everything after I write this; if I do it the other way it may not get done.

Has it been three weeks since the first episode? My own rule is confusing me, hmm. I'll just spoiler anyway.

Spoiler: beginning of ep 1

One of the very first things that struck me about this show was the way the main character spoke to her daughter as they fled. Even as things got increasingly dire with the crash and the gunfire. Her tone was reassuring.

I can't remember for certain but I think she was explaining what was going on and what they were doing, in age and situation* appropriate language, and treating her daughter as a participant. (Was she praising her as well? I can't recall but it would fit the communication style. Like, we need to do this now, okay? Good job!)

This was such a contrast from what I'd expect in a scene like this: barking orders, maybe hushing the kid, perhaps yelling at them for doing the wrong thing. Physically moving, restraining, and silencing them. Possibly giving a terrifying summary of exactly how fucked we are. All efforts to protect the child oriented around their physical safety, no credible attempts to protect the child emotionally.

And it wouldn't even be odd for a story to show the negative effects this is having on the child, how frightened and confused they are. Like, stories seem to recognize that this would be traumatic.

And yet I feel like reassuring a child during a disaster is often portrayed as dishonest, ineffective, and probably a sign of a major character flaw such as being too weak or oblivious to hack it, or just being outright malicious.

*Situation appropriate as in, the middle of an active emergency is typically not a great time to share and process fear, especially with people you are in charge of and responsible for. Honesty may be a good policy, but constant full disclosure with no regard for potential harm is not.

I just thought it was a startling example of including a familiar story situation, asking how the character(s) involved would actually feel, think, and act, then simply not using the conventions that don't fit. The opposite of lazy storytelling.

I feel like that particular scene stuck in my head because it was the first indication I got of how this show would not be like other shows.