Mad Max continued
So the fanon already seems to have emerged that Angharad, burdened with a super beautiful face in a world where that meant one thing for her, probably was the one who decided to scar it up in the hope of getting herself out of that situation. Which is one of many possibilities, of course, she lives in a rough world, I just want to raise the point that as per
thatyourefuse's excellent thoughts on the emergence of new religions at the Citadel, the Cult of the Splendid would probably go in for ritual scarification, like, an x over each cheekbone. Given enough time - enough time for the rest of the Five to die of old age and not be around to throw a fit about it - it would probably start to become part of a certain beauty standard, like facial tattoos in some cultures, which Angharad would have found at the very least deeply annoying.
Apparently the next movie is already completely filmed (?) which is reassuring, and I imagine that we might get a better look at how to make the Citadel defensible. I mean, it's in a good position, defense-wise: it's a bit of a natural castle, with a lot of interior space, all the farming is inside or up on top, the water sources are inside. That's the dream, castle-wise; it's just a question of whether or not the political forces that be are willing to bring the dirt peasants in in siege conditions. (I imagine Joe let them get run over if there were conflicts that got that close, though his fiefdom seems to have extended a ways out.) However. They also live in a world with ballistics, which were historically not great for castles. (That said, given that there are three separate towers, if someone got into the middle you could just sit up high and throw things at them until they all died.)
IDK, I'm just curious about the military situation that Furiosa has inherited - I talk about it in the last post, but word is going to fucking get around that there's a giant natural aquifer paired with a political instability right next to some oil wells and saltpeter mines. That is the perfect making of a nation; everyone's going to want that. It was previously protected by an extremely efficient war machine and a bunch of crazy motherfuckers no one wanted to cross. And that's the other thing: I think you probably stay safe in that situation by putting around a reputation as a crazy motherfucker no one wants to cross? We were also talking in someone's journal - still
thatyourefuse? I spent a lot of time yesterday bothering thatyourefuse and
kore - about the economics of maintaining a giant-ass subwoofer truck, and, you know, that's an investment in mythos. It keeps your internal politics organized because everyone wants to be part of the most terrifying team ever, and it keeps your external politics organized because the thought of that thing rolling at your tiny desert outpost makes you literally want to shit yourself with fear. I've thought about this a lot in the context of some of the more terrifying kinds of capital punishment in the Middle Ages - on the one hand, haugh, but on the other hand, when you're kind of depending on word of mouth to get various jobs done, if you punish someone, you better make it bizarre and memorable so that people are like "holy SHIT did you hear what they did to those people who sold bad meat in X town? NEVER FUCKING SELL BAD MEAT THERE OH MY JESUS LORD." And by extension, when defending or invading, you want to be scary enough that word gets out ahead of you and does your job for you.
I'm rambling, but I guess my question is basically what kind of terrifying Furiosa and the surviving members of the Five can be. I mean, I think religion is definitely part of that organizational principle - Joe knew exactly what he was doing when he developed a death cult - and it's not that Furiosa is not a natural badass, it's that you need more than that to keep a culture going. There was some conversation going around about The Dag developing into a kind of terrifying witch-priestess who will shiv you if you bug her during her Greenhouse Time, and I think that that might be kind of a natural direction - hardcoreness, via the Vuvalini and Furiosa, mixed with a healthy dose of spookiness via some of the Five. (And I think we should not underestimate the spookiness of a nature/fertility cult to a bunch of people who have never seen a tree before.)
I guess when I get down to it I'm contemplating the political uses of macho. There's a lot of stuff out there about the Five succeeding in the movie in ways that aren't just "woman gets big gun! employs traditionally masculine success strategy!" even as Furiosa does exactly that, establishing that woman can also get big gun. But like. What other ways are there to survive as a city-state flanked by unrest? Fun to contemplate. Tricky to deal with, probably.
I'm going to post this unlocked in case anyone new wants to come talk Mad Max with me. Hello!