In Cauda Venenum

In Cauda Venenum
We’re biting our tongues, (biding our time)
An apparition; awoken
With an urge to own and occupy
Who ever said this was easy?

A majesty’s massacre floods the fields of red
Blood to your body naturally rushes the blood to your head
To your head!

And now, with our hands in line, these arms move tonight

And we cry (whoa) “we can not allow this, this is terrible!”
With ideals, we’re idle as they lust for more
Whoa, if we settle the score
We’ve never been so excited to see you before!

In the cradle we are helpless
But on our feet we are fatal
How we evolve and grow into
(Twisted beasts with a desire for disorder)

Oh! What a terrible, terrible game we play
Replacing a pawn for a body and the players
Politicians, who say what they need to say

Now, with hands aligned, arms move tonight
Here, with abrasive eyes, pain in plain sight

And we cry (whoa) “we can not allow this, this is terrible!”
With ideals, we’re idle as they lust for more
Whoa, when we settle the score
We’ve never been so excited to see you be…

Oh, when I think about your eyes
Oh, when I think about your smile
Oh, when I dream about your lies
Traveled all this way just to find love

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Hunter, now a trained soldier, is deployed to the battlefront on a counter-offensive after an attack on allied territory. Distasteful of the tool his superiors have shaped him into, and uncomfortable with the cruelty of battle, he realises his true desire is to return to Ms Leading.

What’s in a name?
‘In Cauda Venenum’ — latin for ‘the poison is in the tail’, or ‘the worst is yet to come’. Though the experiences described here are already rough, it’s incomparable to the horror that will come.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter. Get ready for a lot of him — sans the Oracles intro, he’ll be our narrator for the whole album.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:26 City Escape Reversed
Earthshattering. Nevermind Writing on a Wall, welcome to the real Act III.

So this is the opening riff from City Escape, but reversed. In City Escape, it described a chaotic situation in a familiar environment. Here, it’s a chaotic situation in an unfamiliar environment. This is pandemonium, disorientation, destruction, adrenaline… yeah, this is a war.

Can’t help but envision those loud DUH-DUH-DUHs as bombs detonating. Shot in my mind is like watching planes high over the territory dump their payloads, and buildings below exploding, before the ‘camera’ redirects to Hunter’s camp, with his superiors in a fervour as news of the attack comes in and countermeasures are hastily planned (0:18 – 0:26).

>We’re biting our tongues, (biding our time) / An apparition; awoken / With an urge to own and occupy
So first of all, what’s Hunter’s situation? There’s been a timeskip since he reached Europe, but how much has happened offscreen? Has he been deployed anywhere yet?

Going backwards, I’ll answer with my impressions of, ‘no’, ‘training’, and ‘he’s at camp, about to ship out into battle for the first time’. We can certainly hear that Hunter’s a lot less cheery or optimistic as he was in VVV, and also has some opinions about war, a subject he should be clueless about, and that he’ll form new opinions about once we see him in the field; so some Sergeant’s drilled these rhetorics into him. I’m sure he’s had ambient exposure to what war ‘is like’ from the rigorousness of his training and second-hand tales from or about other soldiers, but for now his opinions are either party line or telephone.

‘We’re biting our tongues’ -> News of the attack has come in. The soldiers are nervous as the enemy is growing bolder, and consciousness of the urgency of their side to respond is growing. Very soon, it feels, the relative safety of camp will be gone. Though this anxiety is strong, the soldiers do not voice it.

‘(biding our time)’ -> Rather, their nervousness is instantly recontextualised into an expression of power rather than fear. They aren’t trembling kids! They’re trained soldiers, ready to fight on the word ‘go’, simply waiting for the perfect moment to launch into a devastating counter-offensive.

‘An apparition; awoken with an urge to own and occupy’ -> The apparition here is enemy faction — Germany and its allies. Though all the soldiers have been told about the enemy, and how they need to fight the enemy, and must be prepared to die in battle against the enemy, as yet this enemy has been something of a ghost that everyone knows is doing things but hasn’t intruded into this squadron’s life. This attack changed that. The threat now feels extremely close, real, and hungry to dominate the territory near (or on) where Hunter is posted.

>Who ever said this was easy?
Well, fuck, thinks Hunter, but instantly dispels that thought with reminders from his training. It’s war! He shouldn’t mourn the easy ride he could have gotten if his post stayed uneventful. He’s tough, he’s trained, he is posted here to go to the battlegrounds.

>A majesty’s massacre floods the fields of red / Blood to your body naturally rushes the blood to your head
Hard lines. The majesty’s massacre could be a direct allusion to the killing of some specific figure, but could also be a more general idea of national rulers being these avatars of bloodlust considering all the slaughter going on in their name and by their orders. I think this is Hunter considering the casualties of the recent attack and angrily envisioning the culprit behind it: the enemy leader.

‘Blood to your body naturally rushes the blood to your head’ -> Unsure. Vibe I get is that Hunter is extending his sense of self (body) to include the unit that got destroyed in this most recent attack; he is taking the attack on that unit as equivalent to an attack on himself, (his self is his entire faction; rather, his self is a cell of the greater organism that is his faction), and is personally infuriated, bloodthirsty, and vengeful at the deaths of these soldiers.

Could read as some physical action here that gets him in the mood to fight. Maybe he’s recovering corpses at the scene of the attack (literally getting their blood on his body. Feels kinda stretch), hence provoking his animosity?

I think if he can describe the fields of red, then he was sent out to the scene of whatever attack just happened, so if he hasn’t been issued to fight yet, then I suppose a recovery mission makes sense. Sure we’ll go with that.

>And now, with our hands in line, these arms move tonight
Hunter’s unit is formally ordered to deploy and engage on the offensive.

‘Hands in line’ — evocative of a salute, but also of all the soldiers taking the same coordinated action and adhering to their orders obediently.
‘These arms move’ — evocative of a march, but probably carries the dual meaning of ‘arms’ as ‘weapons’, ie the soldiers are both equating themselves as weapons (these arms = we soldiers) and saying they will stage an attack on the enemy.
‘Tonight’ — It’s not happening yet. They first need to either wait for night or travel to the battleground.

>And we cry (whoa) “we can not allow this, this is terrible!” / With ideals, we’re idle as they lust for more / Whoa, if we settle the score
‘We cannot allow this, this is terrible!’ -> The thing about war is, you can’t just go into war with no justification for it, and especially with no moral justification for it. While this is a principle that matters more for politicians and higher-ups, who need to be conscious of foreign relations and keep domestic support, than footsoldiers who simply need to be obedient, it’s unsurprising that the rhetoric would leak down to Hunter’s squadron. Hunter feels not just a moral justification, but a moral duty to defeat the wicked enemy.

‘With ideals, we’re idle as they lust for more’ -> Hunter’s side is the ‘good side’, preoccupied with things like propriety and doing the right thing, which includes not invading others. But by that logic, being good leaves you as a sitting duck for malevolent actors. Hunter is agitated that this attack happened, agitated that the enemy hasn’t been squashed yet, is antsy to do something about it, and blames it on his side being too restricted by morals to be an aggressor, which means the enemy is super-evil for being the invader and needs to be stopped — they will only continue to destroy if left unchecked; morals will have to go in the bin for the greater good.

‘Whoa, if we settle the score’ -> Now that Hunter’s side has been attacked, they have justification to exact vengeance and properly defeat the evil.

>We’ve never been so excited to see you before!
Is this a variation on the build up of ‘it’s just that easy / pick yourself up’ in Evicted? Very much get that impression; certainly is illustrating Hunter’s experience meeting his recruiting officer when he first enlisted. I get the image of this very well-groomed man in impeccable attire and shiny white teeth, holding his hand out in a handshake… a bit like TP&P.

Because there’s obvious irony here, right? The officer’s excitement is happiness that Hunter is pledging to die for the cause, while we know Hunter signed up because he was in a painful place and desperate to find something happier. He probably wanted to take this welcome at face value, and feel like he found someone invested in him. As he recognises, though, the investment was in the tool the officers could mold Hunter into. Hunter seems frustrated about this, but still compliant, finishing the officer’s words.

>1:41 – 1:54 Instrumental
The counter-offensive occurs. Hunter’s side is successful.

>In the cradle we are helpless / But on our feet we are fatal / How we evolve and grow into / (Twisted beasts with a desire for disorder)
Interesting perspectives to be hearing from Hunter. Ostensibly it’s a comment on human nature, and how people will grow to be destructive and power-hungry once they have the means to dominate or oppress others… but Hunter hasn’t naturally grown to have any such inclination. We’ve seen him have violent desires before, but they’re certainly not from a desire for chaos — they’re from a desire for stability. If he thinks of himself as adapted to these chaotic circumstances, that is the result of methodical training designed to scour him of his hesitance.

So for him to recognize himself as deadly, and changing, suggests he has some battle experience now.

‘Twisted beasts with a desire for disorder’ -> This is not Hunter’s voice speaking. This is the party line of what Hunter’s superiors would want him to be, and what peer pressure is telling him to be; a bloodthirsty monster that thrives in the pandemonium of war, eager for new engagements where he can destroy the evil enemy. Hunter can see that this mindset is twisted, and is uncomfortable with becoming such a thing, but knows that’s the role the military has nurtured him towards and what he’s conforming to.

>Oh! What a terrible, terrible game we play / Replacing a pawn for a body and the players / Politicians, who say what they need to say
Accurate. Hunter is aware of how expendable his existence his is to his masters, and how his actions are under their absolute control, but also doesn’t seem to resist it. Rather, even he seems to accept that all the people involved on the ground are just resources, making the moves they do as proxies for their commanders who have no honour and face no risk.

>2:25 – 2:48 Instrumental
Not sure of any scene specifically but sure sounds cool. Another battle?

>2:49 – 2:58 Faster/Save Me Reprise
I think that’s what this is at least. Hunter seems to be pretty dejected about the place he’s gotten himself in. Specifically, what’s bothering him here is a problem on the ‘systematic’ level more than any specific personal experience: he feels used and unloved by the institution he’s chosen to trust himself to, but also feels like he can’t leave it.

Probably why this song has so much focus on the rationales behind war, monarchs, leaders, morals, politicians, people’s lustful desires to power, so on so on all in the collective ‘we’ and not too much description of Hunter’s individual thoughts and feelings on fighting itself (we’ll get these in What It Means To Be Alone). This is the stuff Hunter’s been thinking about, what he’s become as a cog.

Putters out very pathetically. Hunter’s quite resigned.

>Repetition: Now, with hands aligned…
More pained/aggressive this time. Starting off an active battle.

>Here, with abrasive eyes, pain in plain sight
Hunter’s peering out from cover… strains to find targets, fires, and sees the enemies drop. His takeaway of this isn’t a feeling of success though, but of having inflicted obvious hurt in a way he’s not really proud about. Alternatively he could just be getting a better view of the battlefield now and can see the obvious devastation that’s happened here; bodies, broken buildings, injured survivors… and knows this isn’t the better future he was looking for in VVV.

‘Open eyes, young man’. Moment of revelation.

>Chorus Repetition
Again more aggressive, spiteful, angry… some of that anger may be falling on the leaders who ordered this moreso than on the enemy soldiers, now.

‘We can not allow this’ -> We can’t allow scenes like this to exist; if looking at Hunter specifically, might have a tenor of ‘I can’t let this be my future’.
‘With ideals we’re idle as they lust for more’ -> Though the soldiers may know what they’re seeing is wrong, and that what they’re committing conflicts with their morals, their superiors will order them to keep going anyway.
‘When we settle the score’ -> So never, you mean? The commanders ordering this will never fall or understand what the battlefield’s like.

>We’ve never been so excited to see you be…
Hunter was able to obediently toe to the words of his superiors last time we heard this line; though his attitude through the whole last chorus repetition has been far more furious and hateful, this time, instead, he…

>Oh, when I think about your eyes / Oh, when I think about your smile / Oh, when I dream about your lies
HUNTER I SEE YOU’RE USING AN ‘I’ NOW! HELLO! GOOD BOY!

Yeah, instead of taking some kind of vengeful riposte at the people who put him in this situation, his real desires of comfort come out. Fighting has made him realise that he doesn’t want to be here and that he’d rather be back with Ms Leading.

‘When I dream about your lies’ -> just wanted to note the callback to ‘we fall beneath the sea of dreams’, with lies being a double entendre again.

>Traveled all this way just to find love
What a line. Hunter, Hunter, Hunter…

Hunter came here looking for belonging, safety, stability, comfort, all those things which we could sum up in the word ‘love’. He recognises now, finally, finally, that he won’t find it here. Nobody cares about him here, he doesn’t like what he’s becoming, and the chaos is horrible. Everything he wants he’ll find more ably by simply turning right around and going straight back to the City and straight back to Ms Leading, which he realises now is where he truly wants to be — because whoops, now that he’s not freaking over his ego out so much, and has a better sense of scale between ‘being an immature jackass’ and ‘being a weapon of the state’, he loves her.

These fantasies of being with her again are holding him together though the stress and demoralisation of this life as a soldier. I figure he is imagining that, when this is all over, he’ll listen to the love in his heart and zoom right back to her — debatable whether he actually would do this without getting cold feet again, but it’s a pleasant goal for him to look towards.

Have our Black Sandy Beaches ‘ee-ee-EEE-ee-EEE’ again, the ‘smiling through the pain’ theme. He might actually be in battle again by the end of this song but is zoned out thinking of Ms Leading lol.

Writing On A Wall | Act III | What It Means To Be Alone