The Bitter Suite VI: Abandon

The Bitter Suite VI: Abandon
Strangers in the soil, so hide your enmity
Are you living up to ghosts or does virtue disagree?
Oh…

Use your gifts for good, rescue them from greed
Find a proper voice as a thistle in the wreath
Oh…

Move them to truth, far from ruin
And barricade the myth I made, the wolves at bay
I know that history fades and sympathy dithers away

The City’s Son living under my thumb

You couldn’t compromise, so keep playing with fire
Oh…

Move them to truth, far from ruin
And barricade the myth I made, the wolves at bay
I know that history fades and sympathy dithers away

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
The Priest encourages Hunter to run for a mayoral office in the City, so that he can rout out corruption and be a good influence on the citizenry. This prospect successfully entices Hunter, who fails to realise it is a trap — the Priest knows Hunter stole the Son’s identity, and can control him once he becomes Mayor with that bargaining chip as blackmail.

What’s in a name?
‘Abandon’ — not sure. Makes me think of the idea of ‘abandon’ as in ‘reckless abandon’ though.

Whose viewpoint?
TP&P. Crazy, right? You wouldn’t think a song this peaceful or gentle sounding would be him, but this is what he’s like when he’s manipulating people under his Priest guise. Pretty scary.

🌲🌲🌲

>Strangers in the soil, so hide your enmity
‘Keep your distance in this instance, you’re a stranger in the weeds.’ The Priest knows that Hunter does not know he is the Pimp. Further, because the Priest knew Hunter as the Pimp, he is able to recognise and identify Hunter as being Hunter, not the Son. He needs Hunter not to realise that the Priest already knows about the identity theft — thus, the Priest must act as if he does not know who he’s talking to, and rather that he’s regarding this as his first time ever meeting the ‘Son’.

(It’s also occurred to me that the Priest may have been familiar with the Son as well, with him being a congregation member, which would further explain how he sniffed out Hunter).

The Priest has enmity towards Hunter because Hunter almost busted his indulgence racket during the sermon, and suspects Hunter inclined to contest or undo his schemes potentially even to the point of revealing him as the old Pimp, but an upstanding Priest would naturally not have a problem with a follower ‘just asking questions’ about sacraments. The Priest will pretend to be genuinely concerned about Hunter’s moral plight and accepting of him as a person. (This is likely the manner in which he first interacted with Ms Terri).

‘Sleep now in the soil, the dust and the debris’ -> A reprise pointing to the core of Hunter’s moral anxieties right now; the Priest has already sniffed out that Hunter has stolen the Son’s identity and has some kind of sinful complex about it, making it his weak point to zero in on.

>Are you living up to ghosts or does virtue disagree?
The Priest accurately and precisely hits to the core of Hunter’s anxieties: he asks Hunter if he feels if he’s doing enough good with his life. Obviously this kind of question massively affects Hunter — because no, he does not feel like he’s been making the best of the identity he stole, and in fact has been slipping so hard with it that he feels he’s been a worse person than even Hunter. Which gives him questions like, why did he even steal this identity? Why did he kill someone for this? He committed so much sin and for what? You know.

‘Living up to ghosts’ also carries the implication of the Son still being a superior person to Hunter, despite contrary suggestions in The Squeaky Wheel.

>0:32 – 0:38 Instrumental
Hunter takes the bait. He confesses some of his anxieties that, no, he doesn’t feel like he’s doing enough.

>Use your gifts for good, rescue them from greed
Seizing this chink in Hunter’s guard, the Priest eagerly presses the advantage. He tells Hunter that he actually has the potential to do a lot of good in the world — he has a strong moral sense, and he’s a war hero, so people will love him. The Priest also capitalises on the disgust Hunter expressed during the sermon (shown by the specific reference to ‘greed’ as something to save people from), telling him that he has the capacity to save the Congregation from the influence of such malevolent actors as the Priest. Of course, I doubt the Priest phrases it like that, (’Hey Hunter, I know you hate me, but you can destroy me as the Mayor!’) but that is the idea that he is carefully seeding in Hunter’s mind. If Hunter’s able to get into a position of influence… say, a local political body…

>Find a proper voice as a thistle in the wreath
The Priest goes further, this time presenting the mayor position as a solution to Hunter’s identity crisis. Rather than the uselessly broad and so far inactionable concept of ‘better person’, Hunter should mould the Son persona into the kind of person who can win, hold, and use a public office for virtuous ends. Such is not the kind of path he would have ever naturally chosen as Hunter, nor is it one Hunter could have succeeded on — you need to be married, you need funding, you need drive enough to be two-faced and vicious, and you need a lot of support to succeed in a mayoral campaign.

Unsure of the specific significance of ‘thistle in the wreath’ using those symbols, though it’s a really nice line. Maybe just saying for to be this thorny and aggressive force that disrupts the City’s uniformity (which is corrupt).

>Move them to truth, far from ruin / And barricade the myth I made, the wolves at bay
‘HEY HUNTER! If you were the Mayor and you had all this influence, you could save innocents from being exploited by people like ME! Wouldn’t THAT be a nice thing to do with your life?’

‘Barricade the myth I made’ -> love the phrasing but oblique so just zeroing in to say, the ‘myth I made’ is all the lies TP&P tells using Christianity as his basis to manipulate his Congregation, ie, he’s telling Hunter to ban corrupt readings of scripture or religious practitioners who predate on their followers, and probably extends to scams and false promises in general.

>I know that history fades and sympathy dithers away
Tricky.

‘History fades’ -> He sure does know. ‘Her history is left behind’. Probably TP&P nudging Hunter to the idea that yes it is totally possible to escape from your past, you just have to focus on building something as your future, while himself knowing that losing your history is a good way to lose yourself — ie, pursuing this course will make Hunter weaker.

‘Sympathy dithers away’ -> And on top of that, people will easily lose regard for Hunter as soon as he stops being a moral person or stops continuously doing good things — and guess who is the City’s arbiter of whether someone is doing a good thing or not, and can absolve a wrongdoer of sin? That’s right, it’s the Priest. People will easily forget the good Hunter has done which will make him dependant on the Priest to maintain his public goodboy points.

Pretty cynical sentiment in general. Would wager it’s one the Priest actually does hold.

>The City’s Son living under my thumb
TP&P’s plan is stated: He is going to elevate Hunter into the position of Mayor, then control him with the blackmail of his identity theft.

>You couldn’t compromise, so keep playing with fire
‘You couldn’t compromise’ -> Hunter resisted TP&P during the sermon. More than that, given how furious TP&P is about the whole thing, Hunter might have actually asked ‘why?’ when the offertory bag was going around (explaining why that verse in Sermon gets so intense and angry too, Hunter dissented just a little too much and maybe made other Congregation members question things for a moment). TP&P can probably also sense that Hunter will continue being resistant and antagonistic towards TP&P’s plots if he continues attending church.

‘So keep playing with fire’ -> You’re going to resist me? Bring it on! Irony in this statement as Hunter eventually does start playing with real fires, and TP&P will be very not happy about it, but for now Hunter is just a babbin when it comes to using his ‘fire powers’ to put pressure on evil (looks like TP&P’s blatant corruption in Sermon made them come out a bit). Either way TP&P thinks he can more than whoop Hunter down.

>2:41 – 3:21 Instrumental
Not sure what this passage is, but it’s something. Reprised somewhere?

>3:21 – 3:33 Instrumental
Hunter leaves the confessional?

>3:34 – 4:01 Instrumental
This is a bit ‘go take another life’-y. Bad decision for Hunter to be making/course to be pursuing. Same for rest of it to the end really.

The Bitter Suite IV & V: The Congregation/The Sermon in the Silt | Act IV | King of Swords (Reversed)