Blood

Blood
Silence slights spirits of those gone into the night
But what was the cost? Do I justify the loss
When a loss of control would be digging myself a hole?
It couldn’t be worth it

I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer
But I’ve been killing myself all along
Had I done my best to protect innocence
Or did I lead the wolf to the fawn?

Watch your words, keep them from bothering the herd
Provoking the stones that they all can throw
No, I won’t carry on living this life that I stole
It just isn’t worth it

I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer
But I’ve been killing myself all along
Divining the right from the wrong
Had I done my best to protect innocence

Or was something more wicked in store?
Is there villainy inside of me?
In search of worth, have I burned the earth?
There’s no passion in being passive
And no inaction could bring an answer
So for you, I am a killer

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Given the offer to side with TP&P again or face an angry mob, Hunter considers what he should do and if burning the Church/Dime was really a virtuous move at all. Ultimately, Hunter cannot stand to submit himself to TP&P, or to try manipulating the mob with feigned piousness, and kills TP&P.

What’s in a name?
‘Blood’ — Not sure. Feels on-the-tin-y in that it’s where Hunter kills TP&P, but could maybe be read into more?

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>Silence slights spirits of those gone into the night
Continuing immediately from The March, Hunter is in the room with TP&P, having just been given the offer to either ally with him again or throw himself unaided into a bloodthirsty mob. Their conversation sounded to be pretty long at the end of The March, and we seem to be coming into it just after TP&P posits that Hunter has nothing to gain by working against TP&P anymore. That is, the people he thought he was protecting are a hair’s breadth from murdering him, and surely won’t hear out the truth and forgive him like how Hunter envisioned they would in The Fire. So great, he got his revenge. Now what? What’s left for Hunter?

Hunter is having a hard time facing this question. If he concedes that TP&P is right by staying silent, and that he really kinda doesn’t have anything to gain by antagonising him, that is insulting the memory of Ms Leading and Ms Terri. It undermines the entire point of why he burned the Dime, and is once again a rejection of his own principles.

>But what was the cost?
…At the same time, though, Hunter can’t see a way out of this situation. He’s gotten his vengeance for Ms Terri and Ms Leading, but he hasn’t exactly done away with the City’s evil, since TP&P is still here and still able to command considerable influence.

So… now what? What has even changed by that arson?

>Do I justify the loss / When a loss of control would be digging myself a hole?
Hunter is considering going bananas and murdering TP&P, firstly because his gut is steaming furious and wants to explode at the dude, secondly because that would be following through on the principle behind the Dime’s burning and remaining true to his heart. However, if he does injure or kill TP&P, it is a guarantee that the mob outside will destroy him. An arson, he could do, maybe, but there is no way he can explain away a literal murder where two guys go into a room and only one guy comes out.

Might not be as far as ‘murdering TP&P’, but definitely in the vein of ‘HERE’S MY DEAR MS. LEADING NOTE ABOUT TP&P, EVERYONE, THIS GUY SUCKS, I HATE HIM, HE HURT MY MOM’ in front of the mob yeah lol that won’t go over well.

Note that Hunter recognises himself as having lost the conflict between himself and TP&P. He did not expect the overwhelming hostility of The March at all.

>It couldn’t be worth it
Having considered the option, Hunter decides that exploding at TP&P is not worth it.

>I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer / But I’ve been killing myself all along
Love these lines. Wow hard to articulate though, hefty.

This is the finale to Hunter’s death-rebirth pattern, and our biggest call of attention toward it. Hunter has this immense urge to hurt TP&P right now, but ultimately he does not — even though exploding at TP&P would be the action that is ‘true’ to Hunter’s heart. In this instance, he is aware of this conscious choice he’s making to redirect that urge onto his ‘self’, stifling it, and how he is looking for alternatives to what his ‘self’ wants to do.

Hunter realises this is the same damn thing he’s always been doing. Rather than live by the principles of his true self, or even any self, he just persistently and persistently undermines himself and discards his core desires for alternatives that are ultimately harmful. That is the process of Hunter killing himself. This time, it’s not framed as a mistake or an accident or a savage wave sweeping over him that he can’t resist, but as Hunter murdering himself by flirting with paths he consciously knows are not him.

If you follow that logic, then you could even question if burning the Dime was really a path true to Hunter, as it begs whether he was truly looking to vanquish the evil of his birth, the City, and TP&P, or if he just needed something to kill the Son persona. If he really wanted to glorify his true self, and rout out the evil, he probably could have come up with a more robust plan that would actually deal with TP&P and not leave Hunter cornered like this into surrendering his self again.

>Had I done my best to protect innocence / Or did I lead the wolf to the fawn?
Hunter questions if his efforts in burning the Church/Dime really were virtuous actions, or if he just made TP&P’s position stronger.

>Watch your words, keep them from bothering the herd / Provoking the stones that they all can throw
So, if Hunter’s not going to slight Ms Leading and Ms Terri’s memories by bowing to TP&P, and he’s not going to attack TP&P, what’s the third option? That would be to try facing the mob by himself. Hunter, glancing out the window, considers how he would do this.

He would have to be extremely careful, and basically have to manipulate them similarly to how TP&P did. TP&P is a convincing public speaker who holds considerable Citywide influence — but let’s not forget, so is Hunter. Until TP&P levied those accusations about him out of basically nowhere, the cityfolk thought he was a saint. If it’s TP&P’s word against Hunter’s, Hunter may be able to defuse the situation by simply doubling down on the Son persona, insisting that he did not commit identity theft, that he does not know why the Priest accused such of him, and overall playing to people’s emotions under a shroud of innocence and shared indignation over the burning of the Church. He doesn’t sound happy or confident about this prospect, but it is one open to him.

It is also of course very dangerous, as the crowd is already keyed against him, so one wrong inflection could kill him.

>No, I won’t carry on living this life that I stole / It just isn’t worth it
Upon thinking about it, though, Hunter decides no. He doesn’t want to continue being the City’s Mayor, and doesn’t want to continue being the Son or wearing this pious persona. He is beyond sick of it, of all the lies, the corruption, the fakeness, the emptiness…

>I’m a killer, I’m a killer, I’m a killer / But I’ve been killing myself all along / Divining the right from the wrong
If you follow that logic, then you could even question if burning the Dime was really a path true to Hunter… yeah, right. Of course it was a path true to Hunter. That was the truest path he’s followed and most righteous, self-assured action Hunter feels that he’s made in a long time. The real issue might not be one so much of Hunter running away from his true self, in this instance, so much as…

>Had I done my best to protect innocence / Or was something more wicked in store? / Is there villainy inside of me? / In search of worth, have I burned the earth?
…Hunter’s true self just being evil.

If Hunter knows that burning the Dime was a natural and self-assured action, and is now also considering that it didn’t really achieve much in removing evil from in the City, there is a serious possibility that Hunter’s actual motive was not about removing evil, but actually about antagonising evil and looking like a good person for it. He does have this intense natural aggression that we’ve seen again and again. What all this stuff about good and evil amounts to might be his own selfish, egotistic framing for being able to indulge in that vengeful, destructive instinct against someone he hates. He wants to be a good person, and he wants to feel like a good person. But he might not, intrinsically, be all that predisposed to goodness so much as neediness, ego trips, and destruction.

I mean, I wouldn’t call Hunter a great guy, but he’s being pretty harsh on himself here. Basically since he felt so strongly that good was on his side in The Fire, and that he’d be venerated for burning the Dime, when he finds that the cityfolk were riled against him so easily with unsubstantiated lies, and that they regard the burning as indefensible, and that he can’t just be honest and have it all go away, and to top it off TP&P is still there and still doing his nonsense, he’s going ‘gee if I really was on the side of good this probably wouldn’t be happening’.

>There’s no passion in being passive / And no inaction could bring an answer
Having considered all that though, Hunter in the end can’t say whether what he’s doing is good or evil, as Hunter resolves to take action…

>So for you, I am a killer
…and lunges for TP&P.

With the choices placed before him of become an evil pawn, play the corrupt and empty Son, or become a murderer, Hunter decides he would most gloriously abide his aggressive impulse and be TP&P’s murderer. Whether this is a good or evil action, and whether his life served good or evil purposes, in the end, isn’t up for him decide — history will have to judge whether this decision from Hunter’s heart was right.

>3:13 – 4:01 Sad Bitter Suite II
TP&P dies at Hunter’s hands. Really like how sweeping this is, fundamentally dark with these majestic and bright tones interspersed in there.

Like, finally… good or evil, finally, this guy is finally dead. The balance in this city has finally, finally changed.

>4:02 – 4:34 Doomy Ambiance
Hunter stands over TP&P’s corpse, numb, inevitable death at the hands of the mob awaiting him outside.

The March | Act V | A Beginning