Melpomene

Melpomene
Cold had I calloused
Walls were raised to bear the weight I’d not take
Too slow were my senses
Muted musings lost their way; disconnected
Only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark
Gasping for air with the lungs of a lark

So warm was your welcome; humble in its embrace
Tell me, just how did you save me;
Pull me up from the grave?
Though my youth did mislead, I would retreat to you
Right back to your arms with my spirit aglow
Where the pains of the past exit en masse; through you
Too lost when we part, with the lungs of a lark

I, far removed from myself, had denied what I lost when my heart had withdrawn to the fray
In a whimsical way, I would flee from the truth
I could bury in youth
You would have me, if I’d fallen again
Would you bring me back out of the dark, with my lungs of a lark?

Cold have I calloused, but these walls are coming down

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Troubled by the reopening of the Dime, Hunter goes to see Ms Leading. They are back in a relationship again, and Hunter feels able to be himself and feel happy again around her, giving him a refuge of warmth and love in what is otherwise a very dark situation. His confidence in himself is slowly rebuilding from this point of stability.

What’s in a name?
‘Melpomene’ — This is the name of the greek muse of tragedy. With this being a song about Ms Leading, it points to Ms Leading as Hunter’s ‘muse’, ‘inspiration,’ ‘power source’, during the midst of the horrible and tragic situation he has found himself in. It is probably also foreshadowing that Ms Leading’s fate itself will also be tragic.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:20 Instrumental
Wow! After all the grunge, bleakness, and darkness of every song up until now, the gentle happiness of this song is startling. With Hunter’s life being so terrible at present, and him having just faced the agony of being responsible for the revival of The Dime, how is he possibly in any kind of state of mind that could be called ‘happy’? Or ‘peaceful’, even ‘pleasant’?

The answer is that he’s with Ms Leading. Hunter has gone to see her, and is able to feel comfort and warmth again in her presence, as he has finally put aside the fears and misgivings he expressed in Waves and Wait. He will express over this song the reality of their mutual love, which is stabilising to Hunter.

>Cold had I calloused / Walls were raised to bear the weight I’d not take
‘A cold calloused heart, sitting still in this cave of a chest’. So this song begins with Hunter acknowledging the mistakes he has made in previously rejecting this relationship, rather, not so much the relationship specifically (in the sense of the ego-damage Red Hands mishap, since he had already moved past that by the end of Cauda), but the very concept of love as he knows it being a real thing he should dare to want or pursue. So the sentiment he is addressing is moreso the one we see in This Beautiful Life, Life and Death, Waves, Is There Anybody Here?, etc, where he concedes that he does feel strong affection for Ms Leading, but is terrified of pursuing it at risk of losing his coping mechanism for the pain of This Beautiful Life.

Hunter faced a lot of traumatic experiences over the war, but the one that truly broke him was the revelation of Ms Terri’s life as a prostitute, expressed in This Beautiful Life. Ever since then, Hunter has been frantically suppressing the pain of This Beautiful Life, that being the impetus for him adopting the Son persona, so he could remake himself as a better person (the type who doesn’t idiotically spite their mother’s sincere attempts to protect them and profane her memory) and dissociate from this inherent pain of ‘being Hunter’. The immediate consequence of this is that he numbed himself to his own heart (’One of these days, he will learn to love again’ — his original plan in Cauda/WIMTBA was to return to Ms Leading, he dismissed this idea by the end of the war to instead escape the pain of his own life), then turned away from love (Waves), then fled his love of Ms Leading again to invest instead in the Son persona (A Night On The Town/Is There Anybody Here?).

Love has always been Hunter’s greatest desire, his central value, and the thing he feels he betrayed in both his mishap with Ms Leading and by pursuing the truth of Ms Terri. It’s his core. So of course his struggle to reinvent himself as someone else through Act IV means, fundamentally, trying to escape his own desires and reverence for love — and of course he ultimately failed, hooking up with Ms Leading again (Wait).

Anyway the point of this line is basically to express all of ^ this ^ — Hunter is finally examining his actions and feelings towards Ms Leading from a more sincere perspective. Every time he has rejected her or kept his distance from her has been to try and avoid that deep, traumatic pain of: losing his mom, betraying his mom, losing his agency and then being powerless to save his mom, finding out how his dad treated his mom, etc etc and so on. Basically it’s that same basic issue as in Act II where he’s scared of submitting to love because it could backfire and hurt him like what happened with his mom, with the Act III/IV elements included of Hunter being doubly scared because any tie to his own identity is intrinsically painful and could destroy the new, ‘better’ self he’s built.

By this point though, Hunter’s kind of beyond all of that. His ‘better’ self is completely hollow and subverted, and the situation all that running from pain has got him into is worse than just being ‘painful’, it’s evil in a way he fundamentally can’t accept and can barely even live with. So yes he returns to Ms Leading, and to his own desires and reverence for love, if only to escape the confusion and darkness that is everything else… and finds that actually, embracing his feelings of and desire for love and Ms Leading is not such a scary thing anymore.

>Too slow were my senses / Muted musings lost their way; disconnected
Hunter expressing that he took too long to realise that the right move was to surrender to love again and return to Ms Leading, as he had naturally figured to do in Cauda, rather than pursue the Son persona.

The ‘disconnect’ is probably pointing to Hunter’s disconnect from his own heart to be fleeing from love in the way he did by adopting the Son persona; doing so was meant to relieve his pain, and he had all these great rational reasons why the son persona would make him stronger and less hurt (The Old Haunt), but this whole premise was stupid because love is what matters to him and makes him feel safe anyway. Being true to love and finding strength and comfort in it is always what he should have done. (Probably why he’s going to Ms Leading right now too — he’s hurt after the Dime’s revival and wants to feel comfort).

Man, you can hear the triumph on ‘lost their way’ — Hunter feels happy to know for certain where he went wrong, now that he’s in this clearheaded mindset where he’s able to see what happened (and consequently, see what he actually wants to pursue). Wonder if he’s literally saying all this to Ms Leading and feels great just getting these things clear, reconciling, and getting these pains off his chest?

>Only silence remained, holding my breath in the dark
Probably more pointing to mid-late Act IV and early Act V stuff — Is There Anybody Here? into as/after Hunter crossed the point of no return and realised TP&P had subverted his Son persona. You can see this like the world around ‘real’ Hunter disappearing into the darkness, his real self keeping quiet (suppressed) as Hunter plays the role of ‘Son’ Hunter, until his connection to that persona collapses and Hunter begins to lose all landmarks of who he is and where to go (culminating in deep confusion as in Cascade).

>Gasping for air with the lungs of a lark
‘And how long can I breathe this stolen breath here underneath?’. Not long enough, apparently. Hunter has long crossed the threshold where this Son persona is comfortable, functional, or tenable for him — he instead feels so suffocated by it that he’s barely alive while living it. And more than that, since he can’t escape the persona either, he is just always feeling like he cannot express his true self and instead is constantly doing things contrary to himself that keep killing and strangling the real him.

Remember that a large part of the appeal of the Son persona for Hunter was the concept that the agency of not being sheltered would allow him to rebuild himself as a fundamentally stronger and better person — he thought he could become his ideal self by disassociating from his actual self, who he regarded as bad, but also saw the ‘ideal’ self as truer to his ‘actual’ self anyway, ie, that it would allow him to more freely express his true self (The Old Haunt, The Line). He is now heavily taking back that sentiment and saying the only good things his idealised self had were things his actual self also had anyway, or else he wouldn’t feel so awful trying to conform to it now that it’s corrupted.

There’s a lot in the line “Lungs of a lark”. Larks are fragile, and since the line is sung by Hunter, he is also representing himself as a very fragile person trying to express himself. Also, a Lark can imitate other birds, and the Boy is mimicking another person too.

>So warm was your welcome; humble in its embrace
‘With words beyond me, she welcomed me in’, hearkening to Bitter Suite III: Embrace. Points to Hunter both renewing the sentiments he felt back then and devoting himself to them again, and to how Ms Leading received Hunter after he got back with her in Wait: she was extremely kind, accepting, and loving to him. She has moved past any bitter blood from their breakup and is just happy to have and be with him again. (We heard shades of this already in A Night On The Town: ‘where’s your heart?’).

Hunter feels welcome and embraced in her company: he feels loved and is loving in turn. Probably also a euphemistic confirmation that they’re having sex again, too.

>Tell me, just how did you save me; / Pull me up from the grave?
Ms Leading has helped Hunter reconnect to his real self and given him a place where he can be that real self freely. He doesn’t need to put on any guises, pretentions, or lies around her: he can just be his honest unfiltered self with her, and she’ll still love and support him. This is an immense solace for Hunter and he is deeply grateful for it; he feels like she has saved his life and his self.

>Though my youth did mislead, I would retreat to you / Right back to your arms with my spirit aglow / Where the pains of the past exit en masse; through you
Hunter admitting that he messed up in Act II but that he still loves and finds comfort, strength, and thrives again around Ms Leading. All of the pain and trauma he’s been running from melts away in her presence as well. She’s like his sanctuary now, from all the darkness and confusion of the world that surrounds him. More than just a sanctuary too, she makes him feel empowered and alive.

‘Though my youth did mislead’ -> ‘Mislead’ acting as our keyword to know this song is talking about Ms Leading, if we didn’t have confirmation of that.

>Too lost when we part, with the lungs of a lark
All the strength, warmth, brightness, certainty, connection to himself, stability, and comfort Hunter feels when he’s with Ms Leading disappears the instant Hunter leaves her and has to put on his Son persona again. We can imagine the double life he’s living, where everything including his life at home with his Wife is suffocating and fake, with Ms Leading being the one bright point or refuge where he can shed all those lies and freely, happily just be his honest self — in the company of his true lover.

I suppose I’ll take this as the point to ask: is Ms Leading still a prostitute? And I would say no. We already saw her working as a bartender in Act IV, so we know she’s able to get by without necessarily resorting to sex work, and heard her over Act II progressively lean away from prostitution as a lifestyle as well. Plus, with Hunter being the Mayor, the option is open to rely on his wallet for her necessities before she would have to resort to hooking. So even with The Dime reopen, and some time having passed since we saw her as a bartender, she probably is not a prostitute anymore, or at least isn’t one who works in any organised fashion under a pimp like in The Dime. (Plus Hunter just left The Dime to see Ms Leading — probably wouldn’t work if she was present there).

>I, far removed from myself, had denied what I lost when my heart had withdrawn to the fray / In a whimsical way, I would flee from the truth / I could bury in youth
Basically going over the ideas expressed in the beginning again. While trying to distance himself from himself, Hunter convinced himself he had not experienced love with Ms Leading, because he was still hurt and reeling from This Beautiful Life/his experiences in the war and did not want to risk exposing himself to it again. He tried to dismiss everything he knew to be true about himself, his strengths, his weaknesses, and his desires as examples of immaturity (which was, in itself, pretty silly). Hunter hardcore rescinding everything he said in Waves and embracing himself as loving Ms Leading.

>You would have me, if I’d fallen again / Would you bring me back out of the dark, with my lungs of a lark?
Hunter relies on Ms Leading to pick him up and bring him back to the right path when he’s going astray, leaning on her as his support and the refuge for his soul. Ms Leading, being in love with him too, of course is willing to provide this and ensure Hunter isn’t destroying himself, protecting his heart as well as she can. Hunter accepting the reality that Ms Leading seriously just loves him and has always had his interests in mind.

Echoes of ‘Was I just a playful pawn, a trophy you had won / Someone who could lift you when you’re low?’ though I don’t think it’s saying that Hunter is making emotional demands that Ms Leading feels aren’t reciprocated, so much as Hunter just needing this kind of support and that mirroring the Son’s needs as well, but with Hunter actually being loving in response also.

Wonder how many of his troubles and anxieties Hunter has divulged to Ms Leading? Can’t say, but he definitely trusts her to be able to guide him, and give him something true and positive to want to live for.

Also echoes the ‘everything you thought you had…’ motif, but in the sense of feeling accepted and supported in the way that he didn’t in WIMTBA when he realised he’d thrown away everything.

>Cold have I calloused, but these walls are coming down
YAAAAAAAAAAY HUNTER!!!! YEESSS!!

‘One of these days, he will learn to love again’ FINALLY this prediction is fulfilled! Through his renewed relationship with Ms Leading, Hunter can reconnect with his real desires and is letting himself embrace love again as his central value, and more importantly, embrace giving, receiving, and living for love. He’s finally letting himself be honest, vulnerable, and from that, loving and happy even in the darkness of his present life. Hunter is getting his footing back to start resisting this bleak situation and embrace more of what he actually wants.

‘I love you’ in as many words. Really sweet and happy song. With this line being spoken so softly, gives me the impression Hunter has exited Ms Leading’s place and is speaking to himself in this comment, (maybe considering involving her to help him fight TP&P? If he hasn’t already basically done that by divulging his troubles over this song), realising that he’s positively changing before looking up at the streets and the City again.

>3:40 – 4:02 Ambiance
Okay so we have footsteps… then cars… then the opening of a door and people laughing as if in some speakeasy. If the ‘walls are coming down’ isn’t like a fade to black and transition into the reveal of Mr Usher, this might be Hunter walking away from Ms Leading’s place, then getting a ride to some kind of sleazy socialite party where he has to put on the Son persona again. Probably is just a transition into Mr Usher though.

The Revival | Act V | Mr. Usher (On His Way To Town)

The Revival

The Revival
It took a little longer than we hoped, but it was worth it
You know, it takes a village to raise a scheme, to patch the holes of a mausoleum
Well, we’re packing in the patronage like it’s a lotto (and everybody wins)
Now take a seat so the show can start, and will you welcome these works of art?

Isn’t she beautiful?
No? Maybe another one here could entertain
Ah, yes, we swear that every minute’s worth the wait

Hey! It’s a cry you can’t contain
A release you couldn’t estimate
And the secret’s safe as long as you pay
It’s so good to be so bad
You can leave it when you walk away
And pretend you’ve washed your hands of it

Last call for the Sunday squaws and there’s no room left for the hem and haw
We’ll give a gift long overdue and make a sultan out of you
That’s right, yeah, any troglodyte can have a life in the party as a socialite
Or if you’re looking to efface, you can retire without a trace

Don’t you bother with doubt

Hey! It’s a cry you can’t contain
A release you couldn’t estimate
But the secret’s safe as long as you pay
It’s so good to be so bad
You can leave it when you walk away
And pretend you’ve washed your hands of it

Another candidate for giving her bruises
Another night that she’ll dissociate
Another man who thinks the rules don’t apply to him
Another candidate for giving her bruises
Another night that she’ll dissociate

Long was this road I’ve wandered, but short did my temperance live
Here I’ve helped him build a temple to deify this czar of sin
Now who to blame but I for tying these knots so well at my wrists?
The noose would surely find me if I’m too wily, but what of the life I’d live?

The sale of a soul that falls
As foolish as young Esau
It’s better if I withdraw

Hey! It’s a cry you can’t contain
A release you couldn’t estimate
But the secret’s safe as long as you pay
It’s so good to be so bad
You can leave it when you walk away
And pretend you’ve washed your hands of it

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
After years of being shut down since the Great War, TP&P reopens The Dime. Attendance is through the roof and the delights are even more decadent than they were in The Dime’s last iteration. Hunter is disgusted by this, knowing his position as Mayor was indispensable in allowing the Dime to reopen, but is too scared to shut it down. He leaves, frustrated and tormented.

What’s in a name?
‘The Revival’ — Probably a what-it-says-on-the-tin name, since it’s about the Dime reopening, but could also be taken as alluding to a revival of faith in a religious sense.

Whose viewpoint?
TP&P and Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:25 Instrumental
Man! What an intro. We’re entering into a place of chaos, fun, and debauchery in the new and improved Dime, finally open again after being shut down in Act III. TP&P has invited Hunter along to the grand reopening, or at least not barred him from visiting, since we’ll see that he’s here too. He’s probably a VIP, even, given that it’s because of him that the Dime is able to reopen at all — laws on brothels and prostitution are quite tight now that it’s the 1930s, so having a compromised Mayor look the other way is a requirement to get things working. Aren’t you so happy, Hunter?

Anyway, this all means that TP&P is finally a Pimp again! Yay! It must have sucked going all those years having to be only one thing, and the more cheap and boring one of his things, too!

And since this is another ‘TP&P pitching to people’ song, it’s another one where the lyrics are pretty straightforward about what’s going on, but let’s still go through them.

>It took a little longer than we hoped, but it was worth it / You know, it takes a village to raise a scheme, to patch the holes of a mausoleum
No kidding. If Act III ended in 1918 with the end of WWI, and Act V is set in the 1930s, then that’s at least 12 years of radio silence on the ‘reopen the Dime’ front. That said, TP&P has been able to invest into some big improvements for the Dime in the meantime, so it’s all good. Inclusive ‘we’ makes me wonder if TP&P is including Hunter as one of the parties that worked to reopen the Dime, or if it’s just to address his audience of patrons with familiarity.

‘It takes a village to raise a scheme’ -> TP&P had to go out of his way to get the Mayor in on this scheme so the Dime could reopen. Basically him saying it took so long to reopen because of Act IV and logistical issues around getting funding and securing protection from authorities. Also pointing how the clients of the Dime are all members of the community who have wanted their damn brothel back and are happy to be here and not snitch.
‘To patch the holes of a mausoleum’ -> TP&P also had to renovate the building since it was out of use for so long. Probably had to remove any signage about it openly being a brothel, too, but the flipside is that the establishment is much bigger and fancier now.

>Well, we’re packing in the patronage like it’s a lotto (and everybody wins) / Now take a seat so the show can start, and will you welcome these works of art?
Self explanatory — attendance on this reopening day is extremely high. TP&P has invited lots of people and spread the word very far. As everybody gets settled at their tables, TP&P goes to present the girls on stage.

>Isn’t she beautiful? / No? Maybe another one here could entertain / Ah, yes, we swear that every minute’s worth the wait
TP&P presents the girls. Get the image of one doing a cheeky little twirl into his arms, him catching her, and then bouncing her back off into the crowd to present a new girl when it’s clear the other one wasn’t to flavour. Lots of girls, lots of flavours, the luxuries are yours to pick and choose as you favour.

>Hey! It’s a cry you can’t contain / A release you couldn’t estimate
Selling the appeal of the sex, not that this needs much selling. Let out all the pent-up stress and frustration in your life as an orgasm. Carrying through that framing as TP&P’s services being curative.

>And the secret’s safe as long as you pay
Of course, it’s a highly compromising thing for people to be patronising the Dime, not to mention illegal, so confidentiality is a big part of the business. TP&P is promising that strict confidentiality in exchange for cash — and equally, threatening that he’ll spill the beans if the cash isn’t forthcoming. The usual blackmail shtick.

Good one TP&P, truly getting the big bucks turning again. Since the secrecy is highly emphasised, I wonder if there’s some system to keep guests anonymous? Masks maybe? Or just aliases and a no-snitching policy, since it’s not like the authorities will be coming down on people for going here.

>It’s so good to be so bad
TP&P is thriving in his element. He loves this debauchery, this indulgence, this wickedness, and all the money he’s getting out of it. It’s probably liberating to be able to be openly scum again after so many years as only the Priest, in an environment where everyone else attending is proud scum too. The whole place is celebrating debauchery.

>You can leave it when you walk away / And pretend you’ve washed your hands of it
And the best part is, the Dime is a haven where you can be as utterly depraved and degenerate as you want, without anything from it interfering with your everyday life once you leave, a second life… ostensibly. The reality is that the sins committed here do cling to people afterwards, that the paranoia of being found out lingers, and that the lust and obsessions invoked here will draw people to return again and again. There is no getting clean or disassociating yourself from The Dime once you’ve indulged in its decadences, if not because of your own lust or guilt, then because the owner of the place is a blackmailer who will hold the sin over your head forever.

>Last call for the Sunday squaws and there’s no room left for the hem and haw / We’ll give a gift long overdue and make a sultan out of you / That’s right, yeah, any troglodyte can have a life in the party as a socialite
So if the atmosphere of the Dime before was like a pub or cabaret den where you could sneak off to have a good time, this new version of the Dime is more like an exclusive, extravagant penthouse where every guest is treated like a high-class VIP. Things have changed to put more focus on pandering to the clients and ensuring they don’t just have good entertainment and a good lay, but feel they’re special and important — even if they are just another thug off the street. Overall it’s more like some big, anonymous, masquerade ball or county gala or something, a ritzy party 24/7.

The fact the Dime’s operation is illegal now and hence more secretive probably feeds into this atmosphere of being privileged enough to be ‘in’ on this stuff. Plus, like, there are significant City figures hanging out here in TP&P and Hunter at least, so you probably could use this place to network if you really wanted, like a whole parallel society (being real though we’re here for the whores).

The reopening might also be literally happening on Sunday, after the church service earlier, though I like reading a short timeskip (like a couple weeks) after TMCOH/WAI to give Hunter a bit of breathing room adjusting to the WAI mindset.

>Or if you’re looking to efface, you can retire without a trace
And again, the best part is that nothing that happens in this ‘parallel world’ of the Dime follows you to your real life, so you can cut all ties with it whenever you want and come back later under a totally new identity. You can keep coming, or you can leave it as ‘an experience’. Severing Dime-You from Real-You is easy. Anonymity sounds to be a big thing here.

>Don’t you bother with doubt
Man remember how in Bitter Suite II TP&P went on and on disarming all the reasons someone might hesitate to bed a hooker? Yeah there’s none of that now. The place is so luxurious, the girls are so professional, and the clientele are so entertained, that this is the only big nudge he needs to grease up any stuck wheels. ‘You’re here for this, go ahead!’. Like it’s not just about the girl, it’s about the whole experience of being a sultan who could have five, ten, fifty girls at once if he wanted.

>Another candidate for giving her bruises / Another night that she’ll dissociate / Another man who thinks the rules don’t apply to him
Hard to make out under the fanfare of the twisted party going on, which is probably the point. TP&P and Hunter know the reality of what’s going on here, and that the foundation of all this ‘fun’ is that the girls working here, beneath their smiles and encouragement of these ‘sultans’, are suffering severely.

Get several images of like, up to now it’s all been the fun stuff with the clientele embracing the delights of the atmosphere and stage performance and food and socialising and etc, and now it’s the girls waiting upon or putting charm on specific people, with TP&P/Hunter(?) noticing these moments from across the room and correctly seeing the signs that a client is going to be abusive even if he seems inoffensive right now.

>3:00 – 3:10 Instrumental
We shift to Hunter’s view. As we could expect, he is miserable, and sounds to be keeping as much distance as he can from the proceedings while still being present. Otherwise, he is among the crowd, but mentally he’s in a different place totally.

>Long was this road I’ve wandered, but short did my temperance live / Here I’ve helped him build a temple to deify this czar of sin
Looking at all this debauchery, all Hunter can do is sit emo in his corner, think about is how badly he messed up, and how he’s personally responsible for all of this.

I wonder how much help Hunter gave in the end? We know he’s protecting TP&P from legal ramifications using his position as Mayor, but I wonder if we wound up directly funding a good portion of this upscaling and renovation on taxpayer money too. Since it’s the upscaling and exclusivity that has elevated TP&P even further than he was back at the old Dime, that would mean Hunter has directly made TP&P more influential, respected, adored, and powerful than he was before, when he already was a huge menace. Now he has a whole cult of personality forming around him as the proprietor of this infernal oasis!

In any case, Hunter feels terrible for being too weak and corrupt to stop this from happening. Get the image of him forlornly holding a wine glass and looking up at TP&P on stage, who the whole audience is cheering for.

>Now who to blame but I for tying these knots so well at my wrists?
Hunter knows it’s his fault for not stopping this, and for getting himself stuck in this situation.

>The noose would surely find me if I’m too wily, but what of the life I’d live?
Hunter thinks about doing something to stop this. He feels conflicted — if he gets caught being too sneaky, TP&P will reveal all the blackmail he has on Hunter, get charges pressed on him, and ultimately have him executed. Well, given that Hunter’s big crimes TP&P could nail him for are white-collar (identity theft and maybe embezzlement, blackmailing, etc), I question if he would literally get killed for them under a court of law, but regardless Hunter seems to feel a threat of literal death if he moves against TP&P.

At the same time, what’s the point of holding on to this life if it means facilitating wickedness like this and feeling constantly horrible about it? Like is he meant to just ignore it? Pretend it has nothing to do with him?

>The sale of a soul that falls / As foolish as young Esau
The implications of Act IV coming home to roost for Hunter. Basically lamenting how he let himself get tempted and tricked by TP&P into this horrible position in exchange for something — the Mayor position — that wasn’t worth it. Hunter feels like he sold his soul for nothing.

>It’s better if I withdraw
Unable to take any more of this, Hunter leaves The Dime.

>Chorus Repetition
Even though Hunter leaves the physical building, everything that’s going on there is still going on at full pace.

>You can leave it when you walk away / And pretend you’ve washed your hands of it
One of those reverse-lines: Though he’s put distance between himself and the building, Hunter is unable to get the depravities of the Dime out of his mind. He is still clearly envisioning all the decadence and abuses going on inside there, and probably always will be for as long as he knows it’s still going on.

The Most Cursed Of Hands / Who Am I? | Act V | Melpomene

The Most Cursed Of Hands / Who Am I?

The Most Cursed Of Hands / Who Am I?
The devil went down to the river
And he came to fall; to lose it all;
To fool the fool too quick to call
While the gambler’s stacks grew bigger;
He had lost his sights through narrowed eyes;
Too tempted by his wry desires

Damned across fated paths
The time to fold had come to pass

With gambler’s glory delivered
He had thirst for more; a bigger score;
A trophy no one could ignore
And the devil’s wealth had withered
So with cunning class he offered fast his soul;
The wager had been cast

The gambler called, the river fell
And now the hand from out of hell
The devil smiled, looked in his eyes;
He knew the loss was glorified

The devil said “Revel in your victory;
You’ve earned your damning, pack your things and leave.”
But, the gambler only stood and stuttered
Stammering on words in disbelief
“Now you’ve won a new vocation
Pray to me that you can stand the heat!”
And that, the gambler saw
Meant he had gone and finally set the devil free

Damned across fated paths
The hand he played would be his last

Who am I? Who am I?
Just a gambler, holding aces in the devil’s eyes?
What is wrong? What’s the sin?
Where’s the answer? Where the hell do I fit in?

Or could it be, there’s just a little demon lost in the debris
And I, should idly bide my time until a wager releases me?
Hey! It can’t remain unknown…

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Seeing Hunter in attendance at Church, TP&P gives a special sermon to demoralise him and mock him for his foolishness during Act IV, characterising him as an arrogant ‘gambler’ who unwittingly destroyed himself and traded places with the Devil. Hunter, still conflicted about his identity, is so deeply affected by this story that he wonders if he himself may be a ‘Devil’, capable of pulling shady tricks against TP&P.

What’s in a name?
‘The Most Cursed Of Hands / Who Am I’ — Another two-parter, like Moon / Awake.

The Most Cursed Of Hands follows the hands motif from His Hands Matched His Tongue and Red Hands. If HHMHT reflects innocence and integrity, and Red Hands reflects a turning point into sin, then TMCOH reflects a state of corruption and evil, showing the long-term moral degradation of Hunter’s life. Basically, ‘Hunter, You Know You Didn’t Want This, But You Are Evil Now.’

It also refers to hands as in a hand in a poker game, which is how the song frames Hunter’s attempt to fight evil in Act IV, drawing on the motif of ‘folding’ from Act II. Hunter didn’t ‘fold’ to corruption back then, making him the gambler who stays in to contest and ultimately get outsmarted by the Devil.

‘Who Am I’ is a straightforward what-it-says-on-the-can title; Hunter having another moment of introspection about his identity, though this one is a turning point in the sense that Hunter is drifting away from the conception of himself as a pure victim, and flirting with the thought that he himself might be evil, and able to pull underhanded tricks.

Whose viewpoint?
TP&P and Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:08 King of Swords (Reversed) Echo
TP&P takes the pulpit and looks over the congregation. Seeing Hunter in attendance, groggy and barely cleaned up after his trip in The Moon, inspires TP&P to the sadistic sermon that he’ll give today. Hunter has been growing somewhat disobedient lately, with these trips to the opium den igniting nascent but existing ideas of resistance. TP&P sees fit to twist the knife into him deeper by reminding him of the hopeless situation he’s in and how his own hubris got him there, while ostensibly giving a positive, cautionary tale about the dangers of gambling.

This is a very ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ type of song, though darker as in this one the Devil wins the wager, but satisfying in how it carries on that mythos of the Devil tempting and wagering people to destroy themselves over mundane things. How important is a violin bout or a poker game? Not as important as beating the Devil, especially on his own terms, which is exactly the prospect that wound up undoing Hunter.

We have the reprise of the tune at the end of King of Swords (Reversed), though probably the right way to conceive it is the other way around, that KoS is pointing to the evil and corruption Hunter risked falling into as a consequence of his TP&P-sponsored mayoral run. So here it’s illustrating that the potential to evil and corruption has been realised, Hunter’s sin and arrogance has put him in a position subservient to the the Devil.

>The devil went down to the river
Lol no wonder it feels so ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’, it’s explicitly drawing on it to establish that ‘common folk myth’ vibe for the story TP&P is telling.

The devil goes down to ‘the river’. This points to Hunter being the target of the Devil’s schemes today, as Hunter’s home is the River and it’s by following the river one might flee from corruption. So whoever would be doing their business at the river would be someone with a tie to the outside, specifically a tie outside of the Devil’s sphere of corruption; a soul that still has some good in it. We can see why the Devil would want to clamp down on such a person, and why the prospect of the Devil going to the river is so threatening: it severs that escape, and keeps people trapped in the darkness he controls. Basically echoing how Hunter almost busted TP&P’s gig in Bitter Suite V by not giving TP&P money, which is what stoked TP&P to target Hunter — he was a power threat.

But as for TP&P’s story, it’s also a literal pointer to the poker game the gambler is playing. The type of poker being played is Texas Hold ‘Em, and this game is in its last round (the river) when the Devil enters the scene to prey upon the gamblers.

>And he came to fall; to lose it all; / To fool the fool too quick to call
The Devil goes into the game with an insidious plan already in mind. He will appeal to the gambler’s ego, and make the gambler think he has won, then pull the rug out from under him.

‘To fool the fool too quick to call’ -> ‘Too quick’ in the sense of ‘too smart’ or ‘too skilled’; the gambler is a slick gambler who neither folds nor calls; he boldly raises and raises and raises… and wins. Reflective of how Hunter would never settle in to what he was given and kept striving to find something better, though Hunter didn’t win.

Get the image of the Devil watching the previous round wrap up and taking a seat, being dealt in to the next round, in this quiet and smoky pub.

>While the gambler’s stacks grew bigger; / He had lost his sights through narrowed eyes; / Too tempted by his wry desires
The poker game proceeds. Others at the table soon fold, knowing the Devil is a participant, but not the gambler. The gambler sees himself capable of beating the Devil, and indeed does — round after round, accruing great stacks of chips. This success leads him to tunnel-vision, tantalised by the prospect of winning the whole pot while beating and bankrupting the Devil. He has become so ambitious as to lose his caution and sense.

As far as links to Hunter goes, this is alluding to his incredible success as a mayoral candidate in King of Swords, maybe to his general desire for an idealistically good life as well.

>Damned across fated paths / The time to fold had come to pass
‘Damned across fated paths’ -> Alluding to Battesimo Del Fuoco and Hunter’s fate in general. Hunter was doomed the moment he was born because of his intrinsic antagonistic link to TP&P. Inevitably, driven by his hatred for the force that harmed his mother, he would entangle himself with TP&P and so fall into darkness. Hints of ‘but the right hand hates the left’?

‘The time to fold had come to pass’ -> ‘You were the only one who didn’t fold’; ‘Consideration or pause had their time come and pass’. Pointing to the junction at the end of King of Swords where Hunter could have, at the very last moment, dropped out of the running and humbled himself to an average life in the City while turning a blind eye to corruption. Blinded by his ambition, and his hatred for TP&P (and corrupt actors like him), Hunter didn’t.

>1:10 – 1:36 Instrumental
Man! Love this. Things kick into high gear as the gambler unwittingly crosses the threshold of no return, (Hunter wins the Mayor position), and the Devil gleefully knows he has won.

>With gambler’s glory delivered / He had thirst for more; a bigger score; / A trophy no one could ignore / And the devil’s wealth had withered
The gambler has won the pot, but still wants something more to say that he conquered the Devil. The Devil, however, has no chips left to bet in, as the gambler has already won them all.

For Hunter, points to how he won fame and success and the position of Mayor, but this in itself still wasn’t enough for him. He wanted to be a defender of justice who would destroy and undo all the corruption of the City, including and especially that of TP&P.

>So with cunning class he offered fast his soul; / The wager had been cast
With no chips left to bet, the Devil enters one last round with his own soul as the wager.

For TP&P, points to how he put himself into an ostensibly weak position whereby he could be destroyed, by encouraging Hunter to become Mayor in the first place and giving him enough support to actually start weeding corruption from the city. Basically all of Bitter Suite VI. “Wanna kill me Hunter? You can!!”

>The gambler called, the river fell
The gambler accepts this final wager and stakes his chips against the Devil’s soul. The game proceeds to its last round, the river.

‘The river fell’ -> Hunter’s way out of the situation collapses; points to his embrace of his mayoral position and actions down the path of proactively using it as shown in If All Goes Well and The Line. He is now locked into a place of sin.

>And now the hand from out of hell
The gambler reveals his cards: two sixes. He wins by playing the devil’s hand, a three-of-a-kind of sixes.

>The devil smiled, looked in his eyes; / He knew the loss was glorified
The Devil may have lost the poker game, but he’s won much more. Further, he sees that the gambler himself is not that much different from the Devil, and has achieved his victory through means that glorify the Devil. He seems to have found a fitting protege to fill his role and sees some level of vindicating familiarity to that.

Pointing to Hunter’s aggression, potential blackmailing and shady business in securing his role as the Mayor. Or just his identity theft since that was pretty shady in itself too.

>2:42 – 3:27 Instrumental
Man, love this too. Things are pleasant for the Devil in this short period as the gambler collects his winnings, failing to realise what he has just done.

>3:33 – 3:50 Instrumental
The story enters its climax where the twist of the gambler’s folly is revealed. While being the most intense part of the story, it’s also the part of the story TP&P wants Hunter to be paying attention to most, and so the part TP&P delivers with the most open spite and passion, practically spitting it at him. Hey Hunter, listen up.

>The devil said “Revel in your victory; / You’ve earned your damning, pack your things and leave.”
The Devil abruptly gets up from the table, pointing his finger, and castigates the gambler for his hubris.

>But, the gambler only stood and stuttered / Stammering on words in disbelief
The gambler is caught off-guard, not understanding this abrupt shift in tone or how he has been tricked. In terms of Hunter, this is Ouroboros.

>“Now you’ve won a new vocation / Pray to me that you can stand the heat!”
The Devil reveals his trick. By claiming possession of the Devil’s soul, the gambler himself has become the Devil! All the wicked duties and punishments that formerly bound the Devil, the gambler now must suffer and fulfil in his stead! For Hunter, of course, this is his current position as Mayor: he is the ruler of a kingdom of sin, bound by TP&P’s blackmail to enable the corruption in the city to fester, while becoming undeniably broken and corrupt himself.

‘Pray to me that you can stand the heat!’ -> Love this line. ‘I feel the heat of a thousand breaths upon my neck’. Obviously TP&P mocking Hunter for his failure and for his attempt to contest TP&P in the first place, but also a bit more. If you were in such a terrible position as Hunter or this gambler, the figure you would want to pray to is God — TP&P is taunting, and driving in the point, that Hunter is not allowed to do this and moreover so deep in sin as to be beyond any redemption. This is of course because TP&P literally controls the Church and hence the pathway for a sinner to find redemption by God — ‘pray to me’ is a cruel taunt emphasising how Hunter’s fate is entirely in TP&P’s hands, and if he wants to survive, he will have to play by TP&P’s rulebook.

‘Stand the heat’, this is the heat of hell but also the pressure of being caught and ousted. TP&P is familiar with this heat as, despite his charisma and control of most situations, he does have that persistent fear of losing his veneer of legitimacy and being caught. TP&P is challenging Hunter to adapt in a similar way that TP&P has, driving in the point that Hunter must become corrupt (probably modelling himself after TP&P, or at least taking lessons from him) if he’s going to survive in his present position. You can hear it in the emphasis on ‘you’ — like, it’s not just revealing that the gambler has become the Devil, it’s challenging that gambler with the weight of all the Devil’s burdens and telling him exactly what boots he’s filling here.

And this is probably reaching, but just a note on the Devil. People who fall prey to the Devil, such as the gambler in the story, may not be very devout or may not regard themselves as having much connection to God — the Devil, however, has extreme regard and connection to God. Maybe not in a positive sense but I mean, of course he does, right? Then he rubs it in his victims’ faces how they could have escaped their fate by being more devout, but no, they’re scum and sinners, too weak to resist him, too proud for salvation, they always took the Devil as their God over God, so they better enjoy their reward. The judgemental aspect of TP&P coming out again; ‘you got yourself in this mess’.

>4:23 – 4:29 He Said He Had A Story Reprise
TP&P’s insults have hit their mark. Hunter, listening along from the pews, is extremely angry and wounded at hearing the events of Act IV relayed to him in this cruel manner, and moreover at the accuracy by which TP&P has aggravated his present insecurities. Hunter does feel like he’s become trapped as a servant of evil, does feel like he’s been cut off from redemption he yearns for, and does feel the extreme pressure of being unmasked as a fraud.

Since inflicting this message was the reason TP&P told this story, we can say TP&P has been successful at demoralising Hunter.

>And that, the gambler saw / Meant he had gone and finally set the devil free
The gambler realises in dawning horror that he has swapped places with the Devil. Now that all the Devil’s bindings are placed on the gambler instead, the Devil is free to be as wicked as he wants. Because it’s not like the Devil’s going to stop being the Devil just because he pawned his soul off to some rube.

Which is the exact same situation Hunter’s in. Now that the City’s highest authority is under TP&P’s thumb, TP&P can do whatever he wants without fearing any reprisal. Rather, he’ll get support for it, and probably funding from the City’s coffers, too. It’s the exact opposite of what Hunter wanted when he set out on this path.

>Damned across fated paths / The hand he played would be his last
Hunter is now a slave to the ‘Devil’ and cannot take any actions of his own will, much less ones against the Devil. Thus, moving against the devil, or pursuing the seat of Mayor, was the last action he made and could ever make of his own will. After that point, Hunter is powerless. He has no cards to play.

Or so TP&P wants Hunter to accept, as he caps off his story to the congregation with this moral.

>5:04 – 5:09 Instrumental
The church service ends.

>Who am I? Who am I?
We shift into Hunter’s head, reeling in confusion after hearing that horrible story. He gets up from the pews and leaves the church, consumed with existential thoughts. Hunter’s sense of identity is horrifically fragile so he is vulnerable to this kind of thing, questioning his self-concept based on a mean-spirited story.

>Just a gambler, holding aces in the devil’s eyes? / What is wrong? What’s the sin? / Where’s the answer? Where the hell do I fit in?
Hunter questions his place as it would be in this story, and how exactly the lessons from that story translate into real life. TP&P may have characterised Hunter as a gambler, and from that Hunter would be just an unlucky rube who wasn’t vigilant enough to devilish tricks… but is that all Hunter’s desires and efforts amount to?

See, in reality, Hunter didn’t know he was facing the devil. He only learned the Priest was the Pimp in Ouroboros, and his contempt for the Church before then was a consequence of Act III. Sure, he wanted to undo the city’s corruption. Yes, he wanted to beat evil forces. …Is that wrong? What aspect of that desire is, in itself, a sin? Well apparently TP&P sees issue with some part of it, and is implying hubris from Hunter. How, exactly? What was hubris? Remember that Hunter had to be goaded into the Mayor idea and like half of why it worked was because he was in the middle of an existential/identity crisis (’I never wanted to be your City’s Son’), and the reason TP&P thought to goad him was because Hunter didn’t give an offering at church and this prospect of resistance scared TP&P. That’s all. That’s it. Hunter cannot trace the link between that — wanting to escape misery and be a better person — and being a gambler who thought to boost his ego by getting a win on the Devil.

We know what TP&P was thinking during Bitter Suite V, though, and can see why he saw a threat in Hunter. Probably, that was a reasonable threat — it’s hard to imagine Hunter’s life taking any course where he doesn’t ultimately find out the truth and become ignited against TP&P, but Hunter’s big thing in Act IV is that he was trying to ditch his attachment to things like that. It’s not like he entered Act IV burning with vengeance against TP&P. If he’d been left to his own devices… who knows, maybe he would’ve spiralled, realised this Son thing wasn’t working, and quit to do something else again.

But now Hunter can’t even be sure of his own motives. Was he just trying to find a stable identity as a better person after the trauma of the war, the revelation of Ms Terri’s secrets, and his bad breakup with Ms Leading, or was he an arrogant and egotistical reprobate who stepped into Satan’s turf and honest-to-God thought he’d win? (‘Happiness is a knife’, after all).

>Or could it be, there’s just a little demon lost in the debris
Contemplating all this, Hunter’s thoughts shift in another direction. Part of TP&P’s story is framing the gambler as, in some way, on par with the Devil.

Maybe there is an aspect of truth in that. Hunter did have a desire all the way back in The Lake and the River to destroy the wicked forces in the outside world that hurt Ms Terri, and he did get drunk on the power high of successfully campaigning for Mayor so he could clean up the City. So maybe there is an inherent scumminess in his character that he can’t escape, and that keeps leading him down the bad decisions he makes, that is damaging or exploitative or a little bit evil.

Obviously Hunter doesn’t see himself as being as bad as TP&P — Hunter would only be a ‘little’ demon, weak, easily rebuffed, barely an imp next to the real devils — but certainly of the same breed.

>And I, should idly bide my time until a wager releases me?
And so Hunter contemplates, maybe he should approach his situation through a scummier lens. That is, rather than agonise over his defeat and powerlessness, or fantasise about being a hero moving against a villain, he should concede that he is also a villain and wait until he can use his own scummy tricks to reposition himself out of his situation at the expense of someone else. Otherwise said, wait for someone else to make a mistake he can take advantage of and use as a foundation for his new out.

This naturally means allowing wickedness, corruption, and villainy to spread in the meantime, but with the nuance of ‘playing along, waiting to act’ rather than ‘broken and helpless puppet’. It’s really bleak and grim but it does restore a sliver of agency, albeit passive agency, to Hunter.

>6:17 – 6:24 Ouroboros Reprise
Previously Hunter’s misery at realising he has stupidly fallen into the hands of evil and become a pawn of evil, this time it’s more refined and confident though still sad and melancholic. Like some kind of sophisticated jazz you’d hear playing in the private high-rise apartment of a well-groomed but sleazy politician who goes there to brood over a glass of liquor about the state of the city and WOW that is a really specific image but, yeah, that’s the wavelength I get.

Basically suggesting that Hunter is flirting more with the idea of ‘embracing’ the evil figure he is, not in the sense of enjoying it, but of recognising that’s where he is and that’s the footing he has if he wants to have any footing at all. Resignation to evil with a small bit of hope.

>Hey! It can’t remain unknown…
Hunter is willing to try scummy tactics against TP&P, though he is still hesitant to move yet.

Cascade | Act V | The Revival

Cascade

Cascade
I heard a call in my sleep again; I brought my body to the altar
But a good man said that I raised the dead
I’m seeing forgotten forms from a different age
Half-hearted truths hanging in the air with the Holy Ghost
I’m singing hymns with the devil in confessional

I’ve been running through the night again
Trying to find where the wild things wouldn’t go
But I’m keeping it in
Hate the sinner, never hate the sin

I keep waking in the strangest states, and drawing lines around my body
To recall my place; I feel the heat of a thousand breaths upon my neck
And the gaze of a thousand eyes burning holes into my back
And now I’m stuck between alive and after

I’ve been running through the night again
Trying to find where the wild things wouldn’t go
But I’m keeping it in
Hate the sinner, never hate the sin
I’ve been searching for a remedy
Hands to guide where the shadows never show
I’ll never know

I keep looking for a quicker fix
But I’m afraid of finding what it is
I know that I just need a quicker fix
Hate the sinner, not the sin
I keep looking for a quicker fix, but
I wouldn’t know just what to do with it
Hate the sinner, not the sin!

I’ve been running through the night again
Trying to find where the wild things wouldn’t go
But I’m keeping it in
Hate the sinner, never hate the sin
I’ve been searching for a remedy
Hands to guide where the shadows never show
I’ll never know

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Summoned by TP&P, Hunter goes to the Church. On the way there, he contemplates the difficult situation he’s in and how he cannot see a way out of it. He arrives at the Church.

What’s in a name?
‘Cascade’ — Basically, ‘The Consequences Of All The Actions I’ve Taken Until Now Are Hitting In Full Force’. Hunter has been backed into a corner where he feels lost, trapped, and miserable as a result of the actions he’s taken cascading upon each other. By the nature of having nowhere else to go and nothing to even possibly fall back on to get him out of this, he’s presently in the ‘bottom’ of that cascade with no way to escape those consequences.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:19 Instrumental
A bit brighter than where we left off in Moon / Awake. Hunter has cleaned himself up into a presentable enough state to exit the opium den and is now outside. It’s a nice, sunny day out as he sets out to walk through town to the Church, but of course Hunter’s thoughts are elsewhere.

>I heard a call in my sleep again; I brought my body to the altar / But a good man said that I raised the dead
Hoo these lyrics are massive. Hokay where to start.

‘I heard a call in my sleep again’ -> Firstly, pointing to how TP&P has summoned Hunter for a meeting in Moon / Awake (’in my sleep’ = ‘while I was tripping’). This is why Hunter is presently setting out to Church — it’s to see what TP&P wants. This is a somewhat typical occurrence for him, being at TP&P’s beck and call. We can also see that TP&P is aware of how low Hunter has fallen, since he knows to contact the opium den to get in touch with him. (You can envision it as someone knocking at the door and Hunter being unresponsive because he’s busy being high until the sudden crash at the end of Awake, snapping back into reality and realising someone’s there calling for him). It’s not surprising to TP&P that Hunter spends his free time there, and not surprising to Hunter that TP&P knows either. Though corrupt and underhanded, they seem to be in agreement as far as the terms of their ‘collaboration’ go, and broadly understanding of each other’s business even though they hate each other.

Which makes sense, since a few years have passed since Act IV with this being their status quo. They have had time to build a rather sturdy, if dark relationship where they both know each other’s identities and don’t need to restrain themselves from being scummy around each other. Not to imply Hunter gets much out of that but I get the image of TP&P getting a kick out of tormenting Hunter by dragging him along to functions or events then treating him like a confidant (or even protege?) as far as scumminess goes.

Note also that Hunter is likely at the opium den a lot — it’s one of the more reliable places to find him if he’s not out in public doing something as the Son.

Next, it suggests all of the life Hunter lives under the Son persona is a ‘sleep’, that he is ‘sleepwalking’ and ‘not really there’ while living it. He hears the call while not in a state of lucidity, but this is because of his identity dissociation rather than because he is high. He moves like a puppet in his day-to-day life and only comes to attention when his master jolts him out of his routine.

‘Brought my body to the altar’ -> ‘Move your body to the bed’; ‘I lay my body down / to rest my weary head’; Hunter going to the Church is a coerced action. But, it also evokes the image of him slumping over the altar as a human sacrifice, which can be read two ways. First is the idea of Hunter’s self being sacrificed on the corrupt altar of TP&P, but here I think it’s more… Hunter wants to supplicate himself before a force of good, and in doing so kill the sinful thing he’s become, or rather let it be destroyed, but feels he’s too far gone to be granted such absolution, which turns going to the altar into an empty thing where he just gets corrupted by TP&P. Really complex sentiment but basically like that. Carries a bit of ‘I brought myself forward to be divinely judged’ also.

‘But a good man said that I raised the dead’ -> Hunter is not allowed his absolution, or to be a force of good, because he has trapped himself in the Son persona and TP&P holds this over his head. You can hear it as Hunter coming to church and standing before this altar, and in seeing it being forced to contemplate where he stands morally and his ethos on higher ideas of good and evil. From there the obvious good action would be to move against TP&P.

TP&P is quick to smooth away these thoughts. It sounds like TP&P frames Hunter’s adoption of the Son persona as a positive thing (like, ‘look at all the hope you bring these people! You’re doing such great things as the Son!’), but he really brings it up as a blackmail threat (’But if we’re poaching ghosts, you know I’ve got a few that I would raise’), and as a reminder of Hunter’s own flaws, ambitions, and desires that led to him getting into this situation. He’s aggravating Hunter’s identity issues by telling Hunter his false life is more valuable than his real one, so he should care more about maintaining it than his principles, and that the real Hunter committed a sin beyond redemption anyway, so he’s too corrupt for God to take his side. This rhetoric works to scare Hunter away from taking action. At the end of the day though TP&P has the blackmail and wants Hunter’s obedience so that’s all his word should be taken as, a reminder to just shut off your brain Hunter and say the words, that’s the consequence of what you’ve done.

Obvious irony in this line — TP&P isn’t a good man and Hunter’s resurrection of the Son was a sin, and Hunter knows this, though he’s being forced to masquerade otherwise. Really lovely intonation too, first time we hear Hunter being thoughtful in this forward-thinking way while being so in-touch with himself, conscious of his situation and accepting of his vulnerability. (Or maybe he’s just spaced out lol).

>I’m seeing forgotten forms from a different age / Half-hearted truths hanging in the air with the Holy Ghost
Unsure on these.

‘I’m seeing forgotten forms from a different age’ -> Probably alluding to the Apparition more than anything else; feels like there’s more going on there though. Hunter feels like he’s getting insight to the truth but also that he’s kinda just spaced out and losing it. Maybe something more about the nature of religion too? We’re seeing here in Act V that Hunter has much stronger and more nuanced ideas about religion, and good and evil, than he did in previous Acts — it’s just been on his mind a lot more.

‘Half-hearted truths hanging in the air with the Holy Ghost’ -> All this exposure to church and religion has made Hunter meditative on good and evil as serious concepts. He feels there does exist an essential essence of goodness, virtue, and divinity reflected at least in partially in the scripture, (and as we can contrarily figure, that there exists a fundamental essence of evil), but that the worshippers in this Church are not suffused with that good essence. They do not really believe in the aspects of the religion that are virtuous, or are nervous to devote themselves to them. Maybe more self-referential than that? Like he knows what the good action to take is but just winds up back at church feeling oppressed by the expectations he has to conform to, while still not doing the good thing?

’The puzzling façade steers pure from the divine’; ‘A breath left hanging in the air’.

>I’m singing hymns with the devil in confessional
BEAUTIFUL line.

You can parse this as ‘I’m singing hymns / with the devil in confessional’ or ‘I’m singing hymns with the devil / in confessional’. Tenor of the former is more like ‘I’m trying to find and do good, but it’s hopeless since an evil figure has subverted that process’, while the latter is more like ‘I’m a hypocrite straining to be virtuous while acting as Evil’s #1 agent, and if I’m honest I’m doing this while knowing it’s wrong’. Probably a mix of both but moreso the latter. Hunter feels ashamed, hopeless, and despondent about what he’s become as a tool of TP&P, and doesn’t like how going along with the Son identity means abiding/enabling the villain that is TP&P.

Also a literal aspect to this — Hunter and TP&P meet often in the confessional to have their confidential talks, and as an openly devout Christian and churchgoer under his Son identity, he’s often attending church and singing hymns.

>I’ve been running through the night again / Trying to find where the wild things wouldn’t go
Hunter feels trapped. He wants to find a way out of this situation, but everywhere he turns is dark. There feel to be enemies or potential enemies at every turn, with no space for refuge or inkling towards a supportive solution. He has probably had thoughts in this vein before but they appear to be stronger now more than ever.

May also be referring to his trip to the opium den — his opium usage has probably gotten heavier than it was before, too.

>But I’m keeping it in
Hunter is determined not to show how desperate he is, or what dire straits he is in, to anyone. The fact he is an opium addict is also likely a secret. Obviously this would be from his constituents, but I’m figuring he’s also not confiding any of this to his Wife or other ‘close’ relations as the Son. (Some of them don’t know about Hunter’s identity theft in the first place, and for the others it’s disruptive/dangerous for them to know).

>Hate the sinner, never hate the sin
Great line. Hunter expects to be abandoned and ground into the dirt as a bad person if he divulges the actual straits he’s in, but it also sounds like he accepts it. He doesn’t see himself as an average person whose dip into vice could be excused and forgiven — he sees himself as a total trainwreck who just can’t get away from always doing the wrong thing, so people would be justified to discount him as just that, a bad person who makes things bad by his influence and whose behaviour should never be modelled.

Thing is that people will say that in most cases where they see someone fallen to sin — they take their distance and remember them only as a lesson of what not to do and what not to abide, while not counteracting the sin itself. Like, you can hate a gambler, but that hatred is more from a disdain for his moral weakness than for the insidiousness of a gambling addiction or the wickedness of those who connive to draw others deeply into gambling. You figure that you would be able to see the warnings, be stronger, maintain control, and not fall on to that kind of path. In that way, it’s a self-esteem thing to say you’re stronger than those sins. The reality though is that everyone has a weak point and can be wheedled onto a dark path if exposed to enough malevolent actors or negative influences — you could theoretically fix a lot of sinners if you targeted those who propagate the sin rather than those who broke under it, but simultaneously sin is disgusting since the solution to it usually is saying ‘no’. It’s rarely unpreventable, so its occurrence speaks to the sinner’s contemptibly weak character. I might be running away with the ball here but that’s how I hear this line.

Because Hunter is, or was, that kind of person. He was the type who would look at a sinner and reject them, while proudly content that he was cut from better stock and wouldn’t fall into similar traps (Red Hands/Dear Ms. Leading/VVV). Then he did, again, and again, and again, and is cursing himself for how easily he does fall into these habits, well aware of how others would judge and receive him if they knew. Maybe he is imagining in frustration that people would want him ousted from the Mayor position, replaced with someone stronger and with more integrity who makes the same promises… but without even pausing to consider shoving a pitchfork through TP&P, who assuredly drives more sin than Hunter? Or cursing himself for being too morally weak to do something about the situation? Sounds moreso that.

Might also be in specific reference to his opium usage here, consciousness of himself getting even more desperate, degraded, and worse.

>I keep waking in the strangest states, and drawing lines around my body / To recall my place;
‘I keep waking in the strangest states’ -> Hunter has been having dissociative episodes. If not literally, then metaphorically, he’s been struggling to stay engaged through events in his false life as the Son, keeps randomly ‘clicking in’ to his Hunter mindset during mindless rote Son Stuff, and finds the dissonance between how he feels when ‘clicked in’ and ‘clicked out’ as unsettling. Could also be in reference to Awake and his opium use — he has to be in a weird state of mind to feel his Hunter mindset clearly. Like he’s in Hunter mode here and he’s definitely in a weird state of mind right now.

‘And drawing lines around my body to recall my place’ -> Hunter has to make conscious efforts to remember who he is, what he thinks, and how to behave. He can’t tell if his clothes are things he chooses because he likes them as Hunter or because they’re in character for the Son, if his mannerisms in speech are natural to him or things he contrived for the Son, if his beliefs are truly Christian or if he is actually more athiest, and vice versa so on that kind of thing. His sense of self is extremely tenuous and fractured.

>I feel the heat of a thousand breaths upon my neck / And the gaze of a thousand eyes burning holes into my back
Self-explanatory — Hunter constantly feels the pressure of his constituents’ expectations. He is paranoid about slipping out of character even once and everything instantly falling apart from there, not only because he’s a public figure who holds an important office, which is pressure enough in itself, but because of his TP&P-enforced crookedness and identity theft. He feels constantly watched and cannot relax any time he’s in public, or any time what he’s doing could permeate into the public as rumours.

>And now I’m stuck between alive and after
Hunter has a pattern of discarding his current life to adopt a new one — one life for another. He wants to do that again, and destroy the Son persona, but is presently trapped in a situation where he can’t; he is too public a figure and TP&P’s blackmail is too strong. (He also has a wife and kid, but maybe he’s fine ditching them and being a deadbeat.)

This is a limbo state for him. That is, the Son persona is already dead owing to its corruption by TP&P, so he can’t embrace it as he wanted to in The Line, but he also can’t live or embrace himself as Hunter, since he needs to perpetuate the Son charade or else he’ll catch charges for identity theft. He can’t even call himself dead, it’s more like undead, predead, just kind of rotting.

>I’ve been searching for a remedy / Hands to guide where the shadows never show
‘I’ve been searching for a remedy’ -> Probably alluding to the opium again while also being what it says on the can; Hunter has been looking for something that can fix this situation.

‘Hands to guide where the shadows never show’ -> ‘Hands conflicting clearly point their way’; Hunter wants someone or something to present a clear path out of the situation, something secure and assured where he can anticipate the consequences and know he’s taking the right action. None are forthcoming though, rather TP&P is confounding and blocking him from even possibly nearing such an answer, so any vague idea he gropes is just more uncertainty, darkness, and shadow. (’Another shadow lost in the dark’, is where he is presently).

>I keep looking for a quicker fix / But I’m afraid of finding what it is
Hunter also has a pattern of needing to find immediate solutions to discomfort and pain. He has a persistently low tolerance for pain and does extreme things to avoid it, which we’ve seen since Act II. He is once again in a state where he needs some immediate solution to his pain, but he is terrified of finding it because so far he has been punished and gotten worse every single time he has caved to that desire. This is because he does not think things through so much as respond by impulse, and though he’s aware of this flaw, he also knows he’s not stronger than it. He anticipates that he’ll cave instantly to a pleasant enough temptation. So he’s terrified of murdering himself on impulsive antics again and in absolute anguish with the knowledge of how badly enslaved he is to his own comfort drive, because even now he STILL has never had to face a problem where the solution he chose wasn’t, in his mind, 100% perfect.

Aside from that, he is distracting himself from his misery when he can with basic hedonisms like sex and drugs.

‘A fix to cure this ailing, bitter agony’; probably yet another allusion to the opium and the fact of Hunter’s addiction to it, but it’s still not enough to fix things, so who knows what hole he could get into that’s deeper than that, if something sufficiently attractive presented itself.

>I know that I just need a quicker fix / Hate the sinner, not the sin
Driving in the obsessive nature of how badly Hunter needs things to turn around, right now, and again condemning and cursing himself for moral weakness. (These quicker fixes got him into this situation. Hate the sinner indeed).

Probably also a literal element of his addiction to the opium, and how he’s come to rely on it this much.

>I keep looking for a quicker fix, but / I wouldn’t know just what to do with it
Hunter confessing that he’s in such a state of confusion and low confidence that even if he did find something that looked like a solution, he would be too paralysed with indecision to actually commit to it. Further, what happens after he applies the fix? Does he just resign and ditch town? Does he continue being Mayor, but a proper one? Like what can he even do with himself now, supposing he did get away from this?

>Hate the sinner, not the sin!
Man, lovely verse. Hunter in anguish and frustration confessing how absolutely weak he is/feels.

>4:04 – 5:12 Instrumental
After his long and contemplative walk through the City, Hunter arrives at the Church. He joins the small crowd already there and settles tensely into one of the pews, as a service is currently in session.

The Moon / Awake | Act V | The Most Cursed Of Hands / Who Am I?

The Moon / Awake

The Moon / Awake
This soul’s a stowaway
At the heels of a gaze, their eyes betrayed in the arcade
Misdirection pervades, and my image fades of you
(Where are you?)

Could we return to the hymn of the Lake?
Grave refrains of impossible love, not believing what they’d say
Haunting heralds whose words were lost on you
(Where are you?)

I’d bare you my heart, if I knew that it still was there
I’m too nervous to look, too afraid to close the book
So take all the wind from my lungs, if you’re out of air
Just deliver me truth, deliver me you

How’d we lose our place? Who decided our fate?
Decay until we we’re erased, idly wasting away?
Well, the nightmare’s ending soon
(Where are you?)

I’d bare you my heart, if I knew that it was still there
I’m too nervous to look, too afraid to close the book
So take all the wind from my lungs, if you’re out of air
Just deliver me truth, I’ll deliver me you

(Who are you waiting for?)
(Who are you waiting for?)
If the younger me just could have seen the trouble I’d create
He’d never have agreed to carry on
(Who are you waiting for?)
When sins of sons to fathers come, too heavy is the weight
The spirit split in two

Dear apparition, in this fleeting flash
Must I burn the earth, before you turn to ash?
Would such extremes repair our broken past?
The silver lining seldom lies in sight too plain to see
But trust our story’s end can bring redemption for the pain endured

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Hunter, broken down so thoroughly he cannot even tell if his ‘self’ exists anymore, takes solace from his hollow life as the Son by shooting up in an opium den. He desires to reconnect with the person he was before leaving the Lake, and is venerated: high on opium, he sees a vision of his younger self, who quietly pronounces that Hunter can yet redeem and absolve himself.

What’s in a name?
‘The Moon / Awake’ — Similar to some of the Bitter Suite songs, this song also has two distinct ‘parts’ that represent different ‘chapters’ of the scene, hence the two titles.

The first section is The Moon — again, this is a tie to tarot symbolism. The Moon in the tarot represents uncertainty, confusion, illusions, and a need to listen to your intuition to break through the illusion. In Hunter’s case, the confusion is a fundamental question about his self: who he is, what has he become, and the possible destruction of his self beneath the false Son persona (on top of all of his actions taken to this point). Basically saying that Hunter has lost his self, is not sure how to find it, and does not know where to go now, but also saying that the solution is to get back in touch with his ‘core’ or heart. Represents Hunter’s rock bottom, lowest moment.

Awake is Hunter snapping out of that state of confusion and being able reconnect with his true self, although only temporarily.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:43 Instrumental
Hoo this is dark. Fittingly, too — Hunter is at the absolute lowest moment of his life right now, a shell of a person with almost no sense of self who lives a false life under the thumb of his adversary. He feels absolute uncertainty, confusion, insecurity, and fear about everything presently, but most of all about himself. If he looks in the mirror, he is not even sure anymore who this person he’s become is.

As such, he’s picked up an opium habit. I don’t think he’s in the opium den juuust yet, more like he’s finishing up smiling and waving to his constituents and this scene ends promptly into him departing to the opium den.

Also note that there’s been a timeskip since Act IV — it is now the 1930s, and we can estimate Hunter to be in his 30s.

>This soul’s a stowaway
Hunter is, and has been impersonating the Son.

>At the heels of a gaze, their eyes betrayed in the arcade / Misdirection pervades,
Hunter commenting on how his constituents are looking to him for virtuous guidance and leadership, which he cannot actually give.

‘Eyes betrayed in the arcade’ -> Indicating the lies he tells constituents from the podium/in public, and the false image of a virtuous person he projects while being the Son, false both because Hunter has become kinda scummy and because the Son persona itself is corrupt.

‘Misdirection pervades’ -> Indicating how unfortunately committed to deception he is to ensure nobody finds out the truth of who he is, who he works for, or how corrupt the City is in general.

He obviously feels very pressured about this whole affair, and like he’s betraying the trust of those who rely on him.

>and my image fades of you
‘You’ is Hunter’s former self, or ‘true self’, or ‘heart’. The way Hunter behaves in public is so antithetical to the person he used to be, that he cannot even tell if any of his old self’s principles still exist inside him. If you took the things that defined Hunter when he was young, then the things that define him now, the difference would be so stark as to be different people. Or, putting it more simply, he has massively changed as a person, and with every betrayal of his moral heart, feels himself changing even more and more into someone worse and entirely different.

This is agonising to Hunter, who would more rather be the old Hunter than the current Hunter, because the old Hunter was a better person than present Hunter, and this isn’t how he wanted to wind up.

His behaviour is eroding his image of his self. It’s not just his constituents; Hunter feels he has betrayed that younger version of himself that lived in such innocence at the Lake.

>(Where are you?)
Hunter is desperate to find something that reconnects him to his old self.

>Could we return to the hymn of the Lake?
He is probably in the opium den by now. Hunter wants to go back to a state of safety, purity, and innocence — specifically, he wants to relive it by getting high, since being high puts him in a similar state of comfort and gives him visions of his past.

>Grave refrains of impossible love, not believing what they’d say / Haunting heralds whose words were lost on you
Hunter reflects on the warnings given to him by the Oracles, and recognises now how correct they were about everything. ‘Grave refrains of impossible love’ probably points to how they specifically told him that 1. He shouldn’t expect Ms Leading to be spotless, and 2. He shouldn’t expect to find love in war. Hunter has become seasoned enough to see their viewpoint. He deeply regrets the path he has taken and would change things if he could go back.

>I’d bare you my heart, if I knew that it still was there / I’m too nervous to look, too afraid to close the book
Hunter wants to be ‘true to himself’ and act according to good principles that his younger self would have approved of, but he isn’t certain that he has even a shred of ‘principle’, much less ‘self’ to be true to, left inside him. He can’t say with certainty that he’s completely broken, or completely incapable of resisting and doing something about the situation, but the thought of trying or resolving to change things and realising he can’t, or even worse that he’s changed so much that he would rather not, terrifies him too much to try anything. It would signify that yes, he really has lost all connection to himself and all capacity for virtue; that there’s nothing left of him except a villain he doesn’t recognise, a puppet for TP&P, and a smiling face for the masses.

The hope he has left is barely more than a sliver, and it’s not so much hope as ‘existential dread’, but there is still an off-chance he is clinging to that some fundamental element of his old self still exists and can shine through.

>So take all the wind from my lungs, if you’re out of air / Just deliver me truth, deliver me you
Hunter speaking to his younger self again; he is willing to sacrifice the life he has now if it means he could resurrect his old self, and do something to destroy all this evil that’s taken over his life. He sees his old self as dead or smothered, needing this kind of resolution to bring back.

Really intimate line.

>How’d we lose our place? Who decided our fate?
Hunter wonders where exactly he went wrong, but isn’t able to pinpoint a specific moment where he definitively… not quite sinned, but like, Hunter wound up here on the back of a ton of impulsive and emotional reactions that blend into each other in one long chain of cause and effect. What was the link he could have broken to avoid all this while still staying true to his heart? Was there even one?

>Decay until we we’re erased, idly wasting away?
Hunter considers what his future will be. He is currently stuck in the same routines of doing not much with little to look forward to until he dies. Following the fate idea, he wonders if this is just the ultimate trend of his life, to spiral further and further down into vice until his soul putters out.

>Well, the nightmare’s ending soon
Foreshadowing that Hunter will die as told by the Oracles, while pointing to him about to escape the ‘nightmare’ by shooting up on opium (hence ‘Awake’).

>Just deliver me truth, I’ll deliver me you
Hunter shoots up so that he can contact his younger self.

>(Who are you waiting for?)
Probably two things: Hunter has shot up on opium, and is waiting for the high to take him fully so that he can see himself again. Second thing is more like, what is he waiting for? If he knows he wants to do something to reclaim his past self and turn against this evil, what is the thing inside him that’s stopping him exactly? If the person he’s trying to contact is himself — by definition, he should be able to do what this person wants him to, even if Hunter is scared, lost, and confused right now. What is the trigger of affirmation he is seeking?

>If the younger me just could have seen the trouble I’d create / He’d never have agreed to carry on
Explicitly driving in the point; Hunter’s life has not turned out how he wanted it, rather, Hunter has not turned his life into something he wanted. He feels he should have made better choices to protect his younger self, who he has come to love.

>When sins of sons to fathers come, too heavy is the weight
Man, nice line. It’s like I know exactly what it’s getting at but for the life of me can’t explain it. Basically ‘when the consequences of your actions catch up with you, you’ll regret it…’ but more than that too; he’s the father that should have nurtured the son.

>The spirit split in two
The high hits in earnest. Visions of Hunter’s past flow through him in waves as he ascends to a sort of higher plane of consciousness. The Apparition of his younger self coalesces from these images, before him. I think it’s also kinda like, the high separates him from his connection to his body and hence his ‘Son’ persona (which doesn’t have an intrinsic spiritual element; it’s just empty behaviour), so it’s not so much that the Apparition is an external entity (though it is framed like a kind of divine or ‘higher’ force that comes to Hunter), but more like, Hunter is able to attune himself to his own ‘essence’ in these moments, and this essence takes the form of his younger self since that’s firstly who he wants to see and secondly the strongest and highest fidelity state of Hunter’s unblemished soul, which he is physically able to observe through the schism.

We are now in ‘Awake’.

(…’but now we wake up’: ‘make way for the awakening long overdue’; Hunter’s pronouncements of finally living in a way that is true to himself. He was wrong both times in Act IV, but this is a genuine instance of Hunter immersing himself in his true self, snapping out of uncertainty to see truth.)

>Dear apparition, in this fleeting flash
Hunter addresses the Apparition. Or as he calls it, the ‘dear’ apparition, since it is an apparition of the ‘dear’ Hunter, back when he was doted on by Ms Terri. Outrageously sleek phrasing points to how he regards the apparition as precious, to the fact he is addressing it, to its age and identity, and to the beatific flame/fire power infused in it by Ms Terri’s pure love (‘my dear Hunter’).

These highs, and these sessions of unfettered connection to his self, are only momentary.

>Must I burn the earth, before you turn to ash?
Though Hunter spent most of The Moon expressing his fear and doubt, truthfully Hunter does recognise an action he could take to get away from all this corruption: and it’s the scorched earth strategy, in a very literal sense. If TP&P and Hunter have been playing a game of chess, or maybe poker, this is Hunter flirting with the idea of going ‘screw it’, upending the whole table, and baptising the room with a good dose of arson. Or, well, if he’s not literally thinking about burning down TP&P’s things as an announcement he won’t play around anymore, he at the very least is thinking of setting a fire under his tail by leveraging his knowledge of TP&P’s own dirt.

Hunter feels there’s a time limit on when he’ll be able to do this, that limit being the point where he can no longer feel connection to his true self at all. However, he’s fundamentally reluctant and scared to escalate matters. We heard why in Moon — apart from a general fear of chaos Hunter’s always had, (and his fundamentally reactive nature — it’s rare for him to do things without an immediate emotional impetus driving him), he’s terrified of trying it, only to realise that he’s changed too much and he can’t. He wants to know if there’s easier alternatives that maybe aren’t so threatening.

He knows there really aren’t, though, or at least aren’t any that his heart would advocate. The action he has to take is clear, at least for as long as the high and this brief connection to himself persists.

Very ‘do I have to pick you or the world?’ with understanding that his desire is to pick ‘you’. Ultimately that is the nature of his choice: keep living a corrupt lie, or die virtuously true to himself.

>Would such extremes repair our broken past?
Hunter seeks to be redeemed for all the sins he has committed. He wants to do something that makes up for it all.

>The silver lining seldom lies in sight too plain to see / But trust our story’s end can bring redemption for the pain endured
The Apparition speaks to Hunter. It assures him that he, and all the pain and suffering he has endured to this point, will be venerated. Nothing that happened up to now was pointless; every moment was necessary so that things could reach an ultimately good end and absolution. Even if it doesn’t seem so, and even if it’s frightening, it is the right move to start the fire.

>5:13 – 6:09 Instrumental
The high ends and Hunter is dumped back into his false life, and back into uncertainty, darkness, and confusion. A message comes through to Hunter that TP&P wants to see him. Groggy, and not in the mood for it, Hunter cleans himself up into a state to go to Church.

Regress | Act V | Cascade

Regress

Regress
Regress
In spells of unconsciousness
Slave to the seeds you’ve sown
Lost in the leaves
So we’ll depart
Goodbye to your stubborn heart
Now you’re alone
Find relief that the end comes swiftly for you

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
The Oracles inform Hunter that nothing can be done to change his fate now, that he is doomed, and will shortly die. They depart Hunter, who they rebuke for ignoring their warnings.

What’s in a name?
‘Regress’ — Mirroring ‘Rebirth’ from Act IV, driving in how Hunter has undone all the possible development he had, and broken down into a confused and near-soulless slave of sin and corruption, but also subtly suggesting the reemergence of his old self. Principally a down-and-out vibe, though.

Whose viewpoint?
Oracles.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:13 Instrumental
Beautiful. Welcome, gently and gracefully, into Act V.

Though not the final act as plotted, Act V concludes Hunter’s story well enough that, even if Act VI never happens, we’re left with a pretty satisfying tale that can still stand on its own. Act V, being the climax of things for Hunter, and the culmination of most plot threads revolving around him, is both narratively and musically the most intricate of the Acts — you can tell Casey went nuts on this one to get the message and themes of this narrative right.

Because of that, I don’t think I’ll be able to zero in on specific passages too often and say ‘oh, this is probably this’, or ‘this is probably that’, just because the layers of back-reference and symbols get so hefty that singling out one to be one thing or another becomes outrageously hard. Not for lack of my trying here, but the nuances get thick. So I’ll still give it my shot of course, but a lot of the time I think the only way you can get the message that’s being sent is just by listening. I mean, don’t you want to listen? This stuff is incredible.

That’s my disclaimer for Act V, which I anticipate having a lot of ‘not sure but it’s cool!’ and ‘this is something, but I can’t be sure exactly’ and ‘ok just trust me this is what these super-hard-to-translate Casey Vocabulary lyrics are MOST LIKELY pointing to, I think’ moments.

>Regress / In spells of unconsciousness
So! That all aside, we’re now in Act V and the Oracles are here, as ever, to welcome us into this chapter. They have finally gotten fed up with Hunter’s refusal to listen, as now there is no fate left for him but death, and leave swiftly after conveying this message since there is not much else to say. And it would suck if they spoiled things.

‘Regress / in spells of unconsciousness’ -> Probably referring to how Hunter is able to get in touch with his true self, which is represented as himself as a child (regression), while high. Simultaneously, points to how far he has degenerated as a person as he lives this false life of the Son, his own ambitions broken and sense of self shattered by TP&P (Hunter does not even feel ‘here’ or ‘awake’ or ‘conscious’ as he goes through the restricted motions of this false life).

(Strings echoing the end of Is There Anybody There -> points to Hunter’s identity confusion ‘who can tell me who I am / or at least where I have been?’, though the answer this time is the Apparition)

>Slave to the seeds you’ve sown
Hunter is cornered. It’s a consequence of his own actions, and his own choices that he’s fallen into the thrall of TP&P and the inescapable, shackling emptiness of this false life.

>Lost in the leaves
‘Forget my place amongst the grass / the leaves and the trees remember me’, maybe? Pointing to how Hunter’s former self feels to be beyond his reach, as in, you can envision the older Hunter trying to push through all these bushes and bushes to find something, and the something is his former self, that he knows should be somewhere in here and can find hints that it’s not entirely gone but he just can’t grasp it.

>So we’ll depart / Goodbye to your stubborn heart
On that dour note, the Oracles sever their communications with Hunter. All they wanted was the best for him, but he would not heed their warnings.

>Now you’re alone
Due to that stubbornness, and his inability to change his ways, he has fallen into a false life where all of his connections are fraudulent. He has a fake Mother, a fake Wife, fake Friends, makes fake promises to his constituents, under the guise of his fake self, and now even the Oracles have abandoned him… the most real connection he has left is to the conman who tricked Hunter’s soul into servitude.

There’s nobody to turn to. There’s nothing left.

…Or is there a glimmer of hope yet, in these angelic tones? Man. Amazing how it’s such a desolate line, but there’s still this harp and voice as if assuring Hunter, even though he’s near as damned as damned can get, that he’s not completely forsaken. (Reprises his ‘cloud nine’ moment from Smiling Swine pointing to his renewed relationship with Ms Leading).

>Find relief that the end comes swiftly for you
The Oracles give Hunter their final, and gravest message. There is no positive future for Hunter now but death, which is imminently coming. Hunter will die in this chapter.

Ouroboros | Act IV
Act V | The Moon / Awake

Ouroboros

Ouroboros
I bet you thought that you’d succeed
Pulling the wool right over me
Hard to believe this snake stayed in the grass
Just long enough to catch the rabbit’s feet
With telescoping glances, hands romanced, enticing you to keep
Laboring against the clock in spite of secrecy
You couldn’t know, revealed itself to me
The second you decided to compete

I fell down and I fell apart
“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”
Then I cried out to his crooked heart
“I never wanted to hurt no one… no one but you”

I bet you thought that you could breathe
A satisfied sigh of relief
A terrible thing, forgetting where you came from
Or have you trouble when you fall asleep?
I’ve seen you fabricate, manipulate and here, you masquerade
But if we’re poaching ghosts, you know I’ve got a few that I would raise
Settle yourself; as long as I’m protected
You can bet your secret’s safe with me

I fell down and I fell apart
“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”
Then I cried out to his crooked heart
“I never wanted to hurt no one… no one but you!”

Lost my soul in the place of the great deceiver
Foolish hearts led foolish plans awry; they told me:
“Don’t veer far from your home, try never to leave her”
Near, I landed; here I’ll live and die
Traveled too far from the River’s side

But it wasn’t long before I felt nothing below me
And all of the ground I thought I’d gained, taken away
I thought I was strong, not strong enough, my mettle was bending
Foolish plans kissed foolish hearts goodbye
Traveled too far from the River’s side

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Now that Hunter is situated comfortably as the Mayor, TP&P confronts him in private at Church about his identity theft and reveals himself as the Pimp. He threatens to reveal Hunter’s true identity if Hunter fails to do what TP&P wants. Hunter is devastated and realises his efforts as the Son have been for nothing, and that he is now under the control of the villain he wanted to destroy most.

What’s in a name?
‘Ouroboros’ — a powerful symbol, the snake eating itself. Here it signs the ending and beginning of a cycle; a process of death and rebirth; an ending that gives way to beginning; things staying ever constant through cycles. Somewhere between ‘Here’s To The End And Start Of Another Life, Hunter,’ and ‘Yes Hunter, The Pattern Is Still The Same’.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter and TP&P alternating.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:07 Instrumental
Church service for the day has wrapped up. Hunter is in attendance.

>0:08 – 0:27 Instrumental
As the Congregation leaves, the Priest pulls Hunter aside to talk privately in the confessional. It is not altogether atypical for Hunter and the Priest to be talking like this, given how closely they have collaborated — but something is different this time, and there’s an air of unease as Hunter settles into the confessional…

>I bet you thought that you’d succeed / Pulling the wool right over me
This is TP&P talking to Hunter. TP&P starts the conversation, maintaining the pretence that he is merely the City’s humble Priest, and accuses Hunter of deception.

>Hard to believe this snake stayed in the grass / Just long enough to catch the rabbit’s feet
‘Just long enough to catch the rabbit’s feet’ -> Long enough to get a reward/good fortune from it = long enough to situate himself as Mayor without anyone realising he committed identity theft, and is not the person he claims himself to be.

>With telescoping glances, hands romanced, enticing you to keep / Laboring against the clock in spite of secrecy
‘He telescoped his hand’. Telescoping glances here conjures the image of Hunter glancing about suspiciously (so he’s fearful of people figuring out the truth) but also in a way that sucks people in, ‘hands romanced’ is him making a big show of doing good things (’Every feigning flame I chance upon / I put the fire on’) and networking (’romancing’ people with his deeds). ‘Laboring against the clock’ points to his ceaseless effort in doing things as Mayor; we already saw this in King of Swords, but he’s been extremely active around the community and devoted to his general Mayoral work.

>in spite of secrecy / You couldn’t know, revealed itself to me / The second you decided to compete
TP&P reveals that he has known Hunter’s true identity all along. Why? Because he’s Hunter’s old employer, the Pimp, and Hunter didn’t realise it (’you couldn’t know’).

>1:13 – 1:18 aaaAAAAaaaAAA
Revelation. Hunter realises the Priest is the Pimp.

>I fell down and I fell apart
Hunter is speaking now. He is distraught at the revelation of who the Priest really is, and who he has been collaborating with this whole time. Rather, no, this hasn’t been collaborating… Hunter has been used! Everything he thought he built, was really a design of the Priest! He never had anything! He’s lost!

>“I never wanted to hurt no one, I never wanted to be your city’s son”
Hunter has a breakdown. He expresses that he never desired to become so aggressive or to work for wicked ends — we can suppose that some of the people Hunter ripped down in his fight to get this seat… actually, maybe weren’t that bad, or at least didn’t need to be destroyed as thoroughly as Hunter attacked them. I mean, whoever the Mayor before him was, at the very least was above-board enough to get the Dime shut down in the first place. Fair, he might be turning a blind eye to the Priest’s scummery as the Priest, or just might not be aware of it, but TP&P was actually in an unideal position for once in several decades.

Further than that, Hunter really hasn’t desired to ever hurt anyone, ever. Though he has hurt people, and has done hurtful things on impulse, his desire has always been for peace and stability. He wants to help people, if he can. Hell, even his desire to destroy TP&P fundamentally came from his childhood desire to help Ms Terri.

And more, he expresses that he never really wanted to be Mayor. He likes the purpose the position gives him and how it, ostensibly, lets him protect the innocent. But the position of Mayor itself was one he never would have thought of pursuing — he had to be in the middle of an identity crisis to take it, and the Priest had to nudge him into it. He holds onto it so tightly because it’s all that he has. He never wanted to be subservient to the Priest, much less the Pimp. And he doesn’t want this being TP&P’s city.

Either way, he’s realising his Son persona will now be used to malicious ends, destroying its purpose for Hunter entirely… after he’s already committed himself to it too far to possibly back out.

>Then I cried out to his crooked heart / “I never wanted to hurt no one… no one but you”
Hunter finally expresses his hatred for, and desire to kill, TP&P. Ever since 1878, Hunter has wanted to destroy TP&P, even if he didn’t realise then who the target of his enmity was. TP&P is ultimately the cause of every bad thing in Hunter’s life: Ms Terri’s depression, Ms Terri’s suicide, Ms Leading’s prostitution… he is just an unambiguously evil entity that extorts people, exploits them, wears them down, and enslaves them at every turn, that the world is completely better without. He is the force that people must be protected from.

>I bet you thought that you could breathe / A satisfied sigh of relief / A terrible thing, forgetting where you came from
TP&P takes over the dialogue again, rubbing salt in Hunter’s wounds.

‘Thought that you could breathe’ -> There’s that breathe again. ‘I bet you thought you had found a better, comfortable, liberating, functional life for yourself as the Son.’

‘Breathe a satisfied sigh of relief’ -> ‘And in doing, left all the troubles of your past behind.’

‘A terrible thing, forgetting where you came from’ -> I mean it’s a taunt but it’s also true too; TP&P is aware of how important people’s pasts are to their identity, and how losing connection to that past is a way to make people malleable and degraded. Note the change of tone; TP&P has fully switched off his Priest guise.

>Or have you trouble when you fall asleep?
TP&P taunts Hunter again, probing him on the suspicion that he hasn’t actually erased all of his connection to his past, and that the pain of it still has been bothering him on top of the stress of trying to assume this new identity. Ie, that he hasn’t been able to live a ‘dream’ like he desired.

>I’ve seen you fabricate, manipulate and here, you masquerade
Since Hunter was collaborating with the Priest in his mayoral campaign, TP&P knows all the scummy tactics Hunter used to rip down his opponents, on top of the basic perfidy of his false identity. Apart from just telling lies about himself, and making purposeful moves to manipulate people, it kinda sounds like Hunter also straight-up framed/blackmailed people at some point?

>But if we’re poaching ghosts, you know I’ve got a few that I would raise / Settle yourself; as long as I’m protected / You can bet your secret’s safe with me
TP&P blackmails Hunter with the threat of revealing his true identity, on top of whatever other crimes he’s committed as the Son, unless Hunter protects TP&P. That is to say, from law enforcement, as well as protecting TP&P’s reputation, as well as from anyone else who’d contest him. TP&P is going to double down on whatever illegal ventures he wants to get up to, knowing he has the Mayor in his pocket.

>Chorus Repetition
Hunter falls into further despair as it sinks in that he’s become indentured to TP&P, and will be complicit in his corruption. Hell, not only complicit, he’ll be the biggest driver of corruption in the City, now.

>3:11 – 3:20 Instrumental
Hunter leaves the confessional, shaken.

>Lost my soul in the place of the great deceiver
Hunter has lost his self. A lot of it was a consequence of his own effort to become the Son, doing away with his ties to his own identity and replacing them with illegitimate things he does not really love — The Mother, his Wife, the Friends. Now he has lost the one thing that made it worth it: his power to do something good as the Mayor. Far from do anything good, he has become a servant of evil. Maybe even the ultimate evil.

There are a lot of equations made between TP&P and the literal devil — I don’t think he is the literal Devil, but he does represent that exact kind of force and that exact kind of energy, subverting the pious into sin, enslaving the vulnerable in false contracts, degrading people so they lose their selves, lies, deception, trickery. He has a very specific corrupting atmosphere that earns him all these diabolical epithets. It’s notable that our next big villain, Mr Usher, won’t have this atmosphere — even though he’s more sadistic, cruel, violent, canny, and ruthless than TP&P. The difference is that TP&P is framed like a propagator of outrageous lies and sin who delights in his nature, while Mr Usher is just a guy. Just a really, really sick and vicious guy.

>Foolish hearts led foolish plans awry; they told me: / “Don’t veer far from your home, try never to leave her”
Hunter thinks back on his encounter with the Oracles on the train. He regrets and curses himself as an idiot for not listening to them, for not returning to the Lake immediately, and for running away from Ms Leading when they advised him to reconcile with her.

>Near, I landed; here I’ll live and die
Hunter recognises he will never be able to leave the City again. His position is too prominent and TP&P’s blackmail over him is too absolute. He also does not have the option to ‘kill’ his present self and assume a new life, as he has consistently been doing when faced with problems, for the same reason.

And the life he’s going to be living here will be utterly miserable. Every day he’ll be going through the motions of this false life, under this false identity, with this false family, false religion, putting on false smiles, giving false love, manufacturing his false piety, telling false promises to his constituents who look up at him with admiration and hope… all while he drives them deeper into deception, manipulation, corruption, and sin as the prize pawn of a greedy conman.

>Traveled too far from the River’s side
Hunter regrets leaving the Lake — he concedes now, utterly defeated, that he never had a chance of overcoming the evil of the City. He could never become strong enough to face the world outside. A sheltered environment of purity and innocence was where he belonged, and the only place he could have even theoretically survived in.

Hunter’s folly in desiring otherwise has led him to be enslaved and corrupted.

>But it wasn’t long before I felt nothing below me / And all of the ground I thought I’d gained, taken away
The foundation he has built for himself as the Son is gone. More than that, all the lessons he feels he has learnt along his journey, and all the developments he thought he made toward becoming a more complete or stronger person with a sense of agency, are also gone. Everything is gone. He has nothing.

‘And what’s the worst I’d see / By giving myself to the earth below me?’. This, Hunter.

>I thought I was strong, not strong enough, my mettle was bending
Hunter thought he had, through all the ups and downs, become a stronger person since leaving the Lake.

He did not become a stronger person. He was just an idiot who didn’t know how to deal with his problems, and made the wrong decisions, every time. He did not know how to deal with heartbreak, he did not know how war would devastate him, he did not see how empty this false identity would be, and he did not know how to recognise or combat evil vigilantly enough to rebuff it before it crushed him under its thumb. Where was the sun?

>Foolish plans kissed foolish hearts goodbye
Now that he has taken this path into corruption, the innocence of Hunter’s youth is irrefutably gone and not returning.

>Traveled too far from the River’s side
And that’s where Hunter has found himself, going into Act V — poor guy.

>5:10 – 5:25 Instrumental
Womp womp. Don’t worry Hunter, I’m sure you’ll find a way out of this… somehow…

Wait | Act IV
Act V | Regress

Wait

Wait
I lost my faith when I was young
I clenched my fist to bite my tongue
I leave a wake from all the things that I had done
Cause there wouldn’t be a thing when I moved on

Then I said wait
Are our bodies really piles of dirt?
And is the soul just a metaphor?
I keep my eyes from looking too far up
I fear that there is a heaven above

I stood in lines to bow my head
I’d fold my hands and speak in tongues
To whisper worries to the dead
But I could tell no apparition heard a single word I said
But I’d still call my fear in to the air

Then I said wait
Is my body really part of the earth
And is there blood running through my veins?
I’ll know when I turn to dust
But I fear the answer isn’t enough
So, will I never know heaven or hell?
Or is eternity something worse?
I keep my eyes from looking too far up
I fear that there is a heaven above
(heaven above, heaven above)

I want to give it up
I want to give it up
I want to give it up
But I just need it too much

Wait
Is my body really part of the earth?
And is there blood running through my veins?
I’ll know when I turn to dust
But I fear the answer isn’t enough
So, will I never know heaven or hell?
Or is eternity something worse?
I keep my eyes from looking too far up

A fear that there is a heaven above
A fear that there is a heaven above
A fear that there is a heaven above
I hope there’s not a heaven above

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
As Hunter becomes more involved with the Church after committing to his Son persona, he comes to reflect on his actions through a more religious lens. He realises his treatment of Ms Leading in his youth was substantially worse than how she treated him, redeeming her in his view. Hunter and Ms Leading get back together, Ms Leading being Hunter’s secret lover while he remains with his Wife.

What’s in a name?
‘Wait’ — reflective of Hunter (and Ms Leading)’s realisations that their judgements of each other in their youth were too harsh and hasty, and the painful awkwardness between them doesn’t need to be there. Also works as Hunter going ‘hold up, I might have messed up,’ after his ego-high trip from King of Swords to The Line.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter and Ms Leading. But mostly Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:06 Instrumental
Okay so this is one of those songs where nobody would have figured out its story relevance (Hunter and Ms Leading getting back together) if it weren’t for tips from Casey. I mean, it’s such a dark and moody song, and it’s covered in all this overt religious stuff — how does this have anything to do with Ms Leading or the happiness you think Hunter would feel about getting back with her? Here’s my read.

So for one, there’s been a timeskip. Several months at the very least have passed since The Line, so Hunter has settled into his seat as Mayor and is starting to enact his plans to clean up the City. More relevant for Wait though is the resolution he’s made to live as the Son. What’s something we know about the Son? Well, that he’s a churchgoer, and we can figure from King of Swords that Hunter has publicly affiliated himself with the Church, too. So we can figure that Hunter has been attending Church regularly in service to his persona as the Son.

This is why Hunter is starting to reconsider his faith and view his past actions though a more religiously-flavoured lens. Though I never get the sense of Hunter being a devout Christian, at least not in the sense of one that trusts the word of priests or bishops, the ideas of the faith are starting to play in his mind by osmosis. You can especially see how Hunter’s thoughts shift in this direction in Act V, where he’s frequently in the Church, with a lot of focus on devils and redemption and absolution and whether Hunter’s going to heaven. So that’s part of why it’s such a moody song: Hunter still doesn’t really like the Church or practising religion, but he’s rather deep in the environment of it and it’s forcing him to reconsider his worldview.

Next is the aspect of the ‘reconsidering’ he’s doing being him realising he’s been a jerk who really could stand to forgive Ms Leading. As we forgive those who sin against us, and all. This is again problematic to the Son persona because he’s not supposed to care about Ms Leading anymore, but he does, and winds up letting go of his discontents with her. The natural consequence of this forgiveness, though, is that he wants to (and does) get involved with her again. So now he’s not just betraying the Son persona and opening himself to undermine everything, he’s committing adultery. Great.

But I think you can go even further. A lot of this song focuses on how Hunter (and Ms Leading) are not able to ‘feel’ a divine presence by going to church, but something makes them pause and consider that a divine presence could, or does, exist. (contrast ‘…no apparition heard…’ to ‘Dear Apparition,’) That is, they are able to feel it. How? I would wager, through their relationship. So the sequence of this song would be, Hunter is moved by consideration to Christian teachings to forgive Ms Leading; now that he forgives her, he is not so scared of her and wishes to be near her; Hunter bends to his desires and spends a night with her; from that experience, he feels the divine ‘essence’; and has a massive ‘uuuuuueughh OH NO’ moment (which is this song) where he realises he may have massively, massively erred in his basic worldview. That is, he should be and should have been paying more attention to the concepts described in faith, but decoupled them from church doctrines because these were corrupted/inaccurate; made a distinction between ‘religion’ and ‘faith’ and followed faith. But without knowing what ‘faith’ is (that is not ‘religion’) he’s left clueless of the implications of it except for the implication of, if it’s real, he messed up.

I’ll need to come back to this one and give it another try after thinking on it some more; probably my least confident read here, might be more like v this v but I’ll leave up what I had
V1 -> Hunter (lost faith not just being act3 jaded; m terri death/confusion with ‘religious’ concepts)
C1 -> Hunter
V2 -> M Leading (she prayed to the man with the twin in the mask; not a timeskip – pointing to C & D)
C2 -> M Leading/both?
‘I want to give it up’ -> reconciliation; night together
C3 -> H questions if he is Inherently This; spiritual implications follow
He hopes there’s not a heaven above

might just be super overthinking lol

>I lost my faith when I was young / I clenched my fist to bite my tongue
How young is young here, Hunter? We know he struggled with and seemed to lose all faith in God in Mustard Gas — but that implies he had a faith to lose before that point. How much time has really passed since then? Three, four, five years? I actually take this as an indicator of the opposite (one of those ‘I will only take from you’ lines) — he’s thinking about how faithless he is because he’s been attending church more now and it’s been making him (like it or not) veer more Christian.

‘Clenched my fist to bite my tongue’ -> Hunter’s discontent with the church, as shown in Bitter Suite IV. He wants to speak up and say something to dispel the notions of figures like the Priest that give them such control over the Congregation, especially because Hunter himself doesn’t see their word as legitimate, but just simmers quietly. Probably the behaviour of figures like the Priest contributes massively to his lack of faith, as well.

>I leave a wake from all the things that I had done / Cause there wouldn’t be a thing when I moved on
Hunter has never before considered that his sinful or impulsive actions could have lasting consequences. This applies both to how it effects other people (like Ms Leading) and as an implication on his own fate — obviously, he knows he has messed things up before and that his personality has repeatedly gotten him into trouble, but only now is the idea really settling into his head that he can’t just erase his sins into a blank slate and disassociate from them with no foul.

Like, if hypothetically there were a God, and Hunter’s soul was destined to be judged, the judgement likely wouldn’t be positive. He’s done a lot of bad things that he’s never cleaned up because he never had to be the one to deal with the consequences, and upon reflection he doesn’t feel great about that.

I’ll also note that this song has really heavy normal-Hunter intonations. Maybe I just equate normal-Hunter as edgy-Hunter but he sounds pretty genuine/not trying to be all Son-Persona pious here.

‘”Keep this secret safe, or watch your flock devoured by the flame / Left in my wake; I’ll burn through you.”’ Very different context but the atmosphere idea is the same; the wake Hunter leaves behind has been destructive.

>Then I said wait / Are our bodies really piles of dirt? / And is the soul just a metaphor?
So on the face of it this is us hearing Hunter’s view towards religion shift; he might not adhere 1:1 to Christian doctrine, but he is starting to consider whether there are higher forces in the universe that do have implications for him on a spiritual or non-temporal level. Is there an afterlife he should be concerned about? Is there some figure keeping a tally on this stuff? But at the same time he’s considering what his true nature (his ‘soul’, which he can’t escape from) really is.

Since this song is a duet between Hunter and Ms Leading, she’s probably also having these thoughts and the same realisations that Hunter is.

>I keep my eyes from looking too far up / I fear that there is a heaven above
Hunter is conscious that his actions have been bad and if there were justice, he would be punished. Rather, maybe he already is being punished, in the sense of being locked out of heaven.

Amazing line too. I mean, of course you’d fear, if you’d committed yourself to the scummy tactics and cynical worldview that Hunter has only to stumble into the thought of, wait, maybe the world isn’t as bad as I think it is, it just looks that way because I’ve bumbled myself into the worst part of it by being an awful person/unrepentant sinner.

>I stood in lines to bow my head / I’d fold my hands and speak in tongues / To whisper worries to the dead
Suggesting Hunter’s uneasy but dedicated attendance in Church over a timeskip period. He’s been going along with the rituals and ceremonies, taking communion, sharing in hymns and prayers, and so on without really believing in anything.

‘Fold my hands’ -> Evokes the image of praying, while also describing how Hunter is restraining his behaviour. IE, he doesn’t believe, but he went along with the gesture.

>But I could tell no apparition heard a single word I said
Hunter does not feel a connection to God achieved through these rituals or by his church attendance.

>But I’d still call my fear in to the air
All the same, he can’t help but want to feel that connection to God, and divine reassurance that things will turn out well, to know that someone or something absolute has heard him. Kind of similar sentiments to Ms Leading in The Church and The Dime, though that was a long time ago. (This verse might be Ms Leading?)

>Then I said wait / Is my body really part of the earth / And is there blood running through my veins?
Love these lines. ‘Am I connected to more things than just the ‘me’ I am in a given moment? Is my true nature more physical or spiritual? What is out there? Is God real? What am I intrinsically?’. The genuine sentiment with which Hunter wants to feel God and reassurances/love from God forces him to consider these things. Note, since Hunter doesn’t seem to have a 1:1 attachment to Christian doctrine, the conception of the ‘God’ he is reaching out for may be a slightly different figure than the conventional ideas of Christian God.

>I’ll know when I turn to dust / But I fear the answer isn’t enough
He’ll figure out the nature of God, if God is even real or not, and if spiritual factors in life are a genuine thing once he’s dead, but just rationally ‘knowing’ that God does or doesn’t exist isn’t enough to stop Hunter from wondering. Rather, even if he does come to understand the nature of God, it probably won’t satisfy Hunter. ‘Beg for a reason he could allow this’, and all — whatever method underlays this all is totally inscrutable to him.

I think this line is hinting at Hunter feeling that there is something, though he can’t say that it’s God as he understands it necessarily.

>So, will I never know heaven or hell? / Or is eternity something worse?
Another one of those opposite-lines; Hunter considering the possibilities of where his soul could wind up postmortem if God is real (considering he’s not and hasn’t been a good believer — no connection to God to let him know heaven or hell, on top of the general inscrutability of the method), or the void of nothingness (among other possible horrifying alternatives) if it turns out there is no higher power. Also a general statement on Hunter’s situation — is he in exaltation as Hunter or as the Son, or is there no such thing and he’ll just be spinning his wheels forever?

It is kind of hard to pin Hunter morally right now — he’s done some terrible things and been aggressive, manipulative, selfish, immoral at times, but it’s also difficult to call him a bad person or evil in the way that, say, TP&P is.

>I keep my eyes from looking too far up / I fear that there is a heaven above
Recognising that he mistreated Ms Leading far worse than she mistreated him, and would not want to be judged for his continued behaviour towards her, Hunter forgives Ms Leading. Ms Leading simultaneously has the same realisation and forgives Hunter, so the two are finally able to regard each other on equal footing again. Naturally, with their misgivings towards each other gone, they want to associate again.

>I want to give it up / But I just need it too much
I would wager the ‘it’ he wants to give up but needs too much is love. So that makes this the pointer to him getting together with Ms Leading again — no matter how many times he tries, whether it’s in Waves, A Night On The Town, The Line, or wherever, he just is not able to dissociate from his feelings of love towards Ms Leading. It’s not even that he wants to engage in this love (it stands to destroy the life he’s built as the Son, and Hunter is perennially terrified of being controlled, mistreated, or doing dumb impulsive life-uprooting acts due to his neediness around love), but love is so foundational to him that it’s like his water (’Well has gone dry and I with it’ and all). He is not able to tear himself away from it.

What this tells us by extension is that he doesn’t love the Fiance, or rather his Wife. If he were able to satiate his need to feel and reciprocate love with her, he wouldn’t be falling into this relationship with Ms Leading again.

Love the desperation in this.

>Chorus Repetition
Mannnn — I feel there’s a lot going on here, but the lyrics are dealing with such complex ideas that I can’t really line them out smoothly. One of those ones where you just kinda have to let the vibe take you, with the story context of him getting back with Ms Leading despite his every effort to grow out of/psych himself out of it being the root. Like, is this just him? Is this just inherently him?

>A fear that there is a heaven above / I hope there’s not a heaven above
Amazing song. I get the image of Hunter returning to his home with the Wife after a visit to Ms Leading, then to the Church, and knowing that he’s done wrong. Like, if being true to Hunter was the move to take all along, or was the move he’s just always predestined to take because he’s too weak(?) to separate himself from his feelings and desire for love, he’s done wrong by building and committing himself to the Son persona, especially to the extent he has. If the Son persona is the right course to take though, then he’s doing the wrong damn thing again by folding to his heart (which has so far only gotten him into TROUBLE) and indulging in his desire to be with Ms Leading. Whatever is right, his irresolution and two-timing has made him definitely wrong.

Plus whichever way you slice it, he’s also just plain committing adultery. If that catches up to him, he knows he’s screwed — hence hoping there’s no heaven, or force that could judge him.

Hunter enters the Church.

The Line | Act IV | Ouroboros

The Line

The Line
Heartache buried down below
With your hands tied tight around it
Have a hard time letting go
Like it never even happened

It’s the end of the line for you and I
Don’t make believe we even tried
It’s the end of the line for you and I

Spring had gone and clipped your wings
And the summer led astray
Autumn left a bitter sting
But the winter froze away

It’s the end of the line for you and I
Don’t make believe we even tried
It’s the end of the line for you and I

Now we dream
Of bigger things
Now we sing
To set us free
(Now we dream)
Was lost in limbo long enough for two
(Of bigger things)
But my identity was wasted on you
(Now we sing)
Cast out the past like demons ritually removed
(To set us free)
Make way for the awakening, so long overdue

It’s the end of the line
It’s the end of the line
It’s the end of the line for you and I

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
Having become Mayor, and given a purpose, Hunter decides it time to fully discard his old identity and commit to being the Son. He releases the last of his attachments to his former life, supplanting his self with the Son persona.

What’s in a name?
‘The Line’ — makes you automatically think of ‘you went far too close to the line this time’ from Bitter Suite V, but not sure of what the significance of that here would be. I think it’s more just saying the line as it appears in this song, so, ‘Goodbye Old Hunter’.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>Heartache buried down below / With your hands tied tight around it / Have a hard time letting go / Like it never even happened
So, this is a Hunter introspection song, kinda like Remembered, where there aren’t many events or actions going on (that I can figure) so much as Hunter getting himself in the mindset to part with foundational aspects of his being. Lots of reminiscing and treading over ideas Hunter has already voiced in regards to his identity, with this being the culmination of those thoughts as he finally commits to not being Hunter anymore.

The first and most important Hunter Sentiment he zeroes in on is his love for Ms Leading. Most of his actions since Red Hands have been a consequence of him running from the pain of losing his relationship with Ms Leading, that being both in the sense of them actually breaking up and in the sense of… you know, how they were so so close to getting what the happy life they both wanted, but Hunter is just so overwhelmingly bad at confronting pain that he hasn’t been able to even try and reconcile, it just scares him too much. And though he’s tried to escape this pain by taking the identity of the Son, he’s still been swayed back into feeling at the sight of her (A Night On The Town), which has led him to question whether the Son persona itself is just another weak and stupid patented Hunter Coping Mechanism borne out of pain (Is There Anybody Here?). He feels the aftermath of her has still been influencing his behaviour in his ‘new’ life, compromising it or tempting him away from it, and is admitting that he still hasn’t really got over her.

Also, more than just the pain, is the aspect of him still loving Ms Leading. His heart still wants to hook up with Ms Leading and it’s frustrating him (complicating this new life) that he can’t just move on from her already.

>It’s the end of the line for you and I
This is Hunter as ‘Son-Hunter’ talking to ‘Hunter-Hunter’. He resolves to discard his love for Ms Leading, alongside all the annoying aspects of the old Hunter that still linger and jeopardise everything Son-Hunter has built. All the pain and suffering that Hunter-Hunter has endured, and his desires in life, are irrelevant to Son-Hunter. The position he has now as Mayor and the purpose he has in cleansing and protecting the City, plus the relationship he has with the Fiance and the Mother and whoever else, has given Son-Hunter a strong enough foundation/identity that the prospect of bothering to maintain attachment to Hunter-Hunter life appears detrimental and worthless.

That is, he has finally become that ‘better person’ he wanted to be in The Old Haunt, so he doesn’t need or want to be Hunter anymore in any capacity. He is resolved to be the Son for the rest of his life and leave his dumb, immature, volatile, dependant old self behind.

>Don’t make believe we even tried
Son-Hunter accuses Hunter-Hunter of having never done anything with his life.

>Spring had gone and clipped your wings / And the summer led astray / Autumn left a bitter sting / But the winter froze away
Similar to how Remembered is largely Hunter reminiscing on past events as a lead-up to relinquishing his attachment to Ms Terri, spending time with her memory before letting her go, this is Hunter doing the same thing but with himself (he did it at the end of The Old Haunt, too, though he hadn’t built anything as the Son yet that would let him properly supplant Hunter. Less like he was reflecting on what his life specifically was either so much as zeroing in on the ways things had gone wrong that he could avoid and needed to avoid if he stopped being himself; he’s more neutral here).

‘Spring had gone and clipped your wings’ -> In reference to Act I, ‘clipped your wings’ being how he was sheltered by Ms Terri and could not get the self-agency he wanted in 1878 or HHMHT.
‘Summer led astray’ -> Referencing Act II, his relationship with Ms Leading. Son-Hunter’s conclusion on her seems to the relationship was an error distracting him from what he could’ve done.
‘Autumn left a bitter sting’ -> Just following pattern would make this Act III, though the phrasing of ‘bitter’ twigs me to think of the actual breakup between Hunter and Ms Leading.
‘Winter froze away’ -> Again, pattern makes this Act IV, though you could read it as him becoming cold and cynical during the war as well…

>Now we dream / Of bigger things
Hunter grows happier as he looks to the hopeful future he’ll have as the Mayor. This time he didn’t just bumble into things or cross his fingers to have fate hand him prosperity on a platter — he actively worked towards a goal, and towards securing a good position, that allows him to do positive and meaningful things as a positive and meaningful person.

‘We fall beneath the sea of dreams’ — Hunter is caught up in the fantasy of all the good he’ll be able to bring and people he’ll be able to save, aside from the benefits of living a personal life that isn’t just founded on trauma for once. Wonder if he’s even thinking of one day going for President after getting the City all spic and span lol.

>Now we sing / To set us free
Hunter wants to get to the business he can do as Mayor already. He’s satiated with what he’s become as the Son and eager to leave behind Hunter, so he can finally start living a good life with that agency he always wanted and under the ideals he desired.

>Was lost in limbo long enough for two
Hunter has spent enough time being purposeless and aimless — he is blitzed to finally have a purpose and know what he wants to do/where to go with his life.

>But my identity was wasted on you
Pretty spiteful (and really nice) line. Hunter saying that all the time he spent up to the point of becoming the Son, and solidifying this purpose, was pointless and a waste of life. Nothing Hunter did was something he could ever be proud of, or that garnered results he should be proud of — casting that idiot aside was the critical step he needed to become the person he actually wanted to be, and is finding himself able to be, as the Son.

>Cast out the past like demons ritually removed
Self-explanatory, just really like it and like how Hunter has come to regard his past as such a malevolent force that needs to be exorcised.

>Make way for the awakening, so long overdue
Hearkening to The Old Haunt again (’but now we wake up’). It’s taken Hunter a long time to get to this point, but finally he’s able to move past his pain and be the self-assured person he wants to be.

…or is he?

If All Goes Well | Act IV | Wait

If All Goes Well

If All Goes Well
Was it logical lusting after fame
When ambition had never ended well for us?
(Now everything that you lost is surely coming to you)
Every catastrophe has shaped me into something new
(Just don’t get carried away making those same mistakes)
I know my limit but I’ll push it
(Yeah) I’ll push it good

I’ll give’ em a hold and a break to breathe
(Never forget who picks you up when you fall)
And if they can’t play nice I won’t play with ’em at all
I’ll give them a kick when I learn to lead
(You’re getting over your head once again)
And if they don’t get out, then I’ll just bury them all

I swear my motive can still remain sincere
And I can remedy all who’ve wronged before me
(Now everyone that you lost would come back crying to you)
Abandoned memories of family trees I’ve buried too deep
(Just don’t get carried away making those same mistakes)
I know my limit but I’ll push it
(Yeah) I’ll push it good

I’ll give ’em a hold and a break to breathe
(Never forget who picks you up when you fall)
And if they can’t play nice I won’t play with ’em at all
I’ll give them a kick when I learn to lead
(You’re getting over your head once again)
And if they don’t get out, then I’ll just pity them all

Will you carry us to Eden; someone to believe in
Breaking down the walls which kept us locked away
Lead us into brilliance, born by your resilience
Love us all in spite of what we’ll do to you

(I knew that I did this for a reason)
(I knew that I did this for a reason)

Will you carry us to Eden; someone to believe in
Breaking down the walls which kept us locked away
Will you lead us into brilliance, born by your resilience
Love us all in spite of what we’ll do to you

🌲🌲🌲

What happens?
With victory in his grasp, Hunter considers how he will reform the City as Mayor. Though his reason tells him he may be making a mistake, he ultimately feels he has made the right choice by pursuing this seat, proud to be able to protect the innocent. Hunter becomes the Mayor of the City.

What’s in a name?
‘If All Goes Well’ — not entirely sure of the specific significance of the phrase, but basically Hunter’s sentiment towards this whole Mayor business. If all goes well, this is the solution to everything.

Whose viewpoint?
Hunter.

🌲🌲🌲

>0:00 – 0:16 Instrumental
Just really like this. Moved by that hint of caution at the end of King of Swords, Hunter has a moment to consider how he’s approached this mayoral campaign.

>Was it logical lusting after fame / When ambition had never ended well for us?
So I’m not sure on the timeline on when exactly Hunter becomes Mayor — if it’s at the end of King of Swords, or at the end of If All Goes Well. That being said, with how IAGW is Hunter talking about his plans for what he’ll do as Mayor, I do think there’s still a slight pause after KoS before he actually does get the seat. So as I see it right now he’s in an escrow position — he’s basically won, but there’s still potential for things to go south at the very last moment.

Anyway, with the polls rolling in, Hunter’s reason or conscience speaks up with some sensible misgivings. So far, Hunter’s track record when he’s tried to take big actions in his life (leaving the Lake, shacking up with Ms Leading, going to war, trying to learn Ms Terri’s secrets) has ended with him getting massively screwed. Is it possible that he’s letting himself fall into that kind of pattern again, unrestrained and drunk on the success and fame he’s garnered along this campaign?

Note that this is Hunter confessing that the thrill of the fame and of winning has become its own incentive at some point, or at least came to drive his momentum.

>(Now everything that you lost is surely coming to you)
Those concerns are quickly… not dismissed, but discounted. Hunter’s ambition has blinded him, making him see this campaign as the solution to everything in his life. From the position of Mayor, he’ll get everything he ever wanted and things will finally be purposeful and secure.

‘Everything you thought you had, you lost’, obvs.

>Every catastrophe has shaped me into something new
Love this line. Following the same idea as the previous lines; all the experiences Hunter’s had have shaped him into what could be called dramatically different people. You have Hunter the lover, Hunter the soldier, Hunter the thief, so on and so on. Now he’s going to be Hunter the Mayor, which stands to be a much more glamorous and ideally resilient identity than any of the ones he stupidly bumbled into being as Hunter.

Can also be a general comment on how much Hunter has changed over the years.

>(Just don’t get carried away making those same mistakes)
Hunter’s voice of reason advises him just to be careful, if this is what he’s going to do. He does have a habit of going overboard and impulsively doing things that undermine his position — the last thing he needs is for that to happen again when the position he’s been slavering over and working so hard for is firstly, so public and influential, and secondly, so good and finally in his control.

I like how the voices have flipped here — initially it was the ‘temptation’ voice in the background, now it’s the ‘reason’ voice in the background as Hunter’s ambition takes over.

>I know my limit but I’ll push it / (Yeah) I’ll push it good
Hunter recognises he does have those self-defeating habits and patterns but screw that, he’s here to WIN! He’s come this far, he’s gonna see this course to the end!

>I’ll give’ em a hold and a break to breathe
Hunter considering his strategy of reforming the City once he’s formally in power. Mostly, considering what he’s going to do with all the old, established figureheads who have had a part in the City’s continued corruption — he’s probably been fighting against some of these already in the mayoral election. He envisions that as he transitions into the office, he’ll give them a grace period where he isn’t yet bullying them as he himself is busy settling in.

Note how aggressive, strategic, and warlike Hunter’s approach to this all has become — thinking in advance how he’s going to pressure and undo these people. I imagine this is similar to the attitude he took, or is still taking in the final stretch, towards his opponents in the mayoral election, very calculated and manipulative in how he positions himself. Also suggests he regards himself as unambiguously more powerful than the competition, and very much in the position to pressure them as he would. Wonder if he got some tips on this kind of thing from the Priest (pulling people in and out of stress states, smothering them (’faster, save me, I can’t breathe’) is TP&P’s forte), if he’s dipping into shadier means, or if he’s just figured it out on his own as he’s naturally become more manipulative.

Lots of egomania. Quite power thirsty.

>(Never forget who picks you up when you fall)
Could see this as pointing to TP&P being there to right Hunter when he does mess up, or helping him with his schemes in pressuring the opposition. Like, hey, Hunter, you’re talking big game, but you’re not so omnipotent that you got here without a few scrapes.

Could also see it as being Hunter having a very devious approach to this ‘break to breathe’ — that he is calculatedly going to put pressure on people, lay off, and then make them indebted to them by showing them friendship or kindness now that they’re in a weaker position.

>And if they can’t play nice I won’t play with ’em at all
If established officials don’t go along with Hunter’s new regime, don’t indebt themselves to him when he ‘picks them up’, or don’t accede when Hunter is angling for them to take a particular move, then Hunter will abandon them, discard them, or run them into the dirt without a second thought. He won’t be tolerating anyone who shows a hint of corruption and will probably fire a lot of old blood.

>I’ll give them a kick when I learn to lead
Hunter will jostle these old competitors and get them playing by his tune once he is the Mayor. I figure he’s going up against some pretty established figures who have been influential in the City for years — given how corrupt the City is, these figures are also likely corrupt, hence Hunter’s total lack of remorse about bullying them into doing what he wants.

>(You’re getting over your head once again)
The voice of reason speaks up to tell Hunter that these ideas of dominating all these would-be politicians and influential figures is way too much. His ego has inflated massively over this whole affair.

>And if they don’t get out, then I’ll just bury them all
And if the competition don’t bend to his tune, he’ll run them out of town or destroy them, maybe to the point of actually literally murdering them. He doesn’t want anyone from these old regimes contesting him or holding any influence for them to misuse. Though this is a pretty megalomanical thing to be saying even as a metaphor, if he is being serious about killing these people then hey woah Hunter rein yourself in a bit.

Like I’d want to put it as being past him but also it’s not like he hasn’t killed people for questionable reasons before.

>I swear my motive can still remain sincere / And I can remedy all who’ve wronged before me
So, Hunter has sworn he’s going to win this seat of Mayor even if it means being aggressive and using absolute scum tactics, pressure, manipulation, perhaps even murder… Hunter, you sound kind of evil?

No no no, Hunter insists. He’s not going to turn into a tyrant, and he’s not going to lose sight of why he’s doing this. He seriously does want to get this evil and corruption out of the City, and even if his methods wind up being questionable, the ends justify them a hundred times over. The chain of corruption in the City stretches far back; still, Hunter’s sure he can fix it.

>(Now everyone that you lost would come back crying to you)
Not sure on this one (who has he lost who could come back? Ms Leading? She’s one person. Ms Terri? Maybe…), but basic vibe is like ‘all the people who didn’t believe in you are going to have egg on their face!’. I think Hunter’s aggression during his mayoral campaign did make him a few enemies, but he’s figuring that once he’s proved his sincerity and power in cleaning up the City, they’ll come running back to him, eager to be on his side again.

>Abandoned memories of family trees I’ve buried too deep
‘The roots that ripped had run too deep’. Probably pointing to how the root drive for him going on this warpath is veneration for people like Ms Terri?

>Chorus Repetition
This one sounds more like it’s focused on what Hunter plans to do to corrupt officials rather than any plans towards enemy mayoral candidates; calmer, he is sure of his win.

>2:12 – 2:25 Instrumental
Hunter has won the mayoral election. He steps up to the podium to look upon his constituents for the first time.

>Will you carry us to Eden; someone to believe in / Breaking down the walls which kept us locked away / Lead us into brilliance, born by your resilience
The crowd of civilians look up to Hunter, seeking guidance and hope. They are also feel stuck, lost, and hemmed in by the corruption of the City and truly believe in Hunter’s promises to remove malicious actors and generally make the City a safer, better place. They deify Hunter, seeing him as stronger and greater than them, placing their faith for absolution and escape from sin in him.

>Love us all in spite of what we’ll do to you
Foreshadowing that these civilians will eventually form a mob and riot against Hunter; verse overall is framing Hunter as a Christlike deliverer and martyr figure, which is what the crowd is seeking.

>(I knew that I did this for a reason)
‘I knew I kept this for a reason’. Upon seeing this crowd of innocent constituents seeking his guidance, Hunter feels venerated in his run for Mayor, despite his aggression and questionable behaviours in getting here. He finally feels like he has a good purpose to his life — these are the exact people he wants to save and protect from the corruption of the City and evil figures as TP&P, feeling indebted/protective/duty-bound to them.

Get the image of Hunter waving at the crowd, shaking their hands, walking through aisles and so on after his inauguration speech. Hunter’s own tenor/voice prominent in these lines; he’s aware of what the masses desire and fine with adhering to their pleas — he hears them and agrees that this is what he must do.

>4:09 – 4:37 Instrumental
Hunter is happy with how things have turned out and his new position as Mayor, whereby he can protect the City, but there is still one concern in his mind…

King Of Swords (Reversed) | Act IV | The Line