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Che Fece ... Il Gran Rifiuto
For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,
he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he’d still say no. Yet that no—the right no—
drags him down all his life.
C.P. Cavafy
trans. Edmund Keeley
from Selected Poems, 1975
from Selected Poems, 1975
So I'm not actually usually one for watching shows at all, but this year the two major series I've gotten into have been Nirvana in Fire and HBO's Chernobyl. On the surface, that should be a coincidence - what could a wuxia show in something like 500 AD have to do with Ukraine in 1986? - but there's a decent chance my thesis will end up being something on epistemic authority and the abuses thereof. And as such, I haven't been able to disassociate the two from each other.
The central question of Chernobyl is, obviously, the cost of lies. NiF is less explicit than Legasov's monologues, but my elevator pitch of the show has been: Once upon a time, the emperor of a nation endorsed a lie that killed 70k people, and one survivor is trying to prove their innocence.
"Once, a government tried to cover up how it could have lead to the awful death of a great number of it's people, who generally acted in good faith but were backed against a wall by misinformation. Now, we have a lead who will gather and present testimony that exposes the system, before choosing to die on their own terms instead of succumbing to their own illness from the original catastrophe. We will explore, but are not limited to, the inevitable instability of a nation that does not place their people's best interests paramount, the failure of censorship, and the spectre of state police."
For such outwardly dissimilar shows, that's a heck of a number of parallels.
Obviously, the two shows are wildly different in timbre, but, obligations of genre aside, even the differing mechanics of length and scope speak to similar issues. NiF takes 54 episodes because Mei Changsu isn't just taking the short route of regicide to leave Jingyan as the only remaining option, he's taking the effort to reform the nation from the corruption that enabled and benefited from the instability of the last generation of leadership. He has a list of specific targets, but a whole system to address. 54 episodes gives him time to do that.
Chernobyl jumps straight to a show trial, because scapegoats are easiest and Bryukhanov, Fomin, and Dyatlov are guilt magnets. Still, though, Legasov shrugs and points out - Dyatlov acted in faith of the tools he believed he had, but it wasn't his fault that the machine of the state had decided to cut corners, instead. But five hours isn't enough time to address an entire government the way Mei Changsu did, and so Chernobyl ends before we see the return on what the show has cost our lead.
Still, allowing NiF the space of 54 episodes to get there, the two do follow the same general structure. Craig Mazin calls his show a murder mystery (podcast 5, 11:12), and both shows aren't as much a 'whodunnit' as 'how-and-whydunnit'. The catastrophe itself can only be addressed if the prior circumstances are brought to light as well, and only then can the people who were directly involved take the appropriate amount of blame. 'How did we get to the point where this was possible, and why did it end up happening" is a much bigger question than the element of "Who had their hand on the blade/button/pen that signed everything into action". If the problems at hand really were so simple as to be possibly addressed by the immediate removal of a handful of administrators, the story would be so straightforward as not to be interesting in the first place. But if you want to try to make it impossible for the circumstances that allowed for those administrators to cause harm to return in the first place, you've got a great deal more work cut out for yourself.
That's the project we follow our leads through. We have faith that our stories' arcs will lead us to our heroes preservering, but the path to making narratives align with reality is harrowing. If we want the rewards of justice, we must commit to the harrowing ordeal of making the truth known. Chernobyl's climax takes place over a courtroom, where a high-ranking official interrupts proceedings to allow crucial testimony to be heard; in NiF, the ministers rise in opposition to their emperor, petitioning for a case to be re-opened in order to account for corrected evidence.
This is the Great No that I mean with Cavafy's poem. The rejection of what is easy and false, regardless of the danger it places the speaker in. The courage to be the one who drags wrongdoings into the light, no matter what or who is to blame; even if they were committed by a member of your family, or you were once complicit yourself. There is a cost, yes, imposed even before knowing what the outcome will be. For the rest of their life, the speaker will carry that action, just as they would have had to bear the sin of their inaction.
There is always the temptation to be passive. Lin Shu already died in the mountains, and Mei Changsu is his spectre; as Legasov said, is that not enough? But no, Khomyuk answers, it is not. In the name of a world where no one should have to suffer in that way again, it is not.
At the end of the day, Legasov and Mei Changsu both die before they see the full impact of their efforts. They have given themselves to the project of a better world, but such change has not been achieved yet. Instead, they must trust in the friends they met along that journey to continue the work, and the basic decency of strangers not to make the mistakes of the past.
I will not say that both shows are hopeful, because Chernobyl is so baldly distressing that I can't say it with a straight face. But, I will say that they both do turn on a faith in, if not a collective entity such as humanity, people themselves. That, when a tragedy occurs, there will be people who turn and face it. That people are good and brave enough to shoulder personal consequences, so that others will be granted a better chance. That, on balance, people don't want to cause harm to others, and will ultimately correct loopholes and shortcomings that allow harm to occur. People may not be particularly dignified or excited when it comes to certain steps, but they will carry on. And, despite everything, it will be worth something. For all that the stories approach from such different backgrounds, what a good aesop to agree on.
Obviously, the two sharing themes doesn’t mean anything more than that the abuse of epistemic authority is a popular topic for discussion, and the fact that I enjoy them both doesn’t mean everyone would; the target audiences are entirely different. But if people did like the themes in one, and have an open mind, I hope they might like or be interested in the other as well.
I've been convincing myself of this for a while now, so I hope it still makes sense. Also, I've had that time to accumulate bits of media that seem to apply to both of them, like Cavafy's poem, so:
(Not according to musical or cultural context:)
- It's Only, by Odesza.
- Originally, I heard this as Lin Chen forcing himself to accept Mei Changsu's mortality, but "I heard the news today that you weren't mine to save / I hope that you're comfortable in the quiet plastic grave" is also very Open Wide O Earth
- Two Slow Dancers, by Mitski
- For NiF, Jingyan and his xiao Shu; if only they could stay together, if only life and time weren't tearing them apart; "It would be a hundred times easier, if we were young again"
- For Chernobyl, Alex Mycravatundone on tumblr pointed out "And the ground has been slowly pulling us back down / You see it on both our skin / We get a few years and then it wants us back" for the aftermath
- Hymn to Breaking Strain, by Kipling, and as sung by Leslie Fish and Julia Ecklar
- This one tends towards Chernobyl, but can potentially be NiF as well, particularly when Mei Changsu has to face his own internalised abelism.
- We only of Creation / (Oh, luckier the bridge and rail) / Abide the twin damnation / To fail and know we fail. / Yet we - by which sole token / We know we once were Gods / Take shame in being broken / However great the odds / (The burden of the odds.)
- Hope On Fire, by Vienna Teng
- In return, more NiF, but with enough grit for Chernobyl as well
- you're a one-man shift in the weather (MCS, Legasov), you're the woman who just won't sell (Nihuang, Khomyuk), climbing up and ringing the bell (Jingyan, Shcherbina)
- In Blackwater Woods, by Mary Oliver
- Yes, this is the one that ends with the three things one must be able to do with what is mortal, but before loss, we can appreciate the world as it was once.
- The Envoy of Mr. Cogito, by Zbigniew Herbert
- you were saved not in order to live / you have little time you must give testimony
- ohhhhhhhhhh
- I have more collected Edna St.Vincent Millay than other poets, so correspondingly more of her; allow me the pastoralism:
- Spring
- Jingyan spent 12 years growing bitter, but in light of Chernobyl,"To what purpose, April, do you return again? Beauty is not enough" takes on another whole attitude
- Passer Mortuus Est
- The last stanza says 'love', but I think it could apply to shared endeavor at large. Even though we do perish, can't we still have been worth something at all?
- The Plum-Gatherer
- The plum-trees are barren now and the black knot is upon them / that stood so white in spring. / I would give to recall the sweetness and the frost of the lost blue plums, / anything, anything.
- Spring
(Also, this is obvious in the case of NiF, but the Chernobyl and names I drop here are re the story, not history. I'm looking at Mazin's work of fiction, not applying this lens to the real events.)
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And bless you for your continuing poetry recommendations, as well.
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if you would hypothetically like a link, someone could possibly enable that ;)