THAT DAY

It's January, rainy and cold. I'm starved for warmth and light. I want tropical paradise! So I go see James Cameron's Avatar: The Way of Water. Both of them. That is, it's two films, alternating scenes. Paradise, then brutality, as predictable as a layer cake. True of the first Avatar film and true of this. He does Eden just fine. But...

I'm tired of Cameron pushing violence at me--I grew up bashed, and it doesn't thrill--just gives me flashbacks. Worse, he pushes it as the only solution to political problems.

I'm also tired of Cameron's assumption that late capitalism will inevitably defeat democracy, wreck Earth, and reach the stars unrestrained by anyone sane.

Tired of Cameron's cowboy ethics. Our "hero" "protects" his family? He has years to warn the tribes of Pandora they need to unite and coordinate their resistance, and doesn't; and of course they fail to see it themselves, since Innocent Natives need a White Male to lead them.

Don't forget the deeper sexism. It's all about the boys. They fight. They bond. Fathers and sons. Old boys, younger boys... Oh, I'm supposed to be charmed by Tsekira the sexy sea-girl who teaches them breath control, and sympathize with angsty half-breed psychic Kiri and feel protective of her feisty little sister Tuk. And I do, obediently--I find all the Topless Native Babes sexy, as I'm supposed to. How could I not? They're cute, they're likable, and they're not idiots--like the guys.

But I still notice, as I'm manipulated, that their agency's shamefully limited by the script. Even their mom Zoe Saldana the great fighter can't seem to set policy. Mostly girls get tied up so boys can save them (as Tuk bitterly notes, the third or fourth time). Not always--Kiri's a partial exception, and I identify with her struggle to figure out her odd abilities.

But overall, for multiple reasons... I'm not having fun in paradise.

THAT NIGHT

I'm a woman in my twenties constantly being questioned against my will. And I'm obliged to answer any question posed to me, for I was declared an Oracle.

I resent my job, because to make my oracular gift work, I have to go bare-breasted, which isn't just humiliating but now, in winter, quite cold. I have to strip and shiver, because the way my oracular power works is...

I hear three ravens croak out the answer to a supplicant's question, and these oracular ravens--no bigger than hummingbirds--will only come perch on my nipples!

Well, one on each. And these two mini-ravens often split their votes. Then the third raven comes to settle it!

Brrr. And prickly too. Not exactly painful, but...

Weird that in all my years as an oracle, I never have spotted that third raven's perch, or felt its infinitesimal weight. Yet it's real; I hear that no-nonsense croak, deciding vital matters...

Above my head?

NOTES

• I'm a girl talking with small magical animals: in Avatar: the Way of Water, Kiri communes with luminous little sea critters; they help find her mom & sisters trapped underwater in a wreck. Seems I identified with her even more than I thought.
• Two ravens: Odin's two ravens in Norse myth--Thought and Memory! Why them? Maybe because one of the two stories in "The Way of Water" concerns oversized, overentitled, nihilistic warriors who happily massacre civilians... or, to name them more concisely, Vikings.
• So who's the third raven, the deciding vote? "Unseen" and "above my head" suggest a different tradition: the crown chakra, the highest, above thought not below it like all the other chakras. That seventh chakra symbolizes intuition, ESP and spiritual insight.

I laughed, and saved my notes guessing that third raven meant intuition/ESP.

Just to be clear: not a movie, not a dream, not a metaphor, not wishful thinking. A huuuuuge bird.

You know. Reality.

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