I’ve always said that the world is a different place for the heartbroken. It moves on a different axis, at a different speed. Time skips backwards and forwards fleetingly. The heartbroken might go through thousands of micro-emotions a day trying to figure out how to get through it without picking up the phone to hear that old familiar voice. In the land of heartbreak, moments of strength, independence, and devil-may-care rebellion are intricately woven together with grief, paralyzing vulnerability and hopelessness. Imagining your future might always take you on a detour back to the past. And this is all to say, that the next album I’ll be releasing is my version of Red.
Musically and lyrically, Red resembled a heartbroken person. It was all over the place, a fractured mosaic of feelings that somehow all fit together in the end. Happy, free, confused, lonely, devastated, euphoric, wild, and tortured by memories past. Like trying on pieces of a new life, I went into the studio and experimented with different sounds and collaborators. And I’m not sure if it was pouring my thoughts into this album, hearing thousands of your voices sing the lyrics back to me in passionate solidarity, or if it was simply time, but something was healed along the way.
Sometimes you need to talk it over (over and over and over) for it to ever really be… over. Like your friend who calls you in the middle of the night going on and on about their ex, I just couldn’t stop writing. This will be the first time you hear all 30 songs that were meant to go on Red. And hey, one of them is even ten minutes long.
I was curious why they decided to have Fedyor track down Nina and attempt to bring Matthias to the general. It could have just been a group of randos. I wonder if this is foreshadowing for Ivan being on the opposite side of the Civil War and Fedyor being torn between two sides, ultimately unable to harm Ivan and wanting to protect him/defect with him.
He clearly feels betrayed. This girl he probably spent a lot of time with, grew to like a lot, taught maybe, put expectations on, this girl is betraying his beloved Ravka. The Little Palace. Grisha. For someone who would have those like Fedyor and his lover burned alive.
He has spent years in the army, serving to the best of his abilities. He’s learnt how to be harsh, perhaps cruel even. He had to, it’s a war. He’s killed countless Fjerdans, must have saved countless Grisha. He’s proud of what he is and what he stands for.
What a slap in the face this must have been. The acting is excellent here. You can see and hear how much Nina let him down. He doesn’t want to hurt her, he cares about her, but betraying Ravka, your duty for someone who fights on the opposite side of the war? Someone who must be guilty of committing and supporting terrible things? Unimaginable.
But what if your hearts starts pounding for the enemy, Fedyor? What if you have to persuade people that your lover is not a monster, that he can see reason? What are you going to do then?
How important is one man to you?
Also this:
The delivery here is curious. It’s not arrogant or smug. Just like with Fedyor, this is betrayal. He’s affronted. It’s clearly personal to him that someone would wish to abandon Alexander, and I think it’s because we are meant to realise that these lines are ultimately about Ivan. Alexander gave him everything when he’d lost everyone. Protection, a purpose. He was favoured. Recognised. He even got an amplifier. Then this new girl shows up, and suddenly everything starts revolving around her. She barely spent time in the Little Palace, yet she’s favoured more than all of them. He even gave her an amplifier. Despite her barely accomplishing anything. And now she just… abandones him? Betrays him? Unthinkable to Ivan. His beloved general who loves and protects all the Grisha is backstabbed by someone who should have been grateful and loyal to the core? A grave offense.
He’s so blinded by his gratitude and loyalty, so dependant on his own false perception of Alexander that he refuses to face what’s happening. It’s all about this one man. What he symbolises and promises. And he promises a lot. For someone like Ivan who’s consumed by his anger and bitterness, whose pride is hurting because the world rejects those like him, who is constantly afraid that his beloved will die to those who hate Grisha, it’s too tempting. There is a reason that a clever manipulator like Alexander chose Ivan as his second-in-command. He knew which buttons to push.
Ivan remembers his place. Ivan wouldn’t dare. Unless he would. For the right reason.
Is one man that important to you?
It’s interesting that in the same episode both of these characters had a very personal conflict with someone they resented/grew to resent because of something they did that was so unthinkably offensive to Fedyor and Ivan that we got to see them at their worst. If they both are alive in the next season, their beliefs and die-hard loyalty to Ravka/Alexander will get challenged hard. Perhaps they will grow to understand Nina and Alina.
“Is one man that important to you?” might be a question they both will have to ask themselves. And they might be surprised at the answer.
