So this season of True Blood…what a tricksy bitch you’ve been. I know many are rending their garments and ululating their despair over recent events, the whole season, fuckin’ Sookie, and looking forward to watching the season finale about as much as watching a basket of kittens get euthanized.
Normally, I would be with them. But I find myself strangely hopeful, and here’s why:
You remember Minerva the Dead Parrot, way back in episode one. Notice those symbols around the ex-parrot? Those are the sigils used to call the demon Frucissiere, a demon who can raise the dead, or appear to raise the dead (and wouldn’t you know it, that’s just what Minerva did).
This is taken from the Grimoirium Verum, The Most Approved Keys of Solomon (as in King Solomon) an ancient book of magic with a focus on demons. Solomon was said to control demons with the aid of a magic ring. Speaking of rings, isn’t there some smarmy douchecanoe that got himself a shiny new pinky ring this year?
I think Marnie has been possessed by a demon, and both of them have been using Antonia’s necromancy skills (Frucissiere was able to revive the dead, not control them). When arguing with Antonia in her office, Marnie says “Don’t abandon us.” and has two separate sets of mannerisms and accents (you can see the change from the line “They are not innocent!”). Fiona Shaw has three different voices that she uses: Marnie, southern and a little derpy, Antonia, who’s all “My name is Inigo Montoya”, and a third one, unaccented and brittle. Watch her when she goes outside to negotiate the Suicide Pact, she’s speaking in her third voice, there’s none of Marnie’s southern drawl or Antonia’s Latin flair. We saw two Antonias, a clean Antonia who had a problem with killing innocents, and a dirty Antonia with the black lines on her face and chest, that we saw possess Marnie in Bill’s Not A Torture Dungeon. Lala isn’t possessed by the spirit of Marnie at the end of ‘Soul of Fire’, he’s possessed by the demon (in an interview with Nathan Ellis, he said that Alan Ball told him specifically not to act like Marnie when he was ‘possessed’ by her).
God has nothing to do with it, indeed.
Frucissiere was from a squad of 18 demons belonging to the demon Duke Syrach. Now, Frucissiere’s demons-in-arms each have a rather specific power, which correlate with quite a lot of the bullshit and Beelshit we’ve seen this season on True Blood, stuff that a lot of people have written off to the writers being stupid/hacks/on drugs/replaced by lemurs/replaced by lemurs on drugs.
Duke Syrach’s Super Awesome Demon Squad GO!
CLAUNECK: has power over riches, can cause treasures to be found. He can give great riches to he who makes a pact with him. *Bill has enough money to pimp out his mansion, open up a senior center, reimburse the county for Sookie’s rescue squad, pay for all those guards, be one of the state’s most influential benefactors, and get a shiny new pinky ring, all when LA’s vampire government was broke. He may have been wealthy all along, but we don’t know for certain.*
MUSISIN: has power over great lords, teaches all that happens in the Republics, and the affairs of the Allies. Politics, basically. His sigils are very similar to those of Beelzebub (demons often have aliases), who lives in Africa. *And which newly appointed political leader has a bunch of African shit all over his bachelor pad? That poor zebra.*
FRIMOST: has power over the minds and bodies of women and girls, and will help you to obtain their use. *The treatment of its female characters been a major complaint about this season; Sophie-Anne just stands still and allows Bill to execute her, Pam has become a useless hysterical female more concerned about her face than her maker, Sookie has forgotten that Bill had the shit beat out of her in order to force her to be his, Jess is turning into Bill, Tara has let go of all her justified rage towards Bill…wait, Tara, let go of rage? Please. She’s obviously being controlled by a demon.*
KLEPOTH: makes you see all sorts of dreams and visions. *Gosh, this never happens on TB, does it? Bill never just barged in on Sookie’s threesome dream like a big unwelcome thing, parking his piano in her living room (right where her Eric-bought TV was), and then Sookie starts spouting off about love love looooove and feminism and swimming with dolphins even though she’s scared of water or whatever. And Eric’s dream about Evil!Godric and his face-touching and his damnation.*
HUMOTS: can bring you any book you desire. *Rather like when that book that just so happened to have the spell the Scoobies were looking for oh so conveniently jumped off the shelf at Moon Goddess Emporium, which was inexcusably cheesy and moronic otherwise. Tara is also reading a book on demons when this happens.*
MERSILDE: has the power to transport anyone in an instant, anywhere, or use astral projection/remote viewing *The scrying in the blood puddle, and possibly how Jesus/Lala made a 20-hour trip from Mexico in an afternoon.*
HICPACTH: will bring you a person, or visions thereof, in an instant, even if they are far away. *Teleportation.*
CLISTHERT: controls whether it is day or night, and can bring about either according to your wish. *I suppose a shield made from the sun’s power falls under his jurisdiction.*
MORAIL: can make anything, including people, invisible. *Like say, some members of your witchy coven.*
BECHARD: has power over winds and tempests, over lightning, hail and rain. *All that magical wind, and the Fog of Convenience during the graveyard fight.*
FRUCISSIERE: revives the dead, or appears to. *This applies to Minerva, and possibly when Sookie heard her Gran at the Moon Goddess Emporium.*
GULAND: causes all illnesses. *Is Magical Leprosy considered an illness?*
FRUTIMIERE: prepares all kinds of feasts for you. *Maryanne was a rather bitchin’ party planner, wasn’t she?*
And these guys haven’t made an appearance yet. Must be on their lunch.
SURGAT: opens every kind of lock, and not necessarily a literal lock.
SIRCHADE: makes you see all sorts of natural and supernatural creatures.
KHIL: makes great earthquakes.
SEGAL: will cause all sorts of prodigies to appear. Prodigies not only refers to gifted people, but also omens and events wondrous and monstrous.
HUICTIIGARAS: causes sleep in the case of some, and insomnia in others.
Since these guys are all part of the same squad, were first written about in a rather famous book of magic, and are usually written about together, it’s probable that the writers and Alan Ball, having done their research enough to find Frucissiere’s phone number, most likely read about his fellow demons-in-arms. And with their powers on display in certain incidents this season, it appears as though they incorporated them within the story. And that just makes everything so much better, because hell if it don’t implicate one Mister Compton in consorting with the devil.
Yes, it must be true that HBO’s most beloved King since Joffrey, his Royal Mendaciousness Bill Compton has been in on it from the beginning (and possibly has been working with demons even way back when he was just loitering around Merlotte’s fussing with his man-bangs). Because otherwise, his actions over the past week (in TB time, this season has only been 9 days so far) make absolutely no sense. If he was just a vampire leader besieged by necromancers, WHY would he continue to throw dead people at them? That’s like trying to suffocate a fish by sticking it in water, and even Bill is not that stupid. But, if he was in league with Marnie/Frucissiere, conspiring with them to kill Eric and the rest of Sophie-Anne’s sheriffs (but mostly Eric), his repeated dragging of Eric in front of them begins to make sense. Sure, it’s a clumsy plan, but this is Bill Compton we’re talking about, he’s not exactly Sun Tzu.
I believe the assassination attempt at the Tolerance Thing was Bill’s ultimate goal (key word here being attempt). But things went awry from the beginning. I don’t think step one of his plan was to give Eric amnesia and let him wander off to get picked up by Sookie. Marnie even said that it was a basic protection spell (which those viewers who spoke Latin clued us in on ages ago) that she used shouldn’t have done what it did. I think whatever it was that possessed Marnie was supposed to bewitch Eric (like she would later do at the graveyard), but it wasn’t strong enough yet and half-assed the job. Sookie threw a wrench in his plans when she picked Eric up off the road. The assassination attempt at the Tolerance Thing was set to happen all along, but Bill was supposed to kill Eric and get rid of the rest of Sophie-Anne’s sheriffs at the same time, gain public sympathy, and totally look the hero and come out smelling like roses. Sookie, again, threw a wrench in his plans (she does that a lot). Fuckin’ Sookie, completely oblivious to the fact that she is the happy little iceberg to Bill’s Titanic. Stay gold, Pony Girl.
About Sookie…I’m pretty sure that Sookie has been a victim of Bill since season 1. Not only in the ways we’ve already seen (the blood-filling, the violence, the manipulation, the threats, the lies), or the ways suggested (addling her brain with his rabies, control through fear), but also with demons. Mirrors are a common way to summon or communicate with demons, and Sookie has made most of her Awesomely Bad Life Choices Favoring Bill while in front of a mirror:
I also think that there is going to be either a full on Gran reveal, or the implication of one, where it turns out Bill was the one to murder Gran and implant the false memories of it in Rene. I believe he used her death as a blood sacrifice to the demon Frimost in order to gain control over Sookie (which has been difficult to keep, with her latent fairy magic). His dominion over Sookie really didn’t get into full gear until after her death, when she was vulnerable and lost, much easier prey.
In True Blood magic, both intent and blood are important factors (at least according to the witches). Martonia/Fruscissiere got more powerful the more blood that was spilled. Neither her (nor Bill) would have to voice their desires if they let their intentions known. Their words are very carefully chosen to talk around the conversation. The most blatant example is when Bill tells the lady sheriff outside MGE to shut up, and Martonia spells her to attack Bill, allowing him to kill her with reason. Keeping up appearances is very important to King Bill, its why he had Katie infiltrate a group he was controlling/aiding. So she could inform him of their necromancy shenanigans, thus allowing him to send Eric to his doom without making it look intentional.
Outside the Moon Goddess Emporium in ‘Soul of Fire’, during the Suicide Pact, Bill says he will shoot Eric and Pam will shoot him. I don’t doubt that he intended to shoot Eric, but he had nothing to fear from Pam. She was still in thrall to either Martonia or Bill. You can tell because of the big black vein that appears on the side of her face after Bill kills the black sheriff (another blood sacrifice). Black blood indicates a possessed vamp, since they all bleed black when in thrall (Luis went all black-veiny in Bill’s office, when Eric and the two other sheriffs are shot they bleed black, and Blackburn vomits up black blood at first when Nan stakes him). I’m pretty sure Eric is onto what is happening by now, because you just don’t go from this:
to being a Dutiful Henchman in less than a week (I don’t care how magical Sookie’s gash is). He’s faster than a bullet, so even if those are wooden bullets in the guns he has little to fear. He’s been playing Bill since he got his memory back.
His odd reaction to being reunited with Pam makes more sense if you think he can tell something is wrong with her (it’s a better explanation than Eric Is An Asshole Who Only Cares About Sookie). Notice how as soon as Pam was spelled with the Magical Leprosy, she was totally OOC (almost a pantomime of herself) and suddenly no longer suspected Bill in setting up Eric. And repeated one of her earlier lines almost verbatim, but this time it was her face you don’t fuck with, not her maker (do any of us really believe Pam cares more about her face than Eric)? She maintained her character while being tortured by the Magister, but gets a little over-exfoliated and she loses her shit? No. Not Pam.
But these demons, man, they’re wily things, and everything began to skid out of control. You can see when Bill starts to lose it outside the MGE when he thinks Martonia is actually trying to kill him/not follow his orders. At some point the two of them really began to try to kill each other. And now that its is out and about again, Demon-Lala will be out to make sure Bill gets all his bad juju back.
I also don’t fully trust Jesus “My Gene Pool Is A Lake Of Fire” Velasquez. I like him, I just don’t trust him. He’s too helpful, and you never trust the helpful stranger in fairy tales, they only ever have poison apples or bags of wolves to offer (this is also why I don’t trust Holly). He was standing right behind Marnie when both Eric and Pam were spelled. We only know Lala is a medium because he says so (and I don’t fully trust his motivation). The only other ghosts Lala saw were Tio Luca (from the demonish Velasquez family), Mavis (who, lest we forget, set fire to a house with children and an armadillo inside, which is kind of not cool, and who’s storyline was so cheesy and overwrought and ridiculous that it makes me suspect its fake) and Antonia (whom he described as ‘dirty’, though ghost Antonia has always been clean, it was only that thing in Bill’s cell that was dirty). Being a medium doesn’t really mesh with what we saw of Lala’s powers last year, when he had those ‘visions’ (Rene choking Arlene/Sam with blood on his hands/Jesus’s demon face) which were more like he was seeing someone’s fears or personal demons. I think Lala is either a part-demon, or can see demons, or is some kind of magical conduit, or is being sacrificed to demons, otherwise there’s more to being a medium than anyone (but Jesus) knows. This isn’t going to end well.
I actually can’t wait for the finale, because I really believe it will be an intense mindfuck, and I am eager for more evidence that my theory is accurate (please please let this season not just be a case of writers getting replaced by ring-tailed lemurs on meth). Because if it is, goddamn if season 5 isn’t going to the most fuckawesometastic thing, and full of Eric being one BAMF (cause Bill fucked with Sookie and Bill fucked with Pam, and Eric is not going to appreciate that one bit). Eric will strike down upon the demon-consorter Compton with the wrath of an avenging angel, one of those vicious Old Testament angels that would lay waste to cites, smite the unholy, and drink blood from your heart like a milkshake.
Yeah, you go on baby, suck it, get yours.
Recently I made a post about how True Blood’s Bill Compton is a conjurer of demons, hellbeasts, and other stygian creatures most foul, mostly through the traditional demon-summoning methods of blood, mirrors, eldritch lore, and having really stupid hair. To further expand on my little pet theory, I thought I’d go and revisit the curious case of Queen Sophie-Anne.
I’m sure you will remember how earlier in the season, there was a great noise heard throughout the land as we all collectively rolled our eyes at St. Bill when he assassinated (by proxy) Queen Sophie-Anne with all the effort of swatting a fly, and at how Sophie-Anne stood there for thirty whole seconds after the Regicide Squad came in (which she failed to detect beforehand with the much renowned super vampire senses), and pretty much behaved like a lamb at slaughter, offering no resistance, no attempt to blow that Popsicle stand. “Oh Alan Ball, will your Bill Boner never deflate?” we asked, annoyed at his attempts to redeem Bill after the bomb of the Rattray Reveal pretty much decimated his character (what little of it he had left).
However, upon rewatch…there is some seriously fucked-up shit happening, and it is increasingly obvious that Something Isn’t Right Here. Something more than just the ridiculous favoritism that True Blood seems to have for that abusive, fang-raping, Rattray-arranging, murdering-for-sport, smarmy assclown Bill Compton.
(And keep in mind how magic works on True Blood, with blood amplifying spells and intent being more important than the words, and that Sookie has, suspiciously, made nearly all of her Amazingly Bad Life Choices Favoring Bill in front of mirrors, and that mirrors, according to the same folklore vampires and werewolves come from, can be used to summon demons and spirits.)
First, let’s take a look at the scene that instigated Bill’s little trip down memory lane.
Good old Eric, swaggering into the room like a big swaggering thing, leaving the door all open like he was raised in a barn longhouse, with his sarcastic bowing at Bill’s orders to go after the witches (and nearly to his doom). He just wants to get this shit over with, so he can skip across the graveyard and swagger circles around Sookie, trying to get him a pretty piece of fairy tail.
We flashback to the season 3 finale:
(God I miss that fabulous bitch.)
Sophie-Anne is prowling around Bill’s living room (which would later become the Den of Bad Decisions in season 4), sneering at the idea of him challenging her. Note the mirror:
That mirror has been in Bill’s house since we first were shown it, and its one of the few pieces to never change position. It’s angled to reflect the room’s entrance.
(From Bill’s little Tupperware party with Malcolm, Diane, and what’s his face. You remember that incident, where Bill just sat there in the dark while his friends molested Sookie, cause he’s just awesome like that.)
But back to Sophie-Anne. She and Bill prepare to do battle in a hysterically lame manner:
And its over before its begun, and Bill lifts his leg, exposing his giblets in a sign of submission…well, not really, but take a look at the door, which is now suddenly open, despite Bill clearly having shut it when Sophie-Anne came calling.
Enter the gay stormtroopers:
Six of them (please take a good hard look at the black guy on the far right, cause this is that last you’ll see of him, but more about that later). Three of whom were apparently in the house already, but Sophie-Anne failed to notice, hear, or smell.
And now things get weird. Sophie Anne lowers herself to the ground, to the left side of the fireplace, on the other side of the room from the mirror.
Sophie-Anne then proceeds to stand there for thirty goddamn seconds, doing nothing to save herself, while Bill blabs on about how awesome he is, delivering Action Hero quips and acting like a James Bond villain. A window was right behind her that she could easily vamp-speed out of. Sure, she might be on the run, but she’d be alive.
The six stormtroopers flank him on either side, complete circling and blocking the exit.
And so the gay stormtroopers fire on Sophie-Anne. Look right behind her. It’s the mirror, reflecting the entryway, but not any of the seven people standing in it.
Sophie-Anne deteriorates:
And now there’s suddenly one guy in the reflection (though the mirror should probably be reflecting more than one). I know the angles are slightly different, they both are reflecting the entryway, which again, has seven people surrounding it.
In the last pic, after most of Sophie-Anne’s blood has gotten Bill’s rug all wet, look at the mirror, and look at the amount of blood splattered on it. There’s a few splatters, as is expected of a vamp explosion, but not a shitton. And since True Blood buys its fake blood by the barrel, it was not for want of blood.
Bill and the gay stormtroopers get misted with Sophie-Anne’s blood (and Bill is the only asshole that flinches).
Still, its not much more than they’d received from some one of the perfume snipers at the mall (Eau de Sanguine). Nan bitchports into the room and dismisses the gay stormtroopers.
Well, five of them anyway. Seems like the black guy went missing in the five seconds from the time he joined in the firing squad to when Nan ordered them out. And its not like the whole “Stormtroopers Leave the Building” scene isn’t shown, it is, that black guy just disappears.
Sure, sacrifice the black man to your stygian demonic helllord, Bill Compton. Fucking racist.
This can’t be accidental, you just don’t forget about a whole guy. It’s not like he was one face in a crowd, an extra, he was one of just six people, he had a specific task and function, had to get fitted for a costume, was probably on set for a couple days, he’s not just going to pop out existence in a production gaff.
So after staring at the hole where the black guy should be, Bill looks back over his shoulder at Nan, his beige carpet now red with blood and..
…the hell happened to that mirror? It’s now covered in blood, there is not a bit of silver visible. By the time Sophie-Anne’s blood had dropped to the floor, the mirror had only been splattered slightly, but now its coated in blood. Even if some of it splashed off the coffee table, it would take a shitton going halfway across the room to coat that mirror. When Nan got staked, Eric was standing closer to her than the mirror was to Sophie-Anne, and he only got slightly splashed. Bill was right in front of her, and not coated in nearly this amount of blood. This is Sookie under Longshadow level of drenched.
That’s way more than can be attributed to a slight production error. That’s like a glass moving a couple inches, or a button rebuttoning itself. That candelabra understudy might be considered a production error. But you don’t go from spots of blood to ALL THE BLOOD accidentally.
But what really puts the bow on this Pandora’s box is what Nan says and does. When asking Bill about Sookie, she says “You better not be lying to me. She (Sophie-Anne) did…”
“…and look what happened to her.” Nan looks directly at the mirror when referring to Sophie-Anne. She didn’t look to where her pile of goo was on the other side of the room, or even down Bill’s jacket, where she dripped still. But right to that mirror, that mirror that for no reason of physics is covered in Sophie-Anne’s blood.
Nan leaves, and Bill’s rug is beige again. True Blood does not lack for its namesake, so its not like they didn’t have enough blood to go around. They were ditching the set décor anyway, this was the last scene they needed that rug for, so its not like they didn’t want to damage it.
So, a queen who didn’t even try to save herself, a missing dude, a blood-soaked mirror, Nan glancing significantly at it. Any one of these things I could excuse, but all of them combined together, and in a season chock-full of magical shit? That’s a little too coincidental.
Now, what do I think happened? I think Bill sacrificed both Sophie-Anne and the missing dude (maybe accidentally with him), to whatever demonic forces gives this vamp-dork his inexplicable power. Blood is always an acceptable sacrifice. I don’t think this was the first time, and I don’t think it was the last. The mirror is his Batphone to Hades, which is why it was bathed in the blood, and why the level of blood kept changing (it was being absorbed into it, to be sucked into like a Pandemonium Starbucks). I think we were shown exactly what the director/writer/Ball wanted us to see, which was far from the whole story. It’s not the first time they’ve manipulated the audience perception of an incident (Rattray beating, which when viewed in hindsight, heavily implies there was a hidden observer to the whole shebang), and it probably won’t be the last.
