Folklore Friday by Megan Erickson

January 29, 2021 Ep:26 A Discovery of Witches, review part 2

A Discovery of Witches has soooo much to cover that I have split this review up into 3 parts. |

| MIN MARKERS |

|1:30 | Everyday Folklore, Broken Mirrors

| 6:10 | Beginning chit chat and banter

|11:00| Review of A Discovery of Witches, part 2

|INFO REFERENES| Everyday Folklore, If you break a mirror you get seven years bad luck.|

https://www.twowaymirrors.com/mirror-superstitions/ |

https://www.framemymirror.com/5-superstitions-and-myths-about-mirrors/ |

https://www.illuminated-mirrors.uk.com/blog/7-years-bad-luck-the-truth-behind-the-superstition/ |

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/326082213_The_broken_mirror_syndrome_vs_constructive_self-criticism#:~:text=The%20broken%20mirror%20syndrome%20is,knots%20of%20negative%20emotions%20and |

https://folklorethursday.com/folklife/seven-years-bad-luck/ |

| MUSIC CREDIT |

"Glass Smash, Bottle, C.wav" by InspectorJ (www.jshaw.co.uk) of Freesound.org

“Easy Trip Trap” The Brothers Records,

“Skeleton Dance” by Myuu

“Heaven and Hell” by Jeremy Blake

| DIALOGUE CREDIT |

INTRO

"A werewolf can be killed only with a silver bullet?"

- THE WOLFMAN

"Because I'm the chosen one and there are vampires"

- BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER (film)

"You in danger girl"

- GHOST

"My name is Sabrina Spellman, and I will not sign it away."

- THE CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA

"Am I dead?"

- THE VAMPIRE DIARIES

"We don't allow black magic."

- LEGACIES

"Witches aren't real."

- CHARMED

"Once the world was full of wonders but. . . . . . It belongs to humans."

- A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES

"I myself am, strange and unusual."

- BEETLEJUICE

| TRANSCRIPT |

Megan Erickson

Welcome to folklore Friday.

Megan Erickson

In the episode description I have listed the segments of the show with their minute markers. That way you can skip right to what you want to hear

every day.

breaking a mirror is seven years bad luck. This superstition is believed in various parts of the world. But where did this belief come from? Many cultures believe that a mirror can be a window to the soul. Which is why many folkloric beliefs are that supernatural creatures such as vampires have no reflection because they have no soul. The lore of seven years bad luck upon breaking a mirror is thought to originate from Roman lore. The belief was that every seven years life and the soul would renew itself. And any parts of your life that were not quite right would fall into place and all would be right. A mirror was thought to have a window to the soul. So if a mirror was broken, especially if your image was the final thing it reflected, then you were bound to endure seven long years of misfortune until the cycle ended and your good luck was renewed. And since we are human, we are prone to be clumsy in one way or another. So there were measures that could be taken to avoid misfortune if you happened to break a mirror. Some of the rituals included taking the shattered pieces and burning them by the light of a full moon. Or taking one fragment to a cemetery and placing it against a tombstone to transfer the bad luck to someone who no longer roamed the earthly plane. The thought was the bad luck would dissipate into the ground since the soul was no longer there to attach itself to. In Russia and Kazakhstan, breaking a mirror evicting evil spirits from their home, they will hunt the person who caused the damage as an act of revenge. In Fung Shui a broken mirror distorts good energy. In Switzerland, the last person to look in a broken mirror is the first to die. But others claim your misfortune depends on how the mirror breaks. If it breaks into small pieces, your bad luck will be small. But be afraid if your mirror breaks into large pieces, because your bad luck will be significant. And once the mirror is broken, looking at your reflection in the shards is bad luck in both India and Russia. in psychology, there is a term called the broken mirror syndrome. It is applied to women who have suffered domestic abuse from a male partner. The thought is that she no longer sees herself as whole and complete, but broken, only viewing herself through the eyes of her abuser. Although this term is metaphorical, it does paint a picture of how viewing yourself through the distorted view of an abuser can make one feel broken. Is it possible that in the past when people would see their reflection And broken pieces of a mirror, it would scar them psychologically. Could it be that seeing one's reflection literally broken into pieces was so emotional, that it was easy to think that misfortune lay ahead? To see one space in shards could remind someone that As humans, we are breakable physically and emotionally. And the lives we live are just as fragile. So, which is it? A superstitious belief that the soul renews every seven years? Or the psychological effects of seeing one's reflection in broken glass? Tell me, what do you think?

Unknown Speaker

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.

Megan Erickson

Okay, hello again. So I'm joined again by my friend, Holly. Hello. Oh, and my name is Megan, I keep introducing my guests, but not myself. So I'm your host, Megan. And Holly is doing a FaceTime with me because I he, I went through and I was editing our episode. And there was just a few things that we said that were inaccurate. We were comparing this story to another story. And we were just bashing on that other story, which there's a lot to bash but the things we were saying weren't accurate. And so there's a lot of that I couldn't use. But this because Holly, and I think very similarly. Yes. And there was just also some good stuff that I wanted to talk about that we didn't talk about, and it gives me an excuse to call Holly so on if you don't know, Holly lives in Spokane, I live in Bellingham. So that's why we're doing FaceTime. And I let I when I went to visit her and her husband, I logged on to two of my streaming accounts. And then and then I said, you need to watch this show on this one, and then this show on the other one, and so I gave him Hulu and shutter and it hasn't affected us at all, by the way, like so cuz I told Chris, you like what? I was like, Well, I'm the one that pays for Hulu and shutter. So I think I can decide. He's like, okay, but if it cuts out, like, you gotta change your password. But it's totally fine. But you guys watch Brooklyn nine, nine, which was the show that I suggested.

HOLLY

Good. Oh, my gosh.

Megan Erickson

It's so good. What else have you been watching on Hulu?

HOLLY

So let's see. So we did nine, nine, and I'm not gonna lie oh nine.

Megan Erickson

Andrew Knight quoted all the time. Now. It's so easy to do. It's so fun.

Unknown Speaker

It's so amazing.

Unknown Speaker

And then I found out that chip and Joanna Gaines is a fixer upper. And I used to watch that show when I was younger and actually had to be. And I remember some of the episodes and oh my gosh, I flipped when I saw that on there. And so I started watching that. And then I realized that I can only watch it on weekends. Because I was watching it during the week. And then I realized I was not going to bed. I had to like pace

Megan Erickson

yourself.

HOLLY

Not watch it during the week. I'm only allowed to watch it on weekends. So I guess what I'm doing?

Megan Erickson

I've done Yes, I've done similar

Unknown Speaker

show is that it's just like it makes you you get so involved. You can't help it. Next thing you know, it's like two o'clock in the morning and you have to be up at 5am like,

Megan Erickson

Oh my gosh, that just happened. Yeah. I think that's why Chris and I have the rotation rule. Like we don't just binge something, we say okay, let's watch an episode of The Great and supernatural and criminal minds. And so because you're getting this like, mini story, but sometimes they'll get on a kick. There's some shows that are too much. You can't want like Katherine, it's called the Great bits about Catherine the Great you would not like it. It's like, it's really explicit. Like when they do sex stuff. They do sex stuff. When they do violence. They do violence and it's like oh my god and so that's the show. You can't binge. So we usually do our harsh shows first, and in the medium, and then we end on a comedy because I can't end the night on criminal minds, because I'm just like, Okay, I gotta cleanse my palate. So we always have. Yeah, we have an extreme show, a medium show and a comedy. And our comedy right now is How I Met Your Mother. editor's note. Btw, I am aware that there are things that can be problematic with How I Met Your Mother, because it's an older show. And since this podcast is half film and TV reviews, I'm aware. It's an all white cast. And one of the characters is pretty much a womanizer. So even though I watch it, I acknowledge it's problematic. Just had to put that in there. Okay. So that's like what we watched when we're done watching the others.

HOLLY

Yeah.

Megan Erickson

He's strange links. So because this is a review of a full season, I have the review split into three episodes. So this is more so a review for fans of the show a discovery of witches, because there is so much to talk about. The book series is jam packed, and so is the show. There's so many different themes and metaphors that I am in love with. And so I do think it's worth my time to talk about, I don't think I've split anything up into three episodes before, but I love it. So and so I hope you enjoy. Okay, so we split this episode up into two parts, because there was a lot to talk about. And we're re recording some of it. So some of the audio is going to be different, because I'm going to include some of the stuff that we said. And then I'm going to include some of this stuff. So I'll be all wonky. But as someone that wants to analyze things, I'm going to always analyze them in a fair way. Even if I don't like the story and this story I love but there was another story we're comparing it to, which I don't like and I was giving a lot of bias opinions. So and being an adult, so I'm correcting myself. Okay, so one of the things that we talked about is that there was a review that said that this story was derivative, and derivative, meaning we've seen this storyline before. I don't agree with that. And here's some of the reasons why. Number one, the vampires had no things. And when we were watching that, did we even talk about it? I don't even think we talked about it. It was just

Unknown Speaker

I feel like we mentioned it at one point. But everything was just so smooth. I don't know if this is like the right way to put this. But whenever they would bite somebody was always so smoothly done. Uh huh. That I never really thought you think oh, yeah, they don't have. Yeah, I don't know.

Megan Erickson

No, it's so true. Because weird to think about, it was really an effortless kind of story to watch. And they didn't focus on the blood. And the gore. The story was, the storyline was all of these different things happening. And it was only until I was going back through it with a fine tooth comb to get clips for the podcast, and I want to do like a YouTube review. For I was like, Oh, that's a huge difference very, very big. Because it's so good. Oh, no,

Unknown Speaker

I was just gonna say cuz I cannot think of like, there are a decent amount. I mean, even just all the different versions of Dracula that are out there, like just all the different versions and different genres of vampire. And as far as I can remember. Now, granted, you may want to double check me, but as far as I can remember, every single one of them, they always had things like that was one of the key ways is to tell that someone was a vampire. Yeah, you had some that until they were ready to feed their things would grow for the board

Megan Erickson

drop down. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker

exactly. Or Yeah, you know, like, yeah, or they would just be there all the time, or, you know, for whatever reason, kind of thing. Yeah, but they were always there. Like it to some degree. And so, to me, it's just such a weird concept to think I know Empire without bangs. I just, it just kind of blows my mind.

Megan Erickson

It's really unique. And I think it goes into because we talked about how the demons also just look like people. And everyone looks for the most part human unless you're supernatural. You can like sense things. And it just goes into that. I don't know it, I really liked the way she wrote it. Because they all there's all of this like, intolerance between the species and like, it's like a metaphor for racism. And yet, if you stand them up next to each other, you're not going to know who's who, or what's what you're not going to know, a demon from a witch from a vampire from a human because they all look the same. And there's just something kind of like really equalizing about that. And it's, it's interesting. And so about the things there was like one part because I was trying, I went through it, and you can see him bite. But there's only one part you see actual, like bite marks, and it's when Matthew was fighting with Baldwin.

And he bites Baldwin, and when he pulls his head back, it's a full bite mark. It's like, if you bite into an apple, it's not like the two things. And so I was like,

HOLLY

Oh, my God. Yeah,

really? I know.

Megan Erickson

And that's, and that's something that you'll find when you read the book is the way Deborah Harkness writes it is she compares vampires moreso, to Wolf's than to bats. And it's this really, really unique, they don't really have a lot of time to do that. In the show. There's one part in the show where Diana's trying to figure out what she's going to feed him for, for dinner. And she has like her laptop open, it says feeding habits of wolves. And that's like the one thing that they should. Yeah, and I didn't, because we were just into the story, I didn't want to be that person. I was like, no selling the book. It says, oh, but they do get more into it in the second book, because they go back in history, err in the past. And there's different things where people say, oh, a werewolf, there was a werewolf attack or whatever. And they say that all things, people that they thought were werewolves, they were actually vampires. And it just psychologically felt better for people to imagine that it was an animal like creature, rather than someone that looked human, which is very, like spot on for psychology. And so even though I freaking love werewolves, that was my only problem with this whole series, is that it didn't have vampires, witches and werewolves. I was a little bummed out. But the more I got into it, I appreciated how unique this storyline was. Because it's no it just never has been done before. Where they're not like that. They're actually like wolves. And it's, and when you read the book, you're, you'll appreciate that because it's like, all these nuances that, you know, the show didn't have time for and it's, it's interesting.

HOLLY

There.

Megan Erickson

Okay, another thing we talked about, but I want to bring up again, because so here's the list of things that makes this a unique story is that there are adults and it's not a teenage girl, and a vamp and a male vampire, which is really popular, Twilight, Vampire Diaries, Buffy. Like, those are like the big ones as far as like TV and movies that come to mind. And this is just not that that coupling. Right.

Unknown Speaker

And I also we were talking, I don't know if this is gonna, like, jump us or anything. But we also talked about like, because she's not a teenager, like her style, and everything is much different. Like, she's, you know, the things that she thinks about as a teacher aren't the same things that like Buffy the Vampire Slayer would, would be thinking about as a teenager. And so it kind of brought in a whole new. That makes sense. It kind of Yeah, it's like a whole new concept. And how we were talking about like, how we love that she just, she didn't look dolled up.

HOLLY

Mm hmm.

Yeah. She just she just looked like a professor.

Megan Erickson

Hold on a second. loki My dog is whining at me baby.

Sorry, Holly. I know. It probably wasn't picking up but he was like whining at me. And I was like, No, the wrong time. Yes. So going back to music she did. She looked like a professor. She dressed like a professor. Her the things that were in her life that were important to her were very independent and adult driven. And they they could have made a change and gussied her up from the character in the book to what happened in the Siri in the TV series, but they didn't. They stuck to it. And I was doing some research and Deborah Harkness the author was like a huge part of The TV show, so, um, she like approved every casting and a lot of the costuming. And it does like if you look at, like she's a nerd, like she dresses like a nerd because she is one. And it's so it's so good. And it just kind of helps cuz

Unknown Speaker

I feel like you can be seen as a nerd even when you're guessing that, yeah, if you're going to a job that you love and are literally just surrounded by books, it's like, I don't know, when I get into my book mode. Oh my gosh, like books don't have eyes, they don't care what I look like. And so, in one of the first episodes, where do you see her getting ready for work? And all she does is like look in the mirror and then throw her hair up into a ponytail. And then it heads out the door with a piece of toast and coffee. Yeah. And that's like, done. No, I found that so many times. Go to the library. Yeah, you know, and it's like it is this is one of those things where it's like, you are so more prepared to do the studying of the book and to find out the information, then you would care to like, I mean, you do put some care, you know, you'll wash your face, they'll shower, you don't look like you walked out of a dumpster. But you're not gonna be a professional, you know, hairstylist and spend an hour on your hair or whatever. But it's, it's just that that nuance that they brought in to really just show who she is and what she's focused on. Later. I just, I really loved how they did that. And it makes sense that the author was part of the entire casting, and everything because whenever that happens, I usually really love the series. Because it does it follows along with what she saw in her mind, and what her story was about and making sure that it sticks to that.

Megan Erickson

Yeah, so and it's really good because like in the book, they talk about how she has like really unruly on rulli I can't say unruly hair, like it's kind of like she can't control it. And they could have flat ironed her hair, they could have like, made it look pristine, but they didn't. And I mean, it didn't look bad. But yeah, the first like couple episodes, she's just so excited to go to the Bodleian Library and work on her research paper. So she just doesn't do a lot with her hair. And it's not, I'm not saying that like putting on makeup or getting gussied up. And being feminine is bad. I'm just saying, this is another thing that makes this story unique. Because you're not seeing this airbrushed teenage girl, you're seeing this woman that's so excited about her research. And that is her world. And that's what's important to her. And that's not something that we've seen a lot and I'm not saying like Bella Swan was gussied up, she was very plain. But it's it's just the fact that they could have chosen to make this character look different. But they didn't they stuck to what was like true in the in the book. And that was and that was really great. And I kind of wonder if because it's a it's a production of the UK. that that wasn't an issue because if you watch American films, it's there's just a lot more. I don't know there's more supermodels looking people. I feel like when you watch American productions versus like, things from the UK.

HOLLY

Right? Oh, and

Megan Erickson

on and on that note, this doesn't this isn't part of the list that makes a derivative, but it is a change. So in the book is about the Claremont was actually like, way younger she like appeared to be in her 40s. And so her and Diana looked way closer in age. And there's like a scene in the second book, which she says, move out of the way my daughter in law needs to come through and like everyone in the restaurant is like why your daughter in law because they're only like 10 years apart. But they made her older in the TV series and I actually think it worked a lot better because it gave that more of maternal feel for his elbows character, rather than Oh, your quote unquote mom that sire do is pretty gorgeous. Are you sure you've never had a romantic thing with her because it's not like a blood relation when it comes to siring vampires. It's very different. But the fact that they made her older, helps to like for me to be like, Okay, this is actually working for me. I appreciated that.

Unknown Speaker

And that was actually another thing that I really loved about her character. That because when you first hear about her, you haven't met her yet, and the witches and you know, the witches are talking about her and they're like, Oh my goodness, like you Can't stay at her house like she caused all this damage. All these problems like builds so many of our kinds, and then later you find out it's because they killed the love of her life.

Megan Erickson

Yeah. Not like bad, which is Yeah,