Baelfire

[fairy dust]

@medchen wrote:

@fairy dust wrote:

“This portion of the poem describes almost perfectly the path that Neal Cassady/Mystery Man walked through New York City, exiting Central Park at 7th Street, ending up on the lower East Side, even looking over his shoulder, the reference to horses from Emily Dickenson’s poem…the horses in the poem drive the carriage that is death…the last lines of Adonis fit Baelfire exactly. I could go on and on but I don’t have time. Kaddish and Howl are Ginsberg’s two most famous poems and they both are based on his early experiences.”

Wow fairy dust. Thank you for that. And the rest of your post. All some very interesting things.
I’m amazed sometimes how people can put all these things together.
Also kudos to the writers of the show. It just keeps getting better and better doesn’t it ?
I love all these references to stories and culture.

Thanks so much medchen 😀 I really have enjoyed the show…first as great entertainment…and second for those who want to play the “game”…it is a great puzzle.

Finding the connections is not as hard as it looks thanks to the internet. I usually start out with a wikipedia article to give a general overview about the topic/clue, and then I move on to book searches using terms from the article, ie Neal Cassady, Beat Generation, Jack Kerouac, Ginsberg etc. Then I take the book title to Amazon, pull up the book and do a quick word search ( in this case words like Manhattan, New York City, Central Park, 47th St etc), which most of them allow. Google Books is also a great resource as they let you do word searches on most books. One of the great resources I found after the writers released the name Neal Cassady was The Portable Beat Reader. http://www.amazon.com/The-Portable-Beat-Reader-Charters/dp/0142437530/ref=pd_rhf_dp_s_cp_5 I also try to remember that it can’t be too obscure as the writers want it to be something that is recognizable to the audience, so if someone is famous for a particular work such as Howl or Kaddish, I go there first.

For images a great resource is Tin Eye Reverse Image Search which will let you enter an imagine into their search engine and they will try to match it. Most searches come up with zilch but it paid off with the red hand picture. http://tineye.com/

I try not to spend too much time, but…I really wanted to know the path through Manhattan…so good old google maps street view lets you walk down the street and see the view.

The great thing is that you don’t have to know alot about the subject…just how to follow a quick internet clue trail. It is kind of like the writers are Hansel and Gretel dropping crumbs.

Take care medchen and looking forward to the rest of the season. 😀

edited to add: I was already familiar with Molech with due to the writing I do as part of my job which involves quite a bit of historical research information from the Bronze and Iron age. I have no idea if this is what the writers of OUaT had in mind but it really seemed to fit with the Molech references in the Beat writings.

[fairy dust]

After watching Tallahassee, I want to add to the thoughts of my previous post (in the quote box below). Neal Cassady’s loss went far beyond the loss of his father… his loss of Emma was profoundly heartbreaking and his decision to step out of her life was made from a heart of love. The depth of his mourning greatly expanded.

@fairy dust wrote:

I believe Allan Ginsberg’s poetry is the key to understanding the Neal Cassady character…and I do believe that it all points to Baelfire.

I’m pressed for time so I don’t have time to pull out every line (maybe I can do that later on) but here is a portion of Allan Ginsberg’s Kaddish, his mourner’s poem for his mother. Neal Cassady is not mentioned in this portion…but is referred to later on as N.C. This portion of the poem describes almost perfectly the path that Neal Cassady/Mystery Man walked through New York City, exiting Central Park at 7th Street, ending up on the lower East Side, even looking over his shoulder, the reference to horses from Emily Dickenson’s poem…the horses in the poem drive the carriage that is death…the last lines of Adonis fit Baelfire exactly. I could go on and on but I don’t have time. Kaddish and Howl are Ginsberg’s two most famous poems and they both are based on his early experiences.

The second section of Ginsberg’s Howl could also be speaking of Baelfire/Neal Cassady/Mystery Man. It is entitled Molech. Molech was a stone god whose belly contained fire. Little babies/children were sacrificed to Molech…they were laid in his sloping arms where they rolled into the fire. Rumple sacrificed his son, Baelfire, to save his Magic. It is also very possible that the name Baelfire was chosen with this synmbolism…as Molech and Baal(Bael) both trace back to the same Pagan god. And Bae was allowed to slip into the “fire”.

If these nods turn out to be correct I think the picture we are getting from Ginsberg, who was a beat poet and friend of Neal Cassady, is that Neal/Baelfire was a child sacrificed by his father and that child was thrust into a world where he is totally alone. The world, nothing like what he knew…and unlike August Booth, his father did not lovingly put him in a magic wardrobe and send him away with love….rather his father dug his rumple blade into the dirt to keep himself from following his son…and let go of his hand, sacrificing Bae for his own greed/fear/magic.

This brings me to another thought. There are multiple mentions of people jumping off of fire escapes in Beat Poetry…and Mystery Man/Neal Cassady/Baelfire dropping his communication could have been setting a scene where we are supposed to see the despair of the people that were at that hopeless place. I totally believe he is mourning. Bae’s world is totally lost….but then just like in the story of Noah and the Ark, where Noah’s world is completely lost, everyone gone…a dove flies to the window. And like Noah’s dove who bears an olive leaf…Neal/Baelfire’s dove bears a message of hope. The curse has been broken.

Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on
the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.
downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I’ve been up all night, talking,
talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues
shout blind on the phonograph
the rhythm the rhythm–and your memory in my head three years after–
And read Adonais’ last triumphant stanzas aloud–wept, realizing
how we suffer–
And how Death is that remedy all singers dream of, sing, remember,
prophesy as in the Hebrew Anthem, or the Buddhist Book of An-
swers–and my own imagination of a withered leaf–at dawn–
Dreaming back thru life, Your time–and mine accelerating toward Apoca-
lypse,
the final moment–the flower burning in the Day–and what comes after,
looking back on the mind itself that saw an American city
a flash away, and the great dream of Me or China, or you and a phantom
Russia, or a crumpled bed that never existed–
like a poem in the dark–escaped back to Oblivion-–
No more to say, and nothing to weep for but the Beings in the Dream,
trapped in its disappearance,
sighing, screaming with it, buying and selling pieces of phantom, worship-
ping each other,
worshipping the God included in it all–longing or inevitability?–while it
lasts, a Vision–anything more?
It leaps about me, as I go out and walk the street, look back over my shoulder,
Seventh Avenue, the battlements of window office buildings shoul-
dering each other high, under a cloud, tall as the sky an instant–and
the sky above–an old blue place.
or down the Avenue to the south, to–as I walk toward the Lower East Side
–where you walked 50 years ago, little girl–from Russia, eating the
first poisonous tomatoes of America frightened on the dock
then struggling in the crowds of Orchard Street toward what?–toward
Newark–
toward candy store, first home-made sodas of the century, hand-churned ice
cream in backroom on musty brownfloor boards–
Toward education marriage nervous breakdown, operation, teaching school,
and learning to be mad, in a dream–what is this life?
Toward the Key in the window–and the great Key lays its head of light
on top of Manhattan, and over the floor, and lays down on the
sidewalk–in a single vast beam, moving, as I walk down First toward
the Yiddish Theater–and the place of poverty
you knew, and I know, but without caring now–Strange to have moved
thru Paterson, and the West, and Europe and here again,
with the cries of Spaniards now in the doorstops doors and dark boys on
the street, fire escapes old as you
–Tho you’re not old now, that’s left here with me–
Myself, anyhow, maybe as old as the universe–and I guess that dies with
us–enough to cancel all that comes–What came is gone forever
every time-–

Here is a link to the entire Kaddish – http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15307

Here is a link to the post I wrote describing the Mystery Man’s path. It was written before the character was revealed as Neal Cassady whom I believe is Baelfire. Most of the items are very understandable now as they reflect the communication arts culture. https://oncepodcast.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=1514&start=110#p21041

Even the color green that Baelfire fell into ties in with the Beat Generation. Robert Stone’s — Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties mentions Neal Cassady.

[elle]

@ fairy dust

If he really, truly is Baelfire, then I have to agree with you. Just don’t want to believe until it is stated. 🙂 But this is a whole level for him–he was forced to let the woman he loves go, to leave her behind. He must feel like a coward–he wasn’t there for her, to protect her, to stand by her side, to give her everything he promised. And when he learns of Henry, of how August/Pinocchio broke his promise, of the numerous times emma’s life had been endangered, it will be even worse for him, and for all of them.

[fairy dust]

@Elle wrote:

@ fairy dust

If he really, truly is Baelfire, then I have to agree with you. Just don’t want to believe until it is stated. 🙂 But this is a whole level for him–he was forced to let the woman he loves go, to leave her behind. He must feel like a coward–he wasn’t there for her, to protect her, to stand by her side, to give her everything he promised. And when he learns of Henry, of how August/Pinocchio broke his promise, of the numerous times emma’s life had been endangered, it will be even worse for him, and for all of them.

So true…..

[gypsy]

Hey fairy dust- no need to SCREAM! What’s with the GIANT bold face? We can read, even in NORMAL type- K…..just sayin’…..seriously…..

[fairy dust]

@Gypsy wrote:

Hey fairy dust- no need to SCREAM! What’s with the GIANT bold face? We can read, even in NORMAL type- K…..just sayin’…..seriously…..

🙄

[elle]

😆

We all get into fandom at times, and we all cannot help but get passionate. Many a times I had been tempted to do the same.

[fairy dust]

@Elle wrote:

😆

We all get into fandom at times, and we all cannot help but get passionate. Many a times I had been tempted to do the same.

😀 Thanks Elle… 😀

[gypsy]

🙄

[elle]

@fairy dust

No prob! 😀

There is something that I have been trying to picture in my head–when Neal/Baelfire?/Whomever his Counterpart is? got the postcard, he looked both shocked and afraid. There is obviously some guilt to how he handled things with Emma, but will he be able to explain everything to Emma? How will Henry react to him? If he is the son of Rumpelstiltskin, will he try to be forgiving, or will he be more angry at how he treated Emma and Henry. Granted Rumpelstiltskin was not cruel, but he was manipulative, and he did trick Emma into giving him the love potion and made her think Henry was dead.

And then there will be an issue with the whole Charming family as well, and how he will react to them and they to him. 🙂

[Author]

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