[Spoilers] About Hedwig and Angela

[Eustace Winner]

SPOILERS BELOW

I think about this a lot, so I want to start a discussion, what is your opinion about their relationship and the way it was handled? It was quite the turn of events to see them getting so “close” during this volume.

The possibility existed in my head while reading volume 1 but I did not expect for it to go as far as it did. I supposed the more obvious direction was for something to happen with Moira, and it colored me surprised when it was in fact not even Angela (the subject of this thread) but Adela that was the first to be explicitly interested this way in Hedwig. Since I re-read Volume One not long before this volume came out however, it makes sense in retrospect the way Adela was explicitly trying to be friendly with her (remembering the advice she tried to give her and also when she wanted to have a dance with her).

Anyways, going back to Angela, I consider it as a really interesting topic myself, as it’s the closest we have seen Hedwig engaging in an actual romantic relationship, even though she herself did not seem to see it that way at all in the end.

It means a lot both for Hedwig character and Angela character. On one hand, Hedwig was discovering a part of herself that was left hidden all those previous years because she was alone, mostly her libido and desires which manifested the strongest when she was with Angela. On the other hand, Angela, the way that she is, felt a kinship with Hedwig that could be comparable to a feeling of love, probably romantic attraction, because she started to feel like she was the only one that could understand her situation.

It creates quite a contrast because the rest of the nuns seem to deny any kind of romantic attraction toward each other (except maybe Darcy toward Eustace but we cannot know for sure) even though they have sex with each other. Even Adela seemed to be only interested in Hedwig in a casual way and not as a lover. Angela acted really judgmental toward these casual relations. Hedwig did not know a lot about romance and sex, so she probably interpreted any kind of relationship within the abbey as something of less importance in the eyes of the other nuns, so while she understood that Angela was falling for her (making her more excited) she did not seem to notice the way it could have deeper implications. Or maybe she did, but then we could say that Hedwig has a bit of a naughty side to her.

What does not help is that Angela is nor a kind nor agreeable person, so even though we can empathize with her more this time, she still feels a tad villainous, making it hard to say that she “deserves” to have an exclusive relationship with Hedwig (with who she still remained quite mean and bossy many times, even though at the same time that was part of what made Hedwig excited in the first place). Did she deserve that kind of happiness while oftentimes trying to hinder the happiness and way of life of her other fellow sisters? In a way, while I obviously do not share the way she treats or criticizes others, I can see how the group dynamics at work in the abbey could become less than pleasant for someone more isolated and could reinforce her attachment for someone like Hedwig she would consider more detached, like her.

Even though I speak like Hedwig did not care at all about Angela except for gratification, I noticed that the more the volume advanced the more Hedwig seemed to long for Angela presence generally speaking. I mean she seemed reluctant at first when she made a pact with her during volume 1, but then she was almost always looking for her, she shared everything with her and felt safe in her company, which meant the company of a woman that always carried a knife with her and was capable of violence.

Did Hedwig tell the truth when she said to Angela that she “never loved her”, after all Hedwig is no short of a liar, and she is many times not even that aware of what she really feels, because she is always conflicted about what is new to her, what seems sinful, in contradiction to what she believed in for more than 20 years alone in a cell, and also how she is supposed to react, morally speaking, about what’s wrong and right. What Angela did to Katherine seemed wrong to her so she said that, it makes sense she would react that way, regardless of what she could be feeling for real. And at the same time, before that, she did not hesitate to accept the advances from Adela while they were in the snow, not even taking into consideration how Angela felt. Plus, let’s not forget that (deceased) Catherine remained, even at this point, the person that intrigued her the most, even after becoming so close to Angela. It could well mean that she indeed never saw her future in Angela and, in a way, could be compared to the way Catherine was only momentarily interested in others.

Even though this is a compelling mystery plot at its premise, I think the drama aspect is really important in understanding the point of the story and Hedwig’s thoughts and relationships remain the best part of it. That’s why I find it as interesting to discuss, so what do you think?

[chrome line]

i think they have a really compelling dynamic and i think there's a lot of room for interpretation in all the character stuff in this visual novel. it's hard to say where exactly they are and were in their relationship because there's so much other stuff going on and also hedwig is just terrible at anything to do with understanding people. i think it's definitely possible to read hedwig as romantically interested in angela but the only conception she has for the way this kind of relationship works is the way it was explained to her, and most of the explanations downplayed any emotional aspect for various reasons. so neither the hedwig of the past who is happy to have these relationships nor the hedwig narrating are capable of making that analysis. from her perspective this is just how being a lesbian works!

Originally posted by Eustace Winner:

SPOILERS BELOW

the rest of the nuns seem to deny any kind of romantic attraction toward each other (except maybe Darcy toward Eustace but we cannot know for sure) even though they have sex with each other.

i do take some issue with this though. there are two people who are very insistent on this, katherine and angela. they aren't the only people to indicate this is the case but they're the most prominent and the most clear in their stance. angela obviously has a lot of complexes around this and is trying to keep hedwig away from the others so she has a very clear motivation to paint it as nothing but physical, compared to the emotional connection she and hedwig share. katherine doesn't seem like she has anything to hide, given she obviously isn't lying about her attraction to men and "well i'd rather have straight sex but i'm surrounded by other men/women so might as well have gay sex" is a fairly common idea (thinking specifically about the navy and tropes around one gender schools but there are other examples out there) so initially it seems like this is just the truth, or at least her stance on things.

but we get some very clear proof this isn't the case with the margaret and katherine plotline, where margaret is very clearly jealous of katherine's interest in the men who are now outside (with the added wrinkle of her father being one of those men) and katherine eventually admitting that she actually wanted margaret's father to like her because she wanted him to approve of her relationship with margaret. i think the most likely explanation here is that she's scared of commitment for a variety of reasons (we don't have many details about her husband but their relationship was CLEARLY not good, and it's kind of implied she and angela had a thing that went very bad) and it's easier to say it's purely physical than to admit how serious her feelings are

given angela, margaret/katherine, and darcy/eustace (i don't believe for a second eustace doesn't reciprocate, we don't get her talking about darcy as much as the reverse because so much of eustace's stuff is wrapped up in the murder investigation but like, the way they act?) i think it's safe to say that while a lot of the sex is purely a physical thing between friends there is also a lot of romance going on. in fact, i think adela and moira (and soup i guess) are the only nuns we see who don't have any implicit strong romantic feelings for at least one of the others (of the ones not mentioned above, charity and marta have strong vibes together, i think brigid and violet are together and wanted to go to linbarrow because of it, it's mentioned that flora had a massive crush on catherine, and hedwig also clearly had a massive crush on catherine even if you want to argue there was no element of romantic feelings in her relationship with angela)

to bring this back to my original point, despite all the romantic feelings going around NONE OF THIS IS EVER SAID DIRECTLY AND OPENLY TO HEDWIG and so she doesn't have a clue about any of it. this means that i don't think we can make strong conclusions about whether she would or wouldn't have reciprocated angela's feelings had angela explained things better or not thrown katherine under the bus. my gut says "i never loved you" was just a thing she said designed to hurt as much as possible in the middle of a fight and not the truth, but i really don't know.

[Eustace Winner]

Originally posted by ccrow2020:

i do take some issue with this though. there are two people who are very insistent on this, katherine and angela. they aren't the only people to indicate this is the case but they're the most prominent and the most clear in their stance. angela obviously has a lot of complexes around this and is trying to keep hedwig away from the others so she has a very clear motivation to paint it as nothing but physical, compared to the emotional connection she and hedwig share. katherine doesn't seem like she has anything to hide, given she obviously isn't lying about her attraction to men and "well i'd rather have straight sex but i'm surrounded by other men/women so might as well have gay sex" is a fairly common idea (thinking specifically about the navy and tropes around one gender schools but there are other examples out there) so initially it seems like this is just the truth, or at least her stance on things.

You make a very good point actually. I think one of the strengths of Misericorde narratively is that it’s compelling enough to take what some characters believe at face value even though it’s a necessity to consider every opinion or perspective they express with a grain of salt, especially because they often say it with some form of intention.
Since Hedwig is the outsider, we are often led by her own perspective, we are in her shoes so the way we understand her situation we see as incomplete her interpretations of things that happen to her, and we can easily interpret the perspective of the other nuns as the truth or at the very least as more wise and more complete, especially when multiple accounts point toward the same direction.
Since some of the nuns want us to believe that there are no romantic attraction involved, we conclude that it must be truth within the context of the abbey. But what can easily be forgotten when seeing things this way is that when Katherine says it, it does not have the same implications as when Angela says it or when Adela says it. And some others simply did not really give us their true/full perspective on the matter, like Margaret or Eustace as you mentioned.

When you think about it, a common theme is the way some characters want to impose their vision of the world, notably to Hedwig. The two characters that come the most to mind are Eustace and Angela.

Eustace wants to impose the idea that everyone in the abbey is a family and that suspecting any kind of malice from any of them would make you an outsider, in some case an “enemy” to this family, which interestingly enough kind of clash with the fact that we are shown that some nuns that are supposed to be part of this family are still critical of Eustace’s behavior, Katherine for example does not oppose the idea that Hedwig wants to incriminate Eustace, even though it does not mean that Katherine hates her.
Angela wants to impose the idea that the other nuns are a mass of equally less than respectable people, she wants to make Hedwig an outsider because she considers herself as an outsider, she wants to make Hedwig part of her own “family” in a way.
Let’s not forget also that even though most of the Linbarrow Abbey nuns seem to “enjoy” their catholic lifestyle with more liberties than what would be expected from their position, they are still built from their environment. The fact that they partake in lesbian relationships does not automatically mean they see it as a “normal” type of relationship, they might still consider that a straight relationship is a real one and an homosexual relationship is a distraction. So if some of the nuns see it this way, they would deny that romantic feelings are involved, because society itself denies it. Hedwig is a special case but we see her trying to diminish the stakes of lesbianism as a concept to make it slightly more acceptable for her to be part of it “The Bible does not talk about it, so it’s not real, so it’s not an issue, right ?” (not a quote from the vn, but it’s what is implied).

Originally posted by ccrow2020:

to bring this back to my original point, despite all the romantic feelings going around NONE OF THIS IS EVER SAID DIRECTLY AND OPENLY TO HEDWIG and so she doesn't have a clue about any of it. this means that i don't think we can make strong conclusions about whether she would or wouldn't have reciprocated angela's feelings had angela explained things better or not thrown katherine under the bus. my gut says "i never loved you" was just a thing she said designed to hurt as much as possible in the middle of a fight and not the truth, but i really don't know.

You’re right it’s the kind of thing she could do, and anger and resentment often make us say things that might not represent what we really think. It could also still show that Hedwig never thought of it that way, because as you said, she has a hard time understanding things that are not explained more explicitly to her, and even Angela probably did not take this entirely in consideration. Would Angela propose to flee together to someone she does not deeply care about? Probably not. And as a reader with more social knowledge than Hedwig, we can imagine the implications and read between the lines more clearly, but she cannot.

What’s interesting though is that even if she was able to understand, it could not matter, because the reason why she could be infatuated with Angela in the first place is because of her peculiar situation, and it’s the same for Angela which got so close to Hedwig mainly because she remained a semi-outsider that understood things differently from the others.

[jennifer]

Oh good points :) I think for me the real standout was how real these romantic feelings were for some characters. I think that Angela really does love Hedwig, and she feels a strong attachment to her. This easily explains the jealousy and anger she feels at the end of Volume 2 when Adela and Hedwig hook up. Related to this is the sadness that Flora and Darcy feel towards Catherine. Darcy comments, with some forlorn-ness, that Catherine used to pick people up and put them down as she pleased. Shower them with attention then drop them when she lost interest. I think for lesbians, this is a difficult thing to deal with. Darcy and Flora likely felt a real emotional and romantic connection to Catherine, which hurt them all the more when she "dropped" them after losing interest. Looking at it like that, it makes sense that Angela feels similarly, albeit much......less healthy.

Angela's feelings and attraction towards Hedwig are unhealthy. She introduces Hedwig to the though of sex as inherently sinful (like "water" we are all drowning in), yet she demands to control Hedwigs sexuality just as she "controls" her own. This is a pretty abusive relationship. Using Hedwig, controlling her sexuality, making her think the other nuns simply want to ♥♥♥♥ her like a toy and positioning herself as someone who loves and cares for Hedwig. Simply put, Angela has placed herself in her own Hell, and she drags Hedwig into it as a means of solidifying their love and trapping her with her, rather than dealing with her feelings in a more healthy way. In "Innocence" when Hedwig describes herself in Heaven, loving Adela freely and the other sisters more purely, that's what it should be; how it usually is around the abbey. So it's natural that Angela, representing a much more pained and cynical view of romance, takes on this abusive form of love which collides harshly with the way the other sisters view sex and love. I could say more but the rest has been touched on directly in the VN. Anyway, interesting stuff!!!

[Eustace Winner]

Interesting thoughts. Presenting it that way indeed paints Angela as an abusive person, she is of course to an extent and the way she expresses her feelings are somewhat toxic, but I would like to explore this a little more.

In a way we can imagine that at first, going back to volume 1, Angela wants to manipulate Hedwig quite explicitly. Angela is treated as an outsider, so the only way for her to be respected is to make hers someone who is outside the social circle that does not respect her, she does not need an ally, but someone that she can control. At first, I think she sees Hedwig as a fool she can use to flatter her own sense of ego and pride, even subconsciously. A pact would imply a mutual relationship, but she wants to lead, even if she tries to justify the way she is rationally.

But as volume 2 goes on, her feelings for Hedwig become more apparent and I think she develops a true kinship toward Hedwig, she accepts what Hedwig has to say more easily, she even gives up on arguing with her most fantastical theories. Hedwig herself starts taking advantage of this, they continue to play their respective role, but Hedwig starts becoming the lead. Angela continues to try keeping Hedwig away from accepting the other nuns’ point of view, but she might slightly believe for real that they are bad frequentations and she might be afraid that Hedwig would think otherwise and abandon her. Even if Angela often deserved to be reprimanded, the other nuns displayed abusive behavior toward Angela, as a group, which affects her even if she has a stoic facade most of the time.

But as I said before, there seems to be a shift in their dynamic. Of course, Hedwig has a limited point of view, and Angela is the one that was the manipulative one in the beginning, but thinking back on it, is Hedwig really that clueless?

It’s a small detail, but when everyone is choosing a game to play in the snow, Angela changes her vote to match Hedwig’s and she seems to do it with ease, even though she was supposed to be the controlling one, she starts seeking Hedwig’s approval, when it was the contrary before. And Hedwig noticed it before.

When Angela sees Hedwig getting it on with Adela, she is probably heartbroken at this moment, she in all likelihood started seeing Hedwig as her equal and thought that there was something truly special between them, and it kind of shattered the way she imagined it, and if Hedwig did not have special circumstances, Hedwig would clearly be in the wrong for either being dense or being cruel on purpose.

However that’s the thing, Hedwig has special circumstances, so it’s hard to see her as a villain in this situation, so it would mean it’s more Angela’s fault and responsibility for being dishonest. Hedwig was still discovering what she wanted or not, and it can only be respected. It’s a peculiar case, because I think even knowing Hedwig could not understand most things on her own, Angela was still not used to interacting with someone with this type of background, so while still feeling a kinship, she treated her too much like she could understand. She acted self-centered, making the way she handled her relationship with Hedwig abusive, even if it was intended or not.

Anyways, even if they are different, Hedwig and Angela are both broken individuals, that’s for sure, while both being a bit self-centered, even if it's for different reasons, and it sure affects how they treat others.