Princess of Pentacles

“YOU must wake and call me early, call me early, mother dear;

To-morrow ’ll be the happiest time of all the glad new-year,—

Of all the glad new-year, mother, the maddest, merriest day;

For I ’m to be Queen o’ the May, mother, I ’m to be Queen o’ the May.”

“The May Queen,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Now as I paste this piece of poetry representing the cycles of life from a Victorian perspective, I am aware that it is not yet May, but it is April 1st and I have no intention of pranking you, dear reader. My only intention today is to discuss the Page of Pentacles as represented by the May Queen, the protagonist of Midsommar, Dani! I’ve never been good at pranks, and honestly as I type this the wind is blowing with the screams of Banshees being carried throughout the land! I find that the Spring time in Kansas has always felt the most reminiscent of the Luteal phase in the menstrual cycle. Mercurial, windy, there’s property damage, and we’re happy when it finally rains. So, with the precarious nature afoot I do not feel the need for extra challenges.

If you have not seen Midsommar yet, and you hate spoilers, please skip reading this blog entry. The Page of Pentacles, or in my fashion, the Princess of Pentacles, it denotes a time of discovery or growth in the material realm. Pages represent new starts, messages and curiosity. And Pentacles represent things of the earth and the mundane like finances, jobs, education, home, and sense of stability. So when we combine these elements we are talking about maybe being a new student, starting a career, going to a witchcraft class, starting a new style of burlesque, learning to do your own taxes, you get the gist.

So why Dani? Well, Dani is a student, she is young and impressionable. In the beginning the movie starts off strong with her sister killing herself and their family, Dani is orphaned and alone. So her only community is her boyfriend that is about to dump her. We could look at this situation as a reversed Page of Pentacles where a newbie’s sense of balance is thrown off because their entire foundation is ripped out from under them and they have no stability. So she leans on this boyfriend, Christian and to be fair, he feels really bad for her, so she ends up going with him and his friends to Sweden for research. Their friend Pelle is from this area and allows a great way for one of the friends of Christian to gain their thesis information. Dani is invited to come with the young men to the Swedish community of Pelle’s origin.

While the group of college students explore the land and meet the members of the group (which we learn are definitely a cult), social norms are explored, and our students and other visitors are horrified at some of the customs of Pelle’s people. They are there for the Midsummer rituals of this group which includes human sacrifice and taking psychedelics and then later we find out, breeding rituals! Dani and Christian are approached to take part in breeding with the cult to prevent incest but they are horrified by the rituals they have witnessed and some of their friends are missing.

To back up a bit, many critiques of this film like to focus on the relationship between Dani and Christian, and they call this a break up story. I find that to be reductive and irresponsible by review writers because it negates the very real threat of the cult mentality that finds people like Dani that have lost everything and seek community at all costs. To me this is not a feminist movie or a break up movie. This movie is about desperation of the human spirit to survive, we are a communal species, without each other we have a lower chance of survival. I would also like to posit, we are in a time in the United States where we are determining the value of community and where we fit going forward in the midst of the destruction of our bureaucratic systems by this administration. No one is coming to save us, only we can save us. And Dani has been saved by this cult.

Not only is she treated better than her male counterparts, she doesn’t end up skinned. They make her the damn May Queen! She goes from being the most tragic character to becoming a hero of the story. (I use hero very loosely here) The cult sees her as a hero because she makes the final decision on which individual will be sacrificed for their purposes. Rather than choose one of their loved ones to burn, she chooses her boyfriend Christian to burn alive for the prosperity of the cult. That had to be a great relief to them that they didn’t have to lose anymore of their loved ones, but instead an arrogant outsider can die.

Dani’s smile in the end of the movie, as she watches the fire, has been meme-ified to depict a woman being proud of watching her emotionally neglectful and unfaithful boyfriend burn alive. I forgot to mention, Christian does get it on in a breeding ritual and Dani sees him do it. But I don’t believe that the smile has anything to do with her being happy that it was her choice to kill Christian. First of all, she is in psychosis, brought on by trauma, exhaustion and psychedelics. Second of all, had she chosen one of their family members to burn, she could have been killed. Third of all, the made her the May Queen! She feels seen and chosen, that is all that she has wanted throughout this entire story, and we feel that agony and yearning right along with her. I find that we as the audience can even displace our anger and sadness onto Christian, who is really just an immature guy with privilege and not a lot of access to empathy. We can rejoice in his character getting killed as if it brings us closer to fulfillment with one less lying asshole on the planet. Could be. But I reject the men’s rights activist point of view that this a shallow man-hater movie.

This story is about the fragility of life. The Page of Pentacles reversed can be an incredibly fragile time for a person. Imagine being new to your career and it’s just not working out. Or getting married and on your honeymoon you find out that your spouse has been hiding atrocious parts of their personality. The entire Midsommar movie, we are in Dani’s reversal moment. It is at the very end, the smile, that we are now upright.

Though the movie ends at that point, we are invited to imagine her new life. We can have high hopes that she will be treated like family and will find her community with these people. But we can also fear for what her future could be, they’re just using her for her female parts and they will cast her aside once they are done. I do not believe the latter because in the first sacrifice ritual, the older woman that dies, is Dani. Watch it again, take a look closely, it is foreshadowing her future. She will grow old with them as a respected member. But the conditions will be that she follows their rules to the death.

The Princess of Pentacles portion is that she is ripped out of her old life, no roots to cling and is thrust into this brand new existence and all that is has to offer her! My question to you, would you take this opportunity?

I’m going to wrap this up, lunch is ready and I have to get ready for work. Spring is raging outside and I am so ready for May.