2025-10-20 20:46:19: add stuff abt the scarlet letter

Author: xyzqm

content/thoughts/frieren.md

@@ -40,10 +40,10 @@ ideas
 	- carcass/snow on the fox in kraft episode
 	- Land sees cat + its mom for some reason? he's also surprised to see the mom, maybe this refers to his own backstory
 
-## Remembrance|Praise|Religion
+## Remembrance + Praise + Religion
 Ideas about remembrance, praise, and religion lie at the core of Frieren. We see a variety of perspectives on these topics throughout the show:
 - **Himmel** epitomizes a pursuit of remembrance. Everything he does, he does so he will be remembered: helping others, building statues of himself, setting out to defeat the Demon King in the first place, etc.
-	- frieren and himmel:
+	- Frieren and Himmel:
 		- "why do you help other people?" 
 		- "maybe I do it for myself, so that I'll be remembered"
 		- "what do you need to do?"
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@ Ideas about remembrance, praise, and religion lie at the core of Frieren. We see
 - **Kraft** acts as a foil for Himmel. In the past, he likely also shared a burning desire for remembrance, but unlike Himmel, Kraft has lived long enough to also see himself forgotten. 
   He comes to recognize the futility of placing value in human memory and decides to
   turn to the Goddess instead.
-- **Heiter** is a mix of both of these characters. Because of his belief in the Goddess, he comes to prioritize self-improvement over external approval.
+- **Heiter** is a mix of both of these characters. Because of his belief in the Goddess, he comes to prioritize self-improvement over external approval. However, as a human, he still values the praise of others (elaborate more on this point later).
 - frieren clearly values himmel's praise 
 	- maybe because he praises her for more mundane things (doesn't need to be impressive for him?)
 - humans like himmel make other humans (the collective) their gods, turn to them for praise

content/thoughts/optimal-constructives.md

@@ -1,5 +1,8 @@
 ---
 title: Optimal Constructives
+tags:
+  - constructive
+  - dp
 ---
 ## Optimal Constructives
 ### 10/20

content/thoughts/the-scarlet-letter.md

@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+---
+title: The Scarlet Letter
+tags:
+  - book
+---
+## Chapter 1: The Prison-Door
+- Anne Hutchinson vs. Hester Prynne: both deviate from society, one good, one bad
+	- nonetheless, in Ch. 2 Hester Prynne is described via a lot of religious imagery
+		- page 51: reference to "a halo"
+- the rose parallels the scarlet letter
+	- both born grown from shame (prison soil/adultery), both can potentially represent transformation(?)
+- first two buildings constructed are _graveyard_ and _prison_
+	- ways of enforcing divine law (death) or human law (imprisonment)
+	- reflects how Puritans treat religion and law as one and the same
+
+## Chapter 2: The Market-Place
+- this chapter serves to establish a lot of setting
+	- Puritan demeanor: narrator says they might as well be witnessing someone's execution
+	- vicious jealousy from other women in town
+	- location: the market-place
+- not-so-subtle comparison of Hester to the Virgin Mary
+- the flashback scene is pretty incredible IMO
+
+## Chapter 3: The Recognition
+- interesting misdirection with the Indian man at the start; helps build suspense
+  for reveal of the husband
+	  - I thought having a townsman explain his _own_ backstory to him (since he's pretending to be a stranger) was a pretty clean and clever narrative choice
+- also suspense w/ Dimmesdale
+	- parallels drawn to Hester, seems to want to retreat into the crowd/"shadows"
+	- could he be...?
+
+## Chapter 4: The Interview
+- some very nice characterization of the husband
+	- highly rational, as expected of such a scholar
+		- says he doesn't want to kill Hester because he thinks it's a worse punishment
+		  forcing her to _live_ with her mark of shame  
+	- lots of fire imagery
+- at the end, allusion to Hester making a deal with the devil (the Black Man/her husband)

content/thoughts/watchlist.md

@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ A list of everything I've watched, or plan to watch! All lists (besides "To Watc
 - Jujutsu Kaisen
 - Vinland Saga
 - Attack on Titan
+- Howl's Moving Castle
 
 ## TV
 - [[frieren|Frieren]]