Richard's Response to Notley

So... "Descent of Alette." What is there to say about it that we've not covered already?

Well, one of the things that really fascinated me about it (after I managed to actually start understanding what I was looking at) was the fact that there seems to be a subtle theme of old and new, or antiquity and modernity. I'm actually kind of surprised that no one seemed to bring this up. We see that the deeper Alette descends, the less modern her surroundings become. We are shown that she starts in a subway, one of the biggest modern conveniences we have. Up above that is a modern city, though we don't go there until the end.

As Alette travels down deeper, she leaves modernity behind and we end up in a more natural, more antique world, where older ideas seem to prevail. It has a much more fantastical feel to it. The whole thing does have a fantasy feel, but the settings deep within the earth such as the caverns, rivers, beaches, and forests, feel much more reminiscent of a classic fantasy novel. At the heart of antiquity, the heart of the forest, is the house of the tyrant, who we established is the embodiment of the oppressive institution, set in a very old, outdated way of thinking that not only harms women, but also men, if the man who gives Alette his heart is to be believed (which he is).

What's strange is the fact that, even after he is dead, his body apparently made of cloth, Alette reveals that the city up above is actually his skeleton, giving credence to the idea that even though humans have come a very long way since our beginnings, modernity still holds some of these antique ideas, even if it is subconsciously, and only through our own conscious efforts and powers can we cast aside the remnants of the tyrant.

As a side note, it surprised me that no one noticed that Alette herself becomes an owl (or as she puts it, takes on an 'owl form') during her fight against the Tyrant. I don't know about anyone else, but the owl has always been a symbol of wisdom and intelligence to me. The fact that she takes on this form, and that her father was also in this form, gives me the idea that knowledge was the thing that defeated the tyrant. After all, intelligence and information is the best way to combat ideas, is it not?