This is going to be something of a ramble because I am rather emotionally triggered mostly for unrelated reasons but also this struck a chord with me in a few ways and was viscerally uncomfortable. That is a compliment for this case -- that was clearly the intended effect, and it worked brilliantly.
GD, you did so much in this case, and if my body would let me cry right now, I would be. This was phenomenal. It hit me in the f-ing gut. I don't know how you handled all the characters SO WELL, but it shows you have a better understanding of the world than I. This was such a wise work.
Overall, this felt hugely parallel to the real world, particularly I feel with Latine Catholic intonations. (I only have secondhand experience with Latine Catholic communities and values, so my reference box isn't brimming, but genuinely -- given the stuff I've seen, whether subtle or unsubtle, this seems so accurate to the subtext I've perceived from those communities that I am 98% certain a lot of this comes from personal experience. (I'm stopping that comment there out of respect for GD's privacy, whether my speculation is correct or not. The point is that this felt both powerful and real.)
Having been surrounded by Latine communities throughout my life (I live in Southern California, so no surprise), and picked up on some cultural knowledge during my 6-7 years learning Spanish, the setting felt akin to, well, exactly what it was: a small village with a power imbalance between church officials and average laborers, with connection to the church offering power, wealth, and prestige at the cost of assimilation for those who rose the ranks. The wealthy oppress the poor and the marginalized; the poor try to oppress the marginalized among them. The poor and the marginalized either accept their place and live in stasis, try to rise up the ladder that so few successfully climb, fight for justice, or escape. That's just the way of the world.
There's a certain paranoia that this case induces even in those "based" people like us who know that Dot isn't crazy or a witch or anything like that. Because that's what gaslighting does to you -- even if you know you're right about the key matter, you question everything else:
Why is everyone so against me? Why is the cleaner being so nice to me while she condemns me? Why is she trying to butter up the bishop? Does she actually believe I'm a witch? Why is she justifying killing the victim? Why is everyone so forgiving of her for this? Why is the prosecutor able to keep badgering me like this? Why is everyone just accepting his crazy arguments? Why is the bishop allowing everybody to behave like this but ignoring half of everything I say? Why is she acting like she actually cares? Why did she argue in my favor just now? Does she actually care?
etc, etc, etc.
But it doesn't matter. Nothing you think matters, and nothing you do matters. And yet, simultaneously, everything you do matters. Because you can't get yourself out of this predicament, but your actions have the power to dictate whether you survive it or not. The only one you can rely on is yourself -- even your friends can't help you, because they literally do not have the power to. It's a cruel world; the intentions of others mean nothing, your own intentions mean nothing. Even your own actions barely mean anything, but they're all you have. That's what oppression is. It's powerlessness. It's pain, it's suffering, it's complacence, it's acceptance of the unacceptable.
Even within this story -- the story of the one person who made it out, and not with any help of the system -- Dot only managed to escape the trial without a guilty verdict because the witnesses misplayed their cards. Because Dot was perceptive, "exceptional" enough to strategize a losing court battle with no lawyer and no co-counsel. There were so many others like them, without the same skills, and without a friend in the village guard, who just had no way to win -- or draw, as Dot did.
There is so much fear in a society like that. And societies like that are still real today -- closer to home than you may imagine. They're everywhere.
There's paranoia on the parts of the oppressors too -- in this case, I believe it's the reason I draw the comparison between this case's setting and real-life Latine communities (it's always possible I'm wrong, so GD can correct/be upset at me if I'm misinformed). I've noticed that in Latine Catholic communities there tends to be this sort of... not always righteous anger in the same way that extremist American Evangelicals like to use to punish people for misbehaving, but also this fear of being punished if they tread down the wrong path. (Keep in mind: I'm observing a pattern, not drawing a blanket conclusion.) The sentiment feels more like "I know what's best for you" and "I know how to keep you safe" than "do as I say because that's what I want you to do" -- even if the latter is functionally the result. It's authoritarian, yes, but specifically an authoritarian form of overprotectiveness. Rodrigo is more authoritarian, Esperanza is more overprotective, both are paranoid, both are oppressive assholes.
There's a "machismo" I notice to Rodrigo and Mateo. They both seem dead set on countering everything Dot says, even the most minor details, to prove they're right. To prove they're stronger than her. To prove their worth, their pride, and in it their masculinity. All of Rodrigo's comments about women's place in society and their emotions just show how much of a superiority complex he has developed because of this mindset. Mateo doubles down so hard on his belief that Dot and their lookalike could never do anything kind for him that he burns down his crops and dies of starvation. That is the extent of his righteousness.
Meanwhile, the women -- Ana and Esperanza -- are more uncertain, more fearful, but nonetheless still determined to vanquish the evil despite its unknown significance. They lean towards assuming guilt and killing suspects because that's "safer" than letting a potentially guilty person walk free. The price of human lives literally means nothing to them if they feel like they could've protected others by ending them, even though "could've" can be said about anybody's death. Unlike the men, Rodrigo and Mateo, they express kindness to Dot, but that's where it stops. Once Dot disagrees with them, they show sternness, coldness, ambivalence, and fear. Their kindness was superficial, and they have no empathy for him. They only have concern for their own safety -- in the way that a lot of real-life Catholics try to prevent their children from sinning, whether it is God or la llorona that will punish them, whether it is for homosexuality or for wandering off in the dark. If someone is a sinner -- if their safety is to be questioned by that person's sin -- they will cast that person away if they feel like they have to. They will convince themselves that paranoia is the safest option, that vigilance and rigidity will save them from harm.
(Again, patterns and socialization, not rigid facts. This is how I believe these characters have been socialized to think, in a similar way to real life, not how I believe all or most real-life Latine people will behave depending on their gender/sex/religion.)
None of these people have empathy for Dot. Dot is an outsider to all of them -- to the men with power because they are different and wrong and should be punished, to the women with usually less power because they are dangerous and will harm their sacred, uptight community. But Dot is neither man nor woman, and has no power. They aren't worth true consideration to the powerful, other than for the performative purpose of offering them some basic human rights that aren't even properly delivered. Their oppressors want to pleasure themselves (I would've used a more obscene phrase, but AAO rules) by exercising their power over this societally weaker individual.
This hit very close to home, because although I am privileged enough to mostly have the financial resources I need (the main exception to this is major but not relevant), I have been treated like this all my life. Lutheran middle school + clergy, traditional and abusive parents, abusive friends, just general assholes that think I'm crazy for being XYZ and allowing myself to authentically be that...
And so often in my life, these very same people that have treated me like total garbage and made my life a living hell in the emotional sense constantly assume my bad intentions in the same way that Dot and their doppelganger's intent is assumed to be malicious even when it undeniably proves not to be. Mateo's epilogue proves that. But nothing will convince these people -- they are so stubborn that they are right and Dot is wrong and Dot deserves punishment for being wrong even when the thing they consider "wrong" on Dot's behalf is literally inconsequential.
I want to emphasize the interactions between Dot and Ana Domingo, who was most definitely my favorite character in terms of the nuanced position she found herself in and the themes explored within her. Ana was a victim of the society she lived in, but she caved and perpetuated that abuse in the same way many people do in real life, whether it be societal oppression or sexual, physical, or mental/emotional abuse. Perpetuators of this type are in a lot of pain from the suffering they are laden with, and before they begin to perpetuate, it is both needed and intuitive to sympathize with them even for those who have no idea what they are going through.
But Ana took a life. She did it out of paranoia, but it is so difficult to express sympathy for someone who deludes themself into committing the most capital crime there is for no justifiable reason. And after she did it, she lied about it multiple times, tried to cater good will out of her oppressors by acting against someone with less power than her, and then used her crime to make herself look good to those oppressors, because she was acting in their interests. She benefitted them. So she won -- at the expense of what would've been Dot's death or eternal suffering if it wasn't for a few lucky stars.
I was extremely, extremely torn about Ana. I still am. I struggle with nuance in people, in social interactions; it's part of my autism, it's part of my borderline symptoms. But I just can't bring myself to judge her as an evildoer or try to justify her actions, and I believe the narrative -- while rightfully condemning her -- doesn't do either of these things. I don't believe it should, either, but it could be argued I'm speaking from a small pedestal when I say that. She was... an unfortunate product of her circumstances, and she couldn't win out in the fight against her fears. I don't believe her to have ill intent. But she broke during a traumatic moment, and acted on that trauma in a way that caused even worse trauma to others.
Her ending is befitting of such a "broken" individual. Living a life that would be assumed to make one happy, but clearly being out of the picture, clearly dealing with something that couldn't possibly be understood by any of the friendly strangers in her shop. All dressed up and nowhere to go, living in turmoil for the rest of her life because her trauma was too much... that is an emotional experience I painfully identify with. The pain of being delivered so many blows, then forced into a situation where you could potentially do the same or worse to somebody, or live in fear for the rest of your life... there's so much palpable terror within her. And she caved to it -- she made the wrong decision.
Disappearing seemed... like the "right" ending for her. She started as an unknown -- for Dot, who failed to read her intentions, for herself, who didn't know what to think, for the inquisitors, whom she desperately tried to please -- and she ended as an unknown. I feel pity for her, and empathy too, but I also feel pain because of her actions, because of what she did to Dot, because of the life she took.
I can't end my thoughts on her on a definitive note. All I can say is that even though I was going in with the impression that there wouldn't be a "horror" feel to this case, Ana's confession (with great help from the music) made me feel genuine terror. Because the feelings her confession invoked in me were real fear, real distrust, and real pain -- not just simulated. I cannot recall having that raw or genuine of a fear response to any other fictional work in a long time (though I may be forgetting).
The other characters all filled their roles beautifully, and I have no criticisms against any of their narrative roles. I just have to also give you special praise for Esperanza, who has a very fitting name -- meaning "hope" (and her last name meaning "fighter") -- because despite representing everything opposite of what her name does, her decisions allowed Dot to escape instead of being sentenced to death... to fight with hope. And, fittingly, her life was ended by hopeful fighters whose efforts she extinguished with hellfire.
The amount of confusion behind her intentions -- why in the world she allowed Dot to present the fertilizer, and why in the world she accepted Dot's claims, despite clearly being very biased against them and siding with the prosecution the majority of the time -- and the unending questions one could delve into in trying to understand them is beautiful. Dot themself said that they wondered, but didn't want to know; I believe that was the best thing for them to do about her. Because it doesn't matter what her intentions were -- it only mattered whether she listened to Dot or not. Thankfully, she listened enough not to end another innocent person's life, even if she still upheld a disgusting system in not doing so the other 80% of the time.
The only criticism I have is a small one: some of the language used in regards to queerness in character dialogue (not the epilogues) was a bit direct to me, given the implied time period. This didn't seem like a time period where someone would say "she/her pronouns" in a sentence (even in a dream).
However -- and this is a big however -- I recognize that this may be coming from some internalized transphobia/cringe culture on my part, and/or this may be an extension of a bias I have that skews away from saying "I use she/they pronouns" in favor of "I go by 'she' and 'they'" because that feels more conversational to me. I personally feel like it would be more natural to skew into the latter, especially in a time period where it seems all the various forms of queerness weren't accepted enough to have widely known ways of talking about them, but your mileage may vary and I could also just be wrong or lacking historical information.
