Another Orphan Black feeling

[kaberett]

This time it's the feeling of: Siobhan is Irish, and she knows what she knows and does what she does and is the age she is; I can't imagine she's not religious (though I wouldn't like to guess either way), and I can't imagine she doesn't know that Felix is gay; I further suspect she knows he's a sex worker. And she loves him to pieces. She welcomes him - still - into her house; she feeds him tea, she not only permits but encourages him to spend time with Kira, she hugs him, she adores him; he is one of her own and she will fight tooth and nail for him.

She is playing complicated and dangerous games and she doesn't know that she's doing right by her people, but -- oh, but I burst into tears every time I think about her.

(As a total aside, I'm also rapidly developing headcanon that Marion of topside is trans.)

Comments

[rysmiel]

I can't imagine she's not religious (though I wouldn't like to guess either way)

With that particular accent, and that bone structure and what it says about ancestry, she is definitely Catholic.

[kaberett]

Thank you! I'm sufficiently far removed from the Irish Catholic lot that I wasn't sure I was correctly pattern-matching on Papa's facial features.

(... SO MANY FEELINGS UGH)

[davidgillon]

Having googled a picture of Siobhan, I'd buy Irish Catholic. I'd also say she's somewhere around my age, maybe even younger. Having been brought up as an English Catholic I'd have absolutely no problem in believing a church-going Irish Catholic who simultaneously has no problem whatsoever with people, including family, who are gay and or sex/workers.

(And there's that whole Mary Magdalene as a repentant sex-worker schtick - though that's now out of favour it was still current when she would have been growing up).

For our generation it can be hugely complex in how you navigate the divergence between what you believe religion-wise, what the church teaches, and what you believe is ethically right. As far as I can tell the vast majority of Catholics, even actively practising ones, are far more liberal than the church itself is.

Content note: abuse, suicide

[kaberett]

I was brought up Catholic by my mum, who in turn was brought up Catholic in rural Cornwall by one Irish Catholic parent and one Austrian Catholic parent. My mum and I spent most of my teens having flat-out screaming matches, during at least one of which she said that [people who shared a characteristic with me] should kill themselves rather than have children. I... find it hard to believe that Siobhan would necessarily have managed to sidestep all of that.

ETA I feel I should clarify that her position has shifted a lot and we genuinely get on well these days - she writes e-mails to bishops unprompted about how Masses for LGBT congregations are important and shouldn't be dropped, and furthermore that "Mass for Gays" is completely unacceptable terminology on several counts! It's just it was really very painful getting there, and it was coming out that caused me to leave the Church long before I lost the faith, but I just... really don't want to think about the fights that Felix and Siobhan had over it, because just thinking about how unconditionally she loves & accepts him is enough to make me weep.

Re: Content note: abuse, suicide

[rysmiel]

I can buy Mrs. S as "raised Irish Catholic, went to London to get the hell away from it, rejected some of the value system for good fairly young" fwiw, so there does not to my mind absolutely need to have been that scale of fights along the way.

Re: Content note: abuse, suicide

[kaberett]

Thank you for saying. <3 (Though in turn that means she's probably fought those battles for herself, which... is also painful but probably explains a lot.)

Re: Content note: abuse, suicide

[skygiants]

Yeah, that's sort of the way I see her backstory too. The thing about Mrs. S that always sticks with me, maybe more than anything else, is that line she has to Sarah about punk rock -- "you took all the attitude, none of the politics." So those politics matter to her, politics that center around equality, individualism, anti-authoritarianism, direct action -- politics about accepting difference, and probably quite a lot of the things she grew up being taught not to accept.

There are so many fascinating stories to be told about Mrs. S, but one of the ones I really want to see is young punk rocker Mrs. S., who heard those things in music and believed them.

Re: Content note: abuse, suicide

[davidgillon]

I think that we're a transitional couple of generations, some of us have held to traditional views, some of us, like you, like me to a slightly lesser extent (in that I haven't quite lost my faith, just the Church), have moved on because we can't accept a Church that doesn't offer equality for all, and a lot are stuck in the middle, having moved to greater or lesser degree, because society as a whole has moved, while remaining part of the church. (And in many ways it is a lengthy maturing process, I say that disability is one of the best things that happened to me because it kicked me further down the equality for all path than I might otherwise have made it from my straight, white, middle-class male starting position)

Siobhan will likely have grown up before/during gay lib, so will have had to reform her opinions, as Rysmiel suggests moving away may have been key to that. But some of us of that age group have moved on, have rejected the church's position, and without it necessarily being too traumatic. (Which is not to say there weren't family screaming matches over other issues!)

I love Skygiants' point, Siobhan's comment is indicative of someone who did question the system she was brought up in.

[carthaginians]

I can buy this about Mrs. S. I don't think she'd have gotten used to it easily seeing as she seems so strict, but I'd like to think this was a victory for love.