Like all the masterpieces of the Watchowskies did, Sense8 also taught beautiful things to each of us and left a deep mark. We have felt that there is a vitality and spirit in each scene that separates it from other series and films. Unfortunately, like many other beautiful things in the world, Sense8 has also been faced with the evil side of monetary policy.
İn this article, I talked about the messages that Wachowskis (or Art Directors?) hid in various parts of the final episode of the Sense8, in order to commemorate once again the Sense8’s final episode that could be broadcast thanks to the wide fans all around the world. I leave the discussion of whether or not these symbols should be considered as “symbols which contain a serious message“ to the reader -Even if hese symbols have not been handled in any other source or even unnoticed.
However, as far as I know the Wathowskies from other productions that i have watched, i can say with certainty that these symbols can be regarded as classical sources that have deeply influenced their mental processes.
We come across the scene in the photo, where the flashback of Nomi Marks and Amanita, the lesbian couple first encountered in a bookstore. Amanita shows the book Venus Castina, which is the occasion for the two to meet.
Venus Castina – Clarence Joseph Bulliet
Venus Castina is the state of Venus, the representation of Aphrodite in Roman mythology. In this form, Venus has been associated with the female spirits living in the male body and the longing they suffer. Although there was not much evidence on this subject, Cesare Lombroso also included the adjective Castina for Venus, worshiped by homosexuals, but used a sexist style. Clarence Joseph Bulliet, an art critic and writer, named his book as “Venus Castina” years later,
which he wrote for feminine animations and touched upon homosexuality and transvestism, referring to this archetype in the Roman Mythology.
The book summarizes the common points of Nomi and Amanita characters both in terms of name and content. And it also might have made a reference to the Wachowski sisters, who had had trans experience.
“The Satanic Verses” – Salman Rushdie
Among the other books in Amanita’s arm, Salman Rushdie is at the top.
Salman Rushdie was born in Bombay in 1947 as the son of a Muslim family. The family of Rushdie, who was sent to England for high school education in 1961, forced with other Muslims to emigrate to Pakistan in 1964 and settled in Karachi. After studying history in Cambridge, Rushdie gained worldwide recognition for his novel, Midnight Children, after his critically acclaimed for his novel, the Grimus (1975).
After “The Jaguar’s Smile”, Rushdie won the 1988 Whitbread award for “The Satanic Verses”. This novel, which was banned in India because of its critical approach to Indian history and politics, was exposed to the same evil in Pakistan. On February 15, 1989, Khomeini blamed Salman Rushdie on a fatwa accusing him of infidelity for his novel Satan Verses.
Hitoshija Igarashi was stabbed to death when he translated the book into Japanese. İtalian translator Ettore Capriolo was stabbed in his home in Milan, but managed to survive. The publisher of the book in Norway was shot in the back in front of his house in Oslo. Aziz Nesin, who translated the book into Turkish and published a piece of it in a newspaper in “Aydınlık” newspaper, also received death threats. This has been suggested as one of the reasons for the Madımak massacre.
“Rome’s Revolution” – Richard Alston
Richard Alston is Professor of Roman History at Royal Holloway, University of London, and the author or editor of over a dozen books on ancient Rome.
Rome’s Revolution provides a riveting narrative of this tumultuous period of change. Historian Richard Alston digs beneath the high politics of Cicero, Caesar, Antony, and Octavian to reveal the experience of the common Roman citizen and soldier. He portrays the revolution as the crisis of a brutally competitive society, both among the citizenry and among the ruling class whose legitimacy was under threat. Throughout, he sheds new light on the motivations that drove men to march on their capital city and slaughter their compatriots. He also shows the reasons behind and the immediate legacy of the awe inspiringly successful and ruthless reign of Emperor Augustus. An enthralling story of ancient warfare, social upheaval, and personal betrayal, Rome’s Revolution offers an authoritative new account of an epoch which still haunts us today. (Amazon)
Simon Schama has taught history at Cambridge, Oxford, and Harvard universities, was art critic for the New Yorker, and is currently a professor of history and art history at Columbia University. He is a prizewinning author whose books include The Embarrassment of Riches, Citizens, Landscape and Memory, The Story of the Jews, and The Power of Art, which has been made into an Emmy-winning television series.
This dazzling, unconventional biography shows us why, more than three centuries after his death, Rembrandt continues to exert such a hold on our imagination. Deeply familiar to us through his enigmatic self-portraits, few facts are known about the Leiden miller’s son who tasted brief fame before facing financial ruin (he was even forced to sell his beloved wife Saskia’s grave). The true biography of Rembrandt, as Simon Schama demonstrates, is to be discovered in his pictures. Interweaving of seventeenth-century Holland, Schama allows us to see Rembrandt in a completely fresh and original way. (Amazon)
“The Aenedi” – Virgil
Another scene in the final part of Sense8 is set in a tour car, where the whole group is dressed as a tourist to raid a palace in Italy. While all the members of the group of tourists were sitting in their chairs, Leto’s lover, Hernando, pretending like a tour guide, and holds Virgil’s famous ancient book “Aeneid”. The name of the book in hand appears on the screen for a very short time. However, if we consider the name of the final section is “Amor Vincit Omnia”, this is a very important point.
”Amor Vincit Omnia” means anlam “Love overcomes everything“ (Yeah! Love Wins!)
This phrase first appears in Virgil’s Eclogues. With the full form, Virgil says “Amor vincit omnia, et nos cedamus amori.”
”Love overcomes everything, so we shall surrender to love“
Aeneid, the book we see on the screen is the epic poem of Virgil. Hero Aeneas is a Trojan traveling from Troy to Italy to find Rome. Some argue that Virgil had an answer to Homer’s Odyssey and his Iliad, combining two literary types of ancient age (travel and war) in one poetry.
In Virgil’s sources, and especially in Aeneid, there arose a number of homosexuality, trans experiences and intersecting themes of ritualistic and religious themes, which were not recorded by other ancient historians.
Bonus:
Who are the dancers on the behind of Amanita and Nomi’s in their weddings? Lilly Wachowski and her lover as you can see from the pink hairs! Could it be indicate that Amanita and Nomi’s stories carry a piece of Liliy’s?
References:
“Salman Rushdie ve Lanetli Kitabı: Şeytan Ayetleri” – www.dünyalilar.org
“Venus Castina” – Wikipedia – en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_Castina
“Rembrand’s Eyes” – Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Rembrandts-Eyes-Simon-Schama
“Rome’s Revolution” – Amazon
https://www.amazon.com/Romes-Revolution-Republic-Ancient-Civilization/dp/0199739765
“The Aeneid” – Goodreads – https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12914.The_Aeneid
