IMPORTANT THUNDERHEART THINGS

[levoi]

hollyslowly I need you come immediately

OMG, so this is a thing I just noticed. In the movie, there are a couple instances of these little quill work talismans, the circle with the cross inside that for some reason I don't have a picture of just now when I need one. Walter has one tucked into the band of his hat, and Maggie's grandmother gives one to Ray.

These are representations of the Sioux medicine/prayer wheel. The wheel is broken into four quadrants; each represents different elements and attributes, and each is related to a color and a direction.

Ray's wheel is red and white. Walter's is blue and yellow. Neither has the entire wheel represented, but together they do. (At this point, please note that I am dead of feels.)

It's also interesting which attributes are ascribed to which character. Walter's wheel represents the physical and the spiritual, earth and fire, autumn and spring, the healer and the visionary. Ray's represents the emotional and the intellectual, water and air, summer and winter, the teacher and the warrior. Ray is at war; he is neck deep in cognitive dissonance, trying to resolve what he has been taught to think with the feelings he can't control. His elements, water and air, are constantly in flux. Walter, meanwhile, is earth--tangible and steady, literally "grounded." He acts as Ray's anchor, his tether, and--the visionary--shows Ray what to see.

You must go as two.