The New Valkyrie

The New Valkyrie in Postmodern Culture

Trinity: I know why you're here, Neo. I know what you've been doing... why you hardly sleep, why you live alone, and why night after night, you sit by your computer. You're looking for him. I know because I was once looking for the same thing. And when he found me, he told me I wasn't really looking for him. I was looking for an answer. It's the question, Neo. It's the question that drives us. It's the question that brought you here. You know the question, just as I did.
Neo: What is the Matrix?
Trinity: The answer is out there, Neo, and it's looking for you, and it will find you if you want it to.

Trinity: My name's Trinity.
Neo: *The* Trinity? Who cracked the IRS d-base?
Trinity: That was a long time ago.
Neo: Jesus...
Trinity: What?
Neo: I just thought... you were a guy.
Trinity: Most guys do.

It's a good time to be a woman who believes in heroines.

The new conceptual Valkyrie in post-modern culture is one of strength and endurance. She is free, willing, able and fearless in the same way male heroes have appeared in modern culture. We see winged women in newer stories like Kill Bill, Sin City, The Matrix and others as naturally powerful, autonomous and earning reverence prior to their introduction. I've heard critique of the way in which the Goddess now appears - violent, fighting, bloody. The Goddess emerges as violent to survive in the world man created. Stylistic misinterpretations of aramaic and tradition have lead to misconceptions of ancient philosophies, with the margin of error favoring male dominance & female ignorance.

One of my favorite ancient customs in Judaism is the mikvah. A ritual female-only hot bath, occurring on a lunar cycle (i.e. the feminine cycle) designed to cleanse the body & spirit. While there are both negative and positive interpretations of this ritual, I find it quite beautiful, revering the woman enough to prepare her a bath, all in accordance with a lunar cycle, an undeniable link to femininity. At the same time, my ancestors participated in behavior such as separating women from the Torah. I've read varying takes on this tradition. I've decided to believe in a different perspective. My favorite came from a slightly sophist dyke professor. allow me to paraphrase.

Studying the Torah requires agonizing hours of argumentation and study. The revered Jewish woman contains this knowledge innately and has no need to suffer through a learning process with which she was already born. It is her intuition, her specific brand of closeness to g-d that dictates she need not spend her time on interpreting the word of the Universe, because she was born with it.

Trinity & The Matrix
Trinity is one of my top ten heroines. And it's not just because she can kick some serious ass. Like all my favorites, she is fallible, while simultaneously powerful and virtuous. Her strength of character grows from her ability to believe, she's learned to control her fears but remains fallible in love; Trinity is willingly flawed by her fated involvement with the anomaly of love - neo.

Without reviewing the trilogy itself, comparing movie quality etc (that's so 2003), here is a look at the progression of Trinity and Neo, in brief.

-Trinity is shot, she is vulnerable & unconscious and she is in Neo's arms, Neo is holding her
- Neo saves Trinity by touching her heart
- Trinity returns the favor by mentioning the word "love" to Neo (it wakes him up)
- Trinity shows a slight sign of jealousy in the scene w/ persephone, quickly restores faith in neo, allows him to kiss persephone and remains fearless, unscathed, unaffected, and even more powerful
- Trinity is fully functional independent of Neo

As Valkyrie, Trinity escorts Neo to a necessary end, therefore fulfilling her own duty as heroine

As the Goddess emerges with wings, swords and power, she instills fear in most men. In the dawn of the new Valkyrie, femininity is the muse of all questions.

You have been warned

on that note, it's also fun to play dress up but heels are stupid.

2 mp3s today, dedicated to trinity & neo:

Yo La Tengo "Stockholm Syndrome"

Yo La Tengo "Our Way To Fall"

(to keep them, right click/ save as)