The first time I finished Hereditary (2018.) I wrote down some thoughts titled Sometimes, We Can Only Face It.
I felt a sense of irresponsibility and disrespect to summarize a film with such a hopeless tone. I thought there was something I missed from this horrifying family tragedy, and I should’ve done more research.
After spending time on YouTube and articles, I was assured that my instinct was not too far away from the message delivered by Hereditary, or, should I say the title could be, Some People Are Only Pawns in Hopeless Fate.
Previous Post
In the last article of Hereditary, I mentioned the most loyal fallen angel, Paimon, and the occult their grandmother had performed to make a deal with it, causing the whole family to be sacrificed.
In this article, I had more evidence to justify my conclusion that the family truly had no control over their fated misfortune.
Words on the Wall
Pausing the film, I noticed some ancient phrases carved on the wall. They didn’t look like blessing words or the markings of anyone in the family. And no one seemed to be bothered by these sinister foreign words, maybe they were used to living in this ancient house, living with the reclusive grandmother.
Words like:
SATONY– It’s a word in the Ritual of Necromancy, which is witchcraft to communicate with the dead. A powerful word evokes death back to the world.
ZARAS– It’s a mantra believed by sex magician, Aleister Crowley who used it to delay orgasm in a sex-magic operation. Crowley also used it to summon Choronzo, the demon of dispersion, who has resourceful knowledge.
LIFTOACH PANDEMONIUM– LIFTOACH is a Hebrew word for open up, and PANDEMONIUM is a place where Satan and all the fallen angels reside.
So basically, this family is surrounded by a ritual that summons death; under the force of witchcraft or sex magic, which I guess, is for producing the offspring for Paimon to possess; and opens the door to any dark spirit to gather.
Manipulation
The opening scene featured a miniature family, and the director focused on a room, where the real people started acting. It was unsettling to see an artwork start displaying a real life like the artists had decided everything.
Then I found out that from the very beginning, the late grandmother had manipulated all family members’ futures; the mother started making a miniature to reflect what happened in the family as if she tried to manipulate her family to escape from the granny’s manipulation; Charlie, the little girl, also manipulated animals’ lives to set up her miniature ritual.
The tendency to control ran inside all the females in this family. Peter was so submissive to her mother that he brought his little sister to his friend’s party without a strong refusal, and the husband cried while driving because of how dysfunctional the family was. But he kept everything to himself and tried his best to get along with his emotional wife.
Hercules
There were several scenes set in the son’s class, and one of them was the teacher stating that the flaws of the Greek mythological figure, Hercules he is just a pawn in a horrible hopeless fate.
Born as a semi-god, Hercules is the son of Zeus and a mortal woman. Despite he is gifted with incredible strength and stamina, including wrestling death and traveling twice to the underground, his life is harsh due to the sickening hatred of Hera, the wife of Zeus, who is jealous of the existence of Zeus’ cheating.
Regarded as the protector of humans, Hercules never had a choice to make his decisions in life. He was forced to endure twelve labors, be submissive to others, and marry women assigned by other Greek figures.
It was like an unchallenged fact that even as strong as Hercules was constrained in inevitable horrible hopelessness, how did a normal family resist the arrangement of fate?
