“The real purpose of the end is For Good Times“This has been misunderstood, but I think it’s very clear that at the end Sammie has been implying throughout the book that she’s been given a superpower… and at the end she says, ‘Do you want to know what my superpower is? To forget. But then she says, ‘But until I tell you “Wait,” he said.

David went on to explain what he meant when he wrote this closing sentence. “So truly forgetting is a superpower… not being able to forget and keep telling these stories is what perpetuates conflict. It keeps wounds fresh. You cannot reconcile it in any way.”

The idea of ​​being able to forget seemed new when we talked; Sounds like an interesting way to end an intriguing story. When my father died a few years later, having the ability to forget seemed like a real superpower to me. To forget those last moments, the growl of death, the unforgettable place of my loved ones gathering around me and saying their final goodbyes, there was a moment when I would do anything to save myself from this memory. And now forgetting feels like a curse created by a cruel world, not a superpower.

In the wake of war, genocide, and another Donald Trump presidency, it seems as if the end of the world has been teetering on a knife edge for years; So much so that if you want to continue living a peaceful daily life, we will have to start forgetting. If you find yourself describing the horror that surrounds you with every step and every breath, even the sanest will go crazy within a few hours. We shouldn’t forget, but we shouldn’t forget the fight or flight mentality of rowing against the current that comes with being human.

“For me, it’s important to speak out because we have a platform, and a lot of the important news that’s happening right now has been forgotten,” said Sharon den Adel of Within Temptation, one of the biggest metal bands protesting. in the world right now. He’s talking to me after hitting the gym to get ready for the band’s upcoming tour. His English is a bit broken, but his message couldn’t be clearer. “The next day, you read the news and it turned into, as you put it, filling the dumpster… One day it was news and the next day no one was talking about it anymore.”

Our problems cannot be ignored. They are dazzling and terrifying and they are at our fingertips. It’s the same thing we all object to. Therefore, the messages conveyed in art can often feel repetitive and fearful. Within Temptation has never been afraid to make their political voices heard. The band, which waves Ukrainian flags on stage, has visuals that reflect fear, songs that unite those on the right side of history, and lyrics that tell its listeners to stand their ground, looks into your eyes while shaking your hand. Adel argues that modern music should highlight the atrocities happening at home and abroad because the news we receive is repetitive. Thus arises the second problem: understanding.

Memory and comprehension. It’s a dilemma for protest groups in the modern era. Not only do you have to stop the bed of nails effect and remind people that these terrible things are going on, but you have to portray them in a way that does justice to the injustice, so to speak.

Museo Reina Sofia is huge. Art can sometimes be effective and if consumed correctly, but there is just too much art when you visit Sofia. Genocide, pain, love, melancholy, racism, sexism, joy, surrealism, and abstract imagery all combine to the point where the messages overlap and distort. A similar piece becomes the same thing and the art is completely lost. Every attempt by people to discuss what was said or what the artist was trying to say is dissolved into imperceptible white noise.

The beauty of Madrid outside is gone, the pigeons that gather on street corners to eat discarded meat and cheese are forgotten, the accents, the sunlight and the architecture have no meaning because all time and every emotion ever felt is contained within these four walls. completely lost, completely meaningless.

Replace Museo Reina Sofia with Spotify. You are no longer dealing with the fourfold of art; You’re dealing with the whole history of music. Even though the wounds of the oppressed in the 21st century are fresh, those wounds continue to be copies of the wounds experienced before, the wounds about which songs have been sung. Modern protest music not only needs to draw attention to significant rebellion, which is now necessary, but it also needs to be distressing enough for people to distinguish it from what has come before. Modern protest music needs to remove the scabs and reveal the wounds in a way that emphasizes their importance. There’s no right way to do this, but Within Temptation had huge success when they went independent.

“It’s also a problem that record companies handle things in a very traditional way,” Adel said, highlighting the positive things they’ve experienced since acquiring the rights to their music and having the freedom to release whatever they want. “This is for a reason that works for them. So that they can say, ‘We’ll release the album then.’ ‘You will have to finish the album between then and that day because we may release the album after another band we have agreed upon’. So sometimes you are forced into a program that is too short or too long.”

Being independent also allowed the band to release more singles. While record companies promote albums, singles allow bands to write about topical issues and get them out there much more quickly. “They always just want to release an album,” Adel admitted. “At certain times we felt like we just wanted to release a single because there’s an urgency to it. We want to touch on some of the things that are going on in society right now, and this song would be really appropriate at this time.” You can’t; you have to wait until all these releases are done and then we can release your single. It was like, ‘OK, that’s not what we want, we want to release it now, and if you can’t, you have to do it on your own.’

Releasing protest music in this modern environment seems to require a modern approach. The methods used by other groups in the past no longer resonate because technology, culture, and how we consume information have changed. Within Temptation addresses this issue with their independent approach to releasing music.

“A label always tries to stick to its own schedule, which is completely normal, but for a band we want to do something different,” he said. “Dance music has been doing this for many years, which is perfectly normal right now, all the time for singles.” “It’s much harder in a band or more traditional music genre because labels will hold on to the idea of ​​an album.”

Within Temptation isn’t averse to the challenges that come with releasing music independently. “What works against you is that when you release an album at that moment you have to do the production, the recording, the mixing, you have to go through all the ritual that you do to release an album,” he said. do this all the time and it takes a lot of time. It’s more expensive, more time consuming, more emotion. So you’re using the time you could have spent writing and releasing this single.

The final pitfall of modern protest music is the demand for it. As we mentioned before, exposure to such traumas and these horrific images not only numbs us, but also makes us forget. If music is a form of escape for some people, why would they want to spend more of their free time engaging in music? For many, doing so is necessary, but Within Temptation also recognizes that it has a responsibility to deliver an entertaining show that people want to watch.

“You want to give them some kind of image of hope and something to hold on to,” Adel said. “Let people think for themselves, but when we show them the images they get the message (…) Leave it to the people to see how deep they want to go there.”

The band perfectly emphasizes the image of beauty and fragility on their current tour; because the background looks like a snow globe, which could be a perfect representation of the world right now. We were shaken; but within this comes beauty. While inside the snow globe, in the falling snow; In the real world, this is a human reaction; The music of Within Temptation and the chorus of its crowds. However, this beauty has a limit; When it shakes, it comes out, but if you keep shaking, keep shaking hard, everything will shatter.

“You see something different every time, but then it’s the same environment…” Sharon den Adel said. In keeping with the group’s purpose, these images create a backdrop of beauty and brutality, brutality and art, everything that is both wrong and right in the world. But wait until I tell you…

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