Subject: Re: Blue Velvet ending (possible SPOILER)
From: barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu (Barb Miller)
Date: 1991-08-22, 13:55
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks
Reply-to: barb@zurich.ai.mit.edu

In article <56455@apple.Apple.COM> larryy@Apple.COM (Larry Yaeger) writes:
  [summary of preceding discussion deleted for brevity]

   For what it's worth, I always saw the surface level of that image as the
   first part of Barb's interpretation... good overpowering evil (though the
   idea that it actually feeds on evil is more profound, since it implies that
   good *needs* evil to exist - a very Zen understanding).  But while I can
   see Barb's subsequent interpretation of an exposure to knowledge, the
   very consciously fake nature of the robin has always led me to Wylie's
   interpretation as the deeper meaning of that closing scene... specifically,
   that our usual visions of goodness and love are not at all real.  Still,
   if goodness and love are *not* real, or at least not *enough*, then what
   is?  Well, Barb's final interpretation might make a fine answer... good
   *and* evil, and the knowledge of both.  Layers upon layers.

I appreciate your endorsement, but I tried in my posting to avoid
using the terms "good" and "evil" as part of my interpretation.
Specifically, the bugs to me represent the world of the instincts, an
earthy, creepy, perhaps unpleasant part of life, which is in fact
Frank's whole world.  But I don't think that it is appropriate to
place a moral judgement upon the element that the bugs symbolize.  Of
course, Jeffrey's aunt (as Chris pointed out in the other posting)
can't deal with that element at all, and for her kind there are images
like the flowers against the picket fence and te robin (wihich she
would definitely prefer to see without the bug).

The robin doesn't necessarily represent good either, but rather the
part of life that we might associate with the sky, i.e. purity,
spirit, freedom, hope and striving.  We think of these as"good", and
in fact they do provide the hope and faith in life that the Laura Dern
character is trying to maintain.  But to try to live totally in this
side of life would leave one "grondless"", as spirit and instinct have
to be integrated, and in fact the superficial images of harmony
alluded to above would become one's entire world view, which would be
just as limited (although more socially acceptable) as Frank's purely
instinctual one.

This is why I think that the key is knowledge and completen, rather
than good and evil.  I agree that the mechanical nature of that final
robin image is rather problematical: if it's so central, why is it so
clearly fake?  The question is, does the bug seem any more real than
the robin?  Perhaps it is a statement on the nature of all symbols
that we use to represent complicated concepts. (I'm not completely
comfortable with this explanation, since symbolism is certainly taken
quite seriously in Twin Peaks.)  IT may also be saying that in fact
Jeff and Laura have only begun to integrate all this knowledge and
still are only at a rather superficial level.

An aside on the image of the blue sky at the end: carrying the robin
image further, I am inclined to connect blue with hope or spirit.  The
fascination with blue velvet on Frank's part may have been that it was
his only tie to that spiritual world so alien to his darker,
instinctive one that only knew how to express itself in violence.  The
blue sky may be the first chance that Dorothy Valens has to really
look ahead at a possibility of a hopeful life, after being so enmeshed
in the dark world that Frank has kept her in.

Barb Miller