Rest in Peace, Antonia Gavilán de Logroño and Marnie Stonebrook
By latbfan on Sep 27 2011 | 14 Comments »
In her human life, Antonia was a powerful healer, midwife, and witch who lived in Northern Spain in the early 17th Century. She turned to necromancy when her village was devastated by disease, thus making her the only known human to have the ability to control vampires. During the Inquisition, Antonia and her coven were persecuted by the Church. While in prison, they were tortured, raped, and fed on by vampire priests. Antonia was sentenced to death, and as she burned on the pyre, she cast a spell that compelled all the vampires within a 20-mile radius to walk into the sun.
400 years after her execution, Antonia’s spirit was summoned by Marnie Stonebrook when Eric threatened her coven at Moongoddess Emporium. Marnie was a timid medium, a lonely outsider scorned because of her ability to hear the voices of the dead, but with Antonia’s power, Marnie was able to curse Eric, and later Pam. Alone and afraid in King Bill’s holding cell in the basement, Marnie called upon Antonia once again, and Antonia was able to possess Marnie’s body. Antonia/Marnie freed herself and killed one of Antonia’s long-ago rapists in the process. With the help of Tara, Holly, and the local Wiccan group, Antonia/Marnie cast the spell to drive the vampires into the sun. When that wasn’t as successful as the original spell in Spain, Antonia/Marnie plotted to attack the King at the Festival of Tolerance, using controlled Sheriffs as weapons against the other vampires.
Antonia/Marnie’s violent plan of vengeance didn’t interest most of the coven, who wanted to leave, but Marnie imprisoned them in the Emporium with spells. The hurting of innocent humans, including the killing of Casey, one of her own coven, caused Antonia to attempt to leave Marnie’s body, but Marnie, drunk on the power the union with Antonia provided, bound Antonia’s spirit to hers. Jesus was able to break the binding spell just in time to save Sookie from being burned to death. Without Antonia’s power combined with her own, the protection spells around the Moongoddess Emporium collapsed, and Bill and Eric rushed to Sookie’s defense. Eric quickly killed Roy, Marnie’s last loyal acolyte, leaving Marnie alone and defenseless. Bill shot her, proving the future Marnie saw in Casey’s blood to be true.
After her physical death, Marnie’s spirit took possession of Lafayette’s body and forced Jesus to give up his magic in exchange for Lafayette’s life. Marnie/Lafayette stabbed Jesus and left him to die before attempting a final effort to kill Eric and Bill. Holly, Tara, and Sookie were able to save them with the help of conjured spirits, including Antonia and Adele Stackhouse, who escorted Marnie’s spirit into the afterlife.
May you finally find peace, Antonia and Marnie.
I still don’t get why Marnie couldn’t just put the vamps under some sort of spell. Why the pyre? Seems like with necromagic, it could have been resolved so much faster… in Marnie’s favor.
Antonia was the necromancer and Marnie didn’t have access to her magic anymore once Jesus separated them. She had to use the magic acquired from Jesus which was different. I assume that’s how she was able to somehow overpower them physically rather than gain control of them mentally as she had with Antonia’s abilities.
I guess you’re right it was the Jesus magic that helped her to overpower the boys – because the fact that she could do that was my rationale that Marnie really did have control over the dead on her own. Which I guess, makes Jesus way more powerful than we thought. Why was he even afraid of
Eric or Pam at all if he held magic that strong?
Still, Marnie did resurrect Minerva.
It sounds like you have to learn to use your abilities and Jesus was scared of the darker part of himself. He said a few times he didn’t want to turn out like his grandfather and spent most of his life avoiding anything to do with him. I guess Marnie had no qualms about that. Plus, she was using her own magic, Jesus’, and Lafayette’s all together. Marnie was a baby necromancer and was only able to raise Minerva for a couple of seconds with the help of the rest of the group.
Of course, the writers mostly wanted to create a dramatic rescue scene which wouldn’t have been possible if Marnie had just showed up, gained control of Bill and Eric, and ordered them to stake themselves!
TBObsessed, such cynicism! But yeah, it did seem like the writers wanted a dramatic rescue, plus the added bonus of a visual of shirtless Eric and Bill all chained up together. Kinky… ;-)
I have to confess to feeling a big “blah blah snore” about all the magic business. It seems like there’s enough supernatural mojo in Bon Temps, and more inconsistencies come from the extras than anything else. And the fact that Antonia was just floating around in some in-between for 400 years because there wasn’t a powerful enough witch to summon her until Marnie? Um, yeah… And then, after all those people were hurt and killed, she just wandered off with Gran? Um, yeah… Plus now Jesus is dead, and I’m not happy about that at all.
TOTALLY AGREE!!!
There are a lot of inconsistencies…. which is really sad for a show that based its success, not only on the male hotness or sexy scenes, but on the ability of the writer to tangle ficcion and reality so amazingly well… I’m still dissappointed, to be honest.
Yeah, I did think it was a little strange that after all the destruction she caused, Marnie got to wander off into the afterlife with the support and love of the others. I know Alan Ball is a Buddhist so maybe this is his philosophy? Remember, that’s why Eric claimed that he didn’t want to kill Russell. Godric’s ghost showed up and told him there was peace after death for everyone. I guess we are seeing that illustrated again.
There is something really messed up about this whole thing. So many things they didn’t explain. I still think Marnie had a second person possessing her because her personality changed back and forth so much. We know Antonia was not evil toward humans and that is why she wanted to leave Marnie. She was out to kill vampires,…but in the end, she saved Bill and Eric???? Gran didn’t seem like Gran…she was going to go back without saying anything to Sookie until Sookie stopped her???? That didn’t seem right. And is Holly more powerful than we think?? She raised a spell to bring back the dead that called on friends, realtives and guardians of the gate, but where were the friends and realtives except for Gran? And Rene showed up to warn Arlene…does this mean that Rene isn’t evil?
A lot of holes here and things that didn’t make sense.
I have to agree with everything you’ve said here. There are so many questionable things going on this season that were never explained (and probably never will be). I think maybe instead of concrete story lines, there is so much going on and the details are being skipped over. I wish everything would just slow down a bit and focus on quality and notsomuch the quantity.
I did like it better the first season when there was one storyline and everyone’s actions revolved around that. Now each main character has his or her own storyline going on and sometimes they overlap. It is a bit like a soap opera except there aren’t five shows a week to keep up with all the tangled details!
I’ve given up on the idea that they’re ever getting back to the loamy simplicity of the early episodes of S1. There’s something so authentic in those episodes, something so lush and poetic. Not the rushed sense of “OH MY GOSH! THIS IS THE CRAZIEST THING YET!” that’s been happening since. I would just appreciate, as an audience member who’s paying attention, if the writers, as they are careening through storylines and piling up body-counts, would have someone fact-checking, so at least their own insanity makes sense in their own world. Surely there’s a grad student in L.A. who wouldn’t even require payment for such a task…
Come to think of it, why didn’t Antonia order her vampire priest torturers out into the sun while she was locked in her cell, all those 400 years ago?
Come to tin of it, it’s probably best not to think too about this season’s glue.As many, many of you here are saying, in one way or another, the trouble with introducing magic as a plot-mover is consistency
On a totally unrelated note: gee, now that I look at them again, I think Antonia and Jesus (or the actors that play them) could be brother and sister, they have such similar features.
I absolutely loved Antonia and Marnie, I was on their side until Marnie killed Casey, showing us that she is no better than her enemies. It is nice that finally, a human had power greater than vampires’. And until Casey’s death, Martonia had a very good reason for taking a little revenge.
Antonia was raped, beaten and burned by vampires. Marnie was threatened by a fascist Eric, telling her she must never meet with her friends again and practise their religion. For wanting her constitutional rights (the same rights the vampires crave for) she was bitten and tossed away. Thank Antonia was there, erasing Eric’s memory and making him lost, afraid and practically harmless. Same for Pam. Then, Martonia with her acts gradually lost support from her coven and viewers until her death.
Besides some unexlained points, I have to say that this was my favorite season. I can’t understand why so many trubies are dissapointed. Their main complains about this season is that:
1)Witches is “too much”
Answer: Maenade of season 2, an ancient creature who wanted to marry one of the Greek gods (!) was OK?! Please! Witches are much more fundamental on supernatural realm than a maenade!
2)Season 4 hadn’t nudity/sex.
Answer: With the main character driven away from her loved ones, what did you expect?
I would even say that TB in season 4 was turned into what it is claiming to be all along: a supernatural drama (not a porno) TV show. The problem is that TB started with supernatural craved audience based on its name and plot and by the end of season 1, it lost most of them which they were replaced by sexual craved audience. The show was basically about sex with some specs of supernatural . In season 4 the recipe was upside down (Season 3 had a balanced mix). Shouldn’t the supernatural audience be pleased in this season? It may actually draw back those who found the show based on season 1&2 too… inappropriate.
To sum up, I would like in season 5 the equation of sex and supernatural to be balanced again, like in season 3, so the show not lose any audience and even draw back the supernatural viewers back; even though I personally would be more pleased with season 4 equation…
i too was EXTREMELY disappointed with the Marnie translation from the book to the series. in book 4, marine is a natural born, powerful witch with a true coven. i cannot make sense of alan ball’s reason for making marnie weak, insecure, a mortal possessed by a “witch”, with a bunch of whiny followers as her coven. when first watching all the teasers for season 4, it appeared that marnie and her coven were going to cause lots of chaos and trouble for the vampires…finally putting them in a vulnerable state. i know alan ball wanted marnie to be more necromancer than witch, but if that were the case, she would have had much more control over the vampires. so many silly things in season 4! come on….antonia’s outfit? marnie bringing a bird back to life? if her protection shield was as powerful as the sun, why would she tell that to the vampires? why not let them find out for themselves? only ONE random vampire came out in the sun? a vampire of no importance? jesus on the side of the vampires?
tara turning on marnie? holly being able to cast powerful spells?
at the end of season 3, there was so much foreshadowing the witch storyline…as if the story would consist of more powerful magic…even black magic. and yet, nothing of the sort! the dynamic duo of jesus and lafayette proved weak and irrelevant to the story. why would they turn against marnie to save vampires???
i could go on and on and i COMPLETELY agree with all the opinions and points written earlier. glad to see i am not the only one who thought the witch story line lacked excitement. i wonder if he will bring in amelia broadway…will he make her just as weak as marnie?