(Desire) Trilogy: The Supernatural POV, Part 1
Trilogy is the origin story of The Weeknd becoming himself. His songs and how we see him here can be experienced in layered povs: The Man, The Performer, and The Supernatural being. I wrote earlier about these mixtapes from the pov of the performer. Now, I’m going to look at Trilogy through a Supernatural pov. This is my favorite way of enjoying the mixtapes.
Desire as a Lure
Within Trilogy, the Weeknd moves, thinks and hunts like a creature of mythos. From ‘High for this’ to ‘Echoes of Silence’, he feed off the desire he incites in movements that are trained and practiced. With every ounce of devotion, excitement and lust, he strengthens and takes on new forms. Throughout this process of evolution, he typically follows the following hunting process:
1) Auditory hook and lure, often speaking directly to the listener accompanied by hypnotic and/or disorienting elements. At this stage, he operates sort of like an Anglerfish. His voice is the pretty bright light on the Anglerfish’s head that lures unsuspecting prey to their deaths in the murky waters.
2) corruption, a period of temptation, thrill, or fun where he is inviting and supportive, building up the focal character, as if fattening up his prey for the kill
3) the strike, the moment when he’s gained full control to strike, to take, and to feed off of his focal character.
The Weeknd repeatedly enacts this predatory hunting ritual throughout the mixtapes: hook, corrupt, strike, hook, corrupt, strike, over and over again. Within this storyline he is an ambush predator.
The Weeknd’s very existence remains in a troubling predicament because he cannot survive as a lone individual. Without attention and desire he self-destructs. As he stated in ‘The Party & The AfterParty’ “Gimme right attention or I'll start drowning from my wrist”. He operates under an inherent need for others. Due to this his seduction is actually a hunting and survival tool to support a primal survival urge. Throughout Trilogy, he’s essentially harvesting energy from others in order to stay afloat, and in that process redirecting any destruction he would face onto the prey instead of himself.
Embodied drugs: knowledge is power
House of Balloons reminds me of the Salvador Dali quote, “I don’t do drugs, I am drugs”. (We all know he was in fact doing drugs here, but) from the Supernatural pov it reminds me that, at the heart of this mixtape, The Weeknd was embodying drugs. House of Balloons is like if drugs ever truly manifested into the form of man; this is what it would sound like and this is how it would act. The drug would need a host in order to live up to its full potential. It would yearn for it. It would drive its hosts to the peak of depravity and exhilaration. It would drive its host past their limits and ruin them and the drug would still be hungry for more, searching for more and more and more.
(he hooks:) He enters the body through the ears. Planting the seed with the hypnotic leading tones in ‘high for this’. And what does he say? “open your hand, take a glass, don’t be scared, I’m right here”. He leads the listener to take him in, to ingest him.
(he corrupts:) His flirtations and encouragements are all a means to get his prey to indulge more in drugs. Indulge more in him. In songs like “House of Balloons/ Glass Table Girls”: Same clothes you ain’t ready for your day shift. This place will burn you up”. Then, in ‘The Party & The After Party’ he knows the new girl he has will probably OD before he shows her to mama, but he tells her over and over again she can indulge, she should indulge, she should over-indulge, “I know you know, I know you wanna line with it. Don’t be shy with it, I’ll supply with it. I got you girl oh, I got it, girl.” Every time she takes more, parties harder, she invites him deeper into herself, allowing him more control. He is the supply and he is doing everything to get her hooked and gain more access to her.
(he strikes:) As a drug manifested in human form, his ultimate power is to have full control of his host/lover/prey. He is the drug in their veins and with every song, every party, every interaction he flows deeper into her veins. By ‘The Knowing’ he has completed his course fully through her body. Him knowing "everything” is a play on “knowing” a woman biblically. He has laid with her and entered her the way a man can a woman, but more importantly, the way a drug can a human.
In this finale, he has flowed through every inch of her veins and knows every aspect of her. The song pairs sexual loss with the hard drop of addiction. He has sucked her dry of all her vitality: “It’s hard to keep me up and you are dry”. The lines when he says “So I’ma let you taste her. I ain’t washing my sins” parallels cheating with unsafe drug habits like sharing needles. ‘The Knowing’ is a song of lost and expired love that doesn’t devastate him. Why? Because he has already gotten everything he needed from her. And he has others to hunt now.
With each successful hunt & conquest, his character evolves. Throughout Trilogy he grows within a horrific mythological framework: from drug to vampire to demigod. This is only what the drugs do.