Whoa

 I've just finished the new episodes of Love Death & Robots on Netflix, which were pretty great. Scalzi wrote another for his 3 robots, and that was fun, although not hugely subtle in its message. They were all engaging, some stronger than others, but yes, well worth a watch.

And then there was the episode "Jibaro". Whoa. Loved it. Stunning visually, mythic, dark.

Spoilers: A war party take a rest beside a lake. Jibaro, one of the knights, a deaf man, goes to the shore to drink and picks a piece of gold out of the water. This stirs the spirit of the lake, which manifests as a bejewelled siren, who screams to call the knights and their party racing into the water, killing each other as well as they hurtle to their deaths in the depths. All, except the bewildered deaf man, who sees it all and rides away in a panic to escape. 

He is knocked unconscious from his horse and is tracked by the spirit when he continues on foot. He falls asleep on the riverbank and the spirit, fascinated by him, approaches and stays with him, draping herself over him seductively. When he awakes, she flees, but when he grabs her arm, a ruby comes off, embedded in his hand. He pursues her and finally she stops at the top of a waterfall, where finally she approaches him and they kiss, leaving his mouth bloody, as she is covered in gems. It grows passionate and he gets on top of her, when he attacks her and knocks her unconscious. On the shore, he rips the jewels and gold from her body, rolling her into the water when he is done. He then leaves with the jewels in his bundled up cloak. 

The siren's body washes back into the lake where the water turns to blood. Jibaro has stopped to drink again, not noticing the water turning to blood as he does so, and his hearing is cured. He panics to be hearing for the first time in his life and runs hectically. The siren rises from the lake, bloody and battered, and screams to call him, puppet-like, dancing, into the lake to his death. She sinks to her knees, a shadow of what she was. It's maybe a metaphor for what people do to nature, that could offer so much and they would rather strip it and defile it.