Difference between revisions of "Sissi Gerhardt"
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Revision as of 06:07, 19 June 2017
MY NAME IS . . . Sissi Gerhardt
AND I AM . . . A German-American Baltimore housewife and staunch communist, who has lost her husband and two eldest sons after the US joined WW1 in 1917, and went to the crossroads to ensure her youngest would come back alive.
WHAT'S BEEN KEEPING YOU AWAKE? Fear for her family – her husband and three sons, all former Coast Guard men guarding Atlantic troop and merchant convoys heading to Europe after the declaration of war in 1917.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED TO YOU? She has just received a telegram informing her that her husband and two eldest sons were lost in the sinking of their ship, the USS Cyclops, in the Bermuda Triangle. There is no mention of her youngest, Dieter, who also served aboard the Cyclops.
WHAT'S ON THE SURFACE? A stocky woman of middle years, the pretty girl she used to be still just about visible beneath the lines and weathering brought about by raising three children and a life hard-lived. Her hair is dark, and streaked with grey. Her clothes and shoes are heavy, dull, practical; wind and waterproof. She’s stern and firm, with little patient for fools or nonsense.
WHAT LIES BENEATH? Sissi has spent her life waiting for the men of her family to return from the sea; it’s made her patient, but it’s made her afraid. She’s all too aware of the unfairness of life, the sea’s capricious nature… more than anything else she fears the sheer arbitrariness of fate; that her little life and all that she cares about could be snuffed out in an instant by an uncaring and indifferent cosmos.
But when she sees powerful men acting with that same indifference to the little people – the poor, the ill, the powerless, the poor - she is driven to oppose them. The rich, the powerful - they are not the sea. They are not gods. They can be beaten back. All her life she has supported the causes of the working man – unionism, nascent communism – providing shelter to agitators and organising rallies.
And in the wake of Lenin’s October Revolution, she feels the tide is finally turning and a fair, equal society could be just around the corner. It’s the sort of turn which could make her a more active agent for change… and make her reckless.
WHAT IS YOUR PATH? Without her family to care for, Sissi will throw herself wholeheartedly into the labour struggle - becoming more involved and more extreme in her outlook. The dispossessed and downtrodden are her family now, and she will give everything for them. But news of her son is bound to stop her in her tracks, and she could well become obsessed with finding out what happened to him... leaving her attention torn between her new family and the old.
WHAT DID YOU BARGAIN AWAY? Memories of her family; she's willing to sacrifice the memories of her son for the promise that he lives, and is happy. Once the bargain is complete, she’d never even know what she did, or why. But it’s enough to know - fleetingly - that all will be well.
TOTAL DISCIPLINE 3
PERMANENT MADNESS 0
CURRENT EXHAUSTION 3
TOTAL FLIGHT RESPONSES 2
TOTAL FIGHT RESPONSES 1
EXHAUSTION TALENT
- The Saltwife’s Promise - When she offers an ultimatum, with the intention of following through, only the strongest willed of creatures can stand up to her.
MADNESS TALENT
- Married to the Sea - Sissi has spent her life at the waterside, watching and waiting for her father, her husband, her sons. When the madness rises, the sea listens and obeys to her. She can command the waves, the waters; she can bring down the flood and sweep clean the mad streets.
