Incredible write-up. I love the comparison to Tarantino's films, one is catharsis that lets you go home feeling good, the other is reckoning that makes you feel responsible.
But this reveals the essential equivocation at the heart of the myth. The Portuguese and the Spaniards are only colonizers in retrospect (and the vast majority of Mexicans, including Enrigue, have as much or more Spanish blood as Mesoamerican); a different outcome does not produce a better world, but one of different iniquities. In the latter case, Magellan did in fact die as depicted in the film, but his death didn't forestall the conquest of the Philippines. One could call it a fantasia on historical themes rather than "alternative history" as such.
Incredible write-up. I love the comparison to Tarantino's films, one is catharsis that lets you go home feeling good, the other is reckoning that makes you feel responsible.
Thank you so much! Yes, it's two very different approaches, where only one sees the violence as redemptive more or less in itself.
But this reveals the essential equivocation at the heart of the myth. The Portuguese and the Spaniards are only colonizers in retrospect (and the vast majority of Mexicans, including Enrigue, have as much or more Spanish blood as Mesoamerican); a different outcome does not produce a better world, but one of different iniquities. In the latter case, Magellan did in fact die as depicted in the film, but his death didn't forestall the conquest of the Philippines. One could call it a fantasia on historical themes rather than "alternative history" as such.