When looking at the different opening songs to every Act, Rithör Læmbén notices that they are really sudden. There’s no easing you in. Probably for the listener to understand that we’re starting exactly where we’re left off. So,“,E-mə-‘nā-shən” also puts us exactly where we were when we finished Act I.
Rithör Læmbén puts us in the middle of a gruesome scene as we find a Sailor in the process of being murdered and letting out her final breaths of life. As was foreshadowed throughout Act I, the victim is the Sailor. We can only assume that King's men have finally caught up with him, and after resisting being taken back to The Dime, they murder him instead. There aren’t many details about this. We don’t know where it’s happening and by who and the listener is left to understand on his own what’s happening. Some fans of Rithör Læmbén theorize that it’s actually The Boy himself who kills his father, but it doesn’t make much sense when the story progresses and considering the personality of the Boy and the few details we know about him. (could be a hell of a twist anyway). Nevertheless, the Sailor has met his fate, and the description of his demise is unsettlingly beautiful, in part by refusing to illustrate the violence itself in favor of its aftermath.
“There, no one cry, Place these over her eyes, We are broke and alone. We are broken alone”- enters our protagonist, who perhaps always knew this was a possibility even though he did nothing to prevent it from happening. He also could be in complete shock at what happened, since he lived in a world where bad people don’t exist and where his mother is his whole world. Maybe He takes stock of his situation and realizes that he doesn’t have a penny to his name or anyone to look after him. He is still torn from internal conflicts, and now with this, his life has been torn apart with seemingly no recourse. He buries his father alone.
He looks at the lifeless body of his father as he buries him and thinks about how his lies and his inability to find out the truth from him have led to this. His “fatal fascination” with his life and the circumstances of his death will likely lead to no good, but he must find out the truth. There will be no literal funeral “procession” for the Sailor, but a metaphorical one in which his son will carry on his life and “unfinished lies” to discover the meaning behind all of it.
The Boy resolves to stop acting like the broken, naive boy he’s always been, and leaves the only home he’s known, armed with a vengeful decree to avenge his father’s death and end the life of the person responsible. The song ends with the phrase “one life for another". this has two meanings: The boy finally gets to live a full life, now that his father is gone. But also, can be seen in the more clerical connotation of “An Eye For An Eye”.
,E-mə-‘nā-shən
(translated) The Procession
The blood
How it paints such a scene
Foul routine pedigree
Mouth agape, stuttered hands attempt to flail and final agree
Her heart ceases its rhythm
Somewhere trumpets decay
In the front by the well, wishing wishes that deny the stale smell in the bay
(Hey) there, no one cry
Place these over his eyes
We are broken alone
Troubled Shrouds in their homes
He’s inanimate
Bloodless elegance
Fatal fascination breeds a bloom of misery
Helpless hiding tongues
Bathed in revulsion
His lies unfinished
Beauty wilting premature
But we can’t be too sure
Reserved, always playing the part
Of the Boy left alone
He proceeds to the road
Beyond the home he’d learn to call his own
One life, or another?
- The Crown Wars (translated by Rithör Læmbén)
Scene I: The Procession
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