True Blood (HBO): Season Four The Forces of Witchcraft

They seemed so harmless, the Wiccan coven meeting at the back of the Moon Goddess Emporium. All herbal remedies, incense and meditative chanting. This was religion in peace and love; empowerment through working with nature, and remembering the right colored candles to light.

But that is witchcraft as tame as a politicized vampire on a campaign trail.  There is much darker magic out there. There are those with the skill and vengeful power to want to wield it too. When the High Priestess is a medium, then death really is no barrier for even ancient practitioners to make their return. There are very old scores to settle.

This, to me, is the crux of True Blood's fourth season. 'The evil that men do lives after them' is the warning from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. But these are vampires. For most, they're still around, when those previous moments of tyranny finally trigger consequences. Even if they weren't there, then they know someone who was. They've heard stories from their own vampiric history.

Nor is this just about the vampires. The whole season starts with a time leap. We're one year on from the events of the previous three.  Things have happened. Babies have been born; seeds sown then are only just now blooming; people have moved on. Others really have not. Their coping mechanisms are crippling them.

We spend the whole of the first episode in a state of 'that was then, this is now', which sets the template for all the rest. The past is always lurking, and it will catch up.

I am a great fan of this series, as evidenced by the speed with which I've devoured the first four seasons. My friends have barely seen me. I've been lost in watching episode after episode, pausing only to write about True Blood on Wizzley.

Yet this fourth season of True Blood gave me problems. As I mentioned in the review of season three, I am a Wiccan. This shifted my focus somewhat, from a mere observer of brilliant entertainment to someone with a stake in how my religion was portrayed. I could no longer watch it as impassively, as semi-mindless entertainment. I could not be objective.

In many ways, season four excelled itself. According to the ratings figures, it marked a sea-change. True Blood became the second biggest show on HBO, stumped only by the runaway success of Game of Thrones. It deserved the accolades. There were moments which made me gasp or cheer aloud. I nearly fell out of my seat at the ending of episode one.

But the subject matter was too close to home. I spent much of the season unsure quite how to react. Should I be laughing at all of the inaccuracies in those Wiccan rituals? Should I be taking offense, as my fellow adherents were portrayed as either fluffy or evil? Should I be ranting about the appropriation of a real religion? Telling about how dramas such as this fuel misconceptions, and how that plays into true life social scares?

Ultimately, this is material for another article. It's not important for those simply watching True Blood as light entertainment.  That is precisely what True Blood is. It's fiction, wherein all of humanity's monsters and legends are coalesced in great story-telling. The wicked witch is simply part of that long tradition, which includes vampires, werewolves, shape-shifters and all the rest.

We can take such things way too seriously, or we can enjoy the story. In retrospect, I'll opt for the latter.