Cassandra
The mythological figure of Cassandra: a priestess gifted with prophecy by Apollo, then cursed so that no one would believe her predictions. Across classical literature she appears as the truth-teller who sees impending disaster but is systematically disbelieved, imprisoned, assaulted, and ultimately killed. In Taylor's writing the Cassandra figure maps onto the speaker who tells the truth and is dismissed, attacked, or silenced by those who don't want to hear it.
Cassandra stands for truth-telling that cannot be heard, not because the truth is unclear but because the conditions around the teller, social, political, gendered, refuse to receive it. Three layers sit inside the figure: a feminine marginalisation in which her gifts are sexualised or waved away by men, an imprisonment by knowledge in which she suffers what she foresees without being able to prevent it, and the gap between sacred and profane, a divine gift operating in a world with no way to take it in.
Appears in 2 songs
“So, they killed Cassandra first 'cause she feared the worst”
Cassandra serves as the song's central conceit, the mythological truth-teller whose prophecies are never believed, mapping onto the speaker's experience of telling the truth and being ignored, attacked, or silenced. The figure carries layers of feminine marginalization, imprisonment by knowledge, and the agony of seeing the future without being able to change it.
“I don't cater to all these vipers dressed in empath's clothing”
The vipers/snakes evoke the Cassandra myth, Uncle Jerry connects the vipers to the snakes that filled Cassandra's cell. The people who claim to care about the narrator are actually venomous and hostile.