Professor James Darcy Piexioto,
Director - Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Archives
Gilead Studies, Cambridge University, England
14th Symposium - Gileadean Studies, International Historical Association Convention
University of Denay, Nunavut.
June 2196
Friends, and Gilead aficionados. This is a good place to pause in our examination of the 'historical Nick Blaine', and what can be known about him. We'll return to the compiled narrative on Monday. A reminder that tomorrow is a free day - please make good use of the sign-up sheets on the registration table. The field trip to the northern part of Qikiqtaaluk requires proof of proficiency in firearms.
So, back to Nick Blaine. Interest in his character in the early- to middle-Gilead period has always been strong, but the strength of that interest was never matched by solid sources which sustained any credible narrative. As such, too many narrative possibilities presented themselves.
Until now.
It will be next year in Bangor, Maine -hoots and calls out of the name 'Passamaquoddy'- -pause- Many apologies, especially to the Elders of the Penobscot Nation. Passamaquoddy. You are quite correct. -applause- Next year, in Passamaquoddy I will be in a better position to speak authoritatively about the newest find: Aunt Lydia's Ardua Hall Holographs. Just before leaving Cambridge, I'd also been informed that the two witness testimonies found with those Holographs could possibly be intertwined into a 'narrative-trio', already being nicknamed The Testaments. Witness Testimonies 369a and 369b. But that is to be seen.
So, please do not let me got too far ahead of myself. Academia is littered with the failures of academics like me who put enthusiasm ahead of gumshoe detective work. Boots on the ground always trumps enthusiastic clinging to a favoured source. -laughter-
I pause here to let you know that the Ardua Hall Holographs end with a memorial to a woman named, Becka, the memorial is from potential family members of the very handmaid, the narrator of The Handmaids Tale, that last year's symposium focussed upon.
I will leave a more full description of who this 'Becka' was, until next year in Ban…. sorry, Passamaquoddy. Suffice it to say, that The Testaments claim that the memorial to her was erected by, and I quote, by Agnes and Nichole, their mother and two fathers, plus their children and grandchildren.
The only thing missing, really, is an excavation at Boston Common itself, the assumed general vicinity of Ardua Hall. As Gilead studies progresses, a find akin to 'Becka's Statue' joins the list of 'probables', to which archaeological technology currently available can be applied. I'm told that this is a statue from after the Gilead period. You, yourself, can list the implications of that, not the least of which is that at least some of the people we've been studying seem not only to be historical, but to have survived Gilead.
Me, I saw your ears perk up at two words. 'Two fathers'. Agnes and Nichole. Agnes's father is almost certainly Luke Bankole, the handmaid June's husband from the days prior to Gilead. On the other hand, as per general consensus, Nichole's biological father was most certainly the man who is the subject of this week's Symposium Seminar.
Nick Blaine. I am told that one of the witness statements to be included in The Testaments belongs to Nichole, Witness Testimony 369b. Blaine's daughter. She is almost certainly known also by various other names - Daisy, Holly, as well as 'Jade', a name claimed to have been applied to her by Aunt Lydia herself. Again, I do not want to anticipate the outcome of further study, I have made that mistake before. -laughter-
Once again, Nick Blaine is thrust to the centre of then-contemporary, Gilead issues. The baby-Nichole controversy inflamed propaganda machines both within Gilead, as well as internationally. Precious little record of that still survives, but enough to establish it. Inside Gilead, baby-Nichole became a rallying cry against child trafficking. Outside Gilead, she became a focus for freedom and liberation.
Behind it all is the character of Nick Blaine, whose narrative we have so far relayed in these Symposiums up to his tenure as a Commander of the New Gilead District.
The memorial to Becka, on Becka's statue - if found - cements the historical reality of Nick Blaine.
What's left to discover about him? Let me list a few possibilities. You, as students of Gilead, are well aware of the difficulties any historian has in recreating anything to do with our favourite subject matter - Gilead. The various internal purges, as well as the 'cleansing of the record' as Gilead fell, leaves the likes of us making the best guess possible under murky circumstances.
But when did that ever deter us? -Laughter-
WHAT IS LEFT TO LEARN ABOUT BLAINE
You might not be, but I am very secure in answering a few facts of Nick Blaine's life.
Most certainly, pre-Gilead he could only be seen as a drifter. Migrating from Michigan to Massachusetts to find work. He was almost certainly alienated from his own father, perhaps his whole family. In Boston, he found himself noticed by Sons of Jacob, Andrew Pryce, himself someone who became the chief architect of the New Gilead District, seen as a model District of Gilead.
Blaine's so-called heroics during one of the first Chicago campaigns brought him back to New Gilead, to Boston under Pryce's patronage. This time a hero. Blaine became conversant with Mayday contacts, both because of Chicago, as well as in Boston under the guise of himself being an Eye of God.
But his love affair with June Osborne, then the Waterford's handmaid, complicated his life. Immensely. There is reason to believe that that love affair predated Serena Waterford's directive that Nick impregnate June. Whatever we, as Gilead historians, believe about that - Blaine seemed to be aware that he'd been complicit in a rape. One that had produced Nichole Waterford, aka. Holly Osborne.
Nick Blaine was eventually to become one of the more solid Commanders of Gildead. But when his patron, High Commander Pryce was killed, Blaine's reaction was to flee. Back to Chicago. I don't know what else to call it, but a flight. His own testimony - as shaky as source material is - seems to indicate that he was also in flight from June Osborne. And what he'd done under Serena Joy's directive.
Where did he go? He went back to the front, to Chicago. To that ill-defined war, mainly waged as a propaganda device for the eastern Districts, not because there was any military objective. Gilead's 'Chicago campaign', was their Vietnam, or their Afghanistan as far as the historical USSR was concerned. No real military objective, except that pulling out would have been a propaganda disaster for those in power.
Be that as it may - Nick's first tour had made him Mayday-savvy. Sergeant Al had schooled him. The first tour also gave him a reputation. A hero of Gilead. His second tour saw him get rapid field promotions. As he was trying to flee New Gilead as well as Osborne, ironically he rose to Colonel with front-line, field experience. It made him a blue-chip asset to the New Gilead Chancery. He'd missed out on Osborne's role in evacuating 86 children from Commander's homes in Gilead, and as such became one of some of the first Commanders not to have been Sons of Jacob. The second generation.
So it is, I am setting you up for Monday morning. I've been told that some of you cannot wait that long. I'm serving notice that I'll be on the field trip to northern Qikiqtaaluk, and I will not - not at all - be talking about Gilead tomorrow. I'll be gawking, as should you be, at the incredible Arctic vistas.
Please do not repeat my faux pas, that I still apologize for to the Penobscot nation. Please enjoy the Artic vistas tomorrow, as a way to honour Inuit Elders here.
Don't worry, we'll get back to Blaine in 36 hours or so. There is still plenty of real estate to cover. There is the disposition of the Waterfords. Blaine played a role in both their outcomes.
But more importantly, Blaine took up the mantle of 'cleaning up Gilead'. He was not alone. The Ardua Hall Holographs offer hints as to how others within Gilead, themselves sought to clean up the place. But I need to leave that to next year, when we gather in Passamaquoddy.