1883 (TV Mini Series)

Lightning Yellow Hair (2022)

Isabel May: Elsa Dutton

Photos 

Quotes 

• Elsa Dutton : [internal monologue]  The best way to know if land is truly undiscovered is to seek words to describe it. When you can't, you know it's virgin land. Untouched by our dirty hands. To see it is to be silenced by it. Made speechless by its endless uniformity To crest a rise is to see another that is identical. One must read the sun and stars like a sailor to navigate this place. We've seen nothing but grass for over a week: no game, no birds, no snakes, not even a lizard, and no evidence the human race still exists. But the plains are littered with bones. The dirty hand of man can go unnoticed in the city. Because his dirty hand made the city. But in this place, where innocence is a mineral in the soil, the filth of our touch is an apocalypse.

  Elsa Dutton : [...]  People think because it's where rain comes from, clouds are filled with water. But how can that be? How can water float above us then fall, as though gravity only applies to the sky when the sky lets it. But that would mean the sky thinks and clouds are alive and they decide to let it rain. But how do they decide where to rain? And when Why do clouds choose to flood one place and deny another until the earth cracks and field becomes desert? Maybe there's no such thing as gravity. Maybe everything scientists have "discovered" is a lie, and wind is the world laughing at us.

  Elsa Dutton : [...]  I felt no fear. It simply became another race. We fear what we don't know. I knew what would happen. I would win the race or I would be killed. There was comfort in the simplicity of it. Even though I could hear hooves getting closer, I felt no fear. There is horror to every killing. Even when it's justified. Even when I killed, I was horrified. But watching Sam kill was like watching a lion hurl itself into a deer. His fury was so magnificent, there was no time for horror. Not even for the men he killed. I questioned my mind. I wondered if I am the one who is dead and this is all a dream. I watched him ride away and decided I must be awake. I must be alive. Then I chased after him.

  Elsa Dutton : [...]  She wouldn't speak when we got back to camp. Wouldn't look at my father Wouldn't look at me. I heard her crying by the fire before dawn. I sat beside her and asked her what was wrong. She said she killed a man over a horse. And now John was the only hope our family has to reach Heaven. I didn't have the heart to tell her there is no Heaven to go to, because we're in it already. We're in hell, too. They coexist. Right beside each other. And God is the land.

• Elsa Dutton : There's horror to every killing. Even when it's justified. Even when I killed, I was horrified. But watching Sam kill was like watching a lion hurl itself into a deer. His fury was so magnificent, there was no time for horror.