Dirk Gently Season Two - Tumblr Posts

The Significance of BlackWing Names

ok just allow me to monologue about the genius of BlackWing’s codenames for their subjects and why the writers are so clever.

Some of them, like Project Lamia or Project Incubus, don’t have too much meaning but sound really cool. But then there’s…

Project Marzanna, Goddess of Death

Bart’s codename in BlackWing is “Marzanna” who is a winter goddess from Slavic mythology seen as a symbol of death and disease.

This is such an impactful choice for Bart, since she is so in sync with the universe as to be almost like a goddess, and is literally a harbinger of death. But she has to learn to see she is more than just that symbol.

Project Icarus, who flew too close to the sun.

Dirk’s codename is an obvious nod to the famous story from Greek Mythology. Icarus tries to escape from the prison he’s been kept in, only to fly too close to the sun the moment he’s escaped, burning his wax wings and dropping himself into the sea below, where he drowns.

Choosing Icarus as a symbol for Dirk is genius. Dirk escaped from his prison (BlackWing) and deals with a lot of fear out in the real world. He loves taking on cases, but he fears hurting people. Particularly in season two, Dirk sees more and more people die, and he blames himself, blames his involvement, blames his strange connection to the universe. And Dirk has to ask himself, should he take cases at all? Is even being here, away from the labyrinth, risking it all? Have I already flown too high?

I also think it’s worth noting that Dirk is a reference to a story about a prisoner’s melting wings, being stopped mid-flight… and the one’s controlling him are black wing.

Maybe Dirk also represents their downfall.

and last but not least…

Project Moloch, a child’s sacrifice

Francis was a child with magical abilities who was kidnapped by BlackWing. This terrified him and sent him into a deep coma, locking himself into the perpetual childhood of Wendimoor, where he remained for the rest of his life. Through his sleep, the years of his childhood slipped by, until they were gone completely, and Francis was an old man near the end of his life.

the name “Moloch” comes from the Bible, the name of a god of child sacrifice.

This is genius for Francis’ character, since he only ever wanted a childhood. It was taken from him - sacrificed to blackwing - but through wendimoor, he got it back.

this was a lot but Dirk Gently is crazy what can I say