I'm fascinated with languages and alphabets and musical notation because I'm looking for a communication method that works. Or a communication method that works for me. I've learned when it comes to anything verbal/audible, the less I have to pay attention to what specific words or phrases mean the better I can comprehend what's happening. Years ago, when I first started listening to audiobooks and short story podcasts, I’d get lost in the shapes of the syllables and the changes in pitch and tone. Before I knew it, the narrator’s voice was just the most gorgeous rainbow noise. To be clear, this didn’t feel odd or confusing to me. In my mind, it felt completely natural. Luckily, I rarely got asked what the audio-book or podcast was about.
While I’ve gotten better at staying focused and not getting lost in shapes and sounds, my audio comprehension has evolved into something more frustrating: having a completely normal conversation and then realizing a word or phrase that was just spoken has many possible meanings, and I can’t figure out which one is being used this particular time, because any of them would work equally well, yet they mean completely different things. Is the phrase being used literally? Ironically? Slang? Was the person speaking too fast in a loud room and I just didn't hear them correctly? Cue my standard response: internal panic, fake it, nod and smile. Suffice to say, me and verbal communication aren't very good friends right now. (Will I chat with you if we meet an event or a convention? Absolutely! If I ask you to repeat or clarify something you said, that means I am really trying.)
The pandemic has made this much, much worse for me. I've stopped putting “Call me anytime!” at the end of emails, and now use “The best way to reach me is via text, email, or private message.”
For years now, I've watched everything with closed captions or subtitles. If I can limit my sensory load by reading what people are saying, I do just fine. If I have to comprehend by listening to what they're saying, it gets bumpy. Something about more modern media, everything new sounds mumblecore to my ears. Older TV shows with minimal sound effects and explosions I do better with (Oh hi, Star Trek: The Next Generation!). Maybe that is why I spent so many years avoiding most television, and reading hundreds of books instead? Anyone else experiencing increased bouts of sensory overload?
But recently I found a TV show written in a language that fit me perfectly. You may recall a show called Samurai Jack, from a wildly creative guy named Genndy Tartakovsky. Imagine Samurai Jack, but with less dialog.
I found Tartakovsky's new show, Primal, streaming on HBO. The show started on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim in 2019, pre-pandemic. The first season is ten episodes, and the only word of spoken dialog comes near the end of the tenth episode. The second season is also ten episodes, and only one episode has anything approaching dialog. An entire fantasy adventure story told through ambience, evocative music, movement, body language, glances, changing shadows, primal screams, the sound of wind and rivers, the patter of running feet, and silent hunters. It's absolutely brilliant.
Primal is an epic story told without words. The main character lived so long ago that language wasn't invented yet, he doesn't even have a verbal way of referring to himself. I was immediately and entirely entranced. And I understood everything.
Brought together by shared tragedy and loss, an early-human caveman befriends a small tyrannosaurus who has just lost her children (Hi, science friends! This show is pure fantasy). In-show, the caveman and the dinosaur have no names for themselves, but to the audience they are known as Spear and Fang. The names are a cute convenience—Spear is a loincloth wearing, Conan-shaped, neanderthal-esque early-human who uses a spear to catch fish and defend himself, and Fang solves most problems by biting them in half.
(I feel weird calling him Spear. So far as I can tell, he does not refer to himself as Spear, I don't even know if he has a vocalized name for himself. How fascinating is that? An isolated character who exists so far outside of what we consider spoken language that he doesn't have a name for himself. Fang, however? Totally okay calling her Fang. Go figure.)
For a taste of the show, I highly recommend the following episodes: S1 E3: “A Cold Death,” and S2 E3: “The Dawn of Man.” In my opinion, those are the most emotionally charged and evocative episodes.
The animation style of Primal is raw and minimal—thick black lines, only the details that are necessary, no distractions. The minimalist style combined with evocative music and sound design let me laser focus my attention on Spear and Fang, I didn't need to worry what was happening elsewhere. The minimalism conveyed the environment so perfectly—in a world where everyone is two days away from starving to death—of nobody having time or spoons for anything other than what is absolutely necessary. So many shows seek to give the viewer lots and lots of things to visually experience at the same time—tons of special little details for fans to grab onto. This show is the opposite, which is refreshing. Watching the show felt like a weighted blanket. Those huge breaths I took at the end of each episode? That was the sound of me being so captivated I forgot to breathe.
In Primal, every creature we meet is both predator and prey, Spear and Fang included. They defend themselves against other dinosaurs, mammoths, giant bats, various other hungry creatures, and later against other early humans. A purposeful directorial choice of muted color schemes during fight scenes is all the better to see the blood in its crimson glory. I imagine Quentin Tarantino would be proud—perhaps jealous—of how these scenes of violent survival and death are directed.
Spear constantly watches, listens, thinks, learns, and remembers, all in silence. In lighter comedic moments, his defense playbook includes screaming louder at whatever is attacking him, and if that doesn't work, throwing rocks at it. He knows he can out-think any idiot animal, lizard, or giant insect he comes across. In the first season, Spear only has to be smarter than the animals and other dinosaurs he and Fang come across. In the second season, Spear meets more advanced humans. He learns the hard way what a shield is for, and that a sword is better than a spear, and that humans are complicated. Nature kills you because it doesn't notice you and doesn't care. Humans kill you because they can.
Remember, this is a fantasy. If Samurai Jack can cut robots in half with a sword, then surely early Celts and Vikings and dinosaurs can exist in the same cartoon world. And you know what? A good loud scream feels amazing. Whatever it is that's frustrating you today, go and scream at it. No words, just a big, huge, primal scream. I bet you'll feel better afterwards.
Primal jumps back and forth between violence, calm comedy, and the drama of survival. All the while with Spear and Fang realizing that now, they are each other's family. You'll lose count of how many times they save each other's lives. I don't usually like super-violent shows or movies, and while watching I kept wondering when the violence would get to be too much for me, and then it hit me: none of the violence in this show is for shock value, none of it is to show off, none of it is for fun, none of it is for someone to play with their food. The violence in Primal is there because in this world, it is eat or be eaten, fight or die, run or die, hide to survive. Spear and Fang know they need to be the last ones standing, the fastest ones running. Spear wears no armor. He has no shield. He has a loincloth, a spear, and if he's lucky some rocks to throw. Fang has her powerful tail, her teeth, and the primal scream of a T. rex who refuses to die today.
Their non-verbal lives soothed me, and their screams made me feel alive.
In the second season, Spear has to decide how comfortable he is around other humans. Does he want to be part of a society? How do you join a village when your dinosaur best friend thinks people smell yummy? Not sure about you, but I've been in my own little quiet introvert universe since March 2020. I sympathize with him as he takes baby steps to being around larger and larger groups of people, slowly thinking about the outcome he wants for himself.
Primal is written in my language. A language of sound and color and shape and shadow, a wordless way to communicate everything I could ever ask for. Sounds counterintuitive for someone like me who loves the written word, loves reading books and talking about books and writing about books. Which brings us back to the beginning: my fascination with language and words born from seeking the right ones.
For me.
We're all looking for the song that sings to us, the story that feels like it was written for our heart. Primal is the song that sings to me, the story that speaks to me. It speaks of isolation, trust, the beauty of sunlight reflecting off calm waters, and an uncaring universe. The sweeping music and brilliant imagery have become my safe quiet harbor in a world of non-stop Zoom meetings and verbosity. Primal is a place I can go to recover from sensory overload. At the end of nearly every episode my heart is overwhelmed with heady, wordless emotion.
Maybe that's what stories and books are: A lens of words we look through, to see and explain and create that for which there are no words. Our primal stories are so much more than the words they contain.
