I Think Ava Is a Bit Clueless with Her Interpretation of Purgatory

[poSLAYtions 5,694]

All of us already know how she conceptualized her "world" of Heaven & Hell. 7 songs represent Heaven, 1 song represents Purgatory, and finished with 7 songs which represent Hell. Now, that's unique and all but... that's not how a purgatory works.

 

According to the Catholic doctrine, a purgatory is a state of suffering/purifying for all sinners before they get sent to either heaven or hell. It is also believed as a place much like heaven and hell, but Idk I'm Protestant . There's apparently 7 stages of purgatory and it's like a pretty long period to go through. Sinners can even stay stuck in the purgatory if they're deemed not good enough for heaven but not bad enough for hell.

 

Ava's concept of Heaven & Hell is that the sky is heaven while the Earth/world is hell. Now, if we read the lyrics of each songs in order of the tracklist, it's clear that Ava's purgatory starts with OMG What's Happening. Reasons:

1. She was singing about being somebody's "tattoo" prior to OMG. She depicts that her love is so memorable and herself is like a tattoo on her lover's heart. This represents the final part of the dreamy heaven. Heaven contains her ideals of a healthy relationship.

2. Suddenly, she meets her ex and questions "ohmygawd what is happening to ME?!!?!!?!?!" especially on that annoying bridge in OMG. It symbolizes the first stage of her moving to purgatory/purification.

3. The following three tracks, which will end with Torn, showcase the fact that she is inside the purgatory. Each songs tells her struggle to purify herself from lust, vanity, greed, etc. She's at the horizon, not yet touching the Earth but has definitely gone out of heaven/sky. Torn is the last stage of her purgatory period as she states that she's "torn in-between heaven and hell" because of her undecided thoughts regarding her love life.

4. Finally, it's decided that she's not good enough to go to heaven because her purification failed. We know about this because in Take You to Hell she sings about taking somebody to either heaven or hell with her, but finally scream-shouts "just go to hell!!!" near the end of the song. Now, she's inside of hell/world and has to face the fact that she IS poisonous and dangerous and that she will stay doing damned things for the rest of her life.

5. The album should have stopped here. In fact, I think it does stop here as the Heaven & Hell concept album. Starting from So Am I until Sweet but Psycho, it's no longer that fantasy world. It's now reality and this three-tracks section perhaps best described as her encore.

 

With this design, my perspective on the album has changed. It's no longer 7-1-7 but instead an equal amount of 4 tracks each (4-4-4). There's also the reality-based encore, separated from Heaven & Hell, which consists of 3 songs. This interpretation helps me to connect with the album more as it's less sloppy and becomes a bit tighter and more "accurate" with the concept.

 

Conclusion: Ava's album concept of heaven and hell is not a tight and true one. Instead, it's rather loose and unfocused. However, we can know for sure that a purgatory can't be just Torn. Torn is the culmination of her confusion and struggle in purgatory, but it's NOT the purgatory itself. The album ends with a more realistic part and it acts as an encore to the Ava Max experience. Truly ha Chromatica!

 

What do you think? What other songs of hers that you think could be included as part of Heaven, Purgatory, and Hell? Do you think she chose a concept that is way too complex for herself? What is your interpretation of Ava's concept? Tell me down below!

[Chris 58,350]

i completely agree with this entire post

[Max 16,200]

[poSLAYtions 5,694]

Just now, Max said:

It's ok, take your time to read. 

Hopefully we all won't be left as clueless as she is after this. 

Don't be shy to drag her OR drag me, I just remembered that this is BG. 

[Max 16,200]

Just now, Bionic-AHHH! said:

It's ok, take your time to read. 

Hopefully we all won't be left as clueless as she is after this. 

Don't be shy to drag her OR drag me, I just remembered that this is BG. 

Nah, it's all good. It's just that I don't think Ava herself put that much thought into it. You certainly thought this through better.

 

I mean... The two "sides" sound exactly the same. This concept is really just tacked on so that she had something to sell.

[poSLAYtions 5,694]

1 minute ago, Max said:

I mean... The two "sides" sound exactly the same. This concept is really just tacked on so that she had something to sell.

I think she might have had a much more elaborate concept initially considering that the original plan was to release the album, already rumored to be called Heaven & Hell, without SBP and any other singles she had released before. However, Atlantic probably heard her concept and was like "uh-oh, nope" because SBP is still her biggest success to date.

[Gilly 12,318]

lmfao the actual music has no concept - its just dated generic pop songs, her cheap ass just needed a theme to create images/visuals for

[Chris 58,350]

5 minutes ago, Gilly said:

lmfao the actual music has no concept - its just dated generic pop songs, her cheap ass just needed a theme to create images/visuals for

i mean not initially, but it does have a very loose theme surrounding them, but that was created after the songs were done, im sure  

[Kylie 114,725]

I think Ava Max is clueless, period

[plutoniano 16,569]

i'll get back to you after i take the time to sit and play the album in full XD

[harry 3,318]

You've easily intrigued me to listen to the album more than anything I've heard or seen directly from her. 

 

[Andres 2,216]

girl I ain't reading all that

[Kylie 114,725]

Why are people threating this album like it's the second coming of Jesus?  It's not even that good 

[V For Vendetta 7,211]

[Wonder 12,800]

💀

[Shawn's Slave 19,523]

The overanalysis... 

To me, Heaven & Hell is just to show that a person or a woman (her) can have two different sides, nice and mean. On the Heaven side, she's representing nice, vulnerability, the ideals of a woman/girlfriend, and on the hell side she's representing how a woman can also be mean or rebellious (So Am I) when treated wrongly. Sweet But Psycho gives me Taylor Swift Blank Page vibes, I think she's making fun of herself when she's being needy in a relationship.

 

I don't think it has any religious undertones at all or any references to purgatory... 

 

Overall, Ava is a genius. 

[Exhale 230]

Would you care to write my college thesis for free

[SeekingThrill 10,035]

 

On 9/23/2020 at 6:03 PM, Bionic-AHHH! said:

According to the Catholic doctrine, a purgatory is a state of suffering/purifying for all sinners before they get sent to either heaven or hell. 

Isn't purgatory a place for some people before they are sent to heaven?   

I don't think people go to hell after purgatory. 

[poSLAYtions 5,694]

7 hours ago, SeekingThrill said:

 

Isn't purgatory a place for some people before they are sent to heaven?   

I don't think people go to hell after purgatory. 

Idk babe, I just checked through Google. I initially thought so too, but apparently the Catholic doctrine stated otherwise. Not really sure what's the truth. I'm a Protestant.

[Unapologetic Bitch 9,160]

I tnink we expect too much from her. The whole heaven / hell concept album is such a huge cliche idea that only discount version of natalia kills could come up with it, so edgy