Junior year of high school, I was in a psych class. We did all sorts of experiments regularly, one of which was on body language. My teacher handed volunteers cards and we each acted out whatever was written on them. Students in their seats would shout out adjectives or nouns describing the person—this person is nervous, that person is relaxed.
My card was confusing. It said to straighten up, put my hands behind my back, grip my arm, and walk around the room. I had to survey the students, occasionally pausing at a desk and observing the student in it.
I was stately.
My teacher explained that this was the posture that people of power adopted. Presidents, ministers. They were in positions of respect but, more importantly, of authority. They looked proper. And important. Perhaps they looked condescending, but, with hands behind their backs and body exposed for the world to see, they were open. High, but approachable. Grand.
Lucifer doesn’t walk like he has wings. Lucifer walks like a king.
Mark Pellegrino plays a flawless Lucifer.
Does everybody remember the perching thing?
Of course you do.
Okay, did you ever realize why he does it?
It’s a height-dominance thing.
Lucifer—or at least his vessel—is shorter than Sam, which is Sam’s only honest advantage against Lucifer as he struggles against the supposed hallucination throughout season seven. But when Sam is sitting down, Lucifer will perch or stand so that he has a height advantage over Sam, thus establishing dominance over Sam in every possible way, making Sam completely powerless by loosing the one advantage, the one comfort he had. This happens again:
and again:
and again, this particular instance which will result in a transition:
…to when Lucifer wants to connect with Sam, to try and be equal with him (in this case, to convince/taunt Sam into talking to him); Mark has him sit at level, like here, in a more neutral position:
So the whole reason for the perching is for Lucifer to gain dominance over Sam until he needs to connect with Sam personally. Where Mark places Lucifer in the room and just how he does it appears to have a direct correlation to if Lucifer is trying to ruin Sam, or relate to him.
(Compare this, then, to how Lucifer and Sam first met: lying in bed together. Compare this Lucifer to the Lucifer of season five, who was Sam’s “other half,” not more or less than Sam. May be evidence for anyone still on the fence about s7!Lucifer being a hallucination, perhaps?)
(one day I’ll talk about the reversal of the Perching Rule, but for now let me live in my happy fantasy)
A+ META IS A+
