The Bacchanal Went Fine, Actually

And other lies we tell ourselves by candlelight

Jun 27, 2025

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It always starts with someone quoting Euripides, doesn't it?

Or better yet, someone who didn’t read Euripides, but owns a wine-stained edition of The Secret History and thinks that counts (it totally does).

A few candles. A bottle of something red. A circle of sleep-deprived people in long coats who’ve been repressing their emotions and misusing ancient languages for weeks. This is how it begins. Welcome, friends, to The Bacchanal.

It looks great on paper; cloaked students, stolen rituals, poetry read aloud like an incantation. There’s blood. There’s dancing. Someone kisses someone they shouldn’t. Someone else screams and disappears into the woods. The scene fades to black. It’s beautiful. Haunting. Electric.

Except there's a caveat to this raucous and irresponsible search for enlightenment. The moment the group gathers, the clock starts counting down.

Because, my darlings, the bacchanal is not a party. It is always the beginning of the end.

What Even Is a Bacchanal?

Despite becoming a familiar term in modern conversation (thank you, Henry), this isn't a literary invention. The bacchanal (or Bacchanalia) was a real event, and it was deeply unhinged long before it got aestheticised.

The Bacchanalia were secret Roman festivals held in honor of Bacchus, god of wine, ecstasy, and ritual madness (the Roman equivalent of Dionysus, patron saint of hot messes in mythology). Originally small and women-led, the rites quickly expanded, and according to Roman officials, got way out of hand. Rumors of orgies, violence, political conspiracy, and crimes committed under cover of ritual led to a full-scale Senate crackdown in 186 BCE.

“More crimes were committed in these nocturnal assemblies than in all the open law courts.”

(Livy’s version of: the vibes were criminal, and not in a good way.)

Rome saw what was happening and said: absolutely not. Too much passion. Too much loss of control. Too many candles, probably.

Naturally, they banned it.

Naturally, it didn’t work.

Naturally, we brought it back.

Modern Bacchanals: It’s Not Always Blood and Wine, But It’s Close

In contemporary dark academia, the bacchanal isn’t always called a bacchanal, but you know it when you see it. It’s the moment things go sideways. When intellect gives way to instinct. When the plot stops simmering and finally catches fire.

It doesn’t have to be wine and masks (though it often is). It might be:

A play that spirals into a real-life tragedy, where art and obsession become indistinguishable (If We Were Villains).
A midnight poetry reading that feels a little too sacred, a little too dangerous.
A professor’s salon that starts as a seminar and ends with blood on the pages (An Education in Malice).
A séance in the dormitory, someone half-jokingly saying “speak,” and something answering back.
A Halloween party that turns ritualistic without anyone meaning it to.
A choice made in the dark, a kiss, a betrayal, a confession, that can’t be undone.

Sometimes it’s aesthetic. Sometimes it’s metaphysical. Sometimes it’s demonic, and sometimes it’s just deeply human.

But the common thread is this: the bacchanal marks the turn.

The tipping point.

The moment after which nothing will be the same.

It often arrives when characters are trying to feel something; more than numbness, more than pressure, more than just the weight of academia on their shoulders. They want transcendence, escape, clarity. And instead, they get consequences.

You’ll find it tucked between the lines of Euripides and Camus. In the velvet-gloved grip of stories where yearning masquerades as ritual. Where a night of indulgence was never going to be just that. And deep down, they knew it.

Because in these stories, the bacchanal is rarely accidental.

Even when they pretend otherwise.

The Recipe for Disaster

There’s a formula, whether they admit it or not:

One part “let’s do something real tonight”
Two parts unearned confidence in your grasp of Latin
One antique wine bottle someone insists is symbolic
A sprinkle of stolen candles from the chapel
At least one person pretending this wasn’t premeditated
Optional: masks, old poetry, someone bleeding from their nose.

The bacchanal always starts with someone trying to feel something, anything, in a world that demands constant performance. And in that sense, it’s honest. Maybe even necessary. But it never ends well.

Someone always says too much.

Someone touches something they shouldn’t.

Someone wakes up changed, and not in the healing way.

But Did It Go Fine?

No. It never does.

Someone stabbed the wrong person. Someone screamed in a voice that didn’t sound like theirs. Someone disappeared into the woods. Someone confessed something too true, too raw, too permanent. Someone died.

Someone. Always. Dies.

There’s a reason the bacchanal is almost always followed by silence. Shame. A plot twist. A death. A disappearance. The story shifts. The line between aesthetic and reality blurs. The characters stop pretending they’re safe.

Because the bacchanal is never about pleasure. It’s about unraveling. And once you unravel, you can’t go back.

Final Thoughts (or a friendly warning)

The bacchanal is seductive because it offers a kind of freedom.

Freedom from control. From consequence. From the crushing pressure to always be composed, clever, correct.

It tells you: if you just let go, if you bleed enough, scream enough, want enough. you’ll be transformed. That your pain will become story. That if the candles are pretty enough, the collapse will mean something.

But maybe it won’t.

Maybe it’s just a mess.

And maybe, just maybe, the next time someone invites you to a “spontaneous gathering” in the woods, don’t go. Don't do it. Not even for the plot.