do you interpret mastermind as "i orchestrated/designed the entire relationship with my beard" or as the genuine "i wanted to be with you so i planned out everything and none of it was accidental"?? or both maybe?
i completely believe it’s about taylor and karlie oh my goodness no contest.
it fits so many kaylor songs and how we think about their relationship.
but not just how taylor planned out how she was going to win karlie’s heart, it’s also a song that has a cute surprise twist midway through the song where it’s revealed that her love interest was also wooing her and knew she was being wooed!!
I keep rewatching the mastermind performance over and over again and it’s so loud because Taylors telling this story with her whole chest. It’s interesting to pay attention to the movements that are happening. She’s playing puppet master with the ‘playthings for her to use’. They follow her every command. All the pieces fall right into place/dominoes cascading in a line because it was all her doing… the mastermind. None of it was accidental, don’t you love that? The metaphor of it all.

This is good news but I can't help but be pessimistic. What are the chances she gets a new beard?
Who knows. She has an easy excuse to be single. Free after six years and busy on tour.
But I get your concern because we went from CH to Tom in a matter of days.
https://twitter.com/thinkergilmore/status/1678078639366086658?s=20
lol, okay Tay. If you say so.
Well, at least they went viral for their lie. LOL
New Years Day (full performance) | Los Angeles Night 6 | forevermore ♾️
Kristina O’neill via Instagram stories (3/24/23)
The giraffe emoji…..And when the music video is just a montage of these pictures then what
woww!!
this is so good!👏👍
Ok, now that I opened Pandora's box of writing my thoughts down, I don’t seem to be able to stop…
That being said, I keep seeing antis, especially on Twitter, claiming how The Great War does not mean anything about LSK since it was the first world war, but there was a second after.
So the argument here is that they might have survived that first war (weirdly no one seems to know which events it might be about) but they did not survive the second one (this one is supposed to be 2019 and the failed coming out).
This is gonna be a long post, so if you just want to have my input on what those two wars are about, it's at the end.
At first, I just thought this argument was funny, especially since no one is able to explain what fight (war) this song refers to if it’s not the events of 2019.
But then it got me thinking that if people are seeing this connection about two wars, it was probably not accidental.
I do believe that The Great War is talking about the events of 2019. There’s many things that point to this.
The Great War is sampled on Only The Young. It’s the same drum beat, especially in the intro.
I think it is meant to set the time the song took place (2019) and the reason behind this great war : The political climate, the results of the elections. As many suspect might have played a role on her not being able to come out.
But the lyrics also points toward 2019:
The most telling is : “Somewhere in the haze, got a sense I’d been betrayed”
This clearly points to the betrayal accusation that is looming over Karlie since 2019 and that Swifties use to hate on her.
There’s an amazing post about this. I encourage you to go read it as it will help you understand where I am coming from for the rest of the analysis.
Perez Hilton posted a Youtube Video saying how Taylor and Karlie are no longer close because of Scooter Braun, based on absolutly nothing. Ashley Avignone and Claire Winter liked the Taylor Swift Updates post about it.
Therefore lauching every Swifties and their mothers on Karlie.
This tweet and the video are still up, but the original post shared by Taylor Swift Updates and liked by Taylor's friend no longer exists.
(I highly suggest you read the post about debunking all of this!)
Perez Hilton liked a bunch of tweets this very year about how his claim that Karlie had betrayed Taylor was unfounded and basically not true.
This is just one exemple, there's MANY (and he confirmed in the comments of some that he does not just like them automatically because his name is in the post).
He even liked one of mine saying he was in his redemption era, liking post debunking his rumor about Karlie...
All of this plays in those lyrics:
“And maybe it’s the past that’s talkin’, screamin’ from the crypt. Telling me to punish you for things you never did. So I justified it.”
Perez posting those rumors and having her friends “confirm” it by liking the post.
“Spineless in my tomb of silence, tore your banner down took the battle underground”
Her not doing anything at the time (at least at first) to stop those rumors.
“Looked up at me with honor and truth, broken and blue, so I called off the troops.”
The Taylor Swift Updates post being deleted. Her friends are still showing support to Karlie on SM (again, if you have not read the debunk post, it’s really good!).
In The Great War, there’s also the lyric: “Soldier down on that icy ground, looked up at me with honor and truth, broken and blue”.
Taylor has used the frozen imagery to talk about the Master Heist in Folklore and Evermore.
Hoax: “My win less fight, this has frozen my ground”.
In the Long Pond Studio Session, when she talks about Hoax she says that it’s about multiple things: A relationship and the true meaning of love for her (staying when the other person is having a difficult time), a person that betrayed her and that she saw like family (Scott Borchetta) and a work thing that really hurt (The Master Heist).
The Win Less Fight is the attempt to come out that has frozen her ground (her past work).
It’s Time To Go: “He’s got my past frozen behind glass, but I got me”
Again, referencing having her past work stolen from her as being frozen.
Right Where You Left Me: “Did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen, time went on for everybody else she won’t know it”.
Once again, she is talking about her and how she got frozen in time by the master heist.
The Lakes: "A red rose grew up, out of ice frozen ground. With no one around to tweet it”.
The lakes talks about her not belonging and wanting to escape with her muse. A red rose, means love and passion.
Meaning that in all of this, love grew up out of the public eye...
In Evermore she also alludes to the cold and the winter while looking back on the events of 2019 (this would take a whole other post to go through all of this) : “And I was catching my breath. Barefoot in the wildest winter catching my death”.
Even in Only The Young: "It keeps me awake, the look on your face, the moment you heard the news. Screaming inside and FROZEN in time, you did all that you could do"
She might be talking about more than just the elections right there...
Another thing that for me screams of 2019 : “Your finger on my hairpin trigger”.
To me this sounds like her relationship with Karlie was one big reason for her wanting to come out in 2019.
How since the start of her relationship with Karlie she has been more loud about her queerness and how Karlie was the catalyst of her wanting to come out.
This relationship makes her want to drop “hairpins” as she references too in Right Where You Left Me : “I swear you could hear a hairpin drop, right when I felt the moment stopped.”
This checks out when you look back on her discography, social media posts, interviews and everything. Taylor has started being louder and dropping hairpins in conjunction with her relationship with Karlie.
The song clearly depicts how they made it through those events:
“I vowed, I would always be yours, ‘cause we survived the great war”.
Which was even more solidified by Taylor singing “I WILL always be yours” when she played it as a surprise song.
But there’s also other interesting detail about that song:
“My hand was the one you reached for all throughout the great war”
Meaning Karlie was there all this time.
Also: “That was the night I nearly lost you. I really thought I lost you.”
Meaning Taylor did not lose Karlie. She thought she did, thought she might. But as she is saying in the song, it was not the case.
Here’s what I think it means.
The Great War is about the events of 2019 : her wanting to come out and not being able to because of the Master Heist.
In her song The Archer, which is about the fear of coming out and how she is ready for it (pun not intended).
She starts the song with “Combat, I’m ready for combat”. (singular).
The combat here is her coming out and the possible backlash it can have.
She sadly was not able to come out in 2019.
But since August 2019 and her BBC1 performance, Taylor has changed the lyrics a bit.
In her live performance of BBC1 (Septembre 2019)
Live in Paris (Septembre 2019)
You can clearly hear “Combats, I’m ready for combats”.
Even during the Eras Tour you can hear her using plural in the song.
The singular combat of coming out in 2019 has transformed into multiple ones, her having to re-record her first six albums for one plus whatever other challenges arose in 2019 that we don’t know about.
So World War 2 might be in that case her future coming out.
Whenever that might be.
And the song saying: “We will never go back”
Meaning that whatever happens, they’ll face it together this time.