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Looking at different societies beliefs with caution

When first reading The Wicker Man directed by Robin Hardy it hits us with lots of unfamiliar ideologies and beliefs that are very alien to us which can make us analyze this unfairly. In the 1973 version of the film, we see the main character, Neil Howie, a British police officer, go to an island in Scotland to investigate a case of a missing little girl. Upon arrival, Neil Howie encountered numerous strange activities such as naked women dancing in circles, people performing sexual acts in cemeteries and performing the sacrifice of a human inside a wicker man. To Neil and the average reader, these social norms and rituals seem preposterous due to the fact that the society we live in does not share the same beliefs as the people that populate the island. In class, we were discussing how the rituals were quite abnormal and how the individuals that perform them seemed insane. Mariah then brought up the point that is the focus of this blog post which is the fact that it is unjust to deem them irrational or crazy based on their personal beliefs. For example, if someone from a different culture or time period saw how inclusive our current society is with regards to things as taboo as the LGTBQ community, they may think our society is odd since it is a foreign concept to them. Which is why especially as people looking at history and in this particular story people from a different culture we have to be very careful with talking about other peoples beliefs and have to be somewhat cautious and sensitive. I mean hey at least the wicker man ritual worked for them and gave them a prosperous year with lots of crops.

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Origin  of William Wallace’s Drive

Loss and agony are very strong emotions but can be very motivational if channeled correctly. In Braveheart William Wallace a Scottish patriot who led a rebellion/ uprising against English ruler, King Edward the first. William Wallace is a very memorable if not the most glorified and known Scottish patriot due to him being the main character in the award-winning movie Braveheart and due to his great bravery in leading the revolt against Edward I. Now lets think about him for a second what was the motivation behind this Scottish hero and what drove him to have such a “brave heart”, at first glance it would seem as though it is just William Wallace being a patriotic person and although this is a great motivator the main reason for his involvement in going against the English noblemen came from a lot more devastating place then that. Due to a tradition in which the English noblemen had the right to rape any newly wedded women William Wallace got married to the love of his life Murron in secret protect her from this. First of all that is insane to even think about that this was a right nobleman had, which just goes to show how women were treated like objects that can just be used and also portrays the extent of power the Englishmen had and how much they abused it. Back to the story Murron almost gets raped and ends up getting killed, and after this we see him attack the English soldier with the village and then eventually raise his own army. So we can see that William rebellion was directly correlated to the loss of his wife and the fact that his father and brother also lost their lives fighting the English soldiers. Prior to losing his wife William didn’t have the same drive we see in the rest of the movie but losing something you love can either cause someone to give up but as I said earlier and what we see in this movie it can build up a fire in someone and an extreme desire to get revenge. This is especially true when someone loses the main source of happiness or love in their life which I know sounds super dark but then they feel as though they are expendable and have nothing to lose which makes them virtually unstoppable. We definitely see this happen to William in this movie as he only comes to a halt due to his death (yeah, I spoiled the movie, but it was made in 1995 so…). It's super interesting to think about that the most devastating events can be the single most motivational and pivotal points in your life and cause you to do the best work you’ve done. Stars can’t shine without darkness.  

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Internal struggles

I’m going to be focusing on Edward II scene 6, In this scene, I think we get to see the real biggest weakness a nation, person or any sort of group could have. The scene opens with the conversation about a threat coming from France who were trying to recapture Normandy which seems like a big issue that would pertain this group, but another bigger issue arises as the violence quickly turns inward. Which leads to Edward stating that the war is the only way to deal with the rebellious thoughts of the nobles. Which plays to the other scenes in which this internal struggle and conflict is more an issue than the wars and threats on the outside. We see this start to unfold when Isabella gets bothered and saddened by Mortimer Junior's impulsive actions after Gaveston leaves. Then we see Mortimer provide the implication that his only remorse is that he didn’t kill Gaveston. Edward then reacts to this by sending both Lancaster and Mortimer Junior away from court. Shortly after Edward then goes on to imply that they are in danger of being executed, to which Warwick responds that Edward is in danger of losing his crown. We see this happen a lot in the history of Scotland, more recently we see it when we talk about the highlands and the low lands and in most areas of life, in general, an internal struggle has the potential of being very devastating. If the system from the inside doesn’t gel if you face any other threat everyone will be torn and the system will fall apart. The Highland clearances was a very bad look back in the day and were caused by an internal struggle and ended up with people being removed from their homes and forced into other occupations. Even as individuals if you don’t take care of your internal struggles and issues you will be a lot more vulnerable to everything that you face in life. I feel that fixing that is a bigger priority and can cause a more of a disastrous blow which we see in the play compared to any exterior threats and is a super valuable thing to learn and be able to take care of to be stronger personally and in all your relationships and any nation.  

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Powers in relation to gender in Game of Thrones

The Rains of Castamere is a very notable episode in the series Game of Thrones and is the episode we will be taking a deeper dive into and looking at through the lens of women in relation to power and how they are portrayed to handle it. These portrayals will be a good representation of olden day Scotland because that is what game of thrones heavily draws inspiration from and even Europe for that matter because the subject of women in power was relatively the same in that area in this time. I feel as though all through Game of Thrones in comparison to other historical shows or books it is good with showing females as able leaders and as powerful if not more powerful then men. In this episode specifically, though I feel as though the women are shown to be weak and somewhat objectified at times. The first scene shows rob stark and his mother Catelyn stark strategizing on how to win a battle against the Lanisters, Rob who is currently the King in the north asks his mom for advice on whether to get a larger army by visiting Walder Frey and getting their allegiance by having a Stark marry a Frey. This is the first scene and the first time we see a woman get the ability to make a very detrimental and powerful decision in this episode and we know that she did end up choosing to visit the Frey’s and what this decision ended up leading too (the red wedding). “Show them how it feels to lose what you love” This showed her as being driven solely by emotion which is not the best move for any leader if emotion is the only reason you made a big strategic move with many lives on the line, this plays into the common stereotype women get placed into. This hints at how women especially back then and even somewhat now are deemed unfit to be in a position of power, but what they don’t show much is that it was more of Rob’s fault if he hadn’t broken his oath in the first place it would have never ended up in that much bloodshed and death. The next scene we see how women were looked at by the majority of men back then, Walder Frey claims that Rob was only with Talisa because of her “firm tits”, and claimed that he would break 50 oaths just to be with her but nonetheless his point was very clear. He seems to think women are nothing but a possession and an object used when relaxation is needed and don’t serve much other purpose. We see this in this episode very much in almost every encounter he has with a woman and also at the very end when Lady Catelyn threatens to kill his wife, he seems completely unbothered and states he can just replace her which is about as objectified as a woman can get. I also saw something I found very interesting in this episode when Daenerys needs to make big decisions such as whether to invade the city or not, she diverts them to the men around her which to me makes it seem like she isn’t able to handle this power on her own and she needs men to guide her. She is made to seem to be more of just someone with royal blood rather than a real leader in that scene. Women back in the day were thought of in this light and have this stigma around them of not being able to handle pressure and make difficult decisions which lead them to be nothing more than just objects back in the day. I believe the right women can be as good as any man at the job of being a leader but weren’t given the same amount of opportunities to do so or were ridiculed if they tried which is why we see them portrayed this way here.    

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Ambition

Ambition is defined as the desire or drive to achieve something which requires hard work. Although not stated in the definition the word ambition has an underlying morally good connotation behind it nowadays due to society. Although this wasn’t always the case in Macbeth ambition is portrayed in a manner which seems somewhat foreign to us and carries a different outcome and response from others then we would expect. In the modern-day ambition is intertwined with success, it seems as though without ambition success is hard to achieve. We can see this in very popular phrases that are used all the time such as, “reach for the stars” or even more literally “a man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions” which show that ambition is necessary and is rewarded greatly. In the 1600s though when Macbeth was written this wasn’t the case which we see in the play, instead we start seeing phrases such as “a man with too much ambition cannot sleep”. In this we can see the lingering negative undertone of ambition, in this play ambition is portrayed to lead to madness. In the play, we know that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth based on the prophecy of three witches decide to murder King Duncan and take the Scottish throne. Which leads Macbeth wracked with guilt and paranoia, and portrayed Lady Macbeth as insane in a sense too. Spoiler alert but not really it's over four hundred years old so if you don’t know what happens its not my fault, but as you should know they both end up dead. So even if we go to the source of this ambition it came from the prophecy of three witches which we know are supposedly evil and very dark spirited creatures, so even the root of this idea comes from a bad place. When we start seeing them actually going out and fulfilling the prophecy they aren’t rewarded instead Macbeth starts hallucinating and going insane. It's not as if they went through those perils and finally were rewarded but instead in the play this ambition leads ultimately to their demise. This shows us very clearly how different this one characteristic is in different periods of time and when you think about it, it wasn’t even that long ago although it may seem like it. Macbeth was written about four hundred years ago and the average life span is about 80 so if you divide them that’s was only like five people ago which isn’t a long time at all, like just 5 people ago, crazy huh? Jokes aside though it is interesting to see the change between risk/ambition and reward from now and then I feel as though the main reason for this was back in the day it was a very controlling and modest environment people had orders from the king and they just had to put their head down and obey them otherwise it was treason, so the thought of being ambitious wasn’t a great idea it was more about staying in your lane and just getting by in life if you weren’t the king or the leader per say. Now we have a lot more freedom over what we do and being ambitious is often times more tied to working hard then it is just to make a risky move, so someone in today's society being ambitious whether its in school their job who they want to be with is a great motivator and often times leads to excellence because now more than ever its not just about getting by we have resources to be successful no matter who you are and what talents you have which is the main difference between now and the 1600’s in Scotland.