#fall of civilization

[tmblriscompleteshit]

The Course of Empire (Destruction) by Thomas Cole

🏛️🏹🔥⚔️🩸💀🏺📜

The Course of Empire: Destruction, is an allegorical oil painting created in 1836 by Thomas Cole that was part of his series The Course of Empire.

Cole, an American Romantic landscape painter, added moral meanings to his work, leading to monumental historical allegories like the epic five-painting series The Course of Empire. Destruction comes second to last in the series, which charts the rise and decline of an imaginary empire. The cyclical nature of civilizations and the tension between the timeless natural world and fleeting man-made “progress” preoccupied many thinkers in Cole’s day—the French and American Revolutions were recent memories and the Industrial Revolution was in full swing. Cole himself migrated as a youth from the new industrial center of Lancashire, England, to the open spaces of America.

In Destruction, the forward-leaning stance of the conqueror’s huge statue in the foreground—presiding, ironically, over the city’s destruction—leads us into the picture, to see doom at every turn. The sky thunders, waters swell, magnificent buildings burn, and warring soldiers bring a bridge crashing down—the overwhelming destruction wrought both by war and by nature. The buildings, in ancient Roman style, remind us of that empire’s fall, and Cole seems to see the same potentially fatal arrogance and decadence in the America of the Jacksonian era. The dark skies and billowing smoke, expertly portrayed, show the influence of J.M.W. Turner’s paintings.

[socialiststoner]

The rise and fall of civilizations in the long, broad course of history can be seen to have been largely a function of the integrity and cogency of their supporting canons of myth; for not authority but aspiration is the motivator, builder, and transformer of civilization.

— Joseph Campbell

[fly-chicken]

A Pragmatic and surprisingly comforting perspective about the Trump 2nd Presidency from the ACLU

***Apologies if this is how you found out the 2024 election results***

Blacked out part is my name.

I’m not going to let this make me give up. It’s disheartening, and today I will wallow, probably tomorrow too

AND

I will continue to do my part in my community to spread the activism and promote change for the world I want to live in. I want to change the world AND help with the dishes.

And I won’t let an orange pit stain be what stops me from trying to be better.

A link to donate to the ACLU if able and inclined. I know I am

[slightlyartist]

What if instead of playing Chess in Ford's Mindscape they play Parkour Civilization 🤔

[toyastales]

Sculpture of a seated man with two dogs (one of the dogs is seen in the image). Dated (400-800 AD), from Veracruz, Mexico.

It could depict a warrior, as the man wears a full head mask that represents a (prairie) wolf.

[theo-vi]

got bit by the parkour civilization bug

[stimmingandstruggling]

coped with minecraft movie trailer by watching the first minecraft thing i saw on youtube. spent two hours incredibly invested in fucking parkour civilization. now oddly emotional about how all the jumps he made and all the jumps he failed brought him here or whatever he said. also experiencing whiplash from this guy saying like some really profound shit about social status and equality and never giving up and then ending with “in parkour civilization”

[ch0mpkin]

I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it

[boobilby]

This is a joke about how when I first saw evbo fan art I thought he was Martyn

[snabeus]

billford civilization

[vigilskept]

bioware devs should get to kill their executives with hammers over this.

however,

it is also true that there was no point in that dev cycle at which they had absorbed the critique that their games are deeply saturated with settler-colonialism, antisemitism & a “clash of civilizations” mentality that hasn’t been unpacked.

both of these things can be true.

[chamoemileclown]

i'm really sick right now and i binged the first parkour civilization movie and then had a fever dream i was in the parkour civilization

[slavhew]

ww

[synchodai]

HBO's Continued Insistence on Dumbing Down Westerosi Politics

So there have been countless thinkpieces already on how GOT simplified the feudalist politics of Westeros (by giving a lowborn sellsword lordship over The Reach, by having no consequences for destroying the Sept of Baelor, etc.), but I haven't seen a lot of people talking about that for House of the Dragon.

The worst being that the show presupposes that Rhaenyra is the lawful heir when the books showed there are plenty of lawful arguments why she wouldn't be.

Mind you that I've been enjoying the show a lot so far. This is just to vent out my frustration with the writers' failure to fully engage with the values and protocols of the Middle Age-inspired setting. The show seems uninterested in laws of the Realm in a story ostensibly about politics, save for when they're using it as an excuse to amplify depictions of sex and violence.

Blacks vs Greens wasn't a matter of misunderstanding of who each side thought Viserys wanted on the throne. It was the Targaryens' belief of their absolute authority clashing with the Realm's established traditions. Everyone always knew who Viserys chose as heir. In Fire and Blood, Grand Maester Orwyle said as much when he was parleying with Rhaenyra on behalf of the Greens.

Rhaenyra heard his terms in stony silence, then asked Orwyle if he remembered her father, King Viserys. "Of course, Your Grace," the maester answered. "Perhaps you can tell us who he named as his heir and successor," the queen said, her crown upon her head. "You, Your Grace," Orwyle replied. And Rhaenyra nodded and said, "With your own tongue you admit I am your lawful queen. Why do you serve my half-brother, the pretender?" Munkun tells us that Orwyle gave a long and erudite reply, citing the Andal law and the Great Council of 101. Mushroom claims he stammered and voided his bladder. Whichever is true, his answer did not satisfy Princess Rhaenyra.

(For non-F&B readers: Munkun is the Grand Maester who served Aegon III, the king who came after this civil war. Munkun's book, The Dance of the Dragons, A True Telling, is one of Fire and Blood's source texts. Mushroom is the King Landing court jester from Viserys I to Aegon III's reign. One is a source written with academic rigor but is secondhand at best. The other is a firsthand eyewitness account but is from a literal fool who will take every chance to make things more scandalous and sexual to please the crowd.)

In House of the Dragon, they replaced Orwyle with Otto and Orwyle's discussion of legal precedent with Otto handing Rhaenyra a book page from Alicent. It's quite evident here that the writers, much like Mushroom, thought a discussion on the actual laws of the Realm were negligible in this story about a succession war.

Even Alicent made no pretense that Viserys chose Rhaenyra over her children and I have no idea why the HBO writers decided to make her mistakenly think otherwise. Maybe they thought a queen regent pushing her son to take the throne over another woman made her appear unsympathetic as a character, but if anything, this only makes show!Alicent less politically savvy and more delusional than her book counterpart, fully believing an addled king's vague muttering on his deathbed was sufficient grounds to change heirs last minute.

Book!Alicent following Andal laws instead of her husband's wishes makes sense given her Andal upbringing, her devotion to the Faith of the Seven which enforces said laws, and her desire to protect her children from Rhaenyra given that Rhaenyra has shown she's not above murdering family (see: Laenor).

In the books, there was a long discussion between the former king's council on who should succeed Viserys.

Here are the arguments for Rhaenyra:

Rhaenyra was older than her brothers and had more Targaryen blood

the late king had chosen her as his successor, that he had repeatedly refused to alter the succession despite the pleadings of Queen Alicent and her greens

hundreds of lords and landed knights had done obeisance to the princess in 105 AC, and sworn solemn oaths to defend her rights.

Here are the arguments for Aegon II:

many of the lords who had sworn to defend the succession of Princess Rhaenyra were long dead [...]

Ironrod, the master of laws, cited the Great Council of 101 and the Old King’s choice of Baelon rather than Rhaenys in 92

the hallowed Andal tradition wherein the rights of a trueborn son always came before the rights of a mere daughter

Ser Otto reminded them that Rhaenyra’s husband was none other than Prince Daemon, and “we all know that one’s nature. Make no mistake, should Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was [...]”

Should the princess reign [...] Jacaerys Velaryon would rule after her. “Seven save this realm if we seat a bastard on the Iron Throne.”

Once again, the show chose to cut out this long political discussion. Instead, the council had already made up their mind and decided to stage a coup (when in their perspectives from the books, it would definitely not be a coup).

For all their marketing how two sides are equally grey, HotD is actively delegitimizing Aegon II. The strongest argument for him is how his claim follows the laws of the Realm, but the show doesn't seem to care about the laws of the Realm or the political need to maintain a more predictable/tested transfer of power.

Instead, the show focuses on Viserys's relationship with his daughter and the mysticism of the Targaryen bloodline. In doing so, they emphasize Rhaenyra's strongest arguments for succession — that she's more of a Targaryen than her half-brother and that her father prefered her.

And what for? Because in our modern-day, we don't have male-prefered inheritance and people can only imagine misogyny as the only injustice here? What about the injustice of a monarch exercising absolute control, thinking that his "superior" heritage makes him above the established laws of the native people?

This is not to say Aegon II is unquestionably the heir. But this is to say that the show removed the political nuance of why people are questioning in the first place. Precedence isn't the end-all-be-all of succession, but neither is "because daddy said so".

[hayatheauthor]

Israel didn't even allow Syria 48 hours of peace before invading their lands, bombing and genociding thousands. Anyone who believes the US-Israel Middle Eastern activities are anything more than a brutal land grab is deluded

Imagine fighting tirelessly for 50 years to rid yourself of a dictator and mere days after your victory, mere days after tortured innocents are freed from their cells, all your resources; schools, hospitals, etc. Are bombed, families are killed. A wasteland worsened to...nothing. For oil. But Israel is the good side right??

[toyastales]

Roman gold snake ring, 1st century AD