#So one person's idea of what the basics of being baptised involved are going to radically differ from another's based on what they read

[thaliatimsh]

if its alright! wrt the 'directors commentary' asks, honestly anything /Anything/ for 'imperfect life', oof :0

ONE DVD COMMENTARY TRACK COMING UP BECAUSE HELL YES you may ask me about this one. GOD I HOPE THIS READ MORE WORKS OR I’M GONNA DIE OF SHAME. For those of you who’ve missed my pleas: imperfect life is on AO3 here. read it or i cry.

Okay I reblogged that post with not much of an idea about what I’d actually have to say but imperfect life is at least at the forefront of my mind lol

First things first I’d had an idea for a fic about Hodgson At Mutineer Camp that i wanted to write floating around my head for a while that was. I suppose centred on the sheer Betrayal of GIBSON YOU CHANGED MY SHEETS FOR THREE YEARS? WHAT THE FUCK? And as I did more research abt both of them and found that they’d been on ships together & that it was likely that either Hodgson or Peglar got Gibson his job? Fuckin wrote itself, especially seeing as in show-canon Bridgens is the Peglar Papers Steward.

Anyway I’ve said this before to everyone who’ll listen but I will say it again: I think Hodgson is misinterpreted & underappreciated by a lot of the fandom &  it makes me SAD and also ANGRY.

Like: I once saw someone say that he was “mad about Jopson’s promotion, so fuck that guy”? NO. He MISSED Jopson’s promotion! He would have gotten a KICK out of Jopson’s promotion! You BASTARDS! Hickey picks on him SPECIFICALLY because he’s out of the loop! I’ll kill you!

Ham jokes? I’m coming to your HOUSE. man’s as ‘obsessed with ham’ as any self-respecting naval officer starving to death in the arctic

Then there’s the “Who is this?” being taken as some kind of a-okay for cannibalism instead of a guy who saw someone shot dead just last night and then spent the morning burying said dead'un being literally scared out of his mind by a greasy lil rat with a knife and Tozer blocking the tent flap with a fuckign RIFLE. DAMN YOU ALL.

Do I think he’s a complete FOOL? YES. Do I think he ever had any kind of malicious intent? NO. Okay anyway I’m gonna talk a bit more abt that later so let me go back to the next part lmao

So Part 2 of the George Henry Hodgson Saga was then to figure out why he had to go stay with his aunts - this ALSO came pretty straight to me, for whatever reason. I think it might have started off as just his parents pleasure jaunt, but as I was thinking about later scenes with Jimmy Fitzjas I came up with a thing abt - Im not gonna find the reference now but in the battersby book there’s a bit abt William Coningham going to take the waters at bath or whatever for Weak Lungs which OBVIOUSLY made me think of my favourite comsumptive Of All Time Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin & the countryside retreats he & his sister Emilia took for their symptoms as teenagers (and unforch Emilia died of tuberculosis aged just 14… rip)

ANYWAY I had some VAGUE idea that George n Fitz could have some kind of Passing Discussion abt Brothers With Shite Lungs that obviously never came to fruition but. Lol whatever, it gave me a reason for why My Parents Sent Me To Stay With Two Aunts.

UH. Right, so then like the third leg for this to stand on was that Fitzjames and Hodgson had ALSO served together & Fitzjames had: 1. recommended Hodgson to the expedition 2: mentioned him TWICE in his Voyage of the Cornwallis 3. Mentioned him in his letters to the Coninghams from disko bay (one of the only Terrors mentioned - there’s a passage abt Fitzjames going to look at the icebergs with Fairholme and Hodgson. ANYWAY; show-canon Hodgson has a sense of humour and I really think he tried to make the men see him as approachable, at least compared to the other Terror officers and that reminds me a lot of how the historical Fitzjames seemed from mystery man! Seeing as they KNew each other I think it’s not unfair to suggest that he’s trying to emulate an older and more successful officer! He wants to succeed! He wants to have fun and to be loved by The Men!

My friend said something very Prescient abt this to me recently which was that THere are a lot of similarities between Hodgson & Fitzjames and it’s kinda like. Fitzjames is the Ideal, and Hodgson just misses the mark. He’s the average man’s James Fitzjames and because he doesn’t know about Fitzjames’ surplus of political luck that only makes him feel more of a failure. Fitzjames gets a bullet that gets him compared to Lord Nelson, Hodgson gets in the gazette as ‘slightly wounded’. Even their monologues! Fitzjames gives a soul-baring confessional he’s never talked about before to someone he respects and he gets! Affirmation! Gets told that he’s a good man and brave and loved! Hodgson gives a soul-baring confessional he’s never talked about before to someone he respects and gets! FUCK ALL! A MAN SITS IN SILENCE! He has to fucking! Walk out alone after all of that! FUCK!!!

Okay so this whole fic just sat in my brain for probably like six months until I literally sat up in bed because I worked out the last piece of the puzzle

(Drac has an epiphany, July 4th 2019, colourised)

Which was, of course, 'Hodgson went to boarding school’ - which is what all of this ends up hanging off of! Boarding school culture! The younger years are servants for the upper years, who in turn are responsible for the younger students!  including discipline etc so like… if a younger year brought something up to their “fag-master” it’d be sorted by them and maybe prefects, without getting schoolmasters etc involved.

WHICH is why George doesn’t tell the captains about what happens to Neptune, because he’s out here trying to be a good fag master and get it sorted himself! His own fag master fucked him over by getting the schoolmasters involved when they oughtn’t have been! He’s not about to be Archibald Harrington-Thurlowe! He’s not okaying the mutiny! He’s trying to minimise the damage *on his own* like a fuckin idiot!

IF YOU CALL HODGSON A MUTINEER I’LL COME TO YOUR HOUSE N MAKE YOU GET LOST AND ABANDONED AND END UP EATING YOUR BOOT BEFORE GETTING 'RESCUED’ BY THE SAME GREASY RAT WHO LITERALLY MURDERED YOUR PAL AND TRICKED YOU INTO SLAUGHTERING CIVILIANS! I’LL. I’M NOT HAPPY.

I’m just basically so upset about 'one perfect moment in a whole imperfect life’ being a childhood memory that he was taught to see as so shameful to compare it to cannibalism under duress? FUCK.

A whole imperfect life in GENERAL has me fucked up! He just kept trying and kept just missing what he was aiming for! I mean. That’s relateable. Not one part of a life turning out as you expected or planned? ME!!!! Your achievements add up to nothing and no matter how hard you try you end up a footnote! FUCK offfff

I had some difficulty with the religious angle for a while because. hm. okay. To start with the religious angle IN-CANON is just.... not correct. Catholics don't let you drink the blood. The church of england DOES... and that's what most of these men ARE. The Papist Speech as a whole was cobbled together from one of Crozier's ~Visions~ in the book - and it's important in that case that Crozier is IRISH... Poor analogy, writers! Putting aside that he was also... SEVEN... maybe he was an unusually tall seven-year old, people assumed he'd had first communion/been baptised & no one wanted to cause a fuss... I mean the guy has lead poisoning so it's fair to mis-remember but... YEAH. Messy, which is a shame because it's a powerful monologue very well-delivered, shame it's complete fucking nonsense 😂 (not to be like... SMH Americans but... smh Americans...)

Anyway, as I wrote it? that’s me. I wasn’t raised religious - my dad’s an old-school small-town Continental Catholic, my mum’s agnostic but raised CofE (but *her* dad was raised Jewish (also continental) during WW2), I think they couldn’t be fucked with the drama, I never went to church or anything and as a kid when we had prayers at school assembly I didn’t know what I was doing!!!! I felt bad because I couldn’t fathom God as a concept!!! I still can’t! But as a kid it’s like. I don’t understand and on account of that I’m afraid I’m going to Hell. tfw you write what you know.

ALSO there were definitely a couple of times where I wrote G H Hodgson as played by B W Wooster and I will not be taking constructive criticism on that.

ANYWAY My brain has kindof turned itself off now but I guess this is just. My own personal backstory to this jhsgfjhs. I actually probably have about 400x more to say but it’s fully evaporated. thank you SO MUCH for asking me though. i die.

[lifeafterthewatchtower]

1. Hi! I’m from Austria and basically I grew up in a jw family (parents/grandparents/aunts etc). Where are you from? I’m 18 and not baptised. Just attending the regular meetings. It’s a bit random but the main reason I’m writing is because I am literally shocked reading your expierence. I’m really curious wether this is a cultural thing or not. Basically I grew up in a very liberal household. I didn’t have to go preaching from door to door as a kid, i never experienced any form of abuse or

2. Violence. I never felt any pressure to be baptised, and never felt restricted about my hobbies or movie choices like being professionally involved in sports or reading stuff with magic etc. Obviously the big rules about sex, birthdays and blood transfusions are relevant but other than that I never felt restrictive. As i said this is because my parents are super liberal and they let me and my siblings decide for ourselves.

3. But based on what I read here, I think all of my family wouldn’t be consider improper by your community. I’m truly amazed in how different the experience in the same religion can be and I have no idea why in some places people are so strict and mean while elsewhere people have the freedom. Anyways, that was my experience. I wish you the best and I’m sorry if you had to suffer for your personal beliefs and being different than people wanted you to be. Just keep going :)

——-

First of all: Thank you very much for reaching out and for your kind words, anon! And thank you for your candor and honesty. I really appreciate it!Let me make one thing very clear: I am not bitter or angry or anything like that. Sure, sometimes the thought comes to my mind: “What if my childhood and teenage years would have been different?”It’s a futile question though. Because I cannot change it. All I can change is what is happening now. So… that is what I try to do.

I am aware that some of my posts have an aggressive undertone. Funnily enough, it was my wife who told me that. She said something to the effect of “If people don’t know you… and they don’t know that you’re sort of the most laid back person ever… they will think that you’re yelling and screaming at them” *lol* So… well… the little voice in people’s heads when reading a text… Try to imagine some guy lounging in an armchair and maybe sipping on a cocktail when reading what I wrote ;) I don’t sit in an armchair though. And I rarely drink alcohol, but that sort of relaxed state is what I am usually in ;) 

So why that blog? Honestly, after literally years of not wanting to be involved with any sort of religion or religious thoughts but with that dark cloud of doubts hanging over my head whether leaving the Watchtower was the right decision, I thought:

“Now or never! What if I was wrong? What if I was right? I don’t know. So I need to find out”.I was at that point in my life where I thought: “If the Watchtower is indeed right… And if it’s really God’s word that they are teaching… Why do I doubt? Either I simply didn’t understand it all correctly. Or I DID understand it correctly and I just didn’t like it. OR it all is indeed wrong. So whatever it is, I need to find out. I cannot go on like that.”And so I started to inform myself. While doing so, I realized that there are so many, many other people out there who are struggling with the same problems.  And some with much more severe problems. And that is why I made this blog. 

Okay… after this “intro”:

Yes, indeed, the question how people practice their faith can be quite different. Even in a comparatively strict religion like that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, which can (and should) be seen as a “high control group”, and which puts a lot of effort into “worldwide unity”.The teachings and rules of JWs are the exact same all over the world. But there are indeed those who are more the “hardliner types” and those who are more liberal. And that certainly varies from country to country, but especially from congregation to congregation, and - of course - from family to family.The congregation that I was involved in shared the same Kingdom Hall with another congregation, and “the other one” was apparently more strict that ours. We sometimes even joked about “the others” as “Brothers and sisters who still believe in demons” ;)

In my experience, JWs in European countries are more liberal than those in countries on other continents, especially the US. I think, it’s indeed a cultural thing. Europe is and “always” has been more secular.

Like you, my parents never pressured me into getting baptized, doing field service etc. My parents even tried to keep my sister from getting baptized “too early”. I honestly can’t say if this was a rule back then, but if I remember correctly, getting baptized was only possible once one reached the age of 14.Reading things like that some kids as young as 12 getting baptized sends shivers down my spine. As I see it, even 14 is way too young to make an informed life-changing decision like that.

Here is one thing about Jehovah’s Witnesses that is really something to think about:

As long as you’re not baptized there is not much anyone can do. Sure, your parents - who are responsible for you as long as you’re underage - will or will not put pressure on you. In my case, it was my mom who was worried all of the time about the “worldly influence”. And she never held back from telling me about it. She told me about how she’s afraid that I will get killed during Armageddon if I “stray from the right path”, she thoroughly observed everything I did and always had a Bible verse ready to tell me that about everything that I was interested in and that I put time and effort into was basically of no value at all.  Don’t get me wrong, I loved my mom to pieces. She was a wonderful woman. But can you imagine what it does to a kid, if all that counts is what you do for your god, and not who and what you are? And when you get told all of the time that you need to do more. By your parents, during meetings, etc?I don’t know if you’re convinced that what the Watchtower tells you is right, and true, and God’s will. I never really was. But I asked. Because I wanted to understand. What I got was half-baked circular reasoning.

And when I tried to explain myself, what exactly doesn’t fit, I was told to shut up. I was told that I am not humble enough, I was told that I have a critical mind, I was told that I just don’t want to. And that this all is what God Jehovah doesn’t like at all. And so that I’m running into danger to get killed.Imagine what that does to a kid: “You might get killed because you don’t understand and dare to ask questions”. And that all by a god who is said to be understanding and loving and kind.

There’d be a lot to say about the - as you call them - “big rules” the Society made up, the rules about sex, and birthdays, and blood transfusions. I won’t go down that rabbit hole in this answer.

Talking about how legit these rules are is one thing. I am absolutely convinced that none of these rules make any sense at all, that they are dangerous, and also in no way based on the Bible. If you or someone else wants me to, I can elaborate on that in separate posts.

How the Society tries to enforce these rules, and how they treat those who break the rules (as soon as they are baptized Jehovah’s Witnesses) is a whole different story.It gets even dirtier when a person falls victim to someone breaking rules, for example all of the literally thousands (!) of cases of child abuse, of domestic violence etc … that is where it gets really dirty.

The whole structure of the Society, the way women and children are treated within the organization not only makes it comparatively easy for abusers, but makes the whole organization a paradise for these criminals. As an example: Have you ever heard of the “two witness rule”?

Here’s a pretty well written article about it: https://medium.com/@wesharetoinspire/questioning-humanity-the-jehovahs-witnesses-two-witness-rule-ed3b2f5aa6a1

I think it’s awesome that your parents don’t pressure you. I think it’s fantastic that they allow you and your siblings to decide for yourselves. That is how it’s supposed to be. It’s perfectly fine to teach someone what you are convinced of. But it’s a question of HOW you teach them. Through logic and reason or by insisting on what you say is “the truth” and not giving arguments other than: “It was written”. If the only argument that you have is: “It was written”… then you have no evidence at all. Then you only have an opinion. And if inflicting fear is mixed into this then doing a lot of harm is inevitable. Another huge question is whether you allow those you teach to do proper research. At least that is how I see it. The even bigger problems are often what will happen if someone decides to choose a different path. 

Just like you are not baptized (yet), I wasn’t baptized before I left. Every JW I know is still allowed to be in contact with me. I see my sister more or less frequently, I love her, she loves me, and we even discuss religious subjects. But we can only do that because I was never baptized. She does shun my dad though. Because he was disfellowshipped.If I would have been baptized, I would have been disfellowshipped for a couple of reasons. And much more “severe” ones than my father. One reason is “fornication” (I used to be in a relationship with a girl I wasn’t married to - and no, I don’t repent that. Now I am married. Which I also don’t repent ;) another reason is that I openly talked and still talk about my doubts about the Watchtower teachings with practicing Jehovah’s Witnesses who are not elders. I presented and do present evidence that the teachings are wrong. Demonstrably wrong. And that is not allowed.

So if I would have been disfellowshipped, no practicing Jehovah’s Witness would be allowed to be in contact with me without running into danger to get disfellowshipped themselves and so to lose all their JW friends and family.

Openly questioning the Society is a reason to be disfellowshipped and shunned.

Here’s (one last) example to think about:

The Watchtower changed its position on the 1914 teachings a LOT since this religion was founded in the 19th century. Some baptized JWs pointed out the flaws of some of the doctrines concerning this teaching. The result: They were disfellowshipped. Turned out that these people were right. Were they invited back? No. They were still treated as Apostates.Even though they said the truth. Even though the Society changed its doctrine. Could they ever come back themselves?No. Because to be able to come back, one has to repent their sins. Is there a reason to repent having said the truth? So what “sin” did they commit? Speaking against the Society.

I could go on forever like that. But I think it is enough for now 

[maidenofsophia]

Thoughts on Mary Magdalene (2018)

Here is my completely non-professional review of Garth Roberts’ film ‘Mary Magdalene’:

....Meh.

Okay, to be fair, I watched this on New Years Day when I was slightly hungover so I probably owe it a rewatch with my full attention. But here are my initial thoughts. There really isn’t much to spoil but, for what little is ‘original’ on this take....Spoilers Ahead!

The Good.

- I enjoyed the scenes with Mary’s family. I think the shift to making her a midwife made a lot of sense and reminded me a little of the Red Tent (which, like this movie, also has a squicky scene that reminded me why I never want to give birth, but that’s another point). But I like the connection she had with her....sisters in law, I think? Possibly even a stepmother? To be honest, they don’t do too well establishing who these people are or if it’s just a community sharing a house. The jist I got was that Mary’s blood relatives were her brothers and her dad, who I did like. They were patriarchal and traditional, but they weren’t painted as villains. Even when they try to ‘cleanse’ her, you can see how torn up about it they are, and believe what they’re doing is out of love.

- I especially liked Mary’s dad. Most Magdalene legends always have him as an asshole who just views his daughter as chattel to sell off, but you could tell this dude adores her and stops his sons from almost drowning her, and he holds her throughout the night, clearly wracked with guilt. The scene where he tearfully lets Mary go to join Yeshua was really well done and I’m kinda sad we don’t see him for the rest of the movie. This is mostly a personal thing but I just personally prefer the idea of Mary being close with her father, as something of a mirror to Yeshua and his mother.

- Joaquin Phoenix is a very different Jesus than what I’m used to seeing and I’m glad about that. I can’t say he’s my favourite (that’s still Ralph Fiennes), and yes it’s another sad case of white washing a Palestinian Jewish man. But that aside, I thought he brought a vulnerability to Jesus that you don’t usually see, unless it’s during scenes like the Passion which mostly take place off screen here as it’s all through Magdalene’s POV. Like you see Jesus become overwhelmed and drained by healing people and, like Mary, I did feel like I just wanted to get him away and somewhere safe, even though Peter and the others kept encouraging people to come to the Messiah.

-  As I mentioned before, Mary is given a different backstory here than the penitent prostitute. She’s also not given the ‘madness’ of being possessed by any actual, or implied, demons. It’s more that she’s trapped in a life she doesn’t want and feels depressed, which is definitely relatable, now as much as back then for a lot of people; women especially. So I thought Yeshua’s scene of ‘healing her’ being less of a “Begone demon!” and more him comforting and consoling her, reassuring her of God’s love, was pretty sweet.

- Similar to Mary, this movie follows a bit of a ‘Gnostic’ trend, on its take with Judas as well. He’s given a more personal motivation, as he’s not just out for bloody revenge on the Romans, it’s more that he wants the prophecy to be fulfilled so he can see his late wife and daughter again. Other than her tense relationship with Peter, he’s the disciple that Mary talks to most and they have a close connection to the end. And the movie implies that Judas’ betrayal was ‘part of the plan’ or what needed to kick things into motion....or at least he believed that was the case. It wasn’t just a case of selling his rabbi out for silver.

- Mary baptising the women. Honestly it was seeing gifs of this scene that made me want to see the movie and it didn’t disappoint. It was just a nice moment. Also how they bookended the movie with the verse on the mustard seed and the woman who tended to it tying into Mary helping to grow the kingdom. Also, I LOVE that the focus of her is that she is a spiritual woman in her own right. While she clearly loves Yeshua, it is not even implied to be sexual. Romantic, possibly, but could also be just as much platonic. The two have decent chemistry for what their bond is - SHE IS NOT HIS WIFU. Thank you, movie! Also the scene of her washing his feet followed by sitting at his side at the Last Supper with the shot being framed with her as his right hand girl. Nice little touches that just showed this movie cared about wanting to do the image of Magdalene justice.

Right, now the....Not So Good.

- Anyone familiar with the Gnostic gospels knows that Peter doesn’t always get shown in the best light, especially in his and Mary’s relationship. So, other than the Romans etc, he’s the closest this movie has to an antagonist, in that he’s the one who is most opposed to Mary in the group. And while his character isn’t terrible, he’s not even technically a bad guy, there’s something annoying about how they white washed everyone else but had the antagonist played by a black man. It just annoys me when movies and tv do that, like; “see, we have diversity! The heroes might be white but the guy you’re meant to be against is a poc!” BBC are apparently doing a similar thing with their latest retelling of Les Mis.

- If you’re going to tell a Jesus story through the eyes of Mary Magdalene, how about take advantage of the source material. There’s a pretty good scene where Mary helps Jesus speak to women in a village before she baptises them and he speaks about forgiveness etc and it’s a fine speech. But I feel like opportunities were missed to see Mary involved in canon scenes of Jesus interacting with women; like the woman who touches his cloak in the crowd, or raising Jairus’ Daughter or the Canaanite Woman’s child, or the woman at the well, or the ‘cast the first stone’ woman who is often wrongly said to be Magdalene. The movie also forgets that Yeshua had other women followers besides his mother, who also doesn’t get as much screen time as she deserves. There’s no sign of the younger Mary, or Martha, or Salome etc who we could have seen Mary interact with or even preach to. At the end we get a bit of a cool shot where, after the men have dismissed Mary’s vision, it’s the women who gather to her - but it’s very brief and feels too little too late.

- I wouldn’t be too miffed at them cutting out scenes from the Bible if they were going to replace them with anything interesting and unique, but the movie just...doesn’t. There’s a sort of side quest plot where Peter and Mary go to a village to preach and find a load of people dying and at first I thought the point was that it strengthens their friendship...but in the end it didn’t and I didn’t really understand the point other than to show Mary was compassionate and Peter kind of short-sighted which was already pretty clear. Maybe use that time to establish more why Peter has something against Mary other than just the implication that he’s...jealous, I guess. The movie is almost two hours long and between Mary leaving her family and them coming to Jerusalem, I can barely tell you what happens in that hour or so.

- I get the feeling that this movie wanted to focus more on Mary’s time with Jesus before the Passion, which are scenes we’ve already seen focused on enough times, and I’m all for that. But how the Passion, Crucifixion and Resurrection scenes are handled feel very rushed. She’s absent through most of the crucifixion until the very end, the scene of her witnessing the resurrection is pretty badly juxtaposed (and there’s no “do not touch me” moment) that I had to watch it twice to see if it was really there or a different ‘vision’. And her being the actual Apostle to the Apostles feels like it was trying to mix in the disciples rejection of her from the Gospel of Mary and I felt like you could have had that be two separate scenes. Basically the key moment Magdalene is celebrated, whether in Orthodox or mystic Christian circles, is barely present in the movie centred around her.

- And the biggest criticism I have with the movie is sadly Mary herself. Most of this might be subjective but one of the most captivating traits of Magdalene’s character is her passion. Her energy. It contrasts her to the mild and patient Virgin Mother. This Mary is very quiet and collected, which doesn’t make her a bad character, but it just doesn’t feel very Magdalene-y. And I think you can still have her be passionate while still taking away the ‘mad whore’ stereotype she’s been wrongly given for so long. The Red Tent, again, managed to do a wonderful job having Dinah as a strong, no-nonsense heroine. There didn’t seem to be anything that really made Mary stand out from any other woman around her. She starts off with a bit of a Disney Princess trope of not wanting to get married and wanting more than is expected of her, but given her surroundings and the women she meets later on, that also doesn’t make her stand out all that much. The actress does okay with what she’s given, but - other than some key scenes between her and Yeshua - I just don’t really my Magdalene there.

But, to the movie’s credit, I do feel like it was trying to show THEIR Magdalene, which is fair enough. And just like Yeshua, there really is no one right way of seeing her. I prefer to see her as a loud, loving, somewhat eccentric passionate spiritual teacher and leader, but this movie wanted to show her as something different from what we’ve seen before; brave but restrained, caring and understanding, and definitely enlightened as much if not more than the male disciples. And it did a pretty good way of showing that, even if I think it could have been done better with an improved overall narrative.

Overall; I just kind of found the movie dull. I respect it for trying to show the Magdalene in a better light and almost as an example for women as leaders in the Church. But I hope this can also be done in a more entertaining movie someday. Again, my favourite Magdalene depiction is still from the Miracle Maker. Yes, it begins with following the ‘repentant mad prostitute’ story, but that’s pretty quickly resolved in a powerful scene and she remains throughout the rest of the film at his side and her meeting him outside the tomb always gets me teary eyed. Similar to Prince of Egypt, I enjoy biblical movies more when they don’t shy away from the drama and character conflict, rather than trying to focus on pushing the story we already know. We can all just read the Bible to get that but the point of a movie is to make us feel like we are there and invested and, for lack of a better word, entertained. Animated movies allow more of the drama to get expressed than live action actors can. It’s a shame they are both written off as ‘childrens versions’ because I think both PoE and MM feel more adult and handle their stories with more depth than the live action versions.

Would I recommend this film though? I guess if you’re a die-hard Magdalene fan like me, you’ll get something out of it with seeing a story where she isn’t turned into a prostitute, and getting to see her baptise people and get across how she understood Yeshua’s message. Just don’t be expecting anything amazing. Kind of annoyed there wasn’t a rental option on Amazon Video because I definitely don’t think it’s worth a buy, but hey ho.

[hawkfurze]

Bliss Theory

Buckle up kiddos cause I’m gonna share my theory about the Far Cry 5 “Good Ending” So You May want to skip this and scroll on if you haven’t seen it yet.

Moving from that, I want to talk about the ending of the game. At your final confrontation with Joseph, your fellow Deputies and Sheriff are now at the mercy of Joseph and your friends who are Blissed out and under Joseph’s control. Joseph gives you two options that lead to the end of the game, walk away, in which your character can take the Deputies and Sheriff and leave Hope County, causing Sheriff Whitehorse to accidentally trigger the Only You conditioning he has made your character and Pratt endure as you leave, or continue to resist. Resisting Joseph causes him to dump vats of Bliss and you are forced to fight him and 12 of your friends you have made through your time in Hope County. After the fight, as Joseph is being arrested again by Whitehorse, a nuke explodes in the distance and you, Joseph, Whitehorse, and Deputies Hudson and Pratt rush to a car to drive to Dutches bunker. Along the way, the car crashes, leaving you and Joseph the only survivors. Joseph drags you to Dutches bunker, kills Dutch, and you and Joseph are now one big happy family, hooray!

But what I want to get to is the details on the Resist ending. Despite both endings sucking for you and the other characters, the ending where Joseph nukes Hope County is considered the good ending. You would think the one ending that most people survived would be better, but I guess not. But I thought of it and after going through some stuff in game as well as things I learned after reading both the Book of Joseph and Absolution, I realized somethings.

I’m going to go right off the bat and say that everything that happened at the Resist ending didn’t happen. Now, the fight with Joseph did happen, your friends being captured did happen, the part that wasn’t real was afterwards when the bombs began to fall. That’s where Bloss Theory begins, because there is one major thing that happens to you that the Walk Away Ending doesn’t have, and that’s Joseph dumping the barrel of Bliss on you. Your friends are already covered, and now you’re next. Was Joseph controlling you? Most likely not since you kick his ass, but the game says the Bliss affects the Deputy very easily, suggesting that there are people who don’t feel th effects of the Bliss as easily as others.

Now the cult practically worships the Bliss, it’s used in every region, being packed into fertilizer then into Silos in Johan region, it’s grown everywhere in Faiths region, and the Peggies are forcing practically every animal in Jacobs region into the stuff, turning them into Judges. They use the Bliss in Baptisms, they use it to make Judges, they’re all heckled into storing as much as they can of it into their bunkers (hell, Faith has it constantly pouring out in front of her bunker), but what use is storing it going to serve once the Collapse began? They can’t baptise people in the river as they do, there’s no point in making more angels if they don’t need to FORCE people to join the cult, the silos and plants above the surface are just going to get destroyed afterwards, what’s the point of having all of that unless you plan on spending the 7 years planned underground being stoned out of your god damn mind.

Which brings me to my next part, being in the Bliss itself. I think, out of all three regions, Faiths region is the most foreshadowy and supportive of my theory because there is so much stuff in her region that is viable o the cults true plans. Every encounter you have with Faith is in the Bliss. She’s shown to be able to move around it as she pleases, to move you, the player, across to anywhere in the Henbane, she controls it with ease. The only other person we see do that in game is Joseph, and what does he do in the Bliss? He shows you the bombs falling then shows you his compound after they landed, looking exactly how they look in the Resist ending. Now, I’m uncertain to how Faith and Joseph keep from falling under the Blisses influence, maybe it effects them less than John and Jacob (John did get drugged by Mary May in Absolution using Bliss and it would make sense to how Joseph hand picks the next woman to be Faith),but they’re able to control what people see in the Bliss, and by extension, as shown with Burke in Faiths final encounter, able to control the actions of what people who have been in it long enough do.

So the nukes could of been faked that’s easy enough to point out. So what am I getting at then, why would I go on about this if it’s that simple. Well, hiding underground for 7 years once the Collapse comes is just the basic idea for Edens Gate plan but there’s something else behind it, and I noticed it when I read the Book of Joseph. At the end of the Book of Joseph, Joseph describes the cult as being isolationist, kicking out people who joined to just see what the cults about and only taking those in who truly wanted salvation. Will from Absolution confirmed this as he was shocked when he found out the cult started forcing people to join. Then I got to more details of what the cult did, specifically one of John’s roles.

John is a lawyer and had become the cults lawyer, any laws that needed to get bent, he was the one that made sure they could get away with it, but he also became adamant on buying up lots of land and businesses in Hope County. Notes and messages from various inhabitants in John’s region show he revealed his nasty side to them when refusing to sell their homes and in Absolution, John Seed goes as far as bosssing around other store owners like Mary May, as if their businesses are already owned by the cult. But there’s no need to bug out so much stuff if they think that the world is going to end, what’s the point of buying it if everyone’s gonna die already.

So here’s what I’m coming down to. The whole Bliss Theory with Far Cry 5 is that Joseph was gonna initiate an apacolypse once Hope County was full of enough Bliss. By then, everyone would of joined Edens Gate or died/ become an angel in the process. Then, when everything in Hope County is practically owned by Edens Gate, the cult will hide underground for 7 years after their fake apacolypse and will emerge to “Edens Garden.” If any law encocement try to get involved, there’s no need to cause all the land is under Edens Gates name. John can set them up with contracts and papers, and the cult has a huge thing about making sure no outsiders try to get into their Garden after the world ends. The Deputies arrival only sped up their process because Joseph knew the police and the government were going to get involved very soon (Inside Edens Gate when Alex uploads the video of John’s forced baptism to the Internet). Joseph picks your Deputy as the “harbinger of the apacolypse” and the cult begins to rush through its plans.

There’s a few things that I couldn’t figure out for a while, like the radios changing with each herald you killed, but I figured Joseph could of had those recorded to give the “seal breaking” vibe and, also, the bombs don’t fall if you Walk away

[the-indecorous-flower]

Today I’m going to be talking about religion. It’s actually a topic quite close to my heart because I was raised in a very restrictive religion, more like a cult actually, and although both men and women alike suffer within this religion, I believe the women suffer the most.

I consider myself quite lucky that the religion I was a part of didn’t agree with things like fgm, it would have made the experience ten times worse than it was.

However the religion itself was of the misogynist type, I remember so many talks as I was growing up highlighting their ideal of female “submissiveness”, which they portrayed as a good trait, healthy for husbands, wives, and children. It was basically automatically assumed that the husband would know better than his wife and would take the lead in all things spiritual or otherwise, and while it wasn’t the sort of religion where the husband was told not to take his wifes ideas and opinions into account, it often ended up that way at least in my experience.

So many times I remember my dad saying he was the “head of the household” to get his way in arguments. It was basically his way or the highway so often, and that made for a really unpleasant childhood, because when he came in and Ellen Degeneres (who I’ve always been a big fan of) was on the tv, he would say “get that (slur used against lesbian women) off the tv” and change the channel, and although the religion I was raised in was homophobic at heart, it still didn’t condone speaking about gay people in that matter, but I wouldn’t dare speak up against him because he’d pull the good old “i’m the head of the house” line against me, or punish me.

Speaking of punishments, there came a time in my life, as I was reaching young adulthood, where I no longer wanted to be a part of this religion, I was actually pursuing a relationship at the time under their noses. What happened there? Well, father dear cut off the internet, used my mothers emotional anguish at possibly losing me against me, and kept me under dutiful watch for roughly 3 months until I ran away.

In the religion the women were not allowed to hold any position within the congregation really, men could rise up the ranks and get greater responsibilities, women were the wives of the men, there were a lot of talks encouraging “older” single women not to get desperate and just throw themselves into preaching... older meaning late twenties early thirties... because most women got married at 19-24 if they were desirable to the men. Independant women were often not desirable by the way.

The few biggest responsibilities I ever saw women hold in my own congregation was playing the piano and taking the collection money to the bank. Other than that the biggest things you could do were cleaning the church, and giving preaching demonstrations based around a rigid framework that you had to follow.

If a woman was “teaching” in place of a male, and the “head of the house” was there she had to cover her head, if a woman was “teaching” and a young baptised member of her congregation was there she’d have to cover her head. In both instances it was to show subservience to the male, even if the male was your 9 year old son.

So why am I talking about all of this?

If you haven’t noticed yet, most religions are based on misogyny like this. It is not wrong to criticise a religion because it’s beliefs are outdated, unhealthy, or just all around terrible. If you descriminate against the follower of that religion and do not allow them the same rights as other people, then that is wrong. But the religion itself is not a person, and it’s ok to criticise it for what it is. Because if we don’t, as a society we won’t move forward.

We know now that forcing women into positions of subservience is wrong, forcing them to do things against their own will is wrong, not allowing women to hold higher positions if they’ve earned it is wrong. So why is it ok that these things exist in religious establishments?

It’s not “islamaphobic” to critique what the wearing of headscarves involves and means for islamic women across the world, it’s not bad to critique the actual beliefs of the religion itself the same way you would christianity or any other religion.

It’s considered an act of descrimination if you yank an islamic womans hijab off, or treat her badly because of her religion. Because that’s assaulting that person and because in western countries religious freedom is a right, she has a right to wear that scarf. But it isn’t wrong to critique the belief involving wearing the scarf, or any other aspect of this religion or any other religion.

I do realize we live in complicated times, but at the same time we can’t stop having discourse about these things, women in many religions are oppressed and treated badly, we owe it to them to keep the discussion going so that one day forcing a woman to say and do things against her will is a thing of the past.

I read an experience recently about a girl who lived in america who was pulled out of school at 15 and sent off to palestine to be married against her will, she did manage to free herself from that situation but not before she got married.

But in any case, this happened under the nose of the american government, and my own experience which I recounted at the beginning of this post happened under the nose of the australian government.

Girls and Women are being mistreated and abused in the name of religions and God in western countries, this isn’t just confined to non western countrys, it’s happening all over the world, whether it’s in secret or openly, it’s happening. We owe it to these people to keep up the discussion, so one day all of us can enjoy the same freedoms.