#anti-romanism

[bodhrancomedy]

Just a list of children’s books that did impact my life way more than Harry Potter.

[soraya-snape]

My Roman Empire:

What happened during SWM after Sev pulled Harry out of the pensive. Did James actually take off Sev's pant's or was he stopped?

If he was stopped, what made him stop? Was it another person or something else? Was it a teacher or another student?...

If he wasn't stopped, how far did he take it? For how long did he let him hang up there? Did he do anything else even more heinous and humiliating (I don't really want to think about this part)? How did it eventually end?...

There are so many more questions, some also concerning the following days/weeks. Like, did Lily ever apologize for making fun of Sev too (probably not)? Did Sev talk to anyone about it (probably also not) or what did he do to cope? When was the next time the marauders bullied Sev, and how far did they take it this time? Did the marauders ever take it this far or even further again?...

And most importantly: Why can't I just give Sev a big hug and make him feel OK again?

[class-a-fanatic]

Anakin is such an fascinating character because he’s tragic, but not in the sense that everything was stacked against him. He’s tragic in the sense that everything was lined up FOR him and he still chose the sith. Everyone gave their ALL for him and he let them down in the most horrific ways possible.

Obi-Wan, on the other hand, IS a tragic character because everything was stacked against him. This man tried his hardest to get through everything and help all that he could. But it always was never enough for the galaxy.

Imagine BEING Obi-Wan and seeing your former padawan, your brother, who had everything he could ever need and the galaxy’s favorite, destroy everything you managed to get from the galaxy’s cruel hands.

[sweetnnaivete]

my roman empire is how good heroes of olympus could have been, but how badly it was executed

[whereserpentswalk]

I find it so weird that people try to deny that queerphobia as it exists in the west is rooted in Christianity. Like, people are literally more focused on not offended the pope than they are protecting queer life.

Remember that there was no queerphobia in the western world before the Christianization of Rome. Caesar being made fun of for being a bottom isn't the same as the queerphobia we see spanning from the late Roman empire to the present day. The first person on earth to outlaw gay male relationships was the byzantine emperor Justinian. The first writing to circulate in the west to talk against homosexuality was the Bible. The systemic cultural and legal marginalization of queer identities is directly tied to Christianity and still is, from Rome, to northern Europe, to Africa (it should be mentioned that the most queerphobic nation on the planet right now had a openly bi king before colonialism) and the Americas, we see that the introduction of queerphobia and the introduction of Christianity are one and the same.

Also when you try to deny that queerphobia comes from Christianity you basically have to claim that people are just naturally queerphobic, which is not only something not back up by history but implies the oppression queer people face is inevitable.

[ofswordsandpens]

the chalice of the gods becomes objectively funnier if you head canon that percy and annabeth only stay at New Rome for a single semester before realizing its batshit insane there and running for the hills

[akajustmerry]

just had the most insane thought that the end of waystar royco as the Roys know it is the one-two gut-punch of tech (matsson) and neo-fascism (mencken), and that neither mencken nor matsson would be there if it weren't for roman. obviously big tech and fascism are forces that very likely would have found their way to taking Waystar one way or another. but, as it happened, roman is the one who brought matsson and mencken to the table. what a grand horror story it is that the only 2 things roman roy did right in his father's eyes turned out to be setting in motion the 2 things that would destroy his legacy, and him. its no accident roman thinks he killed his father.each of the roy siblings is doomed by the narrative in their own unique way. from the very beginning roman wants out of this story but he doesn't know how to leave it, or even how to admit he doesn't want this part he thinks he should want. so he keeps saying how much he wants the crown, Waystar, the legacy all while personally (in bathrooms to be exact) planting the irreversible seeds for their destruction. his actions speaking louder than his words ever could. something something logan shipped roman off to boarding school and beat him in the hopes he'd make roman just like him and all logan did was create someone who became his very own anti-matter. a child so violently unmade can only grow to unmake.

[losthopeinloreolympus]

I've already said this back when I was Whyloreolympus, but now that my old account is gone, I'll gladly say it again

STOP ASSOCIATING THE VESTAL VIRGINS A ROMAN CONCEPT WITH HESTIA A GREEK GODDESS!!!!

They're called "the Vestal Virgins" FOR A REASON, and it's bc they're named after Vesta, A ROMAN GODDESS, NOT HESTIA!!

"well, roman mythology is the sa-" NO, IT'S FUCKING NOT, IT'S NOT THE SAME AS GREEK MYTHOLOGY!! similar? Maybe, but not the same, why? Bc in roman culture, Vesta, the roman equivalent of Hestia, has her own cult, while Hestia doesn't, nor does she need one.

[silverxxs-world]

Ain’t no fucking way

I’m sorry

Oppsies??!!!?

[themoonking]

the book trend that needs to be left in the dust for the new year is greek mythology retellings. i am so sick and tired of "retellings" of greek (or roman, but mainly greek) mythology from authors that clearly have a very surface level pop cultural understanding of the myth(s) they're adapting and the culture(s) they're depicting. especially the many that market themselves as "feminist retellings" where the "feminism" is basically just "men bad sometimes", and especially when they're "feminist retellings" that take some of the few mythological women who get happy endings and take it away from them for the sake of saying "men bad sometimes". it's all so shallow and they exploded this year and i'm sick of it.

[timetravellingkitty]

Mark my words, soon there will be a booktok trend along the lines of "romance is the girl genre, only men read philosophy and sci-fi 😒 this book is about the Naxalite movement but I'm just a silly lil girl I don't know what they're talking about 😵 can someone explain Crime and Punishment so that the girls can understand?"

[wisteria-lodge]

so the thing about the sloppy hp worldbuilding is that it often does something interesting by accident

today's case study: the Malfoy family motto.

(it seems to have been a piece of production design set dressing, but they ran all that kind of stuff by JKR, and I see this frickin motto quoted everywhere.) anyway.

SANCTIMONIA VINCET SEMPER

This is always translated as "Purity Always Conquers." And I'm guessing that the idea is that the "pure" part is supposed to refer to y'know "pure blood." But like - "sanctimonia" just doesn't mean that. The Romans didn't have a concept of blood purity - so long as the family *name* continued, you were good. Adult adoption for political reasons was as common as marriage for political reasons. Adopting slaves was a thing... whatever.

If JKR had actually want to translate the "pure blood" concept into latin, the better choice would have been something like "eugenium vincet semper" or "the well born/good quality always conquers." Also the word makes you think of it's reflex "eugenics," which I guess is supposed to be the point.

What "sanctimonia" actually means is pure in the sense of chaste/virtuous/sacred. So okay. "Chastity always conquers," doesn't make sense as a family motto." "Virtue always conquers" ... I guess that could be meant ironically? And "The sacred always conquers," requires a little bit of thinking about, because the wizards in HP are pretty darn areligious.

So okay. I'll do "sacred" in the latin sense of "set apart, not of the ordinary world." in which case... the better translation would be something like "The Self-Contained Always Conquer" ???

which is honestly a *REALLY* interesting motto, and for the Malfoys specifically.

[lichozestudni]

anyway, Pope Francis is dumb as hell, he praises Russia's anti-Catholic, barbaric history.

russians: persecute catholics and destroy their country (e.g. after they invaded poland, they closed many roman catholic churches and turned them into orthodox churches, they did not allow people to build catholic churches, they persecuted priests, they hanged many priests who were against russian occupation, Tsarina Catherine personally forbade any contact with Rome, Nicholas I closed many monasteries, churches in poland (1832), he stole their property (1842), he sent many priests to forced labour, e.g. they sent many to Siberia for hard labor, + they especially hated and persecuted greek catholics/byzantine rite catholics)

Pope Francis: what a wonderful legacy 😍

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🤡...

[echo-stimmingrose]

If I see one more love song edit for Annabeth and Luke I might just lose my mind. Especially since y'all are using SHOW ANNABETH AND LUKE

Like the child and the legal adult! Stop it!

[akhillaous]

TikTok TSOA fans are so funny because they’ll swear up and down that they despise Achilles and “only read it for Patroclus who was sweet and innocent and did nothing wrong 🥹🥹” like ijbol u people are not serious. Hate Achilles all you want, he did do bad things, me personally I hate him for sacking certain Trojan cities and refusing the embassy, no one’s denying that he was wrong and that he was a bad person at times, but loving a character does not equal justifying their actions for one thing and to act like any character from the illiad was a paragon of perfect morality is fucking insane. ( Yes, even Hector, everyone’s favorite “🥺he was such a perfect husband🥺” man of the month ) It’s literally so crazy to say that Achilles was the only one of the two of them to actively commit bad deeds and war crimes during the WAR they were in. Just close the damn book I’m sorry but obviously a book with morally ambiguous and dark topics are not for you at this point. Like I get your point, what Achilles did was bad, it’s not like majority of people DONT agree with that point.

But characters are not supposed to be FLAT. They are not supposed to be all good or all bad. Your insistence that Patroclus was only a good person does not make him a good character. It actually makes him really fucking boring. I’m getting way too passionate about this but like I’m so over everyone acting like

1) Achilles was the worst person to exist in Greek mythology history when he’s not even the worst fucking person in the illiad itself 😭 ( that honor goes to Paris, Zeus, Aphrodite, and Agamemnon <3 )

2) A character can only be liked or appreciated or even just talked about if they fit modern ethical standards

Like every conversation I see about TSOA, any video on TikTok, there’s always a comment that has to bring it up like “I only liked Patroclus and he was an unreliable narrator so Achilles was actually much worse” Like okay we get it, God, fuck off please!

Also the whole thing between him and Apollo. PLEASE. Those two are two sides of the same exact coin. I think Apollo was justified in killing him but yall act like Apollo has not done the same if not worse than what he killed Achilles for. And that’s. FINE. I still love Apollo! For all the good and the bad that he does I think he’s the most interesting Greek God on the Pantheon and in the Illiad he’s actually one of my favorite characters to hear from. And I don’t expect the Greek god to act with good moral intentions. I expect him to act like a Greek god. I expect Achilles to act like a Greek demigod. Which is, exactly the way he acts. Maybe yall expected something different. If you wanted a short sweet story that happened to be queer with two perfectly acceptable, 100% goody two shoes main protagonists, please drop the classics inspired books and watch heartstopper.

[whereserpentswalk]

The idea that the Christians were some sort of persecuted minority in the Roman empire is so commonly taught in history, but when you look at actual early Christian beliefs things seem a lot diffrent.

Like, Christians were a highly reactionary and militant religious group that wanted to force a relatively diverse society to follow its extremely strict and conservative moral values. They were known to engage in destructive praxis, and had a strong cult of martyrdom that's an undercurrent of every facist movment. They were a religious minority, but they weren't one that just wanted to practice on their own, they were a rapidly spreading reactionary movement with incredibly conservative values they wanted to push on society.

So don't view Roman citizens trying to keep Christianity out of their society as the ignorant and hateful mob you're often taught about them being, think of them a bit more like we view people trying to keep nazis out of their communities today.

As for the Roman government attack Christians I view it with the same skepticism I view any government trying to attack reactionaries. It's never a good path for a state to go down, even when the ideas they're attacking are awful. And like most governments that start attacking reactionaries, they eventually embrace and enforce those reactionary ideas.