#its one of those seemingly-but-not-actually self-contradictory things

[cleromancy]

it is like. technically possible to hurt tims feelings but you usually have to try pretty hard

[carionto]

The Equality Games

Once every now and then, the Galactic Coalition's Cultural Exchange department holds a large digital competitive event.

Anyone can participate, and to level the playing field, contestants aren't the ones who actually compete, but instead an advanced deep brain scan (or equivalent body part) and an unbiased AI create a digital avatar that represents the individual and autonomously acts within the digital space.

The cognitive capacity of each is analyzed to a near perfect level and a highly complicated algorithm that, honestly, nobody understands, even the AI that built it, then creates this avatar with traits and weaknesses based on an even more incomprehensible set of criteria and internal points system.

To put it simply - the scan identifies nearly every calculable aspect of a person and assigns a point value for each, then uses those points to "buy" the most relevant and appropriate traits from within its list to give the avatar. There are changing costs, negative value "flaws", and prerequisites based on other information from the scan, but basically it is the most convoluted TTRPG character creation ruleset ever devised.

Given the enormous complexity and diversity that individuals from across thousands of races exhibit, until this system was invented, it was thought impossible to have a sort of intergalactic Olympic Games. There were many attempts over the eons, of course, but one factor or another always made it so that someone did not accept the results.

The Equality Games, however, earned respect and acceptance as a valid alternative once the underlying system was demonstrated and people started to play with it. The avatars were made to act autonomously due to how some species had a distinct advantage when manipulating a digital interface, thus bringing up the old arguments yet again.

One curious result of the AI algorithm avatar generator is that it quite frequently created multiple avatars for each person, only the more hive-mind-like species tended to be represented by a singular avatar within the Games. It is theorized, again because nobody can understand how it really works, that most intelligent beings have multiple "personas" i.e. distinct behavior and personalities in certain common situations, primarily a "public" and "private" persona.

In fact, it is most common for everyone to generate about a three to five avatar "team" that represents the one individual. In comparison, if an ant were to get scanned and put in the games, its avatar would be a single incredibly powerful avatar with many deficiencies, but an overwhelming advantage in several disciplines.

When Humans first entered the Games, as expected, they too had teams as avatars. What was not expected, was that these avatars would sometimes work alone instead of together as a team, deliberately not help one another, and even engage in infighting and the sabotage of another "self".

The Humans suggested that it is perhaps because hypocrisy is not uncommon among them. Self destructive tendencies also appear rather frequently. These Humans almost always are themselves surprised by how contradictory their avatar team composition ends up being.

While the Games themselves happened as normal, the Humans overall placed in the top 20% brackets of most competitive challenges, and scattered roughly evenly everywhere else, they then approached us with a most unusual request.

"Give us a copy of this AI algorithm scanner thing. We think this is the most revolutionary therapy and psychological diagnosis device we've come across."

Of course we obliged and helped set up centers in a number of stations and on Earth itself.

Last we heard, some Humans have avatars that are singular nigh-nightmarish monstrosities, while a very tiny fraction have minds so splintered that their avatars are teams of dozens, one time even over a hundred distinct versions of themselves. Then there are even some seemingly regular Humans who broke the scanner - it gave the error: "Only one individual can be scanned at a time."

Upon "fixing" it with a hack, the results for those were unheard of. Two distinct avatars. Not a team of two, but by all accounts, the AI algorithm identified two separate individuals within one mind, each with very little in common with the other. Sometimes there was nothing in common, even their digital visual representation.

The mind is incredibly complex and hard to comprehend. The Human mind, while biologically quite peculiar but not outside the realms of understood evolution, neurologically it seems to hold near limitless diversity, both complimentary, contradictory, and beyond.

[horizon-verizon]

The fact that absolutely no one ships Aegon III and Jaehaera besides TG tells you everything you need to know. This is such an unnatural relationship, you know that everytime Aegon III looked at Jaehaera, he just saw her father.

I couldn’t care less about reconciling and uniting the two fighting branches House Targaryen; traditionalist misogynists deserve to be punished. Aegon III getting a second chance at life, having a a bold and vivacious daughter who worship him despite his quietness and allowing his other daughter to keep a dragon egg despite his trauma and hatred for dragons is infinitely more compelling than him constantly distancing himself from the living reminder of his mother’s death.

Aegon III and Jaehaera were married for three years but they never became close. Why “it seemed like the king was fonder of Myrielle than he ever was of Jaehaera” ? Why did he spend his time with Gaemon Palehair instead of her ? Why did GRRM emphasizes how much Daenaera make Aegon happier and more alive ? Why did Aegon gave Jaehaera’s doll to another girl as soon as she died ? He literally cared more about Larys Strong and Tyland Lannister than he ever did about Jaehaera.

I should hope Daenaera is not either metaphorically nor literally "worshipping" Aegon; I'm assuming you meant that Aegon was given necessary personal attentive care. And Larys Strong? why?

Yeah though, agreed. Problem is that fans expect Jaehaera and Aegon to eventually "get over what's happened to them" bc their supposed inspirations (Elizabeth York and Henry VII Tudor) had a seemingly harmonious marriage despite Henry having been, technically, on the Lancastrian side. However, as I noted in this post, Henry actually got rid of one of Elizabeth's family's biggest opps: ther own uncle, Richard III, who people suspected/suspect either killed or somehow rid of her her two younger brothers. And the Yorks are responsible for Henry Tudor's father's early demise when while he was in Wales, the Henry VI deposed Richard York. In retaliation, Richard sent 2,000 men under a William Herbert to take South Wales. When they arrived at its castle, they took the stronghold and captured Edmund Tudor. As those troops moved on, Edmund was left behind & imprisoned in a Castle, where he eventually got infected with the bubonic plague and died.

However, that was also 3 months before Henry Tudor/Henry VII was born and we don't really know how close Elizabeth ever was with richard III, whereas Aegon personally witnessed his own mother get eaten by a dragon at the too-understanding-and-vulnerable age of 10 & Jaehaera very likely witnessed her own brother get murdered by Blood & Cheese. These things would definitely help in both of these two accepting each other aside form just wanting the war to end; they had much more room to. (I cite a few more reasons in that linked post above.) Though there is an aspect coming from this marriage in how that marriage--like Aegon/Jaehaera's--was supposed to "heal" the rivalry/prevent more wars.

More in Aegon's case he was directly, nearly mutilated by Alicent's suggestion and further threatened by her very hostile presence before and after their marriage. Esp after she tried to get Jaehaera to kill him. The likelihood of Aegon ever being close to Jaehaera and vice versa is so low there's no point in contemplating it.

Really, after Jaehaera's death the greens were no longer a true issue and their supporters no longer could use them for their own ends. Unwin Peake notably does what Otto did, but he didn't use Jaehaera or any green when he pushed his daughter Myrielle forward. even though Jaehaera was a girl and it'd be self-contradictory for a supposed green supporter to try to use a marriage with her against Aegon, we also saw Rogar Baratheon try to use not only a female child-Targ against Jaehaerys but a female child who already took her religious vows. Or, they could decide to do as Unwin did: plot to bring Aegon/the crown more under his power through replacing/killing Jaehaera for their own female relative. Or marry Jaehaera herself. There's the potential that even if she didn't marry Aegon, Jaehaera wouldn't be left alone. Or if kept to the Red Keep, she's be taken and kept elsewhere until she's forcibly married. But even still this is speaking to the potential for futile chaos; I still think that bc the greens' whole thing was that the succession can't come from the female line, if anyone were to try to use Jaehaera in these ways, they wouldn't get very far. At the same time, they were all just weary of any more bloodshed, so marriage to Aegon it was.

So this idea that for there to be true peace Jaehaera had to marry Aegon for political "peace" is partly salient; but otherwise, was she all that "necessary" for Aegon's long term and short term, personal or political peace of mind and safety? Eh. He certainly wasn't for hers by the end.

[shkspr]

hi. on your post where you may or may not have ended on 'moffat is either your angel or your devil' did you have maybe an elaboration on that somewhere that i could possibly hear about. i'm very much a capaldi era stan and i've never tried to defend the matt smith era even though it had delightful moments sometimes so i wonder where that puts me. i'd love to hear your perspective on moffat as a person with your political perspective. -nicole

hi ok sorry i took so long to respond to this but i dont think you know how LOADED this question is for me but i am so happy to elaborate on that for you. first a few grains of salt to flavor your understanding of the whole situation: a. im unfairly biased against moffat bc im a davies stan and a tennant stan; b. i still very much enjoy and appreciate moffat era who for many reasons; and c. i hate moffat on a personal level far more than i could ever hate his work.

the thing is that its all always gonna be a bit mixed up bc i have to say a bunch of seemingly contradictory things in a row. for instance, a few moffat episodes are some of my absolute favorites of the rtd era, AND the show went way downhill when moffat took over, AND the really good episodes he wrote during the rtd era contained the seeds of his destruction.

like i made that post about the empty child/the doctor dances and it holds true for blink and thats about it bc the girl in the fireplace and silence in the library/forest of the dead are good but not nearly on the same level, and despite the fact that i like them at least nominally, they are also great examples of everything i hate about moffat and how he approached dw as a whole.

basically. doctor who is about people. there are many things about moffats tenure as showrunner that i think are a step up from rtd era who! actual gay people, for one! but i think that can likely be attributed mostly to an evolving Society as opposed to something inherent to him and his work, seeing as rtd is literally gay, and the existence of queer characters in moffats work doesnt mean the existence of good queer characters (ill give him bill but thats it!)

i have a few Primary Grievances with moffat and how he ran dw. all of them are things that got better with capaldi, but didnt go away. they are as follows:

moffat projects his own god complex onto the doctor

rtd era who had a doctor with a god complex. you cant ever be the doctor and not have a god complex. the problem with moffats era specifically is that the god complex was constant and unrepentant and was seen as a fundamental personality trait of the doctor rather than a demon he has to fight. he has the Momence where you feel bad for him, the Momence where he shows his humility or whatever and youre reminded that he doesnt want to be the lonely god, but those are just. moments. in a story where the doctor thinks hes the main character. rtd era doctor was aware that he wasnt the main character. he had to be an authority sometimes and he had to be the loner and he had to be sad about it, but he ultimately understood that he was expendable in a narrative sense.

this is how you get lines like “were the thin fat gay married anglican marines, why would we need names as well?” from the same show that gave you the gut punch moment at the end of midnight when they realize that nobody asked the hostess for her name. and on the one hand, thats a small sticking point, but on the other hand, its just one small example of the simple disregard that moffat has for humanity.

incidentally, this is a huge part of why sherlock sucked so bad: moffats main characters are special bc theyre so much bigger and better than all the normal people, and thats his downfall as a showrunner. he thinks that his audience wants fucking sheldon cooper when what they want is people.

like, ok. think of how many fantastic rtd era eps are based in the scenario “what if the doctor wasnt there? what if he was just out of commission for a bit?” and how those eps are the heart of the show!! bc theyre about people being people!! the thing is that all of the rtd era companions would have died for the doctor but he understood and the story understood that it wasnt about him.

this is like. nine sending rose home to save her life and sacrifice his own vs clara literally metaphysically entwining her existence w the doctor. ten also sending rose with her family to save her life vs river being raised from infancy to be obsessed w the doctor and then falling in love w him. martha leaving bc she values herself enough to make that decision vs amy being treated like a piece of meat.

and this is simultaneously a great callback to when i said that moffats episodes during the rtd era sometimes had the same problems as his show running (bc girl in the fireplace reeks of this), and a great segue into the next grievance.

moffat hates women

he hates women so fucking much. g-d, does steven moffat ever hate women. holy shit, he hates women. especially normal human women who prioritize their normal human lives on an equal or higher level than the doctor. moffat hated rose bc she wasnt special by his standards. the empty child/the doctor dances is the nicest he ever treated her, and she really didnt do much in those eps beyond a fuck ton of flirting.

girl in the fireplace is another shining example of this. youve got rose (who once again has another man to keep her busy, bc moffat doesnt think shes good enough for the doctor) sidelined for no reason only to be saved by the doctor at the last second or whatever. and then youve got reinette, who is pretty and powerful and special!

its just. moffat thinks that the doctor is as shallow and selfish as he is. thats why he thinks the doctor would stay in one place with reinette and not with rose. bc moffat is shallow and sees himself in the doctor and doesnt think he should have to settle for someone boring and normal.

not to mention rose met the doctor as an adult and chose to stay with him whereas reinette is. hm. introduced to the doctor as a child and grows up obsessed with him.

does that sound familiar? it should! bc it is also true of amy and river. and all of them are treated as viable romantic pairings. bc the only women who deserve the doctor are the ones whose entire existence revolves around him. which includes clara as well.

genuinely i think that at least on some level, not even necessarily consciously, that bill was a lesbian in part bc capaldi was too old to appeal to mainstream shippers. like twelve/clara is still a thing but not as universally appealing as eleven/clara but i am just spitballing. but i think they weighed the pros and cons of appealing to the woke crowd over the het shippers and found that gay companion was more profitable. anyway the point is to segue into the next point, which is that moffat hates permanent consequences.

moffat hates permanent consequences

steven moffat does not know how to kill a character. honestly it feels like hes doing it on purpose after a certain point, like he knows he has this habit and hes trying to riff on it to meme his own shit, but it doesnt work. it isnt funny and it isnt harmless, its bad writing.

the end of the doctor dances is so poignant and so meaningful and so fucking good bc its just this once! everybody lives, just this once! and then he does p much the same thing in forest of the dead - this one i could forgive, bc i do think that preserving those peoples consciousnesses did something for the doctor as a character, it wasnt completely meaningless. but everything after that kinda was.

rory died so many times its like. get a hobby lol. amy died at least once iirc but it was all a dream or something. clara died and was erased from the doctors memory. river was in prison and also died. bill? died. all of them sugarcoated or undone or ignored by the narrative to the point of having effectively no impact on the story. the point of a major character death is that its supposed to have a point. and you could argue that a piece of art could be making a point with a pointless death, ie. to put perspective on it and remind you that bad shit just happens, but with moffat the underlying message is always “i can do whatever i want, nothing is permanent or has lasting impact ever.”

basically, with moffat, tragedy exists to be undone. and this was a really brilliant, really wonderful thing in the doctor dances specifically bc it was the doctor clearly having seen his fair share of tragedy that couldnt be helped, now looking on his One Win with pride and delight bc he doesnt get wins like this! and then moffat proceeded to give him the same win over and over and over and over. nobody is ever dead. nobody is ever unable to be saved. and if they are, really truly dead and/or gone, then thats okay bc moffat has decided that [insert mitigating factor here]*

*the mitigating factor is usually some sort of computerized database of souls.

i can hear the moffat stans falling over themselves to remind me that amy and rory definitely died, and they did - after a long and happy life together, they died of old age. i dont consider that a character death any more than any other character choosing to permanently leave the tardis.

and its not just character deaths either, its like, everything. the destruction of gallifrey? never mind lol! character development? scrapped! the same episode four times? lets give it a fifth try and hope nobody notices. bc he doesnt know how to not make the doctor either an omnipotent savior or a self-pitying failure.

it is in nature of doctor who, i believe, for the doctor to win most of the time. like, it wouldnt be a very good show if he didnt win most of the time. but it also wouldnt be a very good show if he won all of the time. my point is that moffats doctor wins too often, and when he doesnt win, it feels empty and hollow rather than genuinely humbling, and you know hes not gonna grow from it pretty much at all.

so like. again, i like all of doctor who i enjoy all of it very much. i just think that steven moffat is a bad show runner and a decent writer at times. and it is frustrating. and im not here to convince or convert anyone im just living my truth. thank you for listening.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Nature as spectacle. The image of wilderness vs. wildness

(Author’s note: The frequent use of quotation marks in this essay is to reinforce the idea that nature and wilderness are concepts, not actual beings.)

Nature has not always existed. It is not found in the depths of the forest, in the heart of the cougar or in the songs of the pygmies; it is found in the philosophies and image constructions of civilized human beings. Seemingly contradictory strands are woven together creating nature as an ideological construct that serves to domesticate us, to suppress and channel our expressions of wildness.

Civilization is monolithic and the civilized way of conceiving everything that is observed is also monolithic. When confronted with the myriad of beings all around, the civilized mind needs to categorize in order to feel that it is understanding (though, in fact, all it is understanding is how to make things useful to civilization). Nature is one of the most essential of civilized categories, one of the most useful in containing the wildness of human individuals and enforcing their self-identification as civilized, social beings.

Probably the earliest conception of nature was something similar to that found in the old testament of the Bible: the evil wilderness, a place of desolation inhabited by ferocious and poisonous beasts, malicious demons and the mad. This conception served a purpose especially important to early civilizations. It induced fear of what was wild, keeping most people in the city walls and giving those who did go out to explore a defensive posture, an attitude that they were in enemy territory. This concept, in this way, helped create the dichotomy between “human” and “nature” that keeps individuals from living wildly, that is, in terms of their desires.

But a totally negative conception of nature was bound to reach its limits of usefulness since it made civilization into an enclosed and besieged fortress, and to survive civilization has to expand, to be able to exploit more and more. “Nature” became a basket of resources for civilization, a “mother” to nurture “humanity” and its civilization. It was beautiful, worthy of worship, contemplation, study...and exploitation. It was not evil...but it was chaotic, capricious and unreliable. Fortunately for civilization, “human nature” had evolved, rational and needing to order things, to bring them under control. Wild places were necessary so that people could study and contemplate “nature” in its untouched state, but precisely so that civilized human beings could come to understand and control “natural” processes in order to use them to expand civilization. So the “evil wilderness” is overshadowed by a “nature” or “wilderness” that has positive value for civilization.

The concept of nature creates systems of social value and morality. Because of the apparently contradictory strands that have gone into the development of “nature,” these systems also may appear contradictory; but they all achieve the same end: our domestication. Those who tell us to “act civilized” and those who tell us to “act natural” are really telling us the same thing: “Live in accordance with external values, not in accordance with your desires.” The morality of naturalness has been no less vicious than any other morality. People have been imprisoned, tortured and even killed for committing “unnatural acts” —  and still are. “Nature,” too, is an ugly and demanding god.

From its beginnings, nature has been an image created by authority to reinforce its power. It is no surprise that in modern society, where image dominates reality and often seems to create it, “nature” comes into its own as a means of keeping us domesticated. “Nature” shows on TV, Sierra Club calendars, “wilderness” outfitters, “natural” foods and fibers, the “environmental” president and “radical” ecology all conspire to create “nature” and, our “proper” relationship to it. The image evoked retains aspects of the “evil wilderness” of early civilization in a subliminal form. “Nature” shows always include scenes of predation and the directors of these shows have been said to use electric prods in attempts to goad animals into fights. The warnings given to would-be “wilderness” explorers about dangerous animals and plants and the amount of products created by “wilderness” outfitters for dealing with these things is quite excessive from my own experiences wandering in wild places. We are given the image of life outside of civilization as a struggle for survival.

But the society of the spectacle needs the “evil wilderness” to be subliminal in order to use it efficiently. The dominant image of “nature” is that it is a resource and a thing of beauty to be contemplated and studied. “Wilderness” is a place to which we can retreat for a short time, if properly outfitted, to escape from the humdrum of daily life, to relax and meditate or to find excitement and adventure. And, of course, “nature” remains the “mother” who supplies our needs, the resource from which civilization creates itself.

In commodity culture, “nature” recuperates the desire for wild adventure, for life free from domestication, by selling us its image. The subliminal concept of the “evil wilderness” gives venturing into the woods a tang of risk that appeals to the adventurous and rebellious. It also reinforces the idea that we don’t really belong there, thus selling us the numerous products deemed necessary for incursions into wild places. The positive concept of nature makes us feel that we must experience wild places (not realizing that the concepts we’ve had fed into us will create what we experience at least as much as our actual surroundings). In this way, civilization successfully recuperates even those areas it seems not to touch directly, transforming them into “nature,” into “wilderness,” into aspects of the spectacle which keep us domesticated.

“Nature” domesticates because it transforms wildness into a monolithic entity, a huge realm separate from civilization. Expressions of wildness in the midst of civilization are labeled as immaturity, madness, delinquency, crime or immorality, allowing them to be dismissed, locked away, censured or punished while still maintaining that what is “natural” is good. When “wildness” becomes a realm outside of us rather than an expression of our own individual free-spiritedness, then there can be experts in “wildness” who will teach us the “correct” ways of “connecting” with it. On the west coast, there are all sorts of spiritual teachers making a mint selling a “wildness” to yuppies which in no way threatens their corporate dreams, their Porsches or their condos. “Wilderness” is a very profitable industry these days.

Ecologists — even “radical” ecologists — play right into this. Rather than trying to go wild and destroy civilization with the energy of their unchained desires, they try to “save wilderness.” In practice, this means begging or trying to manipulate the authorities into stopping the more harmful activities of certain industries and turning pockets of relatively undamaged woods, deserts and mountains into protected “Wilderness Areas.” This only reinforces the concept of wildness as a monolithic entity, “wilderness” or “nature,” and the commodification inherent in this concept. The very basis of the concept of a “Wilderness Area” is the separation of “wildness” and “humanity.” So it is no surprise that one of the brands of “radical” ecological ideology has created the conflict between “biocentrism” and “anthropocentrism” — as though we should be anything other than egocentric.

Even those “radical ecologists” who claim to want to reintegrate people into “nature” are fooling themselves. Their vision of (as one of them put it) a “wild, symbiotic whole” is just the monolithic concept created by civilization worded in a quasi-mystical way. “Wildness” continues to be a monolithic entity for these ecological mystics, a being greater than us, a god to whom we must submit. But submission is domestication. Submission is what keeps civilization going. The name of the ideology which enforces submission matters little — let it be “nature,” let it be the “wild, symbiotic whole.” The result will still be the continuation of domestication.

When wilderness is seen as having nothing to do with any monolithic concept, including “nature” or “wilderness,” when it is seen as the potential free spiritedness in individuals that could manifest at any moment, only then does it become a threat to civilization. Any of us could spend years in “the wilderness,” but if we continued to see what surrounded us through the lens of civilization, if we continued to see the myriads of beings monolithically as “nature,” as “wilderness,” as the “wild, symbiotic whole,” we’d still be civilized; we would not be wild. But if, in the midst of the city, we at any moment actively refuse our domestication, refuse to be dominated by the social roles that are forced upon us and instead live in terms of our passions, desires and whims, if we become the unique and unpredictable beings that lie hidden beneath the roles, we are, for that moment, wild. Playing fiercely among the ruins of a decaying civilization (but don’t be fooled, even in decay it is a dangerous enemy and capable of staggering on for a long time), we can do our damnedest to bring it tumbling down. And free-spirited rebels will reject the survivalism of ecology as just another attempt by civilization to suppress free life, and will strive to live the chaotic, ever-changing dance of freely relating, unique individuals in opposition both to civilization and to civilization’s attempt to contain wild, free-spirited living: “Nature.”

[sepublic]

You know, I've seen plenty of great ideas for Amphibia x TOH swaps, but there's one thing I haven't seen anyone point out yet. If Luz takes Anne's place and goes to Amphibia, then she gets something she's always wanted at the start of TOH: Being part of a prophecy.

           …That is, a VERY interesting concept, not gonna lie!

           The thing about Luz’s fundamental issues prior to meeting Eda was… She really had a problem with distinguishing fantasy from reality, learning to set the boundaries between the two, and fully respect said boundaries. She wasn’t malicious of course, but regardless…

           This is an interesting ask because we don’t know yet how the prophecy will unfold and be revealed within the show, or even its exact nature! But regardless, this is making me imagine Luz meeting the Plantars, and… Really, I can see Hop Pop’s more down-to-earth nature helping Luz learn to distinguish fantasy from reality, to an extent. Especially since Hop Pop himself is lowkey like Luz in that they’re very unorthodox heroes who don’t quite save the day the way they expected to; But their methods are –usually- valid. Such as Hop Pop accidentally inspiring a revolution among the Frogs, or that time he served as a martyr for those tiny frogs, with his mistreatment by the Hasslebacks being the final injustice that pushes them to fight back and defend themselves, without having to rely on any outsiders to do the work for them. Then there’s him projecting a Noir Film onto his search for Sal, to the point where he straight-up kills an innocent man…

           And, that’s making me imagine Luz and Hop Pop kind of bonding over this (not the murder though), especially with Hop Pop’s failed dreams of becoming an actor. I can see Luz being pretty sympathetic and a lot more involved in Hop Pop’s stint with Renee Frodgers, a lot more than Anne did- And considering we see her try out for Romeo and Juliet at one point, maybe she also has a taste for theater herself! Not to mention, all of this discussion of confusing fantasy with reality is just reminding me of Marcy… Specifically, the speculation of Marcy low-key seeing her time in Amphibia as more like a videogame with its tropes, to a potentially harmful extent as she might not treat this situation as a very real one with actual stakes and living, breathing people.

           Of course, the thing to remember is- Luz takes a lot of initiative in her own character development, too! She’s a receptive person and self-reflects. I feel like even if she never met Eda, it wouldn’t have been out of the question for Luz to still resolve her own issues… It’d have just been a much more difficult and tedious journey, especially if Luz had to go through that Reality Camp. But regardless, when you remember that Hop Pop also goes through similar character development, albeit more around the Season 2 timeframe… With Hop Pop making the conscious decision on his own to call out Renee on her thievery, without Anne nor any circumstances goading him into it, because he’s a very moral character at heart…

           Maybe Luz could have issues like Marcy. It’s worth considering if Andrias is manipulating and feeding into Marcy’s dreams. But regardless, I see Luz and Hop Pop working together, mutually, to get past their own issues, well before the prophecy is revealed- And we still don’t know when that’s going to happen! Maybe Luz and Hop Pop could be a duo reminiscent to Luz and King during Sense and Insensitivity. I can’t say for sure if Luz’s character development will be as potent by the prophecy’s reveal, as she is as of the Season Finale in HER show… I think Eda is ultimately a wiser character than Hop Pop, and characters like Willow and Amity serve as neat narrative contrasts/foils to Luz’s own antics. Though, I can imagine Luz getting caught up in shipping Sprig and Ivy, and possibly the fallout of this leading to a lesson or two…

           But in the end, as I said- Luz has a good heart, and she goes around to do the right thing, in the end. She’s like Hop Pop in that regard, and of course there’s also the existence of Sprig and Polly, not to mention what a fellow weirdo like One-Eyed Wally might have to say, here or there. I guess a lot of it depends on the exact context of how this prophecy is revealed, and how it even works… But I see Luz as being grounded by the more down-to-earth Wartwood, well before she gets to Newtopia. This does raise the interesting idea of her possibly backtracking on her character development, especially with Marcy’s influence and Andrias’ potential manipulations…

           And yet, I can see Luz still turning around to do the right in the end, just as Hop Pop did; Even when his dreams DID come true, and he became a renowned actor! I think Luz would come to the conclusion that even being ‘chosen’ by some divine force doesn’t really make her any better than anyone else… Not to mention that the people and world she’s saving is still very much its own thing, not beholden to her. So I see Luz accepting the mantle of being a hero, if only because she’s a good person and of course she’s not going to let something bad happen… And I can imagine the Plantars helping to gently nudge and remind Luz of her past lessons, to not get confused with fantasy and reality again. The prophecy would definitely be a twist antithetical and contradictory to Luz’s character development, given how she’s being transplanted into a different show with different themes, originally intended for a different protagonist…

           But, if Marcy is going to learn her lesson and get past her own issues –assuming those specific issues ARE a thing of course- then I can see Luz being a guiding light and force for her… Maybe the two mutually navigate past potential delusions together, who knows? I’ve speculated in the past how Luz would handle the revelation of having powerful magical heritage... How Luz would truly show off her character development by rejecting even this seemingly objective, tangible cosmic reason for her being special, and still asserting her equal standing with everyone else. Even when placed on top of the hierarchy, Luz rejects it, showing how much her lessons mean to her. I can see Andrias trying to set Luz up to agree with his hierarchy under that concept of divinely-ordained ‘specialness’, and how it’d all just tie into Luz working to abolish the caste system with Hop Pop.

           I can see it being a contrast to Sasha and Grime, who want to topple the current Newt Hierarchy… More than likely, so they can switch it around with Toads on the top. Not exactly the most helpful change, in the end… Luz decides that instead of reversing the roles, it’s best to just get rid of the roles entirely. It could play into a discussion of privilege, and it’d be interesting to see how Luz, Marcy, and Sasha would all bounce off of one another- Sasha low-key has her issues with dismissing the people of Amphibia, and once talked about ‘having fun’ there. Obviously her respect for Grime has changed this a lot… But there’s still that willingness to conquer what she fully recognizes now as an actual civilization of people. She would certainly take the revelation of a prophecy as full justification that she was never wrong about anything, and that Sasha is of course entitled to taking over Amphibia- Especially if Grime feeds into this both out of genuine support and his own desires.

           Then there’s that idea of Sasha and Grime enabling one another to be worse, even if they also still go through a little bit of positive character development… And as for Marcy and Andrias, I can’t quite say because the latter is still quite the enigma. Either way, Luz has to serve as a grounding force for the other girls with Hop Pop’s help… And really, it sounds like the set-up for total chaos, a battle royal, a complete free-for-all with every Amphibian and Human for themselves as they navigate one another amidst the backdrop of this prophecy. If we want to apply Luz’s motif and themes of being a guiding light for other characters in her own show, I can see her forcing Sasha and Marcy to confront the reality of what they’re doing… And I think interactions between her and Grime would be fascinating, as she’d be VERY much in favor of toppling the monarchy- But specifically to undo the hierarchy entirely, instead of switching it around to the Toads’ favor. If Sasha and Grime enable one another, perhaps Luz will have to act as a voice of reason and buffer between the two- And again, it depends on how Sasha and Grime’s character development goes.

           Overall, this sounds like QUITE the debacle, and I’m kind of fascinated, imagining how these different characters with different motifs, meant to be compatible with narrative parallels and contrasts, amidst the themes of their particular show; And how they’d adapt and fit into another show’s cast and themes! Anne taking Luz’s place in the Boiling Isles would be interesting, given how Anne has clearly internalized Sasha’s idea of ‘knowing what’s best for someone you care about’, and how this seems to be a recurring trend amongst people like Emira and Edric toward Amity, Lilith with Eda, etc. And, I guess I could go into a whole ‘nother discussion of how Eda has to help Anne recover from this low-key abuse and toxicity, and Anne having a similar moment of standing up to Sasha with those characters, possibly citing her own experiences… But, that’s probably a discussion for another time, I think. I guess it depends if I have the time and energy for it, and my cyclical focus aligns just right…

[go-go-devil]

If You Have Ghosts: The Story of a Song

This is an informative/personal essay I wrote about the history of Roky Erickson’s well-beloved song, “If You Have Ghosts.” Honestly I should have written & posted this on the 1-year anniversary of his death back in May, but I completely forgot. This piece is mostly a study of Erickson’s original and the band Ghost’s famous cover of it, alongside some other things. I would also appreciate some feedback on this if you all don’t mind.

The information I used as a reference when describing the making of the original song comes entirely from Joe Nick Patoski’s writing on Roky Erickson’s career and the making of The Evil One (included as a booklet in recent vinyl additions of said album).

Throughout our lives there will be songs that capture us in ways that we cannot escape from. Oftentimes it’s as simple as an infectious melody that we refuse to discard from our memories, either due to it becoming attached to a pivotal part of our lives or because we cannot dislodge it no matter how hard we try. Other times it can be something that attracts us so much that we begin to covet it to the point of obsession, and it is through this attitude that the song transforms from merely a piece of music into a piece of ourselves.

“If You Have Ghosts” is one of these songs for me.

What can I say about this wonderful track that hasn’t already been said? It is fierce, yet subdued. It is both hard rocking joy incarnate and a solemn reflection of one’s self, and it says so much by saying so little. The reason for all of these seemingly contradictory phrases I’m using is because this song, unlike many others, is a shared entity that exists in multiple forms. Quite an odd way of stating that the song has been played by more than one band, but hopefully this essay will demonstrate how the meaning of the original piece can mutate into different forms while still keeping its essence intact.

There’s no better place to start than with the original, recorded in 1977 and released in 1981 by rock n’ roll legend Roky Erickson.

Originally recorded as part of a four-song demo of what would later become his first solo record, The Evil One, “If You Have Ghosts” contains many of the themes Erickson presents in his music as a whole. Those of which being: horror-themed esoteric lyrics, high-energy playing, soaring guitar riffs, and a general sense of raw, psychedelic power.

In less than 15 seconds the song has already built itself up and blasted into your eardrums, but never does the melody ever resort to sounding like a wall of noise. Each instrument weaves its sound around each other like some tripped-out embroidery design in order to create a rich tapestry in the listener’s mind. The lyrics are as catchy and repetitive as any of Roky’s songs, yet for this one he sounds less like he’s singing but instead simply proclaiming each line like it’s a definitive statement.

“If you have ghosts, you have everything”

“One never does that”

“The moon to the left of me is a part of my thoughts and a part of me is me”

“In the night, I am real”

“I don’t want my fangs too long”

Barring a few other scattershot words present in the chorus, what you’ve read above is all that you get for what this piece is trying to say. Unlike most of the other songs from the album, whose lyrics clearly convey the story/theme presented, this one does not have a lucid form to it and thus its meaning can only truly be grasped through interpretation. Personally, I always saw it as a proud declaration of one’s deviance from society, with the rip-roaring instruments serving to show how this person’s mind finally feels free enough to run wild in the night, with only the moonlight and their own invisible spirits to guild them.

But of course, all forms of speculation can never undermine Roky’s own intent when crafting this song, which, unfortunately, is not nearly as liberating as my previous presumption…

“If You Have Ghosts” as we know it is a direct product of Erickson’s mental illness. There really is no way of sugarcoating it. After being diagnosed with schizophrenia in 68’, Roky was sent to various state hospitals in 69’, where he was subjected to multiple electroshock treatments by doctors alongside being heavily sedating with Thorazine. Even after he was discharged in ’72 he never fully recovered from the abusive “therapies” he was given, resulting in decades of battling intense mood swings and heavy drug reliance as well as making it difficult for him to record many of his songs in studio.

Roky was under one of these spells whist recording the vocals for this song. He was only able to sing the chorus once, and after recording was no longer able to remember any of the lyrics. Out of all the tracks, Producer Stu Cook had to put the most effort into inserting the vocals into this song using a complex progress called wild-syncing to place multiple takes of audio alongside the instruments without using synchronization. It’s honestly a miracle that we even have this song fully formed in the first place given the circumstances of its creation.

Despite all of the hardship and effort put into creating this piece, for a long while there didn’t seem to be as much appreciation for it compared to Erickson’s other work. Partially because it was not present on certain releases of the album back in the day as well as the fact that Roky seemed to rarely play it live in concert (even on YouTube, recordings of these performances are scarce). As much as I love this version of the song, even I’m willing to admit that if I were ever forced to rank each song on The Evil One, I would probably place it somewhere in the middle. What can I say? When you make an album that great, the competition can be fierce!

For many obscure classics, the story would end there. Yet another buried treasure forever existing in the mind of one musician. But that’s not what happened, for several decades later a new band from Sweden will emerge, different in form but identical in spirit to Roky’s sound, whose frontman will breathe new life into a once forgotten masterpiece…

…Or at least that’s what I would lead into were it not for the existence of this version.

Interestingly, the first notable cover of “If You Have Ghosts” was not done by Ghost but instead by an English folk-rock group called John Wesley Harding & The Good Liars on the 1990 album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye: A Tribute to Roky Erickson. This now-obscure album consisted of a compilation of various bands and artists covering the songs of, you guessed it, Roky Erickson. There was actually a great deal of artists present on this record, including several well-known musicians such as ZZ Top, R.E.M., and The Jesus and Mary Chain (and even Butthole Surfers too!).

I’ll be the first to admit that I am not at all familiar with John Wesley Harding or his backing band; however, I will say that this piece is a worthy follow-up to the original in it’s own right. It slows down the song to a level not unlike the many psychedelic songs that followed in 13th Floor Elevator’s wake, keeping the main melody in tack while filling in the gaps with many little flourishes as a means of expanding it into something new. I’m especially fond of the echoing effect given to the vocals, which gives the already obscure nature of the lyrics a more outwardly ethereal quality.

Anyway, on to what you’ve been waiting for!

After enduring another two decades of invisibility from the public eye, the song was once again exhumed and resurrected by an emerging metal band named Ghost for their 2013 EP If You Have Ghost. Considering Roky Erickson’s wide array of demon-inspired songs, it’s interesting how Linköping’s residential Satanic metal group chose this piece as opposed to more well-beloved hits like “Night Of The Vampire” or “Stand For The Fire Demon,” many of which work perfectly with the band’s themes of evoking retro horror films and devil worship. It almost seems like they just chose “If You Have Ghosts” solely on the basis of it having the word “Ghost” in it. However, just one listen to this cover will quickly prove otherwise.

Right off the bat, the instruments and vocals are a far cry from the original. Unlike the previous J.W.H. cover that made sure to keep the main melody in tack while adding onto it, Ghost instead chose the more daring option of altering the melody and tempo of the piece significantly. From the ominous drawing of violin and cello strings in the opening seconds to the melancholic metal sound of the guitars throughout (with the rhythm guitar being played by none other than Dave Grohl, who also produced the EP), this version slows the once fast-pace beat of the song down until it becomes almost unrecognizable save for the lyrics. Even Tobias Forge’s singing creates significant contrast with the original; his silky smooth, haunting baritone guiding a melody once held by Roky’s hard-edged yells.

And yet… the spirit still remains.

Although the sound itself has been thoroughly converted to the stylings of Ghost, they still managed to keep the fierce energy that ran through the veins of Erickson’s version, albeit with a twist.

Both songs convey a contemplative examination of one’s mind, with instrumentals and singing that amplify the power one feels from this reflection. However, Ghost’s version differs in that it amplifies the sense of isolation and longing present in the lyrics. The music notably softens at the beginning of many of the verses, particularly lines like “One never does that” or “I don’t want my fangs too long,” only to grow in power through the repetition of each line. It conveys the feeling of the singer having to grapple with these feelings before they can fully accept them.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the band’s acoustic cover of the song.

At this point, the piece has been stripped down to an entirely naked form, its themes conveyed only through the guitars of two nameless ghouls alongside Forge’s vocals (presented here in his previous stage persona, Papa Emeritus III). There is no triumphant shouting or swelling electric guitar solos here anymore, just a somber reflection gently carried by melodic strumming and mournful singing. Despite now being as far from a rockin’ tune as humanly possible, it actually manages to come closest in recapturing the sense of rawness in the original, albeit on the exact opposite scale.

I remember watching a recorded acoustic performance in Paris back in 2015 where Papa introduced “If You Have Ghosts” as being a song about “loneliness,” which is an interpretation I can definitely agree with. In fact, I would even say that with this acoustic cover brings the entire meaning of the song full-circle. Through its peeled-back, unflinching depiction of being enclosed in darkness and isolation, it serves as a perfect end-note for a song that began from such troubled origins by telling the listener that, despite all the hardships, this beautiful piece of music will never lose its everlasting spirit.

Thanks for giving us everything, Roky.

[brawlingdiscontent]

On eating Will’s brain

Spoilers for all of Hannibal, tl;dr at the end, if you don’t feel like reading 2500 words.

This very long meta post will attempt to answer the common question: why did Hannibal try to eat Will’s brain in Dolce (3.6)?

Introduction

There’s a beautiful ambiguity to Fuller’s characters in Hannibal. Character is primarily revealed not by direct statement of thoughts and feelings (as characters’ statements are often ambiguous and about what appear to be peripheral issues), but by juxtaposition. This includes juxtaposition of a character’s actions over time, thematic mirrors of their situations in the case-of-the-week, and the many mirrored/foiled relationships that pop up, whereby the characters are defined against each other. (For example, Will/Tobias, Will/Peter, Will/Pazzi, Will/Gideon, Will/Chiyoh, etc.--Fuller uses these pairings to tell us something about Will in the ways that he is or is not like them, according to his own perceptions, those of others, and that of the audience). The show uses this ambiguity of character to raise questions about key themes, such as human capacity or potential for evil. 

While this is a riveting artistic strategy, it makes the characters’ interactions and intentions increasingly unclear, especially when even the more straightforward characters like Alana drift toward ambiguity by season 3. This is why I think there's so much confusion about what will heretofore be known as the head-sawing incident, and also why I also consider this post to be a reading of the situation, and not necessarily the authoritative one.

1. Duality

One of my favourite things about Hannibal is its duality, the show’s ability to hold onto ambiguity, even with two seemingly contradictory ideas. The acts of the darkest horror can co-exist with the deepest love. When Will clutches Hannibal close and pulls them off a cliff, it’s the acknowledgement that Hannibal’s always wanted of their perfect sympathy (Will decides that he has to go too because of his similarity to Hannibal) at the same time as a murder/suicide. When Hannibal gives himself up to the police it’s an act of shocking romanticism (he is literally sacrificing his freedom for Will) at the same time as it is clear threat, Hannibal saying to Will ‘you’ll never be rid of me’. It’s in the line of this duality that I read Hannibal’s attempt to eat Will’s brain.

In my ongoing analysis I’ll be using text, context and subtext to determine Hannibal’s feelings and motives. 

So, for context: What preceded Hanni’s bad decision? 

2. Mizumono (2.13) - The gutting incident

Hannibal and Will’s ‘breakup’ at the end of season 2 is what may mostly strongly come to mind as the inciting moment for the head-sawing incident; however, Will’s betrayal, the cause of the breakup, is not what caused Hannibal to wield the bone saw.

Think about it: if Hannibal wanted to kill Will only because of his betrayal, he likely would have just dug his knife a little deeper in Mizumono. Instead, Hannibal states he forgives Will via killing Abigail--“I forgive you Will, will you forgive me?” (2.13) (thereby setting up a pattern whereby death creates forgiveness). No, as Chilton reveals, “Will Graham is alive because Hannibal Lecter likes him that way” (3.4). (I should note that Hannibal preserving Will’s life at the end of season 2 is an act that again, in the show’s dualism, speaks of his regard for Will as much as it does his wish to make Will suffer for his betrayal by having to live with the pain of Abigail's death.)

So if Hannibal isn’t trying to kill Will over his betrayal at the end of season 2, what is the reason? It must be a result of something that happened after that, in season 3. 

3. Antipasto (3.1) - A clean break?

My reading here depends upon the understanding that Hannibal’s actions in Mizumono were intended to be the end of that chapter of his life. He cuts ties with his old life in the most Hannibal fashion: by leaving four people bleeding on the ground. When he walks out into the rain, he is figuratively washing himself of that life, and all of his old connections. Or so he thinks. 

Florence was supposed to be a clean break for Hannibal (although one could argue that his bringing Bedelia stems from an unconscious desire to hold onto it), but what happens when he gets to Florence? Rather than continuing happily in his murderous ways, he actually tries to establish a peace: “I've found a peace here that I would preserve. I've killed hardly anybody during our residence” (3.1). His desire for this peace is so strong, that he seeks to preserve it even when it means letting Sogliato get away being a dick to him, something that an earlier Hannibal would never have let stand (“My killing Sogliato now would not preserve the peace” (3.1)).

It isn’t until the episode’s end, months after his arrival in Florence, that he breaks this holding pattern with Anthony Dimmond (arguably killing Dimmond for not being Will, but that’s another post), and thus it is fitting, since Dimmond helped him to ‘untwist’, that he uses Dimmond’s twisted body to reveal the cause of his uncharacteristic behaviour, both to us and to himself: Will has broken his heart. 

I think this is the first time Hannibal begins to understand what Will says to him in Mizumono, that he “already did” change Hannibal the way that Hannibal changed him. Rather than rolling off of Hannibal’s back like he intended, Will’s betrayal has touched him, changed him, radically altered his behavior--because Hannibal loves him.

4. Secondo (3.3) - Therapy with Bedelia or He made you feel feelings? What a bitch.

Secondo is a key episode for understanding this conundrum because it's this season's ‘Hannibal goes to therapy’ episode. It starts and ends with a ‘therapy session’ between Bedelia and Hannibal, closing with Hannibal's realization: “I have to eat him.” These two scenes that bookend the episode are the most important to my understanding of Hannibal’s motivations re: the head-sawing incident.

At the very beginning of Secondo we see Hannibal returning to Florence after leaving his bloody valentine in Palermo. Bedelia meets him at the train station and asks him if it was good to see Will, and Hannibal replies “among other things.” This sets up the therapy session that follows which is about unpacking those ‘other things.’ 

So how does Hannibal work out his feelings for Will? Remember how I said Fuller’s characters are defined by juxtaposition? The realization that Hannibal might perhaps love Will prompts him to think of the only other person he has loved: his sister, Mischa.

In their second session, Bedelia introduces this parallel into their discussion:

BEDELIA: What your sister made you feel was beyond your conscious ability to control or predict.

HANNIBAL: Or negotiate.

BEDELIA: I would suggest that what Will Graham makes you feel is not dissimilar. (then) A force of mind and circumstance.

HANNIBAL Love.

I would argue that until this time, the early episodes of season 3, Hannibal never considered the possibility that he loved Will. Of course he knew he was intrigued by Will (or as Bedelia put it ‘obsessed with Will’), he knew that he cared about Will, but love is something that has not come up before--in regards to Will or anyone else (when discussing Abigail, it’s that Hannibal ‘cared about her’ as much as Will did; the one indirect mention of love between Will and Hannibal before this was in Will’s dream/fantasy in 2.9). Thus the introduction of love -- the idea the he loves Will -- is the huge pivot on which 3.3 turns for Hannibal. 

So how does Hannibal make the leap from love to murder? From something else that Will and Mischa have in common: their potential to incite betrayal. When Bedelia brings up the subject of betrayal (presumably in the context of Will), Hannibal, running with the already established Will-Mischa parallel responds:

Mischa didn’t betray me. She would influence me to betray myself.

This, I think, is the most important line defining the head-sawing incident. The specifics of what happened with Mischa are never quite made clear--but what does he mean by ‘she would influence me to betray myself’? From the context provided, the implication that I take from this is that whether this influence was conscious (perhaps Mischa actively dissuading Hanni from nefarious plots while she was alive) or unconscious (that just by dying she had the power to hurt him), Mischa’s influence itself was a direct result of Hannibal’s love for her--she was able to influence him because--and only because--he loved her.

To see where Will comes into this, here’s the full close to the episode:

HANNIBAL: Mischa didn’t betray me. She would influence me to betray myself. (then) But I forgave her that influence. 

BEDELIA: If past behavior is an indicator of future behavior, there is only one way for you to forgive Will Graham.

HANNIBAL: I have to eat him.

What exactly would Hannibal be forgiving Will for, here? As discussed, he’s already forgiven him for his betrayal in Mizumono with Abigail's death (remember the whole, “I forgive you, Will, will you forgive me? (2.13) and murder = forgiveness pattern). Furthermore, earlier in the episode Hannibal admits that he’s “vague on those details” when Bedelia asks him whether he’s the betrayer or betrayed between him and Will. My argument is that the Will-Mischa parallel that this scene establishes re: love, also applies in this situation re: betrayal; Will again mirrors Mischa. Thus it isn’t Will’s betrayal that Hannibal needs to forgive, it’s Will’s influence, which causes Hannibal to betray himself (hence Hannibal’s earlier confusion on who betrayed whom). And what is the mechanism of this influence and self-betrayal? Hannibal’s love for Will.  So really what Hannibal has to forgive Will for is making him love him, and the only way to do that is to kill him (remember, murder = forgiveness).

But why is the idea that he might love Will such a big deal for Hannibal? And what exactly is this self-betrayal that he has to forgive Will for causing?

5.  Control, authenticity and the self 

Hannibal loves control. This includes control over others/situations (he blows on Will’s soup in Dolce because he has to control every element of the situation and Will burning his mouth on his hot soup doesn’t suit his plan, it would be ‘sloppy’; another example is the care he took with bandaging Abel Gideon) and also perfect control of himself.  His ‘re-natured nature’ as Bryan Fuller puts, how he shapes himself through sheer force of will, is perhaps his most defining feature. Hannibal’s love for Will marks a loss of control, for as Hannibal admits: “we cannot choose with respect to who we fall in love” (3.3). 

But further than that, Hannibal’s love for Will is a threat to his sense of self.

Arguably, Hannibal’s desire for personal authenticity and self-actualization is his greatest drive. He expresses and achieves this drive through art in all its forms, including fashion, the culinary arts, and of course, murder-art. He is never evil for its own sake, but rather his evilness is an effect of him valuing self-determination and self-actualization over morality: it’s an extreme and shocking form of individualism. He not only acts on these principles for himself, but is constantly guiding others by them. We see this in how he pushes Will to be his ‘best’ (murder-y) self, and in his interactions with many other characters--perhaps most obviously Randall Tier. 

For Hannibal, to love means one thing: to compromise this drive and thus to be compromised. Whether that’s out of care for the object of his affections (“my compassion for you is inconvenient, Will”) or the pain/heartbreak that person can cause (moping around Florence for several months, making literal compromises to ‘keep the peace’ because he’s depressed about his break up)--when Hannibal loves someone he is not free to be his truest Cannibal self. Loving Will, then, is a deep existential threat to Hannibal, a threat which can only be vanquished by consuming him, and thus re-affirming his sense of self (if we think of cannibalism as Hannibal’s peak level of self-actualization). Chilton says that, “cannibalism is an act of dominance” (2.6); by engaging in it in Dolce and eating Will’s brain Hannibal is hoping to assert dominance over his feelings for Will and regain control (while at the same time committing a symbolic act of joining and carnal closeness--duality!)

Thus the takeaway from this section is that Will’s real crime for which he needs to be forgiven, and the reason has to die is not because he betrayed Hannibal, but because he made Hannibal love him. Through this love, Will presents a deep, existential threat to Hannibal’s sense of self, and so for Hannibal the situation is literally life or death; worse, in fact, for Hannibal would much rather die than compromise himself. It’s him or Will, and in Dolce, Hannibal makes the choice to save himself--but whether or not he could ultimately have gone through it, it’s all negated by the choices he makes in the next episode.

6. Digestivo (3.7) - The fallout

I’m not sure that we see the moment that Hannibal changes his mind and decides that he’s not going to (or can’t) kill Will. Perhaps he might have pulled away even while wielding the bone saw if they hadn’t been interrupted; perhaps seeing Cordell’s severed flesh in Will’s mouth reminded him of how beautiful they could be together; perhaps, even, he understands that his bargain with Alana for Will’s life extends indefinitely; but, regardless of what caused it, we see the evidence of this decision in his conversation with Will at the end of 3.7:

HANNIBAL: Do we talk about teacups and time and the rules of disorder?

WILL: The teacup is broken. It’ll never gather itself back together again.

HANNIBAL: Not even in your mind? (off his look) Your memory palace is building. It’s full of new things. It shares some rooms with my own. I’ve discovered you there. Victorious.

My reading of this scene is that telling Will he’s discovered him ‘victorious’ is Hannibal’s cryptic way of saying that Will’s won. Will’s victory here is the fact that Hannibal can’t or actively chooses not to kill him and instead is willing to sacrifice what’s most important to him--his sense of self, and, as we see shortly after this conversation, his freedom. In fact, through my reading, Hannibal giving himself up at the end of the episode is hardly surprising and pales in comparison to what he’s already sacrificed in letting Will live. Thus Hannibal’s self-surrender to the FBI is the final step in a beautiful character arc that has him move from gutting Will at the end of season 2 for threatening his freedom (--“You would take my life?” --“Not your life, no.” --“My freedom then?” (2.13)) to sacrificing this freedom willingly just so that Will can’t get away from him--placing their relationship/love over and above his own self preservation, and proving what Will asserts at the end of season 2 -- that he’s already changed Hannibal as Hannibal changed him. 

So thus, whereas some people in the fandom see Hannibal’s ‘eat Will’ plot as something he wasn’t thinking clearly about, or attribute it to the influence of Bedelia (I think this doesn’t give Hannibal enough credit as an independent thinker, and in fact, don’t think Bedelia attempted to sway him in any way on this point--that’s Hannibal’s game, she just wants to study him as he is)--I see Hannibal’s ‘eat Will plot’ as borne directly from his love for Will, and in some ways a demonstration of that love.

One final note (TWOTL, 3.13): playing into the key theme of reciprocity (introduced through Will and Hannibal’s reciprocal attempts to off each other in season 2) in Dolce (3.6), the situation for Will is life or death--him or Hannibal--just as it is for Hannibal, but for a very different reason: if Will doesn’t kill Hannibal, he risks becoming him. Hannibal first makes the decision to kill Will (Dolce, 3.6) and then to sacrifice himself in acceptance of their love at a personal cost (Digestivo, 3.7). Will, just to be efficient, completes the reciprocal act by making both decisions at once--both killing Hannibal to save himself and destroying himself by accepting their love at the same time--by tumbling them both off the cliff in The Wrath of the Lamb (3.13). Way to go, Will!  They really are ‘identically different’!

In conclusion: Murder husbands 4 eva!!

Tl;dr, I actually have a life, oh God, why was this post so long--

In this literal embodiment of the 'in this essay I will' meme, I argue that Hannibal tries to eat Will’s brain out of self-preservation, because he realizes that he loves Will and that by this love Will has the potential to change him and is thus an existential threat to his sense of self, which he values more than life. 

Thanks all for reading!

*all episode transcripts are taken the scripts on Bryan Fuller’s website here.  *all screenshots are taken from the Hannibal Screencaps Gallery here. 

[edwad]

What are your least favourite Marx books? Which ones are the worst?

this is sorta tricky because i guess you’d have to define “books” since

many of his most famous writings are tiny pamphlets or speeches which were then published as articles or pamphlets and might not properly be considered “books”, especially since some of them were only published posthumously as texts once transcripts were found for speeches. value price and profit would be the go-to example for this.

a lot of the “books” we now have are really just editorial collages of manuscripts that were not written in the format of a “book” and were in many cases not even intended to be published. so when we try to measure their worth in how Good they are or not, sometimes the “book” we’re talking about doesn’t really exist or is constructed/“finished” (often poorly) from the raw manuscript(s). great example would be the economic manuscripts of 1864-5 which were then turned into volume 3 of capital, but the debate around the nature of engels’ job as editor means that the “book” capital volume 3 is considered by many to be inferior to the unadulterated manuscripts, if not an outright distortion of them.

but if we can sorta treat all the published texts as “books” (excluding like, individual articles unless they are noteworthy enough to single out. if they’ve been published as a pamphlet and are considered Important Texts i’ll consider them here) and ignore the fact that marx was an extremely prolific writer (meaning that there’s a lot that i haven’t read), id largely come down on the younger marx.

i think pieces like the communist manifesto, paris manuscripts, wage labor and capital, etc are relatively intellectually immature compared to his later works. a lot of what’s in them had to be corrected or outright abandoned by the 1860s. there’s also the problem where the paris manuscripts suffer from the 2nd problem listed above where they are mishmashed together in such a way that they appear inconsistent and where the actual process of inquiry gets lost in the rearranging of pieces of text. for example, the piece we read at the beginning as the “preface”, but which was actually from the third manuscript and was pulled to the front by editors, shows an attempt by editors to “finish” what marx apparently would’ve done himself, despite the fact that the manuscripts were from marxs personal notebooks and for his own development/clarification as he studied, not manuscripts for a “book”. this seemingly minor change reflects the overall editorial attitude to the publication of the manuscripts. a more apparent alteration is in the last “manuscript” regarding the critique of hegelian philosophy, which was never written by marx. it is an “essay” compiled from paragraphs and stray remarks throughout the paris notebooks, put together in a semi-coherent order so that it could stand as a single text (the same thing happened with the first “chapter” of “the german ideology”). when editors are this bold, it is hard to distinguish the good/bad of marxs work from the heavy hands of editors.

the same is true of wage labor and capital, which was republished by engels after marxs death with numerous “corrections”, especially around the category of “labor-power” which marx developed in the late 1850s, about a decade after WLC was written. the result is that engels decided to publish “not as Marx wrote it in 1849, but approximately as Marx would have written it in 1891,” which ignores the fact that merely changing “labor” to “labor-power” everywhere in the text that mentions its sale as a commodity doesn’t magically bring it to some hypothetical peak. marxs theoretical foundations between 1849 and 1867 (not to mention 8 years after his death in 1891!!) were radically different, meaning that the updating of a single category doesn’t resolve the problems of the text. here again, the editor plays a heavy role in the reception of the text (if you’ve read WLC, you almost certainly read the 1891 edition with engels’ editing), but also the theoretical foundations themselves are inadequate and were jettisoned in a matter of years.

the communist manifesto comes from this era of marxs thought as well and suffers from the same problems, although marx and engels treated the text as a kind of “historical document” which shouldn’t be altered, displacing the explicit “corrections” to the prefaces of later editions. regardless, its fame as The text of communism means that it becomes the go-to text for encountering and combatting communism. this is why it’s taught in high school classrooms and why jordan peterson thought it was enough to simply deal with the manifesto (beyond the fact that he’d obviously never read anything else by marx) as if it was the final word on communism. it isn’t, and the text has many problems that it’s authors pointed to, but also several which are only ever made implicitly in other texts, as the theoretical foundations are constantly being placed under scrutiny and changed. in the manifesto, he is largely uncritical of political economy’s categories, adhering to a malthusian conception of wages and a naïve theory of crises.

but there’s another issue, which isn’t wholly unrelated here, regarding the esoteric/exoteric dimensions of marxs writings which aren’t really grappled with until the 1970s by the neue marx-lektüre, concerning the ways in which marx would often write in “popularized” fashion, resulting in a kind of theoretical “dumbing down” of the concepts. he was extremely aware of the need to make himself understandable and even rewrote the beginning of capital several times in order to escape the same fate of the 1859 contribution which did poorly, in large part due to the fact that most people didn’t really understand it and those that did weren’t the people he was trying to reach.

the problem is that this often led to simplification rather than clarification, crudifying the analysis and turning it into something else which meant, at the end of the day, he was still misunderstood. this problem exists in many of his texts (even my favorites), meaning that some of his pieces, especially those which are often more explicitly political, become somewhat contradictory when compared to his private notebooks at the time. another serious and related issue here is the political censorship he faced at the time, which likely had a lot more to do with the way he expressed himself in published texts than we typically think. in my view, both of these things together help explain bernstein’s identification of a reformist tendency in the later marx, which was combatted by equally bad readings of traditional “exoteric” marxisms.

anyway, this is less a list of my least favorite marx books and more of a marxological wash of problems with making lists like this in the first place. it’s often hard to distinguish between marx and his editors, but also he was constantly developing and self-criticizing older conceptions, meaning that his “worst” books for me come from periods/texts where he isn’t on very firm footing (basically everything he wrong up to the grundrisse as far as i’m concerned), but excluding some of the texts which i think are actually quite strong despite their editorial weaknesses. my interest, then, is in understanding his intellectual development and bringing context to some of his later positions. that makes even the worst texts really important, even if i don’t find them adequate, which is sorta the point since he didn’t either.

[kkintle]

Into the Woods: A Five Act Journey Into Story by John Yorke; Quotes

There’s no doubt that for many those rules help. Friedrich Engels put it pithily: ‘Freedom is the recognition of necessity.’

‘You need the eye, the hand and the heart,’ proclaims the ancient Chinese proverb. ‘Two won’t do.’

Delacroix countered the fear of knowledge succinctly: ‘First learn to be a craftsman; it won’t keep you from being a genius.’

We are capable of entering any kind of head. David Edgar justified his play about the Nazi architect Albert Speer by saying: ‘The awful truth – and it is awful, in both senses of the word – is that the response most great drama asks of us is neither “yes please” nor “no thanks” but “you too?”. Or, in the cold light of dawn, “there but for the grace of God go I”.’

As Peter Brook writes in The Empty Space, ‘In the theatre the slate is wiped clean all the time.’ Drama is a test-bed on which we can test and confront our darkest impulses under laboratory conditions; where we can experience the desires without having to confront the consequences. Drama enables us to peer into the soul, not of the person who has driven his father out onto the heath, but the person who has wanted to.

Our favourite characters are the ones who, at some silent level, embody what we all want for ourselves: the good, the bad and ugly too.

‘The more successful the villain, the more successful the picture.’

‘Somebody’s got to want something, something’s got to be standing in their way of getting it. You do that and you’ll have a scene.’

‘Tell me what you want,’ said Anton Chekhov, ‘and I will tell you what manner of man you are.’

Cops want to catch the killer, doctors want to heal their patient; in truth it doesn’t actually matter what the object is, its importance is bestowed by those in pursuit.

What a character thinks is good for them is often at odds with what actually is. This conflict, as we shall see, appears to be one of the fundamental tenets of structure, because it embodies the battle between external and internal desire.

Characters then should not always get what they want, but should – if they deserve it – get what they need. That need, or flaw, is almost always present at the beginning of the film. The want, however, cannot become clear until after the inciting incident.

The crisis occurs when the hero’s final dilemma is crystallized, the moment they are faced with the most important question of the story – just what kind of person are they? Finding themselves in a seemingly inescapable hole, the protagonist is presented with a choice.

So the inciting incident provokes the question ‘What will happen’ and the climax (or obligatory act) declares – ‘this’.

As Shakespearean scholar Jan Kott noted before him, ‘Ancient Tragedy is loss of life, modern Tragedy is loss of purpose’.

‘good’ is a relative concept

Change is the bedrock of life and consequently the bedrock of narrative.

THE ROADMAP OF CHANGE ACT 1 No knowledge Growing knowledge Awakening ACT 2 Doubt Overcoming reluctance Acceptance ACT 3 Experimenting with knowledge MIDPOINT – KEY KNOWLEDGE Experimenting post-knowledge ACT 4 Doubt Growing reluctance Regression ACT 5 Reawakening Re-acceptance Total mastery

A well-designed midpoint has a risk/reward ratio: a character gains something vital, but in doing so ramps up the jeopardy around them.

JOURNEY THERE; JOURNEY BACK

All stories at some level are about a search for the truth of the subject they are exploring. Just as the act of perception involves seeking out the ‘truth’ of the thing perceived, so storytelling mimics that process. The ‘truth’ of the story, then, lies at the midpoint. The protagonist’s action at this point will be to overcome that obstacle, assimilate that truth and begin the journey back – the journey to understand the implications of what that ‘truth’ really means.

Stories are built from acts, acts are built from scenes and scenes are built from even smaller units called beats. All these units are constructed in three parts: fractal versions of the three-act whole. Just as a story will contain a set-up, an inciting incident, a crisis, a climax and a resolution, so will acts and so will scenes.

‘Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.’ Alfred Hitchcock  

Screenwriting is showing not telling; structure is the presentation of images in such a way an audience are forced to work out the relationship between them. Stanton had stumbled upon what is known amongst film theoreticians as the ‘Kuleshov Effect’.

I want to get an abortion, but my boyfriend and I are having trouble conceiving. American comedian Sarah Silverman’s joke is built on a classic subversion of expectation. But take a look at any joke, or any scene in any drama: the juxtaposition of opposites, verbal or visual or both, is the central plank not just of showing rather than telling, but of all humour, all narrative. Something, confronted with its opposite, makes us recast our notion of that ‘something’ again.

Everyone customizes, consciously or not, everything they do.

Every decision we make or action we perform when confronted with an obstacle is a choice that reveals – through action – our personality. In every scene, remember, a protagonist is presented with a mini crisis, and must make a choice as to how to surmount it. Meeting with a subversion of expectation – a blow to their established plans – a character must choose a new course of action. In doing so they reveal a little bit more of who they are.

as F. Scott Fitzgerald put it, ‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.’

It was Kenneth Tynan who said ‘a neurosis is a secret you don’t know you’re keeping’.

The less back-story a character has, the more readily an audience is able to identify with them – the more we can see they’re like us and not like someone else. We may want to know more, but it’s the not knowing that keeps us watching. It allows us to fully experience the journey ourselves and actively join in the process in which a character pursues their goal, their flaw is subsumed into their façade, their need into their want, and the goal of all drama is achieved – a rich, complex, three-dimensional character appears in front of our eyes.

The three most important functions of dialogue – characterization, exposition and subtext – are all, as we shall see, products of character desire.

Good dialogue conveys how a character wants to be seen while betraying the flaws they want to hide.

Grammar, vocabulary, syntax, rhythm, sentence length, jargon or slang – when combined in a particular way, they all allow us to understand who a person is. Change one and the character changes. Dialogue isn’t just about what someone says; how they choose to say it is important too.

Exposition works when it’s a tool a character uses to achieve their desire. If this desire is confronted with opposition, conflict is generated and exposition becomes invisible. The greater the conflict, the less visible the exposition.

Silence of the Lambs screenwriter Ted Tally put the art of writing dialogue succinctly: ‘What’s important is not the emotion they’re playing but the emotion they’re trying to conceal.’

So masked desire is the main source of subtext.

Georg Simmel, the nineteenth-century sociologist, put it rather eloquently: ‘All we communicate to another individual by means of words or perhaps in another fashion – even the most subjective, impulsive, intimate matters – is a selection from that psychological-real whole whose absolutely exact report … would drive everybody into the insane asylum.’

‘No description is as difficult as the description of self.’

We watch stories not just to awaken our eyes to reality but to make reality bearable as well. Truth without hope is as unbearable as hope without truth.

Out of our quarrel with others we make rhetoric; out of the quarrel with ourselves we make poetry. - W. B. Yeats

the idea that ‘we crash into each other just to feel something’.

McGovern believed neither of the two arguments, but he’d mastered a very important principle: that whatever you believe should be tested to destruction.

As Andrew Stanton says, ‘You often hear the term “You should have something to say in a story” but that doesn’t always mean a message. It means truth, some value that you yourself as a storyteller believe in, and then through the course of the story are able to debate that truth. Try to prove it wrong. Test it to its limits.’

There is much to learn from the game of chess, whose individual engagements are all part of one long engagement seeking a condition not of adversity or conflict or defeat or even victory, but of the harmony underlying all.

Javed Akhtar, the co-writer of Sholay, the most successful Indian movie of all time, made a shrewd observation: You must have seen children playing with a string and a pebble. They tie a string and the pebble and they start swinging it over their head. And slowly they keep loosening the string, and it makes bigger and bigger circles. Now this pebble is the revolt from the tradition, it wants to move away … The string is the tradition, the continuity. It’s holding it. But if you break the string the pebble will fall. If you remove the pebble the string cannot go that far. This tension of tradition and revolt against the tradition … are in a way contradictory, but as a matter of fact [are] a synthesis. You will always find a synthesis of tradition and revolt from tradition together in any good art.

just why fairy tales hover on the edges of cruelty; it’s about how ‘baddies’ are the products of inner conflict 

‘All of us are potential villains,’ the legendary Disney animators Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston once remarked. ‘If we are pushed far enough, pressured beyond our breaking point, our self-preservation system takes over and we are capable of terrible villainy.’

Storytelling, then, is the dramatization of the process of knowledge assimilation.

Like much that is briefly fashionable, it didn’t survive because it had nothing meaningful to say. A greater test of worth must be whether a work lasts for more than a generation.

an observation from Robert Hughes: ‘The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not through argument but through feeling, and then to close the gap between you and everything that is not you, and in this way pass from feeling to meaning.’

‘Art consists of limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame.’ G. K. Chesterton   

[theorynexus]

As we reach 49, we near the half-way mark in the century of posts. My word, how many of these will there be?

Oh, and we are at Page 25 of Meat, which means that if the prologue were not included, this would represent a near perfect, “Two posts per page” ratio.  Buuuut... things haven’t quite worked out that way, I guess.

... This all seems very ominous. Her speaking about trolls in such a way does not bode well for her mental state, I think.  Hard to be certain, but... hmm.  The implications of these generalizations about human nature suggest that she is either having great difficulty with the challenges Dirk is presenting to her, or that her aforementioned ascension is causing continued challenges to her mental stability.   The scrutiny mention makes me lean further toward the former, but I don’t believe I can support either wholeheartedly, at the moment.

While in broad strokes I can certainly embrace this idea, no, it certainly is not sinful or dysfunctional to question it.  This is because human beings are both social creatures demanding intimacy and belonging and individuals demanding singularity and personal excellence. To fully abandon one or the other is in fact to renounce humanity.   In particular, to pour one’s self into a collectivist mentality that would seek to obtain a higher being via the blurring of thoughts and personae together to the exclusion of such matters as the love and concern one might feel for one’s wife is absolutely anathema to humanity, and should be repulsive to anyone who truly understands what it means to be human-- ... even if they have personally obtained a state already that sets them up as being more than human in the sense of capability and mortality.

Grrrrrr...!   You’re taking her agency from her, Narrator!   To take away from her choice as you suppress her powers and seemingly use them to expand your own is just... horrendous.  I struggle now to properly express it, but the suppression of agency is a threat to her identity and undermines any important decisions, consent, or beliefs that she might come to express in the near future. Choosing what is or is not important for someone to know, especially when it is taking advantage of someone who’s in as vulnerable a situation as she is, is reprehensible, and absolutely sickens me, because it flies right in the face of her Classpect, as well. She should be able to understand and see the importance of what’s going on around her, and sense the information he’s suppressing, darnit!

Hmmm.   ***scratches my head***     I do wonder, though.   This paragraph makes it seem as if she might be in a better position than she seems to be in. To ask who is calling is not necessarily to suggest you do not know, in a technical sense, I suppose.  Her hiding her actual face alludes to deception, and the ghostly image of herself seeming to speak, yet leaving the Narrator uncertain, could imply a certain degree of growing capacity to fool him, in general. I suppose this goes back to the statement that both of them think they are acting as puppet masters in their own little games.  There certainly could be a sense of competition that is actively going on between them. A lack of information as far as Rose has been concerned, previously, along with the way that the previous last encounter we were able to have with her before the Kanaya calls made it seem like her body had slipped into unconsciousness, so this sudden contradictory information makes it hard to judge things.

I am sorry to see Rose react that way.   That said: I now see that her earlier statements (at the beginning of the page) were largely meant as ground work in an argument that suggests she does not buy what Dirk’s trying to sell. I am very much glad to see that realization hit me, and quite obviously appreciate her point of contention.  On the other hand, from a philosopher’s perspective, I also very much enjoy the fact that Dirk quite rightly brings that sort of question to the table, which is indeed necessary to answering that sort of question without doing so in a manner that is quite emotionally-based, biased based on deeply-ingrained preconceptions, or otherwise faulty in nature.

HEY, KIERKEGAARD IS GREAT!!!   Also:  I do in fact know that Rose is dealing with a severe migraine, and that it is likely that she might otherwise be more amicable to such discussions... albeit to what degree, it’s impossible to say.

I really do appreciate the fact that the lack of academic studies on the Kids’ parts is being actively integrated into the story.   I would like to suggest that I very much do believe that many of them are quite intelligent, and have developed their minds in such a way that with time, the seeds of great philosophers might sprout inside many of them; however, I do in fact remain skeptical that Dirk has had anywhere near the life experience to be properly judging the issues he’s attempting to tackle, right now. Certainly, if their time in their universe had left the group in their later 20s or early 30s, I could see him being in a better position to make the sorts of weighty arguments and decisions he is apparently making (those of pursuing unity of consciousness and greater godhood of being, alongside the others, it would seem).    Even the example of Kierkegaard, who began publishing important works relatively early in his life for a philosopher, was nearing 30 at that time.

I was quite surprised that Dirk is playful enough to admit the silliness of his prior statement of credentials, for a moment, but honestly, that is quite in-character.  Whether or not this actually causes him to pause and think about things differently is an entirely different matter. I most certainly don’t think it shall do so.

This entire sequence is absolutely beautiful and hilarious.  Also, Hegel’s pretty hilarious to bring up, at least to me.  Specifically:  Kierkegaard was an absolutely vehement opponent of Hegelian branches of philosophy, so his name coming up from Dirk shortly afterward is quite ironic, which I’m sure was quite intentional on Hussie’s part. The fact that this is all being argued via shorthand makes this all surprisingly humorous. As for the last bit he’s bringing up:  that’s a nice segue into the actual argument/discussion.

Indeed, he brings up a somewhat valid point. This is part of the Ultimate Riddle.  However, he fails to realize one greatly important thing:  Free will is totally a thing in Homestuck. It’s just that certain timelines are important to the integrity of reality.  Thus, they have to be pushed for, and the collective will of all life to persist nudges things in that direction, via interactions of Light, Void, Hope, and DOOM. It should also be particularly noted and emphasized that the decisions of individuals determine their fates, as shown especially via the death mechanics of godhood. Beyond this, there theoretically should be quite a bit of wiggle room allowed in getting from point A to point B on the “necessary stuff needs to happen” list, as shown via the fact that the Kids dawdled so bloody long in the first place before giving John their own version of The Choice, and essentially booting his butt out to face LE, in this timeline.

Yes, your flexing of narrative control in your limited, likely temporary fashion most certainly shows a lack of free will, especially in light of the feats of defiance that people have shown to your commands, and how closely your level of influence resembles that of other such writer figures in your position.   My mind particularly turns to Andrew Hussie’s ghost influencing Caliborn, as well as the resulting shaking of the website as he attempted to crowbar its stability out of existence in retribution for Hussie’s mockery.    Of course, that author seemed to be closer to omniscient--- or at least better at managing loose threads ---than the current ego taking up the Narrator’s seat. He certainly didn’t seem to be quite so cocky, and seemed a bit more performative in his role than the current one.  Perhaps that’s because of the fact that he purposefully secluded himself from the main action of the story, unlike you.

***laughs hysterically at the irony of this amateurish lack of self-control, and the surprisingly go-with-the-flow sort of   modus operandi  that someone who projects such Machiavellian capacities has embraced*** This whimsical little break from the serious analysis and following of the story that I generally do has compelled a thought, a question, and an idea into my mind, it would seem.  Namely: of course Dirk’s growing understanding and mastery over Heart will naturally have afforded him an understanding of the narrative nature of the world of Homestuck. After all, Heart, very similar to Light, deals with the true nature of things: while Light deals with broad categories of knowledge, information, data, code (overlapping with DOOM), luck, relevance, and fate, Heart deals with the true nature of things in a simple, core-oriented fashion-- it looks at what a person’s soul is, and what that makes them; the nature of love and of social bonds associated with them (which partially overlaps with Blood), and the core nature of Reality, Truth, and the Aspects which relate to them. Given this nature for Heart, his deepening connection with it would naturally cause him to tend toward a wider understanding of the world around them-- and specifically, the Narrative.   Given his awakened awareness of this, it is logical for him to then become jaded concerning free will, and likewise, given his particular Classpect (Prince of Heart), it is natural for him to attempt to use his heightened capacities to interface and tinker with the story. The fact that his Class, which would traditionally be interpreted as a Destroyer, can be used to subvert its aspect (read: transforming the way it develops by partial destruction in the same way that a gardener pruning a plant manipulates the development of the plant in their care) can be evidenced in numerous ways. Most prominently:    Dirk destroyed Caliborn’s core identity as Caliborn by fusing his soul with three others, thus forming Lord English;    Brain Ghost!Dirk attempted to destroy Aranea’s identity as a living soul, not by fully rending her spirit, but by removing it from its place in contact with the Ring of Life;  finally, Dirk-as-Bro radically altered Dave’s identity over the course of his lifetime, but most clearly and impactfully via the rending of his katana and the scratching of his shirt’s disk (which were both highly symbolic of Dave’s soul, if the fact that the Scratch taking place on just such a disk or his sword[s] later being able to transform from broken to whole via time magic [also an expression of Dave’s soul, and its resilience+destined transformation] didn’t clue you in). To the point:  It is something of a wonder that Dirk has not yet begun to realize his limitations via the constraints that his manipulation of Narrative have placed upon them. My suspicion is that while his interface with Rose(? the way the story presents the aftermath is confusing, considering her continued seeming consciousness+own thoughts) may have increased his capacity to See Light, depending on how precisely it works, he has (as of yet) not such command over relevance and agency as he’d like us to believe. Furthermore, he is still not quite at the point that he has fully realized his understanding of Heart, either. The fact that he is questioning Free Will certainly shows that he is on the brink of an epiphany, but he seems to have become a bit lost in the reeds, as it were.   Many characters have fallen at this point because they have attempted to egotistically promote their own will and desire to the subversion of others and the needs of the wider world. Aranea and Vriska come to mind, but also Lord English, assuming that he has indeed perished as the Narration would have us believe. This is a natural part of Fate, and I am quite certain that if Dirk remains on this path, he will fall afoul of that same Just end.  Even if he does have the capacity to control the influence of one of the four Aspects which seem to deal most with Fate/ (which are Time [for obvious reasons of timing and timeline mechanics {including the Scratch}], Light [via Relevance, Canonicity, Luck, coherence, and Necessity], Heart [with regards to Classpects and their relation to key world interactions/expressions of self, entangling of individuals with one another, and through the reflections of Self across timelines {see Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff persisting on the Alpha Kids’ side of the Scratch, for example}], and DOOM [via most of what the aspect has to offer:  rules, inevitability, factors {especially disasters} outside of one’s control, et cetera]), this does not mean that Dirk truthfully has wider control over Fate, generally, nor does it mean that he can avoid the consequences to his actions. I should also at this point randomly insert a statement suggesting that the other 8 Aspects can be split into two camps: Choice/Freedom ---  Mind, Hope, Breath, Life and Mixed/Paradoxical  --- Space, Void, Blood, and Rage The former of these two categorizations should be mostly obvious:  Mind represents personal choice (both in the way you present yourself, and in your course of actions), Hope represents belief transcending the mundane and Possibility beyond the restrictions of what should be Real and/or opportunities beyond what would seemingly be available to you given the constraints that present themselves; Breath is all about freedom from constraints (up to and including the constraints of physical being) and the ability to fly off in various directions (often beyond the expected/normally available paths); and finally, Life, being the antithesis of DOOM, allows for the breaking of rules (see the sugary explosion of rulebreaking that was Trickster Mode) and the extension of possibility beyond what would be something’s inevitable end (healing, revival, prototyping, et cetera). As for the latter set:   Space has a associations with birth, potentiality, and the breaking of barriers, but Space itself is as much a curse as a boon-- yes, it does allow for the interaction of beings with the physicality of the world, and it allows for the continuation of life; yet Homestuck is a Gnostic text, and that means that one must also take Space to be one of the principle forces which constrains action by allowing the defining and regulating of the world; and it imposes corruption upon things by allowing for a stage wherein the Aspects can mix and form more complex concepts.  (Mind you, this is of course quite important for human life, and those of us who live in the material world could argue that it is therefore a “good”, from our perspective. Nonetheless, that fact-- that it enables such “corruption” demonstrates in and of itself that this belongs in a “mixed” category.) Void is a bit simpler:  It is the Aspect of the unknowable, uncertain, and so on; but most importantly, these barriers which tend toward the production of impossibility do at the same time hide a very important flip-side of the coin --- that is, Void also presides over imagination, which is the force which brings forth possibility from fantasy and drags ideas into physical reality. As such, this slippery element of existence very clearly exists in a liminal state worthy of this group. Blood’s binding capacity ties one to the physical world, but it simultaneously entrenches one in the subtleties of social existence, which is above/beyond the bestial sort of being that Blood’s carnal title would suggest. Furthermore, while blood is by its nature a binding, restrictive force, it is one which allows for one to be given purpose. Binding yourself to a group of friends to cooperate with one another and find higher purpose is at the very heart of what Homestuck is. This allows for greater possibilities than what would be able to be accomplished alone-- and this is the nature of many (perhaps most) contracts and bonds that can/should be made: they allow for the formation of restrictions, but those are in exchange for other benefits.     This is why Karkat would make a great leader:  Blood is the Aspect that is closest to the Social Contract which underlies political life. A player who deeply relates to/embodies this Aspect in a well-fulfilled manner therefore is a natural fit for political power. Rage:  ... Don’t even get me started with Rage. I’m a Capricorn and I don’t understand that nonsense.  It narrows your mind, blocks out your thoughts, and skews your brain. Despite the fact that it should be the Aspect that focuses you and makes sure your head doesn’t hang out in the clouds all the fricking time, it’s like banging your head on a cinder block every single time you try to wrap your thoughts around it. Don’t bother with considering such double-edged Tragi-Comic garbage Aspect. Just... waste your time and focus your thoughts on something else. Now what the heck was I talking about...?

[pass-the-bechdel]

Crazy Ex-Girlfriend season one full review

How many episodes pass the Bechdel test?

100% (eighteen of eighteen)

What is the average percentage per episode of female characters with names and lines?

44.4%

How many episodes have a cast that is at least 40% female?

Eleven, over half the season. Six of those are over 50%, and two of those are over 60%.

How many episodes have a cast that is less than 20% female?

Zero, unsurprisingly.

How many female characters (with names and lines) are there?

Thirty-seven. Ten who appeared in more than one episode, four who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

How many male characters (with names and lines) are there?

Forty-four. Twenty who appeared in more than one episode, four who appeared in at least half the episodes, and two who appeared in every episode.

Positive Content Status:

Mostly good, if a bit wonky; there were a lot of acknowledgments of real issues (particularly women’s issues), but sometimes it felt more like they were just shout-outs for the brownie points rather than genuine efforts to explore something meaningful. There were also a few problems with characters/relationships that the show never called out as wrong and therefore seemingly endorsed as normal, which makes it feel less self-aware than it appears to be at times (more on that under the cut). Altogether though, it’s never egregiously upsetting, and there is one subplot (ironically, one which has nothing to do with women) which was a true unexpected joy to behold (average rating of 3.05).

General Season Quality:

Fluctuates. It has a tone problem which can be confusing as it is unclear how information is intended to be interpreted, and the discomfort can seriously damage the comedy. When it is good though, it’s very fun, sometimes touching, and weirdly addictive. 

MORE INFO (and potential spoilers) under the cut:

I noted when I reviewed the very first episode that this is Not My Usual Flavour in terms of plot conceit, and if it weren’t for all the recommendations/requests I got to include the show on this blog, there’s about a 1% chance I would ever have watched this for my own amusement (that 1% comes from a very charming gifset of a scene which I presume is from the latest season; I’ll tell you what it was when we get there). One season in, I can say this much: I’m not mad y’all got me on to this. It’s weird and different, but it’s not painful (except, often, when Greg is around - we started on such good terms in the premiere but at this point I honestly loathe him). Against my better judgment and typical inclination, I am interested to see where it all ends up, working with the idea that as much as the driving force of the series from the outside appears to be romance, internally it’s really about these messy characters figuring themselves out and and changing their strange little mundane lives for the better. The first step on the road to improvement is self-awareness, on which subject...

...the main barrier I encountered in really getting into this show and relaxing to enjoy it is the issue of narrative trust, which is all about believing that the story is going to unravel and analyse its own content in a thorough, intelligent, and valuable way. Narrative trust is essential regardless of context; the same as you need it in order to sell the viewer on extravagant bizarro world-building for an intergalactic sci-fi story, you also need it in order to convince them that it’s worth exploring the comparatively small-fry and banal character motivations in a prescription rom-com. As a part of its initial conceit, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend promises to deconstruct its own deliberately-inflammatory title (it makes this promise at the beginning of every episode, in its annoying opening title sequence); Rebecca’s mental state and the journey it takes her on is the core of the narrative, and we are being asked to trust that the show will follow through on the unraveling and analysing of that content. For the most part, it does follow through, but it also intermittently falls short in two key arenas which lead to the damaged narrative trust: tonal consistency, and secondary character reinforcement.

When I was five episodes in, I discussed this show with a friend who had watched for a while (he wasn’t sure how far in he got, in the end) before eventually giving up; at that point, I wasn’t sure what to say about the show or even if I considered myself to be enjoying it, and my friend agreed that the problem I was having was the same problem that made him quit the show: tonal confusion. Part of that is about being unsure at times whether you’re being invited to laugh at Rebecca, or just at the situation; at times the show seems to make light of extremely serious emotional issues, and at others it is very sympathetic to Rebecca’s struggles; sometimes disturbing behaviour is not framed by the narrative as being worth calling out, and then sometimes, the chastisement Rebecca receives feels undeserved, over-the-top, or unfair to the wider context of her mental state. The inclusion of musical numbers can occasionally contribute to the tonal inconsistency in a big way, as some of the more shoe-horned in pieces come out of nowhere, do not revolve around topics of vital importance to the episode, or the style of the music itself can be un-ironically incongruous with the mood of the scene (and sometimes it’s just...a bad time to interrupt with a song). Basically, tonal inconsistency can nullify standard narrative conventions and the expectations we are trained to associate with them, because we can’t predict intention; is this cliche meaningful, or incidental? Are they going to acknowledge it at all, and if they don’t, is it deliberate, or an oversight? Are they going to subvert it, or play it straight? A consistent tone means that we can trust the narrative to handle content in a specific way, and in turn we can decide if that’s something we want to return for episode after episode, or not. This is also something that can significantly impact the perception of the show’s approach to social issues, as the spotty follow-up on acknowledged challenges for women can give the impression of paying lip service rather than actually delving in to the problem; you just don’t know if this is gonna be an episode that could be bothered to analyse its own content, or if it’s gonna brush it off; and if it does brush it off, is it because the creators don’t believe that issue is really important, or is exploring it just inconvenient to the story they’re telling right now? You just can’t trust the answer to be the same twice in a row, and consequently, the reaction to a new plot thread or subject is more likely to be apprehension at not knowing where this is headed, instead of engaged interest in going along for the ride to find out.

A big contributor to tonal inconsistency (and a victim of the same, in a feedback-loop kind of way) is secondary character reinforcement, by which I mean, the reinforcement of themes or behavioural standards for the protagonist as reflected by secondary characters. Paula is the character who most fully exemplifies this, as she encourages Rebecca’s worst impulses (including getting angry with her or ignoring her wishes when Rebecca tries to exercise self-restraint or break unhealthy patterns), she commits various criminal acts (some with Rebecca, but also some without Rebecca’s knowledge), and she invades the privacy of almost every character involved in the situation and even takes steps to manufacture their behaviour without their knowledge. Paula’s obsession with Rebecca’s love-life is often more terrifying and troublesome than Rebecca’s obsession with Josh, and while the show at times acknowledges that Paula is being outrageous, it pretty consistently fails to actually call out that behaviour or brand it as Bad News on the same level as anything Rebecca does - Paula’s behaviour is mostly put forward as overzealous but, eh, normal enough. The show holds Rebecca to a completely different standard of behaviour, and narratively punishes her for overstepping those bounds even as the character next to her leaps straight past the same barrier without a word. And Paula isn’t the only one - Greg is the other big sinner in terms of unchallenged poor behaviour, and his smug self-righteousness and tendency to be packaged as some kind of down-on-his-luck ‘complicated intellectual’ (as if that earns him special allowances for being a total prat) is what makes me so much more infuriated by his character (also, it’s a sexist double-standard to allow Greg more moral leeway for his ‘issues’, most of which are just self-generated prideful whinings). And then there are issues like Rebecca’s mother being let off the hook for intense life-long emotional abuse because she said she was just doing it to toughen Rebecca up, as if that makes severe psychological damage acceptable, or Valencia’s abusively controlling attitude with Josh, which I spent the entire season waiting to have explicitly denounced only to end up with her dumping him for not delivering the marriage proposal she had decided she deserved (something which the show kinda approached as reasonable, as if Josh ‘owed’ Valencia marriage after they’d been together for so long). When the show calls out some behaviour but is curiously mute on others, and when some characters are held to different standards to the rest, consistency takes a hit, and narrative trust runs a little short. If you’re left frustrated by hypocritical or contradictory attitudes and you can’t tell if some things are going uncontested for a reason or just out of ignorance, that’s not a good state to be in when you’re trying to also enjoy something. And in the context of this blog, the lack of narrative trust often led me to dismiss progressive-sounding lines or moments because I had no faith in the idea that the show meant what it said or was gonna follow through with relevant action.

As is often the case with complaints, the above probably sounds like a more dire flaw than it is in practice (I say probably; depends if they fix the issue or not, because if it persists across the series it could be crippling). The good news is, there was still plenty to like in season one, some good character development and emotional exploration that I hope is bolstered in the long-term as the show continues, and there was that one thing which really genuinely surprised and impressed me, which was Darryl’s bisexual coming-out. I figured the show would give us a token gay (and I’d picked White Josh as the one long before he was revealed to be so), but I did not expect that to be paired with the revelations of a second queer character, let alone that the journey of that character’s sexuality would be so low-key and wonderful. Darryl wades through some ugly internalised homophobia in order to make peace with himself, but that conflict doesn’t create drama; it creates hesitance. White Josh accepts no shit and protects himself from being hurt by Darryl’s discovery process, but he is also unfailingly understanding, highlighting the issues with Darryl’s thinking without getting personally offended or losing his temper, giving Darryl the tools to mend his problems on his own terms without ever revoking his support in the meantime. Because the subplot is so undramatic, it’s easy to overlook just how healthy it is, and it is able to dig in to a variety of real troubles that people may often encounter in actual life, but without painting those troubles as all-encompassing soul-destroying growing pains inevitably associated with coming out and/or living as a queer person in our society. We really need more of that in the world, more acknowledgment of the nuance that goes beyond garden-variety open bigotry, and especially more queer stories that are complicated without being depressing. The tact and attention to detail in Darryl and White Josh’s story is the single thing, above all others, which gives me hope for the future of Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. It may yet earn my trust.

[berniesrevolution]

JACOBIN MAGAZINE

“In political activity . . . men sail a boundless and bottomless sea; there is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place nor appointed destination. The enterprise is to keep afloat on an even keel.”

―Michael Oakeshott

Probably no one of my generation and background will forget where they were on the evening of November 4, 2008. Outside my then-residence at the University of Toronto, people streamed into the quad with tears running down their faces. It was a moment like no other I have experienced. The seemingly impossible had happened: Barack Obama had been elected president of the United States. Within minutes of CNN projecting the result, a collective feeling that was equal parts euphoria and disbelief seemed to burst forth all over. It took weeks, maybe even months, to dissipate.

The election of Barack Obama certainly isn’t my first political memory, but it may well have been my first really formative one. As embarrassing as it is to write more than a decade later, I’ll readily admit to having been swallowed up in the excitement and emotionally sold on the romantic promise of “Change We Can Believe In.” It offered a compelling narrative incorporating everything my political imagination craved at the time: an image of progress as I then understood it; a charismatic leader to take us out of the darkness and into the promised land; the negation of the hated Bush presidency and all it stood for, from the reign of the Christian Right and its dimwitted rubes to the evils of Fallujah and Abu Ghraib. I wasn’t even American, but Obama’s victory still felt like a moment of grand, even historic, affirmation.

I bring this up not because I have since become a left-wing writer and seek penance, or want to issue some embarrassed mea culpa (we were all nineteen once), nor as part of some reductive effort to trace the roots of my own politicization back to a single event or moment. I came to my politics the way most people do: by way of a confused and often contradictory jumble of ideas and idioms gradually clarified through learning and experience.

On a basic level, I am a socialist because I simply cannot fathom reconciling myself to a society where so many needlessly suffer because of circumstances beyond their control; where human dignity is distributed on the basis of luck and a social caste system is allowed to permeate every aspect of daily life; and where all of this is considered perfectly normal and acceptable in a civilization that has split the atom and sent people to the Moon.

But while it would be nice to attribute everything about my politics to pure moral sentiment, it would be a lie. Because the less noble truth, if I’m honest with myself and the reader, is that something else has played a formative role in animating my politics and anchoring me on the Left: namely, a searing dislike for liberalism as the hegemonic outlook in our culture and a deep, abiding disdain towards the political class that so self-righteously upholds it.

Maybe I was predisposed to democratic socialism; I always considered myself to be “on the Left,” even as a teenager. In any case, it’s become clear in retrospect that watching the liberal class respond to events over the past decade has been a powerful stimulus in my politicization.

Which is to say, I didn’t acquire radical politics simply through reading Marx in college (though it certainly aided the process). Nor did I become irredeemably frustrated with liberalism merely by absorbing some abstract argument about its flaws. I didn’t have a Road to Damascus revelation while thumbing through some volume by Chomsky or David Harvey. And while I would certainly count them as formative to my political evolution, it wasn’t the likes of Ralph Miliband and Tony Benn — let alone Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbyn — who ultimately imbued me with a burning hatred for anything and everything that calls itself “moderate” or “centrist.”

No, that instinct owes much more to watching Barack Obama summon forth a tidal wave of popular goodwill, then proceed to invite the same old cadre of apparatchiks and financiers back into the White House to carry on business as usual despite the most punishing economic crisis since the Great Depression; to seeing the “war on terror” become a permanent fixture of the global landscape long after its original architects had been booted from the halls of power, courtesy of supposedly enlightened humanitarians; to witnessing a potentially monumental hunger for change be sacrificed on the altar of managerialism and technocratic respectability. It comes from watching a smiling Nick Clegg stand next to David Cameron in the Rose Garden at Number 10 Downing Street before rubber-stamping a series of lacerating cuts to Britain’s welfare state and betraying a generation of students in the process; to seeing the dexterity by which Canada’s liberals gesture to the left then govern from the right; and from seeing the radical demands of global anti-austerity movements endlessly whittled down and regurgitated as neoliberal slam poetry to be recited at Davos by the hip young innovators du jour.

These triangulations, and many others like them, helped me realize that the malaise was the product of a congenital trait rather than a temporary blip. The problem, in other words, wasn’t that contemporary liberalism was failing to live up to its ideals, but that it was living up to them all too well.

From an early age I had been trained by mainstream political culture to think of liberalism as an orientation synonymous with change, progress, even dissent. This, in theory at least, remains its official branding in our moment of looming climate catastrophe and ascendent right-wing nationalism. Yet throughout the particularly dark decade spanning 2008–2018 liberals have positioned themselves as the persistent agents of caution, hesitation, and reassurance, often directing greater hostility towards constituencies on the Left than those on the Right to which they are ostensibly opposed. Faced with the choice between a radical, populist figure and an orthodox machine politician in 2016, the executive officers at Liberalism Inc. made this antipathy all too clear — and we are now living the disastrous consequences.

In an era where a deranged former reality star possesses nuclear launch codes, many liberal elites still adamantly insist that things have actually never been better and that, beneath the chaos of our tumultuous present, the species is doggedly marching in a straight line towards Something Very Exciting Indeed. (This is why the beaming Steven Pinker, not the dour Jordan Peterson, is arguably the figure who best reflects our liberal order in crisis — watching the world burn around him and proclaiming like some postmodern Professor Pangloss as the flames lick his feet that, actually, this is fine.)

(Continue Reading)

[elliesrandomessays-blog]

Let's talk about Bowsette as a trans icon.

This post/essay/think-piece/idological-wankery (delete where appropriate) is going to assume you know who Bowsette is. The Bowsette hype train has already come and gone in less than a month so I'm late to the party by this point; if you're reading this some time in the far future for some reason you may want to go do some quick googling as a refresher (might want to keep safe-search on).

Laying my own context on the table: I'm a Trans woman.

The sudden and widespread proliferation of Bowsette has been nothing short of inexplicable. Off the top of my head her rise to temporary dominance in the Mario fanbase is unlike anything before her. The closest two examples that come to mind are Coldsteel the Hedgehog from the Sonic fanbase and Doctor Whooves of My Little Pony fame. But those two characters don't posses the same invisible origins. Coldsteel was a meme, an intentional parody of the fan-creation phenomenon that has lead to the "_____ the hedgehog" game being the most fun you can have with google, and Doctor Whooves (while his personality and backstory are a fan construction) was still based on a background extra who was originally conceived by the show, not its fans. Bowsette's original was in no way directly provoked. The Super Crown was revealed as a tool that can turn Toadette in to Peach, some random twitter user made a standard fan comic where the crown was given to Bowser, and people took to it.

And because we live in 2018, it naturally got sexual very fast. A friend of mine once said "I like Bowsette, but I'm not a fan of the male-gazey-ness" (not quoted verbatim) and that sums it up nicely. There is a lot of porn of Bowsette out there, and now that her icon as a fun novelty character has passed her time as the champion of fan-created erotic pin-ups has begun. Bowsette has become one of the most notable times where a fictional character who is arguably transgender has entered the male gaze as an icon of sexuality whilst not having an undercurrent of fetishism to it. There's no great calling for Bowsette porn where she has a penis. The only ever reference to her Bowser-based past is for some occasional gags which aren't constructed to shame the contrast between Bowser and Bowsette. And the wide variety of the feminine traits and masculine traits in her various portrayals show a very neutral pallet of preconceptions her the artists and fans are going in with. I say arguably because we're only talking symbolically, not literally. Unless we ever got an explanation of the mechanics of Toadette's Super Crown then there's no literal grounding for this analysis. Keep all that in mind, we're talking symbolically.

The fact that no one in Bowsette's fanbase really seems to care about this fact is actually kind of fantastic news for Trans folk out there. The inherent problem with attempting to get Trans representation is one that is hard to talk about seriously thanks to the fact it's the same argument people use for why there shouldn't be representation: it's hard to naturally include it in backstory without making it feel either too-defining or tacked-on. The longterm goal of Trans representation is paradoxically to make our own representation invisible; to try and reach a point where the fact a character could be Trans is textually irrelevant to what the audience is expected to think about them. For example: were there a blockbuster film released tomorrow where a character who presented male is the protagonist, then in a flashback scene the same character were to be presenting as female pretransition and that fact never brought up again, we'd all throw up our hands and applause the representation that we have a Trans lead character, since that is bringing us closer to a world where the exact same setup just makes us go "yeah, I guess".

Bowsette's symbolic transition is a part of who she is, and there'll always been that little pink crown on her head as a reminder of that, but it's not a *defining* part of who she is, and that's what's so important. It's the logical middle step between the seemingly contradictory states of "They're trans, hurrah!" and "They're trans, K." And the fact she's been taken too with both hands (or one hand, with the other heading pants-ward) shows it's working. Nuance often requires we remember that a group is in reality multiple uniquely operating consciousnesses but it's often helpful when wanting to gauge direction to imagine communities as a single person. And in this case the 'person' of society is happy to ignore the whole 'used to be Bowser' thing and just enjoy Bowsette for who she is. This has done wonders for my own self-esteem and I can't imagine I'm alone. Often times I've had trouble thinking of myself as a sexual being thanks to being Trans. Times where I've felt it have always felt *against* that fact, or when I'm lucky *in spite* of being Trans. Even though my partner has been good at reassuring me that they really don't care when it comes to getting freaky and she doesn't think like that; it doesn't stop the fact that media has taught me to think that she can only think of me sexually in the context of being Trans. Bowsette's reputation has been one of the first concrete pieces of evidence that maybe my partner is right and it is perfectly okay for me to be proud of my sexuality without that risk of inherent fetishism.

Of course this doesn't come problem free. Whilst the case for the Super Crown being read as a substitute for transition is one worth considering, it's still an oversimplification of the process to an unhelpful degree. It views the difference between Bowser and Bowsette as a binary state, the whole character shifts from the Bowser body to the Bowsette body with a simple operation. Trans persons in media have always had this concept floating around them that once the decision is made it's a single procedure and you're rockin' an hourglass physique. In reality it's a lifelong arduous grind towards some non-existence idea of what we need to be. Moving from one end of the gender spectrum to the other is not a linear progression but asymptotic, I have to spend the rest of my life with constant injection, pills, procedures and therapies that will forever bring me 'closer' but will never get me 'there'. Embracing Bowsette as-is as a great example of what a symbolically Trans character should be is going to come with a further perpetuation of the simplicity, and I know there will be people out there who won't want to include her because they feel the simplicity problem is bad enough without us accepting a character who's feeding in to it. But as we all know, the capacity for nuance goes down as the size of the group gets bigger and we need to take Bowsette with a grain of salt much like how we need to think of everything more critically than we tend to. That debate is more than worth having.

Obviously I'm not begrudging the existence of Bowsette directly because of this. We're talking about an extrapolation of an extrapolation, we're so far removed from the original intention of the Super Crown that trying to pin any of the negative consequences of Bowsette on the Crown is like blaming the Cow because your White-Chocolate Mocha tastes funny, but it's worthy context to consider when looking at what Bowsette means in the grander scale of where society considers Trans persons.

Bowsette hasn't magically removed all preconceptions of the life of a Transgender person: her sexuality not being considered a Transgender fetish isn't stopping the fact she's still in the 'fetish' category for other reasons, her non-canon nature means that the impact is only indicative of societal conceptions rather than corporate ones where much more of the battle still needs to be fought, and I've somewhat oversimplified how much of the fanbase truly *is* on board with Bowsette (it pains me greatly that the Waluigi fanbase is one of the notable ones with the conservative attitude towards her). But god damn she's interesting, and more than enough for now.

[kingdomofthelogos]

Real Holiness Is Not an Act

Read Mark 12

Download a printable version here.

Mark 12:38-44 offers us two distinct images of how people try to grasp the Kingdom of God: there are the scribes who seek attention but have no real goodness in their hearts, yet a humble widow is faithfully running her race well. For those who boast through moral scams which make them appear more virtuous than they really are, they will receive a severe condemnation for their wickedness. However, God is blessed by those who are willing to entrust their livelihood to him. The harder one tries to grip the Kingdom of God with greedy and untrue fingers, the more they will find it slipping away; but those who come to God in honest supplication will find a greater freedom than the world could ever offer. 

Christian living presents us with many seemingly paradoxical things, such as the teaching that those who seek to save their lives will lose it while those who lose their life for Christ will find it, those who seek to be great will be last and those who seek to serve will be great, those who suffer will find joy, and even the idea that those who love God above their neighbor will actually end up loving their neighbors more than if they had placed them first. Romans 8:13 embodies many of these seemingly contradictory statements: for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. The reason why these things often seem paradoxical is because they are taken out of order, and once we recognize they are a part of an order of importance, then they start to make good sense.

Putting ideas in their proper order is very important to holy living. Moreover, it is very important to truthful and critical thinking. The reason why a great many things are untrue is because they are out of place. It is true that fruit is good for food; however, for Adam and Eve that fact was beneath the rule God set against a tree. Therefore, removing the idea that fruit is good for food from its place in God’s order can open the door for sin, and it can do so while sounding completely correct.  2 Corinthians 6:16-18 teaches an order of God’s Temple: I will live in them and walk among them,  and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.17 Therefore come out from them, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch nothing unclean;  then I will welcome you, 18 and I will be your father, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” This passage exemplifies the important order of how we are adopted into God’s Family and how He wants to dwell among us so that we can be clean and whole.

Romans 8:14-17 reads: 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 It is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. This passage illustrates the goodness of being adopted into the Family of God. God’s love desires us to be family who persevere together and thereby become joint heirs with Christ. The purpose of God’s love is not to take away our mirrors, but to make us look at who we are so that we can overcome the failures in our lives and be reborn with Christ who is without sin.

Revelation 20:4 paints a picture of what holy people really look like: Then I saw thrones, and those seated on them were given authority to judge. I also saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony to Jesus and for the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. Do we think that Jesus has raised unholy people from the dead? That He chose unreliable people who preferred to appear holy rather than actually live faithful lives? That He found souls of those who were nominally Christian to reign with Him? No. Clearly, Jesus has chosen holy people; moreover, the standard for holiness here is of a people who were willing to stand with Jesus against idolatry all the way to the point of death. This might seem simple, but it is very rare that people are willing to do this. 

2 Corinthians 7:1 states since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and of spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God. With this both verse and Revelation 20:4 in mind, let us return to the Widow in Mark 12. She was willing to trust her livelihood to God, and Jesus does not even specify what her reward will be in return. Not only does Jesus abstain from specifying her reward after the faithful deed, nothing was said about a potential reward before the act either. She has put aside all temptations to hold on her own livelihood and trust her life to God. Just as those in Revelation trusted their souls to God in rejection of the beast and its image, this widow displayed such holy commitment.

Holiness calls us to entrust our livelihoods to God. We might debate about what temperament, education, and stories of discipleship we possess, but Scripture teaches us that when the hour draws nigh, there are many more people who possess the appearance of holiness than there are people who will actually trust their lives to God. There are more people who can recite correct doctrine than there are those that can live it, there are more who can sound polite in public than those who will stand firm when the hour is late. Both the Widow and those beheaded by the beast exemplify this truth.

When we observe how many stay beside Christ on the cross we find this fact again, for only a handful of women and two men were willing to stand by the Lord in His hour of death; furthermore, the two men, being Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea, were described as being a secret disciple and one who came by night. They may not have sounded like the most faithful based on their personal histories, biographies, and credentials; yet, when the hour came they were the only two men who stood. We do well to appreciate the magnitude of trusting one’s life to God, and that real holiness does not founder when the hour is late.

It is one thing to think about the Law, Scripture, or even the Christian disciplines in theory, but it is another thing to truly live them in the world around us. It is not uncommon for people to fall short near the finish line, for people to grow weary in the dark valley. Yet, the widow was faithful; moreover, being a widow she is neither wealthy nor likely to be young. She is running her race well and seeing it through to the end. Her story is very much like Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac, or Jochebed lowering the infant Moses in the water. To truly trust your livelihood to God is a scarce act.

Those who try to hold on to their lives, to declare themselves to be a god who is capable of defining what is and is not good and true, they will find themselves separated from goodness and truth. Those who try to grasp wealth and hold onto will find their hands empty. Even those who try to cling onto the Kingdom of God using their terms rather than respecting God’s order, they will find it to have slipped through their fingers. Yet, those who are willing to conform their will to Christ in rejection of their self-proclaimed ambitions and ungodly wiles, they will find joy that can never be stolen.

[moonlitgleek]

I would love to hear all of your book!feelings on book!Ned's teachings about "he man who passes the sentence should swing the sword"! 💕

Oh, you’re kicking my butt into gear here, Lauren. I’ve been planning a post about this very subject but I’ve only gotten to the point of throwing random sentences into my drafts and shaking my fist at the sky. Which surprisingly was not productive at all. Shocker!

But gosh, that scene!! I just love that scene so very much. Bar the prologue, this is the very first chapter of the whole series, the one that gave us the first glimpse of the Starks and started building their characters and the story at large. And the beauty of George’s writing is that that one scene between Ned and Bran perfectly encapsulates the ethos of Ned Stark, the character whose ideology drives the entire narrative whether through his teachings living through his kids, or through the legacy he left behind, or through one of his most defining acts: saving the infant that would grow up to be crucial to the survival of mankind. That scene crystallizes Ned’s characterization in one single conversation, which is one of the reason I find fandom’s tendency to decontextualize the phrase “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword” and only focus on this one phrase out of the entire scene so minimizing to Ned’s character, in addition to being a misinterpretation of the message he meant to convey.

On its face, and if taken out of context, that phrase can send a contradictory message to its core meaning. Simply saying that the Stark way necessitates that you swing the sword yourself restricts the message to a simplified uber-macho exclamation of “we Starks do our own killing” *slaps chest because masculinity*, which completely loses the entire conversation between Bran and Ned its meaning. Mind you, there is a gendered overlay to the scene because this is Ned having a conversation with his seven-year-old child after said child watched an execution, which carries the idea that this is a rite of passage for Bran, an immersion in a violent culture that glorifies violence and attaches so much weight to men doing violent activities that it becomes the mark for bravery, masculinity and leadership. But I actually think that the true message of this scene defies Westerosi martial mores that glories in violence, because while Ned is essentially instructing Bran to kill by his own hand which is a violent activity, he is actively rejecting such sentiments as “a dead enemy is a thing of beauty” and “a bloody sword is a beautiful thing”. Ned’s intent fights against glorifying violence and against attaching a beautifying veneer to it, and instead calls for facing the actual truth of what taking a life is and demands it be treated as the monumental thing it is. In that scene with Bran, Ned is calling for recognition for the value of life.

“King Robert has a headsman,” [Bran] said, uncertainly.  “He does,“ his father admitted. “As did the Targaryen kings before him. Yet our way is the older way. The blood of the First Men still flows in the veins of the Starks, and we hold to the belief that the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man’s life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die. “One day, Bran, you will be Robb’s bannerman, holding a keep of your own for your brother and your king, and justice will fall to you. When that day comes, you must take no pleasure in the task, but neither must you look away. A ruler who hides behind paid executioners soon forgets what death is.”

The lesson here lies in why Ned teaches that “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword”, not just the physical act itself. If Ned’s lesson was about how killing someone yourself is the definitive mark of a good leader, or a “proper” Stark, he would not have elaborated with the explanation of why the Starks follow the old way or sought to confirm that Bran understood the rationale behind it. Ned’s lesson is far more about taking personal responsibility for your decisions no matter how hard that is and not hiding behind others to do your dirty work than it is about the actual act of swinging the sword. It is about recognizing the value of life and how the decision to take one should never be easy or simple. It is about treating the enormity of taking a life with the respect and consideration it deserves. This is an active refusal to become desensitized to death and to the act of taking a life. And that refusal does not come without a cost. We see the toll taking a life has on Ned as he seeks the quiet and peace of the godswood - seeking an intimately spiritual place where he cleanses his soul as he cleanses his sword from the blood that stains it - in the aftermath of taking a life. But he still chooses to shoulder that responsibility despite the cost to his psyche. It would be so easy for him to pass off that burden to someone else, to spare himself the unease of taking a life. But, well, “don’t look away”. It might be easier but it can and does come with the risk of making one complacent, and of making it easier to run away from or deny the responsibility of their actions. Ned stands against that complacency and against distancing oneself from the reality of what condemning a man to die is. He stands against the detachment that makes ordering death become such an easy thing, abstract to the point of not even registering anymore. That complacency and that detachment can lead a person to cease to see the worth of people’s lives, to see people and instead start seeing them as things: collateral damage to wars, fodder in the quest of personal glory, livestock with no importance or abstract number of casualties on a piece of paper.

Which is why I think “the man who passes the sentence should swing the sword” should be taken more symbolically than literally. Ned did mean for his sons to swing the sword themselves, but the actual physical act, in and of itself, is not the main point. It is only significant as far as being a method for Ned to hold himself accountable for his decisions and that is the honorable lesson he imparts to his sons. But dealing the killing blow is not inherently honorable, neither does it automatically make a person appreciate life or not forget what death is.

Indeed we see evidence of that in Ilyn Payne, someone who swings the sword and thus seemingly fit what Ned says but that’s only if we go by surface reading of Ned’s words. But Payne falls short of the actual meaning of Ned’s lesson as he “cares for naught but killing”, which is why Ned refers to him as a butcher. Now, people might not be dying by Payne’s word but they are dying by his hand which makes him just as responsible for those lives as the person giving the sentence. Ser Ilyn’s attitude regarding his job actually carries shades of dehumanization to the people dying on his sword as they get reduced to being heads for the headsman to cut off. Payne does not care about whether his orders are just or not, right or not; he does not care in the slightest about the lives he is ending. He certainly did not care about Ned and how unjust his execution was when he flung him down to die by his own sword. That’s the complete opposite of what Ned advocating for, despite the physical act seemingly meeting his standards.

Similarly, Jaime Lannister boasts to Catelyn about doing his own killing so he is another who swings the sword and doesn’t get another to do his dirty work for him. But does Jaime take responsibility for the lives he ended? Does he care about them outside of how they might affect his self-image? Daryn Hornwood, the Karstark brothers and the Winterfell guards who were murdered on his orders would beg to differ. Both these men (and Ned’s distaste for them) makes it perfectly clear that the interpretation that swinging the sword is the part that matters in Ned’s teachings, that Ned attaches honor to this simple physical act with no additional qualifiers, is way too simplistic and shallow - swinging the sword means nothing if it is not supported by the lesson about accountability and what is owed to the person getting executed.

Ned’s words are also more than just a call for accountability; they are also a call for compassion, for treating people as people, for treating every single life like it matters regardless of any other consideration. Ned is showing respect, even in executing criminals who legally deserve it, because their existence as human beings demands it. It’s their right as human beings. And Ned, at his core, is a compassionate and merciful man who cares which is why he recognizes the cost of life and agonizes over taking one, which is honestly rare in a society such as Westeros that glorifies violence, and for a guy who has been a part of two bloody wars, saw a lot of death and killed people by his own hand.

In a way, this is a defiant rejection of Westerosi tendency to attribute glory to wars and violent skills. Not a complete one, no, because Ned is still a part of said society and is employing and enforcing the rules it dictates, and that society ties accountability and the rule of the law to capital punishment. So Ned does kill people when he has to since he believes in accountability, the rule of the law and worthy causes, but he does not find it glorifying, he does not take pleasure in it, he does not allow it to take away his humanity or theirs. He faces the bitter reality of what taking a life is and accepts the weight and the mark it leaves on his soul, because he recognizes that ending a life is an enormous act and he will treat it with the due respect and consideration it deserves.

And that is the ethos of Ned Stark, that recognition of common humanity and how that’s deserving of respect no matter what. He lives by that sentiment, not just in how he rules the North or metes out justice, but also in how he  treats the people in his household. It’s not for nothing that Ned’s habit of seating one of his servants at the high table and showing genuine care and interest in their work and lives is contrasted by Tywin Lannister’s greatest think-piece “you feed your dog bones under the table, you do not seat him beside you on the high bench.”. Ned refuses that dehumanization in every aspect in his life. He defies the tendency we see from other lords, from Robert Baratheon to Tywin Lannister to Randyll Tarly, to dehumanize people and treat them as insignificant making it so easy to disregard their rights, their suffering and even their very lives. If the lords can’t even recognize the personhood of someone, how can they care about their lives?

Personally, I find Ned’s call for personal accountability and recognition for the value of life and the way he leads by example, holding himself and his sons to it first before expecting it from others, so poignant in a series filled with people trying to evade being held responsible for their own actions and choices. Robert makes it an art form: walking away after ordering Lady killed and letting Mycah get run down fully knowing that Joffrey was lying; putting his abuse of Cersei on Cersei herself, or on the wine, or on random celestial happenings in the sky; seeing Joffrey’s cruelty and entitlement and violence as Cersei’s fault, and Cersei fault alone; using a transparent veneer of being concerned about the realm to mask the cowardice and dishonor of sending an assassin after a pregnant teenager and her unborn child; dehumanizing three innocents and letting their murder go unpunished but liking that he could hold to the illusion of righteousness, etc.

Tywin Lannisters uses plausible deniability to claim clean hands when he is getting toddlers and women and unarmed men butchered on his orders. Theon blames the victims who died as a result of his choices for their own murder in ACoK, keeps thinking of how he has no choice, and continues to try and distance himself from the responsibility in ADWD. Jaime puts the blame of flinging Bran out of a window on Bran’s snooping and on Cersei, and of him potentially storming Riverrun to force a surrender–with what this entails of breaking his vow to Catelyn–on the Blackfish. Barristan Selmy and Arys Oakheart try and excuse their inaction in the face of blatant tyranny by hiding behind vows of obedience and claims of duty and honorable service. There is so much of that in the series, so for Ned’s proclamation of the importance of personal accountability to come in the series’ very first chapter really sets the tone of the narrative, and is the first piece of commentary on an ongoing rejection of the eraser of one’s responsibility for their own actions under any pretense, not oaths of obedience, not corrupt systems, not corrupt institutions or overlords. Ned is at the heart of asoiaf precisely because his is a voice that argues against apathy and passivity in a society rife with them.

That compassion and that regard for life that Ned shows is the make of his legacy not just in terms of his image in the eyes of the Northmen and how it makes them fight in his name, but also in how he passes on these teachings to his children. It’s in Robb’s insistence not to let the murder of Willem Lannister and Tion Frey go unpunished and his refusal of Theon’s torture at Ramsay’s hand. It’s in Sansa’s rejection of the Lannister dehumanizing ideology and instinctive defense of Ser Dontos. It’s in Arya’s fierce protection of Weasel and her refusal to turn a blind eye as people she knows to have committed horrific crimes die a slow agonizing death. It’s in Bran’s attempts to reach out and help a tortured Theon. It’s in Jon’s adamant advocacy for the common humanity of the free folk (”what are these wildlings if not men?” THIS IS EVERYTHING NED HAS BEEN ADVOCATING FOR) and his refusal to abandon them to be trapped prey to the Others.

Those kids care which is why they will make a difference in the fate and future of Westeros, all because Dad taught them not to look away.