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smhalltheurlsaretaken · 3 years

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Sorry but what exactly is up with the bad batch arc? I've heard people talk about the issues with echo's white skin but I haven't heard that many bad things about the arc itself? (ik you said you don't want to be negative on your blog so I would absolutely understand if you didn't answer this ask)

Oooooooooooh boy. Well I just had a long, long, LONG rant about it with someone, but I guess I’ve got an excuse to put all of my points onto a post and talk about it publicly now that I got an ask x) I’ll keep it under the cut so I don’t throw my salt in people’s face. I really don’t want to upset people who love that arc - it has redeeming qualities, but overall it pisses me off so much for so many reasons. So here:

The first issue is obviously two members of the Bad Batch (minus Echo) being being just about the furthest thing from maori no matter how much you're willing to stretch it.

Like... yeah, nah. I wouldn’t even accept Crosshair and Tech (grey haired guy and goggles guy) as Jango’s natural biological sons, nevermind as his clones.

The problem is that their different appearances are justified by them being described simply as clones with desirable mutations (i.e superpowers). But why the hell did the creators have to change their appearances for that to be a thing? How does that correlate? Sure, the concept of clones with different faces is interesting, except... no, no it’s not, and I’m gonna rant about it in a few secs. But basically it's like they thought giving them different faces would be a good substitute for having different personalities (another thing I’ll come back to). If they really wanted to have buff clones with super eyesight or whatnot they could have just done that, without making them lose what little melanin the lighting of the show had allowed the other Clones to keep.

But the gigantic problem is... showing that the "regular" clones have VERY distinct identities despite their identical faces has been one of the themes of the show from episode 1. Literally, the first episode of TCW has Yoda taking time out of a mission with galactic stakes to tell the three clones he’s with (who tell him they’re all the same because they have the same faces) that they’re wrong, and that they’re very different in the Force, that their appearance doesn’t matter, that they’re all equally unique and important, and he lists all of their individual skills, strengths and weaknesses.

And it’s not just me being bothered by that, here’s a post by @cacodaemonia saying the same thing.

Introducing the Bad Batch as "unique" clones who are "different" and "not like their brothers" because they have different faces and skills completely breaks that theme of the show!! Because the entire point of the Clones in TCW is that their faces don't matter, they ARE unique!

(Plus the Bad Batch’s character designs are so cliche and uninspired it’s just laughable to try and justify bleaching their freaking skin for the sake of visual diversity.

This took like 10 seconds. I found the first guy by literally googling “soldier movies,” and the other two are Team Fortress characters that look a LOT like Wrecker and Crosshair. One is “Heavy” and one is “Sniper” lmao.

And behold:

The above picture is a Team Fortress reference that I found just by looking up “bad batch clone wars,” so I’m not the only person who sees it.)

And the batchers don't even have personalities to justify calling them unique! They have no character traits beyond the most cliché american soldier tropes ever. We have a token loner sniper, a token "smart tech guy" who knows everything from xenoanthropology to biology to Separatist computers to sound waves to encryption, a token Badass Brooding Leader and a token “dumb muscle guy.”

I dare anyone to find more about their personalities than this: - Crosshair is the perpetually grumpy sniper who looks down on "regs,” - Wrecker likes to blow up stuff and doesn't like heights, - Hunter is the leader and is friends with Cody, - Tech is smart doesn't trust Echo.

That’s it, that’s literally it. Four episodes about them and that's all we get. These character tropes are literally the least inventive ever. FFS, Hunter even has a freaking KNIFE! Not a vibroblade, mind you, like in kriffing Star Wars. A knife. Against metal droids. Why. They couldn’t make this more of an american-war-movies cliché fest if they tried. (And sure, he can feel electromagnetic waves so maybe it does make sense for him not to carry a vibroblade and maybe this is nitpicking, but he looks like a ripoff of a Predator character and it pisses me off).

Another thing is that when you introduce characters you have to make them likable - and them despising the normal Clones is a terrible way to do that! And they don't even grow from that because at the end of the 4 episodes arc they just see Rex as not bad "for a reg" and they see Echo as no longer a reg, and both of these things are infuriating!

The worst thing imo is that Echo then becomes part of them (and irreparably loses his melanin in the process, uuuuuuuuugh) when there is nothing to justify this.

The dialogue goes like this:

ECHO: You coming? TECH: Not really our thing. CROSSHAIR: Accolades. WRECKER: Yeah, we're just in it for the thrill. Yo! HUNTER: You sure it's your thing? ECHO: What do you mean? HUNTER: Your path is different. Like ours. If you ever feel like you don't fit in with them, well, find us. (they leave) REX: Those are some of the finest troopers I've ever fought alongside. Echo. You and I go way back. If that's where you feel your place is, then that's where you belong.

Echo doesn't feel like he belongs anymore, okay, but why would he feel like he belongs with the assholes who up to the last five minutes of the mission thought he was probably a traitor, and also verbally expressed that he was not worth saving?? In all of the arc, Echo himself never voices that he feels he’s not ‘like the other Clones’ anymore and that he feels it’s a problem. His relationship with Rex immediately picks up where they left things off - the first thing he does upon being lucid again for the first in over a year is cracking a joke for Rex’s benefit.

Why would Echo feel like he doesn’t belong in the 501st anymore, when we don't even see him interacting with anyone from his past life except for Rex and Anakin (who are both extremely very supportive of him)?? If there had been one scene of a “regular” Clone (ugh) looking at him with horror and disgust or something, or just Kix and Jesse cracking jokes with Echo awkwardly standing by the side not getting it, I could forgive the show trying to make it feel like he has an identity crisis, but this was so shallow!

The only thing that makes Echo and the Bad Batch’s experiences similar is that they *look* different. It’s so against the themes of the Clones I’m seething just from thinking about it. And what the hell? Echo ALREADY didn’t fit in. That was the WHOLE POINT of Domino Squad. They didn’t fit in because they thought they were better than anyone else because they had trouble getting along with their brothers, so obviously it had to be their brothers’ fault (ahem, Bad Batch?). And you know what happened? Domino Squad OVERCAME that. And Echo and Fives still didn’t “fit in” because their personalities were unique and creative, and they became ARC Troopers because Cody, Rex and the Jedi VALUED THEM FOR PRECISELY THAT. Echo having new and unique skills and a modified appearance is the most bs justification for him feeling like he doesn’t belong!!

And that brings me to my biggest issue: Rex telling Echo the bad batch are some of the best troopers he's ever met. I'm sorry, based on WHAT? What Rex values above everything is loyalty and brotherhood, and the Bad Batch DOESN'T DISPLAY ANY OF THAT. We never see them even expressing concern for each other! Wrecker treats saving Cody’s life like a trivial issue, because it’s just ‘sO eAsY’ for him, and beyond that we never see them supporting each other or genuinely expressing affection for each other beyond boasting about each other’s skills...

Sure they can destroy a lot of droids, but they're dismissive of Rex's brothers, and the entire Umbara arc and this arc showed what he thought of that. They keep saying things like "not bad for a reg,” don't show any trust in Rex's skills or experience (even though they can't have been fighting in the war for more than a year and a half when he’s been there from the beginning, and he outranks all of them), they are essentially guerilla fighters which has only minimal value in a galactic war, and they never grow beyond their views of what regs are, and can and can’t do.

None of that should make them good troopers in Rex's book. Going back to Echo not fitting in, remember who taught the Domino Squad the importance of seeing all of your brothers as important and equally valuable? Shaak Ti, true, but more importantly? 99! The guy the Bad Batch are named after. He did have value and was important and was no less of a trooper than his brothers, even though his mutations made him LESS powerful, not more. (And btw, just from a writing standpoint, the batchers don’t have any weaknesses, which is shit.) Cody and Rex mourned 99 as a true soldier even though it wasn’t his sacrifice that brought them victory (which would have implied that he had value as a soldier and a brother because he saved them, as opposed to him having that value intrinsically), because that’s what a fine trooper is to them. A BROTHER first a foremost, someone altruistic, brave and loyal. The Bad Batch distort the meaning of 99's character with their behavior. They’re not altruistic, their bravery is mitigated by the fact that they’re freaking invincible, so of course they take risks (again, see Wrecker saving Cody without a care because it’s easy to him, as opposed to Rex being ready to run into a burning ship about to explode because his brother is in there, and having to be physically dragged away). The Bad Batch denigrate their brothers for being less skilled, thinking their own abilities make them unique somehow, when 99 could barely fight and was still the one who taught Hevy about being a good soldier.

And again the batchers don't grow from that. Which is all the more frustrating because the original ending didn’t have Echo joining them, from what I remember of the unfinished episodes, and the arc actually ended with them receiving their medals in front of regular troopers who cheer for them, as opposed to them smugly ostracizing themselves and dismissing the ceremony as trivial and meaningless. (original ending vs s7 ending: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab1eCfzKamw)

It’s so annoying. Do you know what characters never had an entire arc dedicated to them and still have far more personality and more interesting designs and more symbolic weight??

Jesse, for starters. Kix. Dogma. Cut. Slick. Keeli. Ponds. Rys, Jek and Thire. Commander Doom. Commander Fox. Wolffe. Hevy. Hardcase.

Cody was a more interesting character just in his RotS appearances.

Waxer and Boil had one episode about them and then only two cameos plus Waxer’s death, and they’re still some of the most memorable, beloved Clones of the whole show. And Boil was grouchy and prejudiced like Crosshair, but he has so much growth that we could make a whole thread about it.

I'd say the last problem with the Bad Batch is that it has cash grabbing money hungry vibes. Different faces are more marketable, cliché personalities are more toy-friendly, and it's basically a big ad for the Bad Batch series. And they throw Echo in the Batch at the end for bs reasons (again, it wasn’t in the original ep from what I remember) and they tease Cody in the show to make sure fans will still watch even if they notice the lack of soul. And less melanin sells more at Disney apparently.

So that’s my whole pissed rant.

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briek58454521 · 4 years

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Let’s rant about bigotry in media and fake allies.

.Look. I get it. You want to believe that your cartoons, media and celebs are completely perfect darlings that can do no wrong, but let me be frank. I don’t care how much you don’t want to talk about it. I care about the creators who keep inviting the discourse their way through their idiocy. Whenever a creator gets in trouble for doing shit like making jokes about slave hats on a live stream, or including a blackface caricature in an art book, or killing off their gays the very episode they come out or are introduced, there’s always a subset of people who say shit like, “it was a mistake, they didn’t mean it. It kinda gives us as a leftist community a bad name when we keep attacking each other like this”.

Let’s dismantle that. And let’s break this down in three basic points I’ll use throughout. 1. It is not your place to accept an apology that was not for you, especially when in regards to racism, sexism, anti-LGBTA+ bigotry, and anti-semitism. 2. We need to stop lumping in actual criticism with alt-right idiots being shitty about marginalized groups existing, because ultimately, infighting is not the end of the world, and disagreements are not inherently bad. They are a fact of life. 3. Most importantly of all, just because these people claim to be allies, that does not mean that they are. Because make no mistake. CARTOONS ARE NOT ANY LESS EFFECTED BY THE BIASES OF THE ENVIRONMENTS WHICH PRODUCED THEM THAN ANY OTHER WORK OF ART.

Now. Let’s break down that shit completely.

1. I used those examples as a jumping-off point, but in general, this shit always happens. A creator fucks up, they get criticism which was unquestionably earned, they get rightfully dragged, and the creator uses the backlash to garner sympathy from their audiences and paint their critics in a bad light and whine about Cancel Culture. NOW, I already talked about that in another post, but basically, it doesn’t exist, and is used as a weaponized shield from criticism.

Thing about all of that as well is when the creators keep bringing up how they didn’t mean it like that. Most people would answer this with, “doesn’t matter, what matters is what you did”, but there’s something else that people don’t talk about. This is usually a bunch of white people excusing this shit. Or otherwise, a bunch of people who weren’t actually affected by the latest controversy. And therein lies the rub. Allies, let me put it this way. WHEN THE SUBJECT OF THE CRITICISM IS ABOUT THE PORTRAYAL OF MINORITIES IN MEDIA, YOU ARE IN NO POSITION TO EXPECT SAID MINORITIES TO FORGIVE THOSE CREATORS WHEN YOU WERE NOT AFFECTED BY IT.

Remember the Lana Del Rey controversy, where her dumbass ended up getting shit for her statement filled with venom towards other artists? Could have been cleared up if she had just accepted that she messed up and didn’t word her statement correctly, but no. She lashed out at the people who told her it was kinda racist to lump a bunch of black female artists into a conglomerate of artists who just, “twerk, cheat, have sex, and get money”, and dismissing feminism as needing to accommodate women “like her, who were more delicate”, perpetuating inadvertently to the idea that black women are less delicate, white women are petite, demure, and need to have a place above the others. AND LOOK, it’s how she responded that sealed it. Accusing her critics of being the actual racists, who hate women, and conflating the criticism with.....ugh....a FUCKING RACE WAR. Do I EVEN need to explain the problem with that?

The point is that it was idiotic of her to assume that she didn’t deserve the criticism because she “technically didn’t mean it”, when ultimately, she wasn’t the victim, she wasn’t the one who ACTUALLY got hurt by all of this, and that most of the criticism WAS NOT ANYWHERE NEAR as vitriolic as Lana accused it of being. And people do this to minorities all the fucking time. Where the praise for the work is what matters, but then they’re just upset and looking to be upset about things when they....sorry, when WE have shit to say about the fuckups. Constantly, minorities are expected to praise bare minimum bullshit lest we have self proclaimed “””””allies””””” get pissy that we aren’t playing along. Well, sorry, but, I think it be time to stop with that shit. It doesn’t matter how pure you think that person is. If the people who are the actual part of the controversy have shit to say about it, MAYBE LISTEN TO THEM instead of trying to force people to accept the apology that wasn’t even yours to accept, nor was it for you to shove in our faces to shut us up. And if you dislike that I’m saying that, just know. That’s exactly what you’re doing when you pull that shit.

2. As simply as I can put it, complaining about how a trans person is portrayed badly is not the same as complaining ABOUT the presence of a trans person, and to lump that shit onto the other pile is dishonest and willfully ignorant. When we keep getting upset about the tone, or upset about, “WAAAH, they said a me-no-like”, and lump that in with the actual facists looking to erase us from the history books, we are doing half of their job for them, and normalizing shit like what I saw the other day, where on Twitter, some asshole complained, “Anime is supposed to be an escape from reality. Adding black people to it kinda ruins the point.”

I’m gonna talk about it in the next point, but for now, understand this. NO ONE says shit like that just out of the blue without having it come from somewhere, and that attitude is all too prevalent.

In cartoons especially, criticism of the NB lizard from She-Ra is not being bigoted towards non-binary people, because the use of a fucking lizard to portray them is the ACTUALLY bigoted thing. And to lump in criticism of that with the criticism of She-Ra not being conventionally attractive enough for men to masturbate to the fucking minor is only going to long-term HARM any discourse. Because having these conversations as well as discussing these issues and educating each other about them is how we AVOID THEM. Criticism is not just a vector for asshole conservatives to be pissy about your existence. It’s also a veritable TREASURE TROVE for how not to fuck your shit up. And when we all get it, we learn. I get it, you don’t want to do shit wrong, but when you do, as everyone will, the backlash will burn itself out, and once you’ve fixed it, people will be very forgiving. Because, and it’s gonna sound mean....THAT’S HOW AUDIENCES WORK. THEY WANT TO FORGIVE YOU FOR WHEN YOU DO SHIT WRONG. So just...fix it. And listen. Yeah, you’ll get called stupid, you’ll get called “moron”, but you will have saved yourself from getting that shit ten times worse later on down the line. BEAR IN MIND, THOUGH, any of you already typing about how that’s enabling cyberbullying under the guise of critique, IT’S NOT. There’s a wealth of difference between the two, and trying to distract from the point with that is just a red herring. So stop with that.

And now....for the biggest one of all.

3. See...here’s the thing. About that anime douche. That doesn’t happen in JUST anime. It’s been around for decades, and has been a thing to this day. The WoW community got upset about womz being in power for the past 15 years, and have gotten on their high horse about black people being in the game, stating that if they were around sooner, maybe it wouldn’t, “SEEM TOO POLITICAL”, with that Asmongold jackass trying to start a second wave of GamerGate because one of the people at Blizzard said, “Black Lives Matter”. Fantasy as a genre has been so rooted in racism, that the inclusion of goblins for the most part is synonymous with anti-semitism towards Jewish people. Captain Marvel was pilloried for the past two years because the mean lady said that shit needs to change and wasn’t too nice, and also, me don’t like her too much. Basically, tone policing over a personality that we still give Howard Stern a platform for. In cartoons, the inclusion of black people is seen as an inherently political opinion. The rumors of Gen 6 Apple Jack possibly having a black voice actress prompted comments such as:

“The thiing with AJ is clearly anti-white/conservatist as a response to Trump America. What is opposite of country redneck female? Of course, and urban black woman.”

“It’s the fact that she’s black that bothers me.”

“Killing a blonde freckled Southern character for some political agenda is the last thing I want to see.”

The news of Velma Dinkley being gay was immediately pounced upon with shit about a homosexual agenda, and constant bullshit about how it was so forced, or whatever. This shit always happens, and is gonna keep happening. You know why?

Because the entertainment industry is not ready to accept minorities. The games industry is not ready to accept minorities. Cartoons are still not ready to accept minorities. They accept them for a moment, until those minorities challenge someone’s ego. Fans embrace a character until they’re a woman, or a POC, or on the spectrum, or LGBTA+. The existence of us is denigrating to these idiots’ escape, not from reality, but from us. It’s bad enough that they have to put up with us in the real world, but even worse that they have to see us in fictional shows that aren’t real.’ Us merely BEING AROUND is a bad thing, and to ask for some improvements is met with bemoaning about agendas.

Supposed allies begin and end their support with how much money we put in their wallets and how much we stroke their egos about how woke they are, and actual allies are lumped in with actual offenders. If we get upset that a show they’ve posited as so enlightening is actually the utter pits and not in any way healthy, they get upset. Tell a Reylo they’re shipping something toxic and dangerous, they’ll get upset and yell racial slurs at John Boyega for sitting next to Daisy Ridley. Say, “Fuck Arthas”, people get upset jump down your throat about how you hate forgiveness. Tell people that the Grinch ought not to be forgiven, people get upset you’re strawmaned about how you hate forgiveness.

They just don’t understand, or care about the essential fact about all of this. As I said earlier. The environments which produce the worst of offenders in these fields, and the problems we hate seeing so much are in no way less affected by the biases that they were cultivated by. And media has never been any more ready to accept minorities as people and as worthy of being portrayed as people than literally anywhere else right now. And speaking up about that is what gets these fake allies mad, especially when they LIKE the media. What makes these people so mad is not the troubling portrayal of POC, or women, or minorities. Not that we are routinely ostracized for existing in cartoons, not that this shit happens at all. They don’t give a flying fuck about any of that. It’s the thing that they have to put up with as a result of that that makes them the most upset.

Criticism. And they don’t like that.

And no matter whether or not these cartoons are made by bootlickers, or this movie was made by a TERF, or if this creator has a history of blackface, racism, or has made garbage statements about women, if you aren’t nice and considerate enough towards their feelings, you’ll make them, and us, the allies, feel uncomfortable. NO DWAMA, just not too divisive feedback that’s ultimately worthless as it was made purely to try to appease idiots and the people most affected by these issues at the same time, meaning it had to be watered down past the point of no return in order for us to factor it in with our jaded mindsets and worldviews that are the direct cause of the problems we complain about, yet keep exacerbating through our ignorance and unwillingness to change.

If you aren’t like that, and don’t believe you should be lumped in with that, don’t behave as if you are that sort of person. But, even then, if you aren’t...listen to the actual experts. Stop listening to some white guy’s idiotic hot takes about black rep, and actually listen to black people. Listen to trans people instead of some cis white chick with no understanding of trans issues. Stop platforming the worst of offenders within these communities as the bestest ever. And most importantly....

remember that horses don’t exist.

#media #racism #sexism #cartoons #world of warcraft #reylo shippers #fake allies #anti lgbt idiocy #horses don't exist

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artemis-entreri · 5 years

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[[ This post contains Part 7 of my review/analysis of the Forgotten Realms/Drizzt novel, Boundless, by R. A. Salvatore. As such, the entirety of this post’s content is OOC. ]]

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Generations: Book 2 | Legend of Drizzt #35 (#32 if not counting The Sellswords)

Publisher: Harper Collins (September 10, 2019)

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Additional Information: Artwork for the cover of Boundless and used above is originally done by Aleks Melnik. This post CONTAINS SPOILERS. Furthermore, this discussion concerns topics that I am very passionate about, and as such, at times I do use strong language. Read and expand the cut at your own discretion.

Contents:

Introduction

I. Positives I.1 Pure Positives I.2 Muddled Positives

II. Mediocre Writing Style II.1 Bad Descriptions II.2 Salvatorisms II.3 Laborious “Action”

III. Poor Characterization III.1 “Maestro” III.2 Lieutenant III.3 Barbarian III.4 “Hero” III.5 Mother

IV. World Breaks IV.1 Blinders Against the Greater World IV.2 Befuddlement of Earth and Toril IV.3 Self-Inconsistency IV.4 Dungeon Amateur IV.5 Utter Nonsense

V. Ego Stroking V.1 The Ineffable Companions of the Hall V.2 Me, Myself, and I

VI. Problematic Themes VI.1 No Homo VI.2 Disrespect of Women VI.3 Social-normalization VI.4 Eugenics

VII. What’s Next (you are here) VII.1 Drizzt Ascends to Godhood VII.2 Profane Redemption VII.3 Passing the Torch VII.4 Don’t Notice Me Senpai

Note: This was written before the unveiling of the final book’s title. As such, the predictions are outdated.

What’s Next

While Timeless inspired confidence I haven't had in Salvatore for a long while and made me hopeful for the future, overall, Boundless hammered my heart back down into my stomach. Whereas Timeless felt like Salvatore actually had some degree of emotional attachment to what he was writing rather than making a bid to have his characters stick out in Forgotten Realms lore, Boundless backpedaled from this quite a bit. He has some solid turns of phrases in Boundless, but unlike the ones in Timeless, I wouldn't have remembered them if I hadn't specifically noted them down during my reading. In Timeless, we explored more than the constantly-revisited areas of Menzoberranzan, Gauntylgrym, Luskan and others, delving into Ched Nasad. In Boundless, we're back to Menzoberranzan, and furthermore, with most of the action happening in the same area of Menzoberranzan, specifically, in and around The Oozing Myconid tavern. This is reminiscent of how basically all of the action in the city of Helioglabalus during The Sellswords trilogy is condensed to one area, around the cul-de-sac Wall Way. The small but interesting bits of detail that we were treated to in Timeless about characters that we're so familiar with already, such as Jarlaxle, Malice, and the rest of the Do'Urden family, did not continue in Boundless. Gone too is the Realmsian feel that Timeless achieved, for Boundless feels very much like a standard Salvatore insular and tweaked Forgotten Realms. Boundless hammers the lore-rich and location-rich Waterdeep into something with fewer dimensions than Salvatore's current timeline Luskan. While the scenes from the past are still more interesting than the ones set in the present in Boundless, they don't hold a candle to their counterparts in Timeless. There was heart in Jarlaxle and Zaknafein's past in Timeless, and it felt as though it was something that Salvatore had thought about for a long time. By contrast, in Boundless, those scenes feel rote and rehashed, cobbled together from half-formed ideas. Those scenes only manage to not be sleep-inducing because they don't focus on the Companions of the Hall. While Timeless seemed to take a break from the disagreeable conclusions made in the novel preceding it, Boundless is right back on that track again.

All of the above is pretty bad, but things may even get worse. There are in fact many indicators that suggest some of my darkest fears concerning this franchise will come to pass, and I sincerely hope that's not the case. That said, much of what I say in this section about what might come in the future are speculatory. They are extrapolations based on what I've learned from reading almost all of the over three hundred novels published for the Forgotten Realms, D&D sourcebooks through the editions, and talking with Ed Greenwood and other creatives who have officially worked on the setting.

Drizzt Ascends to Godhood

Boundless still doesn't tell us where Zaknafein's soul had been. It isn't specifically stated, but I think it's fair to say that it definitely wasn't with Lolth, otherwise, she wouldn't send one of the two souped-up version of the Retriever after him. One could argue that Lolth might've done so because she is fickle and chaotic, but there's fickle, and then there's impractical. Bringing something as powerful as Salvatore's Retriever is supposed to be would tax her no small amount, and even a goddess of chaos, especially one whose resources are already spread thin warring with other demon lords, would not do something that's simply foolish. So, Lolth didn't return Zaknafein, and Yvonnel knows that she isn't getting spells from Lolth but she doesn't know who is granting them to her. If Salvatore weren't obsessed with erasing Eilistraee, the obvious answer would be that the Dark Maiden is looking after Yvonnel. That would be the most logical in-universe explanation, but as far as Salvatore is concerned, Eilistraee doesn't exist unless using her as the subject of ridicule and denigration. Eilistraee's brother Vhaeraun is similarly ignored, but at least is spared the dismissal that Salvatore places upon Eilistraee. It's possible that Yvonnel is getting her spells from someone in the elven pantheon, for aside from Eilistraee and Vhaeraun, the drow pantheon doesn't have any other non-evil members. While some of the Dark Seldarine might want to help Yvonnel simply out of spite for Lolth, that's also unlikely, because it's been clearly stated that Zaknafein was in a good place, and in the realm of one of those evil deities would not constitute a good place. But, it seems unlikely to me that someone from the elven pantheon is granting Yvonnel spells, for while Salvatore doesn't erase their existence, he doesn't acknowledge them either. A person who only reads the Drizzt books wouldn't know the existence of even Corellon Larethian, the patron god of all elves, including at one point the dark elves who were turned into drow.

So who, then, is granting Yvonnel cleric spells? It might very well be left as a mystery forever, but what I suspect and fear is a rather convoluted scenario. Specifically: Drizzt, the god of goodly drow in the future, is granting the spells to Yvonnel in the present. Sounds crazy, right? I totally agree, but sadly, despite how many D&D creators warn about how bad of an idea time travel is in D&D, it's not implausible, and in fact, many things hint at the possibility, especially in Boundless. First, there's Drizzt's strange disappearing act at the end of novel that I discussed earlier. This could very well be him ascending to godhood. Second, it's been building up throughout the novels that Drizzt has become a beacon to all male drow, including a maverick like Jarlaxle. In the Realms, the power of belief is what grants gods power, and it is so strong such that races like the kuo-toa have believed gods into existence without there even being an individual to elevate with that belief. Drizzt, as represented by Salvatore, certainly would have enough "followers" to elevate him into demi-god status at the very least. Furthermore, Salvatore has demonstrated an eagerness to do everything possible to his golden boy, and while Drizzt himself, if he were true to his character, wouldn't want to be a god, making him into an actual god is getting pretty near the only good thing that Salvatore hasn't done to Drizzt yet.

What has me the most suspicious that this is where Salvatore is going is the talk between Quenthel and Sos'Umptu about a "spark", one that "resided in Zaknafein before Drizzt". The word "spark" is often used in Realms material when referencing godly essence, for instance, Chosens are imbued with the sparks of their gods, mortals ascend to godhood when a divine spark is passed onto them, etc. The mention of the spark that father passed to son happens amidst a discussion between two very powerful priestesses of what was pre-fated and the intervention of higher powers. It feels very much like the Child of Prophecy scenario in the Naruto franchise, with Zaknafein being the parallel of Nagato and Minato in that his superiority marked him as a potential candidate to fulfill a great prophecy, but ultimately he failed to do so and the responsibility is passed onto the next worthy candidate, in this case, Drizzt. I'm not fond of this possibility because it's completely unnecessary and uncharacteristic. The only reason for Salvatore to elevate Drizzt to godhood is to further erase Eilistraee, to write his own name over the tapestry some more, and I suppose to garner more money from unthinking sycophantic fans who lack the ability to critically examine anything. Drizzt as a god would also be superfluous, for what he'd stand for is already covered by Eilistraee, with what she doesn't cover instead handled by Vhaeraun's portfolio. It isn't uncommon for gods' portfolios to overlap, but those overlaps are more like the intersection between circles of a venn diagram rather than a nigh-total eclipse. I suppose Drizzt could be the patron god of sanctimony, melodrama, preachiness and self-congratulation, but those traits hardly deserve a patron god. Realistically, if Drizzt is to be wedged into the drow pantheon, what would happen is that he would weaken the already goodly forces there. People of the Realms are polytheistic, but many have a main god that they worship, and with that taken away from existent gods, so, too, is the power they get from their followers' belief. At least it's consistent with how Drizzt is written, if not how he is supposed to be, for him to, yet again, be a damaging force to true good.

Profane Redemption

Salvatore seems to have this notion that Artemis Entreri needs to be "redeemed", and his definition of redemption is to become similar to Drizzt and the Companions of the Hall. It's as though he only knows how to write one character archetype, and seeing how he forces all of his characters down the same path, I honestly don't know if Salvatore simply can't write other archetypes, or doesn't feel like he should out of some sense that there is only one "correct" way for people to be. The idea that Entreri needs to be "redeemed" at all is questionable. What, exactly, does Entreri need to be redeemed for? For killing many people? Certainly, this is a sin, but Drizzt and the Companions of the Hall have killed many more, and yet they are celebrated heroes whose every action is unquestionably right. One could argue that Drizzt and the Companions only killed the "bad guys", but by whose definition are "bad guys"? Salvatore's definition of good versus evil is as inconsistent as his work is with itself, and comes from a position of privilege. We're told that Entreri never killed anyone unnecessarily, so really, is he deserving of the same fate as the old lecher, who at best was a child trafficker, and at worst, a child molester? Salvatore apparently believes so, with how the adjudicator "demon" possessing Sharon subjects the two to the same fate. I'm not arguing that Entreri did nothing wrong. He was absolutely a villain. Whatever his reasons might be, he did murder people. He did kill innocents for his personal gain, for instance stealing the life force from passed out drunks in alleyways to heal himself. He does have sins to atone for. However, what troubles me is Salvatore's stated reason for the need to redeem Entreri in an interview during the release of Timeless:

Artemis Entreri surprised me quite a bit in the Sellswords trilogy, in Road of the Patriarch. That was supposed to be the end of Artemis Entreri. Road of the Patriarch was the perfect redemption, that redemptive moment where you could have hoped that Artemis Entreri ended on the right track. But after I wrote the book I got so many letters from people who had gone through similar traumas that Entreri had gone through when he was kid. They said, “You can’t end it here. We have to see him redeemed.” I got dozens of letters from people saying, “Please continue this character. This is personal to me.” And I was like, well, maybe I’ll learn something by continuing with this character. And I did. That’s a good thing.

What I came to realize about Artemis Entreri is that a driving force in him was why he couldn’t look at himself in the mirror without self-loathing: it was guilt. And it was guilt over things that had been done to him, not things that he had done. I don’t think I ever understood that until after I put him on the road of redemption.

I am honestly not sure what to think regarding Salvatore's claim that people who had gone through similar traumas as Entreri wants to see Entreri "redeemed". Young victims of physical abuse, sexual assault, parental neglect and betrayal have not done anything wrong, and while Salvatore is right about people that go through such horrors carrying guilt over what happened to them, I'm skeptical about whether Salvatore correctly understood his fans. My own background falls into that category, and I've interacted with others like me as we desperately tried to make sense of why the universe apparently deemed we deserved what happened to us. With the internet bringing greater connectivity between people, I found countless others like me, and have managed to arrive at a point in which I at least logically believe that what happened to me wasn't deserved. What I know from my own experiences and what I've learned from others differ so much and so consistently from Salvatore's recount that I can't help but wonder if some words got crossed with him. With people like me, "redemption" isn't what we fundamentally want. We want our scars to heal and we want to do it at our own pace, in our own way, to feel valid even though we have trouble fitting societal norms. Trauma victims are often misunderstood and dismissed because they are different, and really, all they want is for that to not happen. Salvatore's "redemption" of Entreri is to make him more like the very social-normative Drizzt, which is the opposite of what a trauma victim would want. In reality, a trauma victim who is being pressured to conform to another's perceived notions of normalcy, like what Drizzt does to Entreri, would react very badly to it. Furthermore, traumas, especially childhood ones, don't simply go away through the performance of some deeds, or even a great amount of deeds like helping others, which those privileged enough to have never experienced abuse at the hands of another seem to believe is the key to salvation. Traumas go away only with the passage of time, and the presence of people in one's life who understand the individual and accept them for who they are, who try to help them be the best version of themselves rather than the best societal model of a person. It's only normal for victims of trauma at the hands of others to resent and distrust people as a whole, and their traumas tend to be exacerbated by being told that they won't recover unless they help others, which often translates into, "I need to help those who will hurt me" in a trauma brain. Salvatore represents Entreri as having gotten past his childhood traumas because he received some degree of fulfillment from helping the people of Port Llast. Furthermore, Salvatore makes it appear that Drizzt's influence in Entreri's life is what led him down the path of "redemption", but realistically, what Drizzt has done is push Entreri to be like him. The reality of what should be happening is actually very damaging to Entreri. If Entreri isn't self-aware enough of what he truly wants, which is the case for a lot of trauma victims, he might be going along with Drizzt, even earnestly, because he's led to believe it'll help him feel better. The thing is, each person's recovery from trauma is unique, and has to come from within; following someone else's path more often than not leads to more damage, especially when it's the path that someone who doesn't bother to understand them lays out for them, as is the case for Drizzt with Entreri. If Entreri is self-aware enough, he should be resisting Drizzt, but he doesn't, which suggests it's the previous example, and that in turn has a lot of dark and problematic undertones, with one standing out in particular: Drizzt's behavior is abusive towards Entreri.

While many were unhappy with the way that Road of the Patriarch concluded, especially back when it seemed to be the last that we'd see of Entreri, it was, in so many ways, a much kinder treatment of him than what's being done in continuing his saga. Over seven decades of enslavement by the Netherese would've deepened his trauma and made them more difficult to dislodge, but Salvatore doesn't seem to understand this at all. It would be less cheap and contrived, not to mention less invalidating, if Salvatore had Entreri's issues cured via magic or psionics. By espousing the belief that anyone can be "fixed" through a set approach, or needs to be "fixed" at all, Salvatore damages more than his own character, he helps spread an idea that will further hurt and invalidate real trauma victims. Sadly, things don't seem like they will get better. The artificial "development" forced onto Entreri in Hero was so depressing to me that it made it hard for me to read anything for almost two years. Timeless was a break from that, and indeed seemed like Salvatore was abandoning that tack, but Boundless dashed those hopes thoroughly. Entreri gets caught as a result of putting others before himself, and while it's conceivable that he'd save Dahlia before trying to escape, him doing the same for Regis without a second thought is a Drizzt characteristic, not his. Furthermore, he'd saved Regis before saving Dahlia. Without intending it, the events that Salvatore creates are actually an accurate metaphor for what happens to a damaged individual who is made to believe that another's path is their own: they unsuccessfully see it to completion, and get themselves mired in greater suffering.

What appears to await Entreri in the future, as suggested by Boundless, is pretty disheartening, to say the least. As we see in the case of the old lecher, "Sharon"'s cocoon, in addition to killing its victims, apparently ensnares the victims' soul and damns it to an eternity of suffering. Furthermore, that cocoon apparently also informs the victims the reason why they are thusly damned. I can't help but feel that the cocoon is more than an analogy, I suspect that Salvatore is employing it as yet another cheap and lazy character development device. By the end of Boundless, Entreri has realized that his agony will be an eternal one, and is due to his many victims. I suspect in the final book, Entreri will be saved from the cocoon, but he'll emerge as a redeemed butterfly, changing the last of his non-conforming ways and becoming another boring good guy Drizzt clone. His reasons for doing so might be due to his realization in the cocoon that he'd have suffered for eternity unless he changes, which Salvatore could pretend is more in line with Entreri's character. However, the entire thing is incredibly artificial. Whatever "demon" possessing Sharon is doesn't exist in FR lore and was made up solely to use as a cheap plot device. Furthermore, the "demon" just randomly finds Entreri and Dahlia. Its own affiliation with the Margaster plot is that it happens to possess a Margaster child, but otherwise, it wasn't an obstacle to a specific goal. It was just sort of there. If there was a situation in which the conflict of judging good versus evil was relevant, then the creature could've been a meaningful obstacle. For example, if Entreri or any other character on a path to "redemption" exposes how the kind of judgment the creature passes is flawed and arbitrary, and then manages to make a step towards overcoming that internal conflict, that would make Salvatore's definition of "redemption" more palatable. As it is, it's just really random and being shoved down our throats. The fact that Entreri doesn't casually toss about the word "friend" like he does in Timeless is little consolation if Salvatore is indeed using the cocoon how I suspect he is using it. Entreri the redeemed butterfly would be truly a tragic and terrible closure for his character, or any character for that matter.

Passing the Torch

The title of the next book hasn't been revealed yet, but I've got a feeling that it will be "Endless". Thus far, "Timeless" and "Boundless" both suggest something without constraint, and "Endless" would fit this as well as following the -less format. I'd like the Drizzt books to end with the Generations trilogy, but it seems unlikely with the name of the trilogy, and even more so if the title of the last book is indeed "Endless". I do wonder if perhaps there's more truth to Salvatore's words that the legend of Drizzt is over and that a new era has begun. He might not have been successful with that in Timeless, nor was he with the endless amounts of tedious recaps in Boundless, but the allusions to the Stone of Tymora series, as well as "Generations" for the trilogy title, makes me wonder if he intends to pass his legacy to his son, Geno. Catti-brie is very pregnant and will give birth soon, so perhaps Salvatore means to pass the torch down to his next generation as his characters do the same. Geno's writing style as displayed in Stone of Tymora wasn't anything to brag about, but there was at least a refreshing quality to it. Furthermore, Geno has shown himself to be what his father isn't, a true ally to LGBT+ folks, through actions such as posting publicly in defense of fans who ship same-sex characters of the Drizzt series. While Entreri doesn't need to be redeemed, the Drizzt books certainly do, and perhaps Geno is the one who will bring that redemption. I certainly hope so, for as it is, I'm back to dreading a reality in which the Drizzt books are the only Forgotten Realms novels that we'll get forever.

Don't Notice Me Senpai

I've been very critical of Salvatore, but I don't hate him. What I'd really like is to respect him, but as his work currently is, I'm unable to do that. In my review of Timeless, I wrote, "I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to Salvatore to completely attribute all of Timeless’ writing improvements to his editor(s). He had to be willing to listen, to accept that what he’d written could be improved". Boundless did backpedal quite a bit, but perhaps he did listen. My significant other has long suspected that Salvatore reads my long ramblings that I doubt anyone reads, for there have been some really startling coincidences between how his writing changes and the stuff I point out in my reviews. I'm not exactly nice about Salvatore, so I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't read my criticisms of him, as he's always seemed really thin-skinned. Still, it is a bit scary how things line up, and really, he doesn't have to like me, he can even hate my guts, but if he did indeed decide to even read one of my articles about him and his work and took some of it to heart, I'd completely redo my evaluation of him. To give a few examples of the coincidences, in the past, I'd mock him quite a bit for how often he'd use "six hundred pounds of panther". This has wholly disappeared. I'd criticize him harshly for gratuitous lesbian sex scenes, which have also disappeared. I pointed out that he'd failed at making Timeless an appropriate starting or restarting point due to how much it ties into so many past events that aren't explained, and Boundless took explaining the past to a ridiculous level. I criticized Salvatore for how "magnificent" is used in Timeless, and it's greatly improved in Boundless. I'd chastised his weird use of "fashioned", and it doesn't appear at all in Boundless. These are just some of the many coincidences, and ultimately, I do think they are coincidences, even if the amount of them and how well they line up freak me out more than a little.

On a final note, since I'd berated Timeless' cover art, I wanted to note that the cover art for Boundless is an improvement. The artist has changed, Aleksi Briclot did the covers for the Homecoming Trilogy as well as Timeless, but the artist credited with Boundless' cover is "Aleks Melnik/Shutterstock". I can't help but wonder what happened. Boundless' cover seems to have abandoned the attempt at Sumi-E, which I described as, "if you're going to appropriate my culture, at least do it justice". There's still a wispy and abstract feel to the cover of Boundless, but there's no longer that pseudo brushstroke work. I don't personally care for the art style, but I have no strong feelings about it either. I'm not too worried about my brutal honesty having had any affect on Briclot. While I felt the cover for Timeless was only slightly less of a travesty than the novel preceding it, I have a great deal of respect for Briclot as an artist. His technical skill is solid and his attention to detail is superb. Briclot's Artstation portfolio shows pieces from major franchises like Thor: Ragnarok after his work for Timeless, so most likely, he's too busy with higher visibility projects to bother with Drizzt anymore.

If you've made it to the end, congratulations and thank you for tuning in! As always, I'm happy to discuss your thoughts and feelings about these books, but fair warning: in case you haven't garnered from this piece, I'm far from an unconditional Salvatore fan. I care deeply about the world as a whole, and would love to share with you its beauty. I care deeply about doing justice to the characters, but am not above goofing off with them. My views are my own. I am not affiliated in any way with Wizards of the Coast or HarperCollins.

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dotthings · 6 years

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There’s a ton of John Winchester mirroring for the comic book store owner mentoring his successors and as someone else pointed out, “Jaeger” means hunter and they used footage from earlier eps for the fake trailer including John being their Jaeger stand-in. So a whole lot here about father figures, and mentors, and particularly John as someone who trained children to be warriors and is a complicated father role and there were costs to his obsession. Comic book store owner as a more benign mentor, until he became a ghost, but a parallel to John nonetheless. Are we not going to talk about the John Winchester and father-son pain parallel nod?

So let’s talk about that massive Jason Todd as Red Hood mannequin easter egg which is probably just meant as a fun easter egg because of Jensen’s planned Halloween cosplay. But the camera swept over a whole bunch of DC comics titles including Batman. While the Jason Todd mannequin is standing there in the comics shop. Just...standing there. Silent and heavy-laden with pointed significance.

Slight spoilers behind the cut for this ep and the dc animated movie Under the Red Hood where Jensen voiced Jason Todd and some batfamily and spn parallels.

Before I throw Bruce Wayne under the bus, the circumstances are a bit different. All of Bruce’s kids that he trained to be Robins came to him. Bruce isn’t exactly a picture of emotional stability and he shouldn’t have agreed to let minors become warriors alongside of him, but he also didn’t emotionally abuse them or tell them this was their only job and purpose in life and tell them they were worthless if they didn’t watch over their little brother properly. He was strict as a teacher, not denigrating or dismissive. And if Dick Grayson or any Robin had gone to Bruce and said “I just want to be a regular kid” I think Bruce would feel immense relief (and a little sad but mostly relief). Alfred would throw a party. Bruce would protect that regular life for the kids he mentored. All the Robins had to convince Bruce they could handle it, that they were ready, convince him to let them into his scary world, and Bruce, in all the iterations of the story, is strict about the rules and you aren’t ready until he says so and they all asked to be there. Begged, even. Even when Bruce was saying no you’re not ready.

There were however high costs. There’s a bunch of dead (and then un-deaded) Robins, there’s damaged Robins, there’s the Robin who didn’t die but left and became his own hero and became in some ways a better version of his adoptive father. There are also storylines where Bruce tells them nope that’s it this is too dangerous I don’t want to lose you so I am benching you. Which angers the Robins. Bruce knows the costs.

John is a different matter. Dean and Sam weren’t given an initial choice. They were raised into it from infancy. John punished outside interests, his kids looking beyond the hunting life. Bruce’s kids were always offered an education, college, options. It helps that Bruce was a billionaire with bottomless resources of course but John and Bruce both had a choice how they mentored their kids, how they treated them personally and yeah I’d say Bruce comes out looking like the better dad, with both of them in a zone of no dude don’t let kids be warriors. But allowing them and drilling it into their heads that can be their only worth and role in life are two different things. Nonetheless both Bruce and John are complicated painful father figures.

BTW Dick Grayson, the first Robin’s parents, were named John and Mary. And Dick was trained into the slightly perilous family business of being a trapeze artist, but with lots of safety nets and love and his extended circus family around him. Sam and Dean had no safety nets, there were no safety nets for John, and they had little sense of community. Also John and Mary Grayson died due to sabotage while performing without a safety net.

Should I bring up the fact Sam, Dean, and Cas are training Jack who is effectively still a child to be a hunter—but with lots of safety nets, with Cas telling him his own worth, instead of “this is your only worth.” With choices because Jack is the one begging to go out in the field while Dean is playing protective batdad saying no. If Jack said he wanted something else, if Jack decides he wants to go to college someday, or just be a guy who works in a comics shop and has friends, TFW is going to support him.

What’s interesting about Jason Todd showing up in this ep of spn is that Jason is the most tragic Robin and the one Bruce always felt the most sense of failure on. Jason is the Robin who died (there’s another one who did too but DC also undid that, and Jason was the first to die). Under the Red Hood effectively is the story of someone who thought his father didn’t love him enough. So it’s the high cost of training children to be warriors writ large and the Red Hood animated movie brings in a lot about insecurities from both Bruce and Jason’s end—I failed you, you didn’t love me enough. Jason’s also got sibling jealousy issues. Jason had behavioral problems, he was a bit of an asshole, he was basically good, but Jason was the 2nd Robin and had to follow Dick Grayson who is a really talented, good-hearted, smart, handsome, universally loved, gold standard of Robins, and became Nightwing who can hold his own as Batman’s equal.

Jason was murdered by the Joker and that was the end of him for decades. His memory haunted the batfamily. His memory taunted Dick with the potential for his own failure and he haunted Bruce. There’s a story where Bruce blows up at Dick saying Jason was just like Dick—brash and over-confident and so Dick could have been killed just as easy. Anyway Jason’s story was over until DC brought him back from the dead and while not gone all over to the dark side Jason was pretty messed up emotionally, tried to steal Nightwing’s identity in one SL, and uses violence to do his work on levels Batman was adamantly against. (note I have no idea if these backstories on the batfamily are still considered canon or not what with all the reboots but they are part of an emotional continuity in how I know the characters—it’s comics and animated series and there are emotional consistencies across all the canon versions and maintained through the reboots. Still, discussinf what’s “dc canon” is a mess).

Oh and Stuart was stealing from his mentor and in one of the Jason Todd origin stories, Batman found Jason when Jason stole from him (the batmobile hubcaps. Jason had moxy).

I was also a batfamily fan when I got into SPN and early seasons SPN sent all my batfamily parallel radars beeping. So now, that Red Hood mannequin, being in this ep? With those other parallels about John running strong already in place? Of all things, they put this ouchie of a batfamily nod in there? That is some easter egg. That thing was just begging to be meta’d, it was asking for it.

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #meta #supernatural spoilers #spn #spn spoilers #supernatural season 14 spoilers #supernatural season 14 #John Winchester #Bruce Wayne #Jason Todd #Dick Grayson #batfamily

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lligkv · 4 years

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damnation follows any attempt to recover paradise

A while ago, I read Mark O’Connell’s 2017 book To Be a Machine, in which he investigates the transhumanist project of achieving a merger of the body and technology that allows the body to live forever—and, essentially and paradoxically, to fall away, to become a nonfactor, so you can experience yourself as pure consciousness. It’s like, if the average human wavers in the Cartesian split between mind and body, uncertain, transhumanists break the impasse by betting firmly on mind.

The book is thoughtfully constructed. All the major transhumanist figures you hear about appear: Ray Kurzweil, Aubrey de Grey, Zoltan Istvan, Peter Thiel, Nick Bostrom. And O’Connell covers many facets of the transhumanist movement. He discusses life extension and cryonics; “whole brain emulation,” or the creation of a mind independent of any corporeal “substrate,” like the brain, which could feasibly be downloaded into any number of different bodies or substrates altogether; the possibility of artificial ultraintelligence, and the corresponding activism in the face of the existential risk such AI poses to humanity; the augmentation of the human body, as pursued by corporations and the state and military and as pursued by the laypeople and amateur biohackers known as “grinders”; and the idea that we could within our lifetimes reach “longevity escape velocity”—the magical point at which the science of life extension has advanced far enough that it’s easy to access and take advantage of and the relationship between how old you are and how likely you are to die becomes irrelevant.

It’s all shot through with a few major themes. One is the battle transhumanists wage versus “deathism,” their term for what they believe their critics suffer from, namely a need to protect yourself from death by trying to convince yourself it isn’t terrible. And two, transhumanism as but the latest incarnation of an age-old religious impulse: the desire for transcendence and eternal life—now, through technology, as before through religion.

I had such strong feelings of anger and contempt for the transhumanists after reading it, though. Maybe I’m guilty of being “deathist”: perhaps I mask my terror of death by pretending I’m okay with the fact that I’ll experience it. It’s certainly true I haven’t confronted death as closely as, say, Roen Horn—a young man who accompanies Zoltan Istvan in his campaign bus as his assistant during Istvan’s bid for the 2016 presidential nomination as the Transhumanist Party candidate, who came to transhumanism after a terrible childhood accident made him nearly bleed out. And it’s a clever move on O’Connell’s part to characterize Horn as he does. Initially, Horn seems a textbook incel type—being twenty-eight and so convinced a woman would cheat on him that he’s never pursued a relationship. But then O’Connell reveals the fact of the accident and the “darkness” it reveals to Horn, the “black terror beneath the thin surface of the world,” and that makes you realize why Horn is frightened by death as he is. It’s harder to dismiss him after that.

Transhumanism often seems the result of such extreme near-death experience. Tim Cannon, one of the grinders O’Connell writes about, had experiences of addiction that reduced his lived condition to its animal essence—making him beholden to his body, all urge and impulse beyond his own conscious control—in ways that left him desperate to hack it and transcend it. And Laura Deming, founder of the Longevity Fund, a VC firm focused on life extension technology—and all of twenty years old when O’Connell speaks to her—reports being rattled to her core by watching her grandmother die. The experience brought her to understand there’s a bodily decay in store for her and everyone she knows that she can do nothing to stop. And it leaves her obsessed with extending the human lifespan as the “correct” thing to do.

But it's only children who fear death in as total and paranoid a fashion as Deming or Cannon seem to. And at some point, children grow up. They become adults. They come to understand death as an inevitability, even if that’s only in the abstract. They come to realize it’s death that gives the time we are alive its meaning. They don’t need to denigrate the human body by sneering that people are mere “monkeys,” as Cannon does. They don’t live in atavistic terror of aging as do Deming or Aubrey de Grey (who leads the transhumanist group SENS, or Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence). And they devote their time and attention to curing the ills that plague the world now, rather than fixing their eyes on projects like defeating death. Or creating colonies in outer space—which seems driven by a similarly childish zeal on the parts of people like Peter Thiel, if one that’s less terrified—and bringing on the Singularity, the point, predicted by futurist Ray Kurzweil, at which the merger between humans and technology becomes so complete that technology’s evolution entirely supersedes human evolution.

“To the charge,” O’Connell writes, “that such a merger” between human and machine “would obliterate our humanity, Kurzweil counters that the Singularity is in fact a final achievement of the human project, an ultimate vindication of the very quality that has always defined and distinguished us as a species—our constant yearning for a transcendence of our physical and mental limitations.” When I read those lines, I wanted to yell at Kurzweil: The yearning to transcend our physical and mental imitations is not meant to be fulfilled! I remember scribbling that line in my notebook on the train home from work just as I heard a man in the seats across from mine telling his seatmate about the intense cancer treatments he was going through. And that’s bravery to me. That’s what I admire: the ability to face the fact of the body’s fragility, rather than looking to obliterate it.

Sometimes I found myself thinking that the transhumanists, driven by greed (to experience, to colonize) and fear (of death, so childish in its intensity) were deformed people. I know this isn’t a good word to use. But I wasn’t a good person I was reading this book. I could feel my heart turn in revulsion as I encountered all these people who treated being alive, finite, human as a problem to be solved. The chapter on the grinders, “Biology and Its Discontents,” was particularly trying. When O’Connell reveals that Tim Cannon, deep in his alcoholism and spiraling, had once tried to kill himself, for a vicious instant I thought, If only he had succeeded. I just couldn’t take his sneering contempt—his saying, so often, things like, “People want to stay being the monkeys they are. They don’t like to acknowledge that their brains aren’t giving them the full picture, aren’t allowing them to make rational choices. They think they’re in control, but they’re not.”

There’s this moral superiority there. This assumption that you’re better than other people; other people are idiots, and you alone are stripped of illusion. I hate that—that loathing for your fellow man’s fallibilities as though you yourself have none. I hate that more than anything.

What’s more, I hate the apparent lack of regard for consequences on the part of so many transhumanists. In her book Being Numerous, Natasha Lennard writes about Paul Virilio’s notion of the “accident”: that “which is contained within, and brought into the world by, the inventions of progress […] itself.” In other words, when you invent a plane, the possibility of a plane crash follows. Often the transhumanists seem entirely unconscious of the possibilities their tech is bringing into existence. That’s simply outside the scope of their narrow remit. When Randal Koene, who runs the whole brain emulation organization Carboncopies, is confronted with the possibility that the downloading of minds to different substrates might unlock an entirely new level of invasive advertising, he basically shrugs it off. In that, he’s like just about everyone O’Connell talks to, every tech billionaire and devotee of any renown in our horrible historical moment: in love with the possibilities, unconcerned with the consequences.

Just because the possibility of developing a certain type of technology is there doesn’t mean it needs to be done. Where is the restraint? Maybe that’s longer a virtue in a late capitalist society, after the end of history, in a time when we don’t have any overarching societal narrative that would make restraint something to want to practice or that would make some notion of the human something we want to consider before we eradicate it. In this world we live in, everyone, atomized, pursues their own ends. What you want, what’s possible, and what you have the means to make possible are the only standards by which a decision to act is made.

Most of the transhumanists are frighteningly cavalier, to the layperson of a humanist bent like me, about the stages of the revolution they foresee. Ray Kurzweil, for one, talks about the trajectory he’d like to see so casually. “What would be a nice scenario is that we first get smart drugs and wearable technologies. And then life extension technologies. And then, finally, we get uploaded, and colonize space and so on.” And so on. Again, reading that line, I wanted to yell: Nothing entitles you to space! Have we not learned not to colonize?

It all speaks to the experience of reading To Be a Machine, which is this kind of Mobius strip of revulsion (“hell no”) and relenting (“I mean, maybe” or “well I guess” or “am I the problem here?”). At one point, O’Connell drops a quote from D. H. Lawrence: “science and machinery, radio, airplanes, vast ships, zeppelins, poison gas, artificial silk: these things nourish man’s sense of the miraculous as magic did in the past.” And it’s like “miraculous” is one side of a coin whose other side is “horrifying,” and O’Connell spends the entire book flipping that coin as he talks impartially about the transhumanist movement, showing you first one face of it and then the other.

It's a credit to O'Connell that he could stay as evenhanded as he is reporting on these people. I even came to dislike his repeated tendency to express fond, largely tolerant and even feelings toward people who sounded as inhuman and afraid of life as Roen Horn did. Maybe I was disappointed I couldn't be as gracious as he was even though I like to consider myself a kind person who's inclined to empathy.

Or more likely it’s because I lack O’Connell’s proximity to religion. Ultimately, his ethos of impartiality comes from being able to so clearly see the parallels between transhumanist and religious desire. This is a parallel that I, not being a religious person at all, having no real religious instinct, would never have felt so intuitively or described so convincingly. It leads O’Connell to afford the transhumanists the same respect he would the devotees of any other religion. As he’s listening to Tim Cannon share his vision of eventually being not a body but simply a “series of nodes” peacefully exploring the universe for all time, he writes

I was going to say that all of this sounded hugely expensive; I was going to ask who was going to pay for it all. But I thought better of it, in the way that you might think better of making a joke about the central tenets of a person’s faith after they had taken the trouble to explain them to you.

And transhumanism is ultimately a faith: a contemporary reflection of the ancient desire to be delivered of the body, redeemed of its weakness and sin, no longer subject to its curse. The Singularity—however that is defined, whatever particular perfect union between human and machine a particular transhumanist aims for—is the Rapture. The world after this Singularity, affording as it does answers to all scientific questions and cures for all diseases, will be Eden.

And everyone in this book believes themselves to be among the elect.

And if, as the transhumanists believe, humans are effectively computers, in the way their minds operate—just with substrates made of meat—it’s also the destiny of obsolete technology to die. And so it is just for humans to wipe themselves out to usher in cyborgs and AI and superintelligence. It’s just technology, drawing all the way from the first spear a human being ever threw, achieving its teleological end.

But—as O’Connell also points out, the attempts religion has made to make good on its own teleological narratives tell us that damnation always follows any human attempt to recover paradise.

#books #literary #nonfiction #mark o'connell #ray kurzweil #aubrey grey #laura deming #tim cannon #zoltan istvan #peter thiel #transhumanism #the singularity #the end of history

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knightofbalance-13 · 7 years

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The Logical Fallacies of Criticism

https://www.raphkoster.com/2013/10/14/on-getting-criticism/

Everyone who dislikes your work is right.

And the bottom line is, you put the game out there in order to get reactions. If it were not for reactions, you could have just kept the game in your drawer and gotten everything you needed out of it.

Incorrect: Nothing is ever valid if it is correct on that simple basis alone. i can say that the Avengers is literally the worst movie in history with terrible action, horrible dialogue and atrocious music and I would be right by this logic, despite it being a widely accepted fact that the Avengers movie is great in all these areas and having a very positive overall score to it. Just because you believe all criticism you got is correct doesn’t mean that applies to everyone or that even you are right. That is just a gateway to being used and manipulated by people.

You yourself say that reactions are what is needed for media: Would not positive reactions be included in that? And what about negative reactions that goes beyond the logical acceptance, such as what happened in Tokyo Ghoul where the creator was told to go kill himself because he didn’t make a ship canon? Should he retcon a decision of his so he can appease a group that went ballastic over a ship? The answer is yes to the first and no to the second and third.

The criticism that is useful is that which helps you do it better.

That means there are two aspects of your work that you want to hear about the most. What you did right, and what you did wrong.

This is a direct contradiction to what you said before where you basically said that negative criticism is always right but now it’s both sides that are important. And this brings up the question of: What if the reaction only shows one side? What if someone says nothing but praise and the other says nothing but criticism? Accepting either one means denying and avoiding the second side and that is an incredibly dangerous thing to do.

Nothing’s perfect.

The fact is that to do creative work is to know that most of what you do is shit. And we feel that way because we know we can do better. Honestly, if you aren’t pushing the boundaries of what you can do, you’re probably not working hard enough. And working at the edge means a lot of screw-ups.

While being critical of oneself is good, doing so too much and believing that “90% of what you do is shit” is not a valid nor even slightly healthy way as it denies you a style and constant puts you under pressure to change or improve everything when somethings don’t need improving or changing and are perfectly fine the way it is. Acting and thinking this way will only stress you out and leave you open to manipulation.

You often have to choose between your ideals and your message.

It doesn’t mean I have to give up on the philosophical ideal. But it does mean that there are many many ways to compromise, and not all of them leave you compromised. In fact, being uncompromising may be the least successful way to achieve your artistic goal.

Wait, but you said in the second statement:

People make games for different reasons. Some do it just because it is fun. Some do it as a form of personal expression. Some have a message to get across, and some are out to make money to put food on the table.

So what if compromising that message would contradict what they want to do? What if they want to get their message or philosphy across first and foremost? Yeah, in games this can be bad but not in all media: Books are a good media to get this across through a story, entertaining the audience by detailing their philosphy. So this seems contradictory again.

You have to dig to get the gold.

Most feedback you get isn’t going to be from fellow practitioners. Even when it is, they are not going to know as much about the specific ways in which you did things, the tools you used, the practices you follow, to be able to pinpoint exactly what’s wrong without a pretty deep dive.

This means that usually, when someone tells you that something is wrong or broken, it’s going to be wrong. But wrong in the sense that it will be imprecise. You need to find out what the problem is underlying the problem. In other words, the symptoms described will almost always be right, and the diagnosis will often be wrong.

Don’t discard the feedback because of this. Look at it as a door you need to push on. Dig deeper and find out what the real issue is.

Incorrect again. Just because someone says it’s wrong doesn’t make it wrong. In criticism it only becomes problem if a massive amount of people say it’s wrong. Listening to one person who could just be a spiteful troll say something’s wrong due to personal opinion is stupid and fallacious. You have to trust your instincts and take all criticisms into account.

Good feedback is detailed.

Look past what may feel like condescension. This sort of detail is impossible for someone who has not engaged fully with your work. The sign of a critic who does not care is brevity, not detail. It’s dismissal.

Now, all the other caveats about whether or not this feedback is right still apply. It can be detailed and not right. But never dismiss serious thought.

Incorrect: the person can be lying through their teeth or willfully not taking things into account of “missing” certain details and do so with detail. They can talk on and on and on about how much this sucks but if they are lying or not taking things into consideration or are motivated by selfish desires then the detail is irrelevant. Again, trust your instincts.

People who tell you you’re awesome are useless. No, dangerous.

I am not saying that you need to lack confidence in yourself. (Heck, you’ll never put anything out if that’s the case! You need to have the arrogance to assume anyone will care in the first place). I am saying that nobody is ever done learning, and people who tell you you have arrived will give you a sense of complacency. You should never be complacent about your art.

But that is exactly what will happen if you follow these guidelines: You will have no confidence in what you think and what your opinion is, only what the audiences want. And said to say but most vocal parts of the audiences are very small groups who are motivated by selfish and destructive desires so they will take advantage of your insecurities to abuse and beat you into their slave and make you write what they want, not what you want. And a creator’s first and foremost concern when making something for themselves or out of passion or love (which are usually the highest regarded works) should make it for themselves and then show that love to the world. The Nostalgia Critic says it the best: https://youtu.be/F0_W6gomFA8?t=12m41s

Someone asked for feedback will always find something wrong.

This is super simple. When someone is asked to critique something, they will feel like they have failed if they don’t find something wrong. So everyone will always find something, even if there’s nothing major to fix.

That doesn’t mean that the thing they mention is wrong. If the only feedback you get from multiple people is the same minor thing, you should feel pretty good!

This contradictory to the previous statements again which say that only negative criticism is good and that positive people are not.

Good work may not have an audience.

This is a sad truth. There is no correlation between quality and popularity. You may make something that is sophisticated, subtle, expressive, brilliant, and lose out to what is shallow and facile and brash. Oh well. And that really is the right attitude to have about it, too: oh well. Getting bitter about it is pointless.

That said, don’t underestimate the skill required in being simple, polished, and accessible. Dense and rich is easy. Simple is hard. You denigrate “pop” at your peril.

Except they won’t have that attitude due to all of the advice before hand which will leave them in a state of extremely low self esteem and will make them question their abilities as a creator: thus encouraging them to think they are no good and quit. This is why balance is such a necessity.

Any feedback that comes with suggestions for improvement is awesome.

That’s because it means the person offering the criticism actually thought about your goals. So either you get avenues to explore that assist you in your artistic goal, or you get told that your goal is invisible to an audience! Both are highly valuable information.

But what if that person isn’t making suggestion for the improvement to everyone: What if their suggestion is incredibly selfish and self centered and serves only to make it better to them and them alone? What then:? Should you take that advice even though it is obviously destructive?

If you agree with the criticism, say “thank you.” If you disagree, say “fair enough,” and “thank you.”

Complaining about a critique, or about a bad review, is utterly pointless. You can’t deny the subjective experience of the reviewer. You also have to be thankful that they paid enough attention to actually say anything at all. The fact is that indifference is the enemy, not engagement, even if that engagement doesn’t get the results you want.

You’re going to face way more indifference in your career than anything else. There are a lot of people out there working really hard, and they all want the audience attention that you do. Always be grateful for the attention. Someone takes the time to let you know what they thought? That’s already one in a thousand. They cared.

Exactky: Subjective. Meaning biased, opinionated and ultimately no use to you: you need to look for criticisms that are trying to be objective and factual. And that argument of “at least they paid attention” is crap: You can pay attention to something just to hate on it and just to know what lies to say and what facts you can twist.

Once indifference was the enemy: Now it is everyone. You can only trust attempts at being factual and honest and your own instincts.

You are not your work.

Above all, don’t forget this. Oh, be personally invested, of course. Your art will be poorer if you are not. But every little ship we launch is just our imperfect crafting of the moment. And we move on. We create again, and again. Each can only ever express a fragment, a tiny fraction of ourselves. And if you are trying to always improve in your craft and your art, then every old fragment, everything out there in the world already, that’s old news. You are on the next thing. Your next work, that’s who you are. Not the work that exists, but the work that does not yet.

So if someone savages it, who cares? That was yesterday. It’s not who you are now.

Hold on to that, because a lot of people can’t separate the work from the artist. Including a lot of artists.

This statement is contradictory: you are not your work but your work is a part of, therefore, who you are. I feel like this is an attempt to devalue an artist’s personal interest and investment in their work in order to detach them from it to make it more susceptible to control.

And that’s what this whole thing reads as: an attempt to make works susceptible to control from a vocal part of the audience by telling them that all negativity is good while simultaneously saying contradictory words in order to disguise this. If anyone followed this, they would have such a low opinion of themselves that they would listen to anyone who could get through to them first which, considering the power of screaming and mob mentality, would undoubtedly be an abusive group who just wants the media to portray exactly what they want for their own selfish wants. I have seen this in the past and I’ve seen it done today, by no other than the person who showed me this link. They wanted a certain show to go exactly the way they wanted which would alienate everyone except their small group by acting like a bunch of abusive lovers who try to emotionally abuse the creators into doing exactly what they want. This thought scares and pisses the hell out of me because the creator’s drive should be treated as the foremost concern, not the wants of the crowd. The creator does what they want with the show, all we can do is help guide them down the path they want, not choose that path for them. That is the road to successful works, not this abomination.

#criticism #bad criticism #incorrect way of taking criticism

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helplesslyfictional · 5 years

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Loki Fanfiction - Remember the Old Ways, Chapter 10 - “Light”

Author’s Note: Whew, this chapter was long (9477 words, friends)! It was so nice to write some more light-hearted stuff in this chapter. It didn’t feel like it was that long when I was writing it - right now everything’s clicking into place for the plot, and I’m so excited to write what’s coming up next!

Chapter Summary: Thor grapples with new revelations. Loki plans a trip to Vanaheim before deciding on a new task with his siblings. Pairings: None! These stories are focused on family relationships.

What characters, then? Loki, Thor, Odin, Frigga, OCs [Sophia] [Forsetti], Heimdall

When? Pre-Thor 2011: From Asgard to Earth, will go through Thor 2011 Chapter Warnings: Mature themes, emotional trauma, anxiety

Taglist: @loki-the-fox; @i-am-loki-and-now-i-speak-up; @trickster-grrrl; @deviantredhead; @mylokabrennauniverse; @leanmeanand-green; @juliabohemian; @latent-thoughts; @lucianalight; @nox-th-lk-sf; @be-a-snake-stab-your-brother; @myart-reviews Please let me know if you would like to be added/removed from tags and I’m more than happy to do so!

AO3 story link; Wattpad; Promo/Master Post (please share if you like the fic!)

tumblr: Chapter 1 / Chapter 2 / Chapter 3 / Chapter 4 / Chapter 5 / Chapter 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9

Thor closed his eyes, relaxing as the wind, ever familiar, ruffled his hair. He was in the last remaining private spot he’d found without Loki discovering it. Here he knew he could be alone. The drop from his perch was the tallest in Asgard with the exception of the zenith of the palace; this little ledge was sheltered by great golden wings rising on both sides. The warm sun of the sky-shroud banished the chill of winter, comforting Thor like a warm blanket.

In some ways he felt like a child now, in need of the familiar and the safe, like this spot. But, for him, things in the palace no longer felt stable. Though he’d understood Loki’s suspicions all along, Thor had dismissed them at some level as speculation. Loki was prone to flights of fantasy and conjecture, preferring to focus on ideas rather than reality.

With Heimdall’s confirmation, however, all the theories had become set in stone. His parents had been concealing the truth, potentially hiding more than what had been found by Loki. And why?

Why would they have done this to him? Hide not just a sister, but his own twin? What possible reason could be good enough? Loki’s vision suggested the invasion was linked to her disappearance, but it seemed to him it was no excuse. Asgard would fight to the end for him, why wouldn’t they for his sister in kind?

And his parents had not just hidden her, they had denigrated her by making her mortal. Stripped of identity, of status, of strength, and anything connecting her to Asgard. No wonder she was so frightened all the time, her fear pulsing its way through his heart. Anything that would give her the ability to defend herself was gone. In many ways, he was everything she wasn’t.

He ought to go to Midgard immediately and bring her here, back home. He might be able to persuade Heimdall to let him use the Bifrost, he’d seemed amenable thus far. His father had instituted a ban on going there, but why should it matter if he had done this to his family?

Wait - was the ban in place to keep them apart?

By the Norns! Thor leaned back against the wall behind him, clenching his fists. Everything. Everything tied to this. His life had been all illusion but no substance. Now that she was around him, he felt whole for the first time in his life, something he had been missing all this time. It was intoxicatingly wonderful, and to think, he could have had it all along. He could have felt complete this whole time.

A passing cloud blotted out the sun, the cold chill of winter creeping in once more through Thor’s armor. Though Loki had always been there, they’d never had a true connection, not like this. The emotions, the memories, the dreams - though the amount of sway she had was powerful against him, he felt, deep down, that being close to her was true and right. What had she said? Right, like the thrum of a bow? As though this was meant to be. That, as Loki had mentioned, the universe willed it.

If that was the case, then the designs of his parents mattered little in the scheme of things. Forces seemed to be drawing them together into one another’s orbits despite all obstacles.

Nonetheless, the idea that he could no longer trust his father disturbed Thor on a fundamental level. He’d always worked hard to be the best son and heir to his parents. To be an exceptional example. In many ways, he was doing well on that front; Father trusted him enough to be crowning him King. But this betrayal of trust made Thor doubt their faith in him. Was he bearing the burden of two children instead of one? Trying to fill a role far too large?

Would they have told him about Sophia after he had been made King, or would he have been kept in the dark had Loki not made this discovery?

Slowly it dawned on Thor that bringing Sophia back to Asgard would compromise the Crown. He needed to be seen as the trusted heir of a strong, long-standing King. Fitting into the image he’d worked hard to forge - that of a lauded prince. The people loved Odin. Bringing forward a threat to that idea would turn public opinion, and his father, against him. Was this woman worth that?

Thor began to feel slightly dizzy with the fear, anger, and sadness fighting within him. He wanted to punch something or cry like a child, but he felt paralyzed, unable to do anything but feel it churning within.

A warmth slowly spread through him, but it wasn’t from the sun. Opening his eyes, Thor saw Sophia sitting next to him. This wasn’t a good time, it just wasn’t.

“It is unwise to be in my presence right now,” Thor said deeply, trying to will her away.

Sophia looked at him, brushing a hair out of her face and leaning against a golden wing. He felt her deep sadness and confusion, but tried to push it out. He was already feeling far too much on his own, he didn’t need to deal with her emotions as well.

“Sophia, you need to go,” Thor reiterated forcefully, “I can’t deal with you right now.”

“When are you going to deal with me?” Sophia asked, crossing her legs.

“Later.”

“Well, I don’t want to deal with this later. We’re both hurting, and there’s no sense in hurting alone.”

Thor turned his head to glare at her. “Hurting alone is just fine. It’s a better way to deal with things than talking.”

“Deal with it how, exactly? It doesn’t work the problem through. If you’re at all like me, you’re making everything palatable enough to shove down your feelings and try to make them go away.”

That was it. “I don’t do that,” he snarled, “Stop reading into me. You don’t know me!”

Sophia shrank back a little, and Thor felt her fear in reaction. He didn’t mean to scare her, simply to make her stop. “You’re right,” she said more softly. “I don’t. Sometimes I just feel like I do. I’m sorry.”

Thor felt his heart go out to her. Damn it, he thought, I’m going to feel bad if she leaves now. “Don’t take things the wrong way. It’s just...a lot to think about.”

Sophia leaned over her legs, stretching her back a little. “This is certainly a good place to think. If I was here physically, I’d be pretty scared, but it’s a great view.”

Thor gave a little smile. “Well, don’t tell Loki. This is the only spot he hasn’t discovered me in.”

“Don’t worry,” Sophia said. “Your secret’s safe with me.”

Thor looked at her carefully. He didn’t know why that made him feel just a little bit better. “Thank you.”

A brief moment passed before Sophia spoke again. “Trying to understand how this is possible is probably the hardest thing for me. I mean, I was so sure my mother was my mother, you know? And that I’m...human. It seemed like those were...unchangeable facts.”

Thor snorted. “Facts no longer exist,” he said in a derisive tone. “I thought I could trust my parents. That I was the elder of two sons. And yet those basic things - they’re no longer true.” Thor pulled up his legs and crossed them. “As to how it happened - I’m sure Loki will find the answer. Undoubtedly it’s magical. Mother is perhaps the most skilled sorceress Asgard has known.” That left a sour taste in his mouth. He should feel proud of that, but now it had been used against him.

Sophia leaned closer to him, looking concerned. “I felt that,” she said, her eyes searching his. “It’s okay to have mixed feelings about one’s parents. I certainly learned that the hard way.”

Thor frowned, struggling to hold back the tears that sprang forward. Damn, she shouldn’t have to see this. Hold yourself together. Kings don’t cry.“It shouldn’t be this way. I should be able to trust them, I have - all my life - I mean, they’re my parents. They’ve always been people I’ve looked up to. I just - “ He struggled to put things into words.

“I think,” she said slowly, “there’s always a point in life when children realize their parents were never perfect, that they weren’t all-powerful gods. I’m not saying you haven’t realized that before, but there’s a point when it really rings true. And you realize that your parents are full people with flaws and problems of their own.”

Thor shook his head. “I know that, I did know that, but - they were always better than their faults. They’re...the king and queen.” He gave a disbelieving smile. “The ones we’re supposed to emulate, to aspire to be. An example to the people, for the children to want to be and the generals to point to as leaders.”

“It sounds like you’re mixing their position with their roles as your parents. A family is still a family, no matter what positions they hold in society.”

Thor shook his head. “They can’t be...divorced from that role, though. My father is both my king - and my father. I have to hold a duty to him in both roles - as a son and his heir. When I was growing up, it was a fact ever-present in my life.” He looked down at his hands. “When we would misbehave, Father used to threaten to put Loki and I in prison. As though we were committing treason.” Glancing up, he scrutinized her. “I suppose it’s a mercy you never had to experience that.”

Sophia screwed up her face. “I don’t know, growing up with my parents wasn’t a walk in the park either.”

“Oh please, tell me how your life was worse,” Thor said teasingly, but realization dawned on him that his sister had grown up with the family that, likely, his parents had chosen. Whatever it was she’d experienced, it was their fault as well.

“My parents - well, I used to think they were great parents, even for years. It wasn’t until some...terrible things happened and I began talking about it that I realized something was wrong.”

“Was that the memory I saw?” Thor asked. “I do hope you don’t remember it, your feelings were...awful.”

“Sometimes that’s hard,” Sophia said, shifting uncomfortably. “There’s more than just that memory. But that’s not the point. The point is that I slowly began to realize that there were problems with my upbringing - problems that affected me throughout my life.

“I grew up schooled at home, unlike most people in my country. That meant that my parents had complete control over me - from how I spent my time to what I could read. It also meant I spent all of my time in the presence of my family - mother, father, and a younger brother.”

Thor’s eyes widened. She had a sibling with this other family? He quickly tried to imagine what it would be like to find out Loki wasn’t his brother. It was incomprehensible. Nonetheless, her experience sounded no different than his and Loki’s - they too spent their time together.

She continued. “Any small thing could make an impact in the family - the smallest thing would make my parents angry. It felt like anything I did would make them upset at me. So I worked to please them, to make everyone love me. It worked for a while, but…” Her voice drifted off, as did her eyes. Then she blinked and focused. “When it stopped working, I didn’t know a different way to try and get my parents to love me.” She pursed her lips. “It took me a long time to realize that I shouldn’t be the one making them love me, they should do it on their own.” Locking eyes with him, she gave a weak smile. “And they haven’t. So I just have to accept that they don’t, or pine after something I’ll never receive.”

“But do you still love them? That’s the question.”

“Of course I do. I love them because they are...were...my family. But you can hate and love them at the same time, it’s just not easy.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Thor said, reaching out and rubbing her back. “Don’t worry, once you come here, you will be loved. My parents are…” His voice trailed off as his mind caught up to his instinctive desire to comfort her. His parents couldn’t have loved her if they did this to her. But they’d loved him, hadn’t they? “I suppose - Loki and I, we will love you.” He gave her a half-hearted smile.

“I appreciate the sentiment,” Sophia said softly. “But even though I want to be loved, it’s not - it’s not something I worry about. I worry more about being alone.”

Thor thought for a moment, squinting as he scanned the skyline. “I suppose I don’t worry about love myself. But being alone? Yes.” He paused. “Aside from what I’ve already mentioned about loneliness throughout my life, my position isolates me from others. It always has. Everyone always wants something, to influence me, or to catch me doing something wrong. That, or they expect me to punish or reward them. It’s exhausting to try and catch it before it affects me. And it’s never truly conducive to friendship.”

She frowned. “What about your friends, Lady Sif and the others?”

“Even with them there is a boundary that cannot be crossed.”

“Is it not within your ability to change that?”

Thor sighed. “I tried, honestly. But between the necessity of giving orders and my duties, the line still remains.”

Sophia smiled, saying jokingly, “Have you tried just getting out and meeting new people?”

“I can’t just do that.” Thor didn’t want to join in the jest. “I’m recognizable everywhere I go. Loki has the ability to disguise himself and blend into a crowd, but I’ve always been noticed. I’ve always been jealous of him for that - the freedom to go where he wills. To disappear.”

“I understand,” Sophia said, cocking her head as she scrutinized his face, “When I was a diplomat abroad, I was in a country where it was easy to tell where I came from. Even when I was walking around the neighborhood, people would, on sight, try to get something from me. It was hard because I was representing my country, so I had to be polite, even when I just wanted them to leave me alone. In other respects, I always wanted to help them and...couldn’t.”

Impressive, she did understand. He thought he’d been alone in that feeling. “I do as well. I do want to help everyone. To take away their cares, or to be the person they want me to be. I love seeing the joy in their eyes; I love when they love me. But sometimes I think it makes it hard to be...just myself.”

Sophia stared at him for a few moments, then nodded. “That’s how I felt, especially when I was with my parents. Like I didn’t exist - I always felt like a mirror.”

“Yes!” Thor’s head snapped. Her analogy was perfect. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Like a mirror. Always what other people want to see, never yourself.”

Sophia suddenly reached over, trying, and failing, to reach around him for a hug. Thor softened, touched by the gesture. “I was worried we didn’t have much in common,” she said quietly. “That the universe was throwing us together and we were just two random people.”

“We’re not two random people,” Thor said, bringing her closer. “We’re not just blood, either, we’re two halves of a whole. We were meant to find one another - I know it in my bones. I just grieve that we were separated at all.”

Thor couldn’t see Sophia’s face, but he felt her anxiety. “I know that I want this,” Sophia said. “But I worry I should feel more than that, that I should be sad for a life I never had. Instead I just look to it as a developing future of possibilities. Is that - is that wrong?”

Thor frowned. It was a little odd she thought that way. “How old are you, Sophia? It seems like you are...young.”

“That’s what’s so strange to me. I’m thirty years old.” Thor’s blood froze. Thirty years. How was such a thing possible? “Why, how old are you?” she asked. “For us to have myths it must be...a bit.”

Thor mumbled out “1046” without thinking, his mind still on the age gap. Sophia sucked in her breath. “Jesus. I suppose that makes sense, but...wow.”

“But we were born at the same time,” Thor said, turning things over in his mind, his breath coming more quickly. He felt the sky answer his emotion, the clouds beginning to churn. He didn’t try to stop it.

Sophia looked up at him with a smile. “That is what being a twin means,” she said teasingly.

Thor extracted himself from the embrace, standing up, anger flaring within him. “One thousand years,” he forced out. “A millenia without you! A thousand years together, stolen!” A storm began to coalesce, the thunder cracking as much as his heart.

“Do you not see, Sophia? You will outlive me. A thousand years was stolen from me, and a thousand from you, all told. Though worse for you, I think, because if I do die of old age, then you’ll have known me and have me no longer.” He laughed wryly as the wind began to whip past them. “To think, they - “ the tears threatened to come forward again. “They committed the worst crime.”

Sophia slowly stood, back against the golden wing flanking their ledge. She was scared, though of what he was unsure. “They must’ve had a reason,” she raised her voice over the wind, “It’s not the worst thing. They didn’t do it just to hurt us!”

“What?” Thor said, shaking his head and walking toward her. “How can you defend this? Your own parents hurt you, would you defend them as well?”

“Yes, because they did the best they could! That’s all we can ask for.”

He wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt. That there was some sort of grandiose plan. But he couldn’t see it.

Sophia flinched at a flash of lightning, but she stood tall. It was so strange to feel her emotions on top of his, to feel instead of guess that she was both concerned and filled with sadness. “Thor,” she said, “Thor, we can’t focus on the past. It’s gone, it can’t be changed.”

Thor continued to fight back tears. As she wrapped her arms around him once more, they came forth, and Thor couldn’t help but sob like a child, all the emotions flooding out. The sky answered, rain pouring down and helping mask his tears.

--------------

After Sophia insisted on finding Thor, Loki decided to chase down information lurking on Vanaheim. His - sister, now, he should call her - ignored his warnings about Thor’s temper to go comfort him. Likely a futile endeavor; any moment he expected her back in tears.

Vanaheim promised to hold further information. Speaking with another practicing Seer might help to shed light on seidr, a topic Loki still desperately wished to know more about. It seemed odd to him that such a magic would have been hidden.

Heimdall’s possession of the Sight was also interesting to Loki, particularly since it was associated with women. He wondered, briefly, if Heimdall kept to himself because of the outcast nature of men who had the Sight. He’d never heard any whispers to indicate that, but, by keeping to himself, Heimdall might have quelled such rumors.

Forsetti’s interest in the Vidfavne situation made Loki think he’d be a good resource, one that could also be cultivated in his favor, per Sophia’s suggestion. If Forsetti was correct and there was a problem with basic resources in the region, then it needed to be dealt with accordingly. If that coincided with a visit to the Seers, then all ends could be tied up neatly and he might come out looking competent in his father’s eyes. All in all, not a bad result.

Tendrils of feelings kept creeping into Loki’s mind, both his and Sophia’s. The confirmations by Heimdall were both exhilarating and devastating. He’d suspected all along there were things being hidden by his parents, but to hear them so clearly confirmed was still difficult. Harder for Thor, to be certain, but it didn’t change the fact he could clearly no longer take for granted what he’d been told his entire life. Patterns were beginning to emerge as to why his parents hid such things, but he hadn’t quite put together the pieces.

Visiting Forsetti’s office took little to no time at all; the noble was more than amenable to the idea of accompanying Loki to Vanaheim. Though it had been some time since Forsetti had served on Vanaheim, he knew the right contacts to pull strings and facilitate the trip. They’d depart on the morrow - there was no sense wasting time.

By the time Loki got back outside, it was raining. Thunder boomed overhead, and Loki looked up, squinting as raindrops started to get in his eyes. Yes, this was definitely his brother’s doing. Quickly, he self-examined his emotions to find Sophia’s current state. She was sad, but not overwhelmingly so, and concerned. Hardly the level of upset he’d expect if his brother’s temper flared.

Loki pursed his lips as he walked, wondering what they were talking about. It was strange to know she was here on Asgard without being in his presence. How were they going to bring her to Asgard? With the depth of secrecy given to Sophia’s existence, his parents would certainly be unhappy if she were to return.

Yet, she belonged here on Asgard, that much was for certain. And the prophecy seemed to indicate that their duties as Children of Time necessitated their reunion. If that were to happen, whatever binding was placed on her needed to be removed.

Loki considered this as he re-entered the palace, ignoring the servants wiping the rain off their gilded floors. He could probably remove the binding, depending on the complexity. He wondered why had Sophia been bound in the first place, particularly as a child. It seemed like hiding her existence was too simple a reason, especially given his vision. In his vision, It seemed as though it was critically important for Frigga to finish the binding.

Perhaps Forsetti might have some answers. The cover-up around the Elven invasion was comprehensive, so Loki had no doubt that speaking about what happened would be a treasonous crime. He hadn’t asked about this during his visit for that precise reason. Forsetti needed some grooming before he could be asked to do something so grave.

As Loki entered his room, he halted as he saw someone waiting, then realized it was Sophia. Her eyes were red and her body language was meek, which was unusual for her. Glancing around the room, he didn’t see Thor. “Is everything alright, Sophia?”

She nodded. “Just a little emotional, that’s all. Thor’s on his way. He said something about the binding spell?”

Ah. Thor was probably thinking along the same lines as he was. “I was hoping to have a better look at it myself. I’m guessing things went alright with my - our - brother.” He headed to the largest section of his room, where he practiced spellwork, indicating for Sophia to follow.

She frowned. “Yes. It’s going to take a lot of getting used to the idea that we’re family,” she said, coming up alongside him. “Thor’s quite upset, but he’s calmed down. I think the initial surprise has worn off, and he’s...processing.”

“Not unlike when I found out about my demise, I’m sure,” Loki said wryly, then regretted it. He didn’t mean to make this about him.

Sophia shot him an annoyed glance. “It’s a little different, I think. Not to diminish how significant that was, but this changes his worldview.”

Loki gave a tight smile. “Mm. He hasn’t had something like that.” Leave it to Thor to take the center stage. “Can you stand here?”

Sophia stood in the center of the square space, looking at him expectantly. Loki carefully cast a familiar spell, generating a blue dodecahedron of light and moving it to shine on Sophia.

He didn’t quite know why he was jealous of Thor over this. Perhaps it was that, instead of being their sibling, Sophia was Thor’s twin. It somehow tied her more closely with Thor and, most likely, was the source of their natural mental connection. It was something he didn’t have, now. Even though he had a connection with Sophia, it still stung that it needed to be purposeful rather than natural.

“Nothing up front. I’m going to move it around to your back,” Loki said, not wanting Sophia to be surprised. With that, he slowly brought the orb around, examining her side while moving.

He shouldn’t be thinking this way. They were family now, becoming more whole. Why drag this down with such hurtful feelings? He shook his head - then, as the orb lit Sophia’s back, he saw something.

There was the rune Elhaz, sitting on the back of Sophia’s neck, glimmering silver under the spell’s light. The spell, fortunately, shone through clothing and skin, otherwise he might have missed it under her hair. Loki drew closer to get a better look.

Thor entered without knocking, closing the door behind him. His eyes widened when he noticed them. “Oh! Good, you went ahead and started.”

“Thank you for using the door, at least,” Loki said wryly. “Yes, I’ve found it, I think. It’s a bind-rune. Not unlike a rune of protection, but this is…” He squinted at it. “Complicated.”

“If Mother was involved, I’ve no doubt it is,” Thor said, dragging a chair into the space and plopping down. “Can you undo it?”

“Probably.” Loki dissipated the light, taking Sophia’s shoulders and moving her into the perfect center of the space, delineated by dark blue tiles. “It’s on the back of your neck, Sophia, so I’m going to access it now. You can move, but please do so slowly, and let me know before doing it. I’m going to be working with its energy back here, so I need to be able to anticipate any changes.”

“I understood about half of that,” Sophia said, “but I’ll do what I can.”

Loki brushed aside Sophia’s hair. Now that he knew to look for it, he could feel the magical field of the rune. With a tiny pulse of energy from his fingers, the rune shimmered forth on her skin, shining brightly. He stood back, casting a magical circle of green light, then tried a few methods of accessing the rune before trying a more complicated one. It worked but, as he’d expected, this wasn’t going to be easy.

As soon as he was able to access it, energy blossomed forth from the rune, spiralling forward before branching out into a network of tightly woven enchantments. Loki’s eyes widened as he stepped back in awe. Thor rose from his seat, slowly moving around the circle. “It’s...beautiful,” Loki said under his breath.

“By the Norns…” Thor said, his jaw dropping. “I haven’t seen anything like that before.”

“This isn’t just a spell,” Loki said, laughing in disbelief. “This - this is art . Frigga, you...you are...magnificent. I haven’t seen this many spells in a binding - ever. I mean, theoretically you could put this many in, but - “ his voice trailed off as he worked to comprehend what he was seeing.

“I’m trying not to freak out over here,” said Sophia. “I’m assuming you’re not talking about my beautiful back end.”

“No,” Thor said, smiling, “but that in no way denigrates your back end.”

“Thank you,” Sophia said with a smile and a sniff.

Loki gently manipulated the energies to visualize the web in a more accessible interface. “There are a wide variety of enchantments here.” He scrolled through some, carefully reading the runic script. “Some are holding you to human developmental markers...ah, here’s some to hold your genetic code...oh.” He stopped on one, making sure he read it correctly. “Well, that confirms you’re Asgardian. This one severs your connection to Asgard’s energies.”

Thor moved closer, reading over Loki’s shoulder. “Unbelievable,” he said. “That would’ve confirmed she was our sister, right there. We should’ve done this before going to Heimdall.”

“What does that mean?” Sophia asked, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

Thor glanced up, then moved over to her line of sight. “Since the days of the first king of Asgard - King Buri - the fate of Asgard has been tied to the monarchy. As his descendents, and as heirs to the throne, we are given great gifts to protect our people.”

Sophia narrowed her eyes. “I don’t understand, sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” both Loki and Thor said in unison.

Thor grinned at Loki. “This is going to be fun, isn’t it, brother.” Loki shook his head and smiled, continuing his work.

“What makes you both say that?”

Thor reached out, then stopped, realizing he shouldn’t cross the magical circle. “First, you don’t need to apologize for something as simple as not understanding. And secondly, you’re - you’re royalty. As Father says, apologies show weakness.”

“Not all apologies, mind you,” Loki said, giving him an annoyed glance, “just the unnecessary ones.”

“Ah,” Sophia said quietly, “that makes better sense.”

“To better explain the energy, erm…” Thor leaned back against the wall, thinking. “Well, I’m the god of thunder. You haven’t seen me use it, but I can call lightning, among other things - many other things. That storm earlier? That was me. I’m not using magic for something like that; I’m not casting spells. An average Asgardian doesn’t have such abilities, either.” He gestured around him. “All of it comes from Asgard.”

Sophia clasped her hands, showing annoyance at her constrained movement. “Your abilities are what makes you both gods, then?”

“Yes,” Loki answered, still focused on his work. “Asgard has given me strong magical abilities and a keen mind.”

Thor nodded. “We draw our power from Asgard, and in turn, we protect it. By severing that connection, this enchantment kept you from developing any ability in that regard.”

Sophia flashed him a confused smile. “That means…”

“What it means will depend on if I can get this off you,” Loki said, slightly annoyed. The number of enchantments here meant he was going to need to be slow and methodical about removing it. It was going to take more time than he’d thought. “Thor, there’s a number of enchantments here that are meant to deter various methods of detection. Primarily magical, but a few inhibitors as well.”

Thor crossed his arms. “That would cancel out tracking devices on her?”

“Yes. It’s a...diverse array of protections, far more in-depth than I would have done in Mother’s position.” Loki tapped a finger against his leg. “There’s almost as much devoted to that as there is to Sophia’s physical form.”

“Oh!” Sophia exclaimed. “That would explain why my stupid GPS never works on my phone.”

Thor laughed. “I have no idea what that means, but probably.” He turned to Loki. “It makes sense that if they were trying to hide Sophia away, they’d want to make sure she wasn’t found,” Thor said, his mouth quirking. Clearly he didn’t like what he was saying.

Loki nodded, finishing up his analysis. With a few gestures, he dispelled the display, its energies shrinking back to Sophia’s neck. The magical circle faded, as it was no longer needed. “There,” he said, “You can move for a bit, Sophia.”

She relaxed with a sigh, moving over to the sitting area and flopping into a chair. “Ugh. Why is it when you’re told you can’t do something, that’s when you want to do it?”

Thor smiled as he moved to sit. “I feel like that all the time. Particularly in ceremonies, I want to start doing anything but stand still.”

Loki walked into the sitting area slowly, taking his time to sit as he contemplated what to say. “Well, I can dispel the enchantment,” he said. “I’ll have to be slow and careful, but I can do it.”

Sophia frowned. “What happens if you make a mistake?”

Thor gave a nervous laugh, and Loki shifted uncomfortably. “If the enchantment is cut too quickly, it can cascade,” he said, knitting his fingers together. “The energy that would be released would be...significant. Akin to an explosion. It wouldn’t hurt us, since we’re Asgardian, but you…” He broke eye contact, his eyes drifting down to his fingers. “Well, it wouldn’t be an acceptable result.”

Her eyes widened. “Wait, could I get killed? Why would that be built into something that’s meant to protect me?”

The two brothers looked at one another before Loki spoke. “The danger is inherent to the spell, so Mother clearly felt it was worth the risk. Anyone less skilled than I who attempted to remove the spell would risk destroying both themselves and you in the process. Most likely someone who’d be motivated to remove it probably wouldn’t be willing to do that.”

Thor rubbed his neck, glancing up at Loki. “It seems worth the risk.”

Loki glanced over at Sophia, who seemed a little shocked at Thor’s assumption. “Well, let’s look at the benefits,” he said, leaning back. “Sophia regains her Asgardian form and any hindrances inherent to the rune are removed. We can probably track her on Midgard as a result.”

Sophia held out her hands. “Wait, would I look different?”

Loki frowned. “Possibly, I’m unsure. You’re quite short for a daughter of Odin.” Thor snorted, smirking.

Sophia narrowed her eyes, giving Thor an aggravated look. “Something that changes so significantly would freak out my parents, probably. If they couldn’t recognize me, they’d see me as a stranger in their own house.”

“Is that a problem?” Thor asked.

“Yes, as a matter of fact. I’d be homeless if they kick me out.”

Loki held out a hand. “It’s alright, Sophia, I can bind an illusion to you with your current appearance that will hold on Midgard.”

Sophia visibly relaxed. “That would take care of that problem. The only concern, then, is...failure.”

“I’d trust Loki if I were in the same situation. With my life,” Thor said with no hesitation.

Loki looked at his brother with renewed respect, touched. Thor didn’t usually speak about him that way. “I don’t like to boast about my skill, Sophia, but I’d put the likelihood of failure quite low. Even if something happens, I know of ways to stop it. I just wanted to make sure we considered the risks.”

Sophia looked back and forth between them, clearly considering the situation. A grin slowly crept across her face. “Let’s do it.”

“Yes!” Thor leapt to his feet. “I’ll get us some food!” With that, he vaulted over a sofa and breezed through the door.

Loki blinked, then laughed. “He wants you to eat before we start,” he said, “because it’s going to take a while.”

Thor came back, his arms laden with foodstuffs. Loki poured them some wine and they worked to devour it all. Loki noted Sophia didn’t eat much, probably because of the nervous edge he was sensing from her. It wasn’t long before they were back in the work space, with Thor arranging pillows on the floor for Sophia.

“It’d be best for you to lay down so that you don’t get stiff,” Loki said as he walked around the space, visualizing the layout he would use.

“Plus it’ll be more comfortable,” Thor said, patting a cushion. “There! All ready for you.”

Sophia lay down, giggling a little bit. She was a little flushed and tipsy from the wine, which, Loki reasoned, was just fine. Let her have a little fun after the stresses of today.

Loki motioned for Thor to move; he got up and got a goblet before taking a seat. Loki tensed his fingers as he began to cast a circle for disenchantment, lighting up the room with green energy. As quickly as he could, he accessed the rune and got to work.

Thor and Sophia chatted about a variety of subjects, but Loki didn’t listen at first, instead making sure he was focused on his work. However, it was nice to hear their conversation in the background. It made for a lovely change from his typically solitary evenings.

“You said you had a brother in your family. What’s he like?” Thor asked, leaning back and taking a sip of his wine.

Sophia sighed. “He’s handsome, polite, smart, hard-working, considerate. In a few ways, a lot like you. Any woman would be lucky to have him; his wife was the one who won the prize.”

“So, he’s married. I thought he was your younger brother, though.”

“Yes, well, he got married at 18, quite young. They love one another, though, so I can’t say it’s a bad thing.”

Thor coughed. “18? 18 years. Eighteen.”

Sophia laughed, putting her hand on her stomach. “I know it doesn’t seem like long to you, but that’s when we consider people coming of age.”

“Norns, it’s hard to understand mortals.”

“Hey, it’s the same in the other direction. You’re just as strange, I just don’t talk about it.”

“Does he live with you still?”

“No, no, he’s off living on his own. He’s got a career, good money, a wife, foster kids...pretty much everything my parents wanted for a child.”

“I thought you worked to be the perfect one,” Thor said.

“Yes, well. My parents were inclined to think he could do no wrong, so I had to work all the harder to please them.” Sophia’s voice turned a little bitter. “I can’t blame him, it’s not his fault, it just, uh - it’s hard.”

Loki glanced up from his work. He’d have to follow up on that, that was surprisingly close to how he felt.

Thor seemed to be a little confused, but didn’t say anything to that effect. “It seems like you don’t particularly care for your family.”

Sophia’s eyes widened. “Um…” She blinked. “I have mixed feelings, like I mentioned before. They’re the family I had, the one I grew up with. I’m bitter and angry, but - I still love them. I’m just...ready to leave, I suppose. They have their own lives now.”

Thor looked worried. “I hope you won’t feel that way about us.”

Sophia looked sideways at him, mixed emotions crossing her face. “I can’t make promises,” she said. “I give people the benefit of the doubt, against my better judgment. It’s a part of who I am. I don’t judge if I can help it.”

Loki paused his work. “Thor, in my experience, she is quite kind and loving, despite her feelings toward her family. She’s had her whole life with them to form her opinions, we’re relatively new to her in comparison.”

Thor set down his goblet, clasping his hands in front of him. “Just make sure not to apply those feelings to us.”

“I’ll try,” Sophia said with a small smile.

Loki’s work was laborious. Thor quickly ran out of ways to pass the time with Sophia, and as they eventually lapsed into silence, Thor, refusing to leave, fell asleep in his chair.

Sophia lay there quietly, lost in her own thoughts. The sky-shroud had disappeared to let in the light of the stars, and nothing but the crackle of the braziers and Loki’s footsteps made a sound. “Sophia,” Loki finally said, “Are you awake?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’m too nervous to fall asleep.”

“Don’t worry, I’m nearly done. I just wanted to check since you’re so quiet.”

“Yep, just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Well, this is a lot. All of this. Like a wish or a story coming true. I mean, if I didn’t know better, I’d admit myself to the hospital for having delusions. Because this doesn’t happen to a lot of people, you know?”

“I suppose.” Loki hesitated. “I always considered myself lucky to be born into my position. Some of us are just born into the right circumstances.”

“But this...this is a lot of circumstances.”

Loki smiled. “Yes, certainly. But we’re unravelling what all of this means. It’s not a wish coming true, if such a thing were to exist, but, rather, it’s the righting of a wrong. Something that shouldn’t have happened.”

“I suppose it’s just my perspective. Thor said I was young when I mentioned it; I think he thought I was being naive.”

“Well, naivety is, in itself, a matter of perspective. In comparison to us you’re young, but that doesn’t change how you view this, and that’s what matters to you.”

“How do you view all of this, then?” Sophia asked, turning her head to follow him.

“I have a lot of feelings, but in the end, I think the truth is the most important. Strange for a god of tricks, I know, but that’s what I think.”

“It’s not so strange,” Sophia said quietly. “At the core of every trick there’s a truth, a pointed truth. I think people often hate tricksters and comedians because they’re the truth-tellers of society - hated as much as they are loved - because they point out the hypocrisies as well as exposing the truths that we want to hide. Sometimes you go too far, and then...well, some societies don’t take kindly to the idea of truth.”

Loki stopped, then forced himself to continue. “That’s a very astute perspective,” he said softly. “I think deep down we know that, but we’re just not confronted with the idea. It’s easier to laugh or deride rather than think about the point behind the joke.”

“Do you feel like that’s the case with your tricks?”

“Yes, certainly. For example, when we were younger, Thor had a favorite shirt of his that he wore all the time. It was too tight - it cut into his arms - but he liked to wear it because he thought it made him look stronger. So I snuck into his room and ruined the shirt. Not really a trick, but still, I had a reason. Naturally, he thought it was because I was jealous, but that wasn’t the point. The point was his vanity.”

“Did it work?” Sophia asked.

“No,” Thor said, “It didn’t. I’m not the fastest learner, though.”

Sophia laughed loudly as Loki blushed. “That’ll teach me to assume you’re out,” Loki said. “How much did you hear?”

“Oh,” Thor said teasingly, “Enough.”

“Oh, fine then. Be that way,” Loki said, grinning. “Nearly done, Sophia. I’ll let you know when to expect...change.”

He felt the flickers of her anxiety. Thor must have as well, since he leaned forward out of his reclined position, putting his elbows on his knees. “You’ll be fine, Sophia,” he said comfortingly.

“You don’t know,” Sophia said tightly, “You haven’t seen anything like this before, right?”

“Well, no,” Thor said, “But Loki knows what he’s doing. So I know you’ll be fine.”

She hesitated. “Just keep telling me that,” she said. “I have a feeling I’m going to forget it in a few seconds.”

“You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine, you’ll be fine.” Thor started repeating, with a grin.

“Oh my god, that’s not what I meant,” Sophia said, laughing, and chucked a pillow at him.

There, it was done. Prepped for removal. “All set, Sophia,” Loki said. “Expect it in a few moments.”

Sophia screwed her eyes closed and Loki twisted his fingers, activating the spell and extracting the rune. He congratulated himself on his success, watching as the silver magic traced over Sophia’s form, looping around her body until it was obscured by light. It subtly changed to golden light, warmth emanating like the sun, then died down.

Thor was the first to reach her, with Loki just behind. “She’s alright,” Thor said, eyes moving quickly to assess her. “Sophia?”

Her eyes were closed. She put her hand on her forehead and was simply breathing. “Different lungs,” she said. “Oh, this is weird. Oh god, I sound different, too. Different vocal cords.” She took a deep breath.

“Don’t panic,” Loki said, putting a hand on Thor’s back and leaning over to better see. “Just take your time and get used to it.”

She was certainly taller, significantly taller. Her hair was now a light blonde, a striking contrast to the brown she had sported. The structure of her face was different as well. She might not be happy about that, Loki thought.

“Are you in pain?” he asked, hoping that she wasn’t holding her head for that reason.

Thor glanced up at him with a mixture of surprise and confusion, then looked back to Sophia, who took her hand off her head. “No, no pain,” she said, finally opening her eyes. She pulled off her glasses, blinking. “Not going to miss those.”

Well, those eyes he knew. She had Thor’s eyes.

“Um, Sophia,” Loki said, recognizing an issue, “I’m going to shift your clothes to fit you.”

She nodded, and he reached down quickly, rearranging the matter of her clothes to better suit her. One of his favorite spells, perfect for the occasion.

Thor held out his hand to help her up, which she took and got up slowly, eyes widening as she reached full height and looked Thor straight in the eye. “Jesus fucking Christ!” she exclaimed, putting her hand over her mouth. “Fuck, am I that tall?”

Thor laughed, bringing her into a hug. “Of course you are! Loki was right, you were a little short.” Sophia looked at Loki over Thor’s shoulder, eyes still round as she was taking in everything. Loki gave her a grin, gleefully happy at his work.

She pulled back, putting her hands on Thor’s shoulders, looking down and assessing herself. Loki brought himself around Thor to better see her reactions. She looked over at him, dazed. “Well, that worked,” she said, “I have no idea of what to make of all this.” She laughed, shaking her head, then let go of Thor. “I think the hardest part is getting used to the altitude. How do I even walk like this?”

“One step at a time,” Loki said, stepping back and holding out his arms. Sophia carefully walked over, nearly tripping over a cushion. Thor snorted with laughter, and Sophia giggled as she met Loki and pulled him into a hug. “Your first steps as an Asgardian,” Loki said softly, and she squeezed him more tightly. Surprisingly tightly. Loki looked at Thor over Sophia’s shoulder, eyes widening as she kept squeezing. “She’s uh - she’s strong,” he said, trying to extricate himself before things got too uncomfortable.

She let go, shaking her head. “Wow, this is so unbelievable. But should we put up the illusion so that my parents don’t see...this?”

“You don’t even know your face!” Thor said. “Loki, could you…”

Loki blinked. “Of course, but it could be a lot. Sophia, would you like me to show you an illusion of yourself?”

She ran her fingers over her face, looking a little lost. “I suppose,” she said.

Loki looked her in the eye. Norns, it was strange to see her similarities to Thor. “I’d really like you to be sure.”

She stood up straighter, stroking the newly fitted clothes nervously. “I’m sure.”

A slight hand gesture was all that was needed to summon a simple, faintly shimmering version of Sophia. One hand over her stomach, she reached up to touch her own hair, then walked over, standing an arm’s length away. Her face slowly became more stern as she examined herself. Finally, she spoke. “I mean, it’s not like I have a say in how I really look. I don’t see myself there, but I guess - I guess it’s me.”

“You’ll get used to it,” Thor said cheerfully.

Loki felt a flicker of irritation that his brother wasn’t paying more attention. He knew it wasn’t just that easy. “Sophia, I’m a shapeshifter,” he said, hoping to lessen her discomfort, “and I’ve occupied a lot of forms over the years, some for long periods of time. I know from experience how strange it can feel to be in a body you’re not used to. You’ll find yourself in that reflection eventually, it just takes time.”

“Isn’t that what I said?” Thor asked teasingly.

Sophia turned, her arms wrapped around herself. “Just a different way, Thor. Thank you both. It’s still strange to consider you’re my brothers, but this is just another confirmation.” She gave a sad smile. “And I realized I didn’t say this before, but, I’m honored to be a part of your family.”

Loki looked at his brother, who was also smiling. “We’re honored to have you,” Thor said, “Now come over here and give me another hug.” Sophia grinned, then tripped and hit the floor, a pillow going flying. Laughter filled the room, Thor doubling over and gasping for breath before helping Sophia up.

After a brief hug, she shook her head. “That hurt way less than it should’ve.”

“Good old Asgardian genes,” Thor said, patting her on the back. “Don’t hurt yourself doing stupid stuff to see how much pain you can take.”

Loki snorted. “That sounds like something you’d do, Thor, not her.” Sophia smiled at him over Thor’s shoulder. “Sophia, shall I put that illusion on you?” Loki asked.

“Yes, please,” she said. “Do you need me to lie down again?”

“No, just hold out your hand,” Loki said. She did so, and he spun a quick binding rune over her wrist. No need to be fancy, it wasn’t going to be tested magically. Her form shimmered and changed as the illusion was applied, and with a quick flick of his fingers, the rune settled and faded into her skin. “There.”

She turned her wrist over, examining the illusion. “It’s strange, it’s like the outside doesn’t match the inside.”

“That’s entirely the point,” Loki said with a smile. “There’s different kinds of shapeshifting. This covers over a form, but doesn’t entirely have substance. A skin has substance, but still goes outside your form. When I shapeshift, it physically changes my form temporarily, but isn’t intended to last forever. A binding enchantment such as the one you had, however, that can be a permanent change, but in your case it was able to come off.”

“Ugh, she didn’t need a magic lesson,” Thor said, stretching.

Sophia shrugged. “It’s interesting. Magic is such a foreign concept, I like knowing more.”

Loki jumped with realization. “We should check your magical abilities! You might be able to do magic - oh, that would be fun.”

“God, it’s far too late at night for that,” she said. “Maybe tomorrow.”

Something seemed off. Looking up, Loki saw Thor standing perfectly still. “Thor?” His heart stopped when he saw Thor’s eyes.

They were the color of Heimdall’s eyes, a startling shade of orange.

Loki came closer, snapping his fingers in front of Thor’s face. He didn’t react. Loki put a hand on him and shook him briefly, but once more, he didn’t react.

Sophia and Loki exchanged glances. “Could he be seeing the future?” Sophia asked, her worry evident.

“I don’t know. When the Seer Osk answered our questions, her eyes were white. But that’s not the same as our visions,” Loki answered, walking around his brother.

Thor took a deep breath, blinking rapidly and shaking his head. Loki stepped back. “Was that a vision?”

“Yes,” Thor said, “I haven’t had one around other people before.” He rubbed his eyes, then looked around at the others. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Your eyes were like Heimdall’s,” Loki said. “Different than Osk’s. You weren’t responding to your surroundings.”

“Interesting,” Thor said, crossing his arms. “But my vision - Loki, are you going to Vanaheim?”

Loki raised his eyebrows. “Yes, I was going to tell you after Sophia left. Did you see something about it?”

Thor nodded. “I saw you and Forsetti riding in Vanaheim. You were ambushed - you were able to get away, Loki, but Lord Forsetti was killed.”

“Ambushed? Were they Vidfavne warriors?” Loki asked, concerned. This was real and immediate - was this a warning?

“I believe so, but I don’t know their clan colors. I can’t be certain,” Thor said. “Nevertheless, perhaps you should refrain from going.”

Sophia glanced at Loki, who was thinking. “Do we know the future’s certain?” she asked. “If you were to take a different precaution, maybe you could still go.”

“We don’t know if it’s a certainty,” Loki said, “but my suspicion is that it can be changed. That vision Thor had of a calamity - we couldn’t have been prophesied to exist if that type of future couldn’t be undone.”

“This isn’t theory,” Thor said sternly. “This is a man’s life.”

Loki nodded. “I understand that, but we don’t know the outcome of any change. If I were to go down alone, I might not be able to make it out alive. If we went a week from now, Forsetti still might be killed. Your coronation is soon - I’d like a few answers before then, and right now I have the time. Once you’re crowned, there will be a lot of business to deal with.”

Thor stroked his beard, staring at Loki. “What if you had an escort? The warriors and I could go with you. That way we can keep you both safe.” He paused. “If there’s ambush activity, that means the Einharjar aren’t doing their jobs properly, and I’d need to deal with that anyways.”

“I’m not keen on having a group of six - we were going to be asking some sensitive questions, and the more we have, the more...official we’ll seem. I need Forsetti, he understands the Vidfavne situation better than any of us.”

“We’ll split up in the villages,” Thor said authoritatively. “There’s no need to stick together. We’ll watch you on the roads and leave you to do your business in town. I’m sure Sif would love to sample the local ales, she hasn’t been to that region yet.”

Loki sighed. He really had been hoping to make his way around quietly, but there was no sense putting Forsetti’s life at risk. Plus the time with his brother before the upcoming coronation would be a nice change. “Very well.”

Thor glanced over at Sophia. “You’re exhausted,” he said, “Sophia, do you need to sleep?”

She nodded, yawned, and came over for another hug before she disappeared.

The brothers briefly discussed the minutiae of details for their morning departure before Thor started preparing to leave. “Hard to believe all this, isn’t it,” he said.

Loki looked his brother up and down. “Well, not really on my end. But you’ve...you’ve seemed to take to her quite quickly, especially after being so careful.”

Thor shrugged. “I don’t know, after talking with her today, she seems...trustworthy.”

“Trustworthy. Is that all. I don’t see you joking like that with people you find trustworthy.”

Thor shrugged as he moved his goblet to an empty platter, ready to be cleaned by a servant. “I feel comfortable with her, for some reason. Like I don’t need to put on a show for her. The same way I feel when I’m with you.”

Loki looked down with a small smile. “Thanks for the faith in me, by the way. I appreciated it.”

“It’s just how I feel, it’s nothing special, Loki.” His brother seemed distracted as he put cushions back on the couches in a rare display of assistance. “She seems to like you, you know. I might be comfortable with her, but you two - you’ve got something different.”

Loki considered this. “I’m unsure why. Sometimes I think we just understand one another more easily.”

“Exactly! That’s it. She was responding better when you spoke with her about her body. I don’t really get why she didn’t...understand what I was saying.”

It was probably the empathy, Loki thought, but he wasn’t going to bring that up with Thor. It’d been a good night overall, no sense wasting that. “Yes, brother. We’ll have to see how things go.” He clapped Thor on the back. “Now go get some sleep.”

Thor smiled and headed for the door, stopping before he made it. “Well done tonight, Loki. Your spellwork was just as masterful as mother’s.”

Loki gave a small smile, pleased at his brother’s praise. “Thank you, Thor.”

#loki #loki laufeyson #loki fanfic #loki (marvel)#loki odinson #thor #thor odinson #thor (marvel)#thor (2011)#fanfiction #norse mythology #seidr #tw: emotional abuse #odin #frigga #odin's a+ parenting #loki of asgard #family matters

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nyxelestia · 7 years

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Solution: ease up on or stop writing the problematic stuff/ You still aren't pointing out what exactly you find problematic with sterek fic. But I assume it's basically "bad friend scott" which is funny, bc if you had actually read the majority of fics tagged with that, you'd see that it actually redeems scott from his problematic behavior in canon. This, and the fact that stereks create more works for every POC than canon, the fact that you cannot read past a tag, does not make them racist.

So, what, you think it’s reasonable for me to dictate what everyone should write? // Absolutely not. But as you seem to think it's reasonable for you to dictate what people shouldn't write I do think it's reasonable to think that you could at least afford fans concrete examples of unproblematic writing.

One of the examples you've given of why fandom is racist is its tendency to downplay the role of POC characters. I don't disagree with you on that. However, how would this translate to Sterek fic? Those fics will invariably focus on Stiles and Derek, since it's...well, a Sterek fic. Scott is still the eponymous Teen Wolf of the actual show. Are you saying that Sterek fic should have as its primary focus Scott, as to avoid being racist?

The same way I can see Western culture is racist, even though not everyone in it is. Communities are the sum of their parts, and more than the sum of their parts. // no, you didn't say "not every sterek is racist but the fandom as a whole (aka the majority of the fans) is racist". you said "MOST sterek fans aka the majority of sterek fans are not racist" which means "the sterek fandom as a whole is NOT racist, but there ARE of course, some racist jerks in the batch" like in almost every group.

No one in fandom is actively sitting down and setting out to erase Scott from his narrative because of his skin color. But, they continuously hold double-standards along racial lines, they continually justify abusive or dismissive treatment of certain characters that overwhelmingly are POC // which would mean they are still racist. actively or not, consciously or not. internalized racism is still racism. your logic just doesn't add up. u gotta rethink where u coming from.

And what makes you think I’m not engaging, too?I can be engaging and be angry. I can also walk and chew gum at the same time. It’s really not that hard. // i'm looking at this blog & reading your stuff. obviously i'm not talking about what u do in rl, since i don't know u. also it's not hard to be angry/sad af & still try to keep an open mind & be ready to talk? bullshit. it is. fucking. hard. dealing with rl issues like racism in rl. ur either trying to look though or you're a clueless troll.

Every other original post I write about Sterek fandom is about its problems - such as erasing Scott's scenes to make him look more selfish than he, or projecting his scenes and characterization onto white characters to make them look less selfish than they are. Problems like ignoring canon to build up an extremely problamtic fanon Scott to be able to write Stiles spurning him or redeeming him. Problems like ignoring Scott's character development by cutting him out of his own scenes, then claiming that he has no character development in the show and thus fandom gives him more than canon. Problems like erasing all the times white characters have hurt him while overplaying times he's hurt white characters. Problems like systemically blaming characters of color for failing to be perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent - and then praising white characters for not being completely horrible. Problems like expecting characters of color to subsume their mental health to the white characters, but not expecting white characters to do the same. Stuff like denigrating characters of color for being wary or resentful of people who hurt them, while praising white characters for attacking characters who they percieved as wronging them (whether or not they actually have).

Fans can and will create things beyond what I can imagine, and there are plenty of Sterek fics that can and do treat Scott reasonably well. If you stopped sending me a barrage of Asks and got an account to talk on posts like a reasonable person, I might even be able to get through all the Asks in my inbox to actually answer your request for examples, but instead, I'm spending time trying to head off this. And the more you send barrages of messages by ask, the less I assume your original request was in good faith and the more I assume you are attempting to set me up for failure.

I don't expect Scott to be at the center of Sterek fics. I think it says a lot about fandom in general, and Teen Wolf fandom in particular, that we so drastically pay so much more attention to white characters than characters of color, that the community who likes to play with other people's narratives would rather create a new one for white characters than engage in the one that already exists for the characters of color (like we do for white leading characters of other fandoms). But analyzing fandom as a whole is a separate issue from analying the problems of Sterek fandom in particular.

If you ask the overwhelming majority of people, they will say they are not racist and not sexist and not homophobic. Many of these same people will then turn around and victim-blame women for rapes, judge kids of color for behaving like their white peers, and ask gay couples which one is the man and which one is the woman. When I say no one is actively racist, I mean that the fans here aren't saying Scott deserves everything he gets because he's Latino or that Deaton must be evil because he is black. I think that everyone is expressing the subconscious, internalized attitudes and judgments and double standards they were raised with, and then not analyzing their own decisions and thus perpetuating that racism.

So no, actually, they are not racists, not for that. I'm not going to accuse someone of something that heinous at the individual level just because they lack the education to realize what they are doing or why it's harmful. I'll accuse the fandom, sure - because the fandom is the product of its fans. And thus, it's a product of people who do not set out to discriminate people based on skin color, but end up doing so anyway without realizing it because the racism has been internalized that deeply due to the culture they grew up in.

And I don't have to bring in my real life issues with racism for engagement and positive change. I point to my fanworks, my own meta on the show, and the fanworks I share. Funny thing is, even when I create positive content, I still get hate for it, and even have to warn other fans who worked with me to create positive content that they might get hate for it, too.

You accuse me of trolling? Which of us is constantly publishing fanworks and meta under her own name, and which of us is hiding behind anon? If you consider yourself open minded, then log in and reblog my posts directly. Otherwise, why should I assume you are anything but a troll, or take anything you are saying in good faith?

#teen wolf fandom meta #teen wolf fandom #teen wolf fandom problems #sterek fandom problems #nyxie answers #nyxie probably shouldn't but oh well #nyxie feeds the trolls #Anonymous

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africanhealingspells-blog · 7 years

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Introduction to African Traditional Religion

Welcome to the summary lecture of African Traditional Religions. This is a 3-hour summary lecture on the basic components of African Traditional Religions. The purpose of this is to help to orient a person who would like to work in the context of Africa. Africa’s a very large and diverse continent; it’s even larger than North America or Australia. It’s filled with dramatic geographic differences and cultural diversity. There are more than 40 separate nations that occupy the continent of Africa south of the Sahara desert, each with its own history, political situation, numerous ethnic groups and multiple languages that comprise sub-Saharan Africa. And therefore it’s nearly impossible to talk about African Traditional Religion as if it exists as a single coherent body of beliefs and practices which can be identified as “African religion”. So normally we refer to African Traditional Religions in the plural, and it’s simply summarized or written in notation form as “ATR” – African Traditional Religion. African religions are very diverse. They are as numerous as the ethnic groups that are present on the continent of Africa, and so therefore there’s no single creed or orthodoxy that can easily summarize the belief systems of African religions. On the other hand, the scholars that have attempted to dismiss approaching African religions as if it’s impossible have been nevertheless brought back to the fact that there are a number of fundamental similarities in the structure of indigenous religions in general, and of African religion in particular. And so because of that, it’s become more and more useful in recent days to speak about African Traditional Religions and talk about them in broad ways that would seek to bring together certain coherent structures that make up African religion. Unfortunately, missionaries and the colonialists who came in to Africa originally often portrayed Africans as savages, as backward. Often, regions were denigrated as un-evolved as compared to the west, with no civilizations. They were people that were caricatured as involved in superstition and animism and ancestor worship and so forth, and so there was a sense that it was not really worthy of study such as the higher religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, or Islam. Anthropologists actually contributed to this as well, and oftentimes wrote denigrating studies of these early religious encounters which helped to create false impressions. But over time we’ve begun to realize that, first of all, you actually have at the basis of even the more “advanced religions” many primitive and tribal beliefs. And some of the factors that underlie African religion have become more appreciated as time has developed, and we’ve been able to learn more about these religions. So part of what we want to do is to redress some of the miscommunications that have occurred about African religion, and seek to develop a way of looking at this which would be coherent. What we want to do is to construct an African traditional cosmology. Now let me explain what a cosmology is, as opposed to traditional examination of a world religion. Oftentimes when you look at world religion, you ask questions like: “What do they believe?”; “What are their underlying doctrines?”; and so forth. But in the case of African Traditional Religion, we can’t do this because there are so many different varieties of ATR that are throughout sub-Saharan Africa. So instead, what we try to do is develop a cosmological framework or a theoretical framework that brings together many of the broad concepts and relations that are descriptively present in much of African Traditional Religion. And this allows us to look at it as a structure, and then the particulars can be filled in based on where you are and what you’re looking at. If you look at African religion region-by-region, generally sub-Saharan Africa is divided into west Africa, east Africa, and south Africa. West Africa accounts for about one-fifth of the continent’s area, but it’s over 120 million people – half of Africa’s population. It stretches from Senegal along the Atlantic coast, all the way to Nigeria, down along the Gulf of Guinea. And west Africa has had a long tradition of trade with Europeans and north African Muslims, and therefore we’ve had a lot of contact with the history of west Africa. And so one of the things we want to do in this study is focus on how ATR, African Traditional Religion has worked itself out in the practice of Nigeria. East Africa comprises the modern states of Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. There are more than 200 distinct indigenous societies, all with different languages and economic systems and cultures, all very unique. Traditionally, east Africans were farmers and livestock herders. They had a lot of trade with the Arabs along the coast of east Africa, and this is where Islam is actually the strongest, in this area. In southern Africa, the coast of Africa, you have South Africa itself, you have Botswana, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Swaziland, Lesotho, Namibia – all of these countries in south Africa represent a place where western colonization did in fact put the presence of the west with African societies and cultures. So there are different portions of Africa, and we’re speaking in general terms of the whole of sub-Saharan Africa, and trying to step back into the big picture and create a cosmology which will bring together many of the intellectual religious and cultural structures that make up African Traditional Religion. In looking at African religion, there are a number of things that we have to look at. First of all, as I said before, we’re going to refer to it in the plural – African Traditional Religions, because there are over a thousand different distinct African peoples with their own religious systems. But we also want to balance that out as E. Bolaji Idowu has said, “There is a common African-ness about the total culture and religious beliefs and practices of Africa.” So from that point of view, it can be spoken of in the singular. So we’re trying to balance these two things out. But certainly there’s no single codified system of beliefs and practices. But nevertheless, we want to distance ourselves from a number of the terms that have been used. We mentioned earlier how when the missionaries came, they referred to African religion as “fetishism” or as “juju”. Fetishism refers to the use of a natural or artificial object which is believed to have supernatural power or preternatural power to protect or aid its owner. Oftentimes these fetishes would be ritually consecrated or animated by a spirit of some kind. We’ve seen this in films and books about Africa. The term “fetish” comes from the Portuguese word “feitico”, which originated from the Latin “facticius”, which suggests a thing made by art. The term “juju” comes from a French word which is used for a child’s toy doll. As you can see from some of the early reports of Africa, African religion was simply not taken seriously, or it was dismissed wholesale as crude idolatry. Now while there are certainly magical objects in west Africa, such as charms and amulets which are used, and indeed from a part of the religious complex and can be referred to as fetishes, it’s a very inadequate description or designation for the entire religious system. Generally speaking, early observers of African religious practices all too quickly took appearance for reality, and symbol for the symbolized, and means for the end. So others have suggested terms like “animism”. You often hear a word like “animism” – I think it goes back to the 19th century, with Edward Tyler, who first suggested the term “animism”. Animism comes from the Latin word anima, which means “soul”, and Tyler maintained that belief in spiritual beings or souls was the root of all African religious faith. Because of the general acceptance of the evolutionary theory which dominated the latter half of the 19th century, Tyler’s theory was interpreted to mean that animism gave rise to polytheism, which in turn evolved further to the stage of one supreme god over all other spirits, and this eventually led to the idea that ultimately Trinitarian monotheism was the highest form of religion. Again, this implied that at the bottom of the religious scale was the un-tutored African. His religion lay at the bottom of religious evolution, whereas Islam and Judaism and Christianity were at the top since they’re monotheistic. However this has a lot of problems. Although animism still is in fact present in Africa like fetishism or juju, it is simply inadequate as an all-encompassing expression that is descriptive properly of African Traditional Religion. We also, as we’ll see later on in this summary, find out that we have misunderstood Africa if we think that they do not have a belief in a supreme, single god. The earlier idea was that African Traditional Religions were incompatible with monotheism. Later, a well-known writer named Percy Talbot, who wrote in the 60’s a classic multi-volume work entitled The Peoples of Southern Nigeria, refused to characterize African religion with any one word. He said “Africans combine a belief in the existence of an omnipotent and omnipresent supreme god, with multitudes of subordinate deities.” So here you have the fact that we just simply cannot easily summarize African religion with a single term like “animism” or “animistic” or “primal” or “fetishism” or whatever. So these are some of the challenges that we’ve had. One of the more creative suggestions that we have come across is one by E. Bolaji Idowu, who I’ve already quoted here, who described African religion as “diffused monotheism”. That is, a belief in a single god in which there exist other powers which get diffused out in to subordinates who serve that one god. But in my view none of these terms will ever be fully adequate to describe the African religious tradition. And therefore a better approach is to construct a broader African religious cosmology which extends beyond any one term. The fundamental problem with constructing an African religious cosmology is to understand how the one god and the many gods or lesser deities can co-exist in the African context. This is what one finds when you walk into Africa, and this is what the anthropologists discovered early on, and the missionaries. It seemed to be that Africans worshipped innumerable mystical forces, ghosts, ancestors, divinities of various kinds, and yet they seemed also to have occasional references to a supreme god. How can all of these exist as actors or participants in a system that is non-contradictory? Well, this is achieved when one understands three basic assumptions which I think are characteristic of all African cosmologies. First of all, unlike Christian cosmological thinking, African systems do not recognize a fundamental distinction or clear demarcation between the visible world and the invisible world. To the African, the visible and the invisible – the material and spiritual, the temporal and non-temporal, the sacred and the profane -- all overlap and shade into one another. Now this is important because we have kind of an enlightenment world-view in the west which creates a real firm barrier between that which we can see – the observable world of science (reflective of the world of hypotheses and concluding proofs of those hypotheses), that embraces science -- and the invisible world. The world beyond us is simply put aside as not really subject to our normal societal inquiry. In many ways the Africans inhabit a very big universe, a much bigger universe. We live in the west in a rather crunched-down universe because the invisible world, the spiritual world, has been taken away. And the world of the enlightenment only gives us the world obtainable by the five senses. Of course the Christian world- view comes in and challenges this by saying there is a world beyond the sensory world; the enlightenment world-view is inadequate. But rather than the Christian world-view, in the west at least, obliterating the enlightenment world-view, what we actually found was that the Christian world-view simply adapted the basic enlightenment world-view -- punched a hole in the wall and said, no, there’s a place for prayer for example. You can pray, and God who’s on the other side of the wall can hear us and he can answer prayer through this portal. We even talk about the incarnation, where God transcends this wall of separation in the seen world and the unseen world, and he steps into our human history. Well that’s fine, that is a Christian adaptation of the enlightenment world-view, and it leaves the basic structure or cosmology of the west intact. In the African context, this is not the case. And it’s fundamental to understand African religions to see that you don’t have the basic western approach which is: Christianity explains that which we cannot see. In other words, it’s like a mirror that gives us a reflection into what’s beyond the wall. In the African context, the wall doesn’t exist. The Africans inhabit a much bigger universe, and therefore they do not see this clear line of demarcation between the material / the spiritual, the visible/ the invisible, and so forth. So that’s the first big difference between the African world-view and world-views that we are familiar with. Now I just mention in passing that this has been beautifully written about by Paul Hiebert, who wrote in his article, and later placed in his book on anthropological reflections on missionary issues *[sic.], where he talks about what he calls “The Flaw of the Excluded Middle” . And what he points out is that the enlightenment world-view in the west created what he calls the “excluded middle”, in a sense that we had a scientific world-view that accepted all of the things of the sense-world. We had a Christian overlay that gave us a strong sense of heaven, of God, eternal life, of the life to come – the eternal verities of the Christian faith we all accepted. But we didn’t have a way of really dealing with the spiritual interaction in this world on this side of the enlightenment wall. He calls this the flaw of the excluded middle. Things like demons or spirits that are just normal in African cosmologies are alien to the western world-view. Even Christians, if someone is sick, we go to the doctor; we don’t think about casting demons out of people. So these are real differences, where thankfully we’ve had some correctives in Pentecostals and other more recent Christian groups that have tried to bring in a larger world-view. But certainly traditionally, in the Christian world-view in the west, we did not have this kind of open frontier approach that you find in Africa between the visible and the invisible world, where spirits and deities and God all interact in a very dynamic way. The second fundamental difference between the African and the western world-views is that fundamental to the African world-view is the belief in the hierarchy of power and being. For the African, the universe is filled with various levels and sources of power and energy. Now the Greco-Christian cosmology is far more static, as we already saw in the last point -- far more radically demarcated and predictable. The African cosmology is essentially dynamic, with various levels of power and being and vital interaction with one another, and with humanity. So things are done with levels of power. This affects even the more practical considerations of life. In our society, we want to portray the idea that even important people, even powerful people are very approachable. You approach people directly, you speak to them directly; you don’t go through intermediaries. If we want to ask a father for his daughter’s hand in marriage, we go directly to the father. But in African society, everything is done through intermediaries. So if you wanted to discuss the possibility of a marriage arrangement, you would go through a wide range of people in order to finally get back the answer, rather than going directly. Everything is done through intermediaries. So this creates a sense that intermediaries are necessary for conveying power, and we’ll see this is very important – it has implications, for example how the incarnation is understood in the African context.''' Thirdly and finally (and these are just some general observations about the different cosmologies), Africans believe that the world was created in a spiritual harmony or equilibrium between all the forms of creation and the sources of power. So all of African religion involves in some way rituals designed either to maintain this harmony or in some cases to restore this harmony back to their society. There are innumerable African stories and myths which are told which talk about how the world got off kilter, how things got out of harmony, and why certain rituals are being used to get things back. Now this is important because many times in the west we think of religions in terms of belief systems. So we will often ask the question: “What does a Hindu believe about God or man, or sin, or whatever?”; “What do Muslims believe about salvation?”; and so forth. With African Traditional Religions you must be much more careful about speaking about belief systems in the same way, because Africans will actually tolerate quite a wide variety of beliefs as long as it supports the same rituals or certain rituals or ritualistic explanations of why this is being done or why this is being believed. And so there’s a little more flexibility regarding the role of beliefs and how that functions with the larger structure of African religion. So keeping these observations in mind, we should posit in our minds basically three levels or three tiers of power which are generally characteristic of African religion. At the highest tier, Tier 1, resides a supreme being who oversees the entire cosmological system. Now I want to stop right there and say that in the early missionary encounters with Africa, many of the missionaries did not believe that the Africans worshipped a supreme being, and so they came back and said they were polytheistic, that is, they believe in many gods rather than monotheistic belief in one god. However, this supreme being as they studied more and learned to understand the African system more, was a kind of a distant figure, a deus otiosus, a person, a deity who is beyond us. And because this deity was beyond us, he didn’t come into the normal rituals and daily practices that were often so present in African religious daily life and activities. So many people believed that the Africans didn’t have a belief in a supreme being, but instead, when they came into contact with Islam or Christianity, they discovered that they believed in one supreme being, and they adapted this and kind of shoved it into the back door behind their normal beliefs. But a well-known African scholar named John Mbiti did a study of African gods – this is found in actually several of his books, but one is entitled Concepts of God in Africa – and when John Mbiti studied, he wanted to particularly look at African traditional religious practitioners in tribes that had not received either Christianity or Islam, and look at them and see if in fact they had a belief in a supreme being. He found that frequently they did. And so it’s now widely believed that Africa generally did not develop a supreme being as some kind of later development, after its encounter with Christianity or Islam. Instead, we should see at the top tier a supreme being, but this supreme being is frequently a distant figure, maybe associated with creation or some kind of larger power to keep things in order or in harmony, but is not the focus of the daily religion of Africa. That occurs on the second tier. The second tier is often, though not always, bifurcated between a group of non-human divinities and a cult of human but divinized ancestors. Now it’s important to recognize that in this second tier, I particularly used the word “divinity”. In African religion you must distinguish between the term “deity” and the term “divinity”, because in the west, we often use the word divinity or deity almost interchangeably because we’re in a context where monotheism has been dominant. But in this case, we’ll refer to “deity” as that supreme being who occupies the highest tier, and as I mentioned before because there are hundreds of versions of African Traditional Religion in the world, and in sub-Saharan Africa, then of course we have to leave this as a generic supreme being but realize that it will be fleshed out in a particular form, in a very personalized form in the particular theologies of the local tribal religions. So for example later on we’ll look at how this works out in Nigeria. In Nigeria they call the supreme being Olodumare, and Olodumare represents the supreme being at the highest tier. That’s their deity. A divinity is another spiritual power, oftentimes non-human though sometimes in some cases the ancestors can evolve into these non-human figures. But this person, this divinity would be a lower expression of God’s power. And so therefore divinity and deity are separate in Africa. You’ll find for example that many African Traditional Religions are monotheistic and poli-divinistic simultaneously. That is to say they have a supreme being, but they have multiple deities that serve in a subsidiary way that serve the supreme deity. That’s what Idowu refers to as “diffused monotheism”. He was trying to find a way to capture the one and the many in the African context. On one hand, there’s one god at the highest tier, but he expresses himself through many second-tier deities known as divinities. You also have in this same second tier oftentimes ancestors who have been divinized. These are people that have lived on earth as humans, were honored by their people, and then they died and they entered into this pantheon of ancestors which we’ll say more about later. The third level in African Traditional Religion is the earthly tier, which is the functionaries who are responsible for maintaining the harmony, balance, and order in the African traditional system. Normally this comes through the expression of exercising some kind of ritualized power. So in other words you basically have mediators such as priests or sometimes chiefs or what used to be called “witch doctors” (we’ll call these “herbalists”), mediums, diviners, prophets – these are all people that are exercising ritualized power in order to keep the system in harmony. They’ll make sacrifices, they’ll offer chants and so forth, and this is the general structure of the African Traditional Religion. This is a basic cosmology. They often will refer to the supreme god as a sky god because the sky god is the one who often dwells in a remote place and is often associated with creation, and then you have the ancestors and sometimes spirits (we’ll call them divinities here) that often serve in this functional capacity. Then in the third tier you have these mediators. And then of course beneath the third tier, even though it’s not actually part of the formal structure of African Traditional Religion, you realize there are actual people that also function in various ways in worship and sacred acts of ritual practice. And even nature itself is part of this ongoing continuum. So what you should envision is a spectrum that does not have clear demarcation, and sometimes the categories can become confused or overlap. It starts out with the supreme god at the highest level -- the supreme being or creator, and shades down into the pantheon of divinities, which would include sometimes a hierarchy of divinities, some that are more powerful than others and so forth, and would include also in that same level potentially a pantheon of human but divinized ancestors. And then that shades down once again into various functionaries – mediators, priests, and so forth, herbalists, that mediate this power. And that shades down into humans and also nature itself. And so you should always view this kind of shading going on. Now before we look at the actual example of how this might apply in different parts of Africa, (we’re going to begin by looking at west Africa and give you an example with the Yoruba religious cosmology in west Africa) I want to, before we get into that, clarify a few terms that are often used in African Traditional Religion. I mentioned earlier this term “herbalists”, and I said this was in place of the term “witch doctor”. One of the problems that we found in the early observations of African religion which we alluded to was they observed that magic and sorcery and witchcraft was often practiced by these people in the third tier of African religion (these priests). And so these were named “witch doctors”; they’re often sometimes called “medicine men”. So these figures became almost mythically viewed in the western literature that more or less summarized western Africa and other parts of Africa, and their traditional religion. So what we are trying to do in this case is to acknowledge the fact that we do have people, and most traditional communities in Africa have resident experts who are experts in divination, in rituals, and the performance of magic. When they function as single individuals, we usually call them “healers”, or sometimes they’re called “shamans”. Now “shaman” is a word which comes actually from Siberian culture, and a shaman is someone who manipulates the spirits, and the spirit can sometimes possess them and animate the shaman, and can even speak through them. So this shaman figure is used quite a bit in these societies. The medicine man or the healer, as the name implies, usually seeks to heal diseases in the community, and then he’ll come to them and they believe that their illnesses are caused by the cause of some spiritual power. This is another real difference between African society and western culture. When we get sick, even devout Christians that get sick, we assume that the reason for the sickness is naturalistic, so we go to the doctor, we get medicine that will manipulate the antibodies or other sources of the disease that need to be destroyed in our body with various medicines. In the African culture, it’s more natural to assume that the reason is spiritual, and therefore you go to a healer that will conduct rituals or chants, or use these fetish objects or whatever is necessary in order to deliver you from this spiritual problem. Another term that’s used a lot in African religion is the phrase “rites of passage”. Every religion of course has important rites of passage. We have this in Islam, we have this in Christianity, we have this in Judaism (Judaism has Bar Mitzvahs, Bat Mitzvahs where men and women will go into accepting the yoke of the Torah and the responsibilities of Jewish life). This is normal in many parts of the world. This is also true in the African Traditional Religion. Normally, when you are born, that is considered a rite of passage, and there are certain kinds of religious activities and rituals and magic chants and various things that are done at the time of birth to protect the child from spiritual danger. Sometimes the ceremony, even though it’s associated with birth, may wait for weeks or months or even as long as a year after the birth to make sure that the child is going to live before they perform this rite of passage for the birth. So this is one of the rites of passage. Another rite of passage is the transition from childhood to adulthood, and this tends to be very important in many of the traditional cultures in Africa. It may involve some kind of ordeal or some kind of torture; it may involve special marks being placed – tattoos and various things – in order to identify that the person is now an adult, and will accept the full responsibilities of adult work in their society. Another rite of passage is marriage. Marriage is very important in all cultures, but certainly in the African culture there are different kinds of emphases in marriage, but the wedding is a very important legal and social event, and it involves certain kinds of rites of passage and rituals that are practiced during that time. Another rite of passage of course is death itself, and so when a person dies, there are certain rituals that are performed that will carefully convey this person into the unseen world and to the world of the spirit world, and there’s all kinds of elaborate funeral preparations that are often done in African societies. Another term that’s often used is the term “taboo”. Something that’s a very common aspect of traditional religions is the recognition that some objects carry spiritual power, and therefore should be forbidden in some ways. The word “taboo” is a word that’s often synonymous with our word for “forbidden”. Usually it’s in the context of moral issues. There are certain things which you should not do that are considered to be taboo – that would create chaos in the society. In “taboo”, the meaning, though, is beyond simply a word for “forbidden”. In taboo, it can mean also that a physical object, a person, or a place, can not only be forbidden, but may carry spiritual powers that one has to manipulate ritually. And it can create great problems if you don’t do that. So this is something that is part of the fetishes or ritual objects that are manipulated in African society. So another term that’s often used in African religion is the term “totem” – you’ve often heard of totem poles and totem links that are used in native traditional cultures. Well you should always view African religion as divided into multiple tribes and clans that practice various religious activities. And so in many African societies your genetic descent is very important, and your clan’s relationship to other members of the clan is very important. This is part of the way a lot of rituals are done, based on your age and your relationship to other people in your clan, and this is laid out through a totem, which is a way of showing the relationship of different people to other people. They’re often commonly misunderstood as idols, but they actually should be viewed as a pictorial genealogy which describes someone’s spiritual and sometimes physical descent. And so these are found in many parts of African society. They’re a very important part of record-keeping, and keeping clear who belongs to who and where they’re from. So at this time we’re going to examine a particular example of this in the Yoruba religious cosmology in African religion. 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