i think what ultimately bothers me about the talia and selina discourse on either end is that it’s often framed as being an argument of who is truly a villain and who isn’t and obviously your thoughts on that depend entirely on which characterizations of either character you’re willing to take into account. i do think it’s obvious talia more readily ascribes to bruce’s ideals and world view but at the same time part of that Does come from how she was established as a character to begin with and that’s not to say it’s impossible for selina to ascribe to bruce’s ideals given the right circumstances and she obv has in various capacities throughout her existence. but returning to what i was saying about how it’s framed as an argument i think the real issue is that talia and selina’s respective struggles with bruce are just different and offer appeals that aren’t exactly comparable because they cater to different tastes and outcomes. the appeal with talia is she’s inspired by bruce to do the right thing, and that extends to her building up the courage to break free of her father And bruce to pursue justice in the world without feeling like someone else’s collateral or puppet, while still being driven by her belief in love. the appeal with selina is that she’s someone who largely operates by justice on her own, sometimes selfish and acutely personal terms and that offers an interesting challenge to bruce who can often lose himself to the idea of trying to help everyone and being totally selfless to his own detriment. you could probably make an argument for which dynamic is more viable with regards to a sustainable relationship in the long term but dc is also never going to commit to that with bruce ever so i fail to see the purpose sometimes in mulling over that. both of these dynamics are incredibly interesting for him and offer different perspectives through which to view his character, and the discourse about which ship is ultimately “better” is tiresome bc they’re not traditionally comparable to begin with. people might say they are bc of the villain argument but i personally don’t agree with that reading and i think venturing into it tends to reveal biases about what people want either character to be to suit their own needs, which is boring!
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Finnick x Reader
Info: Y/N is going to be hauled back into the 75th Hunger Games. She knows she's not going to make it out and the relationship between her and Finnick has already been bumpy. Its time for them to go our separate ways in a heartbreaking end. (In this version Finnick isnt reaped to go back in)
Warnings: Sad?
Disclaimer: I do not own the song or The Hunger Games. But I hope you enjoy this little story :)
Based on song 'Moral of the Story' by Ashe
~♡~
"Baby, please!" Finnick trailed after me as I felt tears slip down my cheeks.
"Finnick, no. This is for the best. You know it, I know it!" My heart was shattered as he reached for me, cupping my cheek.
"But I love you!" His eyes were pleading and I wanted nothing more than to fall into his arms and feel his soft lips on mine.
"Thought we could really do this. But really I was foolish." I shook my head, pulling away from him.
"We can work this out." He was grasping at straws and he knew it.
"Some mistakes get made. That's all right, that's okay. You can think that you're in love when you are really just in pain." We had fallen into each other's arms after I had come out of the games as a way to forget what we had done. Now I had been selected to return for the 75th games and I knew I wouldn't be coming back. He had to go on and live his life, he had to let me go.
"It's funny how a memory turns into a bad dream." His voice broke as he again reached out for me.
"Do you remember when we painted our house? Just like my grandparents did, so romantic but we fought the whole time." A fresh wave of tears pricked my eyes as I recalled the memory he was talking about. We had a spat that morning and were throwing sly underhanded comments at each other all day
"Finnick, please." I begged him not to make this harder.
"You've won before, you'll come back again. You can do it. Please don't do this!" This wasn't like last time. Last time the arena wasn't full of killers.
"Finnick, even if I did come back, you and me doesn't work!" I looked away from the sorrow in his blue eyes.
"How can you say that?!" He pulled his hand away like he had touched an open flame.
"You know it's true, we fight all the timel" I pointed out. In all our time together we had never gone a week without a fight. It just took me this long to see it.
"I can fix it! I can be better! Y/n, please!" I felt like I was being torn apart. I knew better though, he shouldn't have to change for me. He should be with someone who makes him nothing but happy.
"Finn, you need to be happy more often than not. And I can't do that for you. I've been talking with my mother she said 'where'd you find this guy?' Said, some people fall in love with the wrong people sometimes." My knees went weak and I dropped to the cobblestone ground.
"I wanted this to work. I'm so in love with you." He didn't reach out to me this time but took a seat across from me. He dropped his head into his hands, running his fingers through his blond hair.
"I know Finn, I know. In the end its better for us that's the moral of this story, babe." We looked into each other's eyes as the seconds ticked by. I loved this boy so much but we weren't compatible no matter how hard we tried.
"So this is it?" I could see he didn't want the answer as much as I didn't want to give it. I took a deep breath before twisting the gold band with with a diamond in the centre off my ring finger. The memory of the night he had proposed down at the pier overlooking the sparkling lake danced in my head.
"This is it." I choked on the words while holding the ring out to him he simply shook his head and close my hand back around it. He placed his soft lips over my wrist leaving the gentle kiss.
"Some people fall in love with the wrong people sometimes times." He whispered repeating my earlier words as a loaded moment washed over us. It took all I had not to fall apart on the spot. My heart was screaming at me to just lean into the make-believe world where we could pretend we were right for each other.
"I don't think I'll ever stop loving you. Goodbye Y/N." Finnick's hand slipped away while I choked on sobs that wracked my body. He turned and walked away, I could do nothing but watche as his blond-haired dimmed in the distance before he was swallowed up by the darkness.
"Goodbye, Finnick Odair."
End
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Feel-good “bad ends”
Movie protagonists are often breaking the rules. This is true even when our protagonists are on the right side of the law: after all, nobody’s perfect. (And if they were, we probably wouldn’t like them as much: after all, it’s hard for a character to have a “growth arc” if they start from a place of perfection. And making occasional mistakes reminds us that, just like us, they’re only human: they’re more relatable.)
But when our protagonists break the rules, it often leads toward one of two different endings: either they get caught and punished for their transgressions (which can make for a feelbad ending), or they get away with it scot-free. Most movies opt for the latter, but it can often feel unsatisfying, because there’s a real sense in which we want to see our protagonists reap the consequences of their actions.
Usually, it’s not a problem for them to suffer the consequences if their transgression is minor. For example, if the main character says something mean to his love interest, he can get a slap in the face -- and having paid for his transgressions, he can then immediately be rewarded with whatever feel-good conclusion the audience is in the mood for.
However, sometimes the protagonist’s transgressions are more dire, and demand more dire consequences. Recently, I’ve found two movies that manage to end with something that is, in an objective sense, a very bad outcome for the main characters, and exactly in proportion to what they deserve for their significant transgressions during the film, yet still allows for a “feel-good” ending. Naming those examples would by itself probably be a spoiler, so...spoilers for an Edgar Wright movie and a Pixar movie (and a Rocky movie) below the fold.
Heist movies are the classic example of a movie formula where the protagonists break a ton of rules and, in the case of a feelgood ending, basically can’t suffer any consequences. Either they get caught and it’s a moral aesop about how crime doesn’t pay, or they get away with it and we’re happy that our characters, who are really quite morally virtuous apart from their tendency to commit acts of robbery, are able to enjoy the spoils they’ve absconded with.
Baby Driver is a movie that I think strikes the perfect balance. In the end, our main character Baby doesn’t get away with his crimes. He’s committed a lot of crimes, and been involved in a lot of robberies. And not the non-violent kind, either!
At the same time, Baby was always “one of the good ones.” He was never the guy who held the gun; he was always the one behind the wheel. In fact, for basically his entire criminal career, he was blackmailed into it. Of course, the lazy method would be for the judge to have pity on him -- he was forced to commit crimes! But that would be ignoring the fact that the entire reason he got blackmailed in the first place is that he happened to steal a car from a criminal kingpin -- Baby was boosting cars well before a villain put a gun to his head and forced him to do it.
But as we see Baby marched to his prison cell, it’s intercut with testimony during his trial. Everything that we could have said in Baby’s defense is articulated by witnesses speaking in his defense:
“He got himself into a bad spot. I was just trying to get him out. I believe the defendant is of good character. He didn't deserve what happened to him.”
“It was the strangest thing. Before he drove off, he threw my purse right at me. Then he actually said ‘I'm sorry.’” (A delightful callback to a comedic moment earlier in the movie: Baby might resort to carjacking when he’s in a pinch, but he is the most polite carjacker you will ever meet. He doesn’t need your valuables; he just needs a getaway vehicle.)
“He made a mistake when he was younger, and it's haunted him ever since. When he tried to get out, he was pressured even harder. It was never his fault. He's got a good heart. Always has. Always will.”
Maybe it’s the fact that Sky Ferreira’s cover of Lionel Richie’s “Easy Like Sunday Morning” is the musical bed for this scene, but there’s something about the scene that feels incredibly cathartic. Baby Driver might be our protagonist, but he’s not innocent in all of this. His actions have consequences, and he gets sentenced to prison time for them.
At the same time, we’re left with the distinct impression that he has a life waiting for him on the outside. At the very least, Deborah is there waiting for him.
We can rest assured that Baby has no desire to return to a life of crime -- he and Deborah will be content with a modest life together. Indeed, a “modest life” is never something that either of them would need to settle for. Having a quiet simple life has been their aspiration for as long as they’ve known each other. Baby ends the movie knowing that he has years of prison time ahead of him, but also knowing that he’s on the start of a path to redemption. It’s enough to put a skip in his step as he walks across the prison yard. (Well, maybe not a literal skip in his step, but at the very least, it’s written on his face: he feels good about the path he’s on.)
Baby Driver came out in 2017, but I’ve already lost count of how many times I’ve watched it. I think the ending is a big part of what keeps me coming back to it. I love this ending -- there’s really nothing like the catharsis of seeing Baby held to account for his actions, while also having his virtues acknowledged. Those virtues might not be enough for him to avoid punishment, but in a way, his virtue its its own reward. It’s a heist movie that ends with the main character getting caught and spending years behind bars, and yet it’s an incredibly feelgood ending that just leaves you satisfied for all the right reasons. (After all, we’ve seen the fate of Baby’s confederates: we know that he could have encountered fates much worse than prison.) There’s really nothing like it.
Well, almost nothing. Last night I finally got around to watching Monsters University.
It’s a fun movie -- the central plot is the classic “underdog sports story.” Mike Wazowski has no talent for scaring -- according to the bigshot jock voiced by Nathan Fillion, the only way someone like Mike could end up working at a place like Monsters Inc is in the mailroom. Of course, because this is a prequel, we know that Mike’s story ends with him and Sulley being best buds together working at the Monsters Inc scream factory, so the odds can’t be that stacked against them, right? After all, the stakes are too high for them to fail: besides the fact that they need to be ready for the events of Monsters Inc, Mike is able to parley for a chance to get into the university’s scare program only because he makes an agreement with the Dean that if he fails, he’ll leave the school. With stakes that high, it seems only inevitable that Mike and Sulley will fulfill the classic underdog trope and lead a team of lovable losers to victory through sheer force of will (and the power of friendship).
Except, as we find out, force of will and the power of friendship aren’t enough to win you the big game when the thing you’re being tested on is talent and athleticism. Mike gets to experience the triumph of victory...but quickly learns that it only happened because Sulley cheated.
Mike and Sulley both bit off more than they could chew, and made a number of poor choices along the way. Sulley, unable to accept loss, cheated to achieve victory. Mike, unable to cope with experiencing loss, breaks into the university’s door department to mope around in the human world -- which is strictly verboten and extremely dangerous.
But...in the course of solving the problem that they’ve created themselves (combining their efforts to escape the human world by using scare techniques the likes of which have never been seen before), we learn that Mike and Sulley do have what it takes. The Dean recognizes it, too. It almost feels like she’s about to offer them leniency. After all, this is a prequel movie: we know that all of this has to end with Mike and Sulley working at Monsters Inc in the scare department, right? That means the Dean has to let them back into the university’s scare program! Surely their acts of daring and bravery show they have what it takes to make it in the Monsters University scare program!
And so it comes as no surprise when, at the end of the third act, the Dean comes out just as they’re about to depart. We see what looks like a smile on her face for the first time in the movie.
Except, of course, it would be crazy if they got off scot-free. Mike broke into the human world, which is about the worst possible thing a monster can do. And if the cheating scandal weren’t enough to sink Sulley, there’s also the fact that he followed Mike into the human world (his intentions were noble as he wanted to save his friend, but still extremely dangerous and just as verboten).
The Dean has nothing but kind things to say to them. But that doesn’t mean she’s going to rescue them from the consequences of their actions.
The two get no leniency. We feel an odd mixture of elation and defeat. On one hand, they got the validation that they craved: the Dean, who thought it was impossible for Mike Wazowski to ever be a scarer, now admits that she may have misjudged him. On the other hand, their lives are ruined. They must now reap what they have sown. What will become of their dreams now? And maybe more importantly, how the heck are we supposed to get from here to the events of the original movie that takes place several years later in the Monsters Inc chronology?
And then, Mike remembers something.
“You know, there is still one way we can work at a scare company. They’re always hiring in the mail room.”
Mike and Sulley start at the absolute bottom rung of the corporate ladder. But there are worse fates than doing blue collar work. After all, the entire theme of the underdog sports story that got us to this point was to show that Mike (and, with Mike’s encouragement, also Sulley) are the kind of monsters who will do whatever it takes to achieve their dreams, simply willing it to happen through sheer enthusiasm and force of will and, of course, the power of friendship. After all, anything can be fun when you’re doing it with your friends. As Sulley says, “This is better than I ever imagined!” They approach the job with an enthusiasm that tells us that they’re on their way up within this company.
The rest of their journey is shown to us in montage:
They’ve got that ambition, baby. This week they’re mopping floors, next week it’s the fries:
Of course, it’s only a matter of time before the company holds “try-outs” for the scare team, and from there, the rest is history. Plus, if the original movie is fresh enough in your mind, you’ll appreciate the easter egg references to the girlfriend that Mike met during this time (and the constant beratement he constantly got over needing to file his paperwork):
Over the course of the movie, they made some good decisions -- mostly the ones relating to the power of friendship and hard work. They also made some bad decisions -- mostly relating to playing fast-and-loose with the rules of their institution. Their college careers come to an unceremonious end.
And yet, even though the movie ends with them getting kicked out of college and spending “the best years of their lives” working blue collar jobs, it feels like an undeniably happy ending for the two of them. They reap exactly what they sow -- for worse, and for better. They don’t get to hide from the consequences of their actions...but that doesn’t mean things have to end on a dour note.
There’s something I really dig about that. It feels exactly like the first Rocky movie: Rocky is an athlete who trained and tried and fought as hard as he could -- and still lost. And yet, though he lost the big boxing match, there’s dignity in his loss. And in the end, he succeeded at the thing that really mattered.
In all three of these movies, it feels as though we as the audience are being set up for a specific happy ending. Of course Baby Driver has to end with the getaway driver getting away. Of course Monsters University has to end with Mike and Sulley graduating from the scare program. Of course Rocky has to end with our main character winning the big climactic boxing match. But in the end, we don’t get these “obvious” endings, because getting them wouldn’t really be a reflection of everything that led up to that point. And yet, we don’t walk away disappointed, because we somehow get something better. These characters may not get the “obvious” reward, the thing that they thought they wanted (and the thing that we, as the audience, thought that we wanted). But they get the things that really matter.
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@mynamesdrstuff thank you ur brain is so big, i had like 10 moments of revelation while writing this
A Labour of Love- or, How to Write a Song That Makes Me Want to Lie Facedown On The Floor
Four decades separates the respective rises of singer-songwriters Hozier and Bruce Springsteen, nearly as large as the gap between the worlds in which their public images reside. According to popular myth, the former is the tall, near-ethereal Bog Man, half in this life and half in the next, who rose from a fae-inhabited woodland after 1000 years of slumber to find he was able only to mourn his lost love through song; the other is the Boss, a hardy yet compassionate working-class hero permanently streaked with the blood and sweat of a marathon shift, toiling endlessly alongside the heart-stopping, pants-dropping, hard-rocking, earth-quaking, booty-shaking, Viagra-taking*, love-making, legendary E Street Band.
The domains of fen and factory may appear to be irreconcilable, but in reality the musicians have many things in common:
Broadly speaking, they both create wildly variable mixes of folk and rock, often with particularly strong Irish and African-American influences.
Their lyrics are poetic and commonly reflect on social issues with a progressive voice.
Songs about romantic relationships typically portray them as complex and difficult but remain respectful, sometimes near worshipful, of women.
Their characters yearn, long, pine and crave more often than not.
They both really like to use religious imagery.
They enjoy and return notable amounts of wlw love.
Representative of many of these are Hozier’s “Work Song” and Springsteen’s “Maria’s Bed”, two songs with close thematic parallels. Each is ostensibly told from the perspective of an exhausted labourer who dreams of returning to his lover. In a twist, however, “Work Song” is a melancholic love story, while the upbeat “Maria’s Bed” is a subtle tale of death; the opposing moods are complex reflections of these underlying narratives. These songs have Hozier and Springsteen skilfully intertwine the concepts of love, death, freedom and spirituality, creating two deeply moving portrayals of desire** that never fail to eviscerate the listener after 10pm.
Though the songs differ in overall lyrical structure, the similarities in narrative are evident from the first few lines:
Boys, workin' on empty / Is that the kinda way to face the burning heat? / I just think about my baby / I'm so full of love I could barely eat
Been on a barbed wire highway forty days and nights / I ain’t complaining, it’s my job and it suits me right / I got a sweet soul fever rushing round my head / I’m gonna sleep tonight in Maria’s bed
The audience can gather that each character works in a harsh environment where they are exposed to the elements. Their work is likely in manual labour, but the details are skimmed over because the narrators don’t particularly want to think about the details. Pushed to their limits, each instead copes by preoccupying himself with thoughts of his lover, though it makes him literally lovesick.
I’d never want once from the cherry tree / ‘Cause my baby’s sweet as can be / She gives me toothaches just from kissing me
She gives me candy-stick kisses ‘neath a wolf-dog moon / A sweet breath and she’ll take you, mister, to the upper room
The worker recalls his lover’s kisses as being vibrantly sweet, sweeter than nature. So, too, is her company- in contrast to the grim situation he is currently in, she is something to be savoured. Sugar cravings, an innate biological compulsion, come to mind; his hankering for her is likewise deep-seated and out of his control.
The reason for such devotion, the narrator reveals, is that she saved his life at a time when he had already resigned himself to death. He believes he was undeserving of such a deed; Hozier describes “three days on a drunken sin… she never asked me once about the wrong I did,” while Springsteen’s character recounts being “burned by angels, sold wings of lead / then I fell in the roses and sweet salvation of Maria’s bed”. In other words, his state of ruin was at least partially self-made, and her care seemed completely inexplicable. He eagerly returns her love, perhaps feeling that it’s the least he owes- but he still doesn’t quite understand where it came from.
True to both songwriters’ styles, these lines are direct allusions to the idea of redemption in Christianity: God sheltering a faithful person from the literally hellish consequences of their wrongdoing, through no merit of their own. However, the worker is notably dismissive of traditional doctrine:
My babe would never fret none / About what my hands and my body done / If the Lord don’t forgive me / I’d still have my baby and my babe would have me
I’ve been out in the desert, yeah, doing my time / Searching through the dust for fool’s gold, looking for a sign / Holy man says “hold on, brother, there’s a light up ahead” / Ain’t nothing like the light that shines on me in Maria’s bed
His faith rests not in God but on his lover; she is his religion now. Her act of grace already gave him a new, better life- he doesn’t need biblical promises when her love is tantamount to anything heaven might offer.
This implication conveys a staggering depth of feeling, particularly to a religiously raised listener. Spirituality is, at its core, emotional; combined with the values and customs of religion, it is a force that can exert incredible influence over a person. The worker doesn’t reject spirituality itself- it’s an intrinsic part of him- but he has put all that power in the hands of the one he adores. It may make him vulnerable to her (that’s love!), but he is certain that she will give him the strength he needs.
Theological redemption also has close ties with death, as its benefits aren’t meant to be reaped on earth. Instead, the love, glory and freedom that are promised are relegated to the afterlife. Historically, the presumed ecstasy of achieving this gave death a sexual connotation; after all, if a lover could take the spiritual place of God, then perhaps sex could take the role of death as a gateway to paradise, far away from a life of pain.
Work Song embraces this analogy, explicitly linking spiritual fulfilment to the pleasure of sexual intimacy:
When I was kissing on my baby / And she put her love down, soft and sweet / In the low lamplight, I was free / Heaven and hell were words to me
The equally suggestive Maria’s Bed allows the audience to draw similar conclusions, but it accomplishes this using a far less serious method: regular mentions of the titular bed, wink-wink-nudge-nudge.
Yet this light-hearted sauciness is something of a misdirection. It’s easy to gloss over the song’s references to water, but they are strong hints that support an alternative reading: Maria is not a woman, but a river***. The story, from this perspective, then becomes much more sombre- the worker is a dying or suicidal man who wishes to have his body laid at the bottom of a river that provided for him in life, and whose real desire is for the peace he hopes to find there in death.
Got on my dead man’s suit and smiling skull ring / Lucky graveyard boots and a song to sing / I keep my heart in my work, my troubles in my head / And I keep my soul in Maria’s bed
This darker interpretation arguably makes more sense than the face-value love story, as it resolves some figures of speech that otherwise seem out of place. Even so, the more obvious reading is no less meaningful****; in fact, the coexistence of these narratives is what makes Maria’s Bed an almost perfect thematic inverse to Work Song.
When my time comes around / Lay me gently in the cold dark earth / No grave can hold my body down / I’ll crawl home to her
Hozier uses the finality of death to illustrate the strength of a man’s desire for love- his narrator embraces his own passing as he is certain not even the most permanent of barriers can keep him from his lover. Springsteen, through the personification of the river, uses the language of romance to demonstrate how fervently a man might desire death- his narrator embraces his demise because it offers a reprieve from life, just like a lover would.
All that said, no amount of lyrical analysis will reveal the clearest point of contrast the songs have: their music.
Work Song primarily draws from blues and folk music, both of which have roots in historical work songs used to coordinate physical tasks as well as boost morale. Reflecting this musical heritage, instrumentation is fairly simple, with the steady rhythm of claps and piano chords punctuating hard. It is slow and heartfelt, almost mournful; though there’s no mention of time frame, the audience has the sense that the worker still has a long way to go before he can return to his lover.
This notion comes largely from the song’s circular structure. By ending with the same music it opened with, its story is also implied to finish at its beginning: with the men hard at work in the “burning heat”, and no true relief in sight. This is furthered by having little development over the course of the song- though iterations of the chorus are more intense than the verses, the arrangements underlying both sections barely change. The worker, it seems, is never quite far enough from his reality of hard labour, and never close enough to home.
On the other hand, Maria’s Bed is relentlessly optimistic, driven by a strong forward momentum. Where most modern songs have their choruses as their most powerful feature, here the wordless refrain (“hey hey, la la la li li li li”) acts more like a transition between verses, keeping the story moving. The jaunty fiddles that fade out are quite different to the introductory guitar and organ, suggesting the worker’s situation has developed for the better. In addition, the orchestration builds continually, only briefly pulling back before the music culminates in an extended musical outro. Many of the instruments work in counterpoint, each additional layer contributing to an air of an unrestrained joy that is further spurred on by Springsteen’s high hums and whoops.
The linear musical direction and overall impression of good cowboy fun results in the feeling that, unlike the singer of Work Song, the narrator is already on his way to his heart’s desire- though, in light of the lyrics, what this actually means is somewhat ambiguous. Are those final echoes him moving out of earshot… or his ghost ascending to the “upper room” of heaven?
We may not know for sure how either of these stories end, but we can feel the aching hope for something better. This longing is an emotional line that runs all the way through both Springsteen and Hozier’s work, though it never seems to get old. Combined with explorations of love, faith, life, death- that’s why we return to their music again and again; they are experts at playing on old motifs and universal themes in new and creative ways, their crafted melodies and narratives touching wild and industrial hearts alike.
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* I am legally obligated to include all these adjectives.
** Maria’s Bed seems to be sadly obscure even among fans; the one and only online forum discussion I have seen about the song refers to it as “not that deep”. Having written this whole essay- if Springsteen himself said that to me, I’d laugh in his face.
*** A random internet comment I can’t find anymore backs me up on this. It even specified that it was about the Santa Maria River in California, as quoted “from Bruce”. Obviously an infallible source 😊
**** It’s important that “[drinking] the cool clear waters” can totally be the description of oral sex you thought it was.
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INARI OKAMI : FEUDAL JAPAN / EDO PERIOD.
Gin appears as a simple man in elegant robes and a faintly glowing aura, though in truth walks the mortal plain as a deity, patron, protector of warriors, guardian of prostitutes and women wronged. In Shinto and Buddhist belief ( and northern China ) Inari, the often androgynous god, may take the form of a pale fox, snake, or a serpentine dragon----shapeshifting being perceived as their more mischievous trait, though some believe that foxes and snakes alike are merely messengers, a mouthpiece for the celestial being to interact with their followers. The dragon form may appear within one’s dreams, the message typically of dire importance. This god holds many personas and many aspects in which it oversees. Inari makes up more than one-third of all active shrines devoted to a Shinto-based deity within Japan, though its Buddhist traits are not forgotten.
ORIGINS / WORSHIP :
Inari has no concrete origins recorded within ancient texts, though it’s roughly estimated that 711 AD is the furthest date of an aged shrine to the god, though worship allegedly began centuries before. Near the end of the fifth century, it was believed that Inari protected agriculture, food, sake, the importance of rice and humanity’s bond with nature. Shrines and texts depicted the god carrying rice, warding off bad luck and bringing in good fortune for plentiful harvests, often as a fox-like creature. With the popularity came decorated shrines bearing twin foxes and a signature jewel, a wish-fulfilling orb, in one’s mouth or hovering nearby. In some records of worship, Inari is split into three, though inconsistent, and may even be perceived as divided into five similar deities fused whole. Inari started small but became widespread in their protection--even bleeding into finances--as faiths and needs grew.
Within Edo, it was believed that Inari prevented destruction by fire especially following the great fires that struck Kyoto’s houses and streets. Due to shrines often being built nearby or even next to whorehouses, Inari became the protector of prostitutes, in which their shrine was often seen as a safe place to linger----as such Inari became indirectly known as a staple deity in the acceptance of desire and lust. As popularity grew, the art of seduction became attributed to Inari’s kitsune mischief-making foxes, and the god was perceived as deceitful and would lure foul men closer to then punish or devour their soul. In other depictions and due to that belief, Inari no longer was perceived as a god, but rather a demon, for the brutality they could unleash upon wrongdoers and its trickster nature. Inari is seen as playfully deadly.
Following Inari’s connection to desires, worshipers began to consider the god as Desire-Fulfilling Inari. A figure of speech prevalent within Osaka went “ Byō Kōbō, yoku Inari ” which translates “ For sickness, pray to Kōbō, for desires pray to Inari ” Many great lords, or daimyōs, constructed shrines for Inari within their massive castles, holding true to Inari’s protection of loyal samurai and to give prosperity to the land they held ruling over.
APPEARANCE / ABILITIES / PERSONALITY :
Gin materializes himself as an average male standing at 185 centimeters and with a lean, slender build. Notable abnormalities begin at his silver, pale hair, mirrored by how the shapeshifter will often times take the form of his signature animals bearing a fairer coat or stretch of scales. The origin of his human guise’s namesake remains rooted in Gin’s initial appearance as moonlit, which he kept in favor of searching for any other alias he considered less suitable. The addition of ‘ Ichimaru ’ to his human’s title simply translates his full name as “ Silver One “ which he believes as a perfect fit. Gin may, at will, however, abandon his namesake in favor of a more natural hair color----it is easy for the changing god to adjust his appearance as a mere glimmer of the light, a trick of the eyes. On that topic, Gin’s eyes will most certainly glow or appear intensely vibrant in comparison to any other ( rare ) blue-eyed mortal within Japan. Though he knows of its rarity and that the possibility of being labeled inhuman remains high, Gin favors the appearance, and will not change or dull down the piercing gaze. Rather, he will simply opt to squint his eyes to relinquish any startling reaction a human may have.
Sharp features and pale skin are often draped in smooth layered robes topped by an elegant kimono of darker shades showcasing elaborate asymmetrical patterns, and often times Gin favors lengthier sleeves to obstruct view of his hands, accepting (or perhaps indifferent) of the connotations that he may be perceived as unmarried due to such lengths. Gin is aware of and knowledgeable of Japan’s culture throughout time, though he will play foolish and ignorant of it in order to strike conversation and to challenge humanity’s ( correct ) assumption that gods are constantly watching, and believes conveying such ignorance also makes humans less likely to bombard the gods with pettier prayers, often realizing in that moment that their problems are easier solved themselves rather than taking the time to explain their issue to a deity. Gin enjoys, however, listening to those who persist in explaining their issue----he admires humans who are capable of swaying his stance on granting a particular wish and will honor that dedication. Gin may at any moment answer prayers that fall within his vast celestial domain, but the greater the wish, the greater the trials he places within. Only those who are worthy and loyal may reap the benefits they so strongly desire.
All praise gathered via worship, devotion to his shrines, offerings given, are stored as energy within the wish-fulfilling orb that may at any moment appear hovering over an opened palm. Usually mistaken as his life source or power source, the orb carries a potent gleam at its summoning, glowing an icy blue, and merely condenses all forms of worship and faith in a more tangible appearance----its size is not to be attributed to an apparent lack of followers, as Gin is supplied with plentiful faith, though the full function of the orb remains undisclosed. Gin clearly treasures the object and thinks it’s cute that humanity’s “ caught on “ and began incorporating the orb into his shrine decorations.
Gin confronted his first mortal as a materialized human; the man was a looter, a nameless pawn for one of the many gangs racing across Kyoto, and had a distinct Kansai-ben dialect. After devouring the man’s soul in clear punishment for his threatened violence towards the woman whom he had attempted to attack upon Gin’s grounds, the god has since then used the dialect. Gin does not necessarily need to verbally communicate as he is capable of full telepathic links to mentally and even emotionally convey what he desires to, which automatically translates to whatever the recipient's mind is capable of comprehending----the stronger the person’s spirituality, ki, and general awareness to the supernatural, the closer their minds will be to perceiving Gin’s true voice that transcends human language. However, Gin quickly became fond of the playful nature of Kansai-ben, and therefore will rarely offer opportunities to witness such shows of godhood.
Wishes granted must remain within Gin’s domains as a god. Thankfully, it’s vast enough that most desires fall within his plain to mold and make so; for fertility in all aspects, for plentiful harvests, for foods to be present and starvation sated, for greater finances, for luck, for protection against rapists, for safe passage along any streets housing his shrine, for great health, for lustful desires ( yes, he can play matchmaker for you, but he usually denies those requests unless the pining is mutual ) and for honor within combat to name a few.
Gin may bend reality, may turn the tides of current events, he may warp what has been done to an extent to fulfill such wishes, materialize money, materialize anything within reason of his domains, though he may struggle or even be forbidden to overcome the countering fulfillments of another deity. Gin will break such rules for those he cares for deeply but will suffer great consequence for doing so and disrupting the order amongst gods. Consequences involve temporary mortality, banishment from the celestial plains, and certain restrictions placed upon his powers. It is implied that the greatest punishment is death, in which Gin would be forced to gradually and painfully reincarnate himself amongst humanity, then earn his right to return to godhood once again. Though Gin will poke fun at “ playing human “ he is earnest in still remaining removed from it and therefore looks upon that punishment with distaste. Gin does not resent being immortal.
Certain wishes are, therefore, much easier to grant. In a reminder to humanity, Gin shows no favor in what appears as morally correct for him to fulfill, though holds his own morality that can occasionally overlap with humanity’s standards. This is not to usher in the concept that Gin understands humanity’s standards, as his worldview may sometimes come as a shock----even cruel----if cast into the correct light. Gin does not believe in second chances for wrongdoers guilty of assault / rape, and will devour them without any remorse. It is difficult to determine if the deity is even capable of such emotion, as he can in the same breath deny a prayer of a woman’s wish for a child if he deems her unworthy of the life she desires to bear.
Though he became popular within castles of rich lords overseeing expanses of land they conquered, Gin much prefers the “ little guys “ and sometimes wishes his domains extended towards wanderers, travelers, and folk of little belongings. Inari will be sentimental, nostalgic, of the era before rice was overcome by coin as Japan’s measure of wealth. Gin enjoys the concept of wandering, of aimless searching----he thinks it’s romantic even to travel across the lands and will even jokingly wish that he could cease his omnipresence to be able to “ fully immerse himself “ in his own wanderings.
A bored god is a far more dangerous one, as Gin’s lesser-adored “ phases “ involved him shapeshifting into beautiful maidens and luring men deemed disgusting into his waiting arms to soon devour, making a point to drain their blood first before seeking out their foul souls to feast on. Gin also may have “ accidentally “ ignited a fued between two esteemed families out of pure indifference towards them both via several shapeshifted encounters as a fox posing as the bearer of the future, plaguing the head of each respective household with false visions of calamity should the other house remain in good standing. Gin remained guiltless in the toils he brought, though he will admit his lack of compassion was most prevalent as each human sought to murder one another in years to come.
Equally so, Gin’s boredom also brought prosperity to many, seemingly randomized, followers. Favoritism began to show itself in patterns, however, that Gin clearly preferred granting women their wishes rather than the desires of men. He won’t deny it, either, but dislikes being referred to as a flirt and the implications that he wants something back from the women whose prayers he answers. Gin does not harbor granted wishes as “ being owed “ anything in return, despite offerings and other signs of faith as being accepted forms of worship----he does not hold his followers responsible for any further payment as their faith in him provides plenty sustenance beyond a human’s comprehension. Gin doesn’t require food, though appreciates the snacks left for him at shrines, for example.
He’s guilty of looming behind certain worshipers, simply following them throughout their daily life, random in his selection and unseen by passerby----fully capable of remaining invisible to all. Gin will remain quiet in his observation unless the human of choice begins to sense his presence, thus breaking his immunity to being seen. Gin may appear only to those that wish to see him or demand him to show himself, and therefore unknown and undisturbed by a crowd of humans passing by. Any dialogue spoken to him whilst in this state will be heard by others, though left unanswered to the public despite his replies.
Gin is able to enter and exit this stealthed state at will, and within a second’s notice, seemingly vanishing in front of anyone’s watchful eye. Gin used to abuse this while luring drunken men, filthy and would snicker within the invisible realm in between steps as he watched them stumble and stagger, calling out, in utter confusion as onlookers scratched their heads at the man’s apparent breakdown. Needless to say, Gin has lived a long life, matured into a full deity capable of granting a vast amount of wishes, powerful and absolute, yet playful in nature and softer towards particular prayers and the wishes of women.
AN ETHEREAL FORM DANCES ALONG THE EDGES OF YOUR VISION, A WHISPERED FAMILIAR VOICE, YET STRANGE, PLAYFULLY DARK, LINGERING TO YOUR RIGHT, AND A FAINT GLOW IN THE MOONLIT NIGHT-----------------------------
YOU HAVE CAUGHT THE ATTENTION OF A GOD.
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Your blog is my favorite, thank you for all the posts and research you do. I would like to ask what, in your opinion, you think Noda has planned for Ogata? I lose hope sometimes but I also feel afraid to hope for him! He is still so mysterious so it is hard to make theories, but I would love to read your opinions.
*blush* Thank you so much for apprecciating my blog and for your ask!
Hum... please, correct me if I’m wrong but I think what you’d like to know is if there will be a redemption path for him or not?
In this regard the story can go three ways:
1) The story will decide Ogata is simply too ruined and jaded for Asirpa’s kindness to make a difference. Sure, he might have apprecciated it but it’s just like a drop of water in the sea. She’s just ONE young girl giving him some small consideration and niceness but, of course, she’s not devoting her life to fix him (and she shouldn’t). The rest of the world wasn’t so kind to him and there’s plenty of things he has done by now he simply can’t take back. In short being kind with someone when that person is far too gone is useless. It won’t change anything for the person being nice or the person receiving niceness. You could spare yourself the effort as that person was already doomed. Generally when a character is considered doomed he either dies or meet up with a very bad ending (jail or worse). The underlining moral is that if you do evil, you’re evil and you’ll be punished for it.
2) The story will decide Asirpa’s kindness will affect Ogata enough to change him in regard to her but not enough to change him into a good person. She’ll be a person for whom he’ll have a soft spot, and whom he might be willing to help. Everyone else though can just drop dead and if it can’t he can help with it. Basically the story will decide to reward Asirpa for her kindness and show what she did wasn’t a waste of time. It might not have changed Ogata radically but it will affect him and Asirpa will be the one reaping the benefits for it. When the story goes for this path is harder to predict the fate of the character. The story at this point has two possible paths:
2A) it might decide for an open ending in this regard, letting him go so as to leave open the possibility he could improve further either on his own or due to more positive influence. The underlining message is that kindness will hopefully produce more kindness but won’t try to support the idea that kindness will SURELY produce a completely positive outcome. It prduced a better outcome and more kindness might help improving things... or the starting kindness might help a person on a journey of self redemption but this will be left up to the reader’s speculation so, if the reader prefers for redemption ultimately not to come or a punishment to be dished out... well he can picture it in his mind.
2A) The story can also decide to kill him off as it has proved that kindness affects people but didn’t feel like moving further than this in fear if punishment isn’t dished out it can look like sins are washed out too easily. The character might be given a heroic death, just to confirm he was affected in a relevant manner by the kindness received but doesn’t really get to... step up the game. The story doesn’t really want him to spend his life redeeming himself (as in change his life and start living now to make up for all he did wrong in his life), it just wants to prove kindness is rewarded but, at the same time, confirm evil-doing is punished. Maybe view in an heroic death an absolution to sins, many don’t think it’s enough but hey, everyone in this way can decide for himself if the character is redeemed or not.
3) The story might decide Asirpa’s kindness will affect Ogata enough it’ll radically change his lifestyle. It won’t be quick as some hope, he won’t abruptly turn from how he is now to a good samaritan who only does what’s right and pure but, by the end of the manga he’ll be supposed to pile up genuine regret and good deeds enough to be considered a different person and a person that will keep on improving and never go back to how he was. Now actually some tales, after getting to this point still kill off the character but I don’t think that will be the case.
So what is Golden Kamuy really storing for Ogata?
As Noda had shown Ogata has some moral sense (no killing old women who remind him of his grandmother, saving Nikaido and, possibly, returning Sugimoto’s favour by saving him from a fake Ainu) and Asirpa has influenced him a little the idea seems to be he’s not so jaded he can’t be affected.
Actually, since there’s something decent in him, if you don’t want to call him good, Asirpa’s kindness should imporve it, otherwise the message would be again that kindness affect nothing or worse, that it makes matters worse.
So we should go for path 2 or 3.
In addition to this Ogata’s personal backstory started as pretty pitiful and not his fault at all.
He can’t be accounted responsible for his parents’ actions or his mother’s madness and while it would be considered an acceptable punishment for him to be mistreated due to him murdering his mother (even if it was probably a pity killing done by a kid who didn’t really understand well the situation), he was actually laughed over for something he had no involvement at all, how his mother was accused to be a whore... which she probably wasn’t.
In such circumstances many narrations don’t like to press too much on the issue of unredeemable because they end up on promoting prejudice, in short proving the bullying Ogata received was valid because his army mates all called him yamaneko due to his mom and, guess what? He became a yamaneko ultimately so they were right in doing so even when he actually hadn’t done anything because they knew he would so people with a birth like Ogata shouldn’t be given chances, it’s only fair to taunt them, ultimately they’ll reveal themselves for the jerks/failure/yamaneko they were meant to be. As you can see this is a message a story might be not too keen on promoting.
In order to criticize Ogata’s father’s actions as well as the ones of Ogata’s Army classmates he needs to be given chances which can equate the mistreatment that was tossed against him and that would prove if he had been handled in a different way he would have turned into a different person.
In short the kindness Asirpa showed toward him has to become a seed that will give some fruits.
Of course seeds take a lot of time into turning into trees and then giving fruits and, sometimes, fruits are just scarce.
So what I expect is for Ogata to do something good due to Asirpa showing him kindness. It might not be here and now, maybe it’ll happen much farther in the future and it might not be enough to save the day or to redeem him but it has to be enough to allow Asirpa to reap what she sow and prove that kindness isn’t unnecessary, that mistreating a person for things that aren’t even his fault or due to prejudice is never right.
As said before it doesn’t necessarily have to mean he’ll fully redeem himself. Nor it means Asirpa has to devote her life to take care of him or forgive him for what he did or anything.
It just means her kindness has to be repaid with kindness for the message that kindness is always a good thing to work.
Of course, as everyone else had not been kind to him, quite the opposite, often for petty reasons, they also should theoretically reap what they sow. In a way the bullet to Sugimoto’s head can very well represent this... but it also becomes an obstance in a possible redemption path.
If Ogata is busy in ‘an eye for an eye’ quest, although he might be willing to return Asirpa’s kindness... well, things for him won’t change much and he and Sugimoto might as well end up self destroying in attempt to ‘get even’.
Golden Kamuy hadn’t been a manga willing to support personal revenge so far after all.
So the only thing I feel confident enough as of now is that Ogata will likely end up on returning Asirpa’s kindness or trying to in future (no, no idea if it’ll be now).
It gets harder through, to predict the rest.
A redemption path implies regret for his past actions but it would be rather weird if he were to feel sorry for killing that monster that his father was or betraying Tsurumi who was using him or killing Wilk who clearly didn’t impress him positively as a model of a father or Sugimoto who was mostly a jerk with him through all the time they spent together (honestly, I love Sugimoto but he’d been a jerk to Ogata, no excuses... though I’m not sure if Sugimoto fully realized it but this is a discussion for another post).
Anyway at most Ogata might sorry for the pain he caused to Asirpa as he probably didn’t mean to hurt her that badly and spending time with her might have only persuaded him she didn’t deserve to be hurt.
This is however not enough to insure his character path will turn into a full redemption path although it’s enough to strongly point he’ll have a personal improvement path.
We can only wait and see how the situation will evolve though.
I don’t think Golden Kamuy will end anytime soon and while of course Noda might decide to kill off Ogata at any moment it looks like an unlikely choice at this point in time. A possible choice, of course, but unlikely as it’ll be weird if his role in the story were to end now (though I’m biased and therefore I’m not fully reliable on this).
Anyway I think Ogata still has a lot of time to evolve and, possibly, change for the better.
While it would be possible to kill him and reveal his true goals and his involvement in many plot points later or as he’s dying Golden Kamuy doesn’t seem to be in a rush for this sort of things. Here and there we still discover new things about the main characters even though they had been with us for such a long time. If the story were to cram everything in a chapter or reveal it while Ogata isn’t around I’m not sure it would work that well.
But well, we can only wait and see.
Thank you for asking about my opinion and giving me the chance to discuss about this intriguing topic!
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The following reflection is courtesy of Don Schwager © 2020. Don's website is located at Dailyscripture.net
Meditation: What can a shameless and unjust judge pitted against a crusty and pestering woman teach us about justice and vindication in the kingdom of God? Jesus tells a story that is all too true - a defenseless widow is taken advantaged of and refused her rights. Through sheer persistence she wears down an unscrupulous judge until he gives her justice. Persistence pays off, and that's especially true for those who trust in God. Jesus illustrates how God as our Judge and Vindicator is much quicker to come to our defense and to bring us his justice, blessing, and help when we need it. But we can easily lose heart and forget to ask our heavenly Father for his grace and help.
Faith-filled persistence reaps the fruit of justice and grace
Jesus told the parable of the persistent widow and the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8) to give his disciples fresh hope and confidence in God's unfailing care and favor towards us (grace). In this present life we can expect trials and adversity, but we are not without hope in God. The Day of the Last Judgment will reveal that God's justice triumphs over all the injustices perpetrated by a fallen world of sinful people and that God's love is stronger than death (Song of Songs 8:6). Those who put their faith in God and entrust their lives to him can look forward with hope and confident assurance. They will receive their reward - if not fully in this present life then surely and completely in the age to come in God's kingdom of righteousness, peace, and joy (Romans 14:17).
Jesus ends his parable with a probing question for us. Will you and I have faith - the kind of faith that doesn't give up or lose hope in God - but perseveres to the end of our lives - and to the end of this present age when the Lord Jesus will return in glory as Ruler and Judge of All? Faith is an entirely free gift that God makes to us. We could not believe, trust, and persevere with hope if God did not first draw us to himself and reveal to us his merciful love and care. If we want to grow and persevere in faith until the end of our days, then we must nourish our faith with the word of God and ask the Lord to increase it (Luke 17:5). When trials and setbacks disappoint you, where do you place your hope and confidence? Do you pray with expectant faith and confident hope in God's merciful care and provision for you?
"Lord Jesus, increase my faith and make it strong that I may never doubt your word and promise to be with me always. In every situation I face - whether trials, setbacks, or loss - may I always find strength in your unfailing love and find joy and contentment in having you alone as the treasure of my heart."
The following reflection is from One Bread, One Body courtesy of Presentation Ministries © 2020.
HEART-TO-HEART TALK
Jesus “told them a parable on the necessity of praying always and not losing heart.” —Luke 18:1
Have you lost heart in any prayer? What if you’ve prayed for a long time to be healed? Do you still truly expect to be healed or have you lost heart? Do you expect the end to abortion? Do you still believe or have you lost heart? (see Ps 13:2)
Sometimes the longer we pray, the less we believe. The Lord assures us that, if a widow can get her rights from an unwilling judge (Lk 18:5), how much more will our prayers be answered by our heavenly Father Who gave His Son for us, adopted us, and loves us unconditionally, much more than we love ourselves? “Is it possible that He Who did not spare His own Son but handed Him over for the sake of us all will not grant us all things besides?” (Rm 8:32)
Because of the Lord’s proven, crucified love, we can be positive that all prayer is answered either as we request or with something better. “Will not God then do justice to His chosen who call out to Him day and night? Will He delay long over them, do you suppose? I tell you, He will give them swift justice” (Lk 18:7-8). The Lord wants us to take heart and not lose heart, for His heart is open, pierced, broken, bleeding, and on fire for love of us.
Prayer: Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on me. I love You.
Promise: “Therefore, we owe it to such men to support them and thus to have our share in the work of truth.” —3 Jn 8
Praise: Paul always tends to the people who come his way. He refers to them as “those who fall into my net.”
Reference: (To restore your heart for prayer, read the Bible everyday. To assist, we have three audio series available at our website for listening: Overview of the Bible, 15 Minute Bible Teaching - New Testament, An Introduction to Each Book of the Bible. Each series is also available as CD sets.)
Rescript: "In accord with the Code of Canon Law, I hereby grant the Nihil Obstat for One Bread, One Body covering the period from October 1, 2020 through November 30, 2020. Most Reverend Joseph R. Binzer, Auxiliary Bishop, Vicar General, Archdiocese of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, Ohio February 25, 2020"
The Nihil Obstat ("Permission to Publish") is a declaration that a book or pamphlet is considered to be free of doctrinal or moral error. It is not implied that those who have granted the Nihil Obstat agree with the contents, opinions, or statements
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Ethics, Empathy, and Emotional Abuse
Human compassion and human ethical practices wouldn’t exist if there were no innate basis for caring about the wellbeing of others. However, the innate basis for compassion and ethics is a shaky one—anything that approaches consistent ethical conduct must be propped up by a fair amount of reasoning and culture. To paraphrase Peter Singer, in order for us to behave in a consistently ethical way, reasoning and culture must expand our innate circle of moral consideration. Left to our own devices, we tend to be somewhat tribal. We tend to be automatically empathic towards kin and the members of (what we perceive to be) our tribe, and to dehumanise or objectify outsiders, as beings that can be dealt with however we please. It’s not so much that we have an innate tendency to treat outsiders like objects—it is just that evolution is miserly, and equips its creatures with only the bare minimum that was required for ancestral survival. We have innate empathy, but its strength and automaticity tends to depend on the emotional bonds that we have to others. Expanding our moral circle, to the extent that it has occurred, has occurred because the perceived outermost boundaries of our tribes have retracted.
Despite this moral progress, something that hasn’t changed—and will probably never change—is that we experience empathy most strongly and most automatically towards the people to whom we are most intimately emotionally bonded. This sort of special treatment, which is innate and based on emotional attachment, is the only reason that any of us cares about being compassionate or moral at all. This is why psychopaths, who lack emotional empathy and the ability to form emotional attachments, have no compunctions about lying to, manipulating, and otherwise hurting others to get what they want. However, even though our innate special treatment of others is the basis for all our ethics, it is certainly not itself ethical. If ethics is anything, then it is the demand that this special treatment of kin and members of the tribe be universalised to all sentient beings.
Unethical as it may be, it is a universal fact about humans (with the exception of psychopaths) that we experience empathy most strongly and most automatically towards the people to whom we are most intimately emotionally bonded. Call this fact ‘universally contingent empathy’. Because this is a universal fact about humans who are not psychopaths—i.e. because we feel empathy most strongly and automatically towards our friends and loved ones—our emotional bonds with other people are important subjects of ethical consideration in their own right. Due to universally contingent empathy, the violation of emotional bonds and attachments is a universal and universally egregious ethical wrong. Such a wrong is called ‘emotional abuse’, and sometimes receives the more controversial label ‘emotional rape’.
Why does universally contingent empathy make emotional abuse a universal and universally egregious ethical wrong? It implies that a strong and usually overwhelming preference is universal among non-psychopathic humans; namely, that one’s emotional bonds to others are not taken advantage of. That this preference is so strong is due to the fact that when we are emotionally bonded to another, we can’t help but care about this other person’s well-being, and about her intentions and goals. We can’t help but care about this person’s thoughts and feelings about us. And we can’t help but treat this other person as a person rather than as an object. Accordingly, when someone else is emotionally attached to us, this can be an exceedingly valuable thing. The one who is bonded to us can’t help but have good intentions towards us, at least most of the time. We can count on this person to be reasonable with us, and to respect our agency. This person will also be willing to sacrifice some of her own well-being for the sake of our own. Accordingly, if we happen to be unscrupulous, then we might be motivated to encourage a person to become emotionally attached to us by pretending to reciprocate this attachment, in order to reap the benefits without being similarly compelled to return the favour.
Luckily, it is nearly impossible to be unscrupulous in this way, if one is capable of forming emotional attachments in a normal and healthy way (and if the connection between one’s empathy and one’s actions is unobstructed). This is due to another part of our innate emotional apparatus: simply going through the motions of love or friendship will tend to automatically faciliate an emotional connection, and feelings of trust and intimacy. I.e. simply acting as though we care about another person, at least when this is done face-to-face and over a sufficient amount of time, will tend to promote a degree of genuine emotional bonding no matter what. This, in turn, will cause us to feel more strongly and more automatically guilty about exploiting or hurting the other person.
Unfortunately, there are those among us who do not have normal empathy, or whose connection between empathy and action is obstructed. Emotional bonds and attachments might be exploited and abused by psychopaths, who can’t form normal emotional bonds and attachments themselves, and who can’t experience normal empathy. They might also be abused or exploited by malignant narcissists, or other individuals for whom the connection between empathy and action is pathologically blocked. And they might even be abused or exploited by individuals whose connection between empathy and action is temporarily obstructed, by some pressing personal issue, concern, or turmoil.
In the face of such a threat from the damaged or unscrupulous, it is incredibly important to those with normal empathy that they aren’t encouraged to form unreciprocated emotional bonds, or to form strong emotional bonds under false pretenses. By forming emotional bonds under these conditions, we make ourselves about as vulnerable as we can be. We can’t help but care and we can’t help but give the benefit of the doubt—and this makes us nearly helpless in the face of exploitation and abuse. We can’t help but genuinely care about the wellbeing of our friends and loved ones. We worry about their goals, and we want their preferences to be satisfied rather than thwarted. We want to keep them in our lives, if we can. And we want them to be happy. If we aren’t psychopathic, then we can’t help but feel these things towards those with whom we are emotionally attached.
We can’t help but feel these things, and this alone—i.e. simply caring about the wellbeing and opinions of our friends and loved ones—makes us vulnerable. However, when our empathy is also connected to our actions in a normal way, then we are even more at risk. It is this connection between empathy and action that makes emotional bonds especially valuable to the unscrupulous.
Basically every human being can’t help but care about her friends and loved ones (only psychopaths completely lack normal empathy). However, for this caring to be properly hooked up to one’s actions is a more complicated prospect. Even when this connection between empathy and action is normal and healthy, there can be immediate personal issues or events that obstruct it.
However, for the most part, if the connection between empathy and action is normal and healthy, then it is not just that we can’t help but care about our friends and loved ones. We also can’t help but act on this concern. We want to know how our friends and loved ones are feeling and how they are going; and we try to help them out. We willingly put some of our own projects and preferences to one side, for the benefit of our friends and loved ones. We cooperate with our friends and loved ones, to try to get the best outcome overall.
And we can’t help but treat our friends and loved ones as persons rather than objects. In particular, rather than forcing them, threatening them, coercing them, blindsiding them, manipulating them, or lying to them, we respect their agency by conversing with them, openly and honesty. I.e. we are reasonable with our friends and loved ones. We give our reasons and we consider theirs, rather than simply treating friends or loved ones however we please. (Inter alia, it is for this reason that stonewalling, silent treatment, blame-shifting, and so on, are emotionally abusive.) E.g. if we want something that a friend or loved one has, then we don’t just try to take it. We ask for it and we say why we want it or need it. We allow the friend or loved one to assess our reasons, and then either agree to our request or give her own reasons for declining it. We try to avoid hurting our friends and loved ones, or otherwise thwarting their preferences. And if we find that we have hurt or thwarted the preferences of a friend or loved one inadvertently, then we feel guilty about it. We apologise for it and we try to make amends. We give our reasons for overlooking the wellbeing of the friend or loved one, we resolve not to overlook it in that way again, and we ask for her forgiveness. If we have no recourse but to hurt a friend or loved one, then we also feel terrible about this, despite having had no other option. We try to prepare the friend or loved one for what we must do. Again, we give our reasons for having no other option; we apologise, we ask for forgiveness, we make sure that she doesn’t take it personally; and we try to minimise the amount of damage that we end up doing. We try to make it up to her.
When we are genuinely emotionally bonded with someone, and the connection between empathy and action is unobstructed, we can’t help but do things of this sort. Such behaviours are relatively automatic. This is what makes emotional attachments so valuable to those who are willing and able to exploit them; i.e. to the psychopaths, narcissists, and their like. Because of universally contingent empathy, it is universally the case that an emotional bond makes doing for and giving to relatively automatic. In addition to making emotional bonds valuable to those who are willing and able to exploit them, this is also part of what makes emotional abuse such an egregious ethical wrong. In effect, the ones who are emotionally bonded are sitting ducks. To mix animal metaphors: emotionally abusing people is shooting fish in a barrel.
Moreover, the reason that we can’t help but do things for and give things to the people to whom we are emotionally bonded is, in part, that we strongly and automatically experience empathy for such people. We can’t help but care about the thoughts and feelings of those to whom we are emotionally attached. The fact that this caring is automatic and genuine is largely the reason that emotional abuse is so devastating, and does such lasting damage to the people whose emotional bonds have been violated and betrayed, by the ones to whom they'd thought they'd shared a recriprocal emotional bond. Accordingly, this is also another reason that, in light of universally contingent empathy, emotional abuse is both a universal and universally egregious ethical wrong.
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Is Magic Evil? A (Very Abridged) Secret History of Magic
Another issue must be addressed, as it is the rationale most frequently offered for centuries of concerted efforts to eliminate magic and persecute practitioners, and because it is an issue that prevents some from accessing their personal power. You think you’d like to cast a spell, but you’re afraid. Is practicing magic evil?
According to general worldwide metaphysical wisdom, magic is a source of power. Power may be used benevolently or selfishly, with varying degrees of mal intent. Thus it isn’t the abstract practice of magic that is either good or bad; it’s what each practitioner chooses to do with it. Responsibility for one’s actions and the consequences that stem from them rest securely on the individual practitioner’s shoulders. Have evil people ever abused magic power? Sure. Just take a look at some of the hexes in this book. Is magic the only power capable of being abused? Of course not. How about financial power, political power, brute strength, nuclear power, and so on and so forth? In the sweep of history, abuse of magic power is far less responsible for the accumulated sufferings of the world than many other forms of abuse.
There is a general rule, accepted across the board, that magicians reap what they sow. Cast an evil spell—ultimately receive evil back. Negative efforts attract negative returns, at a return rate of three-, seven-, or nine-fold. The standard rule of witchcraft is do what thou will, but harm none. Many modern witches are absolutely terrified of transgressing that rule.
So then, why magic’s bad reputation?
Yes, there are legends of wicked sorcerers using their skills to hold others in thrall. However, if one examines those legends closely, it’s usually revealed that the magical aspect is but a smoke screen for more reliable, conventional methods of coercion, like brute force and access to greater wealth, although I suppose one could argue that magical prowess enabled their acquisition. Suffice it to say that any position of power, in any profession, is vulnerable to corruption and temptation. Let’s talk about the average working magical practitioner.
Magic is concerned with the immediate needs and desires of the practitioner in the here and now, or at least in the immediately foreseeable future. It is not about “pie in the sky.” The average magician doesn’t want to wait for the possible rewards of the sweet hereafter. Magic is not for the passive; if you’re willing to passively accede to your fate, the destiny others decide for you, whatever it is, why waste time, effort, or money casting a spell?
Magic recognizes that Earth is full of gifts and the practitioner wants his or her share now. Magic is not the same as religion, although many religions have historically incorporated magic into their practice, and still do. To put it mildly, magic is not an inherently reverential system. Magic demands that my will be done, not necessarily thine, or at least, let’s find a compromise. It is not a humble art. Magic possesses an intensely powerful independent, egalitarian streak.
An infinite quantity of magic power exists in the world, enough for everyone. It’s not like a scarce commodity, where if I have it, you don’t. Magic power is constantly being generated, although various modern practices, especially those that affect the natural environment, have diminished present quantities drastically. Similar to Pullman’s His Dark Materials’ dust, the energy that each individual generates enters the universe where it affects and may be drawn upon by others. It is to everyone’s benefit (except perhaps for that elite few already achieving their heaven on Earth at the expense of others) that every individual, creature, or thing, maximizes its potential for power.
Furthermore, not all powers on Earth are positive: in- tense extended misery, suffering, and oppression generate a negative energy that ultimately affects everyone badly, diminishes baraka, obstructs magic power, and limits everyone’s access to it. In addition, the extinction of Earth’s life forms—the loss of plant and animal species—eliminates every practitioner’s potential access to their unique powers. Thus general oppression and certain policies affecting the environment, beyond any ethical considerations of right or wrong, hamper the magician’s ability to maximize personal power and the power of their spells.
There is an inherent tension between the individual practitioner seeking power, and authority of all kinds, most especially religious authority, which seeks to maintain its authority by retaining and controlling access to the divine, as well as to tools, theology, and ritual. Religion frequently seeks to establish rules and boundaries about who has direct access to the divine, and who bestows that access and the proper channels. Correct methods of worship and spiritual communication are prescribed, including what is permitted and what is not.
If something has power, magicians usually want to try it out, regardless of whose tradition or faith it comes from, regardless of whether some authority says its use is forbidden. Although magic is a conservative force in ways, harking back to humanity’s most primal arts, it also evolves endlessly, adapting new materials, new traditions and new methods as they appear. It is fluid and defiant and resists control.
Fundamentalists of all kinds are inevitably opposed to magic, but this tension exists even among liberal faiths that prize their magical traditions—so-called magical religions. Here, inevitably, religious tradition stipulates a right way to practice magic. Knowledge may be reserved for the few, with methods reserved for those going through the proper, authorized channels. Tension will exist between the officially initiated and independent practitioners.
That tension between authority and magical practitioner is, I suspect, the real reason why secular rulers and religious authorities (frequently in conjunction with each other) attempt to brand magic and its practitioners as evil influences, a cancer among the submissive. Lack of obedience rather than lack of morality is what really draws down the wrath of authority.
It is no accident that the Bible records that Israel’s diviners, shamans and necromancers were “put away” during the reign of its very first king, Saul. When the prophet Samuel warned the children of Israel that choosing a king would mean losing sons, daughters, land, and livestock, he neglected to mention that they would also lose their previous access to professional magical advice. Or perhaps he didn’t bother to mention it because he was aware, as apparently was the king, that those magical services are so crucial that they are never entirely suppressed. In fact, King Saul himself is very soon shown, in his hour of need, searching out one of those prescribed, forbidden bone-conjurers for a private consultation.
Because the Bible has so often been used as an excuse to persecute and exterminate witches, it’s significant to note how the Bible depicts the Witch of Endor actually accomplishing her task. She’s not painted as a stranger with strange talents, or as a foreigner, but as a member of the community. Neither is she shown to be a fraud; she capably fulfills her royal client’s request. Nor is she depicted as malevolent or evil, but as a good-hearted woman: having accomplished the unhappy task that every fortune-teller dreads, of delivering really bad news, she comforts and feeds the distraught king, providing his last meal on Earth, at personal sacrifice (she kills a calf to feed him) considering that he is responsible for her loss of profession and, presumably, income.
Fortune-tellers, readers, and diviners hold an especially tense relationship with political authority. Historically, rulers, particularly the all-powerful, very much like to have the future revealed. They also typically wish to retain exclusive control over this information. Because others may use a diviner’s skill to plot rebellion, historically diviners have been imprisoned, or one is imprisoned for the ruler’s private’s use, while others are killed. To make matters worse, rulers usually desire to hear only the future as they envision it; a diviner can only read what entrails, shoulder blades, or other tools reveal. You see the need sometimes to keep your power secret. Although it frustrates us today, there’s a very good reason Nostradamus recorded his prophesies in code.
Wherever efforts have been made either to subjugate or convert another country or people, among the first acts traditionally taken is the attempted subversion or elimination of native shamans and traditional magical practices and practitioners. This is inevitably perceived as necessary for the pacification of the masses. This is not purely paranoia on the part of those seeking to assert and retain authority.
Traditional shamans and magical practitioners are consistently in the forefront of resistance to oppressive authority. (Because winners write history, the conventional historical explanation for this phenomenon is that shamans attempt to impede the “path of progress.”) In the British West Indies, historical records show that Obeah men and women (the local shamans) led slave revolts or attempted to do so. The Haitian revolution, which ended slavery in that French colony and established the first independent black republic in the Western Hemisphere, was inaugurated at a Vodoun ceremony dedicated to the Spirit of Iron, the material, with the sole exception of menstrual blood, singularly most charged with magical power—although as soon as native dictators proceeded to seize and consolidate power, not surprisingly, they too attempted to restrict or eliminate Vodoun.
This, not evil, power-hungry sorcerers, is the hidden history of magic. In the United States, the prominent Voodooists Marie Laveau and Mary Ellen Pleasant rescued and redeemed slaves, with Pleasant providing funding for John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry. (Their male counterpart, Dr. John Montanet, was himself a freed slave, as was Pleasant.) Lest you think that this association between magic and social justice is limited to African influence, Native American sham- ans were (and remain) in the forefront of resistance to white encroachment, and traditional practitioners led desperate resistance to Christian domination of Europe. Who knows what attempts to defy limitations on women’s magical and spiritual traditions were destroyed in the flames of the craze of medieval witch-burning? Virtually all the records that remain are filtered through the eyes of the torturers.
Although men suffer too, societies that suppress the magical arts will, as a rule, also limit women’s voices and power, often with terrible brutality. Significantly King Saul, in need of a necromancer, requested that his minions find him a conjuring woman. Although it’s since taken many twists and turns, magic ultimately derives from women’s mysteries and the mysteries of creation, and the history of magic’s suppression cannot be separated from the history of women’s oppression.
Is magic evil? Well, if your perception is that sex is inherently evil, Creation inherently tainted with sin, and that women constitute Earth’s weakest link, then I guess you’d better lump magic in there with the rest of these moral dilemmas.
If magic cannot be entirely divorced from religion, even less can it be separated from herbalism, the root of all traditional medicinal systems, systems that for millennia have investigated botanical impact on health and (above all) on reproduction. Magic is the primordial human art and science. It stems from awe inspired by all Earthly creation, but especially the mysteries of human creation. Every new human life is the ultimate act of magic. Conscious attempts at conception probably constitute the first magic spells, especially if you consider that our remote ancestors didn’t understand pregnancy in the detached, technical manner that we do today. Primordial religions venerated the divine in the form of human genitalia with joy, awe, and respect, not prurience, recognizing their capacity for sacred generation and creation.
Although these symbols still survive in isolated pockets of official religion, magic remains suffused with sexual imagery, in ways that may surprise us today, in efforts to maximize the blessings inherent in the powers of anatomy, both male and female. However, magic stems from fascination, on the part of both women and men, with [“]women’s[”] mysteries: the capacity to produce life where it didn’t exist before, magic blood that flows on schedule from no wound and then is mysteriously retained, the links between that blood, fertility, women, the moon, and the sea. These were and remain conduits to the sacred for primordial magic and spirituality alike.
(from The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells by Judika Illes)
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Developing Spiritually Mature Temperaments
How to Be a Spiritually Mature Sanguine Husband or Wife
1. Stick to moral principles––one man, one wife!
2. Walk in the Spirit in your thought life: “...make not provision for the flesh...” (Romans 13:14). If a sanguine indulges in immoral fantasies he will soon fan his passions out of control.
3. Encourage your wife to be expressive. A loving, responsive and affectionate wife who freely lets her husband know how much she enjoys his love will keep many men.
4. His wife must be the sole object of his exuberant affection. He must avoid flirtations and flattery of other women (thereby reassuring his own wife and other women’s husbands). He should concentrate on bringing joy and fulfilment to his wife.
5. Talk less and listen more––God gave you two ears and one mouth––be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger. See the pitfalls of exaggeration, and try not to exaggerate.
6. Put away self-centredness. Most sanguines tend to be self-centred and self absorbed––they often do not remember people, their names and other details about them.
7. Carry a personal notebook so you jot down important things like dates, addresses, events etc.
8. Spend time if you must, with people who are a positive influence, and who will challenge you to grow as a Christian.
9. Practise being a good listener––do not interrupt or finish people’s sentences for them. Do not plot your sentence when others are speaking.
10. Focus on your heart––“...out of it (the heart) are the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). A good heart will lead you to good places.
11. Use your personal popularity to promote good. For example, by engaging in witnessing and interaction.
12. Spread your creativity––at special events at church and for others.
13. Reach out to the lonely––you are a natural people person.
How to Be a Spiritually Mature Choleric Husband or Wife
1. Ask yourself what makes you want to take control.
2. Don’t think you know it all––only God does.
3. Be humble.
4. Learn to relax and know that the most important things in life are not just work and achievement but family, spouse, and people––make time for them and demonstrate love.
5. Acknowledge the truth that you are not in control of the universe––let God be God.
6. Realize that you are not naturally a people-person and make a conscious decision to work on that weakness.
7. Learn not to force your advice and opinion on people.
8. Feel free to let others be right sometimes.
9. Watch your tongue and try to be loving.
10. Be courageous, provide leadership, crusade for a good cause, stay productive, remain open and honest for these are your strengths.
11. Learn to forgive––vengeance is the Lord’s.
12. Show love and compassion.
13. Understand that many people are not as self-sufficient as you are. Others harbour doubts, unlike the choleric. He must therefore patiently show kindness and encourage his wife in lovemaking and she will be a better performer.
14. You must often give your spouse approval, love and acceptance.
15. You must develop tenderness and affection for your wife and children. The choleric must learn to say , “I love you” frequently and show his wife constantly that he is proud of her.
16. Eliminate sarcasm. Disrespectful, unkind and resentful words from you will turn your wife off.
17. You must be aware of the fact that the threat of an instant choleric explosion prevents your wife from expressing her real emotions to you. This is a hindrance to your love life.
18. The choleric wife must also walk in the spirit so as to conquer her hot temper and sarcastic tongue.
19. She must develop her emotional capability to show love and affection; recognizing that the more she expresses love, the easier it will come.
20. She must learn forgiveness especially for her father––no woman can fully enjoy her husband if she harbours hatred or anger toward her father.
21. Strong-minded, opinionated, often willful choleric wives may vent their frustration and anger on their husbands and stifle their expressions of love.
22. A choleric woman may have this problem because she resisted her father’s affections as a little girl.
23. Not realizing why she was rejected by her father, the choleric girl may increasingly withdraw from her father and refuse to show any normal expressions of emotion toward her father. This will encourage a growing resentment toward men.
24. She must avoid heaping sarcasm, criticism and ridicule on her husband in the area of sex.
25. Cholerics exude such self-confidence that without saying anything, people naturally feel inadequate. The choleric wife therefore needs to let her husband know how much she values him as a man and a lover––she must express appreciation for the masculinity of her man.
How to Be a Spiritually Mature Melancholic Husband or Wife
1. Lower your standards––we live in an imperfect world where things don’t always turn out as you plan. Learn to accept imperfection from yourself and especially from your wife and children. This will liberate you from the bondage of perfectionism.
2. Cultivate a heart of grace and mercy; consider the beam in your own eye when you get absorbed by the speck of others.
3. Develop your sense of humour.
4. Make a conscious effort to overcome depression. That is:
i. Meditate on God’s Word and pray daily (Psalm 119:27-28).
ii. Count your blessings (1 Thessalonians 5:18).
iii. Ponder on truths about who you are in Christ and believe them (Romans 8:17).
iv. Set yourself free––make a conscious effort to forgive those who have offended you. Forgiving doesn’t make them right but it sets you free (Matthew 6:12-15).
v. Stop, and look for the silver lining in the gray cloud––choose to focus your attention on what’s right in the world rather than what’s wrong (Philippians 4:6-8).
vi. Realize that depression is frequently biochemical; seek medication if you have to.
5. Be realistic––let go of unrealistic expectations. They only lead to disappointment, bitterness and anger. This is an imperfect world filled with imperfect people (Romans 3:23).
6. Concern yourself with the needs of others and not just yours.
7. Give unconditional love and not rewarded love.
8. Avoid critical and pessimistic attitudes which are two of your biggest problems. This causes you to become frequently disillusioned when things and people including your spouse don’t measure up.
9. Maintain a positive and wholesome thought life by thinking good things and giving thanks in everything.
10. Encourage your spouse with verbal assurances of love and approval.
11. The melancholic wife needs to have a vital relationship with Jesus Christ so that she may enjoy the love, peace and joy He gives, to make her an effective person.
12. Maintain a thankful attitude instead of thinking negatively and being critical so that you will have a happier outlook on life and enjoy more fruitful relationships. You must accept your husband as he is allowing God to make the needed changes. Your submission to him must not depend on his behaviour but on your obedience to Christ.
13. Forget about yourself and love your husband unconditionally so that you will reap a harvest of love in return.
14. You must learn the lesson of forgiveness.
How to Be a Spiritually Mature Phlegmatic Husband or Wife
1. Recognize that your unflinching behaviour can be a form of control for others because once the phlegmatic finds out he can upset others by his refusal to get enthused, he will use this ability as a quiet form of control and chuckle at the antics others go through trying to elicit excitement from him.
2. Recognize sluggishness as laziness and overcome it with hard work.
Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise:
Proverbs 6:6
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat. For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busybodies. Now them that are such we command and exhort by our Lord Jesus Christ, that with quietness they work, and eat their own bread.
2 Thessalonians 3:10-12
3. Find ways to motivate yourself.
4. Actively seek to comfort those around you. It’s an incredible gift you have. Don’t allow your lack of motivation to drown this.
5. Translate your thoughts into actions.
6. Enhance your note-writing and card-sending ministry.
7. Persevere in maintaining old friendships because you’re good at that.
8. Be a peacemaker––use your mediation skills.
9. You must accept Christ and acknowledge that you are a sinner; a fact many phlegmatics find difficult to acknowledge.
10. You must walk in the spirit each day so as to gain motivation to overcome your passivity, selfishness, and fears; then you can become an exciting lover.1
Notes
1. Beverly LaHaye, The Spirit-Controlled Woman (Eugene, Oregon: Harvest House Publishers, 1995), 195; Tim LaHaye, Spirit-Controlled Temperament (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House, 1993), 213, 231 - 51; Tim LaHaye, Opposites Atrract (Eastbourne: Kingsway Publications, 2000), 107
by Dag Heward-Mills
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reTHG: The Hunger Games - Chapters Five and Six: Cinnabar and Sulfur
I’m going to start talking about John Granger again, now, and I’m not sure how much I want to preface all this with his literary alchemy theory, which is extensive and interesting and extensive. To be honest, he puts in a lot of work - a lot that was useful for my personal understanding and enjoyment - to come up with a fairly pedestrian conclusion: The Hunger Games is a series about the hero’s transformation through a variety of trials and separations. For my taste, he dives too deeply into a religious reading in order to accomplish this; but his history - he’s strongly associated with Harry Potter criticism - is to fit contemporary popular YA fiction into The Canon, and all its traditionalist rules. Which on the one hand, is helpful - The Canon is a consistent, if troubled, repository of literary thought and philosophy - and on the other hand can be frustrating.
In fact, much as I cite his work, I tend to disagree with his conclusions.
I particularly disagree with his vague conclusions about the political storyline of THG (I think he’s arguing it’s a libertarian work, essentially); and criticism of the secular and the postmodern. For me, the breaking-down of the heroine is the beginning AND the ending of the trilogy - the promise of “transformation” ultimately is the false ending of the game, a pat, old-fashioned ending that Collins avoids when she burns off Katniss’ “wings” and refuses to let her grow new ones. In particular, I think Granger deliberately overlooks one important (and feminist) element in our hero’s journey that happens nearly every time she reaches a transformative moment: they are marked by a new point in her sexual awakening. And these are not moments of moral stumbling, temptation to be overcome or even a necessary evil. They are free of the judgement of Eden (they are not entirely free of the judgements of the boys, both Gale and Peeta, but Katniss dismisses their right to judge her).
But I do enjoy the bricks and mortar of Granger’s literary alchemy theory, and I’m going to use it to both agree with and depart from his conclusions.
To simplify it way down - you can understand a number of fictional works, in particular the hero’s journey, through the author’s use (deliberate, he argues, but I would imagine it could also be subconscious) of The Great Work, the Magnum Opus of alchemy, as a metaphorical roadmap (to this he seems to owe a great deal to Jung). The end result of the Magnum Opus is the Philosopher’s stone, the substance that creates the elixir of life and transforms base metals into gold. A work of fiction using the Magnum Opus as an outline would see its hero transformed through a variety of trials and processes - marked by symbols, in particular color-coded symbols, reflecting the alchemical stages - to emerge a transformed being on the other side.
The alchemical stages used by Granger are:
nigredo, a blackening or melanosis (through decomposition or putrefaction, breaking down the initial ingredient down to its base material - a spiritual death)
albedo, a whitening or leucosis (purification of the base material; separation of it into two opposing elements in preparation for coagulation in the final stage)
rubedo, a reddening, purpling, or iosis (unification of opposites into the final form, the Philosopher’s stone)
Granger leaves out the sometimes-cited third stage, between albedo and rubedo:
citrinitas, a yellowing or xanthosis (It was one of the four major stages of the alchemical magnum opus, and literally referred to "transmutation of silver into gold" or "yellowing of the lunar consciousness."In alchemical philosophy, citrinitas stood for the dawning of the "solar light" inherent in one's being, and that the reflective "lunar or soul light" was no longer necessary.)
I find this unused stage very interesting and will return to this much, much later. But for the sake of the trilogy, Granger uses the nigredo, albedo and rubedo stages - that not only does each book contain each of these stages in it (sometimes several times); each of the three books represents one of the three stages itself. (This tripled-triplets thing is also a big deal in alchemy, and Granger takes the trilogy’s structure as another clue as to its alchemical inspiration.)
The Hunger Games represents the first, the nigredo phase, in this reading. Granger makes the argument that the prevailing color of the work is black, as represented by the coal of District 12, the base material from which Katniss (and Peeta) are to be transformed. In Chapter 6, Effie unconsciously makes this connection - and prophecy - herself:
“Everyone has their reservations, naturally. You being from the coal district …. ‘Well, if you put enough pressure on coal, it turns to pearls!”
By being Reaped - symbolically killed - Katniss has entered the breaking-down phase. She is “remade” to “Beauty Base Zero,” (as she’ll describe it later), and meets Cinna naked, except for the dressing of her hair - her distinctive braid that Cinna orders left intact. Granger points out that Cinna recalls cinnabar, the red form of mercury, a key element in all phases of the opus, particularly the putrefaction and purification phases. Mercury is a mysterious and all-pervasive actor in this process:
“Given that Mercury was the only known substance which demonstrated an inherent talent for solve et coagula (meaning to dissolve and coagulate, or separate and join together) by amalgamating other metals, it came to be seen as the rebis or hermaphrodite, as well as symbol for alchemy in its entirety.
“Mercury’s numinous and animating spirit was protean; it couldn’t be seen or touched, yet it pervaded elementary processes which unravelled through a twofold struggle between philosophical sulphur and argent vive. On one hand it was the vitriol, the poison or the vinegar that killed the plant, mineral or metal in the alembic and reduced it to a putrefying mass, and on the other it was the water that washed over the dead residue or ashes and resurrected it anew.”
Paul Kirtisis “The Magnum Opus”
Mercury combines with sulphur (Haymitch, in Granger’s reading) to move the base material through it’s phases (which includes being broken down to the prima materia of mercury, sulfur and salt).
“Cinna is not a ‘Minor Character‘ of the series .... He is, as alchemical mercury, the agent of Katniss’ transformation in conjunction with Haymitch Abernathy, the story’s sulfuric transparency.
“This isn’t just an argument based on the association of Cinna and Cinnabar-mercury, though, like Romeo and Juliet’s Mercutio and Harry Potter’s Hermione, that sort of name marker is hard to overlook. Mercury in the alchemical work represents the feminine and intellectual pole of aspect in opposition and coordination with the more masculine and passionate or willful pole.”
-John Granger, “Cinna the Mysterious”
The alchemical process is a series of these breaking-down and recombining stages, so one reading the work through this lens should expect this to be reflected in the main character going through many phases of personal deconstruction and reconstruction … in this case, you can measure it more literally by the constant falling-apart and joining of Katniss and Peeta throughout the text: which is interesting. Peeta’s a lot more than a love interest and slightly more than a sidekick in this series. He’s essentially of the same base material as Katniss and ultimately has to be rejoined to her - and during the times of their separation, he goes through his own transformative journey (though in the end, it is again by being completely broken down). His journey is reliant on and in service to hers, but it is also distinct and his own. It starts with his timidity (expressed again at the end of the tribute parade) and leads through his early understanding of the nature of the self in the games to his decision to sacrifice himself, his journey with the Careers and his negotiation of the romance in the cave.
Katniss and Peeta undergo the entire alchemical process right away, in miniature: from being joined by the reaping, separated by suspicion on the train and sent separately to purification in the Remake center, to being rejoined in the fire of the tribute parade, by the end of which two minor transformations take place. First, Peeta finally opens his mouth on his feelings for the girl and dares to compliment her to her face. Then, Katniss passes through the first of her transformative phases, her body responding to this compliment with a rush of warmth - only the first time this feeling, marking a change, or transformation, in her relationship with him will occur.
Since, simultaneously, she has determined that her popularity with the crowd gives her a chance to win the game, she immediately rejects this feeling and resists Peeta’s implicit invitation to join him, reminding herself that he is her enemy - and then she one-ups him. Because she thinks he is a deceiver, his compliments meant as lies to weaken her, she becomes the deceiver in turn, kissing him coyly on his bruise, as if to accept his compliment. (This action is more remarkable the more you think about it, considering Katniss’ previous very private and guarded persona. Behind the layers of confusion caused by her inability or unwillingness to read Peeta’s sincerity, there must be a desire to do this thing: translate her first experience of a physical reaction to a boy’s compliment into her first kiss of said boy.)
So, it is not surprising that Peeta, whose words were sincere, interprets that she has accepted his invitation and continues to treat her as his ally. He bails her out of the trouble she steps into by addressing the Avox, then takes her to the roof - where the wind chimes mysteriously promote a sense of privacy - to ask her the real story. While the roof encounter has the trappings of the end of a date - there’s a bit of corrosion at work in this new joining of the pair into false allies. Again, Katniss frames her decision to confide in Peeta on the premise that she can deceive him into believing her his friend. And Peeta’s questioning includes a testing of the water, a roundabout way to figure out her relationship with Gale.** In the background of all this deception, Katniss feels herself to be judged by the girl with red hair, who knows a truth about Katniss of which she is deeply ashamed; who forces her to acknowledge the self-deception she has been practicing about her complicity in the girl’s capture and her brother’s death.
**While Chapter 2 gives us most of what we need to know about Peeta via his backstory, I consider Chapter 6 very important in understanding him in general. First, he’s incredibly observant - at least as far as Katniss is concerned - and quick-witted in a crisis. Second, his sensitivity to Gale’s place in Katniss’ life is very keen and has involved a bit of wilful self-deception on his part - his hope that Gale is, in fact, her cousin. The act of putting his jacket on her, though certainly a manifestation of politeness, is also a tentative act of claiming her, a thing he is not ever going to be able to do, except in the deception of the star-crossed lovers strategy.
Notes/References:
I first ran into John Granger’s work via the HP for Grownups Yahoo group, which was a vast and impressive fandom of speculators, engaging in a kind of freewheeling and fun literary criticism I had never seen before. It had a crazy-amazing RP element, wherein various “ships” would engage in battle on Theory Bay; and you could not swing a cat in that group without hitting some remarkable, Rowlingesque acronyms for various pet theories : L.O.L.L.I.P.O.P.S. forever! (I don’t recall if Granger posted there or was just cited extensively.)
“The philosopher's stone is created by the alchemical method known as The Magnum Opus or The Great Work. Often expressed as a series of color changes or chemical processes, the instructions for creating the philosopher's stone are varied. When expressed in colors, the work may pass through phases of nigredo, albedo, citrinitas, and rubedo. When expressed as a series of chemical processes it often includes seven or twelve stages concluding in multiplication, and projection.”
Wikipedia “The Philosopher’s Stone”
“The Great Work (Latin: Magnum opus) is an alchemical term for the process of working with the prima materia to create the philosopher's stone. It has been used to describe personal and spiritual transmutation in the Hermetic tradition, attached to laboratory processes and chemical color changes, used as a model for the individuation process, and as a device in art and literature. The magnum opus has been carried forward in New Age and neo-Hermetic movements which sometimes attached new symbolism and significance to the processes. It originally had four stages:[1][2]
nigredo, a blackening or melanosis
albedo, a whitening or leucosis
citrinitas, a yellowing or xanthosis
rubedo, a reddening, purpling, or iosis
Wikipedia. “Magnum Opus”
Further information: Alchemy in art and entertainment
Sometimes an artist's magnum opus is modeled around the alchemical magnum opus. More than simple mention of alchemy within the story, novels like Finnegans Wake[11] follow the process of transmutation, weaving their entire narrative with alchemical symbolism.[12] The scholarly journal Cauda Pavonis, which had been published out of various universities since 1980, explored these connections in art and literature. Recently, John Granger has used the phrase literary alchemy to describe these trends in popular fiction, such as the Harry Potter series.[13]
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Alice Hart on Shadow Work
Guest Writer Alice Hart: Straight out of Wonderland, this intense dreamer crawled her way through one mad tea party after another to bring you some keys to your doorways. Versed in chaos magick with an emphasis in alchemical self-transformation through art, she encourages everyone to dream BIG and jump through the rabbit hole. Sometimes head first.
Alice Hart’s Analysis on Shadow Work:
“Nothing will ever change here.” He said casually, lighting up his fifth cigarette that afternoon. “Not for this town or me or you.”
My friend peered up into the clear blue sky, squinting his eyes skeptically at it. He inhaled and exhaled a cloud of thick tobacco smoke. Then, glanced over at me.
“The sooner you just accept that, the easier life will be.”
He chuckled.
“Everything is shit and nothing ever changes.”
I looked up at the same blue sky as he. Squinted identically as I mused the weight of his words over and over again inside my mind. There was a point of time where these putrid dogmas would’ve slid easily down like butter or extremely tenderized lamb, but the pain I was in kept me from swallowing them. There had to be a way out of this town, out of this absolute nightmare! My life was a crumbling tower struck by Uranian lightning and heralded by Saturnine thunder that I refused to hear. I was penniless, homeless, pregnant, and continuing a toxic relationship with a devouring sociopath. High school was over and I was a foster kid on the run from myself while the threat of adulthood held a knife to my throat. All my years alive and the misfortunes I burdened under were the fault of some mysterious and seemingly omnipotent “they”. ‘They have done /this/ to me’, ‘they /forced/ me to do this’, ‘they /won’t let me/ leave this town’…’they have /fucked over/ my life’. “They” were suddenly nowhere to be found on this bleak afternoon during this particular conversation in front of our town’s courthouse. There was only myself inside of my life and an outsider to it blabbering crap.
“You know,” I replied, tilting my head curiously to the side. “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought…”
My friend took another drag of his cigarette. “Yeah?” He responded with a grin playing on his lips. Maybe he’d said all those things on purpose, strategically edging me into the fire that would mark my end and beginning. “Giving what thought?”
“I think you’re wrong.” I said. “I think you’re full of crap.”
By articulating that magickal incantation of disbelief, by telling the omnipotent “they” to fuck off, I had initiated myself into shadow work unknowingly. Most people trudge the desolate mindscapes of the dark night of the soul and come out of it broken, if they ever come out of it at all. The abyssal plains of a broken heart and the numb doldrums of the weary spirit /can/ and /will/ consume all who traverse it (to varying degrees). Should you ever find yourself eclipsed by indescribable agony where every aspect of your life is dissolving faster than America’s confidence in it’s government, your only key out is stupidly simple: decisive choice. Choose! Until you choose to own every aspect of your experience, the beatings will continue, until your goddamn morale improves! The monsters will gnaw at you. The thieves will invade your safe spaces and rob you of riches. The scythe of death will reap the growth short of every seedling you dare to plant…because until you fertilize the earth of your soul with conscious choice, all spoils to bareness.
Getting to that point of decisive choice is no joke. I won’t lie to you, audience, and say that there’s some exact formula for reaching that psychological plateau. There isn’t. Hitting the realization that you are responsible for your own shit is completely individual for the person producing said shit. The tipping scales which send us catapulting forwards into this realization or further into ignorance of it is…unique. There is no general timing. In my personal experience, however, the suck ends when we feel the pain through completely. And in feeling the pain through, we realize the choices we DO have. Inevitably, we end up choosing something, or someone/something else will do it for you.
Our pain transmutes in that singular moment and becomes a great unveiling. That’s right! Your pain is the very key to your freedom.
Like I said though, you have to really FEEL your pain. In this statement I am not encouraging self-harm or bringing about harm for others…but let’s say you have an old laptop or object just sitting around, that isn’t important, and you happen to have a hammer? Assign that laptop a problem or six in your life and destroy it. Realize that you’ve changed it and simultaneously, you can change yourself, if you harness that pain inside of you. That pain is the momentum, the horse, the chariot of your victory over the mess you’re currently in. Yes, you are a powerful manifesting machine capable of creating worlds and ending them!
Either passively or actively, you’ve created this nightmare world. You are the god of this abyssal cemetery and you can hit the ‘end’ button any time! Are you satisfied with the moss, the skeletal willow groves, the upturned tombstones, and bloodied moons of your life? Do you long for the dawn again? How much do you long for it? Grab that pain clawing you apart and direct it. Leash that pain and make it work for you. Use it as motor fuel to change the conditions of your life. You created the grave you’re dying in so build a bridge back to heaven. You can use the materials of your coffin box to do so!
‘Where are the blueprints for this bridge?!’ you might question. Frustrated, at that.
Do anything with passion and if you cannot muster passion for it, do not do it. After wandering miserably in the streets of my hometown, I got fed up writhing in agony, and started putting that pain into art. Art became my decisive choice. Every single convulsion and contortion of emotional turmoil became an action that I put into my life. Instead of letting go of the hurt feelings or applying a moralistic tone to them, ferment them into self-expression, every single day. For as long as you can. If that means keeping a notepad near your bed to write down a poem for five minutes in the morning before work or cutting all your ties and moving into a cabin in the forest or visiting your parents during the holidays to work through your bitterness…do it. You can only escape the land of the dead and dying when you use that decayed material, when you compost it. Turn your crap life into roses by believing in that pain enough to cure yourself through daily acts of passion.
If daily expression of pain into acts of progress (even if that’s just getting out of bed in the morning) is your key, apathy is the douchebag guarding the door. With their buddies depression and fear.
Much like the high school bullies they are, they’ll hunt you down, and challenge you after school. They won’t stop until you’ve looked them straight in the eye and stand up to them in earnest. Every passionate and courageous act you do in ANY context is you facing those threshold guardians down. It can be a matter of one stand-off or a series of many throughout your entire life but each step counts. Each step is an anchor and a block forged from your determination to choose better for yourself. Further into this matter, these guardians of the threshold serve a sacred, and often misunderstood purpose: they reveal who we truly are. That which opposes us to the point of spiritual burning or decay shows us the core of our being and purpose. When you finally look these concepts in the face and understand their articulation within yourself, they stop being obstacles. They start becoming teachers and allies.
And they’ll open the door out of the dark night of your soul into a new day.
The dark night of the soul is bleak and shadowed, perhaps, to make us peer up into that wide sky. To expand our vision to faraway futures, tiny pinpricks of light, just like stars. Leaving this stage in your life starts with choice. Your choice and the limits you allow upon it. And with each evolution you progress through in your spirit, you might return to this place, over and over. Each time gets a little less disconcerting and more informative if you treat the nightmares like boss battles, sages on the mount, jabberwockies, stormtroopers (they can’t actually hit anything if you treat yourself like the main character). To sum it all up, to make sense of my ramble at it’s optimum, the key to any dark night is…
Choosing to act upon your vision daily. No matter how elaborate, simple, or anywhere in-between that it is. And all it takes sometimes is saying “fuck off” and doing you, boo.
Alice Hart on Shadow Work was originally published on Heretical Oracles
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