#there are a lot of parallels to people who actively give resources to those who can work but refuse and those who enable child abusers | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

archangels-bible-annotations · 8 months

Text

Genesis 14

14:1-2 First explicit mention of war. We are given the mention of kings but in the previous chapters the names never show up. However, the lands on which they reign are those of Ham, thus it might be presumed that these are the descendants of Ham. As of yet, we are not given the reason for war.

14:3 The fight took place in the Valley of Siddim (Salt Sea).

14:4 Mention of some group serving Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam. Was he the king the other kings bowed to? It doesn't seem likely because in his introduction he was not the first one mentioned. "They" who served and then rebelled were most likely his own subjects.

14:5-6 Chedorlaomer and his fellow kings came together and "cut down the giants" who were from Ashteroth Karnaim and similar nations.

14:7 The kings with Chedorlaomer then cut down the princes of the Amalekites and Amorites. What was their intention for bloodshed?

14:8-9 Other side of kings went to fight. Battle is now 5 v 4.

14:10-12 Sodom and Gomorrah "fled and fell," so those two nations were defeated. Sodom and Gomorrah's resources were taken from them and they also took Lot w/ his possessions.

14:13 An escapee told Abram about Lot's capture because of ally ties.

14:14 Wow, Abram was a very wealthy person. He had 318 trained servants who he took with him .

14:15-16 Abram took advantage of the night and used his servants to fight. They reclaimed Sodom's resources, Lot, and the captured people. This is an awe-inspiring feat. Abram and his army of 300 subdued a 4 nation enemy who had taken down Sodom and Gomorrah.

14:17 The King of Sodom met with Abram to retrieve everything of Sodom's.

14:18 Melchizedek was a king and a priest. I am not sure we see Salem mentioned anywhere before. Interesting that he was a "priest of God Most High" because it seemed before that only Abram was the person favored by God. Why would a king bring out bread and wine, why not bring out more "kingly" foods? In fact, why even specify? It could have just stated that Melchizedek brought a feast.

14:19 If there was any confusion in the last verse, this verse tells us that Melchizedek believed in the same God that Abram believed in. As the Bible is written so far, Abram is the most blessed and favored by God. If that is the case, who has the authority to bless God's favorite? This person must be above Abram to do so. When the Bible mentions "bless" does it refer to praising/thanking or does it refer to conferring divine favor?

14:20 Melchizedek 'blesses' God. This might be referring to praise rather than giving divine favor to God. This is also the first instance of tithing we see.

14:21-23 The King of Sodom asks for his people back but Abram to keep the calvary. Abram says to the king that the king should keep everything because Abram doesn't want rumors to go around saying that the king is what made him rich. This shows Abram's conviction to God, that God will provide Abram with whatever and however much he should need.

14:24 Abram says that the only things that should be taken from the king are the rightful portions for the young men, who are Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre.

Other Remarks:

King of Elam most likely had a bad style of ruling for his subjects to revolt against him. (v.4)

Abram really had everything he needed and was given everything by God. Shows that God the Father will provide if one is willing to obey His commands. God even helped Abram in battle. (v.14-16)

Going into battle was an active stance that Abram took, but it was not unprompted. He chose to fight because of Lot's capture. As far as we can see, Abram utilizes a passive, faithful role and does no action unprompted.

Melchizedek is often understood to be a prefiguration of Christ because of several factors. Salem means peace, so he was the 'King of Peace.' He brought forth bread and wine, which parallels the Eucharist. He also blessed Abram, so he must be higher and more favored by God than Abram. If Melchizedek was favored by God more than Abram, then Melchizedek would have been mentioned in the Bible before; this is not the case thus bringing the notion that God came down. If this is the correct interpretation, we officially see the Son in the Trinity. This could not be the Father Himself because Melchizedek blesses God. By this passage, the Trinity has been seen in the Bible. (v.18)

We need to have just as much faith in God that Abram has. Abram's faith in God gave him everything he needed, led him to victory in a war, and showed that he did not need handouts from a king.

Questions:

Why did the kings go to war? (v.1)

What made these individuals considered 'giants'? (v.5-6)

Does 'bless' refer to giving praise, or does it refer to conferring divine favor? (v.19)

Are Aner, Eshcol, and Mamre all sons of Lot? If not, why are they on Abram's side? (v.24)

Things to Add to Prayer:

Let us have so much faith in you and your plan for us, just as Abram did.

Deliver us from our enemies and help us fight for righteousness, just as you have helped Abram.

-Mikhael

#Genesis #Abram #bible study #bible reading #God #Lot #Sodom #melchizedek #Trinity #Fatih #War

0 notes

random-thought-depository · 3 years

Text

Idea for a story I should write someday: a story kind of like the Babylon 5 episode Believers, but it’s obliquely referencing the continuity of consciousness arguments about uploading and teleportation.

The story’s equivalent of Shon is an alien from an intelligent species for whom unconsciousness is naturally super-rare; they don’t sleep, and they have a highly redundant nervous system that makes them very resistant to being “knocked out” by blunt force trauma or drugs. As a result, this species has developed philosophical arguments that a continuous stream of consciousness is constitutive of identity, and hence to lose consciousness is to die, and if somebody loses consciousness and then wakes up later that person has died and a new person who happens to have their memories has awakened in their body. This perspective is intuitive to them, in the same way “if somebody creates a perfect copy of you and then immediately kills the original you, you have died” is intuitive to us, and it’s the view of multiple mainstream religions and philosophies on their world. Their equivalents of the words awake and alive are more-or-less synonyms, their word for being born roughly translates as “awaken,” and their word for death roughly translates as “the cessation of movement and thought” (maybe they classify sessile organisms like plants and fungi as not alive, in the same way we classify viruses as not alive?).

Obviously, one consequence of this is that most surgeries in their society are done with local anesthetic, with the patient being carefully kept awake (”alive”) the whole time. But in this case a child of this species has an illness or injury that will definitely kill them (in the uncontroversial sense of the concept) if it isn’t remedied with an operation that definitely will result in a period of unconsciousness. And the story centers on a human doctor trying to convince the child and their parents that what they’re proposing will save the child’s life instead of just killing them and replacing them with a different person.

The take a third option happy ending would be that the doctor manages to find a way to do the operation while keeping the child conscious the whole time, but I think I prefer something a bit more bittersweet. So I’m thinking maybe they try something like that, and it works in the sense that the child physically survives and is fine, but it fails in that the child loses consciousness for a few minutes during the operation so the parents see them as having died.

Oh, they don’t filicide their own child like in the B5 episode or anything like that. They don’t think they’re an abomination or anything like that. They just think their child has died and been replaced with something like an identical twin. While unconsciousness is very rare among them, there have been cases throughout their history, and their culture has developed procedures for it. When a person dies and a new person awakens in their body, the new person is given a name (different from that of the original inhabitant of their body) and their equivalent of a baptism. The family of body’s previous inhabitant may adopt them. If they’re married, the spouse of their body’s previous inhabitant may marry them. They may adopt the children of their body’s previous inhabitant. They inherent the personal property of their body’s previous inhabitant, but they are not responsible for any debts and crimes of the previous inhabitant of their body, which are considered to belong to the dead person. The “dead” inhabitant of their body is given a funeral, with a small effigy of wood or wax buried or burned as a corpse would be. The “dead” inhabitant of their body is then given the same daily prayers for the dead as other dead immediate family members.

So, before the operation the child prepares for the possibility that they might lose consciousness by writing a letter to the inheritor of their body saying something like “Please don’t feel bad about inheriting my body, you didn’t ask for this, it isn’t your fault.” After the operation the child is given a new name and their equivalent of a new baptism and adopted into the family, as a foundling would be, and is introduced to their sibling as a new member of the family who happens to look like the dead sibling. The child inherits the personal property of the “dead” child, in this case a few toys and video games and the like. The parents arrange for their “new” child’s education to continue where the “dead” child’s left off, as they share the same memories (when they go back to their school - which is a small “neighborhood” school run by and for the community of their species on the space station the story takes place on - they are introduced to their classmates as a new student). The “new” child participates in the funeral of the “dead” child and before every evening meal participates in the daily prayers for the dead, in which the “dead” child is mentioned by name as other dead immediate family members are. The “new” child will celebrate their birthday on the anniversary of the operation, and the day of the operation will be counted as the day of their birth (“awakening”). Basically, the parents are as nice about the whole thing as they can be, but they really believe that they’ve lost a child and gained a new one (through no fault of the new child!), and they and the rest of their immediate community act accordingly.

Some time later the human doctors gets invited to participate in some sort of ceremony for the “new” child, formal acknowledgment of them having finished memorizing some sacred scripture in their school or something like that. They give the human doctor the role in the ceremony that the midwife who assisted in the child’s birth would normally have.

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

Some peripheral notes for this concept:

In the setting of this story, humans are a relatively minor race; Earth is an unusually densely populated world, but on the periphery of known space and relatively backward, humans only developed a high-tech civilization recently and haven’t spread out much and are a small percentage of known space’s population. The human doctor is one of the few humans on a trade hub space station, or at least one of the few humans who’s part of the official staff; most of the humans there are part of the station’s working/lower class, a mix of low-level maintenance and dock workers, small-time shopkeepers, entertainers and service workers of various sorts, homeless people, and petty criminals (with a fair amount of fluidity between those classes).

Sleep is a weird thing humans do in this setting; it’s unique to humans (and other Earth animals), other intelligent species don’t need it or do it. However, most intelligent species don’t have the “unconsciousness = death” belief, because while most intelligent species don’t sleep they are more familiar with unconsciousness as a semi-normal thing from people passing out drunk, getting knocked out in a brawl, etc.. Maybe there’s even one or two intelligent species who don’t sleep regularly but can hibernate in periods of resource scarcity like bears or go into torpor if the temperature gets too low (common alien words for human sleep might translate to things like “micro-hibernation” and “false thermocoma”). It’s just this one species for whom unconsciousness is naturally super-rare so their culture developed in a context where it was some extraordinary, freakish, even eldritch-seeming thing.

In this context, the human doctor experiences some of the limitations of humans as something a lot like a disability. She can’t regularly work the 20+ hour shifts that are normal for her colleagues, because she needs to sleep. She needs more time off than most of her colleagues, because normal alien schedules are made around the assumption of effectively having an extra eight hours every day to get stuff done. Because the aliens are active 24 hours, most intelligent species have much better night vision than humans, so to save on energy and burned out light bulb equivalents the common area and default lighting on the space station is what a human experiences as semi-darkness. She wears basically night vision goggles most of the time to be able to easily work in what the aliens consider normal indoor lighting conditions. A lot of the alien tools and furniture are the wrong size and shape for her, and she gets a friend in the station’s machine shop to recut and otherwise modify a lot of the medical tools for her. Humans are relatively unusual in the wider galaxy and kind of funny looking even by the standards of a relatively cosmopolitan multi-species society (the more typical body plans for an intelligent species are “six-limbed quadruped with four legs and two arms” and “kind of like a theropod dinosaur”), so common alien furniture is really not built for her (the human sitting posture is super-weird and freaky by alien standards, they tend to get uncomfortable just looking at it), and she gets kind of a lot of people (especially children) staring at her and wanting to touch various parts of her and so on, but it’s mostly benign curiosity. She’s uncomfortably aware that she’s a “diversity hire” (the alien polity that runs the station likes to hire members of their various allied and subject races to give them a sense of inclusion) and that a lot of people kind of resent having to do all these accommodations for her instead of just hiring a normal person.

The family of the sick child actually have a kind of parallel experience. Their world is even more marginal and peripheral than Earth and they’re a small minority in the galactic population, and the space station was built by and primarily for beings smaller than them so they have to deal with a lot of uncomfortably small tools and furniture and spaces or stick to special areas and facilities for bigger beings. This is a universe where big alien theory is true, so they’re actually more-or-less average size for an intelligent species, but the most numerous races are around human size so around human size is what gets treated as normal size for a person to be. Note: around human size with quadrupedal or theropod-like body plans translates to the human doctor has to stoop to fit inside a lot of small corridors built for beings substantially shorter than humans, but thankfully the station is designed for a cosmopolitan crowd so at least the bigger public spaces are sized to be accessible to beings up to approximately the size of large sauropod dinosaurs (and the water-filled sections for water/ocean-dwellers are designed to be accessible to even bigger beings).

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

Rough draft/outline for some lines in a conversation that would happen in this story:

Human doctor: I sleep every day. Well, almost every day, anyway. <Laughs a little, then turns serious> Do you think I die every time I go to sleep? Do you think the version of me you talked to yesterday is dead, and I’m... What, the latest in a line of thousands of doppelganger-clones of [her name]?

Alien parent: I... <uncomfortable pause> My partner holds it as a matter of faith that is works differently for Humans, because the Makers would not be so cruel as to create a race that is born in the morning, lives one day, dies that night, passes their body on to a new person who continues their errands and then dies in turn the next night. But I’m a rationalist, and... <uncomfortable pause and squirming> ... If you really look at nature, you see a multitude of horrors. The buzzer-fly’s young tear it apart from inside and eat its corpse. Nature is amoral. I can believe nature would create such a thing as an intelligent race that lives one day. I... Honestly, I try to not think about it much, to preserve my sanity.

Human doctor: I slept last night. I don’t feel like I died. I feel like I’m the same person I was yesterday.

Alien parent: Suppose this question had an objective and testable answer, and it was that I was right. Suppose I could show you I was right, as I could show my ancestors the Red Thirst with a microscope and say “See, it is not a curse, it is a thing like a tiny plant, that gets inside you and grows inside you like a strangling vine.” What would you do? How would you react to knowing that you have hours to live, that you were born this morning and will die tonight and are but one in a long chain of inhabitants of your body who lived only one day, and your whole race is like that?”

Human doctor: <thinks about it for a moment> “I think I’d find some way to tell myself that it wasn’t true, that you were wrong, and then I wouldn’t think about it much, to preserve my sanity.”

Alien parent: “For what it’s worth, I really hope it doesn’t actually work like that. But I’m not willing to gamble my child’s life on ‘I really hope it doesn’t actually work like that.’”

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

On that note: at some point the parents see the human doctor while she’s dozing at work and it’s intensely disturbing and creepy to them. An unconscious person is disturbing to them in the same way fantasy undead would be disturbing to humans: they’re simultaneously dead and alive in a way that seems unnatural in the sense people use when they use that term to refer to something horrible. I think I might have some fun describing human sleep in a way that channels a Lovecraft protagonist: “Alive, yet not alive. Clearly dead, but stirred by inward motion.”

It’s more logical when you remember that their language uses a lot of the same or similar words for life and consciousness and for death and unconsciousness. Like, yes, she is indeed [alive/awake] but not [alive/awake], clearly [unawake] but moving a little, those are totally factual observations, I’m just translating the emotional charge they’d have for these people.

One of these poor people would probably have a breakdown when they see their own child in that state on the operating table. :(

On a lighter note, there’d be comic relief potential in this too:

Alien child: “Are they dead?”

Alien parent: “Kind of, but it’s not as big a problem for them as it is for us.”

And also tragicomedy potential: at one point the alien child asks the human doctor what death is like, saying she should know since she dies every day.

Tangential note: I’m thinking the alien child’s race is hermaphroditic, in which case it’d be appropriate to use gender-neutral pronouns for them ... and they probably wouldn’t have a concept of gender (except insofar as they might have learned that some other species have such concepts), so it would make sense for them to use gender-neutral language when they talk about humans among themselves too; their language wouldn’t have gendered pronouns except maybe specifically as a device adopted for being polite to certain aliens when you talk to them. Not sure how I’d handle pronouns for hermaphroditic aliens in a story.

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

Other character concepts for this story:

When it comes to having to deal with a station built by and for beings that have rather different bodies than you, the human doctor is lucky compared to her colleague and best friend, a giant whale-like being who does most of their work through teleoperation while sitting in basically a giant swimming pool.

This person’s homeworld is a cold planet almost entirely covered by ocean; only a few almost totally barren tiny islands rise above an otherwise uninterrupted sea so deep it drowns all but the very highest mountain peaks (with so little land, multicellular life on this world has never left the sea). Their species (which is hermaphroditic, hence the choice of pronoun) is very much like the filter-feeding whales of Earth. Evolution of their intelligence probably was driven more by social selection than intrinsic stimulation of their watery world; they live their life by The Game, a complex and ever-shifting web of relationships that determines social status, access to resources, and mating opportunities, and that contributes to their survival. They are highly intelligent (their brain probably weighs more than you do!), and they might have tentacles or a manipulatory tongue or something, but before known space society found them and offered them access to space travel their watery world offered them little opportunity to develop technology. It’s unknown how long they’ve been sapient, but their oral history includes accounts of an asteroid impact that happened several million years ago.

This character thinks most of their people are good-natured but provincial. They’re good folks, but once you’ve gotten through the latest permutations of The Game and last year’s migrations and the plan for next year’s migrations and what the krill tastes like in various places these days the conversation tends to just kind of drift there like a sea-plant. They remember the 74th year of their life; the most interesting thing that happened that year was their pod passed close to an island. Why, on Earth, that was the year humans sent their first crewed expedition to Mars! They left their world to find a more interesting life.

They can use their powerful sonar to “see” inside their patients and still swear by this vs. the more advanced high-tech instruments.

The case of the sick child ends up involving a lawyer. He’s a member of another minor species of known space society, an arboreal intelligent species that originally inhabited the forests of a humid world. The evolution of intelligence in his species was driven mostly by social and sexual selection, like the whale people but moreso. His species is highly intelligent, but mostly uninterested in physical problems; in their original society most of their intelligence was focused on socialization, mating strategies, and art (the art was part of the socialization and mating strategies). When wider known space society found them, they were living as hunter-gatherers with a rich artistic tradition but a Stone Age level of technology. Examination of their world’s fossil record indicated that they had existed at that level for over a hundred million years. However, once integrated into a high-tech interstellar society, they became very successful as artists, lawyers, politicians, and business people, and can be found in those professions in numbers greatly disproportionate to their percentage of known space’s population. He is colorful and beautiful, like a peacock, and for the same reason.

#story ideas #my writing #infohazard warning #if you're susceptible to random disturbing ideas #spoilers I guess #when I actually get around to writing this

175 notes · View notes

scripttorture · 3 years

Note

You mention in posts how torture doesn’t make people obedient and usually makes them spiteful (which obviously makes sense), but isn’t it realistic for someone to comply out of fear rather than loyalty? Whether that was giving up information or obeying orders or something else entirely. I imagine it depends on the person, and they would probably still be willing to turn on their torturers if given the chance, but would it be possible for them to obey orders in hopes of avoiding more pain?

This is a much more nuanced and complicated topic then we’re taught to assume.

When it comes to giving up information it’s pretty clear cut. No, torture can’t lead to accurate information for a lot of interconnected reasons. I have about six separate masterposts covering the reasons for this.

One of those is the antagonism torture produces. Another is the memory problems torture causes. Another is the effect that the use of torture has on organisations and the chain of command. Another is the effect torture has on torturers.

Torture drastically increases the chances of memory loss and it also increases the chances of inaccurate memories. So not only is a torture victim less likely to talk, they’re more likely to be wrong if they do talk.

But the effects on victims aren’t the main reason torture doesn’t work as a way of getting information. You’re assuming that torturers have access to people who have information.

The reality is that torture destroys an organisation’s ability to gather accurate information. Most information comes from volunteers: when torture comes into play less people volunteer information. This means that an organisation which tortures is more likely to be questioning someone who knows nothing. That person is then abused until they start making things up.

Because there’s less access to volunteered information and because humans are very bad at telling when someone is lying, a lot of these made up stories are believed. And this then effects who else the organisation arrests and tortures. This creates a sort of spiral, with lies leading to more lies.

Additionally the torturers themselves make things worse. There’s less quality research on them, but the research and anecdotal accounts create a pretty clear picture of their behaviour. They undermine the chain of command, they lose the skills the originally had as they turn to torture, they’re aggressive, incredibly competitive and they have a… fracturing effect on their organisation.

Basically they’re incredibly difficult to work with and totally convinced of their own importance. And this effects their colleagues. It totally divides organisations. The worst case I’ve read about involved members of the same organisation killing each other over access to prisoners.

That’s a short run through of the main factors. Torture, in the legally defined sense, means all of these factors are in play. Plus a few more I’ve omitted to keep this shorter.

With all of that together you just can’t get accurate information.

If you want longer posts I’ve made on the subject I suggest looking for the ‘torture doesn’t work’ tag and the ‘torture as interrogation’ tag. You can also read the masterposts. If you want a much more in depth look at why torture consistently fails as a way of getting information I recommend O’Mara’s Why Torture Doesn’t Work and Rejali’s Torture and Democracy.

O’Mara is a neuroscientist and goes through the effects torture has on the brain in a way that’s accessible, explaining the damage torture causes and how that destroys the evidence torturers claim to be seeking. Rejali’s book is a breeze block but it’s really a must, it is the textbook on torture in a broad sense. He ties together information from across the globe creating a broader picture of what torture does, not just to victims but to societies.

The question of compliance under threat and pain… is more complicated.

People can be forced to do some things. That much is obvious from a brief glance at human history and things like slavery. But it’s important to listen to what people in these scenarios say.

And my opinion, based on what I’ve read, is that what these people say doesn’t support the idea that humans will easily obey instructions when they’re hurt or threatened. I think instead these people are making hard headed, rational choices in absolutely awful situations. I think when we don’t have these experiences of torture or slavery, it’s easy to look at the surface of the situation and assume that pain alone assures obedience. I think that happens because it’s hard for use to understand the rationale when we don’t have that lived experience.

Let me give some examples. So it probably goes without saying that slavery goes hand in hand with physical abuse. One of the major researchers on slavery, whose data I quote pretty regularly, assumes throughout his writings that pain is the deciding factor which ‘makes’ people obey.

But he also describes a couple of very obvious consistent patterns in the ways slavers behave. Slavers almost universally do the following things as well as using physical abuse:

Separate enslaved people from their community

Bar enslaved people from other forms of support

Make enslaved people financially/materially reliant on the slavers

Tell enslaved people that going to the police/authorities will lead to the enslaved person being arrested

Try to convince enslaved people that they will be better off if they comply, usually by framing it as a debt to be worked off with promises of riches after a period of time

Now here’s the thing: we know from studies on cults and studies on ICURE techniques that a lot of these strategies will result in obedience when there is no violence or physical abuse.

Given that I don’t think we can assume that violence is the deciding factor. In fact I think the evidence we have from forced confessions under torture suggests the violence may lead to less obedience and a lower ‘success’ rate then a set up that used emotional abuse or other exploitative techniques without violence.

We have two sources of historical data that are used for statistical studies on forced confessions. One is from historical France. We think that this data set only involved torture to force a confession; no other method of coercion just violence. The rate of forced confessions varied a little in different areas but over all it’s about 10%. The second data set is from the ‘London Cage’ a British prison during the second world war. Here we know that torture was combined with blackmail, bribery and other kinds of coercion. The rate of forced confessions there was about 30%.

And while this is just two studies, while the data is lacking… That is one hell of a jump.

Let’s circle back to ICURE. ICURE stands for Isolation, Control information, create Uncertainty, Repetition and Emotive responses. It’s a set of techniques which can, sometimes, change someone’s beliefs when it’s applied consistently over a long time.

Notice the effort slavers put in to isolating their victims. Notice that the behaviour pattern I’m describing means the slavers are creating uncertainty over seeking help and repeating those messages as well as messages that the victims will be better off if they just go along with it.

Slavers will generally also try to control the information their victims have access to, taking phones and blocking access to news sources and other resources. Now a lot of slavers will transport their victims to other states or countries putting a language barrier in place. They sometimes also use emotive responses in attempts to persuade victims to comply.

I’ve read multiple accounts where survivors of modern slavery described slavers telling them that the money they were making was being sent to the victim’s family and without it the family would not survive. (Sometimes the slavers do send small amounts to the families of their victims, sometimes they pocket everything.) I’ve also read accounts where gangs of slavers used religion and oaths taken in a religious setting to persuade their victims they’d be punished by God for not complying.

Even with all of this, all these techniques we know can sometimes ‘work’- lots of people refuse. Lots of people disobey. Lots of people escape. Lots of people actively sabotage the operations the slavers put together.

And if you look at that same history of slavery, that shows us people can sometimes be forced to work, you’ll see that this has always been true.

We have records of historic enslaved people attacking slavers, forming organised militias, forming parallel societies, sacking towns, taking over an entire Caribbean island and beating off four European armies in the process. We also have records of smaller acts. Sabotage, worship of banned deities, speaking banned languages, destruction of property, aiding in the escape of others.

What I’m saying is: this isn’t black and white. The evidence, modern and historical does not paint a clear picture of violence leading to obedience.

Instead I believe that it shows humans are resilient, stubborn, adaptable creatures. People can survive all kinds of horrible situations. It is more accurate, more human, to assume that people make rational choices.

Sometimes those choices involve short term compliance while looking for a better option or a way out. But we tend to hear less stories about the people who completely refuse to comply. We tend to treat that as an impossible fiction when it is a recorded historical and modern reality.

Bringing this back to writing as a general rule the more complicated the act the less likely you can force someone to do it. Because the more complicated it is the more opportunities they’ll have to sabotage it or use it against their abuser.

I recommend reading up on the history of Haiti pet. Then Brazil via Palmares.

I’ll end this by bringing it back to those statistics on forced confessions in historical France. Imagine the conditions with me for a moment. Unsanitary, cramped cells. Dehydration, starvation and disease. Plus the kinds of scarring torture that are conjured up in the minds of most Western people when the word ‘torture’ comes up; thumb screws, leg irons that tighten until the bone snaps, whips.

Picture it. Try to imagine the pain those people went through.

And remember that 90% of them did not comply long enough to sign their name.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

228 notes · View notes

warrioreowynofrohan · 3 years

Text

Having finished Mistborn (the first book) here are some of my thoughts:

Brandon’s really into complicated not-exactly-flying systems that basically function as flying (Steelpushing and Ironpulling; the Surge of Gravitation)

Brandon’s magic systems also have a lot of commonalities in their construction. All of them require some quality that gives a person power (genetic, for Mistings/Mistborn; Breath, in Warbreaker; Oaths and specifuc qualities of character, in The Stormlight Archive), plus a resource (metal, color, Stormlight), plus a specific skill they must learn and train with to express that power (allomancy, Commands, Surges). Though for whatever reason the system the Stormlight Archive feels the most organic and natural to me. “BioChroma” still puts my teeth on edge - it feels too constructed a term, not a word people in a culture would naturally develop.

Soothing and Raging unsettle me. I don’t trust Breeze; he gives me Denth vibes (i.e., a person who is friendly and very able to rationalize his actions to other people). His arguments for why emotion-altering is okay give me the same vibes as Denth’s about why people ‘unfairly’ disparage and mistrust mercenaries. We’ve seen Soothing and Raging in action and they’re a lot more actively coercive than he makes them sound.

On a related note: I think Kelsier used Soothing and Raging on Yeden and that explains the complete and very strong change in Yeden’s attitude towards Kelsier in the latter part of the book, and why someone who was so cautious in the early part would make such a reckless attack later on. I don’t think Kelsier intended that, but he’s got a considerable ego and the desire to make others like and admire him, and he did so without considering the effects. This is just a theory and we may never learn the truth of it, but if it’s the case then he should certainly feel very guilty over the destruction of the army. Even if it’s not the case, he should still feel guilty - he as good as told (and even showed) the skaa that they all had supernatural powers! The consequences of that should be obvious!

Cosmere convergence in later Sanderson books:

Kelsier: This is my emotional support surrogate daughter!

Hoid: This is my emotional support surrogate daughter!

Vin and Shallan: ...Hi

There’s an interesting parallelism between Vin and Shallan. Vin is a lower-class streetwise girl who goes undercover as a young noblewoman from a minor rural estate. Shallan is a young noblewoman (or gentry) from a minor rural estate who goes undercover as a streetwise lower-class woman. They both use their alter egos as ways to hide.

I’ve got a long list of fictional characters who I want to give a hug to, but now I have the inverse: characters who I want to give me a hug. Sazed is the absolute loveliest person and if I had to choose one character from the cast to become a deity it would definitely be him. (Yes, I’m aware of that plot development thanks to Stormlight-related lore.)

The Pits of Hathsin seemed...weirdly poorly guarded. If your empire’s entire economy is based on a single substance, and use of superpowers destroys that substance, and you know you have an enemy with those powers because he’s been going around bragging to everyone about about them, then you Lock. That. Place. Down. It’s like it wasn’t even difficult for Kelsier to get in!

This book completely surprised me with where the plot around the Lord Ruler ended up! I should have seen it coming - even the back cover said that the Hero of Ages failed - but I kep thinking that the Lord Ruler was the Hero from the epigraphs and had been corrupted. My theory, since I knew a bit about the Shards from Stormlight-related lore, was that he held both Ruin and Preservation and was trying to balance them by preserving the world (preventing its destruction, creating stability) in a ruined state (ash, brown plants, tyranny), because any attempt to make it a pleasant place would throw off that compromise and cause the world’s complete destruction. I was quite confident in this theory; it seemed poetically tragic that this empire of absolute evil was the closest a well-meaning man could come to doing good.

But instead, it was Rashek! Who is extremely yikes. He performed genocide and systematic population control and subjugation against his own people just to stop his secret from getting out! He kind of went down like a chump, though; his immortality was based solely on people abiding by existing assumptions (that you can’t use metalmagic on anything embedded in a person’s body).

If you used atium in a fabrial, would it let you see the future? But of course that’s dark magic on Roshar. I need to take another look at Navani’s notes on fabrials and metals.

#brandon sanderson #mistborn #the stormlight archive #vin #kelsier #sazed

131 notes · View notes

snakeassassins · 3 years

Text

Rabbit Dad Theory: A Weapon to Surpass Dad for One

okay so. I know that the theory about local big bad of the series being the protagonist’s father , but I’m pretty sure the real reason that midoriya’s dad hasn’t shown up in the plot is because he’s a rabbit

no really

[ WARNING: LONG post under the cut ]

Part 1: Rabbit Motifs

To get this party started properly, let’s begin with a bunch of the rabbit symbolism regarding Midoriya himself.

The most notable of which being that his hero costume is literally him dressing up as a rabbit

His freckles are even stylized to look like little rabbit whiskers. fuckin naruto kinnie

It bleeds into his fighting style too

Two big innovations he has that aren’t based on previous users of one for all

are hopping from place to place

and his big, rabbit-like kicks.

(which would also go a ways to explain why the plot thought Midoriya having legs was a big deal)

A lot of this goes into his characterization as well. The most notable bit being how much the first chapter of bnha parallels the story of the moon rabbit.

(Sometimes referred to as the jade rabbit which. Green)

Anyway, the story goes that a rabbit, along with a bunch of other animals (it varies depending on region) decided to gather food for the full moon as an offering, believing that the best one will bring a reward from the gods.

All of the animals bring plentiful amounts of food, sans the rabbit, who brings only grass.

Eventually, a starving old man comes along.

The other animals have food to give him, but refuse to do so to meet their own ends.

The rabbit, sympathizing with the old man,throws itself into a fire he was kindling so that he can be fed.

The old man, touched by the rabbit’s actions, reveals himself to be a god and saves it.

In honor of the rabbits deeds, the god imprints his image on the moon, bestowing special gifts to him.

Along with this there are a number of other mild rabbity traits tho.

Such as his skittishness.

Not to mention his general resourcefulness.

The show regularly conflates Midoriya being himself with him looking and acting more and more like a rabbit. This isn’t too hard to understand from a Doylist perspective; Horikoshi blatantly just likes bunnies. (I mean just look at Miruko)

What’s interesting here is that we’ve never been given an in-universe explanation for why midoriya himself identifies this way. In a series that is otherwise really invested in dissecting the ideal versions of themselves that characters want to live up to, the show doesn’t provide any justification for a character motif Midoriya has that is almost as present as all might himself.

Judging from the title of this post, you can probably guess what my reasoning for this choice is.

**Part 2: Hisashi’s Quirk **

“But snake,” you may be asking yourself, “We already know what Hisashi Midoriya’s quirk is. He breathes fire.”

This is true. he probably does. Consider what we know in-universe, though.

Characters with heteromorphic quirks don’t have their physical attributes listed as a part of their quirks if they have a secondary characteristic.

Tokoyami is the most obvious example. He’s a bird person, but his quirk is dark shadow. The fact that he’s a bird man goes unmentioned because as far as anyone is concerned, the shadow monster is his power.

Characters like Spinner have their animal attributes listed as quirks, but that’s only because he can’t do anything a gecko wouldn’t. If he didn’t make his lizard powers his quirk he’d have nothing to put.

If Midoriya’s dad happened to be, say, a rabbit that could breathe fire, the fire quirk would be listed while the rabbit bit went unstated. In fact, in a roundabout way, the fire quirk makes rabbit dad even more plausible.

You see, most of the animal character designs in bnha are actually recycled from an old series horikoshi did called oumagadoki zoo. Mind you this isn’t a knock at horikoshi or anything. A lot of mangaka do this sort of thing. I’m mostly bringing it up because one of the main characters is a rabbit called Shiina

and one of the early gags in the series is him smoking a carrot like a cigar.

This would be very easy to translate to my hero academia’s setting if said character happened to breathe fire.

I should also say for those keeping score at home that I don’t necessarily think Hizashi is a Shiina expy specifically (tbh I kinda imagine him being more like a fluffy spike spiegel). At most I think it’s probably just some design motifs and some VERY loose plot points.

There is also the somewhat mild rebuttal of Midoriya never attempting to do anything rabbit-like while trying to see if he had a quirk, but I think that’s self explanatory. If Izuku was a rabbit he’d notice right away, so of course he didn’t bother checking.

**Part 3: Why He’s Absent **

Of course, another big question that might be on your mind is why he’s not present if that’s the simple truth of his identity. Why have him fail to show himself for what has now been 300 chapters?

I can think of two simple reasons:

1) It’s really funny

Just fuckin. The Mystique of it all. You can’t tell fans a character is going to show up eventually and fail to have them appear without piquing someone’s interest. It’s bound to make fans speculate, especially with the canon dabi twist hanging in the air. Years to imagine what his presence might entail if it was something big enough to be worth planning ahead for.

And then. Boom. Bunny.

Fucking. Hysterical.

2) The themes. Oh god the themes

You might have noticed by now but Horikoshi has a tendency of making like. The Shounen Jump equivalent to that rpg character you make as a joke that then has like. an undeniably tragic life when you’re actually forced to tackle with the implications of your own character building.

I would not be surprised if the Midoriyas ended up falling into that category.

So let’s get into that.

One of the big things that my hero academia attempts to tackle is the concept of normalcy.

Mostly how it’s kinda bullshit and, in many cases, outright harmful.

What makes this bit interesting within the context of Midoriya family is Izuku’s sort of. Artificial Plainness.

He is a character deliberately designed to look as normal as possible. The key word there is look. Basically anyone who’s been following the series long enough to be reading this post knows that the kid often struggles to keep his head down

which also makes it interesting that the only two scenes where Midoriya wears his rabbit cowl are scenes where he is actively questioning the status quo.

Methinks there is some symbolism here.

Which I guess brings us back to square one.

At the end of the day, the concept of Midoriya’s dad being a rabbit is funny because it’s so unexpected. Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

But that’s also the kicker.

Without him around, the Midoriyas look like a normal family.

A lot of people are quick to call Izuku’s dad an absentee father, but technically speaking, we don’t quite know that yet. We’ve only been in a position where we don’t see him as the audience.

And, well, when your kid is being bullied for something as banal as being quirkless, you might not want to give society more ammunition to use against him.

It wouldn’t strike me as strange if he just avoided being seen in public with his son to keep him safe in his own way.

They say that the nail that sticks out gets hammered down the most. Under those circumstances, it’s not too hard to understand why the loosest nail might just feel safer wriggling out of the wood altogether.

#izuku midoriya #boku no hero academia #mha #bnha #bnha theory #my hero academia #bnha spoilers

74 notes · View notes

nordleuchten · 3 years

Text

La Fayette in Prison - Part 2 - Magdeburg

After Wesel, off we go to Magdeburg. Here La Fayette and his fellow prisoners stayed from January 4, 1793 until January 4, 1794. Just like Wesel, Magdeburg was and still is a prominent city in modern-day Germany (back then in Prussia). And just like Wesel, Magdeburg lies near a river, the Elbe to be precise. And again, the prison laid inside the city’s fortress. Large parts of the fortress are still intact and are the sites of numerous activities throughout the years, such as re-enactments, historic festivals, historic guided tour ... visitors are also free to request an individual guided tour, unrelated to any other activity. La Fayette is once more named as a noteworthy inmate by the Homepage of the organisation charged with taking care of the fortress. But he was far from the most prominent inmate – Germans at least will recognise the names of Fritz Reuter and Werner von Siemens (the guy who founded the company “Siemens”). Whoever created the Homepage either did not do their research or disliked La Fayette. It is stated that La Fayette attempted an coup d’état that failed and that he initiated the Champ the Mars massacre ... both statements are grossly oversimplified at best and utter nonsense at worst. During La Fayette’s stay Ludwig Karl von Kalkstein (then a Lieutenant-General) was the Governor of the prison and Otto Kasimir von Meerschneidt (then a Major-General) was its Commander.

La Fayette and is fellow Frenchmen were brought to Magdeburg by means of an open cart. What was in all likelihood intended to degrade them further, was actually a blessing for the prisoners. They now had fresh air and the open, blue sky in abundance, something that had been denied to them all those months prior. Something else happened as well. People recognized these august men and apparently also cheered for them. Where the Prussian and Austrian authorities had a keen dislike for La Fayette, the population was in large parts in favour of him (more on that in a bit). Though he may have been touched by the cheering, such outpours of affection did not help La Fayette endear himself to his jailers – not at all. Nevertheless, conditions at Magdeburg were better ... far from good, but better.

La Fayette was allowed to obtain some books. Among other things he read mostly about agriculture and this knowledge would later come in handy when he ventured into the farming business after his return to France in 1799. He was furthermore allowed to write and receive letter ... but there was a twist. You see, when a letter for La Fayette arrived, the authorities in Magdeburg would open it, read it and decide if La Fayette was allowed to receive this letter. If so, they would go into his cell and read the letter aloud to him exactly once. If he was allowed to reply, his letters were checked and if there was something in them that did not please his jailors, well, the letter then moved directly into the bin. Lovely!

Nevertheless, things were looking up for La Fayette and he started writing letters to the full extent of his possibilities. Although he ached to let his wife Adrienne know that he was more or less okay, he did nor dare to write her. She was still imprisoned in France and La Fayette feared that somebody there might recognise his handwriting and subsequently destroy the letter. Instead he tried to reach his English and American friends (both in America and as envoys in Europe).

La Fayette described his cell in a letter to an unknown friend in England:

“Imagine an opening made under the rampart of the citadel, and surrounded with a strong, high palisade; through this, after opening four doors, each armed with chains, bars, and padlocks, they come, not without some difficulty and noise, to my cell, three paces wide five and a half long. The wall is mouldy on the side towards the ditch, and the front one admits light, but not sunshine, through a little grated window. Add to this two sentinels, -- whose eyes penetrate into this lower region, but who are kept outside the palisade, lest they should speak other watchers not belonging to the guard, and all the walls ramparts, ditches, guards, within and without the citadel of Magdeburg, and you will think that the foreign powers neglect nothing to keep us within their dominions. The noisy opening of the four doors is repeated every morning to admit my servant; at dinner, that I may eat in presence of the commandant of the citadel and of the guard; and at night, to take my servant to his prison. After having shut upon me all the doors, the commandant carries off the keys to the room where, since our arrival, the king has ordered him to sleep. I have books, the white leaves of which are taken out, but no news, no newspapers no communications, -- neither pen, ink, paper, nor pencil. It is a wonder that I possess this sheet, and I am writing with a toothpick. My health fails daily (…).”

(I am a bit irked by the fact, that I can neither associated an recipient nor an exact date with the letter. The letter otherwise seems authentic and the content is similar to other letters by La Fayette that we have more information on – that being said, I gave the letter a pass although its provenance is not what I would like it to be.)

I have seen some people argue that La Fayette mostly managed to keep his spirits up, because he did not complained an awful lot in his letters – but when assessing such a statement, you have to keep in mind that La Fayette really could not complain a lot in his letters, otherwise they would never be posted. It is true though, that there were small betterments. I already mentioned the letters and books, but he and the other prisoners were also allowed to take regular walks in the yard of the prison. They walked separated from each other and were heavily guarded. But La Fayette fell ill again, this time with a fever. His illness was not as serious though as it had been at Wesel.

La Fayette also received some money from his friends in America. Some of his friends, such like Washington, privately send money for La Fayette to use. Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, found a way for the Government to pay La Fayette some money. He argued that La Fayette had offered to serve in the Continental Army without pay but that there was no official document of the Continental Congress accepting this offer. It follows that the Treasury owned La Fayette six years of pay and furthermore ten years worth of interests since they had “forgotten” to pay him the money since the end of the war ten years prior. Jefferson wrote a letter to Washington on December 30, 1793:

“Soon after his captivity and imprisonment, and before the ministers had received our instructions to endeavor to obtain his liberation, they were apprised that his personal restraint, and the peculiar situation of his fortune disabled him from drawing resources from that, and would leave him liable to suffer for subsistence, and the common necessaries of life. After a consultation by letter, therefore, between our ministers at Paris, London, and the Hague, they concurred in opinion that they ought not in such a case to wait for instructions from hence, but that his necessities should be provided for until they could receive such instructions. Different sums have been therefore either placed at his disposal, or answered on his draughts, amounting, as far as we hitherto know to about twelve or thirteen hundred Guineas. This has been taken from a fund not applicable by law to this purpose nor able to spare it: and the question is whether, and how it is to be made good? To do this, nothing more is requisite than that the United States should not avail themselves of the Liberalities of M. de la Fayette, yielded at a moment when neither he nor we could foresee the time when they would become his only resource for subsistence. It appears by a statement from the war office, hereto annexed, that his pay and commutation as a major General in the service of the United States to the 3rd of nov. 1783 amounted to 24,100 dollrs thirteen Cents exclusive of ten years interest elapsed since that time, to the payment of which the following obstacle has occurred. at the foot of the original engagement by Mr Deane, a copy of which is hereto annexed, that a certain roll of officers there named, and of which M. de la Fayette was one, should be taken into the american service in the grades there specified, M. de la Fayette alone has subjoined for himself a declaration that he would serve without any particular allowance or pension. It may be doubted whether the words in the original French do strictly include the general allowance of pay and commutation. and if they do, there is no evidence of any act of acceptance by Congress. Yet, under all the circumstances of the case, it is thought that the legislature alone is competent to decide it. If they decline availing the United States of the declaration of M. de la Fayette, it leaves a fund which not only covers the advances which have been made, but will enable you take measures for his future relief. It does it too, in a way which can give offence to nobody, since none have a right to complain of the payment of a debt, that being a moral duty, from which we cannot be discharged by any relation in which the creditor may be placed as to them.”

Washington forwarded the letter to the Congress and on March 27, 1794 Congress passed a bill to pay La Fayette the money he had not accepted as a General during the Revolutionary War. To nobody’s surprise, neither Congress nor President Washington had any objections and the bill was approved swiftly.

Prisons in the 18th century (as well as today) often development into some sort of parallel society. Money and especially bribery could get you far in prison and La Fayette experienced that first hand. On November 18, 1809 La Fayette enclosed an account of his financial situation in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. It seems as if this lengthy report had been written by one of La Fayette’s secretaries. Here is a short excerpt of the English translation of the report:

“The expenses caused by his captivity were enormous; the prisoners had to pay their own way as long as their money lasted, and as General Lafayette was the only one with some money, he had to take responsibility for his fellow prisoners. But this was a small matter in comparison with all that his European friends did financially to save his life, to correspond with him, and to facilitate his escape. Some of them made great personal sacrifices, and the sums generously sent by the American government were swallowed up. General Lafayette’s family provided for its own expenses while living in Olmutz. So that on arriving at Hamburg after an imprisonment of five years he found nothing of what had been intended for him and only an increased debt to Mr. Gouverneur Morris up to the time when he was paid 68000.₶; to Mr. Parish former United States consul, forty three thousand Livres; to Mr. Bollman a contract reduced to 30000.₶”

(You see, a great deal of the financial troubles and transactions came after his stay in Magdeburg but since everything started in Magdeburg, I thought it convenient to discuss the monetary issue here in full.)

We see the United States taking actions to the best of their abilities and we see also more letters discussing La Fayette’s fate. News travelled slowly in the 18th century and it took the three months that La Fayette stayed in Wesel for the world to find out that he even had been arrested. But after the knowledge was out there, we see an increase in letters and also in newspaper coverage. So much so that Adrienne could read in the French newspapers that La Fayette was presently alive and in Magdeburg. We can further observe that people all other he world started petitioning the Prussian King for La Fayette’s relief. His friends, English Members of Parliament (although it would take a couple more years before the House of Commons would discuss the topic in full), Washington and his friends in America, Americas envoys in Europe, the list goes on. Some of La Fayette’s fellow prisoners, mostly unassuming secretaries and aids, had been released almost immediately and were now also trying to secure La Fayette’s freedom – some even returned to France to do so. We also see Prussians citizen petition their King. Most of these petitions were simple letters, but some petitioners had the money to spare and printed their petitions as pamphlets – many of them can today be found online.

Although the instructions for the guard were not less strict then they had been in Wesel, the guards in Magdeburg appeared to love to gossip. During his stay La Fayette was kept more or less up to date on the newest developments in France and the war. Eight months into his stay in Magdeburg he was also given some news about his wife Adrienne. La Fayette wrote Charles Pinckney in London on July 4, 1793:

My dear Sir,

Whilst on this anniversary my American fellow citizens are having their joy, I join in a solitary bumper with the happy remembrances, the patriotic wishes which are crowding upon us (...) Owning to your kind interference, my dear Sir, the crowned gaolers have consented after eight months to let me know that my wife and children were alive – be pleased to acquaint them that my health is tolerably good (...).

(Can we please acknowledge the fact that La Fayette took the time out of his day and remembered that it was the anniversary of American Independence?)

There is another letter that I want to give the spotlight. La Fayette wrote on March 15, 1793 to his friend, the Princess d’Hénin. In this letter he wrote that:

“I know not what disposition has been made of my plantation at Cayenne; but I hope Madame de Lafayette will take care that the negroes, who cultivated it, shall preserve their liberty.”

La Fayette had bought a plantation in the French colony of Cayenne and implemented a system of gradual emancipation. The plantation was later sold by French authorities and the people there re-enslaved. Although his endeavour ultimately failed I found it interesting to see that La Fayette, even during such a dark hour, thought about others as well.

Before we move on to the next prison, this time in Neisse, on last titbit. The Baron von Steuben, the absolutely legendary legend, was born in Magdeburg and as a man of military background probably spend some time in the fortress as well.

40 notes · View notes

quetzalpapalotl · 3 years

Text

Is very interesting how IDW portrays the Transformer’s relationship to organics, because caring about organic life is the one thing Autobots unequivocally have over Decepticons to cement them as the "good guys". And this is a staple of the franchise, not just and IDW thing granted, most of the time they aren’t actively anti-organic, but don’t care about them and are willing to destroy them for resources, but it is there. Autobots protecting planets from Decepticons is what TF is about. So like, say what you want about JRo and his “redemption” or whatever you want to call it of Megatron, he deals with this, which a lot of fan content doesn't or does in passing.

How much bigoted a Transformers is for organic races varies, but is generally the Autobots who are less so, given that a core part of their whole initiative involves defending other planets from the cons. But even so, you can find some prejudice among the Autobots themselves.Among those fully committed to organics, there is Optimus, of course. He cares a lot about every sentient being and sees it as his responsibility to protect planets from any kind of Cybertronian threat, is only fair. This is their war, and Optimus bears some of the burden for escalating said war. But it does become frustrating for some of his own Autobots how much priority he gives organics, particularly humans, which is understandable. And then you also deal with what happens when the organics don't want Optimus to help them, because he's also very paternalistic in his care for organics.

Bumblebee also is consistently friendly to all sentient beings because he's Bumblebee ofc. Rodimus has some prejudices of his own, but will ultimately go out of his way to help organics (and most Autobots will, because again, that’s their thing).

But Rewind stands out, because Rewind not only considers the organic bodies in the causalities of the war more consistently than others, Rewind would be willing to doom the entire Cybertronian race to protect organics from them. And if you think about it, it makes sense. Rewind was denied personhood. He lived to see his personhood removed. He would not stand for doing that to anyone else.

Which makes me think of the likes of Ravage, who had arguably even less recognized personhood than a disposable. And yet, he stands with the Decepticon ideal of mechanical superiority. But I guess that also makes sense, it probably makes him immeasurably mad to see all these Autobots caring so much for some organics with miserable lifespans when he, one of their own, was treated like an animal (apparently even by some Decepticons). Also since he can use his senses to recognize emotions in Cybertronians, if he can't do the same on organic races (be it just because he can't or because he doesn't recognize what those patterns mean) they would look less like people to him. But he is given to treat people who were not seen as so sentient with dignity, as we see with Ten, with whom he’s completely respectful. So he would probably be inclined to give organics the same dignified treatment if he spent enough time with them at peace, maybe.

And this takes me back to Megatron, I wonder if, in another scenario, you could point out the parallels in how everyone treated beastformers like beasts because they looked like it, to him also treating organics a similar way just because they aren't Cybertronian and supposedly pose a threat (which is not entirely baseless, but is still a generalization), even though Megatron can clearly see they feel and think and speak and all that stuff. Like this maybe could potentially lead him to not exactly caring about organics. But also, not just exploit them with prejudice for resources. He would ofc first need to care about life again, but that’s another rant altogether.

#quetzal rambles tf

15 notes · View notes

ljf613 · 3 years

Text

Colonization & Imperialism in ATLA

One of the things I’ve noticed in fandom complaints about the ATLA comics-- namely, “The Promise”-- and subsequently, LOK’s worldbuilding, is the way the narrative handles colonization.

I see a lot about how what the Earth Kingdom chose to do with the former colonies is “none of Zuko’s (or Aang’s) business.” (I also see people talking about how Katara would never support colonialism, in any shape or form, no matter the circumstances.)

And I just.... don’t vibe with those ideas? At all?

Like, I definitely have problems with the comics-- especially “The Promise,” where all the drama centers around Miscommunications of Epic Proportions and could have been resolved in Part One if all the characters just sat down and listened to each other (not to mention that Aang would never have agreed to make that promise, nor would Zuko have asked it of him (Sokka would be a more obvious choice, but that’s a different discussion))-- but I never had any issues with their worldbuilding.

I love the idea of Yu Dao, and the fact that the narrative acknowledges that a new kind of world has new kinds of problems. It makes sense to me that we can’t always just “give back the land we took.” And I found the idea of the end solution being “give the people who live there their own country” really cool and empowering.

So I want to talk about why I feel this way. About what kind of real-world parallels can be made here. About some little-known bits of world-history that compare.

(Please note that for this meta I am only going to be discussing the relationship between Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom. As far as I am aware-- and I could be wrong-- there is no real-world genocide quite comparible to what Sozin did to the Air Nomads, and most of the people alive in ATLA were not actually around for or involved in that. And the relationship the Fire Nation has with the Water Tribes-- and that the North and South have with each other-- is worth a whole separate analysis, and doesn’t deserve to just be shoved into this one.)

(Disclaimer: While this is in response to some of the interpretations I’ve seen on this site, it is not meant to discount or invalidate those fans’ views-- I’m just trying to show my take on it. I am a firm believer in the power of active discourse, and the value of looking at the same scenes through different lenses, rather than just getting one opinion and accepting it as Absolute Truth.)

The main thing I notice in general ATLA discourse-- and not just on this topic, but in any sort of meta about the Fire Nation, colonization, and global impact-- is that the fandom mostly compares the war and its after-affects to real-world Imperialism, the Age of Imperialism, New Imperialism, and Colonization.

And I understand why that is. In the grand scheme of world history, that era is still fairly recent, and we are still dealing with the afteraffects from it. It has shaped the Western World’s worldview on every level. (Not to mention that the Euro-centric way we’re taught history means that this piece of world history is the one we’re most exposed to, and so have the most understanding of and room to analyze/criticize.)

However, there are a few issues with sticking only to this perspective.

First off, the Age of Imperialism was a direct response to the Age of Exploration. This was the period of time when white Europeans sailed around the world acting as though they were discovering new places and pretending that there weren’t already existing civilizations there.

[ID: Two dots meme, edited so that Guy A says “i’ve discovered a NEW WORLD,” Guy B replies “you didn’t discover ****,” and Guy A insists “i’ve discovered it” / End ID.]

Now, I’ve mentioned this in passing, but the world of ATLA doesn’t appear to have had an Age of Exploration. There’s no vast “undiscovered” land masses, the four nations have always known about each other, and they all have a shared language.

The whole foundation for the Age of Imperialism was “oh, look, there are all these ‘unexplored’ lands with resources ripe for the picking (who cares about the indigenous people, they’re just simplistic savages who don’t know what’s best for them), let’s see which European country can grab the most land first.”

This was a race. This was sudden. This was Europeans coming in and taking over while viewing the natives as bothersome pests. This was about multiple major world powers competing over resources.

This was not 100 years of active warfare between a single conquering country and the very people they were trying to conquer.

The parallels don’t hold up.

Secondly, by focussing only on this one kind of historical narrative, we ignore any others.

I will admit that I have used the word “imperialism” in reference to the Fire Nation a time or two. However, upon further reflection, I realize I didn’t really mean imperialism, which is actually a fairly modern concept. What I feel the Fire Nation is really an example of is centralism and expansionism-- two ideaologies that have been a way of life for conquering empires throughout history.

(I am in no way qualified to explain the differences between these concepts-- I recommend doing your own research if you’re curious.)

The Persian Empire. The Greek Empire. The Roman Empire. The Byzantine Empire. The Mongolian Empire. The Russian Empire. The First French Empire.

You could take any of these (or numerous others) and make an interesting analysis between the similarities and differences between their behaviors and that of the Fire Nation. And maybe I’ll do that someday.

However, I started this to talk about Yu Dao and all of the other so-called colonies (I really feel like territories would be a better word, but, again, that’s a whole ’nother discussion), and I’d like to focus on that.

FYI, here’s a basic history refresher: If two countries are at war, and then they decide to end the war, neither country is required to return captured territories. They can make a treaty and agree to do so, but there is no obligation to. The Fire Nation didn’t just march in and say, “this is our land now”-- they fought for it. They captured that land. Just because the war is over doesn’t mean they need to just give it back.

Like it or not, that is the way the world operated for thousands of years, and so that is the interpretation I’m working with here.

In any case, “The Promise” actually presents this as a three-way conversation. There’s Zuko (and, by default, the Fire Nation), Kuei (and, by default, Ba Sing Se and the Earth Kingdom), and the people of Yu Dao themselves.

(My understanding of the Earth Kingdom’s style of government is that it’s made up of a large collection of different ethno-cultural regions who all answer to Ba Sing Se.)

I’ll let Sokka explain it:

[ID: Comic panel from Part Three of “The Promise.” Sokka and Katara are talking, both in obvious states of agitation, while Suki and Toph are looking at something in the background. Sokka is saying, “Let me see if I got this. The protestors and the Earth Kingdom Army want the colonials to go, the Fire Nation Army wants the colonials to stay, and the Yu Dao Resistance just want their city to be left alone?” Katara responds, “Yes!” / End ID.]

The people of Yu Dao don’t care about the war. They don’t even really care who’s in charge. They just want to be left alone.

This speaks to me on a very personal level, so I’m going to make another real-world comparison here:

My ancestors first came to America to escape from the poverty and opression they were experiencing in a place known as “White Russia”-- that is, Belarus. To be clear, I am not talking about the country “Belarus,” but the region, which includes the modern-day countries of Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Moldova, as well as parts of Poland and Russia.

I looked up White Russia, trying to find out how much information someone who didn’t grow up hearing stories about what it was like (that is, most of the people reading this,) might have. I didn’t find much. Most of what I found talked about political ideologies and such-- things that your average poor peasant, struggling just eke out a living, didn’t have much energy to care about. So let me paint a(n oversimplified) picture for you.

Imagine you’re a poor shoemaker in a small town on the Russian border. You spend your days hard at work, trying to earn a living to support your wife and nine children. You’ve never left the town you were born in. One day you get the news: Russia and Poland are fighting again. Your two oldest sons (ages 15 and 17) are forcibly drafted off to fight in the Russian army; you never see them again and have no way of knowing if they’re dead or alive (they’re probably dead). Poland wins-- this time. Congratulations, your town is now part of Poland.

Does suddenly being Polish make a difference to your life? Not in the slightest. Two or three years down the line, you’ll go back to being part of Russia again. This is the third or fourth time you’ve seen your town switch hands, and you can’t say you prefer one government over the other. It doesn’t really matter who’s in charge-- you’re still faced with crippling taxes, forced drafts, and various other forms of oppression. (It doesn’t help that you happen to be part of a persecuted minority.)

(This is why I have many ancestors who may never have left the town they were born in, and yet records show that they were born in one country, got married in another, and died in a third.)

This is the kind of worldview through which I am looking at Yu Dao. (Obviously, it’s not an exact parallel, but neither is the standard “colonizers vs oppressed natives” lens.)

My ancestors eventually got fed up with the treatment they were receiving from their respective governments, and left to build a new life, in a new place. But the citizens of Yu Dao don’t have anywhere to go. The only two real world powers in this story are the Fire Nation and the Earth Kingdom, neither of which has ever before expressed any true interest or concern in the actual people of Yu Dao.

The Earth Kingdom didn’t really care about the city before the war-- they were just another poor, struggling town, whose citizens were barely able to make ends meet. And while the Fire Nation may have helped the place grow into a bustling town, they also established a hierarchy that did not serve in the citizens’ best interests.

And so, in “The Promise,” these citizens’ frustrations come to a head. “Enough,” they say, “we don’t want to be used as a pawn in your games anymore.”

And Zuko and Kuei (and Aang) actually listen. They say “we need to start thinking about these people as people, not as symbols of one side or the other. It’s time to give them a say in their future.”

And a new country-- a new way of life-- is born.

(Is it perfect? Absolutely not. But it is constantly evolving and changing, trying to do better, be better. And that’s more than you can say about most of the other countries in this world.)

86 notes · View notes

bigskydreaming · 3 years

Text

In a mood and I’m trying not to be, but oof. Not easy at the moment. Real life stresses are kicking my butt and I’m decidedly limited in resources for addressing that at the moment, so might as well get this off my chest, lol. Already lost the usual fifty followers or so I lose every single time I post about stuff the way I did the other day, so what’s some more, y’know?

So earlier today I tried to get my mind off things with some fic, and happened across one I hadn’t read before that promised Jason and Dick talking things out and bonding. Halfway through I sighed and went oh, this is familiar, and skipped to the bottom to check the end notes and comments to see if there was any mention of this next part, but nope. The reason for the sigh was it took me about halfway into the fic to realize that it was blatantly inspired by my post about what if Jason was missing some memories from his death/resurrection and the Pit, like specifically the ski trip they took, stuff like that. Now I’m not so egotistical as to think nobody but me has certain ideas, but its fairly easy for me to recognize when someone is basing something off a post of mine because of specific turns of phrases that I use and like, they hit ten or so bullet points from my post without missing a one. Like, there’s parallel evolution and similar ideas, and then there’s going down a check list, y’know?

And don’t get me wrong....I don’t mind people basing stuff of my posts, being inspired by them, etc. I WANT that. I’m GLAD to have that happen.

The part I mind is the way this all ties back into my interaction with fandom as a whole....and this fandom’s interaction with me. Which I don’t tend to hear NEARLY as much about as I tend to have people giving me shit about my impact on fandom....but ONLY the negative impact.

In the four years or so that I’ve been active in this fandom, I can think of only three people who have given me some kinda shout out for being the basis of one of their fics. Three people. And in that time I’ve come across literal dozens of fics that I am almost certain can trace their way back to popular posts of mine. There’s the post about Jason’s memories and the ski trip for one - this fic isn’t an isolated occurrence, I’ve found a good half a dozen or so I feel fall into the same pattern. There’s fics based off my posts about how fucked up the blame Dick got for Spyral was, with my certainty based on the fact that I know I’m the only fucking person who ever brought up various key phrases like “Bruce not having an extraction plan for Dick’s highly dangerous undercover op, leaving him stranded when Bruce got/(chose) amnesia.” I made a big deal about that in a few posts because of the fact I NEVER saw that particular element raised in any fics, and a couple months after I started including that bit regularly, I was seeing the words ‘without an extraction plan’ in every other new post Spyral fic. That’s not a coincidence.

There’s been stuff that included bits and phrasings from my post about Dick and Jason being partners who focused on helping kids who had been abused specifically....oh wait, no, my bad. The two fics I’m thinking of there lifted straight up entire lines from that post but just made it about Jason and TIM doing that instead, despite like.....the entire basis of that headcanon stemming from Dick’s juvie origin but whatever. There’s been stuff based on juvie posts of mine, stuff based on posts I’ve made about Mirage, there’s been stuff based on the post about Jason looking into why Dick was undercover as a mob enforcer and then Renegade, there’s been stuff clearly inspired by my headcanons about Jason calling Dick for advice after the Garzonas case. I could go on. There’s a fucking LOT.

I don’t try to give myself too much credit but I’m not unaware of being a loud voice in this fandom and that having an impact. And like I said, I’m not adverse to inspiring people to make their own stuff based off an idea they initially saw me present. That’s fine. People should feel free to do that. My problem is that none of this exists in a vacuum. It exists in a fandom where I regularly get people lecturing me on my presentation, people hyping up how negative I make fandom, my condescension, my anger, my hostility, etc, etc.

But the thing I never see is any awareness whatsoever that like....dudes, I’m literally just a guy on the internet. And that goes two ways. Yeah, I have an impact on people, but they have one on me too. And I’m tired and frustrated by it being acted like this is a one way street and everyone is just helpless victims of my bullying, while meanwhile SOME OF THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE GIVING ME CRAP FOR MY NEGATIVITY are ACTIVELY adding to their own fics with stuff that I JUST posted about.

And like, I see people vagueblogging about the negativity on their dashes and its impact on fandom right after I have a Dick Grayson rant blow up and get a few hundred notes......but its acted like I DID that to fandom, that’s my negativity and mine alone when its like....y’know, if you’re not following me yourself, and this stuff is still on your dash, you uh....have to be following people who reblog my negative posts for some reason or another. And given that there are obviously reasons you follow THOSE people, maybe instead of worrying about what I’M doing all the time, you can spare a thought or two for the fact that I don’t have any power to make people reblog anything, and for whatever reason, something about my oh so negative post resonated with those people reblogging it onto your dash, which also kinda suggests it wasn’t negative in THEIR eyes, but was actually a kind of validation of thoughts or feelings they already had?

Trust me, there’s no mind control ray at work here. This mood is also brought to you by the cricket sounds that come every time I fucking BEG people to reblog and signal boost posts I make about rape/abuse fandom trends and depictions from my POV as a survivor, specifically. Like I mentioned, I LOSE followers every time I bring that stuff up. It doesn’t benefit me in any way whatsoever, in fact my notes tend to go comparatively radio silent for a good couple weeks after I go off on one of those jaunts, because idk, people don’t want THEIR mutuals and followers to think they agree with some of my oh so controversial stances?

Actually, I say idk, but I do know is the thing, because people actually go on anon and tell me they appreciate me posting stuff like this, and its like.....that....doesn’t actually make me feel good? Because I never expect any single person in particular to reblog me, but when I say crickets after I post on those topics, I mean CRICKETS. I’m lucky if I can get five reblogs on those posts in total, and those are usually all from the same people. It actually kinda sucks knowing that people agree with me and what I have to say there, but they won’t put it on their own blogs because this fandom is so fucking STEEPED in its views, they don’t want to risk their friendships or back-and-forths with certain popular fandom authors by rocking the boat.

Because meanwhile I’m making myself target practice for the people who really would like me to shut up on certain topics but are too cowardly to ever confront me directly about why they dislike what I have to say there, in the vain hope that other people might finally even just START to pass some of that on even for consideration....because I can make waves by myself just by being loud and consistent, but I can’t do shit to actually make CHANGE without other people agreeing in PUBLIC so that fandom is forced to confront the fact that no, certain opinions aren’t just one loud asshole being annoying, there’s an actual viewpoint here that people actually have in greater numbers than we realized and we DON’T have as much of a monopoly on this topic as we thought.

I have anons who give me shit accusing me of driving off certain authors by making this fandom not fun for them anymore, when like, I never even fucking INTERACTED with the authors in question. Some of the names I’m accused of driving off I don’t even KNOW. I’m called an ‘abusive survivor shaming cunt’ with zero irony or self-awareness that they’re literally doing the exact same thing because they don’t like the stance *I* take as a survivor posting about how ‘some survivors use dark fic/rape fantasy to cope’ shouldn’t be treated as a monolithic defense of such things if it leads directly into the same kind of survivor shaming other people view criticism of such fic as being in the first place.

I’ve had to unfollow mutuals because I post about how reblogging posts about purity culture is a direct fucking slap into the face to people like me whose stances on fandom culture are directly based on our own personal experiences and the intersection those have with various popular fandom takes.....like you don’t have to agree with all my takes obviously, but if you can’t see how framing a naive pursuit of ideological purity as the only possible reason people object to certain fandom trends when I’m literally standing right here saying no actually, the way these fandom trends impact me is the reason for me saying the things I say when I say “here’s how this fandom trend impacts me”.....like.....c’mon.

And I’ve had mutuals unfollow me because despite following me because they liked my takes on social justice issues THEY care about, I just ‘post too much about what’s really just a personal issue’ and has no larger social relevance whatsoever, obviously. LOL. (Oh and this of course has nothing to do with them getting friendly with various popular authors on discord, who happen to be vocal about ‘disapproving’ of any fic criticism whatsoever. Just FYI, there’s a reason I haven’t followed anyone new or made any new mutuals in like....a year. I have my reasons for being....not quick about that).

I get condescended to constantly about not minding the tags, and then radio silence when I list literal examples of ways in which people haven’t tagged things correctly, tagged things at all, or literally used the tags in an attempt TO trigger people they just don’t like.

And meanwhile, allllllll of this keeps happening while the general narrative is I’m this loud asshole guy with zero concern about anything but his own personal likes or dislikes and who makes fandom a negative place that’s unwelcoming in general. And with basically zero mention of all the ways in which I’ve contributed to this fandom, the amount of content I’ve made that has DIRECTLY inspired people, and the productive conversations I’ve started which have resulted in people actually changing the way they approach various characters or dynamics in fics.

Its THAT part that bugs me, specifically.

Look, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again now.....I’m not anyone’s victim. Negative fandom interactions are negative fandom interactions. All this complaining I’m doing here - lol, that’s all it is. I’m venting. I’m pissed off and I think its relevant to a greater fandom dynamic or tendencies a lot of people unknowingly or consciously reinforce, and so I’m just fucking SAYING it because while its not something I EXPECT this post will do much to change, if at all, I would still like it to change so any effort towards that end is still better than no effort at all...hence, my posting this rather than bottling it up so at least people have it to consider.

If you don’t agree with it, if you don’t like that it exists at all, if it ruins your day to have to consider whether or not you or people you know or even like are active participants in what someone else is describing as y’know....fairly day-ruining in its own way? Hit that unfollow, that block, that make new text post button of your own and have your own rant about what a douchebag I am.

Literally all I’m trying to express is like.....fa*ndom’s got a lot to say about the stuff I have to say about fandom, but like....this is a two way interaction. A lot of people make a big deal about MY impact (again, JUST the negative though, lol) but I don’t ever see anyone ever addressing anyone else about hey maybe you could spare a thought or two about YOUR impact for a change as well.

I mean, what if....just maybe...what if.....a lot of my behavior or attitude has a lot to do with how people approach or talk about me BEFORE that display of attitude or certain behavior? Weirdly....I feel like maybe something that could then have a transformative effect on the kind of behavior or attitude people dislike from me....is.....them acknowledging or addressing things they might have done to prompt certain responses from me?

I don’t actually like being whiny or negative or down in general, just to be clear? If I see something I have a problem with or think could use change or improvement, I say so - but I pretty much always put an effort into expressing both WHY and HOW I think possible change could look - because I’m not generally interested in being negative for the sake of just being negative. I just....want things to be better. That’s not an obsession with purity or perfection, btw, I will NEVER understand how people think that survivors of rape and abuse (which include a lot more ‘antis’ than anyone else seems to want to acknowledge) and the like EVER expects perfection or thinks that the world will ever produce that - lol no I’m actually pretty clear that things being perfect is pointless, I’m just interested in BETTER.

But I mean, I like being goofy and silly and also analytical and contemplative and also creative and spontaneous. I like lots of things. I like lots of moods. I like producing, creating, generating, interacting, engaging, I like a million things more than I like THIS kind of mood, THIS kind of post.

But I’m just not someone who is content to sit and stew in that sort of thing when I know full well that the problem does not actually stem from something broken or flawed inside of me, because I’m also someone who does believe very strongly in periodic bouts of self-reflection and honest self-assessment.....so that I can change things about myself when and where I feel necessary. But this also has the effect of me also being VERY aware of when the problem is not internal, but actually just me having a perfectly valid reaction or emotional response to outside stimulus. Aka fandom’s interaction with me, every bit as much as my interaction with fandom.

So....posts like this. I’ll do my usual rituals, get myself back onto my preferred trains of thought soon enough on my own, because ultimately that is all I can control and just because I make posts like this doesn’t mean I ever EXPECT any specific result - or a result at all - to come from it.

But, y’know, sue me for being hopeful.

I know. What an ass am I?

14 notes · View notes

starksinthenorth · 4 years

Text

I really hate the way the asoiaf fandom talks about colonialism and imperialism and invasion

the suggestions are typically imposed on House Targaryen and also on Daenerys.

Firstly, house targaryen were not imperialists, at least in aenar’s age. We know literally nothing about Dragonstone, only that the Valyrians settled it 200 BC. The term “settled” implies that no one else was there, and considering how detailed GRRM has been with other clashing ethnic groups (First Men vs. Children, First Men vs. Andals, Andals vs. Rhoynar), I feel like we can safely say that “settled” suggests the island was empty, especially considering its stone and smoke doesn’t give it a lot of valuable resources.

This is probably colonialism. The Valyrians literally set up a colony and a town and a tower. But it is not imperialism, since little-to-no extension onto Westeros was done.

Aegon the Counqeror was not an imperialist. Imperialism is based on expanding the power of your particular country through military force and diplomacy. However, he didn’t have a country to expand. They were lords of dragonstone, not kings. He made a country though, through conquest.

The closest the Targ family comes to imperialism is probably the conquest of the sisters and the invasion of Dorne. But, I honestly don’t think any of this should be considered imperialism because it’s much closer to the tribal/kingdom warfare of Africa, the mongol conquests, the wars in asia, and the european wars of “who owns italy” and “who owns germany” than the era imperialism emerged as a term, which is typically used to specifically refer to the 1600s-now conquest of underdeveloped/weaker nations by conglomerate/stronger powers (mainly Europe and the US, but lbr china is imperializing africa at this point). The power imbalance there is drastically different but besides the whole “we have dragons” thing, there really wasn’t that much more strength for aegon + co.

Finally, while they mostly only marry internally for the first couple centuries, the second century saw intermarrying so that Dany is only 1/8 valyrian and Jon/Aegon VI/Rhaenys were all 1/16. Dany/Rhaegar/Viserys are 3/8 dornish (mix rhoynar/andal through the dynes and martells) and 1/2 first men/andal mix (blackwoods). So while they may have been outsiders at first, they intermarried to the point that they’re pretty much as Westerosi as your gonna get as an immigrant.

Fastforward to Daenerys.

She’s not a colonialist. At all. she isn’t establishing new settlements and wiping people out through specific warfare. And, if you look at colonialism, its often paired by a specific attempt to genocide a group or destroy its culture. the US/british/etc. actively trend to kill the native population, the spanish enslaved them, the US even into the 1900s and potentially into the now took children away from their parents to “normalize” them as good christian kids. they destroyed languages and religions and entire cultural practices.

but dany isn’t doing that. she’s tried to blend in with the meereense as much as possible, wearing a tokar, living in their pyramid, meeting with the green grace and following at least some of their customs. she never tries to stop the green grace from doing their religion, she gets married using most of their customs. the things dany rejects are those that are oppressive - slavery, slaves in the fighting pits, the chance for hizdar’s family to look under her skirts before the wedding (although she may have been sort of okay with this if she wasn't scared they’d discover her supposed infertility). and, once pushed about the importance of some things, she allows them back (mostly the fighting pits). notably, the move to do one of the things that could be a sign of real-life colonialism is the cutting of people’s shaved hair among the former masters. but that’s not something dany did - it was led by one of her council

But, Dany *is* a conqueror.

this is simple. she is a person, with armies, who conquered a city. even then, there’s only 2 westerosi ruling the city, with the rest of her council being former slaves and Meereenese. but, if the show is correct, she’ll leave that city to rule itself post-her, pretty much serving as a parallel to the Ally coalition that held germany while it figured its shit out and helped stabilize it. So it’s not imperialistic, either.

Finally, people like to rebut the “Targaryens are imperialism!” argument with “so are the starks!” They aren’t necessarily wrong, but the kingdom expansion of france that took over Provence and Avengnon and the rest was never and is not considered colonialism or imperialism. it’s just war. See my above descriptions to see why war/conquest are different than colonialism and imperialism. And if you go so far back to say “the first men conquest of the children is imperialism!” please sit down. it’s essentially the same concept as us (homo erectus) popping out of africa/the middle east to take over the neanderthals.

#asoiaf meta #daenerys targaryen #house targaryen #house stark #hot takes

148 notes · View notes

thegreenwolf · 3 years

Text

[3-12-21] Today's reading is with my Pocket Osteomancy set!

Tooth: The Tooth is settled firmly in Summer; that means your planning and decisions should be all about growth. How can you can from where you are now to where you want tobe? How can you make the most of what you have right now, and use it to create a better future? You may have to get creative with your resources, especially if you're operating on a shoestring, but there are ways to be savvy with what you have going forward.

Vertebra: This bone is in Fall, which suggests this is a good time to be setting something aside, again for the future. You've seen how tough things can get, and being prepared for challenges will make it easier for you to see them through. So if you get a windfall, or a chance to rest, or an offer for help, make the most of these opportunities that can help you recharge yourself (or your bank account) so that you're better able to travel the road ahead.

Rib: This is another bone in Summer, closely paralleling the Tooth. Grow your connections to others! You know that thing about "it's not what you know, it's who you know?" Well, that doesn't just go for overly ambitious MBAs trying to climb the ladder to the top. It also means something to those of us whose goals may be a little more humble, and who want to grow a stronger community as well as a stronger self. So if you haven't had a chance to reach out to your friends and family in a while, take a little time to touch base. And although socializing can be tough in a pandemic, if you're able to meet new people (even if it's just online) take a chance and see who's out there!

Long Bone: This bone is right in the center, crossing every quadrant except Fall. Your actions are going against you; you've been trying to do too much at once. Instead, what you need to do is rein things in, and really narrow down your activity to what's going to help you most in the long run. That doesn't mean you aren't allowed to have any fun (remember that message to recharge yourself?) Instead, look at places where you may be wasting your time and energy in fruitless, unhealthy activities, and instead redirect those personal resources to investing in yourself.

Overview: You matter a lot, more than you give yourself credit for. And right now is a great time to look to your future. I know there's a lot going on in the world that can make the future seem grim; however, while you can't control the entire world, you can control your own little piece of it. And that includes working to make it better and more sustainable for the future. You aren't just doing this for yourself, though you are a worthy cause; you're also making things better for your community. So spend some time figuring out what actions you can take, no matter how small, to work toward these positive, constructive goals.

You can order the Pocket Osteomancy divination set and book at http://thegreenwolf.com/books/pocket-osteomancy/ and you can get a Pocket Osteomancy reading at http://www.thegreenwolf.com/readings/– and yes, even if you don’t have a Paypal account you CAN use the Paypal option to pay with a debit or credit card!

#osteomancy #bone divination #bones #divination #pagan

8 notes · View notes

equalseleventhirds · 4 years

Note

if you want to talk about hades town you can do so on this because i am very much interested in your thoughts about it!

fdsfjdskfds oh anon i am at Work and when i get out of work i will be Homework but......... listen. listen.

(ok a lot of this i’ve already rambled abt in my hadestown tag but. BUT). i got into hadestown pre-broadway, which means i listened to the original cast recording from 2017 a BUNCH. and while i adore both version, there were... changes. which i feel did orpheus a disservice, and the overarching plot a disservice, but in some ways treated eurydice better by filling her out more and making her more of a revolutionary.

anyway, i defos don’t have time for a full song-by-song comparison, and also some of the songs available for the broadway version never made it onto the release of the 2017 version, not bcos they weren’t in the show, just bcos.... idk they weren’t released? weren’t recorded? i do not pretend to know the inner workings of the music industry.

BUT of note: the major changes to epic ii. in the original, orpheus was mocking of hades (’king of a kingdom of dirt’ yo), while in the broadway version, orpheus is just singing abt hades and persephone’s history. epic iii also removes that like, ‘a king who loves everythign like a hammer loves the nail’ and ‘he comes down heavy and hard on us’, so it’s MUCH less about the workers’ resentment of hades and just. about hades and persephone.

btw fuckin miss me with that narrative abt orpheus solving global warming by reminding the ruling class that they’re in love with each other? like, i’m sure that’s more appealing to ur standard can-afford-broadway audience, and as a LOVE story it’s cool, but. just not a good lesson actually.

also ‘living it up on top’ completely cuts out his ‘why would a man of his own free will go to work all day in the mine and the mill’ which is, y’know, callous when considering the people (like, later, eurydice) driven to work for hades, but is TARGETED at hades, who for real does not NEED to work the way he does. miss that....

we also, throughout the broadway version, get a LOT of hermes speaking for orpheus. in the original, ‘come home with me’ is orpheus convincing eurydice, while the broadway version has hermes telling her that orpheus will make her feel alive. ‘living it up on top’ also changes from persephone speaking directly to orpheus and letting him take up the ‘bless this round’ bit, to having hermes volunteer him. blah blah ‘under my wing’ blah, but having a god (again, member of the ruling class, even if this one’s helpful) speak for him? when we have a version where he speaks for himself? come ON. i am not a fan of orpheus being made helpless! let him make his decisions! let his voice be one of persuasion even BEFORE he goes to the underworld!

(this also ties into my personal take that as a demigod, the son of a muse--and you know how those muses are--orpheus’ carelessness is what originally loses him eurydice. he does not care about eating through the winter, he’s never had to worry about that bcos hermes looks after him, while eurydice has had a harsh life and knows they DO need to worry. art is all well and good, but it is also important to care for the people in your life. it’s later, when orpheus loses eurydice and must venture into the harshness of the underworld, meets the workers/the wall and has to find SOLIDARITY with them in order to stand up to hades, that he finally recognizes the value of working with others to create a better life for all. in this essay i)

i also rly miss the original ‘promises’ bcos like, while orpheus & eurydice as always-in-love is sweet, i really enjoyed the fighty version where they are both resentful & angry abt broken promises, and both acknowledge that what they originally claimed to want from the other & give to one another was both unrealistic and not what they actually wanted, eventually coming to a conclusion that was more based on reality. like. communication resulting in a healthier relationship after dealing with unrealistic expectations.... we stan.

now that i’ve gone over how i think the original was better, i did still LIKE the broadway version, and there were some improvements! most notable, eurydice’s stronger role as like, an active revolutionary (or attempted one, anyway) rather than a more passive rescue.

i genuinely adored the change of ‘anyway the wind blows’ from an intro song by the fates to eurydice singing (with the fates backing her up/singing in her ear), bcos it sets up eurydice as an average sufferer of the world the gods made, and lets us hear it in her voice, her experience, and her opinions. she is the one to say weather ain’t the way it was before--and when we later get persephone telling us ‘some might say the weather ain’t the way it used to be’, she’s dismissing eurydice’s suffering (and the suffering of all humans), bcos she’s more concerned with her own issues with hades than with how she’s impacted the world.

(also the changes made had some Interesting Implications abt persephone’s complicity in that whole ‘keep your head low’ thing, that i think is p cool, actually? like afaik the 2017 version didn’t have ‘no spring/no fall’ going on, so the fact that the broadway one DOES and yet keeps her having spring flowers & autumn leaves only to the ppl in the underworld when she arrives.... inch resting. something something the ruling class provides ‘charity’ of resources people should already have as a reward for ‘good behavior’ something.)

eurydice at the beginning is isolated. she falls in love with orpheus and decides to stay with him, but even them being together does not mean he understands her, or values the same things she does. this is evident in both versions, but in the broadway version, when eurydice goes to the underworld, she does something interesting; she tries to introduce herself to the other workers. now, i never saw the 2017 version in full, only heard the album, but in the album she signs the papers and is rejoicing that she’s ‘free’ and has to be told that she isn’t. she doesn’t really speak to the other workers, beyond this exchange about ‘freedom’. in the broadway version, she’s dejected--she did what she had to do. she knows that’s what the other workers did. and she goes to talk to them about it, bcos in spite of where they are, she wants to create a connection with her fellow workers (building solidarity! my girl!!) (also interesting: at the start of the show. she’s alone. she’s always been alone. she sings about how people always turn on you and she’s better off alone before she meets orpheus, but even after she has to leave him, she tries to make a connection with other people. oh...... character development, we love it.) she doesn’t SUCCEED, but she TRIES. which may be important in why they choose to follow HER later.

now we come to chant (reprise), wait for me (reprise), and doubt comes in, the BEST revolutionary eurydice songs in the ENTIRE show. in the 2017 version these were mostly orpheus-focused (and altho i miss the ‘he said he’s shelter us/he said he’d harbor me’ parallels from the 2017 version of chant ii, the company singing with eurydice & orpheus about ‘if i raise my voice, if i raise my head’ fucks SO HARD). eurydice sings with the workers as they’re revolting, and when they walk out of hadestown, the workers follow her. (they don’t follow orpheus, even tho that’s who eurydice is following; ‘if she can do it so can we’. she’s one of them. she’s the one they’re following. can you BELIEVE). eurydice also gets to echo (louder, stronger, and using our instead of my) orpheus’s fantastic fucking ‘i hear the walls repeating the falling of my feet and it sounds like drumming’ bit, with the workers giving her backup. god. so fucking good.

and then, again, i never saw the 2017 version, but ‘doubt comes in’ in that one is still melancholy even on eurydice’s parts; she’s hopeful, but she’s alone, entirely relying on orpheus to lead her. i did get to see the broadway version (and bro.... the production value on that.... the LIGHTS first of all, the LIGHTING, and this song in particular? all dark when orpheus sings so you can’t see eurydice, and then cut to eurydice in lights with the workers following? MY DUDE.) and eurydice’s bits in this song are triumphant. she is sure they will get out, she is dancing and turning back to the workers as she sings she is right behind him (they sing back: we are right behind you). she is following him and sure of him, and she is with the workers and they are with her.

which is part of why ‘sing it again’ does so little for me, actually? like, orpheus had his chance, and he fucked it up, and yes it’s a beautiful story and we want to think he’d do it right, but this is nothing like the end, and singing it again leaves no way to move forward. eurydice led the workers! she gave them her name, she made them care, she was their beacon of hope and what they could become (compare to their previous beacon of hope, persephone, who shows up once a year and sells them remnants of their former lives and does not try to lead them out bcos she’s too caught up in her own anger). eurydice did not make it out with orpheus, but i HAVE to imagine that she and the workers got that taste of freedom, that taste of memory, that taste of solidarity, and would not just forget it again. it becomes more than a love story, it becomes about eurydice’s position of solidarity with the other mortals (something orpheus almost gets, but fails due to insecurity and inexperience and being the outside-savior rather than one of them). and obvs that doesn’t work with the original orpheus and eurydice myth, but listen...... let them bother hades after the end. let them fucking unionize. pls it would be so GOOD i am just! i am just!!

#fdsakjflds i said i didn't have time but HERE WE FUCKING ARE #welp. gonna put this in my tag bcos........ well.#i will first ramble in tags to try adn avoid global tags bcos holy shit this is a long essay #oh also #long post #in case the read more doesn't work #anyway........ hadestown is abt love but more than THAT it SHOULD be about revolution.#hadestown

17 notes · View notes

lily-mj-fae · 3 years

Text

I’m making this post to continue from a comment thread because i hate comments. It takes way too many to say everything at once. So @everlustsstuff this is just my response (this post really got away with me and my thoughts and it got long so i’m putting it under a read more):

First of all. I absolutely do believe Elain has her flaws and faults. A large part of her actions are based on who she is as a person. Her inaction is her biggest fatal flaw. It’s an ugly one, that stems from who she is. It’s awful. And she’s made a few steps in the direction to correct that flaw, but she absolutely has a long way to go. But she’s also not really getting any help there either, because she’s surrounded by people who are content to just leave her as she was. Which kind of leaves her with very few resources to figure herself out.

Who she is, stems from a mixture of nature and nurture. The nature part for her I believe is that desire to people please, the kindness, the general bright and bubbly joy that exudes from her. Just her brains wiring. (and this is a part that i get because that is me too. Just in general a really happy person even in some of the bleakest times. And that is one thing I love elain for. Is how much Feyre admires that. Because believe me, enough people look down on that behavior and it sucks, even if you haven’t done anything wrong).

I do have a tendency to speak more on other people’s actions around her, because I’m far more interested in how other people’s actions affect that (also because like I said, i already get the first part. so it’s really just not as interesting to me). And on top of those things, Elain has been very sheltered, at all points by people around her. (Most Notably her sisters). And that has had a huge part on who she is. Let’s be honest, the girls raised each other. Which has clearly led to some issues (because ya know, they were children and siblings, not parents).

Two of the biggest things that annoyed the hell out of me in ACOTAR are:

1) Why didn’t they grow their own vegetables? Elain had a garden. They were clearly too broke to buy them. And for days when they didn’t have meat, it would be a great option. Like, did they seriously only eat meat? IDK, it seems so unlikely to me. So why wasn’t Elain growing them?

I know a lot of fandom headcanons that she did. I on ocassion will. But i think my friend has it right. Headcanon that she TRIED but it didn’t work out and then likely gave up (because ya know, i think it’s another character trait, even flaw. She seems quick to give up). Because when gardening with Feyre in the nice house, she mentions that she plans on learning how to grow vegetables (which I think is a form of growth within her character. No matter how small it is to us as readers). (also tying into this why doesn’t she cook? but again, something that she’s now worked on rectifying on her own...in the sense she sought instruction on her own volition, to learn from the shadow twins).

2) That when Feyre asks Nesta to chop wood, and Nesta refuses, why doesn’t Elain just go do it herself? Or why doesn’t Feyre just ask Elain. Like i know Feyre mentions not being sure if Elain just doesn’t know what to do or is just actively choosing not to do anything, but then...why not ask her? She was willing to ask Nesta. So Elain doesn’t get asked, and she doesn’t do it herself. Instead we see her plead with Nesta. Is she just incapable? As a people pleaser (and someone who has at least shown interest, albeit later in the series in learning things), it would actually be totally within character for her to go do it herself when Feyre so clearly asks for help and Nesta rejects. Imagine how happy they’d all be if they had wood and Nesta and feyre weren’t arguing about it. So why doesn’t she?

I have my theories. And yes. It 100% has to do with her being sheltered. Do I think that she tried, and Nesta went to stop her? Yes I do. I absolutely do. It would be within character for Nesta, who doesn’t want her sister to be subjected to the harsher side of reality. (Especially because i stand by my comparison of her protectiveness. Which I think would have started sometime after their mother died. I think it would have been the first time they ever saw Elain not her bubbly happy self. And let me tell you. When people care about a bubbly person who is not being bubbly. They get WORRIED. MASSIVELY). But I could be wrong. I just don’t think Nesta’s pattern of behavior has changed that much (aside from her choosing to step in and help Feyre on her own, not because she was harassed into it) that it is terribly unlikely.

Elain is sheltered a lot. Even sheltered from the consequences of HER choices and actions. Which mean she’s not going to learn or grow from those experiences. It seems that Feyre herself has desires/expectations that Nesta should, should be doing her part moreso than she does Elain (obviously she still has hopes/expecations with Elain too. But most of the ire is directed at nesta is feels like). So if she’s spent a large part of her life being sheltered, taking actions that she doesn’t necessarily think about the worst that can happen. Because she doesn’t see it. I mean, She is the one that chose to help Feyre first (when Feyre came to involve them in things on her own). She was the one that pushed for them to do exactly what Feyre was asking. But who ultimately did most of the work? Nesta. And we see in Wings and Ember that Nesta will not allow Elain to be involved. Because she wants to protect Elain from the potential consequences of Graysen finding out. If he found out, and only Nesta had been involved, he already hated her, he’d probably whisk Elain away to keep her safe. But if he knew Elain had been involved? Even though she was trying to help her sister, and everyone else, he’d have left her. With all this in mind, it’s a massive downfall to Elain. But it is also inline 100% with the life she’s led.

And we see Nesta and Feyre again, try to protect her from the fall out of her choices, when Elain comes up with her plan to help the humans. One in which she is vital to. Nesta and Feyre immediately seek to protect her from the pain they all know is coming. And this is where we see Elain starting to outwardly recognize actions have consequences (because she does acknowledge that they failed Feyre when growing up to defend Nesta from the inner circle completely blaming Nesta and not her and she doesn’t try to excuse it. She accepts her guilt there). Because she reminds them that 1) Graysen wouldn’t see any of them except her. and 2) She understands that things are already bad. But it doesn’t change that she needs to face it (Again, some good growth in her character for recognizing that).

Second of all I don’t disagree that the characters need to stop babying Elain. I don’t even disagree that Nesta has stopped (I just disagree with how she’s pushing her away all together. But that’s Nesta coping with her trauma poorly. Just as i think Elain’s repressing is a poor coping mechanism because it’s going to come back and bite her in the ass when it all bubbles out of her control). I’m glad Nesta has taken a step back. It might be a few too many in the wrong direction. And it’s absolutely going to have an effect on their relationship, but I’m glad Nesta is trying to separate from Elain. I want Elain to get away from the IC (at least as a group together). I want her to get the hell out of the Night court and see the world. Because that’s the one thing we know she does want to do. And that would come with experiences.

But them continuing to baby her, mixed with some of her past experiences, doesn’t change

I want to see Elain be trained. Give her some self-defense training. Try to help her train in her power. Let her get out.

The reason I bring up Nesta especially when Elain is being criticized for “not helping Nesta” when Nesta did so much for her, is because I really don’t think Nesta did so much to help Elain as she did to simply protect her. Not only because I feel like it’s making assumptions out of large chunks of time that we know nothing about (time between acowar and acofas, and acofas and acosf), but because it also makes assumptions of what is going on that we cant see because of limited perspectives. And because it makes a lot, what I feel, are inaccurate statements in Nesta’s favor.

Which is where my comparison of Nesta to Tamlin comes in. Because despite everything, despite his temper problems that were a real problem, there are parallels that i’ve pointed out a few times. And Elain, being who she isn’t, isn’t going to fight back as much as Feyre did (those there are certainly some parallels between Elain and Feyre too). She would rather keep the peace. So she mostly accepts it. She is repressing her trauma and just doing what’s expected, the way Feyre was kind of trying to. But we do see her push back a little. Namely to help feyre and then to help the humans. But in these instances, she knew exactly what was needed. Expectations were laid out in front of her. Everything she has done, every step she’s taken, there’s been something there to guide her in that direction. and now, she has no direction. She knows Nesta needs help. But that’s the one thing she doesn’t know how to do. She used to just go to Nesta, comfort her, etc. And that’s not working. Nesta is pushing her away. With that, plus the fact that she has her own traumas and her own issues and figuring out her new place in this new world, that quick to give up (though i don’t call at least a year [war was in spring, acofas was winter, and from exerpt we know elain at least had something to do with nesta through her spring birthday] being “quick” even if they are immortals. Time is still going to mean something to them for a while). But most of the conversations and actual plans and events, happened without Elain present. Elain isn’t aware of those things going on. They’re trying not to key her in. So because she’s not there for those, because things are being planned but likely not told to her until well after, she’s not able to speak up on those. She doesn’t know what to speak out on. She’s not so independent.

Overall, i think that was actually so incredibly detrimental to her. Was Elain in a good headspace? Absolutely not. Could it have easily backfired for her to try to speak her mind at the highlord’s meeting? Absolutely. But not giving her a choice, not allowing her those experiences, kept her from learning or growing. It kept her locked away and secluded. Which is another reason, at least when it comes to this mentioned debate, i don’t like it. Like, i have been told, Nesta was with Elain 24/7 from Nesta stans trying to act like this was all so great for Elain’s character and absolutely the best thing for her. Even though that statement is so false it’s not even funny. And so many people act like this was good, yet think tamlin is this irredeemable monster even just for his similar actions (those are not the actions I think should be irredeemable. I think it’s destroying the study in a violent manner that would have seriously injured feyre if she hadn’t been able to shield, and the outright ignoring her pleas to not be locked inside, and the trying to force her back to the point where he sided with hybern that should fall into those, but eh i don’t care about him enough to say he’s irredeemable) even though the same thing happens to Elain. But with Elain it’s: “It was for her own good.” “They were just protecting her” “They just love her”. Which...is exactly why Tamlin was so fiercely protective of Feyre. I think it’s the one good thing about the actions. They were based in love. But also incredibly detrimental.

Because Elain was so excluded and sheltered from what was going on, she ended up being left behind and alone. Left with strangers (Nuala and Cerridwen...even Amren, who is barely an acquaintance) when they ran off to do their things, and then left to be a sitting duck in the middle of a battlefield. (Velaris remaining untouched while they were in the battles, Elain would have been safer away from them). If they were going to have her there, they should have trained her some. And so Elain (who gets mocked for not wanting to wear leathers) seeks what little comfort she can, in the tent and in the clothing she wears. Because that’s an overwhelming place to be when you’re been left in the dark about everything and have no useful or practical skills.

And yes, she could have learned. She could have done what Nesta did and tried to go help heal. Or anything like that. And she didn’t. Again, because she lacked the initiative because she was in a different place (not in the same tent that most of those things were going on that say led Nesta to try to help the healers) and it wasn’t placed before her. And i would love to see her learn to get past that in future books.

But I do think a lot of her actions are driven by those around her because she is a people pleaser. She’s not confrontational (except in a few small instances). And she doesn’t challenge a lot. She accepts a lot at face value. And it’s biting her in the ass. So she’s going to need to learn.

#elain archeron #elain archeron meta #?? maybe #acotar #i'm not tagging as anti #because i'm not hating on any of the characters #i don't really hate any of them anyway

9 notes · View notes

elenathehun · 3 years

Text

Watching the Clone Wars, part 7

Well, this is a better batch of episodes than last time, solely due to not having to actually skip an episode because it was too awful to watch. With that said, click on keep reading to see reviews of "Brain Invaders", "Grievous Intrigue", "The Deserter", "Lightsaber Lost", "The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore".

"Brain Invaders" (2x08)

I'd rate this as above-average. I am not really into horror as a genre, as I previously noted, so I was pretty grossed out by the brain worms. However, it was a pretty nice Ahsoka and Barriss episode, although I think it's a bit weird that four Jedi Knights/Masters are necessary to interrogate Poggle.

Anyway, it's not an episode of The Clone Wars without some unexpected graphic clone violence. I don't blame Ahsoka or Barris for killing poor Trap - I even think this was well-written and conveyed the desperation of their situation well - but good god, it was startling. Also tense: that final approach to the medical station.

Not good: Kit Fisto entering a ship that's infested with brain worms with no PPE. C'mon, man, I know your headtails are majestic, but keep it covered up! Also not super great: Anakin and Ahsoka's little talk at then end. A lot of their interaction just feels forced. I honestly feel like this should have been a dialogue of some kind between Ahsoka and Barriss.

"Grievous Intrigue" (2x09)

Sort of a meh episode. I understand Eeth Koth is a bit of a bad-ass in the comics, and that does sort of carry over in this episode, but mostly it just seems like a vehicle for various Jedi Masters to quip while crossing blades with this somewhat delightful murder-cyborg. Obi-Wan gives a furious monologue to Grievous, which rings a bit hollow since the clone army has had precious little screen-time (at least relatively speaking) to exhibit their loyalty or spirit.

Shout-out to Cody and those 212th soldiers dog-piling Grievous. If only you'd had a lightsaber, Cody, you probably could have killed him right then and there. And if the writers let you and your fellows out of the background more often, Obi-Wan's speech would have rung more true at the time this episode aired.

"The Deserter" (2x10)

I struggled with accurately summarizing why this episode left me cold. After all, the focus is split between Rex and the pursuit of Grievous, and I love most of the clone-centric episodes I've seen thus far. But after some thought, I realized this episode felt like the culmination of a character arc that never actually occurred for Rex, at least on-screen. After all, this episode is only the third time he's been promoted to something more than the token Clone Character Who Doesn't Die At The End - the previous two episodes I thought were legitimately Rex-centric were Season One's "Rookies" and "The Hidden Enemy". We still barely know the guy, but in this episode we watch him wrestle with doubt about his role and reason for existence when faced with a fellow clone who's made radically different choices than he has, before triumphantly stating his place is with the army. This feels like it would be a great episode, if only we were more attached to the character. Writers have to build-up to those kind of moments, or they ring false.

Anyway, is it just me or is Obi-Wan getting a little angry in this episode?

"Lightsaber Lost" (2x11)

I wasn't expecting much from this episode, but it was actually very good. Aside from the annoying Cad Bane arc at the beginning of the season, the Ahsoka episodes have been improving a lot this season - possibly because she's been separated from Anakin for a lot of them. Losing a lightsaber feels like the sort of problem a Padawan might face, and the solution feels like the sort of thing an impatient teenager would resort to. Tera Sinube is a gem - I am always a sucker for the elderly teaching the next generation, and he does it so well! The animation was well done too, especially in the chase scenes.

I've been ragging on TCW for it's lack of interconnectivity between episodes and episode arcs, but this is a stand-alone episode done right: it focuses on what a secondary character (yes, I know she's supposed to be a main character, but she doesn't feel like it quite yet), allows them to learn a lesson that develops their characters in an organic way, and reverberates through future episodes (I hope!).

"The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore" (2x12 -2x14)

Oof. So, this was the arc that actually made me quit watching TCW the first time around. I am very lukewarm on Mandalorians in general, so that wasn't great. But aside from that, and from the well-attested issue of everyone on Mandalore looking like a Storm Front fantasy, this arc exhibits the same structural writing defects the entire show has shown far - and honestly, life is too short to watch bad TV. At this point, I know this main issue will never be corrected in the entire show run, so I can accept it and push through in the name of completionism and writing research, but at the time I wasn't active in fandom and it was enormously easy to just stop watching and move onto other, better, shows and books.

Now, I thought long and hard about how to review these episodes, but I think it's useful in this case to interview them as a singular block instead of individual episodes. The story is largely cohesive, if a bit strained. It is essentially Palpatine's PT plot writ small: he wants to take over Mandalore (a reason is never really explicated in the actual story, so who knows why), and he's doing it by essentially creating a false war between the CIS proxies, Death Watch, and the Republic proxy, which is Duchess Satine. If all goes according to plan, Satine will be shown as ineffectual and unable to rule her people, and the GAR can occupy Mandalore for reasons of "public safety". This will inflame the Mandalorians, who aren't part of the Republic and don't want to be, and send them rushing in the arms of the CIS-allied Death Watch, starting a cycle of radicalization and violence which will end (at least from Palpatine's POV) with Mandalore firmly in his grasp, and all potential opposition killed in the Civil War he engineered.

As enormously stupid as the whole plot sounds, it's a valid historical tactic for imperial powers looking to expand. And that's lead us the the primary flaw of this story: The Jedi are the Bad Guys. Just ignore the tangled mess of Mandalorian canon, retcons, and expanded universe, past and present - in the show itself, they are presented as a smaller, weaker neighbor-state, and the Jedi are acting as agents of an expansionary military power, interfering with their internal politics specifically for the purpose of a soft invasion. And that's an interesting story! But that story is deliberately obfuscated and hobbled because the writers and producers of TCW were and are ever-so-concerned with making the Jedi as sympathetic as possible, even in situations where they shouldn't be.

Part of that hobbling is Satine's character. Satine is badly written, but she's badly written in a very specific way that has been common to most of the non-CIS political antagonists the show has presented thus far. Satine's most interesting characteristic is that she doesn't want to involve Mandalore with the war - and who can blame her? The Republic and the CIS have nothing to offer to her or her people. The only thing that will happen is the exploitation of Mandalore's natural resources (at best) or the destruction of her people, caught between two Great Powers who obviously don't care for her people's struggle. That's an interesting character, right? A POV we haven't seen in this show so far, which has consistently been from the Jedi POV, which is pretty firmly in the CIS = monsters and Republic = assholes (but democratic assholes!) camp.

But it's a POV that is pretty uncomplimentary of the Jedi role in this war, which means Satine must be crippled by an obnoxious belief in pacifism, like the unlikably-written Lurmen in season one, and also weighted down by a personal connection to an avatar of the Republic, like Senator Farr and his "family friendship" with Padme overcoming the fact that his people are starving and getting no support from the Republic. I have heard people argue that TCW, written as it was in the late 2000s, is reacting against the excesses of the War on Terror. I am less than convinced, mostly because every single anti-war character is reduced to a flat caricature of an annoying pacifist that can be safely defeated by the ever-so-kind warrior monks in the space of an episode or two before being cast aside for the next adventure.

Because Satine's motivations are poorly written, her actions don't make a lick of sense. In "The Mandalore Plot", she's clearly escorting Obi-Wan around under duress - but in "Voyage of Temptation", she's apparently going with the Senators willingly to the Coruscant, to essentially beg the Senate to not invade. Why not write her as an unwilling "guest" of the Republic, invited without recourse to defend her people's sovereignty? Well, that would show Obi-Wan in a very unflattering light, wouldn't it? But in "Duchess of Mandalore" she's back to being a prisoner in everything but name, escaping custody to receive an unaltered copy of her dead minister's speech.

Now, Obi-Wan helps her at that point...but it's clearly due to some poorly-written romantic feelings. I am not interested in any Padme/Anakin parallels, mostly because I find it incredibly tedious and honestly not helpful in exploring Anakin's Leap into the Dark Side. This story is a gigantic missed opportunity to show the Jedi (or at least, a representative of the Jedi) wrestle with their roles as avatars of the republic, when the republic is so obviously manufacturing a reason to invade Mandalore. Palpatine is obviously orchestrating this whole thing, but he still (at this point in the show) requires the consent of the Senate to essentially annex more territory - and the Senate is perfectly happy to give him that consent, by the way. There is a fantastic story on the Jedi side about the clash of ideals vs realities, and the writers totally side-stepped it.

But pulling the focus out a little further, that has actually been par for the course for most of the Obi-Wan stories of season 2. He's been consistently more and more irritated about the war as the season has gone on, and made some off-hand comments about the ungratefulness of the Republic populace that, in the hands of a more competent writer, could have been a multi-season character arc about loss of faith in fallible human institutions, which would dovetail pretty well with his characterization in both RotS and ANH. Instead, his character remains the static wise-cracking Good Guy; Satine is the Designated Love Interest, unable to develop along more interesting and independent lines; and this arc falls deeply flat as a result.

They're not the only characters who are horribly underwritten. I mean, here we are at the end of Season 2, and have we yet seen a sympathetic CIS character, or an accounting of how Palpatine was able to take advantage of already extant fractures in the Republic to create a shadowy cabal dedicated to tearing it apart? No. It's all war crimes and evil laughter so far. The Good Guys always win (until they don't), the bad guys are always Very Bad, and there are no shades of gray in this massive galaxy. Again, ignoring the complicated Mandalorian backstory, Death Watch is extremely under-baked as villains. There could have been a fascinating interplay between Satine and Pre about their different visions for their people's future, but just as Satine is a flat Pacifist caricature, Pre is a dull Terrorist caricature.

I have to give a special mention to the horrible Love Confession of "Voyage of Temptation". This is the episode where Satine is written most consistently as Peak Pacifist. If she had instead been written as anti-war (but not necessarily a philosophical pacifist), her escape from Tal Merrik would have been a great inversion of that trope - and in fact, I thought it was at first, when she "confessed", and then had to make an annoyed face when Obi-Wan didn't immediately play along. Instead, they played it straight, and I've never felt more simpatico with a villain than when Tal Merrik complained about their timing. That fact that Satine's "pacifism" is then used as an excuse for Obi-Wan and Satine to hesitate to kill a terrorist, leading Anakin to kill him...like, c'mon. I get it, the writers want to show his fall to the dark side, you gotta play the ominous theme music, but is this really a particularly evil act by Anakin? I'm gonna be honest, if a cop or an armed civilian kills a mass shooter, no one is castigating them for doing so, but instead congratulating them for stopping a murderer from killing again.

Final note and the only one that explicitly addresses the Mandalorian elephant in the room: I hate the Darksaber. Like, I know we all gave KJA shit for the original Darksaber novel, but the fact that Filoni (or Lucas?) repurposed the name for a SPECIAL MANDALORIAN LIGHTSABER fills me with intense rage. They're fucking gun knights, you coward, stop inserting your weird Arthurian hard-on into my western samurai sci-fi pastiche.

And that's it for this batch of episodes. Up next: Boba Fett makes his first appearance in our chronological viewing, and we return to Mandalore a second time, much to my sorrow.

#watching the clone wars #star wars #star wars tcw #television is hypnotoad

4 notes · View notes