#this is from a Lotf comic I’m making btw

[mayfriend-archive]

Totally understand if you're not up for it and fully recognize the ronald mcdonald dom/sub anon vibes which is an AMAZING post btw but like...now i'm curious, what the hell did Lord of the Flies anon DO that got him blocked for the discourse? like...i just can't wrap my head around high school lit being...uh...that inflammatory i guess?

Okay so, I'll start by saying I've had a new anon from apparently the same anon saying they are NOT the person I blocked, just a rando making the same points, but I'll answer your question anyway just to set out why this person in particular got blocked, out of the several thousand who reblogged/commented on that very successful addition to the LoTF post I made.

First off, I added the 'real life Lord of the Flies' story because I thought it was a good story. I had read about it only a couple days beforehand in Humankind and, after reading out the entire chapter to my parents who weren't very interested, I was excited that there was not only a post where it would be relevant to post, but that I wouldn't be hijacking it, as it was already rejecting the widespread interpretation taught in many schools, that humanity is inherently savage.

When making the addition, I a) did not think it would get more than a couple reblogs, because the post was already at 50k notes and I figured anyone that might be interested would already have seen it, and b) I did not know the very specific context that prompted William Golding to write the book; all I knew was that he had been a teacher at a public school (basically, the poshest schools in the country - think Eton, Harrow, very 'old money' places that pump out Conservative politicians by the bucket-load 🤢) who hated his job and the boys he taught (which, valid), and new information I'd been given in Humankind - that Golding had said to his wife one day, "Wouldn't it be a good idea to write a story about some boys on an island, showing how they would really behave?" - which had no mention of The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne, which I have since learned was the text that Golding loathed enough to write an entire novel in refutation of - and included what I considered a very telling letter from Golding to his publisher, in which Golding wrote of his belief that 'even if we start with a clean slate, our nature compels us to make a muck of it.' Another Golding quote that I believe portrays his belief in humanity's 'innate savagery' is that "man produces evil as a bee produces honey."

Obviously, the author of a book putting forward the case for humanity's inherent goodness was going to oppose Golding's hypothesis; Bregman not only noted Golding's literary accomplishments and beliefs, but his personal life.

When I began delving into the author's life, I learned what an unhappy individual he'd been. An alcoholic. Prone to depression. A man who, as a teacher, once divided his pupils into gangs and encouraged them to attack each other. "I have always understood the Nazis," Golding confessed, "because I am of that sort by nature." (Humankind by Rutger Bregman, p. 24-25)

I have bolded the part about him as a teacher, because it is incredibly relevant to the original post that I commented on, which begins with a comic of a teacher locking her class in to see them 'recreate' Lord of the Flies, something which the follow up comments before mine staunchly reject as both misunderstanding the point of the book, and the fact that it took the kids in Lord of the Flies a significant amount of time without adult supervision to go 'savage'. This misreading of the text is widespread enough that when Golding won the Nobel Prize for Lord of the Flies, the Swedish Nobel committee wrote that his book 'illuminate[s] the human condition in the world of today'. Whether or not they misread it is beyond my expertise - they do at least mention the factors of the outside world neglected by many when analysing the book, but still seem to believe it says something about human nature as a whole rather than just, to quote thedarkbutbeige 'British kids being rat bastards' - but Golding quite happily took his Nobel prize on this basis. Which, in fairness, I would too. It's a fucking Nobel prize.

It was with this knowledge, and this knowledge alone, that I stated in my now very, very widely read comment that Golding 'wrote the book to be a dick', in response to the tags of the person I reblogged from. As I said, I now know that Golding did not write the book (solely) because he hated the kids he taught, but as a response to The Coral Island and the general idea that clearly the British were inherently civilsed, whilst the people they colonised and enslaved were inherently savage. So. That's the background.

The anon - or rather, the person I thought was anon - was the sole exception out of dozens of replies, who instead of telling me about The Coral Island politely decided it was time to go ALL CAPS and regurgitate points already made by thespaceshipoftheseus, and implied that the only reason that the real life Tongan castaways didn't go all Lord of the Flies was because they weren't British. Not because they weren't surrounded by violence like the boys in Lord of the Flies, or there wasn't a World War ongoing, or that they weren't the upper, upper, upper crust of a class-obsessed society like Britain - but because they weren't British. A complete inversion of the concept that Golding was trying to get across - now, instead of all of humanity being equally prone to savagery in the right conditions, it was solely nationality that determined it. As in, the British were inherently savage, but nobody else was.

I, trying for humour, made the terrible mistake of replying to them.

I won't lie, I was absolutely blown away that this was real life. What I think they were trying to do was be that Cool Tumblr Person who, after somebody's been shitty on a post, goes to their blog and sees something Damning in their about/description. In an ideal world, I imagine I'd have gone nuts or done something Unforgiveable. In what I can only call the rant that followed, they stated several times that I needed to go back to high school to get some 'proper literary analysis' skills and that the story of the Tongan castaways was completely unrelated to the point at hand which. I mean, I disagree, considering that I made the addition, but I couldn't get my head around how commenting on a post that was already rejecting the thesis that the 'point' of Lord of the Flies was that humanity was inherently savage and was, in fact, about how kids - British or otherwise - learn how to function from the adults around them, and that traumatised, terrified children aren't going to create a mini-Utopia, and put forward a real life example of how without the key additions of an ongoing world war, a colonial Empire and the subsequent mindset of thinking you are 'inherently civilised' and therefore can't do anything wrong, actually, people just want to take care of each other.

A friend has since asked me why I even have 'england' in my description. To be honest, it's a timezone thing - I talk to a lot of people online who don't share my timezone, and it generally makes me feel like if I don't reply immediately because it's 3am, they have the tools to see that I'm not in their timezone and not just ignoring them. I did consider changing it to 'british' or 'uk' after it was... 'used against me', I guess, simply because I didn't want to deal with it, but you know what. No. Not gonna do that. I am from England, and I have never hid that fact. I have a tag called 'uk politics', during Eurovision I refer to the UK's act as 'us' (even if I really, really don't want to. Because James Newman slaughtered that song and it was downright embarrassing), I regularly post stuff in my personal tag about where I live (and mostly complain about this piece of shit government). If people really think my nationality makes every point I make null and void, then they don't have to follow me or interact with my posts; tumblr is big, and I am one medium-small blog very easily passed over.

I did reply to them, trying to explain the above, but their next response really just doubled down. Because I used the word British instead of English - foolishly because the posts above mine focused on Britishness, and also because although Golding was English and taught English kids, the pro-Imperialism author of The Coral Island, R. M. Bannatyne was actually Scottish so, ding ding ding, falls into the 'British' category - they then decided that I was somehow trying to pretend I wasn't English and made all the same points, before ending with this doozy:

At this point, I knew there was nothing to be gained from replying, because if we're whipping out conditions like they're pokemon cards then there's no actual conversation anymore, and I'm not going to start mudslinging like an identity politician. They made up their mind, and I figured there could be no harm in letting them think that they 'won' by blocking them instead of replying.

Until the ask. INNATE ENGLISH SAVAGERY did, I'll admit, make me think it was them, back again. I even thought up a really good response approximately 12 hours after I replied, I was that sure. Until the second message came in, and said they were just someone who came from the post and made the same point by chance. So the saga draws to a close... for now.

It may have been them, it may not have been - the anon feature makes it impossible to be sure, but as the second message I got said, we're in a heatwave. It's too hot to argue. And I've just written a goddamn essay about a book I dislike anyway.

My pasty English ass is going to go melt. If there's Disk Horse, do not tell me. I am Done™

#emily speaks #asks #anon #lord of the flies #this is long. this is so long. why is this so long #i literally got out humankind so i could quote directly. how is this my life

[jadedjo]

Hiya, i was wondering where you would reccomend a star wars fan wanting to get into the EU should start, im particularly interested in mara jade, thanks! I love your blog btw x

HI! I see you’re a recent addition to my randomness! Welcome!

The EU/Legends is a bit hit or miss quite frankly. Since you know about Mara I’ll assume you know about Timothy Zahn’s original Thrawn Trilogy, Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, & The Last Command. If not, start there. 

As for the rest…. the old EU didn’t have a cohesive story group till much later in its life so the authors would pick and choose from other people’s work and usually get other authors OC’s characterizations wrong. 

There are a few interesting books that spring to mind. The Truce at Bakura, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, The Courtship of Princess Leia (goes a bit OOC but the worldbuilding is A++), Tatooine’s Ghost (for your Han/Leia feels), Kevin J Anderson’s Jedi Academy Trilogy if you want to read Luke starting up the Jedi Academy on Yavin IV–doesn’t really hold up for me on reread but a first-timer might find it interesting). Do you like x-wing pilots? Do you like Wedge Antilles? The X-Wing Series by Michael A Stackpole and the Wraith Series by Aaron Allston are fun.

Were you left wanting after watching Solo? Try The Young Han Solo Trilogy, The Paradise Snare, Hutt Gambit, & Rebel Dawn. A much more satisfying back story for my favorite smuggler. There is also another trilogy but its just random adventures set between the other books but they were written first and are more space adventure then character building. 

But, as far as wanting to read more Mara, she only appears briefly in a few books (more like cameos). Has a small part in the Corellian Trilogy, Ambush at Corellia, Assult at Selonia, & Showdown at Centerpoint. 

Otherwise, you have to go back to Zahn go get any good Mara stories. She as a few solo stories and comics: Alliances (novel), Choices of One (novel), Mara Jade -  By The Emporer’s Hand (comic), & if you can get your hands on any of the Tales Of books she has a few short stories in Tales from Jabba’s Palance (Sleight of Hand), Tales from The Empire (First Contact - which is more about Talon Karrde then Mara but it is when they meet) and Tales from the New Republic (Jade Solitare).

Then there is the Hand of Thrawn Duology, Specters of the Past & Visions of the Future where those of us who had to wait for each book to come out finally had our patience rewarded with Luke and Mara getting together LINK as you need the wayback machine to find it. And the last of the EU pre-story group era, Survivors Quest which is Zahn again and is all Luke and Mara sharing an adventure together.

Everything past The Duology is Del Rey as they took over the rights from Bantam Spectr. Del Rey’s era can be broken down into 3 main storylines with multiple books in each.

New Jedi Order (NJO)  22 Books/short stories

Legacy of the Force (LOTF) 15 Books/short stories

Fate of the Jedi (FOTJ) 9 Books

Mara appears in NJO and LOTF SPOILER she doesn’t make it out of LOTF

A lot of fans lost interest at NJO but I love them! They added so much more drama and character building to what had become a stagnant world. You can only fight the Empire so long before it gets old. Other authors had tried to bring in new villains but none lasted more than their own books or were quietly pushed aside when they failed to get readers interested. But an extra-galactic invasion with aliens that use biotechnology was interesting and new! Tested the characters in new and interesting ways and gave them new perspectives on morality and the Force.

The LOTF is where even more fans abandoned ship and is where Disney!canon got most of its inspiration for the Sequal Trilogy but the EU did it better.

FOTJ is kinda weird but if you made it all the way to this point you might as well keep going! 

The last EU book to be published was Crucible which was supposed to be a farewell to the old characters (Luke, Han, Leia, Lando) to make way for the next generation. There were even book on the list that would follow this setup but…

And everything was canceled and the EU turned Legends, was retired and Crucible was like the last hurrah instead. 

I never got into the prequel era so I can’t recommend anything from there, but if you want the full list of books try here. A bit of a daunting list but ask around to see if any are worth your time.

Thanks for the ask! I’m always up for sharing my love of Star Wars Legends!

#cynical-echo #I love asks #don't stop asking #star wars legends #book recs #jade rambles