#"Geneva Edition" | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

cappymightwrite · 3 years ago

Text

Jon Snow, Manfred & The Byronic Hero: Part 2

Previous Posts: PART 1

Hopefully Part 1 served as a good introduction on the topic and characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as how Jon Snow in particular is likely an iteration of this figure. But now we come to the real meat of this meta series — a closer look at Byron's dramatic poem Manfred (1816–1817), and more importantly, its titular character in comparison to Jon Snow. I was originally going to do an analysis and comparison of two key episodes in Manfred and A Storm of Swords, Jon VI, but have since decided to give that its own post... that's right kids, there will be a part 3!

(Detail from Lord Byron, Thomas Phillips, 1813)

So... why Manfred? Why not Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, or The Corsair, or Don Juan, or any other work by Lord Byron? Well, I'll tell you why, my sweet summer children. It's because of THIS:

Manfred/Manfryds and Byrons in ASOIAF, by order of first appearance and publication:

Ser Manfred Swann (ASOS, Jaime VIII)

Ser Manfred Dondarrion (The Hedge Knight)

Manfred Lothston (The Sworn Sword)

Manfryd o' the Black Hood (AFFC, Brienne I)

Manfryd Yew (AFFC, Jaime V)

Ser Byron the Beautiful (AFFC, Alayne II, TWOW, Alayne I)

Ser Byron Swann (ADWD, Tyrion III)

Manfryd Merlyn of Kite (ADWD, Victarion I)

Manfryd Mooton, Lord of Maidenpool (The Princess and the Queen, TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (TWOIAF)

Manfred Hightower, Lord of the Hightower (Fire and Blood)

Like... what the hell, George?

I find this very interesting, very interesting indeed! *cough* intentional, very intentional *cough* And I have to thank @agentrouka-blog for reminding me of the existence of these Manfreds/Manfryds, and thus pointing me in this particular direction. This evidence is, for me, my smoking gun, it's why I feel justified in exploring this specific work. In my opinion, it really strongly confirms that GRRM is aware of Manfred, he is aware of its author — as a literary name, it is pretty much exclusively connected to Byron, it's like Hamlet to Shakespeare, or Heathcliff to Emily Brontë. In fact, GRRM likes it enough to use this name several times in fact, its frequency of use aided by a slight variation on its spelling.

So, as we can see, there are a striking number of Manfred/Manfryds (9!!) featured in the ASOIAF universe, whereas Byron (2) is used a bit more sparingly — perhaps because the latter, if more liberally used, would become far more recognisable as an overt literary reference? Interestingly, though, we can see a direct link between the two names as both bear the surname Swann: Ser Manfred Swann and Ser Byron Swann (note the exact spelling of Manfred here, as opposed to Manfryd). Ser Byron was alive during the Dance of Dragons and died trying to kill the dragon Syrax, whereas Ser Manfred was alive during Aegon V's reign and had a young Ser Barristan as his squire. So, in terms of ancestry, Byron came before Manfred, which makes sense since Lord Byron created the character of Manfred; he is his authorial/literary progenitor, if you will.

But why Swann, though? Is there any significance to that surname? Well, I did a little bit of digging and turned up something very interesting, at least in my opinion. In Percy Bysshe Shelley's poem Lines written among the Euganean Hills (1818), in its sixth stanza, the poet addresses the city of Venice... the “tempest-cleaving Swan” in the eighth line is clearly meant to be his friend and contemporary, Lord Byron, that city’s most famous expatriate:

That a tempest-cleaving Swan Of the songs of Albion, Driven from his ancestral streams By the might of evil dreams, Found a nest in thee;

(st. 6, l. 8-12)

Ah ha! But let's not forget that the Swanns are also a house from the stormlands — stormlander Swanns vs. "tempest-cleaving Swan." It seems a nice little homage, doesn't it? You could also argue that the battling swans of House Swann's sigil are a possible reference to Byron's fondness for boxing (he apparently received "pugilistic tuition" at a club in Bond Street, London). But to make the references to Byron too overt would ruin the subtly, so it isn't necessary, in my opinion, for the Swanns to be completely steeped in Byronisms.

All in all, it would be very neat of GRRM if the reasoning behind Byron and Manfred Swann is because of this reference to Lord Byron by Shelley. How these names and the characters that bear them might further reference Byron and Manfred is a possible discussion for another day! It's all just very interesting, very noteworthy, and highlights how careful GRRM is at choosing the names of his characters, even very minor, seemingly insignificant ones.

(Illustration of Villa Diodati from Finden's Illustrations of the Life and Works of Lord Byron, Edward Finden, 1833)

Now onto the actual poem, and the ways in which Jon Snow could being referencing/paralleling Manfred. First things first, a bit of biographical context. Take my hand, and let's travel back in time, way back when, to 1816, the year in which Lord Byron left England forever, his reputation in tatters due to the collapse of his marriage and the rumours of an affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh (plus he was hugely in debt). No doubt, most of us are familiar with the story, but in 1816 Byron travelled to Switzerland, to a villa on Lake Geneva, where he met the Shelleys and suggested that they all pass the time by writing ghost stories.

The most famous story produced by them was, of course, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1818) — which may have served as the partial inspiration behind Qyburn and Robert Strong! Byron himself did begin a story but soon gave it up (yesss, we love an unproductive king); it was completed, however, by his personal physician, John William Polidori, and eventually published, under Byron's name, as The Vampyre (1819). But Byron didn't completely abandon the ghost story project, as later that summer, after a visit by the Gothic novelist M. G. Lewis, he wrote his "supernatural" tragedy, Manfred (1817).*

*I've seen it dated as 1816-17, but the crucial thing to rememeber, in terms of Byron's own biography, is that unlike The Bride of Abydos, he wrote it after his departure from England... this theme of exile will come up later.

Manfred is what is called a "closet drama", so is structured much like a play, with acts and scenes, though it wouldn't have actually been intended to be performed on stage. Indeed, Lord Byron first described Manfred to his publisher as "a kind of poem in dialogue... but of a very wild—metaphysical—and inexplicable kind": "Almost all the persons—but two or three—are Spirits... the hero [is] a kind of magician who is tormented by a species of remorse—the cause of which is left half unexplained—he wanders about invoking these spirits—which appear to him—& are of no use—he at last goes to the very abode of the Evil principle in propria persona [i.e. in person]—to evocate a ghost—which appears—& gives him an ambiguous & disagreeable answer..."*

*As in Part 1, more academic references will be listed in a bibliography at the end of this post.

To sum up the narrative for you, Manfred is a nobleman living in the Bernese Alps, "tormented by a species of remorse", which is never fully explained, but is clearly connected to the death of his beloved Astarte. Through his mastery of poetic language and spell-casting, he is able to summon seven "spirits", from whom he seeks the gift of forgetfulness, but this plea cannot be granted — he cannot escape from his past. He is also prevented from escaping his mysterious guilt by taking his own life, but in the end, Manfred does die, thus defying religious temptations of redemption from sin. He therefore stands outside of societal expectations, a Romantic rebel who succeeds in challenging all of the authoritative powers he faces, ultimately choosing death over submission to the powerful spirits.

According to Lara Assaad, the character of Manfred is the "Byronic hero par excellence", as he shares its typical characteristics found in Byron's other work (as discussed in Part 1), "yet pushed to the extreme." As noted above, there is a defiance to Manfred's character, which is arguable also found in Jon. Certainly though, in all of Byron's works, the Byronic Hero appears as "a negative Romantic protagonist" to a certain extent, a being who is "filled with guilt, despair, and cosmic and social alienation," observes James B. Twitchell. I'll come back to those characteristics presently.

As noted by Assaad, "Byron scholars seem to agree on this definition of the Byronic Hero, however they focus mainly, if not exclusively, on the dynamics of guilt and remorse." Indeed, it is only in more recent years that the incest motif, as well as the influence of Byron's own biography, have been more widely discussed. But perhaps the most compelling aspect of the Byronic Hero is his complex psychology. Although trauma theory only really started to flourish during the 1990s, thus providing deeper insight into the symptoms that follow a traumatic experience, it nevertheless seems, at least to Assaad, that "Byron was familiar with it well before it was first discussed by professionals and diagnosed." As we know, GRRM began writing his series, A Song of Ice and Fire, during the 1990s, and character trauma and its effects feature heavily in his work, most notably in the case of Theon Greyjoy, but also in the memory editing of Sansa Stark in terms of the infamous "Unkiss".*

*The editing, or supressing, of memories is not exclusive to Sansa, however. E.g @agentrouka-blog has theorised a possible memory edit with regards to Tyrion and his first wife Tysha.

But if we return back to that original quote, in which GRRM makes the comparison between Jon and the Byronic Hero, his following statement is also very interesting:

The character I’m probably most like in real life is Samwell Tarly. Good old Sam. And the character I’d want to be? Well who wouldn’t want to be Jon Snow — the brooding, Byronic, romantic hero whom all the girls love. Theon [Greyjoy] is the one I’d fear becoming. Theon wants to be Jon Snow, but he can’t do it. He keeps making the wrong decisions. He keeps giving into his own selfish, worst impulses. [source]

As noted by @princess-in-a-tower, there is a close correspondence between Jon and Theon, with each acting as the other's foil in many respects. In fact, Theon does sort of tick off a few of the Byronic qualities I discussed last time, most notably standing apart from society, that "society" being the Starks in Winterfell, due to him essentially being a hostage. Later on, we see him develop a sense of deep misery as well due to his horrific treatment at the hands of Ramsey Snow. Like Theon, his narrative foil, Jon is also a character deeply informed by trauma (being raised a bastard), but the way they ultimately process and express that specific displacement trauma differs profoundly — Theon expresses it outwardly through his sacking of Winterfell, whereas Jon turns his trauma notably inwards.*

*Obviously, I'm not a medical professional — I'm more looking at this from a literary angle, but the articles I've read for this post do include reference to real medical definitions etc.

Previously, I observed how being "deeply jaded" and having "misery in his heart" were key characteristics of the Byronic Hero, as well as Jon Snow — this trauma theory is a continuation of that. Indeed, to bring it back to Manfred, Assaad goes as far as stating that the poem's titular hero "suffers from what is now widely recognised as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)." I am purposely holding off on discussing what the origin of that trauma is, in relation to Manfred specifically, because, well... it needs a bit of forewarning before I get into it fully. Instead, let's look at the emotions it exacerabates or gives rise to, as detailed by Twitchell, and how they might be evident in Jon and his feelings regarding his bastard status.

(Jonny Lee Miller as Byron in the two part BBC series Byron, 2003)

Guilt

Does Jon suffer guilt due to him being a bastard and secretly wanting to "steal" his siblings' birthright? I'd say a strong yes:

When Jon had been Bran's age, he had dreamed of doing great deeds, as boys always did. The details of his feats changed with every dreaming, but quite often he imagined saving his father's life. Afterward Lord Eddard would declare that Jon had proved himself a true Stark, and place Ice in his hand. Even then he had known it was only a child's folly; no bastard could ever hope to wield a father's sword. Even the memory shamed him. What kind of man stole his own brother's birthright? I have no right to this, he thought, no more than to Ice. – AGOT, Jon VIII He wanted it, Jon knew then. He wanted it as much as he had ever wanted anything. I have always wanted it, he thought, guiltily. May the gods forgive me. – ASOS, Jon XII

But I think Jon's sense of guilt also extends to the high expectations he sets for himself, his "moral superiority" in the face of his bastard status, as discussed in Part 1. He feels guilt pulling him in two different directions, in regards to Ygritte: guilt for loving her, for breaking his vows, and potentially risking a bastard, but also guilt for leaving her, for abandoning her, and potentially leaving her unprotected:

His guilt came back afterward, but weaker than before. If this is so wrong, he wondered, why did the gods make it feel so good? – ASOS, Jon III Ygritte was much in his thoughts as well. He remembered the smell of her hair, the warmth of her body... and the look on her face as she slit the old man's throat. You were wrong to love her, a voice whispered. You were wrong to leave her, a different voice insisted. He wondered if his father had been torn the same way, when he'd left Jon's mother to return to Lady Catelyn. He was pledged to Lady Stark, and I am pledged to the Night's Watch. – ASOS, Jon VI "I broke my vows with her. I never meant to, but..." It was wrong. Wrong to love her, wrong to leave her..."I wasn't strong enough. The Halfhand commanded me, ride with them, watch, I must not balk, I..." His head felt as if it were packed with wet wool. – ASOS, Jon VI

This guilt surrounding leaving the women/girls he cares about unprotected also extends to Arya. Yet it was his need to prove himself as something more than just a bastard, by joining the Watch, which initially prevents him from acting, and which also makes him feel guilt for being a hyprocrite:

Jon felt as stiff as a man of sixty years. Dark dreams, he thought, and guilt. His thoughts kept returning to Arya. There is no way I can help her. I put all kin aside when I said my words. If one of my men told me his sister was in peril, I would tell him that was no concern of his. Once a man had said the words his blood was black. Black as a bastard's heart. – ADWD, Jon VI

I think there is a lack of reconciliation between Jon and his bastard status, between what being a bastard implies in their society: lustful, deceitful, treacherous, more "worldly" etc. Deep down, subconsciously, Jon really rebels against it. You can see that rebellion more clearly in his memories as a younger child, less inhibited:

Every morning they had trained together, since they were big enough to walk; Snow and Stark, spinning and slashing about the wards of Winterfell, shouting and laughing, sometimes crying when there was no one else to see. They were not little boys when they fought, but knights and mighty heroes. "I'm Prince Aemon the Dragonknight," Jon would call out, and Robb would shout back, "Well, I'm Florian the Fool." Or Robb would say, "I'm the Young Dragon," and Jon would reply, "I'm Ser Ryam Redwyne." That morning he called it first. "I'm Lord of Winterfell!" he cried, as he had a hundred times before. Only this time, this time, Robb had answered, "You can't be Lord of Winterfell, you're bastard-born. My lady mother says you can't ever be the Lord of Winterfell." I thought I had forgotten that. Jon could taste blood in his mouth, from the blow he'd taken. – ASOS, Jon XII

But Jon knows this truth about himself, he knows that he has "always wanted it", and that causes him so much guilt because he can't allow himself to be selfish in that regard, because to do so would confirm for him his worst fears... that he truly is a bastard in nature as well as birth — treacherous, covetous, dishonourable.

Despair

As he grows up, learning to curb his emotional outbursts from AGOT, Jon appears more and more stoic upon the surface. But beneath that, buried in his subconscious in the form of dreams, you have this undyling feeling of despair, this trauma connected to his bastard status, his partially unknown heritage:

Not my mother, Jon thought stubbornly. He knew nothing of his mother; Eddard Stark would not talk of her. Yet he dreamed of her at times, so often that he could almost see her face. In his dreams, she was beautiful, and highborn, and her eyes were kind. – AGOT, Jon III

These recurring dreams, sometimes explicitly involving his unknown mother, sometimes not, represent a clear gap, a gaping blank in Jon's personal history and his perception of his identity:

"Sometimes I dream about it," he said. "I'm walking down this long empty hall. My voice echoes all around, but no one answers, so I walk faster, opening doors, shouting names. I don't even know who I'm looking for. Most nights it's my father, but sometimes it's Robb instead, or my little sister Arya, or my uncle." [...]

"Do you ever find anyone in your dream?" Sam asked.

Jon shook his head. "No one. The castle is always empty." He had never told anyone of the dream, and he did not understand why he was telling Sam now, yet somehow it felt good to talk of it. "Even the ravens are gone from the rookery, and the stables are full of bones. That always scares me. I start to run then, throwing open doors, climbing the tower three steps at a time, screaming for someone, for anyone. And then I find myself in front of the door to the crypts. It's black inside, and I can see the steps spiraling down. Somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to. I'm afraid of what might be waiting for me. The old Kings of Winter are down there, sitting on their thrones with stone wolves at their feet and iron swords across their laps, but it's not them I'm afraid of. I scream that I'm not a Stark, that this isn't my place, but it's no good, I have to go anyway, so I start down, feeling the walls as I descend, with no torch to light the way. It gets darker and darker, until I want to scream." He stopped, frowning, embarrassed. "That's when I always wake." His skin cold and clammy, shivering in the darkness of his cell. Ghost would leap up beside him, his warmth as comforting as daybreak. He would go back to sleep with his face pressed into the direwolf's shaggy white fur. – AGOT, Jon IV

"That always scares me", he says quite tellingly. From this key passage, in particular, we can see that Jon feels a deep rooted despair at essentially being unclaimed, unwanted... being without a solid (Stark) identity around which to draw strength and mould himself. He's afraid of being a lone wolf, because as we all know, "the lone wolf dies, but the pack survives," (AGOT, Arya II).

This dream points him in the direction of the crypts — "somehow I know I have to go down there, but I don't want to" — which actually does have the answers he seeks because that is where Lyanna Stark is buried. Yet Jon is "afraid of what might be waiting for [him]", and wants to "scream" with dispair because of the darkness. So, this need for a confirmed identity is a double edged sword, which will no doubt be further complicated when his true parentage is revealed.

Elsewhere, Jon's dreams continue to have this despairing quality to them, often involving Winterfell, the Starks, and especially Ned, which is very interesting on a psychological level:

The grey walls of Winterfell might still haunt his dreams, but Castle Black was his life now, and his brothers were Sam and Grenn and Halder and Pyp and the other cast-outs who wore the black of the Night's Watch. – AGOT, Jon IV

Last night he had dreamt the Winterfell dream again. He was wandering the empty castle, searching for his father, descending into the crypts. Only this time the dream had gone further than before. In the dark he'd heard the scrape of stone on stone. When he turned he saw that the vaults were opening, one after the other. As the dead kings came stumbling from their cold black graves, Jon had woken in pitch-dark, his heart hammering. Even when Ghost leapt up on the bed to nuzzle at his face, he could not shake his deep sense of terror. He dared not go back to sleep. Instead he had climbed the Wall and walked, restless, until he saw the light of the dawn off to the east. It was only a dream. I am a brother of the Night's Watch now, not a frightened boy. – AGOT, Jon VII

But it is never "only a dream", is it?

And when at last he did sleep, he dreamt, and that was even worse. In the dream, the corpse he fought had blue eyes, black hands, and his father's face, but he dared not tell Mormont that. – AGOT, Jon VIII

Even Jon's conscious daydreams in AGOT revolve around his dispairing search for a solid identity:

A lot of these early dreams occur in A Game of Thrones, probably in response to his removal from Winterfell... his self exile. But later on in the series Jon continues to have dreams that tie him to the Starks and to Winterfell, ominous and sometimes despairing too. There's honestly too many instances to list, but if you want to understand the root of Jon's existential despair... it's in his dreams.

Cosmic Alienation

Cosmic alienation, now that's an interesting one in regards to Jon, since he definitely hasn't reached this state... yet. Life and his belief in the divine (the old gods) still hold meaning for him, but then he gets murdered by his black brothers. In the show, the writers hint at some cosmic alienation through Jon stating that he saw "nothing" whilst dead, but then they take it no further and generally do a piss poor job of post-res Jon. This characteristic of Manfred coming to the fore in Jon depends on what happens in The Winds of Winter, but I don't think it is at all that far fetched to assume that Jon will return to his body with a darker, altered perception of things.

Social Alienation

In Part 1, I discussed how Jon, like Byron's heroes, could be read as a "a rebel who stands apart from society and societal expectations." On a more psychological level, we can see how this Otherness, stemming from his bastard status, deeply affects Jon and his perception of himself and the world:

Benjen Stark gave Jon a long look. "Don't you usually eat at table with your brothers?"

"Most times," Jon answered in a flat voice. "But tonight Lady Stark thought it might give insult to the royal family to seat a bastard among them." – AGOT, Jon I

In his very first chapter, we see him quite literally alienated from the rest of his siblings, made to sit apart from them, an apparent necessity he seems fairly resigned to. Also in Part 1, I gave examples of instances in which Jon is mockingly called "Lord Snow," as well as a "rebel", "turncloak", "half-wildling", all of which serve to alienate him from the rest of the brothers of the Night's Watch.

Stannis gave a curt nod. "Your father was a man of honor. He was no friend to me, but I saw his worth. Your brother was a rebel and a traitor who meant to steal half my kingdom, but no man can question his courage. What of you?" – ASOS, Jon XI

The above interaction may seem on the surface to be about one thing — whether or not Jon will be of help to Stannis, offer him loyalty etc. — but tagged onto the end we have quite a poignant question: "what of you?" What are you, essentially. Who are you? The truth of his parentage may, in part, solve these questions... but it may also serve to alienate Jon from his perception of himself further. Ultimately, who exactly he is — what he believes in, who and what he fights for, etc. — will be solely his decision to make going forward.

So, the Byronic Hero, certainly in Manfred's case, but also in later iterations, is arguably traumatised by his own past. But regardless as to whether his trauma is related to a mysterious past, a secret sin, an unnamed crime, or incest, aka "secret knowledge", what is clear in Assaad's interpretation, is that the Byronic Hero is "living with the traumatic consequences of his own past and so suffers from PTSD." But why is Manfred traumatised, what is the specific cause of this trauma, or how might it reveal something deeper about Jon's own trauma? Now, here we come to the unavoidable... I'm going to start talking about Byronic incest and the pre-canon crush/kiss theory, and how it potentially parallels certain aspects of Manfred.

I should preface this by stating that I don't think Jon is suppressing trauma because he committed intentional incest with Sansa, but I do think (or at least somewhat theorise that) Byronic incest does come into play regarding his intense feelings of guilt and existential despair.

But still, stop reading now if are opposed to discussions of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory and the literary incest motif as a whole!

(Detail from The Funeral of Shelley, Louis Édouard Fournier, 1889)

Hey there to the depraved! If you aren't already familiar with the theory, here are some previous discussions/metas on the subject:

Full Blown Meta:

A Hidden and Forbidden Love by @princess-in-a-tower

Ask Answers (Long):

Jonsa as a more positive mirror to Jaime and Cersei? by @princess-in-a-tower, with additional comment by @jonsameta

Discussing the theory by @jonsameta

Evidence for pre-canon Jonsa? by @agentrouka-blog

Kissing in the godswood? by @agentrouka-blog

Why don't we read about Jon's reaction to Sansa and Tyrion? by @agentrouka-blog

More on Jon's supposed non-reaction by @agentrouka-blog, with additional comment made by @sherlokiness

A Jonsa "Unkiss"? by @fedonciadale

A hidden memory? by @fedonciadale

Sansa's misremembering by @fedonciadale

Descriptive parallels between A Song for Lya and Jonsa by @butterflies-dragons

Ask Answers (Short) & Briefer Mentions:

Jealous Jon by @princess-in-a-tower

Your new boyfriend looks like a girl by @butterflies-dragons

Like in Part 1, I've tried to cite as much as I could find, but as always, if anyone feels like I've missed someone important or that they should be included in the above list, please just drop me a line!

Now, it's a controversial theory, and not everyone's cup of tea — I think that's worth acknowledging! I myself am not wholly married to it, I'd be fine if it wasn't the case, but that being said, I can't in good faith ignore it when considering Lord Byron and the Byronic Hero. The incest is, unfortunately, very hard to ignore, both in his work and in his personal life. It's pretty hard to ignore in Manfred, for that matter, which is why I've held off talking about it... until now!

All aboard the Manfred incest train *choo choo* !!

First stop, Act II, scene one. Oh, wait, an annoucement from your conductor... apologies everyone, I purposely neglected to mention quite a key detail. Remember "Astarte! [Manfred's] beloved!", (II, iv, 136)? Yeah... it's heavily implied that Astarte is in fact Manfred's half-sister. *shoots finger guns* Classic Byron! *facepalms*

Oh, and that's not all! Let's consider the context surrounding the writing of this work for a moment, shall we? Unlike The Bride of Abydos (1813),* Manfred was written notably after the fallout of his incestuous affair with his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, composed whilst in a self-imposed exile. *spits out drink* Woah, woah there cowboy... what in tarnation?! EXILE?!

*As referenced in Part 1, @rose-of-red-lake has written an excellent meta on the influence of Lord Byron's work (and personal life) on Jonsa, paying special attention to the half-siblings turned cousins in The Bride of Abydos.

Although, as noted by rose-of-red-lake, The Bride of Abydos bears strong parallels to the potential romance of Jon and Sansa, as well as Byron’s own angst regarding his relationship with Augusta Leigh, the context surrounding Manfred seems... dare I say it, even more autobiographical. Because like Byron himself, Manfred wanders around the Bernese Alps, solitary and guilt ridden, in a state of exile heavily evocative of Byron's own — as I mentioned earlier, the beginnings of Manfred occured whilst Byron was staying at a villa on Lake Geneva, in Switzerland... the Bernese Alps are located in western Switzerland. In light of this, I think it's very understandable that some critics consider Manfred to be autobiographical, or even confessional. The unnamed but forbidden nature of Manfred's relationship to Astarte is believed to represent Byron's relationship with his half-sister Augusta. But what has that got to do with Jon?

Look, I don't know how else to put this:

Byron self-exiles in 1816, first to Switzerland, to Lake Geneva, where it is unseasonably cold and stormy — his departure from England is due to the collaspe of his marriage to Annabella Milbanke, unquestionably as a result of the rumours surrounding his incestuous affair with his half-sister.

Displaced nobleman Manfred wanders the Bernese Alps, in a kind of moral exile, where "the wind / Was faint and gusty, and the mountain snows / Began to glitter with the climbing moon" (III, iii, 46-48), traversing "on snows, where never human foot / Of common mortal trod" (II, iii, 4-5), surrounded by a "glassy ocean of the mountain ice" (II, iii, 7). He feels extreme, but unexplained guilt surrounding the death of his "beloved" Astarte, who is heavily implied to also be his half-sister.

In A Game of Thrones, Jon Snow chooses to join the Night's Watch, with the reminder that "once you have taken the black, there is no turning back" (AGOT, Jon VI). By taking the black, Jon arguably exiles himself from the rest of the Starks, from Winterfell, to a place that "looked like nothing more than a handful of toy blocks scattered on the snow, beneath the vast wall of ice" (AGOT, Jon III). But we aren't given any indication that he does this due to incestuous feelings regarding a "radiant" half-sister, akin to Byron/Manfred, are we? And it's not like we have several Manfreds/Manfryds AND Byrons namedropped within the text, is it? Oh wait... we do. *grabs GRRM in a chokehold*

What the hell, George?!

(Lord Byron on His Deathbed, Joseph Denis Odevaere, c. 1826)

But lets get back on track here and take a closer look at that section of Manfred I mentioned at the beginning — Act II, scene one, aka the part where all the incest and supressed trauma really JUMPS out.

So, early in Act II, in the chamois hunter's abode (a chamois is a type of goat?), according Assaad's analysis, Manfred is "hyper-aroused by a cup of wine." The wine is offered in an attempt to calm Manfred; however, to the chamois hunter's great dismay, it instead agitates him and makes him utter words which are "strange" (II, i, 35). Rather than wine, Manfred sees "blood on the brim" (II, i, 25). His sudden agitation and erratic behaviour confound the chamois hunter, who observes that Manfred is losing his mind: "thy senses wander from thee" (II, i, 27). Assaad's analysis of this scene, which she believes "is the most revelatory in the entire play" discloses "a bitter truth: Manfred's traumatic past informs his present life."

We might compare this with Jon, in particular, how his dreams reveal certain bitter truths to do with his past, now subconsciously informing his present. I've already looked a bit at his crypt dream from AGOT, Jon IV, but we see a sort of recurrence of this dream again in ASOS, Jon VIII. The imagery of being in a crypt, somewhere underground, buried, in the dark, a place of ghosts and spirits, is extremely evocative. Indeed, to go back to Byron's own description of Manfred, the setting of a crypt is extremely suggestive of certain bitter truths "left half unexplained", of secrets buried... and we know that's true because the secret of Jon's parentage is hidden down there, in the form of Lyanna Stark.

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell, limping past the stone kings on their thrones. Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed, and their grey granite fingers tightened on the hilts of the rusted swords upon their laps. You are no Stark, he could hear them mutter, in heavy granite voices. There is no place for you here. Go away. He walked deeper into the darkness. "Father?" he called. "Bran? Rickon?" No one answered. A chill wind was blowing on his neck. "Uncle?" he called. "Uncle Benjen? Father? Please, Father, help me." Up above he heard drums. They are feasting in the Great Hall, but I am not welcome there. I am no Stark, and this is not my place. His crutch slipped and he fell to his knees. The crypts were growing darker. A light has gone out somewhere. "Ygritte?" he whispered. "Forgive me. Please." But it was only a direwolf, grey and ghastly, spotted with blood, his golden eyes shining sadly through the dark... – ASOS, Jon VIII

I don't think it's outlandish to state that, unquestionably, Jon's bastard identity is a source of ongoing pain for him. I talked about the theme of despair in Jon's characterisation and it is very evident in the above, and it stems from this "bitter truth" of not being a trueborn Stark, of not being "welcome", or having a true place. The emotions/mindset this trauma, concerning his birth and identity, evokes in Jon is arguably what brings him, on first glance, so closely in line with the Byronic Hero:

Their grey granite eyes turned to follow him as he passed / The crypts were growing darker = A mysterious past / secret sin(s)

You are no Stark / I am no Stark = Deeply jaded

There is no place for you here / I am not welcome there / This is not my place = standing apart from society and societal expectations / social alienation

He dreamt he was back in Winterfell / He walked deeper into the darkness = Moody / misery in his heart

He fell to his knees / Forgive me = Guilt

He walked deeper into the darkness / Please, Father, help me / He fell to his knees = Despair

These aren't all the Byronic characteristics I've addressed in relation to Jon, but it is a substantial percentage of them, all encapsulated, in one way or another, within this singular dream passage. As far as what is fairly explicit in the text, being a bastard is Jon's "bitter truth", it is the "traumatic past inform[ing] his present life." But what is Manfred's "bitter truth", what past trauma is informing his present? And can it reveal a bit more about another layer to Jon's trauma? Because there is a key distinction — Manfred's trauma, his PTSD, stems from a specific event, notably triggered by the (imagined) "blood on the brim" of his wine, whereas for Jon, we have no singular event, we have no momentus experience, we just have this "truth."

As mentioned previously, Assaad has recognised the character of Manfred as displaying symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). In Assaad's article, she remarks that "an experience is denoted as traumatic if it completely overwhelms the individual, rendering him or her helpless," and this is quite evident in the interaction between Manfred and the chamois hunter. Sharon Stanley, an educator and clinical psychotherapist, writes that "the word trauma has been used to describe a variety of aversive, overwhelming experiences with long-term, destructive effects on individuals and communities."

So, if trauma is related to an experience, or experiences, is it still accurate to say that Jon experiences trauma, connected to being a bastard? Because there is seemingly no singular or defining root experience, or event that it stems from, it just is… it is a compellation of several moments, revealed to the reader through Jon’s memories and/or dreams. What is being "left half unexplained” here?

Assaad makes reference to the American Psychiatric Association's definition of PTSD, in which it observes that for an individual to be diagnosed with PTSD, they have to suffer from one or more intrustion symptoms, one or more avoidance symptoms, two or more negative alterations, and two or more hyperarousal symptoms. The dreams Jon has certainly suggest something, but it seems like a stretch to say that, like Manfred, he is suffering from PTSD, right? We and Jon are very much aware that he is "no Stark", at least not in the sense that he is Ned's trueborn son, this isn’t something Jon is actively suppressing. By comparison, it is incontrovertible that Manfred committed something in the past, which he deeply wishes to forget and disassociate from:

Man. I say ’tis blood—my blood! the pure warm stream Which ran in the veins of my fathers, and in ours When we were in our youth, and had one heart, And loved each other as we should not love, And this was shed: but still it rises up, Colouring the clouds, that shut me out from heaven, Where thou art not—and I shall never be. C. Hun. Man of strange words, and some half—maddening sin

(II, i, 28-35)

However, we cannot be sure what this traumatic point of origin is, though we know that it is related to something he has done to his beloved Astarte, which subsequently led to her death. Many critics have suggested that his sin is that of incest, and as I noted earlier, that Manfred as a whole is more than just a bit autobiographical and/or confessional in nature. Manfred's incestuous sin therefore re-enacts Byron's incest with his half-sister Augusta. But regardless of the true cause, Manfred is traumatised by his past and cannot overcome it. Is there something in Jon’s past, that may have subconsciously, or consciously, influenced his departure to the Wall — his self exile — which he cannot overcome, and which is closely tied to the issue of and pain he feels due to being a bastard, not just the illegitimacy, but also the negative characteristics it assigns? Is there an event, or experience, we can pinpoint as the origin of Jon’s trauma and potential PTSD?

To circle back to Jonsa, there is some, not unfounded, debate amongst us concerning the validity of the pre-canon crush/kiss theory. I've always found it an interesting theory, but until now, I haven't really given it too much thought. In light of the Byron connection, however, as well as the textual analysis I have for Part 3, I think this scenario, as detailed by agentrouka-blog, seems more and more likely. And I don't say that lightly, I really don't. It is a somewhat uncomfortable speculation to make, even if the interaction was more innocent rather than explicit (this is the side I firmly fall down on), however, it’s ambiguity does potentially parallel Byron’s Manfred and Astarte. This post would be even longer if I included my side-by-side text comparisons, so you may have to trust me for the moment that there are some very striking similarities between Act II, scene I of Manfred, and Jon's milk of the poppy induced dream in ASOS, Jon VI, as well as the actual buildup to that vision.

But, that sounds frankly terrible doesn't it? And it doesn't bode well for his future relationship with Sansa, does it? And what does it mean if Jon is suffering from PTSD due to an incestuous encounter with Sansa? What does that mean for Sansa, Sansa who is doggedly abused and mistreated by men within the present narrative? This is awful, why would GRRM root their romance in something traumatic? Oh I hear you, and these are questions I needed to ask myself whilst compiling this. But you see... now bear with me here... it isn't the actual encounter itself that was traumatic, for either Jon or Sansa, and that is reflected in both their POVs, because, though they think about each other sparingly (explicitly at least), it is never done so negatively. No, the potential PTSD Jon suffers from this experience isn't connected to Sansa, to whatever occured between them. Rather, I believe, it's connected to either the fear, or the reality, that Ned, his assumed father, saw and/or caught him (either Sansa had left at this point, or didn't fully grasp the issue), and this fear, this guilt, this sense of despair, is made evident in this passage:

When the dreams took him, he found himself back home once more, splashing in the hot pools beneath a huge white weirwood that had his father’s face. Ygritte was with him, laughing at him, shedding her skins till she was naked as her name day, trying to kiss him, but he couldn’t, not with his father watching. He was the blood of Winterfell, a man of the Night’s Watch. I will not father a bastard, he told her. I will not. I will not. “You know nothing, Jon Snow,” she whispered, her skin dissolving in the hot water, the flesh beneath sloughing off her bones until only skull and skeleton remained, and the pool bubbled thick and red. – ASOS, Jon VI

That's the traumatic experience, I believe, not the kiss — yep, I strongly suspect there was a kiss. Moreover, Jon's recurring assertion, throughout the series, that he "will not father a bastard" is tied to this in some way, it’s tied to Ned, it’s tied to some sense of guilt and shame. It’s not tied to Sansa. But we'll look at this passage, what it means, what it parallels, and what directly precedes it, in comparison to Manfred, a lot more closely next time.

I'll leave you with a slight teaser though — the parallel that made me really sit up and take notice:

C. Hun. Well, sir, pardon me the question, And be of better cheer. Come, taste my wine; 'Tis of an ancient vintage; many a day 'T has thaw’d my veins among our glaciers, now Let it do thus for thine. Come, pledge me fairly. Man. Away, away! there’s blood upon the brim! Will it then never—never sink in the earth?

(II, i, 21-26)

Note this imagery!!!

Maester Aemon poured it full. "Drink this."

Jon had bitten his lip in his struggles. He could taste blood mingled with the thick, chalky potion. It was all he could do not to retch it back up. – ASOS, Jon VI

In both instances, a drink is offered, with "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled". In Manfred's case, this is an explicit trigger for him, whereas for Jon? Well, it bit more hidden, a bit more buried, but this moment is, to my mind, the catalyst, because its imagery strongly evokes the colours of the weirwood tree — "blood" red and "chalky" white — you know, the "huge white weirwood" he later on envisions.

*spits out drink*

Maybe the magnitude of this parallel isn't completely evident as of yet, but it will be... or at least I hope it will be, so stay tuned for Part 3!

(Starting to run out of Byron pics so... I dunno, here's Rupert Everret, from The Scandalous Adventures of Lord Byron, 2009)

In Conclusion

To summarise, why is the Manfred connection so monumental to me? Why do I find the pre-canon kiss theory, specifically the scenario detailed by agentrouka-blog, now very hard to dismiss? Because:

The nine (!) Manfreds/Manfryds included within the text, as well as the two Byrons, one of which, the first mentioned in fact, first appears in Sansa's POV. But crucicially the direct link made by GRRM between Byron Swann and Manfred Swann.

The strength of the similarities that can be observed between Jon and the Byronic Hero, but also notably to Byron's Manfred, the "Byronic hero par excellence", according to Assaad. Especially the recurring emotions of guilt and despair, the latter exemplified perhaps most clearly in Jon's dreams.

The prominent theme of self-exile to escape something, something that perhaps cannot be openly stated, present in Manfred, Byron's own life, and Jon's narrative.

Those pesky half-sisters: Augusta, Astarte, and Sansa.

The PTSD symptoms clearly present in Manfred, but left "half unexplained", and seemingly not explained at all in Jon's POV — I'll dig more into this in Part 3.

The "blood upon the brim", and "blood mingled" — more on that in Part 3, I hope you guys like in depth imagery analysis!

Obviously, this is all still just speculation on my part, and it's speculation in connection to a theory that is understandably controversial. I'd be happy to dismiss it... if it weren't for the above. So, I suppose I'm in two minds about it. On the one hand, however you look at it, it's more trauma in an already traumatic series... which is *sighs* not what you want for the characters you care strongly about. But on the other hand, that literary connection to Manfred (and by extension to actual Lord Byron), the way it's lining up, plus that comparison GRRM himself made between Jon and the Byronic Hero... that's all very compelling and interesting to me as a reader, as a former English literature student. So, I don't want it to be true because... incest hell. But then, I also want it to be true because then it makes me feel smart for guessing correctly.

But anyway, we're going to be descending into incest hell in Part 3, so... we'll just have to grapple with that when we come to it. I hope, if you stuck with it till the incesty end, that you enjoyed this post!

Stay tuned ;)

Bibliography of Academic Sources:

American Psychiatric Association, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edn (Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Publishing, 2013); online edition at www.dsm5.org

Assaad, Lara, "'My slumbers—if I slumber—are not sleep': The Byronic Hero’s Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder", The Byron Journal 47, no. 2 (2019): 153–163.

Byron, George Gordon Noel, Byron’s Letters and Journals. Ed. Leslie A. Marchand. 12 vols. London: Murray, 1973–82.

Holland, Tom, "Undead Byron", in Byromania: Portraits of the Artist in Nineteenth- and Twentieth- Century Culture, ed. by Frances Wilson (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000).

MacDonald, D. L. "Narcissism and Demonality in Byron’s 'Manfred'", Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 25, no. 2 (1992): 25–38.

Stanley, Sharon, Relational and Body-Centered Practices for Healing Trauma: Lifting the Burdens of the Past (London: Routledge, 2016)

Twitchell, James B., The Living Dead: A Study of the Vampire in Romantic Literature (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981).

#jonsa #jon x sansa #jonsa meta #jon as the byronic hero #byronic hero #lord byron #tw: incest #cappy's thoughts #grrm and the Romantics #Jonsa and Romanticism #percy bysshe shelley #romantic poets #literary references #damn this was a long one!#glad a split it into another part!#i started to get a bit unhinged by the end not gonna lie

98 notes · View notes

allthefilmsiveseenforfree · 3 years ago

Text

Face/Off

OK, so this might be cheating a tiny bit because technically I have seen this movie many times and no one EXPLICITLY requested it. But Wife believed that, and I quote, “the people would really want to hear” my thoughts about this one. So here we are, watching John Woo’s masterpiece, Face/Off for the first time in probably 10 years or so, and man oh man is there a lot that I forgot about this movie. For the uninitiated, this is the classic tale of John Travolta and Nicolas Cage swapping faces - it’s kind of like The Parent Trap if one of the Lindsay Lohan twins was a professional...bad person? (It’s unclear what Castor Troy actually does besides fuck shit up) and the other twin was a high-ranking FBI agent. Oh and the first twin killed the son of the second twin. Ok, so it’s not really like The Parent Trap. Full disclosure: I apologize for nothing. I unabashedly love this movie for every single ridiculous moment of its 2 hr 19 min running time. And I saw this in THEATERS. I was TEN YEARS OLD. And before you start judging my parents too harshly, this movie inspired a very healthy fear of both drugs and plastic surgery into me, so really it was more effective than most D.A.R.E. programs according to the data, so I say once again - thanks John Woo!

Some thoughts:

TWO HOURS and NINETEEN MINUTES. It’s frankly ridiculous, and if it were any other director I would say learn to edit, man, but John Woo really knows how to make a slow motion shot work.

Castor (Nic Cage) is so much more disgusting now that I’m grown. Like, when I was a kid he was just a cartoonish villain, but now his rampant misogyny and sexual predator antics at every turn is WAY more creepy and disturbing than his tendency to just shoot people.

More people should follow John Woo’s lead - this motherfucker loves sparks in his action scenes, and they’re so much more visually interesting than just plain explosions. Broke: you shoot a car’s gas tank and it explodes. Woke: You shoot the engine of a passenger jet and a shower of sparks goes everywhere.

This is Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage’s finest performance, tbh. He gets to go full unhinged crazy pants for half the movie, and then turn on a dime and play the determined no-nonsense FBI man. I genuinely love Nic Cage with my entire heart, because he - has - the - range.

One underrated thing about this movie is its score. The funky bass line when Castor first arrives, the overwrought strings during every chase scene, the triumphant orchestral swell when Sean stages the prison coup - it’s so cheesy and SO good.

Reason #57 this whole face switching plan is insane - they did no psychological exam or evaluation to determine whether Sean (John Travolta) would lose his damn mind by going through the intense trauma of wearing his son’s murderer’s face. You’re telling me he didn’t have to fill out a single form before they cut his literal face off? If I know anything about the government, I know there would be so much paperwork involved before anyone’s face was going anywhere.

Why are we not talking about the massive problem it is that there exists a prison where “the Geneva convention doesn’t exist” and that Amnesty International has never heard of? Like, Castor is a bad guy, sure, but we’re supposed to just be fine with this? This is the precursor to the raft prison they built in Captain America: Civil War that is meant to house literal superheroes and is completely off the grid. That’s not okay! The copaganda runs so deep, it genuinely boggles my mind that I grew up watching movies like this and only now that I’ve unlearned so many things can I even recognize how absolutely fucked up it all is.

John Travolta doesn’t get enough credit for this movie either - all the attention goes to Nic Cage and his bonkers facial expressions, but Travolta is having the time of his goddamn life doing his little dances, singing his little songs. We all know he loves musicals, and I love that he gets to showcase that here but through villainy.

Sean’s entire escape plan hinged on Dubov (Chris Bauer) getting his brain fried first, but he had no way of knowing that would be the exact moment Dubov would be in the clinic getting fried.

Also one of my favorite things is that during the escape when one of the guards is burned by acid he screams the same scream that was used in the credits for Aah! Real Monsters.

Oh and we have to talk about the fact that Sean escapes the prison by just - jumping in the fucking ocean? How did he not die? How did he get to land? And the helicopter just STOPPED LOOKING for him? Didja spend all your money on magnetized boots so the “helicopter that searches for escaped prisoners” fund ran dry in your terrifying war crime prison budget?

In retrospect, I should have realized that I was into women based on how very hard I crushed on Gina Gershon in this movie. Velvet top with satin pants and the Jennifer Aniston haircut? SO INTO IT.

Taylor Swift is re-recording all her old masters now, right? I’m just saying, I really think she would be smart to collaborate with John Woo on a new video for “Sparks Fly,” because, and I can’t stress this enough, NOBODY loves sparks more than John Woo. Nobody.

What even is this building Dietrich (Nick Cassavetes) lives in? It’s like an airplane hanger but there are stairs and black lacquer furniture, but there’s like a basement lobby thing that’s all marble and tile and a circle of mirrors and giant plants? Who designed this? Is it a hotel? I have so many questions.

I know that the benchmark for future technology is the flying car, but I ask you, how is it possible that we don’t live in a world where people can swap faces like this yet? Or DO WE and it is all just black ops operations like this. Oh lord, I’m probably gonna start getting batshit crazy QAnon type conspiracy Facebook ads now that I’ve typed that sentence on the internet.

Also pretty fucked up that Castor - as Sean - sleeps with Eve (Joan Allen) and both she and the real Sean are just kind of like “yeah I know, rape by deception really sucks, guess we’ll just have to deal with it.” Like how much therapy does this whole family need now??

What kind of church is this where doves are just flapping around INSIDE the entrance by the remembrance candles? And there’s just so many of them. Like at least 30 doves. Doesn’t that feel like too many doves? You know what, nevermind, I shouldn’t have doubted John Woo’s vision - keep the sparks and doves coming, buddy, I’m here for it.

There’s no way you drive a boat THROUGH ANOTHER FUCKING BOAT and emerge completely unharmed.

Ohh teen daughter Jamie (Dominique Swain) doesn’t have her nose ring anymore! That’s how you know she’s no longer broken.

And Sean just brings a new 5-year-old son to live with them and everything is totally fine, as if no time has passed. That’s how you heal collective trauma, right? By simply replacing your murdered son with a different 5-year-old boy? Ah, the 90s.

Everything about this movie is exactly what I want movies to be like. You’ve got great villains who are really in it for the DRAMA of it all, you’ve got stalwart and true (read: repressed) heroes who are willing to do what it takes to get the job done, and you’ve got more sparks and doves than you know what to do with.

If you liked this review, please consider reblogging or subscribing to my Patreon! For as low as $1, you can access bonus content and movie reviews, or even request that I review any movie of your choice.

#121in2021 #face/off #face/off review #face off #john woo #nicolas cage #john travolta #joan allen #nick cassavetes #dominque swain #movie reviews #film reviews

33 notes · View notes

canonicallysoulmates · 3 years ago

Note

Jared credits Gen for saving his life in the Podcast. Do you believe him? It’s hard to believe he’d use his breakdown for bearding and lie to prop her up.

I mentioned this in a post I wrote so I'm just going to copy-paste that here:

I don't know the actual extent of G's involvement in his recovery, maybe he's telling the truth and she saved his life if she did that's lovely and I'm thankful because he's still here with us. That being said, personally, I don't know if I believe him, his body language seemed off in that moment, and he said Gen so did he mean it with a G or with a J. In my opinion, he is giving an edited version of the truth this doesn't mean he's using his breakdown to prop her up or that he's not being honest. At a difference, I think this is him being as open and honest as he can be and feels comfortable with about an incredibly dark point in his life not out of obligation for we are not entitled details about this but because he wants others to know they're not alone. - x

I didn't bring this up in the post but I'll add it here and y'all can use it to help form your opinion regarding what he said, direct quote from Jared's chapter in Family Don't End with Blood:

[After mentioning that he was talking to someone who is unnamed in the book and saying his phone died.]

"I had a decision to make.

In a moment of clarity (and with help from the people I love), I realized that I didn't want to burden my friend, or my wife, with having been the last person to talk to me. I didn't want somebody else to think that whatever was wrong with me was somehow their fault. So I gathered all the courage I had left and I headed back to my hotel. I went upstairs, charged my phone, and booked a Geneva-to-Austin flight for nine hours later."

I know where I stand on this which is that he is sharing an edited version of the truth and being as honest as he can be, y'all form your own opinion.

#i don't know what to tag this as #also i'm half asleep and my five remaining brain cells went home #i am going to add before i leave: don't get so caught up in who he gives credit to that you forget the actual important parts of the convo #not specifically directed at you anon more an in general message #anti jared x genevieve #anon #ask #jared related

25 notes · View notes

le-roi-des-bulgares · 4 years ago

Text

Voltaire writes back to Frederick...

... whom he hasn’t been in regular contact with for more or less four years.

Frederick had refused Voltaire’s asking for permission to go back to Potsdam in late 1753; avoided writing to him directly but let Abbé de Prades take up the correspondence; wrote and published a satirical ‘Portrait of M. de Voltaire’ in 1756.

Despite all the name-calling (fou, méchant, ~extraordinare~, etc.) to third parties, all the prayers to heaven that Voltaire never comes back, on Jan 19th 1757, Frederick wrote a ‘tender letter’ to Voltaire, days after Russia declared her entrance into the war.

At some point in summer 1757, with Frederick’s first major defeat at the Battle of Kolin, his mother’s death, the Prussian retreat from Bohemia, he fell into a deep depression (a haunting representation painted by Menzel) and meditated suicide. Either encouraged by Wilhelmine or voluntarily, he wrote to Voltaire, thus virtually reopened their regular correspondence.

The letter hasn't been found since (as the Jan 19th one, & many others from this period), but those survived still help construct a sense of it, as well as the brief personal warmth shown between Voltaire & Frederick - both said they couldn’t care less.

Here is a collection of some extracts which I like and hope can serve to paint this exchange of letters between F & V, with Wilhelmine as their mediator, in a somewhat clearer light. These are from letters written from July to December 1757 by Voltaire, Wilhelmine and Frederick. All originals are taken from Edition Garnier & Œuvres de Frédéric le Grand. Translations are mine. Emphasis in texts are made by me. my english and french are both not so good, but i try;; so feel free to critique my usage of words etc.!

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

Frédéric au marquis d'Argens, (Leitmeritz), 19 juillet 1757.

Mon cher marquis, regardez-moi comme une muraille battue en brèche par l'infortune depuis deux ans. Je suis ébranlé de tous côtés. Malheurs domestiques, afflictions secrètes, malheurs publics, calamités qui s'apprêtent : voilà ma nourriture. Cependant ne pensez pas que je mollisse. Dussent tous les éléments périr, je me verrai ensevelir sous leurs débris avec le sang-froid dont je vous écris.

My dear marquis, see me as a wall breached by two years’ misfortunes. I am shaken on all sides. Domestic misfortunes, secret afflictions, public misfortunes, looming calamities: these are my food. Do not think that I have given away, however. Must that all elements perish, I will bury myself underneath their debris, with the cold-blood with which I am writing to you.

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

[Frederic wrote to Voltaire at some point in mid-august 1757, sent to him at Les Delices in Geneva via Wilhelmine.]

De Margrave la Baireuth à Voltaire. Le 19 août.

Je suis dans un état affreux, et ne survivrai pas à la destruction de ma maison et de ma famille. C’est l’unique consolation qui me reste. Vous aurez de beaux sujets de tragédies à travailler. Ô temps ! ô mœurs ! Vous ferez peut-être verser des larmes par une représentation illusoire, tandis qu’on contemple d’un œil sec les malheurs de toute une maison contre laquelle, dans le fond, on n’a aucune plainte réelle.

I am in an awful state, and I will not survive my house and my family’s destruction. This is the only consolation left for me. You will have handsome subjects of tragedies to work on. O time! O morals! You will perhaps make tears pour down by an illusory representation, while people contemplate on the misfortunes of a whole house with a dry eye against that which, deep down, they do not have any real pity for.

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

Voltaire à M. le Maréchal Duc de Richelieu. (a vous seul.) [Août 1757.]

Le roi de Prusse s’est remis à m’écrire avec quelque confiance. Il me mande qu’il est résolu de se tuer, s’il est sans ressource ; et madame la margrave sa sœur m’écrit qu’elle finira sa vie si le roi son frère finit la sienne.

The king of Prussia started to write to me with some trust again. He tells me that he resolved to kill himself if he is without resource; and madame la margrave his sister writes that she would end her life, if the king her brother ended his own.

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

Voltaire à M. le Comte d’Argental. Aux Délices, 12 septembre.

Les affaires de ce roi, mon ancien disciple et mon ancien persécuteur, vont de mal en pis. Je ne sais si je vous ai fait part de la lettre qu’il m’a écrite il y a environ trois semaines : J’ai appris, dit-il, que vous vous étiez intéressé à mes succès et à mes malheurs ; il ne me reste qu’à vendre cher ma vie, etc., etc. Sa sœur, la margrave de Baireuth, m’en écrit une beaucoup plus lamentable.

Allons, ferme, mon cœur, point de faiblesse humaine.

The affairs of this king, my old disciple and my old persecutor, have gone from bad to worse. I do not know if I had told you about a letter that he wrote me about three weeks ago: I learned, said him, that you were interested in my successes and my misfortunes; it only remains to sell my life dearly, etc., etc. His sister, the margrave of Bayreuth, writes me a much more lamentable one.

Go, harden up, my heart, nothing of human weaknesses.

[note: the last line is a quote from Molière’s Tartuffe, Act IV, Scene III. vendre cher sa vie means to kill a number of enemies before one’s own death.]

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

Voltaire à Madame la Margrave de Baireuth. Aux Délices, 29 août 1757.

Madame, j’ai été touché jusqu’aux larmes de la lettre dont Votre Altesse royale m’a honoré. [...] me sera-t-il permis de mettre sous votre protection cette lettre que j’ose écrire à Sa Majesté le roi votre frère ? [...] Je voudrais qu’il fût persuadé de son mérite personnel : il est au point que beaucoup de personnes de tout rang le respectent plus comme homme que comme roi. Qui doit sentir mieux que vous, madame, ce que c’est que d’être supérieure à sa naissance !

Madame, I was brought to tears by the letter Your Royal Highness honored me. [...] Will I be allowed to put this letter under your protection, which I dared write to His Majesty the king your brother? [...] I would like that he be persuaded of his personal merit: he is at a point where many people of all ranks respect him more as a man than as a king. Who would feel better than you, madame, what it is like to be superior to one's birth!

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

Frédéric à la margrave de Baireuth, Naumbourg, 9 (septembre 1757).

Ma chère sœur, viens de recevoir votre lettre du 6, avec l'incluse de Voltaire. [...] Je vous prie de vous tranquilliser l'esprit; vos inquiétudes me sont précieuses, certainement j'y suis sensible, et je vous regarde comme le seul exemple d'amitié parfaite dans ce siècle corrompu; mais, en s'inquiétant, on ne change pas le destin, et dans des circonstances où l'on doit s'attendre à tout, il faut se préparer à tout événement.

My dear sister, [I] just received your letter of the 6th, with Voltaire's enclosed. [...] I beg you to reassure your mind; your worries are dear to me, certainly I am sensible of them, and I regard you as the only example of perfect friendship in this corrupted century; but, one does not change destiny by worrying, and in the circumstances where one must expect everything, we must prepare ourselves for all events.

[last time Frederick wrote ‘this corrupted century’ to Wilhelmine was in 1730, from Cüstrin.]

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

La margrave de Baireuth à Frédéric, (15 septembre 1757)

[note that the letter F wrote to V, which Wilhelmine speaks of, was a reply to V’s late august response, likely dated around September 9th, sent in the same package to Wilhelmine.]

Mon très-cher frère, votre lettre et celle que vous avez écrite à Voltaire, mon cher frère, m'ont presque donné la mort. Quelles funestes résolutions, grand Dieu! Ah! mon cher frère, vous dites que vous m'aimez, et vous me plongez le poignard dans le cœur. [...]. Votre sort décidera du mien; je ne survivrai ni à vos infortunes, ni à celles de ma maison. Vous pouvez compter que c'est ma ferme résolution.

My dearest brother, your letter and that which you wrote to Voltaire, my dear brother, have almost made me dead. What fatal resolutions, great God! Ah! my dear brother, you say that you love me, and you plunge a dagger into my heart. [...] Your fate will decide my own; I will survive neither your misfortunes, nor those of my house. You can count on this being my firm resolution.

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

Voltaire à Frédéric. Octobre 1757.

[...]; je vous ai appartenu, mon cœur vous appartiendra toujours.

[...]; I belonged to you, my heart will always belong to you.

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

Voltaire à Frédéric. Octobre 1757.

Vous voulez mourir ; je ne vous parle pas ici de l’horreur douloureuse que ce dessein m’inspire.[...] Écoutez contre ces sentiments votre raison supérieure ; elle vous dit que vous n’êtes point humilié, et que vous ne pouvez l’être ; elle vous dit qu’étant homme comme un autre, il vous restera (quelque chose qui arrive) tout ce qui peut rendre les autres hommes heureux : biens, dignités, amis.

[...] Je suis bientôt dans ma soixante et cinquième année, je suis né infirme ; je n’ai qu’un moment à vivre ; j’ai été bien malheureux, vous le savez ; mais je mourrais heureux, si je vous laissais sur la terre mettant en pratique ce que vous avez si souvent écrit.

You want to die; I do not speak to you here of the painful horror this plan inspires in me. [...] Listen to your superior reason against these sentiments; it [would] tell you that you are not at all humiliated, that you cannot be; it would tell you that being a man, like any other, there would remain for you (whatever happens) all those things which can make other men happy: possessions, dignities, friends.

[...] soon I will be in my sixty-fifth year, I was born to be sick; I only have a moment [more] to live; I have been very unhappy, you know that; but I would die happy, if I left you on earth putting what you had so often written into practice.

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

Frédéric à la margrave de Baireuth, Buttelstedt, 8 octobre 1757

J'ai ri des exhortations du patriarche Voltaire; je prends la liberté de vous envoyer ma réponse. Quant au stoïcisme, je crois en avoir plus que lui, et quant à la façon de penser, il pense en poëte, et moi comme cela me convient dans le poste où le hasard de la naissance m'a placé.

I laughed at the exhortations of Voltaire the patriarch; I take the liberty to send you my response. As for stoicism, I believe myself to have more than he does, and as for the way of thinking, he thinks in poet, and I think as suited to the post which the accident of birth placed me in.

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

Frédéric à Voltaire, (Buttstedt) 9 octobre 1757.

Croyez que si j'étais Voltaire, Et particulier comme lui, Me contentant du nécessaire, Je verrais voltiger la fortune légère, Et m'en moquerais aujourd'hui. [...]

Believe me, if I was Voltaire, /and private person like him, /content with necessities, /I would see frivolous fortune flutter, /and make fun of it right at this moment.

[you send him an epistle, and say he thinks like a poet. fair enough]

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

La Margrave de Baireuth à Voltaire. Le 16 Octobre.

Accablée par les maux de l’esprit et du corps, je ne puis vous écrire qu’une petite lettre. Vous en trouverez une ci-jointe qui vous récompensera au centuple de ma brièveté. Notre situation est toujours la même : un tombeau fait notre point de vue. Quoique tout semble perdu, il nous reste des choses qu’on ne pourra nous enlever : c’est la fermeté et les sentiments du cœur.

Overwhelmed by the ills of mind and body, I can only write you a little letter. You will find one enclosed [Frederick's letter from Oct 9th] which will reward you a hundred times more than my brevity. Our situation is always the same: a tomb makes our destination. Although all seems lost, there still remains for us things which cannot be taken away: firmness and sentiments of the heart.

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

[Frederick won the Battle of Rossbach on November 5]

Voltaire à M. le comte d'Argental. Au Délices, 19 novembre.

[...] Luc n’avait pas vingt-cinq mille hommes, encore étaient-ils harassés de marches et de contre-marches. Il se croyait perdu sans ressource, il y a un mois ; et si bien, si complètement perdu, qu’il me l’avait écrit ; et c’est dans ces circonstances qu’il détruit une armée de cinquante mille hommes. Quelle honte pour notre nation !

Luc had no more than twenty-five thousand men, also they were exhausted by marches and counter-marches. He believed himself to be lost without resources a month ago; and so wholly, so completely lost, as he wrote to me; and it's under these circumstances that he destroyed an army of fifty thousand men. What shame for our nation!

[Luc: cul: ass. i.e. Frederick.]

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

Voltaire à M. le comte d'Argental. 2 décembre.

Serait-il possible qu’on eût imaginé que je m’intéresse au roi de Prusse ? J’en suis pardieu bien loin. Il n’y a mortel au monde qui fasse plus de vœux pour le succès des mesures présentes. J’ai goûté la vengeance de consoler un roi qui m’avait maltraité ; il n’a tenu qu’à M. de Soubise que je le consolasse davantage.

Is it possible that people imagined I am interested in the king of Prussia? Good lord, I am very far from that. There is no mortal in the world who wishes more for success for the present situations [of France]. I tasted vengeance by consoling a king who had mistreated me; it only depends on M. de Soubise that I console him more.

[if we make him cry more i get to hug him more. O sweet vengeance!]

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

[Frederick won the Battle of Leuthen on December 5]

Voltaire à M. le comte d'Argental. Lausanne, 20 décembre, au soir.

Quand les Prussiens tuent tant de monde, il faut bien aussi que je vous assassine de lettres, mon cher ange. Il est difficile que vous ayez su plus tôt que nous autres Suisses la nouvelle victoire du roi de Prusse, près de Neumarck en Silésie. Ce diable de Salomon est un terrible Philistin. La renommée le dit déjà dans Breslau ; mais il ne faut pas croire toujours la renommée.

When the Prussians are killing so many people, I must also assassinate you with letters, my dear angel. It is difficult for you to know sooner than us Swiss, about the new victory of the king of Prussia, near Neumarck in Silesia. This devil of a Solomon is a terrible Philistine. Legend says he is already in Breslau; but legend must not always be believed.

[in the 18th century philistine is perhaps used to say someone is merciless & bloodthirsty.]

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

I had chosen not to include a sub-plot in which Voltaire tried to connect Marechal de Richelieu with Frederick to negotiate peace between France and Prussia - which was fruitless.

#long post #fritztaire #Wilhelmine of prussia #w威廉明娜真的倒霉要给这两个人当中介 #and she was visibly distressed #which must've struck a hard blow on her health #:(

48 notes · View notes

the-silvertonguewitch · 4 years ago

Text

Some thoughts, now that I’ve finished my re read of TSC

-When Lyra reach the Blue Hotel, she finds Nur Huda already there and waiting for her, but Pan, who’s been travelling with Nur Huda, isn’t. Nur Huda seems to know her way around the Blue Hotel. If Pan isn’t waiting outside with her, it could be because, while humans might come and go as they please in the Blue Hotel, once daemons get inside, they – technically – can’t leave. That would explain why so many people who go there don’t return (they’d rather stay there with their daemons than leave without them) and why people that do return from there appear “diminished” (TSC, 609). Wild guess: It’s possible that in order to leave with Pan, Lyra will have to hide him inside of her, make him invisible, like people’s daemons from Will’s world. That way she’ll trick the zarghuls there into believing that she’s leaving the Blue Hotel alone. The alchemist Agrippa also predicted that Lyra would find her daemon again, but not in the way she’d expect (i.e., that Pan would become an “internal” daemon, perhaps).

-On her way to Seleukeia, Lyra meets a man with two apparent purposes in the story: to give Lyra a set of stories telling cards called a “Myriorama”, and to warn her that Seleukeia isn’t safe. The story he tells the little boy and his mother sharing their cabin involves two soldiers, one wanting to shoot a giant bird that stole their horses, and the other convincing the first not to shoot, since killing the bird would also kill the horses. Wild guess: this is another warning intended for Lyra. She’s the bird. The first soldier is Olivier Bonneville. The second one is Abdel Ionides. The man with the Myriorama is akin to those fairies in disguise (undercover fairies, you know which ones) in children’s stories. These fairies test people, often travelers, asking them for some food and rewarding them if they accept to share, or punishing them if they don’t. Lyra, who shares her food with the little boy and his mother, is rewarded with an honest warning and a useful magical item.

-After being shot in the leg, Malcolm takes a train to Aleppo. The train makes an unexpected stop somewhere in order to board someone important, or several important people. This is a direct parallel to the events of chapter 18 (“Malcolm in Geneva”), where another train is highjacked by the newly appointed President of the High Council of the Magisterium and his suite. That president is assassinated soon after and replaced by Marcel Delamare. Not so wild guess: Malcolm just passed out on a train that’s getting filled with members of the High Council of the Magisterium. Delamare is among them and he knows about a burly, ginger “Matthew” Polstead working against the Magisterium, so Malcolm could find himself in a pickle when he wakes up.

-Abdel Ionides knowns an awful lot. Either he is an alethiometrist himself, or he has his own Myriorama pack, or he’s extremely observant and knows about the Lyra/Rukhsana thing – because he’s aware that she’s headed for the rose garden in Karamakan, even if Lyra never told him. He wants gold (or some sort of other treasure), like Chen, the camel herder who guided Dr. Hassall and Dr. Strauss into Karamakan, did, and he believes that only Lyra can get it for him. Wild guess: he thinks that Lyra, and no one but her, can get in and out of the red building. Maybe because she’s “Rukhsana” and special rules applies to Rukhsana, who knows.

-The poem Lyra quotes in “Little stick” is titled Le cor, by Alfred de Vigny. It alludes to the hero Roland, from La chanson de Roland (“The song of Roland”). Roland and another soldier are surrounded by enemies and the soldier urges Roland to surrender, to which Roland reply “only when the mountains roll down into the river below” (I’m roughly translating). Somehow that’s exactly what happens, and Roland and his friend are precipitated down the gulch and into the river, where they’re both crushed by falling stones. A knight named Turpin finds them some time later and declares that Roland’s soul blew the horn twice before going to Heaven. Funny detail: the soldier standing with Roland is a man from the desert and his name is “Olivier”.

(Going further into the chapter, it’s easy to see where and how Lyra is meant to parallel Roland.)

-In our world, Aleppo would be in Syria and Smyrna would be “Izmir”. I was curious so I googled it. Lyra’s journey would look a bit like this:

1 (Oxford) 2 (Amsterdam) 3 (Paris) 4 (Prague) 5 (Istanbul/Constantinople) 6 (Izmir/Smyrna) 7 (Seleucia/Seleukeia). And Aleppo is circled in red. Lyra traveled by ferry twice: once going from England to Amsterdam (the ferry with the loud, annoying guy and the welsh miners) and once from point 5 (Constantinople) to point 6 (Smyrna). That’s the one where the boat crash occurred. The Blue Hotel would be located somewhere between Iraq and Syria.

If the Blue Hotel wasn’t a place, but a person, it would be a person without a daemon. Maybe that’s why daemons are attracted to it.

EDIT:

The place called “Seleucia”/Seleukeia is a bit confusing. Wherever it is, or was, it refers to the ruins of a very old city. Actually, It looks like there’s two places called “Seleucia”, both ruins, now (in our world, that is): the ruins of Seleucia in Baghdad, also called Seleucia-on-Tigris, and the ruins of Seleucia in Antalya, Turkey. The second one is also called/pronounced “Seleukeia”, and is located on the coast of Pamphylia. I couldn’t find it on the map.

Most pictures of Seleucia I can find on Google are of the second one. It looks like this:

When I google Seleucia-on-Tigris, I get black and white pictures and photos of old maps from the Seleucid Empire. I’m guessing there isn’t much left of it. If our friend Wiki is to be believed,

“The city eventually faded into obscurity and was swallowed by the desert sands, probably abandoned after the Tigris shifted its course.”

You know what this reminds me of? The Blue Hotel.

EDIT:

ACTUALLY, THERE ARE SEVERAL PLACES CALLED (OR WHO USED TO BE CALLED) SELEUKEIA! 😱

*Deep breath*

Ok, let’s check further. Our world’s equivalent of the Karamakan desert is the Taklamakan desert and it’s located in North West China. In TSC’s last chapter, Ionides tells Bonneville that the “treasure”, which I’m guessing is in Karamakan/Taklamakan, is 3000 miles from their current location, i.e., the Blue Hotel.

The distance between Baghdad (Seleucia-on-Tigris) and Taklamakan, in our world, is approx. 2127 miles.

The distance between Antalya (where the Seleukeia from the picture above is) and Taklamakan, in our world, is approx. 2768 miles.

The distance between Silifke (previously known as Seleucia on the Calycadnus - this is getting complicated isn’t it) and Taklamakan, in our world, is approx. 2612 miles.

The distance between Antakya (previously the Seleucid Capital, also known as Seleucia Pieria, phew) and Taklamakan, is approx. 2498 miles.

The Blue Hotel is about a day’s walk on camel back from Lyra’s Seleukeia, so it’s not very far. If we try to go by the 3000 miles indication, we can probably eliminate Seleucia-on-Tigris in Iraq (sorry, I was wrong!)

Lyra’s Seleukeia is a coastal town. The book tells us that much. (Ok, it definitely couldn’t have been Seleucia-on-Tigris.)

Antalya’s Seleukeia, also known as “Lyrbe” (sounds a bit like Lyra?), is located here:

While Silifke is located here:

And Antakya is here:

So they’re all coastal, kind of. For a very general view, you’ve got:

From left to right (in yellow): Seleukeia/Lyrbe, Seleucia on the Calycadnus/Silifke, Seleucia Pieria/Antakya, and Aleppo. The puzzle is to decide which of the first three is Lyra’s Seleukeia. They’re all under 3000 miles from Taklamakan but I wouldn’t discount any of them because of it (the distance is probably calculated from the starting point to the border of Taklamakan, and the “treasure” is in the “heart” of the desert, so way further).

I’m guessing that the one Lyra went to was the third - Seleucia Pieria/Antakya. It would explain why it’s a dangerous location (it’s located on the Syrian borders). It would make more sense to use the expression “between Seleukeia and Aleppo” to indicate where the Blue Hotel might be (since that Seleukeia and Aleppo are geographically the closest to one another).

So let’s say Antakya. What does the place look like in our world?

More ruins, unlike the Seleukeia of Lyra’s world, where people still live and do trade. It’s all very curious. I really do wonder if Pullman got the idea for the Blue Hotel from all these seleucid ruins, or if there’s another place in Syria that would match more.

#his dark materials #lyra belacqua #lyra silvertongue #the secret commonwealth #hdm meta #my ramblings #Abdel Ionides #malcolm polstead #my metas

50 notes · View notes

fatehbaz · 4 years ago

Text

In 1783, a sequence of several strong earthquakes devastated Calabria, later that year the Icelandic Laki fissure eruption blanketed parts of the northern hemisphere with a strange, dry sulfuric fog. Contemporaries coined 1783 to be an annus mirabilis, a year of awe, that saw many unusual phenomena: A temporary “burning island” appeared off the coast of Iceland; earthquakes rocked parts of Western Europe and even the Middle East; there were erroneous reports of at least three volcanic eruptions in Germany (this news was later retracted); and in September, news of a volcanic eruption at or near Mount Hekla, Iceland’s most infamous volcano, reached the European mainland. All of these events inspired the notion that somewhere “a violent revolution of planet Earth” was underway (Münchner Zeitung 1783). The most popular theory at the time was that the earthquakes in Calabria had caused the sulfuric-smelling dry fog of 1783. [...] [Heading, image, text: Katrin Kleeman. Edited by Hannah Davies. “How the tectonic events of 1783 were perceived by the population of Europe.” 4 September 2019.]

Some contemporaries believed they lived in the time of a “subsurface revolution”: earthquakes in Italy; a newly emerged burning island off the coast of Iceland; reports of at least three volcanic eruptions within Germany (that later proved to be false); earthquakes in western France and Geneva on 6 July, in Maastricht and Aachen on 8 August, and in northern France on 9 December 1783; and reports of Hekla erupting in September. Where did this idea of a revolution subterraneus come from? [Katrin Kleemann. “Living in the Time of a Subsurface Revolution ...” September 2019.]

This hand-colored copper engraving portrays the Strait of Messina from the north at the moment the earthquake struck. To the left it depicts the coast of Calabria, to the right the harbor of Messina, and to the far right an erupting Mount Etna (although it did not actually erupt in 1783). Buildings are being damaged, fires spread, and a tsunami (visualized as whirlpools) troubles the ships in the Strait. [Caption, image: Kleemann. “Living ...” 2019.]

During the summer of 1783, another highly unusual phenomenon was present in Europe: A sulfuric-smelling dry fog hung in the air for weeks on end. Many naturalists and amateur weather observers around Europe noticed this phenomenon and speculated as to its cause. At the time, it was believed that sulfuric fogs were a precursor to strong earthquakes, a dry fog was observed in the days before the 1755 Lisbon earthquake – most likely produced by an eruption of the Icelandic volcano Katla. A similar fog was also reported in Calabria on February 4, 1783 (Kiessling, 1888; von Hoff, 1840). We now know that the Icelandic Laki Fissure eruption, of 1783, released large amounts of gases and ash, which were carried towards continental Europe via the jet stream. However, news of this took almost three months to reach Europe, by which time the dry fog had vanished again, making it difficult to explain the phenomenon at the time. [Heading, text: Kleeman. “How the tectonic events ...” 2019.]

The print above illustrates the first of the Calabria earthquakes, which occurred on February 5, 1783, at noon, near Oppido Mamertina in Calabria, which was a XI on the MCS scale (Richter magnitude of 7.0). It gives us an idea of the extreme destructive force of this earthquake. The residents of Messina and Calabria were knocked off their feet by the shaking as they tried to flee, avoiding cracks in the ground, and falling trees and rubble (Jacques et al., 2001). Contemporary reports show the initial earthquake destroyed almost all of the nearby buildings. [Heading, image, text, following quote/screenshot: Kleeman. “How the ...” 2019.]

Some contemporaries believed they lived in the time of a “subsurface revolution” [...]. Where did this idea of a revolution subterraneus come from? There was an idea that all volcanoes, called fire (-spitting) mountains at the time, were connected through fire channels inside the earth. Chemical reactions—between gas or metals and water for instance—in subterraneous passages and caverns were believed to cause earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. In the eighteenth century, Nicholas Lemery, Comte de Buffon, and Immanuel Kant promoted these ideas.

“Subterraneus Pyrophylaciorum”: Fire canals connecting all volcanoes on the planet, depicted in Athanasius Kircher’s Mundus Subterraneus, 1668. [Heading, image, caption: Kleeman. “Living in the time ...” 2019.]

40 notes · View notes

revolutionary-demosthenes · 4 years ago

Text

Another essay (#7) and some more Müller stuff.

Let’s talk about the fact that Francis Kinloch was friends/ possible lovers with Johannes von Müller, a man who was as openly gay as was possible in the 18th century. And what that means for the Laurens-Kinloch relationship.

If you don’t know who Johannes von Müller is, here’s a quote about him: “For present purposes, however, it is most important to know that Johannes von Müller was out as one inclined to Socratic or Greek love to an extent unparalleled in eighteenth-century Germany.”

-Outing Goethe and His Age, edited by Alice A. Kuzniar

Müller was a Swiss historian and politician. A man he almost certainly had a relationship with was Charles Victor de Bonstetten, and their letters are... very romantic.

Francis Kinloch, John Laurens’s (probable) romantic/sexual partner in Geneva became good friends (and more?) with Müller. There are books I’ve found that mention them, but they are in German and I don’t speak German, so I’m slowly google translating them. But also google translate is not super trustable so... the point is, there’s more info on them than I have right now.

But the information I have now suggests that they lived together for a time, were great friends, and I’ve found letters between them from, if I remember correctly, 1804, so their relationship (whatever the nature of it was) lasted a long time.

But a main point I want emphasize in this is that Francis Kinloch being close to Müller and Charles Victor de Bonstetten also lends weight to the argument that Kinloch and Laurens’s relationship went beyond friendship.

My reasoning is as follows:

Müller, Bonstetten and Kinloch were living with each other for a time. And from Bonstetten and Müller’s letters and the how “out” Müller seemed to have been, I’d imagine that they weren’t ones to hide their romance in person and in a non- professional setting. And even if they did, I have a hard time imagining how Kinloch could not have known about their relationship if they were living together.

Most people in the 18th century saw any sexuality other than straight as a sin or crime. Even people who weren’t straight (John Laurens) had trouble getting out of the homophobic mindset imposed by the time period. There don’t seem to have been many straight allies.

If Kinloch minded that Bonstetten and Müller were lovers, as was typical of straight people at the time, I don’t think he would have spoken of their time together in this way to Bonstetten: “[Müller and I] have read a great deal, and talk with the rapture very frequently of those happy days spent under this humble roof in Your company...”

There’s other evidence for Kinloch and Laurens being more than friends, but I don’t really see this talked about so just wanted to point it out as some more evidence. Kinloch shared a house with two male lovers. Maybe they became close because of their shared struggles with their sexuality. Maybe Müller and Bonstetten helped Kinloch accept himself the way Hamilton may have done with Laurens. Put this with the letters between Kinloch and Laurens, especially Laurens’s rage break-up letter, and I don’t think they were only friends.

#John Laurens #Francis Kinloch #Johannes von Müller #Charles Victor de Bonstetten #essay #but its very short #TW: mentions of 18th century homophobia #laureloch #queer history #I'm sure lots of people won't know what I'm talking about #since I haven't posted about Müller in a while #so #I'll post this with a lams thing #probably

22 notes · View notes

mythgirlimagines · 4 years ago

Text

Anon-Correct Quotes: PM Seymour Edition! (Part eight of many)

Egg: Deez nuts! Haha gottem!

*Nerd slams Egg against a wall, and pulls out a knife, and begins crying*

Egg: BUH! Wh-wh-why are you crying?!

Nerd: I weep not for your death, but that I can only kill you once.

—————————————————————-

Wyre: Okay, here’s how to protect yourself from the virus.

Wyre: Wash your hands.

Wyre: Beat up neighbors and steal their survival supplies.

Wyre: Repeat for as long as it takes.

Wyre: YEAH!

—————————————————————-

Myth: Guess who’s ugly!

Myth: Well, not me, and certainly not you.

Myth: Love yourself.

—————————————————————-

Dream: *having taken Fancy’s hat* Okay, wholesome message hat time! I threw a bunch of random bullshit in a hat and printed out a wholesome message with it. Okay, here we go!

Dream: Because at seven, he was at then, because without it he wasn’t. When you do, make sure to do it up, because you go down.

Dream: *sniffling* You never know when the time is here because there it’s always around. It’s got a circle and leg and that’s because it does. It does because it do. It has to.

Dream: *weeping profusely* And that’s why you do! You make because upside down. You go and never not. It’s always you, you are!

Dream: Fuck, I think I’m having a stroke.

Fancy: GIVE ME BACK MY HAT!

—————————————————————-

Fusion: Wet Sock, you can’t just cut pieces of toast up, pour butter on it and call it a meal.

Narrator: But he could.

Narrator: And he did.

Narrator: And soon after, he would violate the Geneva Conventions.

—————————————————————-

Egg: Teen horse girl movie where the horse dies an hour in, and the second half is the girl learning occult science in order to reanimate it so she can win the big derby!

Eldritch: Necroprancer.

Dream: Tagline: YOU CAN’T BEAT THIS DEAD HORSE!

—————————————————————-

Fancy: Guess what?

Scar: *sarcastically* Chicken butt?

Fancy: I HAVE BEEN DEFEATED!!! SWEET RELEASE!!!

—————————————————————-

Myth: One time when I was seven, I went to this big department store and there were giant rugs hanging from the ceiling and you could move them to see more rugs. So I moved one, and there was an employee sitting behind it eating a bag of Doritos, and I screamed and started crying, and the store gave us a free rug.

Janon: I got fired because of you.

—————————————————————-

Wyre: Fun Christmas idea! Hang mistletoe, but instead of kissing, you have to fight whoever else is underneath it!

Egg: Call it: Mistlefoe!

Wyre: SOMEBODY’S HALLS ARE GETTING DECKED!

—————————————————————-

Fancy: Head empty, just bees buzzing.

Nerd: Call that a hive mind.

Fancy: HOW DARE YOU BE FUNNIER THAN ME?!

—————————————————————-

Iris: I name thee: DragonMaster69.

Scar: M'am, this is your newborn child.

Iris: I said what I said.

—————————————————————-

Wyre: Another day down till the next fun surprise!

Myth: This sounds like a threat.

Wyre: Ugh, not everything I say is a threat!

Wyre: But this is.

—————————————————————-

Egg: That’s the Egg of Dust. Whoever touches the egg turns to dust.

Purple: …

*Purple touches the egg*

Purple: *turning into dust* EGG, EGG, HELP, I TOUCHED THE EEEEGGGGGGggggggg…!

Egg: *shrugs*

—————————————————————-

Scar: It is a phase, mom!

Janon: Show me a permanent state of the self, mom!

Dream: Impermanence does not mean insignificance, mom!

Myth: The key to a happier life is being in a constant state of change and acceptance, mom!

—————————————————————-

Sparkle: Why do people think fog is scary? It’s literally like clouds came down to hug the earth, that’s CUTE!

Nerd: Have you ever played Silent Hill, mate?

—————————————————————-

So long as Pat makes videos, I will never run out of material to use. - Anon Nerd

---

That one with just me is incredibly accurate

#submission #anon nerd #sparkling anon #dream anon #just anon #anon scar #egg anon #wet sock anon #fancy anon #my evil twin #purple anon #iris anon #eldritch anon #fusion anon #incorrect quote #swearing #i speak

8 notes · View notes

lkabonginexile · 4 years ago

Text

Open main menu

Wikiquote

Search Wikiquote

Smedley Butler

United States Marine Corps general, two time Medal of Honor recipient, activist, lecturer, official, and writer

Language

Download PDF

Watch

Edit

I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler (July 30, 1881 – June 21, 1940), was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

Contents

Quotes Edit

War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

From a speech (1933)

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

From a speech (1933)

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

From a speech (1933)

War is a racket. It always has been.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

From a speech (1933)

"My interest is, my one hobby is, maintaining a democracy. If you get these 500,000 soldiers advocating anything smelling of Fascism, I am going to get 500,000 more and lick the hell out of you, and we will have a real war right at home."

Reply to Gerald MacGuire, after being asked to organize WWI veterans (for military support) in a fascist-coup of FDR, as related by Butler in testimony before Congress, 1934. A reporter (a Butler confidant) testified MacGuire said, "We might go along with Roosevelt and then do with him what Mussolini did with the King of Italy." Which was, made him a figure-head.

War is a racket (1935) Edit

Full text online

War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets?...How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few -- the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill? This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations.

For a great many years, as a soldier, I had a suspicion that war was a racket; not until I retired to civil life did I fully realize it. Now that I see the international war clouds gathering, as they are today, I must face it and speak out.

But what does it profit the men who are killed? What does it profit their mothers and sisters, their wives and their sweethearts? What does it profit their children? What does it profit anyone except the very few to whom war means huge profits? Yes, and what does it profit the nation?

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making. Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

A few profit – and the many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You can't end it by disarmament conferences. You can't eliminate it by peace parleys at Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical groups can't wipe it out by resolutions. It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war.

The normal profits of a business concern in the United States are six, eight, ten, and sometimes twelve percent. But war-time profits -- ah! that is another matter -- twenty, sixty, one hundred, three hundred, and even eighteen hundred per cent -- the sky is the limit.

Of course, it isn't put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and "we must all put our shoulders to the wheel," but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket -- and are safely pocketed.

I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

What business is it of ours whether Russia or Germany or England or France or Italy or Austria live under democracies or monarchies? Whether they are Fascists or Communists? Our problem is to preserve our own democracy. And very little, if anything, has been accomplished to assure us that the World War was really the war to end all wars.

Yes, we have had disarmament conferences and limitations of arms conferences. They don't mean a thing. One has just failed; the results of another have been nullified. We send our professional soldiers and our sailors and our politicians and our diplomats to these conferences. And what happens?

The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.

2 notes · View notes

brightquang · 4 years ago

Photo

Alleged 'Boogaloo' extremist charged in killing of federal officer

Dear Ex-President Obama Sir-with my personality would always like to respect Sir so much when I appreciate Sir so much, Sir allowed me to chate with Sir. Therefore, I would like to ask Sir some questions, and here are:

1. How many salaries did Sir earn in the eight years of two terms of yours when Sir has published the book in which Sir paid $65,000,000.00 for your book( sixty-five million dollars)?

2. Did Sir know about the bilateral treaty between the American Government and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam the TAxation, in which Agreement regarding income tax administration Exchange of notes at Saigon March 31 and May 3,1967-Entered into force May 3, 1967- 18 UST 546; TIAS 6262; 685 UNTS 207 which is why the Republic of Vietnam to have been accumulating for $350,000,000.00 ( three hundred and fifty million dollars to send in the United States of America to why America did not enforce the Paris Peace Accords and all of the multilateral and bilateral treaties, and international of relations protocols and the American laws with the Republic of Vietnam to that is why Sir has taken $350,000,000.00 that Sir has paid for the North Government when Sir visited Vietnam?

3. Dear Sir please to take a read this statement of my settlement case of prisoners of war below that I and Sir were in discussRespectfully YoursBright Quang

(86) The United Nations: - Treaty Series No. 13295 - Chapter V- Article 15 – paragraph a, b, c, & d. and that is why the Government of the United States of America did not only enforce the Geneva Conference on July 20, 1954, but also has had solemnly signed on Paris Peace Accords again, but both treaties were shredded by the American Government. Why does America have a modern civilized nation, but the United States of America has deceived the weak Vietnamese people because America hatched secretly conspiracy with the North Government to use the Army forces to overthrow South Vietnam without had respected both agreements treaties when America approved sovereignty of the Republic of Vietnam, America had not had approved North Vietnam?

For that reason, we would like to ask the Senate a few questions: How should have whether the Senate of America independently kept the

____________

(86) Chapter V says, “The Reunification of Vietnam and the relationship between North and South Vietnam-“Article 15 says, “The reunification of Vietnam shall be carried out step by step through peaceful means on the basis of discussion and agreements between North and South Vietnam, without coercion or annexation by either party and without foreign interference. The time for reunification will be agreed upon in North and South Vietnam. Pending reunification to see paragraph (a), (b), (c) & (d)

American dignity of super values of this settlement case of the Southern officers’ prisoners of war without having made an influent of the great power of America? How does the Senate of America self- rethink to enact H.R. 7885 for the Vietnam War in 1963? (87) Actually, the masterminds of the proxy war of America in which the American-leaderships (88) were self-confessed their aggression war in the Republic of Vietnam to be wrongful actions. Even truth, the threats of American President Nixon has had to force Southern President Nguyen Van Thieu to sign the Paris Peace Accords to let the American Government have cut and run out of the Republic of Vietnam without had the war compensation for any Vietnamese victims of the proxy war of America should be compensated by the customary law of war (89).

In the same way, first, President John Kennedy secretly endorsed the assassination of South President Ngo Dinh Diem (90) during the United States Constitution has never had this Chapter. However, the American leaders did not only violate American law (91) but also violated the Charter I Article1 paragraph 1, 2, 3, & 4 of the United Nations, when, the Government of the United States of America has organized the United Nations Council meeting in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, which is why the Government of the United States of America has violated Charter II

_____________

(87) 28 USC § Ch. 171: TORT CLAIMS PROCEDURE

https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title28/part6/chapter171&edition=prelimTitle IV of act Aug. 2, 1946, was substantially repealed and reenacted as sections 1346(b) and 2671 et seq. of this title by act June 25,

(88) President Nixon threatens President Thieu - HISTORY

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-threatens-president-thieuPresident Richard Nixon warns South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu in a private letter that his refusal to sign any negotiated peace agreement would..

(87) 35 U.S. Code § 183 - Right to compensation | U.S. Code ...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/183

The head of the department or agency is authorized, upon the presentation of a claim, to enter into an agreement with the applicant, his successors, assigns, or legal representatives, in full settlement for the damage and/or use. This settlement agreement shall be conclusive for all purposes notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary. If full settlement of the claim cannot be effected, the head of the department or agency may award and pay to such applicant, his successors, assigns, or legal representatives, a sum not exceeding 75 per centum of the sum…

(88)http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/11/25/kennedy.tapes (89)Kissinger: Vietnam failures `we did to ourselves’ | The ...

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/... and 28 USC §1346b-June 25, 1948 Chapter171-Tort Claims Procedure…

(89) To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

(91) Mr. Kissinger is confessed one’s self when he has quoted.

Article 2 paragraph 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, & 7.(92) that is why America has used

the right of veto to prohibit the Republic of Vietnam to join a member of the United Nations - after that, America has freely been receiving the Republic of Vietnam to be the allied partnership in order to mobilize South Vietnam to fight against communism which is why America did not respect the sovereignty of South Vietnam, but, the United States Congress has been approved American law enacting for assistance the Republic of Vietnam. In the war ended, America has strongly betrayed the Republic of Vietnam by the saying of Kissinger, "Vietnam failures we did to ourselves” when he is self-confessed wrongful war actions, "he said,” The Vietnam War required us to emphasize the national interest rather than abstract principle, what President and I tried to do was unnatural. And that is why we didn’t make it. (93)”

What would have America carried on the justice of the American Government to join with the United Nations of the International Court of Justice, and of the Republic of Vietnam?

(94)

In conclusion, for both the United States Treaties above were the inhuman wars game of the lack of contributes ought to build in the Southeast Asian peace of the American Government because of 1 U.S.C. § 112 b (a) (b) (c)

(95)

in which American law has ordered the US Department of Foreign Affairs to should be editing formatted the text and then, it ought to submit to the United States Congress within 60 days. Let Congressional enact the law. That is why the Department of Foreign Affairs has no had enforced, but America has waited for on 13 May 1974, America has registered with the United Nations. So both the United States Treaties above were not efficacy for peaceful Vietnam

(96).

Therefore, we would like to ask for the Senate of America to review the ethical conscience of America in the Vietnam War. Especially, the compensation of the prisoners of war of America must enforce because we were hired servicing war by the law of the United States of America. Let us prove the law's S 484- 106-Congress-1999-(2000): Bring Them Home alive

(97)

if we were not the paid soldiers of America to why did America ______________

(92) President Nixon threatens President Thieu - HISTORY

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-threatens-president- thieu

Jan 15, 2020 · Again, President Thieu refused to sign the Accords, but Nixon promised to come to the aid of South Vietnam if the communists violated the terms of the peace treaty, and Thieu agreed to sign.

(93) 1 U.S. Code § 112b - United States international agreements ...

https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/1/112b

(94) No.13295-Agreement on ending the war restoring peace in Vietnam Signed at Paris on 27 January 1973-Registered by the USA on 13 May 1974

(95) https://www.congress.gov/bill/106th-congress/senate-bill/484Bring Them Home Alive Act of

(96) 28 USC § 1502-Treaty case: Except as otherwise provided by Act of Congress, the United States Court of Federal Claims shall not have jurisdiction of any claim.

(97) b. solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and

bring us back the American home that means that America is a super trader's own of the war, whilst our home is a wonderful national Vietnam, but not the right home in the United States of America. For the United States of America was aggressive war when it has been occupying the Republic of Vietnam from 1954 to 1975 in which was not the customary law of war of the supreme law of the land of our modern civilized Age, but based on the modern weapons of America occupied a small country like the Republic of Vietnam. In fact, the first time America came to South Vietnam when the United States of America has mobilized us to fight anti-communism, but the ended, America secretly shook hands with mainland China to live in peace. Why did a Great Power’s America fool the Republic of Vietnam in the war? Where was the American justice pushing for the worldwide place? (98) 28 The U.S. C. § 1346. (a)(b)(c) (d)(e)(f)(g) United States as the defendant (June 25, 1948, ch. 646, 62 Stat.

(99) 28 USC § 1346 the United States as the defendant.

According to this statute is the exact defendant America that does not only compensate for his real property, his small business, and his injury imprisoned but also America came to occupy the Republic of Vietnam by the American laws, the American Armed Forces, and bilateral treaties, and multilateral treaties. That is why America had not to respect the entire international for relation protocols with the Republic of Vietnam to include the benefits of taxation of the plaintiff when America has signed a bilateral treaty with the Republic of Vietnam in which is the exchange of notes at __________

(98) Recognizes the significance of the 42nd anniversary of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. Honors:

the contributions of Vietnamese Americans to the United States over the last 42 years and their tireless commitment to upholding freedom and democracy in Vietnam;

the service of members of the U.S. Armed Forces and of the South Vietnamese forces who fought in Vietnam, including those who gave their lives; and

the memory of the Vietnamese who lost their lives while attempting to flee Vietnam.

Encourages all U.S. citizens to join in remembering the Fall of Saigon, honoring the contributions of the Vietnamese American community, and calling for freedom and democracy in Vietnam.

(99) IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES-April 10, 2019-Mr. Lowenthal (for himself, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Mr. Correa, Mrs. Davis of California, Mr. Khanna, Mr. Cisneros, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Rouda, and Ms. Lofgren) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and in addition to the Committee on Armed Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned

Saigon March 31 and May 3, 1967. Entered into force on May 3, 1967. 18 UST 546; TIAS 6262; 685 UNTS 207 (100)which is why was self America torn shred with the Republic of Vietnam by this bilateral treaty? Because America and the Republic of Vietnam had agreed to pay the taxation to each other, the American people and the Vietnamese people are equal to each other. So the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the Republic of Vietnam are too, no one government violated crime to each other.

(101) H.RES 293- Recognizing the 42nd anniversary of the Fall of Saigon on 30, 1975 -

According to this bill of the shameful of the United States Congress sending for the all of the Southern officers of prisoners of war a bitter-source scold because the US Congress has enacted H.R. 7885 Foreign Assistance Act in 1963 to persuade the Republic of Vietnam to fight against communism, but the end, the Government of the United States of America did not enforce this bill when America has sold off the Republic of Vietnam to communism. So the bill’s H.R 7885 had sold off the human rights, the Freedom, the sovereignty, and all of the sacred dignity of the Vietnamese people, and the Republic of Vietnam to communism during America has deprived rights of the life of the Southern people and the Southern officers. Let America play the inhuman war in South Vietnam. In contrast, America has forcefully forced us to cut and run out of the Republic of Vietnam when we, the Southern Officers, did not only betray our ancestors but also had the treason our fatherland to let us follow behind the American Armed Forces. Even worse, the Government of the United States of America has sold us to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Therefore, the North Government did not only imprison us but also nationalized all of our properties and small business. Let us come to the United States when we did not have earned any benefits of prisoners of war but also had some years nearby, the United States Congress has enacted for a few of the bills dug up so many conditional ashamed of both sides. One is the great power of America has ___________

(100) the agreements listed below were in force between the United States and the Republic of Viet-Nam (South Viet-Nam). The status of these agreements remain under review by the United States

(101) Honors: the contributions of Vietnamese Americans to the United States over the last 42 years and their tireless commitment to upholding freedom and democracy in Vietnam; the service of members of the U.S. Armed Forces and of the South Vietnamese forces who fought in Vietnam, including those who gave their lives; and the memory of the Vietnamese who lost their lives while attempting to flee Vietnam. Encourages all U.S. citizens to join in remembering the Fall of Saigon, honoring the contributions of the Vietnamese American community, and calling for freedom and democracy in Vietnam

fooled a small national Vietnam and second is an American modern civilized and progressive playing a trick on America's ally, which is the Republic of Vietnam-however, the rich of America gloriously has millionfold the Southern officers of prisoners of war, but the United States Congress has still deceived the Southern Officers of prisoners of war by American law again. Bills to honor us to be enriching for our second mother of American because no army of the whole world had followed with the military occupier in order to betray their nation and people like America has strongly forced the Republic of Vietnam Army Forces to surrender a barbarous enemy when our enemy did not have any international relations and international protocols with America and the Republic of Vietnam.

(102) H.Res 309 - the 44th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, America within H. RES. 309 Recognizing the 44th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. The ethical conscience of this express bill of the respectful lack of the law of war on the Hague Convention in 1901, since the American President and the US Senate, was approved by the American law. Even good, the US Congress has forcefully enacted the law to the Foreign Assistance Act for the Republic of Vietnam. In the meanwhile, the Government of the United States of America has been signing for a few multilateral treaties and bilateral treaty for the Republic of Vietnam in which did not only endorse the self-determination of the Southern people but also approved the sovereignty of the Republic of Vietnam by those treaties, by American law which is why a modern civilized and progressive America did not keep the solemn promises with a small country. But America has abuses for the atomic power and the powerful missiles one's self to force the Republic of Vietnam that's unconditional surrenders. In the meanwhile, the American Government has distorted all of the super values of great power and all of the super values of American honors to exchange a little core of interests in the Republic of Vietnam to get the national interests with Communism. Especially, America is a super trader when America looked at the Southern Officers who looked like the slaves of prehistoric America. Therefore, the text of this bill has contained the full enslaved smell without had little human rights of American humanism because on the playing war yard does not only have equally but also one side was lost defeated, so the lost war ought to compensate for the injured war. That is why the United States Congress has fooled us for a second time. In the meanwhile, the United States Congress has fully understood the Southern officers of prisoners of war were sacrificed our wonderful life to protect the core of interests of America by the invaded war of America which is why the richest of the

____________

(102) Shown Here: Introduced in House (04/10/2019) This the resolution recognizes the significance of the 44th anniversary of the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975. The resolution honors the contributions of Vietnamese Americans and honors the service of members of the U.S. Armed Forces and the South Vietnamese forces who fought in Vietnam, including those who gave their lives.

American Government is trillion-fold of the Southern officers of prisoners of war which is why the United States Congress has still fooled us.

(103)H.R 7885 Pbl.L 88_205 - Approved December 16, 1963, so the quick orders of American President sent the American Armed Forces to the Republic of Vietnam together with the same day- In condition, Secretary Defense William Westmoreland who is an excellent hero of World War Two during he led the strong American Armed Forces and the American Alliance of the Southeast Organization Treaty to come to the Republic of Vietnam in order to occupy the Republic of Vietnam after the thirty years in the war. And then, America has begun to betray the Republic of Vietnam after America has been consumed the oldest weapons of World War Two. So America has sold off the Republic of Vietnam to communism. Because America has borrowed the law of war to shake hands with Mainland China, America, after that, has trafficker humans with communism and arrested so much slave war to come to America. As a result, the Southern officers run to follow with America on 30 April 1975, the United States Congress has enacted this bill. Let America praise them to easily listen to the American occupier when they were easily treason for their ancestors and their wonderful fatherland. Moreover, they demeaned to work so many jobs when the jobs of the Native Americans have never worked these jobs. Why do our high military ranks and pundits of the Republic of Vietnam change to work these jobs in the US? Why did the US Congress enact this to scold us but no compensated any pennies of the prisoners of war because we have listened to ear America by the lost nation? How would we explain our treason for our ancestors and our fatherland and our Vietnamese people when we were betrayed in all by the United States Congress?

(104) 28 USC § 1502 Treaty case because of the fifteen five years have gone by, our petition was from the low courts to the US Congress, but they have never resolved the prisoners of war benefits and the real property. Therefore, I would like to carry out our case to the Senate of the United States because the Government of the United States of America has been endorsed all of the multilateral, bilateral treaties, American laws, and international of relation protocols that enforced in force by the United States Congress.

___________

(104) The agreements listed below were in force between the United States and the Republic of Viet-Nam (South Viet-Nam). The status of these agreements remains under review by the United States Agreement for mutual defense assistance in Indochina, with three annexes. Signed at Saigon December 23, 1950. Entered into force December 23, 1950- 3 UST 2756; TIAS 2447; 185 UNTS 3 Parties: Cambodia France Laos United States Vietnam -

2019-Treaties-in-Force-Multilaterals-7.23.2019.pdf

Show original message

tif_01d.pdf376.5kB

1 note · View note