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reidetic · 4 years ago

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The Pantheon: The War or The World? - A.H

A/N: This is the second installment in ‘The Pantheon’ series. You can find the first, Golden, here. Big shout out to @zhuzhubii for their dialogue help and @ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff and a discord friend (who’s tumblr I cannot tag fsm) for beta-ing both stages of this fic. This about to get real dark, y’all. Heed the content warnings.

CW/TW: Murder, violence, general angst, did you hear me about murder?

Couple: None, gen fic.

Category: Angst

Word Count: 1.8k

War. Violence. Anger, malevolence, fury. Aaron was familiar enough with them all. Over a decade in the Behavioral Analysis Unit and he had seen nothing but the wrath of mankind, spilled over from held tongues. Everything stems from fear and terror, and he would go to the grave swearing he fathered the abstract. He felt he left destruction behind him in a wake of combat, and failed to keep his fists from their fury.

He hadn’t held his rage against Foyet, and it terrified him to no end that he held no regrets about it. If you spend your waking hours chasing the entities of psychopathy, do you not worry that one stumble will place you among the pack? Will the darkness that now inhabits him be his fall from grace? What would he teach his son about the world if he collapsed beneath it?

He’d be lying to himself if he said the pressure only began after she left. Aaron knew a lot of things when he was young, but the lesson he never quite learned was how to slow down, and life stepped in quickly enough. Her name on his lips burned like fire for months after, only ever calling her Mom to Jack, never once braving the knowledge that the only woman he had given a piece of himself to was now gone, and he had absolutely no one to blame but himself. He still remembers the grip of Derek’s hands around his arms as he pulled him away from the fatality beneath him, still remembers the blood staining his fingernails. There is only so much evil soap can erase.

Sometimes he felt like the Devil studied the blueprints of his life for ideas, and then he remembered that it’s only him that creates the wars waging on the homefront. How long can he sit here in the dark, touching the floor in their home where his wife’s blood stained the wood? He hadn’t been here in years, but he needed to be here, he needed to feel her again. The blonde underneath him wasn’t Haley, no, but she was close enough. She bore just enough resemblance to his wife and son to justify stealing her away, but just was different enough to let his fist close around her throat. Too fragile to fight him off, she never stood a chance, not when he’s creating his own bloodshed. The blood running from her eyebrow where his wedding ring had sliced her skin open simply pushes him over the edge, and when her body stops writhing under his closed hand, he realizes he has no idea what her name is.

Maybe he was born with this brutality, perhaps he never stood a chance against the test of time. After all, he wasn’t just chasing killers, he was learning from them too. Cold, calculated, planned. Premeditated, wasn’t that what they called it? He watched her for weeks, needed to know that she would fulfill his fantasy, his need. He made sure she was alone, no children or husbands left behind. Not just to eliminate witnesses, but because Aaron had been on the side of that losing fight. He wouldn’t wish it on his worst enemy. This is just his conflict, this is just his deserved combat. No one would be surprised if he snapped, would they? It was all he knew, it was ever-consuming and at the end of it, he’d be lucky to have even a fragment of a soul left. Emily had warned him once about keeping everything so far shoved down that you lose the ability to distinguish between yourself and your trauma.

There was so much darkness, so much fear. He was so tired of holding everything on his shoulders. So he found a way to put it down, he found a way to try to heal. He had to make it right. He had to give Haley another chance to die, and maybe this time it would be right.

There hadn’t been a break in this case for months. Women disappearing then reappearing mangled and murdered, always a different MO, their only common thread was victimology. Blonde single women, never anyone to miss them other than their work.

“Hey, I hate to say this but...these women, they all look like Haley.” JJ says tentatively, glancing at the tacked up photos of the victims.

An unnerving quiet falls over the room as the team looks at JJ, a mixture of resignation and horror painting their faces.

Rossi nods with a pained look. “They do. And...Aaron fits the profile.”

Spencer looks up and adds quietly, “And he took off work for three weeks when the killings started.”

“No, he wouldn’t. Not Hotch.” Morgan stands and shakes his head. “I still think it’s Evans.”

Rossi sighs. “Evans has an alibi, Morgan. Aaron doesn’t.”

Morgan scoffs, looking to anyone for help and settles on Emily. “Prentiss, you really believe this?”

She sighs, looks up at him and says, “I’m sorry Derek, he fits the profile perfectly. We always say profilers make the best unsubs.”

“Damn the profile! They can be wrong. We’ve been wrong before.” Morgan pleads, looking around the room for someone on his side.

“Look, why don’t we just go to his house? If I’m right, then we bring him in. If we’re wrong, then we’re just checking on him. Okay?” JJ reasons.

“You can waste your time all you want, but I’m going to talk to Evans.” Morgan seethes, looking to Spencer. “You coming with me, kid?” Spencer just nods, throws JJ an apologetic glance, and grabs his jacket and vest, following Morgan out of the room.

“I’ll go with you, JJ. Prentiss, stay behind and keep in contact with Garcia, just in case.” Rossi instructs. JJ nods, and they head in the opposite direction of Morgan and Spencer, and JJ prays she’s wrong about this.

Prying open the door to Hotch’s house, JJ shakes her head. This isn’t how she wanted this to end. She tiptoes through the room, Rossi following behind her while they work to clear the area. As they go upstairs, she starts to hear crying.

Toeing open the bedroom door, JJ calls through, “Hotch?” She sees him, hunched over a blonde woman, blood pooling on the carpet between his knees. “Hotch!” He still isn’t responding, sobs wracking through his body. “...Aaron?” She tries, pitching her voice down.

He turns to look at her then, no sign of recognition on his face. He looks broken and battered. He still doesn’t look like a murderer.

Meeting his eyes, she says, “Aaron, it’s JJ. We can help you but I need you to put the knife down.” The heart beating inside her chest is so much less scared than it is breaking in half to watch this man she called family die.

He turns to her, blood on his outstretched hands and a sad smile on his face. “You’re here, you’re finally here.”

Confused, JJ cocks her head to the side, gun still trained on him.“I’m...here?” She asks.

He lurches towards her, knife in hand.“I missed you so much.” He swipes a blood covered hand under his eye to wipe away the tears, and JJ’s stomach curdles at the sight.

Rossi takes a step forward to meet JJ, and says quietly, “Aaron, stay back.” Hotch doesn’t seem to hear him, staring directly at JJ.

Unsure of what’s happening, JJ decides to lean into it, in the hopes that making him feel understood would avoid casualties. “I...missed you too.”

He gestures behind him to the still body, and says, “I did it, see? I finally got it right!” He’s shouting, and his happiness is unnerving.

JJ steps forward a little, staring at him. “Aaron...I’m sorry, but I don't understand. Could you...explain it to me?” Maybe even in this state, he’s still sane enough to be logical. Maybe.

Hotch barks a bitter laugh, “Foyet, he didn’t do it right. He…disgraced you.” You? All of a sudden JJ realizes what’s happening and she chokes back tears. She’s not Haley, but she can be for a minute if it protects him.

She softens her voice, holsters her gun and steps forward with her hands up. “I’m...I’m here now. And I've missed you so much. Why don't you put the knife down, and then-”

He shakes his head violently, sweat and tears flying off his face.“It’s too late.” He’s muttering to himself and JJ can’t understand the words under his breath.

JJ swallows thickly. “What do you mean? I’m here, it’s ok-”

He cuts her off abruptly, waving the knife at the girl behind him dismissively. “She's already gone. She’s already gone.” He looks up through tears and smiles sadly at JJ, at the figure of his late wife in front of him. “...I got you back, though. You're here. You're here and I...-” He breaks down in sobs, sinking to his knees and clutching the knife to his chest.

JJ steps closer, looking down at him in pity. “That's right, I’m here. And everything will be okay, I just need you to put the knife down. Can you do that for me, Aaron? Put the knife down.”

He looks up at her, dropping the knife to the floor with a loud clatter and JJ drops to her knees, wrapping her arms around the broken man before her and they’re both crying. “I’m so sorry, Haley.” She just shushes him, pulling him up to his feet.

“I gotta cuff you now, Hotch. It’s for your own good.” Rossi has tears in his eyes, pulling the silver metal from his belt and clasping it around Hotch’s wrists. It’s then that the illusion shatters, and he sees what he’s done. JJ leans down and presses her fingers to the inside of the girl’s wrist, searching for a pulse, but it’s useless. Like he said, it was too late. She was already gone.

“JJ?” Hotch asks pitifully. “What did I do?” He looks so tired, so crushed.

“I don’t know, Aaron. But we’ll fix it.” She’s still got slow tears rolling down her cheeks, and she takes him from Rossi, guiding him down the stairs and out the front door where the rest of the team is waiting, the looks on their faces a mixture of fear and disgust and pity.

War was ever-consuming. War within, war in the world he struggled to hold up on his shoulders. He could never decide if he saw himself more as Ares or Atlas, never could deify himself in the way he was expected to. Head of the unit, head of his remaining household, head of his world. And yet, he chose war every time. This time, the blood on his fingertips was no longer metaphorical, but the weight of the world fell off. As he’s pulled away from his home, he sees JJ and Jessica huddled over his son, and he wonders if what he’s done is worth the weightlessness.

taglist: @ontheoddoccasioniwritestuff @andiebeaword @dreatine @muffin-cup @httpnxtt @sunlight-moonrise @samanddeanstolethetardis221b @spencer-reid-in-a-pool @fanficlibrary82 @zhuzhubii @prettyricky187 @reidlusts

#criminal minds fanfic #aaraon hotchner #aaron hotch fanfiction #hotch fanfiction #criminal minds gen fic #unsub!hotch #dark!hotch

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eolewyn1010 · 3 years ago

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Warning: This is a rant.

So, there’s someone in the Charité fandom with a few, eh, interesting(?) ships. Namely, Anni/de Crinis as a romantic ship or, more recently, Anni/Christel. Which, whatever. I don’t shit on your ship, you leave my boats alone and all that; I guess the person in question is just into villain/protagonist ships. You do you. But I do have an opinion and I’m gonna elaborate on it now. (It’s a history- and canon-oriented breakdown; feel free to ignore.)

First of all, Max de Crinis was a Nazi. I’m not sure inhowfar the person in question is aware of that because they only ever seem to be talking about the character de Crinis in the Charité show (more on that later) and I don’t think they’re German; thus they might not have the cultural background to take this with the same queasy feeling I do, but yes, we’re talking a real-life Nazi who gave his expert reports on which people were to be “sorted out” in Aktion T4. Meaning, he actively participated in the mass murder of disabled people, adults and children alike. And no one can tell me he didn’t know what he was having part in. That man was influencial, way up in the hierarchy. He lived the superiority ideology of the Nazis, he preached it. We are shown that in the series. We hear the way he talks about people, about the Dohnanyis, about a traumatized woman who thinks she has lost her child, about homosexuals, and I think it’s not far-off from what we know of historical de Crinis. He was a monster, responsible for the deaths of hundreds or thousands and not sorry about it. He’s not shown as a redeemable antagonist in the series, and I don’t see him at all with Anni, a character who is very much shown to be redeemable. Anni is passive and complacent, which is another category of bad, but she is, to some degree, unaware. It is at least partially a willful unawareness, admittedly, but she is young enough to have been raised unaware. And once she overcomes this, she realizes that what happens around her, what her highly adored mentor preaches and practices, is nothing she can morally justify. That’s when her redemption begins. With her breaking down crying eventually as she can’t cling to her worldview anymore, we know it’s a painful process, and it’s supposed to be.

De Crinis is at no point unaware. He is a Nazi, and we’re never shown at any time that he wants to change that. We’re never shown him in pain, up until it’s about his own life. Because there was never any indication for that in the historical person and this is a historical show.

Secondly, the character we are shown in the series. He’s married, y’know? Admittedly, his wife is extremely non-present, showing up only to die by his side, but it’s one of the things that make de Crinis behave in that condescending mentorly way toward Anni instead of being actually flirty with her. So, the ship would have to do away with the wife. Then, it’d have to away with Artur because - oh, right, Anni already has an irredeemable Nazi asshole she’s married to. From what we’re shown, she and Artur are very much in love initially. It’s not an easy separation for her. Easiest solution? Make them both single from the get-go, I guess, have de Crinis be Karin’s father; he’d conveniently be protective of his own child and stuff... and wind up as Artur, basically. Who’s all, “yeah, other people’s children, but not mine, of course”. To overcome that, de Crinis would have to realize that all human life has inherent value. Which means, he’d have to renounce his work, his loyalty to the Nazi realm, everything his life and ego consists of. All the things he’s built his reputation on, might I note. There are others who watch him. He’d be dead in no time. And if we say he was like that from the get-go, then he never gets into a position of power in the first place. Scientist? Even several of his contemporaries thought his work was worthless. (We’re shown that in series-canon, too, with Sauerbruch and Jung grinning at his self-adulation.) His hostility with the Dohnanyis / Bonhoeffers? Wouldn’t be there; he’d be fighting for their cause. His psychological torture and persecution of Martin and Otto? Why would he hunt down homosexuals if he had internalized that all human life has value and Nazi ideology is wrong?

There would be nothing left of his character. What point is there in shipping Anni with de Crinis when the latter isn’t de Crinis anymore? Just make a new character then?

Third, his points of redemption potential? ...there are none. His favorism of Anni? Based on her being a good little sheep who looks up at him with her wide, Aryan eyes and admires him. His soft spot for kids, shown in his disgust with Magda Goebbels’ planned murder of her children? He’s appalled that the virtuous paragon of the Nazi model family is shredding yet another bit of his pretty, pretty worldview; that’s all. He doesn’t give a shit about children. He doesn’t try to stop her or talk her out if it. He tells her where she can get poison to go through with it. When Anni mentions that “Karin has been evacuated”, he doesn’t even blink. And he knows what “evacuating” means for a disabled child. He doesn’t care. He has the point of view of Nurse Käthe, of Prof. Bessau: That child’s no good; make new ones. His taking flight, knowing that he has committed crimes he will be prosecuted for? Yeah - but he doesn’t seem to suffer from it. When Anni acknowledges herself as guilty, she breaks down and lashes out, realizing what she might have been and was capable of. De Crinis? Takes flight. He’s not a bit shaken, not a bit surprised by what he has been up to. He has always known that what he participated in is wrong; he just didn’t care so long as there were no consequences for him personally. The one and only thing that made de Crinis watch-worthy in the series is that Lukas Miko is a damn fine actor who gives one hell of a chilling performance. That doesn’t make his character any less of a piece of shit, nor does it diminish my urge to go take a shower after the de Crinis scenes. I wouldn’t mind watching Miko play a de Crinis anthithesis, but that definitely wouldn’t be de Crinis.

To make this ship work, there are exactly two possibilities: Give up all of de Crinis’ character - or roll with him being the evil bastard that he is and that we are shown he is, and give up all of Anni’s character. That’s it. Just... don’t act like there’s canonically anything good about de Crinis.

Same goes for the Anni/Christel ship, btw. “Everything is the same, but Christel is not in love with Otto but with Anni”. That... means nothing is the same. It means everything changes thoroughly. Christel was always the only real threat for Otto and Martin - if she isn’t, there’s not much for them to fear in their own ranks. They’re careful; they wouldn’t have been found out without a denunciation. Means, they don’t get arrested, Otto doesn’t have to save Martin, Otto goes out to war, Otto dies before the war is over because those last months of battling were desperate and ugly (even more so than the earlier, I mean). So, we’d get a new gay at the cost of killing another? Eh. A Nazi accepting homosexuality, coming to terms with herself as an adversary of her own creeds and abandoning Nazi ideology to Do The Right Thing is not “missing dramatic content”, either. It’s Anni’s arc. And it’s a character arc that Christel, with the way she’s written, with “too much compassion is a sign of weakness”, is not capable of.

The scenario doesn’t only include Christel accepting herself as a lesbian; it also includes her helping Anni with Karin. Which brings us back to the same problem as with de Crinis: She’d have to abandon everything she’s convinced of. Accept the value of all human life. And I think her definition of a “worthy life” is even narrower than that of de Crinis; that’s why he recruits her in the first place: Because Christel is a very passionate Nazi. Much more so than de Crinis. She has a backbone, he’s an opportunistic chickenshit. He takes flight. She fights. To the very last second, she clings to her idea of the Nazi realm. When she breaks down, it isn’t for realizing that what she believes in is wrong; it is because what she believes in is lost. That’s one of the things that make me be more shaken with her than with de Crinis, even more in awe of Frida-Lovisa Hamann than of Lukas Miko: Christel never knows that she’s in the wrong. Like Anni, she’s young enough to have been raised unaware, and different than Anni, she very decidedly declines the chance to break out of this. If she’d been brought to court for her deeds, she wouldn’t have been able to defend herself, and she wouldn’t have denied anything, because in her worldview, she never did anything wrong. Realizing that would be, again, an extremely painful process and, again, it wouldn’t leave anything of her character. Why would she go on a date with Otto and propose to him? Why would she tattle on little Emil? On Hans von Dohnanyi? On Martin? Why would she be in conflict with the Sauerbruchs? Why would she lead Volkssturm kids into the hospital if she wants to protect Anni? Why are there any conflicts at all instead of all of the Charité staff being morally upright and good and a united front against the Nazis?

They aren’t. There’s a story being told, and if they’d change out these chilling, well-written antagonists for lukewarm knock-off protagonists, they’d have to make up new antagonists to make any of the story work. It’s a historical series, dealing with living amidst Nazis; inside this framework, the characters won’t function as theirselves if their core values are flipped.

Conclusion? There’s only one legit ship in there, and it’s de Crinis/Christel. I can totally see that; it’d leave both their characters intact. He could rush back to tragically die by her side - BAM, there you’ve got your Nazi-apologetic drama. Or make it Magda Goebbels/Christel, if one wants to go for psycho lesbians. Personally, I don’t care much for finding a happy end for obvious Nazis that were written as Nazis and have absolutely nothing that would turn them away from being Nazis. And I don’t see Anni being either’s romantic partner. Why on earth would she want to? Isn’t Artur punishment enough?

#Charité #Charité at War #got this out of my system #I'm a CHARACTER writer okay?#so this is the character-driven take #but the apologetic take on a historical Nazi still pisses me off

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drivingsideways · 4 years ago

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in search of a better dream

This is about three pieces of South Korean media that crossed my path recently: the dramas Search WWW and Flower of Evil, and the novel Kim Ji Young, Born 1982.

Disclaimer and context : I'm not Korean, I don't speak the language, and I've watched a very limited set of kdramas. The criticisms I make in this piece are not to single out kdramas, or kdrama fandom, as what I've described exists in Western and other Asian media and fandoms as well.

Under the cut for length:

There's a scene in the first episode of the hit 2020 k-drama "Flower of Evil" that made me want to quit watching the show within the first ten minutes. The scene goes like this: our protagonists, Cha Ji Won and Baek Hee Seung meet Baek Hee Seung's parents along with their four year old daughter. The occasion is Baek Hee Seung's birthday, and loving wife Cha Ji Won has set up a special birthday dinner for them. On the way to the restaurant, the daughter has already complained about how she's scared of her grandparents, and they don't like her. When we meet the grandparents, we see the truth of this- they are as cold as the Arctic to all three, but especially to their daughter-in-law and granddaughter. In a bid to smooth out the social awkwardness, Cha Ji Won instructs her daughter to greet her grandparents the way they had "practiced" earlier- a cutesy little greeting where the adorable Eun-ha makes a heart over her head and chirps "I love you grandma and grandpa". When this fails to soften them, Eun-ha retreats, looking scared and disappointed. Not to worry, Cha Ji Won has this completely figured out: if you try harder, she tells her four year old daughter, they'll eventually love you.

Reader, I was, as they say, mad.

We find out soon enough that this stellar bit of parenting follows from an abiding principle in Cha Ji Won's life. Her romance with Baek Hee Seung starts when a handsome oppa walks into the family store, and is a saga of her stalking and pursuing a man who repeatedly tells her he's not interested, until he finally gives in. The power of her persistence pays off when the emotionally distant and abrasive man, in a classic beauty-and-the-beast transition, becomes a loving boyfriend, and then later, husband and father. It's a fantasy- some might even say feminist fantasy come true- he's handsome, supportive, reliable, artistic, the primary housekeeper and caretaker of their daughter while she pursues her demanding "dream" job as a police officer, and they have enough money to live in a charming and lovingly set up two-storeyed house in ruinously expensive Seoul. This is heterosexual female wish fulfilment at its peak, and it is all made possible because she persevered.

It all threatens to come apart with the discovery of the perfect man's dark past- for a brief period, she's forced to contemplate the idea that he's actually a serial killer who's conned her for the entirety of their relationship of fourteen years; that the perfect life was, in fact, a lie.

However, since this is written and billed as romance melodrama, this horror is short-lived. As the story progresses through increasingly improbable, violent and sometimes downright hilarious twists and turns, we grow closer to the (inevitable) happy ending. Baek Hee Seung/ Do Hyun Soo is no killer, just a traumatized child with a horrific past. The lies are the result of psychological damage inflicted by a society that unfairly deemed him a monster; the cage of repressed emotions that he'd locked himself in needed only the unshakeable conviction of Cha Ji Won's love to be broken open. "I wish you could see yourself as I see you" she tells him, in one of the show's endless supply of tearfully emotional moments, "I wish you could understand yourself the way I understand you."

This framework continues right to the end, when a bout of short term amnesia (!!) has Do Hyun Soo questioning himself and her: do you know, he asks her, when I'm lying to you, and when I'm not, because I don't. The show answers that almost immediately- it doesn't matter, because it's her vision of him that he wants to be; in other words, he chooses the version of himself that she wants. The horror of the lie was a red herring, Cha Ji Won was right from the start about her husband- all it took was the power of her love and her perseverance to overcome the lie at the heart of her marriage, to restore it to its previous shape- quite literally. The dream house they built together, which was destroyed by the villain, is shown in the last shots as unchanged from how it was in the beginning. One of the last shots we have of the couple is of them kissing in the artisan husband's workshop, an almost perfect recreation of the first time we see them. Paradise Regained, and all of us- and Cha Ji Won- can breathe a sigh of relief. You, the twenty-first century woman, are the architect of your own fantasy and can have it all. What could be more powerful than that?

In Kim Ji Young, Born 1982 , a novel published in 2016, and often credited with kickstarting a new conversation about feminism in South Korea, the eponymous protagonist's story is also one of perseverance. It's a starkly written tale, an everywoman tale, a dryly narrated fact finding mission report complete with citations and references, about a woman born in the late twentieth century into a rigidly patriarchal culture, whose very existence is an aberration- her parents didn’t opt for a sex-selective abortion unlike many of their contemporaries when they found that their second child would also be a girl. Kim Ji Young, like the rest of us, grows up immersed in a misogynist culture. Even before she understands it, she learns to work around it and through it, rationalizing the micro-aggressions, burying the anger at the casual and institutional sexism that permeates her life, compromising and coping with it all, and achieving some semblance of having it all: a job, a decent, loving husband, a child. However, it's when motherhood arrives that it all falls apart- Kim Ji Young, faced with the exhausting carework of having a baby at home and another regular, full time job, does what so many women in her position do- quits her "outside" job for her parenting one. Fighting exhaustion and depression, a casually cruel and misogynist remark from a stranger in a park proves to be the proverbial final straw; Kim Ji Young suffers a mental breakdown, dissociating herself completely from her own life, and "seamlessly, flawlessly" taking on the personalities of other women she's known- her mother, her friend, her colleague. The novel ends with a narrative twist that's both horrifying and appropriate: we learn that our narrator is actually her male psychiatrist. Kim Ji Young doesn't even get to be the voice of her own story; instead, it is told by a man cocooned in his own privilege, who displays the same paternalistic and misogynist behaviour that he correctly identified as the cause of her breakdown.

There is no escape here for Kim Ji Young save that of a complete break from reality. In the light of the narrative that leads her to that point, it feels both inevitable and even more horrifically, a blessing. This is a horror story told as it is shorn of any hope; the ending is death or insanity.

Reading Kim Ji Young, Born 1982 was to confront the familiar and heart-breaking and horrific neatly distilled into 200 odd pages; it's "fiction", but not really. My only surprise was how similar the culture described there was to my own in specifics; how incidents in Kim Ji Young's life were things I had actually experienced myself or seen other women experience, in a country several thousand miles away.

I read this novel just after watching the 2019's Search WWW, a show with a bit of a cult following, I think. Before I started watching it, one friend assured me that I would love it, that it was made for me; another said that she dropped it because it "rang false" to her at the time. I've seen the show described several times as a feminist power fantasy, sometimes, if the reviewer wanted to demean it, with the qualifier, unrealistic.

This seemed an odd sort of criticism to me- after all, who turns to k-drama romances or really, any romance, for realism? Female wish fulfilment, which is the cornerstone of romance as a genre, whether in books or film, is still written and recognized as fantasy. So what was particularly unreal about Search WWW?

Well, simply put, it is written like the patriarchy doesn't matter, and has never existed.

The three female protagonists are all in their thirties, in powerful positions in their careers. As such, they are constantly walking into meetings where women speak more than 33% of the time. There are men in the room, but they never outnumber the women, and they don't silence the women.

The interests and decisions and choices of women in the show- even the lead antagonist, who is an older woman whom we often see casually making beefy young men pose nude for her paintings- matter, not just to domestic and private realms, but to society at large; the antagonist is a power broker whose reach goes right up to the highest echelons of the country's politics; the younger women's ethical choices directly affect the republic's functioning as a democracy.

What about the men? It's not that they've been ignored; it's just that their place in the narrative has been decentered. Do with that what you will, the writer seems to say, as she writes in speaking roles for women wherever possible—every second side character is a woman— I have no time or inclination to justify that choice.

As for romance- it's not just that two of the three romances fall into the "noona romance" category, which is subversive in itself. It's that the power of decision making in these relationships clearly rests with the women.

In the "main" romance track, in a reversal of the usual trope, the woman is the one who is emotionally unavailable, and whom the man has to convince to take a chance on their relationship. What was hugely refreshing was that the reason for her emotional unavailability isn't trauma, that the man has to help her heal from, unlike the gender reversed versions we often see, eg in Flower of Evil. Instead, it's a difference in perspective that has its roots in the years of experience she has compared to him; it's the difference in life perspective of a twenty something man, and an almost-40 woman. She considers the implications and possibilities of entering into a relationship with a man who wants marriage and kids, while she doesn't want either and is unlikely to want them in the future. She thinks through it, and sees the pitfalls of it, perhaps all too clearly. In the end, when she makes a decision to commit, it's with the understanding that she's choosing to live in the moment, that he makes her happy; that they make each other happy and it is worth something, even if it doesn't last. But both of them understand that her happiness is not centered in him or their relationship being successful. The other two romances end on a similarly open note- the possibility of love with the man you just divorced, but there's no hurry to get there; and a long distance relationship that may or may not last the two years of military conscription the man has to undergo.

The happily ever after in this series is not the perfect heterosexual family unit; it was always going to be the complicated, thorny and intense queerplatonic relationship between the three women, who, in the end, literally drive off along an endless open road under a blue, blue sky, to "a place with no red lights", as one of them describes it.

For a week after watching Search WWW, I wandered around in a daze. How did this show get written, I kept asking myself? How did it get produced? Aired??? What magic was worked to put it in my eyeballs, and how can it keep happening?

That feeling intensified when I read Kim Ji Young, Born 1982. But the book also provided the answer, at least to the first question. Because it is Kim Ji Young's voice in Search WWW. This is the fantasy that Kim Ji Young would have wanted to live in; a society and a life where she's seen as a person, entire, and it's not something she has to fight every day for. The gigantic leap of imagination that the writer of Search WWW took was only because that fantasy has been yearned for, in a way only a person growing up in Kim Ji Young's world- our world- could.

"Flower of Evil"- and other dramas like it— are also, undeniably, products of this world. It's unsurprising to me that in many ways, Cha Ji Won's little fantasy domestic world in Flower of Evil, on the surface, looks exactly like a post-feminist world. If the real revolution is men doing housework and childcare, then that fantasy has already been achieved on the individual level for Cha Ji Won. Sure, she's the only female member on her squad, and maybe the entire police force, for all you see women in her workplace. Sure, the other female characters with speaking roles exist mostly to be tortured for manpain by the narrative or literally by men as part of the plot. She seems to have no friends outside of work, which means that all her friends are men. As for relationships with other women, except her mother, who exists mostly to share the burden of childcare, and her mom-in- law who turns out to be an evil sort herself, there are none. When she meets her sister-in-law, the entire scene gives off a strange catfight vibe- her sister in law is the only other woman who can legitimately be said to have a claim on knowing the real Do Hyun Soo, and Cha Ji Won's reaction is to deny that claim and tell her to buzz off, basically. "I'm his family now" she tells her sister in law, "He has a wife"; firmly establishing the primacy of a heterosexual romantic relationship over all others.

Her "dream" job means nothing much despite the work she has put in to get it; for most part of the narrative she ends up betraying every professional ethic and her squad- her only friends. Of course, she is easily forgiven for it, without doing any of the work to earn that forgiveness, but that's really because who has the narrative time to develop those relationships which do not matter, like her work, which is shown up for the narrative prop it is, just like her daughter? Even her sociopath (but not really, poor baby) husband ends the series with a tentative sort of friendship with a person he's not married to, but not Cha Ji Won, whose entire world by the end of the series has narrowed down to the four walls of her perfect little house and her perfectly-rescued husband. "I can't be happy if he's not happy," she tells her mother, who suggests that maybe it's time she let go of her not-so-perfect husband. "So please accept him."

In the end, the fantasy is based on this : self-improvement as the winning strategy, not structural change. Try hard enough and you'll get what you want. In the fine print, easily ignored: as long as what you want falls within the bounds of heteronormative patriarchal standards. It's an attitude that is passed down to the next generation; Cha Ji Won's early conversation with her daughter is an example.

The writer's vision is clear- what could have been an interesting and intimate look at our deepest fears in a relationship- that the other person will see us for who we are and horror-struck, leave; or even a deconstruction of the heterosexual woman's fantasy of The Perfect Man, is instead a tired repetition of the Beauty-and-the-Beast trope. You can dress it up and put a gun-toting, career woman wig on it, but that disguise falls apart pretty quickly. Cha Ji Won openly states not once, but several times, that she would rather live the comfortable lie; it's only when even that isn't an option- and not because of her choice or agency, but circumstances and the man coming to a decision, that she begins to let go. But only for a little while- barely ten minutes in show time- because ultimately, this is a female wish fulfilment fantasy, isn't it? Her longsuffering perseverance is rewarded when he decides to mould himself to her fantasy version of him, and the past is erased, and time reset, complete with soft lighting and soaring soundtrack.

Some love stories are horror stories, but others are horror stories masquerading as love stories. Why are we so often sold the latter, and so accepting of the narrative gaslighting? When I look at the popularity of Search WWW vs Flower of Evil, I feel bitter despair and quite a lot of anger. Why do so many women- and it is women, who are producing this work, for women, primarily (I mean, romance, as a genre)- settle for so little? It's the twenty first century, I think, why are we still here, I rage, gnashing my teeth, and indulging in the vicious satisfaction of giving Flower of Evil a single star rating that will make not a dent in its popularity. If we can't demand and aspire to a better class of fantasy, what hope do we have? As you dream, so you will do.

I often think that these days feminism is made toothless because we're shaping it into something that will validate every little feeling of ours; we don't want to be made uncomfortable by it. But feminism is not meant to make anyone comfortable; interrogating your own desires and pleasures is as much a part of smashing the patriarchy as fighting for fundamental human rights like bodily autonomy.

I guess, in the end, what I want to say is this: for the love of sanity, dream better.

#flower of evil #search: www #kim ji young born 1982 #unpopular opinions cw

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nastasyafilippovnas · 4 years ago

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Ok this might be long. I usually just lurk but this really annoys me to no end. The Bridgerton fandom has this weird need to incessantly use the both sides were wrong argument especially with the Marina/Pen and Siena/Anthony situation. But they completely ignore the realities of the time and power dynamics.I didn’t ship Anthony/Siena because she deserved better but there is this weird idea that they were somehow both toxic for each other.

Its like they go yeah he kicked her out into the street but then she said some mean things about him to Genevieve. Which therefore means they were both terrible to each other . I mean the way they equate the two as if they are somehow the same. And then the watch scene, where she makes a joke and THEN he tells her it is was his fathers. And fandom acted like she is some toxic girlfriend because she wasn’t able to read his mind and figure out the significance of the watch. It’s like they forget in that same scene Anthony straight up says not all women deserve protection as they are not ladies. In front of her. I mean it’s pretty clear what he thought of her vs these other virginal woman and frankly that 100 times more offensive than the watch. But again fandom equate those two. There were so many scenes where Siena talked about his life I.e asking about Daphne, significant duty to protect, the balls, reminds him he is a viscount and his responsibilities. HE is the one who never asks about her life. Never looks at things from her perspective. Even the asking her to the ball thing. He just went I know everyone at the ball will think your a whore, won’t respect you and say rude things behind your back but I really want you to come. Again people don’t understand why Siena wouldn’t want to subject herself to that. Especially considering Anthony clearly has a tendency to leave her and then come back to her when he wants. Again throughout the whole season he always approaches Siena.

I saw this movie where this girl once talks about this guy was just using her as a mirror to search for his self esteem. And I feel like that was Anthony to Siena. He was toxic to her. Not the other way around. The most annoying things is even when people realise that they just conclude that obviously it was Siena who brought out his worst side. I mean he is what a 30year old man, I think he can take some responsibility for his own actions.

Hmm, this is a lot. I'm not sure where to start. I do agree that the Bridgerton fandom tends to try to equate behaviors that should never be equated, and that's especially true for the Pen/Marina situation.

When it comes to Anthony and Siena, I think the need to equate their actions (even though they are not ever on even ground and it's laughable to compare anything Siena did with what Anthony did) and thus conclude that they are "toxic" for each other stems from the need of justifying Anthony's behavior and placing him in the hero category. A fellow Siena stan (@persiena) said once that, in any other story, based on his behavior, Anthony would be the villain. That's something that really stuck with me. As many as Cinderella tales, there are also tales of girls being used by a rich/powerful/handsome/evil man and then finding love with a good guy (who is usually poor and helpless in love with her). Fandom cannot see Anthony as the villain - he is the man of their dreams -, but they also can't ship Anthony and Siena - because they are too stuck on their stupid book pairing -, so what do they do? They drag Siena down. Siena's actions become as villainous as Anthony's ('she doesn't care about him', 'look how she talked to Genevieve about him'), she is the one to blame for their relationship failing ('she rejected him', 'she could've gone to the ball') and, therefore, they were both "toxic" for each other. And because nowadays any relationship with minimal conflict can be labeled as toxic, it's a narrative that is very easy to sell - especially when you have a fandom that will eagerly buy into anything that will make their ship look better.

Having said all that, I'll kindly disagree with you in that Anthony was toxic to Siena. I think his actions were reprehensible, yes, and throwing her out as he did was inexcusable, but him going time and time again after her, not being able to let her go, inviting her to the ball - these things are not toxic, but the desperate actions of a man who is in love but doesn't know how to make it work. When it comes to the ball, I think that Anthony thought (very egocentrically, I admit) that the only thing standing on their way was his willingness to go public with her. He didn't think Siena's own reservations would be enough to stop her and he didn't register everything until that last moment. And of course he is going to feel sorry for himself at that point, he just got dumped by the love of his life! It doesn't mean he doesn't take her feelings into consideration.

On a side note, I think santhony really suffered from us not seeing more of Siena side. It's not a relationship that was developed to last, but to further Anthony's plot. So, yes, all their talks are about Anthony, and what he wants and what he must do, etc. What we get on Siena is on the details, is on Sabrina's acting, is on the very few times she vocalizes her wants, but it's not ever developed fully by the show because she is not one of the main characters and her feelings don't matter as much as Anthony's. But I don't think that's fully a reflection of their relationship - you can call that the shipper in me, but we have evidence that they had been together for a long time by the time the show started, and I can't see Siena being in the relationship for that long if it was all about Anthony.

Like you, though, I do wish we got to see Anthony acknowledging his past behavior in s02. I don't know if or how it's going to happen. Most likely, if there's any apology, it will be driven by "I finally found true love with another woman, so now I understand I was a jerk to you" and, honestly, if that's it, it might be better to have no apology, lol. On top of that, I think that the fact that Anthony's love interest is a member of the ton ruins any kind of development he might have in terms of seeing all women as equals/deserving of protection. Like, that's all fine, but you still married a lady, didn't you? It will be meaningless tbh.

And that's all I have to say for now. I'm sorry this got so long too, I really appreciate your message.

#anonymous #answered asks #bridgerton for ts #long post for ts

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the-everqueen · 4 years ago

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why i disliked “the traitor baru cormorant”

so...recently i read Seth Dickinson’s The Traitor Baru Cormorant. i bought it thinking, Cool, an insightful fantasy series for me to get into while i wait to hear whether i passed my qualifying exams! i have some time before the semester starts!

and then i absolutely hated it and spent every minute cataloguing what i thought Dickinson got wrong.

...uh, if you want to get the tl;dr of the liveblog i gave the gf, here’s the top three reasons i disliked this book:

1) not a fan of the “strong female character” trope

yes, Baru doesn’t sling around a sword or shoot arrows better than Anyone In The Whole World. but Dickinson IMMEDIATELY tells us (not shows, tells) that she’s good at math, she’s clever at picking apart strategic scenarios, she’s a savant. (tbh, i don’t love how he shows this, either, with the standard child-prodigy-who-catches-the-attention-of-a-powerful-adult trope.) in Dickinson’s crafted world, her math skills aren’t entirely unusual: women (for...some reason?) are stereotyped as being good at calculations, despite also being aligned with hysteria and too many emotions. this bothers me more than it’s probably supposed to, because the sexism in this novel doesn’t really seem to follow an internal logic. i guess it’s so we can have a woman as the protagonist? also...hoo boy...her “savant” characterization bothers me because...she’s heavily coded as South East Asian (...maaaybe Philippines or Native Hawaii, but as i’ll get to later, Dickinson doesn’t make a huge distinction). uh...model minority stereotypes anyone? yes, within the text, plenty of people associated with the Empire comment that it’s impressive someone of her background got into a position of power so young. at the same time, i’m sure that sounds familiar to so many Asian-identified people! the constant tightrope of being expected to perform to a certain (white, Western) standard while also being Othered. mostly this bothers me because Baru is also characterized as...a sellout for the Empire. sure, her stated goal is to undo the Empire from within, but [MAJOR SPOILERS] in the end it appears that her actual goal was to attain enough power that the Empire would let her be a benevolent dictator over her home island? and it’s only after a major PERSONAL betrayal that she revises this plan? [END SPOILERS] Baru also assimilates without much pain or sacrifice. she hardly ever thinks about her parents or her childhood home. she willingly strips herself of cultural signifiers and adapts to Empire norms (apart from being a closeted lesbian, which...yeah, i’ll get to that, too). and it’s not that Dickinson doesn’t TRY to make her a nuanced character, but...to me, it feels so painfully obvious that this is not his experience. it feels almost...voyeuristic.

...much like his descriptions of wlw desire!

2) we get it, you read Foucault

the categories of sexual deviance are based entirely on a Western Victorian-era medical discourse around non-heterosexual forms of desire, but Dickinson ignores the network of sociocultural, religious, and historical contexts that contributed to that specific kind of discourse. he uses the terms “tribadism” and “sodomy” but those ideas CANNOT EXIST outside a Euro-American Christian context. yes, a huge part of the 19th century involved the pathologization of sexual and romantic desire (or lack thereof). but that in turn goes back to a history of medicine that relied on the “scientific method” as a means of studying and dissecting the human body--and that method in itself is a product of Enlightenment thinking. Theorist Sylvia Wynter (whomst everyone should read, imho) discusses how the Enlightenment attempted to make the Human (represented by a cisgender, heteronormative, white man) an agent of the State economy. every categorization of so-called deviance goes back to white supremacist attempts to define themselves as ‘human’ against a nonwhite, non-Christian Other. and IN TURN that was ultimately founded on anti-Black, anti-Indigenous racism. at this point it’s a meme in academic circles to mention Foucault, because so many scholars don’t go any further in engaging with his ideas or acknowledge their limits. but SERIOUSLY. Dickinson crafts the Masquerade as this psuedo-scientific empire that’s furthering erasure of native cultures, but...where did these ideas come from? who created them? what was the justification that gave them power? [MINOR SPOILER] blaming the Empire’s ideology on a handful of people behind the Mask who crafted this entire system makes me...uncomfortable, to say the least. part of what gives imperialism its power is that a lot of ordinary people buy in to its ideas, because it aligns with dominant belief systems or gives them some sense of advantage.

also speaking of cultural erasure...

3) culture is more than set dressing

again, to reiterate: Baru does NOT think back to her childhood home for longer than a couple passing sentences at various points in the narrative. but even though the early chapters literally take place on her home island, i don’t get a sense of...lived experience. this is true of ALL of the fantasy analogues Dickinson has created in his Empire. i felt uncomfortably aware of the real world counterparts that Dickinson was drawing inspiration from. at the same time...there are basically no details to really breathe life into these various fantasy cultures. i HATE the trope of “fantasy Asia” or “fantasy Africa” or “fantasy Middle East” that’s rampant among white male sff writers. Dickinson does not get points from me for basically just expanding that to “fantasy South East Asia,” “fantasy Mongolia,” “fantasy South America,” and... “fantasy Africa,” plus some European cultures crammed in there. he’s VERY OBVIOUSLY drawing on those languages for names, but otherwise there’s no real sense of their religious practices, the nuances of their cultures, the differences between those cultures (besides physiological, which...oh god). part of that is probably supposed to be justified by “well, the Empire just erased it!!!” but that’s not an excuse imho.

also...in making the Empire the ultimate signifier of the evils of imperialism...Dickinson kind of leans into the “noble savage” stereotype. Baru’s home island is portrayed as this idyllic environment where no one is shamed for who they love and gender doesn’t determine destiny and there are no major conflicts. (there is a minor nod to some infighting, but this is mostly a “weakness” that the Masquerade uses as an excuse to obliterate a whole tribe.) Dickinson justifies young Baru’s immediate assimilation as her attempt to figure out the Masquerade’s power from within, but given that the Masquerade presumably killed one of her dads and her mom maybe advocates a guerilla resistance...it’s weird that Baru basically abandons her family without a second thought. yeah, i get that she’s a kid when the Masquerade takes over the island, but...that’s still a hugely traumatic experience! the layers of trauma and conditioning and violence that go into this level of colonization are almost entirely externalized.

(later it’s implied that Baru might qualify as a psychopath, and tbh that feels like an excuse for why we haven’t gotten any sense of her inner world, not to mention kind of offensive.)

this isn’t exhaustive but...

it’s not that i don’t think white people shouldn’t ever address POC experiences in their books. just...if your entire trilogy is going to revolve around IMPERIALISM IS BAD, ACTUALLY, maybe you should contribute to the discourse that Black, Brown, and Indigenous authors have already done. reading this book made me so, so angry. i did not feel represented! i felt like i was being talked down to, both on a critical theory level AND on a craft level. there are SO MANY books by actual BIPOC and minority authors that have done this better. N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy and her current Cities series. Nnedi Okorafor’s Binti trilogy. Leigh Bardugo’s Ninth House remains one of the more powerful novels i’ve read on how The System Is Out To Destroy You, That Is The Point. (Bardugo is non-practicing Spanish and Moroccan Jewish on one side of her family, and her character Alex is mixed and comes from a Jewish background!)

...

there’s not really a point to this. i get a lot of people have raved about this book. good for them. if that’s you, no judgment. i’m not trying to argue IF YOU LIKED THIS YOU ARE PROBLEMATIC. i’m just kind of enraged that a white dude wrote about a Brown lesbian under a colonial empire and that THIS Brown lesbian under a colonial empire couldn’t even get behind the representation. also kind of annoyed that it’s the Empire of Masks and Dickinson either hasn’t read Fanon or didn’t see fit to slip in a Fanon reference, which like. missed opportunity.

#meta #book review #maybe y'all can get enjoyment from my rage #also i don't want to publish this on like. goodreads.#i'm not out to destroy Seth Dickinson personally #i know this was a highly reviewed book #i just...hated it #and i figured putting the rage on my blog is less harmful #than leaving a one star review #while also maybe giving someone the insight #for why they might not want to read this #the traitor baru cormorant #the masked empire

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curious-wildflower · 4 years ago

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Elizabeth Siddel Part 3

Since there is a tendency to focus on the supernatural elements associated with Siddal, she is commonly viewed as a ghostly figure more than a real woman. As this sort of shadow figure, it becomes easy to project rumor and myth onto her and accept them as true.

One of the ideas that persists is that she was the inspiration for the character of Lucy Westenra in Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Some even take it so far as to claim that Stoker was present at Siddal’s exhumation, an impossibility since when the deed took place Stoker was twenty-two and still a student living in Dublin.Bram Stoker lived in the same neighborhood as Rossetti and he was a friend of Hall Caine, who at one time was Rossetti’s secretary. Stoker dedicated Dracula to Caine, with a nickname used by Caine’s grandmother (“to my dear friend Hommy-Beg”). Stoker may not have included the story of Siddal’s exhumation in his notes, but due to his closeness with Caine he had to have heard an account of it at some point and he had probably read Caine’s book Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1882).

The belief that Stoker used Siddal as inspiration is bolstered by his 1892 short story The Secret of the Growing Gold. The ‘growing gold’ is the hair of a dead woman, the very tresses that had been her most striking feature in life. Her hair grows persistently and with a purpose; her intent is to haunt her husband and avenge her own death. The similarity between Stoker’s story and the claim that Siddal’s hair continued to grow and fill her coffin after death is unlikely to be a coincidence.

The Secret of the Growing Gold

By Bram Stoker

When Margaret Delandre went to live at Brent's Rock the whole

neighbourhood awoke to the pleasure of an entirely new scandal.

Scandals in connection with either the Delandre family or the

Brents of Brent's Rock, were not few; and if the secret history of

the county had been written in full both names would have been

found well represented. It is true that the status of each was so

different that they might have belonged to different continents-or

to different worlds for the matter of that-for hitherto their orbits

had never crossed. The Brents were accorded by the whole section of

the country an unique social dominance, and had ever held themselves

as high above the yeoman class to which Margaret Delandre belonged,

as a blue-blooded Spanish hidalgo out-tops his peasant tenantry.

The Delandres had an ancient record and were proud of it in their

way as the Brents were of theirs. But the family had never risen

above yeomanry; and although they had been once well-to-do in the

good old times of foreign wars and protection, their fortunes had

withered under the scorching of the free trade sun and the "piping

times of peace." They had, as the elder members used to assert,

"stuck to the land," with the result that they had taken root in it,

body and soul. In fact, they, having chosen the life of vegetables,

had flourished as vegetation does-blossomed and thrived in the good

season and suffered in the bad. Their holding, Dander's Croft, seemed

to have been worked out, and to be typical of the family which had

inhabited it. The latter had declined generation after generation,

sending out now and again some abortive shoot of unsatisfied energy

in the shape of a soldier or sailor, who had worked his way to the

minor grades of the services and had there stopped, cut short either

from unheeding gallantry in action or from that destroying cause to

men without breeding or youthful care-the recognition of a position

above them which they feel unfitted to fill. So, little by little,

the family dropped lower and lower, the men brooding and dissatisfied,

and drinking themselves into the grave, the women drudging at home,

or marrying beneath them-or worse. In process of time all disappeared,

leaving only two in the Croft, Wykham Delandre and his sister Margaret.

The man and woman seemed to have inherited in masculine and feminine

form respectively the evil tendency of their race, sharing in common

the principles, though manifesting them in different ways, of sullen

passion, voluptuousness and recklessness.

The history of the Brents had been something similar, but showing

the causes of decadence in their aristocratic and not their plebeian

forms. They, too, had sent their shoots to the wars; but their

positions had been different, and they had often attained honour-for

without flaw they were gallant, and brave deeds were done by them

before the selfish dissipation which marked them had sapped their

vigour.

The present head of the family-if family it could now be called

when one remained of the direct line-was Geoffrey Brent. He was

almost a type of a worn-out race, manifesting in some ways its

most brilliant qualities, and in others its utter degradation. He

might be fairly compared with some of those antique Italian nobles

whom the painters have preserved to us with their courage, their

unscrupulousness, their refinement of lust and cruelty-the voluptuary

actual with the fiend potential. He was certainly handsome, with that

dark, aquiline, commanding beauty which women so generally recognise

as dominant. With men he was distant and cold; but such a bearing

never deters womankind. The inscrutable laws of sex have so arranged

that even a timid woman is not afraid of a fierce and haughty man.

And so it was that there was hardly a woman of any kind or degree,

who lived within view of Brent's Rock, who did not cherish some form

of secret admiration for the handsome wastrel. The category was a

wide one, for Brent's Rock rose up steeply from the midst of a level

region and for a circuit of a hundred miles it lay on the horizon,

with its high old towers and steep roofs cutting the level edge of

wood and hamlet, and far-scattered mansions.

So long as Geoffrey Brent confined his dissipations to London and

Paris and Vienna-anywhere out of sight and sound of his home-opinion

was silent. It is easy to listen to far off echoes unmoved, and we

can treat them with disbelief, or scorn, or disdain, or whatever

attitude of coldness may suit our purpose. But when the scandal came

close to home it was another matter; and the feelings of independence

and integrity which is in people of every community which is not

utterly spoiled, asserted itself and demanded that condemnation

should be expressed. Still there was a certain reticence in all, and

no more notice was taken of the existing facts than was absolutely

necessary. Margaret Delandre bore herself so fearlessly and so

openly-she accepted her position as the justified companion of

Geoffrey Brent so naturally that people came to believe that she

was secretly married to him, and therefore thought it wiser to hold

their tongues lest time should justify her and also make her an

active enemy.

The one person who, by his interference, could have settled all

doubts was debarred by circumstances from interfering in the matter.

Wykham Delandre had quarrelled with his sister-or perhaps it was

that she had quarrelled with him-and they were on terms not merely

of armed neutrality but of bitter hatred. The quarrel had been

antecedent to Margaret going to Brent's Rock. She and Wykham had

almost come to blows. There had certainly been threats on one side

and on the other; and in the end Wykham overcome with passion, had

ordered his sister to leave his house. She had risen straightway,

and, without waiting to pack up even her own personal belongings,

had walked out of the house. On the threshold she had paused for a

moment to hurl a bitter threat at Wykham that he would rue in shame

and despair to the last hour of his life his act of that day. Some

weeks had since passed; and it was understood in the neighbourhood

that Margaret had gone to London, when she suddenly appeared driving

out with Geoffrey Brent, and the entire neighbourhood knew before

nightfall that she had taken up her abode at the Rock. It was no

subject of surprise that Brent had come back unexpectedly, for such

was his usual custom. Even his own servants never knew when to expect

him, for there was a private door, of which he alone had the key, by

which he sometimes entered without anyone in the house being aware

of his coming. This was his usual method of appearing after a long

absence.

Wykham Delandre was furious at the news. He vowed vengeance-and

to keep his mind level with his passion drank deeper than ever.

He tried several times to see his sister, but she contemptuously

refused to meet him. He tried to have an interview with Brent and

was refused by him also. Then he tried to stop him in the road, but

without avail, for Geoffrey was not a man to be stopped against his

will. Several actual encounters took place between the two men, and

many more were threatened and avoided. At last Wykham Delandre

settled down to a morose, vengeful acceptance of the situation.

Neither Margaret nor Geoffrey was of a pacific temperament, and

it was not long before there began to be quarrels between them. One

thing would lead to another, and wine flowed freely at Brent's Rock.

Now and again the quarrels would assume a bitter aspect, and threats

would be exchanged in uncompromising language that fairly awed the

listening servants. But such quarrels generally ended where domestic

altercations do, in reconciliation, and in a mutual respect for the

fighting qualities proportionate to their manifestation. Fighting for

its own sake is found by a certain class of persons, all the world

over, to be a matter of absorbing interest, and there is no reason to

believe that domestic conditions minimise its potency. Geoffrey and

Margaret made occasional absences from Brent's Rock, and on each

of these occasions Wykham Delandre also absented himself; but as he

generally heard of the absence too late to be of any service, he

returned home each time in a more bitter and discontented frame of

mind than before.

At last there came a time when the absence from Brent's Rock

became longer than before. Only a few days earlier there had been

a quarrel, exceeding in bitterness anything which had gone before;

but this, too, had been made up, and a trip on the Continent had

been mentioned before the servants. After a few days Wykham Delandre

also went away, and it was some weeks before he returned. It was

noticed that he was full of some new importance-satisfaction,

exaltation-they hardly knew how to call it. He went straightway to

Brent's Rock, and demanded to see Geoffrey Brent, and on being told

that he had not yet returned, said, with a grim decision which the

servants noted:

"I shall come again. My news is solid-it can wait!" and turned

away. Week after week went by, and month after month; and then there

came a rumour, certified later on, that an accident had occurred

in the Zermatt valley. Whilst crossing a dangerous pass the carriage

containing an English lady and the driver had fallen over a

precipice, the gentleman of the party, Mr. Geoffrey Brent, having

been fortunately saved as he had been walking up the hill to ease the

horses. He gave information, and search was made. The broken rail,

the excoriated roadway, the marks where the horses had struggled

on the decline before finally pitching over into the torrent-all

told the sad tale. It was a wet season, and there had been much snow

in the winter, so that the river was swollen beyond its usual volume,

and the eddies of the stream were packed with ice. All search was

made, and finally the wreck of the carriage and the body of one horse

were found in an eddy of the river. Later on the body of the driver

was found on the sandy, torrent-swept waste near Tasch; but the body

of the lady, like that of the other horse, had quite disappeared, and

was-what was left of it by that time-whirling amongst the eddies of

the Rhone on its way down to the Lake of Geneva.

Wykham Delandre made all the enquiries possible, but could not

find any trace of the missing woman. He found, however, in the books

of the various hotels the name of "Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey Brent." And

he had a stone erected at Zermatt to his sister's memory, under her

married name, and a tablet put up in the church at Bretten, the

parish in which both Brent's Rock and Dander's Croft were situated.

There was a lapse of nearly a year, after the excitement of the

matter had worn away, and the whole neighbourhood had gone on its

accustomed way. Brent was still absent, and Delandre more drunken,

more morose, and more revengeful than before.

Then there was a new excitement. Brent's Rock was being made ready

for a new mistress. It was officially announced by Geoffrey himself

in a letter to the Vicar, that he had been married some months before

to an Italian lady, and that they were then on their way home. Then

a small army of workmen invaded the house; and hammer and plane

sounded, and a general air of size and paint pervaded the atmosphere.

One wing of the old house, the south, was entirely re-done; and then

the great body of the workmen departed, leaving only materials for

the doing of the old hall when Geoffrey Brent should have returned,

for he had directed that the decoration was only to be done under

his own eyes. He had brought with him accurate drawings of a hall in

the house of his bride's father, for he wished to reproduce for her

the place to which she had been accustomed. As the moulding had all

to be re-done, some scaffolding poles and boards were brought in and

laid on one side of the great hall, and also a great wooden tank or

box for mixing the lime, which was laid in bags beside it.

When the new mistress of Brent's Rock arrived the bells of the

church rang out, and there was a general jubilation. She was a

beautiful creature, full of the poetry and fire and passion of the

South; and the few English words which she had learned were spoken

in such a sweet and pretty broken way that she won the hearts of the

people almost as much by the music of her voice as by the melting

beauty of her dark eyes.

Geoffrey Brent seemed more happy than he had ever before appeared;

but there was a dark, anxious look on his face that was new to those

who knew him of old, and he started at times as though at some noise

that was unheard by others.

And so months passed and the whisper grew that at last Brent's

Rock was to have an heir. Geoffrey was very tender to his wife, and

the new bond between them seemed to soften him. He took more interest

in his tenants and their needs than he had ever done; and works of

charity on his part as well as on his sweet young wife's were not

lacking. He seemed to have set all his hopes on the child that was

coming, and as he looked deeper into the future the dark shadow that

had come over his face seemed to die gradually away.

All the time Wykham Delandre nursed his revenge. Deep in his heart

had grown up a purpose of vengeance which only waited an opportunity

to crystallise and take a definite shape. His vague idea was somehow

centred in the wife of Brent, for he knew that he could strike him

best through those he loved, and the coming time seemed to hold in

its womb the opportunity for which he longed. One night he sat alone

in the living-room of his house. It had once been a handsome room in

its way, but time and neglect had done their work and it was now

little better than a ruin, without dignity or picturesqueness of any

kind. He had been drinking heavily for some time and was more than

half stupefied. He thought he heard a noise as of someone at the door

and looked up. Then he called half savagely to come in; but there was

no response. With a muttered blasphemy he renewed his potations.

Presently he forgot all around him, sank into a daze, but suddenly

awoke to see standing before him some one or something like a

battered, ghostly edition of his sister. For a few moments there

came upon him a sort of fear. The woman before him, with distorted

features and burning eyes seemed hardly human, and the only thing

that seemed a reality of his sister, as she had been, was her wealth

of golden hair, and this was now streaked with grey. She eyed her

brother with a long, cold stare; and he, too, as he looked and began

to realise the actuality of her presence, found the hatred of her

which he had had, once again surging up in his heart. All the

brooding passion of the past year seemed to find a voice at once

as he asked her: -

"Why are you here? You're dead and buried."

"I am here, Wykham Delandre, for no love of you, but because I

hate another even more than I do you!" A great passion blazed in

her eyes.

"Him?" he asked, in so fierce a whisper that even the woman was

for an instant startled till she regained her calm.

"Yes, him!" she answered. "But make no mistake, my revenge is my

own; and I merely use you to help me to it." Wykham asked suddenly:

"Did he marry you?"

The woman's distorted face broadened out in a ghastly attempt

at a smile. It was a hideous mockery, for the broken features and

seamed scars took strange shapes and strange colours, and queer

lines of white showed out as the straining muscles pressed on the

old cicatrices.

"So you would like to know! It would please your pride to feel

that your sister was truly married! Well, you shall not know. That

was my revenge on you, and I do not mean to change it by a hair's

breadth. I have come here to-night simply to let you know that I

am alive, so that if any violence be done me where I am going there

may be a witness."

"Where are you going?" demanded her brother.

"That is my affair! and I have not the least intention of letting

you know!" Wykham stood up, but the drink was on him and he reeled

and fell. As he lay on the floor he announced his intention of

following his sister; and with an outburst of splenetic humour told

her that he would follow her through the darkness by the light of

her hair, and of her beauty. At this she turned on him, and said

that there were others beside him that would rue her hair and her

beauty too. "As he will," she hissed; "for the hair remains though

the beauty be gone. When he withdrew the lynch-pin and sent us over

the precipice into the torrent, he had little thought of my beauty.

Perhaps his beauty would be scarred like mine were he whirled, as I

was, among the rocks of the Visp, and frozen on the ice pack in the

drift of the river. But let him beware! His time is coming!" and

with a fierce gesture she flung open the door and passed out into

the night.

***

Later on that night, Mrs. Brent, who was but half-asleep,

became suddenly awake and spoke to her husband:

"Geoffrey, was not that the click of a lock somewhere below

our window?"

But Geoffrey-though she thought that he, too, had started at the

noise-seemed sound asleep, and breathed heavily. Again Mrs. Brent

dozed; but this time awoke to the fact that her husband had arisen

and was partially dressed. He was deadly pale, and when the light

of the lamp which he had in his hand fell on his face, she was

frightened at the look in his eyes.

"What is it, Geoffrey? What dost thou?" she asked.

"Hush! little one," he answered, in a strange, hoarse voice. "Go

to sleep. I am restless, and wish to finish some work I left undone."

"Bring it here, my husband," she said; "I am lonely and I fear

when thou art away."

For reply he merely kissed her and went out, closing the door

behind him. She lay awake for awhile, and then nature asserted

itself, and she slept.

Suddenly she started broad awake with the memory in her ears of

a smothered cry from somewhere not far off. She jumped up and ran to

the door and listened, but there was no sound. She grew alarmed for

her husband, and called out: "Geoffrey! Geoffrey!"

After a few moments the door of the great hall opened, and

Geoffrey appeared at it, but without his lamp.

"Hush!" he said, in a sort of whisper, and his voice was harsh and

stern. "Hush! Get to bed! I am working, and must not be disturbed. Go

to sleep, and do not wake the house!"

With a chill in her heart-for the harshness of her husband's

voice was new to her-she crept back to bed and lay there trembling,

too frightened to cry, and listened to every sound. There was a long

pause of silence, and then the sound of some iron implement striking

muffled blows! Then there came a clang of a heavy stone falling,

followed by a muffled curse. Then a dragging sound, and then more

noise of stone on stone. She lay all the while in an agony of fear,

and her heart beat dreadfully. She heard a curious sort of scraping

sound; and then there was silence. Presently the door opened gently,

and Geoffrey appeared. His wife pretended to be asleep; but through

her eyelashes she saw him wash from his hands something white that

looked like lime.

In the morning he made no allusion to the previous night, and

she was afraid to ask any question.

From that day there seemed some shadow over Geoffrey Brent. He

neither ate nor slept as he had been accustomed, and his former

habit of turning suddenly as though someone were speaking from behind

him revived. The old hall seemed to have some kind of fascination for

him. He used to go there many times in the day, but grew impatient

if anyone, even his wife, entered it. When the builder's foreman came

to inquire about continuing his work Geoffrey was out driving; the

man went into the hall, and when Geoffrey returned the servant told

him of his arrival and where he was. With a frightful oath he pushed

the servant aside and hurried up to the old hall. The workman met

him almost at the door; and as Geoffrey burst into the room he ran

against him. The man apologised:

"Beg pardon, sir, but I was just going out to make some enquiries.

I directed twelve sacks of lime to be sent here, but I see there are

only ten."

"Damn the ten sacks and the twelve too!" was the ungracious and

incomprehensible rejoinder.

The workman looked surprised, and tried to turn the conversation.

"I see, sir, there is a little matter which our people must have

done; but the governor will of course see it set right at his own

cost."

"What do you mean?"

"That 'ere 'arth-stone, sir: Some idiot must have put a scaffold

pole on it and cracked it right down the middle, and it's thick

enough you'd think to stand hanythink." Geoffrey was silent for quite

a minute, and then said in a constrained voice and with much gentler

manner:

"Tell your people that I am not going on with the work in the hall

at present. I want to leave it as it is for a while longer."

"All right sir. I'll send up a few of our chaps to take away these

poles and lime bags and tidy the place up a bit."

"No! No!" said Geoffrey, "leave them where they are. I shall send

and tell you when you are to get on with the work." So the foreman

went away, and his comment to his master was:

"I'd send in the bill, sir, for the work already done. 'Pears to

me that money's a little shaky in that quarter."

Once or twice Delandre tried to stop Brent on the road, and, at

last, finding that he could not attain his object rode after the

carriage, calling out:

"What has become of my sister, your wife?" Geoffrey lashed his

horses into a gallop, and the other, seeing from his white face and

from his wife's collapse almost into a faint that this object was

attained, rode away with a scowl and a laugh.

That night when Geoffrey went into the hall he passed over to

the great fireplace, and all at once started back with a smothered

cry. Then with an effort he pulled himself together and went away,

returning with a light. He bent down over the broken hearth-stone to

see if the moonlight falling through the storied window had in any

way deceived him. Then with a groan of anguish he sank to his knees.

There, sure enough, through the crack in the broken stone were

protruding a multitude of threads of golden hair just tinged with

grey!

He was disturbed by a noise at the door, and looking round, saw

his wife standing in the doorway. In the desperation of the moment

he took action to prevent discovery, and lighting a match at the

lamp, stooped down and burned away the hair that rose through the

broken stone. Then rising nonchalantly as he could, he pretended

surprise at seeing his wife beside him.

For the next week he lived in an agony; for, whether by accident

or design, he could not find himself alone in the hall for any

length of time. At each visit the hair had grown afresh through the

crack, and he had to watch it carefully lest his terrible secret

should be discovered. He tried to find a receptacle for the body of

the murdered woman outside the house, but someone always interrupted

him; and once, when he was coming out of the private doorway, he was

met by his wife, who began to question him about it, and manifested

surprise that she should not have before noticed the key which he now

reluctantly showed her. Geoffrey dearly and passionately loved his

wife, so that any possibility of her discovering his dread secrets,

or even of doubting him, filled him with anguish; and after a couple

of days had passed, he could not help coming to the conclusion that,

at least, she suspected something.

That very evening she came into the hall after her drive and found

him there sitting moodily by the deserted fireplace. She spoke to him

directly.

"Geoffrey, I have been spoken to by that fellow Delandre, and

he says horrible things. He tells to me that a week ago his sister

returned to his house, the wreck and ruin of her former self, with

only her golden hair as of old, and announced some fell intention.

He asked me where she is-and oh, Geoffrey, she is dead, she is dead!

So how can she have returned? Oh! I am in dread, and I know not

where to turn!"

For answer, Geoffrey burst into a torrent of blasphemy which made

her shudder. He cursed Delandre and his sister and all their kind,

and in especial he hurled curse after curse on her golden hair.

"Oh, hush! hush!" she said, and was then silent, for she feared

her husband when she saw the evil effect of his humour. Geoffrey in

the torrent of his anger stood up and moved away from the hearth;

but suddenly stopped as he saw a new look of terror in his wife's

eyes. He followed their glance, and then he, too, shuddered-for

there on the broken hearth-stone lay a golden streak as the points

of the hair rose through the crack.

"Look, look!" she shrieked. "It is some ghost of the dead! Come

away-come away!" and seizing her husband by the wrist with the frenzy

of madness, she pulled him from the room.

That night she was in a raging fever. The doctor of the district

attended her at once, and special aid was telegraphed for to London.

Geoffrey was in despair, and in his anguish at the danger of his

young wife almost forgot his own crime and its consequences. In the

evening the doctor had to leave to attend to others; but he left

Geoffrey in charge of his wife. His last words were:

"Remember, you must humour her till I come in the morning, or

till some other doctor has her case in hand. What you have to dread

is another attack of emotion. See that she is kept warm. Nothing

more can be done."

Late in the evening, when the rest of the household had retired,

Geoffrey's wife got up from her bed and called to her husband.

"Come!" she said. "Come to the old hall! I know where the gold

comes from! I want to see it grow!"

Geoffrey would fain have stopped her, but he feared for her life

or reason on the one hand, and lest in a paroxysm she should shriek

out her terrible suspicion, and seeing that it was useless to try

to prevent her, wrapped a warm rug around her and went with her to

the old hall. When they entered, she turned and shut the door and

locked it.

"We want no strangers amongst us three to-night!" she whispered

with a wan smile.

"We three! nay we are but two," said Geoffrey with a shudder; he

feared to say more.

"Sit here," said his wife as she put out the light. "Sit here

by the hearth and watch the gold growing. The silver moonlight is

jealous! See it steals along the floor towards the gold-our gold!"

Geoffrey looked with growing horror, and saw that during the hours

that had passed the golden hair had protruded further through the

broken hearth-stone. He tried to hide it by placing his feet over

the broken place; and his wife, drawing her chair beside him, leant

over and laid her head on his shoulder.

"Now do not stir, dear," she said; "let us sit still and watch.

We shall find the secret of the growing gold!" He passed his arm

round her and sat silent; and as the moonlight stole along the floor

she sank to sleep.

He feared to wake her; and so sat silent and miserable as the

hours stole away.

Before his horror-struck eyes the golden-hair from the broken

stone grew and grew; and as it increased, so his heart got colder

and colder, till at last he had not power to stir, and sat with

eyes full of terror watching his doom.

***

In the morning when the London doctor came, neither Geoffrey

nor his wife could be found. Search was made in all the rooms, but

without avail. As a last resource the great door of the old hall

was broken open, and those who entered saw a grim and sorry sight.

There by the deserted hearth Geoffrey Brent and his young wife

sat cold and white and dead. Her face was peaceful, and her eyes were

closed in sleep; but his face was a sight that made all who saw it

shudder, for there was on it a look of unutterable horror. The eyes

were open and stared glassily at his feet, which were twined with

tresses of golden hair, streaked with grey, which came through the

broken hearth-stone.

#long post #elizabeth siddal #lucy westenra #bram stoker #dracula

1 note · View note

bidean-byedean · 4 years ago

Note

Drop the essay 🥺 it sounds so interesting

omg I’m so flattered! ❤️ I’ll put it under the cut here (it’s 3600 words lol), just a few things:

Anon is referring to this post

I wrote this for my Gothic Lit + Film module during my BA - 3ish years ago. This clearly isn’t the final version (uncited works, missing bib, etc.) and there’s a lot I would change now. God, I might rewrite it for Victorian Gothic or just for kicks... I got so close to making some really great points lol so forgive Undergraduate me for being almost smart.

And yes, I looked at Interview with The Vampire so #tw: Anne Rice lol

‘Love Never Dies’ (tagline from Bram Stoker’s Dracula)

Explore the Treatment of Homoerotic Desire in Gothic Fiction and/or Film

The Gothic genre is one of transgressions and transformations. It crosses the boundaries of everyday societal norms to explore and express cultural anxieties by reforming psychological worries as physical monsters. Influxes of immigrants from around the Empire and the publication of Darwin’s Theory of Evolution created a huge social shift, undermining religious beliefs of creation and human’s superiority over the natural world. However, it also gave rise to more ‘scientific’ moral categorisations, being twisted to suit the needs of the white colonialists and justify the prejudices of the time by “grounding them in “truth.”” This new Scientia Sexualis, the bringing of sexuality into the psychoanalytic, political and scientific discourse, created new categorisations for sexuality and encouraged identification with these new categorisations.[1] This, for the first time, linked sexuality and identity and now meant one’s sexual practices and preferences came with a “truth” about the person. Homosexuality, as it was now known, was pathologised and seen as a new “species”[2] entirely, one that was a defective, lesser evolution than that of the traditional heterosexuality. Using the Gothic monster meant that authors could explore the ‘queer’ space in society, which means to blur boundaries of sexuality and gender[3] to explore repressed desires and curiosities raised by cultural anxieties over sexuality and gender. In Victorian Gothic, Le Fanu’s Carmilla and Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are two of examples of using the genre’s transgressive nature and monstrous metaphors to express veiled desires and vicariously act upon them. Although the Gothic gives a home to all that is abhorrent and unacceptable in everyday society, Rice’s Interview with The Vampire explores how the Gothic can treat something on the edge of acceptability. Writing in a time sexual liberation and progressive thinking, Rice’s treatment of homosexuality and non-conventional relationships could be seen to threaten the traditional allegorical use of the genre.

The vampire has long been a sexual being often representing foreign or ‘monstrous’ sex desires and appetites, and Carmilla’s portrayal of aggressive, homoerotic female desire is one the earliest and most complex of these examples. Although one cannot be certain about how progressive Le Fanu wished his novel to be, it can definitely be used to argue against the misogynistic and repressive Victorian gender roles. By using the Gothic genre, Le Fanu explores the ideas of transgressing boundaries, most prominently between life and death, but also using the boundaries of the domestic space being transgressed by Carmilla as a metaphor for the structure of society. The Victorians saw the woman as the ‘angel in the house’, ethereal and asexual, therefore Carmilla’s demonic invasion of the house and her inherently seductive nature is directly antithetical to the socially acceptable version of femininity. However, Carmilla’s “perfidious and beautiful” appearance is confusing for both the other characters, in particular Laura, and the reader themselves. Le Fanu’s expression of female sexuality and gender identity through vampirism conforms to the fact that the “monstrous is transgressive and unnatural because it blends those categories that should be classified as distinct.”[4] Carmilla represents a blurring of the gender boundaries set for women by Victorian society, with vampires being traditionally fluid characters as they “straddle the borders of the living and the dead,” it is natural for Carmilla’s vampirism to give her a freedom akin to that of masculinity. Carmilla excites and threatens the heterosexual male audience with her aggressive sexuality and choice of female victims. On the one hand, she is full of the voracious libidinal energy that is viewed as desirable in sexual objects, but on the other, because of her sexual power and freedom she can be read as a “potential castrator” by becoming a superior sexual predator. Crossing the boundaries of homosocial to homoerotic, Carmilla provides Laura with a relationship separate from her father, one that allows to grow outside of the parameters of the submissive, obedient and asexual daughter. The relationship between Laura and Carmilla means that they have, as Irigaray describes it, “refused to go to market.”[5] The queerness of Carmilla and Laura means that they no longer have to be commodities in the patriarchal market, passed from man to man, but created their own exchange between each other. By engaging in relationship with another woman Carmilla and Laura have “become masculine,”[6] they no longer need to seek masculine assurance outside of themselves or each other.

The group murder of Carmilla by the dominant men in Laura’s life is seen almost identically in Stoker’s Dracula. Lucy is staked by the three men from which she has had blood transfusions in a heavily sexually violent scene where the rebellious female is ‘penetrated’ and subdued by the heterosexual patriarchy. Once Carmilla has been destroyed, Laura is placed safely back under the dominance of the men around her and relies on them to relay Carmilla’s true identity. The confusion between whether they have killed the vampire or the queer woman becomes blurred by Le Fanu here. Laura is told that vampires stalk their victims with the “passion of love” and the use of “artful courtship,”[7]implying that she is not only being warned against vampires, but monstrous queer women. The men in her life invert her homosexual desire into warning signs of a vampire; that she must listen more carefully to the “abhorrence” she feels and ignore the “pleasure” that is akin to the “ardour of a lover.”[8] The novel seemingly ends with the message that many works in the genre embody:

“The Gothic may kill off the monster in such a way as to effect catharsis for the viewer or reader, who sees his or her unacceptable desires enacted vicariously and then safely ‘repressed’ again.”

Carmilla is no exception when it comes to reinstating the status quo after destroying the monstrous queer body it used to be able to safely blur and cross boundaries of societal norms.[9] However, this can also be argued. The novella ends with Laura reminiscing on the time since Carmilla’s destruction, and while she says: “it was long before the terror … subsided”, she also admits there is an “ambiguous” nature to her memories. The male authorities in Laura’s life could see Carmilla’s vampiric nature long before Laura could and despite insisting to Laura that Carmilla was nothing but a “demon”, making it clear that Carmilla’s desire was solely to kill Laura, she still feels affection for her lost friend. The very last sentence of the novella clearly shows her conflicting, but continued desire for Carmilla:

“sometimes the playful, languid, beautiful girl; sometimes the writhing fiend I saw in the ruined church; and often from a reverie I have started, fancying I heard the light step of Carmilla.”

Though the novella is, on the surface, wrapped up neatly with the white, patriarchy dominating over the queer female body, Fanu’s parting sentence emphasises the idea that it might not be a happy ending. Although Carmilla was literallya monster and would have killed Laura had she not been caught, she has clearly had a profound and positive emotional effect on Laura, who was briefly allowed to experience both same-sex support and desire.

Much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries were “shadowed by the growing focus on the dangers of … close male friendships and signifiers of homosexuality,”[10] causing a repressed and paranoid time of ‘homosexual panic’. Men of the upper classes moved in almost exclusively male circles; all of their significant relationships outside of marriage would have been homosocial and therefore, plagued with worries about being seen as taking these relationships too far.[11] This paranoia manifested itself in the Gothic literature of the time as frantic and often contradictory.[12] Socially acceptable misogyny allowed male writers to praise homosocial relationships above those with women, who were seen as weak and hysterical, as seen in Stoker’s Dracula when Mina Harker is described as remarkable because she has “the brain of a man.”[13] However, the more insistent and heated misogyny only serves to emphasis what the writers are trying to avoid: being read as homosexual. Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Jekyll and Hyde exemplifies the idea ‘homosexual panic’ manifesting closer to homosexual repression. The invisibility of women, apart from being placed near or as victims of Hyde’s violence, not only speaks to Stevenson’s feelings about women, but also his feelings about men. Hyde’s aggression is often triggered by being faced with female sexuality: he is angered by the prostitute that offers her “venereal box”[14] and the saleswomen that exude “lurid charms” and “coquetry.”[15] While this could be a product of his evilness or lack of moral development, Jekyll retells the former story as the woman offerings a “box of lights,” even though it is clear to both the characters and the readers what really happened. This reluctance to admit to Hyde’s anger towards female sexuality implies an awareness and an anxiety around profound misogyny, particularly if it is female sexuality that repulses Hyde, which leads the reader immediately to ideas of homosexual desire. Through the Gothic genre, Stevenson is able to explore man as “truly two” by creating a physical outlet for this anxiety and repression felt around homosocial relationships that dominated men’s lives. Gothic literature is often full of mystery and secrecy, and like the vampire, which has been linked to the plight of homosexuality because they are forced to live in the shadows, hiding their abhorrent desires and constantly plagued with the fear of being caught and destroyed - Jekyll goes through the same fears with Hyde. Although homosexuality was no long a capital crime (the last men executed for it in the UK being in 1835, the law was changed in 1861, before the publication of both Carmilla (1872) and Jekyll and Hyde (1886)), it was still punishable by law. Jekyll creates Hyde as a criminal outlet for his “concealed pleasures” that he saw as incompatible with his high social status and unworthy of a man respected so greatly by his peers.

Like with the vampire, the Gothic allows for Hyde to be an example of the “monstrous queer” with his “evil” actions reflected in his “deformed” “ape-like” body. In the eighteenth century, ‘monstrous’ was synonymous with queer, linking same-sex desire with the demonic.[16] Similarly, Stevenson’s use of language to describe Hyde is full of natural and evolutionary imagery. He constantly emphasises the fact that Hyde is animalistic, beast-like or, specifically, ape-like to distance Hyde from the respectable and civilised Dr. Jekyll. Hyde is presented as a step down on the evolutionary chain, he is a lesser creature and incapable of higher reasoning and moral thinking. Due to this lack of moral and reasoning capabilities, homosexuals were also seen as inherently selfish and indulgent. The purpose of their sexuality was solely to satisfy personal pleasure rather than transcendental values and contribute to the wider society.[17] This is linked to thinking that Edelman coined as “reproductive futurism,”[18] which is the idea that capitalism’s hold on cultural thinking pervades even to police sexual practices that it deems “unproductive” and therefore, “unnatural.” However, through the Gothic monstrous body, Stevenson can apply natural imagery to Hyde’s impulses and desires while still concealing them under the guise of a “deformity” or a lesser developed being. Through the paradox of his closeness to nature making him ‘abnormal’, Stevenson can tap into the language of the culture and exploit the reader’s psychological justifications for how they view these ‘social disgraces’ (homosexuals), but he can also challenge them.[19] By presenting Hyde as a grotesque Gothic monster the contradictions in viewing homosexuality as both closer to nature and a “deformity” are subtly, but clearly, there for the reader to understand, should they look into the coded meanings of the text.

Anne Rice’s Interview with The Vampire (1976) signalled a new kind a Gothic queer, one living in the age where to identify with homosexuality, personally and socially, was becoming more and more acceptable. One review by Jerry Douglas states that Rice’s series “constitutes as one of the most extended metaphors in modern literature”[20]because it made clear to the mainstream audience the deeply embedded parallel between queerness and the vampire. However, Douglas seems to have missed that almost a century has passed from the first uses of Gothic as an ‘extended metaphor’ for being queer, and it is not the homosexuality that is now hidden in subtext. The homoerotic content of Rice’s novels was so explicitly clear that despite buying the film rights in 1976, impressively the same year as publication, Paramount Pictures did not manage to successfully market the film for production for another twenty years and it was finally released in 1994. Although this proves that society’s view on homosexuality was still decidedly cold and the mainstream audience lacked a palate for viewing homoerotic desire in the cinemas, it also emphasises the leap that Rice was making through her Gothic novels. While homosexuality no longer needed to be coded and staked in a scene reminiscent of gang-rape by white men, the presentation of homoerotic desire and non-conventional relationships still needed the Gothic monstrous body to encourage the audience into a world of blurred boundaries concerning sexuality and gender. One of the revisions for the potential film was to make Louis female, apparently Rice herself offered up this change because she saw it as “consistent with his passivity.”[21] This compromise flags as one of the first indications that Rice’s works may not be the epitome of queer representation in modern Gothic literature, but in fact, she consistently seems afraid to truly obscure and distort societal boundaries of sexuality and gender because of internalised misogyny and homophobia. The film adaptation of Interview with The Vampire, although also written by Rice, downplays the homoerotic content to playful subtext and tension, refusing to risk alienating the mainstream, heterosexual audience by being too transgressive of norms. Coupled with the casting of blockbuster favourites Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, and Antonio Banderas, whose appeal was deeply entwined with their heterosexuality and masculinity,[22] the novel that was too explicitly queer for the 70s became a cautiously heterosexual-aligned film in the 90s. Perhaps one of the most significant dampeners on the Gothic novel’s queerness and transgression of boundaries was the AIDs crisis, which took hold of western media and created general panic in the 80s. This made the triad of homosexuality, blood, and multiplicity of victims, which appears in the novel, a direct and unavoidable link to the negative misconceptions about and unsympathetic feelings towards AIDs and its victims.

One of the ways in which Rice succeeds with transgressing boundaries is in her portrayal of the vampire and the way in which the reader is encouraged to relate to and sympathise with the monster. Carmilla and Hyde, though metaphorically complex, are essentially blood-thirsty killers, lacking in capabilities of higher moral thinking and reasoning compared to Louis’ very human existential suffering. The vampiric predecessors subscribe to an explicit separation between vampires and humans, but this opposition between fiend and man has ceased to exist within Rice’s Gothic world. Louis and Lestat, though monstrous and, at times, deeply unlikeable, are never presented as inherently evil. By making the previously monstrous relatable and understandable, Rice inadvertently played a progressive role in attitudes towards those with AIDs, by blurring the lines between the monstrous “them” and the moral “us.” The vampires, particularly Lestat and Claudia, do not try to be ‘good’ victims, they are ruthless and constantly hungry for their next hunt, which they deeply enjoy. Lestat describes his ability to transform others into vampires as a “gift,” encouraging Louis to ingest his contaminated blood and make the transformation from human to out-casted other. The AIDs allegory fits neatly into the traditionally sexualised moments of feeding and initiation, which are also the moments in which the physical boundaries between the vampiric-other and the human-us is most blurred. Much like Jekyll towards the end of Jekyll and Hyde when he loses control over which physicality manifests, the sharing of blood fuses the Gothic monstrous body and the normal, human body, rendering explicit physical boundaries ineffective. Along with Louis deep suffering with guilt and self-loathing, the ‘us’ reader is drawn into a sympathetic corner in this metaphor, even if they do not hold one for the real-life counterpart. The monstrous ‘other’ manifests only in the literal sense of being a vampire, he is no longer a physical embodiment of immoral desire, less evolutionarily developed and repulsive, but deeply emotional and craving acceptance and familial support. The unorthodox family unit of Louis, Lestat and Claudia is in many ways a comical parody of the bourgeois family, with estranged, asexual parents and a spoilt child, created in hopes of strengthening the marriage bond.[23] Unfortunately, Rice perpetuates the harmful ideas that homosexual units mirror heterosexual ones, therefore prioritising heteronormativity by remaining within its boundaries. Rather than choosing to portray a positive queer family unit or completely distort the norms of the family unit, the trio are a demonic, abhorrent “deformed” version of the conventional heterosexual family. This links to Rice’s suggestion of Louis’ gender transformation: she, whether consciously or unconsciously, projects the idea that even in a homosexual couple there must be a submissive ‘female’ and an aggressive ‘male’. The creation of this dysfunctional family also serves to later emphasis beliefs that were explored in Jekyll and Hyde, that homosexuality is inherently selfish and purely to satisfy personal pleasure. When Louis meets Armand, he is infatuated with a “longing … so strong it took all of [his] strength to control it,”[24] and Claudia is immediately jealous, she knows he is attracted to him and is threatened by Louis’ homoerotic desire. Claudia cannot fulfil her role as a child or a lover to Louis, and her death by the hands of his new lover is indicative of the conservative fears that sexually immoral people, like homosexuals, cannot be trusted to have a family for they are not bound to the reproductive process or inclined to sexual monogamy.

While homosexuality and homoerotic desire remain politically and socially contested, there has always been a space for the manifestations of non-conventional sexual practices and relationships in Gothic. The monstrous body is deeply metaphorical and without that sense of transgression, it lacks the conviction of otherness, which is used to frighten or morally awaken the reader. Although in all three novels explored homosexual desire is treated as a social taboo and something to be morally condemned, by using the Gothic genre the authors can sub-textually create an argument against the status quo. In both Carmilla and Jekyll and Hyde, the destruction of the monster does not mean that the text has a ‘happy ending’. Laura is left feeling melancholia and lonely without Carmilla, often dreaming that she has come back to her as the “beautiful” friend that challenged her male dominated life. Similarly, while Dr. Jekyll may be overpowered by his monster, Hyde ultimately chooses to take his own life, implying that he feels a sense of shame and comprehends the moral consequences for the indulgences in his desires. On the surface Stevenson is saying that allowing the darker side of oneself to surface can only end in losing one’s civilised self, but underneath that he does not seem to condone repression either. The last sentence of Dr. Jekyll’s final note is: “I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”[25] Stevenson employing the same literary tactic as Le Fanu, by ending the novel on an ambiguous note that queer readers could understand differently to heterosexual. Even in Rice’s novel, the source of much of Louis’ pain is his lack of self-acceptance and desperation to find a family in which he can belong to. The monster that haunts all of the characters in these novels is conformity and the expectation of repression of self to suit societal conventions. Through the monstrous body authors are given a channel through which to transgress boundaries and vicariously act out repressed desires, providing two moral lessons: confirmation for those wishes to conform, and reassurance of kinship for those who have found they cannot.

[1] Michael Foucault, History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley, (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), p. 54

[2] ibid, p. 43

[3] Max Fincher, Queering Gothic in the Romantic Age: The Penetrating Eye, (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), p. 69

[4] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 68

[5] Lucy Irigaray, ‘Commodities Among Themselves’ in This Sex Which is Not One, trans. By Catherine Porter, (New York: Cornell University Press, 1985), p. 196

[6] ibid, p. 194

[7] Sheridan Le Fanu, Carmilla, (iBook Ed.: Public domain, 1872), p. 102

[8] ibid, p. 34-35

[9] Eric Savoy, ‘The Rise of American Gothic’ in The Cambridge Companion to Gothic Fiction, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 198

[10] Jarlath Killeen, History of the Gothic: Gothic Literature 1825-1914, (Online: University of Wales Press, 2009), [accessed: 11 Jan 17]

[11] Savoy, Rise of American Gothic, p. 199

[12] Killeen, History of Gothic

[13] Bram Stoker, Dracula

[14] William Veeder, Children of The Night, p. 141

[15] Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, (1886), ed. by Martin Danahay, (Claremont: Broadview Press, 2015), p. 34

[16] Fincher, Queering Gothic, p. 69

[17] Carolyn Laubender, "The Baser Urge: Homosexual Desire In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", 17, (2009), Paper 12, <h p://preserve.lehigh.edu/cas-lehighreview-vol-17/12> [accessed: 11 Jan 17], p. 25

[18] Lee Edelman, No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2004), p. 2

[19] Laubender,”The Base Urge”, p. 23

[20] James R. Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics: The Early Novels, (Jefferson: McFarland & Company, 2000), p. 13

[21] Ramsland Prism pp. 268-69

[22] Tony Magistrale, Abject Terrors: Surveying the Modern and Postmodern Horror Film, (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. 2005), p. 44

[23] Keller, Anne Rice and Sexual Politics, p. 15-16

[24] Anne Rice, Interview with The Vampire, (London: Random House Publishing, 2010), p. 256

[25] Stevenson, Jekyll and Hyde, p. 83

#let's talk gay monsters #im buzzzzzing #anon asks #personal #my asks #a literal essay #queer lit #gothic lit #lottie does a masters

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deamabilisworld · 4 years ago

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My struggle with gender, philosophy and feminism

During my army days I was fascinated in metaphysics. This is what sort of got me into mathematics and philosophy. They are really intertwind topics. However, I gradually shown interest in philosophy of gender.

I can think of multiple reasons for that:

On an analytic stand point, partially under the influence of daoism, the dualic image of things appealed to me. I’ve grown convinced in the idea that there are two negating views of the world and we must accet both as living beings. It was convenient, like many of the old world writers, to assign them to the concept of gender. Not as attached to sex. Human beings developed a lore under the concept of duality, and attached to sex the idea of gender which relates to this duality. The polar genders (and whats between them) seem engrained in many cultures and especially western lore, and it has influence on the way we preceive the world.

This sort of lead me to the second reason: While philosophy historically attempted to create an impersonal frame of mind, one of pure logos, being, godliness which would rationalize basically everything, there was also this frame which attempts to understand things from the personal, from context and from emotional connection to them.

And of course, the fact that I am transgender made me think about gender a lot. As I read more I realized how useful philosophy is to rationalize these thoughts. Being transgender is not only a personal emotion, it is highly rationally justified when you understand the analysis of language, culture etc.

Sidenote: no, philosophy doesn’t mean only ‘post modernism’ and def not ‘illogical’. I should write on the topic at some point, but most of my reading focused on the british or ‘analytic’ philosophy which really attempted to ground itself on mathematics (as the root of language) and science. At first, because like most of us, I believed in medicalism and biology as the root of all knowledge, evolutionary psychology and all, and then gradually discovered both from the empiric standpoint and the philosophical standpoint how unsound this position is, as I progressed through reading of the analytic tradition (and read my loverboy, Wittgy).

Anyway, back to present day Emma.

The Rowling incident resulted in a major split in the feminist movement in Israel. What happened basically was this: The Slut Walk in Israel started off by queer anarchists. One of its major leaders was a queer trans woman with a beard called Dan Vag. TERFs and liberal feminists really didn’t like the idea and put a lot of pressure and shaming against the Slut Walk.

Dan Vag committed suicide after this atrocies public shaming. Since she was a source of inspiration to the queer anarchists, her death broke the community down. The new leaders of the Slut Walk, or more specifically the Tel-Aviv Slut Walk were mostly cis women, both TERF and liberal (along side, began a mass marketing movement of the walk, a lot of social media coverage, association with major political figures and of course: capitalization from the walk by selling t shirts and merch).

The topic declined in the following years until Rowling raised her ugly head which raised the awareness that the feminist circles in Israel are not safe for trans and bisexual women. This brought a major split within the movement. The Slut Walk currently is much more gay (lead by a lesbian woman, open to trans people) and yet still very liberal (though not libertarian, they sided with the TERF circles).

Anyhow, thing is, that though trans were outcasted from feminist circles before, it was always more subtle and manipulative. The Rowling incident made everything louder and more exposed. Which is a good thing. It finally opened a discussion which should have occured years before. So... I guess... thank you Rowling for being such a dumb, vicious person.

Thing is, while there is much good intention, most of the discussions are made using Facebook which is sort of shit for discourse. I should note, we have many doctors and academics who were willing to take the time and write very serious posts about the matter (sadly no rational argument or post from any figure with knowledge supporting the TERF side, almost as though it is mostly a load of rubbish and they repeat the same dumb arguments over and over again), but seeing as though they are mostly posted in Facebook, most people don’t come to contact with the information and it is quickly forgotten. Plus, most of the discourse on Gender Theory within our circle remains very... undergrad and below level.

Enters ol’ narcissist me. People pushed me for some time, and I thought about it myself, of preparing a YouTube video about the topic. But I had two major issues:

A. I wished to cover the TERF side as unbiased and maturely as possible

B. I wished to bring something new and insighting to the table and not repeat the abundant information that is avaiable everywhere (which TERFs don’t seem to read or be able to understand God knows why).

Ben Shapiro’s gender video was just translated to Hebrew, and I prepared a script for it but I felt bad replying to such an idiot. While he argues similar things to many TERFs, I don’t see value in replying to them because none of his points holds up to scrutiny more then 5 sec.

I was actually insulted. They are willing to hold extremely lazy believes, that are so easy to debunk, and not think for even 5min about the people who are hurt by that. They are not the ones who are hurt by their views and I can see why thinking about these topics places them in inconvenience so I guess it doesn’t matter for them. You know... the banality of evil and all that.

But then I remembered I studied Deleuze during the last summer vacation, and I remember his view on Science in Desert Island which intrigued me, specifically with relation to intersex.

Specifically, the fact that science attempts to induct from cases to general theories, and then apply them to different phenomena, implies that science would attempt to enforce sameness and eliminate differences. Thus, for instance, by creating the binary presentation of sex, intersex become an anomaly for the theory, which is either ignored or regularly supposed to be contained in one of these two categories for convenience. Likewise, statements as 'Women have property X' don't fully describe which category has property X: people of similar sex hormones balance, people with a certain genetic markup, people with a female or male anatomy etc. Thus the description increases our underdeterminancy and raises the issue of under-diagnosis in trans and intersex people.

I also saw a rescent video which made me think about this issue further:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcOhfOrz0HM

And I had many thoughts:

It’s an interesting take on the issue, it can demonstrate many of the things people don’t understand about sex and gender in an easy to follow manner, Deleuze is a very sexy man and it would be a great opening video about the binary view on sex.

Anyhow, this got me excited.

I mailed a few of my professors, some professionals I know for Deleuze and stuff, one of them was even interested in making it a complete research with me about Deleuze and gender (apparently, not a topic discussed enough cause everyone is at the other party, parising Foucault for the same shit over and over again while forgetting that Deleuze guy who was a serious golden boy).

Anyhow, I’m excited about that.

#blog #terf #queer-anarchist #deleuze #ludwig wittgenstein #analytic philosophy #daoism

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yfere · 6 years ago

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Nott’s Morality: A Long, Probably Incredibly Redundant Meta

This is a long one, but I didn’t think it would work as well split in two. Please bear with me.

I’ve been thinking about Gluzo, and kind of laughing to myself over how the way the M9 react to him, alone and vulnerable in the aftermath of his personal tragedy provides kind of a litmus test to the kind of moral beings they are--a sort of D&D version of the story of the Good Samaritan, if you will. You see an attacked bugbear on the side of the road--what do you do? You have Caduceus, who is more than willing to just let things be (it’s none of their business, they shouldn’t bother him), who tries to amicably cut ties with Gluzo several times. You have Jester, who is more than happy to callously terrorize him for laughs, until he’s recruited and she instantly makes it her priority to be friendly and likable with him. You have Caleb, who more than anyone else is interested in recruiting him through a strange carrot-and-stick routine purely because he thinks he can be useful to the group’s goals.

And then you have Nott. And as always, Nott is very interesting. Nott thinks ��he’s a bugbear, fuck him,” and would be perfectly happy murdering him, because, as Sam says with a shade of humor, “I’m a fantasy racist!” But Nott also is the one to present the possibility of plying him for information or possibly recruiting him in the first place. It isn’t necessarily the option she prefers to take, but it’s something that she can help do, so she simply, neutrally presents the possibility, (alongside the possibility of killing him) and follows the group consensus on what to do without hesitation or reservation.

And this brought back to mind two things I’ve been thinking about Nott for a very long time: one, how very, very entrenched she is in “Us vs Them” mentality on every front, coupled with having perhaps the most traditional moral sense of all of the M9; and two, the curious and nearly mathematical way she juggles her various levels of personal allegiances.

#1 is an interesting thing to me, because on one level Sam is saying, “I’m a fantasy racist!” and being a very stereotypical D&D protagonist who thinks yeah, Xhorhas and monster creatures are bad, and the Empire and “good” humanoids are Good, why would I think any differently? What makes Nott’s character so interesting though is how that perspective is in immediate conflict with her surrounding context: she is the only person in the party who routinely refers to the M9′s enemies (and in the case of the Xhorhasian soldiers, people who were not the M9′s enemies so much as the Empire’s enemies) as “the bad guys,” the only one who routinely dehumanizes the people they kill to an extent that she quite literally doesn’t give a fuck about murdering any potential enemy at any time. (Watsonian perspective: maybe that’s one reason her kill count is so damn high?)

She is the only person in the party who immediately and strongly advocates for the idea they turn in the Empire rebels into the authorities for money in Zadash because they’re criminals, and what on Earth is stopping them? She is the only person in the party who ever questions Yasha as if she is a nationally based threat, as if she is potentially an evil spy just because she is from Xhorhas. She (alongside Jester) is among the people in the party who feel absolutely the least angst about murdering pirates on the docks of Nicodranas, because, they’re pirates! Criminals! The bad guys who attacked us! Why on Earth feel bad about that? She is the one who most strongly and insistently questions Fjord’s quest, not because releasing a violent Betrayer God serpent on the Menagerie Coast is “a bad idea” (Beau, Caleb) or because Fjord might personally betray his friends (Jester), but because Uk’otoa, and by probable extension Fjord, is “evil.”

Nott has these very hard-line, essentialist perspectives on what is right and what is wrong, but beyond being Standard Fantasy Morality, it also reflects on how she’s in many ways the least weird person in a very weird party. And it’s also a very incisive commentary on exactly the kind of hardline, Us vs Them mentality you would expect to see in an ordinary middle-class woman in the rural area of an authoritarian empire rife with racism and propaganda. Because, even if her overall opinion of the Empire has drastically changed, the underlying assumptions and systems of belief the Empire inculcated in her haven’t actually disappeared in the process of her moving the Empire government to the category of “bad guys.” Of course Xhorhasians are the “bad guys”--”we” are the empire, and “they” are the enemy. Of course goblins and monstrous races are evil scum of the earth--”we” are the civilized good ones, and “they” are not. Of course rebels should be turned in--”we” are good citizens, and “they” are not. Notably, Nott’s own status as a deviant thief on the run from the law does not change her views on either criminality in other people or race in other people. She believes she was just forcibly placed on the “they” side of the equation, and, as she thinks that the kleptomania (and by extension, the criminality) stems only from her race, she thinks that the moment she is restored to her halfling body as “Veth” she can go back to being the “we,” a law abiding citizen living her ordinary life with her family.

But, you say, how are we to account for the fact that she is so easily convinced to act against her Empire-borne biases? Why does she agree to help the rebels and turn on the government? Why does she not take her friends to task when they join criminal organizations, when she thinks other criminals are deserving of bad ends? Why is she the one to so easily and uncomplainingly offer the possibility of working with Gluzo the bugbear? How to we account for the heel face turn of her opinion of the Empire after hearing Caleb’s story? Does she not care about the Us vs Them that much after all?

Well, in a way. And that brings us to #2: Nott’s Mathematical Ranking of Personal Allegiances.

Which we’ve already heard about in action with Jester. Of course Nott would save Jester and prioritize Jester from being threatened by a dragon......unless she had to choose between Jester and Caleb. And I would argue that’s not necessarily a negative commentary on her relationship to either one of them, it’s just that Nott has a very codified, hierarchical system to help her determine how to act to best help Her People, and that involves a system of concentric circles for which the ones closest to her are always prioritized above the rest. (very different from Jester’s simple delineation between Friends and Not-Friends!) It’s a beautiful system, really, that saves Nott from a lot of mental agony. Post Ball of Fun, it’s what allows her to say, with complete sincerity, “I did nothing wrong,” even though she pressured Caleb to remain behind with the books to advance his interests while the others were in danger.

And what is this system? First and foremost, it’s her family, that she will put before everything else, and even Caleb. Then there’s Caleb. Then there’s Jester and a few of the M9...I wouldn’t be surprised, actually, if Nott has worked out a precise order of which members of the M9 she would save in a crisis. And the M9, as a group, come next, before her views on crime, her nationalism, or her racism. It’s because Caleb suffered at the hands of the Empire that she turns her back on the Empire--he is ranked higher, to her. But that doesn’t mean, that if presented with the option of throwing in with either the Empire or Xhorhasians in a conflict, she isn’t going to consciously or unconsciously side with the Empire every time, so long as it’s not against her family’s interests, or Caleb’s, or the M9′s. But her allegiance to the M9 over all else accounts for a great deal of the rest of the moral flexibility we see from her. It’s fine if the M9 join a criminal organization, because it’s them, and they are never going to be the bad guys of Nott’s story. It’s fine if the M9 need to work with a bugbear (to help Nott with her family!) because they’re ranked higher. Really, the reason why Nott does half of the things she does is because it matters to the M9, and what matters to them matters to her above all--until it happens to conflict with the needs and desires of someone more important to her.

What scares me about all this is that this hierarchical mindset of hers is, by nature of its construction, incredibly resistant to change. Because what kind of madness would it take to challenge it, really? When she can so easily justify any kind of code switching to herself without feeling any contradiction in what she does? Beyond that--do we need her to change?

#critical role #cr spoilers #meta #nott the brave #I continue to obsess over ethics as always #I also can't keep up with the volume of meta put out by yall #so I literally never know how boring I'm being #I'm just excited is all

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thecorteztwins · 5 years ago

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Character Flaws: How To Do Them (And How Not To)

Hi there, I’m going to talk about character flaws today! And I’m going to start with a very unpopular statement----I think flawless characters, or characters with minimal flaws, are just fine. It just depends on what kind of character you want to portray. Some character roles are SUPPOSED to be paragons of virtue or sweet innocent angels, just as some characters are SUPPOSED to be dastardly evil-doers or complex nuanced grimdark antiheroes. What matters is whether it’s what you INTEND, and how to pull it off. Also, I’m not an expert. These are opinions. Feel free to agree or disagree, take what you like and leave the rest, etc. I am not an authority in ANY way, and your thoughts are just as valid as mine. That said, let’s start. Strap in, this got long, I’m sorry.

There are three general types of flaws that you can give to a character: INTERVIEW FLAWS aka CINNAMON ROLL FLAWS aka NON-FLAWS I call them this because they’re the sort of “flaws” that you would say you have at a job interview when asked what your flaws are. They’re “flaws” that make someone actually sound better---more moral, or more endearing, or more sympathetic, etc. Things like “too loyal” or “kind to a fault” or “too protective of his friends”. They’re the sort of flaws that “cinnamon roll” characters typically have. These actually can become very damning mega-flaws if taken to the extreme, but more on that later; this paragraph is for when they’re still solidly in “interview flaw” territory. A big aspect of these “flaws” is that they only hurt the character, if anyone. They will seldom, if ever, negatively affect another person. If they do hurt someone else, it will often be in a way that is totally justified to the reader (the character who is “too protective” beating up someone who was being a jerk to his friends) or really not the character’s fault at all (a naive character being manipulated by a bad guy into revealing something important) Whatever trouble they get in will usually be done in a way that is meant to make the reader either feel bad for them, or see them in a positive light for it. If this is the sort of character you want to go for, that is a-okay! Cinnamon rolls have their place in a story, and they can be just as beloved by fans as more grimdark characters. The only problem comes is when someone tries to sell their character as “flawed” when actually they’re just one of these. Or, alternatively, tries to sell the character as one of these when actually they’re one of the categories below. But if it’s exactly what you intended? Great! NORMAL FLAWS Exactly what it says---flaws that a normal person would have. Things like jealousy, snobbery, misanthropy, negativity, bad tempers, irresponsibility, laziness, not taking things seriously when they should, the list goes on and on. This is probably the widest category, since what flaw you pick and how it manifests can span the range from being almost a non-flaw but not quite, to nearly a mega-flaw. It also depends on the character who has it, what they’re like otherwise, and why they have it. For instance, someone who is unjustly hostile to someone trying to help them because they’re suspicious due to being tricked, exploited, or abused in the past by people pretending to be well-meaning, is a lot more sympathetic than someone who just doesn’t think they need help because they see themselves as perfect and don’t like correction. Both still fall under the “normal” category most of the time, but are coming from very different places, and will be perceived differently by most readers. So, which to use? It all depends what you’re going for with your character! MEGA FLAWS The big ones. The ones that will really make others dislike your character. Things like real-life bigotry (as in, being homophobic, not hating elves), gleeful bullying and abusiveness, toxic egomania, blaming others (especially innocent characters) for their mistakes, sexual misconduct, and kicking puppies, to name a few. Sometimes, these can be used to make audiences hate the characters instantly, but that’s actually not always guaranteed. A great many characters that are among the most popular in their respective fandoms have one or more of these traits. Sometimes, that’s just because people love a good villain, but other times it’s because the character’s reasons for these flaws, or the character’s overall personality in general apart from the flaws, are very compelling and interesting. Just as some people love cinnamon rolls, some people prefer darker characters like these, and much like preferring different ice cream flavors, neither is superior to the other. These kinds of flaws also don’t always translate to truly inhuman, awful people either. Sometimes a character may actually be MORE human for them. The protagonist in a novel I once read was raised by his grandparents because his mother, who gave birth to him as a teen, hated him. She wanted nothing to do with him as a child, and outright told him she hated him when he was just barely an adult. The protagonist didn’t know why for most of his life, but eventually found out it was because he was born a twin, and his twin brother died when they were babies. He was born big, healthy, and strong, whereas his brother had been tiny and weak and sick, probably because he sapped the bulk of the nutrients in the womb, which sadly is something that sometimes happens. The mother was devastated by the death of her weaker son, and blamed the surviving one, feeling he was a monster baby that killed his sibling, not to mention resented how he was fawned over by the rest of her family when they had treated her like dirt, including her own parents. This woman was not meant as sympathetic to readers. It was pretty clear to me that the writer wanted us to see her as horrible. And what she did was completely horrible indeed. She blamed an innocent baby for something not possibly his fault, and held that against him his whole life. That’s unforgivably awful, and there’s no excuse for it. Yet it’s such a human reaction that it made me feel for her. People often are illogical and awful in ways like this, it’s very believable to me that a human being would feel this way. It was meant to make her an irredeemable strawman, but my reaction was to see her now as less of a 2D “bad mother” cutout, and more of a person. Sometimes, it’s the worst in people that can win us over, because that can sometimes be the most human part of them. Note that this will often be divisive; I’m sure a lot of readers actually did hate this woman all the more for this, and that’s a totally valid reaction too. However, if you wish to make your character truly despicable, hurting children or cute animals is generally a good way to go; most readers won’t forgive that (though I’ve seen it happen) That said, be warned that making your character sexy or tragic (especially in combination) will inevitably make some fans fawn over them regardless of how evil they are, and there’s not much you can do about it. Someone is ALWAYS going to find the bad guy hot/sympathetic even when you’re not SUPPOSED to. Now that we’ve covered the different categories of GOOD ways to write flaws, here are some ways that I see people failing at writing flaws: INFORMED FLAWS Informed flaws are flaws that the writer CLAIMS the character has, but never actually show up. For instance, they SAY that this character is standoffish, has a temper, and can be cruel, but only ever write him as being lovably surly at worst, and typically very tolerant and patient with others (especially cute children or cinnamon bun types) Or they claim that the character is shy and insecure, but here they are trying out for the lead in the school play without anyone pushing them to do it. This is often due to the author being overly affectionate towards their character. In the first example, they want their character to be a tough guy, but an ENDEARING tough guy, and not risk him doing anything that the audience might possibly dislike him for. So they go overboard with showing his “soft” moments, while never showing the “hard” ones that are what would make the “soft” ones actually special and unusual. In the second example, maybe the character is just shy and insecure in a different way (like they’re comfortable on-stage because there’s no actual interaction with people, and crumble when in real conversations) but more likely, they’re just acting out-of-character because the author WANTS them to be the lead in the play, regardless of how little sense it makes for them to try out and get the part. Informed flaws are basically a failure of a “show, don’t tell” rule. We’re TOLD that this character has a flaw, but we’re either never shown it, or shown the exact opposite. For instance, we may be told that this character never opens up to people because of her dark past, but it sure doesn’t seem that way if she immediately starts talking about that dark past to first man who shows interest in her as she falls into his arms. And it’s hard to take a writer’s claim that their character is “humble” with any seriousness if that character has a habit of bringing up his numerous talents and accomplishments in every conversation. And you may SAY that a character tends to get jealous, but how do we KNOW if she never encounters anyone she’s jealous of? INCONSEQUENTIAL FLAWS The character is a rude abrasive jerk, but everyone likes her immediately anyway! Maybe they can instantly see past her snarky surface to the sensitive soul beneath, or maybe they respect her toughness and candor. Some people have a problem with her attitude, but they’re either prudish sticks-in-the-mod, overly sensitive namby-pambies, sexists who are threatened by a strong woman, or they come around to respecting/liking her in the end! The character hates breaking rules and getting into trouble; he craves approval from authority, and will tell on his friends to get it. Fortunately, he’s never put in this position, or, if he does, his friends understand and forgive him, and may even agree that he did the right thing. The character is impulsive and acts on their first thought, if they think at all. Luckily, her assumptions prove correct (or at least lead her to the right place) and her reckless actions not only don’t cause any problems, they save the day! Everyone is proud of her, and no one scolds her for anything she did along the way that might have broken protocol or endangered other people. The character is super hostile anyone breaking his routine...but then his routine never gets broke in the story or any of his interactions. He’s also terrified of animals, but luckily no animals appear in the story. And he’s an asshole at work, but none of the story takes place there and none of the other characters are his co-workers. See the problem? None of these flaws MATTER. They either don’t come up in the story at all, and thus never get a chance to affect the character, or if they do come up, they don’t cause any problems for the character, and in fact may benefit them. That’s not a flaw. It doesn’t matter if your character is a freaking SERIAL KILLER if they never face any kind of issue because of it, it’s not a flaw in the context of the story unless it works AGAINST your character in some way. ACCIDENTAL FLAWS These often overlap with inconsequential flaws, and are kind of the opposite of informed flaws. In the case of informed flaws, the author claims to us that the character has a flaw, but then fails to show it (or shows the opposite). In the case of accidental flaws, the author claims that the character DOESN’T have a certain flaw...and then proceeds to give them exactly that. For instance, how many times have you been reading a novel where the heroine INSISTS that she’s very plain and not pretty at all, then proceeded to give us an extremely flattering description of herself? How many times have you read something where the protagonist was acting like a huge jerk, but you got the impression from how it was written that the author expected us to be cheering him on, and anyone who thought he was indeed a jerk was portrayed as always unlikable and in the wrong? This is a case where the writer is either so oblivious or so in love with their own character that they become unaware of how obnoxious their darling is actually coming off. They rush to justify everything she does, they portray any opposition as simply evil or jealous or stupid, they overlook any kind of actual harm that he’s doing to anyone else, and they often make the villains end up accidentally sympathetic by comparison because the hero we’re supposed to love and admire is just so unbearable. The writer has made a very flawed character---but they didn’t mean or want to, and that’s the problem. WEAKNESSES Weaknesses aren’t flaws. Being clumsy, having a physical disability, or being a member of an oppressed/disliked group is not a flaw. Flaws are personality traits. They can be the RESULT of things like trauma or mental disorders, so they’re not always changeable or the person’s fault, but they’re still part of WHO they are, not WHAT, and something they can be held accountable for. If your character’s only “flaws” are being deaf and having PTSD and being an elf in a world that doesn’t like elves, those aren’t flaws, they’re weaknesses or drawbacks. If they’re lacking in some skill, such as fencing or shooting or flipping hamburgers, that’s also not a flaw. It could be a flaw if having the skill is important yet they refuse to work on it (ex: a police officer who doesn’t bother to improve his aim) but it is not in itself a flaw. Hell, it’s not even a weakness unless it’s relevant---I don’t know how to use a gun, but there’s no reason that it’s immediately relevant to my life to do so, so I wouldn’t count it as a weakness or a flaw. TIPS: - Try to be objective as you can about your character, even if you love them. Keep in mind that the other characters around them are people with thoughts and feelings too, and that if your character is rude, cruel, annoying, or off-putting to them, then they may have good reason for disliking or losing patience with your character, no matter what good reason your character has for being that way. If your atheist character trashes the faith of a religious character, it doesn’t matter if they grew up in a household of religious abuse, they’re still being a jerk and the religious character has a right to think so. If your character loses their temper and wrecks a store, it doesn’t matter that they were provoked or are really a nice person, the store owner is still well within their rights to press charges and demand compensation. Avoid vilifying other characters, and take their pain and personhood as seriously as you do the main character’s own. This alone will open the door to showing a lot of flaws that your character has, which will let you then decide if that’s the amount you WANT your character to have, or if you should change some things. - Any trait, including very good traits, can be bad taken to the extreme. For instance, let’s take a common “interview flaw”--- loyal no matter what. A lot of people don’t realize just how dark this can get. But what if your character is so loyal to their friend that they overlook it not only when that friend treats them badly, but treats other people too? What if they discover the friend has done something terrible, like is abusing his wife? What if they’re loyal to a fault to a supervillain organization that is actively hurting or even killing people, and they KNOW this? You can take this some pretty terrible places if you want. You don’t HAVE to, it can remain in “cinnamon roll” or “normal” territory if that’s what you want, but if you’re looking to make a more dark scenario, remember that you don’t need to rely on inherently “dark” flaws like “he loves to hurt people”---the most mild and even positive traits can become disturbing and evil if taken far enough. - If you’re trying to make someone MORE flawed, look at the flaws they already have and consider how it might hurt OTHER PEOPLE instead of just the character. For instance, if your character is very insecure, perhaps instead of just thinking about how worthless or untalented they are, they are overly-critical, even mean, to people who are even less talented. Or when someone else is more talented at something they wish they were better at, they scrutinize that person to find bad things about them, or even just assume things about them---like “sure, she’s a much better artist than me, but she’s ugly and she can’t write worth a damn” or “he may have a girlfriend and be good-looking, but he’s dumb as a brick and probably a bully like all dumb jocks”. An attitude like that takes your character from simply being the purely sympathetic sort of insecure, to someone who is actually doing something wrong because of it. Again, this is if you WANT your character to have more of an edge; it doesn’t suit some characters, and that’s ok. - By the same token, if you want to take some edge OFF your character and make them less flawed, look at how their present flaws might negatively affect others, and decrease that. If the character you WANT to be a “cinnamon bun” lashes out at people who just don’t understand her pain/genius/specialness/goodness/etc, maybe reconsider that. - If you want to get ideas for flaws, look at the things other people do that annoy you. What are your pet peeves? Maybe you hate “Karen” behavior, or people who don’t take proper care of their pets, people who think they’re funny or clever when they’re not, people who interrupt you when you’re talking, people who make assumptions, people you feel are fishing for attention, people who believe or share false information without checking it first, people who never seem to listen or learn, people who are always late, people who feel entitled to something, and so on. See if any of them fit your character. Be sure to be honest with yourself---yes, you REALLY love your tough guy character, and you HATE when smokers just throw their butts on the ground...but maybe he would? And maybe he WOULD be snappish with someone who didn’t deserve it? And maybe he WOULD be quick to stereotype others, such as labeling them privileged preps based on how they dress? Think about it. - Zodiac signs are another good place to get ideas for flaws, as are Myers-Briggs personality types, and anything else that categorizes people into different personality types. Note that your character need not actually, say, have that sign for their zodiac, it’s just good places to get base personality ideas. - Try to keep your voice out of your character’s mouth, and let their actions speak for themselves. Whether you want to portray the world’s sweetest cinnamon roll (tired of that phrase yet?) or the worst dumpster fire in the universe, what works to show that isn’t for your character or those around them to TALK about how sweet/terrible your character is, what works is to actually have them do and say things that are sweet/terrible! - Get second opinions! You want to make your character MORE of a jerk? You’re worried they’re TOO MUCH of a jerk? You think your villain is too soft? You want to add moral ambiguity to your hero? Get other people to look at your work! Friends are great for this, but what’s even better is people who aren’t particularly close to you, and won’t hold back on honest advice and feedback.If you want to see how your characters come off to a set of unbiased eyes, the best way is to ask someone! - Remember that everyone is different and no matter how well you portray a character the way you intend, there will always be someone who views them in a way you didn’t want them to at all, even if it makes no sense for them to do so. Make peace with it. Don’t dismiss everyone by saying they “didn’t understand” or “read it wrong” or “are interrogating the text from the wrong perspective”, but by the same token don’t get too hung up on making sure every single reader views every single character the exact way you wanted. It just won’t happen. Just do your best.

#rp stuff #writing advice #advice #flaws #character flaws

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creepingsharia · 15 years ago

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Jihad: The Highest Peak of Islam

Posted on September 14, 2009

Remember Hizb ut Tahrir? The Islamist group who recently hosted the “The Fall of Capitalism and the Rise of Islam” conference in Chicago? Remember how they said they were a peaceful organization who did not believe in jihad? Rather, they just want Islamic sharia law to replace our Constitution (video).

On December 10, 2001 – almost three months to the day after the 9/11 terror attacks – Rashad Ali, a British born Hizb ut Tahrir leader penned the following piece in Khilafah Magazine and on Khilafah.com. The article is no longer found on the site (surprise) – an online outlet for Hizb ut Tahrir – but is available through various archive services, where we found it (oops). It is indicative of the double speak coming from Islamist groups who attempt to blind non-Muslims with a peaceful veneer.

Jihad: The Highest Peak of Islam

uploaded 10 Dec 2001

The Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) stated in one hadith, “The head of its matter is Islam and its pillar is the Salah and its highest peak is the Jihad.”

The discussion concerning Jihad is taking place throughout the Ummah and indeed many misunderstandings and distortions, some deliberate, have come forth. Some of these have been propagated by the likes of the government scholars both in the West and in the Muslim World, such as Jihad an-Nafs, Jihad against oneself and Jihad as a defensive war only.

We must realise that Jihad is a pillar of Islam and was described as its peak by Sayyidina Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam). It is the thing, which Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala) in the Qur’an states that gives the Ummah life; indeed Umar ibn al Khattab (ra) stated, “There is no izza (honour) without Jihad”. Hence any misunderstanding of this vital concept would have huge ramifications. Hence, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of Jihad and make clear these corruptions, which have been propagated by the Kuffar, their agent rulers and their “scholars”.

Jihad an-Nafs

Some have attempted to justify their stance on this concept with what is apparently intended as a daleel (Islamic evidence), and so have used a narration to justify this concept of Jihad an-Nafs or dealing with all the political and military problems we face by becoming introspective or looking inwardly as opposed to looking at the Ahkam Shari’ah and seeing what Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala) has demanded from us.

So they use what they claim is a hadith, or saying of Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam), “We have returned from the lesser Jihad to the greater Jihad, that is the struggle against the evil of oneself.” This is in fact a fabrication and is known as Mawdu’ (spurious). Hafidh al Iraqi and Ibn Hajar al Asqalani, who were hadith masters and muhaditheen, who memorised one hundred thousand hadith by Isnad and were qualified to scrutinise hadith and their authenticity, stated that this was not a saying of the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) but was in fact a statement that was made by someone in the later generation named Ibrahim ibn Abi Yabla. Hence, this is not considered an evidence in the Islamic Shari’ah.

To elaborate further, it is in contradiction with the subject matter of Jihad that has been elaborated in over a hundred ayat of the Qur’an that have come with the meaning of Jihad being Qitaal, which means to slay or to kill or to fight. This was how the Prophet (Sallallahu Sallallahu “>Alaihi Wasallam) and the Sahabah (ra) understood it. To give an example from the Seerah that was narrated by Ibn Majah with a source in Bukhari, woman came to the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) and asked “O Messenger of Allah! Is Jihad obliged upon the women?” To which he responded, “Yes, a Jihad without Qitaal (fighting), it is the Hajj and the Umrah!”

This clearly demonstrates that Jihad is Qitaal i.e. Jihad is undertaking the physical fighting and this is how it was understood by the woman and the Prophet (Sallallahu Sallallahu “>Alaihi Wasallam), as explained in the Prophet’s (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) answer i.e. Jihad in Islam means fighting. The Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) did not respond by saying that there was the greater Jihad for everyone i.e. Jihad against oneself! Rather he informed her that Allah had prescribed the Hajj and the Umrah for her and that she would get the reward of the Mujahid for undertaking this action, as explained by Imam Sanani in his explanation in the book Sub us Salam.

A definition of the subject of Jihad can be extracted from the Islamic evidences rather than a mere linguistic understanding – so for example the term ‘Salah’ in the Arabic language means seeking maghfirah (forgiveness) or blessing or Du’a (supplication); however we know that in the Islamic Shari’ah it is referent to the five obligatory prayers. Similarly the term ‘Zakah’ means, literally, purification but in the Islamic Shari’ah, Zakah is referent to a specific amount of charity that is taken from specific types of wealth and distributed to particular categories of people. So when we scrutinise the Islamic daleel we can extract a clear definition or definitions. When the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) was asked who is in the way of Allah i.e. who is a Mujahid, he explained, “Whosoever fights to make Allah’s word the highest, then he is in the way of Allah.” [Bukhari and Muslim].

Similarly looking at the Ayat of Qur’an we can see that Jihad is undertaken to convey Islam, and to remove the barriers from implementing and propagating Islam, this can be seen from the rules to do with Jihad as well. So we can define Jihad as struggling to remove the material barriers to conveying the Islamic Da’wa, whether it is by the physical means, or by wealth or expressing an opinion concerning the same.

Myth: Jihad is only defensive

Another distortion that is promoted is the idea that Jihad is only defensive. The protagonists of this idea again utilise certain misinterpretations to justify their positions.

“Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress the limits. For Allah loves not the transgressors” [TMQ Al-Baqarah: 190].

“And if they incline to peace, you incline to it also, and trust in Allah. Verily! He is the hearer, the knower” [TMQ Al-A’raf: 61].

These two verses however, cannot abrogate the 119 other verses of Qur’an that suggest that Jihad is not merely limited to defensive war alone. These 119 verses, which are general and absolute, indicate that Jihad encompasses all of the following types of war:

1. Defensive war 2. Offensive war 3. Limited war 4. Unlimited war 5. Protective war

Before we go into the details of the subject let us first clarify what we mean by the terms “general” (aam) and “absolute” (mutlaq). When a verse is described as “general” it means that it covers everything related to the subject. “Absolute” means that the verse is not limited in a particular aspect of the subject in question. If a verse is general, another verse (or evidence from Sunnah) is required to make it specific (khass) otherwise it must remain as general. Similarly if the verse is absolute another evidence is required to “limit” (muqayad) it, otherwise it to remains absolute.

The verses concerning Jihad were revealed as general and absolute without limitation. Accordingly an evidence from Shari’ah is required to limit these verses concerning Jihad. However there are no evidences from Qur’an or Sunnah that place limitations on Jihad. Thus, Jihad encompasses all of the aforementioned types of war.

There are many verses concerning Jihad that could be drawn upon to illustrate this understanding. It is sufficient to focus on Surah At-Taubah (Repentance), which is one of the last Surahs to be revealed. Thus no one can claim that the verses are abrogated, limited or specified by later revelations.

“Fight against such of those who have been given the scripture as believe not in Allah nor the last day, and forbid not that which Allah hath-forbidden by his messenger, and follow not the Deen of truth, until they pay the Jizya readily, being brought low” [TMQ At-Taubah: 29].

“Verily! The number of the months with Allah is twelve months by Allah’s ordinance in the day that he created the heavens and the earth, four of them are sacred: that is the right Deen, so wrong not yourselves in them. And wage war on all the idolaters as they are waging war on all of you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto him)” [TMQ At-Taubah: 36].

“O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites! Be harsh with them, their ultimate abode is hell, a hapless journey’s end” [TMQ At-Taubah: 73].

“Verily! Allah hath bought from the believers their lives and their wealth because the garden will be theirs: they shall fight in the way of Allah and shall slay and be slain. It is a promise which is binding on him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’an. Whoever fulfils his covenant better than Allah? Rejoice then in your bargain that you have made, for that is the supreme triumph” [TMQ At-Taubah: 111].

“O you who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto him)” [TMQ At-Taubah: 123].

If we examine these verses we see that they include:

“Fight against those who…have been given the scriptures as believe in Allah and the last day…until they pay the jizya.”

“Fight all the idolaters as they fight you.”

“Fight against the disbelievers and the hypocrites and be harsh with them.”

“ …the garden, will be theirs, they shall fight in the way of Allah.”

“Fight those of the disbelievers…”

These verses command Muslims to fight, generally and absolutely. The verses impose no restrictions or conditions. Therefore this is clear evidence that “Jihad” may be offensive or defensive.

These verses of At-Taubah were revealed under certain circumstances. The following verses chronologically precede these verses of Surah At-Taubah. They provide an insight into the circumstances in which Surah At-Taubah was revealed.

“Let not the unbelievers think that they can outstrip (Allah’s purpose). Verily! They cannot escape” [TMQ: At-Taubah: 2].

“Make ready for them all you can of (armed) force and of horses tethered, in order that you may dismay the enemy of Allah and your enemy, and others beside them whom you know not. Allah knows them. Whatsoever you spend in the way of Allah it will be repaid to you in full, and you will not be, wronged” [TMQ Al-Anfal: 60].

“And if they incline to peace, you also incline to it, and trust in Allah. Verily! He is the hearer, the knower” [TMQ Al-A’raf: 61].

The meaning of abrogation (naskh) is that the rule (hukm) of one revelation is completely cancelled by another later revelation. When something is specified it is abrogation of a kind i.e. partial abrogation but it is only in the stated areas of the subject. The criteria for abrogation and specification is that the abrogating or specifying revelation must have been revealed at a later date. It should be noticed that the verses of Surah At-Taubah were the last to be revealed concerning Jihad.

A misunderstanding of abrogation and specification by some of the Muslims may have resulted in these people saying that Jihad is a purely defensive war. Others however are happier distorting Islam in order to please the rulers in the Muslim lands or the Western lands rather than please Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala).

However a further point to be clarified is that the mere appearance of contradiction between two statements (either Qur’an or Sunnah) is not sufficient to claim abrogation. There must be a divine evidence to state that the abrogation is actually relating to the abrogated. There must be a clear context concerning the occurrence of the abrogation. There are a number of incidents where two, apparently contradicting revelations where implemented in total compatibility. Concerning the above verses from At-Taubah they should be understood without abrogation.

Two verses may refer to one subject, such as Jihad, but differ in their context and situation. Therefore one verse may be applicable to a particular situation, and a different verse, seemingly contradictory, is applicable in a totally different situation. Consequently there is no abrogation.

When we examine the verses of Jihad we see that they refer to the same subject but in different situations.

Therefore, Jihad cannot be understood as being neither purely defensive nor purely offensive. The two verses quoted at the beginning relate to the situation of peace and the verses from At-Taubah relate to the situation of conflict. Conflict and peace are two different situations. To explain this, one must look to the accepted explanations of Qur’an and the opinion of our great scholars.

Az-Zamakhshari in his Tafseer of the Qur’an, Al-Kashaf, says:

“If they tend towards peace you must accept it, but this depends on what the Imam sees as a benefit for Islam and Muslims. It is not a must on the Imam to fight always, nor is it a must on him to accept peace always.”

Thus both are compatible, but used under different situations and conditions. Both As-Sadi and Ibn Zaid have stated:

“If they ask you for peace, accept it from them and there is no abrogation in it.”

Hence according to As-Sadi and Ibn Zaid it is incorrect to say that the “sword verses” abrogate the “peace verses”. Abu Bakr Ibn Arabi in his Tafseer of the Qur’an, Ahkam ul Qur’an comments; “The answer here differs…Allah says, ‘don’t weaken, don’t call for peace whilst you have the upper hand. If Muslims are mighty with strength, invincible, and numerous in groups let there be no peace’ [TMQ Muhammad: 35].”

Thus peace may be accepted but not if Muslims have the upper hand. In addition to the evidences of the Qur’an, Sunnah and Ijma-as Sahabah present clear evidences of the reality of Jihad.

Abdullah ibn Umar (ra) relates that the Prophet of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) said:

“I have been ordered to initiate the fighting of people, until they testify that there is no god save Allah, that Muhammad is Allah’s Prophet, establish Salat and pay Zakat. If they do that they save their blood from me, except by the right of Islam, their account will be to Allah” [Bukhari and Muslim].

In another hadith related by Anas ibn Malik; “Three are the origin of faith, to refrain from saying; ‘they are disbelievers,’ if they say there is no god save Allah, merely because of a sin or bad action. Secondly, that Jihad is continuous until the Day of Judgement, till the last one of my Ummah fights the ‘Dajjal’. Thirdly to believe in the Qadr.”

If Jihad is only defensive war how can it continue until the Day of Judgement? If it was so Jihad would be periodic and would not be continuous. Moreover, this completely contradicts evidences from the life of the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) and the example of Sahabah.

In the nine years that followed the Hijrah to Madinah (where permission was given to fight) the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) personally led 28 military campaigns, and during the same period the Companions (ra) embarked on another 51 military campaigns.

If one looks in detail at these expeditions and battles one finds clear evidence that the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) and the companions undertook both defensive and offensive action. The battles of Uhud and Ahzab are clear examples of defensive battles – on the other hand, Tabuk and Mutah are clear examples of offensive wars. Indeed the Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) took part in thirteen expeditions and eleven major battles in which he took the initiative and launched offensive action. Likewise of the 51 Sariyah (campaigns), 39 were offensive. How can one say, therefore, that Jihad is only defensive?

Transgression

“Fight in the way of Allah, those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah verily loves not transgressors” [TMQ Al-Baqarah: 190].

The above verse describes the way in which Jihad is being carried out. It refers to the limits that have to be observed when engaging the enemy. It by no means implies that Jihad is defensive. Islam has its own regulations of war – the limits Muslims are strictly commanded to adhere to, are not to kill women, children, old men, and priests who do not participate in war against Muslims. To attack such people would be to transgress the limits set by Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala) because they are not “those who fight you”. However, if they fight against Muslims on the battlefield then to fight them would not be transgression. Muslims are also commanded to treat war prisoners kindly not to torture them or mutilate dead bodies – all of these actions would amount to a transgression.

Transgression would also arise if a nation was attacked without first calling them to Islam. Muslims are ordained to call their enemies to Islam before fighting against them. If they refuse, Muslims should call them again to pay Jizya and submit to the laws of Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala). If the enemy refuses again, Muslims should fight them in order that there be no persecution, and the Deen should be for Allah alone. This procedure should be observed, otherwise the limits have been transgressed and, “Allah verily loves not transgressors.”

The verse; “it is permitted for those to fight, that they have been wronged”, does not tell us to fight because we have been wronged. It merely gives us the permission to fight. The question of the reason for fighting does not enter into it. If being “wronged” were the reason then Muslims would have been able to fight in Makkah. In Makkah, after great suffering the Companions approached the Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Sallallahu “>Alaihi Wasallam) asking him for permission to fight the enemy. The Messenger (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) replied, “Be patient, I have not been permitted to fight” [Ibn Hisham].

The verse “it is permitted for those to fight, that they have been wronged”, which was revealed in Madinah, gave the permission to fight.

The Call

Before a land is opened up to Islam the inhabitants must be invited to Islam. Without this call the fight is not allowed. This call may take a variety of forms: direct invitation, conferences, via the media and so on and so forth. The Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) for example sent letters to the leaders, like the following letter sent to Heraclius of Rome:

“In the Name of Allah Most Gracious Most Merciful. From Muhammad, Servant and Messenger of Allah, to Heraclius Emperor of Rome. Peace be upon those who follow the Guidance. I invite you to Islam; accept Islam, you will be safe, Allah will grant you two-fold reward; if you turn away, the sin of (the wrongdoings of) all the people will be upon you. “O people of the Book come to an agreement between-us and you, that we worship none but Allah, and that we shall associate no partners to Him, and that none of us shall take other for words beside Allah and if they turn away, then say: Bear witness that we have surrendered to Him.” Muhammad, Messenger of Allah.

Prior to the Battle of Qadisiyyah, Sad ibn Abi Waqqas (ra) sent a delegation to Yazdagird, Emperor of Persia, headed by An-Nu’man ibn Muqarrin with the purpose of inviting the Emperor to Islam. Yazdagird greeted the delegation in the following way:

“Why have you come to our dominions and why do you want to invade us? Perhaps, you have designs on us…and seek to venture against us because we are preoccupied with you, but we do not wish to inflict punishment on you”.

An-Nu’man replied:

“Indeed Allah has been Kind and Merciful to us and has sent to us a Messenger to show us the good and command us to follow it, to make us realise what is evil and forbade us from it. The Messenger promised us if we were to respond to what he commands, Allah would bestow on us the good of this world and the good of the hereafter. Not much time has elapsed but Allah has given us abundance in place of hardship, honour in place of humiliation and mercy and brotherhood in place of our former enmity. The Messenger has commanded us to summon mankind to what is best for them and to begin with those who are our neighbours. We therefore invite you to enter into our Deen. It is a Deen, which beautifies and promotes all good and which detests and discourages all that is ugly and reprehensible. It is a Deen, which leads its adherents from the darkness and tyranny of unbelief to the light and justice of Iman. Should you respond, positively to us and come to Islam, it would be our duty to introduce the Book of Allah in your midst and help you to live according to it and rule according to its laws. We would then return and leave you to conduct your own affairs. Should you refuse however, to enter the Deen of Allah we would take the Jizya (tribute) from you and give you protection in return. If you refuse to give the Jizya, we shall declare war on you” (Ibn Sad in his Tareekh).

This is the reality of the call to Islam and the manner in which it spread. It is a call to deliver people from the servitude of man to the service of Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala), not a desire for exploitation and domination.

Consider these noble words of Umar ibn al-Khattab (ra) to Sad ibn Abi Waqqas (ra) as he bade farewell to the Muslim army that was to confront the Persians at Qadisiyyah.

“O Sad! Let not any statement that you are the uncle of the Messenger of Allah or that I or you are the companion of the Messenger of Allah distract you from Allah. Allah Almighty does not obliterate evil with evil but he wipes out evil with good.”

“O Sad! There is no connection between Allah and anyone except obedience to Him. In the sight of Allah all people whether nobleman or commoner are the same. Allah is their Lord and they are His servants seeking elevation through taqwa and seeking to obtain what is with Allah through obedience. Consider how the Messenger of Allah used to act with the Muslims and act accordingly…”

Are these the words of a leader to an army that is embarking on conquest for the sake of domination and exploitation? Clearly not.

The Opening of Lands

The opening of lands by the means of Jihad is to destroy the material obstacles that prevent people from entering Islam. The objective is not to exploit the lands in the manner of the imperialists but to free men from the servitude of other men to the worship of Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala). The proof that Islam never exploited or dominated in the manner of the imperialists is the success of Islam in melting the different nations into one Ummah.

History has proved that the unjust conquering of lands alienates the conquerors from the conquered. In the entire history of the world no nation has been able to impose its will on a people to the extent that the people themselves freely leave their own culture and nationality, and adopt freely the will of the conqueror. The Greeks, Romans, Nazis, British, French, Italians, and so on, all tried and all failed. In recent times we have seen countless examples of nations fighting for their independence and freedom from imperialism. The conquerors have always sought to dominate and the conquered have always been treated as second-class citizens.

The West has sought to tarnish Islam with the same brush – to accuse Islam of dominating by force; this however is so far from the truth. Islam spread all over the world until the authority of the Islamic Khilafah encompassed Persia, Iraq, Bilad as-Sham, North Africa and many more lands. The people of these lands were Persians, Berbers, Copts and Romans, who all had their own nationalities, cultures and languages. These people under the shade of the rule of Islam grew to understand it – they all embraced Islam and became one Ummah (nation). The success of the Islamic intellectual leadership in melting these people and cultures is unparalleled in the history of the World and proof that Islam was adopted by individuals out of conviction and not because a sword was placed to their necks. This is the picture that the West has sought to propagate so that Muslims would leave Jihad and leave conveying Islam to the entire world.

The reality is that any nation that has a doctrine, which deals comprehensively with the universe, man and life, must be a nation with the need to spread this doctrine. Islam is not simply a doctrine of thoughts and ideas. Islam is also a practical system and way of life. Faith in Islam is not based only on its thoughts and concepts. A Muslim must also have belief in its actual implementation as a comprehensive way of life. Belief in this must then be followed by action.

It is obligatory for the Islamic nation to invite people to Islam, to propagate it and to subjugate other nations to the Islamic system of ruling.

No Compulsion in Deen

Whilst other nations must be subjugated to the rule of Islam, the individual residing in a land opened by Islam must not be compelled to become Muslim. The Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) has said:

“I have been commanded to initiate the fighting of people until they say there is no god save Allah…”

The Arabic word used here is ‘naas’ – people; which is plural and does not refer to individuals. Allah, the Supreme says in Qur’an,

“There is no compulsion in Deen the right direction is henceforth distinct from error and he who rejects false gods and believes in Allah has grasped a firm handhold which will never break. Allah is hearer, knower” [TMQ Al-Baqarah: 256].

The Messenger of Allah (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) has said, “Whoever has been a Jew or Christian is not to be coerced from his Deen.”

Jihad does not mean as the West intimate when they say Islam was spread by the sword that individuals are forced to become Muslims. Rather, it is the subjugation of the State and nation to the rule of Islam. The individual is compelled to abide by the Islamic ruling (with certain concessions permitted to non-Muslims by Shari’ah) but the Aqeedah (creed) of Islam is not forced upon him.

Conclusion

Jihad is the removal of obstacles, by force if necessary, that stand between people and Islam. It is the practical method of spreading Islam. The call to Islam is compulsory on Muslims. Jihad is included within this compulsory action. Like the call, Jihad is to be performed by the nation (Ummah).

Jihad is continuous and will always be so. This is an obligation imposed on Muslims by Shari’ah. However, this is not the Jihad that is carried by the nation whose intention is to open land to the justice of Islam. Practically speaking this is not going to take place until the Ummah can perform this Jihad and make the Call to Islam as a nation, and that nation must have a state that implements Islam i.e. Dar al Islam. Once this State has been established we can (Inshallah) carry on the work commenced by the Companions of our Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam), which is, to spread the Deen of Allah (Subhanahu Wa ta’ala) to all corners of the earth. The Prophet (Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam) stated, “This Deen will never cease to exist. A party of the Muslims shall always fight for it until the Hour comes to pass” [Al Jami us Sahih of Imam Muslim].

Rashad Ali

Source: Khilafah Magazine December 2001 Edition

Today Ali is part of a group of self-proclaimed reformed terrorists – yet still hold Islamist ideologies – who advise the British government and get paid

millions of dollars to do so

. Hizb ut Tahrir is now operating and recruiting openly in the United States.

#Islam #Muslim #Jihad #Sharia #Terror #Legal

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httpdxnielx · 5 years ago

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‘AN ANALYSIS ON ABORTION BASED ON THE PHILOSOPHICAL THEORY OF ARISTOTLE FROM THE GENDER PERSPECTIVE’

According to traditional Mexican philosophy, abortion is the resolution of a moral dilemma. A dilemma between two undesirable choices: forced motherhood or the termination of pregnancy. There is no “good” alternative. If this were a dilemma between good and evil, the obvious would be to choose good. But for a woman who faces a Morton’s Fork regarding an unwanted pregnancy, there is a great distance between both alternatives, and no matter which decision she makes, she will be judged biased because of the double moral standard still prevalent in society. This double moral code has been shaped for and by men who considered women incapable of making decisions for themselves.

The fundamental political problem in relation to abortion, in my opinion, is the loss of control of men over the reproductive decisions of women. This control has been institutionalized in medicine, justice, lawmaking, among other disciplines, while women have been neglected for reasons attributed to their “nature”. It has its origins in philosophy, from the ancient times to the last decades of the 20th century. A highly authoritative example is Aristotle.

“Also, as between the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the females inferior, the male ruler and the female subject.”

-Aristotle (Politics. Transl. Harvard University Press, 1932)

Aristotle, one of the most influential figures in philosophy, defends a natural hierarchical order, that is, that social roles are based on natural differences between the sexes. This method is still used to justify the alienation of autonomy and the limited access to many social goods when it comes to women and their reproductive functions. The moral virtues belong to everyone, however the value of a man is measured by authority while that of a woman is measured by obedience. So although the distinctive characteristic of human beings lies in their power to reason, there’s nevertheless a certain class of human beings who are excluded from the full exercise of human reason, these being women and slaves.

The purpose of a slave’s life is that of allowing his master to pursue a life of freedom and virtue among other citizens of the polis. The purpose of a woman is similarly functional: she is necessary to produce heirs. Within this way of thinking, a family is a form of organization that exists in benefit of the polis and provides the means for free men to live their lives dedicated to intellectual and political objectives. Therefore, for a woman to go against her life purpose and refuse to assume her role as a mother in the family institution would be detrimental to the polis, even more to the men in power.

“As to exposing or rearing the children born, let there be a law that no deformed child shall be reared; but on the ground of number of children, if the regular customs hinder any of those born being exposed, there must be a limit fixed to the procreation of offspring, and if any people have a child as a result of intercourse in contravention of these regulations, abortion must be practised on it before it has developed sensation and life; for the line between lawful and unlawful abortion will be marked by the fact of having sensation and being alive.”

-Aristotle (Politics. Transl. Harvard University Press, 1932)

In Book VII of the Politics, Aristotle introduces a variable that would allow women to terminate a pregnancy only in the event that the fetus had a deformity or disability, and as long as the nervous system hadn’t fully developed and there was no heartbeat. This statement is problematic in itself for various reasons. It implies that a person with malformations is of not use to the polis, therefore they are placed in a category even below that of women and slaves. Even in this scenario, the decision is not made by the woman who is carrying the embryo, but by the polis who, in its ambition to protect itself, imposes its power over an already vulnerable group. Consequently, the woman is shamed and must carry the guilt of not having fulfilled her purpose as a mother, even if she wanted to. In this case, the integrity of the unborn child is protected (by not allowing it to be born in the first place), and not that of the mother, who can only decide for herself as long the individual for whom she decides is considered inferior to her, because even a healthy unborn child is hierarchically superior to a woman. That is if the child is born a male.

While Aristotle didn’t develop further into the topic of female reproductive rights, it is safe to say that as one of the most renowned philosophical figures in the history of mankind, he certainly laid the foundations on which centuries of sexism were built. Although Aristotle definitely didn’t invent sexism, his writing contained ideas that were used to rationalize a very specific form of misogyny, which resulted in a failed and extremely one-sided political system of a strictly patriarchal nature that thrives due to its blatant degradation of women. It is not surprising that such a flawed and outdated system is so problematic in modern times.

Daniela Y. B. 05/08/2020 https://danielayarbo.wordpress.com/2020/05/15/74/

References

Aristotle. Politics. Translated by H. Rackham. Loeb Classical Library 264. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1932. Retrieved from: https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aristotle-politics/1932/pb_LCL264.21.xml?readMode=recto (05/07/2020).

Borghini, A. (2019). ThoughtCo. Plato and Aristotle on Women: Selected Quotes. Retrieved from: https://www.thoughtco.com/plato-aristotle-on-women-selected-quotes-2670553 (05/06/2020).

Femenia, M.L. (1988). Hiparquía. Mujer y jerarquía natural en Aristóteles. Retrieved from: http://www.hiparquia.fahce.unlp.edu.ar/numeros/voli/hiparquiav1a1 (05/07/2020).

Huber, K. (2015). Lake Forest College: Eukaryon. Everybody’s a Little Big Sexist: A Re-evaluation of Aristotle’s and Plato’s Philosophies on Women. Retrieved from: https://www.lakeforest.edu/live/news/5499-everybodys-a-little-bit-sexist-a-re-evaluation-of?preview=1 (05/06/2020).

Lytle-Rich, R. (2017). Medium. Degrees of Sexism in Aristotle. Retrieved from: https://medium.com/sex-gender-history-of-medicine/degrees-of-sexism-in-aristotle-b52f0ccec993 (05/06/2020).

Witt, C. (2000). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Feminist History of Philosophy. Retrieved from: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-femhist/ (05/07/2020).

#essays #essay #essaywriting #philosophy #aristotle #reproductive rights #feminism #writing #analysis

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euiontumble · 6 years ago

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Supporting right to Abortion, to a certain extent that is.

Well... there was this big debate about abortion. Actually, a lot of them. Each time I hesitated about posting my view, but I just decided to say what I really think about it.

A life being born is a very critical decision. The entire happiness and the entire misery of the new born that follows birth is a consequence of the parents' decision to give birth or not.

Every critical thing with potentially severe consequences should have an opportunity for examination and decision to continue or terminate when feasible.

A fetus never gets to choose whether if it will be brought to this world, making an informed decision about what chance of a good life it will have in this world or whether if this world is a kind of place it would want to live. That decision is forced upon by the parents while the parents really have no idea whether if that would lead to happy life or not, even if the new born does make every honest effort for a happy life. The parents just do it because they want it, while forcing the risk to be miserable after being born to the new life. Of course, parents pushing for birth are expecting happiness, and there is that probability also. However, the fact of the matter is that there is no guarantee of effort and hard work resulting in happiness in this world. So, a decision to have a child is always an inherently selfish one.

Of course that decision, whether if a life should be brought to the world and whether if a birth should happen, necessarily have to be made by the parents, since the fetus has no capacity to reason or make decisions, and if a decision to give birth is made, that is justified by parents' expectation of overall happiness of everyone involved.

However, if parents' expectation of happiness can be a justification of the parents' unilateral decision for a life to be born, forcing the risk involved in life to the new born, then it logically follows that parents' expectation of misery and suffering should be an equally valid reason to terminate the fetus. One cannot be a justification without the other also being an equally valid justification.

Quality of what will be experienced in life is what makes life valuable, less valuable, or worthless. The way I see it, a biological organism merely being alive by itself has no intrinsic value just for existing. "One more new life = good" is just a false assumption. It can be good and it can be bad.

Since all the potential good and potential evil involving a new life being brought in this world are both severely great, there should be a period where parents should be able to make careful consideration and make a decision to continue pregnancy or abort before the fetus develops enough capacity to be conscious.

It makes no sense to me to argue that such a critical thing should not have a period where there is an opportunity to make a decision to continue or terminate, especially considering that unexpected pregnancy would not offer such opportunity prior to the pregnancy.

I cannot make an argument for deliberately prohibiting an opportunity to make a decision for thing of such critical importance.

There are, of course, objections to my position on abortion. The most typical argument against it is this:

“Value of all lives are equal. So it is morally wrong to sacrifice a life of a fetus for the happiness of the born people.”

However, simple review of real life cases readily show that the above argument is actually not how life is treated in real life even by people who oppose abortion. For example, abortion is mostly not opposed in situations such as when the pregnancy threatens the health of the mother, or if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest. So, there is a significant logical and behavioral inconsistency here that I will examine.

If abortion is permissible when the pregnancy threatens the health of the mother, that logically means the value of life of the fetus is less than that of the mother.

If abortion is permissible when the pregnancy is a result of a rape or incest, that means it is permissible to sacrifice the life of a fetus to prevent predicted suffering of the mother who would give birth and raise the child of a rapist or person who engaged in incest if abortion is not permitted. So, that logically means it is permissible to sacrifice a fetus for the sake of quality of life of the people who are already born.

Once it is established that termination of a fetus is permissible for the sake of happiness of people who are already born, such as in case of rape or incest, abortion can logically also be permissible in other situations where birth of an unwanted child is expected to cause suffering. The disagreement is then merely a matter of how much expected suffering justifies it.

So, can value of life be different from human to human? Actually, yes. The value of life is different according to social distance. A solider of a certain country would try to rescue a citizen of that soldier's country before rescuing people of any other country. A citizen and a foreigner are assigned different social distance. A father would try to save his own child in danger before trying to save a child of a stranger. His own child and a stranger's child get assigned different social distance. By similar measure, a born person who became a part of the society has closer social distance than a fetus that no one had any meaningful social interaction with.

It is natural and reasonable for any individual to assign more value to someone more significant and important in an example such as family vs. non family, and also for a society to assign more value to someone more significant and important in an example such as citizen vs. foreigner. Same applies to born people vs. a fetus that does not have the capacity to function as a society member.

However, even with such reasoning aside, criticizing the morality of placing different value on life is a moot point because such discrimination in assigned value is instinctive. Criticizing its morality does not change the fact that it inevitably exists. For example, most people, if faced a situation where a pregnancy would threaten the life of the mother, would choose to protect the mother by abortion, even if they have no education or training in philosophy or ethics studies, due to the social distance they intuitively figure.

That does not inhibit people from making artificial things such as a legal system by social contract and make an agreement that certain category of people, such as born people who are citizens of that society, will be treated equally by the legal system.

Also, those people can either choose to or choose not to include fetus into that category. However, the fact of the matter is that because a fetus is incapable of functioning as an independent social entity, it factually has a further social distance. A fetus' life is biologically tied to the mother. And, a fetus being a treated as a legally equal entity as the parents would take away capability of the parents to make decisions that can have serious impact on their lives, since a person often cannot make decisions for another equal person. Those factors make it very unfeasible to include fetus into group within a society where members are treated as legally equal entities. For example, including fetus into a legally protected group creates a situation of hypocrisy where a woman in Ireland who was prohibited from getting an abortion to terminate a pregnancy by rape was allowed to travel to a foreign country for the purpose of getting an abortion. If a fetus holds the same legal status as a mother, being legally recognized as a “person,” then logically, the mother should never be allowed an abortion, even if the pregnancy seriously threatens her health, since an equal being cannot be sacrificed for another equal being. So, that approach has serious pragmatic problems.

Now, as a general matter, a society of liberty should treat members as individuals with rights essential to liberty, and each individuals should be treated equally by the legal system in that regard. However, I see no reason why a living organism with no conscious capacity should be should be considered to have an equal right and value as a person who does. Also, a fetus is, by natural consequence, a being that its fate has to be represented unilaterally by its parents, unlike a born child who can be taken into custody of the state and get different treatment or protection, so no matter what argument is made, a fetus is factually not an equal to the parents and it is not an individual entity that can be feasibly offered independent treatment.

Once it is established that life value of a fetus is not equal to that of a mother or other born humans, then it logically follows that a fetus can be sacrificed for the quality of life for born people, which is exactly how abortion for people who get pregnant by rape or incest is justified.

Even most “pro-life” people who are against abortion would say pregnancy by rape or incest, or pregnancy that seriously threatens the health of the mother, should be a situation where abortion should be allowed. However, what they do not realize is that by doing so, they in fact recognize that value of life of a fetus is not equal to that of the mother or any other born people, and sacrifice of a fetus is permissible for the sake of quality of life of born people. While those people say such ideas are repugnant to them, they actually accept and act according to exactly those ideas without realizing it.

#abortion #reason

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