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queering-ecology · 9 months ago

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Queer Ecologies: Sex, Nature, Politics, Desire Chapter 2 : Enemy of the Species by Ladelle McWhorter (part 3)

Species Troubled Past

1830s, USA—the abolitionists movement was growing. “it was simply wrong to enslave fellow human beings, no matter what benefits to society might result and no matter what racial differences might exist in intelligence, strength, health or ability” and old justifications for slavery no longer carried weight so slavery defenders turned to science—“Negroes and Caucasians were in fact distinct species” (79)

‘Important’ Names: John Bachman- naturalist, South Carolina Josiah Nott- physician, Alabama, “the most vocal of slavery’s scientific proponents” Samuel G. Morton- world-renowned anatomist and professor medicine, Philadelphia James Cowles Prichard- biologist, England

Nott used Prichard’s definition of species, “separate origin and distinctness of races, evinced by a constant transmission of some character peculiarity of organization” and referenced Morton’s study that found “significant racial differences in cranial capacity” to claim that Caucasians, Negroes, American Indians were separate species (79)=polygeny

Monogeny =the theory that humanity is one unitary species; Bachman offered this definition of species: “those individuals resembling each other in dentition and general structure. In wild animals […] they must approach the same size; but in both wild and domesticated animals they must have the same duration of life, the same period of utro-gestation, the same average number of progeny, the same habits and instincts, in a word, they belong to one stock that produce fertile offspring by association” (2005, 220) (80)

Racial diversity already existed in the USA, so Nott argued that ‘Mulattoes’ (crosses between Negroes and Caucasians) were sterile hybrids like mules and thus met Buffon’s requirement and qualified as two distinct species (80)-- he used his ‘observations’ as a physician who had treated many enslaved people to support this.

“Between 1846 and 1850 most respected scientists in the United States converted to polygeny”. Types of Mankind (1854)-published by what is now known as the American School of Anthropology.

Returning to Foucault’s words the author states, “concepts […] are for cutting. They are never merely benign representations of a natural arrangement.” (81) “Species could be made to function oppressively to separate white from blacks because […] it was already a tool for marking separations in natures heterogenous continuities in the interest of prevailing human practices” (81).

The Origin of Species (1859) Charles Darwin, who like many others maintained that the concept of species was practically meaningless, given the inevitability of evolution. “There are not eternally fixed types, nor are there eternally distinct lines of descent. All life on earth, no matter how morphologically or functionally distinct at present, conceivably could be traced back to a single germ line” (81) To me this concept is also what Mitakuye Oyasin means—we are all related. I believe my ancestors knew this ‘scientific’ truth long before Charles Darwin was alive. Charles Darwin never answered the question on the origin of species—species must change over time but not when change amount to a new species (82).

The theory of natural selection was remarkable, proponents agreed but it was incomplete—clearly certain groups like Africans, Pacific Islanders, and indigenous people from North and South America had not evolved sufficiently to produce ‘civilization’ (82) (Between indigenous peoples and those who supposedly created ‘civilization’, only one group has nearly destroyed their very environment at almost every turn—making them remarkably unfit and poorly adapted to the planet--and it isn’t indigenous peoples). But even those in the ‘higher races’ could fail to adapt—criminals, idiots, the mad, the degenerate, the chronically ill…like the ‘lower races’ these weaklings should be eliminated by natural selection. BUT, the Caucasian elite grew increasingly anxious…was humanity still evolving? Or was civilization circumventing the evolutionary process? Could it even reverse itself?—devolution. Modern technology and medicine= saving more people who might have once not survived, “allowing those with inferior traits to mature and reproduce” (82).

Madison Grant, was one of the many theorists who was concerned about devolution. He was a New York attorney and a conservationist who co-founded the Save-the-Redwoods League and the Bronx Zoo and helped establish Glacier and Denali National Parks. (83) Grant believed humans had evolved under harsh environmental conditions. Anglo Saxon history and the rising tide of inferiority that was everyone else…”Mistaken regard for what are believed to be divine laws and a sentimental belief in the sanctity of human life, tend to prevent both the elimination of defect in infants and the sterilization of such adults as are themselves of no value to the community. The laws of nature require the obliteration of the unfit” (Grant 1916,44-45) (83). (When in fact it is humans caring for one another that built humanity and underlies the entire point and purpose of civilization). Grant advocated for the sterilization of the criminal, diseased, insane and other weaklings and those he termed ‘worthless race types’ like Jews, blacks and indigenous peoples. Immigration, they believed, should also be curtailed to prevent undesirables from entering the USA. “Immigration is thus, from the racial standpoint a form of procreation and like the more immediate form of procreation it may be either the greatest blessing or the greatest curse” (Stoddard 1925, 252) (84).

So elite influential men and their allies created organizations such as the Immigration Restriction League (full of Harvard alumni), the American Breeders’ Association (later renamed the American Genetics Association), and what later became the American Psychiatric Association-- and they won passage of an immigration restriction bill (1917)—it instituted literacy tests, put caps on the number of immigrants, national quotas and denial of entry basis on the condition called ‘constitutional psychopathy’. This effectively screened out anyone who did not conform to gender norms or anyone who admitted to homosexual desire. “Further, any immigrant who, during the first give years of residence in the United States, committed a crime or showed signs of any allegedly hereditary physical or mental defect, including sexual inversion, could be deported” (84). Congress also barred people who were ‘feebleminded, morally degenerate, or sexually suspect’. Then in 1924, they reduced the number of people who could immigrate to the US by an annual total of 150,000, making it the exclusive country in the world. These provisions stayed in effect well past the middle of the twentieth century (85).

The introduction of the Simon-Binet IQ test in 1912 made identifying those were ‘intellectually unfit’ quick and easy (85)—public schools became screening grounds. Certain children would be segregated from their classmates until they could be institutionalized. The test was modified by eugenicist psychologist Henry Goddard to include a grade of ‘feeblemindedness beyond the imbecile. Individuals with a test measured mental age of eight to twelve years were classified as morons.’ (85) “Women who had children out of wedlock were automatically classified as such but any deviation from heterosexuality and prescribed gender roles could earn a person the label of moral imbecile in addition to the label of degenerate, lunatic or psychopath” (85-86). Hundreds of thousands were locked up for life as a result of these efforts to forestall a perceived threat to natural selection and evolution of humanity.

Quietly, eugenicist physicians had been sterilizing ‘defectives’ in prison, hospitals and asylums since the 1880s. In 1927, the Supreme Court endorsed these eugenic practices in Buck v Bell (86). By 1927, the number of Americans legally sterilized without their consent would reach 65,000~ (86).

“Adolf Hitler learned a great deal from American eugenicists, particularly about involuntary sterilization” –1934 Nazi involuntary sterilization law was based on the Model of Eugenical Sterilization Law drafted by American biologist Harry Laughlin (1922). He advocated for the sterilization of about 10% of the U.S population, those deemed ‘socially inadequate’ such as the (1) feeble-minded; (2) Insane, (including the Psychopathic); (3) Criminalistic (including the delinquent and wayward);(4) Epileptic; (5) Inebriate (including drug habites); (6) Diseased (including the tuberculosis, the syphilitic, the leprous, and others with chronic infections and legally segregable diseases); (7) Blind (including those with seriously impaired vision); (8) Deaf (including those with seriously impaired hearing); (9) Deformed (including the crippled); and (10) Dependent (including orphans, ne-er-do-wells, the homeless, tramps and paupers) (Laughlin) (86-87).

By 1934, nearly thirty US states had enacted such laws, though few were as drastic as Lauglin’s suggestion. Some provinces in Canada and in Europe also followed. “The Nazis […] has some serious eugenic catching up to do” (87).

By 1937, the Nazis had sterilized approx. 250,000 Germans before they began to eliminate defectives through eugenic ‘euthanasia’ (87)—genocide.

Though such things were never enacted in the US, proponents of eugenics considered it and continued to push their sterilization agenda (Partlow and his three-man committee designed to sterilize any sexual perverts, Sadists, homosexualists, Masochist, Sodomists or two-time convicted rapists. They would have no right to judicial review. The bill passed state legislature when it was vetoed twice by Governor Bibb Graves) (88).

As the details of the Nazi regime became more widely understood in the US, the eugenics movement lowered its profile and changed tactics. “Eugenics should therefor operate on a basis of individual selection” and “Eugenics, in asserting the uniqueness of the individual, supplements the American ideal of respect for the individual” (89)

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bracketsoffear · 1 month ago

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Slaughter Leitner Reading List

The full list of submissions for the Slaughter Leitner bracket. Bold titles are ones which were accepted to appear in the bracket. Synopses and propaganda can be found below the cut. Be warned, however, that these may contain spoilers!

Abercrombie, Joe: The Heroes Anderson, Poul: The Broken Sword

Bachman, Richard (Stephen King): Rage Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange

Chesterton, G.K.: The Sign Of The Broken Sword Christie, Agatha: Murder is Easy Colgan, Jenny T.: In the Blood Collins, Suzanne: The Hunger Games Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness Coville, Bruce: The Japanese Mirror

Echeverría, Esteban: El matadero (The slaughteryard) Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psycho Evans, Robert: After the Revolution

Felker-Martin, Gretchen: Manhunt

Golding, William: Lord of the Flies

Hemingway, Ernest: For Whom the Bell Tolls Hendrix, Grady: The Final Girl Support Group Herbert, James: The Fog Hitler, Adolf: Mein Kampf Homer: The Iliad Howard, Robert E.: Rogues in the House Hunter, Erin: Warrior Cats

Icelandic Saga: The Saga of the Sworn Brothers

Jackson, Shirley: The Lottery Jarrell, Randall: The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

Kuang, Rebecca F.: The Poppy War

Lansdale, Joe R.: Down by the Sea near the Great Big Rock Laumer, Keith, et. al.: Bolo

Martin, George R.R.: A Song of Ice and Fire McCarthy, Cormac: Blood Meridian Michelinie, David and Dean Wesley Smith: Carnage In New York Moody, David: Hater

Owen, Wilfred: Dulce et Decorum Est

Pendleton, Don: The Executioner Pratchett, Terry: Jingo Pratchett, Terry: THUD!

Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front Remender, Rick: Deadly Class

Schmitt, Carl: The Concept of the Political

Takami, Koushun: Battle Royale Thomas, Ryan C.: The Summer I Died Tzu, Sun: The Art of War

Vallejo, Fernando: La virgen de los sicarios (Our lady of the assasins)

Walsh, Rodolfo: Operación: masacre (Operation: Massacre) Weber, David: Honor Harrington

Abercrombie, Joe: The Heroes

The author explains in the foreword that he didn't just want to show that War is Hell, but to explore why it nevertheless has such a hold on human imagination. Thus, we get to see both the stupidity and waste and horror of it and the way it can turn men into monsters, but also examples of how it brings out the best in some people, and how the constant danger and the bonds among soldiers can be so addictive as to make someone who's gotten used to them feel like a peaceful civilian life is hardly worth living.

Anderson, Poul: The Broken Sword

The book tells the story of Skafloc Half Elf (actually a human stolen by the elves), son of Orm the Strong. The story begins with the marriage of Orm the Strong and Aelfrida of the English. Orm kills a witch's family on the land, and later half-converts to Christianity, but quarrels with the local priest and sends him off the land. Meanwhile, an elf, Imric, seeks out the witch to capture the son of Orm, Valgard. In his place he leaves a changeling called Valgard. The real Valgard is taken away to elven lands and named Skafloc by the elves. He grows up among the fairies there. Later, he has a significant part in a war against the trolls.

The eponymous weapon, named Tyrfing in the 1971 revision, was given to Skafloc as his naming-gift by the Aesir. He later travels to the ends of the Earth to have it reforged by Bolverk, the Ice Giant.

Anderson wrote the book during the Cold War, and it does reflect on the story. For example, the Elf-Troll conflict is basically a proxy war between two great powers, the Aesir and the Jotuns; the latter two do not fight directly because that would lead to Ragnarok, the final battle in which most of the world would be destroyed. The parallel to the real-world threat of nuclear war is obvious. Even the titular sword may be an allusion to nuclear weapons; Skafloc contemplates throwing the sword into the sea, but realizes someone - probably much less moral than himself - would eventually find and use it.

Bachman, Richard (Stephen King): Rage

A controversial psychological thriller novel about a disturbed high-school student with authority problems who one day kills one of his teachers and takes the rest of his class hostage. Over the course of one long, tense and unbearable hot afternoon, this student, named Charlie Decker, explains what led him to this drastic sequence of events, while at the same time deconstructing the personalities of his classmates, forcing each one to justify his or her existence.

The novel has been associated with actual high school shooting incidents in the 1980s and 1990s. In response, the author allowed the novel to fall out of print (though it can still be found and read), and has even explicitly requested that no future printings are made.

A rare, disturbing book allegedly linked to actual horrible events in real life, and whose own author wants nothing to do with? What's more Leitner than that?

***

It tells the story of Charlie Decker, an inexplicably volatile high school senior who decides to storm his algebra class, shoot his teacher and take the students hostage. The book became infamous after it was associated with actual high school shooting incidents in the 1980s and 1990s, with the author letting it fall deliberately out of print in 1997 after the book was found in the locker of a teenager who had killed three classmates and injured five others.

***

The story is about a disturbed high schooler who, after being expelled, shoots his teacher and takes the rest of his class hostage.

Stephen King requested the novel to be pulled out of circulation after its connection to several similar school shooting incidents possibly inspired by it. It is a real life Leitner.

Burgess, Anthony: A Clockwork Orange

The novel is narrated by Alex, a young man who leads a gang of “droogs” and takes pleasure in “ultra-violence.” After being arrested and convicted of murder, Alex undergoes an experimental procedure that is intended to cure him of his violent tendencies.

Chesterton, G.K.: The Sign Of The Broken Sword

"Where would a wise man hide a leaf? In the forest. If there were no forest, he would make a forest. And if he wished to hide a dead leaf, he would make a dead forest. And if a man had to hide a dead body, he would make a field of dead bodies to hide it in."

A Father Brown tale, filled with war, bloody passions, broken blades, and of course, murder.

General Sir Arthur St. Clare provoked a completely unnecessary military battle and defeat purely to cover up the fact that he had killed one of his men in a bout of rage. He was then in turn overpowered and hanged by his own surviving soldiers in revenge.

Christie, Agatha: Murder is Easy

During his travel back home from an overseas job, former policeman Luke Fitzwilliam comes across Miss Lavinia Pinkerton (in some editions her last name is Fullerton), an elderly lady who's on her way to Scotland Yard. A serial killer seems to be loose in her home village of Wychwood under Ashe, and she believes she knows who the next victim will be. Luke secretly thinks she's making this up, but her similiarity to his favorite aunt leads him to humor her.

The next day, Luke reads about Miss Pinkerton's death, then about the death of Dr. John Humbleby a few days later. Dr. Humbleby was the one the affable old lady thought would die next. While the cause of his death seems to be thanks to an infection, Luke decides to look into the matter himself.

Pretending to be a researcher into superstitions and witchcraft, Luke begins his investigation into the multiple deaths. What all the deaths have in common is that the victims were largely seen as pests and none of them seemed to have died by foul play. With the help of Bridget Conway, a secretary of Lord Whitfield (in some editions he's called Easterfield) who's much smarter than she looks, Luke might be able to figure out who the murderer is and stop the killings for good.

The serial killer kills anyone who is in any way disliked by their real target, Lord Whitfield, with the ultimate goal of pinning all the murders on him. If that sounds completely insane, that's because it is.

Colgan, Jenny T.: In the Blood

Summary: "All over the world, people are "ghosting" each other on social media. Dropping their friends, giving vent to their hatred, and everywhere behaving with incredible cruelty. Even Donna has found that her friend Hettie, with her seemingly perfect life and fancy house, has unfriended her. And now, all over the world, internet trolls are dying...

As more and more people give in to this wave of bitterness and aggression, it's clear this is no simple case of modern living. This is unkindness as a plague. From the streets of London to the web cafes of South Korea and the deepest darkest forests of Rio, can the Doctor and Donna find the cause of this unhappiness before it's too late?"

Why it's Slaughter: Yeah, it's anger as a bloodborne disease, basically. You get angrier and more violent, spreading the disease further -- and then your heart can't take any more and it explodes.

Collins, Suzanne: The Hunger Games

Winning means fame and fortune. Losing means certain death. The Hunger Games have begun. . . . In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before-and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Conrad, Joseph: Heart of Darkness

In Heart of Darkness, various European powers are exploiting Africa for its riches and resources while leaving little or nothing to the Africans who are laboring under them. Through Marlow, Conrad shows the horrors of colonialism and concludes that the Europeans, not the Africans, are the true savages.

Coville, Bruce: The Japanese Mirror

"Jonathan is noted for having had a foul temper that made him yell at anyone who triggered it, until the titular mirror begins absorbing his anger after he gets his blood on it... and the thing inside begins to stir."

Echeverría, Esteban: El matadero (The slaughteryard)

Argentina, 1839. A young man dies for his political beliefs when attacked by a mob in a slaughteryard used to butcher cattle.

The story takes place at the height of Juan Manuel de Rosas’ reign of terror. Though fictional, it is an open indictment of that brutal regime and the first masterwork of Latin-American literature, orginally published twenty years after the author’s death. El matadero, or The Slaughteryard, is reputed to be the most widely studied school text in Spanish-speaking South America.

Ellis, Bret Easton: American Psycho

Patrick Bateman is a yuppie's yuppie. He works on Wall Street, has a pretty girlfriend, and spends most of his free time in trendy restaurants and clubs. However, he is also a psychotic killer who often hallucinates and murders people in increasingly horrific ways, often over the most trivial of provocations or for no reason whatsoever.

***

It follows the life of Patrick Bateman, a wealthy and handsome investment banker living in Manhattan in the 1980s. Beneath his polished exterior lies a psychopathic killer who preys on his victims without remorse. Bateman's exploits quickly grow more and more extreme, and his mask of sanity starts to slip.

Patrick Bateman's murders (or hallucinations of murders) are often over the most trivial of provocations or for no reason whatsoever. It is a book about the Slaughter.

***

Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

Evans, Robert: After the Revolution

Roland the Super-Soldier has cybernetic implants that reward him with a sense of euphoria for killing and battle. As a result, Roland is a highly reluctant fighter because he knows he will lose himself to bloodlust if he ever sees enough fighting and tries to deafen out his implants with lots and lots and lots of drugs. The Battle of Waco sees him fully jump off the wagon and he ends up killing well over a thousand people while on a battle-induced high, even going so far as to hunt down escaping survivors and people trying to surrender to chase the thrill.

Felker-Martin, Gretchen: Manhunt

Beth and Fran spend their days traveling the ravaged New England coast, hunting feral men and harvesting their organs in a gruesome effort to ensure they'll never face the same fate.

Robbie lives by his gun and one hard-learned motto: other people aren't safe.

After a brutal accident entwines the three of them, this found family of survivors must navigate murderous TERFs, a sociopathic billionaire bunker brat, and awkward relationship dynamics―all while outrunning packs of feral men, and their own demons.

Manhunt is a timely, powerful response to every gender-based apocalypse story that failed to consider the existence of transgender and non-binary people, from a powerful new voice in horror.

Golding, William: Lord of the Flies

A group of boys wind up stranded together on a deserted island. While they initially intended to work together, the boys wind up separating into faction and come to grow hostile and distrusting of one another. Eventually, the boys turn to violence, malice, and eventual murder in order to stay alive, with mob mentality and fear gripping them all.

Also important is the fact that the boys are stranded trying to ESCAPE a war, and then get so caught up in fear and desperation to survive that they initiate war among themselves, resulting in a cruel cycle of perpetuating the violence and death they feared and sought to get away from. Essentially it's a commentary on war itself and the things fear can drive people to do, reducing them to base instincts.

***

Stranded on an island, the fragile social constructs between a group of British schoolboys break down, and they revert to mindless violence and murder.

Hemingway, Ernest: For Whom the Bell Tolls

In 1937 Ernest Hemingway traveled to Spain to cover the civil war there for the North American Newspaper Alliance. Three years later he completed the greatest novel to emerge from "the good fight," For Whom the Bell Tolls. The story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to an antifascist guerilla unit in the mountains of Spain, it tells of loyalty and courage, love and defeat, and the tragic death of an ideal. In his portrayal of Jordan's love for the beautiful Maria and his superb account of El Sordo's last stand, in his brilliant travesty of La Pasionaria and his unwillingness to believe in blind faith, Hemingway surpasses his achievement in The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms to create a work at once rare and beautiful, strong and brutal, compassionate, moving and wise. "If the function of a writer is to reveal reality," Maxwell Perkins wrote to Hemingway after reading the manuscript, "no one ever so completely performed it." Greater in power, broader in scope, and more intensely emotional than any of the author's previous works, it stands as one of the best war novels of all time.

Hendrix, Grady: The Final Girl Support Group

Lynnette Tarkington is a real-life final girl. She witnessed and survived not one, but two mass killings and the events have left her traumatized and constantly looking over her shoulder. And she's not alone. For more than a decade she's been meeting with five other actual final girls and their therapist in a support group for those who survived the unthinkable, putting their lives back together.

The support group has to keep their very existence secret. Each of the women were able to turn their events into movie franchises, to varying degrees of success. Fans of both the original killers and the films they inspired are known to stalk and harass them, along with anyone who thinks that getting a good soundbite to sell could be their ticket to fame and fortune.

Then one day, one of the women misses a meeting and Lynnette's worst fears are realized—someone knows about the group and is determined to take their lives apart again, piece by piece.

Herbert, James: The Fog

an earthquake cracks open a secret bioweapon buried underground for disposal, and which causes people and animals who breathe it to go utterly homicidal. The main plot surrounds Jon Holman, an Environmental Officer for the British government, who is present at the fog's dramatic entrance and spends most of the book trying to stop the fog; meanwhile, Herbert occasionally takes us on little side trips to see what horrible thing the fog is making happen next.

Hitler, Adolf: Mein Kampf

A hateful book made by a hateful man, definetly. I dont know if you gonna put it, just submiting this here just in case.....

Homer: The Iliad

(Unless otherwise noted, translations are by Peter Green.)

"Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath of great Achilles, son of Peleus, which caused the Greeks immeasurable pain and sent so many noble souls of heroes to Hades…"

(translation by Emily Wilson)

The Iliad is the archetypical war story. It traces the destructive path of the demigod Achilles, who sets in motion a devastating series of events when he refuses to fight the Trojans in a pique of pride. The infamous catalogue of ships in Book 2 gives a sense of the mind-numbing scale of a war fought over something as intangible as the pride of men and gods. The lavish descriptions of battle and the accounts of individual deaths and wounds give a sense of the utter devastation of war and the grief it leaves behind:

"Not in vain from [Diomēdēs's] hand did the missile fly, but struck Phēgeus full in mid-breast, threw him clear of his horses. Then from the fine-crafted chariot Idaios sprang down, but dared not make a stand over his slain brother, nor would he himself have escaped the black death spirit without the aid of Hēphaistos, who saved him, hid him in darkness, to ensure that aged Darēs [father of Phēgeus and Idaios] was not wholly undone by grief."

Without the help of Achilles, the Trojans begin to gain ground on the Greeks. Torn between his pride and his concern for his comrades, Achilles agrees to let his beloved Patroclus disguise himself in Achilles' armor to hearten the Greeks and scare the Trojans:

"All at once [the Greeks] came charging out like a swarm of wasps by the roadside that boys have a way of provoking to fury, constantly teasing them in their nests along the highway, as children will, creating a widespread nuisance, so that if some traveler passing by should happen to annoy them by accident, they with aggressive spirit all come buzzing out in defense of their offspring-- like them in heart and spirit the Myrmidons now streamed forth from the ships, and an endless clamor arose…"

Hector, prince of Troy kills Patroclus and unleashes the unbridled wrath of Achilles, who becomes so enraged he slaughters every Trojan in his path so gruesomely he enrages the River itself:

"Achilles, scion of Zeus, now left his spear on the bank, leaning against a tamarisk, and charged in like a demon, armed only with his sword, horrific deeds in mind. He turned and struck at random, and ghastly cries went up from those caught by his sword: the water ran red with blood…"

"My lovely streams are currently all awash with corpses; I can't get to discharge my waters into the bright sea, I'm so choked with the dead, while you ruthlessly keep on killing!"

When the River almost drowns Achilles, he's terrified--not of death, but of being robbed the glory of his promised death at the hands of the Trojans:

"If only Hektōr had killed me, the best-bred warrior here, / then noble had been the slayer, noble the man he slew…"

In The Iliad, war is destruction and grief but simultaneously honor and glory, and Achilles is only one of the many characters who move through its battlefields like the incarnation of Slaughter itself.

***

Dating to the ninth century B.C., Homer’s timeless poem still vividly conveys the horror and heroism of men and gods wrestling with towering emotions and battling amidst devastation and destruction, as it moves inexorably to the wrenching, tragic conclusion of the Trojan War. Renowned classicist Bernard Knox observes in his superb introduction that although the violence of the Iliad is grim and relentless, it coexists with both images of civilized life and a poignant yearning for peace.

***

I mean it's a big ol' war story! The wrath of Achilles alone is the stuff of Slaughter-aligned nightmares.

Howard, Robert E.: Rogues in the House

One of the Conan the Cimmerian short stories http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0600781h.html

From TV Tropes: "Conan is sitting in prison after killing a priest (he had it coming) when he is approached by a nobleman named Murillo, who has a proposition for him: kill the Red Priest Nabonidus for him, and he will provide Conan a horse, a sack of gold, and a one way ticket out of town and away from the gallows.

Conan escapes from jail, and, after dealing with the prostitute who turned him in, heads off to Nabonidus's mansion. Conan tries entering through the sewer, only to get stuck down there thanks to one of the mansions traps. While down there, he runs into Murillo, who had arrives there first with the intention of killing Nabonidus himself, thinking Conan had high tailed it out of town. They soon discover Nabonidus trapped down there as well, a prisoner in his own home.

Turns out Nabonidus's servant, a man-ape named Thak, has rebelled against his master, and now uses the assortment of traps set around the mansion to keep out unwanted guests (and keep his prisoners in). The three rogues will have to work together if they ever want to get out of the mansion alive, lest they fall victim to Thak, or perhaps, to each other."

Hunter, Erin: Warrior Cats

Warrior Cats is a series about a society at constant war. It is known for having an excessive amount of gore and violence for a children’s series, and this exact violence is the subject of many pieces of fanart. What’s more, the Warrior Cats community frequently animates the battle sequences and violence to music.

This is a series in which war is a simple fact of life (it’s called Warriors for a reason). There is no real end to this constant conflict, the continuous cycle of bloodshed. The series is still ongoing. It’s been 21 years. These cats are still fighting and fighting and fighting for generation after generation.

***

This one didn't get past round 2 in the Hunt and honestly I think it deserves a Slaughter win more. It takes place in a kitty civilization where the characters are very frequently battling over very important subjects such as who gets to own a pile of rocks or some cat catching a rabbit on the wrong side of the border. There's brief periods of peace and allyship, but most of the time, tensions are present and everybody is probably willing to start beating each other up if they scent another clan on their territory. The violence isn't instinct or the thrill of it beyond the fact that these are still cats who hunt prey, but it's still rather irrational in many cases. The only real path in life you can have in a clan which isn't committing to causing and withstanding senseless violence is the path of healing that senseless violence, seeing cats you can't save die and also not being able to have children or a mate ever, which isn't even something you can choose to do without approval from cat heaven most times, meaning that you'll most likely be locked into a cycle of mindless battles over that one guy from the other clan accidentally marking the wrong side of the border.

This is also how you get brand new artists in the age range the books are for drawing cat violence and death with their limited skills before they somehow become the best artists you've ever seen while still probably drawing lots of cat violence and death. These murder cat books have an unexplained impact on young artists who will be drawing the same scenes of their pick for the saddest cat death years later. It also gets people making their own stories inspired by it, which are often still cat soap operas with plenty of senseless violence (source: 9 year old me had one of these bloody cat soap opera stories inspired by Warriors), and might even lead to Warriors rps with similar amounts of violence.

Icelandic Saga: The Saga of the Sworn Brothers

"About a decade after Iceland has converted to Christianity, best friends Thorgeir Havarson and Thormod Bersason grow up together in the Icelandic Westfjords. Teachings of love and forgiveness are, alas! all wasted on Thorgeir and Thormod, who feel they are not cut out for a pacifist lifestyle, and intend to shape their lives in the ways of the vikings of old. As they believe it is their destiny to die fighting, the two make a pact that whoever of them lives longer will avenge the other, and seal the deal by performing the rites of fóstbrœðralag, sworn brotherhood. Naturally, there comes a time when the fearsome warrior Thorgeir gets himself killed, leaving the scrawny poet Thormod with the duty to avenge his death."

And, oh boy, does he ever.

Jackson, Shirley: The Lottery

“A fictional small American community that observes an annual tradition known as "the lottery", which is intended to ensure a good harvest and purge the town of bad omens. The lottery, its preparations, and its execution are all described in detail, though it is not revealed until the end what actually happens to the person selected by the random lottery: the selected member of the community is stoned to death by the other townspeople.”

Jarrell, Randall: The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother’s sleep I fell into the State, And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze. Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life, I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters. When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

Kuang, Rebecca F.: The Poppy War

"When Rin aced the Keju—the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies(…) That she got into Sinegard—the most elite military school in Nikan—was even more surprising.(…) Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . ."

Series heavily focused on slaughter and war.

Lansdale, Joe R.: Down by the Sea near the Great Big Rock

A family on vacation camps out near the titular rock. Over time they become increasingly snappish with each other and thinking violent thoughts. It culminates in a bloody massacre off-screen whose aftermath horrifies one of the investigating detectives. The story ends with the great big rock sprouting flippers, the slaughter having sated its hunger, and swimming into the sea. The fish that swim near it start fighting each other.

Laumer, Keith, et. al.: Bolo

"Bolos might fail. They might die and be destroyed. But they did not surrender, and they never — ever — quit."

A series of stories, originally by Keith Laumer, that were later expanded into a Shared Universe by other authors. They detail the exploits of the Bolo, autonomous AI tanks that are supposed to have evolved from the standard main battle tank of the 20th century.

These aren't your normal tanks. For one, their designers decided that bigger was better, and since the only thing that could really take down a Bolo was another Bolo, they just kept building the Bolos bigger and bigger, to the point where even the stealth tanks mass 1,500 tons. Or in some novels the Mark XXXIII weighs 32,000 tons.

There are plenty of examples of why this is Slaughter, but the aptly-named Final War, culminating in a mutual campaign of total extermination between humans and Melconians that turned a whole spiral arm of the Milky Way into a lifeless waste of dead or hopelessly contaminated planets, takes the cake. It is notable that plans of Operation Ragnarok, the human half of the equation of genocide, were based on a scenario initially created to illustrate utter madness of such campaign. Even the eponymous sapient supertanks start cracking under the weight of their orders by the end, succumbing to bloodlust. When one of the very few surviving Bolos, Shiva, reawakens, he is horrified by the atrocities that he himself had not been above committing under the pretense of following orders.

Martin, George R.R.: A Song of Ice and Fire

Torture, war, bloodshed, sadism... it would be easier to list the aspects of Slaughter this *doesn't* include.

McCarthy, Cormac: Blood Meridian

An extremely dark and vicious deconstruction of the Western novel, with the central antagonist of Judge Holden, a violent, well-educated man who believes that "war is god" and appears to be solely motivated by the desire to propagate violence and pain. While the Glanton gang were already despicable and vile people, he corrupts them even further into his depraved frame of mind, succeeding with all but the protagonist... who he later kills violently.

Michelinie, David and Dean Wesley Smith: Carnage In New York

Spider-Man rescues Dr. Eric Catrall, a scientist, from government agents. Simultaneously, serial killer Cletus Kasady is brought to New York to undergo an experiment that would purge him of the Carnage symbiote, which is bonded to his bloodstream. Catrall infiltrates the experiment and in the confusion Carnage escapes, taking Catrall with him. When Catrall turns up in jail, Spider-Man learns he had invented a chemical that drives people insane with bloodlust, and the government wants it back in order to weaponize it. Even worse, the serum is now in Carnage's possession. Spider-Man is forced to go toe-to-talon with one of his most dangerous foes to retrieve the serum, which could make all of New York just as bloodthirsty as Carnage himself.

Moody, David: Hater

Something is wrong with society these days. The news gives reports of people just suddenly deciding to kill other people: enemies, strangers, coworkers, friends, family. Random. Brutal. For seemingly no reason.

Enter the protagonist, The Everyman: He lives a mundane life, married with children, slaves away for a paycheck under a miserable bitch of a boss. He stops going to work and barricades himself with his family inside their home until it's over because he starts seeing people mowing down other people in real life, on the street and at work, not just on television, which has basically gone off the air, and is now displaying the message, "REMAIN CALM DO NOT PANIC TAKE SHELTER WAIT FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL".

By the end of the book, the main character realizes he is a Hater and then kills his father-in-law with plans to kill the rest of his family save for his daughter.

Owen, Wilfred: Dulce et Decorum Est

If you can't place why the name Wilfred Owen sounds so familiar, you might recognize him from MAG 7, "The Piper." That's right: the historical Owen's poetry dovetails so perfectly with the themes of the Slaughter, he becomes a character in the Entity's first appearance in the series!

It's really tempting to quote the entirety of "Dulce et Decorum Est" because all of it fits the slaughter so well, but instead I'll just provide a link. (pollrunner’s note: they did not provide a link)

The short of it is that the poem reflects the experiences Owen had in the trenches of World War I. Owen titles the poem after "The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est / Pro patria mori. [How sweet and proper it is / To die for your fatherland.]" He therefore excoriates people in his society who encourage young men to go to war, despite never having "pace[d] / Behind the wagon we flung [a soldier dying from a chemical attack] in, / And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, / His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin…."

Owen's poem is the perfect representation of the visceral, disgusting trauma of witnessing your comrades slaughtered by the early twentieth century's newly industrialized war.

Pendleton, Don: The Executioner

"I am not their judge. These people have judged themselves by their own actions. I am their judgment. I am their executioner."

Mack Bolan (nicknamed "The Executioner" by his fellow soldiers) is an elite sniper/penetration specialist in The Vietnam War when he receives word that his father Sam, a steelworker in Pittsfield, has gone insane and shot dead his wife Elsa and daughter Cynthia ("Cindy"). On talking to the Sole Survivor, younger brother Johnny, Bolan discovers that his father was being squeezed by Mafia Loan Sharks and, on hearing that his daughter was prostituting herself to cover his debt, snapped under the pressure.

Figuring there's no point in fighting a war 8,000 miles away when there's a bigger enemy right here at home, Mack Bolan sets forth on a one-man crusade to destroy The Mafia, using all the military weapons and tactics at his disposal including heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, sniper rifles, night-vision scopes, radio-detonated explosives, electronic surveillance, silenced handguns and the garrotte. Bolan is also fond of using wiles to turn his enemies against each other.

Inspired the character of The Punisher. Being in the Mafia (no matter how distant the link) is punishable by death. Doesn't matter if you just are an errand boy, you are guilty and must die.

Pratchett, Terry: Jingo

"‘Neighbours… hah. People’d live for ages side by side, nodding at one another amicably on their way to work, and then some trivial thing would happen and someone would be having a garden fork removed from their ear.’ When the neighbours in question are the proud empires of Klatch and Ankh-Morpork, those are going to be some pretty large garden tools indeed. Of course, no one would dream of starting a war without a perfectly good reason… such as a ‘strategic’ piece of old rock in the middle of nowhere. It is, after all, every citizen’s right to bear arms to defend their own. Even if it isn’t technically their own. And even if they don’t have much in the way of actual weaponry. As two armies march, Commander Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch faces unpleasant foes who are out to get him . . . and that’s just the people on his side. The enemy might be even worse."

Pratchett, Terry: THUD!

It's a Discworld book following Sam Vimes, commander of the city watch, trying to get to the bottom of a murder and quell tensions between the dwarf and troll communities in the city of Ankh Morpork. Thud! Is a book all about violence, in all it's different scales. Starting with War, the War of Koom Valley being a rallying cry that never fades, making every conflict between dwarves and trolls it's own little Koom Valley. From war to mob violence, fear and bile, assassin's sent to Vimes's house to kill his son with a flamethrower. Then down to quiet, horrible murder in the dark, betrayal so bad that the victim's last action calls up a quasi demonic force of pure vengeance.

This force, the summoning dark, possessed Vimes. He's always been an angry character, but also a man with supreme self control, who knows if you do a thing for a good reason, you'll do it for a bad one. through the narration we can see how the summoning dark strengthens his violent impulses and kneejerk reactions, his biases and anger, making him go on rants in his head about how "someone will burn for this! Burn!".

Although it has aspects of Dark to it, it's much more a book about the violence in people, any kind of people. One of its iconic scenes is of a thoroughly civilian clerk named A.E. Pessimal going postal and throwing himself into a riot, even biting a troll, which are made of rock in discworld!

Remarque, Erich Maria: All Quiet on the Western Front

"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. . . ."

"This is the testament of Paul Bäumer, who enlists with his classmates in the German army during World War I. They become soldiers with youthful enthusiasm. But the world of duty, culture, and progress they had been taught breaks in pieces under the first bombardment in the trenches.

Through years of vivid horror, Paul holds fast to a single vow: to fight against the principle of hate that meaninglessly pits young men of the same generation but different uniforms against one another . . . if only he can come out of the war alive."

Remender, Rick: Deadly Class

It's 1987. Marcus Lopez hates school. His grades suck. The jocks are hassling his friends. He can't focus on class. But the jocks are the children of Joseph Stalin's top assassin, the teachers are members of an ancient league of assassins, the class he's failing is "Dismemberment 101," and his crush has a double-digit body count. Welcome to the most brutal high school on earth, where the world's top crime families send the next generation of assassins to be trained. Murder is an art. Killing is a craft. At Kings Dominion School for the Deadly Arts, the dagger in your back isn't always metaphorical.

Schmitt, Carl: The Concept of the Political

In The Concept of the Political, composed in 1927 and fully elaborated in 1932, Schmitt defined “the political” as the eternal propensity of human collectivities to identify each other as “enemies”—that is, as concrete embodiments of “different and alien” ways of life, with whom mortal combat is a constant possibility and frequent reality. Schmitt assumed that the zeal of group members to kill and die on the basis of a nonrational faith in the substance binding their collectivities refuted basic Enlightenment and liberal tenets. According to Schmitt, the willingness to die for a substantive way of life contradicts both the desire for self-preservation assumed by modern theories of natural rights and the liberal ideal of neutralizing deadly conflict, the driving force of modern European history from the 16th to the 20th century.

Takami, Koushun: Battle Royale

The story tells of junior high school students who are forced to fight each other to the death in a program run by a fictional, fascist, totalitarian Japanese government known as the Republic of Greater East Asia.

Thomas, Ryan C.: The Summer I Died

So much screaming. When Roger Huntington comes home from college for the summer and is met by his best friend, Tooth, he knows they're going to have a good time. A summer full of beer, comic books, movies, laughs, and maybe even girls. So much pain. The sun is high and the sky is clear as Roger and Tooth set out to shoot beer cans at Bobcat Mountain. Just two friends catching up on lost time, two friends thinking about their futures, two friends-- So much blood. --suddenly thrust in the middle of a nightmare. Forced to fight for their life against a sadistic killer. A killer with an arsenal of razor sharp blades and a hungry dog by his side. So much death. If they are to survive, they must decide: are heroes born, or are they made? Or is something more powerful happening to them? And more importantly, how do you survive when all roads lead to death!

Tzu, Sun: The Art of War

It's an entire manifesto on how to conduct warfare effectively, ranging from hand to hand combat to military tactics. It's expansive and detailed and is still utilized today despite being hundreds of years old. Also I'm convinced my copy of it IS a Leitner because every single time I go and read it to get content, an armed conflict somewhere in the world pops up on my news feed a day or two later. It's spooky.

Vallejo, Fernando: La virgen de los sicarios (Our lady of the assasins)

A novel set in the backstreets of Medellin, Colombia, captures the lives of the beggars, thieves, drug addicts, and other lost souls of a city overwhelmed by the drug trade.

Walsh, Rodolfo: Operación: masacre (Operation: Massacre)

1956. Argentina has just lost its charismatic president Juán Perón in a military coup, and terror reigns across the land. June 1956: eighteen people are reported dead in a failed Peronist uprising. December 1956: sometime journalist, crime fiction writer, studiedly unpoliticized chess aficionado Rodolfo Walsh learns by chance that one of the executed civilians from a separate, secret execution in June, is alive. He hears that there may be more than one survivor and believes this unbelievable story on the spot. And right there, the monumental classic Operation Massacre is born.

Walsh made it his mission to find not only the survivors but widows, orphans, political refugees, fugitives, alleged informers, and anonymous heroes, in order to determine what happened that night, sending him on a journey that took over the rest of his life.

Originally published in 1957, Operation Massacre thoroughly and breathlessly recounts the night of the execution and its fallout.

Weber, David: Honor Harrington

Military Science Fiction series by David Weber. The book series is mainly set around the adventures of the titular heroine, although we see a fair amount of the wider universe. Weber has explicitly described the series as "Horatio Hornblower" IN SPACE! with the series being a great deal more focused on (Space) Naval operations than other science fiction series. Honor Harrington occasionally performs ground-based and political adventures, but the vast majority of the series is focused on her ship-to-ship conflicts, where she serves as commanding officer. A lot of military combat and dueling.

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