#post modern moral cowardice

[infinitysisters]

Esto

[eyeodyssey]

The Post-Futurist Fossils of LITCHI HIKARI CLUB In a somewhat recent research tangent, while considering the possible “genealogy” of the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s themes and aesthetics, I made an interesting personal discovery regarding Litchi Hikari Club. Specifically some distinct thematic parallels that the play shares with the Italian futurist movement, less in relation to the art of the movement itself, but rather the ideologies of the movement’s controversial founder, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, and his relation to the Italian fascist party. This is all of course in the context of understanding Litchi as a transgressive/dystopian horror story. This is less of an absolute statement than it is a sort of open train of thought, so take things with a fair grain of salt. This is more or less just my own personal analysis of all the materials I could gather of the original play. Beyond inspecting the play as a possible allegory for futurism, there's also just a lot of general analysis of the play in relation to Ameya's overall body of work, both with the Tokyo Grand Guignol and also as a performance artist. I rarely put a 'keep reading' tag on these things since I'm an openly shameless product of the early days of blogging, but this one's a doozy (both in the information but also just the gargantuan length). Hopefully others will find it just as interesting. The full essay is below...

The futurist movement itself was nothing short of an oddity. In their time, the futurists were pioneers of avant-garde modernist aesthetics, with their works ranging from deconstructive paintings to reality-bending sculptures and even early pathways to noise music with the creation of the non-conventional Intonarumori instruments of Luigi Russolo. Russolo’s own futurist-adjacent manifesto, The Art of Noises, would go on to influence such artists as John Cage, Pierre Henry, Einstürzende Neubauten and the openly left-wing industrial collective Test Department. When visiting the MOMA in New York City as a child, I was fascinated by Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space, a sculpture that appeared to be a spacetime malformation of the human figure encapsulated in a continual state of forward motion while in total stillness. Despite this, the futurists were also a social movement of warmongering misogynists, with their own founding manifesto by Marinetti describing the bloodshed and cruelty of war as being “… the only cure for the world”. Their manifesto would also feature quotes such as “We want to demolish museums and libraries, fight morality, feminism and all opportunist and utilitarian cowardice”. They would originally pin anarchism as being their ideological ground in the manifesto, but shortly thereafter Marinetti would pick up an interest in fascism along with the politics of Benito Mussolini, going on to be a coauthor for the Italian fascist manifesto alongside the futurist manifesto. In consideration of how throughout most of World War II, modernist and post-modern works were considered “degenerate” forms of art in contrast with traditionalism, a whole avant-garde movement founded from fascist ideals is paradoxical. But for a period of time, that parallel wasn’t only in existence, but backed by Mussolini himself with there being a brief effort by Marinetti to make futurism the official aesthetic of fascist Italy. One of the draws of futurism for Marinetti was an underlying sense of violence and extremity. According to Marinetti, his initial inspiration for the movement was the sensations he felt in the aftermath of a car accident where he drove into a ditch after nearly running over a band of tricyclists. He conceived his works to be acts of social disruption, intending to put people in states of unrest to cause riots and similar bouts of violence. “Art, in fact, can be nothing but violence, cruelty, and injustice”. He sought to destroy history to pave the way for a rapid acceleration to futuristic technological revelation.

“As shown in Edogawa Rampo’s Boy Detectives Club, young men like to hide from a world of girls and adulthood to form their own secret societies.” - June Vol. 27 In Litchi Hikari Club, a group of middle school-aged boys are faced with a crisis on the brink of puberty. At the twilight of their childhoods, they form a secret society known as the Hikari Club (or Light Club), a collective that’s devoted to the active preservation of their shared youth and virginity. The boys naively mimic an authoritarian organization and its hierarchy as they seek a means to preserve their boyhood, which they see as being idyllic in contrast to adulthood, a dreary state of existence that they call old and tired in the Usamaru Furuya manga version of the story. Similarly, in the Litchi Hikari Club-inspired short manga Moon Age 15: Damnation, the boys go on to liken their hideout with the paradisiacal garden of Eden. In said story, Zera would directly name the poem Paradise Lost in reference to the discovery of their hideout by adults (arriving in the form of ground surveyors) and the wide-eyed daughter of a land broker, with their contact to the virgin industrialized land being an ideological tainting of the sacred lair. In their mission, they seek refuge in technological inhumanity by having their penises replaced with mechanized iron penises, symbolic devices of power and violence that can only procreate with other items of technology. Working in absolute secrecy, they collectively manufacture a robot known as Lychee. The purpose of Lychee, previously only known to Zera, isn’t revealed to the other club members until its completion. It’s when they unveil their “cute” robot in a scene that parallels the 1920 German expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari that Zera tells the other members of Lychee’s purpose as a machine that would kidnap women for them. The robot's efforts are assisted by the girl capturing device, a strange rice cooker-shaped mask that’s laced with a sleeping drug. When questioned about the fuel source for the robot, Zera explains how it will run off the clean fuel of lychee fruits rather than an unsavory yet plentiful substance like electricity or gasoline as a means to further match the robot’s perceived beauty.

While the club share a general disdain for adulthood, they hold a special hatred to girls and women. Going off the dogmatic repulsion to sexuality that Kyusaku Shimada shows as the teacher in the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s prior play, Mercuro (1984), it could be assumed that the Hikari Club hold a similar dogmatic viewpoint about the vices of sex. In this context, it’s likely that they would’ve perceived women as being parasitic by nature as spreaders of the “old” and “tired” adult human condition through pubescent fixation and procreation. Sexual thoughts are inherent to aging for most people, given the process of discovering and exploring your identity throughout puberty. It’s that exact pubescent experience the club seek to eradicate. Further insight is given to the Hikari Club’s dystopian psyche through their open allusions to nazi ideology. While Zera travels out to gather lychees from a tree he planted, the club get a special visit from a depraved elderly showman known as the Marquis De Maruo, performed by none other than Suehiro Maruo himself in the 1985 Christmas performance. Despite the club’s disposition to adults, they hold an exception for the Marquis for his old-timey showmanship and open pandering to the children’s whims. He always comes with autopsy films to show the young boys, and as they watch the gory videos he hands out candies that he describes as being a personal favorite of the late Adolf Hitler. He was said to also be the one to convince the boys to name their robot after the lychee fruit. It isn’t until Zera returns that the Marquis is removed from the hideout on Zera’s orders. Just before his exiling, he foretells to Zera the prophecy of the black star as both a promise and a warning to the aspiring dictator. It should be noted that there is a fascist occult symbol known as the black sun.

Suehiro Maruo as the Marquis De Maruo. On the right side is a caricature of Maruo as drawn by a contributor to June magazine, excerpted from an editorial cartoon in June Vol. 27 covering Litchi's 1985 Christmas performance. In addition, the Marquis’ role alongside Jaibo’s appearances in the play (which I’ll get to later) show distinct parallels with the presence of the hobo in the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s first play, Mercuro. In Mercuro’s case, the hobo (performed by Norimizu Ameya, who would go on to also act as Jaibo) visits the classroom in secrecy to lecture the students his depraved ideologies. Whilst the hobo in Mercuro was a figure of perversion that existed in contrast to the teacher’s paranoid conservatism, in Litchi both Jaibo and the Marquis are enablers of the club’s fascistic leanings, with the Marquis being a promoter whereas Jaibo is a direct representation of the underlining perversions of fascist violence. Though completely omitted from the Furuya manga, the element of the autopsy films shines a unique light on Zera’s death at the end of the story. In both the play and the manga, Zera is gutted alive by Lychee when the robot undergoes a meltdown after being forced to drown Kanon (Marin in the original play) in a coffin lined with roses. In the manga, Zera appears deeply unsettled when realizing his intestines resemble the internals of an adult. It’s unknown if this aspect is present in the theater version, as the full script remains unreleased to this day. It would fit however knowing not just the club’s repulsion to adulthood, but also how they retreat to technological modification to eradicate the human aspects they associate with adulthood. What is described of Zera’s death in the theater version has its own disquieting qualities as, from what’s mentioned, when confronted with his own mortality he appears to regress to a state of childlike delirium, a demeanor that’s drastically different from his usual calm and orderly presentation. Upon seeing his intestines, one of the responses he is able to muster is “I’m in trouble”. He says this as he questions whether or not he can fit his organs back inside the cavity before eventually telling himself that he’s just tired, that he “need(s) to sleep for a while”.

While never directly stated, it’s heavily implied that the club’s ideologies and technological fetishism ultimately root back to Jaibo, an ambiguously European transfer student who secretly manipulates the club’s actions from behind the scenes. Referred to by Hiroyuki Tsunekawa (Zera’s actor) as the “true dark emperor” of the Hikari Club, he was said to haunt the stage from the sides, closely inspecting the Hikari Club’s activities while keeping a distance. The iron phallus was first introduced by Jaibo through a monologue where he reveals how he fixed one to his own person, carefully describing its inner mechanisms and functionality before demonstrating its inhuman reproductive qualities by using the phallus to have sex with a TV. A television that he affectionately refers to as Psychic TV Chan, in reference to the post-industrial band fronted by Genesis P’Orridge. In the same scene, he promises the other members that they would all eventually get their own iron penises just like his own. In a subsequent scene, he reveals the iron phallus’ use as a weapon when, arriving to the club’s base with a chained-up female schoolteacher who accidentally discovered the sanctuary, he uses the device to brutally kill the teacher through a mocking simulation of sexual intercourse. Just before raping her, he likens her to a landrace, bred for the sole purpose of reproducing and being processed into meat for consumption. He menacingly tells her that he will make her as “cut and dry” as her role in society before carrying out her execution. While there was some confusion on whether or not the iron phallus was a machine or solely a chastity device, it was found in bits of dialogue that the iron phallus at least shares the qualities of a pump with a described set of rubber hinges. The teacher’s death gruesomely reflects the death of Kei Fujiwara’s character in the later film Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), with the iron phallus mangling her insides as blood splatters across the stage. While the club treats adult sexuality as a plague, they manage to find through the iron phallus a way to convert their own states of chastity into a form of violence, stripping all humanity away from the penis and rendering it to a weapon of absolute power through desolate mechanized cruelty.

JAIBO: “Length, 250 mm, with a weight of 2.4 kilograms. Arm diameter, 30mm. Cylindrical thrust, 170mm… With pins, plates and rods of die-cast alloy. And hinges of rubber… the rest is pure iron. It is the iron phallus.” - June Vol. 27 In the same interview, Tsunekawa would go on to recall how the members of the Hikari Club were effectively Jaibo’s guinea pigs. In both the play and the manga, an after-school night of the long knives ensues with the slow collapse of the Hikari Club as Jaibo influences the exiling of certain club members, with Zera left ignorant to the social engineering as a mere extension of Jaibo’s elaborate puppeteering. Left embittered by a chess match where he lost to Zera, Tamiya is easily tricked by Jaibo into burning the lychee field as a way to get vengeance. Upon being caught, Tamiya is castrated of his iron phallus, resulting in his exiling from the club as a traitor while also being mockingly likened to a woman in the process. In another scene, it’s recalled that Jaibo and Zera exchange a conversation about the Hikari Club’s loyalty to Zera as they observe the outside world through their periscopes. By all contemporary recollections, Jaibo was the club’s puppet master. He would’ve been the likely source of the club’s ideologies, the underlining hatred to women and fixation on technological violence, replacing mankind with a race of humanoid weapons. Zera would be a shell without his influence. The presence of futurism could arguably even be rounded down to Lychee’s presence in the story. Beyond his theoretic work, Marinetti was also a playwright. He would be most well known for his futurist drama La donna è mobile, a story riddled with similarly perverse renditions of sexual violence. The play notably featured the presence of humanoid automatons a full decade before the term “robot” would be coined by Czechoslovakian author Karel Čapek in the play R.U.R., with the French version of Marinetti’s script referring to the machines as “puppets” for their visual similarity to humans.

All of this plays out over a soundscape that’s dominated by unnatural electronic frequencies and synthesized percussion. The sound design was arguably one of the most important aspects of Ameya’s plays, with Ameya at one point describing the Tokyo Grand Guignol productions as being an ensemble of his favorite sounds. The setting further compliments the atmosphere, made to resemble the internal of a junkyard or factory warehouse where heaps of technical jump decorate the stage around the monochrome cabinet that would eventually birth Lychee. Some of the featured artists in the play’s first act include Test Department, The Residents, 23 Skidoo and Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft. The play’s opening, which depicts the capturing and subsequent torture of a student named Toba through a so-called “baptism of light”, is underscored by the S.P.K. song Culturcide, a grim primordial industrial dirge that paints the image of a dystopia where the genocide of ethnic cultures is likened to the infection of human cells by parasitic pathogens. Instead of being hung with a noose, Toba is suspended by a meathook, left as a decoration amidst the heaps of mechanized excrement. He would eventually be joined by the lifeless bodies of various women the Hikari Club abduct as they’re steadily gathered in a small box at the back of the stage. “Membrane torn apart, scavenging with the nomads. Requiem for the vestiges. Dissected, reproduced. The nucleus is infected with hybrid’s seed. Needles soak up, the weak must destroy. Cells cry out, cells scream out. Culturcide! Culturcide! Culturcide! Culturcide!” - Culturcide (from S.P.K.'s Dekompositiones EP)

“We are now entering an era which history will come to call ANOTHER DARK AGE. But, in kontrast to the original Dark Age, defined by a lack of information, we suffer from an excess of information, which has been reduced to the repetition of media-generated signs. Through this specialization, it is no longer possible for an individual to attain a total view of society. Edukation is struktured to the performance of a limited number of funktions rather than for kreativity.” “Kommunications systems are designed for the passive entertainment of the konsumer rather than the aktive stimulation of the user’s imagination. Through the spread of the western media, all kultures come to stimulate one another. By the end of the millennium, this biological infektion will have penetrated the heart of the most isolated traditions - a total CULTURCIDE.” “Yet in every era, a small number of visionaries rise above the general malaise. Those who will succeed, will resist the pressure to become kommercialized “images”, demanding identifikation and imitation. They will uphold their principles in the face of impossible odds. By remaining anonymous, they will be free to develop their imagination with maximum diversity. For this is the TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS, - the end of the proliferation of the ikons and the advent of a new symbolism.” - From the back cover of S.P.K.’s Dekompositiones EP (released under the moniker SepPuKu) Over the course of the play, the story undergoes a drastic tonal shift as the focus moves from the Hikari Club’s hierarchical order and internal conflicts to the relationship between Lychee and Marin. Marin (performed by synthpop musician Miharu Koshi) was the first girl the Hikari Club successfully kidnap through Lychee after implementing the phrase “I am a human” in Lychee’s coding so it can understand the concept of human beauty. This small implementation causes a full unraveling in Lychee’s personality as it quickly forms a close bond with Marin, convinced that it is also a human like Marin. The soundscape changes alongside the overarching atmosphere, going from cold industrial drones and percussive electronica to ambient tracks. Some of the major scenes play out over moving piano-focused pieces and music box tunes from Haruomi Hosono’s soundtrack for Night on the Galactic Railroad. Originally created a weapon like the iron phalluses and the girl capturing device, Lychee is eventually defined in how he transcends from being a weapon to a conscious being with feelings. In this context, the play can be read as a juxtaposition of human emotion against inhuman futurist brutality.

This split was likely the product of the radically different creative ideologies of Norimizu Ameya (the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s founder and lead director) and pseudonymous author K. Tagane (the playwright for the group from Mercuro to Litchi). Ameya had come into the group with radical intentions, holding Artaudesque aspirations to transgress the literary limits of modern theater to achieve something deeply subconscious. Meanwhile, Tagane was a romantic who was known for their poetic and lyrical screenplays. Ameya purportedly sought out Tagane’s screenplays specifically to find a literary base he would “destroy” in his direction, deconstructing the poeticisms in his own unique style. He describes it briefly in an interview regarding the stage directions of Mercuro, stating how he took elaborate descriptions of a lingering moon and ultimately deconstructed them to the moon solely being an illusion set by a screen projector, mapping out the exact dimensions of the projection to being a 3-meter photograph of the moon rather than a “fantastic moon”. It’s believed by some that the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s formation and ultimately short run were the product of a miraculous balance between Ameya and Tagane’s ideologies. It’s possible that Litchi could’ve been a last straw between the two artists. After Litchi, Tagane left the group, with Ameya having to write the troupe’s final screenplay on his own. LYCHEE: “Marin is always sleeping… all she does is sleep. She doesn’t eat anything. Why does Marin sleep all day?” MARIN: “When you’re asleep, all the sadness of the world passes over you.”

"The second half of Litchi was predominantly driven by the sounds of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Haruomi Hosono. During a scene that featured a piece from the Galactic Railroad soundtrack, Miharu Koshi sang to Kyusaku Shimada while dancing like a clockwork doll to the sounds of a twisting music box. The scene lasted for a while and was very romantic, the interactions between Lychee and Marin were all very sweet and cute. The second act of Litchi was all a product of Tagane’s making. By the time of the following play, Walpurgis, I was told by a staff member that Ameya had written the screenplay by himself because Tagane had left.” “… While the first half was filled with repeated mantras and the unfolding aesthetics of an aspiring militia, the second half was immersed in the world of shoujo manga. It did appear that through the intermission, much of the junk and rubble around the podium was sorted out.” “… The Tokyo Grand Guignol’s plays were always defined by a strong nocturnal atmosphere. But in Litchi’s second half, it wasn’t a dark night, but a brightly lit one under the moonlight and plentiful stars in the sky shining through an invisible skylight. Marin doesn’t forgive Lychee immediately for his actions, responding to him harshly in a way that would confuse him and make him sulk. It came across as a somewhat bitter reimagining of a French comedy like Louis Malle’s Zazie dans le Métro or Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Amélie, it was different that way in how it wasn’t only Maruo’s inferno.” - From a Twitter thread by user Shoru Toji regarding the 1986 rerun of Litchi Hikari Club Some questionable qualities do exist in the relationship between Lychee and Marin. What should be a peaceful retreat from the dystopian corruption still has a sinister undertone in the disparities between Lychee’s cold masculine features in contrast with Marin’s childlike girly innocence. It doesn’t help that Zazie dans le Métro (one of the mentioned films in the recollection) was directed by Louis Malle, who while known for such films as My Dinner With Andre and Black Moon was also responsible for the infamously discomforting Pretty Baby. Then again, Litchi was the product of a confrontational transgressive subculture, so the sinister undertones could be intentional. Keep in mind the contents of Suehiro Maruo’s prolific adaption of Shōjo Tsubaki and how it unflinchingly depicts abuse and manipulation through the eyes of a confused child. It could be possible that Lychee himself was intended to be childlike in its mannerisms. Throughout the existing descriptions, Lychee was shown as speaking in fragmented sentences while struggling to understand basic concepts. Zera was mentioned to also use certain phrases like “cute” when referring to the robot when it was unveiled. And it’s through Marin that Lychee learns morality like a child. The robot’s masculinity could be passed off as the cast all being adults. Hiroyuki Tsunekawa for instance shows distinctly sculpted features from certain angles when performing Zera.

In his aspirations to become a human, Lychee eventually “dies” like a human. With the burning of Zera’s lychee tree, the robot is left with a finite limit on its remaining energy before it totally loses consciousness. After his rampage, Lychee attempts to reunite with Marin, but he runs out of fuel. Before what should be a moment of resolution, things are cut short as the stage goes black, eventually illuminated to show an unpowered Lychee cradling Marin’s corpse in his arms. Zera reemerges to observe the remnants of Lychee and Marin. He speaks of how Lychee will crumble into nothingness alongside Marin for foolishly giving into human emotion, further implying the club’s views on humanity. After this, recollections of the play’s final lines differentiate somewhat. It was said that in the original Christmas performance, Zera calls out to Jaibo, posing the corpses of Lychee and Marin as being his seasonal gifts to Jaibo. Whereas in most popular recollections, it’s described that after his monologue, Zera shouts “Wohlan! Beginnen!” (German for “Now! Begin!”) before prompting the decorations across the stage to collapse, revealing a set of stepladders from behind that the remaining previously deceased club members stand, all drenched in blood with spotlights illuminating their faces from below. ZERA: “And with that, our tale of a foolish romance between woman and machine reaches its conclusion. It ends before me as I stand here, watching. Lychee, the machine, will rust away into dust. And Marin, a young girl, will rot away leaving behind only her bones, which too will crumble…”

Multiple readings can be deciphered from this conclusion. The most established theory is in relation to the Hikari Club’s aspirations for eternal youth, with the members technically achieving their goal through the stagnation of death. They will remain eternal children since they died as children, unable to ever grow into adulthood. In the context of futurism and mechanized fascism however, it could be read as a bitter observation of a lasting dictatorship. With how the Hikari Club members had rendered themselves less human than their own robot, they survive death to continue their work, seeking to one day eradicate humanity in favor of a race of sentient childlike weapons. “To admire an old picture is to pour our sensibility into a funeral urn instead of casting it forward with violent spurts of creation and action. Do you want to waste the best part of your strength in a useless admiration of the past, from which you will emerge exhausted, diminished, trampled on?” “… For the dying, for invalids and for prisoners it may be all right. It is, perhaps, some sort of balm for their wounds, the admirable past, at a moment when the future is denied them. But we will have none of it, we, the young, strong and living Futurists! Let the good incendiaries with charred fingers come! Here they are! Heap up the fire to the shelves of the libraries! Divert the canals to flood the cellars of the museums! Let the glorious canvases swim ashore! Take the picks and hammers! Undermine the foundation of venerable towns! The oldest among us are not yet thirty years old: we have therefore at least ten years to accomplish our task. When we are forty let younger and stronger men than we throw us in the waste paper basket like useless manuscripts! They will come against us from afar, leaping on the light cadence of their first poems, clutching the air with their predatory fingers and sniffing at the gates of the academies the good scent of our decaying spirits, already promised to the catacombs of the libraries.” - from the 1909 Futurist Manifesto by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

I forgot what exactly first caused the parallel to cross my mind. I do recall it being reignited when having a closer look over the poster and flyer for Litchi’s Christmas performance in December 1985. The flyer in particular is really a wonderful thing to look at. Predominantly featuring an art spread by Suehiro Maruo, a suited man with Kyusaku Shimada’s likeness is shown caressing a girl in front of a modernist cityscape with spotlights shining up to a night sky. Other suited men in goggles fly in the air with Da Vinci-reminiscent flying apparatuses between the beams of the metropolis’ spotlights. A student in full gakuran uniform flings himself into the scene from the far left side of the image with a dagger in hand, and a larger hand comes from the viewer’s perspective holding a partially peeled lychee fruit. While not based on any direct scene from the play, it perfectly instills the play’s atmosphere with an air of antiquated modernity, like the numerous illustrations of the early 1900s that show aspirational visions of what a futuristic cityscape might resemble. The bizarre neo-Victorian fashions of the future and its post-modernist formalities. The term futurism came to mind somewhat naively from this train of thought. It was a movement I recalled hearing about, but my memory of it was hazy. It wasn’t until I went in for a basic refresher that I felt the figurative lightbulb go off in my head. That was when the pieces started to come together, but then also strain apart from each other into tangents. Granted, many of these parallels could be read as coincidental. Many of them can even be passed off the play being a work of proto-cyberpunk, knowing how Tetsuo: The Iron Man would subsequently explore similar themes of cybernetics and human sexuality. It should still be noted however that in contrast with many of the Japanese cyberpunk films, Litchi was explicit in its connotations between technological inhumanity and fascism, with the machinery itself being the iconography of a dictatorship rather than a product of it. In addition, with Tetsuo the film has strong gay overtones, with the technology being an extension of the sexual tensions between the salaryman and the metal fetishist. For a period of time, efforts were made to make futurism the official aesthetic of fascist Italy, and modern fascism as we know it is in the same family tree of Italian philosophy as futurism. The Hikari Club are explicit in drawing from German aesthetics rather than Italian however, speaking in intermittent German and predominantly using German technology. The spotlight that they used when torturing Toba in the first act, for example, was a Hustadt Leuchten branded spotlight. And if that isn’t a German name I don’t know what is. It was also said that Jaibo’s outfit in the play was modeled after German school uniforms. Though then again, the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s works were a bit of a cultural slurry. Jaibo’s name for example is Spanish (derived from Luis Buñuel’s Los Olvidados), while the character is implied to be German.

Similar to the cited origins of futurism, Ameya stated in a 2019 tweet regarding the June 9th, 1985 abridged Mercuro performance on Tokumitsu Kazuo’s TV Forum that in the following August of that year, an airplane accident occurred that led to the conception of Litchi’s screenplay. The exact nature of the accident was never specified, but the affiliates he was communicating with all appeared to be familiar with it and expressed concern when it was brought up. This was however one of an assortment of influences that were cited behind Litchi’s production, with the two more established theories regarding the then-contemporary mystique around lychee fruit in Chinese cuisine along with the play being a loose adaption of Kazuo Umezu’s My Name is Shingo. For what it’s worth, the themes of Litchi, along with the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s other works, were closely tied with certain concepts that Ameya personally cultivated throughout his career. A frequent recurring topic Ameya would bring up in relation to his works was the nature of the human body in relation to foreign matter, need it be biological or unnatural. With Mercuro the students taught by Shimada are made into so-called Mercuroids by having their blood supplies replaced with mercurochrome, a substance that is referred to as the “antithesis of blood” by Shimada while in character. In an interview for the book About Artaud?, Ameya cites an interest in Osamu Tezuka’s manga in how certain stories of Tezuka’s paralleled Ameya’s observations of the body. He directly names Dororo and Black Jack, observing how both Hyakkimaru and Black Jack reconstructed their bodies from pieces of other people, going on to bluntly describe Pinoko as a “mass of organs covered in plastic skin”.

A section from June Vol. 27 highlighting some of the more established performers from Litchi's 1985 Christmas performance. The actors from left to right are Norimizu Ameya as Jaibo, Naomi Hagio as the female school teacher (best known in cult circles for her role as Kazuyo in the 1986 horror film Entrails of a Virgin), Suehiro Maruo out of costume and Miharu Koshi as Marin. During his temporary retirement from theater, Ameya would take up performance art, with some of his performances revolving around acts with his own blood. While my memories of these works are a bit hazy, I remember one action he performed that involved a blood transfusion, with the focus being on the experience of having another person’s blood coursing through your veins. While I didn't have much luck relocating this piece (probably from it not being covered in English), I did find on the Japan Foundation’s page for performing arts an interview where Ameya discusses being in a band with Shimada where Ameya had blood drawn from his body while he played drums. He would also describe an art exhibition where he displayed samples of the blood of a person infected with HIV. “After 1990 he left the field of theatre and began to engage himself with visual arts - still proceeding to work on his major topic - the human body - taking up themes like blood transfusion, artificial fertilization, infectious diseases, selective breeding, chemical food, and sex discrimination, creating works as a member of the collaboration unit Technocrat.” - Performing Arts Network Japan (The Japan Foundation) There are still an assortment of open questions I’m left with in regards to the contents of the original Litchi play. One of the most glaring ones is Niko’s eye. In consideration of Ameya’s interest in the body, the detail would fit perfectly with his ideologies. A club member who, to show his absolute loyalty to the Hikari Club, has his own eyeball procedurally gouged out to be made a part of the Lychee robot. Despite this perfect alignment, none of the contemporary recollections mention this element. While Niko does have an eyepatch in certain production photos, it never seems to come up as a plot point. He isn’t the only one to bear an eyepatch either, with Jacob also being shown with an eyepatch in flyers. More questions range from Jaibo’s motives in causing the dissolution of the Hikari Club to the true nature of Zera’s affiliation to Jaibo. While Tsunekawa has stood his ground in the relationship between Zera and Jaibo being totally sexless, in the cited volume of June the editor playfully refers to Jaibo as being Zera’s “best friend” in quotes.

A side-by-side comparison of the cast listings on the back of the flyers for the December 1985 performance of Litchi Hikari Club alongside its 1986 rerun. The 1985 run's lineup is at the top while the 1986 run is at the bottom. Much speculation is naturally involved when looking into the original Litchi Hikari Club since it is in essence a cultural phantom. There’s a reason I used the term genealogy in relation to my research of the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s works. It is an artistic enigma as while its presence lingers in subculture, the original works are now practically unattainable due to the inherent nature of theater. As Ameya himself would acknowledge in another interview, theater is an immediate medium that can only be perceived in its truest form for a very short span of time before eventually disintegrating. So with the Tokyo Grand Guignol’s plays, you are left to scour through the scattered remnants and contemporary recollections alongside the figurative creative descendants of the plays. You analyze the statements of both the original participants and the people they openly dismiss, as even those people were original audience members before reinterpreting the plays to their own unique visions. Despite the apparent differences, I still feel that Furuya’s manga gives a unique perspective to the story when viewed under dissection. That is if you want to see it in strict relation to the play. Outside that, I feel it firmly stands on its own merits. I like the manga no matter what Tsunekawa says, that’s what I’m trying to say. Ameya approved it anyway. It took me a full day to write all this out, and like the first time I went down this train of thought, I’m pooped. During that first excursion, after excitedly spiraling through these potential connections, I noticed in passing mention something about Marinetti’s cooking. You see, later in his life Marinetti aimed to apply futurism not just to art and theater, but cuisine also. As an Italian, Marinetti openly despised pasta, seeing it as being an edible slog that weighs down the spirits of the Italian people. Just further evidence that I would never get along with the man, no matter my liking of the Boccioni sculpture I saw at MOMA all those years ago. Well, outside of him being a fascist and all obviously. I like pasta. Either way, he was on a mission to conceive all-new all-Italian cuisines that would match the vision he had of a new fascist Italy. Nothing could prepare me though for when I saw an image of what would best be described as a towering cock and ball torture meat totem. It is exactly as it sounds, a big phallic tower of cooked meat with a set of gigantic dough-covered balls of chicken flesh on the front and back where you have to stick needles through the thing to hold it together. Words cannot express just how big it is. The thing was damn well near falling apart from how unnatural its shape was, and you’re expected to eat it while it has honey pouring from the tip of the tower. I genuinely winced watching its assembly, I instinctively crossed my legs somewhat when it was pierced by wooden sticks and then cut into sections to reveal the plant-stuffed interiors. As a person with no interest whatsoever in cooking shows, I was on the edge of my seat watching a PBS-funded webisode of someone preparing futurist dishes. Seek it out for yourself, it’s an excessively batshit culinary freakshow. That is more than enough talk about penises for the rest of the week. I’m going to spend the next few days looking at artistic yet selectively vaginal flowers to balance things out, equal opportunity symbology.

[bharv]

I believe it was regarding futurism? I could be mistaken, though - Gort Inspo anon

Italian Futurism!

So going to preface this by saying I am very much a layman when it comes to art history this is just my own little interest. Gonna put a cool sculpture image for attention (and also like. Yeah) and then go under the cut:

So the manifesto for futurism was the following tenets (bolded for emphasis of particular themes by me:)

Manifesto of Futurism

1. We intend to glorify the love of danger, the custom of energy, the strength of daring.

2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity, and revolt.

3. Literature having up to now glorified has exalted a pensive immobility, ecstasy, and sleep. We intend to exalt aggressive action, feverish insomnia, the racer’s stride, the mortal leap, the punch, and the slap.

4. We declare that the splendour of the world has been enriched with a new form of beauty, the beauty of speed. A race-automobile adorned with great pipes like serpents with explosive breath… a race-automobile which seems to rush over exploding power is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

5. We will sing the praise of man holding the fly-wheel of which the ideal steering-post traverses the earth impelled itself around the circuit of its own orbit.

6. The poet must spend himself with warmth brilliancy and prodigality to augment the fervor of the primordial elements.

7. There is no more beauty except in struggle. No master-piece without the stamp of aggressiveness. Poetry should be a violent assault against unknown forces to summon them to lie down at the feet of man.

8. We are on the extreme promontory of ages! Why look back since we must break down the mysterious doors of Impossibility? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the Absolute for we have already created the omnipresent eternal speed.

9. We will glorify war – the only true hygiene of the world – militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchists, the beautiful Ideas which kill, and the scorn of women.

10. We will destroy museums, libraries and fight against moralism, feminism and all utilitarian cowardice.

11. We will sing of great message agitated by work pleasure or revolt: we will sing of the multicolored and polyphonic surf of revolutions in the modern capitals; the nocturnal vibration of arsenals and docks beneath their glaring electric moons; greedy stations devouring smoking serpents; factories hanging from the clouds by the threads of their smoke; bridges like giant gymnasts stepping over sunny rivers sparkling like diabolical cutlery; adventurous steamers scenting the horizon; large breasted locomotives bridled with long tubes, and the slippery flight of aeroplanes whose propeller has flag-like fluttering and applauses of enthusiastic crowds.

Futurism favoured the new, the machine, the strive for an almost post-human clarity of spirit. They were obsessed with the fragmentation and dissection of form, the impact of technological advancement, the shunning of what was perceived to be holding man back. It's probably no coincidence that the movement had a profound impact on Mussolini and the development of the fascist aesthetic in Italy.

And Gortash has SO many references to the future of Faerun, to the machine, to the Ultimate State of unity without free will, the feeding of brains to technology which we see in a number of prototypes, of a new age for Baldur's Gate through combining technologies and destroying the systems of the past. He is a man of the present and the future alone!

[grandpasessions]

This is why we propose to maintain the concept of the act developed by Kant, and to link it to the thematic of 'overstepping of boundaries,' of 'transgression', to the question of evil. It is a matter of acknowledging the fact that any (ethical) act, precisely in so far as it is an act, is necessarily 'evil'.

We must specify, however, what is meant here by 'evil'. This is the evil that belongs to the very structure of the act, to the fact that the latter always implies a 'transgression', a change in 'what is'.

It is not a matter of some 'empirical' evil, it is the very logic of the act which is denounced as 'radically evil' in every ideology.

The fundamental ideological gesture consists in providing an image for this structural 'evil'. The gap opened by an act (i.e. the unfamiliar, 'out-of-place' effect of an act) is immediately linked in this ideological gesture to an image. As a rule this is an image of suffering, which is then displayed to the public alongside this question: Is this what you want? And this question already implies the answer: It would be impossible, inhuman, for you to want this!

Here we have to insist on theoretical rigor, and separate this (usually fascinating) image exhibited by ideology from the real source of uneasiness - from the 'evil' which is not an 'undesired', 'secondary' effect of the good but belongs, on the contrary, to its essence. We could even say that the ethical ideology struggles against 'evil' because this ideology is hostile to the 'good', to the logic of the act as such.

We could go even further here: the current saturation of the social field by 'ethical dilemmas' (bioethics, environmental ethics, cultural ethics, medical ethics … ) is strictly correlative to the 'repression' of ethics, that is, to an incapacity to think ethics in its dimension of the Real, an incapacity to conceive of ethics other than simply as a set of restrictions intended to prevent greater evil.

This constellation is related to yet another aspect of 'modern society': to the 'depression ' which seems to have became the 'social illness' of our time and to set the tone of the resigned attitude of the ' (post) modern man' of the 'end of history'. In relation to this, it would be interesting to reaffirm Lacan's thesis according to which depression 'isn't a state of the soul , it is simply a moral failing, as Dante, and even Spinoza, said: a sin, which means a moral weakness'.!" It is against this moral weakness or cowardice [lrichete morale] that we must affirm the ethical dimension proper.

Ethics of the Real Z. Zupancic

[critical-skeptic]

War. War May Finally Change...

In the immersive universe of "Fallout," we are presented with a disturbing reflection of our reality, filtered through the lens of speculative fiction and dystopian narrative. It's fascinating, then, to observe a certain faction of the audience—ardent followers of this series—shying away from the darker shades this narrative paints, preferring instead to bask in the deceptive comfort of nostalgia and simpler story arcs of yore.

Let's dissect this fear, this aversion to looking into the Black Mirror of our entertainment, which reveals more about us than the fictional worlds it portrays. The modern incarnations of "Fallout" under Bethesda's helm have been criticized for their apparent cynicism and focus on the ruins rather than the rebuilding. Critics lament what they perceive as a departure from the foundational themes of the original games, clinging to the idealized past of the franchise's earlier days. But this criticism is shallow and, frankly, misinformed.

Bethesda's "Fallout" has indeed maintained the spirit of its predecessors—it's still rich with wacky antagonists and absurd scenarios, all wrapped in a satirical critique of post-apocalyptic survival and the human condition. What has changed, however, is the depth and fidelity with which these themes are explored. The technical advancements in gaming have allowed for a richer narrative and a more immersive dystopian world, one that forces players to confront uncomfortable truths about society, governance, and morality.

The discomfort some viewers feel towards these narratives stems from their unflinching willingness to hold up a mirror to our society, revealing the twisted reality that we might one day face, or are already facing without even realizing it.

Why then, do some retreat from these reflections, choosing instead to reminisce about the supposedly 'better' and simpler days of older games or less confrontational narratives? It is because these darker, more complex stories demand introspection and often offer no easy answers. In a world increasingly fraught with uncertainty, there is a palpable desire to return to the safety of the familiar and the straightforward. But this desire is a form of escapism that borders on intellectual cowardice.

To reject the evolution of "Fallout" or to deride these narratives for their bleak but insightful observations is to reject the very essence of speculative fiction and its purpose. These narratives are designed not just to entertain but to challenge—to provoke thought, to question norms, and to inspire change. They hold up a mirror not just to what we could become, but to what we are now, the parts of ourselves we are too afraid to examine too closely.

So, to those who are 'scared of the Black Mirror,' who prefer the sugar-coated tales of yesteryears, I say: you are missing the point of our most profound stories. The discomfort you feel is a signal, not of the failure of these narratives, but of their success. It is a challenge to look deeper and to think harder about where we are heading as a society. These stories are a gift—a chance to see the future before it arrives and to steer our collective destiny toward a better outcome.

In conclusion, if you find yourself recoiling from the Black Mirror held up by these series, ask yourself why. Is it the darkness of the mirror you fear, or what you see within it? The answer, though perhaps unsettling, is necessary for true understanding and genuine appreciation of these masterful works of fiction. Denial will lead us nowhere but into the oblivion that these series so powerfully warn against. Embrace the discomfort, engage with the complexity, and perhaps, in the twisted reflections of these black mirrors, war may finally change.

[stephenjaymorrisblog]

Lucky On the Homefront

Stephen Jay Morris

12/09/2023

©Scientific Morality.

It is grey and gloomy outside my house. The street is wet and tires splash as vehicles drive by. At night, while I sleep, I dream about what is now called, “The North Miracle Mile District.” I dream about the spring and summer days of my youth, about riding my bicycle, or the time I crashed my skateboard and almost cracked my head. I dream about the times I collected bottles and took them to the drug store for money. I’d watch mini bikers race in the empty Pan Pacific parking lot. I hung out at “Kosher Dog,” listening to the juke box while eating a Chile Dog with greasy fries, and gulping from a large, Dixie cup, full of crashed ice and Coke.  Los Angeles in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and even in the 70’s, was a quiet, semi-desert town by the sea. Yes, Los Angelenos had bragging rights about the weather. If it rained half an inch, Angelenos would…let’s say…over-react.

My favorite activity was walking the sidewalks in my neighborhood. Everyone had manicured, green lawns. There were plenty of parking spaces along the streets and room to move. Houses had individualistic, architectural designs. Sorry, there were no post-modern designs. There was a house designed by renowned architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, on Highland Avenue and Beverly Boulevard. That was the most outlandish. To me, I was in the center of the universe. My dad told me how lucky I was to be living in L.A. He actually declared, over and over again, how he had to walk to school, daily, in 12 inches of snow.

During the Vietnam war, when the military was bombing the shit out of innocent men, women, and children in their modest villages, the American military propagandists said the Vietcong was to blame. If you criticized the war, you were Anti-American. Israel is now saying the same thing about its ongoing attacks on Gaza; that their relentless bombing of civilians is Hamas’ fault. Anyone who criticizes Israel is antisemitic. Sound familiar? It sounds like an abusive husband who tells his battered wife, “Why did you make me hit you?!” What did I learn from these historical experiences? Technology may have changed over the decades, but history remains the same. It doesn’t matter who is fighting a war or the political bent it’s about, war is inhumane and unjustifiable.

During the Vietnam era, I was lucky to be in an upscale neighborhood. The nearest evidence of a war that was thousands of miles away, was on college campuses. Antiwar protests were about 10, maybe 7 miles away. My family had made it into this neighborhood by happenstance. I’m certainly glad we didn’t end up in a trailer park! To be completely honest, during my preteens, I was glad to be far from any war, though in 1965, the Watts riots came close. Then in 1993, a riot erupted in my parents’ neighborhood (I had long since moved away). My mom was oblivious to the nature of it, but rioters had set ablaze a well-known business, Sammy’s Camera Shop. I remember my mom saying to me on the phone, as she watched from her back door, “Oh, look at that!” as if she was looking at a painting in a museum. I told my mom to stay safe, and she replied, “I will.” Thankfully, nothing happened to her or my family.

And now, here I am in this bucolic area known as the Catskill Mountains. The wars in Ukraine and Gaza are far, far away. Protests opposing and supporting Israel occur hundreds of miles away. For all of this, I thank my lucky stars. Every time there is a political conflict, the last place you want to be is in a city.

I’m glad that my draft number never came up during the Vietnam war, I would have never survived. Not that I am a coward; I would do anything to protect my family. However, when my country is wrong, it is not an act of cowardice to not participate in its battles.  This country’s anti-communist hysteria of the ‘50s killed more American men than the Vietcong ever did.

There are no nuclear bombs in Heaven.

[iolitewyvern-trolls]

For world building wednesday... Checkpea Chkepi! And/or maybe Vialex bc their name looks cool 👀

I’ll do both!!! Cuz now I’m really excited!! Also this would get Super Long if I did them both attached to this post, so I’ll just do Chkepi’s here.

WORLD BUILDING WEDNESDAY  send me the name of a character, and i’ll reply with:

B A S I C S

full name: Chkepi Ahlven

gender: Genderfluid

sexuality: Ace, questioning romantic

pronouns: they/them, with a sprinkling of he/him

O T H E R S

family: The Offering (alleged ancestor), Vlazia Nostez (adoptive older sister)

hatchplace: Renascence

job: NA, weaver, freelance writer/artist

phobias: water/swimming, blood/injury, anything related to pailing

guilty pleasures: baking sweets just for themself

M O R A L S

morality alignment?: Neutral Good

sins - sloth? envy? Cowardice

virtues - patience, charity, humility

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert/extrovert: introvert

organized/disorganized: organized

close minded/open-minded: open-minded

calm/anxious: depends on circumstance

disagreeable/agreeable: agreeable

cautious/reckless: cautious

patient/impatient: patient

outspoken/reserved: depends on circumstance

leader/follower: follower

empathetic/unemphatic: empathetic

optimistic/pessimistic: optimistic

traditional/modern: ????

hard-working/lazy: puts a lot of effort into their work but does so at their own pace

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp: vvv

ot3: Cilvir/Chkepi/Rembet (Cilvir belongs to @deepwoodtrolls )

brotp: Vlazia / Chkepi (Sibling shenanigans)

notp: any jade or violet

[designingprogress]

Why George Orwell's Warning on 'Self-Censorship' Is More Relevant Than Ever

Just as George Orwell warned, governments don't have to be the censors for free speech and free expression to be fatally stifled. By Brad Polumbo Rule One: Speak your mind at your own peril. Rule Two: Never risk commissioning a story that goes against the narrative. Rule Three: Never believe an editor or publisher who urges you to go against the grain. Eventually, the publisher will cave to the mob, the editor will get fired or reassigned, and you’ll be hung out to dry.

The above is a quotation from George Orwell’s preface to Animal Farm, titled "The Freedom of the Press," where he discussed the chilling effect the Soviet Union’s influence had on global publishing and debate far beyond the reach of its official censorship laws.Wait, no it isn’t. The quote is actually an excerpt from the resignation letter of New York Times opinion editor and writer Bari Weiss, penned this week, where she blows the whistle on the hostility toward intellectual diversity that now reigns supreme at the country’s most prominent newspaper.A contrarian moderate but hardly right-wing in her politics, the journalist describes the outright harassment and cruelty she faced at the hands of her colleagues, to the point where she could no longer continue her work:

My own forays into Wrongthink have made me the subject of constant bullying by colleagues who disagree with my views. They have called me a Nazi and a racist; I have learned to brush off comments about how I’m ‘writing about the Jews again.’ Several colleagues perceived to be friendly with me were badgered by coworkers. My work and my character are openly demeaned on company-wide Slack channels where masthead editors regularly weigh in. There, some coworkers insist I need to be rooted out if this company is to be a truly ‘inclusive’ one, while others post ax emojis next to my name. Still other New York Times employees publicly smear me as a liar and a bigot on Twitter with no fear that harassing me will be met with appropriate action. They never are.

Weiss’s letter reminds us of the crucial warning Orwell made in his time: To preserve a free and open society, legal protections from government censorship, while crucial, are not nearly enough.

To see why, simply consider the fate that has met Weiss and so many others in recent memory who dared cross the modern thought police. Here are just a few of the countless examples of “cancel culture” in action:

— A museum curator in San Francisco resigned after facing a mob and petition for his removal simply because he stated that his museum would still collect art from white men. — A Palestinian immigrant and business owner had his lease canceled and restaurant boycotted after activists dug up his daughter’s old offensive social media posts from when she was a teenager. — A Hispanic construction worker was fired for making a supposedly “white supremacist” hand signal that for most people has always just meant “okay.” — A soccer player was pushed off the Los Angeles Galaxy roster because his wife posted something racist on Instagram. — The head opinion editor of the New York Times was fired and his colleague was demoted after they published an op-ed by a US senator arguing a widely held position and liberal colleagues claimed the words “put black lives in danger.’ — A random Boeing executive was recently mobbed and fired because he wrote an article 30 years ago arguing against having women serve in combat roles in the military. — A data analyst tweeted out the findings of a research paper (by a black scholar) about the ineffectiveness of protests and was fired after colleagues claimed their safety was threatened. — Led by progressives as prominent as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, a woke mob tried to get a Chicago economist fired from his editorship of an economics journal for tweeting that embracing “Defund the Police” undercuts the Black Lives Matter movement’s chances of achieving real reform.

These are just a few examples of many. One important commonality to note is that none of these examples involve actual government censorship. Yet they still represent chilling crackdowns on free speech. As David French put it writing for The Dispatch, “Cruelty bullies employers into firing employees. Cruelty bullies employees into leaving even when they’re not fired. Cruelty raises the cost of speaking the truth as best you see it—until you find yourself choosing silence, mainly as a pain-avoidance mechanism.”

These recent observations echo what Orwell warned of decades ago:

Obviously it is not desirable that a government department should have any power of censorship... but the chief danger to freedom of thought and speech at this moment is not the direct interference of the [government] or any official body. If publishers and editors exert themselves to keep certain topics out of print, it is not because they are frightened of prosecution but because they are frightened of public opinion. In this country intellectual cowardice is the worst enemy a writer or journalist has to face, and that fact does not seem to me to have had the discussion it deserves.

Similarly, the British philosopher Bertrand Russell noted in a 1922 speech “It is clear that thought is not free if the professional of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.”

Some might wonder why it’s really so important to protect speech and thought beyond the law. After all, if no one’s going to jail over it, how serious can the consequences really be?

While understandable as an impulse, this logic misses the point. Free and open speech is the only way a society can, through trial and error, get closer to the truth over time. It was abolitionist Frederick Douglas who described free speech as “the great moral renovator of society and government.” What he meant was that only the free flow of open speech can challenge existing orthodoxies and evolve society. From women’s suffrage to the civil rights movement, we never would have made so much progress on sexism and racism without the right to speak freely.

Silence enshrines the status quo. As John Stuart Mill put it:

If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

This great discovery process through free-flowing speech first and foremost requires a hands-off approach from the government, but it still cannot occur in a culture hostile to dissenting opinion and debate. When airing a differing view can get you mobbed or put your job in jeopardy, only society’s most powerful or those whose views align with the current orthodoxy will be able to speak openly without fear.

Orwell and Russell were right then, even if we’re only fully realizing it now. Self-censorship driven by culture, not government, erodes our collective discovery of truth all the same.

[loopy777]

Is Deus Ex Machina always a bad thing? People who didn't like the finale of Avatar are always quick to point out the lion turtle, but I think we both agree the ending was both emotionally and thematically satisfying, and to me that's the most important thing. But my question is: if it IS satisfying, is it still a DEM? After all, DEM usually carries this idea that the ending is ruined and it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, which the Avatar finale doesn't.

Coincidentally, I was thinking about this just the other day, although I wasn’t considering making a post on it.

I think what makes this discussion troublesome is that there are two very different operating definitions for “deus ex machina.” I tend to think of it in terms of the classical definition, so I don’t personally have any problem with it when it’s done well, but most people seem to be operating with something like the same kind of shorthand that has turned “Mary Sue” into a meaningless complaint.

The term translates to ‘god from the machine.’ Wikipedia can give a functional summary of how it was originally employed and the criticisms that arose about it even amongst those old-timey Greeks. My own take is informed by those origins and the Greek myths that I’ve loved since I first learned about them in grade school. In a setting where gods and magic are in play, I don’t see a problem with a god being so moved by the events of the story or the character of the protagonist(s) that they intervene in otherwise impossible scenarios. The key here is that the story needs to justify why the god/power is intervening here and not in all kinds of other situations; if a god comes along and raises someone from the dead, or hands over a magic sword, or whatever, then it needs to be clear why people still die and magic swords aren’t sold at every corner market.

The Lionturtle is indeed a deus ex machina in that it is a god-like power suddenly entering the story to hand Aang knowledge that he would not otherwise have been able to attain. However, AtLA firmly establishes that there are spirits in the world with god-like power. Hei Bai is the first at a relatively small scale (and was another spirit moved by Aang’s steadfast purity to enact a happy ending, hmmm…), but we also see Koh having knowledge that predates the existence of the moon and the ocean, Koizilla being able to smash a whole fleet with the help of the Avatar State, Wan Shi Tong being able to move an infinitely-large library between the spirit and material worlds, and an eclipse of the sun shutting down all Firebending. These are all powers that the normal humans of the setting do not have, but they are all exercised as a result of the intervention of the protagonists, so I think they’re perfectly fine elements to have in the story.

Just about the only thing that might separate the Lionturtle from these other examples is that it seeks Aang out, rather than the other way around. However, I think that’s an oversimplification of the situation, in which we had just gotten an full episode of Aang holding fast to his belief in the sacredness of all life, despite disagreement and harassment from his friends. He meditates in search of an answer, and it’s then that the Lionturtle reaches out. So I think Aang ‘earns’ its attention by his unique beliefs, his steadfastness in the face of painful opposition, and his action in seeking a solution via meditation.

Why does the Lionturtle not reach out to other people? Well, the only pacifists in the franchise are Air Nomads like Aang, and there’s possible evidence that they weren’t all as steadfast when push came to shove. However, I don’t think the fate of the world hinged on whether Gyatso or some other random Air Nomad killed an enemy while fighting; Aang is in a fairly unique situation in that regard. Theoretically, a previous Avatar might have faced the same dilemma that could have been resolved with Energybending, but as we saw of Yanchen, perhaps those Avatars didn’t really seek out another solution besides violence. The Kyoshi novel does a great job handling this, showing Kyoshi struggling with similar questions but finding her own answers that do not match Aang’s. Perhaps Aang really is the first person in an Age who merited the Lionturtle’s intervention. It helps that the intention at the time of writing was for it to be a technique only available to the Avatar, so that definitely limits the potential situations where it might have been relevant.

So we’re left with the question of whether Energybending itself conforms to the established rules of the setting. I personally think it does, quite handily. We saw examples of bending being taken away before, at least on a temporary basis. The death of the Moon Spirit takes away all Waterbending. The eclipse on the Day of Black Sun takes away Firebending for its duration. Ty Lee pokes Qi-points to disable bending even while leaving limbs otherwise functional (sometimes). Those all help clearly establish that bending is tied to the physical body, and specifically the Qi energies flowing through it. We see esoteric manipulation of those energies by way of Waterhealing, Lightningbending, and the time Aang’s spirit is knocked out of his body by physically crashing into a bear-shaped shrine/idol.

So yes, the Lionturtle is a newly-arrived god who imparts special magic to solve a problem that couldn’t otherwise have worked out so neatly, but all the elements are there to make it a workable plot element. If the Day of Black Sun had worked out, would people be complaining about how Deus Ex Machina it is for the gAang to stumble across information on an eclipse coming before the return of Sozin’s Comet that will take away Firebending and allow Aang to confront Ozai without training up to the a higher fighting level?

Well, not if Aang kills Ozai in that scenario, I expect.

The root of the way most people use ‘deus ex machina’ in modern times, I think, links to what Aristotle is said to have been alluding to in that Wikipedia article, and what Nietzsche also seems to be getting at. Specifically, they seem to think it’s better when a tragic story is allowed to end in tragedy, rather than an audience-pleasing happy ending getting tacked on in an act of weakness and cowardice. It’s fair to criticize this (I enjoy tragedy as well as happy endings, when it’s done right), but I think it can be taken too far into a desire for bleak endings in general. It would be more ‘mature,’ the thinking goes, for Aang to have to kill Ozai, be tainted, scream his angst to the sky, and show the audience that Life Is Dark even though it’s a trite message that doesn’t really follow from anything that came before. The thing about Tragedy that a lot of people forget is that it needs to be set up with as much care and earnestness as Deus Ex Machina, or else it’s just as hackneyed and immature.

AtLA is not a tragedy. It is not about the mistakes and flaws of the protagonists piling up into chaos. So the complaint about ‘deus ex machina’ doesn’t even really apply, according to the original controversy about it. Aang is not freed from the consequences of a flaw, because his desire for peace and life is something that’s consistently portrayed as good throughout the rest of the series. It’s built up in his culture, the appreciation for the Air Nomads that’s conveyed despite their flaws, the focus on his being the last survivor of a genocide, and even the subtitle of the series (providing you don’t live somewhere that got the much more generic “Legend of..” title that fits Korra’s more generic legend so much better). It’s not a tragedy if everything is working out until a last minute swerve when all the good things suddenly become bad.

That’s a Comedy, according to certain modern definitions. ;)

The only story that could end with Aang giving up his ideals to kill Ozai using the philosophy and ways of the Fire Nation is a story about how the Fire Nation is right- that morality is secondary to strength and necessity. And if that’s the story being told, wouldn’t it have been easier to just make the Fire Nation the heroes in the first place, slaughtering corrupt pacifist hippies who would rather we all die than fight to improve the world?

No matter how you look at it, people who criticize AtLA’s ending by calling it a ‘deux ex machina’ aren’t doing so by using the text of the story at all. They’re either glossing over how the setup for all the plot elements is all right there in the story, or else they’re doing exactly what the ancient Greeks criticize bad deus ex machina for in the first place by putting the wrong ending on a story. So most who use ‘deux ex machina’ as a criticism aren’t thinking about the nature of Story at all, I think. They’ve heard the term, mistake it for general criticism of ‘unearned’ plot points, and/or use it as justification for their own pretentious fascination with bleak endings.

So, to summarize my answer- yes, DEM can be a criticism in and of itself, depending on the definition in play. It can apply to AtLA, also depending on the definition in play.

But applying DEM to AtLA as a criticism just doesn’t add up.

[brittnicpan]

Some thoughts I had on the Sequel Trilogy...

I was listening to a livestream @girllswithsabers did a few days ago, and they really had my gears turning. I've really been thinking about this recently, but until I listened to their livestream, I wasn't sure how to put it into words. And then it all finally kicked. Here's why Reylo is so much more important than just a "ship". It's the heart of this trilogy and the entire saga.

First, all abusive relationships exist on a foundation of a power imbalance. One person has all the power in an abusive relationship. That's not Rey and Kylo. It is impossible for them to be in an abusive relationship because they are EQUALLY powerful in the Force, and Kylo respects her for that. There is a mutual respect, despite opposing ideologies.

They BOTH have things they have to work on and maturing to do before they can come together. Yes, Kylo obviously has done horrible things and he has to come to terms with those things and atone for them, so it wouldn't be good if Rey stayed with him at the end of TLJ. But Rey's greatest strength is her compassion for people. The strongest thing you can do is choose to have compassion and forgive someone who has wronged you, especially if they are taking the steps to change. Any relationship they have will need to come after redemption, and it will.

Snoke and Kylo are the definition of an abusive relationship. Snoke was more powerful than Ben and took advantage of how vulnerable and hurt he was from his family. He made him think that he could rely on no one but him, until Rey came along. Kylo saw that there was someone exactly like him out there who wouldn't try to use him for his powers or his legacy because she is just as powerful as he is. Ben couldn't kill Snoke without Rey, and that's when he found the strength and opportunity to do so.

The biggest point of it all is this: this is Star Wars. It's a space fairy tale meant to be a monomyth not beholden to the laws and morals of our world. Yes, they are based off of real-life problems and scenarios, but it is meant to entertain, first and foremost. It is also meant to have us think about how we can treat people in real life and what happens when we come together as humanity.

Second, because Star Wars is a monomyth, it discussses the relationships between men and women, the masculine and the feminine, like other mythologies do. It does this starting with Anakin and Padmé and how their imbalanced relationship leads to an imbalance in the Force and an overwhelming amount of masculine and not enough feminine.

Episodes I-VI we see that imbalance, even after Vader dies. Nothing in the galaxy was solved. The Sequel Trilogy's sole purpose is to bring balance to the Force. How? By bringing together the Masculine and the Feminine, finally, as equals. It's told from a female gaze because it doesn't just embolden women, but it says that men and women can have both the Masculine and the Feminine and the world can be at peace if we just come together.

Women are also representative of life because we birth babies. It's the men of the Skywalker family that have caused the destruction of the galaxy, and they didn't have an equal woman to help bring balance back to the Force. What does Luke teach Rey in TLJ? That between life and death, cold and warmth, decay and growth there is a balance. Women represent life, men represent death. Both are necessary, both are equal, and both feed into each other. You can't have one without the other. Rey is Light, Kylo is Dark. Too much of either throws things out of balance. The Jedi Council of the prequels, the Empire of the originals.

All of this to say that, from this perspective, that's the story Episodes VII-IX are telling, and that's why it makes sense that Rey and Ben will be together at the end, that they have to be together at the end. Their relationship is deeper than just a romance, and it doesn't make sense for it to go any other way. In fact, if they didn't follow through with it, it would be a waste of a story and a cowardice move. But, as Kathleen Kennedy said, the Force is female! Thank goodness she was overseeing the making of this trilogy. She knows that you need both a man AND woman's perspective when telling stories. We had the male perspective with the other two trilogies. Now it's time for the female perspective.

Yes, a lot of mostly male and some female fans hate Reylo and hate these movies. But Star Wars is trying to shift the storytelling perspective and not only bring balance to the Force, but tell the audience that amazing things happen when women and men come together as equals, that there is peace when done so. And yeah, we are used to seeing romances from a male gaze perspective. We've been watching them for years, and it's hard to enact change. But of all the franchises that can do it and should do it, it's Star Wars because it's a modern mythology.

So yeah, some men and women are going to reject it initially, but the more we tell it the more it'll take root in people and change perspectives. I'm not bashing men at all, just trying to explain why Reylo is important. You certainly don't have to like it, but if you can try and understand why so many women and even men have clung to this trilogy, it's because it's speaking to us this time. And because of that, we can all learn important things from it.

Anyway, Rey and Ben are the Balance, and there is no doubt in my mind that they are going to be together at the end of TRoS. They have to be. From this particular storytelling perspective, it doesn't work any other way. And I suspect maybe that's why Kathleen Kennedy fired Colin Trevorrow in the first place. Maybe he just couldn't see and understand the female gaze story. So really, the fact that we have Kennedy really is the most reassuring reason that we're getting a Ben and Rey happy ending.

Anyway, enough rambling. Whatever your thoughts are on the Sequel Trilogy, whether you love it or hate it, I would encourage you to go in with an open mind in December and really pay attention to what the story is trying to say. Try and understand why so many women love this story, and some men, too!

A HUGE thank you to Girls with Sabers for inspiring this post with their livestream, and for encouraging me to post my thoughts! You should check out that livestream AND their YouTube channel. They have done amazing work, and really they are the ones that started making me think of Reylo from a literary and symbolic angle in the first place. Thanks ladies! 😊❤❤❤

Here's the link to that livestream:

[loplainlointhemorning]

DOING THE HARD WORK OF MAKING EVERYONE IN DORIAN GRAY LOOK LIKE A DICK EXCEPTING, WITH LIMITS, DORIAN GRAY

okay so I’ve read The Picture Of Dorian Gray three times and I plan to again after I finish a few more novels, so I consider myself knowledgeable enough both about the book AND about the fandom surrounding it to make this post. This has been kicking around in my head for YEARS, especially after getting into Velvet Goldmine and noting how that fandom treats Brian Slade, who’s basically a modern interpretation of the same character. I know a lot of people are jonesing for me to rag on Basil Hallward and I plan to, so fair warning to those of you who i know are obsessed with him.

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To start, a lot of people see Lord Henry as the only discernible “Villain” in the book(though the book really has no villain) and Basil as the put upon good guy. This description is somewhat fair. Lord Henry contributes a lot of Dorian’s toxic ideas and enables a LOT of his most self centered behavior, not to mention he gives him the book that inspires his worst deeds. He’s the person who makes it clear to him that youth, self gratification, and most importantly, beauty are all that matter in life. Basil, on the other hand, does his best to “counter” these ideas, though I personally would say his idea of countering amounts to nothing but passive aggressive, low energy disdain. Dorian is too wrapped up in Lord Henry to listen to reason, and eventually murders Basil in cold blood, allowing him to achieve a sort of tragic book character aura that makes him sympathetic.

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To put it simply, the general attitude towards these character dynamics is that Lord Henry is the Bad, Basil is the Good, and Dorian could’ve been good if Lord Henry would’ve let him be. I find this interpretation very surface level despite the relatability of Basil Hallward’s homosexual yearning and romantic struggles.

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But before we dissect Basil, let’s dissect his counterpart. Lord Henry, to start, is immediatley established as a vain and flippant dandy(which is true) because of his belief that beauty is the most valuable trait a person can possess. This is the first lesson that he gives Dorian: that his beauty is his power, that his youth is fleeting, and that life will be worthless once he’s lost the ability to appeal physically to others. However, while he is the first to say it frankly enough for Dorian to consciously understand it, he is NOT the first to communicate that to him. He is just one in a long line of many, as is Basil himself.

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Funnily enough, I would argue that of all the adult figures in Dorian’s life, Lord Henry is the MOST supportive of Dorian’s actual person, and I think it’s entirely natural that he became as attached to him as he did and may have less to do with Henry’s good looks and manipulation than we think. Nobody in his immediate circle of friends or family allows him to explore himself or form an opinion about the world that differs from their own- Except for Henry. It’s merely Dorian’s misfortune that the first person he meets who allows him to be a human being is a conceited asshole, but it follows the theme of Dorian’s life, which is that he is the avatar for older and more cowardly men. And in Lord Henry’s eyes, Dorian’s poetential is limitless. He’s happy to give him ideas and let him run wild, but can’t accept the responsibility of teaching him kindness or compassion or self-preservation, because that would make the spectacle less interesting. Lord Henry is using a 19-to-20 year old to live out his fantasy of what he wishes he could do- But he’s not really different from Basil in that respect.

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And now it is time.

Basil Hallward reminds me a lot of myself, so I feel like I understand his motivations. He’s a shy, earnest, secretive artist who doesn’t care much for anything besides doing his work and yearning while looking out over his garden. He’s upset by people like Lord Henry, who are the embodiment of the poet who lives what he cannot write, because he is the opposite: He creates, and therefore doesn’t have to live out, his fantasy worlds. Basil is repressed and mild mannered while Henry, to his intense jealousy, is more attractive, vivacious, and conversationally interesting- Which is most likely why he didn’t want to share him with Dorian, instead of the reason he gave, which was that Dorian’s pure personality would be tarnished. It’s quite obvious Basil has a crush. But I don’t believe he ever loved, or even truly cared for, Dorian himself.

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Allow me to explain: I have a whole blog of random pictures, mainly of other people, that I keep because I find those pictures striking in some sense. I don’t have an aesthetic theme, really: It’s just people who make me feel, or think, or see something a certain way. I have a pregnant wax figurine in there and old pictures of Marilyn Monroe- And I find both creatively interesting because of how they appear to me. What I’m getting at is I think Dorian Gray is to Basil what an art blog is to the average tumblr user. As David Bowie once said, there’s a difference between being in love and going on to love someone; And there is a difference between being fascinated with your muse and actually caring about the person beyond the projection.

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I think it’s extremely telling that before painting his portrait, Basil had an entire notebook dedicated to portraying Dorian as various mythical figures and heroes. I think it’s even more telling that when Basil DOES paint his portrait, he’s ashamed of it because it is a portrait of HIS soul, an admittance of his worship and idolatry. Dorian REPRESENTS something to Basil, and it’s fun to speculate on what: I believe he is the poster boy for all of Basil’s sexual and romantic fantasies, which he obviously finds shameful, woven together with the romantic escapism found in mythology. But it’s obvious from the start that Dorian is Not the virtuous young man that he wants him to be, and that those virtues are simply what Hallward believes Dorian should be like, as opposed to what he actually is.

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This is depressing, but what’s worse is that Dorian is aware of it, which is what actually inspired me to write this post. When he realizes his youth is fleeting, he accuses Basil of the truth, in a heartbreaking scene featuring this quote,

“Dorian Gray turned and looked at him. ‘I believe you would, Basil. You like your art better than your friends. I am no more to you than a green bronze figure. Hardly as much, I dare say.’ The painter stared in amazement. ‘Yes,’ He continued, I am less to you than your ivory Hermès or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when someone loses one’s good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself.’

Hallward turned pale, and caught his hand. ‘Dorian! Dorian!’ he cried, ‘don’t talk like that. I never had such a friend as you, and I shall never have such another. You are not jealous of material things, are you- you who are finer than all of them!”

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Lord Henry and Basil are nowhere near on the same moral level, but what’s tragic is that they, and everyone else, treat Dorian the same way- As their vicarious vessel. It’s just that Basil’s idea of what Dorian should be is A) Literal sainthood(as evidenced by the above quote), and B) Impossible to live up to, so therefore he seems to be the nicer guy. But it’s cruel to value anyone for what you can get from them, even if that thing is great art.

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In my opinion, the adult figures in Dorian’s life couldn’t give less of a shit about his true nature. His grandfather hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. Lord Henry is interested in seeing how far Dorian would go to do the things he can’t do because of his own cowardice. Basil expects him to be a storybook character, as do most people who came into contact with him. He was right to believe that his looks were the only thing anybody wanted from him because it’s the truth.

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To close, my personal interpretation of Dorian Gray is this: Dorian Gray was a neglected, naive child who became the fancy of two older men, both of whom were only concerned with using him as a fantasy and therefore both corrupted him for their own personal gain. This in no way excuses his actions, but I think it better explains them- And I think it condemns the people who ought to be condemned. Lord Henry was the person who played on his lack of self-worth to manipulate him, but Basil was the person who exacerbated that lack of self-worth in the first place. Basil wasn’t a good mentor(and DID NOT deserve to be his boyfriend). Henry wasn’t a good mentor. There was no good mentor- There was only Dorian, and the simple fact that people weren’t going to love him if he stopped being pretty. The person he became afterwards was someone of his own making- But the initially shy, praise-hungry, warped young boy who felt the need to become that person was both Basil and Henry’s creation.

[thevividgreenmoss]

A good or great writer may refuse to accept any responsibility or morality that society wishes to impose on her. Yet the best and greatest of them know that if they abuse this hard-won freedom, it can only lead to bad art. There is an intricate web of morality, rigor, and responsibility that art, that writing itself, imposes on a writer. It’s singular, it’s individual, but nevertheless it’s there. At its best, it’s an exquisite bond between the artist and the medium. At its acceptable end, it’s a sort of sensible cooperation. At its worst, it’s a relationship of disrespect and exploitation.

The absence of external rules complicates things. There’s a very thin line that separates the strong, true, bright bird of the imagination from the synthetic, noisy bauble. Where is that line? How do you recognize it? How do you know you’ve crossed it? At the risk of sounding esoteric and arcane, I’m tempted to say that you just know. The fact is that nobody—no reader, no reviewer, agent, publisher, colleague, friend, or enemy—can tell for sure. A writer just has to ask herself that question and answer it as honestly as possible. The thing about this “line” is that once you learn to recognize it, once you see it, it’s impossible to ignore. You have no choice but to live with it, to follow it through. You have to bear with all its complexities, contradictions, and demands. And that’s not always easy. It doesn’t always lead to compliments and standing ovations. It can lead you to the strangest, wildest places. In the midst of a bloody military coup, for instance, you could find yourself fascinated by the mating rituals of a purple sunbird, or the secret life of captive goldfish, or an old aunt’s descent into madness. And nobody can say that there isn’t truth and art and beauty in that. Or, on the contrary, in the midst of putative peace, you could, like me, be unfortunate enough to stumble on a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.

Today, perhaps more so than in any other era in history, the writer’s right to free speech is guarded and defended by the civil societies and state establishments of the most powerful countries in the world. Any overt attempt to silence or muffle a voice is met with furious opposition. The writer is embraced and protected. This is a wonderful thing. The writer, the actor, the musician, the filmmaker—they have become radiant jewels in the crown of modern civilization. The artist, I imagine, is finally as free as he or she will ever be. Never before have so many writers had their books published. (And now, of course, we have the Internet.) Never before have we been more commercially viable. We live and prosper in the heart of the marketplace. True, for every so-called success there are hundreds who “fail.” True, there are myriad art forms, both folk and classical, myriad languages, myriad cultural and artistic traditions that are being crushed and cast aside in the stampede to the big bumper sale in Wonderland. Still, there have never been more writers, singers, actors, or painters who have become influential, wealthy superstars. And they, the successful ones, spawn a million imitators, they become the torchbearers, their work becomes the benchmark for what art is, or ought to be.

Nowadays in India the scene is almost farcical. Following the recent commercial success of some Indian authors, Western publishers are desperately prospecting for the next big Indo-Anglian work of fiction. They’re doing everything short of interviewing English-speaking Indians for the post of “writer.” Ambitious middle-class parents who, a few years ago, would only settle for a future in Engineering, Medicine, or Management for their children, now hopefully send them to creative writing schools. People like myself are constantly petitioned by computer companies, watch manufacturers, even media magnates to endorse their products. A boutique owner in Bombay once asked me if he could “display” my book The God of Small Things (as if it were an accessory, a bracelet or a pair of earrings) while he filmed me shopping for clothes! Jhumpa Lahiri, the American writer of Indian origin who won the Pulitzer Prize, came to India recently to have a traditional Bengali wedding. The wedding was reported on the front page of national newspapers.

Now where does all this lead us? Is it just harmless nonsense that’s best ignored? How does all this ardent wooing affect our art? What kind of lenses does it put in our spectacles? How far does it remove us from the world around us?

There is very real danger that this neoteric seduction can shut us up far more effectively than violence and repression ever could. We have free speech. Maybe. But do we have Really Free Speech? If what we have to say doesn’t “sell,” will we still say it? Can we? Or is everybody looking for Things That Sell to say? Could writers end up playing the role of palace entertainers? Or the subtle twenty-first-century version of court eunuchs attending to the pleasures of our incumbent CEOs? You know—naughty, but nice. Risqué perhaps, but not risky. It has been nearly four years now since my first, and so far only, novel, The God of Small Things, was published. In the early days, I used to be described—introduced—as the author of an almost freakishly “successful” (if I may use so vulgar a term) first book. Nowadays I’m introduced as something of a freak myself. I am, apparently, what is known in twenty-first-century vernacular as a “writer-activist.” (Like a sofa-bed.)

Why am I called a “writer-activist” and why—even when it’s used approvingly, admiringly—does that term make me flinch? I’m called a writer-activist because after writing The God of Small Things I wrote three political essays: “The End of Imagination,” about India’s nuclear tests, “The Greater Common Good,” about Big Dams and the “development” debate, and “Power Politics: The Reincarnation of Rumpelstiltskin,” about the privatization and corporatization of essential infrastructure like water and electricity. Apart from the building of the temple in Ayodhya, these currently also happen to be the top priorities of the Indian government.4

Now, I’ve been wondering why it should be that the person who wrote The God of Small Things is called a writer, and the person who wrote the political essays is called an activist. True, The God of Small Things is a work of fiction, but it’s no less political than any of my essays. True, the essays are works of nonfiction, but since when did writers forgo the right to write nonfiction?

My thesis—my humble theory, as we say in India—is that I’ve been saddled with this double-barreled appellation, this awful professional label, not because my work is political but because in my essays, which are about very contentious issues, I take sides. I take a position. I have a point of view. What’s worse, I make it clear that I think it’s right and moral to take that position, and what’s even worse, I use everything in my power to flagrantly solicit support for that position. Now, for a writer of the twenty-first century, that’s considered a pretty uncool, unsophisticated thing to do. It skates uncomfortably close to the territory occupied by political party ideologues—a breed of people that the world has learned (quite rightly) to mistrust. I’m aware of this. I’m all for being circumspect. I’m all for discretion, prudence, tentativeness, subtlety, ambiguity, complexity. I love the unanswered question, the unresolved story, the unclimbed mountain, the tender shard of an incomplete dream. Most of the time.

But is it mandatory for a writer to be ambiguous about everything? Isn’t it true that there have been fearful episodes in human history when prudence and discretion would have just been euphemisms for pusillanimity? When caution was actually cowardice? When sophistication was disguised decadence? When circumspection was really a kind of espousal?

Isn’t it true, or at least theoretically possible, that there are times in the life of a people or a nation when the political climate demands that we—even the most sophisticated of us—overtly take sides? I believe that such times are upon us. And I believe that in the coming years intellectuals and artists in India will be called upon to take sides.

Arundhati Roy, The Ladies Have Feelings, So . . . Shall We Leave It to the Experts? (Based on a talk given at the Third Annual Eqbal Ahmad Lecture, Amherst, Massachusetts, February 15, 2001; compiled in The End of Imagination)

[professor-hall-blog]

P&S Blog Post-Sniffen

Earlier in the semester we read the Apology of Socrates, which is not an apology in the modern sense. It is a defense made by Socrates as he was put on trial for both past and current accusations at the time, and was recorded by a student of his, Plato. In his defense, Socrates posed many values and virtues that he followed. These virtues in some sense, directly oppose the values of the Athenian citizen, but also correlated to them. This is due to the fact that Socrates values were the ends to the Athenians means. Because of the conflict between these values, and thus the teachings that Socrates gave about his values, it lead to very tense conflict and disagreements between him and some very well-regarded Athenians. Although revered as a place of higher learning and thought, not all thought was supported in Athens, which is in part why Socrates was prosecuted as such. Although he was later recognized in great achievement for thought, this was well after he was executed. His first prosecution was due to the discussions he had with many politicians and craftsmen, who he angered as they felt he acted pretentious and acted above the gods in a blasphemous manner.

I would like to start by discussing the Athenian values we discussed in class, and the ends of each of them, which are Socrates’ values. The Athenian values that Socrates pointed out and we recognized were: life, emotional appeals, money, reputation, and honor. While easily definable, I would like to go over each of these in more depth, and counterpoints to each that Socrates provided. Life was most certainly their greatest value, and they worked to accomplish it no matter the cost to their energy or soul. Their morals were then in support of performing deeds such as lying or stealing in order to prevent a loss of life, even if that may hurt someone else in consequence. Emotional appeals held high over any sort of logical reasoning in the eyes of common Athenians. They used and expected everyone else to use emotional appeal when making a case in an argument in order to win the favor of the other side and/or the jury. An example of this would be if Socrates would have pointed out the burden his family would suffer unjustly if he were to be executed, but Socrates went so far as to point this out and refuse to do it. Next was money, and the possession of it, which was a great motivation for Athenians to work, but not always in the most respectable manner. They wished to accrue the largest amount of money as they saw fit, as they felt this would help to comfort them in feeling successful. Next was reputation, which was something that pointless in Socrates’ eyes, as he felt that the only person’s approval you needed to gain was solely your own. Finally was honor, which was similar to reputation in the sense that the Athenians wanted to gain honor and reputation from other citizens, where in actuality it was actually pointless and defeated the purpose of honor. In Socrates’ view, honor could not be gained if you were seeking for it, but rather only it was accomplished by doing good for the sake of doing good.

Now to look at the endpoint of each of the Athenian values are Socrates’ values: truth, reason, prudence, and quality of soul. Truth was an opposition of life, and Socrates discussed how life is not worth living without truth, which he cleverly proved his case in this trial by putting his life on the line. Next, with reason, Socrates pointed out that this was illogical, and instead used clever and blunt arguments that once again angered those who prosecuted him. But Socrates would rather cling to truth and reason and facts than to ever appeal to emotions in a cowardice sense in his view. Next was prudence, which was in response to the garnering of money that Athenians valued so highly. Socrates stated that this was an easy trap that far too many people fell into and that prudence with money was a much better approach. Finally was quality of soul. This juxtaposed not only reputation but also honor, as attempting to achieve either contradicts the act of it. Socrates argued that if you try to garner respect or honor from your peers, you will never succeed as your intentions are not good and pure. Instead, he said you should work to improve your quality of soul, which intrinsically requires you to do good deeds for the sake that they are good.

Overall, in my own life, I feel that a mixture of both groups of values exist, and help me to live a good life. I value having a good reputation from others and utilize emotional appeal as we are human after all, but I also value being prudent and want a good quality of soul. Truth is very contextual, and I would only be able to look at that case-by-case. In the end, it’s your own life and you get to choose your own morals.

[stormclouds-chainmail]

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Text containing the description of the original 1913 performance.

The opera was originally performed by poorly rehearsed students. The audition announcement read: "Actors, do not bother to come!" Professionalism was the last thing the Futurists needed. Of Matiushin's music the poet and author Kruchenykh was moved to exclaim: "Wonder ful! Outstanding! That's certainly not Tchaikovsky!" Despite the incom prehensibility of the futuristic plot, the audience could not help but be outraged by the general ambience and the language of Kruchenykh's libretto. At times the latter is positively punk: "Scummed up everything even the bone puke." When an actor mistaken for the author yelled out, pointing at the audience, "Only gnawed-at skulls run on just four legs likely these are donkeys' skulls," there were cries of "You're an ass yourself!" At the end of the first performance, in answer to the clamor of the younger members of the audience for a curtain call by the author. the manager of the theater shouted in disgust: "They've already taken him to the madhouse!" In short, Victory over the Sun was a succès de scandale, though its opening night was tamer than that of The Rite of Spring in Paris that same year, where a riot broke out.

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Page 1 of the Declaration of Futurism from the Wikipedia article.

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Text on yellowed paper.

Poesia

Declaration of Futurism

(This declaration has appeared in the Paris "Figaro,, of Feb. 20.)

1. We intend to glorify the love of danger, the custom of energy, the strenght of daring.

2. The essential elements of our poetry will be courage, audacity and revolt.

3. Literature having up to now glorified thoughtful immobility, extasy and slumber, we wish to exalt the agressive movement, the feverish insomnia, running, the perilous leap, the cuff and the blow.

4. We declare that the splendour of the world has been enriched with a new form of beauty, the beauty of speed. A race-automobile adorned whith great pipes like serpents with explosive breath.... a race-automobile which seems to rush over exploding powder is more beautiful than the Victory of Samothrace.

5. We will sing the praises of man holding the fly-wheel of which the ideal steering-post traverses the earth impelled itself around the circuit of its own orbit.

6. The poet must spend himself with warmth brilliancy and prodigality to augment the fervour of the primordial elements.

7- There is no more beauty except in struggle. No master-piece without the stamp of agressiveness. Poetry should be a violent assault against unknown forces to summon them to lie down at the feet of man.

8. We are on the extreme promontory of ages! Why look back since we must break down the mysterious doors of Impossibility? Time and Space died yesterday. We already live in the Absolute for we have already created the omnipresent eternal speed.

9. We will glorify war the only true hygiene of the world. militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of anarchist, the beautiful Ideas which kill, and the scom of woman.

10. We will destroy museums, libraries and fight against moralism, feminism and all utilitarian cowardice.

11. We will sing the great masses agitated by work pleasure or revolt: we will sing the multicoloured and polyphonic surf of revolutions in modern capitals: the nocturnal vibration of arsenals and docks beneath their glaring electric moons: greedy stations devouring smoking serpents: factories hanging from the clouds by the threads of their smoke: bridges like giants gymnasts stepping over sunny rivers sparkling like diabolical cutlery; adventurous steamers scenting the horizon: large breasted locomotives bridled with long tubes, and the slippery flight of aeroplanes whose propeller has flag-like flutterings and applauses of enthusiastic crowds.

It is in Italy that we hurl this overthrowing and inflammatory declaration, with which to-day we found Futurism, for we will free Italy from her numberless museums which cover her with countless cemetries.

Museums, cemetries!... Identical truly, in the sinister promiscousness of so many objects unknown to each other. Public dormitories, where one is for ever slumbering beside hated or unknown beings. Reciprocal ferocity of painters and sculptors murdering each other with blows of form and colour in the same museum.

That a yearly visit be paid there as one visits the grave of dead relatives, once a year!... We are ready to grant it ... That an annual offering of flowers be laid at the feet of the Gioconda, we

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did you know that there was an opera about destroying the sun written and performed in 1913

because there totally was, it’s called “victory over the sun”

Well, I do now.

[sableaire]

Thank you for responding, so my question has to do with mental health in Korea. So I know that s*****e is very common in Korea, but I wonder what the view of mental illness is thought upon. Are there therapist or mental health clinics? Because whenever I watch documentaries the public don't really make it a big interest, is there a reason as to why? It's very obvious as to why people become s****dal but they don't do anything that will directly impact?? (1/?)

one community intervention I had seen was to make hagwons close at 11:30, but that isn't enough? Right? I'm also very curious about what citizens think of mental health? I read this comment that made me upset but then I released 'oh this is probably a korean mindset tho', and it basically implied that if a person is successful they have no reason to be mentally ill or s****dal, and I wonder if there is a reason for that mindset? (2/3)

I know this is a difficult topic and if you don't want to reply that is perfectly okay I even tried to censor out some triggers and stuff, and last thing mapo bridge is definitely one of the most beautiful things I've seen done to try and help people out (3/3)

Korea does have mental health services - I would know, since I volunteered in one back in middle school, ahaha - but the mental health field is still relatively new and not as advanced as those in some other cultures, a situation which is definitely exacerbated by Korea’s cultural history. I will preface this with the fact that I am not a scholar of Korean history, and these are all my personal interpretations of my passive knowledge of Korean history, as a result of living there in my formative years and interacting with generations of my own family. 

As for why the public doesn’t seem to make a big issue of the suicide issue, that’s not necessarily true nowadays - they’re working on it - but part of the reason is because, culturally, families were ashamed of mental illness. 

A strong part of the Korean identity is the concept of overcoming hardship, triumphing over adversity. There’s even a word called han in the language, which is believed to be a special kind of grief and despair that only Korean people can understand, as a result of tumultuous history of occupation and oppression. As a result, suicide was often viewed as a reflection of poor moral character, and people found it shameful. And because it was shameful, it wasn’t a topic to speak of in public. However, with advances in mental health studies and campaigns, this mindset is changing, slowly but surely.

As for the thinking that “successful people have no reason to be mentally ill,” that comes directly from post-Korean War sociopolitical climate. After the Korean War, the Korean economy was in shambles. The administration at the time ran a highly successful campaign about how children are the future, and investing in their education will become the future of the country. And it was true, at the time. Emphasis on education did contribute greatly to Korea’s modern economic success. The consequences of that, however, is the current overemphasis of academic success and overwhelming pressure on modern students.

There’s a generation gap in Korea, like any country, but it may be a particularly large gap in Korea because of the Korean War. Back then, Korean people were focused on survival and keeping their families together. Those are the values that were important to them, and if you were alive, had your family together, and on top of that had the wealth/power/success to support your family? In that generation’s view, you have nothing to complain about. They went through a completely different set of hardships. These are the great-grandparents and some grandparents.

And then there’s the generation raised by that generation, who were raised by traumatized families and live through the following political dictatorship, and also were saddled with the burden of helping the nation find its footing. Korea was a small and weak nation, but the Korean people have a lot of national pride. They had values beyond just survival, but Korean culture has always deeply valued sacrifice, and I personally think - in many ways - this was a generation of sacrifices, for both country and family. They were working to make a better future for their children. This is the generation that scrimped and saved to send their kids to America for a better education, better life. Surely the sacrifices made can’t have been easy, but Korean culture tries to turn sacrifice into pride rather than hardship. And because sacrifice was viewed as something of an achievement, something to be admired, suicide was - as a counterbalance - scorned and viewed as cowardice or a burden.

Then we get to the generation of parents, who may have studied overseas, who saw the start of a Korean economic power, and the start of a globalizing world. They were exposed to western culture, western values. They studied in individualist societies. The concept of sacrifice wasn’t a norm anymore. The concept of sacrifice wasn’t a necessary burden. The country no longer operated under a dictatorship, and it was starting to prosper. Values are starting to change.

And then we have my generation - the tech era - and the internet changed Korea completely. Samsung and LG Electronics were forces to be reckoned with in the global market. The country as a whole is pretty prosperous. We know little fear of war. We have no true conception of the horrors of the Korean War. There’s a kpop boom. Foreign countries know who we are, want to know about our culture. Sacrifice is definitely not something we feel is a necessary part of our lives. 

So, what happens when all these generations are still operating together in one society? The fact of the matter is, society has evolved super quickly, and modern-day students are completely different people from the older generations. However, those older generations still exist, still shape the overall social climate regarding certain issues such as mental health, such as adult responsibilities, such as what makes a good person. No one is right, and no one is wrong. It’s just that the world changes more quickly than people do, and that’s just a fact.

In the past, success was all anyone wanted. It was what would ensure and define survival or family, etc. and the government propaganda towards that mindset was strong too, because individual successes would be what rebuilds the Korean nation after the Korean War, and also what helps distinguish and redefine ourselves after the havoc caused by US intervention.

Nowadays, success is simultaneously unessential to survival and does not ensure survival. The current generation wants to do more than just survive - we want to live, and we want to live life on our terms and pursue and individual idea of happiness. That’s a value that the older generations either cannot understand or envy. It’s a different world, but their thinking, outlook, habits, and lifestyles were developed in the world of the past.

And us younger folk, we’re still being raised by those older generations, so some of us grow up with their mindsets. Most of us start out thinking that mental illness is something shameful, or that suffering as a student and being successful later on is the only way to live life. But we also learn from interacting with the world and our peers that that is not the case. However, the working world and people in power are still the older generation, and over the years the equating of academic success to future success has led academic success to become a matter of social status to families, which adds a new kind of pressure on the younger generations. The people do not change, but social dynamics do, and that’s just how society works.

So it is not that Korean folk do not care about people’s mental health or do not think of suicide as an issue. I whole-heartedly believe that there is a gap between generations that we are still struggling to bridge. However, advances are being made in the mental health industry, and the youth (which includes influential kpop idols!) are growing more outspoken with their views. And on top of that, the older generations are dying out - not necessarily a positive, but it is a fact that will influence social views within the country.

Ultimately, it’s important to understand that the current state of any society is completely shaped by its history. There is sense to any mindset, and though that sense and reasoning may not hold up under modern scrutiny, there was a time in history where it seemed to make sense. 

[rudolf-rokkr]

Heyo. I've been trying to get into more heathenry/norse paganism kinda stuff (what can I say, I love folk metal), but the one thing that's kind of been a damper on the concept for me is the concept of Hel - specifically, how (as I understand it) dying of sickness or old age is a form of cowardice and punishable by eternal torment. Being chronically ill myself, that doesn't really sit right with me. Do you have any thoughts/corrections/resources on this topic in particular?

Thanks for the question. Basically the image of Viking afterlife concepts that has entered popular culture is extremely shallow and not a good representation of what we know believe actually existed. This is a big topic so it’s easy to get lost but I’m gonna try to keep it simple without leaving too much out but feel free to follow up if it seems like I’ve missed something. It’s long so the rest is behind the break.

I’ll start with the major point I want to make and then we’ll fill in the “so what then?” after. The reason you’re disturbed by this is because it’s, at least partially, a recruitment tactic. It’s designed to tempt you to suspend your reason and even if it did apply to your personal situation you’re better off not falling for it.

I know some people find strength in the Valhöll idea and I don’t want to take that away from anyone but my uncensored opinion is that it’s for dupes. It’s full of people who wasted their lives in service to kings who didn’t give a shit about them, who used them to gain rule over them. Óðinn isn’t vetting them for bravery, he’s vetting them for certain personality traits that are bad for self-preservation but good for early proto-state-formation. That’s why it’s the afterlife we find out about from Snorri. He was a court poet, trying to piece back together a cosmology from shreds of court poetry that extolled the virtues of fearlessly taking an axe to the face in defense of your favored tyrant. Frankly, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to go to an afterlife where you have to die every day. I think this was more of a prestige factor among the living than an actual hope for the afterlife. I could be wrong though since the primary audience of such a myth would have been, like, 18-year-old kids hopped up on adrenaline, having just left the family farm for the first time in their lives, suddenly being adorned in gold and addressed by kings and making their first kills and drinking unending ale. Frat boys to whom the world is suddenly open (note that we’re mostly talking about higher class people anyway because they’re the ones who could afford weapons, so the world was already more open to them than others). Like the primary source for details about Valhöll is Vafþrúðnismál which rather likely was performed before an audience of these young, drunk warriors far from home (see Terry Gunnell for theories about performance of Eddic poetry).

So yeah, I could see them falling for this, or thinking it sounds appealing, or whatever. But at the same time I doubt anyone would have admitted out loud that killing each other all day every day for eternity would be awful (in fact it sounds a bit like the Buddhist hell Sañjīva but with good food). If it’s a real thing its full of people who can’t admit they’ve longed for Niflhel for centuries. 

That isn’t to say it can’t be a legitimate belief as well, just that this is its primary social function from the perspective of our sources. I’m sure that another motivating factor for the preservation and distribution of this belief is that those promising 18-year-olds also had families back home and maybe wives and kids and they were supposed to come home from exploiting the Karelians for the King’s tribute to take care of all this, and the pain of such a loss is made somewhat more mild by believing that these individuals have been called to the higher purpose of preserving the cosmic order. Not saying I agree, just that I get it.

(Note that in reality we have substantial evidence that the actual motivating factor for at least some “Viking” warriors wasn’t a glorious afterlife but rather they were mercenaries and maybe not even locals).

Now onto the next point. In Gylfaginning Snorri says that Óðinn decides where people go when they die and that good (siðaðir, literally more like ‘ethical’ I guess) people go to Vingólf or Gimlé (note: not the same as Valhöll; this might be where Snorri thinks good people who aren’t killed in battle go) and that bad people go first to Hel and then to Nifhel. The problem is that he’s full of shit. This isn’t corroborated anywhere. We can put the “full of shit” onus on Snorri the Christian who believed literally in an all-powerful God and Heaven and Hell, or we can put it Snorri’s depiction of Óðinn as Hárr/Jafnhárr/Þriði lying to Gylfi, but either way it’s obviously wrong and easily refuted.

For one thing there’s nothing moral about it. It’s just down to the manner of death. The greatest hero of Germanic mythology, Sigurðr Fáfnisbani, went to hel because he was killed in his sleep or stabbed in the back. And we know he went to hel because Brynhildr committed suicide in order to follow him. And according to skaldic poetry, King Hákon góði went to Valhöll despite not even being heathen because he died in glorious battle.

Grímnismál says that Freyja gets half the slain warriors; Þorgerðr Egilsdóttir (who is not a warrior) in Egils saga expresses expectation that she’ll spend the afterlife with Freyja. In Hárbarðsljóð Hárbarðr (Óðinn) makes fun of Þórr because he receives slaves into his halls rather than rulers like Óðinn does. Snorri himself tells us that Gefjun receives those who die as unmarried women which doesn’t apply to your situation but is another hole in the Valhöll/Hel paradigm. He also says that Rán (the sea-gýgr) takes those who die by drowning, which is corroborated by Eyrbyggja saga (chapter 54, when the drowned men show up to their own funeral, perpetually dripping wet).

Meanwhile, other than very specific parts of it that might be designated for people marked for obliteration from existence (this is based on lines in Vafþrúðnismál describing Niflhel as the place “whence men die out of hel,” what precisely that means is not obvious), we don’t have much reason to believe Helheimr is really so bad. Hel herself seems to thrive on death and decay and all that but I mean, it’s the world of the dead, that kind of seems to make sense and we can’t frame it according to our perspective as the living. On the other hand though, most of our evidence actually points to the world of the dead having a relatively strong sense of continuity with the world of the living. That seems to be why people were buried with their stuff – they weren’t done using it. 

Whether or not we should place Glæsisvellir or Ódáinsakr in the “world of the dead” (they get an association with Jötunheimar in some sources – it’s not clear if this is part of the Euhemerizing process where mythological places are mapped to geographical locations, or if Jötunheimar was part of the “world of the dead”) is unclear. Glæsisvellir ‘shining fields’ are a sort of “otherworld” more like what you normally see in Gaelic myth and legend that tend to show up a bit later in Norse mythology but seems to possibly play on things that show up as early as Ahmad ibn Fadlan’s description of the Rus’. It’s pretty much Valhöll for peaceful people. Ódáinsakr is a place within Glæsisvellir where there is no death and everything comes back to life. They’re usually ruled over by a very benevolent and hospitable jötunn named Guðmundr or Goðmundr (though split from the same origin, guð is used more for the Christian god and goð more for heathen ones, so calling him Goðmundr is marking him as heathen). Basically it seems to be Norse Elysium.

Finally, the afterlife that has the most support from the Íslendinga sögur, which means it’s probably the best reflection of the day-to-day beliefs of average people during the Viking age is some kind of continued existence in the landscape. The most clear description is in Eyrbyggja saga wherein it’s seen that the mountain Helgafell opens up to receive Þorsteinn þorskabítr and his companions; the mountain contained a whole hall full of people with fires burning and horns blowing and everything to welcome Þorsteinn. It was later discovered that Þorsteinn had drowned (note that this is the same saga I mentioned before where drowned sailors go to Rán).

Some scholars think that this is actually the origin of Hel and Valhöll. That they were just the continued existence of the dead, basically underground or living in rocks or other natural formations (like the elves do in Icelandic folklore). The abstraction of Hel and Valhöll from geographical location might have been part of the universalization/mobilization that some scholars propose for the development of the Óðinn cult (see: Tracing Old Norse Cosmology by Anders Andrén).

We also see a sort of double-afterlife in Helgakviða Hundingsbana II (a.k.a. Völsungakviða in forna) wherein Helgi has some kind of mobility between his burial mound and Valhöll… and then is later reincarnated.

Reincarnation pops up a couple times in Norse lore, this aforementioned poem being one of them. It actually says:

Þat var trúa í forneskju, at menn væri endrbornir, en þat er nú kölluð kerlingavilla.

‘It was a belief in heathen times that men would be reborn, but that is now called an old wives’ tale.’

It’s also implied in Flateyjarbók that Saint Ólafr is the reincarnation of an old heathen king who was worshiped as an elf in death, Ólafr Guðrøðarson (Ólafr Geirstaðaálfr). I did a post about reincarnation on my other blog that covers a lot of the same ground as this post.

Reincarnation is also a more or less fixed part of Urglaawe, a variant of modern heathenism focusing on the experience of the Pennsylvania Dutch (although these other afterlives are as well – just part of a process that ultimately results in reincarnation. To my mind such a view is perfectly compatible with everything else I’ve mentioned above).

The Wild Hunt does not factor much into Norse mythology but we have a pretty good idea that the concept was around based on its appearance in later folklore and its general wide spread across world cultures. It could possibly be related to the Valhöll afterlife concept, perhaps among a different class of people. We are pretty sure, for example, that Óðinn was popular in Denmark before Christianization and we are not able to connect him clearly to a ruling class like we are able to do with Norway (largely because of a general lack of literary sources for heathenism for that time or place). While no evidence compels us to do so, we have room for envisioning an Óðinn-centric afterlife that is not Valhöll, nor restricted to the upper classes. I mean he’s clearly a “god of the upper classes” but he’s no less a wandering hobo.

Anyway, the point so far is that there are lots of alternatives to the “Viking heaven” vs. “Viking hell” bullshit. This is probably not exhaustive and it partially conflicts. That isn’t surprising given that there is no centralized heathen authority and what we’re actually talking about is a huge variety of religious ideas that circulated differently along localities, social classes, time periods, social contexts, etc.

If we can point to something underlying all of this, it’s that there was believed to be some kind of continuity between life, manner of death, and afterlife. People dying in battle and going to Valhöll is, to my mind, an extension of this. “Those who die violently have a violent afterlife.” Whether or not that’s good will depend on the person, I’d imagine. Those who die in illness (and remember that there was a relationship between illness and trolls and elves or other unclean or vengeful spirits) may unfortunately find themselves in an afterlife characterized by fever and coughing and other unpleasant things. However the afterlife also seems negotiable, fluid, and furthermore determined at least partially by the activities of the survivors. When Ahmad ibn Fadlan attended a Rus’ funeral one of the Rus’ made fun of him because to him, the Muslim practice of burying the dead meant that the deceased would have to lie there in the ground while they decomposed, as opposed to the Rus’ who were cremated and thereby went immediately to the gods (by the way both burial and cremation happened under heathenism, so this is clear evidence of discontinuous religious belief among heathens and that we can’t call it “one” “religion.” Snorri associated burial and cremation with the cults of Freyr and Óðinn respectively in Ynglinga saga but of course he didn’t have all the archaeological evidence we do so we shouldn’t take that as necessarily true, but it’s interesting that he knew about both). We also see worship of the dead in the sources as the dead were considered to continue to have contact with the world of the living, for example by influencing crop yields and local weather patterns. Snorri’s Euhemerized history of the kings of Scandinavia exploits this to explain how the human king Freyr became a god – he was a human king who died and was worshiped as an ancestor at first before being reanalyzed as a god in the popular tradition. Though maybe not with Freyr specifically, this probably actually happened, even if more strictly localized, like in Vita Anskarii wherein it’s said that a certain King Erik was accepted by the gods as one of them when he died.

This is why I can’t help but think of Valhöll as “if you spend your life bootlicking you’ll spend death doing the same.” Indeed, even in the old sources, hierarchy in human society is replicated in Valhöll when Helgi Hundingsbani goes there and humiliates Hundingr by ordering him around.

We might also gain some insight by comparing other cultures that share beliefs in common with the pre-Christian Norse.  Though close reading of literature and comparative religion most people believe that the Norse did not believe in a single soul but rather something of a personal complex. We see this in other circumpolar cultures that also recognize things like the World Tree, ancestor worship, nature spirits, etc – that doesn’t mean we can just lift ideas from these other cultures but they do give real-life examples of how these abstract concepts can work in day-to-day life. Personally I have been very inspired by and influenced by Buryat Mongol belief and custom, especially because they themselves are often eager to share (reminder that it not being strictly “closed” does not mean that inappropriate appropriation is not possible). Buryat Mongols recognize three “souls,” each of which go their separate ways at death. One becomes a nature spirit, one which goes to the underworld and is eventually reincarnated, and another which becomes a bird on the world tree which is also eventually reincarnated (but, if I understand correctly, not along with the soul which had gone to the underworld). Among many such cultures going to the gods in the afterlife is a possibility, but a major exception to the norm. The reason I find this so interesting for this conversation is that if the Norse believed something similar, it would explain why our sources are in such conflict, how people can be going to Hel and living in the mound at the same time, how Helgi Hundingsbani can go to Valhöll and be reincarnated, etc. If you’re interested in learning more about Buryat Mongol belief try the site I already linked and also the works of anthropologist Katherine Swancutt (note that the families she stayed with had complete agency in determining what and how she would share what she learned… she talks a lot about this in Fortune and the Cursed: The Sliding Scale of Time in Mongolian Divination).

This next part is gonna be even more opinionated than what I’ve already written. I think it’s tempting to believe that people get what they deserve in death. That people who are treated unfairly in life are compensated in death and that those who were unfair themselves get their comeuppance. But to my mind heathenism lacks a mechanism for identifying or producing desert. That means it’s up to us, the living, and maybe those dead who continue to exert an influence on the world of the living, to vindicate those who were oppressed, or robbed of a good death; and to mitigate the legacy of unfairness. I do not believe that “the universe” or “wyrd” or whatever punishes wrongdoing – not because it wouldn’t be nice but because how exactly is that supposed to even happen? Do we really want to rely on gods who often act immorally themselves and use their supernatural abilities to exert their wills, to judge us? We might ask for their help, but we shouldn’t leave it in their hands. It would be great to take the burden off of ourselves but for better or worse, that’s where the burden is. This concept is a major spiritual informant to my belief in social justice, it’s (among many other things) a way to achieve a symbolic (and restorative, rather than retributive) equivalent to the social role of blood vengeance, for people who faced oppression. And what’s more, if we’re prepared to accept the possibility of reincarnation, then it actually is helping ourselves as well as our dearly departed awaiting rebirth in the underworld to make the world a better place for future generations.

Finally the last thing I want to say is that all of this is just theory. Not believing it doesn’t make you not heathen. We don’t have a Bible, there is no centralized authority, nobody living a thousand+ years ago was totally sure what happened in death – the lore we have received is just whatever models they came up with that best explained their experiences (probably especially mystical experiences of religious specialists, but still) and informed their behavior. For that matter, plenty of this shit is probably Christian speculation about what heathens believed anyway. If you have reason to believe otherwise it isn’t “un-heathen” to trust in your own ability to reason. Like, I think I did an alright job of framing my distaste for Valhöll in heathen discourse which just means it’s a productive set of religious beliefs that’s capable of autocritique. A person can’t possibly read the sagas and conclude that everyone agreed with each other all the time; variation, dissent, and creativity are generally speaking all good signs.

Hope this helps.

P.S. I know there are a lot of people who see entrance to Valhöll being granted to anyone engaging in struggle, whether physical or otherwise. I don’t agree, and if you’ve read this far you know I haven’t factored it into my understanding at all. But I don’t necessarily have a problem with it. I think it comes down to the active conception of “violence.” I do not believe that violence is strictly an act of causing physical damage to a person or object in a single event. I think that rearranging Valhöll to conform to a modern conception of violence that also includes systematic oppression is a literally incorrect way to interpret it according to Old Norse religion – but fuck it, my opinion of Valhöll is low as shit, so do whatever you want for all I care.