"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
"You know, I used to think it was awful that life was so unfair. Then I thought, wouldn't it be much worse if life were fair, and all the terrible things that happen to us come because we actually deserve them? So, now I take great comfort in the general hostility and unfairness of the universe."
Perhaps Aron's geas is "Never touch weapons", which poses a problem for a medieval royal who was expected to at least hold his own in battle. Nobody using weapons in his presence, or carrying anything on their person more deadly than a knife or a dress sword (neither of which can be drawn in his presence) would be awkward at best.
And of course the young woman to whom he is engaged (in an arranged marriage) turns out to be a major bad*** when the chips are down -- not just brave but resourceful and clever. She has to outwit the Sidhe Queen who has him imprisoned in lifelong slumber, and is more than up to the task.
On my screen, it has a link to watch the video on YouTube. The NFL probably wants better view tracking, so they're posting it on their own sites and want to avoid third-party posts like the link to this board.
LSD didn't exist in the 1870s. But Charles Dodgson, who wrote under a pseudonym to preserve his academic credibility, did have issues. Most infamously he had a hobby of taking nude photographs of pre-pubescent girls, for "artistic" purposes. At the time, it was considered odd but not the obscenity it is viewed as today. He reportedly insisted upon there being a chaperone at all times. (On a personal note, one of my first teachers when I went to high school at a habit of drawing nudes of teenage boys. The TV program in which he taught even did a piece for the announcement show praising his artistry. That may have been his downfall, as he suddenly disappeared from the school in the middle of the first semester.)
To get back on topic, Alex in Wonderland would not be that different, since Alice was portrayed as too young for gender to be a concern (and not even Dodgson would have thought otherwise at the time). Still, other.later artists, including Alan Moore and The Martian author Andy Weir, had their own views on the subject. Moore described an Alice who had been raped repeatedly during her stay in Wonderland. Weir, in his short-lived welcoming Cheshire Crossing, did not specify much of what happened on her sojourn, but Alice viewed her time in Wonderland as a sort of damnation (she insists on things making sense, and in Wonderland nothing makes sense)..
Samson's hair was long because he had taken a religious vow not to cut it -- any of it, ever. His hair symbolized his obedience. When his libido got the better of him and he confided in an enemy spy, it was viewed as an affront and he lost his power. The lesson is to be careful who to trust, and also not to tick off omnipotent beings with a grudge.
I find it odd that movies about Samson usually portray him with short hair (or whatever style the actor normally uses). Samson was extremely hairy. He didn't get haircuts, he didn't shave, he probably didn't bathe all that often -- to modern eyes, he would look a mess. Since there were quite a few Hebrews who took vows like his, he wouldn't look quite so odd to them.
It's my understanding that drug addiction is generally a symptom rather than a cause. For instance, you've probably heard about how addictive heroin is; why, that rat in the classic experiment kept pressing the lever for another hit at the expense of eating! Well, a critical detail that scientists failed to consider the first time around is that rats are intelligent and social animals, and THOSE rats were kept in a tiny, empty cage all alone. They were in solitary confinement; no wonder they turned to drugs to ease the pain of their existence. When the experiment was repeated, with the critical difference of providing the rats with a large habitat with enrichment features and, most importantly, other rats to socialize with . . . the heroin wasn't a big deal to them.
It's largely the same with humans. When you find a human who has a crippling substance addiction problem, you'll probably find that they have significant mental/emotional needs that aren't being met. The way to minimize drug abuse is to provide better community connections, and better health care, both physical and mental.
The Gnomes showed the prince to a cave that offered some shelter, showed him how to make a fire to keep away the beasts and cook the food they brought to him, and the more they looked upon him, the more they found him fair and wished to care for him.
And as for the queen, the prince's mother, when it became obvious that the prince was somehow lost (for the king had been clever and none had seen the prince depart) she grew ill with grief - although some whispered that the king was slowly poisoning her, for despite his fair face there were those who grew suspicious of him. Just as a corpse left in a closet will reveal itself by the stench given time, a foul heart will become known whatever cheery and pious face is put on it. The wicked king put it about that the lost prince must have been carried away by Gnomes, and for fear of offending him people pretended to believe that - although some muttered that the king had probably called up the Gnomes with his wicked arts and bid them to bear the boy away. For, too, it had been noted by some how many of the books the king had added to the royal library were upon thaumaturgical subjects, and in fact he was a dabbler in such things.
And so it was that when the queen at last passed away, between those who loved him for his fair face and charming manners, and those who feared him, there was none to oppose the wicked king even though by the kingdom's laws he was not in line to inherit, having sired no child upon the queen. Soon he delighted the knights by frequent tournaments and jousts, and enriched the armorers by setting them busily to crafting weapons, and disturbed the church by drawing away stonemasons who had been at work on a new cathedral and sending them to border outposts to make and repair fortifications. And he brought worry to many who noted that these are the acts of a monarch planning for war.
But a guilty heart is never at peace, and the time came when he went into a certain secret chamber to consult the brazen head that he had long used as his oracle and advisor. Carefully he lit and placed the candles and the incense, and chanted the spell that would awaken the brazen head, and asked "What most threatens my power? Tell me so that I may move to defend myself and eliminate the threat."
And the thing of brass spoke in a voice of brass to say "Were the True King found again, noble and peasant alike would rise against you to enthrone him."
"What 'True king'?" asked the king, "am not I the truest king in this land?"
"It is not crown and throne that makes a king" said the brazen head, "But a land's laws, and by the law, the queen's son became king upon her death."
At this the wicked king grew wrathful, for he knew now that Prince Comely yet lived. "I had thought that one dead" said the king, "I must kill him myself this time! Who is hiding him?"
"Seven little women of the woodlands," said the brazen head, "liar though you are, you have told the truth by accident; he is hidden and protected by Gnomes."
And now the king added to the incense the dried herb that would make the brazen head sleep again, for he thought he knew all he needed now. And calling for the woman he had meant for the prince's assassin, he declared that she would lead him to where she had last seen the beautiful young man. "I swore never to speak of that" she said, "Would you have me be forsworn now?" But soon she was persuaded, and played along as the king announced to the court that he meant to venture in the forest, with but a single companion "For I would not wish to risk more lives than I must," in order to "find the Gnomes who are holding our beloved Prince, and rescue him, or if they have already done with him, return his mortal remains for proper royal burial!" He intended no such thing of course, but as few could imagine his true intention, he was roundly cheered for what he said.
And so it was the king and his minion, two along but well supplied, went abroad in the wilderness. And in her heart the woodswoman was thinking "Again I go into the forest with a royal person, and if I have my way, again I will emerge alone." For gold may buy bloody deeds, and even silence, but gold will not buy love, and this woman had no love for the king she obeyed, but only a fear that he would slay her if he learned she had not killed the prince with her own hands. And great as the fear was a rage against him for sending her to kill an Innocent, and a rage at herself for she held herself guilty of the prince's blood.
She was able to find the spot she had last seen the prince, and she searched for his bones but found none of course. The king meanwhile was looking about for Gnomes, but such are more often sought than seen; I doubt you can claim to have seen one, but I would not be surprised if more than one Gnome has seen you while you remained ignorant of their presence. When she at last confessed that she could find no trace of the prince, the king drew his sword and said "Then your use to me is ended. And I know you lied about killing the prince. Somewhere in this wilderness he yet lives, and I shall find him well enough without your assistance."
And she drew her knife, a good sturdy blade but no equal to a king's sword, and grinned fiercely and said "If only I could believe that the Innocent Man does live! But you ordered him killed and I, I left him to die here and his bones have been scattered by the forest beasts. Whichever of us kills the other, I am content!"
The king strode towards his erstwhile minion swiftly and deliberately, but a little woman rose from the grass and seized his ankle, causing him to fall. six more such little women leaped from unsuspected hiding places and belabored him with sticks, then scattered before he could get his hands under himself to rise up. The woodswoman merely gaped, for she had never suspected the clearing to be full of Gnomes. One of the Gnomes urged the woodswoman to run, saying "Come, let us away from this horrible person!" and the rest fled in a body in a different direction. The king rose and in his confusion, went crashing through the woods in yet another direction that he imagined the Gnomes to have gone in, thinking this would lead him to his true quarry, the missing prince.
And, just as a liar may tell the truth by accident, so his error led him to what he desired, for he broke free into a clearing just as the lovely young man was entering it to gather up some of the wildflowers, helping the Gnomes - for it is their business, among other things, to take the brilliant colors out of flowers and take those hues under the ground to hide them away to become gemstones. He wore a garment of the broad leaves of many trees, cleverly sewn together by the Gnomes with threads woven of spider web, but the wicked king knew who it was for surely no one else could have made that outlandish outfit seem so beautiful. The king drew his sword, and noted that the young man still bore the sword he had carried when he came into the forest.
"Hello son" said the king, "Tell me, although you bear a sword as mark of rank, did I ever have you trained at all in its use?"
"No, step-father" said the lovely prince, "you said always there would be knights to defend me and I had no need to learn such things."
"I lied" said the wicked king, and abruptly thrust.
To his shock, the young prince parried the thrust and stepped back warily.
"When did you learn swordplay?" asked the king, before again dancing forward to thrust viciously.
The prince parried and again retreated, and because it was his usual habit to answer questions put to him, he said "There are Elves in the forest, and they have taught me many things."
"Did they teach you to always watch behind you?" said the king and thrust again, and the beautiful one fell backwards, for the crafty king had maneuvered him right up to and over a cliff. Standing there and looking down at the body below, that wicked man mused aloud "Well, should I go fetch the body and drag it back to fulfill my promise and show the world you are at last dead, or will it be enough to return empty handed and swearing I searched and searched and found naught?"
And then the kind screamed and fell backwards, away from the cliff, for a Gnome had come up behind him and cut him behind the knees. "I have a better idea" said a small high pitched voice, "Why don't you just die here in the forest and not go back at all?" The wicked king looked up and saw seven little women facing him bearing blades of black obsidian, one dripping red with the king's blood already. Their faces were grim and behind them the woodswoman stared, white faced, for she had seen the innocent prince go over.
"Spare my life!" cried the wicked king in terror.
"You have destroyed our great Treasure, the Beautiful Man" said one of the Gnomes, "Do you think we will let you walk out of this wilderness now?"
"Do not think we will let you walk away, or even crawl away, for you will not walk on those legs again" said another.
"Spare my life!" cried the wicked king in terror.
"The Innocent Man lived, until YOU killed him!" cried the woodswoman, and she leapt over the heads of the Gnomes and went to stand at the edge, looking down at the body below.
"Spare my life!" cried the wicked king in terror.
And at that the little women who had been creeping towards him remorselessly all became very quiet and stared at him wide eyed, for he had said the same thing now three times, and three is a very important number to Gnomes.
"Your life will be spared" said one of the Gnomes, "But we will see you suffer."
"I must go and fetch him" said the woodswoman, preparing to scramble down the cliff. "His body must return to his people, to be properly buried."
"What good will that do?" said a Gnome, "That will not bring him back."
As she lowered herself the woodswoman paused to glare at that Gnome. "He was an Innocent" she hissed, "And his people loved him, and he deserves better than that his corpse be devoured by wolves and his bones scatterred!"
"His people love him" said the Gnome, "And you love him." It was not a question and the woodswoman did not answer.
The wicked king tried to rise to his feet, and screamed, for of course his legs would not support him and were in agony. "What is to become of me?" he moaned.
"Nothing good" promised the little women who now surrounded him. "For you have done us no good, but only evil." And they discussed openly before him various punishments, but decided to wait for "She who loved the Beautiful Man" before making a decision.
"HE LIVES!" came the cry from the foot of the clifff, "The Innocent One breathes, but oh, his body is so broken!"
The Gnomes stared at each other, and one leapt over the cliff, drifting down like a leaf, and called up to the others "It is true! The Beautiful Man lives, but is dying!"
"At last, you will do us some good, o wicked man!" said one of the little women, and she reached into his body, her hand passing through flesh and ribs as if they were so much smoke, and touched his heart. The wicked king gasped and cried out, for no one had ever touched his heart before. The Gnomes made a living chain, joining hands, and one by one they went over the cliff, floating down, and their arms growing absurdly long to keep them all in contact, a chain of Gnomes leading back to the living body of the wicked king, until they touched hands with the Gnome who remained with the beautiful prince. The weeping woodswoman was amazed as her beloved prince began to heal, as the Gnomes drew off life from the wicked king to work their healing magic on the one they called their Treasure. At last he rose from the stones on which he had been broken, and gazed about in wonder.
"The Innocent Man lives!" rejoiced the woodsman, seizing him and kissing him. When at last she let go, stepping back and blushing hard as if she had been the one grabbed and kissed, he shook his head and said he was not innocent.
"I have kissed someone and felt desire" he said, and gave her a look that made her shiver. "I have raised my hand in my own defense. And..." He looked up the cliff at this point, "I have looked into the eyes of someone coming at me to kill me. I will never be innocent again."
"You are a Good Man" said she who loved him.
He clenched his fist and said "Were that wicked king here before me now, gladly would I see his blood spilled on the forest floor!"
"You are a Good Man" said she who loved him.
He stopped and looked at her and said "I would hope to be a good man."
"You are a Good Man" said she who loved him.
And he stared at her wide eyed, for she had said the same thing three times, and he had lived among Gnomes, and three is a special number to Gnomes.
"I am a good man" he agreed, and resolved to always be so. And then "What of the king, my stepfather?"
And the little women, who had scampered up the cliff to check on that very person, called down that he was up there, lame and weak, but still very much alive. The mortals climbed the cliff and saw the wicked king, who had raised himself on an elbow and, scraping away leaves and detritus, had cleared a patch of earth and was with a stick inscribing circles and symbols into the dirt. "He is working some spell!" cried the woodswoman, who hurried to sweep away his work with her foot. The wicked king began then to weep helplessly.
"That wasn't going to work" reassured one of the little women.
"He meant to call a demon" said another, "but there is not enough force left in him for such a thing to even notice him. we have drained him away to preserve the Beautiful Man."
"Look at him!" said yet another of the Gnomes, and the two mortals looked and saw an old man, lamed, hands atremble and eyes clouded with age, once lustrous hair gone colorless gray, the once noble face saggy and wrinkled. "He must suffer for having attacked the Beautiful Man, and we have promised to spare his life - but make him regret living. What shall we do?"
"He was an ambitious man" said the Beautiful Man, "but no one will believe that this old scarecrow of a man is the king. He cannot return to reclaim his power, from the look of him he could barely hold a sword, and you say even his demons will pay him no heed, drained as he is. That is a suitable punishment."
"He was a vain man" said the woodswoman, "and his beauty is gone as the greenness is gone from a dry autumn leaf. Oh, how he will suffer now!"
"But I am the king! I am a great wizard!" cried the wicked man who had been a false king, and beat his hands helplessly on the ground.
"But I am the king! I am a great wizard!" cried the wicked man who had been a false king, and shouted curses from the fringes of the crowd at the true king's coronation.
"But I am the king! I am a great wizard!" cried the wicked man who had been a false king, and wept on the fringes of the crowd come to see the king marry the woman who had rescued him from the Gnomes.
And because that wicked man had said the same thing three times, and the Gnomes had been watching and counting, they came and carried him away from the habitations of men, and set him on a hard boulder they called his throne, and brought him bitter herbs and mud pies when he called for a feast, and screeched and howled abominably when he called for entertainment, but most delighted in deceiving him with illusions when he thought to cast some spell, always showing him either spectacular failure or an illusion of his intention manifesting in the most ridiculous or ineffectual way possible. At last in his madness he mixed up what he said was a potion to restore his youth and beauty, and that time they brought him a true mirror in which he saw himself as he truly was, and that is when he groaned and died. His body was left for the beasts to devour and to scatter his bones, and the Gnomes were just as pleased, for they had begun to tire of him.
As for the Beautiful King and his loving wife, I would like to say they lived happily ever after, but neither he nor you nor I are truly innocent enough to believe that. Of course there was trouble when he announced his marriage plans, and counselors and nobles objected to this elevation of a woman of dubious character and whose ancestry was at best of a minor house, but after hearing many objections the King rose at the head of the conference table and silenced all by the steel in his voice as he said "I am sure you want a good man as king. With her at my side, I WILL BE A GOOD MAN. With her I can never be other than my best self. She IS the best queen you can hope for, for she will make me the best possible king. The matter is settled." And between the hard look in his eyes, and the even harder look in hers, there were none who chose to unsettle that matter. Indeed, ever after if anyone gave the king too much grief on any matter, or any seemed to have abused the king's trust or worked some mischief, it was the king's custom to say "perhaps I will take things up with Her Majesty" and that settled a good many matters. The rumors of things she had done before meeting her husband never died away, and in truth, she did not discourage them either. It pleased her to think that any who would not behave for love of the king, might behave from fear of the queen.
And the royal couple were not always blissful, for he was no longer innocent but sometimes a fool, and as for her, she was for a long time jealous of all women more beautiful than herself or more highly born, and that included almost all the women of the court. It was a long time before the king figured out why women had stopped looking at him directly or meeting his eye, and when he at last got the truth from a certain countess he said "Excuse me my lady. I must go decide if I will be angry at my wife the queen, or burst out laughing at her." And there was the time a queen came against them in war, because she meant to conquer and marry by force the most beautiful of men, but that's another long story we needn't relate. Doubts faded as they grew old together, and perhaps some of passion faded, but he never stopped striving to be a good man, a good husband, and a good king, and always his queen had his back. And their children, in time, were taken to meet the Gnomes and befriend them, and being loved and well taught, they grew up as good people and as the king and queen grew ever older, took on more and more of the burden of governing.
So perhaps they did not live "happily EVER after" but they lived long and happy and good and useful lives, which is said to be as much as any mortal should hope for. Some say they had the highest bliss of all, for they perished together in the embrace of love and were found so entwined, cold but with expressions of ecstasy still on their faces. They were buried together and if you go to their city you can see the monument raised over their bones, a statue of the royal pair enthroned, inscribed "THE BEAUTIFUL KING AND THE LOVING QUEEN." And when tourists gaze and ask "How did such a lovely king come to wed such a homely looking queen?" then those who grew up with the story say "Many loved him for his beauty, but she loved him for his innocence, and for this he held her above all other women."
As for the Gnomes, they DID live happily ever after, although from time to time one would wistfully say to another "Remember the Beautiful Man?" and all would sigh and say "What a Treasure he was! I hope he was as good a king to his people as he was beautiful." And perhaps he was. He surely tried to be.
And that, friends, is as good a place as any to end this tale.
I never found Jack Ryan a very interesting character, especially after Tom Clancy started using him as a propaganda machine (Clancy had pronounced political view that he expressed through Ryan, especially in those novels where, through circumstances that do not pass any sort of reality filter, Ryan became President of the United States). And from what I could tell the stench of wartime propaganda clouds Ryan's most recent cinematic and now TV escapades.
Terrorism is a theme that has to be handled more carefully than most writers appear to be capable of handling it. The Iranians of Argo are partly a counterpoint ot how they are usually handled: they did very bad things, but they also had legitimate grievances that the film did not ignore. (The storming of the embassy was clearly excessive and not at all a good thing, but American hubris helped lead to it through the Cold War idea that we could -- and should -- support governments with no local credibility if it meant keeping the Soviets at bay.) But then Argo was an especially nuanced film about terrorism, and that is increasingly rare.
That doesn't mean terrorists must be sympathetic -- far from it! Evil must be recognized as evil. But many action movies (if not most that deal with the topic) have a tendency to throw morality out the window when it comes to fighting it. The frequent use of torture by Jack Bauer of 24 is a prime example -- the people Bauer fights are almost cartoonishly evil, so nothing is out of bounds when it comes to fighting them. And there are a lot of torture scenes in movies like this.
I have come to really love French (or, in this case, Belgian) music. I already knew this song was beautiful, but now that I see it with English subtitles it becomes heartbreaking.
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