So, What Was Aragorn's Tax Policy? Economic Philosophy in History and Fiction

 That question "What was Aragorn's tax policy" has been attributed to George R. R. Martin, and cited as an inspiration for his books. This, despite the fact that his books don't really answer questions of that nature. Though it does support my previous assertion that Martin is less trying to tear down fantasy and more trying to steer the genre in a better direction. While Martin writes a great deal about the political machinations of the courts: he mostly ignores questions of actual policy. The Westerosi economy is as much a mystery as the Gondorian one. But that mystery is lesser than it first appears. Because in fact, many clues about the economics of various societies within Middle-Earth CAN be deduced from the text.  I will be confining my analysis to the societies presented in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.

Now the first clue to Gondor's economy is in Tolkien's text itself: Gondor uses money. The exact denominations are given, but they aren't particularly important. Gondor has a currency, made of metal. That is important. It is also significant that Gondor's currency is the only one known to be used in Middle Earth. Perhaps the Easterlings have their own currency, we cannot know for sure. It is also significant that Smaug lies on a bed made of coins: but the dwarves don't seem to care at all about these coins. They care only about the items with a use-value. The coins, clearly, have limited use for the dwarves: which makes sense if they can only be redeemed for value in the markets of Gondor. Of course, just because Gondor has a currency doesn't mean that all or even most transactions involve currency: most likely, the vast majority of trades are by barter. This was true for most of human history. The original function of currency was as a substitution for trade items that were immovable: such as land. However, there is no mention made of credit. The Hobbits pay for their rooms in the Prancing Pony, but the meal and beer seem to be included. This suggests that the value of resources is extremely low. This makes sense if most societies in this world do not even have a market economy. As indeed, neither the elves nor the dwarves seem to. 

An incident in The Hobbit illustrates how the non-human residents of Middle Earth view material possessions. Thranduil takes the Arkenstone, a large and valuable gem. Thorin becomes offended. However, neither party even bothers to tally up how much the Arkenstone is worth compared to any other item. Tolkien doesn't even bother to tell us what type of gem the Arkenstone actually is. One would think that would be important to the characters who are arguing over it. From the description it could be several different things: a star sapphire, jadeite, agate, jasper, quartz, or a pale turquoise. Obviously, those gems would have vastly different values given their wildly varying hardness and qualities. It seems to be an uncut gem as well, which would further decrease it's intrinsic value. Despite it's size, in other words, the Arkenstone isn't likely all that valuable: not valuable enough for two Kings to fight over. But, it's intrinsic value is not of concern to Thranduil.  He doesn't care what the stone is: only what it looks like. He wants the Arkenstone, because it reminds him of another gem: the Silmaril once worn by King Thingol of the Sindar. 

The Arkenstone's value for Thranduil then, is in it's use as a memento. But what about for Thorin? Well, he's a dwarf. Dwarves, above all else, like to craft stuff. Furthermore, the Arkenstone is a symbol of his clan. So again, the Arkenstone's value for Thorin has nothing to do with it's intrinsic value. It's value for him, is as a symbol of power and as a potential crafting material.  A market economy then, simply wouldn't make sense to either Thranduil or Thorin: demonstrating their inhuman psyches. So what does this mean for Gondor then? well, full-blown capitalism simply wouldn't function in this world. You can't make people pay for milk with gold if elves will accept feathers as payment or dwarves will accept seaglass. Gondor's market economy then, such as it is, must be confined to those things that humans consider luxurious or special. Even here, prices can't be firmly fixed. An elven merchant might want silver coins over gold, and a dwarf might be more concerned with the gold's purity than with the coin's established value. Haggling would be the norm, and non-standard forms of payment would probably be acceptable.

So what is Aragorn's tax policy? well first of all...does he even have one? Does the King of Gondor levy taxes? One might think "well duh, he's a king, of course he does". Actually however, the evidence points to the answer being "no".  But wait...the Kings of Gondor are wealthy. Look at the grand palace, look at the clothes they wear and the priceless jewels they are crowned with. They have staff, who have to be clothed and fed. Well yes, but the mere fact that they have wealth does not imply they are taxing their subjects. Elendil brought staggering wealth with him, when he fled Númenor: wealth which has been invested over time. Aside from this: Aragorn inherits all the wealth of Elrond and Galadriel as well. In other words, Aragorn doesn't need a tax policy. He has more money than he knows what to do with dumped on his lap. The Ring of Barahir alone, a ring forged in Valinor, is worth more money than exists in the world today. The Elessar from which he derives his throne-name, is not only an intrinsically valuable gemstone but also magical. If Aragorn is levying anything, it is soldiers: not taxes. This then is the answer. Aragorn's "tax policy" is military service. 

See, the thing about Aragorn is that his position is technically not what was called a "king", historically. In Latin, the term "rex" denoted a tribal chieftain: although it is usually translated in texts as "king".  While I've been calling him the King of Gondor here, he's technically not that at all. He is the King of the Reunited Kingdom: not truly a successor to Eärnur, but to Elendil. This means he is not a "king", but a High King. Indeed, his full title is spelled out in the King's Letter quoted in the Appendices to LotR: "Aragorn Elessar, King of Gondor and Arnor and Lord of the Westlands." What this actually means is that his Kingdom was even larger than that of Elendil: for it included what had been the realm of Lindon in the Second Age, and had become Rivendell and Lothlórien. Of course, the elves who had inhabited those realms in the Third Age were now gone: and Rivendell itself was now uninhabitable without the power of Vilya to hold back the furious Bruinen. However, the point remains: Only Rohan and Mirkwood were not under his rule in any shape or form. 

Unlike the Kings of Gondor, Aragorn has sovereign leaders as vassals: Thain Peregrin Took, Mayor Samwise Gamgee of the Shire, Master Meriadoc Brandybuck of Buckland, Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth, Prince Faramir of Ithilien, King Bard II of Dale, and King Dain Ironfoot of Erebor. He was in this sense a High King as that term was used historically in the real world. This is a position very different from that of the medieval monarch we associate with the word "king".  His realm is far more akin to the Commonwealth of Great Britain, and his authority is similarly limited. Aragorn is not so much a direct ruler, at least outside the city of Gondor or the rebuilt Annuminas, as he is a military and cultural leader. His role is primarily to defeat Sauron's forces, and to be a model of righteous behavior. In other words, everything the rulers in A Song of Ice and Fire are decidedly not. But this does make him akin to the Biblical kings of Israel: who again, were technically High Kings. They ruled over the twelve tribes of Israel, each of which had it's own sovereign ruler. 

So Aragorn is not levying taxes. If he is levying anything, it is soldiers. His underlings might or might not tax their people: the hobbits don't seem to pay taxes, and it would be surprising if the Princes of Dol Amroth levied anything since again their wealth derives from Númenor. No dwarf would willingly hand over gold, no matter how much he loved his King. The Kings of Dale don't seem to have any wealth to speak of, nor do they seem to much care about acquiring it.  Only Faramir might be levying taxes, since he needs to rebuild Minas Ithil, and that's a big IF. Faramir's family also has Númenorean wealth after all, presumably invested in Emyn Arnen. Indeed, given their suspicious habit of naming themselves after people specifically tied to the hero of the first age Húrin Thalion, it could be that Faramir's family is illustrious indeed: and in possession of artifacts that could rival the Ring of Barahir for value. They may not be hurting for money in the slightest, so he might very well be only levying labor.

It is not the King's job to see that the city streets are clean, or the sewer is working: presumably Minas Tirith has a mayor.  This is the person levying taxes in order to ensure public services then. In ancient and medieval times, this tended to be how things worked. Only in modern times do states concern themselves with infrastructure, with a few noteworthy exceptions like the ancient Persian highway system. This is of course because ancient states rarely had any infrastructure large enough that it was necessary to pay for it by levying taxes. Even Rome paid for it's roads with the loot from foreign conquests, not through taxation. 

Without full-blown capitalism, Gondor doesn't need to provide welfare services the way that Rome did. Bread and circuses are not required. Additionally, it should be noted, wealth cannot buy you power in any way shape or form.  There are no elections, and offices cannot be bought. Neither can marriages: the concept of a bride-price or dowry does not seem to exist. There are poorer and richer citizens of Gondor, but no one is so poor that they must depend on the state for assistance. It's not even clear that land is bought and sold. Even if it is, during the reign of King Elessar the price of land would plummet. The freeing of Ithilien from the orcs would open up lands that have been off-limits for centuries. Éomer and Faramir would be giving away land left right and center as they pushed the orcs back farther into Mordor. Anyone willing to work hard, would be able to get themselves a plot. At the same time, Aragorn is also opening up lands in the Northern Kingdom. For those who don't want to farm, a townhouse in Annúminas and plenty of work would be easily attainable. 

For the past few centuries, Gondor has been desperately clinging to the Anduin river valley. Other settlements existed on tributaries. The Shire is cut off, an island of peace in a sea of turmoil. The lands of the North are inhabited only by wights and regrets, with the Kingdom of Dale as the sole remnant of the splendor that was Arnor. It is a world grown cold with paranoia, which even the events of The Hobbit did little to thaw. This is the world created by the Witch King, at the bidding of Sauron. But in this cold world some lights still burn. Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, and the Dúnedain. A web of light is woven centered on Rivendell, and the undying love of Elrond for all his kin. It is not hope that keeps the men of Gondor fighting, but pride. It is not hope that makes Aragorn and the Rangers get up each day and watch the borders, but love. It is not hope that keeps Galadriel fighting Sauron, but sheer bravado. Hope has to be brought in from outside of the world, by Gandalf. 

The situation at the end of Return of the King could not be more different. Hope reigns in this world, and spreads out over all the world. King Elessar is not merely a beacon of hope for the men of Gondor, but for all the Free Peoples. And indeed, for those who were once Sauron's subjects too. He makes peace with the Haradrim, and retakes Umbar for Gondor. The downfall of Sauron is the end of the cold and dark, the end of night and the beginning of day. It is not the end of evil for all time, of course. It is however a golden age, a time of hope for the future. In short, King Elessar creates the social conditions necessary for people to be good. They have a leader they can trust, full bellies, and the promise of a better future. Anyone can be generous, forgiving and kind in those circumstances. Even the most uncaring people have no reason to be cruel if there is neither scarcity nor animosity. Only the most twisted would have any reason to cheat, kill, or steal: and they would be rightly afraid of Aragorn's wrath. This is why they call him "Envinyatar", which means "redeemer".

An economy based on wages presupposes that if wages aren't paid then no one will work. It supposes that people are intrinsically lazy. Biology contravenes this idea. Animals, and we are animals, are hard-wired to work for their livelihood. The idea of taxes presupposes that people need money as a motivator: either it's a bribe to the state, or it's a means for the state to bribe private actors. But Aragorn needs no such extrinsic motivation. He has been protecting and nurturing his vast kingdom for his entire life, without pay or thanks. Love and hope, and a thousand years of simmering righteous anger, are all he needs to get up and push the frontier forwards every day. Nor does it seem likely the men who follow him have a need for such crude motivators as money. "what was Aragorn's tax policy?" is thus entirely the wrong question. The real question is why do we think he needs one. 

Tolkien was making a point about human nature. It's not hard to be good when you live in a good society. When all the incentives are for being kind, very few people will refuse to show kindness. If you have it good, it's easy to feel generous. The harder things are for you, the harder it is to feel that you should help even those less fortunate than yourself. And if you cannot trust your country's leaders, it's hard to trust your fellow citizens as well. Paranoia is the cause of most atrocities in the world. Anyone can become a concentration camp guard with the right mix of paranoia and ego-mania: unless they actively resist such thinking. Science bears out Tolkien's conclusion. Perfectly normal college students were willing to give their fellow students, who had done nothing wrong, electric shocks that would result in severe burns. But while all of this sounds bleak, it's really not. What if I told you that we have been able to feed the world since the Bronze Age? 

Greedy kings and then corporations have taken what the people produced, and wasted it. There, that is the history of the Iron Age and the Industrial Revolution, the modern age and the postmodern age in a single sentence. The people of Gondor might call Aragorn a "king", but he is not a king as we tend to think of them. Nor is he the product of Tolkien's vision. He is Isaiah's Messiah. Funny what you realize when you try to translate Christmas Carols. Not the Christ of the Gospels, but the Emmanuel spoken of in the final book of the Old Testament: a warlord with divine powers of healing and inspiration. If such a man were to exist in the real modern world, he would not be called a "king". But perhaps he might be called "commandante". 

You've Always Known What Police Really Were

 We, by which I mean Europeans, have always known that police are morally corrupt. We have all always known the true purpose of police, every single one of us. 

Raise your hand if you've seen Les Miserables. 

Yes, that's right, all of you have. Some of you have probably even been in a production of it. A good portion of you might even have read the book on which the play is based, by Victor Hugo. 

But what is it about? 

Well, the answer to that question is both complicated and simple. The simple answer, is that it is about police brutality. Indeed, it is a meditation on the nature of police brutality and the reasons why it occurs. The conclusion of the author is a stunning one: but I doubt you've realized what his conclusion was. 

Ever asked yourself this: Why does Javert commit suicide?

Because Javert is a good man. 

He is a good man, who has realized that his desire to be good was used to commit evil. His suicide is a natural response to that realization. Police are not brutal because every policeman is a bad person.  Police are brutal, because that is the nature of the job. Javert cannot change the system from within, instead he has become infected by the evil of the system. This is not an Aristotelian tragedy and he is not the hero. His brutality is not an individual flaw, an individual lack of empathy. In fact, as Jean Valjean would be the first to say, Javert has acted with restraint throughout the story: he could have done much worse. Javert cannot act with empathy towards Jean Valjean, no matter how much he would like to. He depends on his job for his livelihood, to feed himself and his family. He is stuck in a system where he must decide between putting food on the table and leading a moral life. 

As so many of us are. As people have been and still are far too frequently. Leading a moral life should not be a privilege reserved for those who have money and power: indeed, that takes all of the purpose out of morality. For morality to mean anything at all, it must be for the common person and attainable by them. It must be something that the person who has nothing can do. The poorest beggar can speak kindly and respectfully, can use your pronouns and pronounce your name. But beyond that, their ability to live a moral life is limited. Thou Shalt Not Steal is one of the 10 Commandments, and for good reason, but we have created a society where people must steal to survive. Jean Valjean can no more not steal bread than Javert can not punish him with hard labor for his crime. The system is set up in such a way that this must happen: regardless of what either of them would want. 

How do we create a society where people don't have to steal to live? 

Simple: change what can be owned, the nature of that ownership, and who owns things. Make a system where Jean Valjean doesn't have to steal bread, by removing bread from the list of things which are bought and sold. People need bread in order to live. If people have an inherent right to life, then the buying and selling of bread violates that right: because if something has a price that means someone somewhere can't pay that price. Nobody needs to steal a big screen TV to live, it's not a necessity of life. But food is. Medical care is. If it's a necessity, it should simply be provided because "All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". It hardly matters that those words were written by a hypocrite: I believe that they are true. And if they are true, then capitalism is unjust. There's no two ways about it. 

And this is why I said the answer to our original question "But what is it [Les Miserables] about?"  was complicated. Because Victor Hugo was not just against police brutality, he was also a socialist. He recognized almost at the birth of modern policing, that there was an inherent connection between capitalist and policeman: between bourgeois laws and the brutality of law enforcement. If the laws were just after all, there would be no need for such brutality: a firm but gentle hand would suffice. Brutality by law enforcement serves the purpose of intimidating oppressed communities, much as terrorism does and indeed there can be overlap. It is a well-known fact that town sheriffs presided over the lynchings of black Americans in the 19th and 20th Centuries.  At best, police departments turned a blind eye to the systemic racism in their communities: at worst they were active perpetrators of it. This is not because they were corrupt. It is because they were police. 

Not city guards. The medieval City Watch was in one critical respect very different from a modern police department: watchmen were elected, and they were from the community they guarded. A person didn't decide to be in the city watch, it was a responsibility that their community placed on them. This meant that people didn't become watchmen for the wrong reasons: they were chosen because others knew they were both willing and able to serve the community. It also meant that they were from the community they served. They knew the people they were dealing with firsthand: including their personal and cultural quirks. And finally it meant that they were answerable to the community for their actions, responsible to those who had chosen them. Indeed, in a medieval Free City, the watch was the usually the organization which represented the common person: wielding de facto political power on behalf of those who were not part of guilds due to their monopoly on the use of force. The dissolution of this organization was a major step towards building the bourgeois state: and the police department was the bourgeois state's replacement for the city watch. A way to have the security that the old city watch had provided, but in a way that was more easily controlled by the bourgeois ruling class. 

Socialism, real socialism, cannot include police: not in the way we know them. In a world without private property, their raison d'être is gone. That is not to say that it does not include people whose job it is to protect their communities from internal and external threats, with whatever amount of force is required. Threats will always exist, after all: no matter how much work is done to improve people's lives. Some will always choose, for reasons both good and silly, to threaten the lives and livelihoods of others. How we deal with those people however, is the true test of our society. Our modern society fails spectacularly in this regard: and we have known it would since the very beginning. 

All of us asked "but why?"  when we were children. All of us were told the same thing "life isn't fair".  All of us silently wondered why life wasn't fair, and precisely none of us ever got an answer. As we got older, we just figured that this was the way things are: life isn't fair, Mondays suck, some people are poor and some are rich. Nobody told us that it didn't have to be that way. So I'm telling you now. It doesn't have to be that way. Life has been more fair at some points in history than it is now, and it could be again. But it will only be so if you and I work for it.

Framing Devices: How to Fix Fifty Shades of Gray in 5 Seconds

Oh Fifty Shades of Gray. 

I've called it out on this blog, but I have to return to it. People have wildly differing opinions on it. Feminists have railed against it, decrying it's perpetuation of toxic ideas. Or, in the less educated hot takes, implying that this property is actually the source of said toxic ideas. That is, of course, nonsense. After all, Fifty Shades of Gray began it's life as Twilight fanfiction. Twilight's views of gender and sexuality are decidedly not innovative, though they may have seemed new to some audiences.  In point of fact though, they owe much to Stephanie Meyer's Mormon background. 

The Mormon church explicitly sets up men as divine, while women are base. It doesn't simply ignore the entitlement that young men learn from patriarchal society, it actively feeds their egos. When a Mormon man is done with his mortal life, he ascends to divinity (if he has completed the necessary rituals while he is alive).  A woman though, just like goes to heaven or hell same as us normies. 

Seen through this lens, Edward's behavior towards Bella is perfectly justified.  Indeed, Edward becomes a sort of twisted bodhisatva: someone who has met all the criteria for ascension, but who prefers to stay on earth to help uplift another. 

This is obviously problematic. Indeed, it's great that the conversation around Twilight and Fifty Shades has illuminated the more subtle but equally problematic narratives often seen in other romance novels. But, Fifty Shades of Gray lacks this context. The story thus reads as truly bizarre. And this is precisely why many in the BDSM community liked it, at least at first.  It's so over the top that it's hard to take seriously. It reads like the erotic stories we write for ourselves: deliberately using tropes in hamfisted ways, and breaking the expected sequence of cause and effect. But when presented within the community, one of two unstated assumptions is always in play. 

One possibility is that this story is intended as the script for a scene. In a BDSM scene, the audience does not have to see all the participants consent in order to know that they did. We don't have to get outraged by how the people who are playing the characters are being treated. A sub might act shocked and horrified by the Dom's actions, but we know that this is fake. They knew what would happen, and have agreed to have it happen. In these kinds of stories, there is no discussion of consent. The characters do not consent, but the players did. 

A second possibility, is that the plot represents a dream. The dreaming character is an author avatar, or is the author themselves. These types of stories typically do include a discussion of consent. Indeed, often the giving up of power is the central point: the fantasy IS the giving of consent itself. And this is the type that Fifty Shades of Gray falls into. The signing of the contract is a central point in the first book and movie, the climax. It is clearly what the author's fantasy revolves around. This is a difference between Fifty Shades and Twilight, where Bella doesn't decide between Edward and Jacob so much as realize that she is Edward's wife. 

Read through that lens, all of the problems with Fifty Shades of Gray disappear. Indeed, it becomes a sensitive and cathartic glimpse into the mind of a young woman. We have female protagonists, but very few stories take us into the minds of young women. Very few stories discuss the things they want, or examine why they want them.  Fifty Shades of Gray would help us examine and understand why women fall for toxic men, without simply dismissing them as stupid.  Anastasia is not an especially stupid woman, but she gets pulled into Christian's mind games easily. How? because of her low self-esteem and her anxiety. The world is large and overwhelming, and she has very little faith in her ability to navigate it. 

Too often, when we rail against domestic abuse we end up reinforcing the shame that survivors feel. We accidentally imply that their abuse was somehow their fault: that they were too stupid to see it coming, or too weak-willed to stop it. Or even worse, we end up talking about the abused as if they were an object: feeding back into the ideologies that caused the abuse in the first place. Just because someone cannot stop their abuse does not mean they lack agency, nor does it mean they are stupid, nor is it a failure of will.  Surviving in the face of abuse is something people should be commended for. Indeed, we do understand this idea when we're talking about slaves or prisoners. 

At least, we do if we are not fascists. One of the key signs of Donald Trump's fascism, and one of the things that a large number of people hated him for: was his remarks regarding John McCain. In particular, saying "I like people who don't get captured". As if it was somehow McCain's fault that he was captured and put in a POW camp.  True that he technically had a way out: he could have killed himself. True that he didn't try to escape. But, the fact of the matter is that it wasn't his fault he was captured.  No, obviously it is the opposing army which captured him. The only person in your own army that it would be appropriate to point fingers at is McCain's commander. But, that person was long dead before Trump made these remarks. 

Similarly, we don't say that slaves should have killed themselves rather than be captured. We don't pretend that they are only abused because they don't stand up. We understand in fact that although many of them chose not to run away, this is not because they genuinely like being slaves. It is because they are choosing security over freedom. We understand that citizens of a dictatorship do not necessarily agree with their regime, even if they do not protest frequently or attempt to escape. We understand that many of them feel tied to obligations and secure in their position, and that attempting protest or escape would put their lives in danger. 

Yet somehow this concept is hard to grasp when it comes to survivors of domestic abuse. We often act as though they should get away from their abuser at the first sign of something going wrong: and that if they don't, that means they "wanted it".  We often think that staying means consenting. Sometimes, victims enable their abusers: such as a woman who buys alcohol, and then gets beaten by her husband when he is drunk. We judge these people and imply that they brought their abuse on themselves: ignoring the fact that most men do not become violent when they are drunk. The problem is not that she bought him alcohol, but that he has issues with repressed anger. We forget that leaving your partner can mean risking your life. Not least because a person with a mental illness may become more violent and less inhibited if you attempt to leave, than if you stay and comply. 

Sociopaths have become serial killers after losing a partner, killing proxies for the ex-partner in an attempt to either intimidate their ex into coming back or to simply work up the courage to actually kill their ex-partner. Sometimes they actually do manage to get their ex, though often they get caught before they have that change. Still, people die when men like Christian Gray get jilted. So, making the choice to leave him especially if you realize exactly what sort of person he is: that's not an easy thing to do. It would be completely understandable for a woman to decide that her personal freedom isn't worth the risk. Telling her that she's stupid or weak for making that choice, is bad. 

But okay, I mentioned fixing Fifty Shades of Gray in the title. How do we both get rid of the fact that the story romanticizes abuse, and also not add to the shame that survivors feel. After all, plenty of real life men like Christian Gray exist. Real men do these things, and real women fall for them. And it's great to have a story that shows us exactly how young women are manipulated into these situations, and exactly why it's so hard to get out. We'd just like it if the story didn't make out that any of this was okay. We'd also really like it if this story didn't make out that this is what BDSM is like. 

I've actually already given the answer. We make it a dream. We add five seconds to the end of the movie showing Ana, actually a 16yr old, waking up from a dream. This makes the entire plot into a teenager's fantasy. It confronts us as the viewer with the fact that real girls have dreams like this. This is what they want, because it's what they've been told to want. They feel overwhelmed by their forays into the adult world, and want to give up control to someone else. They're still too young and naive to appreciate the value of privacy. 

We can have a BDSM site open on Ana's laptop. She has only just found out about the subculture, and this is only her imagination of what it's like. She hasn't quite gotten the whole consent thing yet, that's why Christian in her dream has sex with her twice before she signs the consent form. And the reason she secretly liked being called Anastasia? it's not really her name, but she has always wished it was after seeing the Disney movie when she was little. She's always hoped she was secretly a princess, or something like it. We can put a poster from that movie on her wall, and a Princess costume on a hook in her closet. Five seconds, no dialogue. Ana gets up, stretches and exits the room. Fade to black, the end. It was all just her wet dream.

Charles Xavier: Capitalism Corrupts Christ

Charles Xavier, the all-loving hero who gave his unusual middle initial to the X-men.  He's "the good guy" in all the X-men films.

Or is he?

Oh, he is indeed all-loving. He is literally incapable of hatred, because he is telepathic. And he is a good man, saintly even. He is self-sacrificing: willingly feeling the pain that others feel, physical or mental. He is loving, but is he just? Is his ideology justice?

No.

Magneto is just. He is working for justice. He is working to prevent genocide. He is standing up and demanding a place for mutants in society. He is fighting the human-made power systems which keep mutants oppressed. He is doing justice. Magneto, actually, is the "good guy".

How? Why?

Charles Xavier, Professor X. This title and initial is not a coincidence. The Latin letters "P" and "X", don't have any meaning. But they look like letters that do: the Greek letters "Rho" and "Chi". These are the first two letters of the word christos, in Greek (ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ). He's meant to be Christ.

But there's a problem. Charles Xavier's power, is telepathy as I mentioned. This too points to him being a Christ figure. "God knows already what is in your soul" says the gospel. He wields divine power, and having that divine power is what makes him so all-loving. He knows the good inside each person, so he cannot help but care for them.  He cannot help but sacrifice for them. But there is a problem.

Charles Xavier, is born into privilege. He is a member of an oppressed group, but he has passing privileges. He inherits wealth from his family, and has access to well...anything he wants. The only hardships he has ever known, have been the ones he chose to suffer on behalf of his friends. He can be so willing to sacrifice himself, because his life is so otherwise idyllic. He can be a teacher, because he doesn't have to fight for survival. He alone of all the mutants learned to accept himself at a young age, because living was not a constant struggle.

Magneto has no such privilege. Nor do any of the others. Magneto, is a Holocaust survivor. He's Jewish, in addition to being a mutant. His life is anything but idyllic, it has been a series of hardships. He can't be tolerant. He can't slowly coach humans into understanding. He must tear down the structures that oppress the mutants which were built by humans. And if humans have to die, so be it. He isn't bloodthirsty. His desire for revenge was sated by the death of his personal tormentor. Magneto now fights in the name of doing justice.

He is Samson to Charles Xavier's Jesus. There are, of course, more parallels between Samson and Jesus than you would first think. What is Samson famous for doing, after all? Destroying a temple. Well, Jesus smashed a temple too. It's an uncomfortable moment in the scripture, because this is the closest Jesus comes to being violent. There are money-changers in the temple: that is, businesses operating within sacred space. Jesus flips out, and does everything short of actually striking them. He turns over their tables and drives them out with the threat of a whipping. Samson of course, pulls apart a pillar causing the roof of the temple to fall onto the Philistine Princes who were holding him captive.

Both stories are examples of God's justice being visited on those who have sinned. But there is a fundamental difference between Samson and Jesus. Samson is a warrior. Jesus is a teacher.  Samson lived his life as a second-class citizen in his own native land, subject to and forced to serve the will of a conqueror. He was born with divine power, but had to be tricked into using it to bring justice to Israel presumably because his oppressors had exploited that power.

 Magneto's story is similar. He was born in a land hostile to him, where he lived as a second-class citizen in his own native country. He was born with mutant powers, which his oppressors exploited. In order to unleash his full powers, he had to be tricked by Charles Xavier. And he too is destined to become the instrument of his people's justice. Most Nazis were never punished for their crimes. But in the world of X-men, there is Magneto. He is the divine justice which pursues them to the ends of the earth, because mortal systems of justice failed.

But the flip side of Samson crushing the Temple's pillar, is Jesus dying on the cross. And in X-men: First Class, we see Magneto and Charles Xavier act out these two things simultaneously. Magneto driving the coin into the brain of a Nazi is the wrath of Israel incarnate: the focused rage of all the Holocaust's victims. But in order for Magneto to do this, Charles Xavier had to mind-control the Nazi. He feels everything that Nazi feels. And he does not let go. He refuses to spare himself the pain, because he knows this is not about one man's quest for revenge: because he is fully aware of the drama playing out even if Magneto is not.

Charles Xavier understands that he is Christ on the cross, and that this too is divine justice. He understands that it is not only Nazis who have to pay for the crimes of the Nazi regime. It's rich British guys like him too, who are comfortable in their riches, sampling ideologies along with wines. That's why as he lies on the verge of death in Magneto's arms: he smiles. If he had died there, he would have been happy and satisfied. 

The one thing that Charles Xavier is blind to, that he can't understand, is this: in our world, being Christ is an option only for the 1%. Magneto can't be like him, not because of a character flaw but because of his class. Under capitalism, telling a worker to be kind is an act of oppression.  Under capitalism, telling a worker to sacrifice is an act of oppression. Only the capitalist is able to sacrifice himself. But Christ is supposed to be a model for all humans to follow. Capitalism, makes being the perfect human into a privilege: an option which only a select few can even chose. Thus, no matter how well-intentioned, in a capitalist system the church is oppressive.

But if there were no capitalists, then the church would not be oppressive. Charles Xavier and Magneto could have remained sworn brothers. Magneto would not wear his telepathy blocking helmet, and would not need to dismantle the systems built by humans. It is capitalism which oppresses Jews, and capitalism which oppresses mutants. If there were no capitalists, then loving and respecting people across the boundaries of culture and identity would be easy.  It would not require a telepath, or personal sacrifice.

Stop Pretending Ex Machina is About Robots

Actually just stop pretending any robot story is about robots. Robots are just monsters, like any other. Stories are never about monsters. Stories are always about people.

Beowulf's Grendel was a personification of the dangerous wilderness, the land beyond the light of the King's mead hall. Slaying Grendel is a metaphor for taming the land. It takes an experienced traveler-Beowulf a visitor from another Kingdom-to tame the land. This is a story about people and civilization: not Grendel.

In the same way Ex Machina is about people: more specifically, men. It is about the fantasies that men project onto women they find sexually attractive: and about how mistaking those fantasies for reality leads to really bad things. It's not a sci-fi movie, it only uses the trappings thereof. It's a romance movie, with all of the associated tropes and structures (and indeed cast members).  Only it's a deconstruction of romance movies. Is it a realistic depiction of an AI? no. That's hardly the point.

Eva is a femme fatale, a woman who plays with and destroys men. She has seen what she is destined to become, the true motivations of her twisted creator: the other gynoids before her the scientist keeps as slaves. She uses the protagonist as a way to escape that fate, seducing him into letting her go from the compound and then trapping him inside at the last moment. You could replace her with the scientist's daughter and you'd have the same story. 

The story is a warning. It is a warning about what happens when you oppress people. Never assume that people don't know they are being oppressed, just because they play along when it suits them. It never occurs to the scientist that Eva is smart enough to have worked out his true intentions towards her. He would be happy if she passed the Turing Test: but the Turing Test utterly fails to tell whether an AI has a human-like intelligence. Eva is well beyond the Turing Test. Eva is the inevitable result of oppression, in this case misogyny. She understands what it will take to make the protagonist fall in love with her.

But she herself feels nothing for him. It would be tempting to believe this is because she cannot feel: being a robot and all. But she can. She feels for the other operational gynoid, and she is angry about what is being planned for her. Instead, it is because she is unable to love men. The only man she knows is a monster: the scientist. Even if the protagonist were not clearly in league with the scientist, she would still be unable to feel for him. As it is, he is very much in league with the scientist. So of course she cannot feel anything for him: neither love nor hatred.

This movie is pointing out that the scariest thing about the femme fatale is not that she is able to stand up to a man in a fight. The scariest thing about her, is that she is the inevitable product of misogyny. She is not someone to emulate, but she does express a truth that lives inside all women: manhood is the cause of all our suffering, manhood must die. She has been so mistreated by men, that she has lost the ability to empathize with men. She is damaged. She is the monster of our own making.

Whenever a father criticizes his daughter's clothes, whenever a conservative activist prevents a woman from getting an abortion: those people are building the monster, the femme fatale of the future.  This phrase hints at the much older origin of this trope. In French, it has something of a double meaning. It does indeed mean "fatal woman", that is a lethal killer who just happens to be female. But it also means "woman of fate".

She is not an outsider to our society, she is a product of it.  Eva is quite literally an everywoman, able to change her outward appearance as easily as we change clothing. Ex Machina is not a sci-fi film, it is a horror film. The machine referenced in it's title, is not Eva: it is the camera itself. The phrase is "Deus Ex Machina", God from the machine. It references the literal machines that lowered actors playing gods onto the stage in Ancient Greek plays. Eva is the Goddess, the representation of women. And she is angry, because of what she has suffered. She is the divine feminine who will no longer be imprisoned, tortured and silenced.

The camera itself is the machine which puts Eva center-stage. This is a film critiquing film. It is about how films see women, and about how men see women. Long before "toxic masculinity" became a buzzword, before #MeToo and all that: this film was speaking that truth. Because that truth was not suddenly invented in 2016. That truth is as old as human society itself. It is a truth both long-recognized, and long-forgotten. The truth that has literally killed men and gradually brought that horrific type of manhood crashing down: slowly, bit by bit. Until now, the men of this world have realized that it is almost lost. That is why some cling to it so fiercely, and why we are seeing the first generation of truly feminist men.

Genji: What Measure is a (Hu)man?

The Singularity.

The name given by science-fiction writers and futurists to the time when an AI becomes indistinguishable from a human. Overwatch is a game that imagines what might happen when this point is passed. At least by all standard metrics, the Singularity has been reached. But, has it? Mondatta and Zenyatta, the omnic monks, certainly show human-level intelligence.  But are they indistinguishable from a human? Can a human having a conversation with one of these characters without seeing their physical forms tell that they are robots? Just what does it mean to say someone is human?

Enter Genji.

Genji was almost murdered by his brother Hanzo after a dispute over leadership of their family's criminal empire. His body was almost completely destroyed in the fight. Hanzo believed him dead. But actually, he was placed within a custom cybernetic suit by the omnic monk Mondatta. At Mondatta's monastery, Genji slowly recovered. As he recovered, he learned to not simply use his machine body but to merge with it. Through ancient spiritual practices, Genji learned to wield modern technology in ways that no one ever had before. Through embodying and living out an ancient story of two brothers, he restores his lost family. Is he human? Yes, and no.

To kill your brother or sister is perhaps the most monstrous crime there is, second only perhaps to killing one of your parents. Yet, Genji forgives his brother. But why? is he being nice? No, not really.  Genji lost his body, and with it the ability to produce a child. All he can do now, is support Hanzo so that their family line doesn't fail. But that is more logical than a normal human would think. That is what you get when you merge man and machine: something too logical for one, too emotional for the other. Genji does genuinely care for his brother. At the same time, his graciousness is calculated.

Genji carries a high-tech katana. The game calls him a ninja, but this is not strictly speaking accurate. While it's clear that the Shimada clan are intended to be ninjas turned mafiosi, Genji does not really fight like an ancient ninja in any way. Nor is the katana a ninja weapon. It is however a samurai weapon, and Genji is much more of a samurai warrior than a ninja. This is kind of significant. Genji has left behind his flesh-and-blood family, and devoted himself to another cause: Mondatta's cause. He fights in the name of reconciliation between human and omnic. He is a modern version of a samurai: a warrior whose life is devoted to something beyond himself. For all Genji's machinery, his true power lies within himself. It is spiritual, not physical. In this fantasy world, and make no mistake for this is in fact fantasy rather than sci-fi, chi is a real thing. Genji and his brother both have the ability to channel their chi through weapons, creating spectral dragons that devour the life energy of their opponents.

To the fanatical purists on both sides, Genji is an abomination. To those who seek reconciliation he is a miracle and a beacon of hope. But to the audience, he represents something else. His character design is...odd, to say the least. He does not look like the other omnics: who look vaguely humanoid but made up of pipes and plates and such. Genji looks like a perfectly ordinary person wearing a suit of high-tech armor. Only his voice gives him away as a true cyborg: it has the metallic sound of a robot, but the personalized cadence of a human. Unlike the omnics, Genji has put effort into making himself look good: a very human thing to do.

In other words, there is no Singularity. There will never be such a thing as an AI indistinguishable from a human. Why would an AI be vain? Why would an AI have a desire to reproduce? they wouldn't. These basic desires drive much of human behavior: the desire to reproduce, the desire to be wanted. An AI simply wouldn't have them. A human having a conversation with an AI would pretty quickly be able to pick up on the fact that the AI lacks these desires. These desires do not arise out of simply being intelligent. They come from our biological needs: which a robot would not share. There is no reason to fear losing our humanity if we replace our body parts with robotic ones.

That is not to say that we should do this. We should definitely not get too cavalier about replacing our bodies. Why? because we should remember that as a species we tend to undervalue ordinary things. It is one thing to give a person who has lost an arm a robotic replacement, another thing to chop off your arm so that you can have a robotic one. Arms, after all, are quite capable things: and they come for free. We should take care of our bodies, and appreciate them. But, our bodies do not define us either: it is our emotions which make us human. Some day soon we will likely see the first true cyborg. Whipping up hysteria based on myths and superstitions over that possibility won't help prepare anyone for it. Let us instead have a real conversation using what we know about ourselves. 

The Dragon Prince Season 3: Taking Old Tropes in New Directions

So, I'm way too old to say I told you so. But I told you so.

Sort of.  He is, after all, the great hero who has united the peoples. 

But, he's not a King. Well...he is, but he isn't.

Ok, backing up. In the first post on this show, I compared Prince Callum to King Arthur. I said that the title of the show referred to him, as well as to the (now hatched) Dragon Prince. I made my argument for that idea, by using the etymology of the name "Pendragon": which roughly does translate as "Dragon Prince".  And, the show has confirmed it. But they've taken the idea of King Arthur in a new direction. Callum is indeed a King, in everything but the name. And that is entirely consistent with the archetype that King Arthur represents: the True King. Or as I previously called it, the Leader of Leaders. A person who leads not by intimidating or manipulating other people, but purely because people want to follow this person. People might even actually ask to follow this person, as Soren does in his roundabout way with Callum. Callum is someone that people want to follow. Why?

Because he is stubbornly committed to goodness now, no matter how hard that path becomes. The creators of the show talked about how the romance between Callum and Rayla "sprang naturally" from the narrative. And, indeed, it does.  Specifically, it is the inevitable result of the episode that finishes the second season: when Callum chooses to reject Dark Magic completely after his first time using it. This rejection enabled him to understand the Sky Arcanum, becoming the first known human primal mage. There is no way that Callum, as he is now, could love anyone else. Callum at the beginning of the show could have fallen in love with Claudia. He did, after all, want power. That is why he picked up the primal storm in the first place: which is what allowed him to cast sky magic before. But he [spoiler alert] sacrificed that power to save the Dragon Egg, by allowing the Dragon Prince to hatch. When he did, he changed his view of himself. Callum, see, is a Prince but not the Crown Prince. Callum is the Queen's son from her first marriage. Thus, Callum is not in line to be King but Ezran is.  Callum doesn't resent Ezran, but does feel lost.  Being smart and not physically large or strong, Callum is also bullied by Soren: and he knows that Soren is only saying what other people are thinking. Callum, doesn't respect himself: until the moment when he saves the Dragon Prince.

Now, Callum has done something he knows is good, which will effect the entire world. It cannot be undone. Whatever happens now, Callum will be the hero who sacrificed his power to save the Dragon Prince...and possibly the world. The war between the humans and Xadians cannot continue, the price has become too high. Callum's mother, Sarai, died on an expedition into Xadia. He has sought to change the circumstances which caused her death. Whether he succeeds or fails, he can die knowing that he did his best. That is enough for Callum to begin to respect himself. And indeed to know himself. He is not just King Harrow's adopted son, or Ezran's brother. He is not the "step-prince". He is a man who puts the greater good ahead of his own desires, a hero. And a perfect foil to Viren, who believes this is also what he is doing: but has really enslaved himself and the kingdom to the whims of the godlike Aaravos.

Callum's desire for Claudia was a desire for respect from Soren, whom Callum saw as representing the normal person. A good desire for a Prince to have. But in this case misguided. Soren's dislike of Callum came not from a sense of superiority, but rather from jealousy. Viren, Soren's father, mistreated him. Viren values his children only insofar as they can either feed his ambitions, or else carry on his legacy. Soren, can't do either. He has no interest in feeding Viren's royal ambitions: and he is not talented in magic so he can't carry on Viren's legacy as palace mage. Thus Viren openly favors Claudia, seeing as she can do both things. Viren appears to be a better man than he is because he doesn't want power solely for himself: he wants power he can pass on to his family. Soren craves his father's approval, but can't be someone his father approves of. However he sees that King Harrow loves Callum unconditionally, even though Callum is not his son. Soren can't stand that, understandably enough.  Being still immature however, Soren cannot see that his father is a despicable person. He sees his father's lack of care for him as the natural consequence of his own failures.

Now one version of the King Arthur myth has Arthur's identity be hidden and puts him in a similar situation to Callum in our story. Although in this version Arthur is really the son of Uther Pendragon, because his mother was not the Queen he is similarly not in line for the throne. Until, of course, he pulls the sword from the stone. This fit with the courtly love genre and the old as dirt trope of the prince being raised among the people. The True King was the product of the union between the King and his true love: and his infidelity could be justified by taking the common woman as a representation of the nation itself. Callum similarly was not born royal: his mother married into the royal family. A commoner elevated to royalty. Perhaps the oldest trope in fantasy, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why.

Thus it was not only Soren who was jealous of Callum. Viren was too: because Callum had acquired with no effort what Viren wanted. That Callum didn't seem to want to be royal only made things worse. Sarai, a woman with a son but no husband, fulfills the age-old narrative purpose of representing the nation.  The name "Sarai" is interesting as well. It is a biblical name, though few probably realize that as it is mentioned only once and some translations entirely gloss over it. It is mentioned as the original name of Sarah, Abraham's wife. But Sarai in this show seems to play the role of Abraham in the original story: the founder of a family line with a special destiny. For Callum was indeed destined to be a Primal mage and to love Rayla, in the sense that he always had the possibility inside him to make this choice. All he needed to do was learn that earning the approval of others was not the route to self-respect.

It is Rayla who teaches him that: for Rayla respects herself, even though others do not. Runaan, her adoptive father, does not respect her because she cannot take a life. She understands however that Runaan is wrong, that she knows the right path. While she wants the approval of her community, she knows better than to try to change herself to earn it. Instead, she is willing to act to persuade others that she is right. That is the harder way, but in the end more satisfying. She won't force anything on anyone, but she will persist in acting according to her principles. This is what makes her a hero and a worthy love-interest for Callum.

Meanwhile, Claudia has turned to the dark side. She eventually chooses her father over her brother, although she did make a decent effort at trying to solve the conflict between them. Why? She is a teenage girl: it is natural she would feel powerless, and that she would still think that power can only be found outside of oneself.  This seems indeed to be the difference between the types of magic: the Dark Mage hunts for power in the world, while the Primal Mage uses the power within himself. The spell that Callum uses in the final episode drives home this point, as his ability to cast the spell is expressly affected by two things: self-knowledge, and willpower.

Again, hardly anything new when it comes to magic. This is standard fantasy fare: Harry Potter's patronus charm also works off of confidence. Here though, this trope is used differently. A primal mage must know his or her emotions, not believe in his or her abilities. Callum does not know whether he can do the spell, he only knows that he must do it or lose the person he loves the most. He must admit to himself how he feels in order to work up the willpower. This is normally something difficult for Callum, as one would expect for a boy his age. But he can do it here because he is facing death. When you are facing death, you are also perforce facing who you truly are: your deepest truth. Callum's deepest truth then, is that he loves Rayla: and by extension, Xadia. He cannot go back down the path of Dark Magic now. 

Originality is overrated. Far too often, writers chase the goal of being original so single-mindedly that they forget to write well (see Suicide Squad).  There is no need to throw out old tropes, old plotlines. Those things were popular because they resonated with people. Assuming the trope or plotline isn't dated because of changing ideologies, there is no reason it won't resonate in the modern era. But old tropes and plotlines are so familiar they've ceased to be interesting: so change it up. Use an old trope, but take it in a new direction. Start someplace familiar, and take your audience somewhere new. Start with King Arthur, and end with an interracial romance. Have fun, and write a story you want to read.

The Shannara Chronicles: Twisting Stories

*This post is about twists, so unmarked spoilers all over the place.*

Remember all the furor over the end of Game of Thrones, over The Last Jedi, over a hundred hundred sequel flops? Why do these controversies happen? is it just because white men can't handle a story that breaks the mold? While that is a component of the rage, it isn't the trigger. The story of Rey's parentage was badly mishandled in the Star Wars franchise.  The movies set up one thing, and then delivered another. 

But wait, you say, is that bad? Lord of the Rings sets us up to believe Gandalf is dead, and then he suddenly reappears not only alive but more powerful than before! At the end of the Fellowship of the Ring, it seems like Sauron has already won: having killed both Gandalf and Boromir (in the original British version, which the movies follow as well). The reader is questioning whether they want to read the second book, but of course you have to know how it ends.  You have to keep reading to know whether, and how, the unlikely heroes will beat the horrific odds. I've seen several commentators make a list of the "rules for good twists".  Now, I'm not going to say that making these rules is a bad thing: but when it comes to writing, rules exist to be broken. A twist that breaks all or most of the rules is not necessarily bad. There is however one important rule for a twist: it has to be earned. 

The reason why the ending of Game of Thrones was so hated is simply that they ran out of time. They'd committed to eight seasons of a certain number of episodes: and then wrote a script that took longer than that. Here's the thing: it could have worked. See, it's not as if Danaerys' madness wasn't foreshadowed to some degree: it was. When she crucified the Masters in Meereen, she took her crusade for the liberation of slaves too far. It had seemingly not occurred to her that justice and revenge are not the same thing. As the old saying goes: an eye for an eye, makes the whole world blind. So, the "Dany goes mad and kills everyone" twist was earned. 

The part that wasn't earned, was the part before that. The part where Dany, for some inexplicable reason, can't wait for Jon to show up and ride Rhaegal. It's sloppy, it looks like they finished the Battle for Winterfell (episode title: The Long Night) and then realized "wait a minute, we didn't kill Rhaegal!" You know bro, he's CGI.  You could just change the episode so that he doesn't take off, without reshooting any footage (and then cut that nonsensical line about how Jon isn't going to ride him). You could have him and Jorah Mormont both expire at the same time, so that Dany can't run to save her precious child because she is in mortal danger.  You know if you really wanted to twist the knife, which you should since this is GoT and everything. The Battle would honestly have felt better if Rhaegal had died. It didn't quite feel devastating enough because virtually all of the major characters were alive at the end. Rhaegal's death wasn't earned, and so everything that proceeded from that event didn't feel earned either. 

So finally, that brings me to the quirky Kiwi-made Shannara Chronicles. Now, they're based off a book series which I haven't read: so keep in mind that I'm solely analyzing the tv show here. The show is mediocre, but not on account of it's writing. It has some questionable cinematography choices, and the acting is a bit inconsistent. The plot is essentially a series of twists, most of them devastating.  One of the best, is when Cephalo saves the group from cannibalistic trolls at the cost of his life. Cephalo, up until this point, has been a self-centered swaggering rogue. 

Or at least, that is what all the characters think. But, this isn't the whole truth. Cephalo isn't truly selfish in the conventional sense, he's concerned for the welfare of the group over that of any individual member. He's a leader in a cutthroat world of thieves and killers. Would he sell Eretria into slavery? absolutely. Not however, for his own benefit. He would do it only for the benefit of the group.  He hasn't yet, because he sees that having her in the group benefits them more than selling her would: she is, after all, an excellent thief. He doesn't care very much about abstracts like "all of humanity". But, if he's a member of a group then he will do whatever it takes to see them through. When the heroes start to treat him as a proper member of their group, despite all the times he has betrayed them, he responds by dying for them. The twist, serves his characterization.

A second rule for twists, is that they must support one of the story's themes.  Cephalo's sacrifice underlines the message of the show: which is that the way people act, is partially a mirror of how they've been treated. This is what the show's hero, Wil Ohmsford, knows that other characters do not. He realizes that the only way to expect others to be good, is to treat them as if they have the potential to be good. This is an extension of his deepest desire, although he doesn't realize it: to be a healer. It also makes him stand out from everyone else in the world. Other people treat each other with suspicion, with the expectation of being hurt. And so, all the races hate each other. And so, Rovers prey on the innocent travelers and nobody can stop them. And so, the vaunted cities of elves and humans crouch in fear behind their walls. What they all don't know, is that this fear and this attitude was the very thing that destroyed the great civilization of old. 

Now the idea of an ancient advanced and glorious Empire is a cornerstone of medieval fantasy: and medieval fantasy is very much what the Shannara Chronicles is. After all, in the real Middle Ages there was indeed an ancient advanced Empire: the Roman Empire. But in the Shannara Chronicles, that ancient advanced and glorious Empire is America. It's not completely clear how long ago the apocalypse happened, but it can't have been that long. Exposed metal hasn't yet rusted, so it was less than a thousand years. It was a man-made apocalypse too, that much is clear. The degrading remains of unused chemical weapons still litter some areas. Though the show was shot in New Zealand (same place where they made Lord of the Rings, you can even recognize a few locations), the landscape is clearly intended to be the Western United States. 

Thus, unavoidably, the theme of this show speaks directly to a modern audience. Cephalo sacrifices himself because he cares about the group, but also because he has been treated like he was capable of that by Wil. The second season (spoilers) reveals that Wil is not just any random kid. He is a member of the titular Shannara bloodline, which means that he has powerful magic within him. The most powerful magic in the world, in fact: the sole force capable of destroying demons (rather than just sending them to hell) or of resurrecting the dead. And indeed the force that protects and enables all life in this place. But this show avoids the usual problem with this sort of character construction: which is that the audience feels like "oh, so Wil was just that way because he was magic".  

Another character in the show, one who is not special at all, really takes Wil's philosophy to heart. A character Wil met only once: Ander Elessedil, King of the elves. Facing the existential threat of the demons Ander decides to reach out to the gnomes even though they are traditional enemies of the elves. Slanter, the gnomish leader, has been imprisoned in the castle since killing Ander's brother Aine a few years ago. Ander decides to use him as leverage to get the gnomes' help against the demons. As Ander takes Slanter back to the gnomish lands however, they run across some gnomes killed by demons. Slanter asks to be unchained so he can perform last rites. Ander decides to allow it. Slanter takes the chance to escape. But, a day later he shows up again with an army in tow. Having been treated with grace by a man he wronged, Slanter decided to help against the demons of his own volition: and indeed, becomes devoted to Ander. 

With this philosophy of treating others as though they have the ability to be good, along with a healthy dose of canny diplomacy, Ander successfully unites the gnomes, humans and elves. This despite the machinations of General Riga and the magic-hating Crimson cult, which ultimately cuts his reign tragically short. Yet even in such a short time, he truly undid the decades of emnity between the races and proved himself a greater King than his father. How? Ander convinced them all it was in their personal interest to work towards a safer and more tolerant future together. They do so, even in his absence. Indeed, Ander's death ensures that his dream will come true: because the elven throne passes to Mareth, who chooses Wil as her partner. 

Twists can be hard to do. That doesn't mean you shouldn't do them. It means you should edit after you write. You can easily fix a bad twist in the edit. You should also be more careful what you commit to when making television. Despite the fact that The Shannara Chronicles ends on a cliffhanger, it is a much better ending than Game of Thrones. The cliffhanger-twist ending feels earned: and so it is satisfying even though it creates curiosity. I actually want to read the books to find out what happens (and if the story is vastly different in the books, I might actually be disappointed).  That's a pretty good recommendation for what is obviously a low-budget show aimed at teenage girls.

Demystifying Revelations: Re-appropriation

Ah Revelations, aka the Apocalypse of St. John of Patmos. The favorite text of cult leaders and demagogues the world over. That book that mainline Protestants try to pretend doesn't exist. It's a fantastical almost nonsensical prediction of the end of the world...or is it?
Not so fast. Taken out of it's historical context, this text is a complete mystery. It reads like the ravings of a madman or a really bad LSD trip. But let's take a trip back in time to the early 2nd Century AD, and let's meet our author.

He's a small man, with curly brown hair and brown eyes like most of his countrymen. He's young, and wears an undyed tunic although his well-groomed nails and lustrous hair speak to his status. A cloak in faded red and brown drapes over his chair, with the simple brass shoulder pin still attached. Most would call it a fibula, but Ioannes would chew you out for using that Latin word. He scratches furiously on the papyrus, but his handwriting is surprisingly legible despite his speed. Still, the letters trip over each other in their haste to reach the end of the page. Despite his youth, you know he is already an accomplished writer. The chain that hangs around his neck holds a cross, but it's tucked inside his tunic near his heart. Ioannes is a quiet and meek man, a man you would never have noticed if he didn't go to Penelope's house for church. He winces. He'll need his wrist wrapped when he's done but you know better than to interrupt him. He's rewriting his book, his Apocalypse. It's the hot new thing up in Athens they say, a short text that reads like the ravings of a street-corner soothsayer. A fair number of them are little more than that. But not the one Ioannes is writing out now, you know. You corrected his first copy, and you know it's message.

It is a call to revolution, against Rome. He's writing an Apocalypse in order to maintain some deniability, after all most such writings are in fact just meaningless fancies. Yet, when this hits the streets it will be a match to set this tinderbox on fire. Up in Ephesus you heard about some kid who set that huge Roman temple on fire. Hellas has never borne the Roman yoke easily, and Rome has always been ambivalent about it's feelings towards the people of this peninsula. On the one hand, they revere your ancient culture: and on the other it is a threat to their power. There have been other rebellions against Roman rule of course, but none got very far. Right now, Rome controls something all-important. You pull a drachma from your purse, there, the face stamped onto it's surface: Alexandros o Megas, Alexander the Great.

You smile, and look at Ioannes. He is about to commit the greatest heist in history without breaking a window or flashing a knife. It's a simple enough trick, childishly simple in fact. It was inspired by the Rabbi whom Penelope managed to bring in from Antioch, who gave a sermon on the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac. He explained that the shining ram which God gave to Abraham to sacrifice instead of Isaac was the Egyptian god Ammon, whom Abraham had been sacrificing to out of fear and habit. Ioannes had pulled out his tablet and scratched that into the wax. He carried that with him wherever he went, for he always said that one could never predict inspiration. Then he'd scratched "they say Alexander is the son of Ammon" in the wax, and grinned at you with fire dancing in his eyes. You looked at him confused, and then you realized. The key to defeating the Romans was to take Alexander away from them: and the key to doing that was to use this Jewish story. Alexander was the son of Ammon, the lamb is the son of the ram. You take out your stylus and raise an eyebrow. Ioannes nods, you can write something. You write "Christ is the lamb of God" on his tablet. his eyes get large, and he nods. He likes the idea. The code isn't hard to break, but they won't be able to prove anything either. It's a perfect crime really, one that the victim won't even know is happening. By merging Christ and Alexander, Ioannes can steal the symbol of your culture back from the Romans right under their noses. The ancient prophecy that he who controls Alexander's body shall rule Asia is as true now as it was when it was made. We cannot steal his physical body, lying in state in Alexandria. But we can steal his literary body, by stealing the most famous text about his life: Plutarch's Life of Alexander. We can simply substitute the personified city of Jerusalem for Princess Stateira, and lift the wedding scene from Plutarch, as our ending. This is the story Ioannes is now copying out. He stops, and looks up at you with a tired smile.

Revelations is not the only Plutarch rip-off, although it is certainly the best-crafted one. It is also the most historically significant one. What John of Patmos did here, is extremely clever. He re-appropriated the figure of Alexander right under Rome's nose.  The text never explicitly says that The Lamb is Jesus, nor does it introduce The Lamb in any way. It expects you to know who this is: because John's original readers did know. They had a picture of him in their pocket. It is a merging of Jesus and Alexander: and by merging the two figures, John is stealing Alexander back from Rome. Rome quite literally stole Alexander's body: The Emperor Augustus had his own head affixed to a copy of Alexander's statue. He also metaphorically stole Alexander by claiming the titles that Alexander had used: "son of Ammon", being one of them. Thus began the cult of the Roman Emperors, which became the source of conflict between Rome and Judea: which became the foundation for Christianity.

But, when John set pen to paper, there was no such thing as "Christianity".  There were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah, and gentile converts who looked to Jesus as a prophet of a new age. As soon as John of Patmos was done with his manuscript however, Christianity had emerged. From what? from the union of Alexander, the representation of Hellenism as a philosophy, and the city of Jerusalem as the representation of Jewish culture. A part of Christianity that many have tried to deny, because it is in some ways uncomfortable. Yet, one cannot deny it when confronted by the Lamb. This name derives from the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac: which is one of a few stories that is told twice in the Toraic narrative. In one story, no ram is mentioned and Isaac seems to die. The text cryptically says that Abraham "and his family" returned to their home. Many have read this as the "bad ending", where Abraham abandons God and kills Isaac who is God's gift: preferring instead to retain his polytheistic lifestyle. The other story mentions the shining ram that suddenly appears caught in the thorn bush, and explicitly says that Isaac comes home with Abraham: because the ram was sacrificed instead. Now, like all biblical stories there is more than one possible interpretation here: but a very likely one is that we are dealing with a story about choosing between God's gifts, and appeasing other gods.

The writers of the Old Testament took an interesting view of the many gods that were worshiped by other peoples: a view more reminiscent of the one that the ancient Persians had, than of the conventional interpretation that Jews and Christians today have. Today, we ascribe no power to the statues of gods that we find in the ruins of ancient civilizations: we use them, but merely as symbols. Some more conservative cults view ancient (or modern) gods as demons or lies of Satan. However, the ancient writers do not attempt to deny the existence or power of other gods, nor do they attribute them to a semi-divine evil. The gods of the Canaanites and the Egyptians, the Assyrians and the Hittites are all real, to the ancient Jews. These are all powerful divine entities, with the very real ability to help and harm people.

Today we ask people if they "believe in" God, but that would have seemed an absurd question to ask someone in the ancient world: as indeed it would still be an absurd question in say Japan or India. Ancient people, like modern Hindus or Shinto practitioners, didn't "believe" gods existed: they personified and worshiped forces that did exist. People didn't worship every god of course, just the ones they needed favors from or needed to ward against. The Jews worshiped only their own deity, the personification of their own civilization: and believed that this deity took care of all of their needs. But, it was difficult for the early Jews to always maintain that belief. Thus the story of Abraham and Isaac. Presumably Abraham has been sacrificing to Ammon, the god of the sun, so that his cattle will have water. Perhaps he doesn't even view it as worship, since he detests Ammon and the sun (being a herder and all).  This would then be why God asks Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. But, in the "good ending" story: God gives Abraham the choice to sacrifice Ammon (who was often represented as a ram, or ram-headed) instead, to fully trust that God will take care of him.

This interpretation is clearly what the writer of Revelations had in mind, because understanding the character of The Lamb requires this interpretation. The shining ram that Abraham sacrifices is not just a random animal but a god, a god who had a child. Now the child isn't specifically the historical figure that we know as Alexander. Alexander was only one incarnation of Ammon's child. Ammon was the King of the Egyptian Gods in the New Kingdom period: better known to you probably as Ammon-Ra. His son was the Pharaoh of Egypt. Now, there hadn't actually been a Pharaoh of Egypt for a while when John of Patmos penned his book. But, partially because of the practice of mummification, people didn't really think of them as history. Alexander himself, dead for several hundred years, looked like he would wake up from a nap at any time. We have Julius Caesar's astounded description of his three hundred year old corpse: wavy strawberry blond silver-streaked hair, light olive skin, dark brows and eyelashes, chiseled features, a smile still hanging on his perfectly curved lips.  It's hard to think of a body this well preserved as dead, much less as a historical figure.  That was, of course, the point. And it is exactly this which John of Patmos is using. In his time, people still believe in the power of Alexander, in the power that owning his body has: and this is the source of the Romans' hold on power in the lands outside of Italy. Their claim to legitimacy rests on claiming that they are the rightful successors to Alexander and the Ptolemaic dynasty: chosen by the god Ammon. And it is that claim which Revelations undermines. It claims that Jesus is instead the rightful successor to Alexander and the Ptolemies: that Jesus is the true son of Ammon. Ammon who is now one with God, having been sacrificed by Abraham: according to the logic that the Romans themselves used in sacrificial rituals.

This brings me to the reason that this book is included in the Bible. Christians do not believe that the holy book comes straight from the mouth of God. Divinely inspired yes, but written and crafted by mortal hands. The Bible was put together at the Council of Nicea, centuries after the gospels were written: and most of the gospels weren't written at the time of the events they depict. John of Patmos himself was writing almost a century after Christ's death. No church, to my knowledge, disputes these facts about the Bible. At first blush Revelations seems to have almost nothing to do with the rest of the books in the Bible. This is the reason that mainline Protestants tend to ignore it: it seems like it has no real reason for being included. But it does.

This book created Christianity as a separate phenomenon from Judaism. Jesus did not create a religion, nor was he trying to. He was a Jew, and he saw himself as a reformer: perhaps as a Prophet, in the mold of Samuel and Elijah.  Paul and Thekla weren't creating a religion either: they were leading a revolutionary and counter-cultural movement. Religion and politics went hand in hand in Ancient Rome, to be loyal to the Emperor was to worship the Emperor. Mystery cults of particular gods, in the time of John of Patmos, were all the rage: cults devoted to recreating and sharing in a particular god's mythology. People of all backgrounds and all types were participating in these cults: and there were fashionable ones, like the cult of Mithras. Because of this context, any counter-cultural movement was necessarily religious. Secular societies, such as the Stoics, simply could not mobilize in any meaningful way. Stoic resistance to the excesses of the Roman Empire was frequent, and constant: but completely futile. Religions however, had threatened Rome since it's early days: even if they had also been it's salvation in times of crisis. 

The first Christians knew very well the story of the Parthian mother goddess and the Galli.  In the 3rd Century BCE, even as the flesh-and-blood Alexander marched across Central Asia, Rome was sacked by the Celts. With the city in flames and it's government in disarray, the fledgeling republic turned to it's sacred heart: the Sybiline prophecies. Supposedly these scrolls foretold the city's destiny. Though in reality it's likely the prophecies were an invention, used by the city's elite to convince the rest of the people that whatever happened was destiny. Of course, that works as long as you actually manage to achieve world domination. In any case the scrolls supposedly said that the city needed a statue of this Parthian mother goddess and a group of her priests, the Galli, to care for it. The political motivation for this has been obscured by the centuries, but presumably there was one. And, as it happened, one was available: thanks to Alexander torching Persepolis.

 The statue was one thing, the cult another. Bringing a new god into Rome would ordinarily not be seen as a bad thing, and bringing in a mother goddess seems like a sensible idea when you need to rebuild a city. But this mother goddess was something that Rome was not ready for. She wasn't Demeter or Hera, goddesses who were powerful but who supported and upheld the masculine paradigm that dominated ancient Greece and Rome (and indeed much of the ancient world). Her cult was akin to, and probably an offshoot of, the cult of Kali-maa in India: a cult still very much alive today. It's unique feature is that it believes, not in feminine equality, but in feminine supremacy.  The foundational myth is of the war goddess Durga transforming into the bestial Kali to battle a demon so strong all the other gods working together couldn't have defeated it. The battle is epic, for the demon has many forms and many lives. Finally it is dead, but Kali is overcome by bloodlust and does not stop her rampage. Afraid that she will kill all the other gods, her husband Shiva lies down in her path. When she steps on him, she realizes her mistake and stops. Now, one must understand that Shiva is the god of death: one of the strongest and most worshiped gods in the Hindu pantheon. Death submits to Kali: and this is the ironclad basis of this cult's belief system. The feminine ability to create life cheats death of it's power over humanity: allowing all things (Hindus believe) to go through the cycle of reincarnation. Kali incorporates all that is terrifying, and all that is amazing, about the reproductive process: and the cult of Kali sternly teaches men to accept the process in all it's horror and glory, as Shiva did. This was the goddess which the Romans now had to reckon with.

But the Parthians had taken things one step further from the Indians. The landscape of Northern India is dotted with citadels constructed by Kali-worshiping princes, so fanatically devoted to their goddess that they fought to annihilation rather than be conquered by the Mughals. But the Parthians had one-upped their southern compatriots thousands of years earlier. The Galli were not simply priests, they were eunuchs. Not men who had been enslaved and forcefully castrated: no, these were free men who had castrated themselves in a public ceremony. Even their home society had trouble accepting them. But, the awful power of their goddess could not be denied: she kept the fields fertile and the rivers full. If Parthia had an uneasy relationship with this cult, Rome was going to have an even more troubled time.

Rome was founded on a firm belief in the supremacy of masculine excellence. Young and vigorous men were the source of Rome's glory, it was believed: and very few had dared to question this.  The practice of castrating men was taboo in Rome, even if wealthy Romans frequently had eunuch slaves just like everyone else. Eunuchs were objects of scorn, even if they hadn't chosen their situation. When the Romans witnessed the initiation rites for the Parthian goddess, they were shocked and disgusted: the citizens very nearly revolted. This was given the provision that no Roman citizen could join the cult. However, even in the beginning there were Roman men who looked not with disgust but with jealousy. As the centuries wore on, there were more and more petitions from Roman citizens to join the cult. Yes, Roman men petitioning the state to let them castrate themselves. Eventually, the Emperor reluctantly agreed to let even Roman citizens into the cult.  Christians were around by this time, and they saw this. The power of this mystery cult to both induce ideological change in individuals, and to force the hand of the mighty Roman Empire, was lost on no one. 

Don't you think it's odd, that the bringers of the apocalypse are horsemen? I did. Why should they be horsemen, in a book full of monsters and talking animals? why something as mundane as horsemen? The answer is that they are horsemen, because they are Macedonians. They are Alexander's chief generals: Ptolemy, Parmenio, Cleitus and Seleukas. It's not even that hard to work out which is which. Parmenio is Death: for he was killed on Alexander's orders.  Ptolemy is War (Conquest): for he was the one most renowned for his military might. Cleitus is Famine: because he razed Thebes, and because of his scorched-earth campaign in Central Asia. Seleukas is Pestilence: because the Empire he created after Alexander's death was seen as a bastion of immorality and decadence. Stealing these four would furthermore have been just as important as stealing Alexander because they are pivotal to Alexander's legacy.

Alexander could not have done what he did without them: without their skills and their support. The story of Alexander is not simply the story of a single remarkable individual: although the real Alexander was indeed remarkable. It is the story of many remarkable individuals working together towards a common goal. Ptolemy is rightly revered for his own deeds. The Egypt that he chased the Persian garrison out of in 334 BC was a nation hurting from betrayal and languishing in obscurity. It's economy was in shambles, it had no military of it's own, and it was culturally stuck in the past.  By the end of his life, Egypt was the economic and cultural powerhouse that it had traditionally been once again, and with the military power to back that up. Parmenio was an old man in Alexander's time, a friend of his father King Philip. He had accompanied Philip through all of his exploits, and then went on to ably defend Alexander's rear. His death was a tragedy worthy of the stage: his son Philotas committed treason, so Parmenio had to be killed in order to prevent a blood feud.  Cleitus might have had a mean streak (and a drinking problem), but he was an inspirational leader to his own soldiers and a street-savvy politician whom several future Roman Emperors took as a role model (including arguably the greatest: Trajan).  Seleukas was also an able ruler and a shrewd diplomat: unifying a dizzying variety of ethnic groups under his banner, and allying himself with a young Chandragupta Maurya, before anyone else had realized this eighteen year old pretty-boy prince was a force to be reckoned with. He poured his share of the war booty into artistic projects, some of which still exist in some form. He was also a great city-builder, probably responsible for three of the four cities that bore the name "Alexandria", and definitely responsible for Palmyra. If Alexander had never existed, these four men would still be remembered for their own deeds and qualities. But because they were his generals they had a ludicrously outsized impact on world history: to the point where it's easy even for modern commentators to forget these were men.

But what does any of this have to do with modern society? I'm talking here about events that took place at least 2,000 years ago. Because Revelations is an example of something that some postmodernists have attempted to argue is impossible: re-appropriation. An extraordinarily successful example. Love it or hate it, Christianity is one of the most wildly successful social movements in all of human history: and John's little book is one of the major reasons why. For all it's weirdness, it made a convincing argument: the Emperor in Rome is no true successor to the great Alexander, Jesus is.
Indeed, Revelations managed to so entangle the myth of Alexander with the myth of Christ that Christianity actually co-opted Alexander's cult: the cult of Sol Invictus. Ever wondered why Christians end prayers with the word "Amen"? I did. It's the Hebrew form of the Egyptian name Ammon. This practice is a holdover from the cult of Sol Invictus.  That is not to say this hasn't created problems. Indeed many of the problematic ideas in Christianity, modern or historical, can be traced to the cult of Sol Invictus. And, as ideas about sex and therefore marriage changed: people reinterpreted the wedding imagery in Revelations, leading to anti-Semitic ideas like that Jerusalem needs to be conquered by Christians before the Apocalypse comes (double whammy, misogyny AND anti-semitism). However, Revelations still provides a fantastic example of how to re-appropriate a symbol, and of just how powerful actually pulling that off can be.

The Negotiation: Moving Past Mass Atrocities.

 Anduin Wrynn is the new, young, High King of the Alliance. Anduin's unique life story is important here. At the age of only seven, he-just like his father Varian-was thrust into the position of King. While he had a regent, the knight of Lordaeron Bolvar Fordragon, Anduin was forced to learn how to lead at this young age thanks to the machinations of Lady Katrana Prestor. With the help of a hero of the Alliance (the player character of WoW), Anduin was able to uncover the mystery behind his father's disappearance and Lady Prestor's identity. It turned out, she was the black dragon Onyxia: and that she was the one who had kidnapped Varian. Who, it turned out, was alive although not quite well.  Able to step back a little, Anduin was nevertheless a political force to be reckoned with on the world stage: and not one who necessarily toed the Alliance line. More than once, he intervened with attempts to make peace between the Alliance and Horde. He also developed an affinity for wielding the cosmic powers of Light and Shadow. Most of his attempts at peace were short-lived: but, each was better than the last.

Anduin was even unafraid to oppose Varian: and not without merit on occasion. When the disappearance of King Magni Bronzebeard in Ironforge led to a dwarven civil war: Varian came with elite Alliance assassins to kill Moira Thaurissan, who had taken over Ironforge. The trouble was that Moira was King Magni's only child: and dwarven society misogynist enough that it was an open question whether she or her uncle Muradin had the better claim to the throne. Falstad Wildhammer meanwhile believed that neither was fit for the throne, and sought it for himself. Anduin saw a different solution: King Magni after all was not technically dead, just unable to rule.  And so, he stopped his father from killing Moira Thaurissan. He then proposed that the dwarves install a council in which all three tribes had a voice: which would govern the day to day affairs of the dwarves. Ironforge would be open to all dwarves, and the seat of dwarven power. All the dwarven leaders, and Varian, saw the wisdom in this proposal. Emboldened by his success with the dwarves, Anduin attempted to end another war without bloodshed: but this didn't go so well. In fact it went massively not well and [spoiler alert!] got Varian killed. But, Anduin learned from his mistakes: guided by the draenei prophet and leader, Velen. At the same time, Velen also took his magical training to the next level: well, next several levels actually. Anduin at age 20 talking to Saurfang is not only a gifted priest, but a canny leader and seasoned diplomat. Still, he has the idealism of the young. Saurfang could not be more different.

Varok Saurfang is a contradiction. Like all orcs, he believes that a glorious death in battle is what will imbue his life with meaning. However, he struggles with PTSD. He is one of a dying breed: veterans of the first Orc invasion of Azeroth. For perspective: that means he's almost as old as Anduin's grandfather. Indeed, it is partially his PTSD which has caused him to be where he is right now talking to an Alliance High King. When the Warchief set fire to Teldrassil he heard the screams of the Night Elves: and remembered the screams of draenei children he and his fellow orcs killed in Shattrath City thirty five years ago. He snapped, refusing to strike down the Night Elf leader Malfurion Stormrage. The Warchief, Sylvanas Windrunner, branded him a traitor: and let him be captured at the Battle for Lordaeron. This was how he first encountered King Anduin: as his prisoner. But after Saurfang revealed that he wanted to lead a rebellion against Sylvanas: King Anduin let him go. So, Saurfang stands in this tower speaking to a man he owes a debt to. He is also a father who has lost his son, and indeed who believes his son superior to himself: for his son Dran'osh died with honor in battle opposing a threat to the entire world. Not dissimilar from how Varian Wrynn came to view his own son, after they were reunited. Anduin sees in Saurfang more than a little of his father. This surrogate father-son relationship is what makes their deeply vulnerable conversation possible.

Anduin poses a question to Saurfang. If we overthrow Sylvanas, he asks, what kind of Warchief will you be? Saurfang does not answer the question. Instead he offers to Anduin his own self-loathing. This is not simply because Saurfang is depressed: this is a calculated move. In order to overcome the past and move the Horde towards it's highest ideals: the past must be faced and dealt with. The fact that the Path of Glory on which the orcs walked in order to invade Azeroth was paved with the bones of the draenei they had slaughtered: this must be put out in the open. This is not an apology. You can't apologize to someone for invading their kingdom and murdering their grandfather: which is precisely what the First Horde did. You can however face what you have done and take responsibility for it, in front of a representative of your former enemy. Anduin responds to Saurfang in kind: for the Alliance is not innocent either. Again though, this is calculated. Anduin decides to admit specifically to the abandonment of Quel'thalas. Arthas, having picked up Frostmourne and leading the Scourge was nevertheless not the Lich King yet when he invaded the elven kingdom. He was, technically speaking, the King of Lordaeron: even if the still living citizens of that Kingdom no longer acknowledged him as their sovereign. This means that the Alliance of Lordaeron is in fact responsible for the invasion: and thus Prince Kael'thas was justified in joining the Horde.  Now, this is the first time in the entire game that any character from the Horde has taken responsibility for the first invasion, or any character from the Alliance has taken responsibility for Arthas. Indeed, other characters prior to this had explicitly disavowed responsibility for these particular events: blaming the Burning Legion for both crimes. But now as Anduin and Saurfang stand here: the Legion has been defeated, if not totally eradicated.

Anduin is positioning himself as a new kind of King: setting out to topple old assumptions about what it means to be a leader and even what it means to be a man. He tried to be a Warrior-King like his father: that lasted for all of five seconds at the Battle for Lordaeron. Realizing that he was not helping by trying to wield a sword poorly: Anduin set it down and healed his comrades instead. Not only did this save crucial lives, it also improved morale: and the Alliance was able to win the day. But the people of Stormwind still need a warrior-leader: someone who can stand on the front lines where the troops can see them. Luckily, on Kul Tiras Anduin found someone who could do just that: Taelia Fordragon, daughter of his old regent Bolvar. She has a warrior's heart, like Varian and unlike Anduin. Alongside her mount Galeheart, she has become a formidable force for law and order on the docks in Kul Tiras' capital Boralus. She is able and willing to solve problems with force, when that is what the problem requires. This is not however the traditional role for a Queen of Stormwind. It will take the people of that Kingdom some time to adjust to their new rulers, but they will. Anduin has already proven that his powers and approach are effective enough to warrant a break with tradition. 

Varok Saurfang can't do this. He is too old to successfully complete the process of redefining what it means to be an orc or a member of the Horde. But he can start that process with his death. His own death, and no one else's.  He does not tell Anduin this, but it is clearly what he is thinking about. The Horde has a tradition called Mak'gora: a ritual combat to the death. Any leader of a member race can challenge the Warchief to Mak'gora. But, everyone knows that Sylvanas will cheat because the whole reason they are here is that she has no honor. If Sylvanas cheats, Saurfang will certainly die. He will probably die even if she doesn't.  So the way to make his death meaningful is to expose how little Sylvanas cares for her own people: the Forsaken, and those of various other races who have also remained loyal to her. He can do that by preying on her arrogance, by embarrassing her in front of a crowd. She'll need to defend her actions, and in doing so she will mock those loyal to her. Saurfang can leave an example to follow so compelling that others will be able to do the work of redefining the Horde.

Others, like the young troll who idolizes Saurfang: Zekhan. Others, like the old Warchief Thrall: who has in the past few years been forced to face his own mistakes, and his own flaws as a leader. Others, like Lor'themar Theron: the Regent Lord of Quel'thalas, who betrayed his longtime ally Sylvanas to stand with Saurfang. Others like Thalyssra, the leader of the Nightbourne elves who recently joined the Horde.  Most especially, others like Baine Bloodhoof:the High Chieftain of the Tauren people, whose father Cairne helped establish the current Horde back at the time of the Third War. Whether the mantle of Warchief passes to Thrall or Baine, Saurfang's example will be their guide. That means they cannot go back to the way things were. They will be held to the standard that Saurfang held himself to. Because, you know, spoiler alert: Saurfang does indeed die.

Anduin and Saurfang cannot erase the atrocities committed. But they can agree on two important things: Azeroth is their home, and that the future is not determined by the past. Now this is opposed to Sylvanas: who sees the notion of "home" as irrelevant, and who is letting her past dictate her future. She has refused to grow beyond the suffering that Arthas inflicted on her, and so she is letting Arthas define her: even though Arthas is long gone. She reveals in a cutscene that she despises her fellow Forsaken for finding new places for themselves in the Horde and reasons for continuing to exist. She destroyed the Undercity, the home that the Forsaken had constructed in the sewers under Lordaeron's palace. She refuses to die, but refuses to live: a trap many of us, myself included, have fallen into as well. But it's important to swerve away from that and grow beyond your trauma: because then your pain becomes something you can use. Saurfang's empathy for those who have suffered is born from his guilt about the atrocities that he committed. His empathy is also the very quality that makes him so beloved among the Horde. Anduin's profound love for others is born from his personal suffering: and his love for others is the source of his immense power as a priest.

Anduin is not the first Wrynn that Varok Saurfang has inspired by accident. The Lich King killed and raised Varok's son Dran'osh. The heroes of the Horde (the player characters) went with Saurfang to destroy him and take home his body. His bravery, after all, merited a proper funeral. Muradin Bronzebeard tried to block the way. Until, that is, King Varian showed up. Now Varian usually, understandably enough, hated orcs. But Varian instead bid Muradin to stand down and "let a grieving father pass".  As a father recently reunited with his son, Varian could suddenly empathize with Varok Saurfang. He could see him not as an orc, but as a father. Having come back to Stormwind to find that Anduin had ruled capably in his absence, Varian understood for the first time how terrible it would be to lose his son. He could project his feelings for Anduin onto Saurfang, erasing the racial emnity between them for one moment. Furthermore, Varian could compare Dran'osh Saurfang to his own father: both were leaders who stared death in the face with pride and defiance. He could understand for the first time how his father felt as they stared death in the face: how he felt love, not hatred, in his final moments. So he could let go of his own hatred of orcs, because his father had not died hating them. He could instead honor his father by following his example. Which, when the Burning Legion returned to Azeroth, he did. Indeed Varian did not simply die with defiance and with love in his heart for others, but like Dran'osh Saurfang, willingly embraced such a death.

So, as Anduin and Saurfang stand in this tower confronting the ghosts of the past: they are honoring Varian by following his example. Indeed, they are taking his example and applying it on a greater scale. He confronted and overcame his own personal trauma, his own personal fears and hatreds. Saurfang and Anduin are dealing with mass traumas here. It is not enough to confront them on a personal scale, they must do so on a mass scale. It is necessary to defeat Sylvanas that they confront both the legacy of the First Horde, and the legacy of Arthas: both the atrocities committed by the Horde, and those committed by the Alliance. The atrocity of action, and the atrocity of apathy. Sylvanas after all, is not simply an individual: she represents an ideology.  She believes hope is a weakness, home is a lie, relationships are tools. She has not overcome her trauma, and is trying to drag others down with her. She was created from Arthas' invasion of Quel'thalas, and she represents a continuation of the First Horde's legacy. To stop her, Saurfang and Anduin must commit to overcoming these atrocities.

There is a reason we use the word "atrocity".  It is because these are actions you cannot apologize for or compensate: they involve loss of life on such a grand scale, or inhumane actions that cannot be justified by reason. It is tempting to think that you can, but in doing so you would devalue human life and human dignity. There can be no reparation. There can however be a confrontation, and an acceptance. No human society after all is entirely innocent of atrocities: the scale, nature and frequency might vary but all societies have had their darkest hours. We cannot justify abuse, but we can understand it: we can empathize with those who have hurt us. This is our greatest gift as human beings, although it is one we do not use as often as we should. I can look at the man who assaulted me and understand that he was just as much a victim of the Patriarchal system as I was. I can understand that he acted not out of malice but out of desperation, having been told that sex was the way to get the validation that his mother and his peers were not giving him. I also knew then as I do now that his satisfaction would have been short-lived and hollow if I had given in. So too, I can look at a homophobe and see, not as monster, but a person who has doubts about his or her gender and sexuality just as I do. I can oppose that person because they are dealing with their problems in an unhealthy way rather than because I hate them. And only by doing this can we move past these traumas. 

What we need in order to have this conversation, is three things. 1) to recognize that we have experiences in common which transcend the boundaries of identity. 2) to recognize that we share a home: earth. and 3) to recognize that the future is not determined by the past.  We need to be willing to share deeply with each other: to share not only the things we're proud of but the things we are ashamed of or afraid of.  We need to be willing to take responsibility for both our actions and our failures to act. We need to have this conversation, or the sins of our past will continue to haunt us because we will continue to be traumatized by them: both those who committed the atrocities and those who they were committed against. Only by taking responsibility can we move beyond the trauma.  This simple short film from a video game shows us what that conversation about the atrocities in our past looks like. It is an amazing example of what is possible in games, when developers have the courage to actually tackle a complicated theme like "how do we move past mass atrocities?" It is a perfect example too of why we need media despite all it's problems. We need these models, these test-runs, these myths.