Steve Rogers. Shot dead.
People have been asking me to comment.
Understand that, if I were a fan, my reaction would be, “Yeah. Sh’right.”
As someone working for Marvel, you have to realize that I knew this was coming months ago. And I know what’s going to be happening over the next months.
So I can’t say anything.
What I will say is, “Dang. It HAD to be the same week as the latest issue of Friendly Neighborood Spider-Man…?”
PAD
• 
Micha, I have no interest in discussing this with Mike, for all the obvious reasons, but since you’ve put some thought into this…
I would certainly argue with the idea that “I don’t think racist scientists at that time period would have considered a black man as a possible threat.” Looking at what actually happened around those times would put that into doubt. Look at the horror that many racists felt over a Black man winning the heavyweight boxing championship (arguably the closest thing to a real “super soldier”.) The memory of Jack Johnson would probably have filled the hearts of of any super soldier serum bearing racists with cold sweaty terror!
(Admitedly, things had improved by the time Joe Louis dominated the ranks, though I’m sure many white racists would have loved to see him lose the title.).
More later.
Bill, I think racist considered black athletes as a threat, but not because they thought that they would use their strength to attack whites, but because it threatened their sense of superiority for a black athlete to beat a white one.
Perhaps this have been your intention all along, and if I misunderstood you I apologize.
In contrast, If we were to imagine a story in which a racist scientist were to revive the super soldier experiment in the 60’s, he would probably be concerned that a superpowered black person would be influenced by black militant attitudes of the time and turn his power against white men.
It could also be claimed that American racism from its beginning included a deep seated fear of the blacks turning against whites, and that it was this fear that motivates them. This would have been something to take into consideration if we were writing a comic about racism in the US.
I can understand why you wouldn’t want to imaginarily co-rewrite an imaginary comic book with Mike. I think I’ve avoided the pitfalls so far.
There is no doubt that fear, real or imagined, was a factor in racism against Blacks. Look at Birth of A Nation–the klan is portrayed as a noble insurgency against black reconstructionist soldiers who are raping and pillaging the defeated South. Idiotic to be sure but a bleief that was shared by many.
Although there are very few instances of Blacks succesfully fighting back against the lynch mobs prior to the 60s, such things did happen and they seemed to have left an impression on the minds of racists. Nat Turner and John Brown, while unsuccessful, never were far from the minds of the slaveholders (and with about 1/3 of the population slave they had good reason to fear what an uprising would be like).
In the 1921 Tulsa race riot over a dozen to 50 Whites were killed when they burned down a succesful Black district. Far more Blacks were killed but the lack of a one sided massacre seemed to discourage further lynchings. (the actual numbers of dead and wounded will never be known but according to Reason magazine the valiant defense that many Blacks put up left an indelible mark on the attitudes of those who survived). Other such events included one where a Black man used a handgun to defend his home; after he was aquitted Michigan passed a handgun law requiring a permit (I’ve heard gun rights advocates claim that many of the first gun laws were enacted for racial reasons. I don’t know how accurate that is though).
Of course, one could argue that any “fear” that was claimed was purely a justification for oppression and not any genuine emotion.
“(I’ve heard gun rights advocates claim that many of the first gun laws were enacted for racial reasons. I don’t know how accurate that is though).”
They’re actually right, but only to a point. At a time when there were very few gun laws worth mentioning, the U.S. passed a law that made it a crime for blacks to own a gun (this was just after, if memory serves, the revolver was created) and to restrict when and where they could possess them.
Now, whether or not this was caused by fear, hate, concern or some other factor can be argued until the end of days. Besides, I’m sure, just as with laws passed now, that there were different groups of lawmakers who all had different reasons on why they thought such a law was a good idea. And this wasn’t anything new by any means. This kind of law has been passed by one group onto another for as long as we’ve had weapons and it hasn’t always been based on race.
In Civil War: Initiative (also out this week) we are told – second hand, admittedly – he is alive and recuperating somewhere.
I think we’re supposed to question the accuracy of anything she says during that exchange with Jessica. She also flat-out tells her to come in from the cold and all will be forgiven, which Tony says it untrue, he’d like to arrest her for sedition. To me the message there is that if she’s making promises that are completely made-up then everything else she’s saying is in doubt as well.
That said, I also don’t believe he’ll be dead more than 18 issues.
I’ve only read issues 4, 5, and 7 of “Civil War.” Everything I’ve read here and elsewhere indicates I’d have to buy one hëll of a lot more comics than that in order to really understand what’s going on. Not just multiple comics but multiple SERIES. I mean, there’s “Civil War,” “Civil War: Frontline,” “Civil War: The Initiative,” and all of the tie-ins in Marvel’s ongoing series, right?
No thanks. Money’s tight. Count me out. Even if this multi-title storyline looked appealing, I can’t afford it. God bless those of you who can.
If the credits don’t say “Peter David” or “John Romita Jr.” I guess I’ll be staying away from it.
As far as the above seems to be the only thing in this thread that could prompt you to intervene and refer to any incidents outside of it, I can only wonder why anyone who agrees to the pointlessness of the discussion would keep it alive by persisting in responding to what I say with disagreements.
Someday you may be generous enough to explain how the above warrants mention at a time, as you say, of severe gravity.
Posted by: Mike at March 13, 2007 08:26 PM
Someday you may be generous enough to explain how the above warrants mention at a time, as you say, of severe gravity.
It’s the difference between rancorously arguing tooth and nail over a comic-book… and merely making an observation about them in a blog run by a guy who makes his living in the field.
But if you have to ask, I doubt you’ll understand the answer.
Have a good life, Mike. I sincerely hope you someday find the happiness that is so obviously eluding you now.
Are you talking about one of my posts? What such post of mine exposes any teeth or the edge of any nail?
Bill Myers, I’ve come to believe that Mike has problems that can only be understood by someone with a professional understanding of human psychology. I don’t know what it is. but with all the developmental and neorological syndroms diagnosed every day, perhaps this too has a name and description.
So you should talk to him with the calmness and understanding you would accord to a little child or someone from a very foreign culture. To criticize him for his behavior is like criticizing a blind man for his blindness, or a three year old for not remaining still. I doubt anything we do will affect his behavior for better or worse, but we should try to treat him kindly and even respectfully as much as possible and hope there is something somewhere that will help him.
“There is no doubt that fear, real or imagined, was a factor in racism against Blacks.”
Agreed
“Of course, one could argue that any “fear” that was claimed was purely a justification for oppression and not any genuine emotion.”
It is a chicken and egg kind of thing. They oppressed because they were afraid, they were afraid because they oppressed. The were genuinely afraid because they needed a justification for their oppression.
If there is a disagreement between us it is only in the degree in which we should consider fear of blacks as a motivating force in the psychology of our imaginative super serum scientists. This is really fine tuning for characters in a story we are not even writing. Fun but silly
“I’ve heard gun rights advocates claim that many of the first gun laws were enacted for racial reasons. I don’t know how accurate that is though”
Even if true, this is a demagogic argument used by people who are unwilling to argue on the merits for or aganst gun control in the here and now.
Thank you.
Depending on your familiarity with the grail myth, and although it makes no explicit reference to the grail, you may have noticed the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer is a really good example of a grail quest. Ben Kingsley, the kid, and the homeless Lawrence Fishburne form the grail-king/grail-champion/pagan-grail-contender triangle.
Without an explicit reference, making much of the grail theme may seem arbitrary. But as far as the title refers to a quest and a “Fisher” king, patterns like Josh’s preoccupation with the knight, and the use of the “wounded king” theme down to Josh needing help opening a can of coke, Zaillian seemed to be referring to this specific myth. Even withholding an explicit reference to the grail is consistant with the myth — like the tao, the grail myth defies and challenges representation — with Joe Montaigne saying what he thinks Ben Kingsley wants, and Kingsley giving an explanation consistant with a drive to find what the grail signifies.
Well, if you’re going to keep talking about me:
If you’ve read Oliver Sacks (portrayed by Robin Williams in Awakenings), you may have noticed how he refers to Tourettic tics as “enshrinements” of a word, of observed gestures and expressions, of any invasion of personal space. He wrote of a Tourettic surgeon who was obsessive beyond all compulsion, and when he was not distracted, his focus aided him in surgery. As far as distractions split this hyper-devotion (my phrasing, not Sack’s) his inability to resolve his split attention devolved into Touretic tics.
Now I am not Tourettic, but I was thinking of Sack’s analysis when I was reading some criticism of the new “Zodiac” movie. Someone said Jake Gyllanhaal merely insisting that discovering the identity of the killer, after he had stopped killing and finding him was no longer a priority, was not enough to make the character engaging.
I can’t disagree with the criticism of the story’s presentation, but Gyllanhaal’s interest in discovering the identity of the killer still made sense to me in that he was not an indulgent personality, and he could not reconcile for himself a model of reality where someone like the zodiac still remained free. Where a Tourettic’s inability to reconcile the overwhelming delights of sensestions that distract him, the Gyllanhaal character instead retained interest where no one else demonstrated as much difficulty in reconciling the killer’s freedom with their model of reality.
I’m not calling anyone here a serial killer, but as far as I have difficulty reconciling the behavior of others with reason, no, no one else is displaying the same difficulty. As I responded in the “Victims of Mike” discussion — I have the answers I was looking for and, as far as they reconcile my model of reality with what I observe, they work.
As far as Bill Myers meant “have a good life” he should be glad. As far as he burst in on the discussion with accusations of hate, referring to nothing I’ve said, I doubt my well-being would really please him.
As far as he has difficulty reconciling his own model of reality while my behavior hasn’t summoned any anvils to fall from the sky on me — well, it would be hypocritical of me to deny the sense in his own search for answers. As far as my reconciliation with my model of reality and behaviors I would otherwise find baffling still stands, I have to admit I understand Bill’s drive to ambush me, and he should feel free to continue while I am here to do so without receiving any responses of a retaliatory nature — as I have done in this thread.
I’m not a gun owner, have no interest in becoming one–which will come back to haunt me come the Zombie Nation–but I can sort of see where the argument could be that gun control is an attempt by the government to restrict the rights of people to defend themselves and to use any historical examples of that to support their arguments wiould be a fiar tactic.
I don’t believe that this is the reason people are for gun control now but it’s a fair argument, however incorrect.
I remember tossing off plot ideas with my buddies when we toiled in the Mile High Comics saltmines and one was that the government had been trying for YEARS to recreate the Hulk by exposing all kinds of folks to gamma radiation, the results of which were rotting in sanitariums and/or graveyards scattered about the place.
And sometimes we got dark. Of course, back in those innocent times we only thought of them as What If ideas, not as a general direction for the Marvel Universe. Civil War would have been a fine imaginary story (yeah, yeah, aren’t they all) but I’m sorry it’s fated to be part of “reality”.
(Boy does all that sound silly when you say it out loud. Oh well, we’re all fans here.)
Re: the grail myth
A few years ago I wrote a short seminar-like paper about the image of Camelot in film. I discovered thatt there is a large field of study of Arthuriana in general and about Arthurian films in particular. Very interesting.
I also read Chretien de Troyes Grail story (the first one from the 12th century). However I can hardly claim to be an expert on the story of the grail.
“grail-king/grail-champion/pagan-grail-contender”
I’m not familiar with these terms in the context you are using them. I googled grail contender and found nothing. Are these terms you came up with? Are they Jungian terms/archetypes? In any case, they are certaily the result of modern literary interpretation. These are not the terms Chretien de Troyes would have thought of when thinking ofhis story.
For my paper I did read a fun little book: Frank McConnell. Storytelling & Mythmaking: Images from Film and Literature. Oxford, 1979, which speaks of four-five archetypes that appear in different stories and that represent 5 kinds of stories — the king, the knight, the detective, the fool, the messiah. This is less specific than the grail and includes the grail story as one of the most representative examples of these archetypes. When I was reading it I saw these archetypes everywhere, now less.
In any case, I’m not sure Searching for Bobby Fischer could be considered as Arthuriana, you may be just seeing the grater archetypes here. Especially since Bobby Fischer is a real person, so I’m not sure it could be considered a reference to the Fisher King (see also movie with Ribin Williams). There is movie with Robert Redford as a baseball player which is explicitly a grail story.
“I have the answers I was looking for and, as far as they reconcile my model of reality with what I observe, they work.”
Or your perception might be impaired. Maybe you are mistaking Bill Mulligan, Bill Myers, myself, Bobb Alfred, Sean, Luigi, etc. for coat-hangers on which you hang your hangups. Maybe. (I should really read that book. I’ve been not reading it for years).
On a non related matter, I highly recommend a sci-fi book called Warchild (on it’s sequals) by Karin Lowachee. Excellent, some of the best stuff I’ve read, and apparently ignored by sci-fi readers.
I can sort of see where the argument could be that gun control is an attempt by the government to restrict the rights of people to defend themselves”
Yes, I accept that this argument has on its own merits — namely the idea that the right to bear arms is rooted in a concept of freedom from the government. But I think using the argument refering to black persecution should be considered ‘inflamatory and prejudicial to the jury’ as they say in lawyer TV shows. It evokes the image of racism needlessly in order to win an argument not on the issues. Who would do something like that?
It evokes the image of racism needlessly in order to win an argument not on the issues. Who would do something like that?
I love it when you’re being ironic. 🙂
Although I haven’t read them, I know Peter has written a number of grail-quest books, and it’s past the time to mention them considering the discussion. Of course, I look forward to picking them up if I find them.
The wording is mine.
In the Moyers interview, Joseph Campbell cited opposite to the grail king a pagan king contending for the grail, with the grail champion reconciling them to complete the quest. The triangle of interests always seems to be present, the pagan grail contender if only as the thing that needs to be reconciled with the grail king for the champion to complete the quest. Silence of the Lambs might arguably be described as the relationship between grail champion and pagan contender with the grail king little more than the desire to capture the killer.
The influence of the grail myth seems apparent in Freud’s establishment of the model of the id, ego, and superego. And I think it was Jung’s daughter who wrote a book on the grail myth — as Freud was an atheist, I’m remembering it as Jung’s daughter.
Chivalry is not interchangeable with the grail myth.
For instance, Sir Gawain was the knightly standard of chivalry, and all the other knights considered him the most likely one to find the grail. The unlikelihood of Percival, if not Galahad, finding the grail was a strong theme of the myth.
I was citing a form of fidelity among people that shelters behavior I found incomprehensible. Coat-hangers is your word. And as I don’t remember Bobb or Luigi ever intervening to shelter such bevavior, I wasn’t refer to them.
And as my paradigms reconcile the inconcistencies I’ve been citing, they remain unchallenged. As they say: in the kingdom of the blind, the man with one eye is king.
If this reference to arbitrarily introducing the topic of race refers to me, let me say my posts typically cite the passages they are referring to. If I’m introducing the topic of race in any of these discussions, you are free to cite an example.
I never EVER would’ve made a connection to Bobby Fischer and the Grail. On reading this, I can see where the arguement could be made. BUt, I have to wonder if this particular story form predates Arthur and the Grail. The Heroic Archetype certainly does, as does the Impossible Quest. Certainly, the legend of Arthur fits the bill quite well. But the story form itself, the Noble Quest, can be seen much earlier, the Argo and the Golden Fleece leap to mind.
As far as giving blacks the Super Soldier serum–I can see that happening. Blacks were considered inferior, just barely civilized. The conceit would’ve been, “Yes, he’s really strong, but he won’t be smart enough to DO anything with it without our help.” (Sorry for the gross over-simplification, but I don’t want to clog the internet with the long version. Al Gore would be miffed, and he might try to stick me with his power bill.) That’s why people test on animals, see how it affects THEM before we try it on US.
Bill–don’t worry. Just get yourself and extending tree pruner and an aluminum baseball bat. Or you could run from them screaming, “I’M NOT ROMERO!”
“But I think using the argument referring to black persecution should be considered ‘inflammatory and prejudicial to the jury’ as they say in lawyer TV shows. It evokes the image of racism needlessly in order to win an argument not on the issues. Who would do something like that?”
I feel that I should point out, since my only post on this thread for a long while has been to point out that there was a racial reason for some gun control laws once, that I don’t subscribe to that as a modern reason for gun control laws or a legitimate modern era argument. I just find some of the historical reasons for some laws interesting and could verify the validity of another posters statement. I didn’t really make that clear before.
I’m actually fairly moderate on gun issues. I have quite a few guns, like them very much and would like to snag a few more down the road, but even I think that the pro-gun lobby has lost its mind these days. Hunters don’t need armor piercing rounds to take down a deer and home protection doesn’t need a level of firepower that send a bullet through the intruder, through the dwelling’s wall and out into the surrounding areas where it could find an unintended target that has nothing to do with the intruder that’s having his insides ventilated. Some of the “Legislation Alert” mailings that the NRA sends out these days are laughable at best and scary at worst.
“Blacks were considered inferior, just barely civilized. The conceit would’ve been, “Yes, he’s really strong, but he won’t be smart enough to DO anything with it without our help.””
I don’t know. The flip side of that is that the scientist would realize that they were testing on black SOLDIERS. Basically, your talking about a trained fighter/killers who has been taught how to use their skills to the best of their abilities. Most of the real world experiments that the government conducted would have ended with nothing at all happening or by creating effects that were detrimental to the person being experimented on. The Super Soldier tests could kill, could do nothing or could create a, duh, super soldier. If the outcome of the experiments could have been one to several trained black super soldiers, I think that they might have balked at that. I think they would have tested on white federal prison inmates under the mindset that “at least they could be rehabilitated” before they would have gone on to risk creating a black super soldiers.
“Bill–don’t worry. Just get yourself and extending tree pruner and an aluminum baseball bat.”
Actually, Home Depot has a sale this or next week on their Fiskers axes and hatchets. Pick up some shop rags and the ax and hatchet sharpener (made at a convenient carry size and for quick use) that they make and you’ve got a pretty good lightweight skull splitter and an ok cramped quarters tool along with all the tools needed to maintenance your weapons. And the hatchet is good for making large walking sticks with really sharp, pointed ends.
Guns would be useful in the early days of just the odd small group of roving zombies, but by the time we hit Monster Island levels of hordes they would just attract every zombie for miles around to your location. Never a good idea.
A crowbar may be the single best all around tool.
Quick, rush over to http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.03/bemore.html?pg=1&topic=bemore&topic_set= which is an amazing article on the current quest for the super soldier. It even mentions some of the past abuses we have. Amazing.
With people like Bill Mulligan, Jerry, Sean, and Micha around, I never have to feel like the oddest person in the group.
Or the best looking.
Yeah, Myers…. You laugh now, but you’ll be thankful, THANKFUL I SAY, to be able to draw on the vast knowledge of creepy creature killing that we have amassed the day that you wake up and find the world outside your window overrun with revenants or their modern offshoots. They laughed at everybody who knew better at the start of every horror film in existence, but look who lived until the end credits!!! And who died!!!! That’s what they get for thinking that WE”RE the crazy ones!!!!!!
Bwah-ha-ha-haaa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excuse me, I have to go now. my wife says that I’m overdue for my daily meds.
This one investion mentoned in that article at Wired is pure genius–a contraption that fits over the hand and cools the blood as you exercise, allowng you to do far more than you ever could before. There is also the headslappingly obvious idea of giving the wounded a shot of estrogen to allow for greater survival rates from blood loss. The military applications of biology are potentially limitless.
“With people like Bill Mulligan, Jerry, Sean, and Micha around, I never have to feel like the oddest person in the group.”
That’s the nicest thing anyone has said about me all week. At least SOMEONE on the internet appreciates me.
Bill, only problem with that article, wouldn’t a scientist smart enough to come up with something like that be able to call it something better than the glove? I mean, seriously. Also gives new meaning to that phrase from Aliens–stay frosty.
Sean, one of the things they mentioned was that they were trying to make their stuff sound friendly and non-threatening. Me, I’d call it The Mighty Fist Of Doom or The Cold Gauntlet of Icy Death , but that’s me.
Posted by: Bill Mulligan at March 14, 2007 01:47 PM
Or the best looking.
You are such a total bášŧárd.
You are such a total bášŧárd.
Hey, it’s bad enough when my mom says that…
Bill, you know you’d call it the Zombie’s Touch. Don’t even TRY to make us think differently.
Or just make us think. Smoke detectors up the Eastern Seaboard’ll be going off.
I hear you have to eat 14 bowls of Raisin Bášŧárd to equal the nutrition of one bowl of Total Bášŧárd.
Hot dámņ, that’s actually pretty funny, Mike. 🙂
Posted by: Bill Myers at March 14, 2007 01:16 PM
With people like Bill Mulligan, Jerry, Sean, and Micha around, I never have to feel like the oddest person in the group
Ðámņ. Now I know it’s been too long since I’ve been able to post regularly.
-Rex Hondo-
“Ðámņ. Now I know it’s been too long since I’ve been able to post regularly.”
And you’re Rex…Who-ndo? Wait, it’s ringing a bell. Or that just may be my ears…
I’m sure in a year or two, we’ll find out that the person who was shot was a clone or a SHIELD LMD. In the meantime, I think the killing of Steve Rogers as a way of getting him out of the way for the next phase of the registration controversy is just plain stupid.
I have to say, as a fan, I do not have much good to say about Marvel these days, especially in regards to their treatment of Cap. For the past few years now, he’s been increasingly portrayed as a weak leader, pushed aside from his traditional role by Iron Fascist (I mean, Iron Man).
At this point, I’m counting the days until Joe Q steps down as EIC.
Re: Joseph Campbell
Mike, thank you for turning my attention to this person’s work. I looked him up, and I thik I probably heard of his ideas in passing somewhere, since they sounded familiar to me.
You should note that — if understand his ideas correctly based just on a glimpse in wikipedia and britannica — Campbell idea is that different mythes like the grail are based on more ancient archetypes that appear in myths from different eras and cultures. In other words, the grail is not an archetype in itself as much as a (very significant) example of an heroic archetype.
Re: Searching for Bobbie Fischer.
There are three questions:
1) Is this movie a conscious reference to the grail story?
I’m not sure, since the reference to a Bobbie Fischer is to be expected in the context of chess without assuming it is hinting to the Fisher King. (Another good ches movie is Fresh).
2) Is the movie influenced by the grail story while not refering to it in any way?
It is hard to tell precisely because the grail story is such a strong example of an archetype that appears in many other stories. It is possible that he similarities to the grail you find in that movie and others are the result of them sharing the same archetype as the grail story.On the other hand, there is no doubt that some movies and books are directly influenced by Arthurian themes (like Star Wars). You can do research and see if the movie’s director or writer spoke of such influences.
Searching for Bobbie Fischer and Perivall seem to share the same archetype according to the system of Frank McConnell I mentioned above.
3) Are the grail archetypes propsed my Mike applicable to the movies he mentions, and are they useful to understanding the movie?
Honestly, they seem too specific to me, and sometimes a little forced. Maybe it needs more work, or to take a step back to recognize a greater archetype that includes the grail story. One of the things I liked about Frank McConnell’s book was that after I read it I started seeing his archetypes everywhere. Maybe if I read joseph Campbell or Jung (no promises) I’ll see their archetyoes everywhere?
re: “Freud was an atheist”
I’m not exactly sure how’s that relevant. People studying the Illiad today do not believe in the greek Gods (the ignorant fools), but the story is still of great artistic value.
re: “The influence of the grail myth seems apparent in Freud’s establishment of the model of the id, ego, and superego.”
I think he was influenced by a similar division in Plato’s Republic. In any case, establishing influences like that is tricky precisely because there are many shared cultural influences. I think that’s the idea behind Jung’s idea of the collective unconscious. But you know more about it than I. Also, dividing things into 3’s is quite common.
Re: “For instance, Sir Gawain was the knightly standard of chivalry, and all the other knights considered him the most likely one to find the grail. The unlikelihood of Percival, if not Galahad, finding the grail was a strong theme of the myth.”
You should note that the Arthurian concepts, stories and characters went through different transformations as they were passed on from one writer to the next, from some Welsh legends to Chretien de Troyes and all the way to Peter David. It is a long tradition. In a way it is like a very long running comic with changing creative teams each adding their own take on this long tradition, usually reflecting their own time, place and culture. As a result characters changed, disappeared, were merged together and so on. Gawain got a little shafted over the years as a character.
re: “Chivalry is not interchangeable with the grail myth.”
The term Arthuriana refers to any art that refers to stories from the king Arthur tradition — books, comics, pomes, Opera, paintings, movies, musicals etc. For example, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, or Robert Redford’s baeball movie (the coach’s name is fisher, the team are ‘the knights’). Bill, did you know that George Romero made an Arthurian movie?
Mike, a word of advice. It is better not to rely to heavily on jargon and terminology that is specific to the work of one thinker, especially if you are the thinker. First explain things simply and introduce the terms, and only then start using them. Otherwise they do not add to the clarity of your statements, but the reverse. Also, I had a professor that used to get on our case for using phrase like ‘obvious’, ‘apparent’ and such. Things are no always apparent, and these phrases are more rhetorical devises than helpful in explaining things. This is not criticism, just some (hopefully helpful) advice.
re: “in the kingdom of the blind, the man with one eye is king.”
Are you sure you are the man with the one eye? People iften think they are, but their are usually wrong.
And if we are at parables, are you familiar with the one about the blind men who were trying to describe an elephant based on the sense of touch?
re: “I hear you have to eat 14 bowls of Raisin Bášŧárd to equal the nutrition of one bowl of Total Bášŧárd.”
This is very funny.
“With people like Bill Mulligan, Jerry, Sean, and Micha around, I never have to feel like the oddest person in the group.”
I’m sorry to tell you, but in a room full of crazies the normal one is the odd one.
Posted by: Micha at March 15, 2007 09:28 AM
I’m sorry to tell you, but in a room full of crazies the normal one is the odd one.
I have never… NEVER… been referred to as “the normal one” before. This is quite novel.
Bill, did you know that George Romero made an Arthurian movie?
does the Poe know about the Nicene Creed? KNIGHTRIDERS! Though I have to admit it hasn’t aged as well as I’d hoped. Still, even second level Romero is better than first level most other directors.
“I hear you have to eat 14 bowls of Raisin Bášŧárd to equal the nutrition of one bowl of Total Bášŧárd.”
Heh. That made me laugh.
I’m sorry to tell you, but in a room full of crazies the normal one is the odd one.
Ok then, Myers is safe.
At this point, I’m counting the days until Joe Q steps down as EIC.
The sad thing is, Den, he’s sitting pretty–the book sold like crazy and the “death” has gotten Marvel more publicity than they could have ever bought. Some seriously brain damaged people are even bidding up copies of Cap 25 on ebay (Sell now! Before they realize what gullible dupes they are!). The “death” of Superman taught them nothing!
Bill M, shock always gets the publicity. Sadly, it worked for DC when they “killed” Superman and it worked again for Marvel, which makes it doubly frustrating as this gimmick is obviously not even original.
But the “death” of Cap is just the latest in a long series of misusages of the character. He went from being the guy everyone in the MU looked to for leadership to constantly being put in his place by Iron Man to being the reckless leader of an anti-government movement.
If this is how Marvel is going to treat one of their icons, then maybe he’s better off staying dead. I realize I may be in the minority in this veiw. But, as I’m also in the minority of people who think Wolverine is just about the stupidest character in comics history, I’m used to it.
Thank you.
Micha,
I haven’t read Freud, but his emphasis on the id does not seem platonic.
Keep in mind that Plato and the grail myth are exclusive of each other in that the importance of the pagan grail contender in the grail myth is a challenge to Plato’s diefication of ideas. The foundations of Taoism and Buddhism also share this challenge to the diefication of ideas.
I can only cite Oliver Sacks, who cited Goethe: optical illusion is optical truth. We should not kid ourselves that our hands are in no way tied in employing language to communicate experience.
I can again only refer to Goethe: optical illusion is optical truth.
“have never… NEVER… been referred to as “the normal one” before. This is quite novel.”
Bill, don’t get too full of yourself, look at your competition.
We should make a reality TV show: america’s most normal person.
[I was going to suggest America’s Oddest Person, but I’m afraid this idea could be taken seriously by some TV executives.]
——
“Keep in mind that Plato and the grail myth are exclusive of each other in that the importance of the pagan grail contender in the grail myth is a challenge to Plato’s diefication of ideas. The foundations of Taoism and Buddhism also share this challenge to the diefication of ideas.”
Mike, are you familiar enough with Plato to say that?
I’ve studied Plato, and I don’t feel confident enough to agree or disagree with your statement, although it doesn’t sound right to me. But I know even less of Freud, Budhism, and Taoism, and I’m still not clear who the grail contender is.
In any case, in the Republic Plato presents a model of the mind that is divided into three parts which, I think, are similar in part to the one Freud uses. I think Plato and Budhism share a rejection of the material/sensory world. But I don’t know enough.
Posted by: Den at March 15, 2007 10:06 AM
I realize I may be in the minority in this veiw. But, as I’m also in the minority of people who think Wolverine is just about the stupidest character in comics history, I’m used to it.
In an interview with the Comics Journal some years ago, Kurt Busiek opined that Marvel’s raging success in the 1960s had to do with tapping into that era’s zeitgeist. He suggested that the zeitgeist of today is much different, and wondered if the super-heroes created in the ’60s had the same relevance to the youth of today.
It may well be that “Civil War” taps into today’s zeitgeist. It’s tough to say. Comparing today’s sales figures with those from Marvel’s heyday isn’t necessarily an apples-to-apples comparison; back in the ’60s printed entertainment didn’t have to compete with Cable T.V., DVDs, GameBoys, the Internet, etc. Also, it’s tough to know how much of Marvel’s sales is being fueled by idiot speculators that didn’t learn their lessons from the bubble-bursts of the 80s or the 90s. Or how many “Marvel Zombies” are buying the stuff because they feel they “have to” but are gritting their teeth as they do.
Hëll, I don’t even know if it’s actually kids buying the stuff! I rarely see kids at my local comics shop! It’s usually people my age or older.
Still, I’m forced to wonder if maybe the stuff loved by old farts like me just isn’t right for the zeitgeist of the here and now.
It’s pretty well documented that the average comics fan is getting older because kids have so many other things competing for their attention and their allowance money. With the price per book going up and the increasing emphasis on 6-12 issue epics as the norm, it’s not surprising that kids aren’t getting into the hobby any more. Manga sells well with kids, though, and I suspect that’s because each manga book is a self-contained story or at least enough of one to give them enough entertainment for their money.
I often here the argument made that superheroes like Superman and Captain America aren’t “relevant” in today’s culture because they’re too much of a black-and-white morality. But then again, isn’t that how Bush views the world? Or maybe that isn’t the case, given that Bush’s approval ratings are down at Nixonian levels.
On the other hand, isn’t it then ironic, given how unpopular Bush is today, that the side in Civil War that prevailed was the side that kowtowed to the president and was lead by a former member of Bush’s cabinet?
Anyway, maybe I am old-fashioned in a sense. I want my superheroes to be heroic. And I see nothing heroic about a character who routinely slices up people, including several of his supposed friends, and carves an American flag (despite being Canadian) on the face of a captured soldier.
I am going on memories of a class reviewing Plato’s model of the material world as “shadows cast” from an ideal plane: Nature is subordinate to the Ideal.
At the foundation of Buddhism, the foundation of Taoism, and as far as Christianity observes the grail myth, the Ideal is subordinate to Nature.
I am going by the Joseph Campbell reference, and how his casual reference resonates in all of the lasting religions.
The grail myth is interesting because something like it seems present in every religion and even Freudian psychology. To give you an example of the challenge to find major themes in common with every major religion:
Alan Watts was fond of saying how Hinduism was founded on the idea of the material world as a theater for a divine audience, and how if Jesus emerge in India and preached he was the son of god, the Hindus would have welcomed him with “Well, aren’t we all?”
In Buddhism, you are the Buddha, as Ben Stein is fond of addressing people with “I bow to your Buddha.”
In Christianity, Jesus Christ was the only man who was divine, Christians taking the practice from Christ’s persecutors of denying the inherent divinity of man.
“We should make a reality TV show: america’s most normal person.”
Oh, admit Micha. You just don’t wanna see that because A) you couldn’t enter, and B) you wouldn’t wanna see my ugly mug on TV winning something like that.
Den–while I know a lot of people who think Wolvie is the ultimate mutant, I myself have always been more partial to Cyclops and Colossus. Seriously, I always thought of Wolvie as more a supporting character. He’s sort of the mutant Fonzie, a background character who became the most popular. I don’t see any problem with heroes being heroic. It’s also one of the problems I had with Iron Man once Tony Stark started overdrinking. I like the characters to be realistic, have realistic problems, but for a while the book just seemed to be about THAT. I don’t know.
It may well be that “Civil War” taps into today’s zeitgeist.
To me it’s like watching a building being imploded; it isn’t that I prefer the ruins but there is something fascinating in destruction.
It’s what kept What If and all those “imaginary stories” at DC interesting. Now it seems like too many writers just smash things up and leave it to someone else to deal with the mess.
I don’t think anyone can say that PAD left a book in worse shape than he found it. Well, Byrne might.
Seriously, I always thought of Wolvie as more a supporting character. He’s sort of the mutant Fonzie, a background character who became the most popular.
That’s a really good analogy. I like Logan more than Den does but I agree that it’s a bit creepy how he is celebrated for what were once his flaws. The classic Claremont/Byrne issues portrayed the other X-Men as clearly dismayed by his bloodthirstyness. The last time I glanced through one of the non-PAD X-books it seemed like most of the characters made the Spartans look like Quakers.
Of course, now I’m sounding exactly like those golden and silver age old timers who used to bìŧçh about how things were better in the old days when the X-Men wore yellow and black and kids had a little thing called discipline!
Mike:
Re: Plato
I’m not sure you understand Plato correctly. I don’t want to burden this thread, so here’s a link to Plato’s theory of form’s from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_Forms
You are smart enough to read it yourself and reach your own conclusions. I think you wil lnotice at a glance certain similarities to Budhism.
Two interesting points. First, when we use the word ‘ideal’ in english today we are influenced by the term ‘idea’ coined by Plato. But, as you’ll see, the term does not have exactly the same meaning in his philosophy as it does today in our language. Secondly, ‘shadows cast’ is a metaphor used by Plato in the parable of the cave. But it is only a mataphor. Another parable in the same book is the one of the one eyed man being king of the blind. A third interesting parable is the one of Liges’s (?) Ring, which makes you invisible. The point of this parable is that if people could get away with it by being invisible, they would become corrupt. I wonder if Tolkin took his idea for Lord of the Ring’s from this story.
“The grail myth is interesting because something like it seems present in every religion.”
If I understand Campbell correctly, the idea is that the archetype which exists in the grail myth also exists in the myths of other cultures.
“as far as Christianity observes the grail myth”
That’s tricky. From a historical point of view the grail myth is an example of a way in which Christian clerics took a story from the secular culture of chivalry and gave it a religious context. This is a common theme in Church history. The Arthurian story was like TV today back then: it competed with the church for their attention. There’s a story for an abbot whose monks were dosing during a sermon, so he started talking about king Arthur and they all woke up.
I suppose from an anthropological/comparative religion point of view the archetype of the grail myth that existed in Christian or pagan culture became the grail myth at a cettain point in the history of christianity.
“In Christianity, Jesus Christ was the only man who was divine, Christians taking the practice from Christ’s persecutors of denying the inherent divinity of man.”
Religions have many different aspects, and go through changes over time, space, different social groups etc. You can find in them different and sometimes contradictory ideas and interpretations. Also I think all religions shift back and forth along the spectrum of seeing man as divine and as insignificant, and seeing god as very close or as very distant. It depends on the circumstances. So you cannot really sum any of them up in one sentence. You should also note that phrases like that are usually metaphorical. They do not describe the things they explained in an analytical way, and are usually coined by people who have so much knowledge, they can get away with using some catchy metaphorical phrase to sum up their ideas.
Since you like quotes, there’s a phrase in Judaism: the Torah has 70 faces. Another one is: Find yourself your own Rabbi. (But here, as always, if you look you can find in this same religions phrases that as narrow minded as these are pluralistic).
By the way, maybe you should look up the grail myth in Joseph Campbell’s books to get a better understanding of his ideas about it. I really should read this stuff myself, if I can muster the discipline. My mom is doing work on biographies of the Prophet Muhammad, but hasn’t used him so far. If she uses his work maybe it will give me the push to check it out myself — or maybe I’ll just watch some TV.
“I like Logan more than Den does but I agree that it’s a bit creepy how he is celebrated for what were once his flaws.”
That’s definitly a reflection of our time, or maybe even of earlier time, and part of a gradual process. Today we have Jack Bauer (24), but his forefather was Clint Eastwood.
Micha, review the opening text of the article you cited:
Plato portrayed Forms as independant of Nature. As far as the grail-myth, Taoism, and Buddhism portray Nature as independant of Ideas, they are incompatible with Plato.
***
My understanding is that those who know the real-life Pandolfini consider Kingsley’s portrayal a complete fabrication, so it isn’t as if he was a real-life wounded-king. And as far as he had a line in the movie, he consented to the unflattering, fictionalized portrayal.
Maybe Zaillian is completely unaware how the movie fits this pattern, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Zaillian knows but hasn’t introduced the topic in interviews. If he did, he’d be someone more like me, sitting here posting about it not knowing how to make an impact with what I know.
Consider Quentin Tarantino, who can’t stop talking about the millions of influences of his films. It’s all typical guy-fair, but still no one gives a šhìŧ.
For framing the drive to pit characters against each other and resolving the outcome of a story, you tell me how effective the grail-model is.
“Plato portrayed Forms as independant of Nature.”
No. Nature is dependant on the forms. The forms are nature.
“For framing the drive to pit characters against each other and resolving the outcome of a story, you tell me how effective the grail-model is.”
Sorry, I’m not convinced. It feels too forced to me.
Do what McConnell does in his book. First describe in anstract the characteristics of your different archetypes and the ways they interact, and then show the examples of how they manifest in different ways these characteristics. Right now it just seems as if you are just finding them everywhere. Also, they are very specific. McConel speaks of abstaract archetypes of the king, the knight, the detective, the fool/massiah, the shadow of the kinb, and (if I remeber correctly) the shadow of the knight. So if you watch a movie you can recognize pretty easily that a certain character exhibits king-like characteristics (as they are described by McConnell), and another fool-like characteristics. But you are talking about the grail-king, the grail-champion, the pagan-grail contender. That’s more specific, and seems to assume a direct relation to the grail story (if I understand correctly).
Now, I’m not rejecting your system completely, ot rying to force on you another system. I just think you need to work on it more for it to work as well as you want it to.
At present I share Sean’s opinion that the grail aspects you find in certain movies are the result of them sharing an archetype and not them directly refering to the grail myth.
It actually works pretty nicely with Searching for Bobbie Fischer and McConnell’s system. See, in his system the king is an epic guy, very harsh, who sets out the ideals and laws of civilization, thus creating civilization out of chaotic nature (like Moses)[note how I explain the concept as I go along]. A fool/messiah is a person who is an outsider, lives in the civilized world created by the king, but one in which the laws became stagnated and the ideals were lost as a result. The fool/massiah is an outsider to this civilization. He is a fool because he doesn’t understand or doesn’t accept those rules. By this he challenges the old rules, topples the old civilization, and finds again the basic ideals on which it was founded, becoming in a way a king himself. The fool/massiah often dies (Jesus is one example). Now, in the grail story you have the Fisher King who is sick, and you have Percival, who is an outsider, a guy who lived in nature and doesn’t know how to behave. In Searching for Bobbie Fischer you have Ben Kingsley as an obvious legislator-king and Josh as an outsider challenging the old-king’s rules only to find again the essence of chess.
Matrix, needless to say, has heavy messianic symbolism, but in the first movie it actually seems to me to fit a different pattern — that of the knight, who is a man is a follower and defender of the civilization and laws created by the king, who defends it from the chaos that still exists outside, by learning from the king his laws and ideals. The knight learns from the king, but he is less harsh and more civilized than him, which enables him also to pursue romance, something the king usually can’t. In Matrix Neo seems o be the knight to Morpheus’s king in the first movie, but Morpheus is the knigh to Neo’s Massiah in the third. Similarly, Lancelot is the knight to Arthur (which is why he get Guenevere); but Arthur is the knight to Merlin.
As you can see, this system gives you pretty nice insight into the stracture of different stories.
The third archetype, the detective, is a guy who lives in the civilized world of the king but where the king is very distant or absent. In the stories of the detective, chaos is found inside civilization. What he detective does is find it and contain it, thus saving civilization. But in order to do that, he has to have a certain chaos/darkness in him. That’s why the detective (sometimes a scientist, doctor, reporter etc.) in these stories is often sociallu awkward, like Sherlock Holmes, Batman, Gil Grissom, Greg House, Han Solo, Jack Bauer etc. Silence of the Lambs seems to fit this pattern.
And in what circumstance would a Buddhist agree with this statement?
1. The archetypes in the movies I’ve cited are consistant with the grail myth. You haven’t said how that isn’t the case, so I don’t know what cause you have to disagree with anything I’ve said.
2. I’ve only cited one movie as perhaps deliberately employing the grail myth without explicitly referring to it.
3. The grail champion completes his quest by deviating from all convention. The idea of following as detailed a formula as you’ve transcribed to complete a grail quest completely disregards the meaning of the myth.
My understanding is that if you do not accept Christ as the Messiah, you are not Christian.
As far as Christ is the Messiah, and we are not, Christianity does not homogenize existence as the other religions and philosophies I’ve cited for comparison do.
Anyone who’s read the book he made his breakthough with, Hero with a Thousand Faces, knows he said about as much about the grail there as he said in the Moyers interview. I don’t doubt he’s said more, it’s just in a book I haven’t been exposed to yet.