Discussing the Writing Challenges -- November and December 2010

[Parson]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I think I'm going to call those last 3 posts 43, 44, & 45 ---Mag's, H. Jokes, and Hoppy's as the dark-some trio. Yow, the mental pictures and the human degradation pictured there are something else.

HJ leaves a particularly indelible scene for me. The very idea of someone justifying rape as a lesser evil, is the epitome of what sin does in a human heart.

 

[Ursa major]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

The very idea of someone justifying rape as a lesser evil, is the epitome of what sin does in a human heart.

But perhaps it was only rape not rape rape, as some say in Hollywood....

 

[The Judge]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

The very idea of someone justifying rape as a lesser evil, is the epitome of what sin does in a human heart.

I'm not sure if it's sin as such, is it, Parson? At least in the everyday use of the word. As I read them, both HJ with his torture and Mag the Magnolia and his mercenaries are looking at the issue of ends justifying the means (I may be wrong, but I see the prince's ends as a grotesque kind of justice). Delivering the world from murderous (and cannibalistic) tyrants always involves a trade-off between what is right and what is expedient. We shall have to see what kind of ruler Pyett becomes when Mag writes the rest of the novel. (I don't personally hold out much hope, though )

As for Hoopy's, I'm not at all sure I understand it. I shall have to ponder it some more.

 

[Ursa major]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

Another entry (this one from Ventanamist), another different take on the topic.

Voting is going to be very hard this month.

 

[The Judge]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

Wow, yes. A very clever story -- definitely one for the shortlist, I think.

And after that long, long lull in the middle of the month, the entries are positively flooding in now.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

Hoopy: Nicely apocalyptic.

Ventaminst: See Parson - for a job


Maybe - to help with the voting nightmare we should limit the entrants to the first 42.

It would discourage tardiness.

 

[Parson]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I'm not sure if it's sin as such, is it, Parson? At least in the everyday use of the word. As I read them, both HJ with his torture and Mag the Magnolia and his mercenaries are looking at the issue of ends justifying the means (I may be wrong, but I see the prince's ends as a grotesque kind of justice). Delivering the world from murderous (and cannibalistic) tyrants always involves a trade-off between what is right and what is expedient. We shall have to see what kind of ruler Pyett becomes when Mag writes the rest of the novel. (I don't personally hold out much hope, though )

I'm not sure I understand the question the court is asking. My first reading would be "Is rape a sin?" It was roundly denounced in the Old Testament. Perhaps not as emphatically as we might have liked when applied to slaves, but sinful none the less. As far as the New Testament goes, I cannot remember it even being hinted at. But we do have Paul telling the the Corinthian Church to expel the brother who has his "Father's Wife" as a partner. But I have a hard time believing that this is what you are really doubting.

As for "the ends justify the means." A fully Christian view of that logic would say that it is false from the beginning to the end. We apply righteous means, and leave the ends to God.

TheEndIsNigh: It would seem that Ventamenist's preaching is of the sort that a skeptic believes s/he would find in an Evangelical Christian Church, but would be completely wrong. True Christianity encourages people to think, to talk, to study, even to criticize, without repercussion and even mostly with encouragement. It is only the faith of the rigid and worried which will not allow humans to use their God given faculties.

 

[Mouse]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I'm starting to think I didn't get HJ's story... There was rape in it? Or am I being a wally?

 

[Parson]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

Mouse,

I was wrong. It was Mag's piece that insinuated that rape was the lesser of the evils.

 

[Mouse]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

Mouse,

I was wrong. It was Mag's piece that insinuated that rape was the lesser of the evils.

Ah phew! I even went back and read HJ's a few more times! Thought I was being a right dunce.

 

[The Judge]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I didn't mean rape isn't a sin, Parson, quite the contrary (at least in secular terms as it were , since I didn't have chapter and verse for the scriptural take on it). I'd understood your original point to be that Pyett's justification of the rape -- as a lesser evil -- was itself a product of sin. It was that I was trying to address.

I don't see the attempt at justification as sinful, nor the product of a sinful mind. Pyett sees the evil of rape, and as I read it regrets it, but also sees it as preferable to the alternative, but his power is such that he cannot prevent it, since he was and is dependant on the mercenaries. To a theologian that might well be sinful, but I think most people see a heirarchy of sin, and would accept that sometimes evil things are done that greater evil is eliminated. And if I understand my church history aright, that kind of thinking has hardly been limited to the non-religious down the ages.

 

[Parson]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I didn't mean rape isn't a sin, Parson, quite the contrary (at least in secular terms as it were , since I didn't have chapter and verse for the scriptural take on it). I'd understood your original point to be that Pyett's justification of the rape -- as a lesser evil -- was itself a product of sin. It was that I was trying to address.

I don't see the attempt at justification as sinful, nor the product of a sinful mind. Pyett sees the evil of rape, and as I read it regrets it, but also sees it as preferable to the alternative, but his power is such that he cannot prevent it, since he was and is dependant on the mercenaries.

Just so. You did understand my point. I was indeed saying that Pyett's justification of rape -- as a lesser evil -- was itself a product of sin. I read the story like you do (and a gem of a 75 word story it was).

To a theologian that might well be sinful, but I think most people see a heirarchy of sin, and would accept that sometimes evil things are done that greater evil is eliminated. And if I understand my church history aright, that kind of thinking has hardly been limited to the non-religious down the ages.

I will admit that I am taking a theological bent to the story. But then when you have dedicated your life to serving Jesus, another bent is unlikely. Most people do indeed see a hierarchy of sin, and this is not unbiblical. Jesus talks about the first and second commandments in terms of importance. Your last point is equally valid (much to my chagrin). It takes only the most cursory reading of church history to see that this kind of thinking has been rampant in the church from the very highest to the very lowest levels.

Upon reflection on my reaction, what I was most reacting to was the tone I heard, a kind of "It's bad, but Oh, well." which is certainly reading into the text. I would have preferred to have him weeping over the developments on the ground, mourning how what his mercenaries were doing, and he was powerless to stop was bringing to naught what he was trying to rectify.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I don't see any justice, twisted or otherwise, in gang-raping the slave girls in retaliation for what their masters did.

It's just more evil and suffering.

It doesn't bode well for the sort of justice Pyett will mete out when he's in charge.

 

[Precise Calibre]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

That would all depend on if he can somehow muster a standing army/military presence or not. After-all, one can hardly expect to keep mercenaries around in perpetuity.

 

[Lacivetta]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I did like HJs story. Though Mouse's made me laugh. And there are others. It's going to be a tough call.

 

[The Judge]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I don't see any justice in it either, Teresa, if that was a reflection of my earlier comment. (I wrote that post really badly if everyone is understanding something different to what I was trying to say.) It was HJ's prince to whom I was referring by grotesque justice, when he says "Every man receives their due" which I took as meaning he thought the zealot was receiving punishment for, presumably, whatever crimes the zealot had committed. The ends (ie achieving justice of sorts) justifying the means of deliberate torture.

Funny how we read things differently, Parson. I didn't see Pyett's reaction as a laid back, "oh well, can't be helped", particularly with the "choking with rage " immediately following it -- I know that's relating to the cannibal priests, but for me it coloured his reaction to the rapes as well (though I noted he chooses to refer to "ravish" which is a belittling of it).

A propos of this, I just thought about the Peninisular War. I'm pretty sure Wellington (as he probably then wasn't) gave strict orders that there was to be no looting of the civilian population, let alone anything worse, but on one occasion he did let his troops effectively ransack one town in Spain. It's annoying me that I can't recall why he changed the order (unless I'm misremembering the whole thing, which isn't so unlikely).

 

[Lacivetta]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

I don't see any justice in it either, Teresa, if that was a reflection of my earlier comment. (I wrote that post really badly if everyone is understanding something different to what I was trying to say.) It was HJ's prince to whom I was referring by grotesque justice, when he says "Every man receives their due" which I took as meaning he thought the zealot was receiving punishment for, presumably, whatever crimes the zealot had committed. The ends (ie achieving justice of sorts) justifying the means of deliberate torture.

Funny how we read things differently, Parson. I didn't see Pyett's reaction as a laid back, "oh well, can't be helped", particularly with the "choking with rage " immediately following it -- I know that's relating to the cannibal priests, but for me it coloured his reaction to the rapes as well (though I noted he chooses to refer to "ravish" which is a belittling of it).

As many readings as there are readers I guess. Took me a while to get to grips with it fully.

*wishes the 'edit' function was still available on the challenge. Are at least three improvements that I could make. Bah.*

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

*wishes the 'edit' function was still available on the challenge. Are at least three improvements that I could make. Bah.*

Well, I think the thing is, the edit feature disappears about half an hour of a post's activity. I can't remember why that is, but it's forum-wide.

 

[chrispenycate]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

'Cause if you say something stoopid, then someone points this out so you change it and claim you never did, so… It leads to friction and bad feeling.

Mind you, if you ask a mod really nicely, he, she or it can go in and edit it at any time; but the marks of shame – edited by Wilfred A. Modulator at 3.30 pm the 10 incember – will remain to haunt the thread for ever.

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

re: Discussing the Writing Challenges -- September and October

Yeah, maybe so, Chris, but, who's Wilfred A. Modulator?