Shifting Identities and the Force

@sacrebleu - your comment made me involuntarily flinch at the thought of a future Ken Burns doing a documentary about our times with the same fiddle music and dialogue with the level of social media/Internet discourse.

@guardienne - thanks for sharing, it's been a very long time since I read Ivanhoe for school, definitely remember thinking that Rebecca was inherently both the smartest and most interesting character in the crowd. Your comment about the levels of maturity made me LOL because his sniping with Hux and awkward pursuit of Rey are how you can tell he's a screwed up kid who's trying to pretend to be an imaginary mature ancestor (who was "a creepy man-baby who really hates sand")

@snufkin rebecca is very high-minded for someone who doesn't even have a last name.

i think another difference between kylo ren and BBG is that BBG is not granted a moment of soliloquising. all of his doubt and messed-up logic is done in dialogue. which i think is the same for all the other characters.

guardienne wrote:@sacrebleu yes, i do fear that language is getting poorer. i suppose 1984 portrays sort of the epitome of that anxiety, but i'm against censoring words out of the language. i'm all for teaching proper meaning. i love it when people understand precise meaning.

@guardienne

My current pet peeve is the use of "weary" in place of "wary" and "leery".  I'm weary of that mistake!  My dream job would be vocabulary policewoman.  I would confiscate cell phones, laptops, and tablets for transgressions.  

your comment made me involuntarily flinch at the thought of a future Ken Burns doing a documentary about our times with the same fiddle music and dialogue with the level of social media/Internet discourse.

@snufkin

That could get ugly.

sorry not going to discuss grammar and spelling

there's a very good essay on Sir Walter Scott's Treatment of Jews in Ivanhoe. if you feel you haven't quite reached peak literary criticism

it does something interesting at the very end,w hich is all to do with the integrity of faith and making choices. it concerns an alternative ending written by someone else, where rebecca and ivanhoe get together (must have been a shipper).

The absurdity of such an ending has been well described by Rosenberg, who quite rightly remarks that “any permanent alliance between him [Ivanhoe] and Rebecca was foredoomed from the start; and anyhow it would have turned Scott’s novel into the sheerest humbug. Historically the marital problem could have been solved in the way Scott’s predecessors solved it, and as Thackeray solved it in his parody, by allowing Rebecca to submit to baptism. In that case she would have compounded the venial sin of bombast with the mortal sin of hypocrisy, and her function in the novel would have lost what meaning it has. She has to stick it out with her father, if only to make good her protests and act out her creeds. The only way in which Scott could have eaten his cake and had it too would have been to recruit Ivanhoe for the synagogue.”

i think it's this hypocrisy that i'm interested in. in popular imagination, ben will return etc etc, be a good person, but it's a betrayal of what he chose. of course the film goes to great length to establishing immense conflict in this place as well, something rebecca never experiences. it's also obvious that he would not have signed up to be evil (there are numerous canon sources for this) so, what would he betray? there must be a conflict with his original intentions that is probably thrown into sharp relief by having to execute his father. and the rejection from rey it brings.

Religion and martial ardor meet in the person of a Zen priest named Takuan Soho (1573-1645). An accomplished swordsman himself, he served as spiritual guide to the outstanding martial artists of his day, whom he taught along such lines as these: “The enemy does not see me. I do not see the enemy. Penetrating to a place where heaven and earth have not yet divided … I quickly and necessarily gain the desired effect.”

That “desired effect” can only be the death of his opponent, but the death of a master swordsman at the hands of a master swordsman, tradition has it, is not death — certainly it is not murder — because the religious enlightenment that is prerequisite for true mastery places one beyond the illusory distinction between birth and death.

“As long as a student of Zen entertains any kind of thought in regard to birth-and-death, he falls into the path of the devil,” explains a Zen master quoted anonymously by Zen priest Daisetz T. Suzuki (1879-1966) in “Zen and Swordsmanship.”

Foremost among Japan’s master swordsmen is Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645), who lives on long after death in kabuki, bunraku (puppet theater), novels, manga, movies and television dramas.

Musashi fought his first duel at age 13 and spent much of his life roaming the country matching skills with other masters. Japan’s centuries of civil wars were over by 1615. Peace held until 1894. But the “life-giving sword” was not to be suppressed by peace. Musashi fought 60 bouts in all, most of them fatal to his opponents. Does that make him a killer? Emphatically yes, in the eyes of some. He “elevated killing to a fine art,” writes historian Beatrice Bodart-Bailey in “The Dog Shogun” (2006). “His famous ‘Book of Five Rings’ consists of detailed instructions on how to kill quickly and effectively.”

Bodart-Bailey will have none of the “life-giving sword” mysticism — but Musashi himself wrote, “I was unbeaten because I gave no thought to my life.” He was a dedicated student of Zen; also a poet, tea master, landscape gardener, town planner, writer and painter. To him, the artist was in a state of religious transcendence and all arts were one. Swordsmanship, to Musashi, and indeed to all swordsmen, was an art. In the Japanese tradition there is no “Thou shalt not kill.”

prompted to read about japanese sword culture. http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/08/24/national/history/only-in-japan-could-a-sword-be-life-giving/#.WDmM1LmfqwQ

i like how the force users essentially forge their own blade in SW because they bind the crystal to themselves?

Which makes me wonder - when Kylo is redeemed what will happen to his lightsabre?

motherofpearl1 wrote:Which makes me wonder - when Kylo is redeemed what will happen to his lightsabre?

@motherofpearl1

I thought about this too! I would have thought it incredible if Anakin's saber was returned to Ben, and Rey would make his own lightsaber.

motherofpearl1 wrote:Which makes me wonder - when Kylo is redeemed what will happen to his lightsabre?

@motherofpearl1

but that would depend on what you think the redemption entails, no? the one he had rey broke, presumably he can carry on using whatever he made now? wouldn't it be nice if he could just be a person who happens to have a red light sabre?

I actually think that Ben will keep his sabre post redemption. Mostly because it is a metaphor for himself. I think in the visual dictionary it said something to the effect that the crystal was cracked and so powerful that the sabre needed to be a crossguard to vent. Adam Driver said something about the sabre being unfinished, unpolished and not very reliable as though it might stop working at any second. So, should we expect to see the lightsabre becoming steadier, stabilising and refining as Kylo himself develops as a character? I believe it was damaged, not broken, in the final battle, just like the man himself. So I actually wonder if perhaps, even at the very end of the trilogy, maybe he just keeps it. Kylo is a part of him as much as Ben is. Maybe its not the colour of your lightsabre, but the one who weilds it.

lol

It DOES follow through with the whole "bring balance to the force" thing.

http://millicentthecat.tumblr.com/post/154263797961/i-do-repent-and-yet-i-do-despair

There’s actually three possible meanings, depending on how you think Kylo plans to get free of his pain. “What I have to do” could mean:

1) Rejecting the dark side by surrendering to Han,

2) Rejecting the light side by killing Han, or

3) Refusing either side and killing himself.

I wouldn’t even have thought of option #3 if this scene didn’t remind me so much of Act 5, Scene 1 of Doctor Faustus. It’s as if the filmmakers took that scene from Faustus and put it in a blender.

In that scene, Faustus, who has sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for magical powers, faces the hour of reckoning when he must pay the Devil what he owes. And of course he’s terrified. On the one hand, he repents, and he’d take it all back if he could. A saintly old man even appears to tell him it’s not too late to ask for God’s mercy. But the Devil’s agent, Mephistophilis, appears and hands Faustus a dagger, which represents despair. The dagger as a conventional sign for despair is both symbolic and literal. Translation: there’s no chance God will forgive you even if you beg, so you may as well kill yourself and embrace damnation.

In TFA, all the same elements are there: the young man torn between good and evil, the old man offering mercy and a reminder that it’s “not too late,” the extended weapon. But in TFA, it’s like Kylo and Han take turns playing Faustus. One moment, it’s Kylo who teeters on the edge of hope and despair. The next moment, he’s holding out the dagger as a Mephistophelean lure and it’s Han who has to choose.

This actually makes sense, cuz Han isn’t the saintly agent of light who comes to remind Faustus (Kylo) of God’s universal promise. Han never had much faith that Kylo could turn back from the dark side, and when he steps out on that bridge, he still clearly thinks the odds are long. (It’s his lack of faith that makes it such a beautiful character moment for him. Cuz Han started as the reluctant hero who would only back the side with a chance of winning…but he ends attempting something he’s almost certain will kill him, purely motivated by love.)

so i thought this was a cool thing...

and then i find books on confucius (i think this was a new translation of the analects)





i didn't buy this so all i've got so far is this. but i'm sure there's a version of the analects available online?

this is from a book on taoism because... well, i can't stop with these things really easily.





it reminded me of rey, dishevelled hair, wildness.

guardienne wrote:seeing as i have now finished ivanhoe, i can only say how much i enjoyed it and how much of the plot (with a couple of twists) for TFA were lifted from it, it's pretty astonishing.

Actually, tons of books lifted plot from that book, it's quite crazy. And I don't mean it just being a huge influence like to GRRM (the tournament, Jaimie Lannister = BBG, various characters rising from the dead like Athelstane, etc), I mean the whole plot. GWTW is probably the greatest Ivanhoe fanfic ever written. I was forced to read Scott's book cause it was the basis for GoT as per GMMR, and I love to read stuff that influenced stuff I obsess about. But it was a chore due to outdated prose until Rebecca and BBG scenes. No wonder that's the most iconic and influential thing from the book. UST charged banter, sacrificial love (he died so that she could live), those are now the main staples of romance. But anyway, while reading I was thinking "Holy sith, this reads like GWTW cause there's love quadrangle, Rhett is shamelessly BBG to the smallest detail, Ashley is shamelessly Wilfred, and Scarlett is Margaret Mitchell's self-insert so that she could bang BBG which Rebecca stupidly didn't.  I adore GWTW so it was interesting to run into the book that clearly was the basis for it. But anyway, I wouldn't have continued reading had it not been for the TV show that was recommended on ASOIAF forum to watch to help us with the tough-to-read book (that outdated prose!). OMG, I adore this couple! The chemistry is freakin legendary, one of the best ever. And the dialog is to die for!



They are very different as I pointed out already. Rebecca and BBG were 2 halves of the whole by accident of Scott's finding them more compelling than other characters late in the game. That they were soulmates is even more obvious from the TV series which makes no bones about who true leads are, in spite of the unfortunate title. Like I said, they even like the same flower scent, not to mention shared interest in books, chess, history/mythology, unlike the blond block of wood that doesn't appear to have any interest/joy in anything. OTOH, Rey and Kylo are 2 halves of the whole by design. They have a higher purpose which is the heart of the story from the start. Not to mention that there isn't any block of wood standing between them. She friendzoned Finn so there's no triangle, quadrangle, etc.  I honestly think they don't carry much resemblance save that Kylo kidnapped Rey because he got attracted. But that's a trope as old as time.

guardienne wrote:@sacrebleu yes, i do fear that language is getting poorer. i suppose 1984 portrays sort of the epitome of that anxiety, but i'm against censoring words out of the language. i'm all for teaching proper meaning. i love it when people understand precise meaning.

i feel now that when i write, my language has shifted very far towards the spoken word, it's only when there is time that i can properly hone what it is that i want to say. it's a certain carelessness.

i think scott was aiming for a particular feel. or perhaps that's what 19th century conversation style was like...

@guardienne

Really late to this party, but I also think the quality of language is deteriorating. This is probably inevitable, since history has shown us that vernacular always triumphs in the end. Not that I'm one to complain; I use vernacular while writing all the time

My copy of Machiavelli's The Prince comes with a brilliant introduction which contains the following passage:

To take a single example: the word "intrattenere," employed by Machiavelli to indicate the policy adopted by the Roman Senate towards
the weaker states of Greece, would by an Elizabethan be correctly rendered "entertain," and every contemporary reader would understand
what was meant by saying that "Rome entertained the Aetolians and the Achaeans without augmenting their power." But to-day such a phrase would seem obsolete and ambiguous, if not unmeaning: we are compelled to say that "Rome maintained friendly relations with the Aetolians," etc., using four words to do the work of one.

Then again, there are scenarios where verbose writing is perhaps necessary; laws, for example, which have to be as clear as possible.

I forgot why I set out to write all this... I have no idea what I'm trying to say