Book Club Discussion: Pride of Baghdad
(As mentioned last week a couple weeks ago, our book club discussion for the month of November is on Pride of Baghdad.)
Greetings! I would like to ask you all to come with me, and just step inside this blue wooden box right here. Yes, that's right, everyone in. No, don't worry--it's bigger on the inside, so you'll all fit in just fine. Now, we're going to travel back in time to November 19th, the date I was supposed to have posted the November edition of the noscans_daily Book Club. *turns a crank, hits the TARDIS engine with a rubber mallet* Alrighty, here we are! On with the book club!
As stated, today we'll be discussing Pride of Baghdad, written by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Niko Henrichon, published by Vertigo. Just a general warning: this post contains discussion of war (specifically, the war in Iraq) and violence (violence toward animals, between animals, as well as rape).
[NOTE: This ended up fairly long, so I have organized it thusly: summarization of the story with discussion questions mixed in is broken into two halves (with discussion questions in bold, so you can skip the summarizations if you like), followed by final/overall discussion questions. Hopefully that will make for an easier read. Feel free to skim and pick and choose what interests you most.]
Join the discussion!
The setting is Baghdad, Iraq, at the beginning of the ongoing Iraq war. Our four main characters are:
FIRST HALF: THE ESCAPE
The story starts off with Zill arguing with a bird about whether or not the sky is falling (on the next page you see jets flying overhead, and soon the zoo is bombed). Although "the sky is falling" alludes to the story of Chicken Little, it's also the first instance where the reader has to shift perspective to that of animals. Most of us probably watched on TV what was happening in Iraq at the beginning of the war in 2003. An going question posed to us as readers through this book is "how are things like planes, bombs and war interpreted and understood by animals?"
Safa is the next to predict change to come in the lion's lives. Meanwhile, we learn that Noor has been steadily trying to get other animals in the zoo to collaborate on a prison break of sorts. Being a lion and a predator, asking for help and promising protection to an antelope, however, does not add up to success. We get to learn a bit more about Safa's life before the zoo. Being the oldest and having spent the most time living in the wild, she has a very different perspective on zoo life compared to Noor and Ali. Noor only has vague memories of the wild, but is nostalgic for them and for what she believes to be freedom, and Zill will happily describe sunsets and horizon lines for little Ali, who was born in the zoo and doesn't know what they mean. Safa, on the other hand, seems to prefer life in the zoo where her food is handed to her, free from struggle of survival in the wild. They all seem to have different views on what constitutes freedom and what way is the better way to live.
In particular, Safa has a memory flashback to being raped by a male lion (with heavy hinting that she was also raped by that lion's brothers as well). It's very jarring, but also odd to see a rape scene played out with slightly anthropomorphic animals. It's conveyed in very human terms, with violence, intimidation, and anger. I don't know a lot about the behavioural ecology of lions, but I wouldn't be surprised if mating with lionesses from another pride is a common method for an outside male to gain territory in taking over and usurping a different alpha male. On a side note, when I took a primate ecology course, our instructor said that when talking about animals it was more appropriate to use the term "forced copulation", and not rape, because the word "rape" projects too much of human culture onto the ecology/cultures of other species. I still don't entirely know what to make of that, but I think this scene clearly depicts rape as humans define it. What did you think of this scene? Could you have done without it? Does it serve well in illustrating why Safa now prefers the relative safety of zoo life, her food and care being provided by the Keepers?
Already, the lions and other animals are sensing that something is different, and the first sign of panic is the Keepers dropping a whole donkey for the lions to feed on instead of just their usual rabbits. Shortly, the first blasts arrive, and all the animals in the zoo are scrambling to get out and to find safety. There's a page where a giraffe starts yelling that the heavens have opened up and that "the old ones" have answered their prayers right before his head is blown off. The next page he falls over and there's another blast, which separates Ali from Noor and Zill. I found these pages really captured a sense of confusion and urgency--one second you're looking at a slightly silly giraffe, next his head is blown off, you're running away and there's an explosion and you don't know where you are--any second you or the person next to you could be crushed by a falling giraffe or blown apart. Did you get that same sense when reading those pages? How well do you think those pages work at expressing what is going on and/or how it is experienced by the animals?
The lions fan out and start exploring the area outside the zoo, which they had previously been led to believe was just desert. While Noor and Zill go off on their own, Ali and Safa encounter an old snapping turtle on the shore of the Tigris River. The turtle not only remembers the previous war in Iraq (the Gulf War), but says he "hatched during the first big war...back when this sinkhole was still an empire" which I assume refers to World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The turtle describes war as losing friends and family and "poison" from under the earth that spews out of the sky and spills into sea when the "walkers" (aka "keepers", "two-leggers", "man") fight, but doesn't know what they fight about. The group starts to hear rumbling noises, which the turtle identifies as the Lions of Babylon (Iraqi tanks), which he describes as "what the walkers call their shells." (Again, we get to see how animals perceive and interpret our world. The turtle, being much older than the lions, has a long memory and has a lot more time to learn and interpret the world around him, including humans.)
I think the rest of the turtle's lines are worth quoting here: "Babylon's a town downriver. Their lion's a statue of one of your kind trying to eat a man...but the man's fighting off the big stone cat. Legend says that as long as that statue's still standing, this land'll never fall to outsiders. [...] They're just, what do you call 'em... symbols. You know walkers, they never mean what they say." Noor asks, "Yes, but this is our land now, too. Who are we supposed to be in the statue... the lion, or the man?" to which the turtle responds, "Maybe you're both. Or maybe you're neither. What's it matter? I don't even know if the damn rock's still there anymore." (If you scroll down toward the bottom of the page, you can see a picture of the statue here, as well as descriptions of other historical sites in that area for a bit of context.)
Do you think the lions of this story are supposed to be represented in the statue? If so, are they represented by the statue as a whole, or by lion or the man? (We'll revisit the statue again at the end of the story.)
SECOND HALF: THE CITY
Soon Ali and Safa find themselves in the paths of the tanks, the Lions of Babylon, and scramble to get out of the way, and reunite with Noor and Zill. They find themselves with no choice but to press on, and make their way into the city. Baghdad is coloured in orange, red and yellow tones, with smoke rising above the buildings and the lions tread through vacated streets strewn with rubble. A storm is nearing and they need to acquire both food and shelter. Ali smells blood and they find it belongs to a dead human, which Zill identifies as a "cub" and figures there's enough to feed the four lions. Safa objects to eating the "Keeper" because of a loyalty she feels toward the humans at the zoo for feeding them, through all the years of their captivity. What do you think of Safa and Zill's debate over eating the human, and Safa's sense of loyalty to all Keepers? Before Zill gets a chance to take a bite, Noor discovers a herd of white horses. "They're like gazelles, without the damn horns." They plan on hunting some down, the first time in a long time that the older lions have had a chance to hunt anything, and the very first time for young Ali.
Before they get a chance to pounce, there's another bomb blast and the horses split. They chase after them with Noor in the lead, where she finds herself in "the den of the keepers." The first thing she sees is a giant painting of a roaring lion with a large mane and wings. Soon Safa catches up and they discover a male lion, who is chained to a wall and clearly suffering. Asking for his master, he soon dies. Noor and Safa are outraged at the lion's suffering and demise. They argue about who's responsible for this--Safa is reluctant to believe that any Keepers, and certainly not their Keepers would do this. But Noor replies with: "Safa, no matter how they might treat us, those who would hold us captive are always tyrants. If we had remained as we were, we would have ended up hanging from a leash just like this poor bastard... and you know it as well as I."
Again, the lions debate what it means to be free.
Next they encounter a bear, who informs them that the dead lion, Rashid, was a pet and lived as comfortably as the other lions, but the bear had stolen a few of his meals. The bear, Fajer, attacks Noor and Safa who are ready to fight back, while Zill and Ali continue to watch the horses (but they don't attack them, as hunting is "women's work." Fajer knocks Noor out, and claws Safa's only good eye while saying "You're making...a mistake old woman. The order you enjoyed may have come at a price...but I'm sure you remember the cost of chaos." Zill soon appears, and points out that he's not a hunter, but a fighter. They begin to fight, and the bear starts mocking Zill: "Heh. 'King of the Beasts.' I'd say there's been a regime change, yes? You know, if you people had simply stayed where you belonged, I might have protected you... but you just had to cut off your nose to spite your face." To which Zill responds, "It's our nature." Zill soon bites the bear's nose off, throwing him through a wall and onto the street, where Ali is in place to spook the horses into running, trampling Fajer. As all four lions reunite, this time it is Zill insisting that they don't eat the bear, but instead leave him to die slowly and painfully.
How do you interpret this discovery of the palace, the painting, Rashid, and the bear Fajer? Did you read it as just another instance of animals perceiving and interpreting their surroundings and their relationships with humans, and/or did you read it as commentary on the war in Iraq? Do you think the characters are supposed to represent any particular players, participants or victims in the war? I'm not so sure it's meant to be clear-cut as so-and-so represents X and such-and-such represents Y, but I don't think one can completely discount the talk about what it means to be free, order vs. chaos and regime changes, (and possibly even Fajer saying he might have protected the lions, and Zill's success in fighting back) as commentary on the war. What meaning, if any, do you take from it?
Ali soon sees what he thinks are fireflies shooting through the sky. Intensely curious and quite excited, he wants to see them close up. He finds a "hill" (a tall pile of rubble that was once a building, "another one of the keepers' homes, Safa." "No, it used to be theirs, but not anymore. This...this is something new.") Safa has trouble with the climb, while Noor insists that the change is gradual. "If only it were...", responds Safa. Ali is the first to reach the top, seeing the sun setting on the horizon--the first real "horizon" that Ali ever seen. Ali, Zill and Noor are amazed by its beauty, but Safa is now blind. She asks Zill if it was all worth it, for this sight. He looks at the skyline where the sun has just set, looking sad and weary, but before he can answer--he falls over dead.
The lions don't know how or why it happened, but they recognize the immediate threat. Safa charges forward, hoping that Noor and Ali can get away, but she's shot many times over in mid-pounce, her blood and fur flying, and tumbles over. Ali is scared of the noise of the guns, and Noor shouts "ANIMALS! You goddamn--" before she and Ali are both shot. Noor hears someone talking, and thinks it's Ali, but can't understand what's being said, and then she dies. The next word we hear is "Jesus." It's the first time in the book that we are actually reading English, spoken by English-speaking humans, and suddenly we see things from their point of view, instead of that of the lions and other animals. The soldier explains that the lions were charging at them, so they didn't have a choice but to shoot them. They're surprised by the lions' presence, and one expresses confusion and wonderment at lions being wild there, to which another responds: "No, not wild. They're free."
What do you think about that last line? With all the lions' discussions on what was better, the freedom of living in the wild versus the freedom from the struggle of survival by being captive in the zoo, in a way, being dead is another kind of freedom--free of any struggle, pain, confusion or boredom. And yet, it's a horrible thought, to think of death as freedom for Safa, Zill, Noor and young little Ali. The fact that their deaths came at the hands of American soldiers may also serve as political commentary--American soldiers bringing freedom to the lions in the form of death might be considered analogous to the idea of any war being considered a way to bring about peace and freedom. But on the other hand, the soldiers found themselves in immediate danger, so what choice did they have but to shoot them? What do you think about the scene and what it may, or may not, say about the war?
The next pages show nightfall as jets fly overhead and smoke rises from buildings, also flying by is the swallow we saw on the very first page talking about the sky falling. We are told:
In April of 2003, four lions escaped the Baghdad Zoo during the bombing of Iraq.
The starving animals were eventually shot and killed by U.S. soldiers.
[turn page]
There were other casualties as well.
What do you think about that last line? Did you find it a little callous, in that there were many people, military and civilians, who died during that that time too? Or do you think it worked well in further serving a story focus from the point of view of animals (i.e. in a world where humans are not necessarily centrally important)?
The very last page shows the swallow landing on the statue described by the turtle, of a lion and human fighting, with the lion on top. What do you think of the symbolism of showing us this statue is at this point in the story, when taking into account the earlier discussion between Safa and the turtle of what the statue represents? My thought was that it might be to represent hope, even after a tragic ending for the lions.
Keeping in mind that Pride of Baghdad was published in September of 2006, and therefore cannot be said to have influenced Vaughn and Henrichon's inclusion of it in the story, there are a couple reports like this online stating that the statue was destroyed in July of 2007. (Most references to its destruction seem to be coming from blogs and forums, and not official news sources. That could just mean that mainstream news didn't pick up the story. What's confusing, though, is that the report I linked to cited the statue as being 80 years old, built in the 1920s as representing ancient Babylon, and then other sources cite it as being from 6th century BCE. I'm curious, anyone know for sure if they're all talking about the same statue, and if the statue referenced and depicted in Pride of Baghdad is the same one?)
OVERALL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
A significant aspect of this comic is that it is based on real events from over six years ago, and even if one didn't hear about the lions in Baghdad at the time, that time period and the beginnings of the war are in recent memory for most people. I know I'm not the only one who reads a lot of comics that are arguably pretty far-removed from reality--did you find this book had a greater impact on you because it was based on real events or took place recently?
Did you enjoy it as a story about animals from their point of view, as well as one that takes place simultaneously with real-world, human-controlled events?
I'd say the biggest themes and motifs in this story are:
Agree/Disagree? Did you like or dislike the book? Did you like or dislike certain aspects of the story? How do you think the art and writing worked together to tell the story?
Greetings! I would like to ask you all to come with me, and just step inside this blue wooden box right here. Yes, that's right, everyone in. No, don't worry--it's bigger on the inside, so you'll all fit in just fine. Now, we're going to travel back in time to November 19th, the date I was supposed to have posted the November edition of the noscans_daily Book Club. *turns a crank, hits the TARDIS engine with a rubber mallet* Alrighty, here we are! On with the book club!
As stated, today we'll be discussing Pride of Baghdad, written by Brian K. Vaughn and illustrated by Niko Henrichon, published by Vertigo. Just a general warning: this post contains discussion of war (specifically, the war in Iraq) and violence (violence toward animals, between animals, as well as rape).
[NOTE: This ended up fairly long, so I have organized it thusly: summarization of the story with discussion questions mixed in is broken into two halves (with discussion questions in bold, so you can skip the summarizations if you like), followed by final/overall discussion questions. Hopefully that will make for an easier read. Feel free to skim and pick and choose what interests you most.]
Join the discussion!
The setting is Baghdad, Iraq, at the beginning of the ongoing Iraq war. Our four main characters are:
- Zill, an adult male lion
- Safa, an older female lion
- Noor, a younger adult female lion
- Ali, Noor's young son (well, cub)
FIRST HALF: THE ESCAPE
The story starts off with Zill arguing with a bird about whether or not the sky is falling (on the next page you see jets flying overhead, and soon the zoo is bombed). Although "the sky is falling" alludes to the story of Chicken Little, it's also the first instance where the reader has to shift perspective to that of animals. Most of us probably watched on TV what was happening in Iraq at the beginning of the war in 2003. An going question posed to us as readers through this book is "how are things like planes, bombs and war interpreted and understood by animals?"
Safa is the next to predict change to come in the lion's lives. Meanwhile, we learn that Noor has been steadily trying to get other animals in the zoo to collaborate on a prison break of sorts. Being a lion and a predator, asking for help and promising protection to an antelope, however, does not add up to success. We get to learn a bit more about Safa's life before the zoo. Being the oldest and having spent the most time living in the wild, she has a very different perspective on zoo life compared to Noor and Ali. Noor only has vague memories of the wild, but is nostalgic for them and for what she believes to be freedom, and Zill will happily describe sunsets and horizon lines for little Ali, who was born in the zoo and doesn't know what they mean. Safa, on the other hand, seems to prefer life in the zoo where her food is handed to her, free from struggle of survival in the wild. They all seem to have different views on what constitutes freedom and what way is the better way to live.
In particular, Safa has a memory flashback to being raped by a male lion (with heavy hinting that she was also raped by that lion's brothers as well). It's very jarring, but also odd to see a rape scene played out with slightly anthropomorphic animals. It's conveyed in very human terms, with violence, intimidation, and anger. I don't know a lot about the behavioural ecology of lions, but I wouldn't be surprised if mating with lionesses from another pride is a common method for an outside male to gain territory in taking over and usurping a different alpha male. On a side note, when I took a primate ecology course, our instructor said that when talking about animals it was more appropriate to use the term "forced copulation", and not rape, because the word "rape" projects too much of human culture onto the ecology/cultures of other species. I still don't entirely know what to make of that, but I think this scene clearly depicts rape as humans define it. What did you think of this scene? Could you have done without it? Does it serve well in illustrating why Safa now prefers the relative safety of zoo life, her food and care being provided by the Keepers?
Already, the lions and other animals are sensing that something is different, and the first sign of panic is the Keepers dropping a whole donkey for the lions to feed on instead of just their usual rabbits. Shortly, the first blasts arrive, and all the animals in the zoo are scrambling to get out and to find safety. There's a page where a giraffe starts yelling that the heavens have opened up and that "the old ones" have answered their prayers right before his head is blown off. The next page he falls over and there's another blast, which separates Ali from Noor and Zill. I found these pages really captured a sense of confusion and urgency--one second you're looking at a slightly silly giraffe, next his head is blown off, you're running away and there's an explosion and you don't know where you are--any second you or the person next to you could be crushed by a falling giraffe or blown apart. Did you get that same sense when reading those pages? How well do you think those pages work at expressing what is going on and/or how it is experienced by the animals?
The lions fan out and start exploring the area outside the zoo, which they had previously been led to believe was just desert. While Noor and Zill go off on their own, Ali and Safa encounter an old snapping turtle on the shore of the Tigris River. The turtle not only remembers the previous war in Iraq (the Gulf War), but says he "hatched during the first big war...back when this sinkhole was still an empire" which I assume refers to World War I and the Ottoman Empire. The turtle describes war as losing friends and family and "poison" from under the earth that spews out of the sky and spills into sea when the "walkers" (aka "keepers", "two-leggers", "man") fight, but doesn't know what they fight about. The group starts to hear rumbling noises, which the turtle identifies as the Lions of Babylon (Iraqi tanks), which he describes as "what the walkers call their shells." (Again, we get to see how animals perceive and interpret our world. The turtle, being much older than the lions, has a long memory and has a lot more time to learn and interpret the world around him, including humans.)
I think the rest of the turtle's lines are worth quoting here: "Babylon's a town downriver. Their lion's a statue of one of your kind trying to eat a man...but the man's fighting off the big stone cat. Legend says that as long as that statue's still standing, this land'll never fall to outsiders. [...] They're just, what do you call 'em... symbols. You know walkers, they never mean what they say." Noor asks, "Yes, but this is our land now, too. Who are we supposed to be in the statue... the lion, or the man?" to which the turtle responds, "Maybe you're both. Or maybe you're neither. What's it matter? I don't even know if the damn rock's still there anymore." (If you scroll down toward the bottom of the page, you can see a picture of the statue here, as well as descriptions of other historical sites in that area for a bit of context.)
Do you think the lions of this story are supposed to be represented in the statue? If so, are they represented by the statue as a whole, or by lion or the man? (We'll revisit the statue again at the end of the story.)
SECOND HALF: THE CITY
Soon Ali and Safa find themselves in the paths of the tanks, the Lions of Babylon, and scramble to get out of the way, and reunite with Noor and Zill. They find themselves with no choice but to press on, and make their way into the city. Baghdad is coloured in orange, red and yellow tones, with smoke rising above the buildings and the lions tread through vacated streets strewn with rubble. A storm is nearing and they need to acquire both food and shelter. Ali smells blood and they find it belongs to a dead human, which Zill identifies as a "cub" and figures there's enough to feed the four lions. Safa objects to eating the "Keeper" because of a loyalty she feels toward the humans at the zoo for feeding them, through all the years of their captivity. What do you think of Safa and Zill's debate over eating the human, and Safa's sense of loyalty to all Keepers? Before Zill gets a chance to take a bite, Noor discovers a herd of white horses. "They're like gazelles, without the damn horns." They plan on hunting some down, the first time in a long time that the older lions have had a chance to hunt anything, and the very first time for young Ali.
Before they get a chance to pounce, there's another bomb blast and the horses split. They chase after them with Noor in the lead, where she finds herself in "the den of the keepers." The first thing she sees is a giant painting of a roaring lion with a large mane and wings. Soon Safa catches up and they discover a male lion, who is chained to a wall and clearly suffering. Asking for his master, he soon dies. Noor and Safa are outraged at the lion's suffering and demise. They argue about who's responsible for this--Safa is reluctant to believe that any Keepers, and certainly not their Keepers would do this. But Noor replies with: "Safa, no matter how they might treat us, those who would hold us captive are always tyrants. If we had remained as we were, we would have ended up hanging from a leash just like this poor bastard... and you know it as well as I."
Again, the lions debate what it means to be free.
Next they encounter a bear, who informs them that the dead lion, Rashid, was a pet and lived as comfortably as the other lions, but the bear had stolen a few of his meals. The bear, Fajer, attacks Noor and Safa who are ready to fight back, while Zill and Ali continue to watch the horses (but they don't attack them, as hunting is "women's work." Fajer knocks Noor out, and claws Safa's only good eye while saying "You're making...a mistake old woman. The order you enjoyed may have come at a price...but I'm sure you remember the cost of chaos." Zill soon appears, and points out that he's not a hunter, but a fighter. They begin to fight, and the bear starts mocking Zill: "Heh. 'King of the Beasts.' I'd say there's been a regime change, yes? You know, if you people had simply stayed where you belonged, I might have protected you... but you just had to cut off your nose to spite your face." To which Zill responds, "It's our nature." Zill soon bites the bear's nose off, throwing him through a wall and onto the street, where Ali is in place to spook the horses into running, trampling Fajer. As all four lions reunite, this time it is Zill insisting that they don't eat the bear, but instead leave him to die slowly and painfully.
How do you interpret this discovery of the palace, the painting, Rashid, and the bear Fajer? Did you read it as just another instance of animals perceiving and interpreting their surroundings and their relationships with humans, and/or did you read it as commentary on the war in Iraq? Do you think the characters are supposed to represent any particular players, participants or victims in the war? I'm not so sure it's meant to be clear-cut as so-and-so represents X and such-and-such represents Y, but I don't think one can completely discount the talk about what it means to be free, order vs. chaos and regime changes, (and possibly even Fajer saying he might have protected the lions, and Zill's success in fighting back) as commentary on the war. What meaning, if any, do you take from it?
Ali soon sees what he thinks are fireflies shooting through the sky. Intensely curious and quite excited, he wants to see them close up. He finds a "hill" (a tall pile of rubble that was once a building, "another one of the keepers' homes, Safa." "No, it used to be theirs, but not anymore. This...this is something new.") Safa has trouble with the climb, while Noor insists that the change is gradual. "If only it were...", responds Safa. Ali is the first to reach the top, seeing the sun setting on the horizon--the first real "horizon" that Ali ever seen. Ali, Zill and Noor are amazed by its beauty, but Safa is now blind. She asks Zill if it was all worth it, for this sight. He looks at the skyline where the sun has just set, looking sad and weary, but before he can answer--he falls over dead.
The lions don't know how or why it happened, but they recognize the immediate threat. Safa charges forward, hoping that Noor and Ali can get away, but she's shot many times over in mid-pounce, her blood and fur flying, and tumbles over. Ali is scared of the noise of the guns, and Noor shouts "ANIMALS! You goddamn--" before she and Ali are both shot. Noor hears someone talking, and thinks it's Ali, but can't understand what's being said, and then she dies. The next word we hear is "Jesus." It's the first time in the book that we are actually reading English, spoken by English-speaking humans, and suddenly we see things from their point of view, instead of that of the lions and other animals. The soldier explains that the lions were charging at them, so they didn't have a choice but to shoot them. They're surprised by the lions' presence, and one expresses confusion and wonderment at lions being wild there, to which another responds: "No, not wild. They're free."
What do you think about that last line? With all the lions' discussions on what was better, the freedom of living in the wild versus the freedom from the struggle of survival by being captive in the zoo, in a way, being dead is another kind of freedom--free of any struggle, pain, confusion or boredom. And yet, it's a horrible thought, to think of death as freedom for Safa, Zill, Noor and young little Ali. The fact that their deaths came at the hands of American soldiers may also serve as political commentary--American soldiers bringing freedom to the lions in the form of death might be considered analogous to the idea of any war being considered a way to bring about peace and freedom. But on the other hand, the soldiers found themselves in immediate danger, so what choice did they have but to shoot them? What do you think about the scene and what it may, or may not, say about the war?
The next pages show nightfall as jets fly overhead and smoke rises from buildings, also flying by is the swallow we saw on the very first page talking about the sky falling. We are told:
In April of 2003, four lions escaped the Baghdad Zoo during the bombing of Iraq.
The starving animals were eventually shot and killed by U.S. soldiers.
[turn page]
There were other casualties as well.
What do you think about that last line? Did you find it a little callous, in that there were many people, military and civilians, who died during that that time too? Or do you think it worked well in further serving a story focus from the point of view of animals (i.e. in a world where humans are not necessarily centrally important)?
The very last page shows the swallow landing on the statue described by the turtle, of a lion and human fighting, with the lion on top. What do you think of the symbolism of showing us this statue is at this point in the story, when taking into account the earlier discussion between Safa and the turtle of what the statue represents? My thought was that it might be to represent hope, even after a tragic ending for the lions.
Keeping in mind that Pride of Baghdad was published in September of 2006, and therefore cannot be said to have influenced Vaughn and Henrichon's inclusion of it in the story, there are a couple reports like this online stating that the statue was destroyed in July of 2007. (Most references to its destruction seem to be coming from blogs and forums, and not official news sources. That could just mean that mainstream news didn't pick up the story. What's confusing, though, is that the report I linked to cited the statue as being 80 years old, built in the 1920s as representing ancient Babylon, and then other sources cite it as being from 6th century BCE. I'm curious, anyone know for sure if they're all talking about the same statue, and if the statue referenced and depicted in Pride of Baghdad is the same one?)
OVERALL DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
A significant aspect of this comic is that it is based on real events from over six years ago, and even if one didn't hear about the lions in Baghdad at the time, that time period and the beginnings of the war are in recent memory for most people. I know I'm not the only one who reads a lot of comics that are arguably pretty far-removed from reality--did you find this book had a greater impact on you because it was based on real events or took place recently?
Did you enjoy it as a story about animals from their point of view, as well as one that takes place simultaneously with real-world, human-controlled events?
I'd say the biggest themes and motifs in this story are:
- Animals interpreting a human-controlled world
- The complexity and conflicting definitions of freedom
- The war in Iraq and various views on it
Agree/Disagree? Did you like or dislike the book? Did you like or dislike certain aspects of the story? How do you think the art and writing worked together to tell the story?