Old Ones vs. Humans
I was planning on posting this yesterday, but was sick as a dog and couldn't crawl to my computer, much less type. This was a shame, as it came right after a really nice night at the Young Friends of Film tribute to Ethan Hawke where I was helping hand out tickets and such. I've always liked EH but my opinion of him was definitely raised by this event. He just seemed like a really nice guy, genuinely enthusiastic about his work and very polite (and very cute in person). Plus, he's got great friends. Can you believe Robert Sean Leonard actually came after finishing his performance of Long Day's Journey Into Night?? He was even wearing his little LDJIN jacket. He must have been exhausted-what a pal! Anyway, it was a generally excellent night and the good feelings even made up for my having to sit through possibly the most excruciating film clip ever, Ted Danson talking about being a bad father in Dad. The dry heaving that followed the event was only marginally worse than this scene.
Oh, and here I am at the party, from the back. The point of the picture is the dress. (The picture is the thumbnail that says it's from 06/04/03.)
Anyway, this is what I was going to post but didn't get to finish. It's totally unrelated and it's about The Dark is Rising.
The other night I was reading truepenny's excellently-done analysis of the series. I agreed with a lot of it, but was more interested in the parts I disagreed with, which mostly had to do with Will (of course!) and more importantly on the relationship between Old Ones and Mortals.
One of the things that really drew me to these books when I was a kid was the whole moral dilemma they dramatize. The Old Ones are ostensibly the good guys as they are trying to destroy The Dark, who would enslave mankind's minds. But the Light itself is also ruthless and causes pain to people.
But does this mean that only mortals in TdiR universe are capable of true morality, because they must choose to fight the Dark while the Old Ones don't don't choose, but are chosen and designed for the fight? It's true that the Light's victories almost always come out of a mortal making a free moral choice and that in the end the world "belongs" to humans. But thinking about it more, I don't think this means OOs aren't also making moral choices. The Dark is Immoral, yes but I don't think the Light is a mirror image of that, coldly perfect in its justice. The Light's goal is to keep men free, not turn them good as it surely could. That, to me, suggests a moral choice and not just an instinct for behavior we would call moral (this is also what allows the Light to make mistakes, I'd think). Morality is a more complicated area for me, I guess. Even when one is trying to be moral, as the Light is, one can only do one's best to decide what the right thing to do is.
Although Susan Cooper wasn't writing an allegory, I think it's important to remember what her own moral character was shaped by, by her own admission: growing up in London during the Blitz. I remember reading an essay where she said she just always had the sense that there was a bad guy out there that had to be defeated no matter what. (She took her childhood fears of a Nazi hiding in her closet and used them in that scene when Will is alone in his bedroom and afraid in TDiR.) I'd argue that the "enemy" being out there is a prevailing idea of the 20th century in general that goes back to the first World War. But anyway, the point is that the defeat of the Dark is necessary for mankind and the Light is actually fighting it for mankind and not its own interests. If we relate it to Susan Cooper's experience, we know that it was imperative for the Nazis to be stopped, but how far do you go to stop them? Is it moral or immoral to refuse to do something cruel if you know it will result in a Nazi victory?
So what separates people from Old Ones? Are OOs truly inhuman or just not human? Looking at two incidents that illustrate the how the OOs, and specifically Will, deal with people, I myself have to go with a "not human" interpretation. Old Ones have emotions; they feel love, regret, envy, happiness, longing and sadness. What makes them different, imo, is their perspective. They are immortal and burdened with a knowledge that gives them a different outlook. This is one of the things that drew me to Will as a kid. I didn't have his immortality or his knowledge, but I recognized in him that which I associated with wisdom: being able to see and understand what other people didn't and couldn't. It's not that the Old Ones don't understand people at all or don't have compassion for their suffering-after all, they only "become" Old Ones when they are 11. What they lack is the short-sighted perspective, the human need to have a life of one's own--and that might be linked with the other thing humans have that Old Ones don't: mortality. The human perspective isn't always a bad thing; it's what leads Jane to make her wish for the Greenwitch. An Old One would probably never have made that wish. They themselves live lives of isolation and sacrifice so why should they be horrified to see it in another creature? The human perspective isn't wrong or even less moral, it's just different. I suspect that when OOs look around they see most things as already being dead because they will be so soon.
It's this difference of perspective that I've always seen behind the two incidents I wanted to talk about: Hawkins' betrayal and Will's memory wipe of Stephen in SotT. As a kid I just loved the Hawkins story but the few times I've heard others talk about it they seemed to have a very different feelings about it than I did. Merriman makes a mistake with Hawkins, but what mistake, exactly? Some feel Merriman didn't realized just how much he was asking of Hawkins until it was too late. Others have suggested it was Hawkins who didn't know what was being asked of him because Merriman hadn't told him. (At least these are the interpretations I've heard myself.)
Here's the way I always saw it: Merriman did know exactly what he was asking of Hawkins and told him so. Hawkins agreed to do it--one of those choices humans make that were so important. The problem was that Hawkins never really believed Merriman, who loved him, would put him in danger, even though Merriman told him he would. Only at the moment when Hawkins felt real fear and his own mortality did he understand the truth and even then he didn't truly comprehend what Merriman did and why. Even after his revelation about Merriman Hawkins didn't change his perspective on magic so much as become even more jealous of the immortals, particularly Will whom he saw as having the place he wanted as Merriman's true heir. So he ran to the Dark hoping they would give him the power he lacked and make him more than a sacrifice for the Light. The Light would never give him this power or knowledge. This is what I think really drove Hawkins all along. He wanted to be what he perceived Merriman and Will to be without really being able to comprehend the burdens that came with it. In that sense Merriman didn't know what he was asking of Hawkins, I suppose. Or...he understood it intellectually but not emotionally, same as Hawkins didn't understand him.
In SotT, Stephen confronts Will with questions about the Old One in Jamaica who gave him a message for his little brother. Will starts to tell him the truth, Stephen looks alarmed, Will says, "It's too much for you," and takes away the memory. Is Will being cold there, or inhuman, wiping Stephen's memory to make things more convenient for himself? He could certainly have made a better effort to explain things to Stephen in a way he could handle (rather than opening with a quick overview of the magical universe and the immortal beings who guard the earth of which he is one--yipes!) and probably enlist Stephen as a friend of the Light. But I think to do that would be to ignore the lesson of Hawkins. An Old One should really never enlist someone into the Light's because the risks are too great.
It's not that the OOs look down on humans--on the contrary their whole purpose has to do with respecting Man's dignity and freedom of choice. From an OO's perspective, however, he can't help but see dangers humans can't. Will is making things more convenient for himself by wiping Stephen's memory, but that's because Stephen would be one hell of an inconvenience. Sooner or later I think Will would fear a repeat of the Hawkins episode. Not that Stephen would betray Will, necessarily, but that Stephen wouldn't understand Will's actions. We know the Light often has to be ruthless and almost every human Will speaks to is horrified at this. At some point all humans feel the need to interfere or demand the OOs make their actions easier for people to swallow and that's dangerous. It's just easier, imo, for the OOs to work alone without having to explain everything. This isn't necessarily a moral choice, of course. But there's too much at stake, imo, for an OO to feel beholden to give every human a chance to prove they're the one human who's truly okay with the kinds of things that would be asked of them. I guess it's sort of like dealing with a child. You know they can't comprehend certain things, so you don't explain it to them.
Like I said, I think both perspectives need to be balanced. For some reason, though, I always lean toward the character with Will's perspective. Like in LOTR-Sam takes the human perspective, putting the life and happiness of one person above all else, and Frodo's got the Old One's task of sacrificing everything to get rid of the danger. In the end Frodo's perspective isolates him from humanity just as Will is isolated but I think they're both still human. It's the wisdom that makes them seem not so...
Oh, and here I am at the party, from the back. The point of the picture is the dress. (The picture is the thumbnail that says it's from 06/04/03.)
Anyway, this is what I was going to post but didn't get to finish. It's totally unrelated and it's about The Dark is Rising.
The other night I was reading truepenny's excellently-done analysis of the series. I agreed with a lot of it, but was more interested in the parts I disagreed with, which mostly had to do with Will (of course!) and more importantly on the relationship between Old Ones and Mortals.
One of the things that really drew me to these books when I was a kid was the whole moral dilemma they dramatize. The Old Ones are ostensibly the good guys as they are trying to destroy The Dark, who would enslave mankind's minds. But the Light itself is also ruthless and causes pain to people.
But does this mean that only mortals in TdiR universe are capable of true morality, because they must choose to fight the Dark while the Old Ones don't don't choose, but are chosen and designed for the fight? It's true that the Light's victories almost always come out of a mortal making a free moral choice and that in the end the world "belongs" to humans. But thinking about it more, I don't think this means OOs aren't also making moral choices. The Dark is Immoral, yes but I don't think the Light is a mirror image of that, coldly perfect in its justice. The Light's goal is to keep men free, not turn them good as it surely could. That, to me, suggests a moral choice and not just an instinct for behavior we would call moral (this is also what allows the Light to make mistakes, I'd think). Morality is a more complicated area for me, I guess. Even when one is trying to be moral, as the Light is, one can only do one's best to decide what the right thing to do is.
Although Susan Cooper wasn't writing an allegory, I think it's important to remember what her own moral character was shaped by, by her own admission: growing up in London during the Blitz. I remember reading an essay where she said she just always had the sense that there was a bad guy out there that had to be defeated no matter what. (She took her childhood fears of a Nazi hiding in her closet and used them in that scene when Will is alone in his bedroom and afraid in TDiR.) I'd argue that the "enemy" being out there is a prevailing idea of the 20th century in general that goes back to the first World War. But anyway, the point is that the defeat of the Dark is necessary for mankind and the Light is actually fighting it for mankind and not its own interests. If we relate it to Susan Cooper's experience, we know that it was imperative for the Nazis to be stopped, but how far do you go to stop them? Is it moral or immoral to refuse to do something cruel if you know it will result in a Nazi victory?
So what separates people from Old Ones? Are OOs truly inhuman or just not human? Looking at two incidents that illustrate the how the OOs, and specifically Will, deal with people, I myself have to go with a "not human" interpretation. Old Ones have emotions; they feel love, regret, envy, happiness, longing and sadness. What makes them different, imo, is their perspective. They are immortal and burdened with a knowledge that gives them a different outlook. This is one of the things that drew me to Will as a kid. I didn't have his immortality or his knowledge, but I recognized in him that which I associated with wisdom: being able to see and understand what other people didn't and couldn't. It's not that the Old Ones don't understand people at all or don't have compassion for their suffering-after all, they only "become" Old Ones when they are 11. What they lack is the short-sighted perspective, the human need to have a life of one's own--and that might be linked with the other thing humans have that Old Ones don't: mortality. The human perspective isn't always a bad thing; it's what leads Jane to make her wish for the Greenwitch. An Old One would probably never have made that wish. They themselves live lives of isolation and sacrifice so why should they be horrified to see it in another creature? The human perspective isn't wrong or even less moral, it's just different. I suspect that when OOs look around they see most things as already being dead because they will be so soon.
It's this difference of perspective that I've always seen behind the two incidents I wanted to talk about: Hawkins' betrayal and Will's memory wipe of Stephen in SotT. As a kid I just loved the Hawkins story but the few times I've heard others talk about it they seemed to have a very different feelings about it than I did. Merriman makes a mistake with Hawkins, but what mistake, exactly? Some feel Merriman didn't realized just how much he was asking of Hawkins until it was too late. Others have suggested it was Hawkins who didn't know what was being asked of him because Merriman hadn't told him. (At least these are the interpretations I've heard myself.)
Here's the way I always saw it: Merriman did know exactly what he was asking of Hawkins and told him so. Hawkins agreed to do it--one of those choices humans make that were so important. The problem was that Hawkins never really believed Merriman, who loved him, would put him in danger, even though Merriman told him he would. Only at the moment when Hawkins felt real fear and his own mortality did he understand the truth and even then he didn't truly comprehend what Merriman did and why. Even after his revelation about Merriman Hawkins didn't change his perspective on magic so much as become even more jealous of the immortals, particularly Will whom he saw as having the place he wanted as Merriman's true heir. So he ran to the Dark hoping they would give him the power he lacked and make him more than a sacrifice for the Light. The Light would never give him this power or knowledge. This is what I think really drove Hawkins all along. He wanted to be what he perceived Merriman and Will to be without really being able to comprehend the burdens that came with it. In that sense Merriman didn't know what he was asking of Hawkins, I suppose. Or...he understood it intellectually but not emotionally, same as Hawkins didn't understand him.
In SotT, Stephen confronts Will with questions about the Old One in Jamaica who gave him a message for his little brother. Will starts to tell him the truth, Stephen looks alarmed, Will says, "It's too much for you," and takes away the memory. Is Will being cold there, or inhuman, wiping Stephen's memory to make things more convenient for himself? He could certainly have made a better effort to explain things to Stephen in a way he could handle (rather than opening with a quick overview of the magical universe and the immortal beings who guard the earth of which he is one--yipes!) and probably enlist Stephen as a friend of the Light. But I think to do that would be to ignore the lesson of Hawkins. An Old One should really never enlist someone into the Light's because the risks are too great.
It's not that the OOs look down on humans--on the contrary their whole purpose has to do with respecting Man's dignity and freedom of choice. From an OO's perspective, however, he can't help but see dangers humans can't. Will is making things more convenient for himself by wiping Stephen's memory, but that's because Stephen would be one hell of an inconvenience. Sooner or later I think Will would fear a repeat of the Hawkins episode. Not that Stephen would betray Will, necessarily, but that Stephen wouldn't understand Will's actions. We know the Light often has to be ruthless and almost every human Will speaks to is horrified at this. At some point all humans feel the need to interfere or demand the OOs make their actions easier for people to swallow and that's dangerous. It's just easier, imo, for the OOs to work alone without having to explain everything. This isn't necessarily a moral choice, of course. But there's too much at stake, imo, for an OO to feel beholden to give every human a chance to prove they're the one human who's truly okay with the kinds of things that would be asked of them. I guess it's sort of like dealing with a child. You know they can't comprehend certain things, so you don't explain it to them.
Like I said, I think both perspectives need to be balanced. For some reason, though, I always lean toward the character with Will's perspective. Like in LOTR-Sam takes the human perspective, putting the life and happiness of one person above all else, and Frodo's got the Old One's task of sacrificing everything to get rid of the danger. In the end Frodo's perspective isolates him from humanity just as Will is isolated but I think they're both still human. It's the wisdom that makes them seem not so...