Comments | sistermagpie: Only a Sith thinks in absolutes...

sistermagpie

Only a Sith thinks in absolutes...

May 25, 2005 12:23

teratologist offered a heads-up to this link showing that, as she puts it, Orson Scott Card is acting a damn fool again. This link reminded me of something I've been thinking about lately, mostly due to a random discussion about Revenge of the Sith. It has, I guess, to do with that impulse to ( think in absolutes. Spoilers for RotS within. )

meta, star wars, movies

Comments 17

Very interesting!! ex_leianora730 May 25 2005, 10:51:43 UTC

I've been chatting like a very chatty thing on LJ today, but I just had to ring in on this. I see the parallels between Harry and Voldemort in this same light. Voldy is afraid to die, so he does everything he can to keep it from happening. Harry is afraid of losing someone, and that very fear is the one thing Voldy played on to trap him and his friends in the DoM and got Sirius involved in that fatal duel. fearing loss is something Harry is going to have to learn to distance himself from, or avoid until he has done what needs doing.

Re: Very interesting!! sistermagpie May 26 2005, 06:50:41 UTC

I'm glad you're chatty! Yes, I definitely thought that about Voldemort, though sometimes I think in HP this aspect isn't really laid out the way it is in other places. As you say, Harry, too, wants to hold on to people--and it's a little problematic, I think, because there is more back-and-forth across the barrier, with ghosts etc. Though those are said to have made the wrong choice by sticking around. So I do think the idea is there, we'll just have to see how it ultimately works out.

balfrog May 25 2005, 14:07:05 UTC

I meant to comment on your 'responsible fiction' post, but was goofing - but these sort of fall together in my crazy mind, only because the recurring action, of the characters you discuss here, in thinking of absolutes, and the readers who demand 'responsible fiction,' gesture at a move towards instant conclusions. Or single conclusions ( ... )

sistermagpie May 26 2005, 06:55:48 UTC

Hey, no problem putting the two posts together since they probably go together in my head somehow too.

And that's where I feel the absolutes in both the characters who cannot look around the straight line logic, make for a good story, can't be savvy interpreters, but are more than the viewers who wish to clamp them down to one meaning want them to be.Yes! Well said. Since people are like this characters often are too, and that makes for complications and conflict in the plot. But there are so many areas where of course people are going to react differently or think something else other than what is happening is going on ( ... )

volkhvoi May 25 2005, 15:20:03 UTC

Oh for the good old days, when Card was running secular humanist revival meetings at SF cons.

sistermagpie May 26 2005, 06:56:19 UTC

LOL--that frightens me because now I wonder if years from now I'll be ranting about all the things that seem so sensible to me now!

teratologist May 26 2005, 10:11:17 UTC

I think there's a gene that makes aging science fiction writers go batshit insane, actually. Look at Bradbury and Dick. Look at poor old Arthur C. Clarke, and of course, Harlan Ellison has become rather... cranky. Of course he always was kind of cranky from what I'm given to understand.

gillieweed May 25 2005, 17:27:38 UTC

You know I really am not surprised in the least that right wingers have taken up with the Evil Empire. They've modeled themselves after them, haven't they? Of course they're going to feel put out when it turns out in the end that they're supposed to be the bad guys.

sistermagpie May 26 2005, 07:00:32 UTC

Yes, and it fits with that weird thing you see in people where they attack others while at the same time whining that they're being oppressed ( ... )

(The comment has been removed)

sistermagpie May 26 2005, 07:08:58 UTC

Ahhh, I have to tell you, this is one of my favorite posts of yours ever <3<3<3<3 So... inspiring and stuff (and the last line! wah!). *wallows*/i>

Hee! Yay! *preens*

And it's so nice to hear positive things about Star Wars as a whole, without the sort of (often fond) mockery that's been dominant ever since the prequels came out.

Yeah, I hope after a while people can stop doing that. I mean, I didn't like the first two prequels either but it's more interesting talking about the core stuff in the story that works.

And actually, I've always had a lingering dislike of Anakin since the first movie, but now I guess I can just feel bad for him 'cause he's got all these regressive issues, almost similarly to Draco, actually, ahahahah. LOL! It's true! And he's just not that bright (also like Draco, maybe, but Draco might actually be smarter). He wants everything set to the way it's supposed to be but really he can't stand the way things are supposed to be. What do you mean I can't be a Jedi Master at 19? Why should my mother have ( ... )