She talks too much.

[swatkat]

Meta! Meta! I'm drowning in meta! Oh, what an absolutely *lovely* way to spend your Sunday morning. RL has been something of a whirlwind (in a good way, but a whirlwind nonetheless), and it will continue to be so for God knows how long, so can I just say that I'm very, very grateful to fandom for this lovely lazy Sunday morning that has given me so much food for thought? *g* I shall now bombard you with all the links, and my takes on them, but before that, I must tell you something else.

I watched Roman Polanski's Macbeth last night, and goodness, I'm still walking about in a daze. It has, of course, nothing to do with the fact that the lead actor was HOT.

It was a brilliant adaptation, touching upon those very things you've always thought were there but couldn't really express in words. The end scene with Donalbain, especially, was a masterstroke. I do wish they'd left *some* of the soliloquies intact instead of making all of them thoughts in a voice-over, although I suppose that wouldn't have been suitable for the film medium. *sigh* I also liked the symbolism in the Nude Sleepwalking Scene, but I still prefer the original white nightgown and candle, because I feel it addresses the issue of identity crisis a lot better than in the movie. Lady Macbeth's character suffers a bit in the movie, because really, how can you achieve that *grand* effect unless you allow her to *say* those lines? I also noticed that they omitted the bits about her inability to kill Duncan, the fact that she needs alcohol to gather enough strength for the night, which suggests that she too, is not all black.

Anyway, back to fandom. The first essay that caught my eye is this one, by reenka: Dumbledore and the Epic Problem of the Hero's Choice. If you're feeling like backing out because it's an HP essay, then please reconsider, because it doesn't really require a detailed knowledge of canon to enjoy this essay. It considers the question of Good and Evil, White Hat and Black Hat on much more meta level, which makes it very interesting reading.


Pure Goodness can really only function as a single, brilliant point rather than a plane that humans can sustain existence on. Meaning: 'mundane' reality cannot keep functioning in the absolute terms of Ideal. Therefore, one can achieve it, but not sustain it indefinitely in the multiplicity of the larger society, with everyone's needs being impossible to satisfy...?
Lily seems to have had that one point of selfless compassionate 'Good' too, while during her adolescence she was more focused on some (easily corruptible) idea of `justice' & fairness. So maybe that one moment of incorruptibility then becomes the ultimate possible expression of Good?

Gah! See? How can you not want to read? Fandom has this attitude of seeing everything in a very black-and-white manner, and then declaring that the text supports it, because *clearly* Harry is the Hero, and clearly Voldie is the Villian, and therefore Harry = white and Voldie = black, and how can it be otherwise? While I confess not giving a lot of thought to Voldemort as a character, I will generally tend to agree with the point that Voldie and the DEs= black. But Harry and the good guys = white? Not so much. How can you say that, when the so-called good guys have a bazillion issues of their own to deal with, and when they themselves do things that are not-so-white after all? As for the numerous complaints about the lack of depth of the 'evil' characters, well, all I have to say is – maybe it's because the books are not about the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys', but the moral problems that are faced by the 'good guys'? The 'bad guys' exist, because you need someone to oppose the 'good guys', but in reality it's more a text about the good guys themselves. That is the reason why Harry grows and develops into a complex character while Draco remains the nasty, somewhat childish bully he had always been. Well, that's my take anyway.

This is the dilemma: once you realize the insolvability of some real ethical conflicts, what would be the ethical solution---? If the ethics of black-and-white absolutism aren't a complete method of solving real-world problems, then what is, and who decides...? And how does one justify deciding merely because one has been put into a position of power, where such decisions are -possible-?

I'm quoting this bit from the essay again, because aren't these the same questions that Nikita learns to deal with in Section? Nikita's journey from S1 to S5 is one of disillusionment, innocence lost, knowledge, because she has to learn the hard way that the usual definitions good and bad, hero and heroism, which seem very fine in the outside world, don't work that well in Section. *sigh*

And now, for the next essay, by panadarus, which left me in a state of blubbering ecstasy: Hero.

OMG! This is such a fabulous, fabulous thing! The whole essay, and the discussion that follows below (please, please read it, because w/o the discussion you'll not enjoy the thing nearly as much) is unbelievable. It also discusses RL issues which I found very interesting - I wish I could comment, but the only thing that I can think of is 'Bush is a moron', and that will probably not be a very mature thing to say in a discussion like this.

The question of the hero is something very important in all fandoms, esp. the ones like HP, where canon is clearly something akin to the Hero's Quest, and the easiest way fans try to deal with it is of course the age-old 'good guys' vs. 'bad guys' technique. LFN is, of course, no exception, because inspite of all the talk about shades of grey and moral ambiguity, what most fans do is paint the characters of their choice in black and white. Which is the reason why we have Heroic!Michael and Psycho!Hosebeast!Madeline, even when the so-called hero regularly did things that were *so* not heroic, and the psycho hosebeast did things in her own quiet way that cannot be termed any thing else. Inducing a heart attack? Dude, if that's not 'heroic', what is? True, *she* does not think of it that way, and she'd laugh at me if I told her that (you can laugh too. I don't mind. Really.), but one of the most important things about heroes is that they do not *think* they're heroes, but just keep doing their job (we will not go into what is right and what is wrong right now, because that's another post). This is the reason why IMO Wesley is more of a 'hero' than Angel. [/fangirl] Of course, with characters like Buffy, and Harry, who have no choice but to follow the path that has already been laid for them, it is slightly different. They have these superhuman ideals and expectations to live up to, and I find it unfortunate that they are criticised for displaying moral hypocrisy and high-handedness when all they are doing is trying to live up to the design that has been *set* for them, because they HAVE NO OTHER OPTION. Harry can't help being the Boy Who Lived, although God knows he *does not* want it – all he wants is a normal life.

Applying the usual standards of 'heroism' to the LFN characters, could we call them heroes? No. Definitely not. Which is the reason why we have so many attempts to whitewash their faults and magnify their good. But, for once, going back to the tragic heroes like Macbeth, Hamlet, Lear, Oedipus, and the whole lot of them (see pandarus' essay) - if we apply the standards that we apply to these characters and term them heroes – then we could very well call the LFN characters (Paul, Madeline, Michael, Nikita) heroes in their own way, without being heroic in the modern sense of the term.

If none of the above makes sense, please ignore it as pointless rambings of an insane mind. I *did* tell you that RL has been very busy, remember? *g*