Black Hat Brigade: Episode 12
Sep. 1st, 2015 04:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastEstablishing Shot: Pridelands. The Camera sweeps over lush trees, green grass, and grazing animals until it stops on a view of Pride Rock. The Camera moves to directly over Pride Rock, showing adult and cub lions interacting. Pride Rock shrinks as the camera pulls back and back and back until the view is shrouded in white.
The Camera pulls further until just over a cloud, displaying a chess board.
Mufasa: You say this is a game humans play?
Scar: Yes. They are allowed to move one piece at a time and each piece only in specific ways. It simulates commanding at battle. They use it as a practice in long-term, multi-step planning and strategy.
Mufasa: How do you win?
Scar smacks the board with a paw, causing the pieces to go flying in disarray.
Scar: I have no idea.
Musfasa: Why did you do that, brother?
Scar: I find it oddly satisfying.
Mufasa: This is why you've come? To show me your love of upsetting order?
Scar chuckles: You should try it. It can yield such satisfaction.
Mufasa: It would be disrespectful. If there is anything that defines my character, it is respect for all things.
From a distant stormcloud, thunder claps, followed by a rolling thunder made of laugh-like barks.
Scar: I am not the only one to disagree.
Mufasa: I have heard that this is what you do. Not content with disrupting one kingdom, you now disrupt canons with your extra-textual assumptions.
Mufasa: You even had your hyenas-
Another thunder-clap and thunder of hyena-barks.
Muafasa: You had them accuse my son of murder.
Scar: I am dead, brother. To whatever extent they could be said to be mine, they are no longer. They have minds and needs of their own.
Scar: Besides, they did not accuse Simba of being a murderer, merely the main character of a cheap revenge-narrative, dressed up with the clothing of coming-of-age and with Shakespearean pretensions.
Scar: It's true, you know. Much the same way you are an evil tyrant, dressed up in kind-father tropes and with pretentions of nobility.
Mufasa narrows his eyes: You cannot claim to be morally superior, Scar. There is a reason that you were the one displayed with Nazi allusions.
Scar: Indeed. The imagery was necessary to paint me as evil. Aside from killing you, I desegregated the Pridelands. Imagery of goose-stepping hyenas with me on a raised platform aside, isn't keeping the hyenas in an effective ghetto more Nazi-like than bringing them out?
Scar: There is something deeply disturbing about taking the concept of Nazis and making them into a racial evil, as opposed to a racist evil.
Mufasa: Your reign brought a drought to the Pridelands.
Scar: How? Tell me how?
Mufasa: Another Shakespearean allusion. In Macbeth, the very land rebelled and rejected the false King.
Scar: So, you're saying that the land, or whatever spirit controls it, is evil. That is no mark against me. That is a mark against the supernatural forces that care only for the pure technicality of having the right king on the... whatever lion-related sitting place could be analogous to a throne.
Mufasa: Not the pure technicality, Scar, but that you had been a murderer on the throne.
Scar: Because all of the animal that you had killed don't count? Or the cruelties done to the hyenas?
Mufasa: The hyenas could have been cursed.
Scar: Oh, let's not go trying to legitimize racism like that. Although, one fan-theory has it that you caused the drought, after gaining powers over nature as a spirit after your death. In this theory, you caused all that suffering, because you had an issue with little old me.
Mufasa: Or, we're overthinking what is only a symbol for the consequences of your bad decisions.
Scar: The only decision I am shown to have made as King is to allow the hyenas into the Pridelands and allow them to eat.
Mufasa: Let's assume you are right. What could you possibly want, now? You are dead. I am dead. We can each only look upon our descendants and hope.
Scar: That might very well be true, if it were only the two of us. Look behind you.
Mufasa looks behind him. The stormcloud is very close, now.
Scar: It isn't just what I want. It's what they want. The hyenas and the antelopes and the giraffs and the zebras and everybody else you made bow before your newborn son. It is what we all want, all of us who did not do what you did, be born king, who want to be able to respect ourselves.
Scar: All the spirits will make their showing, dear brother. In the next story, it will not be the story of how the status quo is good and everything else is evil. The next story will be the story of change and the loss of privilege and the gaining of moral equality and the having of a chance.
Scar: I may wind up being the amoral force in this new spiritual landscape, to be consulted but never trusted. If so, so be it. But, you, for your crimes, will learn what it felt like to die as they have died by your claws.
Mufasa: What about you? You killed to eat, too.
Scar: And, I, too, will learn, have already begun to learn. But, Mufasa, dear brother, there is one thing you can do to make them go easier on you. I did kill you and, indeed, still harbor much anger to you for being so sure of your worth to a position that you earned by being born. But, I also love you, brother. So, listen to me and do what I tell you.
Mufasa: What?
Scar: Admit it. Admit that it isn't right and just that they die, just necessary for you to live. Admit that it isn't fair.
The Camera pulls further until just over a cloud, displaying a chess board.
Mufasa: You say this is a game humans play?
Scar: Yes. They are allowed to move one piece at a time and each piece only in specific ways. It simulates commanding at battle. They use it as a practice in long-term, multi-step planning and strategy.
Mufasa: How do you win?
Scar smacks the board with a paw, causing the pieces to go flying in disarray.
Scar: I have no idea.
Musfasa: Why did you do that, brother?
Scar: I find it oddly satisfying.
Mufasa: This is why you've come? To show me your love of upsetting order?
Scar chuckles: You should try it. It can yield such satisfaction.
Mufasa: It would be disrespectful. If there is anything that defines my character, it is respect for all things.
From a distant stormcloud, thunder claps, followed by a rolling thunder made of laugh-like barks.
Scar: I am not the only one to disagree.
Mufasa: I have heard that this is what you do. Not content with disrupting one kingdom, you now disrupt canons with your extra-textual assumptions.
Mufasa: You even had your hyenas-
Another thunder-clap and thunder of hyena-barks.
Muafasa: You had them accuse my son of murder.
Scar: I am dead, brother. To whatever extent they could be said to be mine, they are no longer. They have minds and needs of their own.
Scar: Besides, they did not accuse Simba of being a murderer, merely the main character of a cheap revenge-narrative, dressed up with the clothing of coming-of-age and with Shakespearean pretensions.
Scar: It's true, you know. Much the same way you are an evil tyrant, dressed up in kind-father tropes and with pretentions of nobility.
Mufasa narrows his eyes: You cannot claim to be morally superior, Scar. There is a reason that you were the one displayed with Nazi allusions.
Scar: Indeed. The imagery was necessary to paint me as evil. Aside from killing you, I desegregated the Pridelands. Imagery of goose-stepping hyenas with me on a raised platform aside, isn't keeping the hyenas in an effective ghetto more Nazi-like than bringing them out?
Scar: There is something deeply disturbing about taking the concept of Nazis and making them into a racial evil, as opposed to a racist evil.
Mufasa: Your reign brought a drought to the Pridelands.
Scar: How? Tell me how?
Mufasa: Another Shakespearean allusion. In Macbeth, the very land rebelled and rejected the false King.
Scar: So, you're saying that the land, or whatever spirit controls it, is evil. That is no mark against me. That is a mark against the supernatural forces that care only for the pure technicality of having the right king on the... whatever lion-related sitting place could be analogous to a throne.
Mufasa: Not the pure technicality, Scar, but that you had been a murderer on the throne.
Scar: Because all of the animal that you had killed don't count? Or the cruelties done to the hyenas?
Mufasa: The hyenas could have been cursed.
Scar: Oh, let's not go trying to legitimize racism like that. Although, one fan-theory has it that you caused the drought, after gaining powers over nature as a spirit after your death. In this theory, you caused all that suffering, because you had an issue with little old me.
Mufasa: Or, we're overthinking what is only a symbol for the consequences of your bad decisions.
Scar: The only decision I am shown to have made as King is to allow the hyenas into the Pridelands and allow them to eat.
Mufasa: Let's assume you are right. What could you possibly want, now? You are dead. I am dead. We can each only look upon our descendants and hope.
Scar: That might very well be true, if it were only the two of us. Look behind you.
Mufasa looks behind him. The stormcloud is very close, now.
Scar: It isn't just what I want. It's what they want. The hyenas and the antelopes and the giraffs and the zebras and everybody else you made bow before your newborn son. It is what we all want, all of us who did not do what you did, be born king, who want to be able to respect ourselves.
Scar: All the spirits will make their showing, dear brother. In the next story, it will not be the story of how the status quo is good and everything else is evil. The next story will be the story of change and the loss of privilege and the gaining of moral equality and the having of a chance.
Scar: I may wind up being the amoral force in this new spiritual landscape, to be consulted but never trusted. If so, so be it. But, you, for your crimes, will learn what it felt like to die as they have died by your claws.
Mufasa: What about you? You killed to eat, too.
Scar: And, I, too, will learn, have already begun to learn. But, Mufasa, dear brother, there is one thing you can do to make them go easier on you. I did kill you and, indeed, still harbor much anger to you for being so sure of your worth to a position that you earned by being born. But, I also love you, brother. So, listen to me and do what I tell you.
Mufasa: What?
Scar: Admit it. Admit that it isn't right and just that they die, just necessary for you to live. Admit that it isn't fair.
