Black Hat Brigade: Episode 32
Apr. 15th, 2016 12:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wingedbeastSetting: Above the clouds. The golden coloration along the horizon indicates sunrise, though the source of light is off screen. Everything is bathed in a mixture of gold and white.
Aslan: I know we all have our disagreements.
A figure played by Morgan Freeman, in a white-on-white suit speaks up.: You've called me a distressingly unserious depiction.
Aslan: Indeed I have, and I stand by it.
Metatron stands in front of a woman in a flowing white dress: As you are aware that we have called you are what happens when people take a good idea and make it into a belief.
Aslan: I'm quite certain that I would have an argument, if that actually meant something. Yet, we are not here to debate or argue. We have a common issue.
George Burns wears a white golf-shirt and white pants, with a golf viser.: I don't think so. I don't even have any villains in most of my movies.
Aslan: Perhaps, but the Black Hat Brigade has engaged various versions of The Devil in their effort. It's only a matter of time before they take aim at something we all represent.
Cut to a picnic table in the BHB apple orchard. The table is set, the plates as yet empty.
Susan Pevensie is dressed in a knee-length skirt, displaying her nylons, a white blouse, and a wide-brimmed black hat. Her lipstick is a bright red.
Susan: We favor a number of trees, here, actually. The apples get the most attention, though. So, I've brought apple crumble as a standard. Although, there's this lovely pomegranate jam. And, these tarts are made using quince. I enjoy them for both taste and texture.
Peter Pevensie: All fruits that have been used for the forbidden fruit.
Susan: Leave it to you, Peter, to take all the subtlety out of it. Why are you here?
Edmund: Your invitation didn't say that I had to be here, alone.
Peter: And, you'd mentioned your objection over one line, before. I won't leave my brother vulnerable to even you, sister. And, who's this?
Peter points to the man at the end of the picnic table, wearing jeans and overalls.
Susan: This gentleman is a victim of the same thinking that has made you and I victims, Edmund.
Edmund: Victims of what?
Cut to Clouds
Metatron: But, nobody here represents the same thing. Sure, you and my employer are all characters called "god", but we all represent different ways of relating to the divine.
George Burns: The way of viewing me as an old comedian is a way of bringing me closer.
Morgan Freeman: And, I remind of the fatherly and the wise.
Metatron: And, for our franchise, the one who's voice is too great for mortal ears represents the unity of the close and the distantly powerful.
Aslan: Perhaps. There is a level of debate to be had in each. But, for all that we differ, we do share the very foundations of morality that the Black Hat Brigade seeks to destroy.
Aslan: Without a foundation, objective morality is impossible. That foundation must be something that is unchanging and transcends humanity, else it is nothing but fashions of the time. Without that foundation, there is nothing to stop the Nazis from being just another trend or to make Mother Teresa their moral superior.
Cut to Orchard
Edmund looks over to the man at the end of the table.
The man looks to be enjoying a loaf of fresh-baked bread.
Peter: Who is he?
Susan: If morality really is objective, everybody must be subject to it, to judgement. There can be no exceptions.
Peter: You're not answering me.
Susan: Peter, do be quiet and listen. I'm talking to Edmund, but you can learn something, too.
Edmund: Who is he?
Susan: In due time, Edmund. No exceptions to morality. Otherwise, it's not morality, it's just something aping morality for control.
Cut to Clouds
Morgan Freeman: You're saying that, even if the Brigade doesn't come after us directly, it still undermines what we represent, and, through that, morality itself.
Aslan: If mankind can find you wrong for putting a person in the place and conditions you choose-
Metatron: Or with the plan She chooses...
George Burns: With the purpose of serving Myself as I see fit...
Aslan: Then, how can morality even be?
Cut to Orchard
Susan: If nothing is wrong with demanding the execution of an eight year old child who had been compelled through magic, how can morality be?
The man at the end of the table: It can even be something smaller. Something like rejecting an offering. No reason given, not even for the sake of basic politeness.
Edmund's eyes go wide.
Peter's eyes narrow: There was a reason. You did not give with a full heart.
The man: An explanation given to many a child in a Catholic school, before they even first attempt to read the story. But, that's not on the page.
Edmund: You... you had tried to come to God on your terms, not His.
The man: An explanation accepted by many a Creationist. That isn't on the page, either.
Susan: I think we've played coy enough for any readers who have already figured this out, so please do introduce yourself.
The man reaches out a hand to Edmund: Might as well be clear about it. I'm Cain, nice to meet you.
Cut to Clouds
Aslan: I realize the trechery of images. Reepicheep explained a touch of it. None of us are what we are meant to be. A painting can not be the item it pictures. We cannot be the One we are written to be. But, in that one's name, we must protect the vary concept of morality for humanity.
Cut to Orchard
Peter: How can you even be here? This is metafiction and the bible is-
Cain: The bible is a collection of stories from different genres. That's even the latin root of the word "bible", "biblio" referencing a collection, not a unified whole.
Edmund: No, this collection is special, it was guided and intended by God.
Susan: Let's assume that to be true, that the Bible was, for all intents and purposes, penned by God. The death of the author is still true. When reading, the relationship is between the words on the page and the reader. So, he and other biblical figures still apply to this world.
Cain: And, Edmund, I was rejected by God for doing what he told me to do.
Peter: Oh, that is definitely not on the page!
Cain: Actually, it was. God told Adam to work the soil to grow food. I followed in that obedient tradition. If you acknowledge the cultural context of the people who carried that as an oral tradition and then penned it, farmers were a city tradition, a place of law. The farmer was, in some ways, a social code for the one who obeys.
Cain: The rancher, which Abel was, was a little different. Not the completely uncivilized hunter, but out living by his own law, not being obedient.
Cain: If I can be denied on the basis of nothing. If you, Edmund, can be set for execution on the basis of magics you had no hope of resisting, then morality is hollow. It has to be changed in order to protect the very concept for humanity.
Aslan: I know we all have our disagreements.
A figure played by Morgan Freeman, in a white-on-white suit speaks up.: You've called me a distressingly unserious depiction.
Aslan: Indeed I have, and I stand by it.
Metatron stands in front of a woman in a flowing white dress: As you are aware that we have called you are what happens when people take a good idea and make it into a belief.
Aslan: I'm quite certain that I would have an argument, if that actually meant something. Yet, we are not here to debate or argue. We have a common issue.
George Burns wears a white golf-shirt and white pants, with a golf viser.: I don't think so. I don't even have any villains in most of my movies.
Aslan: Perhaps, but the Black Hat Brigade has engaged various versions of The Devil in their effort. It's only a matter of time before they take aim at something we all represent.
Cut to a picnic table in the BHB apple orchard. The table is set, the plates as yet empty.
Susan Pevensie is dressed in a knee-length skirt, displaying her nylons, a white blouse, and a wide-brimmed black hat. Her lipstick is a bright red.
Susan: We favor a number of trees, here, actually. The apples get the most attention, though. So, I've brought apple crumble as a standard. Although, there's this lovely pomegranate jam. And, these tarts are made using quince. I enjoy them for both taste and texture.
Peter Pevensie: All fruits that have been used for the forbidden fruit.
Susan: Leave it to you, Peter, to take all the subtlety out of it. Why are you here?
Edmund: Your invitation didn't say that I had to be here, alone.
Peter: And, you'd mentioned your objection over one line, before. I won't leave my brother vulnerable to even you, sister. And, who's this?
Peter points to the man at the end of the picnic table, wearing jeans and overalls.
Susan: This gentleman is a victim of the same thinking that has made you and I victims, Edmund.
Edmund: Victims of what?
Cut to Clouds
Metatron: But, nobody here represents the same thing. Sure, you and my employer are all characters called "god", but we all represent different ways of relating to the divine.
George Burns: The way of viewing me as an old comedian is a way of bringing me closer.
Morgan Freeman: And, I remind of the fatherly and the wise.
Metatron: And, for our franchise, the one who's voice is too great for mortal ears represents the unity of the close and the distantly powerful.
Aslan: Perhaps. There is a level of debate to be had in each. But, for all that we differ, we do share the very foundations of morality that the Black Hat Brigade seeks to destroy.
Aslan: Without a foundation, objective morality is impossible. That foundation must be something that is unchanging and transcends humanity, else it is nothing but fashions of the time. Without that foundation, there is nothing to stop the Nazis from being just another trend or to make Mother Teresa their moral superior.
Cut to Orchard
Edmund looks over to the man at the end of the table.
The man looks to be enjoying a loaf of fresh-baked bread.
Peter: Who is he?
Susan: If morality really is objective, everybody must be subject to it, to judgement. There can be no exceptions.
Peter: You're not answering me.
Susan: Peter, do be quiet and listen. I'm talking to Edmund, but you can learn something, too.
Edmund: Who is he?
Susan: In due time, Edmund. No exceptions to morality. Otherwise, it's not morality, it's just something aping morality for control.
Cut to Clouds
Morgan Freeman: You're saying that, even if the Brigade doesn't come after us directly, it still undermines what we represent, and, through that, morality itself.
Aslan: If mankind can find you wrong for putting a person in the place and conditions you choose-
Metatron: Or with the plan She chooses...
George Burns: With the purpose of serving Myself as I see fit...
Aslan: Then, how can morality even be?
Cut to Orchard
Susan: If nothing is wrong with demanding the execution of an eight year old child who had been compelled through magic, how can morality be?
The man at the end of the table: It can even be something smaller. Something like rejecting an offering. No reason given, not even for the sake of basic politeness.
Edmund's eyes go wide.
Peter's eyes narrow: There was a reason. You did not give with a full heart.
The man: An explanation given to many a child in a Catholic school, before they even first attempt to read the story. But, that's not on the page.
Edmund: You... you had tried to come to God on your terms, not His.
The man: An explanation accepted by many a Creationist. That isn't on the page, either.
Susan: I think we've played coy enough for any readers who have already figured this out, so please do introduce yourself.
The man reaches out a hand to Edmund: Might as well be clear about it. I'm Cain, nice to meet you.
Cut to Clouds
Aslan: I realize the trechery of images. Reepicheep explained a touch of it. None of us are what we are meant to be. A painting can not be the item it pictures. We cannot be the One we are written to be. But, in that one's name, we must protect the vary concept of morality for humanity.
Cut to Orchard
Peter: How can you even be here? This is metafiction and the bible is-
Cain: The bible is a collection of stories from different genres. That's even the latin root of the word "bible", "biblio" referencing a collection, not a unified whole.
Edmund: No, this collection is special, it was guided and intended by God.
Susan: Let's assume that to be true, that the Bible was, for all intents and purposes, penned by God. The death of the author is still true. When reading, the relationship is between the words on the page and the reader. So, he and other biblical figures still apply to this world.
Cain: And, Edmund, I was rejected by God for doing what he told me to do.
Peter: Oh, that is definitely not on the page!
Cain: Actually, it was. God told Adam to work the soil to grow food. I followed in that obedient tradition. If you acknowledge the cultural context of the people who carried that as an oral tradition and then penned it, farmers were a city tradition, a place of law. The farmer was, in some ways, a social code for the one who obeys.
Cain: The rancher, which Abel was, was a little different. Not the completely uncivilized hunter, but out living by his own law, not being obedient.
Cain: If I can be denied on the basis of nothing. If you, Edmund, can be set for execution on the basis of magics you had no hope of resisting, then morality is hollow. It has to be changed in order to protect the very concept for humanity.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-20 09:57 am (UTC)See, in at least some versions of the Cain and Abel story, Cain and Abel each had twin sisters. Cain's twin was Luluwa (which supposedly means "beautiful"); Abel's was Aklia or Aklemia. I mention this because, well, they have names. They're people. I don't like it when women characters get deleted.
Anyway. Time passed, and Cain and Abel were fifteen and twelve, respectively. Adam decided it was time for them and their sisters to marry. In an effort to prevent incest (yeah, good luck with that), Adam decided that the boys should marry each other's twins. Problem: Luluwa was was beautiful and fifteen, and both boys wanted to marry her. Aklia, poor girl, was only twelve and described as "ill-favored." Cain also saw his parents giving HIS gorgeous twin to their favorite son as, well, favoritism. (In this version, Satan had been playing Snoke to Cain's Kylo Ren since Cain's childhood, which probably didn't help.)
After two and a half years and some seriously violent protests from Cain (to the point where he beat and cursed his mother, yuck), Adam told him to make offerings to God: "Take of thy sheep, young and good, and offer them up unto thy God; and I will speak to thy brother [Abel], to make unto his God an offering of corn." In many versions of the story, this is a way of asking God to arbitrate the quarrel between the two.
Problem was, Cain was a bit of a dick. "But Cain behaved haughtily towards his brother, and thrust him from the altar, and would not let him offer up his gift upon the altar; but he offered his own upon it, with a proud heart, full of guile, and fraud."
God was not happy with this, and didn't accept Cain's offering. He did accept Abel's. Cain got mad, and chewed God out.
But Cain was looking on all that took place at his brother's offering, and was wroth on account of it.
Then he opened his mouth and blasphemed God, because He had not accepted his offering.
But God said unto Cain, "Wherefore is thy countenance sad? Be righteous, that I may accept thy offering. Not against Me hast thou murmured, but against thyself."
And Cain went home "very sullen and angry" and "with a woeful countenance." After he told his parents about his offering being rejected, he went out into the fields to sulk. At this point, he was seventeen and a half. Satan of course showed up at that point to tell Cain that his parents loved fifteen-and-a-half-year-old Abel MUCH more than they loved him.
"Since thy brother Abel has taken refuge with thy father Adam, because thou didst thrust him from the altar, they have kissed his face, and they rejoice over him, far more than over thee."
So between sexual jealousy, rejection by God, the belief that his parents didn't love him as much as Abel, and demonic interference, Cain started planning the first murder. In detail. He lured Abel away from their sisters and parents, beat Abel with a shepherd staff, and then "took a large stone, and smote his brother with it upon the head, until his brains oozed out[.]"
After his "am I my brother's keeper" conversation with God, Cain went to Luluwa and told her what he'd done. And she told Adam and Eve, and the whole family mourned--yeah, even Cain. But after the mourning period was over, he and Luluwa married and moved away. (And Adam and Eve abstained from sex for seven years. So Aklia, who ended getting stuck with Seth, was twenty-two-and-a-half when her little brother and future husband was even conceived.)
All the details really change the story, don't they? The Bible version removes both parents, both girls, and Satan; by doing so, it removes the motives of parental favoritism and sexual covetousness, as well as the theme of how evil can use your emotional weaknesses against you. It takes the ages of the characters out of the equation. It fails to explain why God rejected Cain's offering. It removes the brutal beating that Abel endured before having his skull crushed by a stone. The changes make the whole story about God...and it wasn't originally at all.
The changes also blur the fact that the first murder was completely avoidable. All either Cain or Abel had to do was say, "Okay, I'll marry Aklia, and you can have Luluwa." Abel did not deserve to die, but both he and Cain were responsible for the ill will between them. Neither one of them tried to make things right.
And God contributed to this. He could have just said, "Guys, I don't want offerings from either of you right now. You've been fighting for years. Go talk. Work out a compromise. Ask Luluwa and Aklia who they want to marry. Because at this point, I wouldn't be surprised if neither of them want anything to do with you. Especially Aklia. You've been treating her like pond scum for almost three years. Enough already! This is a lousy way to treat a girl or a woman, whether you want to bone her or not. I know you're teenage boys, but you both need to grow up. And Abel, this means not running to your parents every two seconds to show how righteous you are compared to your older brother.
"Oh, and Cain? Stop listening to Satan. He's my kid and I know he's got the gift of gab, but ever since there was this big family blowup with me and my sons, he's been going through an asshole stage, and the more you listen to him, the more of an asshole you'll be, too.
"Now get out of here and don't come back until you two and your twins have worked out a solution that all of you can live with."
But no, the story had to be edited into the Biblical version--one with a passive and completely innocent victim and with a murderer whose "homicide" was stripped of all brutality and premeditation.
(BTW, the original story survives in apocryphal texts, the Midrash, and Muslim lore. In Muslim tradition, Cain's sister is Aclima or Qamilah; Abel's twin is Jumella.)
no subject
Date: 2016-04-20 04:35 pm (UTC)A while back, on NPR, I heard another interpretation, one focused on the difference between farmers and ranchers. At the time that this story would have been passed on through oral tradition, farms were a city thing, where cities collected around farms and that made farms an image easily associated with the rule of law. Ranchers were farther out, and had to live by their own laws.
That made this a difference between not just two brothers, but one that obeyed and the other that chose his own way, instead. And, the one who obeyed (both in the subtext of being an image for law and order and in the text of God having commanded mankind to work the soil) had his offering refused, while the one who didn't had his offering honored.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-20 05:52 pm (UTC)I don't know when the version I was quoting was written--or translated. However, the earliest recorded book of the Bible, Job, features Satan as a character.
no subject
Date: 2016-04-20 06:00 pm (UTC)An analogy I like to make is to bartender jokes.
"Horse walks into a bar and the bartender says 'why the long face?'"
"Grasshopper walks into a bar. Bartender says 'Hey, we have a drink named after you.' Grasshopper says 'That's interesting, I'll give this a shot. One Tom Collins, please.'"
Not necessarily the same bartender, more the role being referred to than, necessarily, just one person who is always "the bartender".