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Moral - Blog Posts
Two important adults and a side adult who all work at Hybrid High!
Moral Nightengale (city fae/??? hybrid - she/they); the mysterious and enigmatic principal/founder of the school. Recently wed to Percy's mother.
Gulliver Dirgefall (skeleton/dullahan hybrid - he/him); a former theater lit teacher who became the vice principal. Teacher supervisor to the gsa. Married to Hyacinth!
Hyacinth Dirgefall (tabaxi/satyr hybrid - he/him); the sign language teacher at school. Married to Gulliver!
A very quick test comic for Hybrid High! This would be in the second "chapter" (if you count the prologue as a chapter), when Percy would first meet Cyraeni!
“The moral man is a lower species than the immoral, a weaker species; indeed—he is a type in regard to morality, but not a type in himself; a copy, a good copy at best—the measure of his value lies outside him. I assess a man by the quantum of power and abundance of his will: not by its enfeeblement and extinction; I regard a philosophy which teaches denial of the will as a teaching of defamation and slander— I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power
"An inanimate capacity mechanical projectile that can (respectively) transform based on the target's barrier(s). 1. If organic/water-based the bullet will use anti-organic/water-based purposes. 2. If kevlar, AP mechanics would be immediately used, instead... so on and so forth. (This ammunition and others can be interchangeable.)"
I read Bram Stoker's Dracula right after changing the course of my studies. From a fine university I went to another brilliant one. Everything around me seemed to take new shape and I had to learn new customs. In this phase, when my brain was forced to let fresh things pass, I found myself absorbed in this piece of literature, which I had been meaning to read for quite some time then. And so it was, I read it and found it interesting and original. On the contrary, I felt it wasn't a perfect match for me, since it was set in and meant to be understood in another era.
Time passed and I concealed my Dracula experience in the back of my head. This period, however, came to an end, when, yesterday night, I stumbled upon Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula (1992), and I couldn't resist, so I watched it.
The cast is near perfect, Keanu Reeves being probably the only odd one out, since he looked way too young and inexperienced to take on the role of Jonathan Harker. But all in all, Gary Oldman (Dracula), Winona Ryder (Mina Harker) and Anthony Hopkins (van Helsing), acted so stupendously, that left me breathless at certain points of the film. The directing was also terrific--of course, what else could we anticipate seeing Coppola's name on the credit roll.
Before saying anything I must remark, that I'm a huge supporter of book adaptations, so I had a very positive attitude towards the movie beforehand. At the very end of the film, it sadly turned into bitter disappointment. But remember, I write this, having established, that it was almost perfectly made.
Dracula's original story operates with stereotypical characters and countless elements brought in from superstition--not strictly, just in comparison with contemporary ways. The story has its twists and mysteries but those aren't as shocking and sudden as it would be expected from a current book. It begins with a solicitor, Harker's visit at castle Dracula and an encounter with the monster, Dracula. From here the count goes to London, seeking new lands to hunt humans. Harker's fiance, Mina is staying at her friend's place, at the same time. This friend, Lucy, has a habit of sleepwalking. When Dracula arrives to England, she, conveniently, happens to be the easiest target. The count feeds on her regularly, killing her little by little, until it gets too suspicious and Lucy's noble admirers, joined by professor Abraham van Helsing, unite to discover what torments the woman. They come to a right conclusion eventually but then it's too late and Lucy's transformed into a hellish creature, so they are forced to kill her, in order to grant her eternal rest and avoidance of godly condemnation. The fellowship decides to hunt the original vampire down and through Mina they get acquinted with Harker, who just returned, having scarcely survived his stay at the count's castle but is now resolute to bring down destruction upon the demonic creature. Dracula, moving on from Lucy, also turns Mina into a vampire, or comes really close to it, and then the men (and Mina) enter into a tight chase him and kill him.
In Stoker's novel, Dracula is a very instinct-driven killer. He only seeks base things and is not a bit a human. We don't get to see his backstory’s smaller details, only that he used to be an important and extraordinary man, then, at some point, he attended the Scholomance and has been like this ever since, only growing greater in his abilities. The only thing he engages in, apart from killing and turning people into vampires, is experimenting with ways to become more efficient at his other pursuit. Stoker wrote him as someone, who is led by evil and nothing else.
Dracula has one equal: van Helsing, who is almost identical to him, with the crucial difference of being motivated by good--by christian ideas in this story, mixed with superstition.
The movie tried to remain true to the source material in regards of the plot and interfered where intellectually a renovation seemed due. For example Coppola kept the means, by which the mourners of Lucy hunted the count but fundamentally changed the motives of Dracula. He tried to give sense to the character and so came up with the idea, that it would be of bigger service to the plot if the count was led by romantic feelings. It is supposed to give depth and seriousness to the drama. However, it works only if we fail to understand Stoker's original intents or if we are reluctant.
In the movie the count is fueled by grief and longing, after his dead wife, tragically killed hundreds of years ago. This event is where the movie’s Dracula experiences his extreme disappointment in the church and turns to other sources. The director takes it even further: Mina is somehow the reincarnation of Dracula's dead wife--this is very explicit, since she has actual memories from her past life. They both recognize each other and are gravitated to each other, even so, love each other honestly.
The movie has another important aspect: All of the good characters are humanized. The screenwriter threw away the naive figures and applied contemporary materialist tools to repaint them.
Coppola took the good characters and made them as bad as any other man and took the evil one and made him as good as any other. But what are the vampire hunters without a high ground? Dracula, in the other hand, has a morose reason behind all his evil-doings and is thus legitimized, made the victim of the story.
Stoker painted a picture, that was clearly white and black and then came Coppola, saying 'Hey dude, life's more complicated, than that'. Of course life is more complicated, than that but Stoker had an entirely different meaning. In his story: There is a transcendent world, there are transcendent values. In Coppola's vision, what we get is very grounded: we all are the same (not equal but identical!), regardless from the appearances, and the idea that everyone faces something after they're dead is as old as Stoker's vampire, and just as much an entertaining element of folklore but nothing more.
The movie denied the concept of good and bad. It rationalized that if we were Dracula, we'd probably end up doing things that could be deemed wrong, yet we would be as valiant as humans ever were. This is not necessarily killing or whatnot but we wouldn't be perfect if our lives weren't perfect. Dracula was demonic but with a certain justification. He had to be killed, of course, but it was tragic, in contrast with Stoker's ending of the story, where it was a relief.
Originally I liked Dracula's story because everything the characters did, even when they killed the abominations created by the count, or the count himself, served other purposes, than to increase the spectacle of the story. The hunters freed souls and granted them such things, that were impossible for the victims to attain on earth any more but existed nonetheless. Stoker believed in morals that aren't based solely on practicality but on a grand concept, that there exists the metaphysical and good above the world we know--that there exists God.
History, Becoming, Morality, Spiritual Potency, Knowledge, Man and the Execrable Fallacy, which is considered "History"
Contents
I. There is no 'History'! It is a Pseudo-Concept.
II. 'History' is tantamount to Becoming
III. Writing and History
IV. History, Becoming, Human Actions, and Moral
V. Historiography as Sacred and as Unholy Action
VI. Every Historical Research and Study is an Moral Quest
VII. 'History' and Oral Tradition
VIII. All Writing Systems are Consequence of the Fall of Man
IX. The Moral Dimension of Historiography: History and Myth
X. Spiritual Sciences, Ontology, Knowledge, and Gnosiology
XI. The Academic Discipline of History: Nonexistent without Moral Targets
Ιστορία, Γίγνεσθαι, Ηθική, Ψυχική Ισχύς, Γνώση, Άνθρωπος & η Άθλια Απάτη που θεωρείται «Ιστορία»
Περιεχόμενα
Ι. Δεν υπάρχει 'Ιστορία'! Είναι μία Ψευδο-έννοια.
ΙΙ. 'Ιστορία' είναι το Γίγνεσθαι
ΙΙΙ. Γραφή και Ιστορία
IV. Ιστορία, Γίγνεσθαι, Ανθρώπινες Πράξεις, και Ηθική
V. Ιστοριογραφία ως Ιερή και ως Ανίερη Πράξη
VI. Κάθε Ιστορική Έρευνα και Μελέτη είναι μία Ηθική Αναζήτηση
VII. 'Ιστορία' και Προφορική Παράδοση
VIII. Όλες οι Γραφές είναι Συνάρτηση της Πτώσης του Ανθρώπου
ΙΧ. Ηθική Διάσταση της Ιστοριογραφίας: Ιστορία και Μύθος
Χ. Ψυχικές Επιστήμες, Οντολογία, Γνώση και Γνωσιολογία
ΧΙ. Επιστήμη της Ιστορίας: Ανύπαρκτη χωρίς Ηθικούς Στόχους
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Τοιχογραφία από το ακριβές αντίγραφο του ταφικού θαλάμου του Τούθμωση Γ’ το οποίο φιλοτεχνήθηκε στο Μουσείο του Μπόλτον της Αγγλίας (Bolton Museum Egyptology). Όμως, το εντυπωσιακό σε υλικό επίπεδο επίτευγμα σε τίποτα δεν βοηθάει τον επισκέπτη πέραν ενός πρώτου εντυπωσιασμού. Έτσι, ο επισκέπτης ή ακόμη και ο φοιτητής ή ο μελετητής του κειμένου και των αναπαραστάσεων μένει με την εντύπωση ότι έχουμε να κάνουμε με απλές αντιγραφές από ιερά βιβλία, όπως το Αμντουάτ, και με επαναληπτικές καταγραφές κειμένων σχετικά με τις δοκιμασίες των Δώδεκα Ωρών τις οποίες θα διερχόταν η ψυχή του Τούθμωση Γ' αμέσως μετά τον αποχωρισμό της από το σώμα του. Όμως δεν είναι καθόλου έτσι! Όλα τα αναγραφόμενα κείμενα δεν είναι ακριβώς τα ίδια πουθενά. Ουσιαστικά, στην κάθε περίσταση, είναι προσαρμογές στο τι κατ'ευχήν παρακαλούσαν να συμβεί κατά τις δοκιμασίες της ψυχής ενός εκάστου μεταστάντος οι αρχιερείς, μύστες και γραφείς, οι οποίοι συνεργάζονταν κατά την προετοιμασία του τάφου (ενόσω ακόμη ζούσε ο Φαραώ). Και οι απεικονίσεις δεν παρουσιάζουν μόνον θεϊκές υποστάσεις και όντα εκ των προτέρων γνωστά αλλά συχνά πολλές πρότερον άγνωστες υποστάσεις, οι οποίες ανά τάφο (: ανά περίσταση) μπορεί να εμφανίζονται για μία μόνον φορά. Οπότε, ένα κεντρικό ερώτημα είναι:
- Ποιος έγραψε την Ιστορία της προπαρασκευής ενός εκάστου φαραωνικού τάφου και ποιος έγραψε την Ιστορία όλων των ψυχικών όντων τα οποία αναφέρθηκαν σε κείμενα πυραμίδων, ταφων και σαρκοφάγων;
Ουσιαστικά, κάθε άλλη «Ιστορία» είναι, ως βέβηλη, άχρηστη.
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я не хочу умирать в старости
если я буду станенькой бабулей, которая к тому же и отравляет жизнь своим детям и внукам, то лушче я застрелюсь.
знаете, а что плохого в суициде?
зачем жить, если надоело?
да, лучше решать проблемы. и суицид выбор слабых.
но, знаете, никто и нее полумал, что люди САМИ делают кого-то слабым.
и прежде чем говорить о том, что это плохой поступок нужно подумать, почему люди это делают.
вдруг ты сам ядовит для кого-то из твоего окружения? для друзей или близких?
мораль всё та же: давайте быть внимательнее и добрее к людям, которых мы любим