#Palestine-Israel allegory
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Friday the Thirteenth
I was still stacking shelves that afternoon, a zero-hours job in a supermarket, when the call came through. A flat. A genuine offer of a Council flat after all three of us had been living for almost year crushed together in that dingy single room. I only had to review the premises and agree to move in. The keys to the flat would be left for me in the supermarket supervisor’s office. The urge to desert the shelves and rush out immediately was almost overwhelming. It took a great deal of effort to control myself. I rushed off to collect the keys the minute my shift ended.
That morning my fellow workers had been chatting about Friday the Thirteenth being unlucky. It led them on to talking all sorts of nonsense about black cats, walking under ladders, breaking mirrors, and thirteen being unlucky because of the Last Supper. But far from unlucky this Friday 13th seemed my luckiest day in a long time.
The bus dropped me outside Greenview in no time at all. I had to bend my head all the way backwards to squint up to the top of the tower block. I counted the number of rows of small windows and guessed eighteen floors. I pushed open the big front door which was fitted with reinforced glass and stepped into a bare concrete litter-strewn entrance hall. There was no-one else around and I felt vulnerable. There were some places where even a brown skin could bring danger. Stuck to both lifts there was a crudely written ‘Out of Order’ sign. In smaller writing under one of the signs someone had written ‘Engineer may come Monday 16th. There was nothing for it but to climb the concrete stairs. I had to remind myself that it would be a home, and a home in the Elephant and Castle would be relatively central, handy for work. By the second floor the amount of litter had decreased but a stench of rot and decay persisted. I could see the local wildlife had found its way inside the building. Pigeon droppings, - perhaps bats - were commonplace. In a corner I spotted dead pigeon, half devoured by mice or rats.
On the third floor landing there was no lighting. A sudden yowl sent a shiver down my spine until I glimpsed the shadow of a black cat racing past me down the stairs. I picked my way forward as a gurgling death rattle sounded, louder the higher I climbed unil it screeched like a banshee. On the eighth floor I found the landing window was somehow in the process of detaching itself from the wall, swaying and groaning in the evening breeze and grinding against the frame as it did so. I felt my way through the darkness of the ninth and tenth floors and wondered at no-one having passed me on the stairs. Breathless, and with the joy of being offered a flat rapidly dissipating, I staggered on to the thirteenth floor landing. No lighting again; just a cold draught from another broken window.
I pressed my nose up against doors to see numbers and at last identified number thirteen. But as I went to push my key in the lock the door creaked open. I found myself staring into blackness. At the sound of shuffling footsteps approaching I frantically felt around the walls for the light switch. My fingers located it and I flicked it down urgently. Nothing happened except I shuddered to feel a hand fall on my shoulder. A ghostly presence murmured in an ethereal voice “Have you come to sit with me chaber?”
“No, no,” I stammered, “who are you?”
“I’m Joshua, here for my brother Noah. Are you a friend?”
“Can you put the light on?” I managed to ask.
“Ah, the light.”
His hand moved slowly down my shoulder till it held my fingers. He guided my index finger up to his face, drawing it over his cheekbone until I shrank back and shivered as it traced an empty eye socket.
“I am blind,” murmured Joshua. “There is no light in my world. Now Noah has gone too and the electricity company has decided he no longer needs light.”
“Noah? Living here?”
“Noah is dead now my friend. He let me live here with him, but maybe the Council didn’t know. There are rules. Sub-letting. And now maybe other rules - squatting.”
“Listen, the Council has given me the keys to this flat.”
“Ah. But you won’t be here long my friend.”
“I’m moving in with my family, my wife and child.”
“And next year Greenview is scheduled for demolition. Very few people still live here my friend. Soon no-one at all.”
The blind man must have sensed my bitter disappointment. “Come,” he said, “it’s been a shock. Sit with me awhile until you feel better.”
Holding my hand he led me through the darkness until my ankles bumped into something and he said “Sit here on the sofa.”
We sat in silence, my eyes adjusting to the darkness. I could make out heavy curtains drawn across the window.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Haroon,” I replied.
“Ah,” said the blind man. “A Muslim?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Today is Friday. Holy day, your day for prayers.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “But every day is a prayer day and yet when I am called to work I must work without breaks to face Mecca. My family attended the mosque this afternoon. I will go tonight.”
“But you can stay with me for an hour, help me sit shiva?”
“Shiva … ah, of course, … and then I understood. I am not a wise man, but I am not ignorant of Abraham’s other followers, other customs.”
“And the next time you come I will be gone.”
“But if you have nowhere else to go…?”
“Your family need a home.”
In the dark silence I thought about that, about family. Then I replied “Listen, Joshua my friend, I can move in here with my wife and child and there will still be room for you. The Council need never know. What with the whole tower coming down next year the arrangement will only be for a short time anyway. But it will give us both some space to work out what we do next.”
“I thank you Haroon. I will do that. You are a good man, willing to share any good fortune.”
“Not a better man than you Joshua, welcoming me in this place and willing to sit alone praying for your brother’s salvation.
And as we sat together in silent contemplation I decided Greenview was bad, but Friday the Thirteenth or not I could still count myself lucky; it could easily have been very much worse. And anyway, a home is about people, not about material conditions, and friendship, getting to know one another, is how we overcome fear.
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Death had just picked up his latest soul, a little girl who was handed to Death by Famine's cold hands. Almost passing the grand figure of War fading into the sidelines. "War, my friend, usually you are more active on such occasions" said Death, with the girl in hand.
"Death I stand for this is not my doing. This is not war." War corrected. Then pointing a hand caked with blood in the direction of a white figure in the distance, perpetrator. Blue Stars hang over his head as he directs fire and white gas. Conquest was hard at work, his hands clean and white clothes pristine for he had wiped the blood onto War. Death can only nod, now understanding War's words.
Now
Fear the white rider
#free palestine#i stand with palestine#stop the genocide#short story#allegory#the four horsemen#israel is a terrorist state#colonialism#death#politics#conquest#free gaza#fuck colonialism#fuck colonizers#colonization#colonization kills
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This is becoming a big debate on Twitter, but—have the actual comics established decisively whether Magneto is Zionist or anti-Zionist?
I'm not on Twitter any more, so I missed this debate, but...I would say that it's complicated.
As established in X-Men #161, Magneto did make aliyah in the 1950s and worked with fellow Holocaust survivors in a mental hospital in Haifa. However, it's pretty clear that at this early point he'd already begun shifting his identity and politics to mutant nationalism, so his commitment to Israel seems to have been somewhat shortlived.
By the end of the issue, he kills a bunch of Nazis, liberates their gold to finance his revolution, and then leaves Israel to make the world safe for mutants under his benevolent dictatorship that will impose universal military disarmament and world peace under threat of volcano machine. That's a pretty big departure in terms of political ideology.
Magneto's revolutionary campaign repeatedly took the form of efforts to create a mutant nation-state on Genosha or Asteroid M/Avalon or Utopia or New Tian, and then most recently on Krakoa. These different nation-building efforts all have various real-world allusions - for example, Genosha is a very clear allegory for apartheid and then post-apartheid South Africa, whereas Utopia was inspired by the Native American occupation of Alcatraz in 1969-1971 - but I would generally describe them as post-colonial independence struggles for national self-determination.
As he worked it out over the decades, Magneto's political philosophy clearly has its roots in Jewish nationalism of the 1950s - Chris Claremont has been quite clear that he had Menachim Begin in mind when he began writing Magneto in the 1980s - but has clearly evolved beyond that perspective. In HOXPOX and Dawn of X, Hickman has Magneto get quite self-righteous that mutants have never fought a war of conquest and that Krakoa is unique among nation-states in that it was founded with the free and informed consent of the living island (which was also the indigenous population) itself.
So yeah, I think the guy who makes this speech would not exactly fit neatly into contemporary Israel/Palestine politics:
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thoughts on neil druckman being a zionist
In TLOU 2 it’s explained that the WLF shot a bunch of Scar children for throwing rocks at WLF soldiers. completely unrelated tangent: tlou 2 is based off israel/palestine and israel regularly gets backlash when palestinian kids get shot for throwing rocks at idf soldiers. hmmm.
I have no idea how neil druckman writes this and then continues to be a hardcore israel supporter. he knows about the child murder and still posts the israeli flag on his insta.
tlou 2 is this strange, skewed, “both sides bad” almost commentary on israel/palestine. Its main goal is NOT politics, but you can see how politics inspired it.
the game has a vapid popular political view of israel’s occupation. one side is an organized, militaristic government. the other is a scary backwards cult. if you understand how the average westerner sees the conflict, its obvious the scars represent hamas/all palestinians. This framing is even more insidious when you realize that the only innocent scars are the literal children that haven’t been brainwashed yet. they even emphasize how the scars are anti lgbt — israel supporters use this smear to say westerners shouldn’t support palestinians.
Moreover, the story has this vague “cycle of violence” “both sides bad” thing that people often use when talking about israel/palestine. its just a huge copout that lets everyone say “violence bad” without having to do the work of understanding the causes. the conflict between the wlf and the scars is painted this way.
Is liking tlou 2 despite all this is wrong? No. The conflict in tlou 2 is literally nothing like real life. The WLF is not trying to take over scar territory. The scars are an independent nation, not occupied territory the WLF can terrorize with impunity. Your opinion about tlou 2 says nothing about your opinion of israel.
I also think tlou2’s minor zionism controversy reflects the danger of authors revealing their inspiration. Israel certainly inspired tlou 2, but can we be sure everything in tlou 2 is a direct allegory for israel/palestine? No. If Neil Druckmanm wrote an allegory about israel Abby would look at the camera and say “The WLF has a right to defend itself”.
I have to ignore Neil Druckman’s zionism just like I have to ignore that the story is begging you to sympathize with Abby and friends. I try to see it as a realistic, neutral portrayal of grief and violence. The first game works because the audience doesn’t have to approve of Joel’s choice at the end. I try to see tlou 2 the same way. if I start to think the game is basically demanding I feel bad for them the story just doesn’t work for me.
———-
p,s
- manny literally says that those scar kids deserved to get shot and im supposed to feel bad when he dies? Djdhsbjzhddh bitches call him the “mom friend” and “saddest death” — he watches torture victims suffer to relax
#tlou#the last of us#joel miller#ellie williams#ellie#ellie tlou#joel tlou#abby anderson#abby and lev#tlou 2#mel#honestly fuck mel#owen tlou 2#lev tlou#the last of us part two
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Don't you think there's better ways of showing support for Palestinians/Israeli Christians than by perpetuating the "Jesus was Palestinian" myth that people constantly try and use to deny Jewish indigeneity. Allegory or not, it's not a great look for someone who purports to be against that kind of erasure and supercessionism. Also, having 1 line about how his death was the Empire's fault so don't blame the Jews is meaningless when in this allegory, the Empire (Israeli government) *is* Jewish
(anyone curious about what anon's referring to, I believe it's my poem here)
Hey there anon, thank you for your feedback. In this situation where various marginalized peoples are being pitted against each other (and/or conflated with political groups), I've been struggling to make sure my words don't add to the misinformation and harm. So whenever someone takes the time to remind me of that danger, I'll take the time to re-examine my words — even if I end up standing by them, as I mostly do in this case.
I can't promise to say and do all the perfect things, because there isn't time to waste getting my words just right before saying something — people are dying right now (and yes, anon, that includes those Israelis who are still hostages of Hamas, who are also endangered by Israel's continued attacks.)
I have been spending much of my free time these past few months learning more about Israel and Palestine, and I still don't feel I'm even close to knowing enough! But I've listened to those who are actually in the midst of the violence who say that all of us across the world must join their cry now, not letting our ignorance be an excuse. That means there have been a few things I've said that I then had to re-consider after learning more.
...
Just a few days ago, I was actually trying to look into the origins of the statement that "Jesus was a Palestinian Jew." (Btw if anyone knows the origins of this statement, please hit me up!)
Arguments against it note that the term "Palestinian" didn't exist in Jesus' day. Looking into the accuracy of that statement is still on my to-do list; I did skim over this article calling it a myth but yeah, still digging. Regardless, sure, I don't think Jesus called himself a Palestinian in his lifetime.
That doesn't necessarily mean that the statement is useless, however. I do very much believe that if Jesus were born today, in the same place, he'd be born to a Jewish Palestinian family, not an Israeli one.
That does not erase his Jewishness; it confirms God's "preferential option for the poor," God's choice to side with and become one with the most oppressed and discarded. It also does not assert that Jewish persons don't "belong" in the region — only that the modern nation/colony Israel isn't necessary for them to live and thrive there.
All that said, if anyone has more info on the statement that "Jesus was a Palestinian" — its origins, how it's been used over the years — I would absolutely like to examine it further. For now, I stand by the phrase, with an openness to re-considering that with further education.
...
I feel more confident in talking about Empire — how I used it in my poem, versus how you've interpreted it. I'm genuinely grateful to you for bringing your reading of it to my attention, because it's shown me that my words weren't clear enough there!
In these verses from my poem:
"...And now, as then, some may blame Jesus’s death
on his own Jewish people — but
resist this lie! Now as then
the crime is Empire’s
and those of us who would cast stones
should ponder first what our nations gain
from genocide. ..."
You interpret Empire as being Israel.
My intention was that Empire with a capital E is a much larger network of all imperial forces on earth. Israel is entangled in that, and directly backed and funded by those forces. My own country, the United States, is one of the nations at the helm of Empire.
So when I talk of Empire being to blame, I'm not saying just Israel — honestly, I'm personally more concerned with the US's complicity, because I feel as a US citizen I can help demand they stop.
So I'm going to rework that bit to better express what I mean by Empire, so it doesn't sound like I'm focusing only on Israel. Empire is so much bigger than any one state, colony, or government.
...
Okay, I'm out of steam. I'm going to link a few pieces that have been helping me frame all that's going on right now to resist pitting marginalized groups against each other:
This art piece naming "contradicting truths"
This article by Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg also naming seemingly contradictory truths
Since I didn't really get deep into this part of your ask, I also appreciate this article discussing the question of indigeneity. It discards the "need" to figure out "who was there first" in favor of exploring intersecting histories.
Oh also, because you claim that the Israeli government "is Jewish," I think discussions on how Israel isn't actually a safe haven for all Jews, only those that fit into their goals, are vital.
#chatting tag#idk how to word this but. like.#what's happening right now is both NOT complex: we MUST side with Palestine.#and also very very complex with a need for nuance and context.#both and not either or#does that make sense?....
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kind of pathetic and gross that the apocalypse in tlou is an allegory for fascism's destruction of humanity and failure to ever rebuild a civilization, especially not one that provides necessary resources for its people. and then game 2 is all about how ellies revenge destroys her life. destroys and ends the lives of anyone who so much as looks in the general direction of her cruel vengeance, and her journey of recognizing hypocrisy in the logic she practices. how suffering does not make you a better person. one of the exact lessons to be learned from wwii survivors going on to colonize and genocide the nation of palestine during the nakba. and yet neil druckmann is posting this pro israel shit LATER BACKTRACKING IT TRYING TO BE “BIPARTISAN” like do u know what ur game is about . sorry im just taking it really fucking personal because it’s actually so fucking gross
#idk theres something weird about the way resistance groups in tlou are written. its like they conquer and massacre everyone inevitably#and yet in the hbo adaptation it is explicitly stated that jackson is a commune#i know he's usually credited with way too much for the plot so who knows maybe this isnt a reflection of his writing specifically but i do#think that it casts a new light or as least makes the flaws in logic more evident; knowing that druckmann is a zionist.#im not sure if its confirmed hes a zionist but he was posting some vague pro israel shit a week ago so he's definitely drinking the kool ai#d. anyway Tlou2 is my little autism thang i cant helpy
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Just be careful. TloU creator Neil Drugman (so many Neil's gee) grew up in Israel and is a zionist. The whole game and, therefore, show is a not very subtle allegory for the Israel Palestine conflict.
omg ty for letting me know, i was not aware!!
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lmao I just saw a post get taken down on the last of us subreddit where a fan was gasping over tlou being an israel-palestine allegory. lil white boy couldn't believe his fave shoot-em-up gReY MoRaLiTy game is basically just a zionist tryna rationalize israel's scorched earth mentality. the mods censored it ofc but sometimes i just get annoyed by how shocked westerners are to learn their world's drenched in propaganda and imperialism. most of us can't afford to be that ignorant..
it never ceases to amaze me fr how these ppl have to rediscover their role in the global south/third world suffering every single crisis u would think they would know by now to just shut tf up n do their part but nooo… thats asking too much 😒
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The Curse came out this year and was a really fascinating allegory of the Israel/Palestine conflict written by Jewish people and nobody even talked about it that much
#american colonialism and jewish colonialism. usamerican -funded jewish colonialism#and then also. way more#extremely rich text and nathan fielder is on his shit#junk
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I can't ever do main tags. I looked in the Hazbin Hotel tag and straight saw a post that was straight up like "Heaven and Hell are an allegory for Israel and Palestine" and like
No
No
Log off
Touch grass please
Just no
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just saw someone on twitter use avatar the last airbender as an allegory for the israel-palestine conflict. personally i think that if your main frame of reference for war is a children's cartoon you should not be making statements about it
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(you don't have to publish the ask but make sure it's anonymous) please please please don't worry about the anon I think it might be the same person who made a harrass discord group...of course it's good to acknowledge wrongdoings of creators but it doesn't make anyone obligated to stay away from fandom. If you don't support the racist mess that happened it's totally fine if you stay in arcana fandom. Don't worry.
of course, of course. I'm not feeling pressured to leave the fandom right now don't worry about that. I know seeing it can cause a bit of anxiety, and for a little while it did make me feel anxious, I recalled why I wanted to write a lot of the fanfics I make in the first place, I didn't like how they wrote Muriel's ending, and I didn't like how they represented him a lot, so I wanted to make something that fit the image I had of him instead.
Anyways, I was much more curious about the note they made about the problems with Julian being a bird or the various bird motifs and that being antisemitic. I was wondering how or why that was the case, as when I tried searching it up I wasn't really able to find any definite explanations, so I was wondering if they could point me to a resource or something on the topic. I've heard that a merge between an owl and a human can often be antisemitic especially when that owl is presented as an almost demon-like entity with feathers forming horns like that of a great horned owl, and their beak being presented as a large hooked nose. That much, I do understand, but I'm unclear if it applies to the wider range of birds as well, or not.
In my initial search I found a story called Jewbird written by Bernard Malamud, an American-jewish author, and while it serves as the allegory of antisemitism not only coming from outside but inside as well, the nature of the intelligent bird being representative of an older more traditional Jewish individual (according to another source who were likely more able to draw the parallel than I was), presents him as a human-merged with bird individual and the whole point of the text seems to present it as the pure opposite of being antisemitic.
Of course, I can see the possibility of it, that he was presented as a bird in order to subvert the initial expectations and stereotypes, in the same way that Maus by Art Spiegelman does, but I would still like to be better able to understand the bird-antisemitism connection. Does it apply to specific birds? What kind of bird-like representation causes issue? Would the image of birds flying freely over the sky be considered problematic imagery? Why and how? is it the caged bird that is problematic? Why and how? Is there any possible way that this birdlike imagery can spread into other spaces and cause issue? Should Julian never be given feathered wings, regardless if you're creating a bird image or not? is his bird familiar problematic as well??? this is like telling someone unfamiliar with racism against African-american individuals that cotton is not good to them without telling them about the whole history about slavery and cotton picking, leading them to believe that they just take issue with the material of shirts or something.
I know I probably sound kinda nit-pickey, but I am genuinely curious and would love to avoid making any antisemitic mistakes when including Julian and Portia in my works. I wish to avoid this all the time, of course, but most especially now, as discussion on Palestine has spurred a lot of antisemitism due to the cultural genocide from Israel. And while it's clear that what Israel is doing, it's also clear that not all Jewish individuals support that, even though some news groups or people talking about it frame it as if it is.
Of course I'm open and eager for discussion on the other LIs as well and the intricacies of their problematic representation and how that must be handled corrected or re-framed, especially since in the early more.... hostile days of this fandom, I tended to stick to Muriel's route since I hadn't played the other routes in a while/all the way through so I'm a little unaware of all the other characters' misrepresentations (so if you're mentioning Muriel I probably have heard about and considered that one before—this man does not leave my brain lmao)
I can see the possible issues on Nadia being constantly represented as domineering failing to recognize softness in her (which I belive, though correct me if I'm wroing, is about dark skinned women being seen as violent and tough instead of soft or kind), and Asra being represented through Orientalism (mystic, but lesser other with messy foreign traditionalistic magic that must be corrected through the western logic and science—this partly originated in ancient greece so not entirely western as in America)
But yeah, I'm just really curious about it, cause my initial search only brought up news articles about people apologizing for being antisemitic, or the history of antisemitism. Rather than some of the various possible forms of antisemitism or it's possible relation to birds.
#answering asks#the arcana#I put it in the tags on that one post sorry. You probably didn't see because you didn't want to scroll through the hate post#and that's fair#but yeah I'm here for research purposes & to remember and learn from the mistakes of the others in the past.#Anonymous#julian devorak#portia devorak#nadia satrinava#muriel#muriel the arcana#Muriel of the kokhuri#antisemitism#lit analysis
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If you're like me you might have read or got read to the Bartimäus trilogy. And if you're even more like me you read it a bunch of times. (I don't remember much about the Ring of Salomon so I'll refrain from commenting on it myself, quotes may happen tho)
And if you're even more like me, you didn't notice how much in this book is jewish coded. Mainly the Czech and the Golems. I, later after finding out about the story of the golem, checked and found out that Stroud openly was heavily inspired by it after visiting Prague. (Also a main featured in the books) That on top of general racism/discrimination allegories, anti imperialist messaging and talking truth to power shit.
That doesn't mean that everything is good tho, or that certain things were handled well. I'll add the links for all quotes I put immediately after them.
"The Bartimaeus books are also, in their own way, as ideologically coded as the adventure stories of Howard and H. Rider Haggard I discussed in the previous post. In particular, they align with the anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist sentiments of the protest left between the 2003 Iraq invasion and Occupy Wall Street protests, their demons and magicians part of a magical class war."
"The representation of Jews in Stroud’s series is intertwined with the books’ politics. On the one hand, Jews are mentioned directly in The Golem’s Eye, the second book of the original trilogy. There we learn that, in its Victorian period, Stroud’s fantasy Britain, ruled by a dictatorial and magical Gladstone, defeated a rival magical empire based in Prague."
"Naturally, the Czech magicians (with a chief minister named Meyrink) used golems. The immense power and off-putting ugliness of these constructs are described wonderfully by Stroud. We learn that these golems were originally created by the Jews of Prague and “the great magician Loew.” In Loew’s time, “the Jewish community” of Prague “supplied the Emperor with most of his money and much of his magic. Forcibly restricted to the crowded alleys of the ghetto, and at once distrusted and relied upon by the rest of Prague society, the Jewish magicians grew powerful for a time.”"
"Such tropes cut across left and right. The 99%-versus-1% politics of Occupy Wall Street and much left-wing activism during the years in which the Bartimaeus books were published often incorporated anti-Jewish slander, a trend which persists."
https://investigationsandfantasies.com/2022/07/18/jews-and-politics-in-the-bartimaeus-series/
(author also talks about rowling + her influence over current age fantasy stories. So here's another link https://investigationsandfantasies.com/2022/07/05/the-occult-jew-pt-8/ I was generally interested in looking up more related to Rowlings and HPs impact on literature/fantasy after finding out that tv tropes lists muggles (as in non magical people being treated differently from non magical folks, often in a belittling or similar way) as a trope. This also exists in Bartimäus as non magicians are called commoners. But you might also know about fantasy that calls them mortals or such)
"But in fact the deepest conflict in the Bartimaeus books isn’t between magician and commoner but between magician and djinni. And I’d say that’s not so much a class system as a colonial one. The wizards exploit the resources and bodies of the djinn they can control. Those djinn are a different race of being from an Other Place, ancient and yet bound to serve their British masters.
It’s notable that Bartimaeus and his magical peers include no leprechauns, elves, ogres, or the other enchanting creatures from European fairy tales. He doesn’t tell many stories about Arthur, Archimedes, Daedalus, Roland, Siegfried, Heracles, or other European heroes of the distant past. Instead, Bartimaeus talks at length about Gilgamesh of Mesopotamia, Solomon of Israel, Ptolemy of Egypt. He speaks of tasks in Uruk (Sumer), Karnak (Egypt), and--when forced to--Jericho (Palestine). The amulet that provides the title for the first book comes from Uzbekistan."
"Despite his books’ picture of British governors exploiting Asian power, Stroud seems to steer away from addressing parallels to real history. In resurrecting the British Empire as a magical superpower, he emphasizes its power over continental Europe and North America only. The Golem’s Eye depicts a Czech immigrant underclass in London, but we never see the Asian, African, and Caribbean minorities of today’s Britain. The Amulet of Samarkand makes a brief mention of weavers in Basra toiling to create a magnificent carpet, but the books aren’t clear about whether their British Empire is contiguous with “all the pink bits” that used to appear on British school maps. Perhaps that past is too recent and too awkward."
http://ozandends.blogspot.com/2007/03/bartimaeus-and-british-empire.html?m=1
"In a modern-day alternate universe, London rules the British Empire and magicians rather than monarchs rule London. That’s been true ever since the great William Gladstone defeated the rival sorcerers of Prague. But the glory days are gone. War with the American colonies is draining patience and resources, the commoners are resentful and the government has become a bureaucracy of second-raters. Magicians procreate, at least professionally, by taking bright young schoolchildren into their homes to train in the magic arts. Arthur Underwood, a magician of middling status and competence, accepts a six-year-old boy named Nathaniel as apprentice. No one knows his last name, because his parents have disappeared after selling him into the service. And no one is ever to know his birth name because that knowledge would give his enemies power over him.
Enemies are a given; there’s no Hogwarts-style collegiality among the guild. Magicians are the most conniving, jealous, duplicitous group of people on earth, even including lawyers and academics. They worship power and the wielding thereof, and seek every chance they can to undercut their rivals. This is according to Bartimaeus, in a footnote.* He should know. Though a spirit of considerable power, he is continually at the beck and call of climbers and posers who can summon him from “the other place” merely by learning his name and the appropriate words. When he’s called to London by an unknown magician who turns out to be a mere kid, it’s only the beginning of five very challenging years."
Here, I felt this was important
"Nathaniel is only twelve when he first summons Bartimaeus (in the passage quoted at the head of this post); when the series ends, he is seventeen. In each volume, he and his djinni must defeat a cabal whose overweening ambition threatens the social order, but Nathaniel himself has ambition to spare. He’s interesting that way. Young fantasy heroes like Harry Potter and Percy Jackson almost always possess an essential decency–though tempted, one senses that they are not corruptible. Nathaniel (who takes the professional name of John Mandrake) is corruptible: not only proud but vengeful, and embittered by the humiliating treatment he receives from his master and other magicians."
"What does paganism have to do with this? There are at least two kinds of “magic.” One kind seeks to control inanimate forces, dramatized by Harry Potter with his wands and spells (and bearing some resemblance to modern science). The other seeks to control personal spirits, and is also known as shamanism or necromancy. That’s the system imagined in Bartimaeus: an unknowable Ultimate Spirit or First Cause has spun off lower manifestations of itself, which in turn generate lower and lower forms, all the way down to rock and clay and the pathetic beings that crawl on it (i.e., us). Though arranged in a hierarchy, spirits (known as “gods,” in other cultures) have no controlling ethic. And, outside of their own personal favorites, they despise humans."
"Dispatching the monster stops the destruction and clears the way for an alliance of magicians and commoners, but there’s no guarantee that the new order will be much improvement on the old. Maybe; maybe not. Nothing has changed but the circumstances."
https://redeemedreader.com/2011/03/among-the-pagans-bartimaeus/ (I don't know how valuable this analysis is ngl. Also I'm running out of time for today)
Adding this not because it features any analysis but just for flavor ngl (and to share some positivity. Any shortcomings the series might have don't make everything positive about it disappear. However little you think it is)
https://www.reddit.com/r/Bartimaeus/comments/nt8uo0/jewish_mythology_in_the_series/
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𝗗𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗵 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 is a dark and dream-like tale of a teenage boy's coming of age in a remote village in the Catalan mountains; a place cut off from the outside world, where cruel customs are blindly followed, and attempts at rebellion swiftly crushed. When his father dies, he must navigate this oppressive society alone, and learn how to live in a place of crippling conformity.
Often seen as an allegory for life under a dictatorship, Death in Spring is a bewitching and unsettling novel about power, exile, and the hope that comes from even the smallest gestures of independence.
#Palestine #Israel #Catalonia #Spain
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Was in the shower and thinking and I thought
Neil Druckman’s disgusting Israel/Palestine allegory in TLOU2 where he envisions the Scars as Palestinians and the Wolves as Israel is made a degree more sinister in his portrayal of how easily and willingly the wolves hop on the “killing Kids is fine” train
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its funny they love to try and equate it the ivp scenario to what happened with sky islands ( ignoring that one only enel and his followers were treated as wrong ) and a better allegory would be comparing wypers people to the israelis and shandorians to palestinians.
except in the scenario where wypers people ( israel) managed to take back their land the shandorians refused to accept peace and want to commit genocide.
(I feel the main attempt to side with palestine is them going palestinians are the brown people so they are automatically good
These people who try to say that Luffy would support Pro-Palestinian movement whitewash their own movement to fit a narrative that defies reality or how the series tackles a situation like Skypeians vs Shandians. Also these morons forget Jews come in many colors and exposes their own bigotry.
#one piece#palestine#israel#pro-israel#zionism#anti-zionism is anti-semetism#zionism is jewish#pro-zionism
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