saw someone being like "lol every book is a bestseller, nytimes will call anything a best seller, whats the point of bestseller lists when every book is on it"
and like,,, bro ur so close to realizing that the publishing industry only pushes their already-popular and/or most predictable insta-hit titles to the point that everything else is drowned out and that if you only look at walmart or the front of the bookstore or what's popular on tiktok then thats all ur gonna see,,,
just a bit of critical thinking cmon you can do it,,,,
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I keep on thinking about amity how she was treated as the scapegoat child and was made to be believe she was the golden child
That's exactly the (reprehensible) genius of Alador and Odalia.
In the Blight family, Amity's always been the odd one out in more than a few ways. She's never quite enough, always falling just short of expectations no matter how hard she works. She's less powerful than her siblings are, she doesn't resemble Odalia as much as her mother would like, and most importantly: she's isolated.
Amity has been told her entire life that she needs to be successful to be loved, so she did her absolute best to be successful, even when those things were going against what she herself wanted.
Emira and Edric probably don't get as much attention from their parents as Amity does, and this drives the wedge between the three of them even deeper. The twins act out on some level for attention which makes Amity bitter because they aren't punished the way she would be, so she tells on them and they eventually retaliate against her in turn. Everything in that household is stacked against Amity, but because she's given the illusion that her hard work is making things better, it's as if she's the one her parents love the most.
She's not.
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Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Crime and Punishment: Short Bungou Stray Dogs Analysis
Finally finished Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. i might do a post talking about my actual thoughts on the book, but not right now because I'm INSTEAD gonna talk about BSD Fyodor because, if I'm gonna be honest, a large part of the reason I read this book was to see if I could get an insight on what his ability could be (obviously I also read it because I know it's an extremely influential book to the psychological thriller literature genre, and it's made me want to read more of his books because I am absolutely entranced by his writing style).
SPOILERS: This book did NOT give me a single damn clue to Fyodor's ability.
However, I do have a better understanding of why Asagiri chose to write Fyodor in that specific way, with the added effect of making Fyodor much more understandable. I have a better appreciation, I think, for Asagiri's character writing. Let me explain:
The large, overarching theme of C&P is the idea that some people are naturally born with the right to kill. That is, people are naturally born into two categories: "Ordinary" and "Extraordinary". The majority of the population falls into the former - they live their lives in submission to the law and to those above them. In essence, they do not have the "right to kill"; they are otherwise overcome with guilt, regret, or simply caught for their wrongdoings.
The latter category has very few people in it, and for a simple reason - they are the ones who are, essentially, above the law, and therefore, the lawmakers. They are the ones who lead the revolutions, sit on the throne, and most importantly, kill when they need to kill and do not hesitate to "step" over their crimes as nothing more than the necessity to power. They are not caught. In fact, they are hailed as the greatest leaders. Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and his most constantly referred example, Napoleon. These are the born with the "right to kill".
The main character, Raskolnikov (of whom I will be calling the affection Rodya because I am NOT spelling his name over and over again), believes himself to be a "Napolean". Rodya is the one who came up with this theory in the book, after all. However, he finds out, near the end, after several blunders and mental breaks, that he is not one of the people who can "step" over their crimes. He hesitated before killing his target. His guilt for his two murders sent him into a feverish state for days on end. He walked to the police station to confess his crimes a million times before finding some reason, right before he was meant to do it, to chicken out and continue living life under this ever-evolving notion that he was sorely mistaken about himself. Rodya is not the "Napolean" he thought he was born to be.
How does this relate to the Bungou Stray Dogs character? I believe that Fyodor is, essentially, the embodiment of the "right to kill". He is everything that Rodya thought he was, which is an excellent analysis on the part of Asagiri. One of the first things Fyodor does is kill Ace, then a relatively innocent child, Karma. He does this without blinking, without a hint of remorse, and proceeds with his day. He knows that this is his right, that he is the one above others, that he can kill and he cannot be caught for it. He claims to have mastered and tamed his own ability. Why? Because he is the "Extraordinary."
Another theme that I find quite intriguing is religion. In truth, it really isn't that prevalent (though there are a great many Biblical quotations and references throughout) until the last part, Part 6, of Crime and Punishment. Rodya has a near-constant epiphany with religious belief, even at one point stating, point-blank and in irritation, that God isn't real and He certainly isn't helping anyone in the mortal plane. He oscillates between claiming that the "Devil" forced him to kill, to saying that believers are frantic and stupid, then to kissing the dirty ground in repentance for his crimes. He state of mind ends in that repentance state, a supposed believer and eager to start his life anew.
To make Fyodor a devoted believer in God, with a set viewpoint and acting as an executor of God's will, is, once again, an excellent choice. Rodya's irritation and inner turmoil were one of the many reasons why he failed miserably in maintaining the secret of his crimes. Fyodor is none of those things: he is calm, cool, collected, and set in his ways. Interestingly, in Crime and Punishment, the vilest character also seems to have no particular issues with religion himself. And he, for the most part, gets away with his heinous crimes completely. This battle of belief, and relating it to God, provides a healthy insight to why Fyodor has obtained the "right to kill", versus Rodya, who was born "Ordinary."
The last point I want to seriously touch on is less about Crime and Punishment and more about the author himself. However, I did learn about this through reading the translator's notes (the translation I read is by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, Second Edition (2021), Vintage Classics). Dostoevsky was hugely indebted to Nikolai Gogol as a successor to Gogol's ingenious literary developments in "fantastical realism" and satire. Dostoevsky made several references to Gogol's works in C&P, and none in a critical manner. In the animanga, the roles are completely reversed; Nikolai is the one chasing after Fyodor, admiring his intellect and "ingenious" with the eventual goal of setting himself free. This idea of flipping authors' relationships on their heads is part of what makes Bungou Stray Dogs so entertaining to consume, and it takes a great deal of research and effort to be able to adjust these relationships so that they clearly reflect the real-life ones.
As for one afterthought, the name "Rats in the House of the Dead" appears to be a clever play on the Dostoevsky book Notes from the Dead House. I haven't read this book yet, but I want to (along with Notes from Underground). I'm curious to see if there is any further correlation, but I would assume not, considering the contents of the book.
NO. I did NOT find literally anything that could help me decipher Fyodor's ability. Rodya literally confesses his crime like a week and a half after he commits it. No character in this novel, nor theme, reflects whatever the h e double hockey sticks Fyodor has going on in BSD. I have theories, but they have literally nothing to do with Crime and Punishment outside of the base fact that his ability has something to do with killing (which we already knew). Woe is me. I'll get over it, I guess.
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