#not everything is a moral issue or diversity issue sometimes it's just a Personal Preference issue :))
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Not related to the contents of this blog, but Friendly Reminder that people can like or dislike a character without it being a reflection of their morals. I'll use Osiris as an example since I've seen several posts about him recently.
Osiris is both popular and controversial in the D2 community. Some people like him because of the representation he brings to the game (aka he's old, POC, gay and Jewish). Some like him because he's more complicated / multi-faceted than he lets on; some like him because he's knowledgeable like Ikora and Asher Mir; some simply like him because he's a visually striking character.
And some people don't like Osiris. Maybe his canonical arrogance and/or stubbornness is too much for them. Maybe they didn't like his characterization in Curse of Osiris and Lightfall did nothing to change that. Maybe they hate his bird-themed design. Maybe they just find him annoying for whatever reason.
Unless someone says something like, "I hate Osiris because Bungie made him gay*," their (positive or negative) opinion of a fictional character is not automatically a reflection of their morals.
*(Bungie didn't "make" Osiris gay, I'm just repeating what people usually say. 🙃)
I thought we were past the "liking heroes or minorities = good morals irl, liking villains = bad morals irl" mindset, but I should've known that fandom never changes. 🫠 So here's a Friendly Reminder that you are free to like/dislike/love/hate any character for any reason, regardless of what anyone says, as long as you aren't a jerk about it!
# all blorbos deserve someone who loves them
#also you are not superior for liking or disliking certain characters#I feel like that ties into my statement of ''don't be a jerk about liking your blorbos''#but I'm saying it just in case#anyway that's my rant for the day#people are being Weird again and I'm this 👌 close to blocking them over it#not everything is a moral issue or diversity issue sometimes it's just a Personal Preference issue :))#destiny the game#psa#p.s. if you start flaming in my comments I will come for your kneecaps
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Baldur's Gate 3 - Amazing and Sometimes Awful [Quick Review]
Baldur's Gate 3 is a herculean feat of game development with amazing voice acting work spread across it's many many hours, fantastic character designs, interesting gameplay and more. It also suffers from D&Ds character progression systems, the way the games worlds are set up, and the system of true RNG that it is emulating. Beyond that the game despite it's own beauty is extremally buggy and faces significant late game performance issues. However, the game does some stand out things for queerness that a lot of other RPGs fail at. This game is a mixed bag that might also be game of the year.
With over 122 hours logged into the game I feel fairly confident in my ability to access what I experienced but given how big of an undertaking it is I genuinely think someone else's experience may be different. I chose to not side with either the grove or the goblins and moved onto act 2 without doing that and that may have added to the count of bugs but the fact that was an option means that it isn't "My fault" that I experienced so many bugs on my playthrough. I had party members despawning, quests saying I could do something that I couldn't do because the NPCs were not in the area they were supposed to be, getting ques for things that should have went into act 3 that were missing, in the end of act 3 characters missing from the end bits and at the very end textures just all vanishing for my last few hours.
I didn't really get to experience the romance the game had to offer. I started a fling with Lae'zel which apparently locked me out of most other romances but randomly gave me a Wyll Romance scene, a man I never deployed not once the whole game. I realized playing the game I didn't long rest enough and missed out on my chance to romance Shadow Heart whom I really wanted to romance and even though I broke things off with Lae'zel I could never progress a romance with Shadowheart, Karlache or Minthara. I want to feel this romances and see everything they have to offer but sadly the game denied me this.
The game lacks body diversity and the limited pallet of faces feels too limited in character customization. There is sadly no time in which despite being able to have a trans body I am able to talk to someone about being trans that I found not am I ever able to reject a romantic advance by stating my sexuality or disinterest in a gender. Instead it is taken as read that I am bisexual and that I am rejecting them for them and not because like from the onset they weren't on the table for my desires. I am however, not a bisexual but a lesbian and I would love to be able to say that.
That said this game does make strives to doing something I've not really seen other games do with playsexual characters which is to make them have queer history. I didn't get every characters backstories but I did get backstories for Astrian and for Shadowheart which both imply that previous to our adventures they had mostly been with their own gender. Astrian has a litany of male lovers which he courted and gave to his master, he seems to prefer men and he describes his attraction to them. Meanwhile, Shadowheart seems to have had a girlfriend before her memories were removed, perhaps an ex that was a Transgender Woman who turned to Sharr although this is more subtextual than Astrian's due to her memory loss.
These little bits of queer history make them feel much more lived and their sexualities not feel like it was because I am super special but because they are earnestly queer and I happened to have the kind of personality and body their attracted to. There is also some amount of queer NPCs not tied to our PCs although they are in the minority in a majority heteronormative cast.
The game does make some strives to fix some of the things that are terrible about D&D removing the alignment system allowing for characters to simply exist in a much more complex moral web than a box of 9 check marks for morality lets you do and a toning down of racial abilities which helps lessen D&Ds inherent eugenics. However, it does not escape D&D's racism problem with the game mostly having a lot of the characters be racist good and bad and not having counter examples of races like Goblins being good or like an important good drow or something. The companions "Racial" make up are very classic fantasy squad. 2 Elves, 2 half elves, 3 humans, 1 Drow, 1 Gith. In terms of race as we see it in the real world we got one black character and everyone else is pretty white or are a fantasy skin color and white coded maybe baring Lae'zel but idk what Lae'zel's culture is supposed to represent if there is a real world equivalent. Of course also everyone in the world able bodied and skinny or maybe if they are the right race buff. I haven't seen everyone fuck but it appears to me that everyone is cisgender. The game can't do everything but I certainty wish the game did more. The probably most offensive to me being the promoted and marketed Polyamory simply not existing and came from their own misunderstanding of the word, you can fuck around you at least in my experience can't be in multiple committed romantic relationships. That should be fixed given they marketed the game and I don't even need them to address each other just allow it to happen since it was sold to me on the idea I could kiss multiple girls romantically.
There is a total sense of wonder in doing the game thing in new ways and seeing all the ways you can handle situations and all the different outcomes. From multiple files to save scum stuff to hearing people talk about their runs I've seen tons of different ways even my highly buggy end game which did not run well I could see where if it wasn't having all the running issues I had I would have been blown away by all the options they gave me for the last 3 battles of the game. I still thought it was really cool even when it was bugging out. The game constantly threw fun new things at you, little challenges, great moments of roleplaying where it feels like your choices mattered and you could do something cool to get out of a situation. This game might be the game that has most successfully captured the magic of roleplaying in a video game.
The characters being a stand out factor in this in that I found several of the characters to be highly compelling even one man which if you know me is a massive accomplishment. I found Astrian's plot to be really captivating, I really loved Shadowheart's story, I thought some of the NPC stories were really well done too, as a character focused story teller I loved the character work that went into even characters I wasn't particularly in love with. Everyone feels like they can grow and grow in different ways too for bad or for good and often even pretending a pretty objectively bad choice can be flavored with enough deniability to understand why someone might make that choice as a character and not just like because video game let me choice bad choice. I think the characters stories make up a coherent theme I really wanna dive more into but will be restrained on here. They all deal with control. Everyone is dealing with different levels of someone's strings on them and a different relationship to those strings. How those relationships change and evolve over time is really compelling and how they compare to each other is really great.
Overall, I love BG3, I think it might be my favorite game I played so far this year [but I do have a backlog, Stray Gods, En Garde!, Super Lesbian Animal RPG] and one of my favorite games in general. IF not for it's massive file size I think it's a game I'd keep installed all year round and just randomly jump into all the time. For now I am still playing, still enjoying but more than anything I am hoping by the time I beat the game a second time it is a lot smoother. If you enjoyed this kind of One Take review let me know, I wanted to try my Yuri manga format for a video game review because nobody reads my game reviews but I felt like I wanted to talk about the game. So instead of putting the huge amounts of work into the review like I normally do I wanted to just try this. If you did enjoy it one way to let me know is by supporting me on Patreon or Ko-fi or you can just reblog or comment. I might revisit the game with a more in depth review or looks more in depth at how it handles queerness or about the story and other stuff like that.
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Stealing the spotlight for this interview... Aid!
Aid, author of The East Lotus’s Laurel
Religious Diversity Month Featured Author
10 years ago, the Empire took everything from you.
In the middle of the night, they razed your kingdom, assassinated your king, and seized the capital. You were forced to flee to a secluded village - if you didn’t, you’d have been next on their list.
Now, the Emperor stands before you, asking you to be the Laurel - the second most powerful position in the Empire, acting as the imperial advisor and overseer of state affairs.
The very same Emperor who ordered their army to kill everyone you knew, and destroyed everything you cared for.
What will you do with this newfound authority?
The East Lotus’s Laurel Demo TBA | Read more [here]
Tags: low fantasy, romance
(INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT UNDER THE CUT!)
Q1: Tell us a little bit about your project(s)!
The East Lotus’s Laurel is a low fantasy interactive novel that takes place in a world inspired by the Malacca Sultanate, one of the most influential empires in the Malay Archipelago.
After saving a maiden spirit from drowning, you were “blessed” with the gift of intellectual brilliance. Eventually, the Emperor of Teratai Timur hears of your innovative ideas and takes interest in appointing you to their council. Given your excellence in conceptualising, they offer to reinstate the position of the Empire’s Laurel - the Imperial advisor - just for you.
However, you have a secret identity; one that makes you an important person to the people of Merak, whose kingdom the Emperor had invaded just 10 years ago. Now, the person who slaughtered your people, assassinated your king and forced you into hiding is offering you the second most powerful position in the entire Empire.
What will you do with this newfound authority?
Q2: Why did you settle for interactive fiction? What drew you to this format?
I’ve loved reading novels since I was a child, leading to a deep love for stories and other storytelling mediums. My relationship with interactive fiction began with dating sims (mostly by Pacthesis). Eventually, I discovered other games like Life is Strange and Detroit: Become Human, where the narrative flow is heavily influenced by the player’s choices.
I was especially blown away by the indie game Oxenfree. The story branching and emotional impact stemming from the ability to choose what to say or who to save/sacrifice really opened my eyes to the power of choice-based narratives.
Given that interactive fiction is a marriage between video games and novels, it was only natural for me to fall in love with this format, too.
Q3: How have your identity and beliefs influenced your work?
Being a Muslim gives me a unique insight towards the duality of religion. On one hand, I found my personal beliefs aligned with the core values of Islam - monotheism, altruism and pacifism are to name a few. On the other hand, I didn’t like how Islam as an organised religion is often used as a political tool or as a means of berating others who didn’t fit the mold of a ‘perfect’ Muslim.
Thus, I made a promise to myself to never make concepts, people or organisations in my work that are purely evil or purely good; I try my best to imitate the morally grey nature of reality. I like to remind myself that what is morally unjust to us is sometimes the last resort for others, and vice versa.
Q4: What aspects would you like to be more explored or represented in media involving your religion?
Definitely more representation of Muslim women. Preferably taking charge in their work, life or community and thriving despite the numerous hurdles that they’ll have to go through without dying at the end.
On a darker note, I wouldn’t mind seeing media that exposes the blind devotion of many Muslims towards Islam that isn’t terrorism/jihad. For example, many Muslim parents in my country send their children to a Tahfiz school, where they study Islam at a greater depth than in public schools. They believe that the school will instill Islamic values in their children, who are often ‘problem kids’, and then life will be buttery smooth once they graduate.
However, more and more Tahfiz schools are being exposed for abusing their students behind closed doors. I believe these kinds of issues rooted by blind devotion should be discussed more widely instead of being swept under the rug just because it gives the religion a bad look.
Q5: What are you most excited about sharing related to your project?
That would be the bits and pieces of Malay culture that I’ve taken as inspiration for my project. I don’t think many people know about Malaysia aside from the fact that one of our planes have been missing for 7 years, our ex-prime minister was one hell of a corrupt politician and we have a very attractive Olympic swimmer (see: Welson Sim).
But there’s so much more to this country that even its own residents are unaware of! I think that our rich culture and history deserves more attention and I’d love to play a part in sharing it with others :)
Q6: A tiny bit unrelated, but, what's your favorite religious holiday?
So, Muslims celebrate two official holidays. The first is Eid-ul-Fitr, when we celebrate after fasting for a whole month. The second is Eid-ul-Adha, which commemorates the obedience of one of our prophets who was willing to sacrifice his son for Allah. Don’t worry, his son was replaced with a lamb at the last minute as a sign of mercy.
My favourite of the two is Eid-ul-Adha. There’s less pressure to dress up nicely, it’s more low-key and most of the meat slaughtered is given to the poor and needy, highlighting the altruistic values of Islam. Also, it appeals to my introverted and mutton-loving side.
Q7: Any other thoughts or advice you'd like to give to fellow authors or readers?
Thank you so much to all the authors who’ve plucked up the courage to share their stories (I’m beginning to understand just how terrifying it is) with readers, and to all the readers who give their continuous support to the authors!
It’s really cool to be part of a community that has so many brilliant stories to share. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but I do hope that it will be a long time. I look forward to seeing how much this community will grow as time goes by.
#if: events#religious diversity month#religiously diverse authors#religious diversity#interactive fiction#choose your own adventure#cyoa#choose your story
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Ok first of all this is based on my own personal feelings and preferences. Not every autistic person is going to agree with this list. If you are autistic and you have things you wanna add on then feel free just don't try and start fights with me I will block you.
Things to avoid:
-No more super smart genius type autistics. We already have enough. No more.
- Hot take maybe, but no more white boys. We already have enough.
- Don't make them a horrible asshole with no feelings or no respect for other people's feelings.
- Don't make them overly self absorbed or extremely selfish or narcissistic.
- That being said, don't make them a perfect saint either who is always kind to everyone. We can be occassionally cruel or selfish. We do make mistakes and hurt people. The trick is making sure that it's a balence.
- If this sounds complicated and contradictory... well yeah. The human condition is complicated and we are people. (Shocking I know/s)
- Don't characterize them like a child if they're an adult or a teenager. Don't infantalize them.
- If you make them have low empathy, don't equate low empathy to no feelings and no compassion.
- No more science or math special interests. Too many!!! Or trains!!
- Don't have their personal character development or big moments happen in someone else's pov. Or if they do, you HAVE to write about how they feel about it at some point.
- Don't make them have a perfect memory I'm sick of that shit.
- Don't make them absolutely perfect at their special interest or know absolutely everything about it. We make mistakes sometimes.
- Don't describe them as special or gifted or blessed.
- If other characters say ableist shit about them, make sure the narrative clearly shows that it's wrong.
- Do not make the autistic character forgive someone for being ableist and immediately become friends with them.
- Do not use person first language, functioning labels, or the term aspergers.
- Do not give them a bad fashion sense. My flawlessly dressed autistic self is sick of this.
- Don't have them not understand any figures of speech or metaphors. This is overdone. Some autistic people are fine with most figures of speech once we know what it means and will even use them.
- DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT CONSULT AUTISM SPEAKS!
- Do not take advice from parents with autistic children.
- Don't have them using super fancy language. Sure some autistic people talk like that but not many in my experience.
Things to do:
- This one is crucial. In all my 21 years on this earth I have NEVER encountered a canon autistic character that was allowed to hold a grudge for a significant amount of time. LET US HOLD GRUDGES 2021!!!!
- Let us be angry! Especially if you are writing a female character!! And do not demonize her for her anger.
- Let us do adult things if you are writing an adult character. Or teenage things if you are writing a teenage character. This involves swearing, drinking, dressing proactively, driving or engaging in sexual relationships and having sexual feelings. Not every adult needs to do these things to be an adult of course, but we are usually gate kept from doing these things because we are infantalized.
- Ace and Aro autistics absolutely do exist! However autistic people are usually stereotyped as not having "those kinds of feelings" so if you really want to make them aro or ace or both, really examine why.
- If you do make them ace please don't make them a "sweet innocent baby who doesn't even know what sex is"
-Just please don't fall into bad stereotypes for ace and aro characters.
- Give them diverse special interests like random movies or tv shows. We tend to like scifi and fantasy a lot. But that's not a given.
- Make them artsy or give them an interest in music. Maybe make them a singer or have them play in a band?
- Do make them a fan of rock or alternative or indie music!!! I never see that! Or even heavy metal!
- Preferably make them queer/LGBTQ we tend to not be straight especially if you're afab.
- Most of us are nonbinary, I would suggest making your autistic character nonbinary but you don't have to.
- Have them be more sensory seeking then sensory avoidant
- Have them be a motion stimmer or an auditory stimmer (have them stim by blasting music or dancing or jumping up and down, spinning around in circles, spinning on a rolling chair etc.)
- Give them an interest in fashion or makeup (not neccesarily a special interest.)
- Let them have other interests besides a special interest. We have other things we like, they just aren't as importent to us.
- Have them be stubborn but understand why and make sure the readers/audience understands.
- WRITE THEIR POV!!!!
- Write them having shutdowns instead of meltdowns.
- Don't have them constantly compromising on shit or compromising easily.
- Write them having a completed relationship with morality and "goodness."
- If they aren't aro, write them feeling very intense romantic love that consumes and overwhelmed them.
- Have them feeling very intense emotions in general.
- Have them showing love in autistic ways, ie bringing people gifts and quoting shit, parallel play etc.)
-If they are not ace or ace but not sex repulsed, if they are an adult, and you are comfortable writing it have them be hypersexual and also preferably kinky. This is actually really common in my experience.
- Have them show frustration at having to live in a neurotypical, ableist world that wasn't made for them.
- Have them struggle with communicating their feelings and finding the right words to describe their feelings.
- Have them use quotes to describe their feelings or song lyrics.
- Let them be entitled to their space and their freedom.
- Give them trust issues. Look I don't want to be defined by trauma any more then the next autistic person, but it's kind of where we're at you know?
- Have them be a little paranoid about whether or not people actually like them.
- Let them have stuffies and stim toys and chewies. They don't have to be store bought they can be home made.
- Have them be hyper-empathetic. I've never seen an autistic hyper-empathetic character before.
- Have them be good with cats.
- Have them be a good dancer/enjoy dancing.
- Have them do facial stims like scrunching up their face or twitching their nose.
- Have them lose speech during a meltdown or a shutdown and have to write things down or use a communication device for awhile.
- Have them be a bad student or struggle with school.
- Have them hate math please I will love you forever!!!!
- Have them engage in echolalia (when you hear something that sticks out to you and you repeat it back over and over again)
- Make them sarcastic! Lots of autistic people are actually really sarcastic.
- Have them struggle with executive dysfunction.
- Show them showing signs of autistic happiness!! Like happy stimming. When I get really excited I tend to shreak and jump up and down or I flap my hands or bang them against a nearby table.
- Allow them to fuck up.
- In terms of grief, have them have very emotionally delayed reactions to grief. I reccomend research autistic peoples experiences with loss specifically if you are going to make this part of the story.
- Have them experience a lot of emotional delays where things don't hit them right away.
- Have them disassociate in traumatic situations.
- Make sure in general you understand their motivations as you're writing them. Don't just have them do things because "weird quirky autistic character!"
- Give them autistic friends and let them interact with the community!
I know I'm probably forgetting stuff, but this is all I can think if for now. If you have any questions about anything or any of the points I made let me know.
#actuallyautistic#autistic representation#autistic writing references#cw sex mention#cw kink mention
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With the way antis have taken advantage of Alina being half Shu on the show in order to use it against Darklina I’m wondering would more people take the Grisha persecution and really discuss it rather than parroting the same “Ohh,they did such a good job with Mal on the show and the Darkling is so evil”if Aleksander was a POC on the show since Demon in the Woods heavily implies that he probably has some Shu blood since he can pass as one. I mean personally I think it feels super forced to insert 21st century (mostly American centric) racism where you already have a fantasy group as representation for discrimination and persecution but there’s no doubt in my mind that if he has been played by a POC actor those fake some fans would immediately start defending him. I think in general there should def be more discussions online about the way Grisha as a minority group has been presented and how the narrative represents them because yes Alina keeping her powers and the Darkling getting some sort of redemption would be amazing but that doesn’t solve the bigger issue of how Aleksander is vilified for doing everything he can to protect his people against a system that’s been abusing and enslaving them for centuries while Alina is so anti Grisha and spends half of her life hiding who she is(hello assimilation and co dependency so she can be the perfect “normal”girl her jerk of a “best friend”could love)and then it ends up being permanently stripped from her because the story can’t have a powerful woman learning of the unjust system that’s been commuting genocide on her people and deciding to put a stop to it. Instead we need someone like Zoya who has no leadership or political abilities to be queen and is very much pro monarchy(aka the system that oppresses her people)and her becoming a queen has to be because of her white saviour boyfriends decided she’s the best fit for it because characters like Daenerys from GOT and Aleksandr are deemed “too extreme/dangerous /ambitious”when they try to change the status quo because they’re “too violent”.But if you make another character a WOC(then change her to white passing scree you capitalised on POC buying your books)and give her how many powers basically turning her into a Mary Sue and make her a queen without her doing anything to gain it or even wanting to be one (because they would make her greedy and violent/evil)people will so not notice and root for her because performative diversity/activism solves everything. Anyway sorry for the rant I just had to vent for a bit,lol.
That's ok rant away, I think having a good rant is healthy sometimes. You've raised an interesting question in if Aleks was played by a POC would antis have actually defended him and would that have made people discuss the oppression of the grisha more. I mean I don't know the answer to it. I do feel like antis will use pretty much anything to paint darklinas as bad people. I actually talked a bit about the fact that in the books m*l is white and Aleks is the one that is presented as potentially being a POC when some antis started accusing darklinas of being racist for not shipping m*lina making the claim that they only ship darklina because archie is a MOC and Ben is white. Considering most darklinas have openly admitted that show m*l is 100% better than book m*l and how alot of people liked him in the show but just prefer the chemistry between darklina, the argument that we are all racist doesn't make much sense. Unfortunately I do think that antis use racism as a weapon in ship wars far too often and this I find worrying because if the subject of racism comes up in a more serious discussion are people just going to shrug and say its just antis being antis instead of engaging in what needs to be an important and educational discussion.
The fact that Aleks as a leader of a oppressed minority group is villainised the way he is in the books is something that has always frustrated me and made me kind of angry too. I honestly don't feel like the show villainised this character even with the bad things he does in the show. They did a very good job, in my opinion, of showing that he was a man who had spent hundreds of years watching his people suffer and was now committing these dark acts out of desperation, he feels like he has tried every other way and now fear is the only weapon he has left to use. They go to great lengths to show you why he is doing these things making him more of a morally grey character than an outright villain, which is why I think the character has even more support post release of the show. I mean I wasn't part of the fandom when it was just a book fandom but from what I've seen others saying the darklina fandom has grown bigger as people are watching the show and are just being drawn to Aleks' character and the darklina ship. This isn't something that happens in the books where he is just depicted as being evil to his core pretty much and its very hard to understand his motives and I also don't feel like he gets much development as a character he's just kind of there in the background doing villain things. Most of his development in my opinion is in demon in the woods and I kind of wish she had actually written that into the actual book trilogy.
As for Zoya I don't know much about her character past the grisha trilogy so I can't really form a personal opinion on how her character is developed past that point. But from what others have said I get the impression that LB tried to fix the mistakes she made with Alina with Zoya in that people didn't like that Alina lost her powers so she makes Zoya really powerful, they wanted Alina more involved in politics and maybe even as a grisha queen so she made Zoya a grisha queen. In some ways this is good because it shows growth and that she took on criticism and tried to fix it. Unfortunately it does make Alina's fate an even more bitter pill to swallow because Zoya's journey really should have been Alina's. In my opinion Alina should have ended the series with her powers and in a position of power so that she can help better her people's situation. Whether that position of power is as the new queen or whether they decide to get rid of the monarchy altogether and form a council or government instead that includes both otkazat'sya and grisha working together.
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Hi! I’m the anon that asked you to elaborate on an earlier point you made and I appreciate your reply! It definitely helped me to better understand what you meant.
I wanted to hop back in your asks because there is still a little disconnect in my brain that I wanted to hear your reply for. It is no secret that POC in real life have been vilified for their actions, speech and thoughts for the past few hundreds years in American history (not to mention throughout the rest of the world).
Because of this, I’m wondering how it is possible for an author to write a POC character that is morally grey or even a villain without somehow drawing connection to a real life historically racist occurrences. If SJM writes that elain is uncomfortable around lucien and he happens to be a POC and disabled, and in doing so, that is calling back to the racist history you mentioned (even if that’s not the actual reason elain is uncomfortable), then how is any POC character able to be written without facing the same fate? Since POC have been historically criticized for pretty much every single thing, even breathing it seems like.
I love to see authors writing about diverse characters and in my opinion it’s boring when characters are “perfect”. I like to see morally grey or villainous characters but if authors are going to be criticized for writing POC characters who are controversial, I don’t know how anyone is going to be able to write without facing backlash.
I hope this makes, I apologize if it’s a bit all over the place. I’m hoping you can help provide some clarity again. Thank you!
Hello! Sorry for taking a couple of days on this one, I knew it would be complex.
The tl;dr is yes - it is possible to write a character of color who is morally grey. It just has to be done thoughtfully.
I think that you are right, it is really tricky for people to write POC or for example disabled people, or sometimes queer people, who are villains. But the issue isn't so much that they can't be written as being morally grey, it's more about whether their characterization falls into common, harmful tropes.
One of my absolute favorite booktubers talks a lot about the portrayal of people with disfigurement in media, and I think that watching her could be helpful! She made this video recently (I haven't watched it yet) and she also had an Instagram post go viral a while back because of the movie The Witches. Here is the post, and she was asked to write about it, so here is an article. The point is that it isn't the one occurrence, but the repeated trends that people have of portraying people (with disfigurements, in this case) as evil, as less than human, as wrong, as Others.
Each marginalized group has their history of having really harmful tropes or stereotypes thrust on them. The idea that trans women or gay men are predators, that bisexual women are sluts, the single Black mother is a "welfare queen", etc. Those are the stories that authors should avoid repeating. It's not just "POC can't be villains or you're racist," but does that villain play into stereotypes about that particular race or ethnicity, stereotypes that have been used to marginalize them or harm them in the past.
It's a lot to take in, I know. It's a constant process of reconciling with our history (by "our" I mean American, I am sure that these take different forms elsewhere) and seeing if and how that is portrayed in current media, and pushing back against those representations.
I agree that authors, even if straight and white etc. etc. should be able to write about characters who are not like them. The thing I don't like about some of this criticism, especially in places like book Twitter, is that people try to "purify" everything so that if you aren't queer, you can't write a queer story, as one example (see: the harassment Becky Albertalli has faced that forced her to come out). This is all fiction, and if we can't write about anything outside of what we, personally, have experienced, then what's the point??
The easiest way for writers to avoid this is to do their homework, especially if they are writing about something they don't experience personally. I have seen people say that a good distinction to make is that writers can have a character whose identity they don't share, but they should not write about what it is to be that identity. So in other words, it's okay for a straight author to have queer characters, but a bit icky if they write a story about what it's like to be queer. I think that I agree with this take. I would personally rather read a story about what it's like to be queer from someone who is, but I think anyone could write a story with queer characters.
This is also why sensitivity readers are used more often lately. I don't think it's possible to know every single harmful stereotype that exists, the only reason I know a lot is because I spend a lot of my professional development time on these issues and read nonfiction about them. So getting help from elsewhere is a good idea. I don't think it's possible to please everyone or avoid every faux pas.
I think that on the flip side, a lot of people will argue "well it's just a book" and yes, but that book doesn't exist in a vacuum. If it's perpetuating harmful stereotypes, wouldn't we want it to... not?
I am still on my soapbox haha but I also think that books are art and art does not have to moralize or teach us something or accurately represent anything. However, it's not exempt from criticism. That's why I usually defer to my own judgement on these things, trying to balance how a book or movie or whatever fits into the broader context of marginalization and social justice, with the purpose of art. That works for me because I am aware of what I am consuming, while also just plain enjoying myself.
I hope this helps! It's super tricky because I think we all want and expect different things of the media we consume, and some of us are aware of more painful or troublesome aspects of history and how those impact media, and some of us aren't aware, and some of us care a lot, and some of us don't care at all... I prefer being well-informed and aware, personally.
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So... Morrison’s 10 part interview on All-Star Superman, along with all other older Newsarama articles, just seem to have ceased to exist. One does not simply live without having those interviews available to reread... Can I find them anywhere else?
Rejoice! I finally borrowed a computer I could put my flash drive into, and emailed myself my copy of the Morrison interview. Here it is below the cut, copied and pasted direct from the source way back when, available again at last:
Three years, 12 issues, Eisners and countless accolades later, All Star Superman is finally finished. The out-of-continuity look at Superman’s struggle with his inevitable death was widely embraced by fans and pros as one of the best stories to feature the Man of Steel, and was a showcase for the talents of the creative team of Grant Morrison, Frank Quitely and Jamie Grant.
Now, Newsarama is proud to present an exclusive look back with Morrison at the series that took Superman to, pun intended, new heights. We had a lot of questions about the series...and Morrison delivered with an in-depth look into the themes, characters and ideas throughout the 12 issues. In fact, there was so much that we’re running this as an unprecedented 10-part series over the next two weeks – sort of an unofficial All Star Superman companion. It’s everything about All Star Superman you ever wanted to know, but were afraid to ask.
And of course there’s plenty of SPOILERS, so back away if you haven’t read the entire series.
Newsarama: Grant, tell us a little about the origin of the project.
Grant Morrison: Some of it has its roots in the DC One Million project from 1999. So much so, that some readers have come to consider this a prequel to DC One Million, which is fine if it shifts a few more copies! I’ve tried to give my own DC books an overarching continuity intended to make them all read as a more coherent body of work when I’m done.
Luthor’s “enlightenment” – when he peaks on super–senses and sees the world as it appears through Superman’s eyes – was an element I’d included in the Superman Now pitch I prepared along with Mark Millar, Tom Peyer and Mark Waid back in 1999. There were one or two of ideas of mine that I wanted to preserve from Superman Now and Luthor’s heart–stopping moment of understanding was a favorite part of the original ending for that story, so I decided to use it again here.
My specific take on Superman’s physicality was inspired by the “shamanic” meeting my JLA editor Dan Raspler and I had in the wee hours of the morning outside the San Diego comic book convention in whenever it was, ‘98 or ‘99.
I’ve told this story in more detail elsewhere but basically, we were trying to figure out how to “reboot” Superman without splitting up his marriage to Lois, which seemed like a cop–out. It was the beginning of the conversations which ultimately led to Superman Now, with Dan and I restlessly pacing around trying to figure out a new way into the character of Superman and coming up short...
Until we looked up to see a guy dressed as Superman crossing the train tracks. Not just any skinny convention guy in an ill–fitting suit, this guy actually looked like Superman. It was too good a moment to let pass, so I ran over to him, told him what we’d been trying to do and asked if he wouldn’t mind indulging us by answering some questions about Superman, which he did...in the persona and voice of Superman!
We talked for an hour and a half and he walked off into the night with his friend (no, it wasn’t Jimmy Olsen, sadly). I sat up the rest of the night, scribbling page after page of Superman notes as the sun came up over the naval yards.
My entire approach to Superman had come from the way that guy had been sitting; so easy, so confident, as if, invulnerable to all physical harm, he could relax completely and be spontaneous and warm. That pose, sitting hunched on the bollard, with one knee up, the cape just hanging there, talking to us seemed to me to be the opposite of the clenched, muscle-bound look the character sometimes sports and that was the key to Superman for me.
I met the same Superman a couple of times afterwards but he wasn’t Superman, just a nice guy dressed as Superman, whose name I didn’t save but who has entered into my own personal mythology (a picture has from that time has survived showing me and Mark Waid posing alongside this guy and a couple of young readers dressed as Superboy and Supergirl – it’s in the “Gallery” section at my website for anybody who can be bothered looking. This is the guy who lit the fuse that led to All Star Superman).
After the 1999 pitch was rejected, I didn’t expect to be doing any further work on Superman but sometime in 2002, while I was going into my last year on New X–Men, Dan DiDio called and asked if I wanted to come back to DC to work on a Superman book with Jim Lee.
Jim was flexing his artistic muscles again to great effect, and he wanted to do 12 issues on Superman to complement the work he was doing with Jeph Loeb on “Batman: Hush.” At the time, I wasn’t able to make my own commitments dovetail with Jim’s availability, but by then I’d become obsessed with the idea of doing a big Superman story and I’d already started working out the details.
Jim, of course, went on to do his 12 Superman issues as “For Tomorrow” with Brian Azzarello, so I found myself looking for an artist for what was rapidly turning into my own Man of Steel magnum opus, and I already knew the book had to be drawn by my friend and collaborator, Frank Quitely.
We were already talking about We3 and Superman seemed like a good meaty project to get our teeth into when that was done. I completely scaled up my expectations of what might be possible once Frank was on board and decided to make this thing as ambitious as possible.
Usually, I prefer to write poppy, throwaway “live performance” type superhero books, but this time, I felt compelled to make something for the ages – a big definitive statement about superheroes and life and all that, not only drawn by my favorite artist but starring the first and greatest superhero of them all.
The fact that it could be a non–continuity recreation made the idea even more attractive and more achievable. I also felt ready for it, in a way I don’t think I would have been in 1999; I finally felt “grown–up” enough to do Superman justice.
I plotted the whole story in 2002 and drew tiny colored sketches for all 12 covers. The entire book was very tightly constructed before we started – except that I’d left the ending open for the inevitable better and more focused ideas I knew would arise as the project grew into its own shape...and I left an empty space for issue 10. That one was intended from the start to be the single issue of the 12–issue run that would condense and amplify the themes of all the others. #10 was set aside to be the one–off story that would sum up anything anyone needed to know about Superman in 22 pages.
Not quite as concise an origin as Superman’s, but that’s how we got started.
NRAMA: When you were devising the series, what challenges did you have in building up this version of the Superman universe?
GM: I couldn’t say there were any particular challenges. It was fun. Nobody was telling me what I could or couldn’t do with the characters. I didn’t have to worry about upsetting continuity or annoying people who care about stuff like that.
I don’t have a lot of old comics, so my knowledge of Superman was based on memory, some tattered “70s books from the remains of my teenage collection, a bunch of DC “Best Of...” reprint editions and two brilliant little handbooks – “Superman in Action Comics” Volumes 1 and 2 – which reprint every single Action Comics cover from 1938 to 1988.
I read various accounts of Superman’s creation and development as a brand. I read every Superman story and watched every Superman movie I could lay my hands on, from the Golden Age to the present day. From the Socialist scrapper Superman of the Depression years, through the Super–Cop of the 40s, the mythic Hyper–Dad of the 50s and 60s, the questioning, liberal Superman of the early 70s, the bland “superhero” of the late 70s, the confident yuppie of the 80s, the over–compensating Chippendale Superman of the 90s etc. I read takes on Superman by Mark Waid, Mark Millar, Geoff Johns, Denny O’Neil, Jeph Loeb, Alan Moore, Paul Dini and Alex Ross, Joe Casey, Steve Seagle, Garth Ennis, Jim Steranko and many others.
I looked at the Fleischer cartoons, the Chris Reeve movies and the animated series, and read Alvin Schwartz’s (he wrote the first ever Bizarro story among many others) fascinating book – “An Unlikely Prophet” – where he talks about his notion of Superman as a tulpa, (a Tibetan word for a living thought form which has an independent existence beyond its creator) and claims he actually met the Man of Steel in the back of a taxi.
I immersed myself in Superman and I tried to find in all of these very diverse approaches the essential “Superman–ness” that powered the engine. I then extracted, purified and refined that essence and drained it into All Star’s tank, recreating characters as my own dream versions, without the baggage of strict continuity.
In the end, I saw Superman not as a superhero or even a science fiction character, but as a story of Everyman. We’re all Superman in our own adventures. We have our own Fortresses of Solitude we retreat to, with our own special collections of valued stuff, our own super–pets, our own “Bottle Cities” that we feel guilty for neglecting. We have our own peers and rivals and bizarre emotional or moral tangles to deal with.
I felt I’d really grasped the concept when I saw him as Everyman, or rather as the dreamself of Everyman. That “S” is the radiant emblem of divinity we reveal when we rip off our stuffy shirts, our social masks, our neuroses, our constructed selves, and become who we truly are.
Batman is obviously much cooler, but that’s because he’s a very energetic and adolescent fantasy character: a handsome billionaire playboy in black leather with a butler at this beck and call, better cars and gadgetry than James Bond, a horde of fetish femme fatales baying around his heels and no boss. That guy’s Superman day and night.
Superman grew up baling hay on a farm. He goes to work, for a boss, in an office. He pines after a hard–working gal. Only when he tears off his shirt does that heroic, ideal inner self come to life. That’s actually a much more adult fantasy than the one Batman’s peddling but it also makes Superman a little harder to sell. He’s much more of a working class superhero, which is why we ended the whole book with the image of a laboring Superman.
He’s Everyman operating on a sci–fi Paul Bunyan scale. His worries and emotional problems are the same as ours... except that when he falls out with his girlfriend, the world trembles.
Newsarama: Grant, what are some of your favorite moments from the 12 issues?
Grant Morrison: The first shot of Superman flying over the sun. The Cosmic Anvil. Samson and Atlas. The kiss on the moon. The first three pages of the Olsen story which, I think, add up to the best character intro I’ve ever written.
Everything Lex Luthor says in issue #5. Everything Clark does. The whole says/does Luthor/Superman dynamic as played out through Frank Quitely’s absolute mastery and understanding of how space, movement and expression combine to tell a story.
Superboy and his dog on the moon – that perfect teenage moment of infinite possibility, introspection and hope for the future. He’s every young man on the verge of adulthood, Krypto is every dog with his boy (it seemed a shame to us that Krypto’s most memorable moment prior to this was his death scene in “Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow.” Quitely’s scampering, leaping, eager and alive little creature is how I’d prefer to imagine Krypto the Superdog and conjures finer and more subtle emotions).
Bizarro–Home, with all of Earth’s continental and ocean shapes but reversed. The page with the first appearance of Zibarro that Frank has designed so the eye is pulled down in a swirling motion into the drain at the heart of the image, to make us feel that we’re being flushed in a cloacal spiral down into a nihilistic, existential sink. Frank gave me that page as a gift, and it became weirdly emblematic of a strange, dark time in both our lives.
The story with Bar–El and Lilo has a genuine chill off ammonia and antiseptic off it, which makes it my least favorite issue of the series, although I know a lot of people who love it. It’s about dying relatives, obligations, the overlit overheated corridors between terminal wards, the thin metallic odors of chemicals, bad food and fear. Preparation for the Phantom Zone.
Superman hugging the poor, hopeless girl on the roof and telling us all we’re stronger than we think we are.
Joe Shuster drawing us all into the story forever and never–ending.
Nasthalthia Luthor. Frank and Jamie’s final tour of the Fortress, referencing every previous issue on the way, in two pages.
All of issue #10 (there’s a single typo in there where the time on the last page was screwed up – but when we fix that detail for the trade I’ll be able to regard this as the most perfectly composed superhero story I’ve ever written).
I don’t think I’ve ever had a smoother, more seamless collaborative process.
NRAMA: The story is very complete unto itself, but are there any new or classic characters you’d like to explore further? If so, which ones and why?
GM: I’d happily write more Atlas and Samson. I really like Krull, the Dino–Czar’s wayward son, and his Stalinist underground empire of “Subterranosauri.” I could write a Superman Squad comic forever. I’d love to write the “Son of Superman” sequel about Lois and Clark’s super test tube baby.
But...I think All Star is already complete, without sequels. You read that last issue and it works because you know you’re never going to see All Star Superman again. You’ll be able to pick up Superman books, but they won’t be about this guy and they won’t feel the same. He really is going away. Our Superman is actually “dying” in that sense, and that adds the whole series a deeper poignancy.
NRAMA: Aside from the Bizarro League, you never really introduce other DC superheroes into the story. Why did you make this choice?
GM: I wanted the story to be about the mythic Superman at the end of his time. It’s clear from the references that he has or more likely has had a few super–powered allies, but that they’re no longer around or relevant any more.
For the context of this story I wanted the super–friends to be peripheral, like they were in the old comics. The Flash? Green Lantern? They represent Superman’s “old army buddies,” or your dad’s school friends. Guys you’ve sort of heard of, who used to be more important in the old man’s life than they are now.
NRAMA: Some readers were confused as to how the “Twelve Labors” broke down, though others have pointed out that Superman’s actions are more reflective of the Stations of the Cross (I note there’s a “Station Café” in the background of issue #12). Could you break down the Twelve Labors, or, if the cross theory is true, how the storyline reflects the Stations?
GM: The 12 Labors of Superman were never intended as an isomorphic mapping onto the 12 Labors of Hercules, or for that matter, the specific Stations of the Cross, of which there are 14, I believe. I didn’t even want to do one Labor per issue, so it deliberately breaks down quite erratically through the series for reasons I’ll go into (later).
Yes, there are correspondences, but that’s mostly because we tried to create for our Superman the contemporary “superhero” version of an archetypal solar hero journey, which naturally echoes numerous myths, legends and religious parables.
At the same time, we didn’t want to do an update or a direct copy of any myth you’d seen before, so it won’t work if you try to find one specific mythological or religious “plan” to hang the series on; James Joyce’s honorable and heroic refutation of the rule aside, there’s nothing more dead and dull than an attempt to retell the Odyssey or the Norse sagas scene by scene, but in a modern and/or superhero setting.
For future historians and mythologizers, however, the 12 Labors of Superman may be enumerated as follows:
1. Superman saves the first manned mission to the sun.
2. Superman brews the Super–Elixir.
3. Superman answers the Unanswerable Question.
4. Superman chains the Chronovore.
5. Superman saves Earth from Bizarro–Home.
6. Superman returns from the Underverse.
7. Superman creates Life.
8. Superman liberates Kandor/cures cancer.
9. Superman defeats Solaris.
10. Superman conquers Death.
11. Superman builds an artificial Heart for the Sun.
12.Superman leaves the recipe/formula to make Superman 2.
And one final feat, which typically no–one really notices, is that Lex Luthor delivers his own version of the unified field haiku – explaining the underlying principles of the universe in fourteen syllables – which the P.R.O.J.E.C.T. G–Type philosopher from issue 4 had dedicated his entire life to composing!
You may notice also that the Labors take place over a year – with the solar hero’s descent into the darkness and cold of the Underverse occurring at midwinter/Christmas time (that’s also the only point in the story where we ever see Metropolis at night).
It can also be seen as the sun’s journey over the course of a day – we open in blazing sunshine but halfway through the book, at the end of issue #5, in fact, the solar hero dips below the horizon and begins the night–journey through the hours of darkness and death, before his triumphant resurrection at dawn. That’s why issue 5 ends with the boat to the Underworld and 6 begins with the moon. Clark Kent is crossing the threshold into the subconscious world of memory, shadows, death and deep emotions.
Although they can often have bizarre resonances, specific elements, like the Station Café, are usually put there by Frank Quitely, and are not necessarily secret Dan Brown–style keys to unlocking the mysteries. I think there might be a Station Café opposite the studio where Frank Quitely works and the “SAPIEN” sign on another storefront is a reference to Frank’s studio mate, Dave Sapien. At least he’s not filling the background with dirty words like he used to, given any opportunity
NRAMA: For that matter, do the Twelve Labors matter at all? They seem so purposely ill–defined. They seem more like misdirection or a MacGuffin than anything that needs to be clearly delineated.
GM: They matter, of course, but the 12 Labors idea is there to show that, as with all myth, the systematic ordering of current events into stories, tales, or legends occurs after the fact.
I’m trying to suggest that only in the future will these particular 12 feats, out of all the others ever, be mythologized as 12 Labors. I suppose I was trying to say something about how people impose meaning upon events in retrospect, and that’s how myth is born. It’s hindsight that provides narrative, structure, meaning and significance to the simple unfolding of events. It’s the backward glance that adds all the capital letters to the list above.
Even Superman isn”t sure how many Labors he’s performed when we see him mulling it over in issue 10.
When you watched it happening, it seemed to be Superman just doing his thing. In the future it’s become THE 12 LABORS OF SUPERMAN!
NRAMA: And on a completely ridiculous note: All–Star Superman is perhaps the most difficult–to–abbreviate comic title since Preacher: Tall in the Saddle. Did you realize this going in?
GM: Going into what? Going into ASS itself? In the sense of how did I feel as I slowly entered ASS for the first time?
It never crossed my mind...
Newsarama: I’d like to know a little more about Leo Quintum and his role in the story. He seems like a bit of an outgrowth of the likes of Project Cadmus and Emil Hamilton, but in a more fantastical, Willy Wonka sense.
Grant Morrison: Yeah, he was exactly as you say, my attempt to create an updated take on the character of “Superman’s scientist friend” – in the vein of Emil Hamilton from the animated show and the ‘90s stories. Science so often goes wrong in Superman stories, and I thought it was important to show the potential for science to go right or to be elevated by contact with Superman’s shining positive spirit.
I was thinking of Quintum as a kind of “Man Who Fell To Earth” character with a mysterious unearthly background. For a while I toyed with the notion that he was some kind of avatar of Lightray of the New Gods, but as All Star developed, that didn’t fit the tone, and he was allowed to simply be himself.
Eventually it just came down to simplicity. Leo Quintum represents the “good” scientific spirit – the rational, enlightened, progressive, utopian kind of scientist I figured Superman might inspire to greatness. It was interesting to me how so many people expected Quintum to turn out bad at the end. It shows how conditioned we are in our miserable, self–loathing, suspicious society to expect the worst of everyone, rather than hope for the best. Or maybe it’s just what we expect from stories.
Having said that, there is indeed a necessary whiff of Lucifer about Quintum. His name, Leo Quintum, conjures images of solar force, lions and lightbringers and he has elements of the classic Trickster figure about him. He even refers to himself as “The Devil Himself” in issue #10.
What he’s doing at the end of the story should, for all its gee–whiz futurity, feel slightly ambiguous, slightly fake, slightly “Hollywood.” Yes, he’s fulfilling Superman’s wishes by cloning an heir to Superman and Lois and inaugurating a Superman dynasty that will last until the end of time – but he’s also commodifying Superman, figuring out how it’s done, turning him into a brand, a franchise, a bigger–and–better “revamp,” the ultimate coming attraction, fresher than fresh, newer than new but familiar too. Quintum has figured out the “formula” for Superman and improved upon it.
And then you can go back to the start of All Star Superman issue #1 and read the “formula” for yourself, condensed into eight words on the first page and then expanded upon throughout the story! The solar journey is an endless circle naturally. A perfect puzzle that is its own solution.
In one way, Quintum could be seen to represent the creative team, simultaneously re–empowering a pure myth with the honest fire of Art...while at the same time shooting a jolt of juice through a concept that sells more “S” logo underpants and towels than it does comic books. All tastes catered!
I have to say that the Willy Wonka thing never crossed my mind until I saw people online make the comparison, which seems quite obvious now. Quintum dresses how I would dress if I was the world’s coolest super–scientist. What’s up with that?
NRAMA: Was Zibarro inspired by the Bizarro World story where the Bizarro–Neanderthal becomes this unappreciated Casanova–type?
GM: Don’t know that one, but it sounds like a scenario I could definitely endorse!
Zibarro started out as a daft name sicked–up by my subconscious mind, which flowered within moments into the must–write idea of an Imperfect Bizarro. What would an imperfect version of an already imperfect being be like?
Zibarro.
NRAMA: I’d like to know more about Zibarro – what’s the significance of his chronicling Bizarro World through poetry?
GM: It’s up to you. I see Zibarro partly as the sensitive teenager inside us all. He’s moody, horribly self–aware and uncomfortable, yet filled with thoughts of omnipotence and agency. He’s the absolute center of his tiny, disorganized universe. He’s playing the role of sensitive, empathic poet but at the same time, he’s completely self–absorbed.
When he says to Superman “Can you even imagine what it’s like to be so different. So unique. So unlike everyone else?” he doesn’t even wait for Superman’s reply. He doesn’t care about anyone’s feelings but his own, ultimately.
NRAMA: The character is very close to Superman, so what does it say that a nonpowered version on a savage world would focus his energy through that medium? Also, does Zibarro’s existence show how Superman is able to elevate even the backwards Bizarros through his very nature?
GM: All of the above. And maybe he writes his totally subjective poetry as a reflection of Clark Kent’s objective reporter role. The suppressed, lyrical, wounded side of Superman perhaps? The Super–Morrissey? Bizarro With The Thorn In His Side?
But he’s also Bizarro–Home’s “mistake” (or so it seems to him, even though he’s as natural an expression of the place as any of the other Bizarro creatures who grow like mold across the surface of their living planet). He feels excluded, a despised outsider, and yet that position is what defines his cherished self–image. He expresses himself through poetry because to him the regular Bizarro language is barbaric, barely articulate and guttural. And they all think he’s talking crap anyway.
It seemed to make sense that an interesting opposite of Bizarro speech might be flowery “woe is me” school Poetry Society odes to the sunset in a misunderstood heart. He’s still a Bizarro though, which makes him ineffectual. His tragedy is that he knows he’s fated to be useless and pointless but craves so much more.
NRAMA: Zibarro also represents a recurrent theme in the story, of Superman constantly facing alternate versions of himself – Bar–El, Samson and Atlas, the Superman Squad, even Luthor by the end. Notably, Hercules is absent, though Superman’s doing his Twelve Labors. With the mythological adventurers in particular, was this designed to equate Superman with their legend, to show how his character is greater than theirs, or both?
GM: In a way, I suppose. He did arm–wrestle them both, proving once and for all Superman’s stronger than anybody! And remember, these characters, along with Hercules, used to appear regularly in Superman books as his rivals. I thought they made better rivals than, say, Majestic or Ultraman because people who don’t read comics have heard of Hercules, Samson and Atlas and understand what they represent.
For that particular story, I wanted to see Superman doing tough guy shit again, like he did in the early days and then again in the 70s, when he was written as a supremely cocky macho bastard for a while. I thought a little bit of that would be an antidote to the slightly soppy, Super–Christ portrayal that was starting to gain ground.
Hence Samson’s broken arm, twisted in two directions beyond all repair. And Atlas in the hospital. And then Superman’s got his hot girlfriend dressed like a girl from Krypton and they’re making out on the moon (the original panel description was of something more like the famous shot of Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr kissing in the surf from “From Here To Eternity.” Frank’s final choice of composition is much more classically pulp–romantic and iconic than my down and dirty rumble in the moondirt would have been, I’m glad to say).
Newsarama: Tell us about some of the thinking behind the new antagonists you created for this series (at least the ones you want to talk about...): First up: Krull and the Subterranosaurs...
Grant Morrison: We wanted to create some throwaway new characters which would be designed to look as if they were convincing long–term elements of the Superman legend.
We were trying to create a few foes who had a classic feel and a solid backstory that could be explored again or in depth. Even if we never went back to these characters, we wanted them to seem rich enough to carry their own stories.
With Krull, we figured a superhuman character like Superman can always use a powerful “sub–human” opponent: a beast, a monster, a savage with the power to destroy civilization. For years I’ve had the idea that the familiar “gray aliens” might “actually” be evolved biped dinosaur descendants, the offspring of smart–thinking lizards which made their way to the warm regions at the Earth’s core.
I imagined these brutes developing their own technology, their own civilization, and then finally coming to the surface to declare bloody war on the mammalian usurpers! It seemed like we could develop this idea into the Krull backstory and suggest a whole epic conflict in a few panels.
Dom Regan, the Glasgow artist and DC colorist, saw the original green skin Jamie Grant had done for Krull, and suggested we make him red instead. Jamie reset his color filters and that was the moment Krull suddenly looked like a real Superman foe.
The red skin marked him out as unique, different and dangerous, even among his own species. It had echoes of Jack Kirby’s Devil Dinosaur that played right into the heart of the concept. A good design became a great design and the whole story of who Krull was – his twisted relationship with his father the Dino–Czar, his monstrous ambitions – came together in that first picture.
The society was fleshed out in the script even though we see only one panel of it – a gloomy, heavy, “Soviet” underworld of walled iron cities, cold blood and deadly intrigue. War–Barges that could sail on the oceans of heated steam at the center of the Earth. A Stalinist authoritarian lizard world where missing person cases were being taken to work and die as slaves in hellish underworld conditions.
NRAMA: Mechano–Man?
GM: An attempt to pre–imagine a classic, archetypal Superman foe, which started with another simple premise – how about a giant robot villain? But not just any giant robot – this is a rampaging machine with a raging little man inside.
Giving him a bitter, angry, scrawny loser as a pilot turned Mechano–Man into a much more extreme and pathological expression of the Man of Steel/Mild–Mannered Reporter dynamic, and added a few interesting layers onto an 8–panel appearance.
NRAMA: The Chronovore – a very disturbing creation, that one.
GM: The Chronovore was mentioned in passing in DC 1,000,000 and would have been the monster in my aborted Hypercrisis series idea. It took a long time to get the right design for the beast because it’s meant to be a 5–D being that we only ever see in 4–D sections. It had to work as a convincing representation of something much bigger that we’re seeing only where it interpenetrates our 4–D space-time continuum.
Imagine you’re walking along with a song in your teenage heart, then suddenly the Chronovore appears, takes bite out of your life, and you arrive at your girlfriend’s house aged 76, clutching a cell phone and a wilted bouquet.
NRAMA: One more obscure run that I was happy to see referenced in this was the use of Nasty from the old Mike Sekowsky Supergirl stories. What made you want to use this character?
GM: I remembered her from the old comics, and felt her fashion–y look could be updated very easily into the kind of fetish club thing I’ve always been partial to.
She seemed a cool and sexy addition to the Luthor plot. The set–up, where Lex has a fairly normal sister who hates how her wayward brother is such a bad influence on her brilliant daughter, is explosive with character potential.
They need to bring Nasty back to mainstream continuity. Geoff! They all want it and you know you never let them down!
NRAMA: Speaking of Mike Sekowsky, I’m curious about his influence on your work. I have an odd fascination with all the ideas and stories he was tossing around in the late 1960s and early 1970s – Jason’s Quest, Manhunter 2070, the I–Ching tales – and many of the characters he worked on, from the B”Wana Beast to the Inferior Five to Yankee Doodle (in Doom Patrol), have shown up in your work. The Bizarro Zoo in issue #10 is even slightly reminiscent of the Beast’s merged animals.
GM: Those were all comics that were around when I was a normal kid, prior to the obsessive collecting fan phase of my isolated teenage years. They clearly inspired me in some way, as you say, but certainly not consciously. I’d never have considered myself a particular fan of Mike Sekowsky’s work, but as you say, I’ve incorporated a lot of his ideas into the DC Universe work I’ve done. Hmm. Interesting.
While I’m at it, I should also say something about Samson and Atlas, halfway between old characters and new.
Samson, Atlas and Hercules were classical mainstays of old Superman covers, tangling with Superman in all those Silver Age stories that happened before he learned from his friends at Marvel that it was possible to fight other superheroes for fun and profit, so I decided to completely “re–vamp” the characters in the manner of superhero franchises. Marvel has the definitive Hercules for me, so I left him out of the mix and concentrated on Atlas and Samson.
Atlas was re–imagined as a mighty but restless and reckless young prince of the New Mythos – a society of mega–beings playing out their archetypal dramas between New Elysium and Hadia, with ordinary people caught in the middle – and Superman.
Essentially good–hearted, Atlas would have been the newbie in a “team” with Skyfather Xaoz!, Heroina, Marzak and the others. He has a bullish, adolescent approach to life. He drinks and plunges himself into ill–advised adventures to ease his naturally gloomy “weighed down by the world” temperament.
You can see it all now. The backstory suggested an unseen, Empyrean New Gods–type series from a parallel universe. What if, when Jack Kirby came to DC from Marvel in 1971, he’d followed up his sci–fi Viking Gods saga at Marvel, with a dimension–spanning epic rooted in Greek mythology? New Gods meets Eternals drawn by Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson? That was Atlas.
Samson, I decided would be a callback to the British newspaper strip “Garth.” Although you may already be imagining a daily strip about the exploits of time–tossed The Boys writer, Garth Ennis, it was actually about a blonde Adonis type who bounced around the ages having mildly horny, racy adventures.
(Go look him up then return the wiser before reading on, so I don’t have to explain anymore about this bastard – he’s often described as “the British Superman,” but oh...my arse! I hated meathead, personality–singularity Garth...but we all grew up with his meandering, inexplicable yet incredibly–drawn adventures and some of it was quite good when you were a little lad because he was always shagging ON PANEL with the likes of a bare–breasted cave girl or gauze–draped Helen of Troy.
(Unlike Superman, you see, the top British strongman liked to get naked. Lots naked. Naked in every time period he could get naked in, which was all of them thanks to the miracle of his bullshit powers.
(Imagine Doctor Who buff, dumb and naked all the time – Russell, I’ve had an idea!!!! – and that’s Garth in a nutshell.
(Sorry, I know I’m going on and the average attention span of anyone reading stuff on the Internet amounts to no more than a few paragraphs, but basically, Garth was always getting naked. In public, in family newspapers. Bollock naked. Let’s face it, patriotic Americans, have you ever seen Superman’s arse?
Newsarama Note: Well, there was Baby Kal-El in the 1978 film...
(Brits, hands up who still remember the man, and have you ever not seen Garth’s arse? Do you not, in fact, have a very clear image of it in your head, as drawn by Martin Asbury perhaps? In mine, Garth’s pulling aside a flimsy curtain to gaze at the pyramids with Cleopatra buck naked in foreground ogling his rock hard glutes...).
Anyway, Samson, I decided, was the Hebrew version of Garth and he would have his own mad comic that was like an American version of Garth. I saw the Bible hero plucked from the desert sands by time–travelling buffoons in search of a savior. Introduced to all the worst aspects of future culture and, using his stolen, erratic Chrono–Mobile, Samson became a time–(and space) traveling Soldier of Fortune, writing wrongs, humping princesses, accumulating and losing treasure etc. Like a science fiction Conan. Meets Garth.
Fortunately, you’ll never see any of these men ever again.
Newsarama: How have your perceptions of Superman and his supporting characters evolved since the Superman 2000 pitch you did with Mark Waid, Mark Millar and Tom Peyer? The Superman notions seem almost identical, but Luthor is very different here than in that pitch, and so is Clark Kent. Did you use some aspects of your original pitch, or have you just changed his mind on how to portray these characters since?
Grant Morrison: A little of both. I wanted to approach All Star Superman as something new, but there were a couple of specific aspects from the Superman 2000 pitch (as I mentioned earlier, it was actually called Superman Now, at least in my notebooks, which is where the bulk of the material came from) that I felt were definitely worth keeping and exploring.
I can’t remember much about Luthor from Superman Now, except for the ending. By the time I got to All Star Superman, I’d developed a few new insights into Luthor’s character that seemed to flesh him out more. Luthor’s really human and charismatic and hateful all the same time. He’s the brilliant, deluded egotist in all of us. The key for me was the idea that he draws his eyebrows on. The weird vanity of that told me everything I needed to know about Luthor.
I thought the real key to him was the fact that, brilliant as he is, Luthor is nowhere near as brilliant as he wants to be or thinks he is. For Luthor, no praise, no success, no achievement is ever enough, because there’s a big hungry hole in his soul. His need for acknowledgement and validation is superhuman in scale. Superman needs no thanks; he does what he does because he’s made that way. Luthor constantly rails against his own sense of failure and inadequacy...and Superman’s to blame, of course.
I’ve recently been re–thinking Luthor again for a different project, and there’s always a new aspect of the character to unearth and develop.
NRAMA: This story makes Superman and Lois’ relationship seem much more romantic and epic than usual, but this one also makes Superman more of the pursuer. Lois seems like more of an equal, but also more wary of his affections, particularly in the black–and–white sequence in issue #2.
She becomes this great beacon of support for him over the course of the series, but there is a sense that she’s a bit jaded from years of trickery and uncomfortable with letting him in now that he’s being honest. How, overall, do you see the relationship between Superman and Lois?
GM: The black-and-white panels shows Lois paranoid and under the influence of an alien chemical, but yes, she’s articulating many of her very real concerns in that scene.
I wanted her to finally respond to all those years of being tricked and duped and led to believe Superman and Clark Kent were two different people. I wanted her to get her revenge by finally refusing to accept the truth.
It also exposed that brilliant central paradox in the Superman/Lois relationship. The perfect man who never tells a lie has to lie to the woman he loves to keep her safe. And he lives with that every day. It’s that little human kink that really drives their relationship.
NRAMA: Jimmy Olsen is extremely cool in this series – it’s the old “Mr. Action” idea taken to a new level. It’s often easy to write Jimmy as a victim or sycophant, but in this series, he comes off as someone worthy of being “Superman’s Pal” – he implicitly trusts Superman, and will take any risk to get his story. Do you see this version of Jimmy as sort of a natural evolution of the version often seen in the comics?
GM: It was a total rethink based on the aspects of Olsen I liked, and playing down the whole wet–behind–the–ears “cub reporter” thing. I borrowed a little from the “Mr. Action” idea of a more daredevil, pro–active Jimmy, added a little bit of Nathan Barley, some Abercrombie & Fitch style, a bit of Tintin, and a cool Quitely haircut.
Jimmy was renowned for his “disguises” and bizarre transformations (my favorite is the transvestite Olsen epic “Miss Jimmy Olsen” from Jimmy Olsen #95, which gets a nod on the first page of our Jimmy story we did), so I wanted to take that aspect of his appeal and make it part of his job.
I don’t like victim Jimmy or dumb Jimmy, because those takes on the character don’t make any sense in their context. It seemed more interesting see what a young man would be like who could convincingly be Superman’s “pal.” Someone whose company a Superman might actually enjoy. That meant making Jimmy a much bigger character: swaggering but ingenuous. Innocent yet worldly. Enthusiastic but not stupid.
My favorite Jimmy moment is in issue #7 when he comes up with the way to defeat the Bizarro invasion by using the seas of the Bizarro planet itself as giant mirrors to reflect toxic – to Bizarros – sunlight onto the night side of the Earth. He knows Superman can actually take crazy lateral thinking like this and put it into practice.
NRAMA: Perry White has a few small–but–key scenes, particularly his address to his staff in issue #1 and standing up to Luthor in issue #12. I’d like to hear more about your thoughts on this character.
GM: As with the others, my feelings are there on the page. Perry is Clark’s boss and need only be that and not much more to play his role perfectly well within the stories. He’s a good reminder that Superman has a job and a boss, unlike that good–for–nothing work-shy bastard Batman. Perry’s another of the series’ older male role models of integrity and steadfastness, like Pa Kent.
NRAMA: There’s a sense in the Daily Planet scenes and with Lois’s spotlight issues that everyone knows Clark is Superman, but they play along to humor him. The Clark disguise comes off as very obvious in this story. Do you feel that the Planet staff knows the truth, or are just in a very deep case of denial, like Lex?
GM: If I had to say for sure, I think Jimmy Olsen worked it out a long time ago, and simply presumes that if Superman has a good reason for what he’s doing, that’s good enough for Jimmy.
Lois has guessed, but refuses to acknowledge it because it exposes her darkest flaw – she could never love Clark Kent the way she loves Superman.
NRAMA: Also, the Planet staff seems awfully nonchalant at Luthor’s threats. Are they simply used to being attacked by now?
GM: Yes. They’re a tough group. They also know that Superman makes a point of looking out for them, so they naturally try to keep Luthor talking. They know he loves to talk about himself and about Superman. In that scene, he’s almost forgotten he even has powers, he’s so busy arguing and making points. He keeps doing ordinary things instead of extraordinary things.
NRAMA: The running gag of Clark subtly using his powers to protect unknowing people is well done, but I have to admit I was confused by the sequence near the end of issue #1. Was that an el–train, and if so, why was it so close to the ground?
GM: It’s a MagLev hover–train. Look again, and you’ll see it’s not supported by anything. Hover–trains help ease congestion in busy city streets! Metropolis is the City of Tomorrow, after all.
NRAMA: And there’s the death of Pa Kent. Why do you feel it’s particularly important to have Pa and not both of the Kents pass away?
GM: I imagined they had both passed away fairly early in Superman’s career, but Ma went a few years after Pa. Also, because the book was about men or man, it seemed important to stress the father/son relationships. That circle of life, the king is dead, long live the king thing that Superman is ultimately too big and too timeless to succumb to.
NRAMA: There is a real touch of Elliott S! Maggin’s novels in your depiction of Luthor – someone who is just so obsessive–compulsive about showing up Superman that he accomplishes nothing in his own life. He comes across as a showman, from his rehearsed speech in issue #1 to his garish costume in the last two issues, and it becomes painfully apparent that he wants to usurp Superman because he just can’t be happy with himself. What defeats him is actually a beautiful gift, getting to see the world as Superman does, and finally understanding his enemy.
That’s all a lead–in to: What previous stories that defined Luthor for you, and how did you define his character? What appeals to you about writing him?
GM: The Marks Waid and Millar were big fans of the Maggin books, and may have persuaded me to read at least the first one but I’m ashamed to say can’t remember anything about it, other than the vague recollection of a very humane, humanist take on Superman that seemed in general accord with the pacifist, hedonistic, between–the–wars spirit of the ‘90s when I read it. It was the ‘90s; I had other things on my mind and in my mind.
I like Maggin’s “Must There Be A Superman?” from Superman #247, which ultimately poses questions traditional superhero comic books are not equipped to answer and is one of the first paving stones in the Yellow Brick Road that leads to Watchmen and beyond, to The Authority, The Ultimates etc. Everyone still awake, still reading this, should make themselves familiar with “Must There Be A Superman?” – it’s a milestone in the development of the superhero concept.
However, the story that most defines Luthor for me turns out to be, as usual, a Len Wein piece with Curt Swan/Murphy Anderson– Superman #248. This blew me away when I was a kid. Lex Luthor cares about humanity? He’s sorry we all got blown up? The villain loves us too? It’s only Superman he really hates? Genius. Big, cool adult stuff.
The divine Len makes Lex almost too human, but it was amazing to see this kind of depth in a character I’d taken for granted as a music hall villain.
I also love the brutish Satanic, Crowley–esque, Golden Age Luthor in the brilliant “Powerstone” Action Comics #47 (the opening of All Star #11 is a shameless lift from “Powerstone”, as I soon realised when I went back to look. Blame my...er...photographic memory...cough).
And I like the Silver Age Luthor who only hates Superman because he thinks it’s Superboy’s fault he went bald. That was the most genuinely human motivation for Luthor’s career of villainy of all; it was Superman’s fault he went bald! I can get behind that.
In the Silver Age, baldness, like obesity, old age and poverty, was seen quite rightly as a crippling disease and a challenge which Superman and his supporting cast would be compelled to overcome at every opportunity! Suburban “50s America versus Communist degeneracy? You tell me.
I like elements of the Marv Wolfman/John Byrne ultra–cruel and rapacious businessman, although he somewhat lacks the human dimension (ultimately there’s something brilliant about Luthor being a failed inventor, a product of Smallville/Dullsville – the genius who went unnoticed in his lifetime, and resorted to death robots in chilly basements and cellars. Luthor as geek versus world). I thought Alan Moore’s ruthlessly self–assured “consultant” Luthor in Swamp Thing was an inspired take on the character as was Mark Waid’s rage–driven prodigy from Birthright.
I tried to fold them all into one portrayal. I see him as a very human character – Superman is us at our best, Luthor is us when we’re being mean, vindictive, petty, deluded and angry. Among other things. It’s like a bipolar manic/depressive personality – with optimistic, loving Superman smiling at one end of the scale and paranoid, petty Luthor cringing on the other.
I think any writer of Superman has to love these two enemies equally. We have to recognize them both as potentials within ourselves. I think it’s important to find yourself agreeing with Luthor a bit about Superman’s “smug superiority” – we all of us, except for Superman, know what it’s like to have mean–spirited thoughts like that about someone else’s happiness. It’s essential to find yourself rooting for Lex, at least a little bit, when he goes up against a man–god armed only with his bloody–minded arrogance and cleverness.
Even if you just wish you could just give him a hug and help him channel his energies in the right direction, Luthor speaks for something in all of us, I like to think.
However he’s played, Luthor is the male power fantasy gone wrong and turned sour. You’ve got everything you want but it’s not enough because someone has more, someone is better, someone is cleverer or more handsome.
Newsarama: Grant, a recurring theme throughout the book is the effect of small kindness – how even the likes of Steve Lombard are capable of decency. And Superman gets the key to saving himself by doing something that any human being could do, offering sympathy to a person about to end it all.
Grant Morrison: Completely...the person you help today could be the person who saves your life tomorrow.
NRAMA: The character actions that make the biggest difference, from Zibarro’s sacrifice to Pa’s influence on Superman, are really things that any normal, non-powered person could do if they embrace the best part of their humanity. The last page of issue #12 teases the idea that Superman’s powers could be given to all mankind, but it seems as though the greatest gift he has given them is his humanity. How do you view Superman’s fate in the context of where humanity could go as a species?
GM: I see Superman in this series as an Enlightenment figure, a Renaissance idea of the ideal man, perfect in mind, body and intention.
A key text in all of this is Pico’s ‘Oration On The Dignity of Man’ (15c), generally regarded as the ‘manifesto’ of Renaissance thought, in which Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola laid out the fundamentals of what we tend to refer to as ’Humanist’ thinking.
(The ‘Oratorio’ also turns up in my British superhero series Zenith from 1987, which may indicate how long I’ve been working towards a Pico/Superman team-up!)
At its most basic, the ‘Oratorio’ is telling us that human beings have the unique ability, even the responsibility, to live up to their ‘ideals’. It would be unusual for a dog to aspire to be a horse, a bird to bark like a dog, or a horse to want to wear a diving suit and explore the Barrier Reef, but people have a particular gift for and inclination towards imitation, mimicry and self-transformation. We fly by watching birds and then making metal carriers that can outdo birds, we travel underwater by imitating fish, we constantly look to role models and behavioral templates for guidance, even when those role models are fictional TV or, comic, novel or movie heroes, just like the soft, quick, shapeshifty little things we are. We can alter the clothes we wear, the temperature around us, and change even our own bodies, in order to colonize or occupy previously hostile environments. We are, in short, a distinctively malleable and adaptable bunch.
So, Pico is saying, if we live by imitation, does it not make sense that we might choose to imitate the angels, the gods, the very highest form of being that we can imagine? Instead of indulging the most brutish, vicious, greedy and ignorant aspects of the human experience, we can, with a little applied effort, elevate the better part of our natures and work to express those elements through our behavior. To do so would probably make us all feel a whole lot better too. Doing good deeds and making other people happy makes you feel totally brilliant, let’s face it.
So we can choose to the astronaut or the gangster. The superhero or the super villain. The angel or the devil. It’s entirely up to us, particularly in the privileged West, how we choose to imagine ourselves and conduct our lives.
We live in the stories we tell ourselves. It’s really simple. We can continue to tell ourselves and our children that the species we belong to is a crawling, diseased, viral cancer smear, only fit for extinction, and let’s see where that leads us.
We can continue to project our self-loathing and narcissistic terror of personal mortality onto our culture, our civilization, our planet, until we wreck the promise of the world for future generations in a fit of sheer self-induced panic...
...or we can own up to the scientific fact that we are all physically connected as parts of a single giant organism, imagine better ways to live and grow...and then put them into practice. We can stop pissing about, start building starships, and get on with the business of being adults.
The ’Oratorio’ is nothing less than the Shazam!, the Kimota! for Western Culture and we would do well to remember it in our currently trying times.
The key theme of the ‘Dark Age’ of comics was loss and recovery of wonder - McGregor’s Killraven trawling through the apocalyptic wreckage of culture in his search for poetry, meaning and fellowship, Captain Mantra, amnesiac in Robert Mayer’s Superfolks, Alan Moore’s Mike Maxwell trudging through the black and white streets of Thatcher’s Britain, with the magic word of transformation burning on the tip of his tongue.
My own work has been an ongoing attempt to repeat the magic word over and over until we all become the kind of superheroes we’d all like to be. Ha hah ha.
Newsarama: The structure of the 12 issues involves both Superman’s 12 labors and his impending death. Do you feel the threat of his demise brings out the best in Superman’s already–high character, or did you intend it more as a window for the audience to understand how he sees the world?
Grant Morrison: In trying to do the “big,” ultimate Superman story, we wanted to hit on all the major beats that define the character – the “death of Superman” story has been told again and again and had to be incorporated into any definitive take. Superman’s death and rebirth fit the sun god myth we were establishing, and, as you say, it added a very terminal ticking clock to the story.
NRAMA: When we talked earlier this year, we discussed the neurotic quality of the Silver Age stories. Looking at the series as a whole, you consistently invert this formula. Superman is faced with all these crises that could be seen as personifying his neuroses, but for the most part he handles them with a level head and comes across as being very at peace with himself. You talked about your discussion with an in–character Superman fan at a convention years ago, but I am curious as to how you determined Superman’s mindset.
GM: I felt we had to live up to the big ideas behind Superman. I don’t take my daft job lightly. It’s all I’ve got.
As the project got going, I wasn’t thinking about Silver Ages or Dark Ages or anything about the comics I’d read, so much as the big shared idea of “Superman” and that “S” logo I see on T–shirts everywhere I go, on girls and boys. That communal Superman. I wanted us to get the precise energy of Platonic Superman down on the page.
The “S” hieroglyph, the super–sigil, stands for the very best kind of man we can imagine, so the subject dictated the methodical, perfectionist approach. As I’ve mentioned before, I keep this aspect of my job fresh for myself by changing my writing style to suit the project, the character or the artist.
With something like Batman R.I.P., I’m aiming for a frenzied Goth Pulp-Noir; punk-psych, expressionist shadows and jagged nightmare scene shifts, inspired by Batman’s roots and by the snapping, fluttering of his uncanny cape. Final Crisis was written, with the Norse Ragnarok and Biblical Revelations in mind, as a story about events more than characters. A doom-laden, Death Metal myth for the wonderful world of Fina(ncia)l Crisis/Eco-breakdown/Terror Trauma we all have to live in.
The subject matter drives the execution. And then, of course, the artists add their own vision and nuance. With All Star Superman, “Frank” and I were able to spend a lot of time together talking it through, and we agreed it had to be about grids, structure, storybook panel layouts, an elegance of form, a clarity of delivery. “Classical” in every sense of the word. The medium, the message, the story, the character, all working together as one simple equation.
Frank Quitely, a Glasgow Art School boy, completely understood without much explanation, the deep structural underpinnings of the series and how to embody them in his layouts. There’s a scene in issue # 8, set on the Bizarro world, where we see Le Roj handing Superman his rocket plans. Look at the arrangement of the figures of Zibarro, Le Roj, Superman and Bizaro–Superman and you’ll see one attempt to make us of Renaissance compositions.
The sense of sunlit Zen calm we tried to get into All Star is how I imagine it might feel to think the way Superman thinks all the time - a thought process that is direct, clean, precise, mathematical, ordered. A mind capable of fantastical imagination but grounded in the everyday of his farm upbringing with nice decent folks. Rich with humour and tears and deep human significance, yet tuned to a higher key. We tried to hum along for a little while, that’s all.
In honor of the character’s primal position in the development of the superhero narrative, I hoped we could create an “ultimate” hero story, starring the ultimate superhero.
Basically, I suppose I felt Superman deserved the utmost application of our craft and intelligence in order to truly do him justice.
Otherwise, I couldn’t have written this book if I hadn’t watched my big, brilliant dad decline into incoherence and death. I couldn’t have written it if I’d never had my heart broken, or mended. I couldn’t have written it if I hadn’t known what it felt like to be idolized, misunderstood, hated for no clear reason, loved for all my faults, forgotten, remembered...
Writing All Star Superman was, in retrospect, also a way of keeping my mind in the clean sunshine while plumbing the murkiest depths of the imagination with that old pair of c****s Darkseid and Doctor Hurt. Good riddance.
Newsarama: This is touched on in other questions, but how much of the Silver/Bronze Age backstory matters here? What do you see as Superman's life prior to All-Star Superman? (What was going on with this Superman while the Byrne revamp took hold?)
Grant Morrison: When I introduced the series in an interview online, I suggested that All Star Superman could be read as the adventures of the ‘original’ Pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman, returning after 20 plus years of adventures we never got to see because we were watching John Byrne‘s New Superman on the other channel. If ‘Whatever Happened To The Man of Tomorrow?’ and the Byrne reboot had never happened, where would that guy be now?
This was more to provide a sense, probably limited and ill-considered, of what the tone of the book might be like. I never intended All Star Superman as a direct continuation of the Weisinger or Julius Schwartz-era Superman stories. The idea was always to create another new version of Superman using all my favorite elements of past stories, not something ‘Age’ specific.
I didn’t collect Superman comics until the ‘70s and I’m not interested enough in pastiche or nostalgia to spend 6 years of my life playing post-modern games with Superman. All Star isn’t written, drawn or colored to look or read like a Silver Age comic book.
All Star Superman is not intended as arch commentary on continuity or how trends in storytelling have changed over the decades. It’s not retro or meta or anything other than its own simple self; a piece of drawing and writing that is intended by its makers to capture the spirit of its subject to the best of their capabilities, wisdom and talent.
Which is to say, we wanted our Superman story be about life, not about comics or superheroes, current events or politics. It’s about how it feels, specifically to be a man...in our dreams! Hopefully that means our 12 issues are also capable of wide interpretation.
So as much as we may have used a few recognizable Silver Age elements like Van-Zee and Sylv(i)a and the Bottle City of Kandor, the ensemble Daily Planet cast embodies all the generations of Superman. Perry White is from 1940, Steve Lombard is from the Schwartz-era ‘70s, Ron Troupe - the only black man in Metropolis - appeared in 1991. Cat Grant is from 1987 and so on.
P.R.O.J.E.C.T. refers back to Jack Kirby’s DNA Project from his ‘70s Jimmy Olsen stories, as well as to The Cadmus Project from ’90s Superboy and Superman stories. Doomsday is ‘90s. Kal Kent, Solaris and the Infant Universe of Qwewq all come from my own work on Superman in the same decade. Pa Kent’s heart attack is from ‘Superman the Movie‘. We didn’t use Brainiac because he’d been the big bad in Earth 2 but if we had, we’d have used Brainiac’s Kryptonian origin from the animated series and so on.
I also used quite a few elements of John Byrne’s approach. Byrne made a lot of good decisions when he rebooted the whole franchise in 1986 and I wanted to incorporate as much as I could of those too.
Our Superman in All Star was never Superboy, for instance. All Star Superman landed on Earth as a normal, if slightly stronger and fitter infant, and only began to manifest powers in adolescence when he’d finally soaked up enough yellow solar radiation to trigger his metamorphosis.
The Byrne logic seemed to me a better way to explain how his powers had developed across the decades, from the skyscraper leaps of the early days to the speed-of-light space flight of the high Silver Age. And more importantly, it made the Superman myth more poignant - the story of a farm boy who turned into an alien as he reached adolescence. I felt that was something that really enriched Superman. He grew away from his home, his family, his adopted species as he became Superman. His teenage years are a record of his transformation from normal boy to super-being.
As you say, there are more than just Silver Age influences in the book. Basically we tried to create a perfect synthesis of every Superman era. So much so, that it should just be taken as representative of an ‘age’ all its own.
In the end, however, I do think that the Silver Age type stories, with their focus on human problems and foibles, have a much wider appeal than a lot of the work which followed. They’re more like fables or folk tales than the later ‘comic book superhero’ stories of Superman when he became just another colorful costume in the crowd...and perhaps that’s why All Star seemed to resemble those books more than it does a typical modern Marvel or DC comic. It was our intention to present a more universal, mainstream Superman.
NRAMA: In your depiction of Krypton and the Kryptonians, you show the complexity of Superman’s relationship between humanity and Earth even further. Krypton has that scientific paradise quality to it, but the Kryptonians are also portrayed as slightly aloof and detached, even Jor-El. But from Bar-El to the people of Kandor, they’re touched by Superman’s goodness. What do you see as the fundamental difference between Kryptonians and Earthlings, and how has Superman’s character been shaped by each?
GM: My version of Krypton was, again, synthesized from a number of different approaches over the decades.
In mythic terms, if Superman is the story of a young king, found and raised by common people, then Krypton is the far distant kingdom he lost. It’s the secret bloodline, the aristocratic heritage that makes him special, and a hero. At the same time, Krypton is something that must be left behind for Superman to become who he is - i.e. one of us. Krypton gives him his scientific clarity of mind, Earth makes his heart blaze.
I liked the very early Jerry Siegel descriptions where Krypton is a planet of advanced supermen and women (I already played with that a little in Marvel Boy where Noh-Varr was written to be the Marvel Superboy basically). To that, I added the rich, science fiction detailing of the Silver Age Krypton stories and the slightly detached coolness that characterized John Byrne’s Krypton, which I re-interpreted through the lens of Dzogchen Buddhist thought, probably the most pragmatic, chilly and rational philosophic system on the planet and the closest, I felt, to how Kryptonians might see things.
We also took some time to redesign the crazy, multicolored Kryptonian flag (you can see our version in Kandor in issue #10). The flag, as originally imagined, seemed like the last thing Kryptonians would endorse, so we took the multicolored-rays-around-a-circle design and recreated it - the central circle is now red, representing Krypton’s star, Rao, while the rays, rather than arbitrary colors, become representations of the spectrum of visible light pouring from Rao into the inky black of space. In this way, the flag, that bizarre emblem of nationalism becomes a scientific hieroglyph.
Showing Krypton and Kryptonians was also important as a way of stressing why Superman wears that costume and why it makes absolute sense that he looks the way he does. I don’t see the red and blue suit as a flag or as rewoven baby blankets. There’s no need for Superman to dress the way he does but it made sense to think of his outfit as his ‘national costume‘.
The way I see it, the standard superhero outfit, the familiar Superman suit with the pants on the outside, is what everyone wore on Krypton, give or take a few fashion accessories like hoods and headbands, chest crests and variant colors. In fact, all other superheroes are just copying the fashions on Krypton, lost planet of the super-people.
Superman wears his ’action-suit’ the way a patriotic Scotsman would wear a kilt. It’s a sign of his pride in his alien heritage.
Newsarama: Although All–Star Superman ties in with DC One Million, you style of writing has changed dramatically since then. How do you feel about One Million now?
Grant Morrison: I just read it again and liked it a lot. Comics were definitely happier, breezier and more confident in their own strengths before Hollywood and the Internet turned the business of writing superhero stories into the production of low budget storyboards or, worse, into conformist, fruitless attempts to impress or entertain a small group of people who appear to hate comics and their creators.
NRAMA: Obviously, this book is the most explicit SF–Christ story since Behold the Man, only...happy. Superman/Christ parallels have existed for decades, but this story makes it absolutely explicit, from laying his hands on the sick and dying to...well, most of issue #12. You’ve dealt with Christ themes before, particularly in The Mystery Play, but outside of the comics, how do you see Superman as a Christ figure for the “real” world?
GM: The “Superman as Christ” thing is a little too reductive for me, and tends to overlook the fact that Superman is by no means a pacifist in the Christ sense. Superman would never turn the other cheek; Superman punches out the bully. Superman is a fighter.
When did Christ ever batter the Devil through a mountain?
The thing I disliked about the Superman Returns movie was the American Christ angle, which reduced Superman to a sniveling, masochistic wreck, crawling around on the floor, taking a kicking from everyone. This approach had an odd and slightly disturbing S&M flavor, which didn’t play well to the character’s strengths at all and seemed to derive entirely from a kind of Catholic vision of the suffering, martyred Jesus.
It’s not that he’s based on Jesus, but simply that a lot of the mythical sun god elements that have been layered onto the Christ story also appear in the story of Superman. I suppose I see Superman more as pagan sci–fi. He’s a secular messiah, a science redeemer with tough guy muscles and a very direct and clear morality.
NRAMA: Continuing the religious themes, in issue #10, you have Superman literally giving birth to himself, both philosophically and as a character – a nice little meta–moment showing how Superman inspires a world where he is only fiction. How did that idea come about?
GM: It came from the challenge we’d set ourselves: as I said, issue #10 had been left as a blank space into which the single most coherent condensation of all our ideas about Superman were destined to fit.
I wanted to do a “day in the life” story. So much of All Star had been about this threat to Superman himself, so we wanted to show him going about a typical day saving people and doing good.
Then came the title “Neverending,” which comes from the opening announcement – “Faster than a speeding bullet!...” of the Superman radio show from 1940, and seemed to me to be as good a title for a Superman story as any I could think of. It seemed to distil everything about Superman’s battle and his legend into a single word. And the story structure itself was designed to loop endlessly, so it went well with that.
On top of that went the idea of the Last Will and Testament of Superman. A dying god writing his will seemed like an interesting structure to use. Then came the idea to fit all of human history into that single 24 hours. And then to show the development of the Superman idea through human culture from the earliest Australian Aboriginal notions of super–beings ‘descended” from the sky, through the complex philosophical system of Hinduism, onto the Renaissance concept of the ideal man, via the refinements of Nietzche and finally, down to that smiling, hopeful Joe Shuster sketch; the final embodiment of humanity’s glorious, uplifting notion of the superman become reduced to a drawing, a story for kids, a worthless comic book.
And also what that could mean in a holographic fractal universe, where the smallest part contains and reflects the whole.
Of course the next panel in that sequence is happening in the real world and would show you, the reader, sitting with the latest Superman issue in your hands, deep within the Infant Universe of Qwewq in the Fortress of Solitude, today, wherever you are. In “Neverending,” the reader becomes wrapped in a self–referential loop of story and reality. If you actually, seriously think about what is happening at this point in the story, if you meditate upon the curious entanglement of the real and the fictional, you will become enlightened in this life apparently. According to some texts.
NRAMA: On a personal level, you’ve explored all types of religions and philosophies in your work. What is your take on religion and how it influences humanity, and the Christian take on Jesus Christ in particular?
GM: I think religion per se, is a ghastly blight on the progress of the human species towards the stars. At the same time, it, or something like it, has been an undeniable source of comfort, meaning and hope for the majority of poor bastards who have ever lived on Earth, so I’m not trying to write it off completely. I just wish that more people were educated to a standard where they could understand what religion is and how it works. Yes, it got us through the night for a while, but ultimately, it’s one of those ugly, stupid arse–over–backwards things we could probably do without now, here on the Planet of the Apes.
Religion is to spirituality what porn is to sex. It’s what the Hollywood 3–act story template is to real creative writing.
Religion creates a structure which places “special,” privileged people (priests) between ordinary people and the divine, as if there could even be any separation: as if every moment, every thought, every action was not already an expression of dynamic ‘divinity” at work.
As I’ve said before, the solid world is just the part of heaven we’re privileged to touch and play with. You don’t need a priest or a holy man to talk to “god” on your behalf: just close your eyes and say hello. “God” is no more, no less, than the sum total of all matter, all energy, all consciousness, as experienced or conceptualized from a timeless perspective where everything ever seems to present all at once. “God” is in everything, all the time and can be found there by looking carefully. The entire universe, including the scary, evil bits, is a thought “God” is thinking, right now.
As far as I can figure it out from my own reading and my own experience of how the spiritual world works, Jesus was, as they say, way cool: a man who achieved a state of consciousness, which nowadays would get him a diagnosis of temporal lobe epilepsy (in the days of the Emperor Tiberius, he was crucified for his ideas, today he’d be laughed at, mocked or medicated).
This “holistic” mode of consciousness (which Luthor experiences briefly at the end of All Star Superman) announces itself as a heartbreaking connection, a oneness, with everything that exists...but you don’t have to be Superman to know what that feeling is like. There are a ton of meditation techniques which can take you to this place. I don’t see it as anything supernatural or religious, in fact, I think it’s nothing more than a developmental level of human consciousness, like the ability to see perspective – which children of 4 cannot do but children of 6 can.
Everyone who’s familiar with this upgrade will tell you the same thing: it feels as if “alien” or “angelic” voices – far more intelligent, coherent and kindly than the voices you normally hear in your head – are explaining the structure of time and space and your place in it.
This identification with a timeless supermind containing and resolving within itself all possible thoughts and contradictions, is what many people, unsurprisingly, mistake for an encounter with “God.” However, given that this totality must logically include and resolve all possible thoughts and concepts, it can also be interpreted as an actual encounter with God, so I’m not here to give anyone a hard time over interpretation.
Some people have the experience and believe the God of their particular culture has chosen them personally to have a chat with. These people may become born–again Christians, fundamentalist Muslims, devotees of Shiva, or misunderstood lunatics. Some “contactees” interpret the voices they hear erroneously as communications from an otherworldly, alien intelligence, hence the proliferation of “abduction” accounts in recent decades, which share most of their basic details with similar accounts, from earlier centuries, of people being taken away by “fairies” or “little people”.
Some, who like to describe themselves as magicians, will recognize the “alien” voice as the “Holy Guardian Angel”.
In timeless, spaceless consciousness, the singular human mind blurs into a direct experience of the totality of all consciousness that has ever been or will ever be. It feels like talking with God but I see that as an aspect of science, not religion.
As Peter Barnes wrote in “The Ruling Class”, “I know I must be God because when I pray to Him, I find I’m talking to myself.”
Newsarama: When we spoke earlier this year, you talked about some of your ideas for future All Star stories. Are you moving forward on those, or have you started working on different ideas since then?
Grant Morrison: I haven’t had time to think about them for a while. I did have the stories worked out, and I’d like to do more, but right now it feels like Frank and Jamie and I have said all there is to be said. I don’t know if I’m ready to do All Star Superman with anyone else right now. I have other plans.
NRAMA: You end the book with Superman having uplifted humanity – having inspired them through his sacrifice and great deeds, and with the potential to pass his powers on to humanity still there. Do you plan to explore this concept further, or would you prefer to leave it open–ended?
GM: I may go back to the Son of Superman in some way. At the same time, it’s best left open–ended. I like the idea that Superman gets to have his cake and eat it; he becomes golden and mythical and lives forever as a dream. Yet, he also is able to sire a child who will carry his legacy into the future. He kicks ass in both the spiritual and the temporal spheres!
NRAMA: The notion of transcendence – always a big part of your work. But the debate about All Star Superman is whether or not it "transcends its genre." Superman becomes transcendent within the series itself, and inspires the beings on Qwewq, but does the work aspire to more than that? Is it simply the greatest version of a Superman story, and that’s enough?
GM: That would certainly be enough if it were true.
It’s a pretty high–level attempt by some smart people to do the Superman concept some justice, is all I can say. It’s intended to work as a set of sci–fi fables that can be read by children and adults alike. I’d like to think you can go to it if you’re feeling suicidal, if you miss your dad, if you’ve had to take care of a difficult, ailing relative, if you’ve ever lost control and needed a good friend to put you straight, if you love your pets, if you wish your partner could see the real you...All Star is about how Superman deals with all of that.
It’s a big old Paul Bunyan style mythologizing of human - and in particular male - experience. In that sense I’d like to think All Star Superman does transcend genre in that it’s intended to be read on its own terms and needs absolutely no understanding of genre conventions or history around it to grasp what’s going on.
In today’s world, in today’s media climate designed to foster the fear our leaders like us to feel because it makes us easier to push around. In a world where limp, wimpy men are forced to talk tough and act ‘badass’ even though we all know they’re shitting it inside. In a world where the measure of our moral strength has come to lie in the extremity of the images we’re able to look at and stomach. In a world, I’m reliably told, that’s going to the dogs, the real mischief, the real punk rock rebellion, is a snarling, ‘fuck you’ positivity and optimism. Violent optimism in the face of all evidence to the contrary is the Alpha form of outrage these days. It really freaks people out.
I have a desire not to see my culture and my fellow human beings fall helplessly into step with a middle class media narrative that promises only planetary catastrophe, as engineered by an intrinsically evil and corrupt species which, in fact, deserves everything it gets.
Is this relentless, downbeat insistence that the future has been cancelled really the best we can come up with? Are we so fucked up we get off on terrifying our children? It’s not funny or ironic anymore and that’s why we wrote All Star Superman the way we did. Everything has changed. ‘Dark’ entertainment now looks like hysterical, adolescent, ‘Zibarro’ crap. That’s what my Final Crisis series is about too.
NRAMA (aka Tim Callahan): Continuing with the theme of transcendence: The words "ineffectual" and "surrender" are repeated throughout the book. Discuss.
GM: Discuss yourself, Callahan! I know you have the facilities and I should think it’s all rather obvious.
NRAMA: What was the inspiration for the image of Superman in the sun at the end? (I confess this question comes as the result of much unsuccessful Googling)
GM: I didn’t have any specific reference in mind - just that one we‘ve all sort of got in our heads. I drew the figure as a sketch, intended to be reminiscent of William Blake’s cosmic figures, Russian Constructivist Soviet Socialist Worker type posters, and Leonardo’s ‘Proportions of the Human Figure‘. The position of the legs hints at the Buddhist swastika, the clockwise sun symbol. It was to me, the essence of that working class superheroic ideal I mentioned, condensed into a final image of mythic Superman, - our eternal, internal, guiding, selfless, tireless, loving superstar. The daft All Star Superman title of the comic is literalized in this last picture. It’s the ‘fearful symmetry’ of the Enlightenment project - an image of genius, toil, and our need to make things, to fashion art and artifacts, as a form of superhuman, divine imitation.
It was Superman as this fusion of Renaissance/Enlightenment ideas about Man and Cosmos, an impossible union of Blake and Newton. A Pop Art ‘Vitruvian Man‘. The inspiration for the first letter of the new future alphabet!
As you can see, we spent a lot of time thinking about all this and purifying it down to our own version of the gold. I’m glad it’s over.
NRAMA: Finally: What, above all else, would you like people to take away from All Star Superman?
GM: That we spent a lot of time thinking about this!
No. What I hope is that people take from it the unlikelihood that a piece of paper, with little ink drawings of figures, with little written words, can make you cry, can make your heart soar, can make you scared, sad, or thrilled. How mental is that?
That piece of paper is inert material, the corpse of some tree, pulped and poured, then given new meaning and new life when the real hours and real emotions that the writer and the artist, the colorist, the letter the editor translated onto the physical page, meet with the real hours and emotions of a reader, of all readers at once, across time, generations and distance.
And think about how that experience, the simple experience of interacting with a paper comic book, along with hundreds of thousands of others across time and space, is an actual doorway onto the beating heart of the imminent, timeless world of “Myth” as defined above. Not just a drawing of it but an actual doorway into timelessness and the immortal world where we are all one together.
My grief over the loss of my dad can be Superman’s grief, can trigger your own grief, for your own dad, for all our dads. The timeless grief that’s felt by Muslims and Christians and Agnostics alike. My personal moments of great and romantic love, untainted by the everyday, can become Superman’s and may resonate with your own experience of these simple human feelings.
In the one Mythic moment we’re all united, kissing our Lover for the First time, the Last time, the Only time, honoring our dear Dad under a blood red sky, against a darkening backdrop, with Mum telling us it’ll all be okay in the end.
If we were able to capture even a hint of that place and share it with our readers, that would be good enough for me.
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Hiya! I just discovered your blog and was wondering if you could help try to type me (sorry this is pretty long)
1. I’m currently pretty torn between the intuitive introverts. I was able to narrow it down to INTJ, INFJ or INTP. I’m about 97.2% sure I use Ni. The only thing that’s giving me a bit of doubt is I find myself occasionally learning for the sake of learning which I’ve found is a traditionally Ne trait. Despite this I’m still pretty sure I use Ni as when I go down a rabbit hole and start learning for the sake of learning its always about a topic that interests me or is entertaining. I won’t waste my time learning about something I find mundane or drab. I resonate a lot with Ni’s “aha” moments where the correct answer simply pops into my head or a vision suddenly seems clear or a plot holes solution suddenly seems painstakingly obvious. I also resonate with starting out with a broader range of information/ possibilities and narrowing it down to one or two things. Another intuitive thing I highly relate to is living in the future. If almost never living in the present, and a constantly fixate on the future. I have a distinct, clear, and well thought out plan for the next 20 years (give or take).
Where I run into a bit of trouble is when I try to figure out which judging functions I predominantly use. It honestly feels like I use them all (though I know you’re only supposed to be able to use two well). For example I plan out everything, and set deadlines for myself. My desk often seems really messy to others especially when I’m doing art. This isn’t because I don’t value cleanliness, but because it simply makes more sense to keep all my art supplies out rather than having to spend at least fifteen minutes taking them out and then putting them away only to take them right back out the next day. I set goals based off of easily measurable, external things such as time, or grades. I make daily to do lists that outline everything I’ll need to do in the day, and some stuff to focus on if I have extra time. With my to do list I also plan out the approximate time each thing should take. When coming up with a scientific theory, I take others opinions/theories and test them against each other, and current scientific laws in order to formulate the most probable theory. External opinions (in a scientific/ logical manner) mean a lot to me (I don’t really care about how people that aren’t my friends think of me). To me these things seem very Te. But then I’m always smiling and am a fairly warm person. I want my friends to be happy, and I want to help others. I despise emotionally driven conflict(though I love debates), and while I’m not afraid to disrupt it if it threatens my morals/ is promoting something blatantly wrong (factually or morally) I do really harmony. These seem like pretty Fe things to me. As for Fi, I rarely share my negative emotions, preferring to deal with them predominantly alone. While I may not talk about them much I also have EXTREMELY strong morals. If something is crossing them I’m not going to simply ignore it for the sake of harmony. While I tend to be private I do try to be as authentic as possible. My morals are derived by information I’ve collected and decisions I’ve made myself, rather than being derived by ‘the groups’ collective morals if that makes sense. To me these things appear to be very Fi. As for Ti, sometimes I enjoy learning simply for the sake of learning. The knowledge may have no practical use to me but if I find it interesting or want to learn about it I can devote hours to it. I try and come to the most logical/accurate conclusion possible, and when I’m offering advice I may offer additional advice that takes different variables into account. The truth is really important to me as well.
2. Reading. I absolutely ADORE reading(specifically fantasy/sci-fi/dystopian books or research/scientific articles about topics that interest me). For reference there was a period of time when I had some free time and I was reading 2 or 3 books a day? Read maybe 50 books in the span of 20 days? But yeah I absolutely love reading. Just he way the book sucks you in and deposits you and a completely new world full of wonder and disaster and ugh it’s just magnificent. And don’t even get me started on impeccable character development and eeee. The way rereading a book feels like you’re reconnecting with an old best friend or going back to your childhood home and *sobs*. I also LOVE trying to predict plot twists and character deaths. Most of the time I can predict things correctly and idk it’s really fun to just try and figure out what’s going to happen before the big reveal. And the rush of satisfaction you get when you’ve guessed something right- it also helps me brace for character deaths (sorta. For example I knew *the* death in the final empire [by Brandon Sanderson] was coming since nearly the very beginning [I had my suspicions since the moment vin was introduced] but I still sobbed when the character died. [a tad off topic but what caused me to cry wasn’t the death itself but another characters reaction to it. This is often the case I find. A death of a character I love leaves me feeling empty but what typically gets me to cry is the others reactions- for thus reason funerals usually make me cry. I should also add that I only cry when I’m alone. I’ve cried around people (that aren’t my parents) a grand total of 1 time.]
Uh and daydreaming. I’m almost always daydreaming. Ie. if my brain was a search engine or whatever one tab would be reality and I would consecutively have at lest 20 other tabs open. Some of then playing videos (daydreams) others supplying music(if I’m not actively listening to real music my brain cycles through songs I have memorized. Occasionally does this with book scenes too if I’m bored [yes, I memorize some of my favourite scenes, word for word, so I can play them like a movie in my head when I, bored) others containing random info (just me thinking random stuff) etc.
3. I guess how to solve some problems? Wether it’s a math or science problem, or an argument between friends, figuring out how to solve things has always been something I’m decently good at. Math and science just. Make sense. And then with issues between people I’m good at looking at different perspectives (even ones that I don’t agree with) and playing out different scenarios/ possible outcomes of different approaches. This lets me come up with a solution that will successfully solve the problem with the least amount of negative ramifications involved
4. Hmm maybe being present? I honestly feel like life is passing me by and I’m just immobilized on the sidelines. Im so far into the future that I kinda forget to actually *live* every once in a while.
5. Honesty? Truth? Morals? These topics are all really interesting as they can be kinda subjective. The line between honesty and cruelty is so small. What is truth? Cause while yes, we have some set truths (such as the earth is orbiting the sun) so many ‘truths’ are simply subjective and completely depend on ones perspective. And morals my goodness. The stormlight archive is a really fun series that plays around with things like what is justice? And honour? I won’t get into it now but it brings up so many really interesting questions regarding morals.
6. Perspective . I think perspective is such a fascinating thing. Just. Different opinions. Seeing the world through completely different lenses. Interpreting the same thing in utterly different ways. When toying around with an idea I find it really fun to try and imagine opposing perspectives. While I can find different perspectives really interesting, they can also well... get on my nerves to say the least. Sometimes someone perspective is just? So blatantly wrong? And has absolutely no factual evidence backing it up? And part of me wants to just just scream and it would be so much easier if everyone just. Assessed the facts in front of them instead of making wild accusations or whatever without anything to support them. But yeah overall I think perspectives are really cool and they’re part of what helps to make the world diverse and life so much less interesting without different perspectives.
The future. I’ve found a bunch of my friends find thinking about the future stressful but if I’m being honest I find solace in thinking about the future. Having things planned out and knowing what I intend to do/ where I want to go takes off so much stress. I lowkey live in the future and I honestly cannot wait till it comes, and I achieve my goals. While I might be a bit scared the future excites me so much more than it’ll ever scare me.
7. Maybe add some more stuff about the judging functions and feelings and thinking etc . I absolutely adore science and math. I literally do math for fun. I’m currently aiming to get my PhD in astrophysics.
Not sure if this is relevant at all but my biggest (harmless) pet peeves are my grandmother’s door stopper (it always gets stuck in the door and then u can’t get it out and the door won’t close properly- I have an unhealthy amount of hatred for that thing AHAHJSEJKSMDJDJDJJ) and when people say some variant of “you did good”. Like nO NO YOU DID NOT DO gOoD. YOU DID W E L L (Anyways theres my little mini rant).
I’m my friend groups therapist (sorta). While I’m really not good with words and recycle the same three responses I always let everyone know that I’m here for them and they can talk to me without judgement etc. While I really don’t know what to say or do I try my best because I care about my friends and want to help them. I love them and so I want them to be able to be happy. Im always smiling (though this is more so because people don’t ask me how I’m doing when I look happy than because I’m genuinely happy. Most of the time I’m he farthest thing from that). I’m a pretty warm person who’s always happy to help, however I’m very introverted. I haven’t had a single conversation with the majority of people in my class (I’ve had a convo with maybe 5. Talk to 2 regularly. There are 26 people in my class). I never express negative emotions (with the exception of stress- I panic intensely in the 5 minutes immediately before taking a test as this helps me to completely turn off my nerves while I’m writing the exam. I may also make a joke or two about my negative emotions with close friends). I should also add that when making decisions I value logic more and think thinks through thoroughly, examining the pros and cons etc. While I take feelings and emotions into consideration when making decisions they’re more like an additional variable to consider rather than the main driving force that determines my decision. If I’m feeling really emotional and I need to make a decision I will postpone deciding until I feel more levelheaded. I’m really not impulsive in the slightest.
Thank you so much!!
INTJ
Living in the future rather than the present and your comfort in that sapce, your ability for and enjoyment of making predictions, your ability to really understand and try on different perspectives you don’t necessarily agree with, your focus on “ramifications” (aka future implications) while problem solving - this all points to high Ni.
You also show a Te preference - goals based on external metrics, to-do lists for daily tasks, logic based on the outer world (external opinion). When you said “While I take feelings and emotions into consideration when making decisions they’re more like an additional variable to consider rather than the main driving force that determines my decision” - that is a clear cut definition of Te over Fe preference.
Your tertiary Fi shows through here as well - willing to disrupt harmony if it upsets your morals, your morals being personally derived, needing to understand your emotions while alone. And lastly, your statement about “forgetting to live” from being in the future is pretty textbook inferior Se.
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@jurakan @theamiableanachronism here's my list so far!!
Genre fiction:
Clarkesworld:
1,000 to 22,000 words
10c / word for first 7,000 words, 8c / word after that.
Guidelines: sci-fi and fantasy. Well-written, non-political, no automatic eye-rollers.
Three Crows:
1,000 to 4,000 words
$25 per story
Guidelines: gritty horror, sci-fi and fantasy. Ambiguous morality and Slavic settings are both pluses.
Lightspeed:
1,500 to 10,000 words
8c / word
Guidelines: anything goes! (Sometimes submissions are closed).
Fantasy & Science Fiction:
Up to 25,000 words
7-12c / word
Guidelines: anything goes, preference for science fiction and humor. A read-through of an issue is suggested.
Additional: no simultaneous submissions, they will respond in 8 weeks.
Cricket:
600-6,000 words
Up to 25c / word
Guidelines: any and all genres, but it must be immediate and character-driven, acceptable and wholesome for children, and fun.
Analog:
Up to 20,000 words
8-10 c / word
Guidelines: science fiction where science of some kind is a key element of the plot, in which dynamic characters shine against the fantastical background.
Ares Magazine:
1,000 to 10,000 words
6c / word
Guidelines: sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mythology, pulp adventure, alternative history. No fan fiction.
Additional: no simultaneous submissions or multiple submissions. You’ll hear back in 8 weeks. Occasionally closed for submissions.
Asimov’s Science Fiction:
1,000-20,000 words
8-10 c / word
Guidelines: studies of human existence with strong, relatable characters. Genre can be bent, but no sword and sorcery or graphic-ness.
Additional: no simultaneous submissions. Usually gets back in 5 weeks.
Giganotosaurus:
5,000-25,000 words
$100 per story
Guidelines: intersectional sci-fi and fantasy.
Pseudopod:
1,500 - 6,000 words
6 c / word
Guidelines: horror. Dark, weird, and brutal. All fiction is meant to be in audio form, so no lollygagging. Everything from literary horror to shock value insanity is all good. Genre definitions are for the birds.
Heroic Fantasy Quarterly:
1,000 - 10,000 words
$50-100 per story
Guidelines: unapologetically heroic sword and sorcery.
Additional: only open to submissions in March, June, September and December.
Beneath Ceaseless Skies
Under 15,000 words.
6 c / word
Guidelines: they are fantasy setting nerds and will die for original worldbuilding. Close pov, clear style preferred.
Fiction Vortex
They seem fun but dear lord is their idea for a thing complicated. Look into if I want to write for something as opposed to happily submit my writing elsewhere. Apparently pays $300 flat rate tho.
Aurealis:
2,000-8,000 words
A$20-A$60 / story
Guidelines: sci-fi, fantasy and horror. No horror without supernatural elements, and no derivative works.
Fusion Fragment
2,000 - 15,000 words
3.5 CAD c/ word
up to $300/ story
Guidelines: Science fiction and science fiction subgenres--anything that vaguely resembles scifi, with a preference for the bizarre and an emphasis on quality in style.
Additional: submissions through Moksha. Simulataneous submissions are fine.
Translunar Travelers Lounge
up to 5,000 words
3c / word
Guidelines: FUN stories. Gleeful romance, swashbuckling, intrigue, with plenty of hope and life and joy. Friendships, healthy marriages, equality.
Apparition Lit
1,000 - 5000 words
3c / word, minimum of $30.
flat rate of $30 for poetry.
Guidelines: 'Send us your strange, misshapen stories'. Proactive characters, odd setting, emotional depth and weight.
Additional: an odd and lengthly list of submission steps, make sure to follow those to the letter. Only open to submissions 4 times a year.
Arsenika
up to 1,000 words
$60 / story
$30 / poem
$100 / art
Guidelines: no fan fiction, horror is okay. They seem to be focused on spec fic.
Anathema
only open to queer/poc/indigenous people.
Fiction: 1.5-6k words
Non-Fiction: 1.5 - 3k words
Poetry: under 100 lines
$100(CAD) / story
$50(CAD) / poem
$200(CAD) / cover art
Guidelines: once again, only open to submissions from marginalized groups! including it on this list in case I ever share it.
Grimdark Magazine
up to 4,000 words
7c (AUD)/ word
Guidelines: Must be grim and dark. (They love Joe Abercrombie, for reference) Medieval fantasy or sci-fi.
Metaphorosis Magazine
1,000 - 10,000 words
1c / word
Guidelines: sci-fi and fantasy, beautiful writing, engaging characters. Bonus points for vegan worlds (i.e. no leather goods, meat, or labor animals). No present tense. No overdone tropes. No labeled timeframes. Minimal narration.
Additional: anonymous submissions. don't paint your name everywhere.
Lackington's Magazine
1,500 - 5,000 words
1c (CAD) / word
$25 (CAD) / interior illustrations
$40 (CAD) / cover art
Guidelines: punk, spec fic, all things odd. 2nd person is a hard sell, though, because they see a lot of it. They like stylized prose.
Flash Fiction Online
500 - 1,000 words
8c / word original
2c / word reprints
Guidelines: No hurting women. No hurting men in the ways women are traditionally hurt. 2nd person is a hard sell, as is Evil Human Race, Being Preachy, hiding the mc's name, ending on a identity reveal, sad stories, gory stories.
Strange Horizons
under 5k words preferred, up to 10k
10c / word
Guidelines: they love diverse perspectives, and complex, nuanced stories about political situations. All stories must have spec-fic elements.
Fantasy Magazine
up to 7,500 words
8c / word
Guidelines: fantasy and dark fantasy! They don't have any gripe lists yet.
Nightmare Magazine
1,500 - 7,500 words
6c / word
Guidelines: horror and dark fantasy.
Uncanny
750 - 6000 words
10c / word
Guidelines: speculative fiction. They want intricate, experimental stories with beautiful prose, strong emotions and challenging themes.
Albedo
2,500 - 8,000 words
.6 c / word + print and pdf copy of the magazine issue.
Guidelines: thoughtful, well-written genre fiction. Genre-crossing fiction is also accepted.
Leading Edge Magazine
1,000 - 15,000 words
1c / word
Guidelines: This is a BYU magazine, all stories must adhere to mormon sensibilities (not really a problem anyway?) They just say they're looking for 'fiction', but there's a dragon on their icon so they might do some genre fiction?
Liminal
100 - 6,000 words
6c / word
Guidelines: stories that are strange and unsettling, sharp-edged and evocative. Stories should linger in the mind and evoke emotion in the reader.
Daily Science Fiction
100 - 1,500 words
8c / word, possible anthology royalties (nonexclusive)
Guidelines: Shorter stories are preferred. Character-driven is awesome, but by no means a must. Anything gripping and fun will do -- no horror or erotica, please.
Aftermath Magazine
1500 - 5000 words
2c / word
Guidelines: End-of-the world stories to raise awareness for environmental efforts. They want to celebrate the beauty of the natural world, while it still exists.
The Arcanist
1,000 words or less
$50 / story
Guidelines: Sci-fi and fantasy with strong characters, evoking strong emotions.
The Dark Magazine
2,000 - 6,000
6c / word
Guidlines: Horror and dark fantasy (they don't want graphic violence tho).
PULP magazine
1,000 - 15,000 words
2c - 8c / word (shorter stories get more money)
Guidelines: Solid stories of all genres, accessible to all readers, with balanced emotional weight.
LampLight Magazine
up to 7,000 words
3c / word
Guidelines: Dark fiction. Think The Twilight Zone.
This is by far an exhaustive list--I'm still researching! But hopefully it's helpful?
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Happy Belated New Year! I was just wondering if, during the pandemic, you found any new (or old, but new to you) tv shows that you've fallen in love with? Or otherwise liked enough to binge and/or watch on a regularly basis? I remember noticing you mention something about the books you've read, and I wondered if the same could be applied to another creative media.
So I suppose I should preference this by saying that sometimes I watch things because they are excellent television and sometimes I watch things because they amuse me regardless of quality. I am not above being merely entertained by media; sometimes that’s all I want and frankly, I think that’s fine.
1. The Mandalorian. Which, if I am going to be honest, has saved the bloated, rotting carcass of my once-beloved Star Wars franchise for me. And not just because of Grogu, either; Pedro Pascal is great as a character who never shows his face (but still manages to express so much emotion and intent through voice and movement) and frankly, anybody who would bring Amy Sedaris in as a reoccurring character has my vote, so thank you for everything, Jon Favreau.
2. RWBY. I am not a big fan of Rooster Teeth - that sort of frat boy geek club thing they do there holds no interest for me. But I do love RWBY and, no offense to the late Monty Oum at all, but the past few seasons have really tightened the storylines and improved the writing. Also, they’ve been making an effort to bring in some diversity there which I have appreciated. (For a very much adult show, I really enjoyed gen:LOCK and am looking forward to its second season. I’ve actually been wanting to write some gen:LOCK fanfiction, so that should tell you something!)
3. Snowpiercer (Netflix). Yeah, I enjoyed this! Great cast and plot twists and turns that were earned, not just thrown in there for shock factor. Daveed Diggs and Jennifer Connolly have great chemistry and it works, especially in the sort of claustrophobic atmosphere the show has. I love it when characters are morally gray and both of them play morally gray characters and it works.
4. The Untamed (Netflix). I loved this so much I watched the entirety of it twice. Obviously China took out the love story between the two main characters in the book when they filmed it (hello, state-sanctioned homophobia!) but it’s still there if you are looking for it. Gorgeous, lush costuming and scenery (although terrible wigs on the guys, wtf, ever heard of a lace front?) and some inspired casting in some of the roles. It’s that sort of swooping, epic story that I love and you don’t realize until the very end who has been pulling a lot of the strings (and when you do find out, it’s glorious).
5. Doom Patrol. This is a weird fucking show and I love it. I mean, it’s weird. But in all the ways that tick my boxes. And bless, but Brendan Fraser as a foul-mouthed Dale Earnhardt robot man is something I never knew I needed or wanted but I did, I really, really did. Also, Diane Guerrero is astonishingly good. She won’t get any awards for it - Doom Patrol is not the kind of show that gets awards - but she should.
6. Queer Eye. I watched the original when it aired nearly 20 years ago but the reboot is so much better. SO MUCH. The original was so elitist...I remember in one episode that Thom, the interior decorator, gave this couple with three small kids a glass coffee table and I was like, the fuck is wrong with you? Not only is it dangerous for them in terms of injuries but do you have a clue how often they will be cleaning dirty handprints off that thing? Same with Ted, the cooking guru, who gave complicated recipes with difficult to source ingredients which was just ridiculous. The reboot, on the other hand, is wonderful. Antoni not only teaches cooking techniques but gives recipes that people can realistically make (and pays attention to if the person has kids, is of a certain heritage, etc.). Bobby designs real homes that can be used by the people who live in them (including being kid-friendly, and disability-friendly, for example). Tan is an endless resource of real fashion advice that can benefit ANYBODY, not just sample sized people, and he doesn’t try to make people into someone they aren’t - he just enhances and polishes who they are and who they want/need to be. Jonathan is not only a joy to behold but again, is someone who gives people real grooming advice and haircuts that they can actually keep up with (as opposed to a fancy cut that will take a lot of upkeep that you know the person won’t do) and he gladly delegates to other professionals when he knows he can’t do what is needed (fixing some matted dreads, for example). Karamo is a former social worker who LISTENS to people and really connects with them one on one to help build their confidence and tackle issues. (His predecessor, Jai, was completely useless and to this day I have no idea what he was supposed to be accomplishing.) I love Queer Eye. I love how these five men show by example how men can be nurturing, caring, affectionate and supportive. I love how open they are about their own issues, how open they are with their clients about it as well. (Although I will never EVER stop being pissed off that the producers allowed that fucking white cop to pull over Karamo like that for a “joke”.)
7. The Expanse. Yes, there are a lot of differences between the show and the books. But I don’t mind them; if anything I just look at the TV show as a different entity altogether and judge it accordingly. This is the first “hard” sci-fi I’ve really enjoyed since the Battlestar Galactica reboot ended. (The reboot of Galactica remains one of my favorite TV shows of ever, btw. I’ve tried to re-watch it but it reminds me too much of my late wife and I just can’t. But that’s on me and not the show.)
8. Good Omens. This was a delight, from start to finish. I read the book when it originally came out (my paperback copy is battered and well-loved) and it makes me laugh just as much today as it did 30 years ago. What more can be said about how absolutely fantastic David Tennant and Michael Sheen are? Or the careful and loving way Douglas Mackinnon handled the source material? Neil Gaiman meant this as a love letter to his much-missed friend Terry Pratchett and it succeeded in every single way.
9. RuPaul’s Drag Race. What can I say? I watch all of its variations. It’s overblown and relies on cheap, drummed up drama and I don’t give a shit. I’ve been watching since it first premiered and continue watching. Although I’m not yet sold on the new Porkchop plot twist thing this season.
10. Killing Eve. Oh man. A love story between two women, one of whom is a sociopathic serial killer? It’s so wrong and yet so, so right. Great performances by Sandra Oh and Jodie Comer. I especially love that they don’t try to somehow rehabilitate Villanelle; that would just ruin the entire thing. Oh and Fiona Shaw is one of my favorite character actresses and she does not disappoint. If you like your TV dark then this is the show for you.
2020′s been a weird year for TV, for sure. Kind of scarce, thanks to the pandemic, but what can you do? Anyhow, here’s my top 10, Anon!
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Your ideology -- if it gets off the ground at all -- will start off with a core base of natural true believers. These are the people for whom the ideology is made. Unless it’s totally artificial, they are the people by whom the ideology is made. It serves their psychological needs; it’s compatible with their temperaments; it plays to their interests and preferences. They’re easy to recruit, because you’re offering something that’s pretty much tailor-made for them.
This is the level at which ideological movements are the most diverse, in terms of human qualities. Natural true believers are heavily selected, and different movements select for different things. A natural true radical feminist is a very different creature from a natural true fascist, and neither of them looks very much like a natural true Hastur cultist.
Life in a baby movement, populated entirely (or almost entirely) by natural true believers, can be pretty sweet. You may not necessarily be getting a lot done, but you’re surrounded by kindred spirits, and that’s worth a lot by itself.
One of the most common ideological failure modes involves imagining that expansion is tantamount to “transforming outsiders into natural true believers.” It’s not. The population of natural true believers is a limited and precious resource, and while it’s theoretically possible to make more...if you have some truly gifted cultural engineers...it’s a difficult, costly, and failure-prone process at the best of times. It doesn’t work at scale.
You can grow, but the growth process necessarily involves attracting other kinds of people to your ideology. And then it won’t be the same.
Success, I think, requires some understanding of what growth is actually going to bring you, and being able to roll with those changes.
**********
The first outsiders to flock to your banner will be the perpetual seekers -- or, to put it less charitably, the serial converters. These are the hipsters and connoisseurs of belief, the people who join movements because they really like joining movements.
They’ll think that you and your doctrines are amazing, at least for a little while. They’re primed for that. But they get bored easily, and they like chasing after the high of new epiphanies. Unless you figure out how to hold their attention in a sustained way, which requires constant work, they’ll drift off.
This is the second-most-common way for a movement to die (after “never really getting anywhere in the first place”). You attract a few interested seekers, but not enough of them to give you a foothold in less-accessible demographics, and after a while they just give up and move on. If you’re lucky, they leave you with something like the original core of natural true believers, sadder but wiser after their experience trying to go big. If you’re unlucky, they cause lots of drama and shred everything on the way out.
These guys can be very annoying to natural true believers, but if you want to expand, you 100% absolutely need them. If you’re smart, you’ll take precautions to make sure they don’t walk off with key pieces of your infrastructure.
**********
If you display some serious growth potential, you start getting the profiteers, who don’t much care about your doctrine or your happy vibe but do care about that growth potential. These are people who see your movement as a vehicle for their private ambitions, who want to sell you to the world and ride you all the way to the top.
...I’ve used some mercantile language here, but they’re not necessarily merchants trying to get rich, although that’s the prototype case I have in mind. They may be going for political power, or simple fame, or all sorts of things. Whatever it is they want, they think that you can help them get it, because your star is rising.
In the long term, even the medium term, the profiteers can utterly wreck you if you’re not careful. They tend to amass a lot of movement-internal power very fast, because they have big plans, and they promise concrete rewards quick. But they usually don’t get whatever-it-is that the movement is really about, and even if they do get it, they don’t care as much as you do. Their instinct is to make your Whole Thing as bland and generic and palatable as they can, so that they can sell it to the widest possible consumer base in the shortest possible timeframe. This is a miserable and degrading experience, of course, but it’s also bad strategy in an eating-your-seed-corn kind of way. The world gets a constant stream of bland generic palatable Hot New Things, and it chews through them fast. There’s a future in being something genuinely weird enough to change the world; there’s no future in being last year’s fad. The profiteers, however, aren’t interested in being careful shepherds of your movement’s power and credibility. The arc of an individual’s career is not that long. Consciously or otherwise, they are happy to burn you up as fuel for themselves.
In the short term, the profiteers are super awesome. They will work tirelessly to help your movement grow, and they will do so in a very effective and practical-minded sort of way, without getting bogged down in the dysfunctions and the arcane abstract concerns that (probably) dominate your natural true believers.
Yes -- these first three groups map roughly onto the geeks, MOPs, and sociopaths of that one Meaningness essay. There’s a lot of applicable insight in there. It’s important, however, that if your group is built around a serious ideology rather than a consumable toy, standard-issue Members of the Public aren’t going to come flocking to you during these early stages. Members of the Public don’t adopt new ideologies that easily. Your weirdos will be able to attract only other, different kinds of weirdos.
**********
Close on the heels of the profiteers, you will get the exploiters. Where the profiteers are trying to sell you to the world, the exploiters are trying to sell themselves to you; where the profiteers are trying to make your movement grow (for their own purposes), the exploiters see you as an environment that’s already big enough for them to thrive in it.
Some of them are hucksters and con artists. Some of them are, yes, sexual predators in the classic mold, going after a known population of unusually-naive unusually-vulnerable people who let their guard down around anyone speaking the right shibboleths. (That describes pretty much any ideological movement at this stage. Sorry.)
And some of them are just lonely people desperate to belong to something, who think that they’ve found your movement’s cheat codes for belonging. Some of them are fetishist-types who don’t have the whatever-it-takes to be one of your natural true believers, but who admire or desire that thing, and hope that they can be around their favorite people and get a Your Movement GF or whatever.
Often they’ll be harmless. Sometimes they really, really, really won’t. There will be more of them than you expect.
At the very least, they’re a marker of success. Apparently you’re worth exploiting!
**********
You’ll know that you’ve really made it, as a movement, when you start getting the fifth wave of converts: the status-mongers. They’re joining up with you because they think it will be good for their social lives or their careers -- not in an “I’m going to be the guy who gets rich off of this” kind of way, but in a much lower-key “this makes me look cool or smart or moral, this is good for my reputation” kind of way. They want the generic approval that comes from being on the forefront of the zeitgeist, and apparently the forefront of the zeitgeist is where you are, now. Congratulations.
The arrival of the status-mongers represents a crisis point for your ideology. There will be a lot of them; they’ll soon outnumber all your other people by an order of magnitude or more. (Status-mongers attract more status-mongers, as each one makes it clearer to the world-at-large that your ideology is in fact cool.) They will become the general public’s image of your movement, whether you like it or not. Most of them definitely will not get your Whole Thing, not really. They are interested mostly in being comfortable, in showing off to unenlightened mainstream audiences, and in using your doctrine as a cudgel to beat on their personal rivals.
At this point you don’t really have to fear disappearing into obscurity, but you’re in more danger than ever of losing your way and becoming something totally alien. The status-mongers will be doing their level best to make that happen. You will also start attracting enemies far more powerful and dangerous than any you’ve known before. Anything truly popular and high-status represents a threat to someone big. You need to start prepping for persecution, culture war, and other varieties of large-scale social conflict.
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If you can weather all that and come out on top, you finally get the sixth wave of converts, the big prize: the normies. People will join your movement because that’s what everyone else is doing, because that’s what they’ve been taught, because they don’t want to stand out or make waves, because they don’t really care and you represent a plausible default.
Most of the people out there are normies.
That’s the endgame, the victory condition for an expansionist ideology: that you are the normies’ choice.
**********
These are the groups that are out there. This is what you’ll get, when you turn your gaze toward the path of growth. This, and not whatever visions of radical social transformation dance before your eyes when you look at your beloved allies who are just like you.
Brace yourself for it.
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ISLAM 101: Creation: Part 4
What is the Primordial Covenant?
This matter is directly mentioned in the Qur’an:
And whenever your Sustainer brings forth their offspring from the loins of the children of Adam, He (thus) calls upon them to bear witness about themselves: “Am I not your Lord?”—to which they answer: “Yes, indeed, we do bear witness thereto.” [Of this we remind you] lest you say on the Day of Resurrection: “Verily, we were unaware of this.” (7:172)
According to this verse, every soul was required, at some point, to bear witness to its recognition of the Divine Existence and Unity. Qur’anic commentators continue to debate when this covenant was made. Therefore, we will look at a few considerations as to when and how and to whom this question was put.
• When we were as yet nothing and received the command Be!, we gave an affirmative existential response to God’s creative act, which is represented or dramatized as a question-answer or a covenant.
• When we're still in the form of atoms or even particles not yet formed as atoms, the Lord of the Worlds, Who cherishes and leads everything to perfection, made these particles feel the desire and joy of being human. He, therefore, took the promise and covenant from them, which is considered a “Yes” from all atoms to God’s creative call, though it was far beyond their own power to even imagine such an affirmation.
Such question–answer or offer–acceptance is not in words or statements. For this reason, the event has been interpreted allegorically by some, as if the question were put, answered, and had a particular legal value and effect, although it is not an actual verbal or written contract. In fact, without taking into account God’s power and innumerable ways of communicating with His creatures, considering this covenant to be an ordinary contract can lead only to difficulty and error.
This acknowledgment and declaration, this covenant bearing witness against ourselves as regards our recognition of the Divine Existence and Unity, is the ground of our knowing and feeling ourselves, of comprehending that we are nothing other than ourselves. In other words, this covenant is the ground of self-knowledge. It means that we start to look into the mirror of knowledge (ma’rifa), witness the realization of diverse truths reflected in our consciousness, and acknowledge and declare that witnessing. However, the offer–acceptance, the perceiving–making perceived, the covenant, is not overt or amenable to direct perception. Perhaps it becomes perceived after many warnings and orders, and thus the significance of moral and religious guidance, counseling, and enlightenment.
The ego or self (nafs) is created and entrusted to us so that we may know and declare the Creator’s Existence and Unity. Therefore, we prove God’s Existence with our own existence and show God’s Attributes with our own attributes. For example, our deficiencies and imperfection show God’s all-sufficiency and perfection; our privations show God’s wealth and abundance; and our inability, weakness, and poverty show God’s power, favor, and benevolence. The covenanted self is God’s first favor and bestowal upon humanity. Our proper response is to know and declare God’s Existence throughout creation and to perceive His Light in all lights. This is how the primordial covenant is fulfilled. The covenant is like a command that is accepted through understanding the meaning of the magnificent Book of Creation written by the Divine Power and Will, of our comprehending the secrets of the lines of events.
Divine Speech is so diverse and extensive—from the inspiration coming to the human heart to the discourse addressed to the angels—and the forms of communication between the Creator and His creation are so different and occur in such different realms that those who inhabit one realm cannot hear or detect the communications belonging to another realm.
It is a serious mistake to suppose that we can hear everything. It is generally accepted that the range of our hearing, like our sight, is quite limited. What we see and hear is almost nothing when compared to that which we cannot see or hear. For this reason, God’s communicating with the atoms or systems within this creation, His composing, decomposing or re-composing them, occur in such sublime ways that our limited perceptive powers cannot detect or understand them.
We cannot know exactly when God made this covenant with us, for such knowledge is beyond the ability of our limited senses and faculties. In fact, He might have made it not with our whole being, but with a specific part, such as our soul, conscience, or one of the soul’s sub-faculties.
There is general agreement that the human soul is an entity independent of the body. Since the soul came into existence before the physical body, and in a sense has a particular individual nature outside of time, and since the questioning and acceptance in the covenant was with the soul, our limited powers cannot comprehend or report it fully. The soul hears and speaks without words and voice, as it does in dreams, and communicates extrasensorily and without the medium of sound waves, as in telepathy. This special form of communication is registered and recorded in its own specific way. When its time is due, it will assume its specific form and, using that language, speak and bring to the mind all original associations. At that time, we will see that the covenant has remained imprinted upon the human soul. In addition, it will be adduced as an argument against its possessor on the Day of Judgment.
The souls of all human beings were gathered in a realm that was not veiled by an intervening realm, and so saw everything clearly. After this, they gave God an oath of allegiance. When He asked them to witness against themselves: “Am I not your Lord?” they replied: “Yes, we witness that You are our Lord and our God.” However, as is common today, some people have never turned to that section of their soul (their conscience). Thus, they have not come across that profoundly inherent covenant in themselves, for they have no interest in it and have not tried to see beyond the corporeal world that intervenes between them and reality.
If their minds were not clouded by the conditioning biases under which they live, they would see and hear the answer to the covenant in their conscience. This is the main purpose of inward and outward, as well as subjective and objective contemplation and search. Engaging in such activities saves the mind from self-obsession and frees ideals. With an open mind and a genuinely free will, people can try to read the delicate writings in their consciences. Some people who have habituated themselves to looking into the depths of their hearts cannot discover in books the thoughts and inspiration they acquire through such inward observation and contemplation. Even the allegorical meanings and allusive signs in the Divine Books can become manifest in their true profundity if studied in such a manner. But people cannot attain such a profound level of inward observation and contemplation, or understand what they might discover there if they cannot overcome their own selves.
Let’s look at the when of this covenant. It is really difficult to derive anything definite from the Qur’an and Hadith on this matter. Some commentators argue that the covenant is taken in the realm of atoms, when the person is in a state of uncomposed, separate atoms, and with the atoms and the soul of which the person will be composed. Others say that the covenant is taken while the sperm is traveling toward the egg when the individual begins to form in the mother’s womb when it becomes a fetus when the spirit is breathed into the fetus, when the child reaches puberty, or when the person is religiously responsible for his or her actions.
While each claim has its own supporting arguments, it is difficult to show a serious reason for preferring one to another.
In fact, this event could happen in the realm of spirits, in a different realm where the soul relates to or gets in touch with its own atoms, in an embryonic stage, or in any stages till the individual reaches puberty. God Almighty, Who relates to both past and present simultaneously, Who sees and hears past and present together at the same instant, could take the covenant at all of the stages mentioned. As believers, we hear such communication from the depth of our consciences and know that our hearts have borne witness to such a covenant.
As a stomach expresses its emptiness in its own language, as a body tells its aches and pains in its own words, so the conscience informs us of this event in its own language and words. It suffers pain, distress, and affliction. Moaning with pangs of regret, it becomes restless to keep the promise made, and always hopes for the good and the best. When it draws attention by its sighs and moans, it feels relieved, fortunate and happy, just as children do when they draw their parents’ attention. When it cannot express its need or find anyone to understand it, it writhes in pain and distress.
Are there any rational proofs that the covenant really took place?
Some issues that are difficult to explain by reason. Yet the possibility of such things can be mentioned. In fact, we cannot object to what God has affirmed.
Essentially, the Almighty speaks to His creations in many ways. We also use different ways and styles when communicating with others. Apart from words, we have various outer and inner faculties, sentiments and perceptions, mind and soul. Sometimes we speak to ourselves in words audible only to our hearts and minds. Such speech is not utterance but pertains to the soul or self. At times, we communicate with others using these non-verbal methods.
At times we speak, hear, and listen to conversations in our dreams. But those who are awake and nearby hear nothing. After waking up, we tell them what we spoke and heard. So this is another mode of speech.
Some awake people can see the pictures or tablets shown to them from the World of Ideas and speak to its inhabitants. Materialists do not believe in such things and may refer to them as hallucinations. It does not matter; let them say so… But we know that one of Prophet Muhammad’s distinctions was that he was granted a vision of such tablets, pictures from the World of Ideas and from other worlds and that he conveyed to humanity what he saw, heard, and understood. So this is another mode of speech.
Revelation to the Prophets is yet another. We know that the Prophet was fully awake and conscious when the Revelation came. Sometimes he would be lying on the ground with his head on his wife’s knee, sitting and leaning against a Companion’s shoulders, while his knee was touching the knee of the Companion sitting next to him, or among a group of people. At such times, he felt, received, and experienced the revelation with its full weight, and conveyed the Divine message in its entirety. Those in his presence realized, from what they could see, that the Prophet was receiving Revelation, although they could not hear it. They could “hear” and understand it only after he communicated it to them verbally. It was as if the dimensions were different.
Another way of speaking is Divine inspiration. God inspires saints, and influences impart or dictate something into their hearts in such a way that they can deduce something. When they guess or speak or act, God makes them do or say just the right thing by His mercy. So this is yet another mode of speech.
Another way of communication from heart to heart, and from mind to mind, is telepathy. This method is defined as sending thoughts or messages to another person’s mind by extrasensory means. Many scientists have studied this phenomenon in the hope of benefiting from it. The atheistic and materialist Soviet regime did sustained work on telepathy, no doubt in the hope of gaining a military advantage.
Based on the above, it is clear that God created numerous, perhaps unlimited, modes of speech and communication.
Returning to the question of “Am I not your Lord?” in the primordial covenant, we do not know how God asked this question. If it took the form of Divine inspiration to saints, it would not be correct to expect some kind of audible voice. If it was a question asked of the soul, certainly, it would not resemble a question asked of the body or flesh—or vice versa.
The crucial point here is that if we attempt to evaluate what they see, hear, or experience in other realms with worldly criteria and measures, we will end up in error. A hadith states that the angels Munkar and Nakeer interrogate the dead in their graves. So, to whom or what do they direct their questions? But whether they question the soul or the body, the result is the same. Though the dead hear the questions, others buried nearby and living passers-by cannot hear them. Even the most sophisticated modern listening devices placed in or near the grave will not detect anything, for it takes place in a different dimension. Some scientists have claimed that there are many more dimensions than just the three that are familiar to us. As a place, context, and dimensions change, the mode of interrogation and communication must change and assume an appropriate form.
As the primordial covenant is between God and our soul, we cannot expect to feel and retain the influence of that instant in any physical way. Rather, we should expect it to be reflected in our conscience, as only our conscience and the inspirations that come to it can sense such a thing. Once, while I was talking about this issue, someone told me that he did not feel that question and answer of the covenant in himself. I replied: “Not feeling it is a difficulty for you. Try to solve it.”
As for me, I felt it and remember quite well that I did so. If I am asked how I feel it, I say that it is by my desire for eternity, and by my infinite desire despite my limited, transitory existence. Essentially, I cannot know and comprehend God because I am limited. How can I comprehend the Unlimited, the Infinite, the Everlasting, the Absolute, the Almighty? But because of my endless desire and enthusiasm for the Infinite and Eternal, I realize that I feel it. I aspire to infinity and eternity, even though I am a tiny creature in a limited world in a limited universe; one destined to live for a while and then die; one whose range of views and opinions are expected to be fixed, confined, and narrow. Despite this, I yearn for Paradise, the Vision of God, and the Divine Beauty. If I owned the whole world, my anxieties and griefs would still torment me. Because I have such aspirations, I say: “I felt it.”
Our conscience, with all its sub faculties and sections, always tries to remain attached to God and never lies. If you give it what it requires, it can attain peace and tranquillity. That is why the Qur’an points out that our heart, which is a subtle inner faculty, can attain peace only if the conscience can attain it: For without doubt in the remembrance of God do hearts find satisfaction (13:28).
Yes, one’s conscience is in agony if it rejects God, for it can find ease and satisfaction only through belief in God. If we really listen to what our conscience is saying, we will feel the desire for the Eternal and Abiding God. This feeling, perception, or quality is equivalent to the response of: “Yes, we bear witness thereto” to the question: “Am I not your Lord?” expressed silently within the human conscience. If we pay close attention, we can hear this voice, which wells up from the depths of our souls. To look for it in our mind or body is futile, for it already exists, latent and inherent, in every human conscience. However, it can prove its existence only on its own terms. Only those close to the state of the Prophets and saints, and who follow their ways, can see it clearly and make others see it.
Such matters cannot be proven in the manner of a simple, physical existent like a tree. However, those who listen to their conscience, who turn their gaze inward and observe what happens there, will see, hear, and know the primordial covenant between us and our Maker.
#allah#god#islam#muslim#revert#reverthelp#reverthelp team#convert#new revert#new convert#n#ew muslim#muslim revert#muslim convert#welcome to islam#revert to islam#convert to islam#how to convert islam#prophet#muhammad#quran#sunnah#hadith#dua#pray#prayer#salah#help#religion#muslimah
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The Constructive Agony of Talking Politics at Shabbat (Or How to Survive a Debate with Your Relatives)
By Gabriella Kamran
Illustration by Sophie Levy
I wasn’t yet 20 years old and I had already forgotten what it felt like to join my relatives for Shabbat dinner and eat brisket without a side of political commentary. Was that a new phenomenon? Was I too busy spitting tomatoes into napkins as a child that I didn’t notice the moral axioms being thrown above my head? Regardless, charged conversation after charged conversation gradually emerged from background noise while I chewed to a dynamic that captured my interest and charted the course of my intellectual development.
It seems accurate to say that I entered the fray around the same time I started buying my own clothes. These were the early teenage years: I was testing the waters of feminism, experimenting with political Facebook posts, and learning that not everything I believe to be true is, in fact, the truth. Every young person has a moment of realization that adults can sometimes be profoundly wrong. Mine took place gradually over a series of weekly dinners, as my male relatives argued and I felt an arsenal of my own opinions weighing in my chest.
I will say with no qualifiers that it is difficult for a fourteen-year-old girl to wedge herself into a conversation with several adult men. First, there is the issue of a quiet voice, not yet amplified by the support of social affirmation. Then there is the matter of being taken seriously — that is, the unspoken surprise that I was not in the living room talking to my girl cousins about nail polish.
(The aunts, for their part, either ladled soup in the kitchen or listened at the table, inserting a comment when appropriate. For a long time, I interpreted their disinterest as ignorance or resignation to gender norms, but with maturity one gets better at recognizing weariness. I remember once my jaw dropped when a cousin’s grandmother expressed a political opinion out loud- something about Hillary’s foreign policy. I hated myself for being so shocked that she’d have something to say.)
I learned quickly that family debate is rocky terrain. The post-meal discussion usually unfolded as follows:
Man 1: This ObamaCare is going to put doctors out of business, I’m telling you.
Man 2: Just awful. The liberals are pushing us towards socialism. Aunt: We’re just giving more and more money to the lazy bums. Me: What about the majority of poor people who aren’t lazy and were born into poverty? I don’t think anyone genuinely wants to be on welfare.
Man 2: Oh, no. We send our kids to the conservative schools and they still get brainwashed by liberals.
Man 1: Question everything your teachers tell you, Gabs. They have an agenda. An agenda. 
Alternatively, the “elders” card was pulled and the conversation stopped short:
Me: I don’t think you should call people _____
Relative: You can’t speak to me like that. How can you disrespect your family?
The more politically conscious I became, the more these dinners began to wear on my nerves. At school, I was learning so much I could almost feel my mind growing into itself. The classic teenage practice of finding oneself was in full force for me as I wrote school newspaper op-eds in my successive editor positions and defined myself in the lines of my rhetoric. Dinner with relatives sucked this pride out of my chest and pulled the plug on my budding confidence. I oscillated between righteous indignation that prompted me to sit firmly in place when the political debate started during our meal and outright fear that anyone would ask me at any point in the night about something of more import than my week’s activities. Family dinners became a matter of fight or flight. 
I took refuge in journalism and books. They seemed to possess more certainty than my relatives’ armchair sociological analyses. I read Betty Friedan, Ta Nehisi Coates, Ari Shavit… and the fact that I considered these all to be radical texts is indicative of how intimidated I felt in political terms. My progressive ideals were no longer inclinations; I could use words like “neoliberal” and “reactionary” to match my relatives’ rhetorical skill. Vocabulary aside, however, a gulf persisted between me and some of the men in my family.
What was this gulf, exactly? Was it a generational gap? Surely an ideological divide existed between every new crop of cousins, fathers and daughters, uncles and nieces. Common wisdom dictates that naïve youth will always be more progressive and open-minded than their older counterparts. It seemed to me, though, that something more was at play here. These Shabbat dinners meant more than a blasé tidal shift in opinions, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was.
The time came for me to go to college, and I was surrounded for the first time by a collection of politically conscious people who had enough intellectual acuity to rigorously critique the elder generation’s values. 
I met friends who told me their grandparents were “hella liberal” and still smoked weed on the weekends, and I beheld these friends in awe. This must have been the diversity they extolled in admissions brochures, the expansion of horizons — but which one of us was living in a bubble? Then there were the students who seemed to have swallowed their relatives’ platitudes like pills, rolling their eyes when they passed a student protest or snickering at T.A.’s requests to state our preferred gender pronouns. These students made me the most uneasy. 
Mostly, though, college brought me a network of friends who shared my experience. By this time we had all developed standby strategies to deal with opinionated table talk: some blocked out the rhetoric and ate their khoresht in peace, and some, like me, often ventured back into the weekly scuffles like moths to a partisan flame.
But, of course, it was more than righteous indignation that pulled me back into the tides of argument. The supposed radical leftist hegemony on college campuses gave my relatives plenty of dinner table fodder on the nights when I made the ten-minute journey from my dorm to their dining rooms. They particularly liked to raise an issue with my chosen minor, Gender Studies, which they denounced as man-hating. As they prodded me about my professors in order to attack their liberal agendas, I felt the familiar nagging anxiety: Was the leftist haven I found in college making me tone-deaf, insular under the pretense of high-minded morality? I felt obligated to listen to every dismissal of Hillary Clinton, every racial slur, and every condemnation of Islam. This was my internal protest at their accusations of narrow-mindedness.
I still wondered what was really new in our political conversations. Topics had changed — Obama and McCain became Hillary and Trump, Al Qaeda became ISIS, gay became LGBTQIA+ — but the emotions I had as a young progressive facing several elder conservatives were constant. What were we all feeling during those semi-heated exchanges? We one-upped each other and attacked arguments at weak points, but what was the seed of all this debate? Perhaps it was a sense of familial betrayal.
We swear to keep family and business separate but there is no such promise when it comes to politics, although we know they are equally divisive. “The personal is political” is also true in reverse — to disparage someone’s worldview is an affront to their world. Political standpoints are currents that run deeper than the surface waters of opinion. Debate is healthy and insult is not, and the line between them is fine.
One August night before my freshman year of college, one family member reminded me once again to question everything my professors would tell me.
“These are a different kind of people. Really liberal. They don’t think like us.”
I wondered briefly what he meant by “us,” considering our often radically divergent opinions. He had been at the dinner table all these years — could it be that he never truly listened to me?
My cousin leaned toward me, interrupting my thoughts.
“Or you could come back from college a flaming liberal, and we’ll still love you.”
I was struck by the resonance of my cousin’s joke, and I still think about it often. By the very merit of calling one another family, we make an implicit promise to stand by one another and love unconditionally – that is, regardless of ideology. When we sit across the dining room table, embroidered white tablecloth stretching between us, and launch attacks intended not to teach, not to strengthen, but to change, there is a sense of combat that doesn’t belong in a family. These mealtime political debates are not a leisurely pastime but a battle driven by an attempt to win, and to win means to vanquish. Hovering over the platters of chicken and tadig is an intention to change one another, and the promise of loyalty feels contingent upon your next comeback. 
Isn’t that what families do, though? We change each other. Any amateur psychologist will tell you that our personalities begin at home. Parents, and to an extent other relatives, are charged with the responsibility of edifying their children. It takes a village, and a large part of this is the admonitions and proverbs of the villagers. Perhaps my relatives feel this weight of social obligation propelling them forward as they critique my beliefs. They crave my confirmation that they are succeeding in their efforts. Maybe when I push back and hold my own, they feel some kind of failure.
There’s a Jewish parable in which a sage, faced with a crowd of scholars who disagree with his judgment, asks God to determine who is correct. God declines to comment. The wise men debate and eventually move forward with a decision. From heaven, God laughs with joy: “My sons have defeated me!”
The goal of true mentorship has never been indoctrination. Young people look to their beloved elders to create some kind of safe space to learn to walk, to stumble, to mess up. The goal is that eventually, the pupil becomes the teacher. A student who recites their teachers’ talking points is a student lost. 
Through the ages, a 7 p.m. roundtable over plates of freshly-cooked dinner has been the family’s classroom. The curriculum is set by the routine inquiries of “What did you learn at school today?” and, “How was work?” Some families study in groups of three, and some are lucky enough to learn alongside dozens. I should hope that men in my family take enough interest in my growth to stretch my mind and challenge my thinking. So, too, should they hope I prove them wrong sometimes.
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Male Allies
Probably not the best ally, okay, but still I’d like to be the ally! Sometimes indeed I like to heavily criticize certain segments of the feminist crowd or certain types of women in my own private spaces, yet I like to also stand up for the rights & dignity of women in public spaces if I see them being attacked. For example now that the hideous crimes of Marilyn Manson were discussed a lot recently, I did in fact criticize his victims for going to bed with such a blatant sociopath in the first place. Still I support these women in their efforts to bring this miserable excuse of a human being to justice regardless of what I think about the moral integrity of their decisions to date him... So now I’d like to discuss all my issues with the whole business of being a male ally!
Side note: recently I came to find arrogant limousine liberals like J. K. Rowling & her “gender-critical” allies more alienating than all the items listed below. Not because I want her excellency to be cancelled or whatever, but on the other hand I think it is the trannies who are being cancelled as we speak. I live with some sort of Autism, you know, which means I am all too often also treated like a piece of shit by these bigoted narcissistic whores who think they are always right about everything since they have been through this & that. Well, guess what? I have also been through this & that, sweethearts, pretty much! Instead of becoming an incel jerk, however, I decided to support other freaks against these affluent white heterosexual bitches who barely even suffer from Patriarchy thanks to their elevated socal standing. Sorry, not sorry!!!
This just relates, however, to my number 1 grievance about men who boast about how much they admire the hell out of women: the popular misconception of Male Feminism as an uncritical veneration of women. No!!! Women are kind of cool, okay, but they ain’t that cool! In many cases they don’t even want to be, for a start, so there is nothing inherently feminist about worshiping the 2nd sex. Actually there is no such thing as a woman, you know, they are such a diverse bunch! I love my mother for having nurtured me & all that stuff, also some of my ex-girlfriends who were nice to me, also some of my future girlfriends who will be nice to me, but that’s it. To hell with everyone else!
Okay, next item: the nice guy who thinks his niceness should entitle him to better sex. Yeah, but I do believe in the possibility of a sensible dialogue with at least some of these dudes! They should see how the way they perceive the Social Justice crowd as a totalitarian cult is fueled by their own personal frustrations & it’s basically the driving forces of Patriarchic Capitalism that fuel them in the first place. Many of them might indeed just think they are/were nice while having actually been total jerks all along, but I think many do really try to not to be assholes while struggling to see through the thick digital smog of reactionary propaganda to understand the intricacies of this evil post-modern world...
Come next, however, the other side of the coin: the mean girl who uses some very vulgar sort of pop feminism as an excuse to be an anti-social egocentric bitch, selling her visceral hatred of men as a rational ideological position. It’s kind of how the far right sells their hatred of foreigners, you know, or also their hatred of women as a matter of fact. Yeah, nice girls finish last!!! I don’t want to mansplain about this not being the way to dismantle the Patriarchy or whatever, so let’s just say I hate these women. They don’t owe me any sex, okay, but I don’t owe them any sympathy either! Just saying.
Come 4th the fuckboys who venerate the figure of the modern whore with all her flaws: indeed a certain improvement upon the “techniques” of despising women as a means to get laid, but it still just kind of sucks. No, sorry, sluts don’t rule! They are evil! Some of them may rule nevertheless, but it’s despite the fact that they are evil sluts, not because of it. Seriously, this vapid notion that they rule cuz men deserve to be treated like shit is often just a cheap excuse to be a piece of shit in the 1st place. Some people may call it romantic realism, I prefer to call it bollocks.
Last but not least: celebrating a bunch of narcissistic douchebags even higher up the ladder, mostly celebrities, for paying lip service to the cause within a Liberal information bubble. Seriously, you just re-inforce the predicament of Patriarchy by feeding the hungry egos of influential hypocrites as if you were their groupies or something... Yeah, well, it’s my envy talking cuz I don’t get laid as much as they do! That’s why I’m dating online.
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Re: Pan-Celtism and Celtic Descendants
Hi @aira-of-the-circle
I’m making my response in it’s own separate post as tumblr isn’t that great of a place for academic discussion, as I that’s something I prefer using the Gaulpol Discord for.
For those looking to follow the earlier part of this discussion, you can find it here:
https://aira-of-the-circle.tumblr.com/post/180820801915/once-again
Much of this confusion surrounds, the question of what exactly is a Celt? The word actually comes from ‘Keltoi’ what the Gauls called themselves, which means ‘descendants of The Hidden One’.
I understand your opinion of Celtic is that of an umbrella term for the religions/memories of religions of Celtic speaking nations and asserts that is in fact a label that exists beyond simple linguistics. I disagree, as the the Continental and Insular Celts (living in the times before, during and after the Roman occupations) actually had a super diverse ethnicity and religion, and the only thing that actually connected them was their language.
From Jean-Louis Brunaux’s Les Druides. Des philosophes chez les Barbares (French Edition):
“We wondered a lot about the reality of this little divine family. Was it conceived in this form among all Gallic peoples? The ethnic diversity of the peoples, the no less great of their political regimes and their strong particularisms make it doubtful. The Gallo-Roman epigraphic and statuary testimonies, certainly late, confirm in any case a religious geography of Gaul very contrasted if the figure of Mercury is very present at the beginning of our era in many regions of Gaul, it is often competed by Mars, Apollo, less often by Jupiter and in many cases by local or indigenous deities who do not find exact correspondent in the Roman pantheon.”
“As has been suggested above, Caesar himself could not forge this image of the Gallic gods by producing a synthesis based on the various information he could have obtained from the very mouths of Gauls encountered during his expeditions. He simply drew it from the work of Poseidonios.”
This dude is legit, as he is a researcher for CNRS and has done a bunch of excavations of Gaulish sites as part of his career.
If we think of Celtic in how archaeologists do, as an ancient people sharing a common material culture and distinctive (and cool) art style, Celtic would include the people of Central Europe (not just Gaul!) and British Isles in the late Halstatt period and all the way down to the Roman conquest, makes the argument that the Celts are dead entirely defunct because there are surviving languages, as well as material cultures.
Most Celtic scholars assign Celtic a linguistic significance for a reason. (Bettina Arnold goes over this. Her background: https://uwm.edu/anthropology/people/arnold-bettina/ as does Kim McCone, his background: https://www.amazon.com/Kim-McCone/e/B001K8513M) It’s done to eliminate the discrepancies I previously mentioned (through there are still a few issues). This means the people living in the six modern Celtic countries (Ireland, Scotland Wales, Brittany, Cornwall, and Isle of Man) or who currently speak / had ancestors who recently spoke a Celtic language are in fact Celtic. Not just Celtic either, but also the identity relating to their Celtic nation, like Gael or Cornish.
When it comes to the the past Celtic religions are inseparable and intertwined, many people see this initially and become stuck in the idea due to lack of appropriate knowledge. It ignores and dismisses the separation of each unique Celtic people by time, region, and cultural shaping events. Basing the idea of a singular Celtic religion on a few cognate deities (some of which aren’t actually found in each Celtic speaking territory) Lugh, Llew, and Lugus come to mind but it’s important to keep in mind that Lugus isn’t actually directly attested in Gaulish speaking lands.
Are there similarities in each religion?
For sure.
Does that mean these unique traditions should be thrown together in a single melting pot that is Pan-Celtism?
Absolutely not.
Trying to sploosh the deities together doesn’t work. Ralph Häussler (his background: https://www.uwtsd.ac.uk/staff/ralph-häussler/) talks about Interpretatio and how complex it is among the Celtic speaking people, showing that these religions are individualized multiple levels:
https://www.academia.edu/7952176/R._Haeussler_Interpretatio_Indigena._Re-Inventing_local_cults_in_a_global_world
The thought might occur that an argument one might have for pan-celtism is how they all liked druids, so here is our boy JLB from before who talks about that in his book Celtic Gauls: Gods, Rites and Sanctuaries, specifically p. 59:
“There are no grounds for maintaining that the druids, of all the peoples, held identical beliefs. Everything suggests the opposite: the diversity of pantheons and of social and political situations must have been reflected in druid philosophy and mythology. It is not even certain that druids existed everywhere. They are not mentioned in Galatia, where there is talk of priest-kings. In Cisapline, only vates are mentioned. The term druid seems to have been understood in two senses by ancient authors. One is a misleading generalization referring to priests as a whole. The other, more instructive sense only takes the category of great priests into account. In fact it is in this sense the word was used in connection with the Germans. This also seems to be suggested by the etymology of the word, if druid is derived from dru-uid, meaning 'very wise'. However, it could originally have been a term of difference by which the Celts themselves addressed these extraordinary figures. According to Caesar, druidic doctrine came from Britain. He added: 'even today those who want to study it in depth generally go to Britain for that purpose'.
The last of the great druidic functions was the administration of justice. Caesar gives us an example when he says that during their great assembly at the centre of Gaul in the territory of the Carnutes, the druids arbitrated in international but also private disputes. These surely involved the most delicate matters that only affect the powerful. Minor judgements must have been given in each civitas. This justice, dispense during the greatest religious ceremony on a Pan-Gallic scale, had a preeminently ritual characters. This mixture of the sacred and the civic, which was never divided into two distinct spheres among the Celts, extended from the juridical to the legislative.The druids, as guarantors of institutions, supervised both their workings and renewal. The power meant that the druids had to be recruited almost exclusively from the nobility. Caesar tells us that many students came forward of their own accord, from personal conviction, but that many young Gauls were also sent by their families. In effect, each family wanted to keep an eye upon this body of priests and to participate in it's power through the agency of one of it's offspring.
The daily life of the druids is practically unknown to us. Were they vowed to celibacy? Did they live in communities? the texts only seem to indicate that they could found a family and preserve their fortune. We only know for sure that they lived in sheltered retreat apart from the common crowd, without being disturbed either by war, work or dues of any kind. The druids had an internal hierarchy, found upon position in the curriculum of apprenticeship and later upon reputation for wisdom and personal charisma. Above them was a chief-a sort of Grand Druid- whose moral authority earned him this position. He was chosen by his peers, but sometimes there was a disagreement that might be settled by force of arms.
These different bodies of priests were structured into a complex hierarchy. In fact, besides the druids, the ancient authors mention gutuatri, dates, bards, and so on. Each category occupied a position relative to the others, but it also seems that each individual had a determinate place within his category. The hierarchy, which allocated roles within ritual, shows up clearly in the different functions that the authors attributed to the druids.
The druids were actually in a great variety of matters, from philosophy to sacrifice and from education to justice, and it seems hard to imagine that the same people consecrated the king and took charge of the maintenance of the sanctuary. Instead, the ancient texts give the impression of a crowd of priests sorted into grades, each of which had a determinate function. These different categories seem to have been structured and rigid, but certainly age, reputation and perhaps even political maneuvers inspired by the system of clientage permitted ascent on this hierarchical scale. Those who were not druids, but lived within their sphere of influence or were historically antecedent, surely had more flexible forms of organization. This could have taken the form of fraternities or secret societies, who initiation ceremonies served at once to give access and ensure cohesion. Social access to them was also wider.
It is likely in them the plebs could find means of giving free rein to their sense of religion. It is an illusion to imagine a united druidic society - a society within a society - upon which all cult matter devolved and all of whose members had similar powers. This illusion was derived from descriptions of druidic assemblies in the forest of the Carnutes, which nineteenth-century historians wanted to interpret at the first stirrings of a nation. Instead, the situation of the priesthood was very similar to that of political forces: in full process of change in Caesar's time, it might differ in every detail from one people to another. The history of the druids closely linked with the destiny of kingship and the development of the civitas.”
So while Druids were cool, they were not central to religion, nor were they universal among the Celtic groups.
While the Celtic religions may have sprung from a single progenitor religion, each of these traditions are separate. (Hence my interest to proto-Indo-European polytheism), but it’s fine if someone wants to take various gods from different Celtic speaking cultures and begin a new tradition with them.
However, this does not make it ancient Celtic religions the same, or gods pan-celtic (I’m looking at you Wicca!). Additionally, I’d like to re-emphasize that Modern Celts exist, and still have their own separations. The Welsh aren’t Irish, their gods aren’t Irish, and their language isn’t Irish.
Cheers,
Cunobelinus.
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Thoughts on TLJ - SPOILERS
Now for some spoilery content! Now that I've had a sleepless night going over some of my feelings about it, I can shuffle through what I did and didn't like.
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TLJ Positivity:
-I liked the trajectory of Rey's whole storyline. I had hedged my bets between two concepts - Rey as Anakin reborn (which, admittedly, I preferred because I'm an indulgent prequel junkie) or that she was a nobody, representing an entirely new generation to whom the Skywalker legacy was being handed to. The wound up being the latter, but I'm not as disappointed as I expected. While I have...many, many issues with some of the characterization in this film, hers felt like it progressed the most naturally. This idea of legacies and prophecies going the way of the past, of letting a new generation start fresh but not at the expense of destroying it, of letting the PEOPLE take ahold of their destiny instead of the burden falling on a few "chosen ones" is not something I feel is necessarily a bad moral lesson for the audience nor fundamentally detrimental to the movies' previous material.
Note: I'm still writing that Rey-as-Anakin fic. YOU CAN'T STOP ME DISNEY.
-Adam Driver has a really nice gym routine. So does John Boyega.
-Kelly Marie Tran is adorable, guys. She is literally the cutest.
-A film could never hurt for more POC and they could definitely use in the main cast, but I will say that the newer movies definitely feel more "casually diverse." There are POC in the Rebellion, POC in villains, POC in the civilian culture, POC in the main cast. It doesn't feel forced. They're just THERE, which is how it should be.
-Adam Driver is also really good in this movie. Considering we're not getting as extensive a backstory as most of us wished for Ben, he still does a remarkable job making the character engaging through his performance. They essentially give him Vader's original plotline in ESB/ROTJ before the "Vader as Anakin" storyline came into fruition. So he's sort of Vader's heir in a new and more devastating way. Kylo isn't emotionally stable or enough of a visionary to really be the driving force of an empire, so it'll be interesting to see how that tension between Hux and Kylo works itself out in the last film.
- @ahollowyear - I got a real kick out of how much of the actual storyline you accurately predicted vis a vis Kylo and Rey. You wrote that fanfic, what, a year before the details of TLJ even started coming out?
-I am deeply relieved that we avoided the reductive light/dark balance the trailers teased at. The dark side is still what imbalances the Force - it inevitably exists but is not necessary for balance. Also, that the main cast's discussion of ~character complexity~ was not that open ended, since the film's protagonists actively reject more of the nihilistic viewpoints being thrown by side characters.
-Carrie Fisher is always and forever the queen. <3
-I liked the final scenes with Luke. I really liked the choice of a binary sunset to bookend Luke's story. Genreally, I'm not a huge fan of ALL POWERFUL JEDI, but I can deal with astral projected battles from a Skywalker because Skywalkers are special. But he went out in a way that I found meaningful and touching.
TLJ Negativity:
WHERE THE HELL ARE RIAN JOHNSON'S EDITORS IN THIS MOVIE.
Seriously, what was going on with the writing process here? Why is the plot all over the damn place? (Answer: Because they didn't plot out this arcs in advance and it shows.) Why do we spend 30-40 mintues on a casino sidequest that literally has NO ACTUAL EFFECT ON THE GODDAMN PLOT. What are characters like Benicio del Toro's and Laura Dern even doing in this film? We literally are trying to balance nearly two casts (OT/ST) worth of character development, the last thing you want or need is unnecessary characters distracting from the main development or wasted scenery. And that's what literally the entire middle chunk of Rose and Finn's plotline - wasted action.
There are so many good ideas struggling to be communicated in the absolute muddled mess that is the middle of the movie. We have a storyline about light and dark being natural opposite but neither being an inevitability outside of our personal choices. We have the theme of the natural order of things, life begetting death begetting life, and the idea of legacies carrying us through strife so that we can become the heroes of our own making instead of relying on others to save us. There's commentary about the significance of failures, how sometimes they're more important than victories because of what they reveal to us about ourselves and each other, and how we come to terms with them when they can't be easily remedied. The casino is clearly meant to be a commentary about exploitative capitalism and the way the evil of fascism destroys culture and people from the top down. All of these are great ideas, but you need to have that effectively communicated to your audience, and you need to communicate it meaningfully.
And the characters. THE CHARACTERS. The chaaaaaaaaaaaaraaaaacters.
Rey and Kylo I'm fine with. Their development doesn't bother me. I can even deal with Rose, though I wish her purpose in the plot wasn't so hamfisted.
But Finn and Poe? Why did it feel like their character arcs literally rebooted for this film? Poe is clearly inteded to be a kind of surrogate son to Leia ("mother of the rebellion"), serving as a foil to Ben, so I get why there's a general parallel there in the two progressing toward leadership roles - one who violently grasps at power, while the other faces some hard lessons about the reality and sacrifice of command as opposed to heroics. I feel like that's a natural progression of what we saw in their relationship in TFA, but it still feels like a step back because the level of experience and confidence we saw in him in TFA doesn't mirror how Leia views him in TLJ. If anything, he should have been growing into the position of command so that Leia can effectively and believably pass that legacy on to him. Instead, what we get is a plotline that suggests to us that Poe isn't really ready for him, which is...regressive? Like, all of these character should have been going through these changes at the start of the film, not ending on them.
(This being said, what the hell is wrong with Admiral Holdo that she can't understand the value of basic communication? Like, she's meant as a lesson to the audience about mistaking reckless action for heroism, but it's hard not to agree with Poe when she's literally telling NOBODY UNDER HER NOTHING. How easily could all of that drama been avoided if she's just said what the actual plan was instead of creating so much fear and uncertainty on the bridge?)
(I totally ship Leia/Holdo though.)
And Finn. Oh my God, I feel so bad for John Boyega. What a waste of his charisma and talent. Most of TFA is Finn going from a deserter seeking *individual* salvation from the First Order and recognizing by the end the responsibility one has in the stand against evil. So he basically...rehashes that entire character development here? Wouldn't it have made more sense to see him struggling with his reputation as a hero in the Rebellion and then coming to terms with his new role? Let him wrestle with the existentialist uncertainty of being able to make his own choices! Explore the trauma of his experiences in the army by having him struggle with his fear and uncertainty while infiltrating the First Order - use it to emphasize the contradictions of his experiences with the freedom of his new life.
If you wanted to interject some moral ambiguity, why not have him address the issue that the New Order's army is essentially a SLAVE army? Wouldn't that scene with Phasma held much greater power if he'd tried to appeal to his fellow soldiers about the destruction the New Order has wrought on their lives, about the potential they could have if they rose up against them? If you're going to have Benicio del Toro nihilistically declaring that the war is endless and therefore moral standpoints are meaningless, why not have Finn reject that meaningfully to both the audience outside the movie and within it? Legit y'all, my ideal ending for this man is to take his place in helping rebuild a newer, better system for all of them - and what better way than by helping to rehabilitate his fellow child soldiers?
Just ugh, out of everything that bothers me in the movie, Finn is the character that leaves the worst taste in my mouth. He was my favorite in TFA, and his character development should be progressing beyond this point by now.
Also: GOD HELP ME if they kill off Leia in episode III. It would be beyond heartless and irresponsible given the overall thematic trend of the movies. The character who tells us dejectedly that she "went out fighting" is arguably the one who should live to pass the legacy on and die peacefully.
TLJ neutrality:
-I am on the fence regarding Luke's characterization, leaning towards finding it less problematic than others might. He's pretty clearly suffering from severe depression, which can take a person to some pretty dark places. Most of my struggles with his characterization center around his confrontation of Ben. Do I feel that Luke is somebody who would pull the blade on his nephew? Part of me violently rejects that, but there's another part that considers it from the perspective of somebody dealing with the horror of thinking he created another Vader, of knowing what Ben could become, of the Force showing him a horrific future...and giving into that temptation the dark side presents in thinking our choices are already made. I can dig the idea that part of nefariousness of the dark is in undermining our belief in full agency. Could I believeably see him, in a moment of weakness, pulling his lightsaber? I'm vacillating on the issue. Ben Solo isn't all that particularly different from Jason in the old EU, and Luke toed the line of darkness dealing with his fall, too.
-I'd really like more EU exposition as to what exactly what down with Snoke and Ben when he was a child. How was he already THAT damaged by the time of Luke's confrontation with him? What was going on that Luke was either blind to or struggling to care for him without Leia and Han's help?
-I go between feeling like Leia was well used here to feeling like she could have done so much more, that we could have seen more emotional strife with her where Ben and Luke are concerned. Instead, we knock her out partway through the movie, which is such a shame because we no longer have the option of the third movie to be her swan song. Carrie Fisher was wonderful here, but I struggle with whether I feel like this story gave her the send off she deserved.
-The twins reunion. It was touching and memorable, don't get me wrong, but it's sad to think that's the end of it. I figured something like that was coming, but STILL. God, Skywalker/Organa life depresses me.
-Speaking of, I'm a total idiot because it took me entirely too long to catch on to what was going on the astral projection scene. Hurr hurr, I said, when did Luke build a new lightsaber? And get sweet clothes? And did he lift the X-wing out of the water to get there? omfg, all of the hints were there, I'm just ridiculous.
-Yes, the scene with Leia saving herself with the Force is pretty cool. Not sure if I feel it toes into ridiculous territory, though.
-SWEAR TO GOD DISNEY, if you give me a love triangle in the third film with girl fighting over Finn, I will flip my shit.
TLJ LOLs:
This movie practically made Rey and Ben canon, and I had a tremendously unkind moment of smug amusement at how the more obnoxious antis were going to react to this film. The histrionic discourse is the thing of legends, let me tell you.
#star wars#the last jedi spoilers#tlj spoilers#the last jedi#spoilers#this is more positive twelve hours later because i was really pissed about that casino scene#this is nothing more infuriating than writing that serves no purpose to the plot#I just started an English degree#and I know this#i don't actually care if people dislike rey and kylo together#i just find anti-shipping to be one of the most worthwhile and ridiculous endeavors ever
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