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Jan. 27th, 2015 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkatToday, I had a video teleconference, baked banana caco muffins (except I didn't add honey or sweeteners deciding chocolate chips and banana was enough sweetener, since going off sugar - I've become sensitive to sweets.), watched The 100, Dowton Abbey, my soap opera, posted far too much to FB, and read The Most Dangerous Book - which has passages that I keep wanting to quote from, which means it takes longer to read than usual. Last night - took a bubble bath. I do need to do some stretching and yoga, which I'm procrastinating, because I find stretching and yoga boring. (Wrong, I know, but there it is.) Also, for some reason, I keep thinking it is Thursday.
The 100
Interesting series. It keeps showing how solving problems with violence just results in more violence regardless of the reasons or justifications. And how people feel trapped by violence or see no other way. More than one character states they had no other choice - that there was no other way to save everyone - but in reality that's not the case, they just don't want to make the harder decision. Instead they grab the short cut.
Also, these kids or teenage leaders fall into the trap of believing love is a weakness, but the truth is hate is their weakness. Vengeance is weakness.
If the characters keep going in the direction that they are - they will all have a tragic ending.
Was thinking about Shakespeare's tragedies today - and actually they too have this in common. Hamlet is a Revenge Play - and by the end, everyone is pretty much dead. MacBeth? Ditto. Same with Richard the III. Also, Romeo and Juliet who are pretty much destroyed by the hatred of their families.
And Zero Dark Thirty is haunting in much the same way The Hurt Locker, both by Kathryn Bigelow is - in that these people who devote their lives to violent activities...have empty lives. The CIA analyst focuses all her energy on catching and killing a terrorist and when she achieves it, she is empty. There's nothing to hold.
Just another terrorist to take his place.
Here, in The 100, the protagonist decides that she has to shut herself off to be leader, to stop caring. That love is the weakness. Much like Buffy in S3 BTVS, Clarke is haunted by the lover she had to sacrifice to save her people and enter an uneasy alliance with the violent and somewhat savage grounder tribe. Their common goal to rescue their people in Mount Weather continues to be put on hold in order to cater to the grounder's need for blood or vengeance. It's their greatest weakness - their need for vengeance at every turn. Yet they continue to be blind to this. And as a result their ultimate destruction much like their ancestors who died when the nuclear bombs crashed down upon their heads seems to be inevitable. Mount Weather has similar issues - they too are following the mistakes of their ancestors or the people who retreated behind Mount Weather's wall and had a hand in creating those bombs. In that they are putting one group of humans above others - and bleeding what amounts to the children of other human tribes to save their tribe. The horror of their actions is justified in much the same manner the grounders justify their actions - "we do it to save ourselves, our tribe..." but refuse to ask the far more difficult question, where will those actions ultimately lead? Last time they lead to a devastating nuclear holocaust. They too have shut off love and see caring for others as a weakness. And they seem to think this cure - is unlimited, but what if it isn't?
Then - have they destroyed what is left of the human race just so they can have a few years in the sun? Have they even considered there might be another way? Perhaps harder, but in the end, far more successful?
The Sky People are caught in between. The Grounders are banding with them to save their own - the Mount Weather group wants them for their blood - which will enable them to see the sun.
The Sky People have done what both the Grounders and Mount Weather have - yet in the Sky. They culled their population to survive longer (the Grounders) and punished those who broke the law with either spacing or sending to the surface (the Grounders). They sacrificed their young to determine if the Earth was now survivable. (Mount Weather) and often justified their actions via science. (Mount Weather.)
As Clark's mother states - we are no different. It's odd, but both adults see through the child leader's actions echoes of their own mistakes on the Arc, yet are helpless to steer them elsewhere.
Same with Mount Weather - where the old leader helplessly turns away as his son commits horrible acts, acts that most likely echo his own years before. So we repeat our mistakes. Over and over. Battle Star Galatica and Lost had similar themes...what happened before happens again...in a continuous cycle. It's our choice though whether it is a cycle of death or life. Right now the characters of the 100 have chosen death.
There's something about this series that motivates me to write meta that others don't. Not quite sure what it is.
Update on Storm? Things are open now. Airlines are rescheduling flights. Travel ban lifted. Back to ordinary business tomorrow. Thank heavens it wasn't as bad as predicted. Going to be bitter cold this week. So happy that my church board meeting was canceled.
The 100
Interesting series. It keeps showing how solving problems with violence just results in more violence regardless of the reasons or justifications. And how people feel trapped by violence or see no other way. More than one character states they had no other choice - that there was no other way to save everyone - but in reality that's not the case, they just don't want to make the harder decision. Instead they grab the short cut.
Also, these kids or teenage leaders fall into the trap of believing love is a weakness, but the truth is hate is their weakness. Vengeance is weakness.
If the characters keep going in the direction that they are - they will all have a tragic ending.
Was thinking about Shakespeare's tragedies today - and actually they too have this in common. Hamlet is a Revenge Play - and by the end, everyone is pretty much dead. MacBeth? Ditto. Same with Richard the III. Also, Romeo and Juliet who are pretty much destroyed by the hatred of their families.
And Zero Dark Thirty is haunting in much the same way The Hurt Locker, both by Kathryn Bigelow is - in that these people who devote their lives to violent activities...have empty lives. The CIA analyst focuses all her energy on catching and killing a terrorist and when she achieves it, she is empty. There's nothing to hold.
Just another terrorist to take his place.
Here, in The 100, the protagonist decides that she has to shut herself off to be leader, to stop caring. That love is the weakness. Much like Buffy in S3 BTVS, Clarke is haunted by the lover she had to sacrifice to save her people and enter an uneasy alliance with the violent and somewhat savage grounder tribe. Their common goal to rescue their people in Mount Weather continues to be put on hold in order to cater to the grounder's need for blood or vengeance. It's their greatest weakness - their need for vengeance at every turn. Yet they continue to be blind to this. And as a result their ultimate destruction much like their ancestors who died when the nuclear bombs crashed down upon their heads seems to be inevitable. Mount Weather has similar issues - they too are following the mistakes of their ancestors or the people who retreated behind Mount Weather's wall and had a hand in creating those bombs. In that they are putting one group of humans above others - and bleeding what amounts to the children of other human tribes to save their tribe. The horror of their actions is justified in much the same manner the grounders justify their actions - "we do it to save ourselves, our tribe..." but refuse to ask the far more difficult question, where will those actions ultimately lead? Last time they lead to a devastating nuclear holocaust. They too have shut off love and see caring for others as a weakness. And they seem to think this cure - is unlimited, but what if it isn't?
Then - have they destroyed what is left of the human race just so they can have a few years in the sun? Have they even considered there might be another way? Perhaps harder, but in the end, far more successful?
The Sky People are caught in between. The Grounders are banding with them to save their own - the Mount Weather group wants them for their blood - which will enable them to see the sun.
The Sky People have done what both the Grounders and Mount Weather have - yet in the Sky. They culled their population to survive longer (the Grounders) and punished those who broke the law with either spacing or sending to the surface (the Grounders). They sacrificed their young to determine if the Earth was now survivable. (Mount Weather) and often justified their actions via science. (Mount Weather.)
As Clark's mother states - we are no different. It's odd, but both adults see through the child leader's actions echoes of their own mistakes on the Arc, yet are helpless to steer them elsewhere.
Same with Mount Weather - where the old leader helplessly turns away as his son commits horrible acts, acts that most likely echo his own years before. So we repeat our mistakes. Over and over. Battle Star Galatica and Lost had similar themes...what happened before happens again...in a continuous cycle. It's our choice though whether it is a cycle of death or life. Right now the characters of the 100 have chosen death.
There's something about this series that motivates me to write meta that others don't. Not quite sure what it is.
Update on Storm? Things are open now. Airlines are rescheduling flights. Travel ban lifted. Back to ordinary business tomorrow. Thank heavens it wasn't as bad as predicted. Going to be bitter cold this week. So happy that my church board meeting was canceled.