Tag: evil

Some believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check. But that is not what I have found. I have found that it is the small things, everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay. Simple acts of kindness and love.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

I wonder. If you did take on that big of a role for yourself, would you be the hero or the villain?

Robert Ford to Dolores Abernathy, Westworld Episode 5 Contrapasso

Crouch starts with the distinction the anthropologist Ruth Benedict popularized, between a guilt culture and a shame culture. In a guilt culture you know you are good or bad by what your conscience feels. In a shame culture you know you are good or bad by what your community says about you, by whether it honors or excludes you. In a guilt culture people sometimes feel they do bad things; in a shame culture social exclusion makes people feel they are bad.

Crouch argues that the omnipresence of social media has created a new sort of shame culture. The world of Facebook, Instagram and the rest is a world of constant display and observation. The desire to be embraced and praised by the community is intense. People dread being exiled and condemned. Moral life is not built on the continuum of right and wrong; it’s built on the continuum of inclusion and exclusion.

David Brooks, The Shame Culture, The New York Times

Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.

J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

Seventeen minutes. That’s how much time passes in Game of Thrones’ Season Four premiere before a scene without a Lannister in it. You remember the Lannisters, don’t you? The people who tossed Bran Stark out a window; who executed Ned Stark for treason; who abused Sansa Stark before forcing her into marriage; who rule Westeros thanks to an illegitimate incest-produced bastard; and who orchestrated the Red Wedding massacre of Catelyn Stark, Robb Stark, Talisa Stark, and all we hold dear? On lesser shows, they’d just be thought of as “the bad guys”; here, they’ve become the main characters. As Lord Tywin’s look of triumph in the opening sequence made clear, Game of Thrones is now the Lannisters’ show, and the game is theirs to lose.

‘Game of Thrones’ Season Premiere Recap: Say Hi to the Bad Guys | Rolling Stone

I reviewed the Game of Thrones season premiere for Rolling Stone. I quoted The Wire. It happens.

(via boiledleather)

Everyone thinks of [fairy tales] in terms of poisoned apples and glass coffins, and forgets that they represent girls who walked into dark forests and remade them into their own reflections.

Seanan McGuire, Indexing