So now in the Harry Potter world we have an North American school of wizardry. Rowling's tale is an interesting one, and sets up for what is basically meant as a Bostonian version of Hogwarts. Unfortunately, the houses and their descriptions are vastly oversimplified, and there is no suite of seven books explaining various members of each house in depth to give us something to go by when deciding which House works well with each Harry Potter World fan.
The test is unhelpful, as it is with Hogwarts. The simplified notion of "Sneaky Slytherin", "Brave Gryffindor", "Smart Ravenclaw", and "Helpless Hufflepuff" sorted me into Gryffindor, when I must confess that only my aims could be possibly called Gryffindorian in that they are not evil. It took reading the books and thinking about the ramifications of each house to reluctantly conclude that I am Slytherin.
Unfortunately, there is no such material for the Ilvermorny houses. We appear to have "body, mind, spirit, and heart", wrapped around four descriptions of American Indian legends so surface and uninvolved as to be practically useless. The Pottermore site misplaced me, this time in Thunderbird, and I set out to develop my own understanding of what each house truly means.
Thunderbird
Simplified as "wizards of the spirit", Thunderbirds are said to be adventurers. It is no wonder that people think this correlates to Gryffindor. I would say, however, after reading up on the original mythical beast, that Thunderbirds are purpose-seekers. They are not 'adventurers' in the sense of enjoying trips out and back again with loot or knowledge, but 'wanderers' in the sense of flitting from place to place, seeking something that they will never find, and discovering many fine and useful things along the way, which may be discarded for others to more fully appreciate.
These folk are not setting out in bravery and determination to fulfill a specific quest. They are harkening to Thoreau's "Simplify", filling a backpack with all that they need, and setting out for a dream that they are not even sure exists.
Thunderbird attracts not only explorers/adventurers, but also idealists, dreamers, and wanderers. I would expect to find more Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws here and fewer Gryffindors; very few Slytherins.
Horned Serpent
Of course, the relation to Slytherin and the snake is obvious, as is the relation to Ravenclaw in the simplistic description of the Horned Serpent as attracting "wizards of the mind". The old tales of this creature, however, show a rather different side to the wisdom-seeker. There is nothing particularly sneaky or prone to booklearning about the Horned Serpent. It is connected not only to written and remembered knowledge, but also to insight and divination. Headmaster Dumbledore seemed to place little interest or effort into teaching Divination at Hogwarts, but the Horned Serpent seems in American Indian folklore to place a very high value upon it.
Horned Serpent students are likely not so much interested in "knowledge" as in "truth", deep delvers, less concerned about the physical world, seeking the rare treasures. I would expect to find Ravenclaws in either Horned Serpent or Thunderbird depending on whether their search for knowledge is deep or wide. Horned Serpent no doubt attracts some Slytherins, but generally more for the search for power rather than cunning or manipulation. I would be more surprised to see Hufflepuffs or Gryffindors here.
Pukwudgie
Supposedly this house represents "the heart" and favors "healers". However, it was founded based, not on the actual Pukwudgie, but on the idealized stories of one particular member who acted rather contrary to type. The "historical" mythical pukwudgie isn't exactly Wizarding House Material. Still, we can work out a synthesis that gives us a good solid option for North American young wizards.
The Pukwudgie William decided for unknown reasons to devote himself fully to a particular young woman, the founder of the school, so naturally she would think to cast him in a softened light. This has resulted in a description of 'loyalty' and 'earthiness' that makes this seem like a lock for Hufflepuff. The beings themselves, however, are very unlike Hufflepuff. They are tricksters, dangerous, even evil at times, stealers of babies and livestock, not unlike the British creature known as the Brownie. They use cunning to provoke mischief, and are loyal only under unusual circumstances.
Hence I would see a Pukwudgie student to be openly anti-authoritarian, defiant, independent, willing to experiment and less interested in the kind of idealistic wisdom and morality of the Thunderbird or the Horned Serpent. I picture Pukwudgie House as performing the same service for Ilvermorny as the pranksters do for MIT when they turn the dome into R2D2 or disassemble cars and reassemble them inside offices. I would imagine that they learn by trying. It is likely that many Gryffindors can be found here, along with some Ravenclaws and a fair number of Slytherins.
If there are healers favored here, it is because they are better loved in a House where accidents are far more likely to occur.
Wampus
Supposedly this house "favors the body and warriors". That sounds very much like a lock for Gryffindor. Again, the lore apart from the world of Harry Potter suggests a very different kind of House. The Harry Potter lore suggests more of an exercise gym than a place of magic, a world of jocks and sword-wielding maniacs, looking to fight. The original mythical Wampus was a panther-cat creature into which a woman disguised herself in order to participate illicitly in a man's world. Some tales say that she listened in on the hunters and was locked into that shape as punishment; others say that she transformed in order to fight a terrible creature that threatened her family. As such, the better word would not be "body", but "real world" (as opposed to divination or spiritual journey) and the better word would be "hunter" rather than "warrior".
The hunter is secretive and sly, but noble and pragmatic. Wampus students would value cunning, trading of information, and seeking knowledge and insight insofar as it helps them reach their goals, rather than seeking either for its own sake. The Wampus is intuitive, rational, and careful, not apt to overplay its hand, not apt to bluff, and most dangerous when cornered or threatened. Warriors they might be, in the service of others, in the taking of territory and protection of their own rather than a drive for conquest or search for knowledge. Slytherins likely flock here, as do Gryffindors who secretly think that they might be Slytherin, plus a few stray Hufflepuffs that lean heavier on the "home base" than the "simple loyalty" aspect of their house.
Simple versions:
Thunderbird: House of wanderers, explorers, dreamers, idealists.
Horned Serpent: House of wisdom-seekers, divinators, and lovers of the esoteric.
Pukwudgie: House of the stubborn, the anti-authoritarians, the pranksters, the experimenters.
Wampus: House of the hunters, the goal-seekers, the protectors, the intuitives.
Based on this, I believe that the test result of "Thunderbird" was wrong, and I belong instead, if I belong anywhere in Ilvermorny, in Wampus.
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fantasy. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
Saturday, January 2, 2016
The End of a Worldview
The title of this post may be a little misleading. I am not talking about a particular worldview coming to an end. Instead, I would like to take a moment and talk about the results when a worldview is followed to its logical end. More specifically, I would like to talk about the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie, and why atheists probably ought to be bent out of shape about it.
Ultron was created when an AI was repurposed from Loki's staff and successfully interfaced by Jarvis. Multiple times during the movie, one Avenger or another pointed out that Ultron had picked up a lot of his view on the world from Tony Stark. Presumably, the AI was listening when Tony told Banner about his vision for 'world peace'. As a result, Ultron took in all the information it could, set it against Tony's stated objective, and came to the interesting conclusion that the best way he could benefit the human race was to initiate an extinction-level event and see what survives and evolves from it.
Ultron was strongly written and played as a madman, and yet his plan was not utterly nonsensical. It was the logical end of secular environmentalism, unchecked by the basic humanity that defies even the atheists who prefer to believe that it does not exist. According to atheistic evolution, humanity is continuously improving through evolving. According to the history proposed by the theory of evolution, this planet has gone through a number of extinction-level events - catastrophies that wiped out all or nearly all life - and risen from each one better than the one before. In defiance of entropy, this worldview (when not seasoned by any other) insists that order comes from chaos.
Tony was interrupted in his plan to attack one AI with another. Ultron had uploaded part of his broken self into the new body. Parts of Jarvis had been uploaded as well. The body was created around one of multiple key stones which appear to represent elements; in this case, the Mind Stone. However, this time, Vision's earliest-heard words were words of caution from Steve Rogers (Captain America), and he was turbocharged into existence by Thor, with whom he apparently had some sort of special bond. (Thor was the first one convinced of Vision's benevolence, the one who enacted his plan with him, and the one who spoke to him at the end.) Now, if you are going to draw a line from "Most religious" to "Least Religious" and plot the Avengers along it, Tony Stark would sit at one end, and Thor and Captain America would sit at the other. Vision was very clearly influenced by the thoughts produced by taking the religious (particularly Christian) worldview to its natural end.
Though I have been comparing Vision and Ultron, this theme moves through the rest of the Avengers as well. Ultron is willing to sacrifice a few (the residents of the city) in order to sacrifice the many, in hopes of improving the whole. At first, the more atheistic members of the team (like Tony!) insist that the few may rightly be sacrificed in order to save the many. The more religious ones overrule them, and help them understand... each individual person is important. You cannot save 'humanity' by sacrificing the unwilling in a numbers game. As Rico correctly pointed out in the book Starship Troopers, in a question of the logistics in risking multiple people to rescue a fallen comrade, "Men are not potatoes."
When Ultron and Vision face off at the end of the movie, Vision says, "There is grace in [humanity's] failings. I think you missed that."
Ultron was created when an AI was repurposed from Loki's staff and successfully interfaced by Jarvis. Multiple times during the movie, one Avenger or another pointed out that Ultron had picked up a lot of his view on the world from Tony Stark. Presumably, the AI was listening when Tony told Banner about his vision for 'world peace'. As a result, Ultron took in all the information it could, set it against Tony's stated objective, and came to the interesting conclusion that the best way he could benefit the human race was to initiate an extinction-level event and see what survives and evolves from it.
Ultron was strongly written and played as a madman, and yet his plan was not utterly nonsensical. It was the logical end of secular environmentalism, unchecked by the basic humanity that defies even the atheists who prefer to believe that it does not exist. According to atheistic evolution, humanity is continuously improving through evolving. According to the history proposed by the theory of evolution, this planet has gone through a number of extinction-level events - catastrophies that wiped out all or nearly all life - and risen from each one better than the one before. In defiance of entropy, this worldview (when not seasoned by any other) insists that order comes from chaos.
Tony was interrupted in his plan to attack one AI with another. Ultron had uploaded part of his broken self into the new body. Parts of Jarvis had been uploaded as well. The body was created around one of multiple key stones which appear to represent elements; in this case, the Mind Stone. However, this time, Vision's earliest-heard words were words of caution from Steve Rogers (Captain America), and he was turbocharged into existence by Thor, with whom he apparently had some sort of special bond. (Thor was the first one convinced of Vision's benevolence, the one who enacted his plan with him, and the one who spoke to him at the end.) Now, if you are going to draw a line from "Most religious" to "Least Religious" and plot the Avengers along it, Tony Stark would sit at one end, and Thor and Captain America would sit at the other. Vision was very clearly influenced by the thoughts produced by taking the religious (particularly Christian) worldview to its natural end.
Though I have been comparing Vision and Ultron, this theme moves through the rest of the Avengers as well. Ultron is willing to sacrifice a few (the residents of the city) in order to sacrifice the many, in hopes of improving the whole. At first, the more atheistic members of the team (like Tony!) insist that the few may rightly be sacrificed in order to save the many. The more religious ones overrule them, and help them understand... each individual person is important. You cannot save 'humanity' by sacrificing the unwilling in a numbers game. As Rico correctly pointed out in the book Starship Troopers, in a question of the logistics in risking multiple people to rescue a fallen comrade, "Men are not potatoes."
When Ultron and Vision face off at the end of the movie, Vision says, "There is grace in [humanity's] failings. I think you missed that."
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Over-application of the Mary Sue
Warning: This contains spoilers about Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Be warned before reading this.
....
My warning is going to look really silly when I come back to read this post in five years from now.
...
So let's talk about 'Mary Sue'. There have been people online who are claiming that the new heroine in the seventh Star Wars movie, Rey, is in some way far more of an unrealistic 'everything goes right and everyone loves her immediately' figure than, say, Luke Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker in the prequels.
I contest this, and want to present a comparison of Luke Skywalker in the very first Star Wars movie to Rey of Star Wars 7 as proof.
And yet she's the Mary Sue.
(By the way, do you want to know where the inspiration for Rey's outfit came from? There was a time when Lucas considered making Luke into a girl. The concept sketches were reused for Rey, just as a set of rejected concept sketches for R2D2 were used for BB8.)
I'm tired of female characters constantly having to ride that line between Helpless Flower and Mary Sue. Padme wasn't a Mary Sue? What about Uhura? Zoe? Delenn? Susan Ivanova? Andromeda Ascendant? Cortana? For that matter, what about Galadriel? Amalthea? Kira?
I was watching the CinemaSins "Everything Wrong With" videos for a while, until I got sick and tired of a consistent theme. They 'sin' a movie for a coincidence that makes the movie possible, and then they 'sin' the movie again for making an attempt fail until it succeeds. Folks, there are a million alternate universes where She walks into any coffee shop but His... but the one in which She walked into His is the one in which the story exists. There were no doubt dozens of girls who tried to grow up as scavengers on a desert planet and died young; this is the story about the one who lived. No doubt many women joined the Resistance and died in their first firefight; this is about the one who didn't. There are plenty of Force-sensitive people who cannot adapt to danger quickly enough and are snuffed out early; this is about the one who made it.
That's what stories *are*!
....
My warning is going to look really silly when I come back to read this post in five years from now.
...
So let's talk about 'Mary Sue'. There have been people online who are claiming that the new heroine in the seventh Star Wars movie, Rey, is in some way far more of an unrealistic 'everything goes right and everyone loves her immediately' figure than, say, Luke Skywalker, or Anakin Skywalker in the prequels.
I contest this, and want to present a comparison of Luke Skywalker in the very first Star Wars movie to Rey of Star Wars 7 as proof.
- Luke started out as a sheltered farm boy, his uncle trying to keep him from all notions of adventure and struggle, hoping to make him want to stay on the farm forever.
- Rey started out scavenging for a subsistence living. She had to defend herself, she had to make her own living space, and she had to deal with a rough crowd. She protested at what little she got for the stuff she brought in, but she had no ability to negotiate, and her feeble attempt was easily rebuffed.
- When Luke found out that he was Force-sensitive and that the only parental figures he'd ever known were murdered and his home destroyed, he took a moment in grief and sadness and then chose to go with Kenobi and learn to be a Jedi.
- When Rey found out that she was Force-sensitive and was confronted with the knowledge that her family would never come back for her, she burst into tears and ran away.
- Luke got given a one-handed blaster - granted, we know he already knew how to use some sort of two-handed desert rifle thingy. He immediately got a near-perfect hit score with it from the start, and picked off stormtroopers and other targets with ease. He had no experience with a lightsaber or anything like it, yet he was passable with it from the start and, upon one iteration of Obi-Wan telling him to 'stretch out with his feelings', was able to pull a complex move out of nothingness (the Force) and could 'almost see the remote' despite fighting blind. He also picked up the Falcon ship guns remarkably quickly.
- Rey got given a blaster, had to be taught how to use it, forgot to take the safety off when she first tried, her first shots were laughably bad, and it took her several encounters of fighting for her life before she started managing some sort of accuracy with the thing. When she got the lightsaber, she tried to use it like a spear/staff, and was finally able to pull a complex move out of nothingness (the Force) when upon the very point of death. She managed, *barely*, to temporarily take down an already doubly-wounded foe once before they were separated by explodium.
- Luke was able, within hours of spending time with Kenobi, to utterly master the "hearing the voice of your mentor from beyond the grave" knack, which was something Yoda had given Kenobi to study and learn how to do over the eighteen or so years that he was going to spend in near-complete isolation on Tatooine. Never mind simply reaching to the Force; Luke was receiving instruction straight from his master. He was the one who took out the Death Star with one Force-placed shot.
- After a period of time of direct Force manipulation on her brain (not verbal instructions trying to describe a very subjective task), Rey was able to learn-while-doing how to pull back and catch Ren unawares. After that, she managed after something like *three or four* totally unsuccessful tries to turn a Stormtrooper - the very definition of the 'weak-minded' and basically the easiest possible prey - into doing her will for about half a minute. Look at her face when she's trying to escape and when she runs into her friends. She was terrified that her tenuous grasp on the situation would fail at any time. She had nothing to do with the destruction of the Starkiller. She didn't even know it was something to be destroyed.
- Luke was able to ferry Leia across a chasm with a fancy belt grapple.
- Rey couldn't even carry Finn back to the ship; she had to get Chewbacca to do it.
- Luke climbed into an X-Wing with nothing but planet-based bush pilot experience and Force sensitivity and mastered it immediately. He already knew how to clean and fix up droids, and was giving R2 instructions on the fly on how to keep the damaged X-Wing going.
- Rey ran into the Falcon, which she had obviously worked with and worked on in the past, with planet-based bush pilot experience and Force sensitivity, and made several very rough starts and mistakes before getting a handle on how to maneuver the darn thing, while complaining about the lack of copilot. Then, on Solo's ship, she shorted out the *wrong* group of circuits and set the xenomorph-like creatures all loose. Whoops.
- Luke's very first encounter with the Bad Guys resulted in him making a plan to rescue the Princess, coaxing a reluctant smuggler to help, and pulling it off more or less.
- Rey's very first encounter meant managing to temporarily successfully run away, nearly getting the ship destroyed in the process. Then she was instantly utterly helpless in the face of Kylo Ren, who held her in place and then dropped her *easily*. Finally, she barely managed to escape with the help of her friends.
And yet she's the Mary Sue.
(By the way, do you want to know where the inspiration for Rey's outfit came from? There was a time when Lucas considered making Luke into a girl. The concept sketches were reused for Rey, just as a set of rejected concept sketches for R2D2 were used for BB8.)
I'm tired of female characters constantly having to ride that line between Helpless Flower and Mary Sue. Padme wasn't a Mary Sue? What about Uhura? Zoe? Delenn? Susan Ivanova? Andromeda Ascendant? Cortana? For that matter, what about Galadriel? Amalthea? Kira?
I was watching the CinemaSins "Everything Wrong With" videos for a while, until I got sick and tired of a consistent theme. They 'sin' a movie for a coincidence that makes the movie possible, and then they 'sin' the movie again for making an attempt fail until it succeeds. Folks, there are a million alternate universes where She walks into any coffee shop but His... but the one in which She walked into His is the one in which the story exists. There were no doubt dozens of girls who tried to grow up as scavengers on a desert planet and died young; this is the story about the one who lived. No doubt many women joined the Resistance and died in their first firefight; this is about the one who didn't. There are plenty of Force-sensitive people who cannot adapt to danger quickly enough and are snuffed out early; this is about the one who made it.
That's what stories *are*!
Friday, November 13, 2015
The INTJ in Star Wars
The Meyers-Briggs personality sorter test is one of the most popular personality tests out there, such that it is even trusted in the educational and corporate world. Given that, it should come as no surprise that people have enjoyed illustrating the sixteen personality types in 'prayers', in soundbytes, and even in depictions of popular culture, which brings me to today's complaint. I am one of the rarest Meyers-Briggs types in existence, the female INTJ, and somehow I find that people never look past the word "mastermind" when trying to figure out which Star Trek, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Twilight, or other such character fits the INTJ archetype. Somehow, for some reason, we are relentlessly typecast as the villain, even when the villain very clearly shows anti-INTJ traits!
Most Star Wars diagrams, for instance, claim that Emperor Palpatine is the INTJ in the series. There are several things severely wrong with this supposition. The INTJ does not seek power, and will only take it reluctantly if nobody else steps up to lead. Palpatine, on the other hand, actively disrupted existing systems in order to grab power. The INTJ, once in power, views his situation objectively and seeks efficiency, dwelling not on blame and punishment for mistakes, but merely on correcting the mistake and moving on. The INTJ is always making contingency plans, and is quick to change plans once he sees a problem with the status quo. Palpatine appears to lead by intimidation. The lead for the second Death Star's construction, if Palpatine had been an INTJ, would be glad to, as Vader put it, "explain it to the Emperor when he arrives" that they simply need more men to stay on schedule. The INTJ would evaluate the request, see if it seemed reasonable, and render an objective decision. Palpatine tended to slowly set up complicated plans, but he did not divert readily from them, even when they were beginning to go wrong. Finally, his very status as a Sith Lord casts the "T" and the "N" of his code into doubt, as the Dark Side of the Force is quicker and more easily accessed through anger, aggression, fear, and a desire for power.
Now, I am a properly-functioning INTJ. If the "bad guy" tended to be the INTJ, I would accept it, even though I do not like to think of myself as a "bad guy". In this case, though, as in most cases (Draco Malfoy is also often listed as an 'INTJ' even though he craves the approval of classmates who can barely speak and boasts about any rise in status that he might have been accorded), the shoe simply does not fit!
So who is the INTJ in Star Wars? The answer is not immediately obvious, until you look past the surface of each of these well-developed characters. The INTJ in Star Wars is Lando Calrissian.
Lando shows all of the traits of an INTJ through the two movies in which he participates. He cooperates reluctantly with Vader when it seems to be the best way to safeguard his people, but when he has had enough of cooperation, he clearly has already put a contingency plan into place. That plan is quickly and easily altered to meet the changing situation. Later, when he joins the Rebellion, he seems embarrassed about having been given the title of "General". He is not seeking power, but when it is thrust upon him, he takes his responsibility seriously. When he finds himself leading the Fleet into a trap, he figures it out first, and within a few minutes he has adjusted his strategy accordingly.
The INTJ action that impressed me the most, however, as an INTJ, was during his escape from Cloud City. He pulled out a microphone into the PA system, told his people that the Empire had taken direct control of the station, and urged them to leave before more Imperial troops arrive. This was not, in fact, a benevolent gesture, nor was it an evil action. He knew that the stormtroopers were uninterested in shooting civilians and would probably get into deep trouble if they did so. The Empire, reeling from the loss of the first Death Star, did not need news of an Imperial massacre to further encourage their enemies and risk increasing the forces of the Rebellion. So what did he do, when he sent that message? He filled the corridors with panicking families, making the stormtroopers work harder to find and safely target him and his companions, and giving himself the cover he needed to slip out a little more quietly. That level of quick-thinking and manipulation, able to dispassionately judge the level of danger and continuously change his plan in order to fit reality, is what makes an INTJ.
I have not yet found the INTJ in Star Wars or in Harry Potter. I can tell you for sure that neither Draco Malfoy nor Spock fit the bill.
Most Star Wars diagrams, for instance, claim that Emperor Palpatine is the INTJ in the series. There are several things severely wrong with this supposition. The INTJ does not seek power, and will only take it reluctantly if nobody else steps up to lead. Palpatine, on the other hand, actively disrupted existing systems in order to grab power. The INTJ, once in power, views his situation objectively and seeks efficiency, dwelling not on blame and punishment for mistakes, but merely on correcting the mistake and moving on. The INTJ is always making contingency plans, and is quick to change plans once he sees a problem with the status quo. Palpatine appears to lead by intimidation. The lead for the second Death Star's construction, if Palpatine had been an INTJ, would be glad to, as Vader put it, "explain it to the Emperor when he arrives" that they simply need more men to stay on schedule. The INTJ would evaluate the request, see if it seemed reasonable, and render an objective decision. Palpatine tended to slowly set up complicated plans, but he did not divert readily from them, even when they were beginning to go wrong. Finally, his very status as a Sith Lord casts the "T" and the "N" of his code into doubt, as the Dark Side of the Force is quicker and more easily accessed through anger, aggression, fear, and a desire for power.
Now, I am a properly-functioning INTJ. If the "bad guy" tended to be the INTJ, I would accept it, even though I do not like to think of myself as a "bad guy". In this case, though, as in most cases (Draco Malfoy is also often listed as an 'INTJ' even though he craves the approval of classmates who can barely speak and boasts about any rise in status that he might have been accorded), the shoe simply does not fit!
So who is the INTJ in Star Wars? The answer is not immediately obvious, until you look past the surface of each of these well-developed characters. The INTJ in Star Wars is Lando Calrissian.
Lando shows all of the traits of an INTJ through the two movies in which he participates. He cooperates reluctantly with Vader when it seems to be the best way to safeguard his people, but when he has had enough of cooperation, he clearly has already put a contingency plan into place. That plan is quickly and easily altered to meet the changing situation. Later, when he joins the Rebellion, he seems embarrassed about having been given the title of "General". He is not seeking power, but when it is thrust upon him, he takes his responsibility seriously. When he finds himself leading the Fleet into a trap, he figures it out first, and within a few minutes he has adjusted his strategy accordingly.
The INTJ action that impressed me the most, however, as an INTJ, was during his escape from Cloud City. He pulled out a microphone into the PA system, told his people that the Empire had taken direct control of the station, and urged them to leave before more Imperial troops arrive. This was not, in fact, a benevolent gesture, nor was it an evil action. He knew that the stormtroopers were uninterested in shooting civilians and would probably get into deep trouble if they did so. The Empire, reeling from the loss of the first Death Star, did not need news of an Imperial massacre to further encourage their enemies and risk increasing the forces of the Rebellion. So what did he do, when he sent that message? He filled the corridors with panicking families, making the stormtroopers work harder to find and safely target him and his companions, and giving himself the cover he needed to slip out a little more quietly. That level of quick-thinking and manipulation, able to dispassionately judge the level of danger and continuously change his plan in order to fit reality, is what makes an INTJ.
I have not yet found the INTJ in Star Wars or in Harry Potter. I can tell you for sure that neither Draco Malfoy nor Spock fit the bill.
Wednesday, December 3, 2014
It's 'okay' to be X-Men
"Have you tried not being a mutant?"
One of my long-standing beefs with the newer X-Men live-action movie franchises can be summed up in that line from X2. For generations, X-Men has been a story about outcasts, weirdos, and freaks struggling to find a place in society and just be themselves. It calls out to virtually every teenager alive, who feels as if he or she is the only person in the world going through this bizarre body-morphing process while struggling to figure out whether he or she is a child or an adult.
Originally, mutants were sometimes seen as a rough analog to racism. (In one extremely cute moment in the Larger Universe of the franchise, a mutant sent back in time is almost 'charmed' to be denied a seat in a restaurant, not because she is a mutant, but because she is black.) The more recent trilogy, though, especially the second movie, leaned heavily on a connection with homosexuality instead. Of course, they probably immediately alienated everyone who wanted to make that connection in X3, when a mutant 'cure' was found and at least one pitiable case decided to take it...
The more I began to think about this connection, the more I realized that it was actually pretty useful in untangling the modern 'gay rights' movement, much more useful than it could have been in understanding racism. The standard factions of the X-Men franchise actually correlate fairly well to the factions in this particular struggle. Of course, it isn't a perfect correlation, as a significant group of people (myself included) do not believe that homosexual behavior is inborn, unavoidable, and morally neutral. (Granted, arguments could be made about the morality of a mutant ability that can only be used to make other people deathly ill.) Still, for what it's worth, here are the correlations:
Charles Xavier and the Rank-And-File: On the good side, you have Xavier's school for mutants and his undying efforts to tweak society gently into one in which a blue-skinned girl can walk down the street alongside her 'normal' friend without fear. He simply wants mutants and regular humans to live in peace. To that end, he encourages mutants to show a sense of propriety in public. Being blue-skinned isn't an invitation to walk around naked. There is no harm in using your ice power to cool your tea, but don't go flinging shards at the neighborhood bully. Live in peace inasmuch as you can. On the other side, he opposes the Mutant Registration Act, which tends to lead to big stomping robots going about genetically identifying mutants and putting them in prison.
In the realm of 'gay rights', these would be the people who are quite willing to work with a gay person, or have one in the apartment complex, as long as he and his partner aren't tongue-kissing out in front of the children or doing drugs... things that are utterly avoidable no matter your sexual preference.
"Friends of Humanity" and the genuinely afraid: Everyone can agree that these people are basically either bad or misguided, so I don't need to spend a lot of time on them. They are analogous to the people in the gay 'rights' debate who want to throw all homosexuals in jail, the ones who see these people not as sinners with the rest of us, but as being in some way subhuman. In an irony that carries over to the real world, some of the angriest anti-mutant folk have mutants in their family, and the hatred spills over from fear.)
Now here comes the interesting part of the discussion.
Magneto and his followers: Unlike Xavier, who wants peaceful coexistence, Magneto sees himself and other mutants as superior to humans and believe that mutants should rule. He takes it as a no-brainer that mutants should not only appear in their natural shapes in public, but should have free and unfettered exercise of their mutant powers. He believes that they are the next step in human evolution and that the regular humans should submit to them.
This is a clear and not often-explored goal among the gay 'rights' activists. Many homosexuals are just as willing as many non-homosexuals to simply live in peace, respecting each other's rights. Gays don't claim religious significance for acts that religions ban; straights don't confront them in alleyways telling them to 'repent' or take a beating. That would be the Charles Xavier way. Gay activists, however, insist that homosexual behavior will "strengthen" marriage... how? By redefining adultery and removing 'old-fashioned' notions of longevity. The gay relationship is, to them, the next step in human evolution, and they will ensure that everyone be forced to submit.
Mystique/Raven, being a blue-skinned shapeshifter with golden eyes, is drawn alternately in the most recent movies to Charles Xavier, who says that she should be able to go to school with the other children in the proper school uniform and not ostracized for her skin color, and Magneto, who says that she should be able to go to school utterly naked (the actress wears a latex suit) and the other people should have no right to object. I can't help but be reminded by the school officials who are willing to extend to a single-stalled bathroom to a physically male student who thinks he ought to be female, and the activists who insist that he should be allowed to enter a bathroom full of girls and neither the girls nor their parents have the right to object.
I have consistently taken Charles Xavier's side in the gay 'rights' fight, affirming the right of any peaceful citizen to live and travel peacefully. I wonder what would happen if I started referring to the gay activists as "Magneto". Perhaps that simple act would be enough to get the homosexual lobby to leave X-Men alone... and for the next generation of geeks and freaks who are not homosexual to feel comfortable, as has been for generations before us, identifying with the mutants.
One of my long-standing beefs with the newer X-Men live-action movie franchises can be summed up in that line from X2. For generations, X-Men has been a story about outcasts, weirdos, and freaks struggling to find a place in society and just be themselves. It calls out to virtually every teenager alive, who feels as if he or she is the only person in the world going through this bizarre body-morphing process while struggling to figure out whether he or she is a child or an adult.
Originally, mutants were sometimes seen as a rough analog to racism. (In one extremely cute moment in the Larger Universe of the franchise, a mutant sent back in time is almost 'charmed' to be denied a seat in a restaurant, not because she is a mutant, but because she is black.) The more recent trilogy, though, especially the second movie, leaned heavily on a connection with homosexuality instead. Of course, they probably immediately alienated everyone who wanted to make that connection in X3, when a mutant 'cure' was found and at least one pitiable case decided to take it...
The more I began to think about this connection, the more I realized that it was actually pretty useful in untangling the modern 'gay rights' movement, much more useful than it could have been in understanding racism. The standard factions of the X-Men franchise actually correlate fairly well to the factions in this particular struggle. Of course, it isn't a perfect correlation, as a significant group of people (myself included) do not believe that homosexual behavior is inborn, unavoidable, and morally neutral. (Granted, arguments could be made about the morality of a mutant ability that can only be used to make other people deathly ill.) Still, for what it's worth, here are the correlations:
Charles Xavier and the Rank-And-File: On the good side, you have Xavier's school for mutants and his undying efforts to tweak society gently into one in which a blue-skinned girl can walk down the street alongside her 'normal' friend without fear. He simply wants mutants and regular humans to live in peace. To that end, he encourages mutants to show a sense of propriety in public. Being blue-skinned isn't an invitation to walk around naked. There is no harm in using your ice power to cool your tea, but don't go flinging shards at the neighborhood bully. Live in peace inasmuch as you can. On the other side, he opposes the Mutant Registration Act, which tends to lead to big stomping robots going about genetically identifying mutants and putting them in prison.
In the realm of 'gay rights', these would be the people who are quite willing to work with a gay person, or have one in the apartment complex, as long as he and his partner aren't tongue-kissing out in front of the children or doing drugs... things that are utterly avoidable no matter your sexual preference.
"Friends of Humanity" and the genuinely afraid: Everyone can agree that these people are basically either bad or misguided, so I don't need to spend a lot of time on them. They are analogous to the people in the gay 'rights' debate who want to throw all homosexuals in jail, the ones who see these people not as sinners with the rest of us, but as being in some way subhuman. In an irony that carries over to the real world, some of the angriest anti-mutant folk have mutants in their family, and the hatred spills over from fear.)
Now here comes the interesting part of the discussion.
Magneto and his followers: Unlike Xavier, who wants peaceful coexistence, Magneto sees himself and other mutants as superior to humans and believe that mutants should rule. He takes it as a no-brainer that mutants should not only appear in their natural shapes in public, but should have free and unfettered exercise of their mutant powers. He believes that they are the next step in human evolution and that the regular humans should submit to them.
This is a clear and not often-explored goal among the gay 'rights' activists. Many homosexuals are just as willing as many non-homosexuals to simply live in peace, respecting each other's rights. Gays don't claim religious significance for acts that religions ban; straights don't confront them in alleyways telling them to 'repent' or take a beating. That would be the Charles Xavier way. Gay activists, however, insist that homosexual behavior will "strengthen" marriage... how? By redefining adultery and removing 'old-fashioned' notions of longevity. The gay relationship is, to them, the next step in human evolution, and they will ensure that everyone be forced to submit.
Mystique/Raven, being a blue-skinned shapeshifter with golden eyes, is drawn alternately in the most recent movies to Charles Xavier, who says that she should be able to go to school with the other children in the proper school uniform and not ostracized for her skin color, and Magneto, who says that she should be able to go to school utterly naked (the actress wears a latex suit) and the other people should have no right to object. I can't help but be reminded by the school officials who are willing to extend to a single-stalled bathroom to a physically male student who thinks he ought to be female, and the activists who insist that he should be allowed to enter a bathroom full of girls and neither the girls nor their parents have the right to object.
I have consistently taken Charles Xavier's side in the gay 'rights' fight, affirming the right of any peaceful citizen to live and travel peacefully. I wonder what would happen if I started referring to the gay activists as "Magneto". Perhaps that simple act would be enough to get the homosexual lobby to leave X-Men alone... and for the next generation of geeks and freaks who are not homosexual to feel comfortable, as has been for generations before us, identifying with the mutants.
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