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Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.
― G.K. Chesterton
― G.K. Chesterton
There is quite enough sorrow and shame and suffering and baseness in real life and there is no need for meeting it unnecessarily in fiction. As Police Commissioner it was my duty to deal with all kinds of squalid misery and hideous and unspeakable infamy, and I should have been worse than a coward if I had shrunk from doing what was necessary; but there would have been no use whatever in my reading novels detailing all this misery and squalor and crime, or at least in reading them as a steady thing. Now and then there is a powerful but sad story which really is interesting and which really does good; but normally the books which do good and the books which healthy people find interesting are those which are not in the least of the sugar-candy variety, but which, while portraying foulness and suffering when they must be portrayed, yet have a joyous as well as a noble side.
― Theodore Roosevelt
― Theodore Roosevelt
super side
May. 8th, 2023 11:52 pmThe kid sidekick. The trope of the Golden Age that has perhaps taken the worst beating. Possibly because adolescent boys are no longer considered the chief audience.
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reflections on theme
Apr. 3rd, 2023 11:59 pmYou start with what you start.
But in some respects, if the muse puts forth a theme, it's the hardest thing to work with.
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But in some respects, if the muse puts forth a theme, it's the hardest thing to work with.
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knights and monsters
Feb. 27th, 2023 11:18 pmWizards have a bad habit of creating monsters. This on top of their being prone to making knights who serve them and not the king -- or even sanity. But monsters are something else again.
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philosophic discussion
Sep. 27th, 2022 11:23 pmSo the characters are standing around arguing about justice and the rule of law and vigilantes especially when its officers of the law who are breaking the law. . . .
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philosophical examples
Sep. 8th, 2022 10:05 pmYou know if I have heroes debating justice and one brings up other, less justified vigilantes than the other hero. . . .
It just might be wise to have vigilantes in the story beforehand?
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It just might be wise to have vigilantes in the story beforehand?
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history marches on
Aug. 13th, 2019 10:22 pmWas pondering the history of the Gamelit priests of nature, whom a D&D world would play as druids, even if it did require substituting wild shape with other nature powers. (There's more of a continuum between them and the ordinary sorts of clerics than in the game.)
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