The Shadowlit Realms
| Labyrinth of the Mind |
Heroes and MonstersIs it just me, as I know I can be quite abnormal in my perceptions, or are there other people who find themselves feeling sympathetic toward the so called monsters and beasts, over the alleged heroes in epic tales of mythology?
I rarely find myself liking the hero of the story, and I find that I am empathic toward the monsters, and a part of me even roots for them, even when I know they cannot win, but this could stem from my general preference for beasts, animals, and such creatures over human beings, but I think it is also an underdog sort of syndrome. Though the heroes might come under the facade of being the underdog, in typical David vs Goliath scenarios, in which one lone man comes to battle something that no one before could defeat, by the very nature of the fact that it is an epic story, the monster becomes the underdog, because one you know it cannot win within the story, and two because it is so much hated and rooted against by everyone.
Beowulf in particular really annoys me for some reason. He just comes off as being so arrogant and egotistical, I never could really get behind him. I have always felt sympathetic toward Grendal, for some unexplainable reason, and while yes it is true he was slaughtering people for seemingly no particular reason, and I can accept that Beowulf slaying him was more or less an act of self-defense, with Grendal it is sort of a Frankenstein syndrome.
It is not Grendal's fault that he is what he is, and that he is made different from the others, and thus outcast, and he can hear the people in the hall having a good time and longs to be a part of that, but knows he never can, so he is driven to destroy it because it torments him so, and knows it is something that he could never obtain.
But the killing of Grendal's mother really from my perspective was completely unjust and just made me mad. I mean how egotistical do you really have to be to somehow see yourself as the wronged party when a mother is retaliating against the slaughter of her child.
Medusa is another one, where the killing of her was completely unjust, and really cold blooded murder. Medusa was not going around actively attacking people, she was just chilling on her island in isolation trying to mind her own business when people kept invading her home trying to slay her for their own personal gain because they wanted her power.
For one thing, it is not as if she could control her ability to turn people into stone, and for another it was completely self-defense. If you didn't want to be turned into stone than don't go and invade Medusa's island. There was no just cause for attacking her, when she remained in exile and so wasn't really a threat to anyone outside of her island.
I just personally often find that the so called heroes in stories are really just arrogant punks that are the ones acting in the wrong, usually they themselves have done something to provoke the beast before killing it or the go off to slay it simply to fulfill a personal desire of their own. They want to gain fame, fortune, glory, or some great treasure.
The bests are just trying to defend themselves and their territories by these people who keep coming up and attacking them and harassing them.
11:18 AM - 10/23/2009 - post comment
|
 For though All are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them. ~The Monk
Home User Profile Archives Friends My Wall Recent Entries - Snake Oil of the Modern Age - Catfish - Momento Mori - 100 Greatest Books {Update} - Green Man Catagory - Articles - Books - Arcane - Movies-TV - Music - Philosophy - Poetry - Writing - Thoughts - Rants - The Silvernary - Word of the day - Quote of the Week - In Praise Of - Art - Garden and Animal Journal - Roots - Elements of Horror - Humur - Photography Poem Hunter Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster StopWhaling NRDC BioGems IFAW Social Values Marketplace Blogthings Shadow Poetry Seafood Choices Alliance Look At Me Stop The Seal Hunt My Deviant Art Bold, Beautiful, and Big Responsible Traveling Ethical Traveling Green Weddings Eco-Friendly Sking and Snowboarding Keep Winter Cool Green Resorts The Spiders Den The Literature Forum Good Reads The Mystics Dream Darwin Awards Friends - JournalHome.com - Martin Burch - DAWNIE - Kay - Heather - silver_melusine - Fightingfemale - Landsdown Lad - Dutchboy - lilee - Realove - The Hippie Queen - Silver Wynd - Lo - Inquisitor Tsynn - Yankee Innkeeper - Shokat - SWEETASH - ZBrobinite - thecolumn - The Quiet Riot - ^v^Elizebeth^v^ - The Journal Writer |
