#no joke i am actively happy every time I see a breed that’s associated with ill health without those traits | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

numbah34 · 5 years

Text

A Happy Holiday season to all! This year, I’m bringing the PIE.

I hope you’ve saved room for a little additional speculation, because this is a little something I’ve been working on for about 10 days now, and I think it’s gonna be delicious.

*ahem.* Food metaphors aside, here we go:

In order to hypothesize about the true endgames, I’m going to pull from some quotes, explore the definition of “endgame,” and reference some potential evidence that season 8 provided for us.

*Before you continue reading, it is important to note that this is a meta about Plance/Pidgance/Flirtyrobot/26-other-ship-names-I’m-not-listing-them-all, or the relationship between Pidge and Lance. If this particular ship is not your cup of tea, please do not feel obligated to read further, but still have a lovely day!*

When we use the term “endgame”, we tend to define it as the ultimate relationship one or more characters ends up in by the end of the series. Ideally, we like our endgames to be confirmed by canon, but, if they are not and there hasn’t been anything shown to directly refute it, we can often be happy in believing that our faves will get together after the final curtain. Headcanon to fill the gaps, etc, etc.

Plance, however, is a different story. In fact, it is my assertion that they are, in fact, each other’s endgame, as they are surrounded by an incredible amount of evidence to support such a statement, both by canon in-show, in-comic, and in-book, and by answers provided by showrunners and cast alike. Let’s break it down:

1. Lance will end up with someone he needs; what he thought he wanted is not what he needed. (Can I take a moment to complain here a little? I feel like everytime someone asked about ships, they asked in regard to Lance. Did no one ever ask about Pidge and if she would have an endgame? I’m just saying. That would have been helpful information.) I won’t spend a lot of time on this quote, as it has been broken down in just about every plance meta you can find from early on. I will add: throughout the series, Lance has been shown to be the paladin who tries to use humor to lighten heavy situations. If he can crack a joke about it, the others might not laugh, but the mood will become a little less dire. Humor tends to breed hope in those times. Pidge appropriately labeled him as a goofball, I believe not because she thought he was ridiculous, but because she honestly appreciated his humor and his desire to have fun. While Pidge would, many times, roll her eyes at Lance’s jokes, Allura never laughed at them. She would generally look cross, or glare at him, whenever he would try; for example, when he tried to get her to laugh by pretending to read what he was going to say off his hand, and... it did not go over well. And he had to switch tactics and offer comforting words instead. This seemed to be a common theme over their interactions. He was never able to fully be himself around her.

2. Lance will be someone’s first choice. ...And I would assume that would mean that the someone in question would actually want to choose to spend time around him. Let’s be clear about something: at no point, even in their dating relationship, was Lance Allura’s first choice. Just from season 8: when he finally asked her out, she was ready to turn him down so she could go watch a comatose, unresponsive Altean who actively tried to kill them (a different spin on the “I can’t, I have to wash my hair...”), until Romelle and Hunk peer pressured her into it, not by recommending Lance’s finer points but by telling her she needed to relax (Hunk seriously what kind of wingman are you); if there was an option between Lance and the Alteans, she would pick the Alteans every time; she reminded Lance so many times that he couldn’t possibly understand what she was going through that I was about to turn it into a drinking game; on Clear Day, she could have taken that time to go have fun and relax with him, but instead she chose to stay on the ship with the dark probably evil entity that she eerily mentioned was trying to talk to her, WHAT were you THINKING, Allura, you could have been having fun with your friends and taking your mind off things that way! There was NO ONE THERE TO HELP YOU!; when the entity was picking people to try to convince her to release it, it only picked Lance for a hot second before moving on to Lotor; every time we saw Lotor/something representing Lotor in the same scene as Allura, she had a much more emotional response than she ever did for Lance; when she took the entity in and introduced the dangerous plan, his voice was the one she did not want to listen to (and we start seeing some cracks in the ship, too, as he becomes irritated not only that she would endanger herself like this, but also because his thoughts and concerns DO NOT MATTER TO HER); every time he would tell her he loved her, she would question him, or remain silent, until the end when it just felt hollow.

Pidge, meanwhile... well, we’ve catalogued in metas from s1-s7 how she would choose to be around him, from Space Mall to the Feud, etc., and season 8 did not actually short us on Pidge continuing to choose Lance. It started in the first episode, when she found out Lance had asked out Allura. At that point, her choices regarding him involved what she thought would make him happy. Sometimes, that meant doing things like giving up a game they could have enjoyed together or spending her time at the Clear Day carnival earning tickets to get something [actually sparkly] to take back to Allura instead of for herself, and sometimes that meant backing off and giving them space. I’ll touch more on that point in a moment (and you’ll see why that is, in fact, a pun), so stay tuned.

3. Allura will not have an endgame. I’m paraphrasing a bit here, but I believe there was a quote from one of the various interviews floating out there about Allura not having a definite endgame. (I could be wrong, and if I am, please let me know!) Well... that’s not wrong. Allura did not have an endgame, because her character did not make it to the end of the show (which, btw, I’m still sad about. She is an amazing character, and I wanted nothing but a happy ending for her. This season did not end up making me a fan of A//urance, but that is not ever how I would have wanted that ship to end, either.).

4. Lance will have an endgame. I’ll say it again. Allura was not Lance’s endgame. While she may have given him marks (I don’t think for a second she made him Altean, more like gave him a glowy little quintessence tattoo), she was not with him at the end of the show.

So. Who was Lance’s endgame, then? I am absolutely certain, without them having outright confirmed it, that Pidge was Lance’s endgame.

While we might have gotten very few Pidge and Lance interactions in season 8, the ones we got and the ones that were missing are telling. I mentioned in point #2 that Pidge backed off and gave Allura and Lance space while they were dating; at first, I found that frustrating, because I love Lance & Pidge interactions. But... I would have found it even more frustrating if they had continued while Lance was dating someone else. (That would have reeked of Pidge trying to steal Lance from Allura, and there is nothing in Pidge’s character arc about her trying to split people up; if anything, her arc of trying to reunite her family has made her more of a unifying character.) For 7 seasons previous, we find several instances of Lance being in Pidge’s personal space, sometimes even resting his arm across her back, and her allowing him into her personal bubble. But, while Lance and Allura are dating, he and Pidge do not touch. They continue to be framed together in some scenes, and Clear Day really underlined how, when they are around each other, they come alive. They bring out the best in each other in ways you don’t see in their interactions with the other characters. But I digress. For our final canonical evidence clues, let’s take a look at the final scenes in the last episode.

For the vast majority of the series, comics included, Lance and Pidge follow each other in the narrative. We see this again, as we move from a scene where Pidge is excitedly leaving to meet her friends, to a scene where Lance is giving a little school group talk to some little Alteans about how neat Princess Allura was (aside: let’s not begrudge him that, please, because she was really great, and you don’t have to have dated her to recognize that. She loved all her found family, Lance was just the one to receive markings). As he is looking up at Allura’s statue, a wormhole opens and the green lion comes through, drawing his attention to the lion and its pilot. The smile spread across his face is the one we have grown to associate with Lance, and he just looks more himself.

In the epilogue photos, we learn that Pidge and her family are on earth, training up the next group of legendary defenders. We also learn that Lance is on earth, living and working on his family’s farm. Some things to pay attention to:

1. They are both doing work that honors Allura’s memory and sacrifice. Allura had said in the Feud that Pidge and her family would be the most likely to be able to continue her father’s legacy, which was a very important thing to Allura’s character. Lance, apart from giving the occasional field trip talk, is growing juniberries, a flower Allura had once thought extinct, and that she associated heavily with Altea and Altean culture. He might not have understood alchemy, or other parts of their culture, but Lance and his family are farmers, and they do understand plants; this is something he can do that honors her memory. I’m going to emphasize that, when you lose someone you love, you do find yourself doing things to honor their memory; it does not, however, mean that you are miserable for the rest of your life.

2. They are both on Earth. Hunk, Keith, and Shiro are all off doing their own thing, Coran is on Altea (or the Atlas? Was the epilogue specific about what he was up to?), but Pidge and Lance are still in close proximity with each other. Further, Lance’s farm is cultivating a flower that only one botanist from the Garrison figured out how to grow and care for, and that botanist happens to be Pidge’s mom. Not to mention Lance still has Kaltenecker... And, in more than one publication, he talks about getting together with Pidge to play video games. All I’m saying is, they have plausible reasons for visiting each other more frequently.

3. Finally, let’s take a look at the last photos, because I noticed something odd:

In the first picture, it looks like everyone had finished crowding in for the picture, and Lance once again has an arm draped on Pidge (they are finally touching again!), and Pidge is leaning closer to him (hello angling, my old friend). Then you get to the second shot, and… Lance is doing something odd with his hand. You could almost think it was a gesture, but it looks to me more like he was in the middle of reaching to put his hand directly on Pidge’s shoulder. It even looks a little less focused, like he was moving when the picture was snapped. I mean, if he’s not… then what the actual heck is he doing?

Also, the color of those glasses Pidge is wearing... I know, I know, color reaching, but still. And, as this post pointed out, if you check out Chuchule’s tail, he is making a little heart shape in both pictures.

To conclude: while they did not explicitly state it, after 8 seasons of evidence of growth, there is a strong implication that Pidge and Lance are each other’s endgame. We might not have gotten to watch it happen, but... my plance are in bloom. How about yours?

#plance #pidgance #flirtyrobot #vlds8 #plancehasachance #plance meta #PIE for the win #this got a lot longer than i was expecting #i hope it didn’t come across as salty #a lot of s8 i enjoyed #the romance was clunky though #and it almost felt like we weren’t supposed to like it #but then that would’ve made the final episode weirder #more i feel like the s8 writers didn’t realize what they had in terms of relationship chemistry #but...they left it open-ended and gave us the gift of further speculations #so thanks guys

146 notes · View notes

sveasauvageon · 4 years

Photo

I can't go when you look this freaking beautiful || GW

☾♔; March 14, 2018 ☾♔; sotd: idk ☾♔; comedian otd: idk ☾♔; GW: Side Character Audition ☾♔; {G} https://goo.gl/XSTtMc ☾♔; mod(s): @themadmonarchist @maybones et moi

FINALLY DONE WITH THIS

Me every time Russia sends a "love, love, peace, peace" type song to Eurovision: *rolls on the floor laughing my arse off and literally dying from the irony*

GW SIDE CHARACTER TEMPLATE

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ஜ۩۞۩ஜ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀Viggo Asbjörn Rasmus Sauvageon, (21)

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour je suis prédateur ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour je suis la proie ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour j'ai chaud au cœur ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀Un jour j'ai tellement froid ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀-⠀Au Coeur de moi - Amir

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ THE BASICS

Nickname: Vig, V/Vi, Vígi, storebror (Svea and Lili) Gender: cis-male Date of Birth: December 24 Place of Birth: Lake Mälaren (it's in Enköping, and next to the Sauvageon estate. He was born in an underwater cave) Nationality: Swedish Ethnicity: caucasian (swedish/frankish descent), also half-fish person. Accent: Swedish Blood Status: half-blood/half-breed, he's half-merperson (hey, theoretically, it's possible in the wizarding world, plus, see; Shape of Water, The. 😛)

Profession: Curse-Breaker for Rökstenen Wizarding Bank (the Swedish counterpart to Gringotts)

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ PHYSICAL APPEARANCE

Face Claim: Mooms-mooms, I mean Måns Zelmerlöw

Hair: short, black, sometimes dark brown, soft

Eyes: brown, turn into a deep sea-green when he's angry or feeling like a huge surge of love (as in the emotion, don't be gross, also, not limited to romantic love, basically any love that would qualify for "save the world" level up's in anime characters)

Height: 1.74 m/5'7"-ish (he's so short, I mean, I can't really judge being a measly 5'2", but still)

Weight: idk

Body: slim, fit, super hot swede, wannabe James Bond tbh (did he dreaming of being bond as a child? Maybe.)

Any Scars/ Marks?: not scars exactly, but he has sort of scale-like cravings. Like groves in a stone wall, except on his skin and in the shape of scales. He has a large section on the right side of his rib cage, left shoulder blade going down in a slight diagonal angle to the right back of his hips (decreasing in amount as it moves down his back), left angle, and left wrist.

Any Tattoos/ Piercings?: n/a

Quirks/ Mannerisms: - not really a mannerism of his, but always ends up as a thing for Svea to lean on, since they're basically the same height, and in heels, she's taller than him.

Style: as "erratic" as his cousin's, but generally well-tailored, and figure-flattering. Likes wearing shirts that are a bit too tight (ala Marvel superhero tight), but generally walks around either in suits and ties, or a superhero shirt (as in the fit and not a graphic tee) and jeans. Favours Dolce & Gabbana, Ralph Lauren, Burberry, and Guess (because he's a fu.cking nerd).

Additional Information:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ PERSONALITY:

Head cannon: Super dorky, super cute. Like Svea, he's super Swedish (ie liberal socialist), but he's a lot nicer and pleasant (well, she's not, not nice, but she's also not nice, ya feel?, less elitist is the phrase I'm looking for). Literally sunshine, he's pleasant and joyful and a lot of fun, somewhat reckless, quite a mess, very loveable. Tiny bit of a wh.o.re (manwhøre, yes, but why do men get a different word that doesn't really have a negative connotation), he's never single. He's always dating someone or "causally" seeing someone. The longest he's been single (since joining the dating game) is a week.

Personality (+ 5, - 5): dork, nerd, smarter than he looks/acts, playful, thrives in stressful situations, prefers to have leadership "thrust" upon rather than actively seek it out, sweet, thoughtful, bad at flirting (seriously, it's embarrassing), lazy magic user (like that stupid scene in fantastic beasts when Tina's sister used magic instead of just sliding her hands into the fu.cking robe herself, that's mooms-mooms. I mean Vig), more vain than he cares to admit (spends a surprising amount of time on his hair every morning), act first-think later type of idiot (will jump into a dark tomb for the # adventure without even checking for curses first), adventurous, reckless, silly, quick on his feet, adaptable, resourceful, loyal, protective (though, usually it's him getting protected, he's more of a sweet summer child with a somewhat hidden armour of steel, valyrian steel)

Any mental health issues: - bursts into eurovision songs spontaneously, usually with Svea. Like, it's technically not an illness, but at this point, I'm pretty sure I've got it.

Favorite Quotes/ Sayings that your character would use: - "I am Thor, God of Hammers." (Probs Syn: You are Vígi, god of the losers) - "I miss when I had two feet of authority over you." (To Svea, also Syn tbh, pretty she and Svea are the same height) - "you wanna be my Waterloo?" (Vig, attempting to flirt. Tbh, Svea would say the same thing. They have a Eurovision problem) - "a smooth sea never made a skilled sailor" (someone off in the background: you're half-fish, and a curse-breaker)

Additional Information: - I was originally thinking of "Au coeur de moi" as his theme song, but it's so definitely "I can't go on" by Robin Bengtsson

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ BIOGRAPHY

Relation to your OC: paternal cousin, like once removed? No, twice removed. he's the son of her grandfather's sister's son.

♣️ Family Background

:: House of Sauvageon ::

The Sauvageon's are a very family old wizarding family, they were originally French, and later immigrated to Sweden in the late 1700's. Unlike most ancient wizarding families (particularly the British ones), they have never shied away from breeding with muggles and muggleborns, often gaining the label of "blood traitor" from the British families, but they're Swedish, and blood density is irrelevant there. There are as liberal and socialist as their country. Despite being loathed by the blood purist-type families, they are still approached very few generations for marital matches, as they are exceedingly wealthy and when the aforementioned house runs out of options.

One could say he's from a branch family, they're no longer the main family, technically, but are still closely related and also still have the same name. So it's more like a developing branch family. His grandmother (Frida) was Svea's grandfather's (Ludvig's) younger sister, so I think that makes them cousin's twice removed? Or is it three times? I don't know, this sht always confuses me (in my defense, I do have around 6000 cousins, and I don't know how I'm related to any of them. Not even joking about that tbh).

Sauvageon aesthetics (with a tiny bit about both Vig and Svea's maternal families, still editing it though): https://goo.gl/u4nRiU

--only father-side relations listed here-- ▪️ Father: Acke Bengt Adrian Sauvageon | Alex Jennings | 56 | former socialite (kind of missing, lives underwater)

▪️ Grandmother: Eira Katja Karita Sauvageon | n/a | deceased former politician (in the muggle world, rose to mayor of Enköping)

▪️ Grandfather: Danil Benjamin Sauvageon née Vengerbojrn | n/a | deceased (muggle businessman - ran KronLund, which specialized in developing luxury estates, hosting events, and owns far too many wineries. He changed his surname upon marrying Eira, half-Icelandic)

▪️ Uncle (father's brother): Edvard Ragnvald Fritjof Sauvageon | n/a | missing, disappeared whilst exploring Geiranger Fjord in Norway

▪️ Cousin (closer than Svea and Lili, biologically): Frej Egil Fredrik Sauvageon Bernadotte, Duke of Västergötland | Matthew Goode | 36 | businessman/royal consort (took up control of KronLund after Danil's death, later married the crown princess of Sweden and added her house's name to his. All children of the marriage shall take the name of the royal house)

▪️ Cousin-in-law: Crown Princess Kristina Ulrika Viktoria Margareta of the House of Bernadotte, Duchess of Västergötland | Vanessa Kirby | 32 | heir apparent to the Swedish Throne

Main Sauvageon family/extended family: ▪️ Great-uncle: Ludvig Sauvageon | Patrick Stewart ▪️ Great-aunt-in-law: Linnéa Sauvageon | Judi Dench ▪️ Uncle: Petter Sauvageon | Colin Firth ▪️ Aunt-in-law: Iliana Drubetskaya | Lena Headey ▪️ Cousin: Svea Sauvageon | Cara Delevingne ▪️ Cousin: Lena Sauvageon | Dafne Keen ▪️ Aunt: Brigitta Sauvageon | Gillian Anderon ▪️ Uncle: Kåre Sauvageon | James D'Arcy

:: Maternal "family" :: A merwoman calling herself "Freyja", whilst he's visited his mother and her "family" many times, he's still not quite clear about which merpeople in the Lake he's related to, and which not, nor even how he was born (*cough* conceived but ew *cough*). They basically just sing and sht when he's underwater, and then he goes up, kind of in a haze and with a mild euphoric feeling, like he's been drugged.

Although he doesn't know much about his mer-family, according to Swedish mermaid legends, they're known for helping lost sailors and are generally considered a friendly peoples. They largely help deal with the lake's grindylow population.

♣️ Family Affiliation: Swedish Ministry of Magic, Durmstrang Institute of Magic (not a happy association, but it's their homeschool, and most Sauvageon's have attended it, including Vig himself), House of Bernadotte, House of Châteaudun (and their successive houses), and the Riddarhuset (The House of Nobility in Sweden -- don't really have any power or special tax exemptions anymore, basically protection of historical titles and coat of arms), Rökstenen (that's more his personal affiliation though, since banks are seperate entites run by goblins who employ some humans)

♣️ Socio-economic status: meh. He technically has a lot of money via family, and earns quite a sum from Rökstenen, but he's one of those rich people who are oblivious to how much things cost (making him slightly disaffected, though, in his defense, he was rasied in palace, basically)

Quick facts: Vig was born underwater in Lake Mälaren to Acke Sauvageon and a merperson who calls herself "Freyja", they're still not sure if it's her real name. He was born with mostly the physical features of a regular human, so he was taken above water to be raised by the Sauvageon's, his father, however, remained underwater (originally he sustained himself via gilly weed and the bubble head charm, but eventually became an animagus and lives as a blue tang because Dory). Closest in age to Svea out of her generation of Savaugeon's, they essentially grew up as siblings, and even attended muggle school together for a time before it was time for him to go to Durmstrang. To say he did not like it there would be an understatement, he nearly flunked out of his dark arts classes out of pure protest, but later actually tried since the information would come in handy when he decided he wanted to be curse breaker. In his 6th year, he attempted to petition the school to change their rules and let muggle-borns in, but lacked support from his fellow students and was ultimately unsuccessful.

Additional Information: n/a

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ HOGWARTS INFORMATION Hogwarts Stats: N/A

Whilst a (half-)wizard, Vig did not attend Hogwarts, but instead went to the Scandi homeschool; Durmstrang. Like the other Sauvageon's who attended Durmstrang (as well as Swedes in general, because JKR didn't even fu.cking google Sweden before making it the Scandi school, it's a socialist country, and unlike Denmark and Norway, isn't allergic to migrants!), anyway, like the other Sauvageon's and Swedes, he did not like the school, especially it's attitude towards muggles and muggle-borns (his own grandfather being a muggle). Despite his hatred of the school, he did well, earning the equivalents of Outstandings and Excellents in his exams. Svea jokes that he would've been an "uncool Hufflepuff" (probs would've been in Ravenclaw though, he's smarter than he looks. And acts).

Any Pets?: does Lili count? Not really, she'd reducto his as.s if he said to her face.

Reputation at Hogwarts: doesn't really have one, he only shows up to the events that open to non-students/family, and would really only interact with friends of Svea and/or the Lothbroks. I guess his rep would be "hot dude that sometimes shows up". Also, just to be clear, he literally has nothing to do with the Hogwarts social hierarchy (just in case anyone got confused).

Additional Information:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ INDIVIDUAL MAGIC

Wand: Rosewood Wand Core: Unicorn hair Wand Length: 10½" Wand Flexibility: Swishy Patronus: Arctic Fox Boggart: drowning (appears as his almost-corpse, like pale and wet, but like seizing and struggling to breath) Amortentia: burning wood (like the scent that arises from a bonfire), cinnamon, sea salt Affinity to any particular magic?: not exactly, but he's naturally drawn towards water related spells and sea type plants. It's not super special, they were just the easiest for him to learn and work with when he was still in school, having completed his education, he's perfectly skilled with other stuff now too. Additional Information: - great singer both above and underwater, underwater it becomes more ethereal, known to occasionally leave listeners with an ecstatic, somewhat loopy feeling, like marijuana does to muggles - he's incapable of performing any of the unforgiveable curses.

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ USER INFORMATION

Username: @drownedinmoonlight Activity Level (Scale 1-10): 8

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⚜️ OPTIONAL Playlist: Moodboard: Social Media (instagram, facebook, snapchat, twitter, etc) : Storyboard: Aesthetic Collection: Wardrobe/Style Collection: Plotting Set: Story:

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ஜ۩۞۩ஜ

When you have completed the audition, please tag the mods: @.drownedinmoonlight @.themadmonarchist and @.maybones and use the hashtag #GWnpc

Also, don't forget to add it to the group. Happy character creation!

#polyvore #audition #mine #gw #viggo sauvageon #template

0 notes

illustir · 6 years

Text

Highlights for The Hall of Uselessness

One has the feeling that these critics do not really like literature—they do not enjoy reading. Worse even, if they were actually to enjoy a book, they would suspect it to be frivolous. In their eyes, something that is amusing cannot be important or serious.

Though, as a wise doctor once remarked, between two doctors whose medical qualifications are otherwise equal, we should trust the one who reads Chekhov.

The closer a book comes to being a genuine work of art, a true creation with a life of its own, the less likely it is that the author had full control over and a clear understanding of what he wrote.

what led them to their mysticism was simply the perception of “an intolerable disparity between the hugeness of their desire and the smallness of reality.”

Still, the notion that it is generally unwise to make pronouncements in areas that lie outside one’s expertise remains a sound principle. I only wish that Mr. Hitchens himself would abide by it.

This weird belief that a dead man called Jesus is still alive should command all the deeds and all the thoughts of a Christian.

“But if someone does not do it, how will good be done?” questioned the old gentleman in a voice full of perplexity. “Live so,” replied the Master in a voice suddenly stern, “live so that by the sanctity of thy life all good will be performed involuntarily.”

I was writing in a café; I had been sitting there for a couple of hours already, comfortably settled at a table with my books and papers. Like many lazy people, I enjoy a measure of hustle and bustle around me while I am supposed to work—it gives me an illusion of activity—and thus the surrounding din of conversations and calls did not disturb me in the least.

true Philistines are not people who are incapable of recognising beauty; they recognise it all too well; they detect its presence anywhere, immediately, and with a flair as infallible as that of the most sensitive aesthete—but for them, it is in order to be able better to pounce upon it at once and to destroy it before it can gain a foothold in their universal empire of ugliness.

And Claudel commented: “This mental process is identical to that of poetical writing . . . The impelling motion is the same. Which shows that the primary source of scientific thought is not reasoning, but the precise verification of an association originally supplied by the imagination.”

The fact is, these two arts—history writing and fiction writing—originating both in poetry, involve similar activities and mobilise the same faculties: memory and imagination; and this is why it could rightly be said that the novelist is the historian of the present and the historian the novelist of the past. Both must invent the truth.

He clearly felt that, together with the rest of the country, he was being progressively sucked into a poisonous swamp. To ensure a reasonably smooth and trouble-free existence, small compromises were constantly required—nothing difficult nor particularly dramatic; everyone else, to a various extent, was similarly involved. Yet the sum total of these fairly banal, daily surrenders eroded the integrity of each individual.

His short (unfinished), clear-sighted and sober memoir raises one terrifying question: all that Haffner knew at the time, many millions of people around him knew equally well. Why was there only one Haffner?

However, beware! Whenever people wonder “What is the truth?” usually it is because the truth is just under their noses—but it would be very inconvenient to acknowledge it.

“I do not care for scholars unless they are scholars without wishing to be or without knowing it. There is nothing easier than becoming a scholar. To acquire learning, it suffices to lock oneself up in one’s house for six months. It is far better to have a good imagination than a good memory.”

The brutalities of boarding school can routinely maim sensitive children for life; occasionally they may also breed a genius.

“Genius,” Baudelaire said, “is childhood recalled at will.”

There is no escaping the radical difference between the capacity for conception and that for execution: imagination and action are often at opposite poles. That is why novelists usually do not become millionaires, whereas millionaires do not even read novels.

Half of the misery in this world is caused by people whose only talent is to worm their way into positions for which they otherwise have no competence.

At the remotest end of Europe, Tolstoy secured without delay a copy of the book and was overwhelmed. One may say without exaggeration that Les Misérables triggered War and Peace. Giants breed giants.

Nor must we overlook the essential: he benefited from what only the warm affection of a united family can supply, a happy childhood, which arms one to face life and, once adult, to eliminate the risk of losing time in some fatuous and vain quest for happiness.

For the gift of the poet (which is also the gift of the child) is the ability to connect with the real world, to look at things with rapt attention. Both the poet and the child are blessed with what Chesterton called “the mystical minimum”: the awareness that things are—full stop. “If a thing is nothing else, that is good; it is—and that is good.”

None of the activities that really matter can be pursued in a merely professional capacity;

Thus he made the point that the man must be, to a certain extent, a specialist—out of necessity, he finds himself confined in a narrow professional pursuit, since he must do one thing well enough to earn the daily bread—whereas the woman is the true universalist: she must do a hundred things for the safe-guarding and management of the home.

He realised it was a status he could easily have achieved, had he agreed to pay the usual price—which is to isolate and emphasise only one side of the truth. This is always an easy recipe for achieving popularity and for gathering crowds of disciples; but to secure this sort of demagogic success one must mutilate a complex reality.

Generally speaking, literary people are exceedingly self-centred and vain—on the whole they are not a very attractive breed—but Chesterton did not belong to that species.

Here, Gide seems to be unwittingly joining Claudel, who held that the key metaphor with which to interpret the diverse manifestations of German culture was the sausage.

Conclusion: if one had to go out to sea in a small boat, one would not choose Orwell for skipper. But when meeting with shipwreck, disaster or other catastrophe, one could not dream of better company.

For all his gluttony and drunkenness, his passionate attachment to all things of beauty, his selfishness, his impatience, his unkindness and anger (a close friend once asked how he could reconcile his generally beastly behaviour and his Christianity; Waugh replied: “You have no idea how much nastier I would be if I was not a Catholic. Without supernatural aid, I would hardly be a human being”), what he derived from his Catholicism was a fundamental ability not to take this world too seriously.

The latter exacted from him such an intense, nervous effort that sometimes, before starting to write, he would suffer fits of vomiting. Each time, he had to assume imaginatively the persona of his main protagonist—to become him—and then to see with the mind’s eye the world his pen was conjuring as it followed an inner dictation.

This phenomenon reached such an intensity that there were times when it scared Simenon, times when he felt drawn towards an uncertain border where his very sanity might founder.

Every life leaves behind an accumulation of broken odds and ends—bizarre and sometimes smelly. Rummaging there, one can always unearth enough evidence to establish that the deceased was both monstrous and mediocre. Such a combination is quite common—whoever doubts it needs only look at himself in a mirror.

In the eighteenth century, French was the common language of the leading minds of continental Europe; twentieth-century French intellectuals hardly noticed that times had changed in this respect; they retained the dangerous belief that whatever was not expressed in French could hardly matter.

Revel’s attempt at entering into active politics was short-lived, but the experience gave him an invaluable insight into the essential intellectual dishonesty that is unavoidably attached to partisan politicking.

Mitterrand was the purest type of political animal: he had no politics at all. He had a brilliant intelligence, but for him ideas were neither right nor wrong, they were only useful or useless in the pursuit of power. The object of power was not a possibility to enact certain policies; the object of all policies was simply to attain and retain power.

In other words, people who do not read fiction or poetry are in permanent danger of crashing against facts and being crushed by reality.

Confucius often said that if only a ruler could employ him, in one year he would achieve a lot, and in three years he would succeed. One day a disciple asked him, “If a king were to entrust you with a territory which you could govern according to your ideas, what would you do first?” Confucius replied, “My first task would certainly be to rectify the names.” On hearing this, the disciple was puzzled. “Rectify the names? And that would be your first priority? Is this a joke?” (Chesterton or Orwell, however, would have immediately understood and approved the idea.) Confucius had to explain: “If the names are not correct, if they do not match realities, language has no object. If language is without an object, action becomes impossible—and therefore, all human affairs disintegrate and their management becomes pointless and impossible. Hence, the very first task of a true statesman is to rectify the names.”

Zhou Zuoren (1885–1968), summarised in one pithy sentence this living tradition of which he himself was a product: “All that can be spelled out is without importance.”

Aesthetic criteria are functional: does the work do what it does efficiently, does it nourish the vital energy of the artist, does it succeed in capturing the spirit that informs mountains and rivers, does it establish harmony between the metamorphoses of forms and the metamorphoses of the world?

Orientalism could obviously have been written by no one but a Palestinian scholar with a huge chip on his shoulder and a very dim understanding of the European academic tradition (here perceived through the distorted prism of a certain type of American university, with its brutish hyper-specialisation, non-humanistic approach, and close, unhealthy links with government).

He dispatched the affairs of the state with the supreme efficiency of an old Daoist ruler who knows that one should govern a large empire the way one cooks a little fish.

His unique skills made him forever indispensable, while simultaneously he cultivated a quality of utter elusiveness; no one could pin him down to a specific political line, nor could one associate him with any particular faction. He never expressed personal ideas or indulged in penning his own theoretical views. Where did he really stand? What did he actually believe? Apparently he had no other policies but those of the leader of the moment, and nourished no other ambitions but to serve him with total dedication. Yet the brilliance of his mind, the sharpness of his intelligence, the electrifying quality of his personal magnetism, eloquence and authority constantly belied the kind of bland selflessness that he so studiously displayed in the performance of his public duties; Zhou’s enigma lay in the paradox that, with all his exceptional talents, he should also present a sort of disconcerting and essential hollowness.

Twenty-three hundred years ago, Zhuang Zi, in giving advice to a king, made him observe that when a small boat drifts in the way of a huge barge, the crew of the barge will immediately shout abuse at the stray craft; however, coming closer, if they discover that the little boat is empty, they will simply shut up and quietly steer clear of it. He concluded that a ruler who has to sail the turbulent waters of politics should first and foremost learn how to become an empty boat.

To reconcile such paradoxes, one must either learn the mental acrobatics of a very sophisticated game played by the enlightened vanguard and called “dialectics,” or, more vulgarly, face the fact that rather than being the prophet-philosopher as described by his worshippers, Mao was essentially always and foremost a practical politician for whom what mattered above everything was power—how to obtain it, how to retain it, how to regain it. In order to secure power, no sacrifice was ever too big—and least of all the sacrifice of principles. It is only in this light that it becomes possible to understand his alternations between compromise and ruthlessness, benevolence and ferocity, suppleness and brutality, and all his abrupt volte-faces: none of these were ever arbitrary.

Without an ability to decipher non-existent inscriptions written in invisible ink on blank pages, no one should ever dream of analysing the nature and reality of Chinese communism.

For Truth, by its very nature, is ugly, savage and cruel; it disturbs, it frightens, it hurts and it kills. If, in some extreme situations, it is to be used at all, it must be taken only in small doses, in strict isolation, and with the most rigorous prophylactic precautions. Whoever would be willing to spread it wildly, or to unload it in large quantities, just as it comes, is a dangerous and irresponsible person who should be restrained in the interest of his own safety, as well as for the protection of social harmony.

Kazimierz Brandys summed it up neatly (with the clear-sightedness that characterises so many Polish intellectuals, who on this subject have acquired a bitter expertise): “Contemporary history teaches us that all you need is one mentally sick individual, two ideologues and three hundred murderous thugs in order to take power and gag millions of people.”

Democracy is the only acceptable political system; yet it pertains to politics exclusively, and has no application in any other domain. When applied anywhere else, it is death—for truth is not democratic, intelligence and talent are not democratic, nor is beauty, nor love—nor God’s grace.

I am of course referring to the time before independence; for today, even if there should still be any enterprising Greek merchants around, I doubt very much that they would find passable tracks to reach these distant hamlets.

The most depressing thing is to watch these crowds of tourists, who paid a not inconsiderable amount to come here and secure for themselves eight days of happiness. In the motley uniforms of holiday convicts, they patrol lugubriously this huge Luna Park while trying hard to persuade themselves that they are getting their money’s worth of fun.

Literary scholars are particularly adept at cultivating this sort of nonsense: they seem permanently drunk on the psychedelic milk they keep sucking from the twin mammelles of Freud and Marx.

The post Highlights for The Hall of Uselessness appeared first on alper.nl.

via English – alper.nl https://ift.tt/2El2vu5

#IFTTT #English – alper.nl

0 notes