‘The Shelter’

The Twilight Zone is a series well-deserving to be called iconic. Its stories were never complex and often not even subtle, but their very simplicity made them engrossing and creator Rod Serling’s penchant for twist endings made each of them worth watching to the end.

For my part, I like to think of these stories as modern-day folktales. Many of them take the real world and insert some fantastical element to highlight a moral or other lesson about the human condition; many others are shocking and horrifying, reminding us not to linger in the realm of imagination.

I want to discuss today one particular episode, one which I consider to be quite underrated: “The Shelter,” Season 3, Episode 3. Wikipedia has a fair enough summary of the plot. The episode highlights the fragility of civilization, closing with Serling’s narration:

No moral, no message, no prophetic tract, just a simple statement of fact: for civilization to survive, the human race has to remain civilized. Tonight’s very small exercise in logic from the Twilight Zone.

There is more to it, however: the viewer’s reaction is crucial to understanding the meaning of the story.

The viewer’s sympathy dances around a bit throughout the episode. At first, the doctor, who has constructed the titular shelter, seems the most sympathetic. He has been thoughtful and prudent, providing for his family’s survival. The action of the story shifts away from the doctor over time, focusing more on his neighbors trying to enter his shelter. Of these Jerry is the most self-aware, standing against the others’ belligerence for a time, and Marty likewise expresses reluctance, but in the end, all of them participate in battering down the shelter door to seize it for themselves.

So who is the Good Guy? Well, the doctor is to be commended for his foresight; he is definitely the most intelligent character. But that is all that distinguishes him. He seeks to protect his family—most excellent!—but so do all the others. Do they not have the right to try to save themselves and their wives and their children too? It is a cold moral calculus which declares those who did not prepare for an extremely unlikely event deserve their fate. Yet this is the attitude the doctor adopts; he hardens his heart against the cries of his friends, friends who just moments earlier had displayed warm feelings toward him.

No one is the Good Guy; no one is the Bad Guy. All of them are frightened and desperate people, each doing the best that he can under the circumstances. It is notable that the men do not act as individuals but rather as heads of nuclear families, seeking not what is best not for themselves alone but for their children especially. 1950s individualism, one might call it.

When the doctor emerges from the shelter at the end, he says that the crisis has destroyed them. Obviously, they are all still standing, but they have certainly lost something, something very important. Serling calls it “civilization”; another word would be “Männerbund.”

No longer can the men look at each other and see a friend. Sure, they can try to go on as if nothing had happened, to pretend that they were not each prepared to watch the others die or even to kill them in order to survive. This is what the neighbors try to do, but the doctor has keener eyes than they. Their bonds of friendship, of respect and regard, of the Männerbund, all have been broken, and they can be broken again.

The task facing these men is to restore their Männerbund and to reforge the bonds which have been broken. The men have been tested, and they failed, and they all know that they failed. They must make sure that such a failure never happens again.  Most crucial to meeting this challenge is the response of the wise doctor.

The doctor should dismantle his fallout shelter. It has become evident that his shelter will do him no good; it will only drive a wedge between him and his friends in a crisis. The friends cannot seriously object. He must demonstrate to them that he will not abandon them to die; if they are to die, they will all die together. They might request his assistance in constructing shelters of their own, but this is by no means necessary. In fact, it could simply cause the same problem on a larger scale: instead of four neighbors fighting over a single shelter, there might well be more neighbors clamoring to enter the new shelters.

Marty suggests they all celebrate the passing of the crisis with a block party. Though it appears to be a naïve suggestion, an attempt to hide from the horror of the incident, it is actually a good idea. The doctor has previously scorned such activities as mere frivolity. No longer. Just as the men must die together, so must they all live together, and while they cannot ignore what just happened, neither can they brood and obsess over it.

Let us conclude with a return from the realm of imagination to the realm of reality. We can agree with Serling that civilization requires civilized men, but what does that mean in practice? Do we stick our heads in the sand and ignore the progressive decline and impending fall of our civilization? Do we retreat into seclusion, saving what we can and waiting out the storm? Sober reflection tells us that neither option is acceptable.

Our task today would be easier if we lived in the aftermath of a crisis like in “The Shelter.” Then everyone would recognize the fraying and tearing of the social fabric which we see all around us. Unfortunately, they do not, and to all appearances, they will continue.

So then how do we prepare for the coming collapse? The details depend on just what kind of collapse we are expecting. In the case of some calamities—nuclear holocaust, for instance—any idea of preserving civilization through them is absurd.

What we foresee, however, is something more gradual. The fall of the Roman Empire in the west is officially dated at 476 A.D. even though Imperial authority had evaporated in many localities long before that. Rather than collapsing all at once, Imperial authority slowly retreated as other powers rose to challenge and replace it. Civilization collapsed at the same time because these rising powers were unable or unwilling to preserve the institutional basis for civilization.

The West is facing a similar decline. Eventually, the existing states and other institutions will lose power and be replaced. In the interim, however, they will clamp down ever harder on alternative institutions arising from within them. This places those of us living in the shell of the old order in a difficult position: we cannot challenge failing power structures directly, nor can we simply go around them and build alternatives. In either case, we would be crushed utterly.

Instead, we must be patient and prepare for the day when we will be able to build. These will be tumultuous times, when strength and security are hard to come by. People will cast about for anyone they think can help them, and they will turn—like Jerry, Marty, and Jack—to those who saw the collapse coming and have prepared for it.

The strategy of neoreaction is not to be the ones who actually restore order. We are too few and too divided, the matter is too abstract at this stage, and, frankly, we are not temperamentally suited to the task. We are intellectuals, men of thought rather than men of action. Our offer to such men is not battalions at our command or millions at our disposal but rather our own knowledge. We know the prerequisites for a functioning and thriving society. But the leaders of the future won’t just take our word for it: we must prove that we possess this knowledge by properly ordering our own lives and our own Männerbünde.

Don’t Give Up On Trump Just Yet

After President Trump’s decision to launch missiles into Syria, many of us on the outer Right have been gravely disappointed with him. Some have even proclaimed the end of Trumpism on account of this act.

Such drastic responses are not warranted yet. A near-constant theme of Trump’s rise has been his ability to defy the expectations and predictions of nearly everyone. It is always advisable to wait a few weeks at least before judging his actions, and though it appears that Trump has turned his back on the non-interventionism he espoused during the campaign, we should avoid jumping to conclusions.

Yes, Trump attacked Syria, but what exactly did that attack amount to and what was its justification? Both were extremely narrow. The attack was an overwhelming barrage of cruise missiles which did tremendous physical damage but resulted in only slight casualties on the Syrian side and none for the Russians. The Russians and Syrians were even warned about the attack in advance so they could evacuate. As for the justification, the attack was specifically retaliation for Assad’s alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. Trump has not called for Assad’s removal, at least not yet.

This attack was carefully calculated as a foil to Assad’s own. Trump seized the moral high ground by focusing on the deaths of children; even Xi Jinping has tempered China’s opposition to the strike because of this.

The International Community has rallied around Trump, and this could be for good or for ill. Though we on the far Right often think of the IC as an enemy, Trump is its titular leader, and he needs the support of other Western leaders in order to actually rule. Trump winning their support could be very good if he retains an independent mind and very bad if he does not.

The same goes for Russia and Putin. Before Trump’s attack, Putin was the foremost statesman in the world; now, Trump is challenging him for that role. In order to properly deal with Russia, Trump needs to be of the same stature as Putin. We often think of Putin as a friend to the Right in the West, and while that notion may have some truth to it, Putin is still Russian, not Western.

All these factors mean that the coming days and weeks are pregnant with possibility. We hear disturbing rumors about the fall of Bannon and the rise of Kushner, but these are, for the moment, just rumors. Trump is not even 100 days into his first term. Very little is firmly decided just yet. We have to wait and see.

Finally, it’s important to remember that Trump is the beginning, not the end. We should not expect–the wisest among us have not expected–that Trump would overthrow the Cathedral and instigate the Restoration. He is just the first step along that road, and if he doesn’t go as far as we could have hoped, he’s still already been a step in the right direction.

EDIT: I have found some sources stating that there were indeed a few casualties on the Syrian side. I have updated the wording of this post to reflect that, though I don’t think a few deaths vs. no deaths is of great significance.

EDIT: Well, that moment didn’t last very long, with Nikki Haley announcing that regime change is on the U.S. to-do list. Trump himself may yet surprise, but the probability becomes lower by the minute. As far as Mideast policy goes, Trump does appear to have caved.

Ghost Story

I was hiking in the Pyrenees this past July and happened upon a sword. It was in Basque country, the Roncesvalles pass. I first saw a glint of sunlight off something metal, and when I moved closer to investigate, I was astonished by my find.

Sticking out of a limestone cliff was the hilt of a sword—the sun had glanced not off the blade but the pommel, which was all of gold. The grip was wrapped in soft red leather, and the guard was narrow and cruciform but likewise gilded. It could have been plunged into the rock five minutes before I saw it as it gave all the appearance of being brand new.

When I grasped the hilt and pulled, I was astounded even more, for the sword not only came out easily but it actually cut the stone itself. The blade was roughly 40 centimeters, straight- and double-edged, and with a fine, acute point. It was far lighter than I’d expected and well-balanced too. A soft glow emanated from the blade, growing stronger when I held it aloft. Far off in the distance, I thought I could hear a horn blowing.

I brought the sword back with me to Paris. My roommates were quite impressed with it as well, and we hung it up on the wall. That night was when I had the first inkling that there was something alive about the sword. Around midnight, someone started picking the lock on our door. I was sound asleep at the time but a deafening horn-blast jolted me up and out of bed. I rushed over to the door and cried out, “Who goes there?” From the sound of their feet, it was several men, but they sprinted off immediately.  It was then that I noticed the sword was in my hand. I didn’t remember picking it up, but there it was. I put it up again on the wall and went back to bed.

The next morning, I walked to work, stepping over the usual assortment of mattresses, broken glass, and broken wooden planks. Along the way I encountered a young woman being accosted by five men. Some madness came over me, and I ran over shouting, “Leave the lady alone, villains!” They turned toward me. Their eyes were at first filled with contempt, but as they looked at me, stark terror overcame them. Their pupils went wide, and they bolted screaming something about a Frankish ghost. I walked the lady down the street, and she was very grateful. We exchanged phone numbers before we parted ways.

My little adventure made me late for work, but it didn’t truly matter. Genuine work is hard to find these days, so the state puts together offices with made-up tasks to perform and a small salary for doing so. Many people only work these jobs as practice for eventually earning a position at a real company, but I rather like the atmosphere. There’s very little pressure to perform, the tasks are easy in any case, and everyone is fairly laid back. I don’t need any extra money, so I’m quite content.

I finished filing my papers very quickly and started feeling restless. I did some light calisthenics to burn off energy and even looked up some HEMA videos online. After lunch, I decided to go visit Notre Dame. It was bright day with all the bustle of city life, but inside the church was dim and quiet. I walked slowly down the nave and knelt at the altar. I felt ridiculous kneeling there like a superstitious heathen at prayer, but some force compelled me to stay. After a couple hours, my good sense overcame whatever it was, and I left as quickly as I dared.

That night was D&D night. Steven, a foreign exchange student, was our dungeon master, and he had an intense dungeon crawl prepared for us. I asked him if he’d be open to letting me play as a different character this time. My warlock didn’t seem as interesting, and I had a clear picture in my mind of a noble paladin in service to a great and pious king. Steven was a bit surprised since I usually play antiheroes, but he was game, and we had quite a good time, though the different mechanics took some getting used to.

After that first day, however, was when the nightmares started. I began seeing visions of my character—I’d named him Roland after the 9^th century knight—and he showed me frightful scenes.

The first was of a city taken by storm. Blood flowed in the streets, and the cries of women and children echoed between the walls. Everywhere shone curved swords, and above it all loomed a crescent banner. I asked Roland what city this was and the cause of its misfortune. He replied that it was Bordeaux in 732. Count Odo had sought to defend his city, but he had not the men and was forced to retreat.

Then I saw a grand throne room filled with people dressed in bright colors and shining mail. Around the throne stood twelve more chairs, all empty but brilliantly ornamented. The king himself outshone them all with his radiant crown and a gleaming sword in his hand. My eyes could hardly stand the brightness, but as I looked closer I could see that none of men moved. Indeed, their eyes were sunken, skin dried and pulled tight over bone. Even the king was a withered husk beneath his brilliant array. I asked Roland what king and court this was, and he replied, “Of France.”

Finally, I found myself alone overlooking a battle. Beneath me were three armored men fighting in a narrow space against a vast host of enemies. They fought in close concert, each defending another when he struck, but as time wore on, their strength faded, and they fell. The last I recognized as Roland, and before he died, he took his great horn and blew a mighty blast.

I awoke suddenly drenched in sweat.

These dreams persisted for weeks. I could scarcely sleep, and the visions became ever more intense. Not even sleeping pills could bring me quiet rest. Roland began to upbraid me in harsh terms, and I saw him now even during the daytime.

The worst came on the 26^th, when horn blasts which only I could hear tormented me all day. I ransacked my apartment, and when I threw the sword across the room at last the trumpeting grew quiet. I realized then that the sword was haunted, so after bandaging my hand, I sought out professional assistance.

Several occultists confirmed my suspicions about the sword, and two agreed to perform an exorcism on the blade. It took place on the 1^st of August, and it was a terrifying night. As we began to incant, the lights grew brighter and brighter, and the blade began to glow as well. Then the sword rose up from the table and attacked one of the occultists. I grabbed it by the hilt and managed to hold it down but the strength of the invisible force behind it was immense. Finally, there was a great flash of light, and we all heard a horn blowing but growing softer and softer, fading into silence.

I then went to bed and had the best night’s sleep I’d had in almost a month.

There was one final incident involving the sword. A couple days after the exorcism, some fellow broke into my apartment and stole the sword. He took it to Notre Dame and laid it on the altar. When the police found him, he’d been sitting there for hours muttering the same thing over, “Miles, recipi tuum gladium.” Last I heard, he was locked away in a mental ward, raving that some knight came to him in a dream and told him to retrieve the sword.

I keep the sword put away these days. Madeline, the girl I saved, doesn’t like swords in general, so when she moved in I found it a new home. I sometimes take it out to cosplay or when I need to cut something particularly hard. I haven’t sharpened it since I found it, but the blade has not dulled in the slightest.

Why Patriarchy

In a family, as in any other association of humans, there arise disagreements on various matters of varying degrees of importance. When the family is functioning properly, these disputes are resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. When disputes cannot be settled in this way, however, people resort to violence, literally beating the other party into submission. Naturally enough, men tend to win these contests when conditioning does not restrain them from striking a woman.

However, wife beating is not a productive activity, and a high-trust family is superior in virtually every way imaginable to one in which the spouses glower at each other across the dining room table. Thus, there developed rules for settling familial disputes without violence, the most successful of which being patriarchy. Under patriarchy, the man holds the final say on all family matters. This systems works because if disputes were instead referred to the court of the ultima ratio, the man would win; it simply makes sense to give authority to the person who would win the argument anyway.

As with all technologies, there are appropriate and inappropriate applications of patriarchy. If the man uses his authority to become a despot, completely disregarding his wife’s concerns, then he is effectively ruling by pure force shrouded in the garb of patriarchy. Anyone with power will of course use it to his own benefit, but a true patriarch rules his family in the interest of himself and his wife both, as well as any children they may have together.

If we are to dispense with patriarchy, then we must find an alternative arrangement which also discourages domestic violence. At present, domestic violence is illegal in all fifty states; that is to say that if a man beats his wife, other men will come and punish him. This rule is enforced with varying degrees of strictness in different communities, and it is impractical to actually police all families in this way, but the principle remains.

There are two alternatives to patriarchy currently in favor. One is divorce: if a couple cannot settle an issue, they simply dissolve their union and go their separate ways. Current divorce laws favor the women in this case, but in principle the practice is egalitarian.

The other option is matriarchy. Under current laws, a woman may both harass her husband and withhold sex from him, and the man has no recourse (other than divorce). This arrangement gives women the upper hand in disputes which previously belonged to men. Since men wish to avoid conflict, they yield to their women without fighting, just as women do to their men under patriarchy.

The problem with matriarchy is that it is simply patriarchy waiting to happen. It relies on men declining to use their superior strength to win arguments on account of punishment which other men will inflict upon them if they do so. If these other men decide that the prohibition against wife beating is not worth enforcing, then matriarchy rapidly dissolves.

Matriarchy relies on men policing other men for the benefit of women and so is unstable. Patriarchy relies on recognition of men’s natural superiority. Patriarchy is not necessarily kinder or more pleasant than matriarchy, but it is more stable.

The Politics of Avatar, Part II

My previous post dealt with the politics within the world of the Avatar series, examining the development of the Avatar Empire. Or, more correctly, I provided an alternative interpretation to that implicitly offered by the show itself. To the writers’ credit, the series is amenable to multiple interpretations, not all of which concur with its self-presentation.

Today I want to explore a few instances from the series, one from TLA and two from LOK, to demonstrate in detail how both the intended, favorable interpretation and a much more critical one both match the source material. The first case is Aang’s decision not to kill Fire Lord Ozai at the conclusion of TLA, and the other two are Korra’s triumph over Unalaq and Vaatu and her decision to keep open the two spirit portals, both in the finale of season 2 of LOK.

First, Aang. As Aang’s ultimate confrontation with Fire Lord Ozai grew closer, Aang became more and more distressed over the prospect of having to kill the Fire Lord. The monks of the Air Nation had taught Aang that all life is sacred, and as a corollary that one should never kill, a precept Aang had taken to heart. But so long as the Fire Lord lived, he posed a threat to the world, and as the Avatar, Aang had a responsibility to eliminate that threat. Aang struggled desperately to reconcile these two duties. Consulting his past lives, Avatar Roku advised Aang to act decisively to end the Fire Lord’s reign, Avatar Kyoshi to administer justice, Avatar Kuruk to actively shape the world, and Avatar Yangchen to be prepared to do whatever might be necessary to protect the world. None of the previous Avatars told Aang point blank that he had to kill, and so when he found another way to preserve balance, by taking away the Fire Lord’s firebending, he managed to combine both his own convictions and the wisdom of his forebears.

At least, so the show would have us believe. Another way of looking at this incident is that Aang’s refusal to kill was an act of moral cowardice. Aang was not opposed to killing on principle but rather was constitutionally incapable to taking a life. Like the child that he was, he ran away from his responsibility as Avatar and, even worse, covered up his failure by dressing it in the guise of morality.

First, let’s look at Aang’s predecessor Avatar Roku. Roku likewise found himself in conflict with a Fire Lord, his old friend Sozin, and also like Aang, Roku did not kill Sozin. But unlike Aang, Roku was completely prepared to kill Sozin and chose not to as an act of mercy. Roku later advised Aang to be prepared to kill his grandson Zuko, if that was what it took to preserve balance. Roku did not run around killing people willy-nilly–on the contrary, he was remarkably restrained and showed leniency even to those who deserved death. But when Roku did not kill it was by choice. Mercy requires the willingness to inflict punishment first and then the decision to forego it; Roku was capable of mercy.

But what about the Air Nomads? Aang’s conviction of pacifism stemmed from his upbringing among the monks of the Air Temples and their teachings on the sacredness of life. However, the Air Nomads were not as absolutely opposed to killing as Aang imagined. When we first see the body of Aang’s mentor, Monk Gyatso, we see it surrounded by corpses of Fire Nation soldiers. When faced with the annihilation of his people, the old monk was perfectly capable of taking dozens of enemies with him. Aang’s understanding of Air Nomad philosophy was that of a young boy who ran away and consequently never learned the exceptions to the rules he had been taught as a child.

Aang was not simply disinclined to kill Ozai, he was incapable of doing so. The very thought horrified him, and he even proclaimed that he would watch the whole world burn rather than take Ozai’s life. Just as he had done a hundred years earlier, Aang was running away from his responsibility. Aang could not show Ozai mercy because he could not bear to inflict punishment in the first place, but he lazily allowed himself to believe otherwise. Aang believed that mercy was simply not killing, and so elevated his moral cowardice to the level of virtue merely to satisfy his own conscience.

Now on to Korra. The first incident is not a decision Korra makes but rather concerns the symbolism of her victory of Unalaq and Vaatu. The show wants us to believe that this is simply a matter of order defeating and driving out chaos, but as soon as we consider the genders of all the parties, we see the event also as the victory of the feminine over the masculine: Korra (female) along with Jinora (female) defeats Unalaq (male) and Vaatu (male). The symbolism is pretty obvious; the question is what exactly it means and whether or not it bodes well for the future of the world.

Let us go back to before Korra all the way to the time of Wan, the first Avatar. Wan intervened in the struggle between Raava, feminine spirit of light and order, and Vaatu, masculine spirit of darkness and chaos, initially being tricked into aiding Vaatu but quickly recognizing his error and supporting Raava. By uniting his spirit with Raava, thereby becoming the first Avatar, Wan was able to defeat and imprison Vaatu for ten thousand years. The era of the Avatar was thus born out of the combining of masculine and feminine natures and the subjugation, not of masculinity itself, but of its destructive side.

What the show suggests is that Avatar Wan’s victory was incomplete. The masculine principle survived and reared its ugly head again, this time destroying Raava and threatening to plunge the world into chaos. Only the pure feminine spirits of Korra and Jinora could defeat this force once and for all.

On the other hand, Avatar Wan’s solution to the problem of Vaatu was completely adequate. Had Korra not released him, he would have remained imprisoned conceivably until the end of time. In the end, Vaatu was vanquished not in an overwhelming triumph but in a last-ditch offensive; Korra won only by the skin of her teeth. And she did not even end the threat permanently. Neither Raava nor Vaatu can truly be destroyed, and so Vaatu will reemerge perhaps in as little as a generation. For ten thousand years Avatar Wan had assured the ascendancy of order; Korra allowed the conflict to continue all over again.  The purely femininity is thus proved to be inferior to a proper melding of the masculine and feminine with the masculine being active and decisive and the feminine providing support as needed.

Finally, the second Korra’s decision to leave the spirit portals open. As the show would have it, Korra saw the wisdom of Unalaq’s desire to bring spirits and humans together. The precise benefits of this decision are not very well-described, but it is heavily implied that it was somehow related to the reemergence of airbending.

Though the show portray’s Korra’s actions in a positive light, it is not hard to take an alternative point of view. Avatar Wan knew what he was doing when he separated humans and spirits. He had personally seen his friends slaughtered by angry spirits and witnessed many other dangers spirits posed to humans, as well as how easily conflict between the two could escalate into violence. He knew that having spirits and humans in close proximity was a recipe for conflict and disaster for the humans. Avatar Wan’s decision to keep the spirits in the spirit world and humans in the human world allowed humans to flourish for ten thousand years.

However, Avatar Wan had something that Korra absolutely did not: a close personal connection with the spirits. When Wan announced that he would serve as the bridge between the two worlds, his claim was credible to both sides. Korra, on the other hand, was nearly hopeless in this regard. Though she had learned something of the spirits from Unalaq, that was mostly theory: as far as actually mediating between spirits and humans, Korra possessed no experience and little inclination to learn more. Korra always preferred fighting to talking or deep thinking. As a consequence, when offered the chance to abdicate her responsibility as Avatar, like Aang before her, she took it.

The mature course would have been for Korra to restore the barriers Avatar Wan had created and call upon her friends like Jinora or Bumi who had closer connections with the spirits to assist her in her duties. That, however, would have been far too responsible a decision for an 18 year old girl.

These incidents in the shows are some of the clearest examples of the writers intending one meaning but also giving room for a diametrically opposed interpretation. The Avatar series is supposed to be an allegory for the rise of Leftism, but the creators were apparently honest enough to also show the flaws and failures of this movement. LOK bears this out especially: the show relied entirely on gimmicks–new villains, new forms of bending, new technology–to maintain interest because the protagonists and the story as a whole were so unbearably dull, just like real-world Leftism.

Politics of Avatar, Part I

Avatar: The Last Airbender (TLA) is a children’s television show which aired on Nickelodeon between 2005 and 2008. The show is widely beloved by Millennials, and it deserves the praise it receives. The story takes place in a world where certain individuals can manipulate the elements through disciplines known as bending (airbending, naturally, being manipulation of air, firebending of fire, earthbending of earth, and waterbending of water). Our protagonist is a boy named Aang, the Avatar, the only person in the world capable of bending more than one element, who struggles to master all four bending disciplines and defeat the evil Fire Lord Ozai. Aang is also the last airbender, as his people were wiped out a hundred years before the show starts.

One element (pardon the pun) of TLA’s success is its setting, a world which is populated, with only a few exceptions, entirely by Asian peoples and cultures. This makes it difficult to connect events and conflicts in the show directly to contemporary political controversies, though the show does from time to time. Thus, the amount of Leftist propaganda is limited, and since the show also adopts many Asian themes, as opposed to Western ones, even the propaganda that seeps through is often muted. The show is a bit heavy on girl power, but all things considered, it is still well worth watching.

TLA’s sequel series, Legend of Korra (LOK), however, is another story entirely. Even leaving aside the infamous final scene, LOK dispenses with and undermines much of what TLA great, and it even fails to be good on its own terms. Put simply, LOK is boring: the main characters are dull and uninteresting, and the plots are slower than in TLA and completely predictable besides. The villains are excellent, however, and the arcs of secondary characters are often quite good, making the show as a whole merely mediocre.

Taken as a whole, however, the Avatar saga is quite impressive. The meaning of Avatar is nothing less than a dramatization of the rise of Leftism in the real world. In order to see this, however, we have to examine the politics within the world itself. What we find is that after TLA, Aang establish an Avatar Empire by subjugating the most conservative nation in their world. This empire is legitimized by a pseudo-Leftist ideology accepted by its leaders without question, even as they lurch from one near catastrophe to another.

The World of Avatar Roku

In order to understand how the world of Avatar changes after TLA, we need to know what it was like before, and so we will examine first the world as it stood during the tenure of Aang’s predecessor, Avatar Roku.

At the time of Avatar Roku, the world was divided into four main nations, one for each of the elements. There was the Earth Kingdom, modeled on Imperial China, covering the world’s super continent and ruled by a cloistered Earth King from the capital city of Ba Sing Se. The Water Tribes, modeled on Inuit society, dwelt on the North and South Poles. Four mountaintop temples acted as the bases for the Air Nomads, Buddhist monks. Finally, the Fire Nation, Japan, occupied a volcanic archipelago near the equator and was ruled by a Fire Lord. Roku was born into a noble Fire Nation family and grew up as a close friend to the future Fire Lord Sozin.

In this period, the Avatar acted as a kind of nuclear deterrent against conflict between the four nations. He also traveled throughout the world settling disputes in order to limit violence within the individual nations. Finally, the Avatar acted as a liaison between the material world and the spirit world. Spirits appeared in the material world very rarely during this time, but they could be extremely destructive, so the Avatar’s services as a mediator were highly valued.

Despite his great magical and spiritual power, the Avatar’s political power was limited by a number of factors. The first was that his many responsibilities kept him extremely busy, preventing him from establishing a political power base. The Avatar cycle had the same effect: the position of Avatar was not hereditary but rather, upon the death of the old Avatar, the Avatar spirit was reincarnated in a newborn child in a different nation. Before Avatar Roku of the Fire Nation was Avatar Kyoshi of the Earth Kingdom, and before her Avatar Kuruk of the Water Tribe, and before him Avatar Yangchen of the Air Nomads. If an Avatar did manage to assemble a power base, it would most likely be among his own people, who would not be nearly so loyal to the next Avatar in the cycle.

A third limitation on the Avatar was an outgrowth of the Avatar cycle. Avatars often lived for centuries, but when they died, not only did the Avatar spirit move to the next nation but the identity of the new Avatar would not be revealed, even to the Avatar himself, until he reached the age of majority. Afterwards, the new Avatar left his home to train among the other nations. Not only did this give the Avatar the opportunity to meet and come to understand the people he would be serving, but it also took many years. Thus, the world had to get along without the Avatar for up to thirty years between when one died and when the next was fully prepared. This time gap allowed other governing institutions to gain strength. There were also no international institutions devoted to serving the Avatar either. National spiritual authorities were responsible for identifying the new Avatar and assisting him with his training, but they focused largely on their own affairs.

The final check on the Avatar’s power was ironically a sort of continuity. Through meditation the Avatar could communicate with his past lives, receiving mentorship in his duties and advice on difficult decisions. This continuity was vitally necessary simply for the Avatar to adequately perform his duties: a thirty-year-old man is hardly the ideal world policeman, but his previous lives gave the Avatar an extraordinary well of experience from which to draw. Furthermore, the previous Avatars continually reminded the current Avatar of his responsibilities, preventing him from become distracted with other matters.

Avatar Roku went through the customary training process and during his life effectively maintained peace between the nations. However, he was unable to forestall the ambitions of his friend Fire Lord Sozin, who wanted to use his nation’s wealth and power to create a world empire. During Roku’s life, Sozin did not pursue his plans, but when Roku died suddenly, he seized the opportunity to commence what became known as the Hundred Year War.

The Hundred Year War

Fire Lord Sozin had begun quietly preparing for war while Roku still lived, but he waited until a comet arrived before unleashing his full power. This comet enhanced the power of firebending tremendously and allowed the Fire Nation to completely annihilate the Air Nomads in a matter of hours. By doing this, Sozin hoped to delay the return of the Avatar more time to unfold his plans. The plan was a success, and while Sozin was not convinced that he had truly killed the Avatar, the Fire Nation then began heavily raiding the Southern Water Tribe where the next Avatar was scheduled to appear.

Avatar Aang was informed of his identity earlier than was customary, at the age of 12, and just a few days before Sozin’s attack on the Air Nomads. Overcome by the enormity of his responsibilities, Aang fled his home and so escaped death along with his people. However, he froze himself in an iceberg and lay dormant near the South Pole for nearly a hundred years.

After Sozin’s death, his son Azulon became Fire Lord and continued his father’s policies, conquering large swaths of the Earth Kindgom. Azulon’s son Iroh even managed to breach the great walls of Ba Sing Se itself, but when his son Lu Ten was killed, Iroh retreated and retired from military life. Azulon died shortly thereafter and was succeeded by his second son Ozai. Ozai likewise pursued the war vigorously, conquering virtually the entire Earth Kingdom, including Ba Sing Se.

Ozai was married to Ursa, the granddaughter of Avatar Roku. Azulon had heard a prophecy that the mingling of his bloodline with that of Roku would produce an extremely powerful firebender, and so he arranged the match. The result was a son, Zuko, and a daughter Azula, a firebending prodigy. However, Ozai believed that Zuko was not actually his own son but rather the offspring of Ursa’s childhood friend. Though he lacked sufficient evidence to confirm his suspicions, he strongly favored his daughter over his son, eventually banishing him for a minor offense in order to clear the way for Azula to succeed him.

The two Water Tribes fared very differently during the war. The Southern Water Tribe was nearly wiped out by decades of raids. Sensing that his people were near the end, Chief Hakoda left the South Pole with all the tribe’s warriors to assist the Earth Kingdom. Shortly after Hakoda’s departure, his children Sokka and Katara discovered Avatar Aang. Avatar Aang was still physiologically 12 years old and had only mastered airbending, so Sokka and Katara, the last remaining Southern waterbender, became his companions as he traveled the world.

The Northern Water Tribe, however, fared much better. Stronger than the South to begin with, the North was spared Fire Nation raids for many decades, and Avatar Aang traveled there to study waterbending. Shortly after his arrival, the Fire Nation launched a massive invasion which  Avatar Aang utterly destroyed by calling upon the spirit of the ocean.

By the time of Avatar Aang’s return, the Earth Kingdom’s fortunes were mixed. Ba Sing Se remained intact, as did the city of Omashu, ruled by Avatar Aang’s childhood friend King Bumi, but most of the countryside was either occupied by Fire Nation troops or vulnerable to raids. Furthermore, at the same time as the naval invasion of the Northern Water Tribe, the Fire Nation army launched an attack on Omashu, which the inscrutable king surrendered without a fight. A few months later, King Bumi personally liberated the city with little effort, but this event still left Ba Sing Se as the only major Earth Kingdom stronghold remaining.

Ba Sing Se was under the effective control not of Earth King Kuei but of his longstanding adviser Long Feng, head of the Dai Li. The Dai Li were an order of earthbenders established by Avatar Kyoshi to protect the various temples and cultural centers in Ba Sing Se, but Long Feng used them as a secret police force, eliminating threats to the city and to his own position. Long Feng was also a bureaucratic genius, managing to keep the enormous city relatively orderly despite a vast influx of refugees from across the Earth Kingdom.

Matters changed when Avatar Aang arrived in Ba Sing Se. The Avatar wanted the Earth Kingdom to invade the Fire Nation, but Long Feng refused. After collecting sufficient evidence, Avatar Aang and his companions launched an attack on the royal palace, confronted the Earth King himself, and convinced him to remove Long Feng from power and to invade the Fire Nation with them. At the same time, however, Princess Azula entered the city in secret and, winning the loyalty of the Dai Li, overthrew the Earth King and captured the city for the Fire Nation.

Avatar Aang nonetheless went through with his invasion plans, assembling a small army and attacking the Fire Nation capital. But Fire Lord Ozai was ready for them, and virtually the entire force was captured. The Avatar escaped, however, and was joined by Prince Zuko, who trained Avatar Aang in firebending.

Avatar Aang did eventually confront and defeat Fire Lord Ozai, stripping him of his firebending. At the same time, Zuko and Katara confronted and defeated Azula, securing Zuko’s ascension as Fire Lord. Zuko the proclaimed an end to the Hundred Year War.

While Avatar Aang and his companions were at work, however, there was an even more significant development. The Order of the White Lotus, a secret, international society of wise masters, emerged from hiding and liberated Ba Sing Se. They did so under the leadership of three Fire Nation masters, in particular Iroh, Ozai’s brother and Zuko’s uncle. The Order remained an open society afterwards and dedicated itself to serving the Avatar. Not all members of the White Lotus agreed with this move, however, and they formed a new secret society, the Red Lotus, which would reemerge many decades later.

The Harmony Restoration Movement

After Fire Lord Zuko proclaimed an end to the Hundred Year War, he began withdrawing Fire Nation troops from the Earth Kingdom and with with Earth King Kuei and Avatar Aang to discuss the Fire Nation colonies. Over the previous hundred years, many Fire Nation citizens had settled in the lands they conquered. Naturally enough, Earth King Kuei wanted these colonies evacuated. Fire Lord Zuko and Avatar Aang agreed, and the repatriation of the Fire Nation colonists was dubbed the Harmony Restoration Movement.

Most of Fire Nation colonies were evacuated with little difficulty, but the Harmony Restoration Movement proved to be extremely unpopular in both the Fire Nation proper and the colonies. Facing growing opposition, Fire Lord Zuko halted the Harmony Restoration Movement and refused to withdraw from Yu Dao, the oldest of the Fire Nation colonies and one of the wealthiest.

Earth King Kuei acted swiftly, breaking with centuries of precedent to personally lead the Earth Kingdom army to Yu Dao to expel the Fire Nation. Fire Lord Zuko also moved in troops to reinforce the garrison. The two forces were evenly matched; the Avatar would be the decisive player.

Avatar Aang initially favored the Earth Kingdom and the Harmony Restoration Movement, but during the battle of Yu Dao, he decided to switch sides and back the Fire Nation. Cowed by the Avatar’s overwhelming show of force, Earth King Kuei backed down and withdrew his troops. Nonetheless, Yu Dao was taken out of Fire Nation hands and placed under and international government; the city was eventually rechristened Republic City and became the capital of the United Republic of Nations.

The Avatar Empire

After the battle of Yu Dao, Avatar Aang and Fire Lord Zuko began establishing a new political order order for the world which amounted in practice to a global empire ruled by an Avatar dynasty. Avatar Aang managed to eliminate nearly every check on the Avatar’s power for his successor Avatar Korra, while the Earth Kingdom, the one nation not under the Avatar dynasty’s control, was largely emasculated.

The first and most drastic step Avatar Aang took following the failure of the Harmony Restoration Movement was to sever his spiritual connection with Avatar Roku. Roku had urged Aang to support the Harmony Restoration Movement and even be prepared to kill Zuko if that was necessary to preserve balance. Avatar Aang was horrified at Roku’s suggestion and so, at the ripe old age of 14, decided that Avatar Roku’s wisdom was outdated and completely discarded it. This decision would have serious repercussions for Avatar Korra later on, but its immediate effect was to allow Avatar Aang to pursue his and Zuko’s imperial ambitions without the nagging of wise elders.

The humiliation of the Earth Kingdom began with the Avatar’s intervention at Yu Dao, but it did not end there. Earth King Kuei was forced to cede large swaths of territory to the United Republic containing substantial mineral wealth. These natural resources allowed the United Republic to build up a powerful military arm, the United Forces, which not only patrolled its own territory but also staged operations in the Earth Kingdom even up to the walls of Ba Sing Se itself. Zuko’s uncle Iroh took up residence in Ba Sing Se in order to remind the Earth King of his place in the new order. Earth King Kuei was by temperament a contemplative man but had demonstrated an activism unusual for Earth Kings; the threat of retaliation kept him in check. When he died, his daughter Taini ascended the throne, and while she made aggressive noises, the Earth Queen was more concerned with her own palace topiaries than with reclaiming territory or even effectively governing her own kingdom, which was completely to the Avatar Empire’s satisfaction. The Earth Kingdom’s forces did not even intervene during the Equalist Crisis, when Republic City was occupied and half of the United Forces annihilated.

In the beginning, the Avatar dynasty only directly controlled the Fire Nation, and so Avatar Aang’s companions Toph Beifong and Sokka took leading roles. Toph had discovered metalbending and established a cadre of metalbenders to act as police in Republic City; over the years, the Republic City police’s capabilities came to match those of a conventional military. Sokka was heir to the chieftainship of the Southern Water Tribe and also served as a representative in the governing council for the United Republic.

Avatar Aang did make two good decisions in his lifetime. He took volunteers to help rebuild the Air nation, instructing them in the old ways of his people. These followers became known as the Air Acolytes, and while few in number, they were accorded the same dignity as each of the other nations. Aang also married and had children: two sons, Bumi and Tenzin, and a daughter, Kya. Tenzin was the only one of the three to be an airbender, and when he came of age, Aang passed on leadership of the Air Acolytes to his son.

At its height under Avatar Aang, the Avatar Empire saw more than half the world under the direct authority of descendants and close family relations of an Avatar. There were, however, some mitigating factors. Sokka had no children, and so the line of chieftains in the Southern Water Tribe failed. The chiefs of the Northern Water Tribe assumed political leadership of both tribes. The distance between the North and South poles meant that the North had very little practical control over the South, but eventually tensions rose between the traditionalist North and the commercialist South.

Finally, though Toph remained in Republic City for most of her life, her daughter Suyin left to found the Metal Clan, an enclave for metalbenders within the Earth Kingdom. Suyin was hostile to the Earth Kingdom as a matter of principle, and defended her independence with a small army of metalbenders.

Avatar Korra

Avatar Aang died approximately fifty years after defeating Fire Lord Ozai, and the Order of the White Lotus set out to discover the identity of his successor. They, rather than the spiritual leaders of the Southern Water Tribe, took on the task of training the new Avatar, Korra, and under Korra’s leadership, the Avatar Empire extended its reach further than ever before.

Avatar Korra was the daughter of Tonraq, the son of the Water Tribe chief. Tonraq had been exiled from his home for destroying a forest home to powerful spirits: these spirits then caused much damage to the Northern Water Tribe. Tonraq’s younger brother Unalaq, a deeply spiritual man, became chief instead. Unalaq offered to become Avatar Korra’s waterbending master, but his brother and the White Lotus refused. The White Lotus also thwarted an attempt by the Red Lotus, under the leadership of a man named Zaheer, to kidnap the Avatar and train her themselves. The leaders of the Red Lotus, including Zaheer, were all captured and imprisoned by the White Lotus.

In training Avatar Korra, the White Lotus eliminated the last remaining checks on the Avatar’s power and so molded her to be the leader of the Avatar Empire. Avatar Korra was a precocious waterbender, earthbender, and firebender, mastering the disciplines by age 17, but she was not permitted to travel the world studying. Instead, the White Lotus kept her secluded in a secure compound. When she finally left to study airbending with Aang’s son Tenzin, Avatar Korra had much of the power of an Avatar but none of the worldly experience. In addition, she had no spiritual connection to her past lives, courtesy of Aang’s break with Roku decades earlier. This made her a compliant tool in the Avatar Empire’s agenda: she simply knew no other way.

Avatar Korra faced a number of challenges to the Avatar Empire. The first was the Equalist Crisis, in which a group of non-benders led by industrialist Hiroshi Sato and a mysterious man called Amon seized control of Republic City and destroyed the bulk of the United Forces. Avatar Korra proved incapable of defeating the Equalists: her allies took down Sato, but Amon was only beaten when he accidentally revealed himself as a waterbender to his followers, losing legitimacy in their eyes. Amon escaped but died shortly afterwards.

The main upshot of the Equalist Crisis was to reveal the weakness of the Avatar Empire’s leadership structure. Relatives of various Avatars directly ruled three of the four nations, but the United Republic, by this time the most powerful state in the world, was governed by a council of representatives largely drawn from outside the Republic. The near-disaster of the Equalist crisis demonstrated the need for a strong executive, and so the United Republic was placed under presidential rather than conciliar government. President Raiko proved an effective leader for the Avatar Empire, though his calculating pragmatism sometimes rubbed the other leaders the wrong way.

Shortly after the Equalist Crisis came the Water Tribe Civil War. Chief Unalaq occupied the Southern Water Tribe as part of a plot to release the powerful spirit Vaatu and, for lack of a better description, destroy the world. Avatar Korra very nearly bungled the whole deal, but she did manage to defeat both Unalaq and Vaatu. Unalaq was succeeded by his children Eska and Desna in the North, while the South formally declared independence and chose Avatar Korra’s father Tonraq as chief. The Avatar Empire thus remained intact.

One notable development was the reemergence of airbending. After Avatar Korra’s battle with Unalaq and Vaatu, people all around the world spontaneously developed airbending, and Tenzin and Avatar Korra began recruiting the new airbenders to the Air Nation. Earth Queen Taini sensed an opportunity and began conscripting airbenders in the Earth Kingdom into her armed forces. Though recognizing the Earth Queen’s legal right to conscript her subjects, Avatar Korra overruled her and liberated the new airbenders. The Air Nation, and the Avatar Empire, thus gained considerable power at the expense of the Earth Kingdom.

At the same time, however, Zaheer, leader of the Red Lotus, also developed airbending and used it to escape imprisonment and free a number of other Red Lotus masters. Zaheer planned to destroy the Avatar–not Korra alone but the Avatar spirit as well–and to dismantle the Avatar Empire. While he nearly succeeded in the first goal, Zaheer only managed to eliminate the Earth Queen rather than any of the Avatar Empire leadership. This assassination allowed the Earth Kingdom to descend into chaos, but the other nations remained intact. Zaheer was ultimately recaptured and his compatriots all killed, but Korra was deeply shaken by the experience and retreated into seclusion for the next three years.

The final crisis which Avatar Korra faced (in the show, of course; she kept dealing with problems for the rest of her life) was the Kuvira Crisis. After the fall of the Earth Queen, Tenzin and President Raiko set about reestablishing order in the Earth Kingdom. Tenzin’s airbenders roamed the kingdom largely to show the flag and providing humanitarian aid on a small scale. Raiko reached out to Suyin Beifong to provide more military power. Suyin declined, but her protege Kuvira and her son Bataar agreed and set about pacifying the Earth Kingdom. Through a combination of ruthless negotiation and conquest, Kuvira managed to restore order to virtually the entire kingdom within three years, earning her the title the Great Uniter.

Back in Republic City, President Raiko was grooming the young Prince Wu to ascend the throne, that is, by pampering him and building a friendly rapport with him. Prince Wu was to be a puppet king, while United Republic administrators actually ruled the Earth Kingdom. If all went according to plan, the Avatar Empire would effectively control the entire world.

Kuvira, however, was disinclined to simply give up power, and so proclaimed a new Earth Empire to replace the Earth Kingdom. The Earth Empire possessed a powerful force of earthbenders and metalbenders as well as Kuvira’s inspiring leadership and Bataar’s technological inventiveness. This combination was intolerable to the Avatar Empire, and when Avatar Korra eventually defeated Kuvira, Prince Wu, realizing that he would not be allowed to actually rule himself, dissolved the Earth Kingdom into a plethora of small republics, each lacking the power individually to challenge the Avatar Empire. Aang and Zuko’s dreams of world domination were thus brought to fruition.

Lessons

At this point, I have to tip my hat to the makers of the Avatar series. Though it is obvious when viewing that they want to put a positive spin on everything I’ve described above, there is nothing which outright contradicts the interpretation I’ve given to the events of the shows and comics. The meaning of the story is underdetermined and can be as easily taken as a hagiographic epic as a cautionary tale against giving children the reigns of power. In Part II, I will apply this principle and demonstrate in detail the two sides of interpretation.

 

The Odyssey (1997)

In May of 1997, NBC aired a miniseries version of Homer’s Odyssey. Calling it a miniseries is a bit of a stretch, considering it was only two episodes—television movie works much better—but that is how it’s officially billed. The film is flawed in a variety of respects: it breezes through and even leaves out a great deal that is in the Odyssey and in the surrounding mythology, it changes some important themes, and especially in hindsight, the special effects leave much to be desired. All that being said, this version is an adequate retelling of Homer’s original epic, and for all its flaws, any remake is likely to be much, much worse.

One particularly gratifying feature of the 1997 film is the lack of diversity: all the characters are at least plausibly Mediterranean. Armand Assante, of Italian extraction, portrays Odysseus himself, and a large number of other characters, including Penelope, Athena, and Odysseus’ mother Anticleia, are likewise played by Greek or Italian actors. Brits, who to American audiences will pass for generically European, fill out the remainder of the roster, with a few others snuck into minor roles. The only concession made to diversity is Vanessa Williams, who is nonetheless believable as the seductive goddess Calypso. The film does not succumb to the temptation to have Odysseus explore the whole world for the sake of multicultural casting.

Assante’s portrayal of Odysseus is also to be praised. He manages to capture both Odysseus’ cunning and his prowess as a warrior. Today you’ll often see an implicit tradeoff between cunning and prowess: roguish characters aren’t as good at fighting as fighter-types, who aren’t so strong in the brains department. Examples of this “balance” include but are by no means limited to Jack Sparrow, Thor, and Loki. There’s a tendency to D&D-ize characters nowadays that did not exist in Antiquity. Probably the contemporary character closest to the Odyssean combination of brains and brawn is Themistocles from the second 300 movie. Odysseus is not a weakling who resorts to trickery merely to hold his own but rather a powerful fighter who deploys his mind to overcome extraordinary obstacles.

The film also admirably hews to the ancient culture of its setting. Hospitality is a recurring theme, as in the original epic, as is the subordination of servants to their masters, not as cruelly-treated, sub-human creatures but as mere inferiors to their genuine betters. The most notable archaism in the film comes at the beginning when Odysseus sets out for Troy: his mother instructs him to “turn Troy to dust,” to kill many men, and to bring back the spoils of victory. This she does with no trace of irony or sadness but rather as a mother proud to see her son go off to war. It is difficult to imagine such a line being delivered in the same way today and taken seriously outside of a 300-style movie.

Two halves together form the whole film, but each half is watchable on its own. The first part centers on Odysseus’ struggle to overcome hubris. Exultant in victory over Troy and over-proud to begin with, Odysseus defies the god Poseidon, who in response curses Odysseus to wander the seas until he has learned humility. The stories of Odysseus’ wanderings are naturally enough trimmed down for the sake of time, but we do get the famous incident with the cyclops.

The key episodes are with Aeolus and Circe. Aeolus, god of the wind, gives Odysseus a sack containing contrary winds—the only winds remaining free blow him and his crew to within sight of Ithaca. However, many of Odysseus’ crew, believing Odysseus has found treasure, consider themselves entitled to a share of what their master has found and open the sack while he sleeps. This unleashes the captured winds and blows the ship away from Ithaca. In a heartbreaking addition, the film shows Penelope and Anticleia, who felt Odysseus’ proximity, seeing with their own eyes how Odysseus is once again torn away from them.

The winds wreck Odysseus on the island of Circe, a dangerous foe, but even worse is the hostility between Odysseus and his crew. Odysseus is angry at his men for betraying him, and they smart at what they perceive as Odysseus’ lack of regard for their wellbeing. Anticlus, the man who opened the sack of winds, goes off to find food, and Odysseus instructs half his crew to go as well. When two of the men return, one transformed into a pig, Odysseus sets out to personally rescue his men. “I sent them,” he says. “I’ll bring them back.” His efforts and success restore the crew’s faith in their leader.

Most significantly, however, Odysseus comes to grip with his own inadequacies. He cannot simply rely on his own resources to see himself and his crew safely home; he requires divine assistance. While attempting to reach Circe’s palace, Odysseus is met by Hermes who offers him a plant to eat. Odysseus knows this plant is poisonous and initially refuses to eat, but he ultimately swallows his pride and accepts the god’s gift. This moment marks Odysseus’ transition from overwhelming self-reliance to acceptance of his own limitations. It takes another forty-five minutes for Poseidon to be completely satisfied, but it is this learned humility which holds Odysseus back from rushing home to certain death.

The second half of the film more closely follows Homer, though once again much is trimmed away. It lacks the same thematic unity of the first part, but it compensates by building up to the slaughter of the suitors. Telemachus is here more hot-headed and eager, but Odysseus restrains his son until the proper time to strike.

Indeed, this is the point of the whole story; the Odyssey should be retitled The Return of the King. The wanderings of Odysseus are all good stories and fun, and they help reveal the details of Odysseus’ character, but they are really just a digression in Homer’s tale. The true story is that Ithaca is falling into chaos, and the king must return to restore order before all is lost. But the task is daunting: a hundred suitors fill the king’s house, would kill him if they could, and even yet plot to murder his son. Only a hero can hope to succeed, and it will make a story worthy to be told for a thousand generations.

If the 1997 film has a fundamental failing, it is that it follows the popular account rather than Homer’s own. Nearly everyone, when they think of Homer’s Odyssey, thinks of the odyssey part, the great journey and the adventures of the titular character, even though those comprise only a sixth of the story. Also missing is Laertes, Odysseus’ father, and the reunion of the whole family, father, son, and grandson. A well-made film which followed Homer closely, which told the story of how Odysseus overcome the extraordinary obstacles in his path by skill first with wood and sail, then with words, then with cunning schemes, and finally with the weapons of war to prevent his home from falling into chaos would be magnificent to watch.

Of course, such a film could not be made today.

I guess we’ll just have to read the book.

The Apotheosis of Trump

The rise of Donald Trump has caused quite a stir to say the least. There is no consensus on what has driven his rise other than anger: his supporters are angry at something or someone, perhaps immigrants, perhaps “the Establishment,” perhaps Muslims, perhaps lizard people from the far side of Zeta Reticuli. No one knows whether Trumpism is a fleeting phenomenon or whether it is here to stay or precisely how it will affect the future of politics. Fear reigns and panic alongside it.

The ascendance of Phobos and Deimos along with Trump has provided a great deal of entertainment, and the chaos Trump has caused and continues to cause makes politics interesting. If Trump had never entered the race, we’d be looking at an incredibly boring campaign season of Bush vs. Clinton. Bernie Sanders, I’m afraid, lacks Trump’s ability to sow chaos. Confusion, uncertainty, these are the lifeblood of the political spectacle: if everything were predictable, there’d be no fun.

Some people, however, are quite certain as to the nature and significance of the Trump phenomenon. These are the #NeverTrump folks, the ones dead-set against him. They know that Trump is evil incarnate, a threat to the American political system, to human decency, and to life on Earth. These folks have said virtually every bad thing they can think of about Trump: he’s an Islamophobe and a bigot, he’s a con man, he’s irresponsible and unpresidential, he’s unqualified, he’s a strongman, etc. The only reason they haven’t called him a lizard person is that Ted Cruz fits that bill too well.

In the coming months, however, the opponents of Trump are going to run into a serious problem. No, it’s not that he’ll keep breath or winning delegates; it’s that they’ve already said pretty much everything they can say to stop him and it hasn’t worked. Their quiver is empty; all they can do is recycle the same arrows and hope they stick this time. Of course, they won’t, and this will drive Trump’s enemies to ever greater displays of antipathy.

Last year I wrote about how ancient societies ginned up religious fervor to help them prevail in battle and how democracies encourage a continuation of the same behavior. We can expect to see the same pattern in the anti-Trump crowd going forward. The protests are just the beginning. There will be more and more violent protests. Expect someone to die in the next few months. A protester is going to do something stupid and either kill someone or be killed by police. There will be riots in Cleveland if Trump comes anywhere close to winning the nomination, and I would not be surprised by assassination attempts as well. If Trump wins the presidency, some people will even commit suicide because they cannot stand the thought of living in Trump’s America.

These extreme forms of behavior will be the natural result of ever-increasing fervor. The anti-Trumpers are dead set against him, and if their efforts to stop him fail, they will blame themselves and insist that only the most impassioned and zealous opposition can overcome the Donald: their enemy will no longer be a man but a semi-divine being. Already we can hear murmurs of what is to come: Trump will destroy the Republican party; he will destroy the country; he will destroy the world. Trump is already Hitler; by the time the Republican convention rolls around he will be the Anti-Christ; by election day he will be the Devil himself.

Ironically, his enemies’ zealotry paves Trump’s road to the White House. Trump can knock the legs out from under Ted Cruz by offering him Scalia’s Supreme Court seat, and as soon as he realizes this, the Republican race will be over. As we go to the general election, Trump will start acting more presidential and win over moderates on his own merits. At the same time, the anti-Trump crowd will drive people away as they descend into a vicious holiness spiral. A few, highly-motivated men can triumph on the battlefield, but at the ballot box only numbers matter. If Trump plays his cards right, his opponents will win the election for him.

And when the Donald assumes the presidency, then the real fun begins. I, for one, look forward to the show.

Concerning Pericles

On the excellent podcast Ascending the Tower recently, one of the topics was “Pericles and Alexander – collapse followed these Great Men.” The discussion on this point concerned how “Great Men” have historically built up systems which prove unstable in their absence, the prime example being Pericles in Athens and Alexander the Great in, well, that’s a little harder to pin down. I have a lot to say about Alexander, whom I consider a vastly overrated figure, but I want now to put down a few thoughts on Pericles.

First off, Pericles also needs to be knocked down from his pedestal as a “Great Man.” He certainly was a remarkable individual, holding sway over Athenian politics for almost thirty years, and his reign has, quite reasonably, been considered the golden age of Athenian culture and power. However, there is a hagiography of Pericles ironically inherited from Thucydides. Like many moderate oligarchs in the late 5th century, Thucydides was too young to remember the chaos of Pericles’ early years and did not hold him responsible for the chaos that came after him. Compared to firebrands like Cleon and Alcibiades, Pericles appeared extremely moderate and restrained.

But this was largely appearance rather than reality, and Pericles’ career was largely devoted to tearing down Athenian greatness and papering over the destruction he himself had initiated. Indeed, more than anyone else, Pericles was responsible for the disaster that was Athenian democracy.

At the beginning of his career, Pericles was even more of a rabble-rouser than his successors. After the assassination of his mentor Ephialtes, Pericles led the democratic faction in its campaign to unseat the Philaidae and the oligarchic faction led by Cimon, son of Miltiades. It was Pericles’ measures which brought about radical democracy, breaking the hold the aristocracy held on the reigns of power.

One of the consequences of overthrowing the oligarchs was the alienation of the Delian League. Cimon had ruled effectively as king of the Aegean alliance, winning respect through his character and his tremendous military successes and building patron-client relationships. This produced a very efficient form of imperial administration: whenever Cimon needed something done, his friends could work through local channels to achieve it.

Banishing Cimon and weakening the aristocracy not only robbed Athens of its stable and competent government, but also robbed the Delian League of the same. Athenian governors became more heavy-handed, and the velvet glove of Athenian prestige covering the iron fist of its powerful navy wore thinner and thinner. It took a decade of inefficient government before Pericles finally accepted the oligarchs into his governing coalition in order to take advantage of their expertise.

Most disastrous was Pericles’ instigation of the First Peloponnesian War, backing Argos and the helots of Messenia against Sparta, Thebes, and the Peloponnesian League. Despite initial success in Boeotia, Athens discovered painfully that it had bit off more than it could chew. A crushing defeat at the battle of Tanagra confirmed decisively that Athens could not compete with Sparta on land, and Boeotia proved impossible to hold as well. Pericles had spilt much Athenian blood and treasure in the name of national aggrandizement with very little to show for it.

Pericles’ great beautification program was designed to distract the Athenians from his failures. He had promised them greatness and delivered humiliation; as consolation, he absconded with the Delian treasury and spent it on what we would today call pork-barrel projects. The appropriation of funds did nothing to improve relations with Athens’ allies either. The Periclean Golden Age was more like the Gold-plated Age.

Another political failure on Pericles’ part was his inability to satisfy the aristocrats. He’d stripped them of much of their power but was eventually forced to include them because his own people were incompetent. However, he insisted that they take a back seat in Athenian governance. Considering their importance to the state, as well as their historical position, the oligarchs resented their treatment keenly. By excluding them from true power, Pericles disillusioned many oligarchs with the democratic system. Many years later this would lead to blood in Athens’ streets.

Pericles’ final, total failure was to lead Athens into the Second Peloponnesian War. Though he made efforts toward moderation in the conflict over Corcyra, Pericles displayed an appalling lack of political savvy almost unbelievable for a man of his stature. Pericles expected the Spartans to abide by the Thirty Year Peace they had made in 446 B.C. for as long as Athens held to the letter of the treaty even as she violated the spirit. Instead, Athenian intervention on Corcyra and at Potidaea, as well as economic sanctions against the city of Megara convinced the Spartans that Athens was a grave and imminent threat once again. Pericles had the means to convince the Spartans otherwise, but he declined to employ them.

His management of the war in its initial stages proved Pericles’ own undoing. Spartan land power being overwhelming, Pericles preferred to evacuate the countryside and merely harry the Laconian coastline. His plan was to wait the Spartans out, hoping that after a few years the Spartans would realize how pointless the whole enterprise was and abandon it. This was utter foolishness. Even leaving aside the plague brought about by cramming so many people into the confines of Athens, Sparta could make expeditions into Attica and effectively rob Athens of much of her harvest at very low cost, while the Athenian treasury hemorrhaged funds every year. It was quite fortunate for Athens that Pericles died before he could lead his city into bankruptcy along with war and death.

Though Thucydides tries to hide it, the death of Pericles and the rise of Cleon proved a godsend for Athens. Cleon stepped up the amphibious campaign against Laconia, forcing the Spartans to keep their troops closer to home, and his stunning success at Sphacteria allowed Athens to increase taxes on the Delian allies and balance its budget. Cleon proved to be a late-blooming military genius as well, and it is interesting to imagine how the war might have gone differently had he not perished in battle at Amphipolis.

Our friends on Ascending the Tower discussed how “Great Men” often destroyed existing systems which held their societies together in their quest for self-aggrandizement. Pericles stands as an extreme case of this tendency, all but destroying what made Athens great and leading it to ruin merely in pursuit of personal power. Alexander is another example, though his greatest failure was dying at age 33, something over which he did not exercise complete control. Indeed, if Alexander had reigned for 30 more years, things could have gone very differently upon his death. I don’t think they would have, but that is another matter.

The Gate of Gnon

I once walked down a road and came to a doorway. I’d walked this road countless times before; I knew every turn, every crack in the street. But this door was new, something I’d never seen before. It stood about eight feet high, made of metal, with black and yellow stripes. Above it were letters reading “Danger: Do Not Enter.”

I’d read about this door in musty tomes of ancient lore. The wise men wrote of it reverently as a pathway to ultimate truth but through which no living man could pass. Modern learning, however, tended to discount these claims, for no one alive, these younger learned men said, had ever seen the doorway. Pure myth, pure fancy, at best, they said it was, and at worst, an artifice to ensnare and enslave the foolish.

Yet there it was before me. I saw the door with my eyes; I felt its cold metal with my fingers; when I rapped my hand against it, there rang out an audible clang. The door was real. I walked around to the other side, but instead of seeing the opposite side of a door, I found a blank wall. The door, it seemed, could only be opened from one direction and led nowhere.

I regarded the door for a while and then finally decided try it. There was no knob, but I pressed a button and a few seconds later the door spread open. I stepped inside, and the door closed after me.

There was a little light within and plenty of room to move around, far more than I had guessed looking from the outside. At the far end of the room was another door, labelled “Warning!” Having found nothing else of interest in this barren apartment, I went forward and opened this new door as well. I felt a great blow against my back as the air rushed out into the void, carrying me along with it. What I saw there astounded me.

I beheld a great spaceship like in science fiction stories. Its bulk was immense, stretching as far as my eyes could perceive in the gloom. There were windows on the ship’s sides, and I saw people within, people doing nothing extraordinary: they ate, they slept, they worked, they played, they went about their lives. Some of the people and places that I saw I recognized. I realized that the whole world that I knew was contained within this great ship.

Just as this realization dawned on me, I felt the blood in my veins begin to boil, my lungs to burn for absent air, and my skin to freeze in the cold of the void. I flailed about for anything to grab hold of, but there was nothing. Finally, I caught hold of a tether and pulled myself back to the airlock, which closed behind me. I lay there breathing heavily, mind reeling, for a long time before I could even stand again. Eventually,  I stumbled back through the interior door and returned to the world I knew, trying to put this horrible experience behind me.

It worked for a while, but I started noticing things. I heard people talking about the ship, who claimed to have seen the outside. They said that the spaceship was a prison created by cruel and rapacious men, who pitted its inhabitants against each other for arbitrary purposes. The segments of the ship all struggled against each other futilely when they should have been striving to tear down the walls that surrounded them. Only when the ship was destroyed could humanity truly experience freedom.

I listened to these people and considered their words. For a time I was swept up in their enthusiasm and joined them in the war to make men free. But then I remembered my journey through door and the cold, hard vacuum of space. I remembered how I nearly exploded and froze at the same time.

Then I saw what these crusaders did to their enemies: they ejected them into the vast emptiness. They claimed to be setting these people free, but I knew better. Sometimes they would do this for sport, and I noticed that they preferred victims who came from my home realm and who looked like me. Before long, they’d taken my father and my mother, my brothers and my sisters.

I also met other men who’d stepped through the portal to the outside and returned and who remembered what that entailed. Together we vowed to combat all those who threaten what we love. For though our enemies are mighty and wax yet stronger by the day, though they have already stolen so much from us, they shall not win from us our wives and our sons and our daughters. And when we have defeated those who would tear down the walls around us, we will grant them their fondest wish and send them through the gate, entrusting their souls to the tender mercies of Gnon.