Magnificent

Instead of condemning people, let’s try to understand them. Let’s try to figure out why they do what they do. That’s a lot more profitable and intriguing than criticism; and it breeds sympathy, tolerance and kindness. “To know all is to forgive all.

 Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends & Influence People (via yesdarlingido)

Sweeney Todd: The Importance of Morals and the Wrongfulness of Socialism

Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd (2007) has been famous for its explicitly violent themes, which are doubtlessly quite spectacular and shocking. The basic story seems like a tragic journey of vengeance and death but, as a matter of fact, it isn't a more dramatic Count of Monte Cristo, but it's a unique and interesting piece of art of a different nature.

In the beginning of the story Benjamin Barker a.k.a. Sweeney Todd (Johnny Depp) returns to London, from where he has been banished for crimes he did not commit and the corrupt judge, namely Turpin (Alan Rickman), who caused all of his troubles, abused his wife - who took arsenic to escape her pain - and became the tutor of Sweeney's daughter, Johanna (Jane Wisener). Sweeney seeks vengeance, pairs up with Mrs Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter), a widow, together they kill and bake scores of people, finally murdering the judge. In the closing sequence though it turns out, that Sweeney has killed his wife, along with the so many strangers, out of mistake, so he kills Mrs Lovett but he dies, too, because a young boy, Toby (Ed Sanders), who's very fond of the widow, kills him, as vengeance, also.

There are better plot summaries, I know, but I couldn't leave it out, in case someone isn't yet introduced to the movie.

Sweeney's conduct is a classic vendetta, which he plans to materialize by any means necessary. His self-assigned quest is something, that is hard to categorize as immoral. Well, yes, it's wrong to kill a man and it is far, far more wrong to kill a great number of men, yet we can't disregard the information about Turpin's terrible acts. We can say, that we probably wouldn't kill like Sweeney did but it's still hard to say, that his actions are wrongful, since he has the best imaginable motivation. In summary, what he intends to bring down on Turpin and London is understandable and, no matter how much we argue, just.

As the story goes on we get to see a little more of Turpin, who is represented as a heartless, sick person, to say the least. He is seemingly worthy of his overhanging punishment and he just keeps giving us reasons to hate him, and the banner of righteousness to Sweeney.

While Sweeney's struggling to get a chance to finish his vendetta, he kills many people, whom are baked by Mrs Lovett. This is an extremely provocative notion. As Sweeney is placed on a - disturbing and arguable - moral high ground, there is a seeming moral justification of his killing spree. The purpose this monstrosity serves is nothing else, than - apart from mere practice - cleansing the society of the bourgeois--we'll return to this.

In the end, however, everything takes a chaotic turn and what has seemed to be logical and moral - though disturbing and hard to agree with - loses its core element: the purity of its motivation. Has it not been for Sweeney's blindness he could've returned to his wife and with probably a lot of difficulties he could've redeemed himself from whatever he's been accused with. He could've got back his only child, as well. Sweeney realizes all this and kills Mrs Lovett, who has had key importance in his destruction, but it brings him nothing, apart from a very sudden and ironic death. The reason why it is hard to argue Sweeney's right to murder all those people is, that he seems to have a natural right to balance out his loss. This is what disappears in the finale: he must face the fact, that he isn't omniscient, he's not above nature but inside. All of his killings, his vendetta, basically everything turns out to be unjustified and immoral, and this is what our instincts have been telling us all along the movie. This story tells, how no man can rise above the rest of humanity or any given society, and how important it is to always stride on the path of morality, otherwise we'll run into great catastrophes, which are all self-inflicted. Lovett's bakery is a quite unmistakable and disgusting representation of socialism. Although in our society it's not a question whether socialism is right or wrong, this story, for some reason, still asks it but also gives a fast and clear answer: this mechanism of destruction was the one, which led to the demise of the one, whom Sweeney held the dearest.

In my personal opinion Sweeney Todd's tragic tale encourages us to watch the future with infinite hope instead of bitterness, no matter how terrible the past is.

A truly brilliant argument has been made here about the importance of representing diversity. All the points that have been made are understandable and more than that, they are deeply rooted in the world of morals. Once again, this is brilliant.

On the contrary, it is a wrong reply. Of course diversity needs to be represented and of course writers better think outside of the box. But to, and I quote, "call bullshit on whining about diversity", is aggression.

Taking up a fight against oppression and mis-/underrepresentation is a noble quest. However, when you put pressure on an amateur writer, in order to make them write differently because of the lack of POC or LGBTQ or other similar groups in their own work of fiction, you are, in a way using coercion. You use your authority without respect toward the person in question.

Writing fiction grants people absolute creative freedom. It gives them nonetheless when they start producing mistakes. A mistake can be in the nature of grammar or plot but it can also manifest in leaving out the diversity of our world from their fictional one. It will, in all probability, result in simply not getting published, or even if they get that far, not receiving a lot of praise.

Tolkien's work is criticized often because it is stereotypical. It originally meant that good characters remained good ones and bad ones remained bad. Contemporaries like to call it stereotypical because it involves no POC and such. However, Tolkien did not as far as consider anything but white folks because he had certain historical interpretations and theories, which he wanted to involve in his fantasy books. His ideas were about English people and French people and he mainly thought about the English people he saw around himself and not people from other lands.

Yes, Tolkien could have been concerned about diversity more and in the sense that we use this word today. Of course he did not, still he wrote relevant fantasy novels. Evidently, not focusing on writing about diversity does not equal failing at writing. Then it begs the question: if there are ways, where people do not include POC or disabled characters in their stories, still can become great authors, why is this blog so strongly against people, who tend to take up this other mental? I thought this blog is about writing tips and not political ones.

Now this is another question: can one write a blog, where, if opposed, his political views will not affect his actions and reactions? Naturally, this is very hard to imagine. Still, it seems as though central attitudes of the blogger and the writer meet in a conflict. But this is not true. The person, who tries to write and struggles to include 'diverse' characters, does not believe or promote that POC are inferior or that disabilities do not exist or whatnot. This person might be, in real life, a great supporter of diversity, even so, they might be homosexual. This question was in the nature of literature and not political philosophy or traits of personality.

I must return to a point I have already made. This is an aggressive, maybe oppressive response. The person, who asked the question, did not oppose anyone, they just failed to portray a group of people. It is a nice thing to encourage them to invest more and work a little harder, in order to understand others, different from them, but to say that they are wrong to not include such characters is unfair and flat-out oppression. It is because you, with your relevant authority, influence them to make a point in their writing, which they originally did not intend. It is just right to stand up for the people, who fail to do that for themselves, and I, personally, am with you there. But this is just writing. It is not professional and it is unfair to tell people what philosophy to follow when writing. One could stand up and tell people that they should exclude christian characters from their books because christianity promotes hate and inequality. (I must note that this is a false argument) But if people started to just use atheist characters, their stories would change in nature. (I must also note that it could be rarely applied because christian characters are seldom written and I think hardly anyone disagrees with this practice) The change, although, would not be because the list of characters would be less diverse but because the authors, who initially planned to involve them, had their reasons why they had that certain set of characters the way they are.

Writers can, of course, err and they should be encouraged to be empathic and thoughtful, it is a very noble thing, I say again. But this is not political propaganda for or against diversity, it is fiction. One could easily oppose me, by saying that at least implicitly it is against POC for instance, since they are not included. But the lack of promotion is not the same as opposition.

Diversity is to be promoted and encouraged, it is not a question, but a natural truth. But the only right way to stand up for a good cause is peaceful and requires a meek and humble soul.

Writing is not about your comfort. I have no idea who sold you the idea that writing is a comfortable, easy thing. Pushing yourself as a writer is part of the experience. If you feel uncomfortable about writing diverse characters, then you need to double down and commit yourself to doing the best...

Remember, remember the fifth of November.

V

Some things we do are as reasonable as dropping salt to our eyes.

My girlfriend and I visited a castle last weekend. It was smaller than the ones people usually visit, though I dare say it was much more picturesque, than any one I have ever seen.

My girlfriend is a very inspirational person and I'm glad she convinced me to go. I like castles and nice buildings just fine but an unusually busy period of summer was just over, so I felt overall tired-- almost too tired to go.

After exploring every empty hall, every majestic architectural feat, we headed home. I was happy to be able to rest and also to have visited this castle. The whole thing was good as it was.

Later (now), sitting at home, this trip began to hold importance, other than being a fantastic vacation. As it is said above, I've been very active recently. I was so active, in fact, that I've begun to believe, that it is all right to stop for a little while. Well, OK, periods of relaxation are inevitable, that's true. What I realized, though, is, that even in times of rest and peace, I can't stop completely. We aren't cars, which you turn off, when you arrive at home and turn on the next morning, when you want to go to work. Our breathing doesn't stop, our hearts don't stop beating. Even when the world is quiet, we need to stay in motion, or else, much like our organs, we will be difficult to reactivate. Life can be grand but only if we live it.

In the past few years my activity on tumblr has been irregular. I have written original posts but also did a great deal of reblogging and quoting, which are both very nice but are not why I want to have a blog. For me it’s a place for intellectual exercise and an outlet of thoughts. I want to be more focused here to chisel my mind and crystallize my opinions and thoughts, therefore I will make an attempt at returning to exclusively post original content and I want to be more committed. If I could write here everyday I’d be thrilled but that’s probably way too much to be crammed into my schedule--which I admit is not full momentarily but airy spaces of time for relaxation are what keep me mentally fit so I don’t intend to deprive myself of them.

This is it for now, writing it down only so that I will be more motivated to follow through.