Grrl Power #395 – The benefits of a classical education
The original (translated) quote from Plutarch’s Tranquility of the Mind, in case you were wondering;
“Such contentedness and change of view in regard to every kind of life does the infusion of reason bring about. When Alexander heard from Anaxarchus of the infinite number of worlds, he wept, and when his friends asked him what was the matter, he replied, ‘Is it not a matter for tears that, when the number of worlds is infinite, I have not conquered one?'”
Even so, there’s some debate as to the origins of the misquote, but for our purposes, Hans gets credit.
You can see why I wanted to combine this page with the prior one, as it’s an extension that same argument. And as C.C. points out, a lot of it is semantic games. Is this all gospel for Deus, or is he playing the sound bite game and being contentious on purpose? If so, then C.C.’s not rising to it, but maybe he’s hoping for viral traction. In any case, you guys had plenty of opinions on the prior page, and while Deus is certainly being reductionist, I do think greed is a prime motivator. Greed and lust certainly. That or I watch entirely too many crime procedurals while I draw, cause seriously, I can’t think of a single case in any of those that wasn’t ultimately motivated by greed, lust, or a combination of the two, unless the bad guy is simply crazy and is killing people because that’s just what he do.
I’m slightly upset that C.C.’s necklace has gone from looking like a piece of hand worked gold or brass to a piece of cheese, or possibly Spongebob Hexpants. I may have to fix that at some point. That or the next time we see her she’ll be wearing a starfish necklace. Actually probably that.
Not combining the pages gave me time to get the vote incentive finished finally, and I did some corrections to the book cover and inked it (original pencils here) and I started coloring the Valentines Day vote incentive, so hopefully that will be ready on time as well. All in all a pretty productive week. Sydney and crew returns on Thursday!
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
‘But they’re giving none away’….
+1 for Pink Floyd reference (ie: Money; Dark Side of the Moon)
A bit further on the “money is power” quote: That certainly is true.
On “love of money is the root of all evil,” it means more like, if you come to love money more than you love people, then you’re evil enough to start harming people with your money.
Combining Love with Money, you have the power to feed the hungry, clothe the poor, educate the ignorant & otherwise standards of living for all. Money is Power, yes, but it’s the use that you put to it that determines the difference between Good & Evil. How much money you have to do things is what determines the scope of how far you can spread good or evil.
For some reason, when you said start harming people with money, I pictured him throwing little bricks of money at people while stating sound bites at them.
And I’m reminded of a stand-up comedian bit where the guy says that for fun, he wears a coat with big pockets, filled with loose nickels and pennies, and hangs around down town. When-ever someone asks him for spare change, he activates a phone app to sound like a winning slot machine.
He then proceeds to chase the ‘winner’ down the street, flinging handfuls of coins at the guy screaming, “You’re a winner!”
Daniel Tosh is one of the comedians that make that kind of joke.
Well, not surprised Deus knows the correct quotes :D
Im surprised CC didn’t know the correct quote.
Is it really that obscure?
Since when has the media ever gotten anything correct?
They haven’t gotten anything right since they’ve separated the “investigative” from the “reporting.” I couldn’t really say of the top of my head when that became more prevalent…It’s been a gradual decline since after Woodward & Berstein took down a corrupt thug of a President, though. Seriously, we really need to get those two concepts back together again.
Actually they got an enormous amount wrong because they wanted to get Nixon even if all the hard evidence actually pointed to Dean.
Corruption in the media goes back much farther however. Walter Croncrite would actually misrepresent the “protests” happing around Martin Luther King in order to sensationalize the news.
There’s at least one translation I read years ago that was a bit different..
“For the love of money is the root of MUCH evil…”
Not everything evil originates in money… but it sure does show up a lot when evil is around. :)
If Deus can have a device to produce thunder sound effects upon demand, he can CERTAINLY employ a bunch of people to research good quotes for his interviews.
Assuming he wants to research ones he can pretend he agrees with
did he just say he was a conquer or did my brain skip?
Well, he already ‘conquered’ one nation… that we know of o_O
true but it sounds like he plans to beat even Alexander the great.
He wants to feel those misquote tears roll down his face, when he’s done conquering everything and has nothing left to take. Supreme greed.
Still loving the looks Maxi and Anvil are giving each other in the invotive: “The kids are going to be bouncing off the walls all night, just make sure they don’t get any red drinks” “Nah, they will go right to sleep as soon as their heads hit the pillows, if not, then the pillows will be hitting their heads until they do!” (your choice on who is saying which line :D)
I’m pretty sure those are different for everyone. In mine, Sydney is stroking her invisible evil gotee, Max, Anvil, and Peggy look confused. And Goth Hasten is striking a pose.
*Harem
(Damn you, autocorrect.)
Was talking about the invotive, with Anvil and Maxi taking the kids to see Star Wars
Anvil would have been detained at the theater I attended for having a weapon, even an obviously toy one, unless she had put it back in the car before entering. The group would have been questioned about the “baton” part of the light-saber if witnessed inside also. That is unless the whole appearance was pre-arranged and organized as publicity by the venue.
And isn’t that just a sad comment on the state of affairs in the world today…
Actually they would have zero problems even if they were carryings real we pons.
They are military/law enforcement remember.
Ker-blam!
Stupid clones.
Hmmm, wonder if C.C. and Suzie News know each other
THANKS! for correcting the misquote from the Bible. It is so irritating that people keep misquoting it and then misunderstanding it.
“hur durr, why would money be evil? The Bible is stupid. hur dur” well yeah, you know if your actually read what it says instead of assumptions and misquotes, it would make more sense.
[/rant]
A few days ago I stumbled upon the quote “Lord, don’t give me more money than my character can take.” (<- translated from German)… Just because it's on topic.
Ironically, (and depending on your translation) even Deus got the quote slightly wrong. After just a quick check, most translations of 1 Timothy 6:10 read “…the love of money is a root of all KINDS of evil” (emphasis mine), suggesting that the original Greek isn’t as absolute as the KJV makes it sound.
That… doesn’t make it much better :P
Going on translations
Rib was the closest approximation translators could get to for what exactly was taken out of Adam to create Eve. Nobody really knows what it was.
There’s a…controversial…translation of that passage being proposed.
https://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/theory-adam-s-penis-bone-creating-eve-causes-outrage
Goes a long way towards explaining why humans are one of the very few species of mammals who don’t have a penis bone.
This… salty… explanation is actually rather in keeping with much of early jewish tradition which is much more frank about sexuality than the translators of the KJV.
I recall a bit of the book of Ruth where Ruth goes to Boaz and offers herself to him as a wife by “uncovering his feet”. That bit has had biblical scholars arguing since Freud pointed out that feet are often a euphemism for the penis.
Jewish tradition was a *lot* less formal about marriage and sex than we moderns tend to believe. The middle eastern mores are pretty strict about marriage itself but are much less so about what leads up to marriage. I recall reading that in some traditions the act of rape can be be synonymous with a marriage ceremony – a guy rapes a women and surprise! She’s now his wife – no ceremony, no say, no censure (at least for the guy).
Sex, Power, and Violence have always been staples of the Oral Tradition, even the religious / moral instruction formats.
Ego, greed, whatever. Too much of anything is poison, even though a little may be healthy. Meh.
To much is bad, to little is bad.
The hard part is knowing how much is just right.
…and knowing how much is just right for who in particular…
Hey, everybody’s different.
Try telling that to the anti-salt and anti-sugar brigade: they want both banned from everything!
Then they must DIE!
“FWOOOOOSH”
Too late: local hospital has now banned milkshakes for everyone because it has ‘too much sugar’, so much for personal choice or those adults who aren’t on a diet (they use to have milkshakes)
Fortunately, it turns out that setting up a salt-and-pepper packet smuggling ring is well within the intellectual and educational capacity of your average American teenager facing a school year full of awful, bland lunches. It’s sort of like how most people can suddenly do math when their paychecks are involved.
…Which I guess is evidence supporting Deus’s opinion.
Sola dosis facit venenum.
The dose makes the poison.
All medicines are poisons.
But, according to the chemical formula, alcohol IS a solution…
But violence is THE solution.
…. Sadly, I agree with Deus on preferring Hans quote. also C.C.’s necklace looks sort of like a Ritz cracker in it’s second appearance on the page.
I thought it was cheese.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE5sEYwF36A
‘Nuff said.
Wait a second! there’s also https://www.amiright.com/parody/80s/eurythmics20.shtml
Okay, now it’s ’nuff said.
I don’t know why people are complaining. It looks Gouda to me.
Any way you slice it, that was cheesy.
/duck
is it just me is is deus beginning to come off as some kind of munster?
It would’ve been much cheesier if you’d have said:
/duck
/duck
/goose
What is cheese without a couple of glasses of good Duck, which you could blame for “goosing” people?
I was wondering if he’d address the whole ‘Love of Money’ thing. Except if he read the rest of the verse he’d find that his concerns were already addressed.
And since we’re on the topic of quotes and idioms, is there any better case for ‘Pot calling the kettle black’? Guy has no right bad-mouthing the Bible seeing as he seems to draw from it exclusively when it comes to religious quotes, and has perhaps the most poorly thought out ‘modern theology’ I’ve ever come across.
Deus is eloquent and well read, and I’ll grant that must have a great business sense, but he’s quite ignorant otherwise. He may not be a clear-cut megalomaniac, but he is an egocentric narcissist. In terms of the SDS’s he may be an advocate for Greed, but his true failing is Pride.
There is a quote for that.
“Satan can quote scripture when it suits him.”
Or something to that effect.
That’s from The Merchant of Venice by the one and only William Shakespeare.
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness
Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart.
O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!”
In other words, if you’re accused of being a witch, you’re super boned because the accuser can use stuff like this to discount any possible defense you can come up with.
With trials were good examples of Morton’s Fork.
Ordeal by water? Tie the suspect up and throw him/her into a pond. If the suspect floats they are a witch. If not they’ll have departed this vale of tears in a state of grace.
Ordeal by fire? Yes, real witches will not burn. For anyone else the suffering should guarantee a front row seat before the Throne.
It was also well known that the magical deceptions of witches would not work on the truly innocent and so a persistent trick among with hunters was to employ children around the age of 10 to point of bad men and women. Not only would you be boned, you would be boned the minute some ten year old decided you were a meanie or wanted some extra attention.
Sounds like a molestation case I heard about. Very young stepdaughter. No physical evidence. The kid later recanted saying her biological father told her to do it so he could get custody.
Judge refused to overturn. The guy can’t get a job or live within 1000 yards of a school or park. He is pretty much fucked for the rest of his life.
Over a custody fight.
Interestingly, this is largely what the Spanish Inquisition concluded in the 1600s. They started linking convictions for witchcraft to actual evidence, and the number of death penalty decisions dropped like a stone.
Didn’t one of the Inquisitions also conclude that accusing people of witchcraft was itself inherently heretical?
That was BEFORE the Inquisition.
This was basically the Catholic Church’s position on witchcraft until mounting social pressure basically forcibly changed it. The original thought went “all power comes from god -> you’re saying this person draws power from Satan and not God -> you’re contradicting dogma -> you’re the heretic, let’s fuck you up”.
But people wanted witches. Escapegoats.
The actual inquisition was not, unlike popular mythology has it, concerned with witch hunts. They were hunting heretics which was a far more pressing matter in the eyes of the vatican than a few odd crackpots accused of souring the milk of their neighbors cow.
Church canon did not even acknowledge that witches were a reality.
However, firebrand preachers claiming that churchmen owning property was in itself sinful (Fraticellinians) or that sacraments given by priests who had sinned were invalid (Donatism) or that the God of the New testament was not the God of the old testament (who was evil and often identified as satan)…that was something which could destroy the Roman Catholic Church and it was for that purpose the inquisition was forced.
Hence all the gruesome events of forcing thousands of people to recant under torture and the burning of heretics.
Did this ‘actual evidence’ they were looking for happen to involve a large scale and a duck?
No, the evidence is she turned me into a newt!
Almost unbelievably it was far worse than that though you have to go into 17th century protestantism before you find the actual witch trials…which would often consist of someone (usually a child) making a claim that X was a witch and X then had to prove before a lay tribunal that she was not. Que the ordeals of fire and water.
There’s a concept in AI theory of “basic” or “universal” drives – goals that most people will want to pursue, not because they’re inherently valuable, but because they make most goals easier to pursue. For example, most goals are easier to pursue if you’re better at figuring out what to do.
I think Deus’ “greed” is similar – it’s not that Greed is “really” underlying all possible human goals, but that *most* possible goals are made easier to achieve by money/power/fame, so by conflating them all he can easily tie everything to “greed” in some manner.
So yeah, I think this a semantic game – he argued at one point that a person who’s motivated to give away their money is motivated by greed, because they first need money in order to give it up. That’s like saying Nazis are motivated by their love of Jews, because in order to build concentration camps you first need somebody to put in them.
Either that, or he has +3 to all actions that involve Greed somehow.
Which, in his own mind at least, includes everything he does…
That ‘weep tears so pure’ thing would be a gif within moments of airing.
And, Deus is willfully ignoring the point of the questions so he can show off how SMRT he is.
Is Deus claiming that he can’t shed tears but he’d love to some day? There was an old folklore that claimed witches couldn’t cry.
To boil down the thought to the next stage and to add some science to the topic. It’s the drive to insure the survival of ones genetics anything that improves that likely hood is converted. Money provides security to start, insuring you have at least one chance to pass on your genetic heritage. More money increases power that increase the chance of more partners increasing the number of offspring and there for chances of genetic survival. Hence why the rich and famous seem to have a small issue with not joining the game musical beds. I’ll leave how that premise gets twisted for criminals for others to add.
First, it’s “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil,” not all evil. Not in the least because such love is not only destructive to those around you, but self destructive as well. How many businesses have failed not because of the actual business, but because the online charge simply got greedy?
Second, I’m still firmly of the belief that it is fear, not greed, that is the primary motivator of society, for good or ill. Primarily because fear not only drives action, but inaction as well. And it is a lack of fear that drives Deus as much as greed does.
So Deus is trying to conquer the world. And he really really liked Max right after she showed she’s a walking nuke. And he hits the radar as having enhanced intelligence and manipulation abilities.
And Max has problems with men… if he could overcome that, what a power couple they’d make.
What makes you think he needs to “overcome” it? If I was a manipulative, backstabbing SOB, that sort of berserk button would be… well, not exactly what I would want – to little subtlety there – but it would certainly be an easy character flaw to exploit.
So, I’ma call a bit o plot. This guy uses greed just like Dabbler uses lust and Vehemence uses Rage/Wrath.There are probably Supers out there, one for every one of the Seven Deadly Sins, and that guy who made the comment “found you” about Dabbler on page 186 has something planned for these incarnations. I will further go out on a limb and state that Maxima is Pride.
So Dues is a Greed Super, and his primary power is manipulation for more greed?? Much Dabler can inspire lust and Vehemence can inspire rage..
That would be such a difficult power to counter … or even detect, unlike the other two it is very overt
It depends on how blatant he is. In the same way that Vehemence could probably hide his manipulations in the midst of an already violent environment like, say, a soccer match (causing it to escalate to a full riot), while Dabbler could exploit places that are already sexually tense (like clubs or somesuch), a Greed-based super could exploit places of immense Want… which you could find just about anywhere.
See, unlike Violence or Sex, there is no point of satiation or catharsis when it comes to Wanting material things. Satisfying one’s immediate material needs merely produces more material desire, with an eye towards more and more valuable goods and services. Donald Trump suffers from Greed as much as, if not more so than, someone who must beg for every mouthful of food, because both of them shall always be able to envision more that they desire. They shall never be truly satisfied with the things they have.
The question is how one would use such powers. Would anyone notice if he dove into the stock market to make a killing on day trading? It’d certainly be less blatant than, say, driving a soup kitchen full of homeless people into a feeding frenzy, or pushing a trade show full of industry reporters into giving glowing recommendations for every product in sight.
Interesting insight – maybe all the really heavy hitters running around in the “comic universe” here are all manifestations of the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Divine Virtues (or whatever they’re actually called – there is a counter list that is part of the Catholic tradition but not being of that denomination I’m not as well versed as I ought to be). As tropes go, it’s got a lot of utility / functionality going for it.
Of course, Dave may now be dope-slapping himself and going “Gah, revealed too much!” :)
Wait… 7 sins 7 Amazeballs??
Side note: I first thought the truesight orb might represent knowledge or wisdom. But than I found out that both are not part of the church’s seven virtues. Hmm… so nothing surprising there.
My own interpretation of them, but here it is:
Lust is the unfettered pursuit of desire: taking what you want. Your homicidal madman would actually fall under this.
Gluttony is taking more than you need: similar to lust, possibly fettered by reason, but not by temperance.
Greed is taking more than you could ever consume: unbound by even practicality, detached from the pleasures of lust, unfettered by even the size of your belly.
While I don’t agree with Deus on Greed being the core of motivation, I do find it to be the most unnatural of the sins.
“I can’t think of a single case in any of those that wasn’t ultimately motivated by greed, lust, or a combination of the two, unless the bad guy is simply crazy and is killing people because that’s just what he do.”
I’m assuming you’re talking about Heath Ledger’s Joker? “Some people just want to watch the world burn”.
It’s true that some people just want to watch the world burn, but that’s just apathy. The truly crazy ones are standing there with a book of matches…
The truly crazy ones would most likely be the first to burn. Mental illnesses are vastly more likely to make you a victim than an aggressor.
Of course, it’s such an easy excuse. Those brown guys are terrorists. This white guy doing the same thing must be crazy. Even if what he does fits perfectly with some heavy propaganda from other, high-status white guys. That cannot possibly be related. After all, white guys – especially wealthy, old, Christian white guys – must be the good guys. It’s a natural law!
“Mental illnesses are vastly more likely to make you a victim than an aggressor.”
Thank you – that is one correct and one of the biggest misconceptions about mental illness out there. Being around mentally ill people may make people uncomfortable but they are indeed more likely victims.
“It’s true that some people just want to watch the world burn, but that’s just apathy. The truly crazy ones are standing there with a book of matches…”
My experience with those folks leads me to attribute that to pain, not apathy – they’re in pain that they cannot or will not identify, they eventually generalize the attribution to the world itself, and watching the world burn is symbolic of their pain ending. “All that stuff goes away, and I won’t hurt anymore.”
And then they go ahead and burn their world, only to find out that all pain is internally-sourced, and now they’re in pain and alone – which is – unthinkably prior to that point – much, much worse.
“Walks by with a flamethrower.”
I believe “what are your feeling” was meant to be “what are your feelings” in the first panel there.
Nah, not just greed and lust. Don’t confuse the misconceptions of script writers with reality :-)
In reality, human beings are mostly driven by social considerations. Standing within whatever group is relevant for the person in question. (That’s why people tend to change motivation as they join or leave a group.) Lust is indeed a driving factor, but it can be massively influenced by standing.
To complicate things, the group relevant for a person can be imaginary. Those are the most uncontrollable individuals.
So if Deus is part of a group that values greed, his depiction of motives is quite spot on, except it is not universal. If he were in a Church, he would place creed above greed, and greed would be merely a tool for the betterment of his Church (unless it is the Church of Mammon). If he were part of a scientific group, greed would have to take a back seat behind knowledge, or at least behind citation indexes.
Actually the scientific community is a nice counterexample; in large parts, it is driven by greed not for money but for citations and renown. And maybe we’re calling that “greed” instead of “things we’d like to have” because the drive for citations is to strong that it can eclipse all other motives – if Deus spins “things we’d like to have” as “greed”, well, everybody wants something, the important difference is not about what we want, it is about what we are willing to do to get it.
Standing and competition are usually bigger drivers than actual greed for money. That’s why I want to beat my head against a wall whenever some moron parrots “But if we tax the money makers they’ll quit!” B.S. That type are not working because they need the money, most of them already need never lift another finger as long as they live. They work because they have an insatiable need to prove themselves better than the other 1%ers. To have the biggest yacht, or (in the days when philanthropy was fashionable) donate the biggest library or hospital. To tax them is merely to take couple off feet of the yacht.
Ever try sailing a yacht missing a couple feet? They sink.
I’m afraid I’ve been bored these last few srtrips. I want more Sidney and Max.
You’re a bad person if you can’t enjoy a good word game.
Ironic, considering his pic
I’m glad we’ll be getting back to Sydney and the rest! I wasn’t sure how long this interview was going to stretch out..!
On the vote incentive: Max cosplaying sexy C3-P0 = lol
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”
– Gordon Gecko
I vote you make it Spongebob Hexpants.
Originally I was neutral on C. C. St. Croix. Then I saw that the first C stood for Cici. Now I love her.
And the middle name must stand for Cecillia. Cici Cecillia St Croix.
Ahhh yes, Miss Pentasea.
I’m still wondering how after this there is any way he won’t have popped up on people’s radar.
The more I see of Deus, the more I’m convinced he’ll die in a tank full of nutrient fluids, blown into pieces by J.C. Denton.
Lawful Evil villain lesson #32: quote people who are your betters to make you seem in the right and to paint anyone who would call you on your bullshit as a fool and those who would argue with you a hypocrite.
Also he LITERALLY JUST SAID HE DREAMS OF CONQUERING THE WORLD ON NATIONAL TV.
Remember that he also said he ‘conquered’ his last country by making life better for everyone.
It’s true, I have very little lust for money, and I have a lot of trouble motivating myself.
It could just be because society has trained me to value the ability to make money above all else, of course.
TV police procedurals probably concentrate on relatively simple crime motivators that are relatively morally ambiguous, so you can feel good when the good guys put the bad guys away. So you are going to see a lot of greed/lust/crazy.
However a lot of crimes are committed for other reasons, even altruistic ones, such as protecting loved ones from victimization, simply not understanding the scope or ramifications of one’s actions, or an explosive moment of Wrath.
Even more interesting but difficult in terms of writing narrative, can be crimes committed for a mixture of reasons. For instance, Deus’ actions with Indinge could have been partially altruistic, while also being motivated by Greed and Pride.
I imagine it can be hard to wrap up a good story about a deep complex antagonist in a half hour to an hour (while also taking time out to show the ‘ongoing soap opera’ side of things on the heroes’ side.
I especially love how Deus touts Greed as the Prime Motivator, then laughs off the idea that it might also be the root of all evil.
Er, “…that are *not* relatively morally ambiguous…”
Interestingly I married a financial planner who’s insightfully says it is greed and fear that motivate people when dealing with finances. As I was reading this I started to think perhaps it is much bigger than just money, greed and fear seem to be the most common motivator of all things people do. Think about it if you realize that lust is just greedy for sex (ok I’m pushing it but it kinda works) then greed and fear cover just about everything.
Fear is a modivation that can’t be explained by being apart of greed. And while fear may modivate a person’s actions on money and careers, it is not apart of greed. An other aspect that is outside the confines of greed and fear is the modivation of trust. A baby is born with a trust for the mother, and usually the father as well. Even abusive or negligent parents are trusted by their kids at young ages. And when the trust isn’t broken from something harmful it grows and creates a very strong bond. Social bonds such as trust, love, anger, sympathy, and disgust are a modivation cagatory all on their own. But trust is one that should also be shown as an element that does not rely on greed or fear. It is an example of a weak point in Dues’s greed theory. Trust is also a weak point in a kind of theory where greed and fear are the sole motivations of every other action and motivation. Trust also being another term for faith, shows that trust in family, in the laws of the land or in a religion are huge motivators in themselves for how a person conducts themselves.
If hating Deus was the point, then for me it was a success. If it was to make a point on morality, religion, or social standards through a villain or amoral character, then fine, but that was quite an insulting way to do it. Still not sure you mean Deus the be a villain the way his flashback let the King’s son see what the evil the king did and keep the crown of his father. But evil and Gillian is what you got.
I think the point is for Deus to look and sound totally 100% villainous but to have his actual acts be morally ambiguous. I highly doubt this was an attempt to make any kind actual statement.
Pride does come up in crime procedurals, though not as much as greed or lust. A cuckold husband or such.
I’ve seen pride in crime procedurals all the time. The cocky killer that thinks he’s above the cops and everyone else and will never be caught.
So that’s the last Deus page? We’re really going back to Sydney and Archon next?
Hmm . . .
For some reason, I was expecting an off camera voice to yell, “CUT!” and then for the egomaniacal rich guy to hit on the interviewer. C.C. doesn’t actually seem to think much of him, but then again he was just boasting of his sexual prowess a few pages back. She might at least have been tempted to find out the truth about that, even if only as a one night stand.
Oh well. She’s probably better off not getting involved with this guy anyway in the long run.
I keep expecting to find out Deus hired her to do this interview for his own personal ego trip. Not even broadcasting it, just keeping for his own personal collection.
“If so, then C.C.’s not rising to it, but maybe he’s hoping for viral traction.”
First of all, “Viral Traction” would be an amazing name for a band.
Second, itty bitty slings with no limbs to be in them – how do you put a virus in traction, anyway?
Images of little DNA/RNA strands hanging off the main strand dances past my eyes.
I like Deus – much of the human condition is, in fact, tied in Greed/Desire. Deus is honest about it and points this fact out to others and tells them to come to grips with it. Learning to share and not take too much is something all of humanity tries to teach to their children, with varying degrees of success on the individual level. Failing to learn this lesson is the biggest problem humans have (with insecurity / low self esteem / needing to prove one’s worth to others being a *very* close second – Andor’s comment is excellent in summing this up).
I find that a villain is far more entertaining if he knows himself and is comfortable in his own skin; he or she knows what he or she believes and your point of view isn’t really relevant to what he or she is doing. I still remember vividly watching Hans Gruber in the first Die Hard and being stunned by how *unalloyed* his motivation was. That “purity” of purpose and his intelligent pursuit of that purpose, his efficiency and ruthlessness made Hans a truly worthy adversary for John McClane – and that elevated McClane as a character in response.
I’ve run RPGs for almost 30 years, and planned idiocy in a villain is something I do a lot – if every villain is a genius sociopath who’s always four steps of the heroes, I’m going to kill characters a lot and that’s not much fun for anyone (no challenge on my end, effort and memories up in smoke from the player side). Having a villain smart enough to avoid entanglement with the heroes, clever enough to eliminate evidence, and enduring enough to be able to achieve his/her goals while the heroes *know* something is up but can’t prove anything illegal has occured – that’s much harder to run and is far more entertaining all around (admittedly, frustrating as well for the players but hey…)
I love playing smart villains when I run my games. But I give them flaws that make them make one stupid move and then all of a sudden there’s a big enough hole that it doesn’t matter how smart they are, the heroes can keep hounding until he gets defeated. Villains are largely predictable in fiction, because a perfect brain is too difficult to beat convincingly.
Like my villain in Shadowrun that was attacking by proxies, dead people brought back to life as Cyberzombies using Rigger drones. What ultimately caught the villain who for the longest time was using technology that couldn’t be tracked with their modern tools? No fingerprints of living people at the scene? That same technology (short wave radio) was his weak spot and when the players caught on, they could go after him with impunity, and the whole time I kept him as a super intelligent monster that the players were desperate to beat.
Even the ‘correction’ is wrong, which is annoying.
The love of money is a root/source of all kinds/types/sorts of evil.
Not /the/ root of /all/ evil.
Glad I’m not the only one who caught that.
If only people would read that verse at 1 Timothy 6:10 and the words of 2 Timothy 3:16.
Ok… so… he’s going to try to make a grab for that one dude’s gold reserves, right?
Assume Deus knew of that stockpile. What would he gain from flooding the world market with gold? Economic chaos, which wouldn’t exactly help him. He’d maybe steal some of it and use it just like the current guy is doing, only instead of spending it on luxuries he’d use it as seed money to buy up another country. Actually I don’t think he’d steal any of it, instead he’d extort the guy by offering to increase the security (by covering any finical evidence of just how much gold was going into the market and where).
Deus doesn’t benefit from breaking the current monetary system. He thrives on it. Only when he owns everything can he afford to change what the physical manifestation of what is “valuable.”
Who says they’re separate people? While they probably are, Goldfinger has never been identified and the thing with greed is it’s unquenchable.
I think the universe needs to respond to the imbalance of Deus by creating a Buddhist superhero to counter him. But I am not sure how he would operate. If he were a pacifist then he would not fight him. If he believed in reincarnation he would wait for Deus to be reborn as something bad as a punishment. If he spent his time in meditation he would never go out to find crimes to stop. If he gave up all possessions then he could not have a secret lair with cool crime fighting gadgets. If he did go out to fight villains would he think about what sound he would make when hit them with only one hand?
There are a lot of Buddhist (super) heroes in various Asian stories.
In fact there used to be an American TV show called “Kung Fu” about one.
There is an old book from China called Journey to the West in which a golden monkey learns ALL THE MARTIAL ARTS and kicks so much ass, and causes so many problems that the gods in heaven invite him into heaven to keep him where he will be easier to deal with. Long story short, he realized they don’t really respect him like they were pretending to do, so he kicked all of their asses.
Finally, Buddha tricked him into a losing bet. As punishment for losing, he was locked under a mountain for a thousand years and eventually released be a Buddhist monk who wanted to search for saved texts back in the birthplace of Buddhism, India (hence journey to the west). This mono taught the money king manners and morality. Eventually the money king became basically a Buddhist super hero in his own right, and ascended into Buddhahood himself.
Journey to the West is a huge staple of East Asian culture – Every couple of years there’s a Chinese or Korean or Japanese manga telling the story from some ostensibly new point of view (Sayuki being the most famous one recently – at least to me).
Ever watch Dragonball (in any of its incarnations)? Son Goku (Songoku) is a pun based on the name of the monkey king, which coincidentally is what a Sayan turns into under the full moon. If american comic book writers put as much research into their comics as mangaka put into theirs, maybe the industry wouldn’t be in such sad shape (although the $4-$5 dollar price tag bears a *large* portion of that problem, IMHO).
Of course, the violence to get to not-doing-violence would be a bit odd from the american point of view. We are *very* fond of our homicidal heroes.
.-. um….. – _-”’ ok…. deus is strange. funny as hell but strange. if i was in that world id like to meet him and talk philosophy that sounds like fun. eh who am i kidding this guys faster than me in the thinking department…. my thoughts are all turtle paced -_-* hed talk circles around me.
I wonder what Deus would think of Ursula LeGuin’s take on the quote about Alexander: “only got half way to China, yet there he sits crying like a baby.” I like how Deus has grand plans. He’s a fun villain.