I don't think BAP's project can be reduced to a joke done at the expense of his father. There is something to this, but it's vulgar. The Oedipal element is obvious.
One tweet by Michael Millerman appeared a months ago, without context beyond the context of what I needed to know and when I needed to know it. Thinking about you performer. A cross between Larry David and Charles Bukowski. Millerman's own review of Bronze Age Mindset, is one I've enjoyed going back and forth with.
Also I draw heavily from BAP's appearance on the Red Scare podcast.
Principled and magnanimous I refuse to dox or levy false accusation. It is obvious, he refuses to formally self-dox as of the time of this writing, specifically to vex me, to text my moral constitution.
I'm not particularly happy with the discovery of a BAP outside of the quippy dismissal. That he should exist independent of it.
If BAP is in fact Costin Vlad Alamariu, then what he does to Nietzsche... of reading through Nietzsche's antagonism into Schopenhauer through Nietzsche… perhaps the same can be done with him and Strauss. It is here that BAP shines as an original thinker. Truly. In his turn to Aesthetics via Schopenhauer as an antidote to the malaise of Strauss' Political Philosophy.
We'll return to this.
It feels like I found someone who I share too much with and who has more years of life and learning under his belt. I don't how my gaze meets his work, how it concretizes into something recognizable.
Tingling. I find myself drawing in a great breath. Teeth, behold these teeth of mine. What rapturous joy. Like the foam outlining the rounded stone poking out of the waters surface. Grab and squeeze. I am the first to see you.
Your father will have to pay a ransom.
Really not a ransom.
More of a thank you.
To salvage your reputation and rescue your lot.
Clearly. Trembling behind the reeds. I admit, the shrieking was disconcerting and frightening at first. Keeping distance. Salivating. What a great discovery.
I've developed quite the ruinous admiration for this man.
"Nietzsche-lite"
or
As I read one person put it and I'm paraphrasing, "BAP doesn't pretend to be smarter than Schopenhauer, nor does he pretend to be moving 'beyond' Schopenhauer, so just read Schopenhauer."
Sure. Read Nietzsche and Schopenhauer. BAP did an even more frustrating thing during his appearance on Red Scare. He honored Leo Strauss without mentioning Leo Strauss. I didn't take it to be false humility on his part when affirmed that he is indeed content with a simple restatement of Nietzsche. Popularizer of Nietzsche. The task of recognition is left to others.
Honestly it was Dasha who got me to genuinely revisit Nietzsche. So "BAP got me to reevaluate Nietzsche" kind of falls flat. Though he has been a great conversationalist. An incredible guest at the after-party. No.
He didn't cause me to revisit Schopenhauer either. At least not directly. I can instead thank a user on the Redscarepodcast subreddit for that, specifically for recommending Houellebecq's commentaries on Schopenhauer.
No. BAP to me is BAP. Beginning, middle, and end.
RUINOUS.
This guy is a ((((((((((((Star)))))))))))))).
I'd like to bite his nose off.
How do I regard BAP as a thinker and as an artist? This fascination is ruinous. At times I have portrayed him in my writings as a desiccated corpse or as a geriatric with plate-like maroon nipples wearing bedazzled Ed Hardy t-shirt. As Grizabella from Cats. As a woman. As Regina Spektor.
In pitch-black room, I hold up the bow, breath is choppy and shallow, palms clammy. I tremble. I can feel him. I can hear his heavy breathing. Loosening a bolt I yell with cracking voice, "you're the nymph!"
Having snickered as others shared a picture of Maxim Gorky in response to BAP tweeting out a passage by Schopenhauer wherein Schopenhauer refers to women as "Unaesthetic"... drawing attention to the way in which Schopenhauer distinguished between the Aesthetic or Metaphysical and the Erotic or Physical. That in effect, the act of collapsing the two into a singular attractive mush, suddenly disqualifies many observations from polite conversation, lends a certain perverseness or suspicion of perversity in an otherwise innocuous observation or in an exulted gesture. Can these feelings be disentangled? I think the difference between the One and the Other is akin to the relationship between the Bog and the Will O' Wisp. Will and Representation.
Then I found my fascination transformed into affection as he proceeded to utilize this in defense of Dasha and I found myself feeling a great and terrible thing as I beheld antlers sprouting from his head and the whining and crying of hounds. I witnessed the Actaeon. The hunter who stumbled upon the great goddess Diana bathing in a spring. Transformed by her into a stag, his hunting dogs proceeding to tear him apart.
BAP took a major risk. He decided to openly defend a woman who embodies everything the cryptid Incel despises about women. A striver. Social climber. Sexually-active from a young age. Who attained viral celebrity as "Sailor Socialism". Who in drunken enthusiasm commanded the listeners of her pod to register as Democrats and vote for Marianne Williamson. There he was. Transformed into a magnificent beast. Willing to sacrifice it all.
His hounds recognized him.
If his task was in part, educational, at that moment he had proven himself an educator. Obscure reader of Plato. And my heart brimmed and I felt like seizing him and whispering, "what are you doing you old fool?" Planting a kiss on cheek. Suddenly the man who'd made intimate friendships and cultivated long-time correspondences with, self-described National Socialists and anti-Semites and this or that... Came out as being half-Jewish (meaning All-Jewish) and a Progressive.
Who is willing to test themselves this way? To potentially lose everything in defense of a woman without guarantee of reciprocity or protection. Willing to sacrifice his whole "brand" in potlach-esque act. Or perhaps, in keeping with the theme of Actaeon, in something approaching the Esoteric Buddhist practice of Chöd. Wherein the meditator dismembers himself with mantra and visualization and proceeds to offer his body parts to all sentient beings. To appease the hunger and thirst of ghosts and demons and other fey-beings.
It felt at the time, as if I had just watched someone leap into a Volcano. From fascination, to affection, to admiration. A Sympathetic Cord.
Perhaps the difference. The great difference between the High and the Low, in terms of Values. Is whether or not one feels compelled to labor on or whether one feels utterly dejected in the presence of something like this. Fucking off into nothing becoming a description of damnation. Bitter, condemning someone else to have to deal with my obscure tragical spirit. "What's the point?" Over and over and over again. A bitter note. Too stupid and matter-bound, lacking in perquisite wickedness, to recognize emancipation as anything other than a bark. Everything I have done has been for nothing. Another has already done it. Mine is but a shadow of a shadow. My sacrifices pale in comparison.
Frustration and dejection, the affect that pollutes the offering and makes it rot before reaching the altar. Admiration and serenity transforms a single grain of wheat into a Cosmic Banquet.
"It has been accomplished."
Expose. Expose what?
You think me a mere minstrel led by the whims of women?
So what exactly is the issue with Heidegger’s Nietzsche? My impression is that Heidegger’s commentary risks spoiling the developing intimacy between the prospect and Nietzsche. How? By asserting (revealing?) that Nietzsche’s project is ultimately a metaphysical one. Metaphysical insofar as it constitutes a work of creative psychology or psychological creativity. It’s not at as if this reading is particularly novel or esoteric. Nietzsche is rather explicit about this. A thinker of masks and performance and artifice and cruelty, in short, of femininity. With Nietzsche and after, all great philosophy is a work of autofiction (recall Girard’s privileging of literature as a site of psychological insights superior to the clinic and the lab). Which brings me back brief but bitter to BAP’s assaults against Heidegger and the little game he plays on his acolytes. BAP quotes Schopenhauer’s pithy charges against Hegel and Hegel-inspired philosophers of his time who would write in arcane formulae. Replacing insight with neologisms. To use meme-tongue, accusing everyone besides himself of being a pseud and a wordcel who hide their mediocre intellects behind complex phrases. This little trick exposes us, exposes the Twitter flunky, one day people will become wise to his oriental perfidiousness. If they did then perhaps they’d realize that stylistically Heidegger has nothing in common with the crop of philosophers Schopenhauer was critiquing, perhaps one might without missing a beat respond… "ah but moron, it is the espirit of the criticism which applies to Heidegger.” But the one who does this is fumbling, pulling up their jeans attempting to cover their face, coated in fluids, the shameful condition resulting from their lust, lit up and exposed in polaroid flash. Trust that even in such wretchedness the earthly Eros, this kakodaemon, plays a vital role in the Great Work. You wouldn’t be the first. Nor the last.
Schopenhauer shits on the highly technical prose characteristic of German Philosophy at the time, tediously technical giving some impression of gnostic requirement, a thing one must be properly initiated into. The Doctor laying hands on the crown of the prostrating neophyte, transmitting the fluidic grace needed to reveal a SparkNotes version of the tome. If you don’t get it you won’t. Might as well value clarity of expression. After all what’s the purpose of philosophy? For Schopenhauer it’s simple. To help others recognize Beauty. Most lack the faculties to recognize Beauty, to recognize the Idea, in Nature. They can only come to an approximation of Beauty through a representational form. Through the artwork aka a copy of a copy. For Schopenhauer this was the fundamental inequality of man, that if beauty was a dog, it would’ve bitten you. You lack the excess needed to recognize it in raw expression, funnily enough, your lack is a result of your proximity. You’re too close to nature. Somnabulized by base desires. The philosopher who is ideally also an artist or the artist who is naturally a philosopher, is a mutant imbued with the excess of intellect needed to not only recognize Beauty radiating through the objects, but of employing the necessary artifice to make Beauty intelligible to others.
The philosopher’s task is to transmit the recognition of Beauty. Teach it to those who lack the philosopher’s excess and who lack it for good reason after all they’re busy going about their day-to-day tasks, handling their affairs, their suffering is different, it’s a suffering which directs their development away from the philosopher’s genius. They work and working they make some money and fuck and romance and get married and provide for a household. They suffer differently. The genius reifies Beauty in the artwork. The compassionate act is making this beauty accessible to others. That they might have some consolation and that in the recognition of beauty, they might learn or strive at the very least, to preserve it. To recognize beauty is to recognize the sacred. The importance of it and the need to protect it and those who recognize and care for it. Again for Schopenhauer, aesthetics is genuine metaphysics. The regimes of care that come in recognition and inspirations wake is everything else. Religion and the State and the ritualized ways we interact with and conserve Beauty; morality. Here there is a need for snobbery, for the distinction between form and content.
The way Schopenhauer writes about women is the way Schopenhauer understands the World. How he understands life. How he understands the Object upon which we project or cast our Subjectivity. When Schopenhauer writes about the unaesthetic sex, he is in a sense calling Reality itself unaesthetic. She exists independent of the ectoplasmic emulsion of the Philosopher's Subjectivity. Woman does(not) Exist. Compare Schopenhauer's writings about women to his perspective on life. "Life presents itself as a continual deception, in small matters as well as in great. If it has promised, it does not keep its word, unless to show how little desirable the desired object was; hence we are deluded now by hope, now by what was hoped for. If it has given, it did so in order to take. The enchantment of distance shows us paradises that vanish like optical illusions, when we have allowed ourselves to be fooled by them. Accordingly, happiness lies always in the future, or else in the past, and the present may be compared to a small dark cloud driven by the wind over the sunny plain; in front of and behind the cloud everything is bright, only it itself always casts a shadow. Consequently, the present is always inadequate, but the future is uncertain, and the past irrecoverable.”
He writes of woman without the ardency of the lover’s gaze. In circumstance as a type, refracted from the unifying and oppressive field, of convention and its totalizing or homogenizing character. This lack which begets the lucid cruelty. The philosopher’s idiosyncratic desires. To speak of what he does not perceive in one, to see and speak of this object free from the ecstatic poesies of love and the mechanical or fetishistic habit of custom received, preserved, and transmitted. It is a lonely consciousness needed to access audacious insights. To view a woman without this congealing force that transforms her into the aestheticized object.
(There is a twisting and turning here. Can this “realist” appraisal, not be considered a kind of aestheticization? This comb, this tooth, this nail, this shoe, this constipation, this menstruation, this decay, this betrayal? Not the whole, there is something else perceived, beckoning extraction. The pervert with switchblade and flask or tuning fork and hammer. Why do you love me?)
Schopenhauer confronts us, causes us to question our interests. Question convention. This is Schopenhauer’s rebellion against Hegel his Absolutist. What begets the Awareness of Beauty, the Reality of this Fiction, and Beauty itself? This Subjective element, this pneumatic bolt, constitutes a radical disruption. No wonder it elicits the nervous clicking of mandibles simulating laughter. That it should provoke to appearance a great cruelty. One which is sanctioned if not outright mandated.
I recoil at the awareness of how dumb and brutal and callous I can be by default.
There are numerous things, that elicit strange feelings in my person. Easily seduced. My brows furrow knowing that this disreputable character is such a great admirer of the Italian artist Giorgio de Chirico. I also really like him. Giorgio de Chirico is a master precisely because his works attain completion the moment another views it and proclaims, “this is incomplete.” It engages the observer and invites an awareness of this engagement. De Chirico, for me, discloses through his artwork the Platonic Realm of Forms. It can only be revealed through Art. De Chirico writes that, “Every object has two aspects: The common aspect, which is the one we generally see and which is seen by everyone, and the ghostly and metaphysical aspect, which only rare individuals see at moments of clairvoyance and metaphysical meditation. A work of art must relate something that does not appear in its visible form.”
Recall a dream. Walking through a crowded city, I gained lucidity. The hue changed and the asymmetries grew sharper. I was alone. I found myself overwhelmed by the desire to connect with someone, anyone, I couldn’t stand the loneliness. Lone figures, disparate, up ahead. All of them with their backs turned, I try to catch up to one they turned a corner and disappeared. I rushed towards another but the same thing happened. In my despair I continue chasing after the fleeting figures. A female voice tells me that this loneliness is a result of my lucidity. I chose then to sacrifice my lucidity in order to not feel so lonely.
Light-drenched space and distant buildings, inhabited by composite mannequins. This is the Real. This is the World exorcised of Phantoms. Does he reveal to us a Loveless Cosmos? A World Unveiled. A World that ceases to be a World. I perceive the figures populating de Chirico’s paintings and recognize them as Commodities. A collection of disparate commodities occupying the spaces between buildings. The commodity exists within the eye of the one who perceives it. What commodity? What use? They simply are, things discarded into the Art-World. A World and Things gathered together. The Artist’s work is complete when another views it and proclaims, “this is incomplete.” This is Everything.
Schopenhauer writes in The World as Will and Representation,
"It is the subject of willing, that is to say, his own will, which fills the consciousness of the lyrical author, often as a free and satisfied willing (joy), but much more often as a frustrated willing (sadness), and always as an emotion, a passion, a state of mind. Yet, alongside and at the same time as this state, the glances that the poet casts on the nature all around him make him aware of himself as a pure subject of knowledge, independent of willing, whose imperturbable spiritual peace contrasts with the desires of the ever-pressured, ever-greedy will: the feeling of this contrast, of this alternation, is expressed in the genre of lyric poems, and constitutes in short the lyrical state of mind. In this state, pure knowledge comes to us to deliver us from willing and its torments: we surrender ourselves to it, but only for a moment; ever and again the will, and the memory of our personal goals, comes to tear us away from peaceful contemplation; but again and again the beauty of our surroundings, through which a knowledge liberated from willing is offered to us, comes to seduce us. That is why, in song and lyrical inspiration, the will (self-interested and personal views) and the pure intuiting of our surroundings are admirably mixed: reconciliations between the two are sought out and imagined; the subjective disposition of mind, the affection of willing, plays a part in the intuition of the surrounding world, and reciprocally lends its colours to it: the true lyric poem is the imprint of these mixed and shared states of mind."
Schopenhauer's work celebrates renunciation, an ascetic life dedicated to aesthetic contemplation, realizing that all our attempts to grasp unto anything, will lead to disappointment. To desire is to suffer. Schopenhauer is a Revolting Philosopher, from East to West back East. His insights are in keeping with Silenus' wisdom. This is Asiatic or Communitarian. It has always been a part of who we are, because it constitutes the most complex-rudimentary form of social organization. I recall BAP mentioning that reading just a bit of Schopenhauer totally neutralized Marx for him. For BAP, Schopenhauer is a superior Asiatic thinker. A better Materialist since his Materialism wasn't mediated by Economism which like all sciences proves a lesser school of knowledge being mired in particularity, but rather through Aesthetics. And a better stylist because he discarded the ornately grotesque particularities of Philosophy treated with the nibbling bourgeois character of the lesser sciences.
Returning to the question of style, the arcane and mystifying character of philosophical discourse occults the banality of the philosopher employing it. Wielding the discomfiting gorgon-like discourse of philosophy to assert and reinforce their status as Scholars, while concealing the reality of their individual stupidity… When challenged to clarify or even just summarize their statements they can’t. They can’t because their commitment is to the reproduction of philosophical discourse itself. Or they won’t, because if they did, it would ruin the mystique of philosophy. Risking exposure and humiliation. Schopenhauer for his part employs a clearer though no-less technical style; a logic or motivated reasoning dutifully received from Kant, set in motion. Reason a secure enough vessel. Got the impression while reading Schopenhauer, of a making German more English, in service of legibility. Stream-line design of the vessel, minimalist and sleek, in the Spirit of the Reformation revved up towards a style and conclusion resonate (or which was perceived of as resonating…) with the somber and soberness (Apollonian) of Dharmic scriptures received from the East.
Not particularly into Schopenhauer, find he meanders. Perceive an insecure creature frustrated over the limits of his own intellect, sweating and dry sobbing and pounding the mat, assigning a great deal of personal self-worth to being recognized as a genius and a desire to overcome this pettiness.
Elevated by Nietzsche’s devotion to him, in light of Nietzsche, who redeems Schopenhauer’s decades long devotion to being better than someone else and being dull. I gather that what makes Schopenhauer an object of reverence for some modernist artists is his explicit elevation of the artist. He feeds into the artist’s ego, more so than a Hegel for instance (who seemingly elevates the philosopher and the jurist in relation to the Idea’s progressive-historical revelation, above the artist). Nietzsche wouldn’t be Nietzsche without Schopenhauer’s theory of aesthetics. Schopenhauer, like Nietzsche, presents his insights in an accessible manner. You don’t need secondary materials, commentaries, guides. Further breaking away from the Catholic. Though perhaps the need of revelation remains, remains and is in fact necessitated. A Ray of Divine Light to pierce your sternum and ignite the fires of your heart the resulting illumination, eyes glowing, allows you to receive the correct interpretation, the wisdom encrypted in the arcane text laying before you… no.
Anyways any literate 20th century European aristocrat could pick it up.
Recall also that Nietzsche’s training was in philology. He was a scholar of language, the historical development and interpenetration of languages through historical texts, etymology was his jumping off point. Recall also Nietzsche’s self-critique of The Birth of Tragedy, a work that still resonates today, he was 24 when he wrote and published it. Nietzsche wrote it in a state of youthful melancholia and enthusiasm, wrote it with artists (not academic philosophers) in mind. Artists and women. Artists and the women capable of appreciating what Nietzsche appreciated. Fellow fans of Wagner. Perhaps it’s a testament to Nietzsche’s genius. Might also say that Nietzsche, unlike Schopenhauer, wasn’t professionally bound to a particular stylistic convention. And seemingly unlike Schopenhauer he maintained lively, horny and heady, correspondences with women who weren’t his mother. Schopenhauer didn’t have, as far as I know a Salome. Nor, as far as I know, did Schopenhauer ever commit himself to another the way Nietzsche would, with the fervor and devotion and enthusiasm to another. Reading biographical accounts of Nietzsche one gets the impression of someone who’d become utterly enraptured in whoever happened to earn his reverence. Nietzsche had Schopenhauer, who did Schopenhauer have? Did Schopenhauer ever write of Kant with the same intensity Nietzsche wrote of Schopenhauer?
Might make the case that Schopenhauer’s “Schopenhauer” was in fact Hegel and Fichte. Those he railed against. And this spitefulness lacking the initial passionate reverence characteristic of Nietzsche, is redeemed in Nietzsche’s thinking. Provided context.
Morons are often people who type things like, “I’m in the Schopenhauer camp when it comes to Hegel and his ilk.” In a series of Beeps-and-Boops they copy-and-paste Schopenhauer’s loathing without any of Schopenhauer’s substance (which would require actually engaging with Schopenhauer and Hegel) instead these Thinkers exists as little framed photos on a candle covered shrine in Geocities. Even if they’re correct they’re still wrong and worthy of immediate scorn and derision. We must express the most profound sense of Christian Pity and Charity at the sight of their nakedness.
It’s easy to spiral on this particular subject but unbecoming, revealing, even damning. What they don’t seem to process, is that the seethe and the scolding and the tantrums are in their manner the highest form of compliment either philosopher could muster. That the younger Schopenhauer’s response to Hegel’s semantic blunder should be a kind of ecstatic fury that propelled his career as a philosopher. That Schopenhauer is endearing when he puts pen to paper and writes:
“May Hegel's philosophy of absolute nonsense - three-fourths cash and one-fourth crazy fancies - continue to pass for unfathomable wisdom without anyone suggesting as an appropriate motto for his writings Shakespeare's words: "Such stuff as madmen tongue and brain not," or, as an emblematical vignette, the cuttle-fish with its ink-bag, creating a cloud of darkness around it to prevent people from seeing what it is, with the device: mea caligine tutus. - May each day bring us, as hitherto, new systems adapted for University purposes, entirely made up of words and phrases and in a learned jargon besides, which allows people to talk whole days without saying anything; and may these delights never be disturbed by the Arabian proverb: "I hear the clappering of the mill, but I see no flour." - For all this is in accordance with the age and must have its course.”
Tempestuous little man. Without Hegel’s error what would’ve become of Schopenhauer? Would he have attempted to actively compete against Hegel? Hegel as the Phantom of Eric Roberts in the Killers Miss Atomic Bomb music video? The Other-Ghost, Hegel’s Smirking Geist cucking Schopenhauer, Sophia in his arms, Schopenhauer casts the wedding ring to the ground and runs away. As was the case in respect to Kierkegaard. Cucked out of marriage by the Ghost & Machine. “And it’s all in my head, but she’s touching his chest now, he takes off her dress now, LET ME GO. And I just can’t look it’s killing me. And taking control.”
An error is a wound is the possibility of grace.
Nietzsche’s work as a philologist also permitted Nietzsche to immerse himself in Ancient Greek, setting the ground for startling insights. He could read Pindar and engage with the pre-Socratic philosophers in the original, in a manner most likely couldn’t. Dwelling in the Language. In a before and as such beyond Plato.
He could approach philosophy in a creative manner. Seductively.
How can you know seduction if you’ve never been seduced? Allowed yourself to be seduced? Allowed yourself to believe that you are allowing the seduction.
​

OK, so hi! hello! I am a big Jim Henson fan and I've been back on my Jim Henson binge. I am sorry in advance for my strings of thoughts and not a well written essay format!
Themes: -Imagination -Time-Identity -Reality vs Fantasy -Surrealism vs Absurdity
Notable things that I have yet to make connections to BUT gives me a thinking cap for perhaps I am missing:
- Visual Thinking muppet sketch -up (puppets visualizing their thoughts) -Kinescope - Jim's grandmother is known as 'Dear' (eddie dear?) - Syzygy/Doublets (carrols word puzzles)
Context:
Jim Henson first production show was Sam and Friends and it was airing 1955 to 1961. There are plenty of characters of some of the first muppets to exist on here! But Kermit is one of the most noticeable ones. Besides the main cast there was other puppets introduced but only by photographs does their existence show (similar to everyone in Welcome Home's characters and their families). Sam (the main character) is the only human that is in the show, he doesn't tend to speak (minus the campaign from 1960 where its just a repeated line). A huge take away from my ramblings of muppetisory is a line from the sam and friends book from Jim: “[Sam] was the only human because the whole thing was about how a human, a simple human, reacts to life. And all the other characters were like things going on in his head. That’s the design of it. The friends are within him, within Sam. And they’re abstractions.” Taking this quote into mind you could also apply this to one of the found records on the site - the one that is directly referenced of a old version of Alice in Wonderland. ( https://archive.org/details/78_alice-in-wonderland_guild-drama-group_gbia0475744a ) Both of these medias follow a human surrounded by figments/and extensions of imagination and or of themselves.
You could also pick pieces from AIW and how Home has a spiraled void beneath/ and Alice falling below into another world herself. And with the newest installation (March 9th 2023) we are introduced to a clock tower (unsure if as shown in previous concept notes that the tower and Eddies only watch are the only two clocks in WH)
One of the most interesting information that has stuck out to me is that Sam and Friends has a lot of lost media, video of the show is limited but a lot of audio survived (similar to Doctor Who with its own lost media where storage becomes a issue and the studio would donate or throw away after use) It is also to be noted WRC ( the studio that produced the show) tried to cancel the show many times but angry fans would fight back.
In the very final of Sam and Friends, (1961) there is a countdown (Jim had come into question of mortality and the time he had left a little before the end of Sam and Friends due to the loss of his brother early on) and they sing a song (I come for to sing) and then they blow up everything, the set, the scenery and the equipment since they don't need it anymore. Also to be noted only the video of them singing remains! But the full audio is still out there in full! Most of the shows episodes finals consisted with the characters getting 'killed' (blown up, eaten, thrown, etc)
Moving on from Sam and Friends Henson had produced another film (1965 four years after) called 'Time Piece' this film Henson describes “In Time Piece I was playing with a kind of flow of consciousness form of editing, where the image took you to another image, and there was no logic to it but your mind put it together.” The film follows a nameless man experiencing surrealistic fantasy with a focus on the ticking of a clock throughout. This can be related to how in WH a lot of the information feels important like we are trying as fast as we can to take the information in, and W (the restoration person) is trying to get it before something? Either way it feels like we are to be running from something, that we have little time before something may happen.
To dive a little deeper into the world of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis was a lover of puzzles, math and logic. He had come up with a number of puzzles. A quote " The problem demonstrates how logic can lead us astray, and how the right thinking might give us the wrong answers. The ability of human reasoning lies at the heart of Alice in Wonderland" (direct qoute around 4 min mark )
When you think of AIW I often myself think of the saying 'down the rabbit hole' I like to find this connection directly to the 'void' beneath Home, and where we may be heading next. In the preface of the fact we are just in the 'prologue' (statment ) and 'you' the viewer is Alice in this theory. We get curious, we need to see the other side, and that other, while we have yet to go through has started seeping out to us, tempting us. Alice is often always told to doubt herself, and this ruins her stability of self and identity. We are chasing the impossible, maybe this is what has happened to W, but before he got too deep he didn't make it to the otherside, that he realizes.
Alice's story is a show of her adolescence, and the loss and figuring out identity- this could be related to how Wally, just experiencing sentience for the first time. Time moving forward means nothing for they are all immortal to a degree- but time does move when the show is to end.
Lewis's works and ideals feel they may strongly relate to WH in some of theory and puzzles. "As a teacher of logic and a lover of nonsense, Carroll designed entertaining puzzles to train people in systematic reasoning. In these puzzles he strings together a list of implications, purposefully inane so that the reader is not influenced by any preconceived opinions. The job of the reader is to use all the listed implications to arrive at an inescapable conclusion." ( statment ) all of Alice's world is unstable, but can be explained as a dream so it is no longer absurd. Many of the characters names based on real people who follow anagram names.
Both medias of AIW and Hensons work, both have a childlike whimsy of imagination and wonder, but both also have darker themes at times.
Connections: - Sam and Friends: Sam being the only human trying to handle things in his life by creating the muppets as figments or as people he knows that relate to muppets: One way to take this is Wally, alive or Home alive has started to recreate what the show was, to bring life back to live through everything over and over. OR W is this, he remembers a lost media, but its not from our world (you) instead he becomes obsessed, its the plan the void beneath Home.
-Sam and Friends pt 2: The final of Sam and Friends ends with the show blowing up, terminating everything and all. "They didn't need it anymore" A morbid ending. As well the show getting canceled multiple times but brought back by fans. The full history of Sam and Friends history seems to have similarities with Welcome Home. - Time Piece: Henson has been loosely referenced as a man with a fixation on time and mortality (common among artists) : The relation to this piece connects from Hensons film and as well as Alice's journey. But to focus on Hensons, a lot of the surrealistic themes to Welcome Home. Another note is while Henson embraces media without logic, Lewis is a man of logic.
- Wonderland: there is a lot of related motfis and themes from Alice's story that can be seen in Welcome Home - flowers with faces, the hole/void beneath Home. Wally's curiosity, and identity.
-The white rabbit: This can go two ways. One is that W is Alice or we (you) is Alice or it could very well be both. The curiosity of the media, it keeps dragging us in, we want to know, we want to explore more. But as the saying "down the rabbit hole" goes it also is coined as telling us that curiosity can be dangerous, and this shows in Alice's journey. I want to believe that beneath Home is the rabbit hole, as we know we are still on the prologue I think the story will start once we are allowed to dive beneath fully into the void.
- Lewis and Puzzles: Really the best way is to refer to the quotes above, but to loosely paraphrase is that Lewis loved logic and nonsense and he would build puzzles around this. I believe some of Lewis's puzzles he had created could be something that may pop up or already have.
- Chess piece: OK so this one is more of a recent idea due to the newest update. In the commercial where we see Eddie in the end, one of the images that flash is a chess board that he sits on. There could be many reasons you could disect here but for focusing on Alice's journey we can look to 'through the looking glass". Many different ideas can come from this: 1. Eddie is a pawn 2. the limitations of what Eddie can do or deliver to W is now limited. 3. Eddie is starting to see the 'world' and become more 'alive' 4. Lewis suggests that chess board is what the wonderland world is and the real world is as well and a better then what I could right quote could explain what I am getting at better "Like Alice, we are pawns in our own lives, condemned to move forward through time with little knowledge and understanding of the wider world. Within our limited perspective, the world seems eminently ordered and explainable by nature and logic, much like a chessboard’s symmetrical and geometrical nature evokes a sense of determinable order." ( ref )
-Lewis and his name: Ok this is my last thought that has come to me and it might just be very silly. But Lewis is a pen name. His real name was translated to latin and then switched his last name and first name around, then translated back to english to get his name. Now perhaps not known yet but I like to think that Ronald Dorline (the supposed creator of Welcome Home) may also be the same. Besides this what I could get is: Ron Dolores
Ok! that's all I have for now, don't take my ramblings to heart connections and connections are silly and fun to make and a lot of Clowns work is original and has a wonderful story so far.
Resources: - The Sam and Friends Story (book) - DefunctTV: The History of the First Muppet Show, Sam and Friends - Sam and Friends episodes -WH master DOC - Jim Hensons film 'Time Piece'

Public school made it seem like as an adult you'd never be able to use a calculator or consult a textbook or notes for information when really that is all adult professionals do. School in fact killed my interest in topics I was had huge interest in. I loved reading and still do. As a kid I could read a book or 2 a week(500+ page books). But once I started getting assigned all these books and couldn't just read them as I normally would. Along with having to cram math, history, science, foreign language, economics etc all at once. Teaches really give homework as they are your only class and you don't have 7 other teachers giving you homework as well. It kills the interest in reading books. I went from 2 books a week to not reading a book for 5 years and just googling Sparknotes for the book. Now this isn't to say I don't see the use in these skills. Math, science, English, and history are important. While I haven't whipped out the Pythagorean theorem since I graduated. I still think it is important as a society.
What kid doesn't enjoy science? But again. Learning science while doing 7 other classes in the same day and all their work and homework at the same time just isn't the move. Killed my interest in science as well. I used to sit around as a kid reading science textbooks and encyclopedias for fun. As an adult, I can now say that I would rather work 12+ hours a day on a specialized focus task and come home and my time be mine than do 7-8 hours of school. Doing work and studying all day at school to come home and have to work and study on 5+ homework assignments/reports is torture. Outside of summer break your time is not your own at all. Winter break with your family and you want to enjoy the time? Nope. Here are tons of week long assignments and papers you have to do over the break. There was a kid who had great grades but a teacher decided to give an extremely time-consuming winter break assignment. The family had tickets and plans to go to Europe during that time and they just flat out told the teacher, "My kid isn't doing this. My kid is spending time with his family."
TLDR: I'd rather work 12 hours a day and come home and my off time and weekends be mine than ever step foot in a school again. As an adult, when I am done with work for the day I am done with work for the day.

So to make a VERY long story short here are the SparkNotes version of events that lead me to this predicament.
* Decided to make it my goal to kill Caesar w/ Boone because screw the Legion and the NCR faction grew on me.
* Found Benny but I accidently let him escape and a legion messenger told me to go to cottonwood cove to meet w/ Caesar.
* Killed messenger and talked w/ Mr. House where he told me to go get the chip.
* I got to cottonwood cove, killed everyone, go to the fort and repeat.
* So I killed Caesar and Benny but none of them had the chip on hand. (I checked my inventory and I don't have the chip).
So is the chip gone, did I soft lock myself from doing the Mr. House/ Yesman quest lines, do/should I bite the bullet and restart and do a new play through? I want to know my options and if I can get the chip back. (Also I was planning on doing the NCR ending so as long as I can still do it I am fine lol).
Your help is dearly appreciated.

Specifically things like botting. I kind of get why people do stuff like buy currency. My partner was complaining about Escape from Tarkov being overrun by cheaters and I wondered what the point is. How is it gratifying in any way to kill people in a game using cheats? Isn't the point of gaming to actually play it? To me that just seems like saying you love reading books but then only reading the sparknotes summaries

I was so dissatisfied at the end of this series, which sucked because I really liked the first four books. I know a lot of people felt the same way, but what would you have changed?
In my very unfinished version (these are sparknotes I actually did waste hours writing stuff out which is embarrassing so I will probably take this down): - Gaia opens a huge abyss into the darkness of earth - Gaia knocks Frank into the pit - Percy catches Frank and holds him up (a la Annabeth over Tartarus) - Neither can find the strength to pull each other up or transform - Frank throws his stick into a fire to fulfill the prediction that he would die young and would help Percy make a decision to save the quest - Frank dies for real - Percy has a surge of emotion that summons water to push him back up and next to Jason - They cross swords (lol) to combine powers to make a very large storm - Jason snaps out of it as Octavian attacks Piper and is fatally stabbed in Greek tragedy fashion, proving he’s a true Greek - Reyna kills Octavian - Jason has a moment with piper, then gives his weapon to Percy - piper calls on the Gods to help them - Percy tries to stir up a storm by crossing the two weapons - the storm starts to fade as Percy weakens - Zeus and Poseidon appear by Percy’s side to help him defeat Gaia (in this version it is revealed that Jason and Franks sacrifice was the last thing needed to truly heal the gods and unite the camps) - the boys and gals keep fighting - Leo hits Gaia in the face with a green fire bomb in archimedes sphere (proving he’ll put his friends before machines) - Gaia falls down the pit - Percy closes the pit - Percy appears to die of exhaustion but wakes up - cute relief moment with annabeth + the squad
Main reasonings: - Frank’s death: the whole series teased this ending for Frank, where his life would be ended early while helping Percy make a decision that he couldn’t make on his own. Going away from this path was a mistake because it was one of the things that made Frank’s character so pivotal to the story. He would do his duty when the time came, even if it meant that his line would end. His family lineage is redeemed in one singular act of selflessness. I thought about including the presence of a bird in this scene to signify his grandmother, but that seemed to distract a bit from the point. I think that this route was more in line with what we heard throughout the series. That, in some ways, Frank was the most important one of the seven, Ares would have been proud. - Jason’s death: I think that this was essential to showing that Jason had truly chosen the Greek way of life, which is said in the books but not shown in his actions (in my opinion). Giving his life to save Piper is the perfect Greek tragedy, and it answers her question in an earlier book about whether he would put her above the quest. A hero’s death was what this character deserved, especially if he was to be killed in Trials of Apollo anyway. Jason’s death also made sense as a way to momentarily unite Zeus and Poseidon, which could be explored in later books or in the final chapters. Gaia was defeated far too easily in the series, but having the two most powerful Gods unite behind one of their children makes a lot more sense than how it happened in the books. - Percy saves the day: I get it, this series isn’t about just Percy, it’s about all seven demigods. However, the momentum from the books seemed to be headed this way. There was a power struggle between Jason and Percy that wasn’t fully hashed out, and this is a more powerful uniting moment than the one in the coliseum. The bottom line is this: Percy is the strongest character in the Riordan universe. This series introduced a ton of awesome characters, all who were essential to the destruction of Gaia. However, having Percy as a big player in delivering the final victory was the most satisfying ending to such a great series. This ending highlights his fatal flaw, but also shows why it is his greatest strength when he is surrounded by friends who are just as loyal to him as he is to them. Frank helps him make a decision, and Percy goes on to create the storm that helps defeat Gaia. I also think that Rick brings up the poison thing from Tartarus, and how that is haunting Percy. I think this ending would tie up that storyline. - Piper calling the Gods: I would leave this completely open ended. Did she use charm speak? Or were the Gods just answering her call because of the emotion behind it? I think this question is best left undecided, and the reader should be left to interpret it themselves. However, it is pivotal that Piper shows leadership (by leading the Aphrodite cabin) and does something heroic. Here, she saves the day when grief gives her enough humility to call on the Gods, and they answer. - Leo gives up the Archimedes sphere to fulfill the prophecy: Leo’s character routinely struggles with whether he prefers machines to people, and this is a way to show that he would choose his friends over his gadgets. Perhaps this could be explained in part by his love for Calypso, as he now understands the way that many of his friends are motivated throughout the story. In the end, “to storm or fire, the world must fall.” Nothing is cooler than a Greek firebomb and I liked making the fall very literal. - Reyna kills Octavian: duh.
Also note: I would have taken out the entire physician’s curse storyline, and replaced it by extending the fight with the giants and having less help from the Gods (who are still effected by their split personality thing in this version). The book would be more like a war book a la TLO rather than a quest book like it is

Hi, my partner and I have been together for about 2.5 years. We’ve been living together for a year and a half. I know at one point the honeymoon phase ends in a relationship, but I feel like I’m constantly carrying the weight of both of us. Around the 6 month mark, I was at a point where I wanted to move in together. When we started dating he lived 2 hours away and he would visit me every weekend for 6 months. I’m aware that was a big task but I never forced him to do anything I just wanted to be with him and I was the one not living with family. Things seem to be at a decent place within our relationship…we’ve had constant open communication, sex was consistent, and I felt like I finally had someone, let alone a partner, actually respect me and love me for me. Now, since I’ve moved in with him…I had multiple conversations about him prioritizing his time and hobbies over my presence and role in his life as his partner. I’m transitioning (MtF) and we met at the beginning of my transition. I’ve learned so much about my experiences about what womanhood and family is to me while I’ve been with him. I’ve uprooted my whole life to be with the man that was around the first year we’ve been together. I don’t know if it’s just a convenience for him to have me at this point…but I do a lot of “traditional” things within the relationship…but I also pull the weight of both of us while he either games “with the boys”, drinks and smokes cigars with his cousin and uncle, DnD sessions, and running a cigar review YouTube while I do the cooking, cleaning (unless I tell him to do the small things, even then it won’t get done until I do it…weaponized incompetence I guess), financial planning, meal planning, bill planning, and even date planning. We both make roughly the same, work the same amount of hours…and I was in school and had a hectic full time side job in another state to make ends meet. I’m so burnt out, frustrated and every time I try to talk to him…although he seems to have good intentions, there’s a lot of growing up to do on his end. Anytime I bring anything constructive up to him…he immediately victim blames himself, shuts down and gets depressed which is a crazy trigger for me because that’s what my family did to me for my entire life. I’ve been abused on both sides of my family and they haven’t been supportive of my transition so I just don’t talk to them anymore…so I can’t go to them for help. Although my partners family has been supportive of us for the most part…it’s his family at the end of the day…they’re going to defend him over me when it comes to the wire, right? My friends have pointed out the manchild behaviors…and I’ve been blissfully ignoring red flags like driving through the grass in Mario kart. I’m constantly growing and developing and learning and my partner is stagnant. I shouldn’t have to get to a point of desperation to have him actually help me clean up and be present. We’ve only had sex less than 10 times within the last year but he jerks off multiple times a day to porn. I have to tell him to come cuddle with me at night. I started career plans and education while he stagnates. If it weren’t for me…we would still live in his nanas basement (which we did for a year before we got into the apartment we’re in now). I have to ask him if he’s available to spend time with the partner that lives with him. I don’t know if I should just end it and move on and be happy somewhere else. I’m tired of carrying the weight of someone else who doesn’t show up or grow with me. I told him we need to do couples therapy and that it’s a do or die for our relationship. It just hurts because I love him so deep in my bones but I know I deserve much better than to be minimized every day. What do you think I should do or say?
UPDATE: 1/7/24 TW: Ideation
These last few days were absolutely wild. We got to a point of emotional exhaustion, then we “talked things out”. We were seemingly to be in an understanding where I said we need couples therapy and he needs to be more present not only in the house but to me as his partner. Then the day after we made up, we had our typical weekly movie night (which I had to squeeze out of him when I first moved in with him while we had opposite schedules and we only had limited time together as a couple) and I did some fellatio for about a good 15-20min then I took a second to breathe and relax my jaw and he said I killed it. So that upset me. How the final straws were drawn were absolutely insane. Yesterday at work he texted me if we had anything planned on Sunday, I said no…then he tells me new guys at the game shop wanted to play Warhammer for the day. At that point I had it. After empty promises of him being more present in our sex life, home life, and to me as his partner…completely out the window. I had some choice words and boundaries were drawn. I’m the type of person to suffer so much but after a breaking point I can’t do it anymore. I told him my concerns and yes I was angry. It might have been miniscule, but at this point I’ve been begging for months for improvement…we get to an okay point again…then (to me) he went back to his old ways. We had a heated exchange over text while we were at our prospective jobs. But then it turned into him victimizing himself and tossing threats of shooting himself, jumping into traffic, and other alarming threats. He has done this before, but in the past I’ve coddled him to make him feel okay and support him in whatever way I could. Not this time I couldn’t not do anything to fix this. Calling 911 to get him admitted into psychiatric care was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. I’ve had plenty of my issues and have been admitted to an in patient facility for the same exact issues including my friends doing the same thing when I was acting a fool. I told his nana and aunt of what I was doing…I tried to explain it but I was so emotionally wrecked and my cortisol levels were through the roof I’m not even sure if everything came across. But I told them the sparknotes of everything…and I was met with “I should’ve called this person” and that I was forcing medical treatment on him. I take ideation very seriously. Even if they were completely empty and if it was an attempt to manipulate me again…it’s not okay period. As time went on, I started getting looked at sideways by everyone in his life. My self esteem was brought up and I was told I should’ve reached them first because they know him better and they can try to make things better, and that’s a relationship for you.
I am adamant that I made the right choice. And after all of this, I know for a fact that I do not want to be with him anymore. It’s hurting me so much…I’ve barely eaten, barely slept…all because I feel attacked from all sides and I’m all alone even though I know what I want and I am in the right. I’ve been having crying spells consistently for the past 2 days at this point. I deserve better than this. I’m grateful for the people that commented and for my friends (including my friend in rehab and their family) and my local queer community for words of encouragement and actionable advice. Now I need to figure out my game with the breakup, and moving on.
At the end of this hard chapter, I will finally be able to experience life on my own, in my body, in my gender…with confidence, poise, and laughter. Like my pop icon once said…
It’s Britney, bitch….well…ITS DESI, BITCH!

*** These are all my opinions. Please do not take this too seriously or harass other people. Please do proper research and be kind to people. ***
William Golding’s masterpiece novel “Lord of the Flies” was published in 1954 and is well-known in literature. Its influence has inspired many dystopian/ science fiction media such as “The Hunger Games” or television shows such as “Survivor”. “Lord of the Flies” follows the story of a group of British Schoolboys who try to build a civilization on a deserted island after they crash land while escaping a war-torn England. Their attempt at civilization fails as they fall into hysteria, fear, and savagery. The main characters Ralph, Simon, Piggy, and Jack are all used in parodies, satires, and other tributes but there is one main character who does not get a lot of mainstream representation or in-depth analysis. Today, I will be analyzing Jack Merridew’s (main antagonist) second-in-command, Roger, and arguing why Roger symbolizes the suffering of high-masking neurodivergent people in flawed societies.
To begin, I will give a refresher on Roger’s character and its change throughout the novel. According to “sparknotes.com”, “Introduced as a quiet and intense older boy, Roger eventually becomes a sadistic and brutal terrorist throughout Lord of the Flies. Midway through the book, Roger’s cruelty begins to surface in an episode where he terrorizes littlun Henry by throwing rocks at him. Still beholden to the rules of society, Roger leaves a safe distance between the rocks and the child, but we see his moral code beginning to crack. As Jack gains power, Roger quickly understands that Jack’s brutality and willingness to commit violence will make him a powerful and effective leader. When he learns that Jack plans to torture Wilfred for no apparent reason, he thinks about “the possibilities of irresponsible authority,” rather than trying to help Wilfred or find out Jack’s motivation. Roger gives in to the “delirious abandonment” of senseless violence when he releases the boulder that kills Piggy. He then descends upon the twins, threatening to torture them. The next day, the twins Samneric tell Ralph, “You don’t know Roger. He’s a terror.” Roger is the only character in the novel to commit a standalone murder. Any other acts of extreme violence occur either by accident or in group settings such as the torture of the sow and the murder of Simon. Roger’s character is a symbol of violence, brutality, and “humanity’s capacity for evil.”(sparknotes.com) He serves as an enforcer to Jack and enjoys being cruel, how can someone like that be suffering?
Let’s start with Roger’s introduction to the story. He arrives with Jack Merridew and all the other choirboys when Ralph blows on the conch shell. After a fair bit of discussion has occurred about what to do, Roger is the first person to suggest holding a vote. Importance of this quote is usually used to emphasize that “This action indicates that Roger himself doesn’t wish to be in charge, but rather wants to be told who to follow, and how.” (sparknotes.com) We immediately see Roger’s need for rules, structure, and order. This is a normal thing to desire in a survival situation but Roger is already being described as, (paraphrasing) intense and quiet and holding himself as if concealing a secretive aspect of his personality. As a quiet boy, Roger would most likely not have spoken up if there was not a need for himself due to his desire to blend into the crowd. I would also like to point out that Roger’s suggestion is the most generic out of everything the boys discuss (loading in the socially acceptable dialogue option) except for Piggy’s input due to the fact Piggy represents intellect, logic, and reasoning. Moreover, it takes Roger some time to respond to the ongoing discussion, unlike Ralph, Jack, and Piggy who seem to almost effortlessly bounce off one another conversationally compared to him. This trend of silent observation continues as “bbc.uk” points out, “Roger remained, watching the littluns. He was not noticeably darker than when he had dropped in, but the shock of black hair, down his nape and low on his forehead, seemed to suit his gloomy face...” in chapter 4 when he kicks over the littluns sandcastle. Also, in the opening chapters, he offers a way to start a fire by “rubbing two sticks together.” Roger is described initially as a background character, someone who does not like to be seen and blends in well. All of the boys on the island start off obeying civility, morality, order, and rules. Where Roger differs from the other boys is Golding’s insistence on his eerie presence. “Roger is black-haired with a fringe that covers his forehead and makes him look sinister.” (bbc.uk) This is a foreshadowing of Roger’s “pure” cruel nature. There is only one problem with this analysis; Roger is a former choirboy. Jack Merridew excels at being head choirboy (and eventual tribal leader on the island) because of his motivation for power and control. Roger excels at being Jack Merridew’s enforcer because of his willingness and ability to follow authority figures. “Pure evil” characters are seen breaking social rules or disregarding people/ laws from very young ages and their incapacity for adjusting behavior when committing “evil acts” (crimes, misbehavior, physical altercations). Roger can function in a well-functioning society as seen by his previous post as choirboy and his initial interactions with the other boys. There is agreement in numerous analyses of “Lord of the Flies” that Roger has been taught to mask his impulses but I will argue that his impulses are not to directly harm others but rather a need to cope with stressful situations due to a potential neurodivergence.
Roger is never explicitly stated to have anything akin to Simon’s epilepsy or Piggy’s asthma. Golding describes all the other boys are small children who become increasingly unhinged, but Roger is described as, “something society could not understand”(from the novel). One could conclude that Roger's not being understood by society may come from being a sociopath (Roger being a child cannot officially be diagnosed with this, but it’s possible as an adult) or a criminal, or a faceless torturer. The problem with this analysis is that criminals and a lust for power are well understood and documented in society. Jack Merridew is the book’s main villain who showcases why some people spread fear and lust for power and become obsessed with being the best (strongest). Roger mirrors whatever authority is dominant. At first, he is obedient to rules from English society because that is how he has been conditioned to behave. This transfers to following Ralph hence his helpful demeanor, and then transitions once again to Jack where he becomes his most brutal. Roger has a tendency to say or do what the other boys may say they want to do or what they may be collectively thinking such as suggesting the vote or “quieting” Piggy's arguments or being at the front of the pig hunt or at the front of the mob that kills Simon.
Roger is characterized as almost cartoonishly evil due to the directness of his words and actions (descent into madness and savagery) compared to the other boys on the island. Golding puts the least amount of perspective on Roger and most of that perspective boils down to, “thinking about irresponsible authority” or “time to be the most evil person possible” but the deriving pleasure part is an interesting aspect. This is due to people’s reactions to Roger’s actions. In most stories, the brutal second in command thrives off of loudness, but not Roger. His violent acts seem to disrupt loud commotions especially. In the first gathering with everyone, Roger’s interruption of holding a vote causes the boys to settle down. This trend continues with Roger and another choirboy disrupting the loud playing of the littluns on the beach building their sandcastles. Finally, during the loud confrontation with Piggy and the rest of the tribal boys on Castle Rock (where the stone material is most likely echoing all the noise and the waves are loudly crashing underneath), Roger sends a boulder down to kill Piggy which quiets everyone. Some people with neurodivergence have aversions to unpleasant stimuli such as loud noises. This can make people with neurodivergences feel uncomfortable, irritable, or on edge. Extreme reactions to these can manifest in self or other destructive ways (may be called meltdowns or something else). Of course, this does not excuse criminal or immoral behavior but it could explain part of Roger’s drastic reactions to these events. In addition to loud arguments from the group, the island overall is described as having “Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like raindrops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors. Sometimes land loomed where there was no land and flicked out like a bubble as the children watched. Piggy discounted all this learnedly as a “mirage”; and . . . they grew accustomed to these mysteries and ignored them, just as they ignored the miraculous, throbbing stars.” (sparknotes.com) We know that surviving on the island is stressful since Simon, the boy with epilepsy, needs to meditate in the woods alone to avoid seizures and Ralph (quintessential normal blonde protagonist) laments missing clean clothes and cut hair and society. Would it therefore be impossible to assume that Roger is feeling the same stresses or more so? Roger does experience emotions like a person because he breaks down crying the same as the rest of the children at the end of the novel.
If we look at Roger's character from a neurodivergent lens, his character starts becoming as multi-faceted as the other boys. We discussed aversion to unpleasant sensations, intense characterization in general, and extreme outbursts that become more severe as the novel progresses. Circling back to the previous paragraphs Roger’s need for structure and rules and “uncommunicative/moody” demeanor can be observable traits of neurodivergence. According to “https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html”
some diagnostic criteria are, “Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).”(an example of a demanding social environment: a mystical island going up in flames and savagery.) Something else to consider is Roger’s lack of social skills (even before becoming a terror). For example, when Jack puts on war paint, Roger says “You don't half look a mess.” <- Would normally be taken as an insult due to Roger’s “moody” demeanor, but Roger probably meant to say something along the lines of, “You look good.” (Could also be a Europe vs. US linguistic thing.) Roger also does not show much interest in his peers given his limited interactions with Piggy before murdering him in chapter 11, does not speak directly to Simon for most of the book before the mob kills him, has little direct conversation with Ralph but will put his head on a spear sharpened at both ends. Throughout the book, Roger also has a habit of staring at the people whom he hurts like with the sandcastle-destroying session. Golding connotes this as being creepy and abnormal even before extreme violence has occurred, but a more vocal boy like Jack punching Piggy does not have the same connotation despite being a more violent action than destroying sandcastles. Eye contact problems or non-verbal communication deficits are also related to neurodivergence. Furthermore, Roger is the first person to accept life on the island which may be indicative of a rigid thought structure or “black-and white thinking”. I do not have many examples of Roger having a literal thinking process aside from tossing stones at Henry in a circle where the consequences protect Henry from parents and authority figures. Once again, I want to point out that neurodivergence does not mean that people are creepy and evil or crave violence. This essay is to point out that Golding’s attempts to write about the children he worked with may have indirectly led him to write a potentially neurodivergent character. This character just so happens to do violent and immoral things. Please do not harass real people or take any of this out of context.
The message that Golding was trying to send to the adults of English society was to stop putting children through disastrous wars and deconstruction of the cutthroat hierarchies Western civilization embraces. Roger’s afterthought presence in other media that pay homage to, “Lord of the Flies” could be the painful reminder that being “too much to handle” may result in getting the least help. A tragic character in a depressing book, that will never belong to any society no matter how well or directly he follows its rules.
Sources:

1. https://william-golding.co.uk/william-goldings-legacy-enduring-influence-on-popular-culture
   
2. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/characteroge
   
3. https://study.com/learn/lesson/roger-lord-of-the-flies-character-analysis-quotes.html#:~:text=He%20is%20quiet%20and%20shy,fire%20by%20rubbing%20sticks%20together .
   
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zgfcxsg/revision/6
   
5. https://histclo.com/act/choinat/eng/hist/ce-hist.html
   
6. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html
   

*** These are all my opinions. Please do not take this too seriously or harass other people. Please do proper research and be kind to people. ***
William Golding’s masterpiece novel “Lord of the Flies” was published in 1954 and is well-known in literature. Its influence has inspired many dystopian/ science fiction media such as “The Hunger Games” or television shows such as “Survivor”. “Lord of the Flies” follows the story of a group of British Schoolboys who try to build a civilization on a deserted island after they crash land while escaping a war-torn England. Their attempt at civilization fails as they fall into hysteria, fear, and savagery. The main characters Ralph, Simon, Piggy, and Jack are all used in parodies, satires, and other tributes but there is one main character who does not get a lot of mainstream representation or in-depth analysis. Today, I will be analyzing Jack Merridew’s (main antagonist) second-in-command, Roger, and arguing why Roger symbolizes the suffering of high-masking neurodivergent people in flawed societies.
To begin, I will give a refresher on Roger’s character and its change throughout the novel. According to “sparknotes.com”, “Introduced as a quiet and intense older boy, Roger eventually becomes a sadistic and brutal terrorist throughout Lord of the Flies. Midway through the book, Roger’s cruelty begins to surface in an episode where he terrorizes littlun Henry by throwing rocks at him. Still beholden to the rules of society, Roger leaves a safe distance between the rocks and the child, but we see his moral code beginning to crack. As Jack gains power, Roger quickly understands that Jack’s brutality and willingness to commit violence will make him a powerful and effective leader. When he learns that Jack plans to torture Wilfred for no apparent reason, he thinks about “the possibilities of irresponsible authority,” rather than trying to help Wilfred or find out Jack’s motivation. Roger gives in to the “delirious abandonment” of senseless violence when he releases the boulder that kills Piggy. He then descends upon the twins, threatening to torture them. The next day, the twins Samneric tell Ralph, “You don’t know Roger. He’s a terror.” Roger is the only character in the novel to commit a standalone murder. Any other acts of extreme violence occur either by accident or in group settings such as the torture of the sow and the murder of Simon. Roger’s character is a symbol of violence, brutality, and “humanity’s capacity for evil.”(sparknotes.com) He serves as an enforcer to Jack and enjoys being cruel, how can someone like that be suffering?
Let’s start with Roger’s introduction to the story. He arrives with Jack Merridew and all the other choirboys when Ralph blows on the conch shell. After a fair bit of discussion has occurred about what to do, Roger is the first person to suggest holding a vote. Importance of this quote is usually used to emphasize that “This action indicates that Roger himself doesn’t wish to be in charge, but rather wants to be told who to follow, and how.” (sparknotes.com) We immediately see Roger’s need for rules, structure, and order. This is a normal thing to desire in a survival situation but Roger is already being described as, (paraphrasing) intense and quiet and holding himself as if concealing a secretive aspect of his personality. As a quiet boy, Roger would most likely not have spoken up if there was not a need for himself due to his desire to blend into the crowd. I would also like to point out that Roger’s suggestion is the most generic out of everything the boys discuss (loading in the socially acceptable dialogue option) except for Piggy’s input due to the fact Piggy represents intellect, logic, and reasoning. Moreover, it takes Roger some time to respond to the ongoing discussion, unlike Ralph, Jack, and Piggy who seem to almost effortlessly bounce off one another conversationally compared to him. This trend of silent observation continues as “bbc.uk” points out, “Roger remained, watching the littluns. He was not noticeably darker than when he had dropped in, but the shock of black hair, down his nape and low on his forehead, seemed to suit his gloomy face...” in chapter 4 when he kicks over the littluns sandcastle. Also, in the opening chapters, he offers a way to start a fire by “rubbing two sticks together.” Roger is described initially as a background character, someone who does not like to be seen and blends in well. All of the boys on the island start off obeying civility, morality, order, and rules. Where Roger differs from the other boys is Golding’s insistence on his eerie presence. “Roger is black-haired with a fringe that covers his forehead and makes him look sinister.” (bbc.uk) This is a foreshadowing of Roger’s “pure” cruel nature. There is only one problem with this analysis; Roger is a former choirboy. Jack Merridew excels at being head choirboy (and eventual tribal leader on the island) because of his motivation for power and control. Roger excels at being Jack Merridew’s enforcer because of his willingness and ability to follow authority figures. “Pure evil” characters are seen breaking social rules or disregarding people/ laws from very young ages and their incapacity for adjusting behavior when committing “evil acts” (crimes, misbehavior, physical altercations). Roger can function in a well-functioning society as seen by his previous post as choirboy and his initial interactions with the other boys. There is agreement in numerous analyses of “Lord of the Flies” that Roger has been taught to mask his impulses but I will argue that his impulses are not to directly harm others but rather a need to cope with stressful situations due to a potential neurodivergence.
Roger is never explicitly stated to have anything akin to Simon’s epilepsy or Piggy’s asthma. Golding describes all the other boys are small children who become increasingly unhinged, but Roger is described as, “something society could not understand”(from the novel). One could conclude that Roger's not being understood by society may come from being a sociopath (Roger being a child cannot officially be diagnosed with this, but it’s possible as an adult) or a criminal, or a faceless torturer. The problem with this analysis is that criminals and a lust for power are well understood and documented in society. Jack Merridew is the book’s main villain who showcases why some people spread fear and lust for power and become obsessed with being the best (strongest). Roger mirrors whatever authority is dominant. At first, he is obedient to rules from English society because that is how he has been conditioned to behave. This transfers to following Ralph hence his helpful demeanor, and then transitions once again to Jack where he becomes his most brutal. Roger has a tendency to say or do what the other boys may say they want to do or what they may be collectively thinking such as suggesting the vote or “quieting” Piggy's arguments or being at the front of the pig hunt or at the front of the mob that kills Simon.
Roger is characterized as almost cartoonishly evil due to the directness of his words and actions (descent into madness and savagery) compared to the other boys on the island. Golding puts the least amount of perspective on Roger and most of that perspective boils down to, “thinking about irresponsible authority” or “time to be the most evil person possible” but the deriving pleasure part is an interesting aspect. This is due to people’s reactions to Roger’s actions. In most stories, the brutal second in command thrives off of loudness, but not Roger. His violent acts seem to disrupt loud commotions especially. In the first gathering with everyone, Roger’s interruption of holding a vote causes the boys to settle down. This trend continues with Roger and another choirboy disrupting the loud playing of the littluns on the beach building their sandcastles. Finally, during the loud confrontation with Piggy and the rest of the tribal boys on Castle Rock (where the stone material is most likely echoing all the noise and the waves are loudly crashing underneath), Roger sends a boulder down to kill Piggy which quiets everyone. Some people with neurodivergence have aversions to unpleasant stimuli such as loud noises. This can make people with neurodivergences feel uncomfortable, irritable, or on edge. Extreme reactions to these can manifest in self or other destructive ways (may be called meltdowns or something else). Of course, this does not excuse criminal or immoral behavior but it could explain part of Roger’s drastic reactions to these events. In addition to loud arguments from the group, the island overall is described as having “Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like raindrops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors. Sometimes land loomed where there was no land and flicked out like a bubble as the children watched. Piggy discounted all this learnedly as a “mirage”; and . . . they grew accustomed to these mysteries and ignored them, just as they ignored the miraculous, throbbing stars.” (sparknotes.com) We know that surviving on the island is stressful since Simon, the boy with epilepsy, needs to meditate in the woods alone to avoid seizures and Ralph (quintessential normal blonde protagonist) laments missing clean clothes and cut hair and society. Would it therefore be impossible to assume that Roger is feeling the same stresses or more so? Roger does experience emotions like a person because he breaks down crying the same as the rest of the children at the end of the novel.
If we look at Roger's character from a neurodivergent lens, his character starts becoming as multi-faceted as the other boys. We discussed aversion to unpleasant sensations, intense characterization in general, and extreme outbursts that become more severe as the novel progresses. Circling back to the previous paragraphs Roger’s need for structure and rules and “uncommunicative/moody” demeanor can be observable traits of neurodivergence. According to “https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html”
some diagnostic criteria are, “Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).”(an example of a demanding social environment: a mystical island going up in flames and savagery.) Something else to consider is Roger’s lack of social skills (even before becoming a terror). For example, when Jack puts on war paint, Roger says “You don't half look a mess.” <- Would normally be taken as an insult due to Roger’s “moody” demeanor, but Roger probably meant to say something along the lines of, “You look good.” (Could also be a Europe vs. US linguistic thing.) Roger also does not show much interest in his peers given his limited interactions with Piggy before murdering him in chapter 11, does not speak directly to Simon for most of the book before the mob kills him, has little direct conversation with Ralph but will put his head on a spear sharpened at both ends. Throughout the book, Roger also has a habit of staring at the people whom he hurts like with the sandcastle-destroying session. Golding connotes this as being creepy and abnormal even before extreme violence has occurred, but a more vocal boy like Jack punching Piggy does not have the same connotation despite being a more violent action than destroying sandcastles. Eye contact problems or non-verbal communication deficits are also related to neurodivergence. Furthermore, Roger is the first person to accept life on the island which may be indicative of a rigid thought structure or “black-and white thinking”. I do not have many examples of Roger having a literal thinking process aside from tossing stones at Henry in a circle where the consequences protect Henry from parents and authority figures. Once again, I want to point out that neurodivergence does not mean that people are creepy and evil or crave violence. This essay is to point out that Golding’s attempts to write about the children he worked with may have indirectly led him to write a potentially neurodivergent character. This character just so happens to do violent and immoral things. Please do not harass real people or take any of this out of context.
The message that Golding was trying to send to the adults of English society was to stop putting children through disastrous wars and deconstruction of the cutthroat hierarchies Western civilization embraces. Roger’s afterthought presence in other media that pay homage to, “Lord of the Flies” could be the painful reminder that being “too much to handle” may result in getting the least help. A tragic character in a depressing book, that will never belong to any society no matter how well or directly he follows its rules.
Sources:
https://william-golding.co.uk/william-goldings-legacy-enduring-influence-on-popular-culture
https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/characteroge
https://study.com/learn/lesson/roger-lord-of-the-flies-character-analysis-quotes.html#:\~:text=He%20is%20quiet%20and%20shy,fire%20by%20rubbing%20sticks%20together
.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zgfcxsg/revision/6
https://histclo.com/act/choinat/eng/hist/ce-hist.html
https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

*** These are all my opinions. Please do not take this too seriously or harass other people. Please do proper research and be kind to people. ***
William Golding’s masterpiece novel “Lord of the Flies” was published in 1954 and is well-known in literature. Its influence has inspired many dystopian/ science fiction media such as “The Hunger Games” or television shows such as “Survivor”. “Lord of the Flies” follows the story of a group of British Schoolboys who try to build a civilization on a deserted island after they crash land while escaping a war-torn England. Their attempt at civilization fails as they fall into hysteria, fear, and savagery. The main characters Ralph, Simon, Piggy, and Jack are all used in parodies, satires, and other tributes but there is one main character who does not get a lot of mainstream representation or in-depth analysis. Today, I will be analyzing Jack Merridew’s (main antagonist) second-in-command, Roger, and arguing why Roger symbolizes the suffering of high-masking neurodivergent people in flawed societies.
To begin, I will give a refresher on Roger’s character and its change throughout the novel. According to “sparknotes.com”, “Introduced as a quiet and intense older boy, Roger eventually becomes a sadistic and brutal terrorist throughout Lord of the Flies. Midway through the book, Roger’s cruelty begins to surface in an episode where he terrorizes littlun Henry by throwing rocks at him. Still beholden to the rules of society, Roger leaves a safe distance between the rocks and the child, but we see his moral code beginning to crack. As Jack gains power, Roger quickly understands that Jack’s brutality and willingness to commit violence will make him a powerful and effective leader. When he learns that Jack plans to torture Wilfred for no apparent reason, he thinks about “the possibilities of irresponsible authority,” rather than trying to help Wilfred or find out Jack’s motivation. Roger gives in to the “delirious abandonment” of senseless violence when he releases the boulder that kills Piggy. He then descends upon the twins, threatening to torture them. The next day, the twins Samneric tell Ralph, “You don’t know Roger. He’s a terror.” Roger is the only character in the novel to commit a standalone murder. Any other acts of extreme violence occur either by accident or in group settings such as the torture of the sow and the murder of Simon. Roger’s character is a symbol of violence, brutality, and “humanity’s capacity for evil.”(sparknotes.com) He serves as an enforcer to Jack and enjoys being cruel, how can someone like that be suffering?
Let’s start with Roger’s introduction to the story. He arrives with Jack Merridew and all the other choirboys when Ralph blows on the conch shell. After a fair bit of discussion has occurred about what to do, Roger is the first person to suggest holding a vote. Importance of this quote is usually used to emphasize that “This action indicates that Roger himself doesn’t wish to be in charge, but rather wants to be told who to follow, and how.” (sparknotes.com) We immediately see Roger’s need for rules, structure, and order. This is a normal thing to desire in a survival situation but Roger is already being described as, (paraphrasing) intense and quiet and holding himself as if concealing a secretive aspect of his personality. As a quiet boy, Roger would most likely not have spoken up if there was not a need for himself due to his desire to blend into the crowd. I would also like to point out that Roger’s suggestion is the most generic out of everything the boys discuss (loading in the socially acceptable dialogue option) except for Piggy’s input due to the fact Piggy represents intellect, logic, and reasoning. Moreover, it takes Roger some time to respond to the ongoing discussion, unlike Ralph, Jack, and Piggy who seem to almost effortlessly bounce off one another conversationally compared to him. This trend of silent observation continues as “bbc.uk” points out, “Roger remained, watching the littluns. He was not noticeably darker than when he had dropped in, but the shock of black hair, down his nape and low on his forehead, seemed to suit his gloomy face...” in chapter 4 when he kicks over the littluns sandcastle. Also, in the opening chapters, he offers a way to start a fire by “rubbing two sticks together.” Roger is described initially as a background character, someone who does not like to be seen and blends in well. All of the boys on the island start off obeying civility, morality, order, and rules. Where Roger differs from the other boys is Golding’s insistence on his eerie presence. “Roger is black-haired with a fringe that covers his forehead and makes him look sinister.” (bbc.uk) This is a foreshadowing of Roger’s “pure” cruel nature. There is only one problem with this analysis; Roger is a former choirboy. Jack Merridew excels at being head choirboy (and eventual tribal leader on the island) because of his motivation for power and control. Roger excels at being Jack Merridew’s enforcer because of his willingness and ability to follow authority figures. “Pure evil” characters are seen breaking social rules or disregarding people/ laws from very young ages and their incapacity for adjusting behavior when committing “evil acts” (crimes, misbehavior, physical altercations). Roger can function in a well-functioning society as seen by his previous post as choirboy and his initial interactions with the other boys. There is agreement in numerous analyses of “Lord of the Flies” that Roger has been taught to mask his impulses but I will argue that his impulses are not to directly harm others but rather a need to cope with stressful situations due to a potential neurodivergence.
Roger is never explicitly stated to have anything akin to Simon’s epilepsy or Piggy’s asthma. Golding describes all the other boys are small children who become increasingly unhinged, but Roger is described as, “something society could not understand”(from the novel). One could conclude that Roger's not being understood by society may come from being a sociopath (Roger being a child cannot officially be diagnosed with this, but it’s possible as an adult) or a criminal, or a faceless torturer. The problem with this analysis is that criminals and a lust for power are well understood and documented in society. Jack Merridew is the book’s main villain who showcases why some people spread fear and lust for power and become obsessed with being the best (strongest). Roger mirrors whatever authority is dominant. At first, he is obedient to rules from English society because that is how he has been conditioned to behave. This transfers to following Ralph hence his helpful demeanor, and then transitions once again to Jack where he becomes his most brutal. Roger has a tendency to say or do what the other boys may say they want to do or what they may be collectively thinking such as suggesting the vote or “quieting” Piggy's arguments or being at the front of the pig hunt or at the front of the mob that kills Simon.
Roger is characterized as almost cartoonishly evil due to the directness of his words and actions (descent into madness and savagery) compared to the other boys on the island. Golding puts the least amount of perspective on Roger and most of that perspective boils down to, “thinking about irresponsible authority” or “time to be the most evil person possible” but the deriving pleasure part is an interesting aspect. This is due to people’s reactions to Roger’s actions. In most stories, the brutal second in command thrives off of loudness, but not Roger. His violent acts seem to disrupt loud commotions especially. In the first gathering with everyone, Roger’s interruption of holding a vote causes the boys to settle down. This trend continues with Roger and another choirboy disrupting the loud playing of the littluns on the beach building their sandcastles. Finally, during the loud confrontation with Piggy and the rest of the tribal boys on Castle Rock (where the stone material is most likely echoing all the noise and the waves are loudly crashing underneath), Roger sends a boulder down to kill Piggy which quiets everyone. Some people with neurodivergence have aversions to unpleasant stimuli such as loud noises. This can make people with neurodivergences feel uncomfortable, irritable, or on edge. Extreme reactions to these can manifest in self or other destructive ways (may be called meltdowns or something else). Of course, this does not excuse criminal or immoral behavior but it could explain part of Roger’s drastic reactions to these events. In addition to loud arguments from the group, the island overall is described as having “Strange things happened at midday. The glittering sea rose up, moved apart in planes of blatant impossibility; the coral reef and the few stunted palms that clung to the more elevated parts would float up into the sky, would quiver, be plucked apart, run like raindrops on a wire or be repeated as in an odd succession of mirrors. Sometimes land loomed where there was no land and flicked out like a bubble as the children watched. Piggy discounted all this learnedly as a “mirage”; and . . . they grew accustomed to these mysteries and ignored them, just as they ignored the miraculous, throbbing stars.” (sparknotes.com) We know that surviving on the island is stressful since Simon, the boy with epilepsy, needs to meditate in the woods alone to avoid seizures and Ralph (quintessential normal blonde protagonist) laments missing clean clothes and cut hair and society. Would it therefore be impossible to assume that Roger is feeling the same stresses or more so? Roger does experience emotions like a person because he breaks down crying the same as the rest of the children at the end of the novel.
If we look at Roger's character from a neurodivergent lens, his character starts becoming as multi-faceted as the other boys. We discussed aversion to unpleasant sensations, intense characterization in general, and extreme outbursts that become more severe as the novel progresses. Circling back to the previous paragraphs Roger’s need for structure and rules and “uncommunicative/moody” demeanor can be observable traits of neurodivergence. According to “https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html” some diagnostic criteria are, “Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).”(an example of a demanding social environment: a mystical island going up in flames and savagery.) Something else to consider is Roger’s lack of social skills (even before becoming a terror). For example, when Jack puts on war paint, Roger says “You don't half look a mess.” <- Would normally be taken as an insult due to Roger’s “moody” demeanor, but Roger probably meant to say something along the lines of, “You look good.” (Could also be a Europe vs. US linguistic thing.) Roger also does not show much interest in his peers given his limited interactions with Piggy before murdering him in chapter 11, does not speak directly to Simon for most of the book before the mob kills him, has little direct conversation with Ralph but will put his head on a spear sharpened at both ends. Throughout the book, Roger also has a habit of staring at the people whom he hurts like with the sandcastle-destroying session. Golding connotes this as being creepy and abnormal even before extreme violence has occurred, but a more vocal boy like Jack punching Piggy does not have the same connotation despite being a more violent action than destroying sandcastles. Eye contact problems or non-verbal communication deficits are also related to neurodivergence. Furthermore, Roger is the first person to accept life on the island which may be indicative of a rigid thought structure or “black-and white thinking”. I do not have many examples of Roger having a literal thinking process aside from tossing stones at Henry in a circle where the consequences protect Henry from parents and authority figures. Once again, I want to point out that neurodivergence does not mean that people are creepy and evil or crave violence. This essay is to point out that Golding’s attempts to write about the children he worked with may have indirectly led him to write a potentially neurodivergent character. This character just so happens to do violent and immoral things. Please do not harass real people or take any of this out of context.
The message that Golding was trying to send to the adults of English society was to stop putting children through disastrous wars and deconstruction of the cutthroat hierarchies Western civilization embraces. Roger’s afterthought presence in other media that pay homage to, “Lord of the Flies” could be the painful reminder that being “too much to handle” may result in getting the least help. A tragic character in a depressing book, that will never belong to any society no matter how well or directly he follows its rules.
Sources:

1. https://william-golding.co.uk/william-goldings-legacy-enduring-influence-on-popular-culture
2. https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/flies/characteroge
3. https://study.com/learn/lesson/roger-lord-of-the-flies-character-analysis-quotes.html#:~:text=He%20is%20quiet%20and%20shy,fire%20by%20rubbing%20sticks%20together.
4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/zgfcxsg/revision/6
5. https://histclo.com/act/choinat/eng/hist/ce-hist.html
6. https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/hcp-dsm.html

Sorry lads this is a long one
I had always felt something missing from ragnarok. The ending had to do with it but im not entirely sure what. “Thats it then?” I asked myself a few times, and i scolded myself for it. “It was amazing, you should feel finished.” How could it possibly be that i liked how 2018 ended better? Well after the monumental drop of free dlc that was Valhalla, i now truly feel Ragnarok is the better story; No, the better ending to the norse God of War games.
I think what was missing was the key characters growth. Ragnarok overall felt like the story of Kratos learning to be a father again, letting go of his son and accepting that he must forge his own path. But throughout all the god of war games, Kratos never truly attains inner peace. He is haunted by the sins of his past relentlessly.
We all remember the story of his past family, and maybe he has atoned and reprimanded those memories, but the horrors he had caused in olympus, the innocents and his people he once swore to protect in army and, whether intended or not, killed all of them. “Burnt Olympus to the ground” in his words.
Valhalla i believe completes Kratos character arc. At this point in the franshise as a whole, he is truly free of the sins of his past (unless you count a schizo greek army.) Valhallas ending is the most ‘ending’ feeling his story has felt to me anyways.
Heres the sparknotes: Santa Monica is a team of greek monsters, consistently pumping out straight banger after banger

Hello y’all. I previously made three separate posts on my design analysis of the three branches, and how they reflect on lore significance. I was gonna make another one on the Dawn of Fold, but then I found myself travelling, and lost the motivation to finish it. With that in mind, I’ve made a “sparknotes” version of my design analysis, covering the three branches, Burion and DoF. I’ll start with Jeturk and Peil though, since Reddit refuses to let me cover all five factions at once 🤬.
I’ll put the links to my previous posts in the comments below sometime.
JETURK: No expenses spared. Win at all costs!
Design Philosophy: - Favors firepower and armor. - MS packed with shit loads of guns, bombs, blades and shields all over. - Disregard for budgeting and economy.
Piloting Philosophy: - Builds for the boneheaded jocks 😂. - Pilots prone to mindlessly charging ahead. - Strong emphasis on duels compared to rival factions. Accepts duels to show strength and secure investments. - Notorious for match-fixing. - AI assistance further reflects on win-at-all-costs mentality.
Tactical Specialization: - Favors ground and close combat. - Well-suited for full-frontal assaults. - Saturation attacks using cluster bombs. - Basically any RTS faction that favors slow but strong tanks and heavy armor (i.e. imperium, china in c&c generals, etc).
Civilian/Military Applications: - Strong emphasis on combat-readiness for all applications, even civilian/private MS. - Due to innate combat-worthiness, base Dilanza requires only minimal upgrades to convert to Dilanza Sol.
Staple Technologies: - shoulder shields w/ weapon storage, to keep the hands free to hold weapons. - big-ass melee weapons, because why not? - cluster bombs
Advanced R&D - self-learning AI - assists pilot by controlling drone weapons or completely taking over the piloting work. - drone weapons - remote weaponry that requires no invasive surgery/interface to operate. - eventually acquires GUND-Format from Shin Sei.
HOW TO BEAT: - DO NOT engage head on. Jeturk suits are heavily armed, and excel in close combat (refer to Guel vs. Shaddiq and Sabina). - Watch out for hidden weapons/features, as Jeturk suits are notoriously armed to the teeth. Notable example is Darilbalde being able to replace its arms and having leg/foot-based weapons (see duels vs. Suletta) - Bait and punish. Jeturk pilots are reliant on melee and tend to charge suicidally. Maintain distance and look for any openings while they charge ahead. - AI drone weapons are basically CPU bots— predictable and easily fooled. Read their patterns well and destroy them.
PEIL: Basically Armored Core.
Design Philosophy: - Opposite of Jeturk in every way. - Favors mobility and range over brute force. - Minimal base weaponry, but decked out with thrusters. Optional weapons are available though. - Builds MS in two ways; either high speed w/ sustained flight, or long-range artillery. - Does not use defensive equipment.
Piloting Philosophy: - Builds for the filthy campers/cowards 😂. - Secretly develops enhanced persons. - Accepts duels to further research on GUND tech and human augmentation. - Treats its pilots like tools/lab rats; will kill them off upon failure to complete tasks.
Tactical Specialization: - Favors long range and aerial combat. - Keeps distance due to lack of defensive equipment and durability. However, ace pilots will engage in melee if needed or given an opportunity. - Resembles RTS factions that use a lot of fragile artillery or flying units (tau, scrin from tiberium wars, etc.)
Civilian/Military Applications: - MS optimized strictly for intended purposes, unlike Jeturk’s penchant to make everything combat-ready; base Zowort for private/education, Zowort Heavy for military, Pharact for research purposes. - Zowort Heavy conversion requires extensive modifications in order to support its heavy weapons and armor.
Staple Technologies: - lightweight chasis - streamlined weapons w/ increased firing stability and range - optional sustained flight equipment
Advanced R&D: - in-house GUND technology - inferior to Shin Sei/Ochs Earth GUND tech - enhanced persons, with augmented spines for higher data storm tolerance.
HOW TO BEAT - Peil units are filthy campers and cowards😂, and will keep their distance at most times. The ff. strategies can force them to engage; - Outgun them. Most Peil units are lightly-armed, and will be forced to engage in melee once they exhaust their weapons, or otherwise retreat entirely. See Aerial’s bits destroying the Corax. - Charge at them. Peil MS, notably those with heavy weapons, are vulnerable at melee range. See Olcott jumping at the Zowort Heavy. - As always, place your shots well. Peil suits are fragile and lightly-armed, but skilled ace pilots will engage in melee and probably WIN. See Elan vs. the Clibarri trio.

The assaulter tells Darby, "There is no end to this labyrinth. If you reach the center, you will not get Bill back."
Labyrinths consist of one long, guided path in a circular shape that "ends" at the center. Regular mazes have multiple openings that serve as entrances/exists and no center.
The solution to the mystery is the center of the labyrinth, but it's not the end. The only way back out of the labyrinth from the center is back through the same way you came.
The show returns to the theme of circularity/non-linear time often:

• Darby begins her reading (and the show) at the end of the story about the Silver Doe killer. The end is the beginning, and the beginning is the end.
• Bill has an ourobourus tattoo. The snake eating its tail.
• The show title: A Murder at the End of the World. Rohan tells Darby that the end of the world will also be a kind of beginning for the Earth even if it means the end of humans.
• Each episode flashes back and forth between the past and present timelines, often through very explicit parallels/contrasts (like Darby hugging Zoomer turning into her hugging Bill, or her refusal to speak Bill's name into the wind turning into her saying Bill's name in the motel room.)

Here's my theory. It's less of an exact narrative match to the Greek myth of the Labyrinth and more of an exploration of some different parallels/possibilities. There are places where the parallels are more thematic than narrative. It's all for fun!
King Minos = Andy
Queen Pasiphae = Lee
Zeus's bull = Bill (Bill...bull? lol)
The Minotaur = Zoomer
The Labyrinth = the hotel
Theseus = Darby
Daedalus = Oliver?
Aegeus = Darby's father?
Princess Ariadne = maybe/also Bill?
Androgeus = the Silver Doe killer?
The Sparknotes version of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur (condensed from this site https://www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/myth-of-theseus-and-minotau) goes like this:
King Minos's wife, Queen Pasiphae, sleeps with a bull sent by Zeus and gives birth to the Minotaur. King Minos hides the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, constructed by the inventosculptor Daedalus. Minos imprisoned his enemies in the Labyrinth so that the Minotaur could eat them. No one could ever find their way out alive.

• Andy's wife, Lee, sleeps with Bill and gives birth to Zoomer. Andy hides Zoomer inside the hotel/apocalypse compound, constructed by Oliver (via his robots).

After Minos's biological son Androgeus is killed in the Panathenaic Games by Zeus's bull, he demands Aegeus, the king of Athens, send seven men and women to the Labyrinth ever year, supposedly to prevent a disaster (plague).

• In the past timeline, Darby and Bill discovering the Silver Doe killer causes the killer to die. We still don't know how exactly this happens. (I personally think he killed himself.)
  • Does Andy (King Minos) have some sort of (familial) connection to the Silver Doe killer?
• Andy brings the retreat guests into the hotel, supposedly to prevent a disaster (climate apocalypse).
• Aside from Bill and Darby, there are seven retreat guests: Sian, Lu Mei, David, Martin, Oliver, Ziba, and Rohan. (I know in the myth it's seven men and seven women so fourteen people in total, but still.)

The third year of this tradition, Theseus, son of Aegeus, enters the Labyrinth determined to kill the Minotaur and end the tradition. Minos thinks that even if Theseus could kill the Minotaur, he will never be able to find his way back out.

• Darby enters the hotel/retreat. If Darby solves the mystery and gets to the center of the proverbial labyrinth, as the assaulter warns her against doing, she would presumably end the tradition of the retreats. We know Andy has done several retreats before, but we don't know how many. Is this the third retreat?

Princess Ariadne, who is in love with Theseus, gives him a thread and tells him to unravel it as he travels the Labyrinth, thus creating a path so he can find his way back out. Theseus enters the Labyrinth, kills the Minotaur, and uses Ariadne's thread to retrace his way out of the maze. He takes Ariadne back home with him.

• Bill, who is in love with Darby (or at least was, although I'm partial to the idea they're still in love with each other), gives her a thread of clues about his "death" to unravel as she explores the hotel, trying to get to the center of the labyrinth/solve the mystery.
  • Here's my post proposing that Bill is not really dead: https://www.reddit.com/AMurderAtTheEnd_Show/comments/18b6bt7/comment/kc2hiec/?context=3 The idea for this Labyrinth theory started there.

Theseus had promised his father Aegeus to put up white sails on his ship on his way back home if he was alive, but he forgot the promise and left up the black sails. Aegeus saw the black sails from a distance and killed himself by throwing himself into the sea.

• We still don't know who was on the other side of Rohan's morse code communication. Some people have proposed that it's Darby's dad, since we don't have any other listed characters left. Darby's dad is the person who taught her morse code. There's a thematic parallel to the image of the ship's flags as a way for Theseus to communicate across a great distance.
• Aegeus became so distraught at mistakenly thinking that Theseus died that he killed himself by throwing himself into what we now call the Aegean sea. Darby becomes increasingly distraught over Bill's and the others' deaths to the point where she seemingly becomes suicidal, sinking into the water of the pool and staying under for a very long time. Was she actually trying to kill herself? I don't know, but I would definitely argue that she was expressing some suicidal thoughts to Ray in their "therapy session."

And that's all for now! I'm going to bed :')

I've got a good theory from Tekking/Sawyer7mage . This a long thread but sparknotes by them and 5% me. Follow their YT Channels Tekking101/Sawyer7mage
Imagine if Bonney never ate a devil fruit. which is why it wasn't shown. Odas human he forgets shit but the emphasis on Bonney not being shown to eat a DF but having the power Is a bit weird
Vegapunk stated Df's came from peoples desire to wish to do something.
Paramecia and Logias might be able to transfer to a person through sheer indomitable Will(Word for Haki in Japanese) Which could be an EXTREMELY rare occurrence but possible based on the possible origins of DFs
Zoan and Mythical might be a bit different because they have will of their own will and may choose or not choose ppl.(Animal Zoans especially retain their animalistic characterists. (Mythical may be sentient and fully choose who to obey)
Blackbeard and Bonney could be rare instances of someone desiring something so bad the DF soul reincarnates into them instead of a fruit once the previous user dies.
Blackbeard could have possibly obtained Whitebeards DF by having a strong enough desire/willpower(Willpower=Haki in Japanese Translation) after he killed him. THe Sheet may have been used to not inform the wg that this is possible(Tekking Theory)
I believe this could have been made been possible by Nika the wish granter.
Sawyer has a really good theory that Joyboys strength is directly related to how many people believe in him.(something the 20 kings may have used to turn against him)
My own possible theory that could contradict this is that darkness along with will may play a part in why a DF power can be transfered without a fruit. The DF soul may not be able to escape darkness and might transfer to whose nearest. This theory would only work though if Ginny had the Age Age fruit when she died near Bonney.
The funniest option to me could be this Is Akhams razor and the simples answer( Oda didnt care to draw her or blackbeards eating the fruit). But he's an intentional writer so it seems there could be more to the scoop especially when he kept Blackbeard getting WBs fruit so secret.We know other Dfs can be obtained by fruit nearby so why is this so secretive?

About a year ago I was invited to a virtual game of Wild Beyond The Witchlight by my girlfriend and her some of our mutual. Turns out that almost everyone in the game had a IRL relationship with someone in the party. Me and My gf, the monk and the GM, the ranger and the druid (This is the problem player) and finally the warlock by themselves. So right out of the gate the group had a very relaxed vibe going about it. One other background detail that is important is that everyone here also identified as LGBTQ accept for me whose only claim to queerness is being ace, so I was kinda perceived as the token straight man. This will become relevant later. Final detail, everyone here including myself is diagnosed with a degree of ADHD.
The first sign of trouble was just *how* long it took for us to get through our session zero. But I didn't mind as it was mostly having fun and at first I didn't think we were going to have any personal conflicts. More than half the table came to the campaign with an owlin character by pure coincidence so I felt like we were more or less on the same page and we all thought it was funny. The problem however came late to the session and touting a tiefling druid who lived in the forest all her life and was described as beautiful but because she grew up in the woods would not understand some social norms. I didn't anything of it at the time, but this was like some type of foreshadowing to herself as a player. At some point during the session we drink some tea that inverts our alignment for a moment. Almost decides to do wacky RP for this, like my character an oath of the ancients pali decides to destroy plants and attempt to kill small wildlife. Druid however decides to attack a party member. Not too out of pocket, but at the time I do remember thinking it was odd that druid (a trans woman) specifically attacked Warlock (a trans man). I decided to stay out of it pretending to pre occupied with tormenting critters as I know PVP can get out of hand fast. PVP ends with warlock and rest of party subduing druid and the alignment effect ends as no one took it personally. Or so I thought.
s we begin session 1 things take a very long time to get off the ground. I like to think I manage my ADHD well and because of it i'm early to everything. "If you're on time, your fifteen minutes late" as my saying goes. Most everyone was on time and problem player druid was usually slightly late. However it took a very very long time to get from casual conversation into actually playing the game. Despite the DM begin an opening descriptor of the current situation, that more often than not did not do anything to move it along as everyone felt the need to finish a thought before moving on, the only problem with that is that everyone, dm included, would have a new thought in response to the last finished thought. So often times the session would start 30-45 minutes late.
Over the next few session druid brings up the pvp quite often, citing how much druid hates warlock and warlock reciprocates. However the two of them have very different tones about the message as druid says it personally but warlock clearly says it separating themselves from the character and this sentiment gets exasperated by a later event in which party meets a dryad. Druid tries to romance dryad while warlock and party decides it'd be best to fight it. Druid refuses to participates in combat and after it finishes uses this opportunity to further throw shade at warlock blaming them for the combat, despite it being a group decision. Since I was playing a very good boy paladin archetype I try my best to be the glue to keeps the party together here, but somehow druid takes this as me siding with her and it leads to her being vaguely flirty with my character (keep in mind her SO, the ranger, is right there and even they don't side with her), but I brush it off as her leaning into her character's manic pixie damsel vibe. It happens a few more times throughout the campaign but I ignore it every time as it really made me uncomfortable but not enough to aggressively deny her and I don't want her to shift her energy off of warlock and onto me (sorry warlock buddy I'm not taking that bullet for you). When I didn't reciprocate she shifted to flirting with NPCs.
It was out of game that really tipped me over the edge on this person though. It was during one of the pre game discussion where I was talking about one of my interests and she interupts with a "what are you talking about?" and I give a brief one sentence explanation about the thing that I liked that she wasn't paying attention to before she interrupts me again with a "Sounds boring. So about *my* thing". That really put her on my shitlist and when I later made a complaint she felt that it was a little more okay to be that rude with me due to my comparative "normalness" compared to everyone else. Which I get to *some* degree, minority groups don't often get to punch up but it was both done poorly and felt like an excuse. Doubly so when she states that she grew up in a restrictive environment so she doesn't really know what's rude to some people. (sounds familiar doesn't it?)
As if she knew at this moment she became everyone's least favorite player and decided to double down rather than remediate. It was at this point though that druid gave up on any and all self control and every session thereafter druid was either absent, late, or barely participating. Some of those absences was "sorry got a date with a very cute girl, not coming." which was both a very strange way to learn that she and ranger were having an open relationship but also all of us interpreted that as rude to set up plans for the same time as a prior engagement while also telling everyone you'd rather be doing something else. Boy, did she really want to be doing something else because during sessions she'd not just barely pay attention, but take away everyone else attention. For example more than once she would announce to the party that she is currently reading one piece while combat was going or anything else that didn't have her direct involvement and would interrupt to talk about what was happening in that moment in the manga, which as I said before the entire table would be compelled to engage with due to everyone's neurodivergence. Her non participation would get so bad that the DM would often say "and everyone gets X amount of experience except for druid unless she responds." and druid would eventually become a full level behind everyone because of it. Her disruptiveness would get so bad that some simple, near featureless rooms in dungeons would take a half hour to get through. There's many other situations I could list where complications arise from her either being rude to the other players (specifically the warlock) and npcs or her lack of attention bogged down encounters to a very annoying degree but I'm sure you get the picture. All of it was framed as "well my character doesn't really get social ques."
Eventually we get to a section of the module where we get some monkey's paw wishes and she accidentally feebleminds herself to everyone's joy so we abandon her in the feywild. DM tells her to make another character, hopefully one with better social courtesies. I never get to really see that though as she's absent for the next session and by the time that she does show up I got a new work schedule so I had to drop from the party. My GF though would keep me up to date with a play by play on the other shit she'd pull after I left, but I don't think I'd be able to provide appropriate context for that going forward as I'd only have the sparknotes.
I make the campaign sound worse than it was. Everyone else got along swimmingly and we often had fun goofing around in this lighthearted campaign, doubly so when druid called out.
But I never thought I'd be grateful to suddenly get graveyard shifts.
TLDR: Problem player creates in character drama with another player while also derailing the campaign at every opportunity.