Re: Pan's Labyrinth -- The Movie Board

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Subject: Re: Pan's Labyrinth

Author:
Mr. Bungle

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Date Posted: 17:09:37 10/10/07 Wed
Author Host/IP: ip70-189-79-252.ok.ok.cox.net/70.189.79.252
In reply to: Kylopod 's message, "Re: Pan's Labyrinth" on 12:24:56 10/06/07 Sat

>By the same token, Hitler might not have killed a soul
>if he'd been accepted to the art academy. But that
>doesn't take away his culpability.

Nothing does. But I think you are baiting me with the Hitler comparison to make my attempt to justify El Capitan seem like something it isn't. I consider those kinds of personalities aberrant at best and an utter scourge on mankind at worst. I'm just trying to categorize them from a neutral position. Consideration without emotion.

>I thought you meant he actually tried using
>supernatural methods against his enemies, like
>chanting curses or something. Merely having religious
>or occult beliefs is a different matter.
>

Not really. Yeah, he probably wasn't making VooJew dolls or trying to raise Cthulhu, but if you actually believe your heart felt prayers for genocide will get it done, than what's the difference?

>It's hardly self-evident that organized religion is
>the root cause, as opposed to an excuse.
>
I'm not sure about that either. Has there been a study? Probably not. Perhaps the psychology of a religious fundamentalist and a psychopath are not far removed? Religion as a drug? We all know people react differently to drugs and alcohol and I've never had either of those get me into a fervor.

>>Wouldn't
>>anyone who hates violence advocate the eradication of
>>organized religion?
>
>Only if you live in the nineteenth century. After
>seeing what happened with Communist ideology, I would
>think any clear thinker would be very careful before
>assuming that eradicating organized religion (assuming
>that's even possible) will lead to a more peaceful
>world.

Yeah, I know. I'm just advocating it. I never said it would work. But communism isn't a good hook to hang that experiment on since (in Russia at least) it replaced religion with the KGB, breadlines, and Siberian gulags. It failed economically, not politically. It's a lot more complicated than that. Still, China is a prime example of Communist success, so much so they own us.

>>There are religious
>>elements to reshaping the Middle East in a lot of
>>peoples minds (read: Evangelicals), but it's not the
>>primary rationale (protecting Israel is sort of tied
>>into that as far as Christian Zionists are concerned).
>>The primary one is business. Money. And certainly oil.
>
>While I don't disagree, I was talking about how the
>war was sold. (That's why I stuck in the word
>"allegedly.") There were a number of motives, and I
>don't think Bush's was exactly the same as the
>neo-cons who backed him.

The rationale has constantly changed, but the original motives were proved false awhile ago, whatever Bush's were ("He tried to kill my Dad.", tell me he wasn't trying to one up George the Smarter. Father issues. Oedipal. Wants to fuck his mom). But seriously, as far as yellowcake, and WMD's, the 16 words in the State of the Union, or intimating Atta met with Saddam to plan 9/11 (a lot of which a depressing amount of people still believe), it might as well have been the Riechstag Fire. They wanted it to happen no matter what they had to say to make it happen. Maybe they were stupid enough to believe it would work once they got it going, but in the end it will result in millions of dead and the goal will not be achieved. They're just as culpable as any asshole that wants to colonize a large part of the world.

>You might retort that the Hitler had allegedly "noble"
>arguments too, such as rebuilding Germany, but there
>was an overtly racist element from the beginning. You
>can't say that about the Iraq war.

No I can. They are brown people. What makes a civilians life more expendable in a war zone? Being brown. Sure we're not killing them strictly based on their brownness, but their deaths seem to carry less import because of it. Everyone just assumes they were about to blow themselves up because they're brown. And probably Muslim.

And if Hitler's cause (there you go again) was noble in trying to rebuild Deutschland, the populace should have gotten a clue when the place turned into a one party state (Rove's dream). Granted the media then wasn't what it is now, but The Night of the Long Knives should have started enough talk to give the people the idea something very ignoble was going on. The parallels are creepy. One party, religious and political fealty, and a yen to take over some shit. How does that NOT describe the Bush Administration?

>> We couldn't be more in agreement, but is killing a
>>million people (I'm sure at least that many will die
>>in this war before it's done) through sheer hubris and
>>incompetence really any less deplorable then when it's
>>on purpose? I'm sure the dead would equally vote for,
>>"It sucks getting killed by assholes."
>
>As far as consequences go, no. But if we're talking
>about defining evil, motives and intentions are
>relevant.

Exactly. But the evil seems more cut and dried when you can hold it up against Hitler, since he personifies it. But it still doesn't matter to the dead. I was arguing there was a supernatural element to evil based on religion and that there was a personification for evil in the form of Satan if you're Christian or Jew. Or us, if you're Muslim. But the fact is nationalism is a descendant of feudalism, and most feudalistic societies had Emperors or Kings who were, more often than not, a corridor to a Higher Power.

>Then what did you mean? What were your four
>possibilities? Lay them out for me, even if you think
>you're repeating yourself.

I only had three. One, it was all real. Two, it was a fantasy construct that she created to deal with the stress of her situation, and lastly, that she was just batshit nuts. You forwarded the idea of PSP or telekinesis or something, which I thought could be lumped into mental illness or at least another layer of weirdness Del Toro was going for, though in the end, I'm opting for a mix of the first two, particularly the end.

I don't want to give anything away (as if anyone is still reading this) but it seems that even if that fantasy construct was a means of dealing, her belief in it made the end real for her. That's what choked me up, but it was out of happiness.

Mr. B

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Replies:

Subject	Author	Date
Re: Pan's Labyrinth	Kylopod	01:26:10 10/11/07 Thu