From: julie@pascal.org   
      
   On Thursday, July 2, 2015 at 7:04:50 AM UTC-6, William Vetter wrote:   
   > Jim Hetley wrote:   
   > > On Thursday, July 2, 2015 at 6:59:06 AM UTC-4, William Vetter wrote:   
   > >   
   > >> I was thinking the other day that Grendel breaks into the mead hall at    
   > >> night to slaughter thanes because he is a monster, and when we are    
   > >> confronted with a monster, the reader wants the brutal Viking Beowulf.     
   > >> That is what we call storytelling, and what we call writing is when we    
   > >> give Beowulf a crippled wife and a hound with three legs; and we give    
   > >> Grendel a backstory in which his mother the witch molested him and fed    
   > >> him spoiled weasel meat.   
   > >   
   > > "Grendel" is a lost humanoid in GHOST POINT, wounded and hungry, dying in   
   a    
   > > Maine winter storm.  Beowulf rescues her . . .   
   > >   
   > I read a book once, named _American Assassin_, because I wanted to see    
   > what a NYT Bestseller was.  The title character was a    
   > swarthy-complexioned fellow who gads about Europe and systematically    
   > executes dodgy bankers who move money about for Islamic terrorists,    
   > with the idea of starving the terrorists of capital.  The protagonist    
   > was essentially a monster-killer, pretty much like a Viking.   
      
   What's wrong with killing monsters?  I don't quite see it as a "viking" thing,   
   but I also don't see what's wrong with it.  Killing monsters is rational.  The   
   motivation makes sense.  The identification of the villains in this case   
   hopefully had some    
   support in the novel beyond "bankers are bad."   
       
   > Another such book I read was _Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter_, in    
   > which Lincoln doesn't give a crap about Abolitionism or Black people,    
   > he only wants to wipe out CSA vampires by the strategy of freeing the    
   > slaves through denying the enemy their cattle.  Lincoln, about as    
   > complex a historical figure as one could want, is reduced to a Viking.   
      
   Having getting rid of vampires as your highest priority seems like having   
   things in order, pretty well.  I didn't read the book, only saw the movie, but   
   the movie didn't seem impervious to the plight of slaves at all.     
      
   And again... were the vampires NOT monsters?    
      
   IIRC, at least in the movie, they weren't simply assumed to be monsters   
   either, they were shown to be monsters because they behaved monstrously.  But   
   the vampire who trained Abe to kill vampires wasn't a monster, quite.   
      
   -Julie   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)