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Nov 16th, 2018
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  1. Well, the school year is now fully underway, by about two weeks now. Still thirty–eight to go...
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  3. Anyway, there have already been a couple of incidents. The most notable one, which I would like to talk about, was in Literature class, in which I ripped down and threw away a picture on the wall of Big Brother from 1984, which we will unfortunately have to be reading this year, because I took offense to it. Why? Because Big Brother is THE most despicable fictional character ever conceived by mankind. He is such a vile villain that he isn't even cool, magnificent, interesting or a "love to hate" type. He is absolute pure evil, and shouldn't exist even fictionally. Also, I take offense to the book 1984 itself due to the way it ends. The hero fails, is killed, and accomplishes nothing. In fact, his existence is erased from public knowledge. WHAT THE FUCK? How in the world is that supposed to be a satisfying ending? There is NOTHING happy or even meaningful about it, it is pure failure, and thus invalidates the entire story, as nothing was accomplished by the hero, therefore, his adventure has no meaning. Now, don't get me wrong. I don't hate any story that doesn't have a totally happy ending. But the ending of 1984 is the EXACT OPPOSITE of a happy ending! There is NOTHING positive about it, and now I'm starting to repeat myself. The point is, an ending with absolutely NOTHING happy about it is no less naive than a perfect happy ending.
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  5. You see, even most tragedies and stories where the hero(es) dies have SOMETHING uplifting in them. For instance, Romeo and Juliet, the quintessential tragedy, at least has SOMETHING happy in the ending because Romeo and Juliet's families stop fighting in light of their suicide. Therefore, something was accomplished and thus their deaths were not in vain. Another good example is Halo Reach, where Noble 6 sacrifices himself in order to save Cortana, thus letting the events of the original trilogy leading up to the salvation of the human race from the aliens happen. Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has a similar ending, where Starkiller dies so that the founders of the Rebel Alliance may live, again, allowing the events up the original trilogy leading up to a happy ending happen. I have no problem with those stories.
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  7. However, 1984 has no such uplifting element among the tragedy: the hero not only dies, but he dies in vain. There is no hope; the entire world is completely fucked. And it wasn't even the hero's fault; thus, the villains, represented by Big Brother, who are as mentioned before as monstrously evil as humanly possible, win an unmitigated victory. Which brings to us, the readers, the question: WHY THE HELL DID WE READ THAT DEPRESSING GARBAGE IN THE FIRST PLACE? What was the point? And the answer: There is none. The story just exists to make you feel hopeless. And ALL stories are supposed to have a positive overall impact on audiences, in my opinion.
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  9. And YES, I know that George Orwell was trying to make a point about dictators and how horrible they are, but the thing is: He already did that in Animal Farm, which wasn't as upsetting because: A. It was the stupid animals' fault they let Napoleon screw them over so badly, and B. The animals are misanthropic Communists anyway. 1984 attempts to make the exact same point, but is even more bleak and mean–spirited. George Orwell was truly a pessimist who could only write about one type of thing. He essentially made the same book twice, the first time was depressing enough, and the second time he created the single most unpleasant narrative ever constructed by mankind.
  10. What are your thoughts on this?
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  12. On a mostly unrelated note: Another story we are reading this year in the same class is Oedipus Rex. Though it is a tragedy, I do not particularly take offense to it, but I do have one MAJOR complaint about it: They use up the only monster in the story, the Sphinx, BEFORE THE EVENTS OF THE PLAY, and the beast is not shown! That's like having a Batman movie where it says in the opening crawl that Batman killed the Joker in an epic battle, and then having no supervillains in the actual movie, just ordinary criminals. BAD WRITING!
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