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Originally Posted by Durelin
But what does that have to do with all the blood and gore and dark stuff? Maybe it's meant to be self-reflective? Or maybe it wasn't meant to be, but the darkness of the human heart manifests itself in strange ways? Admonishment through figures and symbols and even architecture? It's always been: look at Jesus, the blood, the pain, the suffering, the death...that's God. The ultimate being. That's like the ultimate admonishment. And not necessarily in a negative way...nor in a parent scolding a child sort of way. I think it's more of a personal admonishment.
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Some of the stuff I hear from Catholics about all the demons and angels and other odd characters amazes me actually, it's like some kind of supremely Gothic fantasy what with Nephilim and Seraphim and all that. It can also be a little bit scary and frightening. There's also so much emphasis on blood, for example the whole story of the crucifixion strikes me as very violent in the Catholic version, as opposed to being quite sanitised in the CofE version!
Of course, this could be to do with the age of the religion, which was created in an age when we were all so much closer to Death and had a very real relationship with it; people's life expectancy was not as it is today, disease was common, as was the likelihood of being killed in battle or in a violent manner. People have only recently given over the job of raising and then slaughtering animals for food; there's a series on the BBC right now called Kill It, Cook It, Eat It which takes a stark look at killing animals for food, or so I hear as I cannot stomach the thought of it, but my father had no qualms about taking a gun out and killing a bird to be eaten later. What I'm saying is that basically we are all isolated nowadays from Death and from violence and those who created Catholicism were not. That's why I think the gore is there. If you look at examples of non-Christian myth that too is also bloody and displays a relish for violence.
What I think is that writers such as Tolkien acknowledge the inevitability of the potential for extreme violence within us all, the animal aspects of us, The Shadow. That's why I've picked up on this that SpM says:
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Originally Posted by SpM
Of course there's a world of difference. That's why, while some of us might experience an impulse to punch someone's lights out when they cut us up, most of us wouldn't do it. Why? Because we know that it would be wrong. No, it does not make one an immoral person to think about it, but surely we recognise it as a momentary lapse?
And I might add that there is also a world of difference between fantasising about punching said person and fantasising about torturing and killing them.
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There is indeed a difference, but nevertheless people put into extreme situations do imagine doing such things. If your life was ever threatened or that of someone close to you (and I sincerely hope it is not!) you may be driven to thinking about what you'd like to do to someone which may indeed involve killing them. I'm sure I don't have to spell out the kind of circumstance, you know what I mean! Of course few of those in such horrible circumstances ever act on their imaginations but nevertheless the potential is there in all of us. A difficult thing to acknowledge perhaps, but never say never until you are in their shoes...What fantasy (and this is encompassing sci-fi, horror and crime fiction) allows us to do is to explore this darkness safely and in many ways to actually prevent us from acting in extreme ways.