RE: Das Licht--The Light: Finish The Story Contest Week #46
To stay consistent with the other posts, I shan't mention @dirge's prompt lest it relates to the ending. Yada, yada, yada, I just want to snuggle @dirge for such a great prompt, okay to the commenting!
The post: Ah, someone lives up to the German name and Austria, a german country, shtick. Played very well at the beginning with "Ich leite das Licht / -e- / Mit diesem Licht / Gebe ich dir Sicht" Probably rocking the poetry aspect a bit too much to English rhyming conventions. Then again, reading GWF Hegel with all his play on words (puns) and expecting that in a song probably was a smidget, itty-bit, wacky-tabacc-y out of touch for my expectations. Albeit, focusing in on this: we get to see how the poem gets reitterated (with some pattern-like distinctions) in both song and story. Albeit playing to the trope of good person who descends is light and person below is darkness (I mean have they seen how hot Hell can get?), the trope is rather played upon for the effect of cleansing (very appropriate again the descent and the Heaven-Hell analogy). Oops, am I already going to philosophy right now?...
La filosofía: Okay since this story already is surrounded by a classical trope of Light-Darkness and plays on that like a damn fiddle (at least I wasn't played like a damn fiddle to quote some random shouting Japanese-American in MGSV), I want to now hone in on that. The presence of tarnisher/corrupter/dirty-uper/muddier person being darkness presented by @dirge is some clear gold right there found. Also the fact that Benjamin, if I recall correctly, to actually attempt "purifying" (a bad word in context of females when looked at historically) and not straight up fighting. Definitely felt the vibes of such when "Leave your dark ways. Come." was tactically deployed there at the end. Albeit, plot twist! Let's talk about Jesus- no let's save that talk for a Theological / philosophy of Religion post. I will remark though that certainly we hadn't the insight of Melinda on this matter but at least attempted to hint at such. So this does feel like a one-sided conversation which thankfully the end blasts the reader into forcing themselves to consider why Benjamin thinks he is pure in this situation and not at all a cause for her "darkening" path; at the very least, a weak-sounding but powerfully worded call to force the reader to be shaken in the faith in Benjamin even if they go back to supporting him over Melinda.
Sie hören nicht die folgenden Gesänge,
Die Seelen, denen ich die ersten sang;
Zerstoben ist das freundliche Gedränge,
From Faust
German can be quite singsong--not at all like that Austrian sociopath sounded in his speeches. When I studied German in college, that's how I heard it. I fall in love with language. I took a lot of Spanish because I loved the way it sounded. That's why I think your writing charms me--you're into sound. Even if the sense of the words eludes me (sometimes I have to read it twice) the sound is always effective.
You're right about light and dark, about philosophy, but I was going back further than Jesus. I was going back to the concept of free will. Does the fact that Benjamin knows Melinda will fall compromise her will? Same question that has been posed about an all-knowing deity. Does foreknowledge negate free will?
Anyway. You got where I was going. Simple 500 word conclusion to @dirge's magnificent beginning--I always have fun. At my age, you realize there's no point in doing something like this unless you have fun. Running out of time :)
I read your piece last night before going to sleep. Was impressed by the impressions, by the overall effect. I will go over there now and re-read so I can make a more cogent comment.
See you around, @theironfelix.
Geschichte (even the word for story is fun to say!)
That and I consciously despise the "show-n-don't-tell" rule as a hard and fast line for good and bad writers. Regardless, I was always shocked on how some writers never decide to literally play around with their World with the noise; to grant the two-dimensional words on a page the third-dimension qua sound (and some stories can avoid sound altogether pretty effectively if the prose is well or philosophically imbued).
I knew yah were going back to the first days of filosofía (even before Socrates), just wanted to stick with the biblical-relativity of the setting (since HRE and the Church, and yah know... Austria being the main figure head for the HRE). But yes, in the Indeterminate or Dialectical World these questions are rather seen in constant state of fluctuation and not of truth operators. (Exampli gratia: 1 being true and 0 being false; going from there that if something is 1 and compromises another's 1, what does that really mean for the "another" in sincerity). Always something that is to be asked and seen through by the film with the connecting frames leading one right after the other and not the individual frames which could say a lot but requires other frames to make sense of.
Hue~
Will await thy comment, Agmy~