xanithofdragons

I do not like the story of Dido and Aeneas (at least as it is told by Vergil in Aeneid.) Why? It's a trainwreck. TRAINWRECK. It's such a trainwreck that it can still be called a trainwreck even though it was written in and took place in a time that didn't have trains. Humans, gods, EVERYONE makes mistake after mistake, and then (SPOILER ALERT) it ends in suicide. Miserable, lonely, hopeless, pointless suicide. And I'm left asking over and over again, why was this mistake not averted? Why did neither Venus nor Juno realize the Aeneas/Dido would not work out? Why did both Anna and Dido think it would work out when they'd heard MORE THAN ONE TIME that MORE THAN ONE PERSON had prophesied that Aeneas kinda sorta needed to go to Italy (and NOT Carthage)? Why did Dido think that she and Aeneas were "married" when Aeneas had said no such thing? Why didn't Aeneas or Dido suggest that Dido go along with Aeneas? Why didn't Dido decide that she could live on without Aeneas after he left? Why does no one have a brain except for maybe Iarbas, Jupiter, and Mercury? Why was this story even told?

Now, I'm assuming there's supposed to be some lesson that we learn here. What is it? Don't go for guys who're gonna have to leave anyway? Don't recklessly get into romantic relationships? The gods rule your life anyway, so who cares? Carthage sucks? I can't figure out what I'm supposed to learn with all of this. Which mistake am I supposed to avoid? Can I avoid these mistakes? Am I screwed in life 'cause I'm a woman? If the people reading something are supposed to learn something from it, but don't learn what the writer wanted them to learn, then that writer has failed his or her purpose, which nobody knows anyway... Great...

Now, it might just be me, but I think that if people really wanna teach us something in a story, they should teach it with happiness and success, not misery and death. I can tell from Crime and Punishment that the author wants us to follow Christianity, but I can't tell anything for certain from Book 4 of Aeneid what Vergil wanted us to do or even if he wanted us to do anything.

Sure, sure, "There's more lessons to be learned from failure than from success" or whatever it was. I disagree. I don't think there's necessarily any more lessons to be learned from failure than there are from success. We do need to be reminded more that there's lessons from failure than we do that there's lessons from success, however, but that's psychology. We learn more easily from reward than from punishment. When we're rewarded, we do what we did to get rewarded, but when we're punished, instead of not doing what we were punished for, we may instead learn how to not get caught doing it. When we see other people rewarded for doing something, we know that it must be a good thing to do, but when we see someone punished for doing something, what do we do? Do we not do the thing, thinking that we, too, will get punished? Do we do the thing regardless, not caring about the punishment? Or do we figure out a way to do the thing without being found out, so we won't get punished?

This may be somewhat simplified from how an adult reacts to information and makes decisions, but I think the essential points still apply. If you want to teach someone something, reward them, or in the case of telling stories, show them someone who was rewarded for doing what it is you want them to do.

So tell me a happy story! That'll teach me!

And now I finally get around to it.

( Long post is looong... )

Recently, I've been writing down the info for a fantasy world I've come up with in which I might write stories and/or try to throw together an rp. If anyone shows interest, I might post some of that information on here. I might do it even if no one shows interest, though.

Well, this has been a learning experience. If I feel like posting but wait a while before actually posting, it will probably end up long. Maybe so long that no one will actually have the patience or attention span to read it, oh noez!

Well, a bit of a belated hello to those cool peeps I met on friending memes. I hope that you'll enjoy getting to know the bundle of nerdiness that is I as much as I enjoy getting to know all of you.

Edit: Oh my, I forgot that I wanted to mention this. Because one of my friends did it, I made my religious views on facebook "Haruhiist." I'm now tempted to add Fujoshi to that and see if anyone notices.

(All quotes used in the following post are from Allen Mandelbaum's translation of Vergil's Aeneid.)

I have to read a translation of the entire Aeneid for my independent study of AP Latin: Vergil next year, and I was reading book V when I came upon something positively ADORABLE:

After a 9-day-long period of mourning on the one-year anniversary of Aeneas' father's death, Aeneas holds athletic competitions. After the boat race, a good old footrace is held. Amongst other young men (all mentioned by name in there, but not here, due to their lack of importance in the incidence of cuteness), Euryalus, Nisus, and Salius compete in this race. Salius is an Acarnian, and Nisus and Euryalus are described thusly: "Euryalus renowned for handsomeness and for his fresh youth, Nisus for his honest love of the boy." Needless to say, my attention was already caught by this footrace.

The footrace starts, and Nisus, Salius, and Euryalus are in 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place, respectively. Unfortunately, Nisus slips on some blood from some steer (sacrificial, I would guess, from that long mourning period), "And yet he did not forget Euryalus, not even then forget his love." Nisus trips Salius, and Euryalus wins the race.

I immediately wanted to tell someone about this EPICALLY (get it?) ADORABLE moment, but sadly, Ian is off on the Italy trip.

This is my favorite part of the Aeneid so far, which is kinda sad, considering that we don't translate any of book V as part of the AP syllabus, which is a shame because many Latin students will miss out on this positively ADORABLE moment. (I understand why it's not on the syllabus: it has absolutely no relevance to the general plotline.) Eheu, I suppose I'll probably look up the actually Latin online sometime anyway.