holy fucking idiots

  • FlakesBongler [they/them]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    Oh this shit again

    THE ENTIRE POINT OF FRANKENSTEIN IS AN ALLEGORY FOR THE ACT OF CREATION

    FRANKENSTEIN MADE A LIVING THING WITHOUT CONSIDERING THE RESULT AND IN DOING SO, DROVE HIS CREATION TO ACTS OF MALICE AND MADNESS!

    WE ARE ALL MADE VICTIMS, WE ARE ALL MADE MONSTERS!

        • Nakoichi [they/them]@hexbear.net
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          21 days ago

          Me too. Started with Treasure Island after I taught myself to read by memorizing the children’s books my mom would read to me.

          Didn’t get to Frankenstein till I was in college but I actually wrote an entire essay on it as an allegory for creation but also as an allegory for man’s desire to overcome death by creating something they would come to worship in a sense, in this case scientism.

        • anarchoilluminati [comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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          21 days ago

          It’s actually from Paradise Lost by John Milton, Adam says it when he is becoming defiant towards God. It’s quite a sad scene and a generally tragic story, but it’s my favorite piece of literature. I’ve never read Frankenstein but I know it’s quoted on the title page so thought it was fitting, even though I don’t think Milton really thought we were created monsters as much as we become monsters but that’s a different question. Even Satan laments and regrets his defiance and secretly admits to himself that God wasn’t unfair towards him.

          I’m not sure if Milton was influenced by a line from the story of the Golem though.

  • TerminalEncounter [she/her]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    …did they read the book?? You cant really help but feel bad for Adam (he called himself Adam at some point, been a while). He was absolutely right to wanna kill Frankenstein, Frankenstein created him and then was fucking awful about it

    • plinky [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      orphaned child rejected by society and parents

      this says a lot about science and creation of life over-your-head

      (i also remember feeling very bad for the guy)

      • MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.netOP
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        21 days ago

        Rejected on account of inhumanity though - it’s more like a racial spurning than him being a malcontent. Initially, he tries to be kind, even though he was been brought into the world lacking a real parental figure.

        Frankenstein himself was much more of an entitled shitlord.

        • RION [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          21 days ago

          I think the incel theme is reinforced by the whole “build me a woman who will have no choice but to be my wife” situation

          • MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.netOP
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            20 days ago

            Yeah, definitely true, but that’s after the majority of his troubles. For sure though, Shelley was commenting on male ownership/entitlement to female bodies.

      • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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        21 days ago

        The difference, I suppose, is that Frankenstein’s monster didn’t have access to some MChan where he could get all of his worst thoughts and feelings normalized, amplified, and signal boosted, before rampaging out again to “get the high score.”

        • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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          21 days ago

          That being said, I’m surprised that CHUDs haven’t adopted Frankenstein’s monster or Grendel from the novel in 1971.

          “Nooo! Us Nazis aren’t evil, we’re just misunderstood! And did you guys know we were sad once?”

          • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            21 days ago

            “Nooo! Us Nazis aren’t evil, we’re just misunderstood!

            One of my hotter takes is that the “vampires that sparkle” shit and related “blood sucking monster is actually really nice if he wants to have sex with you” slop of the early 2000s was basically that. It had some overlap with “The Galactic Empire of Star Wars Did Nothing Wrong, Actually” and “Grey Jedi that have all the cool dark side powers but don’t label them, maaaaaaan” shit in that fandom too.

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                21 days ago

                Good point. It’s often glamorized, too. Like “oh these blood thralls experience so much pleasure from being walking juice boxes that they don’t mind and/or they don’t even have meaningful consciousness anyway, teehee.”

                • ashinadash [she/her]@hexbear.net
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                  21 days ago

                  Okay but what if that’s your kink though thonk sincerely and not a bit-ly. Like, y’know?

                  To me there is a world of difference between “ooh getting bit by this vampire and becoming a thrall to them would be hot” and “THIS FINE MAN LOUIS, HE OWNED A PLANTATION, HE’S A VALIANT MAN” type shit, I guess.

            • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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              21 days ago

              I read some of those vampire books and there was so much weird shit but I was 13 and horny and it was the late 90s so what you gonna do? You read some smut with the barest veneer of story between the sex parts. Look, mom, I’m reading! I’m being a good boy just please knock before you come in here!

              But I definitely remember one series that had vampires hanging out with Krishna as the backstory because vampires were the original Aryans and of course the main character is a sexy blonde lady and looking back I think “what the fuck was going on”

              • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                21 days ago

                That’s the subtext that bothered me: “this malevolent entity that’s known for draining blood/souls/something-you-need-to-live and is a parasite on the living world is nice and wants to have sex with me

                There was even a horrid Star Wars EU book called, I kid you not, something like “Twilight of the Jedi” that directly tried to chase the “what if bad things good and sparkly and want to have sex with you” thing but with space magic and lightsabers.

                • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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                  21 days ago

                  Oh God I think I remember that book. Or I at least saw the cover. One of my friends was a huge fan of those books and had every single one. And invariably he would do something stupid and get in trouble for hitting his younger brother and he’d get banned to his room. And I couldn’t abandon my friend because that would be rude. So I’d just hang out in there with him read all the back covers of his books while he pouted.

    • RION [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      Iirc the phrasing is like “I ought to have been thy Adam,” so more of him evoking the biblical theme than advancing it as a name he’d like to go by

      And also… Bro did kill one child and two adults that had absolutely nothing to do with his anguish. Definitely pitiable but not exactly in the right

  • DragonBallZinn [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    Is this satire? Must be a slow news day if they’re caring about universities discussing books they haven’t read in ways they don’t like. They say that as if they haven’t been trying to do the Draco in Leather Pants trope over the goddamn confederacy or Nazi Germany.

    What’s the matter? Not enough brown people to fearmonger over?

    • VILenin [he/him]@hexbear.netM
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      21 days ago

      I imagine the following path to publication:

      Some Nazi incel STEMlord is forced by the woke SJW cabal to READ a BOOK in COMMIE LITERATURE GE class 1984 —> whines about it to his shithead parents in the hopes they sue the school for violating his rights —> Shithead parents make a phone call to their friend who writes ragebait articles for a nazi tabloid hoping to ride the coattails into a fox news appearance

    • your_moms_account [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      Hate when people say this. The monster does horrible things to innocent people, whereas Victor doesn’t really do anything out of malice. And everyone always talks about what a fine gentleman Victor is every time they mention him.

      Moreover the quote is basically, “knowledge is repeating a fact you heard somewhere, wisdom is repeating a glib misinterpretation you heard somewhere

    • Anarcho-Bolshevik@lemmygrad.ml
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      20 days ago

      And I gave my heart to know wisdom, madness and folly, and I perceived that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.

  • UlyssesT [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    Nonwoke take on one of the oldest monster stories of all times: MONSTER BAD AND UGLY AND EVIL KILL IT KILL IT I AM VERY HEROIC grillman

  • DengistDonnieDarko [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    when I was in high school I was in the teacher’s supply closet and stole a copy of Frankenstein that one of the other classes was reading. I’m 100% sure if I just asked my teacher to borrow a copy she wouldve lent it to me no questions asked. it had this cover art

    this is unrelated to the thread but it’s a fun little memory I share when I remember Frankenstein is a thing.

      • your_moms_account [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        21 days ago

        It looks so much more like Frankenstein’s monster than the pop culture thing does.

        Information about its appearance in the book: a bigger-than-average human sewn together from large bits of corpses.

        That looks like it.

        • MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.netOP
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          21 days ago

          True, much more accurate than Mr Bolt Through The Neck, but in my mind the stitching was always more apparent, and the parts less perfect in their symmetry.

          • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]@hexbear.net
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            21 days ago

            The part that always is funny to me is that somebody just decided to make him a mint green color like something you’d see in a 1950s furniture store and everyone just rolled with it

          • ComradeMonotreme [she/her, he/him]@hexbear.net
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            21 days ago

            There’s mixed reaction to the 1994 film, but what I liked is that initially the stitching is very obvious as well as as the asymmetry of the various body parts. But as the film goes on the stitches have fallen out or rotted away and the join areas have scarred and then faded, everything sort of settling into place. So he looks like a very scarred man rather than a sewn together creation, which highlights that he is more of a living being not a zombie or undead.

          • CupcakeOfSpice [she/her]@hexbear.net
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            21 days ago

            I could be remembering wrongly, but wasn’t the creature described as being uncannily attractive? Like maybe not conventionally so, but in some indescribable and uncomfortable way?

  • AnarchoSnowPlow@midwest.social
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    21 days ago

    Nah nah nah nah, the big brain take here is that this is Poe’s law in action and the writer is a plant who’s been waiting for their moment.

  • your_moms_account [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    It’s a book with multiple interpretations, like any halfway-good bit of art. Only absolute schlock has moral clarity.

    The monster obviously isn’t the good guy, as he strangles children.

    The baizou thing of “the monster was good” makes no sense. Take any other murderous incel or child-killer and apply the same. Most people who do heinous murders didn’t have easy lives prior to that; it’s not a justification.

    But the monster gets to give his side of the story a lot, in long monologues. I feel some people took them monologues too literally, said, “This is the message of the book”, and I took it as the distorted ravings of monstrous psychology, with his subjective validity.

    • MaoTheLawn [any, any]@hexbear.netOP
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      21 days ago

      Yeah, but I think given Shelley’s circles more radical tendencies, the interpretation of some revolutionary allegory is a strong one, especially when you think of that Rousseau(?) poem about the ruling class creating the ‘monsters’ that will destroy them.

      The Monster isn’t some child killer with a tough past, he’s a child born into an adults body, cast out into the cold by his creator, and then spurned on account of his perceived inhumanity by every living being.

      Most murderers get accepted by some initially, and when they don’t it’s on account of their bad vibes. The Monster showed himself to be very emotionally capable in spite of his troubles, and capable of living amongst humanity, especially in his covert benevolence towards the blind mans family. He even rescues a child, but is then shot at because people perceive him to be a monster.

    • CupcakeOfSpice [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      21 days ago

      I think it would’ve been fairly easy for readers at the time to say “the monster’s a murderer, that’s the story.” It’s easy for others to say the monster’s a victim and not responsible for his actions. We see the two points of view throughout this comments. The comparison to an incel is almost silly, though. “Man decides women are The Problem and becomes dangerous” is different from “Man is abandoned and feared by his only parent at birth, he has the impulse control of a small child (recall he was literally just born) and he has the body of a very large adult man.” He even does try to be good, but is angered by people dehumanizing him for his appearance. (Dehumanizing people based on things they have no control over: sound familiar?) But then there’s the important bit: this does not absolve his crimes! He is, in fact, a murderer. But the people who hated him also bear responsibility. Most of all his parent who did no rearing, teaching, or literally anything but screaming and running bears responsibility. Is he a killer? Yes! Is he a victim? Yes! Is Victor responsible for everything? Also, yes! The people who rejected him responsible? Less so, but yes!