What are the elements to help us to face and tame our dark shadows, the instincts that we all have that must be overcome in order to pursue the good, to be honorable and to sacrifice? In some ways the tales we hear or read as kids shape that mechanism that helps us cultivate courage and character.
Tonight we will look at how fantasy writing that clearly defines good and evil helps us confront those darker elements in ourselves. Sometimes when all is depicted as flawed, we can’t harbor a vision of heroism that helps us overcome voices that lull us into inaction. Sometimes over rationalization of stories, removing good and evil prevent us building inner imagery that propel us forward by instinct.
Tonight’s Episode is Based On a Few Articles and Conversations I’ve Had
https://open.substack.com/pub/canadianculturecorner/p/bashing-martin-again-how-grrm-deconstructed
And A Conversation About The Meaning of the Words as the Founders Understood Them
https://jessicareedkraus.substack.com/p/whos-pursuit-of-happiness
Josh On YouTube Inspired Me as Well
Honoring The Sacrifice on D Day: Major Dick Winters and 13 Men
Pre-Dawn Airborne Operations
- 12:15 AM: Pathfinders from 101st Airborne Division mark drop zones behind Utah Beach6.
- 1:30 AM: Easy Company (506th PIR) begins parachute drop over Normandy as part of Mission Albany. Their C-47 (#66 carrying HQ personnel) is shot down, killing commander Lt. Thomas Meehan and key NCOs35.
Leadership Transition
- ~2:00 AM: 1st Lt. Richard Winters assumes command of Easy Company after discovering Meehan’s plane was destroyed. He organizes scattered paratroopers near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont34.
Strategic Assault at Brécourt Manor
- 8:00 AM: Winters leads 13 men in assaulting German 105mm artillery battery firing on Utah Beach. Using flanking maneuvers and coordinated attacks, they destroy:
4 artillery pieces
A nearby ammunition dump
A map-filled command post
This action (later taught at West Point) demonstrates Winters’
D Day: June 6th US Invaded Normandy with Operation Overlord
Behind Enemy Lines With No Weapons
When Easy Company Jumped, each man had a pack of gear with ammo, weapons and supplies that weighed 150 lbs.
Winters lost his. He had a knife and a compass. He was isolated, no one from this plane was within visible proximity.
Easy Company: 35 US Soldiers Defeat 300 Germans
How we had survived, I had no idea. We were certainly very lucky, as we had probably faced 300 plus troops. Fortunately the German leadership was abysmal. This was a far cry from what we had experienced in Normandy, where the enemy marksmanship and grazing fire inflicted a far greater number of casualties on Easy Company. At no time during our current battle had there been any evidence of German commanders directing well-aimed and concentrated fire until their artillery had opened up as we reached the river. This lack of fire discipline was seen originally by the indiscriminate firing of the machine guns early in the morning. Once we had eliminated the enemy machine gun crew, the Germans magnified their mistakes by letting our initial squad get away with sitting in that open field, waiting for the balance of the platoon and the machine gun section to come forward from the company CP. While we waited, we were located in a shallow trench—they had a road bank for a firing line. We sat there for at least one hour without the enemy exercising the slightest bit of initiative. Additionally, the German officers allowed their company to bunch up in one gigantic mass once the battle started. Finally, the Germans compounded their errors by permitting us to pin them down with two machine guns while the remainder of 1st Platoon made a dash across 200 yards of a perfectly flat field. To allow roughly thirty-five men rout two companies of elite troops hardly spoke well of the leadership of the enemy.
Stories With Clear Good and Evil Are Still Worthy, and Complex
We are told that our characters are more genuine if they have deep personal flaws. it has been said that fantasy fiction is too simplistic to impart mottos, themes and lessons that are of importance. But heroic tales have this unique ability to by-pass our mental filters, particularly for children, they lay down images and actions that allow them identify with those who defy the odds, who overcome their own fear, their own inadequacies to overcome an enemy.
Music can stir the soul when it passes this framework we have that must create abstractions because words are not emotion or thoughts, they are representations of thought, layered with our attempts at depicting what our minds see or hear. Fantasy is like music in much of that respect, because it fantasy connects with our imaginations and transports to regions of our mind where we temporarily suspend disbelief and reason.
This does not mean suspending our moral compasses, as the best fantasy tales are the ones that connect with archetypes we have buried deep in our collective consciousness. How many times do children see a poster, an image, and their minds leap immediately into action. Those parables that involve fantasy and distinguish what is evil, what must be vanquished, exercise young readers judgement, it trains them to hold fast. When that is an instinct, that can be conjured to help calm the mind. Intellectualizing can many times enable someone to talk themselves into seeking safety, or stop them from doing something “crazy” such as putting themselves in harms way. But that teaches us to avoid sacrificing for what we know to be worthy.
This region of our souls where we see how the strong defend the week, where we experience religious epiphanies or community of a church, a summer camp, a school team is being cutoff if our minds are lured to neurotic, self directed thinking. Even as adults, if our minds are filled with projections that do not allow us to connect with those regions of our thinking where we can draw analogies with the archetypes we know as “good” or “virtuous”, we are lead into losing our ability for self sacrifice for others.
We are also easily lured into Severed Conscience, where react to banal, visceral imagery differently than when we recall a hero giving his or her life to protect those who cannot.
Many of the characters in Lord of The Rings must confront their Dark Shadow, a mode of thinking that is between the conscious and unconscious. This Dark Shark is primitive, is capable of evil, pushes one to fall to temptation. While the Lord of the Rings is about good vs evil, it is also about the inward journey to tame your own Dark Shadow. Which could be giving to fear, being swallowed by avarice of greed.
Even After the Death Of The Strongest Heroes, You Must Go On – You Band Together And Try a Sticky Bomb
Our Modern Tales Based on Heroism Demonstrate Sacrifice and Ingenuity – A Few Against Overwhelming Odds