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Oct. 27th, 2015 01:11 amSo zombies (ironically) are just a sped up version of normal history, where fissures between people eventually widen till there's war, or something like war.
The zombies dammed in near Alexandria kept it safe, but only by increasing the danger when the dam broke. War can be redirected, but apparently not eliminated.
So the trick is to have just enough conflict that everyone knows how best to handle it, where none are overwhelmed, distracted or overly isolated.
But who has this trick?
The show has been largely about figuring that out since it righted its keel in season 4 (a lot of the first half of which was understandably lost to sweating out the toxins of the previous two).
It's settled on a method of attrition via viewpoint, represented as deaths of major characters. They're getting very good at setting these up for maximum, terse physical symbolism. The deaths are so gross and saddening that the point of each seems to get lost on most, but perhaps it's felt? The artist's faith I admire most is that the audience can somehow know or learn through feeling. I have no idea what justification this might have, but it's beautiful to see and probably enables the lion's share of real stuff that's come down to us.
Not that I'd quite class The Walking Dead with Julius Caesar, in its genre - but it's not always infinitely beneath Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead or The Argentine Ant.
It's closest to the latter, I think, though there's no reason to suspect the writers have heard of it.
But it seems to be taking seriously the notion that there might be a best way, or anyway a least worst one. I like that.
A danger of Gnosticism is the possibility that salvation via knowledge might devalue those who do not or cannot know. Elitism, basically, though many forms are ultimately evangelical - in the sense of wishing to be spread, in some cases only becoming meaningful when spread.
But whatever you believe you'll accomplish you can't know you will (and note how quickly one departs from plausible knowledge when one requires others' nervous systems to agree with what one knows). So the spectre of people who will never know what they need to gains some real haunting power. If what you learned was your moment of birth, of becoming more than an animal (or as much as an animal, in some versions), then those who have not yet been born are at best another species. And those who end up not being born may not be even that. And suppose some of them could never have known, no matter what - something was lacking, they were too far from the resources you barely located yourself. They look like people but are not. From the perspective of the "human beings" (as so many tribes called themselves - Nazis, Sioux etc.) these non-people only exist to delude and destroy those who might have otherwise been saved, become real boys. And it can't be denied, since the Knowing is not a faith in some other power but an awareness of what is presently possessed, that the non-person person might destroy the others. It's certainly a minority point of view that the majority of us truly Know. So the fear that they surround us, may extinguish us, can't be entirely evaded.
Does the show take this tack? It's possible. The antagonists from the first eisodes of season 5 are shown to have been good people who were pushed to make evil decisions. They completed a realization process that some of the protagonists behin undergoing as the season progresses, and it's not entirely clear that their logic was wrong. I mean, we know it is, but we have trouble saying just how we know, thus can't without hesitation condemn those who don't. They may well Know as much as we do; and if knowing is finally love of some kind, that they still can love one another should disturb us. Maybe that was enough that they could have been persuaded to be friends, or to change their ways, even though they're at present out to kill us.
Even the season 3-4 villain fought for more than himself. The real bone of contention is how much more.
Morgan's decision to not kill is based on his assumption that anyone displaying personhood might change. He has to abandon it because of math - they might change later, but they haven't yet, and they can't be allowed to destroy those who have. The surer thing has to carry. At least while murdering, the murderer's life must be considered worth less than her victim's.
Carol's decision to protect only those she already is loyal to is also abandoned; she can't pretend to care about others without starting to truly do so. What we value in people is that they're people, whether or not we can afford to see that. They fit our heart and it them.
Hence today's with the dumpster and fence. Believing in people just because they're people may get you killed. It may also be exactly what you should do, since the alternative may put you on that dumpster alone. Or in an RV alone.
Darryl's choice is also math, I think? Two vs one, all other greater good considerations being equal. Like Michonne, he makes the decision to abandon as few and as seldom as possible. But both are aware one must still sometimes abandon.
Where one draws the line, though, is agonizing. Which is why Morgan, Carol and Rick were drawn to those certainties. Glenn might be a special case, but the others aren't. Rick's decision to value life based on its likelihood of surviving isolates him, as he is the likeliest survivor. But once alone he is not very likely to survive anymore.
The zombies dammed in near Alexandria kept it safe, but only by increasing the danger when the dam broke. War can be redirected, but apparently not eliminated.
So the trick is to have just enough conflict that everyone knows how best to handle it, where none are overwhelmed, distracted or overly isolated.
But who has this trick?
The show has been largely about figuring that out since it righted its keel in season 4 (a lot of the first half of which was understandably lost to sweating out the toxins of the previous two).
It's settled on a method of attrition via viewpoint, represented as deaths of major characters. They're getting very good at setting these up for maximum, terse physical symbolism. The deaths are so gross and saddening that the point of each seems to get lost on most, but perhaps it's felt? The artist's faith I admire most is that the audience can somehow know or learn through feeling. I have no idea what justification this might have, but it's beautiful to see and probably enables the lion's share of real stuff that's come down to us.
Not that I'd quite class The Walking Dead with Julius Caesar, in its genre - but it's not always infinitely beneath Waiting for Godot, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead or The Argentine Ant.
It's closest to the latter, I think, though there's no reason to suspect the writers have heard of it.
But it seems to be taking seriously the notion that there might be a best way, or anyway a least worst one. I like that.
A danger of Gnosticism is the possibility that salvation via knowledge might devalue those who do not or cannot know. Elitism, basically, though many forms are ultimately evangelical - in the sense of wishing to be spread, in some cases only becoming meaningful when spread.
But whatever you believe you'll accomplish you can't know you will (and note how quickly one departs from plausible knowledge when one requires others' nervous systems to agree with what one knows). So the spectre of people who will never know what they need to gains some real haunting power. If what you learned was your moment of birth, of becoming more than an animal (or as much as an animal, in some versions), then those who have not yet been born are at best another species. And those who end up not being born may not be even that. And suppose some of them could never have known, no matter what - something was lacking, they were too far from the resources you barely located yourself. They look like people but are not. From the perspective of the "human beings" (as so many tribes called themselves - Nazis, Sioux etc.) these non-people only exist to delude and destroy those who might have otherwise been saved, become real boys. And it can't be denied, since the Knowing is not a faith in some other power but an awareness of what is presently possessed, that the non-person person might destroy the others. It's certainly a minority point of view that the majority of us truly Know. So the fear that they surround us, may extinguish us, can't be entirely evaded.
Does the show take this tack? It's possible. The antagonists from the first eisodes of season 5 are shown to have been good people who were pushed to make evil decisions. They completed a realization process that some of the protagonists behin undergoing as the season progresses, and it's not entirely clear that their logic was wrong. I mean, we know it is, but we have trouble saying just how we know, thus can't without hesitation condemn those who don't. They may well Know as much as we do; and if knowing is finally love of some kind, that they still can love one another should disturb us. Maybe that was enough that they could have been persuaded to be friends, or to change their ways, even though they're at present out to kill us.
Even the season 3-4 villain fought for more than himself. The real bone of contention is how much more.
Morgan's decision to not kill is based on his assumption that anyone displaying personhood might change. He has to abandon it because of math - they might change later, but they haven't yet, and they can't be allowed to destroy those who have. The surer thing has to carry. At least while murdering, the murderer's life must be considered worth less than her victim's.
Carol's decision to protect only those she already is loyal to is also abandoned; she can't pretend to care about others without starting to truly do so. What we value in people is that they're people, whether or not we can afford to see that. They fit our heart and it them.
Hence today's with the dumpster and fence. Believing in people just because they're people may get you killed. It may also be exactly what you should do, since the alternative may put you on that dumpster alone. Or in an RV alone.
Darryl's choice is also math, I think? Two vs one, all other greater good considerations being equal. Like Michonne, he makes the decision to abandon as few and as seldom as possible. But both are aware one must still sometimes abandon.
Where one draws the line, though, is agonizing. Which is why Morgan, Carol and Rick were drawn to those certainties. Glenn might be a special case, but the others aren't. Rick's decision to value life based on its likelihood of surviving isolates him, as he is the likeliest survivor. But once alone he is not very likely to survive anymore.
