"The mad god's rule"
Apr. 10th, 2017 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stefanie_beanJust pulling together some random threads that might get stitched into something, or might not.
From this June 24, 2010 meta by James Schellenberg in Strange Horizons:
Sometimes you read or hear something, and your head explodes with insight. "The mad god's rule" says it all.
What the FSW is saying is that what Jacob did, what MiB did, was *more important, more significant* than any attempt to clean up and live decently afterwards. It's like a massive reward for bad behavior.
This also ties in with the Bardo Thodol, and what the sipa bardo is: it's basically created by *karmic illusions,* the kind that result from an inability to let go of your former life and karmic experiences, especially the bad ones. Or alternately it can be a deliberate extended dream state, full of wish fulfillment (until the nightmares start and the god of death appears.)
In essence the FSW says that your karmic illusions are just fine, thanks, and invites you to wallow in them.
From this June 24, 2010 meta by James Schellenberg in Strange Horizons:
The sideways flashes are not an alternate timeline at all, but a limbo/bardo situation, where all the characters, now dead, have been accumulating, long after all the other events of the show. ... Apart from the flash sideways, I was 100% behind the notion that Hurley would become the next guardian of the island and do a far better job of it.
Again, this gets undercut by the flash sideways, because as is stated rather baldly, the most important part of these people's lives were the times of suffering under the mad god's rule. I like the idea of the evolution in the guardianship of the island, but it's treated glancingly. (link)
Sometimes you read or hear something, and your head explodes with insight. "The mad god's rule" says it all.
What the FSW is saying is that what Jacob did, what MiB did, was *more important, more significant* than any attempt to clean up and live decently afterwards. It's like a massive reward for bad behavior.
This also ties in with the Bardo Thodol, and what the sipa bardo is: it's basically created by *karmic illusions,* the kind that result from an inability to let go of your former life and karmic experiences, especially the bad ones. Or alternately it can be a deliberate extended dream state, full of wish fulfillment (until the nightmares start and the god of death appears.)
In essence the FSW says that your karmic illusions are just fine, thanks, and invites you to wallow in them.