[quote]Varqanir wrote:
You said Valhalla, which is Norse.
Conan didn’t believe in Valhalla or any other sort of glorious afterlife.
“In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.”
And Robert E. Howard, who invented Conan and Crom, committed suicide. So what does that tell you?[/quote]
Howard used Valhalla in his stories as well just as he did blend many such historical fantasies and truths with his own fiction. You’re right though it wasn’t technically the Cimmerians who believed that.
Writers seem to be a troubled bunch. I guess Howard talked a bigger game than he walked. At least his racist friend HP Lovecraft was brave enough to stick it out till the bitter end.[/quote]
And I’m sure that Cthulhu will reward Lovecraft accordingly.
Hemingway, on the other hand, I am confident is enjoying a haunch of venison and a flagon of mead in Asgard as we speak. [/quote]
My bet is he’s drinking absinthe while exchanging tall tales and jealous insults with Raoul Duke, a.k.a H.S.T.
[quote]comus3 wrote:
Read a little more. My GOD what I’ve clicked around on is painful. His catalog of hats? Traffic tickets he’s gotten? How much he likes Godfather’s Pizza? WTF. I’d be embarrassed more than anything to have this be my epitaph. Is this guy for real or a sublime prank?[/quote]
Not suggesting you kill yourself, but go write your epitaph. See if you come up with something more interesting. [/quote]
Some truth in that. (I’ve never actually gotten a traffic ticket)
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
You said Valhalla, which is Norse.
Conan didn’t believe in Valhalla or any other sort of glorious afterlife.
“In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.”
And Robert E. Howard, who invented Conan and Crom, committed suicide. So what does that tell you?[/quote]
Howard used Valhalla in his stories as well just as he did blend many such historical fantasies and truths with his own fiction. You’re right though it wasn’t technically the Cimmerians who believed that.
Writers seem to be a troubled bunch. I guess Howard talked a bigger game than he walked. At least his racist friend HP Lovecraft was brave enough to stick it out till the bitter end.[/quote]
And I’m sure that Cthulhu will reward Lovecraft accordingly.
Hemingway, on the other hand, I am confident is enjoying a haunch of venison and a flagon of mead in Asgard as we speak. [/quote]
My bet is he’s drinking absinthe while exchanging tall tales and jealous insults with Raoul Duke, a.k.a H.S.T.
[/quote]
Thompson would, of course, be drinking Puerto Rican rum.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
You said Valhalla, which is Norse.
Conan didn’t believe in Valhalla or any other sort of glorious afterlife.
“In this world men struggle and suffer vainly, finding pleasure only in the bright madness of battle; dying, their souls enter a gray misty realm of clouds and icy winds, to wander cheerlessly throughout eternity.”
And Robert E. Howard, who invented Conan and Crom, committed suicide. So what does that tell you?[/quote]
Howard used Valhalla in his stories as well just as he did blend many such historical fantasies and truths with his own fiction. You’re right though it wasn’t technically the Cimmerians who believed that.
Writers seem to be a troubled bunch. I guess Howard talked a bigger game than he walked. At least his racist friend HP Lovecraft was brave enough to stick it out till the bitter end.[/quote]
And I’m sure that Cthulhu will reward Lovecraft accordingly.
Hemingway, on the other hand, I am confident is enjoying a haunch of venison and a flagon of mead in Asgard as we speak. [/quote]
My bet is he’s drinking absinthe while exchanging tall tales and jealous insults with Raoul Duke, a.k.a H.S.T.
[/quote]
Thompson would, of course, be drinking Puerto Rican rum.
[/quote]
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Martin Manley, though perhaps not having lived for as many years, has done essentially the same thing. My hat is off to him. Every man dies. Not every man dies well. [/quote]
You fuckin serious mate?
He died a coward’s death. No fucking way he will be welcomed to join his ancestors in the halls of Valhalla with such a pitiful doom. Sure he will be remembered by more than just an obituary, but to me at least he will be remembered as a pathetic and miserable excuse for a man. Suicide disgusts me.[/quote]
You don’t know your Norse religion.
The Goths and the Celts believed that to die naturally was shameful. Vikings unlucky enough not to die in battle fell on their own swords or jumped off cliffs in order to be able to enter Valhalla.
[/quote]
And also I wasn’t talking about Norse religion. Crom does not reward the weak![/quote]
“He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man’s soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?”
Hannibal
Socrates
Mark Antony
Cleopatra
Cato the Younger
Seneca the Younger
Yukio Mishima
All of these people died by their own hands. Pussies and cowards?
And all right, I’ll allow that Socrates was forced to drink hemlock, but he could have saved his own life by being ostracized from Athens, or perhaps escaping. He chose an honorable death over a dishonorable and cowardly retreat.
Their stand at Thermopylae was nothing if not suicide.
Leonidas could have accepted the terms of Xerxes at any time, from the moment the Persian ambassador first appeared in Sparta to the minute before the Persian archers loosed their arrows into his body. He could have saved the lives of himself and his men. But he didn’t. Because living with defeat or submission would have been worse than dying with dignity and honor.
On PWI, I authored a thread talking about the value of life.
In many cultures throughout history, other things have been considered more valuable than life. Things like dignity, responsibility and honor.
And many other things deemed worse than death. Like disgrace and defeat.
It doesn’t come naturally to us in our modern American neo-Christian culture to think in this way.
Our culture teaches that life is sacred: it is the most valuable thing we have, precious and irreplaceable. A gift from God. And to voluntarily end it is considered anathema: the worst possible crime.
But evidently not everyone feels this way. Not even a devout Christian like Martin Manley.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Tell me, Sulli, what do these words mean to you?
Do you agree or disagree with them?
If faced with the choice, would you choose death or dishonor?
Do you believe that anyone who subscribes to such a credo is a pussy or a coward if they chose death?
Would the Vikings or the Samurai who killed themselves to avoid the dishonor of capture or defeat be pussies and cowards in your book?[/quote]
I agree. Warriors who choose death to deny capture aren’t cowards. Some 60 year old bastard with a 401(k) who kills himself because he couldn’t summon the courage to face old age is a coward and a half.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
And what of Leonidas and the Three Hundred?
Their stand at Thermopylae was nothing if not suicide.
Leonidas could have accepted the terms of Xerxes at any time, from the moment the Persian ambassador first appeared in Sparta to the minute before the Persian archers loosed their arrows into his body. He could have saved the lives of himself and his men. But he didn’t. Because living with defeat or submission would have been worse than dying with dignity and honor.
[/quote]
Suicide to me is killing yourself because you can’t bear to keep living. Thermopylae is an example of the most glorious doom. There is no nobler death than fighting the long defeat against insurmountable odds. I think perhaps we are very far apart on our semantics of suicide.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
And what of Leonidas and the Three Hundred?
Their stand at Thermopylae was nothing if not suicide.
Leonidas could have accepted the terms of Xerxes at any time, from the moment the Persian ambassador first appeared in Sparta to the minute before the Persian archers loosed their arrows into his body. He could have saved the lives of himself and his men. But he didn’t. Because living with defeat or submission would have been worse than dying with dignity and honor.
[/quote]
Suicide to me is killing yourself because you can’t bear to keep living. Thermopylae is an example of the most glorious doom. There is no nobler death than fighting the long defeat against insurmountable odds. I think perhaps we are very far apart on our semantics of suicide.[/quote]
Suicide is suicide, regardless of the reason or method. It is the intentional ending of one’s life, or the intentional refusal to preserve one’s life. Call it whatever you like, but that’s what it is.
Is a terminal cancer patient cowardly because she chooses to inject herself with a lethal dose of morphine rather than face the pain and debilitation of a noble and glorious “long defeat against insurmountable odds” as her cancer ravages her body and eventually kills her?
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Suicide is suicide, regardless of the reason or method. It is the intentional ending of one’s life, or the intentional refusal to preserve one’s life. Call it whatever you like, but that’s what it is.
Is a terminal cancer patient cowardly because she chooses to inject herself with a lethal dose of morphine rather than face the pain and debilitation of a noble and glorious “long defeat against insurmountable odds” as her cancer ravages her body and eventually kills her?
[/quote]
Na I deem that non-cowardly as well. Mostly though because by doing that you’re saving your family tons of inheritance money, not because you’re saving yourself from pain.
[quote]Varqanir wrote:
Hannibal
Socrates
Mark Antony
Cleopatra
Cato the Younger
Seneca the Younger
Yukio Mishima
All of these people died by their own hands. Pussies and cowards?[/quote]
No
No - he didn’t kill himself, he was sentenced to die.
Yes
No most likely
Yes
Yes
Yes
I feel now like I’ve gotten sucked into some kind of philosophical debate, which I have always thought were a massive waste of time. I do not see the merit in trying to find all the exceptions to the rule. This guy was not fucking Hannibal or Leonidas. He was just a crazy schmuck. The vast majority of suicides by any definition are committed by miserable, depressed cowards, not influential historical figures.
[quote]csulli wrote:
And also I wasn’t talking about Norse religion. Crom does not reward the weak![/quote]
“He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man’s soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?”
im pretty sure Crom couldn’t give a shit.[/quote]
Don’t fuckin Wikipedia quote me dude. I’ve read everything Howard ever wrote about it. I know. “he is said to approve of courage and tenacity, even if the human is too frail to succeed.”
But of course he never really did anything. That was kind of the point I think. Howard was an atheist, and he does little in his stories to show that any of the deities mentioned are real at all in his own fantasy setting.
When you do things right, people won’t be sure you’ve done anything at all.
[quote]csulli wrote:
[quote]Hell-Billy wrote:
[quote]csulli wrote:
And also I wasn’t talking about Norse religion. Crom does not reward the weak![/quote]
“He dwells on a great mountain. What use to call on him? Little he cares if men live or die. Better to be silent than to call his attention to you; he will send you dooms, not fortune! He is grim and loveless, but at birth he breathes power to strive and slay into a man’s soul. What else shall men ask of the gods?”
im pretty sure Crom couldn’t give a shit.[/quote]
Don’t fuckin Wikipedia quote me dude. I’ve read everything Howard ever wrote about it. I know. “he is said to approve of courage and tenacity, even if the human is too frail to succeed.”
But of course he never really did anything. That was kind of the point I think. Howard was an atheist, and he does little in his stories to show that any of the deities mentioned are real at all in his own fantasy setting.[/quote][b]
