Tuesday, November 22, 2011

7 deadly sins

I never really thought about the seven deadly sins much before, mostly because they have the word sin in the name, which is a word I never really like, mostly because whenever people use it, they're talking about why someone's going to hell. I've thought about it a bit more, and although it's a very imperfect philosophy (There are a lot more than seven reasons people do bad things), it gives a different way of thinking why people do bad things. And I'm going to do a series of posts about each one of them. But for now, I'll take a break from religious or philosophical posting and do something about my theory of how the seven deadly sins relate to different hogwarts teachers from Harry Potter. If you haven't read the books or don't like the books, please just stop reading here.

Note: Yes, I know Slughorn was potions teacher and Snape was defense against dark arts the sixth year, not the seventh. But, think about it. If J.K. Rowling intended each defense teacher to carry a deadly sin, it wouldn't bee the real defense teacher in the seventh book, who is mentioned and then forgotten.

Year 1, Qurall, greed: This argument is the weakest because  Qurall is one of the least developed characters, or rather, his actual personality is undeveloped, and his pathetic stuttering personality is not really him. The only part that he actually shows his true colors is in the climax, where he says (Quote approximated) "There is no good or evil, just power and those who are too weak to use it". He was power hungry, so he represented greed.

Year 2, Lockheart, pride: Simply the fact that he gave a quiz about himself to his students shows how vain he is. Throughout the year his class degrades into lectures about stuff he did.

Year 3, Lupin, sloth: I'll be honest, I did the other ones first so I could eliminate all the options but one, which had to be Lupin. Lupin seems like such a good person (Except for at night when he turns into a murder-crazed wolf. So I eliminated all the other and the final choice surprised me,  sloth. I suppose he was a sloth, he foolishly ignored the danger of his condition and taught at school of children he could easily accidently maim, kill, or infect with one hiccup on snape's part.

Year 4, moody, lust: I don't really know what lust is. Mostly when people thinks about it, it is thought to be lusting over someone whom you are physically attracted to, but the way I can see it, some people can lust for power or money as  much as they can a person, so this is what Moody, who is actually Bardy Crouch junior lusts for, revenge. Revenge against his father he wanted so badly that it was all that consumed him. Revenge for abandoning him and and betraying him. Revenge for being less a human and more a machine. Revenge for sentencing his own son to a punishment worse than death.

Year 5, Umbridge, greed: In this it is not Umbridge herself that is greedy. Umbridge is just a puppet of whoever is in power at the time, as long as she is at the top. No, the greed that I'm talking about is the greed of her puppeteer, Cornilias Fudge, minister of magic. You see, he is greedy because he has become minister of magic and, as is the human impulse, now that he is at the top, he is trying to keep that position. Although it would take a remarkable politician to let go of the feeling of wanting to be on top, Fudge keeps his position by using torture and fear to keep students from telling people about the impending crisis with Voldemort which fudge would be fired for if he was blamed for it.

Year six, slughorn, gluttony: This one is easy, Slughorn lets himself be bribed into telling Tom Riddle about a deadly secret that he knows is dangerous for a small treat. He also indulges himself with surrounding himself with talented students in order to do them a favor, and when they make it, reap the rewards.

Year seven, Snape, Envy: Snape is shaped by his envy of James Potter. That much you can tell by the seventh book. He sees Lily as a great person foolishly thrown away to the arrogant and talentless James Potter. He wishes that he were James Potter and he was with Lily. He only helps Harry because, even after Lily's death, he envisions himself with her and thinks she will thank him in the afterlife.

Monday, November 14, 2011

facebook religion

I know this is a small topic after writing about suicide, but have you ever gone on facebook and seen all the things where doctors will give cute/heroic people free operations if their posts or pictures get a certain number of likes or shares. What doctor would actually be evil enough to say, "Your boy who took a bullet for his little sister needs a heart transplant, but I'll give it to you free... if his picture gets 1000 likes on facebook! Bwahahahahaha!" But what gets on my nerves even more is facebook religion.
It's not like I expect deep philosophical discussion on facebook, but almost every post that is about religion is threatening non-believers.
If you read my blog on a regular basis, you know that I don't believe in hell in the afterlife, so this probably affects my view point, but I think it is completely unfair for god to condemn you on the day of judgement for not sharing a post. I actually talked to someone about his religion posts and his answer was "Well, I do agree it is a bit extreme, but think about it, there is so much other stuff on the internet, I might as add some religion in there."This leads me to believe that these people who put it up aren't actually believing it themselves, but just want to "Show god who's side they're on". In other words, they want a cushion in case somewhere in the afterlife they have to prove they were a good christian. Or maybe they really  believe it. Not to say there's no good religion on facebook. Just a few weeks ago I saw a post about why christians should be pro-gay.  

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Suicide.

I'm sorry that I haven't posted in awhile. I was waiting for something big to happen that I could post about, and now that it has come, I wish it had never happened.
I heard that a friend of mine from second grade hanged himself this week.
I know it is much easier for you to have someone you don't know that well to die than someone you know very well. But the down side is my friend, who I hadn't seen in six years, only appears in small places in my memory. And he's never moping around or acting depressed. He's always smiling and laughing or making a joke or sining a silly song about "Different countries of the americas" Most people would instantly assume he changed in those six years, but I've seen photos of him, obviously not. In the pictures, he's smiling the way you can't fake.
And yet he killed himself.
I don't know the whole story, only he was angry so he stormed up to his room, tied the knot, and did it. But something else must have been going on who he was angry at is undoubtedly not to blame. Something was eating away at him. I fell like if I could just have five minutes alone talking to him before he did it I could have stopped it. Whenever something bad happens, I always think about it from what I could do if I was there before it happened.
I don't really know where I'm going with this. It just helps me to think about it when I type. The only real insight I can provide is it is the human impulse to feel sad and guilty when someone is dead. But if I could talk to his ghost I assure you, he would want to be remembered not by weeping, but by "Different countries".