Looking for my Wife

I share enough interests with her that I'll run into her eventually on here. Curious how long it will take. I don't really know how this site works.

[kingdokragnarok]

On further reflection, Jay Graber should have waited a few more days to wear the shirt.

[machine-unlearning]

What if he was Line Manuel Miranda and instead of making music he determined the shortest path between a pair of points

[machine-unlearning]

What if he was Line Manuel Miranda and instead of making music he determined the shortest path between a pair of points

[msexcelfractal]

Pinocchio is in a science lab with sensors hooked up to his nose. He's reading from a sheet of paper, "The Riemann-Zeta hypothesis is false." There's a hushed pause. Nothing happens. The scientists gasp. After a frantic five minutes, they hand Pinocchio a new script for a binary search. "The first counterexample to the RZH has modulus less than 10^100." His nose grows an inch. It's going to be a long night.

[sirfrogsworth]

I thought it was fairly normal to feel empathy for bad people.

I thought it was common, even.

But after my Elon/Grimes post... now I'm wondering if I was mistaken about that.

I wrote a post about Trump being traumatized after his assassination attempt and a post about his poor adaptation to aging. I expressed sympathy for him in both cases. But I still maintain my white hot hatred of him and wish for him to face consequences.

Elon was abused by his father. Some of the stories are incredibly tragic. Hearing those stories triggers an involuntary response in my emotional systems that I can't stop no matter how much I despise present-day Elon. I also wonder if that abuse never occurred maybe we wouldn't be dealing with this current clusterfuck.

I have never held so much anger towards a single person as I do my brother. But I also see him as a victim of abuse. I know he was once a really good person and he was slowly corrupted. I feel sorry for him. I mourn the amazing person he used to be. And I still love him.

But that doesn't make me any less angry.

[thatraggedyguy]

I honestly think it's incredibly important for us to understand the people who are bastards who seek to ruin lives. Hitler as a kid wanted to care for his mom who was dying of cancer. Understanding that pain and even relating to it is important for us to not lose the value that they are human. Making them into monsters puts to much space between reality. And he deserved what he got, if not more.

They can be an enemy you want to see destroyed. That you do not want any positivity towards. I think what happens here is that sometimes understanding the tragedies an absolutely right bastard has experienced; threatens their "righteousness of anger." I, personally, do not think because I have context around another person's life it invalidates my own hatred of them. For some though that flexibility is difficult to come to terms with so they lash out.

[vampire8at]

if you have any empathy for these people ur literally compliant in what they’re doing. i don’t care that they had a “shitty home life” and they just need a hug from their dad to feel all better. they’re sick horrible people who are willing to DESTROY AND END the lives of thousands to add another dollar to their billions

[sirfrogsworth]

I want to start by saying this was incredibly hurtful.

I really think you need to read what I wrote again because you grossly misunderstood it. Especially the "hatred" and "consequences" part. I can tell you for certain I am still wishing that bullet didn't just graze Trump's ear.

The absolute gall to tell people they aren't allowed to have emotional responses. How do I stop an involuntary emotion? What magic technique do you have because I'd love to end my depression and anxiety right now.

Errol Musk raised a stepdaughter, then impregnated her, and then married her. He literally drove his current wife to preschool and she called him "Dad".

Here is a recent quote from him.

Imagine being raised by that.

This awful person created another awful person. It's tragic. It's sad. And it makes me feel bad.

Understanding the reason someone turned into a monster is useful. This tells me we need to do a better job of protecting children or else we are going to keep making new Elons.

[undergirlsden]

it’s useful, and it’s good to understand, but it’s also important not to humanize these people when they won’t hesitate a single moment to destroy thousands of lives

I think most of us can agree that evil is born from trauma and the road to hell is paved with good intentions. But the reason we call it evil is that at no moment and in no way it should be justified by our society and collective conscious as

And as cruel as that sounds, there are important reasons for this. It because evil won’t hesitate to dismantle said society, conscious and it’s values from within

This is also called the tolerance paradox. It’s an important observation that was born from the aftermath of WW2

Some things should be dehumanized and given no tolerance, to keep them from spreading

[sirfrogsworth]

It's possible we are working off different definitions of "humanize" but I think there is nothing more human than stupidity, ignorance, and hurting others. Elon is just a human. He is fueled by trauma and ketamine abuse and is lashing out at the world. He desperately wanted people to like him but wasn't willing to put in the work to be remotely likable. Plenty of people overcome their trauma and make the effort to defy their poor upbringing. Elon made a different choice. And he is responsible for that choice. No awful childhood can justify his actions.

I see the lack of humanization as a much larger problem for conservatives. They have taken away Elon and Trump's status as human beings and elevated them to gods. Elon is an infallible Tech Jesus capable of bending all machines to his will. And Trump is the Grand Business Genius who thinks 90 steps ahead and is playing 8D chess to save our country from immigrants and people with pronouns.

I wish people from that side would humanize them more and see they are flawed, pathetic, and despicable. They are squishy sacks of meat like the rest of us.

I will never excuse their actions or decisions. I consider them well beyond redemption. And I wish every day they never existed.

This is probably a semantic debate. I think we are all on the same page that these people suck and need to go right fucking now.

[ms-demeanor]

I actually don't think this is a semantic debate, I think that Frogman is right and "it's important not to humanize people who won't hesitate to (effectively) kill people" is, no shit, protofascist ideology.

No matter how awful, how violent, how genocidal, how "evil" someone is, you have to remember that people are human. You have to treat them as humans, as rational actors who are doing things that they believe will achieve their goals, that their goals are founded in a desire to see *their* version of a better world and not out of some abstract demonic drive to be evil.

The second to last poster is fundamentally understanding the paradox of tolerance in a way that would almost be funny if it wasn't so fucking dangerous. One of the attitudes that you absolutely cannot tolerate if you want the world to be a better place is the dehumanizing of you enemies.

You can't do this because it's saying "there is a version of the world in which it is correct to treat some people as other-than-human, and the rules that apply to humans (the right to a fair trial, freedom from cruel and unusual punishment, etc.) do not apply to those people."

And that means you're saying there are conditions in which people *can* lose those rights and that's where the whole thing starts. "People who hurt children don't deserve rights/kill all pedophiles > the LGBTQIAs are trying to recruit your kids > queers are all pedophiles because they want to recruit and destroy your kids > trans people don't deserve rights." "Terrorists don't deserve rights > all Arabs are terrorists > you can't do war crimes against a population with no civilians > gazans as young as 4 are hamas > it's not a war crime to bomb a hospital it's a legitimate attack against a terrorist stronghold." "Criminals have violated the law and don't deserve the same rights as the rest of us > crossing the border without permission from our government is a crime > all undocumented migrants are criminals > it's okay to separate criminals from their families and put them in cages and offshore prisons"

Elon Musk is a shitty, shitty person but by dehumanizing him, by refusing to recognize that he is just as human (with dreams, hopes, trauma, longing, love, fear, and family) as you are, you are trying to differentiate him from you. You are trying to say "that's not human. That's not like me, I'm not like that, that's a monster and monsters don't deserve to be treated like people."

And people who think that way are very good at finding monsters. Maybe the monsters who don't deserve rights are all the Republicans in congress. Maybe the monsters are all the pardoned J6ers. Maybe the monsters are all republicans generally. Maybe it's everyone who *tolerates* republicans so it's everyone in red states. And that's how you get people saying "they fucking deserved it" after the Texas freeze the same way people are saying "they fucking deserved it" after the LA fires. "Suck it up, that's what happens when you vote for [my political opponents], you deserve what's coming to you because you're all monsters."

The worst person you can think of, the most genocidal dictator, the most vile racist supporter of apartheid, the most prolific murderer - these are all humans, they are not special, they are not unique, and you would do well to remember it because you're not special either. It's imperishable to recognize the humanity of those people because to do so is to recognize that NOT being like that is a choice. YOU could become like them. YOU could do some great harm in the name of your best vision of the future.

Look around at the world right now. Look at the online crackdowns on queer expression, on trans joy. Do you know how we got to a place where it's easy to ban and hide and silence trans women in the name of "content violations"? It's because of a bill meant to protect children from being sexually abused. "Of course I support SESTA/FOSTA, I'm not a monster like those pervert freaks, nobody has to tolerate sex on their platforms" - one of the major, major tools that is being used to silence, isolate, and harass queer people online was voted in by Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris.

We have to recognize the humanity of the people who do awful things because it is a vital reminder that we, humans, maybe even good people, can easily do awful things ourselves.

Anyway. Absolutely bugfuck insane that "it's important not to humanize bad people" is a take that people will say out loud in 2025.

[ms-demeanor]

There are people who are decrying the attack on USAID who have loudly and proudly said that Florida doesn't deserve hurricane relief because of its abortion ban. "Florida doesn't care about women so I don't care about Florida." Great! Cool! That's the exact same logic used by Trump to withdraw from the WHO.

[theswisscheeserag]

With severance season 2 around the corner it’s time for me to share the time I accidentally watched 4 minutes of an episode on mute and thought it was a brilliant way to show the sensory deprivation experienced by the innies

[thesnadger]

Parallels.

[the-snadger]

[boytron]

[kosmogrl]

[wizard-of-interesting-failure]

Me not conceding because technically the right three topdecks could cause me to not lose immediately.

[athingofvikings]

Someone over on Discord asked, "I'm morbidly curious: How BAD is A Song of Ice and Fire in terms of the authenticity George claims it to be?"

My reply was straightforward:

The long and the short of it is that ASOIAF is basically a vehicle for GRRM to present both his rape fetish and his Hobbesian view on human nature and has less historical accuracy than Frozen or most other Disney movies.

That's actually a good way to think of it, now that I've said it--he's Family Unfriendly, they're Family Friendly, but both have the same relationship with History: just Pure Aesthetic with no consideration for how the worldbuilding would work.

[athingofvikings]

@azureliongoddess, ha! I can see the confusion, and just in case anyone else is wondering, I'm referring specifically to Thomas Hobbes, English Philosopher who believed that the innate tendency of humanity is that of warlike brutality, with no compassion, kindness, or virtues beyond that of naked force and a desire for power and basically said that, without a strong state to enforce laws, well...

"In such condition, there is no place for Industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no Culture of the Earth; no Navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by Sea; no commodious Building; no Instruments of moving, and removing things as require much force; no Knowledge of the face of the Earth; no account of Time; no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continuall feare, and danger of violent death; And the life of man solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short."

The man lived through the English Civil War, which miiiiight have something to do with his extremely pessimistic views on how humans behave--and it is that same pessimistic outlook that I think infects GRRM. That, given half a chance at power, we'll destroy ourselves in an orgy of violence and brutality in squabbling over it. It's a constant theme of Martin's work--not just in ASOIAF, but in Tuf Voyaging and Wild Cards and more.

[elfwreck]

The whole idea of "seasons last many years so winter can be a long ways off but when it hits, an entire generation grows up in darkness and cold".... uh.

Let's ignore what it takes to make a planet do that, okay? Wave the Plot Wand and declare you've got the right rotation, distance from star, axial tilt, interference from ancient deities, etc. to make that happen. Fine.

The resulting flora & fauna would not look like earth plants and animals. You would not have "harvest season is 2 months out of every 12" if summer lasts for multiple years; there'd be no push for plants to get their seeds grown and ready to be in the ground in a couple of months. Plants could grow much more slowly - but they'd need a hibernation ability to survive winter, not just "they kinda go dormant for 12-ish weeks."

Animals would be even more affected. Years-long winter means you can't just scrounge for scraps, lose a bit of weight, and wait for spring. More omnivores, fewer herbivores, and a lot more long-term hibernators. Potentially, lots of "herbivore in summer; carnivore in winter" animals.

Potentially, a number of plants and animals that only thrive in winter and manage to go into deep hibernation or seed/egg stages during summer. Hey, they have less competition.

I don't even want to think how bugs would work. The mind boggles.

The resulting human cultures would not look like European middle-ages-ish cultures.

GRRM's cultures are European-esque factions thrown into a fantasy/scifi setting that is impossible to allow those political factions to form. There's endless weird handwaving past things like: why would people call it a "year" when it's been summer for seven of them? What do they use to mark "years" as we understand them?

Why would you even have four recognized seasons? If this were a colony world like Pern, then maybe there's an ancestral recognition of year-cycles with seasons, but if summer has always been 7-10 years long, why would you call that "summer?"

All of human culture - entertainment, travel, political machinations, city infrastructures, language, food, etc etc etc - is affected by Earth's cycles and seasons.

Martin makes a few changes here & there to deal with his extra-long seasons and pastes those into a fantasy-ish European backdrop with no attempt to make things consistent.

(And that is FINE. It's a fantasy story. You're supposed to be able to handwave past a lot of the implausible things - not worry about how widespread writing skills are and who the scribes are if there's no equivalent of a Catholic church with monk archivists; not worry about how they have certain metal tools but no printing press or guns; definitely don't think about the sword technology plz. Readers are allowed to say "hey I'm enjoying the story; it doesn't have to be realistic.") (Look, a whole generation lost their minds for teenagers who could waves sticks around and levitate tables.)

But. The fact that it doesn't need to be realistic to be good writing (...another debate we're shelving for now) does not mean it's "realistic" because the outfits resemble those in historical dramas.

Frozen has more realistic politics for its setting. More authentic technology. A more plausible culture.

[athingofvikings]

Cosigning all of this. I think my favorite pithy takedown of it is, "ASOIAF is an ISO 9000 Standard Medieval Fantasy Setting in a world with cyclical ice ages." Which, well... doesn't work, for the reasons you just outlined.

[alexseanchai]

[image: reply by azureliongoddess: "So I did look it up, but I'd never heard the word 'Hobbesian' before and for half a minute thought you were comparing his worldview to that of Hobbits."]

[frustratedasatruar]

There is no reconciling the dynastic histories of the setting with the observed behavior of the nobility and those around them.

Like, lets imagine for a second it was even possible for a dynasty to outlast the IRL record holders, the Pandya and Chola dynasties, by a factor of three. Lets pretend that the nominally-monogamous structure of the Catholic-ish Standard Medieval Fantasy Setting would be capable of managing and exceeding the sorts of legitimate-issue birthrates that the explicitly polygamous cultures of the Pandya and Chola did.

The Freys are looked down on for being up-jumped merchants, because they have only been a noble house for... four centuries. Longer than the Romanovs. Its not just the Starks, Lannisters, Arryns, Greyjoys, and Durrandons, the former Royal Houses of Pre-Targaryen Westeros, whom are supposed to be fuck-off ancient. Its every damn family. The Tarbecks, the Boltons, the Harlaws, all of them.

In order for this to be conceivable, there’s got to be a deep cultural taboo about exactly what family has to rule where. In order for me to believe for an instant that the Starks didn’t just eradicate the Boltons two thousand years ago and hand their castle over to some second son’s cadet-dynasty, you need to convince me that doing so was unthinkable. Get-immediately-overthrown-for-angering-the-gods unthinkable. Not actually possible to do.

When they were down to the last Bolton for one reason or another? House Stark was either required to get involved in their enemy’s love-life, or else the Boltons should be extinct.

The primordial-dynasties are unrealistic to begin with, but you can either have it be conceivable to come up with a plausible and canon-compliant headcanon to resolve that or you can have your edgy, super-cool ultra-badasses going all Reality-Ensues on their enemies and wiping entire families without being immediately cut down by their own men. These things cannot coexist.

Normally, I’d probably be willing to drop it as an acceptable break from reality. But this is the setting that’s constantly jerking itself off about how realistic it is.

[swindle94]

Literally no one in this thread has actually read the books or even watched the show and have only had details espoused to them third or fourth hand. Pretty much every detail here isn't just wrong, it's presented in the most innacurate bade faith interpretation possible.

[athingofvikings]

No, I read the books, sorry. What details did we get wrong? The amount of historically inaccurate sexual violence? Or something else? If you're calling us all wrong, back it up!

[systlin]

Also read the books and this is all completely accurate, someone is just mad at it being called out.

[prismatic-bell]

I feel obligated to make @swindle94 even madder by pointing out that in a world with weather like ASOIAF, humans as we know them wouldn't exist.

Because humans evolved into humans due to the environmental factors on earth. Things like an entire decade of dark, freezing cold? That would literally drive humans-as-we-know-them bugshit before killing them. Being able to keep warm and fed isn't even the issue here--the issue is psychological. Many far-north cultures are observed to be more susceptible to things like depression and skin diseases caused by lack of vitamin D, and that's with only 3-5 months of darkness. Imagine 3-5 years (or more).

Likewise, the entire human reproductive tract just...wouldn't work in that setting. It's estimated that 50% of pregnancies end before the pregnant person even knows they're pregnant--basically the body goes "hm, bad timing" and reabsorbs the zygote or embryo. Things that can cause this include extreme stress both mental and physical, and poor diet. So you take bodies that are struggling and burning a ton of energy to stay warm and mobile and alive during this years-long winter; minds that are trying not to snap under the strain of darkness; and the diet of "whatever we could grow to survive during our summer," and do you know how many pregnancies are going to survive? Not fucking many. Quite a lot of otherwise-fertile people wouldn't even be able to conceive at all.

[krakensdottir]

Let’s not forget that every description of the ongoing House wars repeatedly mentions how the land is being laid waste to, crops destroyed, peasants slaughtered for being in the way, etc.

No society that has to contend with decade-long winters would do that.

Anyway the whole thing is about as ‘realistic’ as Harry Potter once you strip away the gritty surface details. The whole thing with the Houses is just as overly simplistic and set in stone as the fucking Hogwarts Houses. Realistic? Buddy, Tolkein designed realistic societies and he was writing an unabashed high fantasy setting with elves and shit. GRRM needs to get over himself.

[albi-mander]

Just to throw in my two cents as a sci-fi/fantasy writer:

The problem is not the realism here. The problem is that the speculative elements aren't effectively serving the narrative.

Everyone keeps bringing up Tolkien and that's fine, GRRM was obviously inspired by Tolkien, but Tolkien wasn't exactly a paragon of realism, and, with good fantasy, realism isn't necessarily the goal. Sure, Middle Earth has a LOT of detail to it, but Tolkien was mostly just way more intentional with his speculative elements.

I could go on all day about Tolkien's magic and symbolism, but like. The primary ability of the Ring of Power is turning the wearer invisible. It fucking frees you from accountability. It's so simple, it's so elegant, of course it can do that. Isn't that the whole point of being all-powerful? So you don't have to answer to anyone else?

The Ring can do much more than that of course, Lord of the Rings has SO much to say about the nature of power, but that's the first thing the Ring promises you. Freedom from accountability. Everything else Tolkien has to say about power starts from there.

By contrast, the generations-long winters of Game of Thrones just...don't tie into what the rest of the story wants to be about. It's not that they CAN'T tie in, it's that the story seems largely disinterested in actually exploring the implications of having generations-long winters in a feudalist society or even thinking about how to use that particular plot element in an interesting way. I mean, when you get right down to it, the generations-long winter are just this looming inevitable apocalypse scenario that everyone can see coming, and no one's preparing for it because they're too busy squabbling amongst each other. Which, hey, that kinda sounds like the news sometimes. Maybe there's something worth talking about in there somewhere?

But hey, honestly, if you wanted to, you could totally have your generations-long winters and vaguely 15th-century feudalist political drama, too. It's not THAT hard, you just have to come up with a way for people to make food fast enough, some reasons why they still know how to do that after generations of winter, and, like, maybe a way for the main characters to un-fuck the situation so the story doesn't end with all the idiots slowly freezing and starving to death maybe. I mean, I guess you could just go with everyone freezing and starving to death too. That might be someone's idea of a satisfying ending, I don't know your life.

Instead, the generations-long winters are just kinda hovering in the background of a Tolkien-ish generic fantasy setting that also wants to be Gritty and Realistic and Historical and will accomplish this by being vaguely based off of the War of the Roses, and also by having a lot of sexual assault and violence. I guess. Also there are ice zombies. Which serve the same purpose as the generations long winter, in that they are a looming apocalypse scenario no one's addressing in favor of squabbling amongst each other, so really the ice zombies are redundant.

These ideas are cool, they CAN be interesting, but it's mostly a coat of paint. If you integrate them further into the world and take the time to really consider what it means for the people living there and the natural world around them, you can totally turn it into something cool. I just don't think GRRM is all that committed to doing that for you.

[tuulikki]

Also no one ever tries to claim that Tolkien’s work is “historically accurate”

[eowyntheavenger]

@scyllas-revenge these tags have passed peer review!

you are SO right for saying this

[erdsthenerds]

I'm sorry, but GRRM claims to be better than Tolkien? Tolkein?? The Tolkein?! I.. I cannot even fathom the audacity...

[thebrideofwinter]

Do you guys ever fact check or do you all just enjoy smugly judging other authors based on stuff you read on Tumblr? No, he's literally never said this. But he should because it's true.

[athingofvikings]

I literally have the citations at hand for his claims about historical accuracy.

“Now there are people who will say to that, ‘Well, he’s not writing history, he’s writing fantasy—he put in dragons, he should have made an egalitarian society.’ Just because you put in dragons doesn’t mean you can put in anything you want. If pigs could fly, then that’s your book. But that doesn’t mean you also want people walking on their hands instead of their feet. If you’re going to do [a fantasy element], it’s best to only do one of them, or a few. I wanted my books to be strongly grounded in history and to show what medieval society was like, and I was also reacting to a lot of fantasy fiction. Most stories depict what I call the ‘Disneyland Middle Ages’—there are princes and princesses and knights in shining armor, but they didn’t want to show what those societies meant and how they functioned.

George R.R. Martin explains why there's violence against women on 'Game of Thrones'

"If you portray a utopia, then you probably wrote a pretty boring book"

The Dothraki were actually fashioned as an amalgam of a number of steppe and plains cultures... Mongols and Huns, certainly, but also Alans, Sioux, Cheyenne, and various other Amerindian tribes... seasoned with a dash of pure fantasy.

Martin does a lot of research on any story that has a historical or quasi-historical setting. For the series, he immersed himself in the Middle Ages, reading everything he could about such things as castles, tourneys, knighthood, food, medicine, clothing, and customs. He also read histories of things like the Hundred Years War, the Wars of the Roses, the Crusades, and so on. In his opinion, the more you can take in of a period, the more your work will have a sense of truthfulness.

Some people, sure. But thankfully there are also many thousands who prefer a more complex, adult, and realistic flavor of fantasy. What can I say? Tastes vary. Some people like to eat at McDonald's.

And he's asserted in a way that clearly implies a sense of superiority to JRRT:

https://www.tolkiensociety.org/2019/09/george-r-r-martin-i-keep-wanting-to-argue-with-professor-tolkien/

So, right back at you. Do you fact-check, or do you blindly worship the words of a historically-revisionist rape apologist and racist?

[vaspider]

Someone did an entire series of essays with tons of citations on how bad GOT/ASOIAF is, "historically."

Game of Thrones – A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry

Posts about Game of Thrones written by Bret Devereaux

[greatmountainfloofsquatch]

By the way, @vaspider, it is your fault that I have now become hyperfocused on reading Professor Devereaux's historical lessons and critiques of pop culture. YOU DID THIS TO ME.

Thanks for that.

[vaspider]

I'm not sorry.

[scrunchie-face]

@kingdokragnarok Bret Devereaux mention

[kingdokragnarok]

Every Bret Devereaux mention is good.

[scrunchie-face]

Save me Josh Allen. Josh Allen. Save me.

[fruitpilled-peachcel]

[nuggss]

Ants be like that

[conspiring-limabean]

I used to keep track of the different ant colonies in my yard as a child and it was the wildest shit. You could tell the difference between colonies by colors & pattern if you looked closely enough. They’d stage ant wars on the sidewalks that lasted days, just ants murdering each other, and the cleanup afterwards would last days longer as the survivors pick up and carry away the carcasses. Once I saw a war happening between the colony that lived under the berry bush and a colony I didn’t recognize, and evidently the berry colony lost, because after the war their nest site was empty… and then a few days later was inhabited by the other colony that had fought them.

Once at a lake I saw an ant travel like 3 meters across flat rock carrying a dead ant, and he kept going until he got to the cliff side and then kept going down towards the water, and he didn’t stop until he got to where the rock was wet. Then he stood there for a few seconds, dropped the corpse into the water, waited a little longer, and then headed back the way he came. I feel like I witnessed a ceremony

[fiollaigean]

[apollos-boyfriend]

little kids are so fucking funny man. had a kid that couldn’t be any older than like 8 or so come up to me today asking where our dinosaur books where, and when i tried to gently redirect them downstairs (where our kids section is) they very matter-of-fairly informed me that they’d already read every book down there and are ready to learn about the “secret, grown-up only dinosaurs” now

[niyarest]

[autie-j]

"Scrooge only changed because he saw how nobody mourned him after his death" NO NO NO NO. You don't get it! The last spirit only worked because of the spirits that came before softening him up! If the spirits had shown him dead and ungrieved only it would not work. As the night goes on amid the visits Scrooge is already visibly changing. He's different after the first spirit and even more so after the second. And it's because of how much he's already changed that the final spirit is able to succeed

[brothermouse-skeleton]

The first ghost reminded him that he had been loved once, that there was, in fact, something lovable about him, and that he was once capable of returning that love.

The second ghost showed him the crossroads he was at, people still cared about him. Bob sticks up for him when it's clear Scrooge doesn't deserve it, and Fred expresses pity for him for his loneliness. But in those moments he also sees the fruits of his actions, Mrs Cratchit's pure distain for him and Fred's party goers jumping at the chance to make fun of him.

He is shown that he could go back to the days of Fezziwig and that he could join Fred's party and still be welcomed with open arms.

But the last ghost shows him that there is a deadline to fixing his life. If he doesn't get his act together, he's going to be despised at worse and dismissed at best.

OP is absolutely right, the last ghost only worked because Scrooge was shown what he could have, what was right within his reach. He wanted that, he was changing, he was ready. The last ghost just sealed the deal by letting him know what was at stake.

[lastoneout]

If "you're going to die soon and go to hell for being a shitty, greedy person" would have worked then Marley alone would have been more than enough to change his mind, but the story makes it very clear that simply telling Scrooge he's an asshole and will be punished for his sins one day was never going to get him to really change.

[bethanydelleman]

I was just thinking about this! Because there is a story in the Bible where a rich man dies and goes to the underworld (I can't remember if it is explicitly hell), and he asks God to send him back so he can warn his brother. God says that his brother wouldn't listen and it wouldn't work. I was thinking how A Christmas Carol fit with this story.

But everyone above is right, and it does fit, because Marley isn't enough at all, he's just the proof, you needed all three ghosts to make it work. So Charles Dickens took the first suggestion (send back a sinner) and then built on it.

[theorder6]

Babby's 2st post :) modern tech is infuriating, and it was either this or I write a manifesto.

[spngirlpolls]

there's a lot to bitch about re: supernatural but at least it was made in 2005 starring teen soap actors on the cw with one million episodes per season. that's real television. if they made that shit now it would be like six episodes on apple tv and glen powell would be in it. so count your fucking blessings.

[vinylpirre-deactivated20250806]

I FUCKING LOVE NIGHTWISH!!!!!!!111 I FUCKING LOVE SYMPHONIC METAL I FUCKING LOVE OPERATIVE VOCALS i fucking hate gatekeeping and elitists

[steblynkaagain]

One of my favorite Nightwish moment is when you're listening to Shoemaker for the first time and hear "Laudato, Laudato Si" and think "Tuomas is going to subvert it" and then they slap you with AD ASTRA! I fucking love it, such a powermove

[kingdokragnarok]

Ty random post for reminding me that Nightwish is still pumping out bangers.