Thinking about Sparta and on Learning and Knowledge
Thinking about Greece makes me think of the books I read as a child, of mythology and history and it also made me resent the limited amount of time I have given history as time passed by in these last two years or so. I have always stated there's a great deal to learn from the world history and that we should keep our eyes opened and stop treating it like dusty rocks.
Many look down upon the ancient writings, politics, state matters, laws and lifestyle they had but then again would we be here if they didn't do it the way they did back then ? I think one too many young people look down upon the people of those times and the books they've written and lessons they taught simply because of their limited view of this world and the other world, of the legends that seem silly to us now.
But I always enjoyed those more than Christianity and its Bible, definetely ! Whereas we have to look down and bow in shame because God is perfect and we're not and we have to try to be kind and humble and not give into any other feeling, the Greek legends show that even gods can give in to tantrums and that humans can sometimes outwit them, can love them or are free to hate them but the things they would do later on in life will determine whether they go to the Elizee Fields or in Hell. Simple.
I am still somewhat bemused though, at how our society portrays all these, both the legends and the real people. I disliked the movie "Troy " first of all because it was pouring out with historical innacuracy ( since there were no gods involved, I imagined they took upon the real facts we have about the Trojan War ) but what I did like ( despite not liking Brad Pitt as an actor nor as a man ) was bits and bobs of the portrayal of Achilles. As in yes , he was a great warrior, we have that one figured out but he was also arrogant and proud and a tad vain. All he wanted was glory in battle and that compensated for everything else he could not be or he could not give. That's more like accuracy on a an ancient historical character. It could be wrong , yes, but to me it sounds more real than anything I've seen so far. Warriors and great figures in our history were not always wonderful people, but they remained in history for some very good reasons, but they were human after all.
Such as the Spartans.
Spartans are a huge passion of mine. Considering I wanted to follow a military school after 8th grade, you can imagine what a great impact a military-driven state had on me. Also , despite Xerxes not being a Cirque de Soleil freak and the Spartan army not running around in Speedos , I found " 300" ( since I mentioned "Troy "....) quite an interesting sight and also accurate, concerning the Spartan lifestyle and the values they had. The magical realism elements brought in were visually stunning and wonderful and fit very well, but besides enchanting my eye , that's where it ended. The Battle at Termopile ( I use our phonetics and names, just like instead of Transylvania I write Transilvania, because I strongly dislike the americanization of our names ) was used over and over again in writings and cinema to depict the courage of these men, though they were not the only ones who fought but I suppose those famous 300 were the ones worth mentioning as they were the only Spartans ( the others were Helots, Arcadians and some others, altogether a rough number around 5000 men ) in the final rear commanded by Leonidas and kicked about 20.000 worth of Persian ass.
I could talk about the Spartans for hours to come. Me being the way I am, one of the things that made me like them even more was their treatment of women in return recieving loyal, patriotic and strong mothers and daughters. I remember a quote from somewhere, a Spartan woman was asked by a woman from Attica how come they were the only women who could rule men, she replied by saying " Because we are the only women who are mothers of men."I rest my case.
Let there be note of the fact that the rank in their society was not given by blood, but by competence ( as long as you were of Sparta though ), which is such a wonderful thing, in my opinion and this is another one of the reasons I look up to them. Of course, I will not fall in the trap of our contemporan ways of seeing these ancient people in a great light, as the Spartans were often criticized for putting arts and crafts on second place, behind fighting/army/being a warrior , which , according to what I read, is more or less true. They were born and raised as warriors from the moment of their birth, they didn't knew otherwise. They were I think not vain, as they were taught to despise wealth and luxuries, hell, the people didn't even have money, they were granted iron bars since having a coin would be considered a luxury or something among those lines. But they were proud. Very proud actually, and had few connections with the outside and despised commerce.....actually now that I think on it, they didn't like many things that were not Sparta and its bussiness.
Even Alexander the Great once sent a note to Athens after he conquered Persia with the Persian armours he sent along saying something among the lines " Alexander and the Greeks - except the Spartans - from Asia."Talk about an original greeting card. But the spartans were not interested in a campagin which was not under Spartan leadership. Nonetheless, even after the decline of Sparta ( around roughly 370-something AD ) when it had only around 8000 men left, no one dared to attack them, not even Filip II or Alexander the Great, first because it was as of not much importance to them and they did not see it as a threat but also because they knew they might conquer it, but with massive losses to their own army. So Sparta, more or less, consumed itself.
The point of this actually is that, with the passing of time, I sometimes let go of things and forget about them. Even while talking to a friend some time ago I had to squeeze my brains out to remember things. I don't like to appeal to the internet in such a situation unless I really, really can't remember something. So why ? When did it start to fade away like this ? I don't remember the exact moment when I put down the roman poetry books, when I got too busy to read Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations" or watch a documentary and so on.
History always meant a great deal to me, equally military history did too ( hence my 'fangirling' over Alexander the Great, the man you ignorants, not the movie... ) because I saw it fit and important to learn from the past, as their lives were, in some aspects, and in my opinion, more virtuous than ours.
Filip II sent a note to Sparta once saying " If I enter Laconia, I will crush Sparta."
The Spartans sent a reply: " If."
B.
Transfiguration and Things That Never Change ( A Thought on The Homeland )
I finished watching " The Seeker "and I was surprised while reading the credits to see names typical of home. As the credits rolled down, I realized some of it was indeed filmed at home. I was wondering where were those deep woods...
As you can imagine it did not fell very good with me, for the half joke half serious thoughts of " Why don't they ever make a good film back home ? ". I wish someone would. I wish someone would show the other side of the coin, of the things that are not lost and the things that were and the ones that still reside.
We are not who we used to be anymore, any of our ancestors would be terribly ashamed and order more than half of us hanged and for good reason. What my country has turned into is a faint shadow of who we were and it was this the cause of me, when I was a child, learning more about English or Japanese history rather than my own country's, thinking what could we have ever done so great since we ended up the way we ended up ?
It took me a long time to see beyond all that, look back and analyze. It must have started when I stood on top of the hill, in the Rasnov stronghold, some 7 years ago.
We're small people you know...if you'd ask anyone where my country is, they never heard of it, only if you give them a keyword of a city that would only turn their thoughts towards Hollywood vampire movies, something that angers me very much. On the flipside, I could tell them about the Order of the Dragons, but they wouldn't care and they wouldn't understand, because is a stupid myth that means nothing to us and so much to them.
You do not know that, back then, it was one of the peaceful times we had throughout the land, no one stole, no one murdered, fear and raw examples of the law were needed, and our Prince did so. The Turks were scared hearing his name and he was known throughout the Ottoman Empire, and he was not the only ruler who used torture and cruelty in those times and it was not unusual, those were the 1400's darlings, nothing like our times. The Turks were ruthless, it was time we were so too. Back home, Vlad is a hero for us, and your Hollywood blockbusters don't stir anything inside us.
Dracula means nothing to us, his real name was Draculea, which derives from the latin Draco, thus, in the old language it made it mean "Dragon".
As far as thewhole love legend goes, actually, his wife threw herself in the river when the Turks attacked the castle. Why ? Because she said, in her own words, she would rather " rot with the fishes in the river than be taken prisoner of the Turks."
No, I never thought much about my people until Rasnov.
I was standing on the exact place a sentinel must have stood some 600 years ago, overlooking back towards the forest, the small village beneath and all across the hills and fields, stretching towards the horizon, all the way into the sunrise, watching to call the alarm in case the turkish armies attacked. It was a warm day and I stood there, the wind brushing past me and the silence of those stones was so overwhelming I felt warm inside and for a second, almost light as air.
You can't understand. When you look at a country's landscape, walk through its lands, you understand its spirit better, how its people are like, at least that's what I'd like to believe. If you haven't seen the lands from where I stood some 7 years ago, on top of the stronghold, you can't understand the weight of our past. From the East, attacks from the Turks, from the West, the Hungarians from the North - East, the Polish.
Walk in autumn through those mountains, steep and breathtaking, sometimes you just have to stop to catch your breath because the ground, covered in thick layers of brown and yellow leaves, is harder to overcome than you'd think.
It takes over an hour to climb to the Howling cascade. When you do get there, and if you are as lucky as to be alone, you climb on that huge rock and stay there and listen to the small cascade, close your eyes and feel the coldness of the stones sorrounding, then go down the small river, jumping on the stones, or drink the water, which is the safest and cleanest you'd drink. It's cold, no matter how hot the weather is, the water there is always cold, it stings your tongue and puts you back on your feet, no matter how tired you are. Water of the faeries, I'd whisper.
You can't understand, how small you feel when you go through the mountain passes at night, and you're thankful for the headlights of your car because you can't see a god damned thing, the stone walls of the mountain covering up everything and the dark clouds sucking up all the light.
You can't understand until you walk through those woods in the dead of the winter and you hear no sound at all. It's just the wind brushing through the evergreens, and the deeper you go through the woods, the darker they become, the thick branches covering up the sky.
VanHelsing knows nothing of my lands.
I'd waste one of the magical three wishes to ask that those woods are never forgotten, to ask they won't be destroyed and be protected forever, as they are.
" No matter how sophisticated you may be, a large granite mountain cannot be denied - it speaks in silence to the very core of your being. " - Ansel Adams
B.
Valkyrie - Some thoughts and opinions
I have been waiting to get my hands on " Valkyrie " for a long time now and last night I finally managed to download the film and cuddled in the blanket, ready for criticism.
Everyone who knows me is aware of the fact that WW II is a passion of mine so to speak, I read anything about it, listen to anything about it and see anything about it, it's a subject I have been fascinated with ever since I was very young. Not because I have ever been or plan to be a National - Socialist ( for what does a little thing like me know of politics ? ), as so many people wrongly assumed and continue to do so.
But where others preffer to overlook it, I want to look at it straight in the eye because, as long as we don't look back on our history and see where we did what wrong, why and for what reason, we will never better ourselves.
I resent, resent, resent the fact that Col. Von Stauffenberg was played by Tom Cruise, that would be the first thing I want to state out. I never believed and was proven to me after watching the film, that he can play such a strong and complex character. This was a man who stood against one of the biggest powers at that time and tried to overthrow it, literally, in 3 hours time. To play such a man, you need an intensity Tom Cruise totally lacked, and in my opinion that was the only flaw the film had.
I read most critics, both from the U.S and Germany and I feel like the film should have been given more credit exactly for those things the critics have panned as flaws.
To give another example, David Fincher's " Zodiac " who seemed rather dull to the general public ( specifically to the younger audience who probably expected some blood and gore... ) but who I believe gave us the real taste what those times and how the investigations worked. You don't find out the identity of a serial killer in 24 hours in real life, they don't have MO patterns most of the time, you just have to wait, and think, piece things together, and then think some more. It takes time, patience, days pass by slowly, months do too. The glamour of the fast paced action happens only in superficial shows like " CSI ", who are fun to watch but hold little of the truth.
The same goes for " Valkyrie ". The movie did not need a fast pace, it didn't need things exploding every five minutes and it didn't need a romantic plot or melodrama, it went in pace with those times and what happened there. Thankfully, and god, thankfully indeed, the movie followed the events close to how they actually happened, and to be honest after the historical mess that had been done with " Marie Antoinette " and " Elizabeth : The Golden Age " ( though both beautiful and worthy of the screen in their own right, but lacking at the historical accuracy department heavily ), I was worried Brian Singer would try to give a whole heroic - melodramatic air to the whole project ( He did direct Superman and X -Men, so my hopes were scarce concerning a historical film especially on such a subject ). But the man came though very well in my opinion, aside from Tom Cruise ( I'm sorry, in my mind he simply does not have what it takes to play this symbol of german freedom and democracy ) everything else was just the way it should have been.
News traveled like they did, men plotted in their office or in small cramped up rooms and alas, they were human, just like the rest of us, only a bit more extraordinary. There has been constructed this false image of the Nazi Commander/ Colonel/ Soldier/ etc. that they were straight faced men with no emotion and their backs and arms stiff as boards, but they were just like you and me so to complain that the actors showed too much emotion at some point in the film is rather silly, but I suppose each and every one of us preffers to regard history's stereotypes with more belief or with none.
I also think Jamie Parker should have been noted for his performance as Liutenant Werner von Haeften and that Thomas Kretschmann deserves more,more, much more attention ( see his wonderful performances in " Der Untergang " and my favourite," U-571 " ). So overall, for me, a WW II hsitory enthusiast and dilletante researcher, the film was accurate and I give it 9 starts out of 10, the one star missing being due to, again, Cruise's performance. But I cannot begin to say how much I enjoyed the film, it grew on me immediately due to the historical accuracy of the events and the simple, realistic pace it kept, though.... did you know that Col. von Stauffenberg actually disliked Wagner ? =)
" What matters now is no longer the practical purpose of the coup, but to prove to the world and for the records of history that the men of the resistance dared to take the decisive step. Compared to this objective, nothing else is of consequence. " - Major General Henning Hermann Robert Karl von Tresckow (January 10, 1901 – July 21, 1944)
B.
Everyone who knows me is aware of the fact that WW II is a passion of mine so to speak, I read anything about it, listen to anything about it and see anything about it, it's a subject I have been fascinated with ever since I was very young. Not because I have ever been or plan to be a National - Socialist ( for what does a little thing like me know of politics ? ), as so many people wrongly assumed and continue to do so.
But where others preffer to overlook it, I want to look at it straight in the eye because, as long as we don't look back on our history and see where we did what wrong, why and for what reason, we will never better ourselves.
I resent, resent, resent the fact that Col. Von Stauffenberg was played by Tom Cruise, that would be the first thing I want to state out. I never believed and was proven to me after watching the film, that he can play such a strong and complex character. This was a man who stood against one of the biggest powers at that time and tried to overthrow it, literally, in 3 hours time. To play such a man, you need an intensity Tom Cruise totally lacked, and in my opinion that was the only flaw the film had.
I read most critics, both from the U.S and Germany and I feel like the film should have been given more credit exactly for those things the critics have panned as flaws.
To give another example, David Fincher's " Zodiac " who seemed rather dull to the general public ( specifically to the younger audience who probably expected some blood and gore... ) but who I believe gave us the real taste what those times and how the investigations worked. You don't find out the identity of a serial killer in 24 hours in real life, they don't have MO patterns most of the time, you just have to wait, and think, piece things together, and then think some more. It takes time, patience, days pass by slowly, months do too. The glamour of the fast paced action happens only in superficial shows like " CSI ", who are fun to watch but hold little of the truth.
The same goes for " Valkyrie ". The movie did not need a fast pace, it didn't need things exploding every five minutes and it didn't need a romantic plot or melodrama, it went in pace with those times and what happened there. Thankfully, and god, thankfully indeed, the movie followed the events close to how they actually happened, and to be honest after the historical mess that had been done with " Marie Antoinette " and " Elizabeth : The Golden Age " ( though both beautiful and worthy of the screen in their own right, but lacking at the historical accuracy department heavily ), I was worried Brian Singer would try to give a whole heroic - melodramatic air to the whole project ( He did direct Superman and X -Men, so my hopes were scarce concerning a historical film especially on such a subject ). But the man came though very well in my opinion, aside from Tom Cruise ( I'm sorry, in my mind he simply does not have what it takes to play this symbol of german freedom and democracy ) everything else was just the way it should have been.
News traveled like they did, men plotted in their office or in small cramped up rooms and alas, they were human, just like the rest of us, only a bit more extraordinary. There has been constructed this false image of the Nazi Commander/ Colonel/ Soldier/ etc. that they were straight faced men with no emotion and their backs and arms stiff as boards, but they were just like you and me so to complain that the actors showed too much emotion at some point in the film is rather silly, but I suppose each and every one of us preffers to regard history's stereotypes with more belief or with none.
I also think Jamie Parker should have been noted for his performance as Liutenant Werner von Haeften and that Thomas Kretschmann deserves more,more, much more attention ( see his wonderful performances in " Der Untergang " and my favourite," U-571 " ). So overall, for me, a WW II hsitory enthusiast and dilletante researcher, the film was accurate and I give it 9 starts out of 10, the one star missing being due to, again, Cruise's performance. But I cannot begin to say how much I enjoyed the film, it grew on me immediately due to the historical accuracy of the events and the simple, realistic pace it kept, though.... did you know that Col. von Stauffenberg actually disliked Wagner ? =)
" What matters now is no longer the practical purpose of the coup, but to prove to the world and for the records of history that the men of the resistance dared to take the decisive step. Compared to this objective, nothing else is of consequence. " - Major General Henning Hermann Robert Karl von Tresckow (January 10, 1901 – July 21, 1944)
B.
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