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Something interesting

August 17th, 2005

I was going to dedicate today’s entry to some of my feelings relating to being in the Kaverns (all good, incidentally). However, I just finished the sixth Gor book, Raiders of Gor and towards the end were some damn good quotes and I wanted to share them here, because they apply to everyday life and human nature.

First, I think the story of Fish, once an Ubar of Port Kar, makes some very good points. I get more than annoyed at those that want their slaves to be weak, robots almost. Showing no emotion or initiative or strength. Fish goes from an Ubar to slave when his own men try to kill him by throwing him to the tharlarions. He’s rescued by Bosk (Tarl) and is collared and marked and made a slave. Eventually Fish is given the right to learn how to use weapons and such and is given a slave of his own. Fish eventually stands by Tarl in the battle for Port Kar, proving that tho he is a slave, he is also a man. The whole thing seems a paradox, but it’s really quite simple: being a slave does not mean that one has to be stupid and weak, rather intelligence and strength and passion are desirable.

Now, to the quotes I mentioned. For a book of fiction, I think this is dead on. I won’t bore you with my opinions, I’ll let the words speak for themselves and maybe, just maybe, they’ll help some of you out there:

Samos, on the height of the keep, regarded me. “Return to the service of the Priest-Kings”, he said.

I looked away. “I cannot”, I said. “I am unworthy.”

“All men”, said Samos, “and all women, have within themselves despicable elements, cruel things, and cowardly things, things vicious, and greedy and selfish, things ugly that we hide from others, and most of all from ourselves.”

Telima and I regarded him.

Samos put, not without tenderness, a hand on the shoulder of Telima, and another on my own shoulder.

“The human being”, he said, “is a chaos of cruelties and nobilities, of hatreds and of loves, of resentments and respects, of envies and admirations. He contains within himself, in his ferments, much that is base and much that is worthy. These are old truths, but few men truly understand them.”

“Both of you now know yourselves as you did not before, and in knowing yourselves you will be better able to know others, their strengths and their weaknesses.”

“There as only one last obstacle”, said Samos, “and neither of you, even now, fully understand it.”

“What is that?”, I asked.

“Your pride”, he said, “that of the both of you.” He smiled. “When you lost your images of yourselves, and learned your humanity, in your diverse ways, and shame, you abandoned your myths, your songs, and would accept only the meat of animals, as though one so lofty as yourself must be either Priest-King or beast. Your pride demanded either the perfection of the myth or the perfection of it’s most villainous renunciation. If you were not the highest, you would demand to be the lowest; if you were not the best, you would be nothing less than the worst; if there was not the myth there was to be nothing.”

Samos now spoke softly. “There is something”, he said, “between the fancies of poets and the biting, and the rooting and sniffing of beasts.”

What?” I asked.

“Man” he said.
Raiders of Gor, pages 308 – 311

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It does not matter one bit if this comes from a book of fiction, what is quoted above is the absolute truth about humanity. Maybe Norman was onto something, eh?

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