Tuesday, April 21, 2015

The Good, The Bad, and Gowther

When I heard that the story of Sir Gowther was going to be an interesting one, in the concept of good and evil, I knew I had to really pay attention to the story. There are a lot of things that I can say about this story to make it either seem very interesting, or very annoying. This tale is definitely a "mixed-feelings" piece.

What I found appealing was that Sir Gowther was born of Satan; which, with my lovely history of Greek and Roman mythology, was very exciting. I find tales that involve a higher, or in this case lower, figure to be extremely interesting in all aspects. Readers can understand that the actions of the character aren't truly their faults. Or are they?

Sir Gowther was in a pickle long before he was brought out to this world. Satan gave Gowther the power to know everything in the past, and God gave him the power to know everything that was going to happen in the future. If I had the situation happen to me, the first thing I would probably do is find some medicine, because that sounds like too much information for one brain to handle.

One other thing I liked about this piece was that it was a good transition piece. Throughout this, we see him go from horribly evil to surprisingly good. To having a fetish of raping and killing nuns, as well as nipples, to forgiveness and denying Satan and his work, Sir Gowther should us that anyone can make moral decisions (even with the devil and God being up our asses 24/7). 

The one thing that ticked me off was the idea that he did all these horrible things, and went to the Pope and got forgiveness. For me, even with the devil's actions, I would never thought that was acceptable to gain forgiveness. I can understand asking for forgiveness if you take a loaf of bread, not for raping and killing a copious amount of nuns.

But, hey! If you have the money, anybody can get, "forgiveness." Just remember kids, God still looks at you when you do stupid shit! Have fun with the remainder of your lives!

Sincerely,
Zach!

4 comments:

  1. I totally agree with you in noticing that this story was like a breath of fresh air. Gowther turning from evil to good was different. For once we actually see the main character asking for forgiveness and trying to turn his life around for the better. no other character has done that in any of the stories we have read. just because he went to the pope for forgiveness that probably was the only way to ask for forgiveness.

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  2. I loved getting to see an evil side of our main character for once! A truly, dark side! For me, the beginning was the most interesting part of the story as it felt different from the other that we've been reading. Once Gowther decided to ask for forgiveness though I became a little less interested. I mean don't get me wrong, I thought the fact he was sincerely sorry for his misdeeds was great... but I enjoyed seeing him evil just a bit more! Additionally, even though I realize that the idea of forgiveness is central to the plot of the story, I get tired of reading about it over and over again. Overall though, I really liked Gowther's story.

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  3. I too agree that I could very much appreciate the originality of this story, giving us a point of view of the evil doings and why such actions were done rather than "oh just because", but in actuality it ran in his blood. The forgiveness part of this truly confused me as well however, giving me reason to question what the Pope really is doing in this tale, and why all of a sudden he is playing such a large role in forgiveness in wrongdoing. I thought of it as a connection in modern society; if they have the money and the "fame" (a different kind of fame in this situation) they can be easily forgiven! Oh well.

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  4. I agree I am glad that the story was different in the sense that we see the main character actually regret what he was originally doing and want to be forgiven for all he has done. I also did not expect him to get forgiven so easily but I guess in away he did suffer to get his forgiveness.

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