Reflection 3 - Homeland
Today i finished reading Homeland which is the first book in The Legend of Drizzt by R.A. Salvatore. The book is a prequel to the Icewind Dale trilogy and is about the Drow Drizzt upbringing from almost being sacrificed to the spider god as a newborn to being an outcast when he turn away from the dark ways of the Drow.
The Drow society is an, by our standards, evil society where the inhabitant strive for power and achieve such by assassinate those above them. All power struggle takes place in the dark and a dagger in the back of an opponent during the chaos of a war is considered something worthy.
The ways of the Drows make me think of our society. We could compare Drizzt to a vegetarian, brought up in a family where all eat meat. Drizzt turns away from the ways of his kin in the same way as someone who decide that he doesn't want to eat any meat. Drizzt feel sorry for murdering his kin as is the drow way and a vegetarian feel sorry for the animal. In our society it seems that this is not a hard step to take. Maybe someone will make some jokes about bacon but that's about it.
Another, more realistic, way to see Drizzt struggle is to imagine him as an homosexual in a deeply religious family. Or if he would be the only homosexual in the entire diocese as the Drow families can be quite large, almost comparable to the mafioso family.
Coming out as a homosexual is never easy and after reading this book i can get a better understanding to how the homosexuals must feel. No wonder many pretend to be hetrosexual their entire lifes. Especially back in the time when it still were illegal in most parts of the world.
Back to the society of the drows compared to ours. The Drow were in Homeland an evil society but what is evil defined as anyway? Is there a universal measurement of how evil something is or is it rather defined in the eye of the beholder? Is it so that Drizzt was the evil one in the eye of the Drow?
According to chinese moral philosophy evil is just the same as wrong behavior and i believe that there is much truth in this. Today one of the most evil group of people is IS or Daesh. They rape and pillage in the name of their god. We can all agree on that by our standard they are evil. But at the same time, they do not see them self as evil but rather liberator of their people. They believe that they are doing good by their god.
The same things was something the vikings did and who say that they are evil nowadays? Will IS be heroes in the eastern countries in 500 years like many see vikings today?
The ways of the Drows make me think of our society. We could compare Drizzt to a vegetarian, brought up in a family where all eat meat. Drizzt turns away from the ways of his kin in the same way as someone who decide that he doesn't want to eat any meat. Drizzt feel sorry for murdering his kin as is the drow way and a vegetarian feel sorry for the animal. In our society it seems that this is not a hard step to take. Maybe someone will make some jokes about bacon but that's about it.
Another, more realistic, way to see Drizzt struggle is to imagine him as an homosexual in a deeply religious family. Or if he would be the only homosexual in the entire diocese as the Drow families can be quite large, almost comparable to the mafioso family.
Coming out as a homosexual is never easy and after reading this book i can get a better understanding to how the homosexuals must feel. No wonder many pretend to be hetrosexual their entire lifes. Especially back in the time when it still were illegal in most parts of the world.
Back to the society of the drows compared to ours. The Drow were in Homeland an evil society but what is evil defined as anyway? Is there a universal measurement of how evil something is or is it rather defined in the eye of the beholder? Is it so that Drizzt was the evil one in the eye of the Drow?
According to chinese moral philosophy evil is just the same as wrong behavior and i believe that there is much truth in this. Today one of the most evil group of people is IS or Daesh. They rape and pillage in the name of their god. We can all agree on that by our standard they are evil. But at the same time, they do not see them self as evil but rather liberator of their people. They believe that they are doing good by their god.
The same things was something the vikings did and who say that they are evil nowadays? Will IS be heroes in the eastern countries in 500 years like many see vikings today?
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