#execution cw

Rather, the text shows us throughout itself that he is a man who is, in fact, deeply capable of love and compassion and affection. He adores his parents and is deeply heartbroken when he loses first his brother and then his boyfriend and then his wife. He is not simply a Complete Monster incapable of love or affection or good feelings.

Rather, the tragedy of Victor in “Frankenstein” is not that he is incapable of love, but rather that he does not extend that love beyond those like himself and whom he considers worthy of his time and affection. And that does not include his son the Creature/Adam, because the Creature is uncanny and weird and falls outside the spectrum of what Victor considers to be human.

And the book makes it very, very clear that this is by no means an attitude that is limited to Victor himself. It is also present in Clerval seeing India as a place to have his little colonial adventures rather than as a place where people live and breathe and work and love. It is also present in how the de Laceys claim to be compassionate and loving because they took in a friend’s daughter when no one else would and how they were screwed over by That Mean Old Turkish Man…and yet the moment that the Creature/Adam reveals himself to be something with which they themselves are not comfortable, they turn against him and reject him and drive him away, leading him directly into the fateful and fatal confrontation with William Frankenstein that causes so much of his later suffering.

And with regards to William himself, is death and its aftermath reveals how this theme holds true for the citizenry of Geneva as a whole.

Genovese People in Frankenstein: We are so much better than those filthy stupid monarchists in France and England because we are a proud and equal republic where all citizens have full and complete rights before the law!

Genovese People after the death of William Frankenstein: What’s that!? Our magistrate’s son is dead and we cannot find the culprit!? Quick! Let’s just blame the servant maid who was in love with him and give her a show trial before we quickly hang her and dispose of her corpse!

“Frankenstein” is often said to be the first science fiction story, and while that is not completely true (“A True Story” by Lucian of Samosata and “The Blazing World” by Margaret Cavendish both predate it by quite a bit), it was the first that placed its science fictional and fantastical elements (the Monster, namely) in an otherwise realistic and real world setting. And Mary Shelley uses that juxtaposition of the fantastical and the realism to comment on how much people of her own class and culture (and people in our own time as well, in all honesty) failed and still fail to see other kinds of people as fully human and thus the dangers of marginalisation and oppression as a whole. Victor’s failure to see the Creature as human and worthy of love is an extension of the failures of the whole society in which he exists and the whole society in which his story was written. And that is the reason why he is the true monster of this tale.

If you support the death penalty and believe that is is fair/reasonable, I want you to unfollow me right now.

Henry VIII, one month later: Is prepared to execute Mary and has her told she deserves to have her head smashed against the wall until it’s soft as a baked apple.

THE OLD SUN – excerpt ; ‘what’s in it for me?’

THE OLD SUN is a scifi WIP that I have not talked about like, ever. It’s set in a near-ish future solar system that’s split into three major factions: The UN, which controls the Outer Planets (the asteroid belt and beyond); the New Earth Empire, which controls Imperial Terra and its territories (Luna, Venus); and Hollilee’s Mars, which consists of the planet Mars and all its satellites, including the huge space station Independence. 

While the UN and the New Earth Empire are at war with each other, Jason Hollilee, ruler of Mars and capitalist mastermind (libertarians IN SPACE!), profits off of selling technology and food to both sides. He also experiments with human cloning on the side – and when he disappears from a locked room, it’s one of his fourteen ‘children’, slightly-altered clones of himself, that must have committed the crime.

Alix Pierce is the twelfth most wanted person in the solar system. Over the last two years, she’s gotten pretty used to being a criminal, living on the run from the UN for crimes she committed on their orders. She’s not the person that Hollilee’s youngest son is looking for – but she trained under them, so she’s the next-best thing. Armed with nothing but a sharp intellect, a traumatic backstory, and the support of her fourteen gracious, oddly-similar hosts, Alix must navigate the Independence and solve the mystery of Jason Hollilee’s disappearance.

Ideally before anyone notices there’s a power vacuum.

Transcript & more below the cut //