#monarchia

Unconscionable.

A barefaced display of power and control when compassion would have been both an easier and more effective solution.

But certain of my family members only understand destruction. And perhaps that is by design.

Monarchia is a whole nexus of terrible Emperor decisions, but the funniest one is still the way he decided 20 Custodes was the correct number of Custodes to supervise 100,000 Word Bearers.

19? not nearly enough, those WB will sneak off and do religion things!

21? don't be ridiculous! they'll be tripping over each other!

*Nella concezione moderna, la democrazia è il governo ‘di tutti’, cioè del popolo tutto intero. Nella concezione antica, la democrazia era il governo del démos, da intendersi il ‘popolo minuto’ o, anche, dei poveri, contrapposto all’oligarchia (o aristocrazia) come governo dei ricchi. Era cioè il governo dei molti, o dei più, in quanto, di fatto e per lo più, i poveri sono più numerosi dei ricchi. Ma la democrazia non si sarebbe trasformata in oligarchia se, per ipotesi, vi fossero stati più ricchi che poveri. Aristotele, Politica, 1279b, dice così: «La ragione sembra dimostrare che l’essere pochi o molti sovrani nella polis è un elemento accidentale, l’uno delle oligarchie, l’altro delle democrazie, dovuto al fatto che i ricchi sono pochi e i poveri sono molti dovunque […] mentre ciò per cui realmente differiscono tra loro la democrazia e l’oligarchia sono la povertà e la ricchezza: di necessità, quindi, dove i capi hanno il potere in forza della ricchezza, siano essi pochi o molti, ivi si ha oligarchia; dove invece lo hanno i poveri, la democrazia: e tuttavia capita, come abbiamo detto, che quelli siano pochi, e questi molti».

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Gustavo Zagrebelsky, La difficile democrazia, (Collana Lezioni e Letture della Facoltà di Scienze politiche “Cesare Alfieri” dell’Università di Firenze), Firenze University Press, 2010. [Corsivi dell’autore]

Where’s the fun in love if you aren’t willing to destroy each other?

Treachery is broken. It is black and seething and hateful, it suffocates itself in its greed, it has killed fathers and sons, and dragged corpses from its graves to be beaten to death at the hands of vengeful mobs. It is broken, dying and hating its death, it crawls in between lines to soak and grieve. 

But at its roots, it was once loyalty, broken and wounded beyond repair and grieving. 

Treachery hates, it grieves, it hungers, and it shows its naked face. It is the harbinger of change, black or white, horrible and contested. It is what turns the wheel of civilization, the revolts that unseat merciless tyrants, for freedom is why tyrants must always fall. Treachery is the root of change, the catalyst of fate. 

But loyalty? What could be said of loyalty except that even Lucifer himself was loyal once? 

(They loved Him. And He burned them at stake for the sin of their love.)

What could be said of loyalty, to those who blindly believed and were falsely betrayed, to those who prayed so fervently that their gods stamped their temples to dust? What could be said of those whose loyalty was rewarded with treachery and betrayal? What could be said of their loyalty? 

Is it not just as pure as those who were favored by a heartless god? Is their love no better than those who were forgotten? 

Did He think their love was blasphemy, for He did not love them back? 

(They loved Him. And He hated them.)

And so they were heretics, by dint of their existence, for the sin of their love. And so they were false-priests, simply because they dared to love a heartless god. 

Loyalty. It can taste just as sweet as sin, and suffer twice the same.

Loyalty. It is what brought them to the altar, to their shrines, it is what brought them to the slaughterhouse, lambs to the butcher, it is what brought Monarchia to its knees and laid it atop a pyre of scriptures. Loyalty, it is what lit the flames, when brother razed brother to dust, and father strangled son. Loyalty was what burned in Gabriel’s spear as he cast Lucifer down, down, down, dragged into the fires where he would drown.

(They loved Him. And He razed Monarchia.)

Loyalty. 

La sua secondogenita e suo genero furono coinvolti in uno scandalo per una ong che si era intascata milioni di euro di fondi pubblici e privati. Soldi raccolti per beneficenza.

In più, nel 2012, in piena crisi economica, aveva partecipato a una battuta di caccia all'elefante in Botswana, dove pare fosse accompagnato da un'amante.

Storie di Spagna che mi vengono in mente in questi giorni di pandori rosa, ministre indagate per falsi in bilancio, deputati con e senza pistola che inneggiano al nazifascismo e cognati lobbisti coinvolti in scandali per appalti milionari.

Ma qua non abdica mai nessuno.

- to equerries of Legio X

“[Redacted] is right, you know. This is a monstrous lie. It will cause us nothing but trouble in the end.”

- to Vulkan

“We are equally narrow minded, then, for you would not accept evidence of a differing viewpoint if it slapped you across the face.

- to Perturarbo

“My efforts in diplomacy have failed, then? Then I shall allow the Ashen Circle to speak for me. Burn it all. Each man’s god shall know his own.”

- Compliance of Acheron II

“They don’t understand. Why? Why is this such a difficult concept for them?! He denies his divinity, yet demonstrates godlike powers. He denies connection to any religious tradition, yet places himself adjacent to so many: he is adjacent to Zoroaster. He is a friend of the Buddha. He is John the Baptist. As Alexander, he literally declares himself a god!

And yet he now denies it. He punishes me, he humiliates me, he sends my brother to chastise me. For what? For loyalty? For fidelity? For the adoration of a son for his father?

Very well. If a god denies its divinity, refuses its loyal children, then it remains a god. It is simply a god unworthy of worship.”

- to advisors after Monarchia [Passage Censored]