May 1st, 2011
Another Chosen One
At the somewhat recent TEDxToronto lectures series, Dave Meslin gave a great talk about why there seems to be voter apathy. One of his points was that fiction teaches us to wait for the chosen one to arrive. Dave redefines what a heroic effort is. He also makes some great points about how civic engagement seems to be actively discouraged and how to fix the problem. You should watch the amusing and informative You Tube video.
May 1st, 2011 at 2:27 am
The prophet appears to be a half-human half-dragon who carries around the severed head of one of his parents.
Also, inb4 Christi explains how someone spilled a bottle of ink on her.
May 1st, 2011 at 3:17 am
“A weapon of ice forged in lava” – oooh he didn’t say it had to be hot lava. That leaves a basalt basin as a way to chill the sneaky seer.
May 1st, 2011 at 10:06 am
Ribuprissin – You’re as gullible as one of my characters!
Zarquon – nice loop hole! I thought you were going to say to melt down some pahoehoe or A a and use that.
May 1st, 2011 at 1:28 pm
can it be ‘ice’ as slang for diamonds? XD
This comic confused me a bit til I re-read it.. they were looking for someone with a birthmark, and we come across a guy with an ink blot.. which tells him it’s wrong.. meaning the prophet handed him an ink blot, which he left with someone else, then he thought he found a matching birthmark, then upon looking at it again, it didn’t match…?
May 1st, 2011 at 10:18 pm
@ColdFusion: There was no “it’s wrong”, he was doing a rorschach inkblot test and his “what do you see” answer was the birthmark of the chosen one, then he just reconsidered and decided it was a butterfly. The psychiatrist then made a psychiatric diagnosis based on what he’d said, and somewhat arbitrarily suggested an alternative solution.
May 1st, 2011 at 10:23 pm
On the subject of voter apathy, I don’t think it really has much to do with fiction. It has more to do with the reality that taking a few hours out of your day (the cost) to vote for the seemingly-marginally-lesser-of-two-evils-that-might-actually-turn-out-to-be-worse (the ‘reward’) is a crummy deal even if your vote is the extremely unlikely one vote that makes a difference. Factor in the “the odds are thousands to one that your vote will make any difference to the results” and it’s an even worse deal.
The astonishing thing is not voter apathy, but the number of people who vote despite it!
May 2nd, 2011 at 9:45 am
ColdFusion – Maybe it needed more panels for exposition. It makes sense in my head. 😛
RavenBlack – I don’t see the psychologist’s help as arbitrary? Also, I guess I shouldn’t have just said voter apathy, I meant it’s about democratic apathy. Some people vote but very few people actually take an interest in attending city counsel or rezoning meetings. Did you watch the video?
May 2nd, 2011 at 10:17 am
Of course, there is another loophole which is even simpler than Zarquon’s. Such as, Why “SLAY” the Profiteering Prophet when all you really want to do is beat some sense into him? Or maybe some CENTS out of him? 😛
May 2nd, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Hoppy- you and Zarquon can join my think tank adventuring guild any day!
May 3rd, 2011 at 10:08 am
Wheeeeee!! 😀
May 4th, 2011 at 1:12 pm
Great video, thanks for the link.
As for the hero part of it, it is something I think about with my daughter. I want her to be exposed to some great stories, but I also want to have the stories that really don’t rely on “chosen” heroes. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of those, though the classic fairy tales are sometimes quite good in that it is at least the individual wit that overcomes a problem, not divine prophecy.
May 4th, 2011 at 2:01 pm
Totes agree, local government is 60 times more important, but we’re even LESS well-informed about it, if that’s even possible.
I wish we could just, vote on ISSUES instead of voting on people, then whoever gets into the office has to stand behind whatever we vote for. They’re trying to stand behind whatever we’d vote for anyway, it’s just they’re attempting to do it in advance.
May 5th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
“The prophet appears to be a half-human half-dragon who carries around the severed head of one of his parents. ”
It’s very simple.
The Prophet was a man! I mean–he was a DRAGON-man! Or… maybe he was just a dragon?
But he was still a profitable!