I've had this buzzing in my head for a while now. Why did they choose to call Sparx's weapon a Sword of Jacob? Doesn't this have religious connotations? That kind of pattern doesn;t seem to work throughout the rest of the weapons.

I mean there's always been the aryan characteristics hanging over the Ace characters, and now a religious connotation in the weapon. Thoughts, anyone?

And while we're on it, can anyone precisely clear up just who Jacob was? I'm fairly sure he's bibalic.

Damn... I remember reading something... I found some passage somewhere that was kindof poetic about a sword that spat lightning. It was one in relation to Israel, I think the sword was coming against them... or it might have been thier enemies... I can't remember, maybe I'll try find it again. Anyway, Israel is also called 'Jacob'.

And the guy Jacob in the Bible, at one point he wrestles with an angel. This is kindof pretty silly and a bit plain stupid (angels being pretty powerful and all), but I can imagine someone like Sparx doing this. The angel also touches his leg and cripples him, just so he has a limp (told you fighting angels was silly :P ). And Sparx does have that think around her leg, I believe it has been theorised that has to do with why she can't fly... :P

And further on weaponary, StaffHead is a staff, that can turn serpentine, and move almost like a snake. In the Bible, Moses turns his staff into a snake. So, that could also be a weapon with religious connotations. ;)

...H you just came me a fic idea... I bag dibs! :P

THose are some very interesting theories. I wonder if they chose them deliberately? Don't supposed Jacob was a redhead?

I thought the Sword of Jacob had a closer connection to the Jacob's Ladder--ie. electricity. (There's also this). The Biblical Jacob's brother may have been a redhead; folklore also says that Judas (the betrayer) also had red hair (the colour red is associated with witchcraft/seduction/treachery). This shows Jacob as a brunette. Personality-wise, Jacob was cunning and relied on that rather than physical strength (his name means "supplanter" iirc); he cheated his older twin out of his inheritence before going into exile, where he wrestled the aforementioned angel, worked seven years to get one woman as his wife and was given her older sister, and then worked another seven years to finally get the girl he wanted. He ended up having twelve sons, the youngest being the famous Joseph.

Staffhead's a toad/bat thing, not a snake. :P I think he owes a lot more to tradition of familiars and demonology rather than anything Biblical; it's not like the character's really associated with any sort of religion.

Yes but isn't it fun dawing connections?

It's interesting info and almost certainly not an accident that the weapon became known as the sword of Jacob. I believe you've also mentioned that Zoar pops up in the bible. And here too: http://www.haunted-ohio.com/pages/lntrn.htm :P

Ooo. That Jacob's ladder stuff is interesting...

And in refering to Staff Head as serpentine, I was thinking in relation to sometimes Lord Fear drops him on the ground and he slithers off. Like a snake. :P ie: a staff transforming into a snake... or at least his body going all... un-stick-like...

I know. :P It's just that since the Moses connection doesn't really lead to any interesting consequences that I can think of, one might as well just leave it there.

What about the Biblical serpent, then? :P Traditionally associated with sin and temptation; also regarded as a "female" symbol (and one can make a case for the evils being more "feminine" than the Knights' "masculine" qualities).

Ratio male to female on the good guys; 2:1 (4:1 if you count Mark and Chuck)
Ratio male to female on the bad guys; 7:1 :P

And, yeah, I think you're right about the Jacob's ladder. I thought about it this morning (is slow) and Sparx's sword has the two prong thing going. :)

I know, but consider chaotic, femme fatale, effeminate-ish main villain, versus orderly, militaristic, tomboy, v. manly males. I'm also partly relating the HP Slytherin/Gryffindor divide: while most main Slytherin characters are male, the symbolism of the house itself (the serpent) can be read as reflecting the feminine while the Gryffindor lion is a very masculine symbol. The evils are the cunning sort rather than the overly militaristic sort, which is generally considered to be rather "feminine" (cliche of crafty women winning power via manipulation). It's the Knights who see things in a black-and-white manner, and the evils who contextualise and draw connections and make exceptions (the focus on the former in our legal system is what a not inconsiderable amount of feminist legal theory complains about). And the Knights get the Thunder Tower, the SoJ and the Lightning Lance as phallic symbols, but the evils only have Staffhead--and LI even gets to have circles as her weapons. It's not as simple as that, of course--I posit that the Knights are a bit more open to emotions than the evils, for example--but I think it's a pretty fair reading that the evils are more associated with the feminine, and the Knights almost entirely express "masculine" values.

Ah... but are those really feminine virtues, or just those evil virtues that have been associated with feminity... if you get what I mean... :unsure:

Moderator Note: This is a one-liner.

Any virtue, flaw, or other quality is feminine if it belongs to a female. Some qualities, though, have traditionally been assigned to one gender more than the other, and that is what I was attempting to discuss above.

The divide between men and women is not as sharp as some seem to think--Homo sum: humani nil a me alienum puto. Many of the statistical differences between the genders are the result of socialisation rather than genetics, and quite obviously nobody has completely (traditionally-defined) "masculine" OR "feminine" qualities. However, undoubtedly certain qualities are associated with one gender more than the other, and when present in text may be codedly read as advancing or condemning that gender.

Don't worry, I know what you mean. :)

I'd tend to group more of the manipulative type stuff with evil, rather than being feminine attributes. Sorry, go ahead and discuss, I think I was just pointing out that... well basically what you said, that those attributes aren't neccisarily always true, just what has been attributed traditionally. I should try being more specific. :)

But often "feminine" values such as empathy and community networking get ignored in the favour of more masculine values. For example, in contract law, there are two rather well-known cases involving two women and a shoddy salesperson: in Case A the woman interrogated the salesperson, who lied to her, and in Case B the other woman signed quickly because of her concern for the salesperson's health in the environment. In Case A the woman got her money back ("masculine" aggression); this didn't happen in Case B ("feminine" concern). Female empathy and concern can be and often is viewed as weak emotion, and women often tend either to get placed on a pedestal or blamed for what happens to them (virgin/whore). This, where almost one in three survey respondents said they would blame flirtatious or drunk women if they were raped, and while women tend to commit far fewer crimes than men, Mary Kay Letorneau got far more publicity than similar male cases (including one, iirc, where a fifteen-year-old's diary was read out in court to suggest that she had sexual fantasies concerning the male teacher who raped her). Another famous case in contract law deals with a qualified solicitor (who happened to own an aircraft) and an uneducated single mother with a traumatised past, who was effectively stalked by the former. He purchased a house for her, and later claimed that she had taken advantage of his emotional state, whereas she claimed it was a genuine gift and at no point had she falsely led him on. She was painted as (effectively) an unscrupulous whore in court, and most of the judges found in the solicitor's favour. The dissenting judgement cast her as an innocent and helpless victim, which is not necessarily that much of an improvement.

This feels ranty and incoherent, and I'll blame the hour. But heroes, by and large, tend to be masculine, decisive types who don't give a damn about how many people are destroyed when the Death Star gets blown up, whereas villains are either the manipulative and/or slightly effeminate type (think Jafar) or uber-militaristic (think Hitler). Neither standard has much good to say about "feminine" values.

I used to wonder what the big fuss about the denigrating of feminine values was about--it seemed stupid to me, especially as I'm a logic girl myself and values are values no matter who holds them. But it can be read as the denigration of women-in-general ("oh, these women, they're just so emotional"), there is nothing wrong with said values, and it's certainly unfair to force a woman to become a man or enter a male-dominated world in order to succeed, as they're over half the human race.

Anyway, the human world of Ace feels mostly unprejudiced, most notably with regard to race. There is the idea that Mark is obliged to ask the girl rather than vice versa, and the most aggressive girl getting punished isn't very good, but Heather's certainly a more attractive character than Wayne, and as with Ace/LI, it's kind of good to make sure the other party's interested. Male-as-default is present--the only female characters are girlfriends, mothers, a lunch lady, and a housekeeper (all either necessarily female or stereotypically so) whereas males have more gender-neutral roles such as teachers and dogcatchers. Note also that incompetent males isn't necessarily a good thing--it gives men a low standard to live up to. There are a few casual examples of sexism--for example, LI (who I would assume has better aim than either of her love interests) assumes Brett will win something for Sam rather than the latter doing it for herself. (Maybe She Who Imitates Others just...observed that Brett was the more athletic of the two?). But it's rather nice we have one main female character whose plot arc and relevance isn't about who she dates but who she chooses to be; and that LI has the character arc, saves Ace more than vice versa, and gets to mix competence with good looks--and is certainly not, narrative-wise, regarded as a slut who brought the whole thing on herself.

And, oh dear, how we have strayed.

I',m not going to go over that whole arguement again, I'll just leave it with a varying degree of agreement on my part. (basically I agree with most, and the bits I don't I'm too tired to bother about :P

I get that but "don't give a damn"?Isn't "giving a damn" about people the very factor which MAKES them human? masculine or otherwise, youcan generally assume that murder - wrong. Murder in court is judged on the (traditionally) more masculine frame of justice, as you pointed out, Sarah. I'm pretty sure they'd assume the millions dead when the death star goes being morally wrong, therefore would try to stop it. Whereas a "feminine" person dealing more in their feminine instincts would do the same thing for more emotion related reasons. They both have simialr senses of justice, they just have that sense for different reasons. THis is why that debate between masculine and femininity in the courts came up - becase justice is never that simple and can be taken both morally, ethically, be dependant on the situation and on the court and person being tried.

Since this is supposed to be about Ace I'll bring us back to that. Look at Ace - distinctly masculine sense of justice, "Good must triumph over evil" and all that. Sparx: isn't as bothered, still seems to care about "the right thing" but is more concerned with getting to kick butt and let her energy out. This is why we've cast her as the "psycho-type" villian were it not for her strong moral code. Lady Illusion- cunning, feminine whiles down to a tee. Fear: Effeminate male villian, acts upon his anger and emotions. Kilobyte: distictly masculine male - all up for doing what is "right" as he sees it.

of course with KB it depends on whether or not you believe HE truly believes that he is "doing what is right -and punishing the mortals." If that is the case then I attribute him masculine. But he could as easily be using this as an excuse for his actions - thus cunning and effeminate. The former is more likely, the latter is not out of reach.

On the subject of the Death Star, in that film it was pretty obvious that nobody cared about what happened to all the stormtroopers and big players. It made it into one of the EO lists: "if I am the Hero, and I have just killed thousands of grunts without caring, I will not suddenly show pity to one of the main bad guys". They didn't, which sort of points to a very black-and-white, this-was-the-only-way-of-seeing-things kind of notion. (And yes, those on the Death Star were soldiers rather than civilians, but even so blowing it up was still a despicable tactic despite the necessity of it all.)

Kilobyte's certainly the uber-masculine type of Gary-Stu rather than the lithe androgynous kind *shifty eyes*, which fits his role as the creation of the skinny nerd overcompensating for something. I don't read him as cunning or excessively manipulative at all--he's got too much power for him to really bother with that kind of thing (and he's got that in common with Ace, methinks--one only tends to rely on cunning when one isn't able to go straight out and crush). And he seems very justly outraged at the discovery of who created him, though no doubt that's also mixed in with his desire for power and the fact that he doesn't care about who he tramples on in his pursuit of his goals.

*Nod*The end justifies the means or "eye for an eye" arguement that appears so often in fiction. At least Doctor Who chose the alternative (for different reasons, I admit - he wanted to save the humans, not the daleks, but still...). I say we need more of the anguish over destruction... it'd be nice to see that in Ace. Having one of them suddenly withdraw from killing a bad guy.

In a sense that happened in Episode Six--Ace didn't want to kill LI (and that transformer looked fairly painful). Now Ace has the human emotions, and he knows that all the CGIs came from a computer game and were under control, maybe that means for him that he can't kill others like him in good conscience (Lord Fear was programmed too, after all). But then again, he decided in 39 that it didn't matter where he came from, he had friends and he had a world to save, so who knows?

Sparx could do with a bit of that hesitation when it comes to destruction--she'd be the type to not see any of the evils as "people" at all, LI included. And maybe like Ace she should feel morally conflicted over some of the issues involved.

Perhaps Ace was sttuck in an "end justifies means" situation at the end of ep 39 too. Or perhaps Kilobyte is in some way considered "less" sentient by Ace because he's working to Rick's commands. Doesn't sound like an opinion Ace would consciously take, and I dunno if he'd have a subconscious, but... never know. And then of course he was probably furious after Fear attacked Li so the emotions were in control there (doesn't justify Mark shooting though, unless he was just as pissed...)

*Nod* yes, sparx may be prejudiced in that way though not through her own fault. In her defence, it IS how she's programmed. It's "kick butt now, bother about questions later... maybe." for her. I expect if she gave thought to it she'd be less eager. But then, she's hardly had reason to suspect the evils have a right to existence too.

Perhaps LI confuses her in that way - deep down Sparx knows LI should NOT be fighting FOR them. She's the enemy. It doesn't fit. The programs response is to make her attack what she doesn't understand.

I don't know if Ace thinking that Kilobyte was any less sentient had much to do with him blasting him. I don't know about you, but if the dude's got all the pieces of the amulet, and you know he's going to be using it to take over the world and enslave and/or destroy everyone... well, you're going to be blasting him, whether he has a good reason or not.

And why shouldn't he shoot at Fear after he blasted LI? Yeah, it was probably an emotional reaction, and Fear was leaving... *has dodgy morals...*

*Nod* exactly. End justifies the means, as we mentioned. Whether or not you think this was morally right overall is everyone's own opinion. And I figure it WAS nessecary.

Though, just because you do it, doesn't always mean it's justified. And, okay... I probably think overall it was right, because it would be wrong to stand by and let Kilobyte take over the world or whatever... there's some saying about good people standing by and doing nothing... which I can't remember right now... that sort of applies.

And, just a point. Kilobyte probably believes what he is doing is right and justified. Just because he believes that doesn't make it so.

Damn... I believe I am too distracted this morning to comment properly... that was probably increadibly incoherant and OT... I sound catty... *headdesk*

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Edmund Burke.

Just because something was the best choice at the time doesn't make it the right thing to do, at all. And the thing is we can never know what's the right choice, and if we're responsible for, say, killing a whole lot of people, even if we had our reasons and in the circumstances we couldn't have done much else, we've still killed those people, and taken it on ourselves to make a decision heavily affecting others in this way. For example, in RP, when LI forced Random to get his program looked at by Chuck, I had her state (because she by no means is either an aspiringly moral person or a hypocrite) that no, she didn't have the right to do that to another person, but she'd done it anyway because under the circumstances of Rick controlling Random it wasn't a good idea to let him continue like that.

Certainly, in 39, Ace had no choice when it came to blasting Kilobyte. Kilobyte had enough power to take over the world, and clearly enough planned to do it (as far as Ace knew, he'd already destroyed two Lightning Knights). Kilobyte also knew about the program and was going ahead anyway (or because of this), though as Ace didn't know that we can't use it to make him less morally culpable. I take one view of killing millions of faceless grunts/innocent civilians to suit a perhaps not immoral goal, and another to kill a few who are a concrete threat to other persons (even if the few are under some sort of mental disability, I'll go with 'destroy one mind-controlled psycho' against 'let many innocents die', which is again doing something wrong in the service of a perceived greater good, but I don't read the evils as being entirely innocent of the harm they've caused, and they've certainly been on earth long enough to be at least a little bit influenced). Ace will have to acknowledge the programming thing a little more, I think. And when it comes to incompetent!programmed!Fear, if he's not a threat to the world then maybe Ace shouldn't destroy him. Or wouldn't.

Which really sucks from LI's point of view, but that's another issue.

Even incompent!Fear is still a threat. He has a weapon, and he knows how to use it. He'd still be able take out a few mortals. That, in itself, is enough to justify at least keeping him under control. Fear can probably be reasoned with more easily than Kilobyte as well...

How would fear respond to the idea that they were merely a game, though? Would that increase his dangerousness or decrease it? Depends on how you look at it and how you think he'd respond. I have him down as a deny-then-destroy kind of person. He'd certainly have a lot to get pissed about - he's been figting and failing all this tie because of some rediculous game?

Wold Fear still wish to fight and act agaoinst Ace if he knew there was no earthly reason for doing so? Could he still blame Ace for programmed reactions? If this world still worht ruling? Perhaps he'd covet that idea - wishto rule the REAL world that he's obviously been denies.

That's one thing about Fear in RP - his stance on this issue is coming across as quite vague and we're not entirely sure of his opinions (bit of good RP acting from feef going on for that part). He would certainly reconsider his stance, though he's perhaps not morally righteous enough to entirely change his mind about what he does to innocents.

You know, I kind of think Fear would be the guy to still try and be a bad guy, even if he found out that was what he was programmed to do, just because he enjoyed it so much. I would wonder about how much he would still want to destroy Ace, at least for the reason of a personal grudge, I'm not sure if he'd still want to destroy him so... vengfully... (yup that is misspelled *headdesk*). But, seeing as he showed such wonderful competence in ep 39 (*cheers for Fear competence*), perhaps he would try and be a 'better' bad guy, as obviously while his level of competence was enough to contol a game-world, it didn't fare so well in the real world.

I really can't see Fear turning around, just because he finds out he's part of a game.

*Nod* It's ever so possible that Fear would turn round and use the fact that he was a videogaje character to his advantage. I'm sure there are lotsn of ways you can utlilize the fact that you and all your colleagues/enemies are made of computer programs and certain of them are ansting about it.

Yes, I could see Fear using angst as a weapon. :ph43r: Anyone think that he might be smart enough to realise that he could manipulate the Knights not just from direct battle or playing with emotions - like playing with programming? If he did, he'd probably need Rick, who Kilobyte has, but anyone think he'd be smart enough to realise it's a viable option?

If he's half the powerful villian they've claimed he is, then i reckon he would be and he wouldn't be beyond program manipulation. he's done it in the rp.

What about Kilobyte's tentacles, they're sort of weapons in a way. Isn't there in one of a religions some sort of god that has tentacles that draisn sinners of their souls or something like that? I'm sorry, I'm not very good with religion. I only have RE lesson a week, but with a lot of stuff happening, the lessons are rapidly decreasing. I'm also starting work experience next week! Working at Toys R Us.

Rotgut makes a good point. Tentacles are traditionally associated with serpents - who hold a big place in the bible, usually as negative symbols (the serpent that tempted eve and the serpent form the devil took to tempt Jesus in the desert. So I think snakes and tentacles symbolise temptation and power - and Kilobyte drains power with his tentacles. Good one :)

When it comes to religion, RG, I advise you to look stuff up outside of your RE class, while usually factual, what you learn in there is amazingly limited.

For example, did you know there was a religion in which the dead bodies of people were believed to change into creatures? Their shadows became deer, their hearts kingfishers, their souls became owl, their breasth butterflies and their bones tapirs, while their skins sliding off underground to become lizards.

That's pretty much the most beautiful thing about that particular brazillian religion. They also made a big fuss about seletcing someone to be eaten. They would be looked after and treated wonderfully for a year, then would be expected to give a speech to the village saying how lucky they were to have them as a meal.

Bet they never taught THAT in class ;)

Good luck in work ex. My placement was in a junior school with the kiddiwinks ^_^