Violence

It took me a long time to get into Game of Thrones.  I tried and failed several times because I just found the episodes too violent and lacking in any compelling plot or love of the characters.  Then I went to Northern Ireland this summer, where they do almost all interior filming and a large portion of exteriors.  It was my yearning to see the latter (especially how they used the mythical and yet decaying Dark Hedges) that got me through the first dense season so that eventually I binged through all five.

That said, I still found the violence off putting.  Mostly because it was stupid and nonsensical.  Even that (I knew it was coming but not entirely how it would play out) red wedding episode.  I realized that such sensational deaths were just a way to get rid of characters who were stuck in major plot holes.  After that epiphany, the excess of blood and gore and abuse against the human form (cannibalism, really?  Skinning people?  Putting one’s thumbs through eye sockets?) got really tedious.  And dumb.  It was cartoonish.  It happened in all its I feel so bad for the costumer if a take went wrong red and gooey guts fashion, but there was no depth of emotion.  No ramification of that violence happening.  And the argument on the internet and in conversations I’ve had when I’ve rolled my eyes about stupid the show is, well that’s how it was in medieval times.

Um.  Yeah.  No.  

Violence is how it is now.  How it has been for millennia. It has been in real life.  It has been entertainment.  We have progressed now so that the blood is a chemical mixture that looks real enough or if not editing can do some trick later on.  We aren’t throwing prisoners of war into a ring telling them to fight for the death while we drink our wine and laugh with our companions.  So that’s progress.  But we do like our news stories about mass shootings and terrorist attacks.  

I think about that fascination factor and sense of entertainment at the horror of other people’s deaths and tragedies when I read about history.  In addition to my Game of Thrones viewing, my visit to Northern Ireland has led me to read books and follow news stories about the Troubles.  I’ve watched a number of lesser known films about the terrorist state of Northern Ireland from the 60s to recent history.  Maybe that’s messed up.  Maybe it’s a form of exploitation.  I don’t know.

But it has led me to several contemplations about violence and what provokes us to destroy human life for the notion of a cause.  And who is right?  Who is wrong?  Is it ever possible to declare one completely?  Well, you kill someone, yes.  That should be pretty easy to declare wrong.  But what if what got you there was the murder of your loved ones?  Or the abuses of a government that couldn’t care less about the poverty and depravity of your situation?   Every time there is a terrorist attack now, I remember that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter.

That’s hard to contemplate when the freedom fighter kills people that look like me.  Live like me.  Go into places I like to go.  That’s wrong.  Because I could have been the victim.  And I don’t see the world the way they do.  I don’t see my life and the lives of people like me as expendable.  I don’t see them as necessary casualties of war.  I don’t see them with the detachment of Sunday night television viewing.  

But the other side?  Well they aren’t like me.  They don’t look like me.  They have beliefs and thoughts that don’t register with my reality.  So they are bad.  And their people deserve to die.  Though maybe I’m jumping to conclusions right now.  But… the violence is acceptable in cities where western culture isn’t dominant.  It is as easy to distance from our conscience and heartbreak when it is in a war zone.  Not when it is a city where college kids can go and get drunk and ignore the culture or where retirees with a comfortable income go to enjoy the art and cuisine.  Those cities are supposed to be safe.  Violence is not supposed to happen there.

Last night I hosted a reading of a play about WWI.  The first act ends in a trench on the battlefields of France, as a group of much too young men are about to climb up into uncertain death.  The mention of France had some eerie resonance last night.  I didn’t want to linger on that thought and focus on the play and honor the dead of the war from 100 years ago.  But when I came home, I thought about those two things together.  I saw so many pictures of the Eiffel Tower and statuses in French on Facebook and I thought about what France means to us this weekend.  Then I reflected on what France meant to my great grandparents and grandparents during a war.  Death and violence and fear.

I thought about how awful this news story is, but it isn’t anything like a world war where thousands of young men went into a muddy terrain and died over and over again.  It’s different than a terrorist attack, yes.  Duh.  Soldiers are willing (well, kind of).  At least they know they are going to face machine guns and have some sort of chance to defend themselves.  I understand the difference, so don’t freak out about my comparison.  It just struck me as I saw repeated comments about what is this world coming to and how can we let our children live in a world like this?  Well… I’m pretty glad that my great-grandparents didn’t take that too much to heart and still brought children into the world in spite of the bloody mess at the Somme.

Well that’s all nice and intellectual, Jessie.  But people are still grieving and reeling and we all feel shaky now.  Because what if we went to a concert?  What if we go to school?  What if we go to a movie theater?  And never mind we or why or what if.  Over 120 souls perished from the earth last night.  There will be thousands of family members and friends who cry themselves to sleep tonight.  Children and grownups who won’t be able to sleep for fear.  Survivors who will not outlive the memory of this one night.

To be honest, I don’t know where to go from here.  How to tie up this series of reflections neatly.  But, violence is messy.  Not in the way it is portrayed on a screen with lots of blood and a swift cut to the next scene.  It’s messy because of the emotional casualty.  It’s also messy because we let ourselves forget its consequences and the fact it can still happen at any place at any time.  We have to.  That is how we go on living.