Oh Oedipus, I thought I had left your story behind in high school, but nope your story has followed me to college. My English teacher in high school passed over this story because he really didn’t see how any of it was really relevant to what we were learning. We spent about half an hour discussing it and left it at that; I had completely forgotten who Oedipus was, but I didn’t forget the story and the riddle he solved. When I was reading it there was one question I kept asking myself, “Why are we reading this? I don’t see any connection between Oedipus and a superhero.”
Our class discussion brought up two interesting topics:
- Should we consider God and/or Jesus as a superhero since we have turned Greek Gods into superheroes.
AND
- Would we try to fight fate or sit still and let fate occur.
I honestly wouldn’t be able to answer the first point objectively because of certain reasons, but I do believe that if a comic book creator were to attempt to market a Jesus superhero it would most likely be a waste of time. We’re a society that was built on a religious foundation (although there are some people out there that would like to doubt that) and this religion runs deep through people’s veins (not everybody’s). For someone to create Jesus into a superhero I can see some people saying that it’s mocking certain religions or saying that they think Jesus is better than other Gods out there because they’d rather have him as a superhero (or something along those lines). I could only see the concept of Jesus the superhero working if it were to teach kids who he was and what he did. I think it’s easier to turn Greek Gods into superheroes because there isn’t as much conflicts surrounding them. We incorporate them in movies, tv shows, and in other elements as well and there were no outcries against them. To me Greek gods are one step above superheroes, and God and Jesus are in a completely different area.
My opinion on fate is also one that is not objective. There are people who believe in it and place a certain amount of trust in it and there are others who think of fate as just coincidences and don’t believe in it. I believe in fate but to a certain extent, the thing I don’t believe in is the situation that occurred in Oedipus, I think we aren’t supposed to know what our fate is. In the case with Oedipus, if it was fate that he were to kill his father and sleep with his mother, he is the one who fell victim to fate, but I wonder what would have happened if his father wasn’t told that Oedipus would do those things. Would they have kept him? What would’ve happened if they kept him? If they kept him than he would know who is mother is, right? Then how would it be possible for him to sleep with her if he knew who she was? It seems that when we know our fate, depending if it’s good or bad, we try to either do everything in our powers to make that prediction occur or we do everything to prevent it. It seems the more people try to prevent “fate” to occur they blindly walk directly into it.
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If fate had a political spectrum, I think you'd fall right in the middle. Not a conservative who believes that fate is all we have and it's the only way to go, nor a liberal who might believe there is no fate, man is free to do what he wants. In my blog I write about free will, but I see your line of thinking. Oedipus had the choice, and so did his father, but fate, as you say, blindly directed them into predestination. We can ask what if, but sad fact is, that is what the story tells us what happened.
ReplyDeleteI agree when you said, “I believe in fate but to a certain extent,” because there is a point where you can make your decision and can make up your fate. For example there are some things you can change because you just can. And for Oedipus that wasn’t his case because his fate was set in stone.
ReplyDeleteI think Dakota's coding of accepting fate as conservative and denying fate as liberal is interesting.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to point out that there are comics that tell the stories of the Bible, Mormon doctrine, teachings of Islam, Hindu scripture, and probably more. Is it sacrilegious to have comics based on sacred works, or just the idea of Jesus as superhero? I really think I want to come back to this question in class some time.
I agree with you that some people would be a bit offended if Jesus/God was made into a superhero. Those are just two things I don't think should be mixed, like chocolate and soda. I don't even like mentioning this stuff in class because some people take it to a whole new level.
ReplyDeleteIf Oedipus was kept as a baby, I don't think it would make a very good play.
The weird thing with fate (assuming the person believes in it) is that - let's say someone's fate was to marry their mom, if they don't fight it and let it happen, everyone would be grossed out saying stuff like, "Ew, you're just going to let that happen?!" But, then if you do fight it, it'll happen anyways and then they'll be like "That sucks, you wasted your time trying to prevent it and it happened anyway." It's a lose - lose situation. Now if it's someone positive like winning a new car, that's a different story.
If we had oracles today that could tell people their future, everyone might go crazy.