3.2 Sephiroth

[Fenral]

Morningstar's right on this one. Melville's whale was definitely more than a whale.

Not gonna dig out any old college essays, but Moby Dick is, among many other things, a story about how one man's obsession with destroying "evil" (embodied as the eponymous white whale) ultimately only serves to get a bunch of good men and himself killed. There is actually a lot of buildup before the final confrontation establishing that the whale in question is genuinely bad news, but ultimately the cost payed to bring it down is ludicrously high (the whale dies, taking the ship and its crew with it, and only the narrator is spared).

If there's any novel out there that will forever ruin you for the oft-romanticized notions of "putting your life on the line," "victory at any cost" and "fighting on to the bitter end." Boy howdy. Ahab did kill his whale, and did pay the cost he was fully prepared to, but was it really a good idea?


This absolutely applies to the WoL as far as I'm concerned. The price we've payed for certain things has been stupidly, stupidly high and only the villains have the sense to call him/her on it. That's an issue. Not only because I want our allies to have more sense than they do, but also because having the villains point it out just makes everyone else less willing to admit that maybe the bad guys have a point.