this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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the_dunk_tank

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It's the dunk tank.

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holy fucking idiots

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Knowledge is knowing Frankenstein wasn't the monster.

Wisdom is knowing he was.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Hate when people say this. The monster does horrible things to innocent people, whereas Victor doesn't really do anything out of malice. And everyone always talks about what a fine gentleman Victor is every time they mention him.

Moreover the quote is basically, "knowledge is repeating a fact you heard somewhere, wisdom is repeating a glib misinterpretation you heard somewhere"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Tongue was pretty far planted in cheek as I was saying this.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago

Pedantry is asserting that as Dr. Frankenstein's creation/child the monster should by all rights be called Mr. Frankenstein.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, madness and folly, and I perceived that all is vanity and vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge, increaseth sorrow.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

Is this satire? Must be a slow news day if they’re caring about universities discussing books they haven’t read in ways they don’t like. They say that as if they haven’t been trying to do the Draco in Leather Pants trope over the goddamn confederacy or Nazi Germany.

What’s the matter? Not enough brown people to fearmonger over?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago

It's from 2018, but not satire.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

I imagine the following path to publication:

Some Nazi incel STEMlord is forced by the woke SJW cabal to READ a BOOK in COMMIE LITERATURE GE class 1984 —> whines about it to his shithead parents in the hopes they sue the school for violating his rights —> Shithead parents make a phone call to their friend who writes ragebait articles for a nazi tabloid hoping to ride the coattails into a fox news appearance

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago (2 children)

when I was in high school I was in the teacher's supply closet and stole a copy of Frankenstein that one of the other classes was reading. I'm 100% sure if I just asked my teacher to borrow a copy she wouldve lent it to me no questions asked. it had this cover art

this is unrelated to the thread but it's a fun little memory I share when I remember Frankenstein is a thing.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago (3 children)

that's not Frankensteins monster

that's just some guy

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago

Frankenstein's neighbor.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It looks so much more like Frankenstein's monster than the pop culture thing does.

Information about its appearance in the book: a bigger-than-average human sewn together from large bits of corpses.

That looks like it.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

True, much more accurate than Mr Bolt Through The Neck, but in my mind the stitching was always more apparent, and the parts less perfect in their symmetry.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago

The part that always is funny to me is that somebody just decided to make him a mint green color like something you'd see in a 1950s furniture store and everyone just rolled with it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

There's mixed reaction to the 1994 film, but what I liked is that initially the stitching is very obvious as well as as the asymmetry of the various body parts. But as the film goes on the stitches have fallen out or rotted away and the join areas have scarred and then faded, everything sort of settling into place. So he looks like a very scarred man rather than a sewn together creation, which highlights that he is more of a living being not a zombie or undead.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Mmm, I should watch that.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago

imagine someone taking your picture then telling you "this is for my book about a MONSTROUS FREAK who KILLS PEOPLE"

oh ... okay .... kitty-birthday-sad

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

oh hey that's the book cover I read it with

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 days ago

Nah nah nah nah, the big brain take here is that this is Poe's law in action and the writer is a plant who's been waiting for their moment.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago (2 children)

It's a book with multiple interpretations, like any halfway-good bit of art. Only absolute schlock has moral clarity.

The monster obviously isn't the good guy, as he strangles children.

The baizou thing of "the monster was good" makes no sense. Take any other murderous incel or child-killer and apply the same. Most people who do heinous murders didn't have easy lives prior to that; it's not a justification.

But the monster gets to give his side of the story a lot, in long monologues. I feel some people took them monologues too literally, said, "This is the message of the book", and I took it as the distorted ravings of monstrous psychology, with his subjective validity.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Yeah, but I think given Shelley's circles more radical tendencies, the interpretation of some revolutionary allegory is a strong one, especially when you think of that Rousseau(?) poem about the ruling class creating the 'monsters' that will destroy them.

The Monster isn't some child killer with a tough past, he's a child born into an adults body, cast out into the cold by his creator, and then spurned on account of his perceived inhumanity by every living being.

Most murderers get accepted by some initially, and when they don't it's on account of their bad vibes. The Monster showed himself to be very emotionally capable in spite of his troubles, and capable of living amongst humanity, especially in his covert benevolence towards the blind mans family. He even rescues a child, but is then shot at because people perceive him to be a monster.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago

I think it would've been fairly easy for readers at the time to say "the monster's a murderer, that's the story." It's easy for others to say the monster's a victim and not responsible for his actions. We see the two points of view throughout this comments. The comparison to an incel is almost silly, though. "Man decides women are The Problem and becomes dangerous" is different from "Man is abandoned and feared by his only parent at birth, he has the impulse control of a small child (recall he was literally just born) and he has the body of a very large adult man." He even does try to be good, but is angered by people dehumanizing him for his appearance. (Dehumanizing people based on things they have no control over: sound familiar?) But then there's the important bit: this does not absolve his crimes! He is, in fact, a murderer. But the people who hated him also bear responsibility. Most of all his parent who did no rearing, teaching, or literally anything but screaming and running bears responsibility. Is he a killer? Yes! Is he a victim? Yes! Is Victor responsible for everything? Also, yes! The people who rejected him responsible? Less so, but yes!

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