Medea on Trial

Medea is an anti-hero because she became consumed by hatred and eventually killed 4 people, two of them her own children. At the beginning of the story, she states that she hates her children as well as Jason, their father. The children are like reminders of her traitorous husband to her. As the tale went on, her madness grew stronger. Anti-heroes digress as time goes by. She plotted how she'd kill Creon's daughter the princess using a poisoned golden diadem and dress. Her motives were out of her own personal gain of seeing Jason in pain. In fact, she even kills her own two children. No person in their right mind would kill their kids. These events Medea did caused her fall to an anti-hero as well as a break in tradition at the time.
Greek tradition in her time was that women's roles were to have kids and do chores, lacking a say in their relationship with their husband. Jason left Medea but Medea couldn't legally do anything about it. Her angry demeanor to the situation does speak out against her status as a woman. Naturally, a woman would be very angry if their husband cheats on them. However, the way she acted was unjustifiable. Jason's wife-to-be dies due to Medea's poisonous gifts along with Creon who got stuck to his daughter. Also Medea stabs her own children before she fles from Corinth. There is a fine line between anger and causing havoc with it; Medea crosses the line. Therefore, she is guilty of planned murder and being an anti-hero.

Jason the Anti-Hero

As Jason and the Argonauts progressed, it became more clear that Jason was an anti-hero due to his selfishness, but one moment stood out in particular. Many years ago, his father the rightful king was killed by King Pelias. Fast forward to the quest for the Golden Fleece when Jason got into a sword fight with Acastus over how to approach King Aeetes about the Golden Fleece. Jason's greed for the throne and the Fleece got in his way and he wanted to kill Acastus, who was son of King Pelias. He wanted revenge for his father's death. Although Jason forced Acastus to jump overboard, Acastus was still alive. Normal heroes weren't greedy, fought against friends, or out for revenge. However Jason was as well as Two Face, also known as Harvey Dent from The Dark Knight.
Harvey Dent (Two-Face) was the district attorney of Gotham. He wanted to take down the Joker, however that changed when his girlfriend Rachel Dawes was killed from a bomb explosion due to the Joker. Death turned both him and Jason to darker heroes. After that, he wanted dead the people he deemed responsible for the death of his girlfriend. That was simaliar to how Jason wanted Pelias dead. In fact, he attempted to kill James Gordan, Gordan's son, and Batman with the fate of their lives up to a single coin flip. On the other hand Jason got into a fight with the son of King Pelias, Acastus. Both of those heroes were driven to digress by their lust for revenge and selfish wants.

Hero Blog: The Keys to the Kingdom

Arthur Penhaligon is the hero in The Keys to the Kingdom series by Garth Nix, who so happens to fit in the monomyth cycle. He almost dies in the very beginning of the series from an asthma attack, but receives the Minute Hand from a stranger which let him live longer. The Minute Hand is an elixir for it is an object with a healing ability. An elixir is not the only part of the monomyth cycle though. In his travels in another realm, he meets a girl with the name Suzy Turquoise Blue who helps him navigate around the realm. Suzy is a helper because she is loyal and helps Arthur out quite often. Many monsters come after Arthur at his school and he has to defend himself. This ordeal is crossing the threshold because the monsters make him aware of an adventure. The monomyth cycle applies to Arthur like Sigurd and Theseus, the heroes we have read about.

Norse Mythology and the Present

Both society today and Norse Mythology have a fascination with the end of the world. Norse Mythology mentioned a day when humans and gods alike would die called Ragnarok. A great battle would occur between good and evil, which would destroy the world. Today society has created different versions of how the world could end compared to the Norse Mythology version. In the movie 2012, the Earth's crust cracked open which killed tons of people. The whole world froze over rapidly in The Day After Tomorrow. Although neither of these hypothesises of the end of the world are similar to the one in Norse Mythology, all 3 ways involved our planet's destruction in some way. People in the past and present have made up methods of how life could come to its end.

Theme Blog: Loneliness

Loneliness is inevitable with the loss of someone important to them. This idea is shown in the YouTube video "Seether - "Broken" feat. Amy Lee (Official Video)". The guy was away from his girlfriend for a long period of time. When he returned to his trailer park neighborhood, he found it was destroyed. His girlfriend was dead too and he missed her dearly, but he didn't think that she loved him anymore just because she was dead. She still loved him, however due to her death she was separated from her love. Both of them wanted to ease the loss of their love, but death's divide kept them from each other. They felt incomplete without their soul mate, which made lonliness set in.

Like the boyfriend and girlfriend, George, Candy, and Curley also unmask loneliness due to the loss of someone important to them in Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men. Candy missed his old dog after he owned him since he was a pup when Carlson killed him. The two had been together for the dog's entire life. Curley grieved the loss of his wife when he found her dead since Lennie accidently killed her. Although they were married for only a few weeks, his love for her was cut short. George began to deal with loneliness after he killed Lennie to spare him from Curley's punishment. They had been together from job to job many times for quite a while before Lennie was killed by George. Curley, George, and Candy all suffered from loneliness from their losses. Their loneliness arose when what was most improtant to them was stripped away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfOYufGFiZg

Racism Blog

http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/1102502/PNG-demands-apology-for-Obama-slur

American political satirists are wanted by tribesmen from Papua New Guinea to give an apology. A picture was made of a traditional costume in their country with President Obama wearing it. Citizens of Papua New Guinea feel insulted and are willing to travel to New York to prove they aren't witchdoctors. According to HGA lawyer Alfred Kaibe, "It borders on racism, to us and the US president."
I don't think it's funny to make our president look like an African witchdoctor. To me it's surprising that 3 years ago, Boris Johnson, now a former British Conservative MP and mayor of London, "linked the country [Papua New Guinea] with 'cannibalism and chief-killing". I agree that the image made was racist. Also, I found surprising that an Exxon Mobil liquefied natural gas project could be in trouble because of this.
Like To Kill a Mockingbird, this article also has racism against Africans. Tom Robinson was wrongly accused of raping Mayella Ewell just because he's black. People in Papua New Guinea are made to be witchdoctors because of the picture created. They aren't witchdoctors nor is our president and Tom didn't rape Mayella. Just because they're black doesn't mean they're bad people.

Blog Assignment: Understanding Kohlberg

Tonight I watched the season premiere of Survivor: Samoa. I decided to analyze Russell from the Foa Foa tribe. Survivor has two tribes (teams) made of ten ordinary American civilians each. They're stuck living on an island for 39 days and during that time they compete for rewards and immunity. The tribe that loses an immunity challenge is forced to vote 1 person off their tribe from the game. At the end of the 39 days, 2 people remain out of 20 and some outcasts vote for who will win a million dollars. Russell was trying to figure out what to do in the tribe. He decided to dump out all the water canteens while the rest of people in his tribe were asleep. When he made the choice, Russell was at Level 1 and Stage 1 of Kohlberg's theory. This is because Russell felt the need to toy with his tribe mates. He doesn't believe that he will get caught with messing with the tribe. However, if he does get caught, it could cost him the million dollars.