Category: Television/streaming serials

Percy Jackson Disney+ Episode 7

At last we reach the Underworld. ***Major Spoilers Ahead*** because the episode sort of peeved me. I feel as grouchy as a three-headed guard dog, although the episode definitely had its pluses as well.

Cerberus by William Blake

Two big things that leap out at me are the flying shoes and the pearls.

First the shoes. Perhaps I’ve overlooked something, but as far as I remember (or can tell by glancing back through critical moments of the episodes) Luke gave Percy the shoes and then that was it for them. When Percy learns about the dangers of him taking to the air (the perfect moment to hand them over to Grover to use – and the moment when he did so in the book), nothing arises (so to speak) about the flying shoes. He never, as far as I can tell, gives them to Grover in the Disney+ series. Grover – before this episode – has never used them, even in places where he did in the book (which worked well as establishing them with Grover and underscoring Luke’s betrayal). But now that they are needed for the major plot point of that betrayal, Grover uses them early in the episode as the only groundwork for the later crucial scene. I assume something in an earlier episode that would have set this up hit the cutting room floor, but still it feels sloppy to me. 

Speaking of Grover and sloppy (or should I say slobbery), Percy distributes the pearls right away in the episode and Grover loses his when briefly eaten by Cerberus (or at least caught in his mouth before emerging covered in slobber). Not Grover’s fault, as Percy assures him when he hands over another pearl to Grover, but still I hated they made Grover the heavy for Percy’s later mom-dilemma. Given how they’ve set up the uncaringness of the gods, this felt at first unnecessary. But then Poseidon showed up in the episode (more on that below). Nevertheless, thus the problem of the fourth pearl was solved. 

So if the stomach acids of Cerberus dissolve the pearl, will he find himself suddenly in the ocean? 

I loved the grove of Asphodel and the soul-trees of regret (very Vergilian Field of Mourning with its myrtle grove), but was sorry to have Annabeth pulled out of the Underground before the big action at Tartarus got going. Actually, I hated it. Having her there for the pit and a witness for what is really going on felt important. Plus she is a fun and central character. And nothing arose that would benefit from her absence. Why?? I’m sort of miffed. 

And having Percy find the master bolt not in the palace of Hades also cut out some great moments from the books when Hades knows it’s there and Percy doesn’t. But in this episode Hades doesn’t want the bolt (at least not until he hears about Kronos and feels the need for a defense).

On the other hand, I love Hades the character in this episode. Very different than in the books, but as with Ares, a real upgrade in personality. And I’ve never liked the whole Hades must be unhappy with his lot bit (and thinking in the book that he wants a war to increase his kingdom never made any sense – 100% of the mortal population will end up down there with or without war). I like a Hades who likes his kingdom. The H gods (Hermes, Hephaestus, and Hades) are really the best of the lot in this series in terms of humaneness. 

Poseidon also gets a H for human-feeling.  The whole flashbacks to Sally taking Percy to a boarding school (fabulous job by Azriel Dalman as young Percy) set up a drawing in of Poseidon as a good guy (good god). How Sally knows so much about the gods’ family is still a question.

Percy Jackson Disney+ Episode 6

Our heroes reach Las Vegas and the Lotus Casino. I continue to enjoy this adaptation. In many ways, it’s a delight that they change things up from the books. The social-emotional aspects gain some nuance over the books. And the heroes continue to be smarter than in the books. ***Usual Spoiler Warning***

Lotus (and Papyrus) capital of a column

When the heroes reach the Lotus Casino, they immediately think of Odysseus and the Lotus Eaters, so are no lured into the complacency they had in the books. They simply make the mistake of thinking if they don’t eat anything they’ll be fine. That doesn’t work out for them.

There are a number of other differences, beginning with the fact that Ares sent them to the Lotus Casino specifically to meet with Hermes. But I’ll leave most aside here. The big change takes place off the coast of Santa Monica. I’ll also leave aside that Poseidon supposedly came to meet Percy there, but could wait for him since they were held up in the Casino, and that Poseidon leaves the message that he should just give up.

The pearls were my WTF moment. Percy is given four pearls instead of three! And is explicitly told their use is “Each will provide one of you safe passage back from the Underworld… Save the world and then go save your mother.” Percy’s whole dilemma in the books was leaving his mother behind while getting the lightning bolt back to Olympus on time. And, as the prophecy foretold, failing to save what matters most in the end.” I’ll be intrigued to see how this plays out.

Percy Jackson Disney+ Episode 5

I continue to enjoy the series and the departures it chooses to make, but as with the earlier appearance of Stinky Gabe, I wonder how they will resolve some of the consequences of the changes. ***Spoilers ahead, of course***

Annabeth continues to delight. Some of Percy’s attitude with Ares seems shifted over to her. And Ares himself is great. Grover stays behind with Ares as a hostage, rather than going with the other two, and does a good job of discreetly pumping the god for info. In the process, we get a bigger look at the god and his insecurities. Some wonderful lines are exchanged. My favorite is when Grover asks if Athena has always made “things more complicated than they need to be so that people will think she’s smarter than you.” Ares responds, “Thank you! I can’t be the only one who sees it, right?”

The series also again avoids the kids being slow on the uptake. Rather than seeing all the Greek capital Etas and only belatedly realizing they stand for Hephaestus (Ἥφαιστος), they know the park is his domain immediately (but the park being actually his domain – rather than just a place that he laid a trap in -does raise the issue of a god trespassing on another god’s domain without permission, something the PJ world building says is not allowed [although it matches Hephaestus catching Ares and Aphrodite in bed in The Odyssey], but perhaps Aphrodite as H’s wife can bring Ares into H’s domain??). I actually loved that the resolution relies not on conflict/action, but on emotional growth. It also gave a chance for a surprise early appearance of Hepheestus himself and makes him out to be one of the more likable Greek gods so far.

Which brings me to the big change that I’m interested in where it’s going. While Luke gave Percy the flying high top’s, Percy didn’t yet know about his not being able to fly/go into Zeus’ realm and that reason for he himself has not been discussed (that I recall). In the book, Grover thus wears them and uses them to help Percy and Annabeth both at Medusa’s place and in the water park. Neither of those things has happened. So the shoes have played almost no role. Which seems like a minor change, except they are the core of Luke’s betrayal of friendship – something big enough to merit a line in the prophecy and the foundation for a central conflict throughout the first five books. To relegate the shoes to the background, to having almost no role… Well, it leaves me wondering how this will play out in terms of the Luke-Percy betrayal of friendship. But onwards!

Percy Jackson (Disney+) Episode 4

Another good episode. I won’t mention much, ***MILD SPOILERS AHEAD ALERT*** but I do want to highlight Percy’s speech to Annabeth on unconditional love (shout out to Sally Jackson who, in this universe, raised Percy with a healthy understanding of what parental love should look like) and how what the gods are asking for (very conditional “love”) is wrong. Great SEL moment for the young viewers.

I also appreciated the observation by Echidna,

Monster. It’s an odd word, considering my grandmother is your great-grandmother, and this has always been a family story.

It’s not only all one big family feud, but clearly the winners get to define who’s a monster and who’s not. Echnida goes on to say that

To my eye, the demigod is the more dangerous creature. Disruptive. Violent. If I exist for anything, it is to stand in the way of monsters like you.

Along the same lines, the parallels between Medusa in the last episode and Annabeth’s situation in this episode were downright poetic.

Okay, I guess I did have a few things I wanted to highlight.

Expanding the periodic table

I have this vague memory of a time when Superman became too powerful. He just overwhelmed his own stories. The writers even found a way to get rid of all the kryptonite on Earth. Mistake. Power always needs some balancing for narrative. Some imbalance drives a story. Too much imbalance kills a story. Thus Superman needs kryptonite (and more fell to Earth/was mined from the moon). But not too much kryptonite! I’ve since read this was the motivation for transmuting kryptonite into iron – it seemed like every corner-store robber could have a stash and the writers had to find a way to limit the amount around, lest the imbalance become too great in the other direction.

Fictional elements like kryptonite can play a great role in SFF, but must be employed with care. In my first novel, I didn’t need to invent a fantastic new metal because the events occur during the period when iron was first steeled in the Mediterranean/SWANA regions, allowing it to move from merely a decorative element to weapons grade. A few characters have weapons from this innovative imported metal, giving them an advantage.

But many other fantastical worlds have their own fictional elements that feed into the plot in wonderful – or not so wonderful ways. In addition to find ways check the power of the fictional element, one must also be sure to make them “realistic,” i.e. that the properties are coherent and make sense, and that they serve an inherent function, something that moves them beyond plot devices/macguffins to organic parts of the world building.

This list could be much, much longer, but here are some that came to mind and how their potential power (and thus power imbalances) are handled:

  • Mithril (Tolkein’s Middle Earth) and Beskar (Star Wars, esp. The Mandalorian): Both are prized weapons-grade metals that gives the wearer or wielder a great advantage in battle. In both these cases, the mines from which the metals come now lie out of reach for one reason or another.
  • Dilithium (Star Trek) and Kyber crystals (Star Wars) are both crystalline structures used as power sources for matter/antimatter reactors and light sabers (and Deathstars) respectively. Both are rare. Dilithium cannot be synthesized at a quality level beyond the most rudimentary uses, leaving natural dilithium in demand. The main source of Kyber crystals was first taken over by the Empire and its successor the First Order, then destroyed by the Resistance/New Republic.  But while the Empire controlled the kyber’s main source, it led to a plot-driving imbalance of power (the Death Star and its successors).
  • Adamant (Classical Mythology)/Adamantine (various)/ Adamantium (Marvel Comics and MCU): the strongest, most indestructible metal alloy.   The secrets of this alloy are tightly controlled, thus limiting its occurrences (also at some point, vibranium becomes a component, further limiting it).
  • Vibranium (Marvel Comics/MCU: I hesitate to admit, I have issues with vibranium. I mean, what can’t it do at this point? Fantastic weapons-grade metal, power source (and storage of power as it absorbs and returns power), sound-dampener, mutagen, medicinal. I’m sure the list could go on. It’s become a little much for my taste. But limited in that it has an extra-terrestrial origin and Wakanda and Talokan have a near monopoly on it due to a meteor strikes.
  • Unobtanium (from Cameron’s Avatar movies): I always thought the name unimaginative and that Cameron should have just called it MacGuffinite, but apparently there is some engineering history to the name (see Wikipedia). But its very rareness more than any property inherent in it is the main plot driver and thus does seem a macguffin.
  • Celestial Bronze/Imperial Gold/Stygian Iron/Bone Steel (Rick Riordan’s YA myth books): The first three are rare (bronze mined by cyclopes on Mt. Olympus; gold consecrated in Ancient Rome/tempered in the River Styx) but also limited in their powers (the bronze and gold can’t hurt normal mortals; the iron could but can be only be wielded by the off spring of Hades). The gold also has the danger of exploding. Bone steel has a real history, with bones being used by Vikings for the carbon in the steeling process. I’m not sure it has the same limitations as the bronze and gold, but all four are useful against Demi-gods, monsters, and gods. In a way, they level the playing field rather than imbalancing it. And a brief shout out to stygian ice, which can only be made with the River Styx, is hard to craft, and shatters after one use.

Those were the first to jump to my mind. Do have favorite fictional elements from your own reading/viewing? Have you created some of your own? If so how have you handled them?

Percy Jackson (Disney+) Episode 3

Happy New Year! 🥳 Tomorrow, back to a writing post, but today is just for fun (not that writing isn’t fun). I am quite enjoying the Disney+ Percy Jackson series and where they choose to stay faithful to the books and where they choose to change it up. ***Standard Spoiler Warning: spoilers for episode and book hereafter***

Annabeth has a little more feistiness to her. She and Percy start off a little more antagonistic. Percy even confesses the rest of the oracle to them (something he keeps secret in the book) and says he chose Annabeth because he could never see her calling him friend, therefore she’d not betray him (as the oracle predicts that he’ll be betrayed by one who calls him friend). And their friendship forms more naturally. Not Annabeth looking for “The One” as in the books, nor through Grover’s attempt at a consensus song (ha!), but through shared hardships and choices, through recognizing shared values in one another.

The character’s are also less stupid – they recognize who Auntie Em is immediately. And Grover has no difficulty in recognizing his now-petrified Uncle Ferdinand. I love that they find Medusa in the Pine Barrens – and Percy’s comment that he didn’t expect a forest in NJ (another ha!).  If you don’t know the 1.1 million acre Pinelands National Reserve that stretches across 7 counties in NJ, it’s worth checking out!

But I digress. Medusa was always a difficult character for the book to handle. In the book, Medusa discusses Poseidon as her “boyfriend.” The book for middle schoolers could have hardly discussed rape, let alone Poseidon, the father of our protagonist, as a violent serial rapist (as he is in myth). The Disney series makes a number of changes. Besides moving away from her as a “Middle Eastern” woman in what seems to be a burqa in the books, she is given a sort of 1930s hat with a veil that covers her eyes. In the show, Medusa had been an ardent worshipper of Athena, who received no response, not even an omen (perhaps even a daughter of Athena, given how she says to Annabeth “I was you”). Poseidon came along and appeared to her and declared his love. Athena said this embarrassed her, so punished Medusa (which Medusa calls out as victim blaming). Medusa doesn’t simply love Percy as the son of Poseidon and hate Annabeth as the daughter of Athena. She takes the more complex attitude that we aren’t our parents, unless we choose to be. Medusa also parallels herself to Percy’s mother – another beloved of Poseidon who has suffered for it. She may have had him there, if she hadn’t suggested that he sacrifice Grover and Annabeth.

The show again and again focuses on the choices each character is making. And it nicely develops the tension around the relationship between mortal heroes and gods through the mortals/humans choices vs. being puppets of the gods.  Looking forward to episode 4.

Percy Jackson: Episodes 1-2

The new Percy Jackson series is off to an excellent start. I love the move from movie adaptations of books to series, where there is the time and space to do a book justice. They’ve done a nice job of balancing fidelity to the series with letting it be its own story in a new medium.***Spoilers Warning for the book/tv series*** Read no farther if you have read/watched and don’t want any spoilers.

One departure that I’m curious as to where it is going is with Smelly Gabe. There’s been no mention of his smelliness that I’ve caught (though Sally uses the demi-god smells on Percy’s coat to lure the Minotaur away from him, so odors still important). Gabe in the streaming series is more isolated – instead of playing poker with friends, he is playing on-line; Eddie the building supervisor doesn’t like him; he is unemployed (I guess there will be no Percy offering on TV discounts at Gabe’s appliance store). Sally Jackson, Percy’s mom, is an even stronger character than in the books, but that also changes the power dynamics in their relationship. Gabe had been physically abusive in the books. In the streaming series, Sally forces him to say please in a nice way by threatening to leave peppers off a sandwich and not come home to watch the Knicks with him. He seems pleady, not abusive. Given this change, I’m wondering how they will end their marriage. Having Sally (not to mince words) kill him with the Medusa head (or if you prefer, change him into a valuable artistic statue with the Medusa head) as she did in the books seems like it would move from a morally grey area (given his violence towards her, we could understand it as self-defense) straight into wrongness.

Another change is that Percy has been seeing through the mist all his life and been told it was just his imagination. Thus, Sally’ not telling him about his demi-god identity until now feels more gaslighty than it did in the books (where it was just an omission, not a denial of his own senses).

In general, the casting is great. Jason Mantzoukas as Dionysos is fantastic! I loved him as Derek in The Good Place. He has the comic chops to carry off the fine line Mr. D. walks being self-centered dick and actually a good guy.  Glynn Turman as Chrion/Mr. Bremmer, I’ll admit, left me with feeling of the Magical Black Man trope – a trope so pervasive that it has it’s own movie now. His character has always been the wise, old advisor to heroes fulfilling their destinies, a special civilized centaur among his wild, savage brethren, so the character had the potential to fit a little too smoothly into the trope with this casting.

But Annabeth (Leah Sava Jeffries), Percy (Walker Scobell), and Grover (Aryan Simhadri) are all superb and I am really enjoying Charlie Bushnell’s portrayal of Luke and Dior Goodjohn as Clarisse. Annabeth’s introduction is slower – Luke and Chiron take over much of her camp tour duties. But I like what I’ve seen of her. And I like the view we get of her as well as her and Luke’s relationship through Luke’s eyes. Annabeth seems to figure out faster (than in the books) who Percy’s father is  (and unlike in the book) smiles when it is confirmed (rather than worrying about the rivalry between Athena – her mother – and Poseidon – Percy’s father).

Making Meaning

Studies have shown that a purpose driven life contributes to one’s overall happiness. Just to cite one article (from Forbes):

Purpose contributes to happiness—when participants in a study felt a greater sense of purpose, they tended to feel more positive emotions—specifically contentment, relaxation, enthusiasm and joy. And they felt less angry, anxious, sluggish or sad. They also reported greater satisfaction with life and overall wellbeing.

The NIH also has a nice article on its affects on health.

Purpose arises both from ourselves – our own personal meaning making – and from beyond ourselves. (This is all coming back to writing and world building, eventually).

Existentialism speaks to how we as individuals must give meaning to our lives. To quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

we are always in the process of making or creating who we are as our life unfolds. This means our essence is not given in advance; we are contingently thrown into existence and are burdened with the task of creating ourselves through our choices and actions.

…

we are free and responsible for who we are and what we do. This does not mean we are wholly undetermined but, rather, that we are always beyond or more than ourselves because of our capacity to interpret and give meaning to whatever limits or determines us.

…

Existentialists are critical of our ingrained tendency to conform to the norms and expectations of the public world because it prevents us from being authentic or true to ourselves. An authentic life is one that is willing to break with tradition and social convention and courageously affirm the freedom and contingency of our condition. It is generally understood to refer to a life lived with a sense of urgency and commitment based on the meaning-giving projects that matter to each of us as individuals.

…

a moral or praiseworthy life is possible. It is one where we acknowledge and own up to our freedom, take full responsibility for our choices, and act in such a way as to help others realize their freedom.

While existentialists would reject that notion of external essence/meaning, still I think some of this would match, e.g., the Quakers who listen for that small still voice within (God/the Light), who strive to live with integrity, being true to the self and that inner Light/voice.

I think also of the prophet in Nevil Shute‘s  Round the Bend, who operates in a Muslim/Buddhist tradition and says that praying 5 times a day is the absolute minimum, that every action should be an act of prayer (he tells an old legend about Moses, Muhammad, and God and reducing the required prayer times from 50 to 5). He works as an airplane mechanic and sees his work and doing it at his best is an act of prayer – he gives meaning to even the smallest of mechanical acts. His ideas also evoke the Buddist 8 Fold Path.

And there’s my transition to writing. Characters, like ourselves, struggle to make meaning in their lives. And fictional worlds, like our own, have philosophical and religious systems of belief, as well as social institutions, that people turn to or are ingrained in that help them do so. I find intriguing the different ways this plays out in fictional worlds.

In Star Trek TNG, humanity seems to have evolved (so to speak) beyond religion. Counselors take the place of chaplains, psychology rather than religion. In the episode, Sub Rosa, Beverly Crusher attends her grandmother’s funeral and we hear a governor say:

And so now we commit her body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope that her memory will be kept alive within us all.

This is a secularization of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer phrase:

We therefore commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life.

On the other hand, in Babylon 5, a multiplicity of religions shape meaning for both Terrans and Extraterrestrials. So in contrast to ST TNG,  the Babylon 5 episode TKO, Ivanova, with the encouragement of her old rabbi, finds sitting shiva helps her come to terms with her relationships with and loss of her father.

Both work, both provide grounds to positively provide meaning to the characters. One can think of works where the only meaning in a protagonist’s life just seems to be defined by their opposition to the antagonist. I think of Harry Potter. His life is defined by his (worthy) opposition to Voldemort. Christmas and Easter arise solely as breaks from school and great feasts (and present giving) but no connection back to their religious origins and meanings.  Opposing evil is, of course, important. But having one’s own meaning beyond that enriches the character.

I like how the various religions of the Force have expanded out from the Dark and Light sides to more complex and varied systems of belief (e.g. The Guardians of the Whills and Chirrut Îmwe in Rogue One).

In my own writing, religion is central to the lives of many of my characters. Prayers and sacrifices appear regularly. And the gods and goddesses do walk the world, mucking around with mortals’ lives. Yet my characters vary in how they interact with the divine. Dido is a deeply faithful woman and seeks moral conduct through religious precepts. Helenus, a prophet, has direct experience of the gods through visions, yet tries to walk his own path sometimes in opposition to divine will. And, as I wrote my first novel in this world, I realized my character Anna was an atheist. Some of my writing group questioned how she could be an atheist when the gods were real. But belief about reality and what is real are separate questions. Our experience (or lack thereof) of the divine affects our internal beliefs, not any external existence of the divine. So in the real world, there exist atheists, agnostics, spiritualists, and religious/theists. Many people have had an experience of the divine, but that doesn’t alter the reality of those who haven’t and don’t believe.

How does religion play a role – or not – in your own writing? How do your characters seek meaning in their lives?

Heroes and Happy Endings

Woohoo, a new Percy Jackson Trailer (below). It opens with an explanation of why Percy’s mother named him Perseus- he’s probably the only Greek hero with a straight up happy ending. I’d already been thinking about that topic, but this new trailer caused me to stop my mad-dash NaNoWriMo writing and write about heroes and (very few) happy endings.

Latest Percy Jackson Trailer

It was a song that got me thinking on heroes and their lack of happy endings: The Chainsmokers & Coldplays “Something Just Like This.”

Something Just Like This

To quote the opening:

I’ve been reading books of oldThe legends and the mythsAchilles and his goldHercules and his giftsSpider-Man’s controlAnd Batman with his fistsAnd clearly I don’t see myself upon that list
But she said, where’d you wanna go?How much you wanna risk?I’m not lookin’ for somebodyWith some superhuman giftsSome superheroSome fairy-tale blissJust something I can turn toSomebody I can kiss
I want something just like this

Obviously the opening caught my Greek-myth loving attention. And I thought the unnamed female interlocutor was one smart woman. If you want a happy, healthy relationship, avoid the superheroes! (Omitting for now the line that she also doesn’t want some fairytale bliss -which I also get. There’s no happily ever after, though I saw some where the phrase “happy for now” in reference to story endings).

My undergraduate myth teacher, Catherine, used to claim Perseus was the only one with a happy ending because he was the only one with the passive-princess wife (Andromeda who, in very fairy tale fashion, was chained to a cliff waiting to be eaten by a monster when he rescued her). 

Archaic Corinthian vase with Andromeda, Perseus, and Ketos the sea monster

But that idea never sat well with me. I guess I’m an optimistic that two people, both with strong personalities, can form a long term happy ending. I think instead it is because Perseus gets his princess at the end of his adventures, the end of his story. He has a couple of minor adventures after picking her up, but she isn’t central in them and then his story just fades to black, so to speak.

And that’s where the happiness tends to lie in stories: at the fade to black, happy-for-now, or happily-ever-after endings. While it is great to live a happy life, it makes for boring reading. To quote Tolstoy, “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Unhappiness is a story driver – a call to action and change.  So Odysseus and Penelope suffer. Hector and Andromache suffer. Jason and Medea suffer. Helen and Menelaus, then Paris suffer. Heracles and Megara, then Deianera suffer. 

But I think that last example, Heracles, also sheds light on the unhappy lot of the hero. So often a hero is like a force of nature, say like fire. And like fire, it can be both beneficial and deadly. While the hero’s force, their violence faces outwards, against enemies, against monsters, it is a force preserving civilization. But there’s the danger that it could turn inwards. Heracles is driven mad by Hera and kills his children by Megara and possibly Megara herself. Achilles who had killed so many Trojans, in anger withdraws from the war leading to countless Greek deaths. Heroes don’t get happy lives because they are always walking a tightrope of their own natures, their own violence. Or perhaps I should say their own trauma. Like Achilles, their wounds may be more psychic than physical (I discussed Shay’s analysis of Achilles’ PTSD just a few days ago). Their experiences in war have left them (if you’ll pardon the anachronism) on a hair-trigger. They, like Odysseus, need a way to reintegrate themselves, communalize their trauma (also Shay’s work).

So there’s a lot to be said for wanting the ordinary, wanting “Something Just Like This” (to live, not tell about). Yet, still, I hold out hope that two big personalities can make a lasting, happy partnership. 

Not aging well, literary edition

Stories fail to age well in a number of ways. Social attitudes towards race, class, gender, and sexual orientation probably come forefront to mind. But recently I’ve been thinking about a different sort of not aging well. This past year, as gun violence has grown, it seems, geometrically and people are shot for knocking on the wrong door or some other innocent life activity, Robert Heinlein’s utopian vision of guns in a libertarian society has been haunting me.

Heinlein was a favorite read of mine in junior high and high school.  In his fiction, gun ownership makes for a more polite and peaceful society. In his made-up worlds, knowing that everyone is carrying kept things from escalating. Instead, in our actual reality, easy access to guns causes situations to disproportionately escalate. Situations where someone might have thrown a punch, if anything, now ends in a shooting victim. Was Heinlein just expecting everyone to act rationally, when instead people tend to react more on emotions? Did he unestimate the sense of invulnerability and power that carrying a gun instills?

I think our whole attitude towards the corrupting influence of power, specifically person physical power, has changed. The morally virtuous Superman or Captain America, a sort of innocent protecting other innocents, seems relics of the past. They do still exist and are popular (although Superman is  is more morally conflicted in the DCU movies; and while Captain America is still pure hearted in the movies, despite admiring his own ass, in the comics he’s become a coup-seeking sleeper agent of Hydra). But alongside these heroes who trace back to the Golden Age of comics, we have The Boys exploring the violent corrupting influence of superpowers.Heinlein’s fantasy of gun-ownership was the idealistic Captain America. Our reality of guns is Homelander.

But the romance of the earlier tales in which guns lead to a polite, peaceful society still influence our society in unhelpful ways. The well-regulated part of of the 2nd amendment seems to have fallen away. Sensible regulations are being cut down everywhere. I remember when I first taught high school in Texas, the law said you couldn’t bring guns or ammo to a school or a facility where a school was holding an event. Sensible. Now, some assert the belief that even teachers should be armed. That a vigilante society where every person is armed to defend themselves and prepared to take the law into their own hands is better than a society of laws and civil protection.  That more guns will make us safer, rather than less safe.  That Heinlein’s fantasy worlds are the real world.