Gryphons

 This is a story I wrote a while ago. I hope you enjoy it. 

The Gryphon of the Sun

High into the void of space, there dwells a powerful race...

They glide within the darkness, facing boldly into the sun. Their talons can't be stopped by man, their skin can't be pierced, but by the claws and beaks of their own kind... 

It is the Gryphons! 

Long ago, their folk inhabited earth, keeping their lairs in mountains and canyons. One of them rose above them all, and with his perfidy he changed for ever their destiny. 

Shamza was a stout and stubborn being. In Egypt, where his lair was laid, he spied upon the rising human race. 

Fascinated with their scientific progress, he went to study their cultures. His attempts were met with disdain from the people, who feared his intensity and power. 

But among the people of the river, the builders of Pyramids, he found his true companions. Obsessed with mankind, and mesmerized by their religions, Shamza took his family and lived within them. 

He and his son, whom he loved, studied the race of men with dedication, rejoicing at their advances and feeling compassion at their mistakes. 

But as time passed, Shamza lost peace. His curiosity quickly overpowered him. He could not stop; as the drunkard for the beer, and as the dog for the last bit of flesh, the more he got the more he wanted. 

 Concerned by his greedy approach to knowledge, they warned him about the darkest of human sciences: Magick! 

Stay away, they said, from the mysteries of entities, and from their deceitful caverns protect your mind. 

But curiosity kept rushing through his blood. One day, his son became deadly sick. Desperate and impatient, he  sought that which was forbidden to him. 

The Magick took over him, and its dark mysteries fascinated him more than anything else. But for his curiosity he paid a massive price. 

For within the books of magick he met beings more powerful than himself, spirits of fear and terror, and of madness...

... And indeed madness consumed him, for whom the demons wanted to destroy, they first drove mad.

Driven by his intense passion he directed himself to his people. Together with his son, he spoke. 

He called himself a god, a savior of mankind, and the gryphons, and a chosen one to the sun, whom he worshipped as prime being. 

But the gryphons rejected him, for they worshipped and feared exclusively one God, the God of all things. 

He said, proudly: Why do you fail to understand me? I will bring great glory to all beings. 

But the Gryphons replied: The warning has fallen in deaf ears: therefore with deaf ears we receive your message. 

And Shamza and his followers fought the other gryphons, and blood upon blood and claws upon claws he drove his enemies into the darkness of the skies.

Shamza glorified himself: "You have failed to destroy me! You have failed to bring me down! I am bright and my brightness has blinded you, submit or be exiled. 

But the monarch of the gryphons stood firm and said: The slave-master wants us to suffer, and wants us to go into the stars. But the sun you worship, will never bring you the omnipotence you crave for...

For behold, your son has died today, during the last battle! Behold his wounded ribs, and his twisted gaze. Indeed, he has died in the war of your own making! 

To the sight of the corpse the Gryphon of the Sun lost all hope, and the gryphons left him in the utmost of misery. 

See if the Sun can bring your son back to life. There we will see whose religion is stronger. 

Shamza had won the war, but he had lost his soul. Driven further into melancholy, he and his friends took a desperate choice. They travelled to the sun, gliding intensely into the ether.

One by one, his followers were dying, and their bones were cast upon the vacuum of space, but Shamza kept pushing. 

One by one, the followers famished, but Shamza kept gliding boldly into the sun. 

One by one, the followers left him alone, but Shamza never surrendered. 

He kept pushing forward, but the more he pushed, the sun kept pushing further, and he was always away from the star he dearly loved. 

But that was futile too. 

Viciously blinded, and greatly weakened, Shamza perished miserably as he prayed for the life of his son. 

Meanwhile, the Gryphons of space survived and thrived, feeding exclusively upon the fires of the mighty star. 

Disney World's Discordian Villains Rennivation

Disney Parks have been in a bit of a rough shape. Financial flops in the box office and the corona lockdowns have g reduced the power of the company, and while the damage might have been exaggerated by some anti-woke channels online, it is clear that they are having problems. 

My personal favorite is the creepy Walt Disney animatronic that malfunctioned in front of the audience a few days ago. 

In an attempt to save the Parks, Disney has taken into their hands to exploit their fan's pockets, charging a lot for often underwhelming products. This is not just the fault of Disney and the executives, it is also the responsibility of people who are willing to pay so much money just because something belongs to Disney. 

They are also planning plenty of renovations in their parks. One of them is the purpose of this post: Villains Land. 

You see, Magic Kingdom is divided in different areas, each themed to something. Disney executives decided to theme an entire new area of this park to none other than the Villainous miscreants of their movies. The area will have, under completion, stores, shows and two rides. 

There is nothing more discordian than gloryfing characters who represent evil. Some of these antagonists are especially vicious. From Mephistophelean figures like Ursula and Maleficent to sexual predators like Frollo, projects like this are really telling about the state of American nihilism. 

One of these villains is quite literally, the devil. His name is Chernabog, some sort of demon that appears in Fantasía's "Night on the Bald Mountain" scene. 

Chernabog (aka Czernobog) is originally some sort of evil god from Slavic mythology, albeit this claim is contested within the experts. Will Disney dare to dedicate a ride to this entity? Probably not, but he is part of the official Disney Villains list and receives his very own merchandising.

Ironically, some of this villains reflect values quote different from Disney's values. We have Gaston, a macho man who harasses women; Governor Ratcliffe, a british colonialist who loves gold and hates native Americans; and Dr. Facilier, whose crime is being an African-American antagonist in a post-George Floyd world. 

It is clear that the company never intended these people to be role models, only antagonists for their protagonists to overcome. However, when you covet upon a star, things happen. Disney exploits the popularity of these characters with multiple items like Board Games, merchandise, and now their own theme park region. 

I believe this is likely an attempt to pander to the alphabet crowd. You see, most of the male villains are effeminate and many homos identify with them. Other people think it's an attempt to compete with Universal, who recently opened a new park with a (similarly Discordian) area themed to classical Halloween monsters. 

Whatever their specific intentions were, I found it quite interesting how Disney and akin companies can influence the culture with their amusement parks, and this is but one example of cringe crony capitalism, Disney "storytelling" (aka cringe), and the state of judeo-american value$. 

Horror Movie Novus Ordo Priest Cringes his way to Hell 💀

 In the last News Digest published by Novus Ordo Watch a link was shared to an article on which a novus ordo jesuit priest claimed to examine the spiritual dimension of horror movies. A "theology of horror" if you will. 

It is always very interesting to me how some believers think they can find Jesus in pop culture. I wished to offer my thoughts on the article, and explain to you why I think "Fr." Roy Dun misses the mark. 

Horror Considered on Itself:

Horror is a genre for storytelling aimed at scaring people and/or make them feel uncomfortable. The buildup of intense feelings is relieved at the end and often leaves a pleasant sensation, known as catharsis. 

There are two aspects of consideration in horror: 

The horror aspect aims at making you feel disgust and abhorrence for what you see.

The terror aspect aims at raising your adrenaline levels and provoke the sensation of fear.

Having said this, it is important for our discussion to consider the effect of horror in the person. The greatest majority of people should be able to watch horror movies without endorsing anything of what they see. However, it is often forgotten that in fiction the writer might accidentally glorify something by the mere act of showing it on screen. 

This happens if you show people killing themselves: those vulnerable to despair of their own lives will often imitate what they see fictional characters do. I don't understand how anyone would want to play with a Ouija board after seeing The Exorcist or any possession movie, but they do it and experience suggests these stories are not helping. Exposing viewers to things that normally would not even cross their minds might help to dilute the lines of good and evil and turn you into a nihilist. 

Another thing to consider is the violence. While ridiculously over-the-top gory movies might not incite you to hurt other people, the unstable, the impressionable and the young might start believing violence is something to love. Even among those who do not develop the wish to harm others, the violence they have consumed might facilitate aggression against their very own selves. We should not forget those who learn to genuinely enjoy violence by exposing themselves to it. 

The final element I would like to mention is the morbidity element. It is the unspeakable feel that you need to know "how bad" something really is. This is dangerous because is a manifestation of risky curiosity; there are some things you really don't want to know and that are quite frankly useless. This is not to condemn the genre per se, only to point out its risks. 

Horror and "Conservative"

The jesuit "Fr." Dun attempts to defend horror movies by calling the genre itself "conservative"

Here, he is claiming the movies are conservative because they remind people that they are "small" (ie; there is something greater than themselves and their planet) but such doctrine is not unique to conservatism. The problem of calling something "conservative" is that this word is an umbrella term used to define people of radically different ideologies. Furthermore, even "leftists" can believe there is something greater than themselves, like new atheists for example. Have you never seen them talking about quantum? 

Furthermore, this idea can be found in some horror movies, but forgive me if I don't see the transcendental on a dude with a lame Halloween mask killing blonde girls. 

Dun also says horror movies are conservative because the protagonists have "shared values" with us and the viewers supports the victims, not the monsters. 

Claiming that this makes horror movies "conservative" is laughable, because even if you root for the victims you still see how they get mutilated or killed in ridiculous fashion. Some horror movies are so poorly acted / done that any feeling of empathy for the victims is null. 

This is even more insulting if you know anything about writing stories.

You see, the best horror movies are not the scariest or the darkest, they are the ones that are well written. And in order to have a well written movie, you need to help the audience to empathize with the characters. If you empathize with the characters, you will want to stay just to see how they survive the monster. One easy way of making this possible is to give the characters values similar to those of the audience. Plus, what "shared values" are we talking about? Killing innocent people is bad? Life is worth living? None of this values is strictly conservative. 

Dun also attempts to claim horror movies for the right by claiming that horror movies are about the restoration of order. However, this belief is not unique to conservatives either! Does anyone think this idea would be repudiated by the Chinese Communist Party? Also, has this guy never heard of Stephen King? To say that man hates religion and conservatives is an understatement. 

You see, the movie gives the message the writers want to give; if the writers are progressivists, the movie will have this elements therein. 

+ Carrie, for example, implies the disturbing behavior of the titular character is partially caused by her religious mom.

+ A movie was recently released about a gay kid with homophobic parents who is haunted by an entity.

+ The lore of Jurassic Park is rooted in a naturalistic setting. No one condemns the dinosaurs because of the laws of God, but because of the laws of nature, which wasn't necessarily created. 

+ In The Exorcist we see a profaned image of Mary. No real conservative catholic would do this. 

+ In Alien Prometheus, we are told that humans were created by an alien bodybuilder who drank black fungi and disintegrated into the water bodies of earth. 

+ Let us also not forget those movies were scary nuns kill people

He also failed to consider that just because the characters are trying to restore order doesn't mean they will get it. In some horror movies, the story is centered on a world where rules are only an illusion and nothing ever matters. Blurring the lines of reality does bring unspeakable terror but I fail to see how it could teach to people that we should try to order our lives. 

Here are some examples of horror movies were "order" doesn't exist: 

+ In "Mouth of Madness" (1994), a writer somehow makes his horror entities become alive and they take over the universe, driving everyone to madness. 

+ In "Annihilation", a group of explorers visit a shimmering mist were nothing makes sense and that is why it's scary

+ In the urban legend known as "The Backrooms", a mysterious labyrinth similar to human habitations dwells "outside of reality", were plenty of rules we are used to are non-existent. 

+ The SCP foundation, an urban legend co-written by multiple people, is an organization tasked with containing anomalies who break laws of reality. (eg., The concrete statue that breaks your neck if you blink, the white man who kills anyone who sees him no matter the obstacles). A similar concept can be found in the multiplayer Lethal Company and in the Trevor Henderson creatures. 

+ In "Scream" (2006) we follow teenagers who live inside a serial killer horror movie 

+ What exactly drove Jack Nicholson to madness in "The Shining?" One of the reasons why that movie is unsettling, is because reality seems broken in Hotel Overlook. 

+ The clown Pennywise twists reality in order to scare children with their greatest fears. A similar concept happens in Event Horizon and Silent Hill. 

+ In the Lovecraft stories (and the movie adaptation), the universe was created by a massive meatball thing with eyes everywhere. It dreams reality into existence, and when it wakes up, it will be all over. The gods? All of them are like Satan. 

+ And Freddy Kruger somehow kills people in their dreams.  

There are other movies that deal less with relativism, but still order is never restored. Whether it is because of a final jumpscare or because Hollywood wants to make more money from a franchise, order barely ever returns, at least for our plucky protagonists. 

Conclusion.

Attempting to claim an entire genre of writing for a particular political group is absurd, because the writer can do whatever he wants with his stories. It is equally absurd to claim that undefined ideas of "order" "shared values" and "transcendence" make a movie worth watching. If anyone gets a good message from this movies that is fine, but let it come naturally to the normies. Forcing a "christian" message into a movie is more likely to arouse mockery rather than serious meditation. 

This will be part 1 of our critique. Stay tuned if you want to see me analyze the rest of the article.