The Care and Feeding of Your Raider, or Have You Been Playing WoW the Whole Day?

Time for another game post. I thought this time I'd talk about what goes into the process of an MMORPG raid (well, a World of WarCraft raid,s ince that's all I know) in an effort to make the process more accessible to all the significant others out there who have either become WoW widows or made their raider stop playing due to "GF aggro." Fair warning, this is pretty long.

The mysterious world of raids can largely be explained by reviewing some terminology.

Instance. All dungeons in World of WarCraft are physical places in the game world, and dungeons are one of the main focuses of action in the game. There may be several thousand people in the game world at any given time, which raises the possibility of hundreds of people descending on the same dungeon at once. This raises obvious game design problems: how could you design the monsters in the dungeon to be challenging enough for hundreds of players that wouldn't be impossible for only two or three? The conventional game design answer to this problem is to create an "instance" of the dungeon - a discreet copy for a small group of players at a time. Thus five players can go to Shadowfang Keep, and when they enter the server creates an "instance" of Shadowfang Keep in a little dimensional pocket that only those five players are in. If another five players travel to Shadowfang Keep while the first group is still inside the castle, those other five players will enter another "instance" of Shadowfang Keep.

Raid. The question now arises, how many people should be allowed inside a given instance of a dungeon? A hundred at once? Fifty? Two? In WoW, instances are divided into three categories: instances for five players ("5-mans"), ten players ("10-mans") and twenty-five players ("25-mans"). These numbers designate the number of players the instance was designed for and therefore reflect the maximum number of players that can be inside a given instance. There is nothing stopping a group from entering a 25-man instance with only two players, but they will likely find it too challenging to complete. A 25-man instance is designed to require the carefully combined and coordinated efforts of 25 players to be successful. Any instance designed for more than five players is referred to as a "raid," and a player who enters such instances on a regular basis as a "raider." (Historical Note: Before the expansion pack released last year instances were categorized as 5-man, 20-man, or 40-man. Those larger 20- and 40-man instances are still in the game world, but they're less frequented since the advent of the expansion for a variety of reasons.)

Progression. "Progression" refers to the perceived/intended curve of gameplay difficulty in the game. Conventionally, progression is benchmarked in terms of instances, or in terms of raid instances particularly. Progression is a concept that is designed into the game. That is, the fact that (say) Blackwing Lair is a more challenging instance than the Molten Core is not simply player perception. The game design intuition behind progression is to provide players with increasing challenges, so they can develop their skills on easier challenges and then be rewarded by moving on to greater challenges.

In WoW, the progression curve roughly tracks the size of an instance. Roughly speaking, all 5-man instances are easier than 10-man instances, which are easier than all 25-man instances. There is no reason inherent to the game's mechanics that this should be so, but it is a MMORPG convention dating back to EverQuest in the late 1990s. It is also, as I shall contend later in this post, a source of confusion and frustration between players and non-players.

Loot. "Loot" refers to items that a monster "drops" that is of use to a player. WoW being a game whose mechanics are mostly combative, "loot" especially refers to armor and weapons (the former term including all manner of wizardly robes and the like). This brings us to our first insight that the non-player may not find intuitive: WoW is deliberately designed so that player skill is insufficient to defeat all challenges in the game. In many video games, a sufficiently skilled player can defeat all challenges in the game without the aid of the many and various powerful tools (weapons, etc.) the game offers him. Indeed, in many video games players consider it a mark of great skill to finish the game using a bare-bones set of tools. We might call this the "Robin Crusoe" model of game design (the mightier the hero, the lesser the equipment). WoW is the opposite. In WoW (and all other MMORPGs) there are challenges that cannot be defeated no matter how good the player is; he must avail himself of ever more powerful tools. This might be for obvious reasons (e.g., he must seek out magically fire-resistant armor to slay a dragon) or for slightly less obvious reasons (e.g., he cannot, no matter how skilled the human player, defeat this knight without finding a mightier sword than the sword he has now). We might call this the "Iliad" model of game design (the mightier the hero, the mightier the equipment; even a warrior of Achilles' skill cannot face the mighty Hector without magical armor). Implicit in the game world is the understanding that some weapons and armor are just mightier than others, even if they perform exactly the same tasks. For instance, Achilles' spear is mightier than Odysseus', despite the fact that on the physical level it is just another spear; Anduril is mightier than other swords despite the fact that it inflicts its wounds through cleaving and thrusting, just like any other sword; and an Arcanite Reaper is mightier than Lord Alexander's Battle Axe despite the fact that both are just axes. Indeed, an Arcanite Reaper is mightier than a Night Reaver, despite the fact that the former is physically just an axe and the latter is an axe that shoots bolts of shadow magic. The fact that WoW requires players to seek out ever more powerful loot is one of the fundamental mechanics driving the game.

Drop. And how does one acquire loot? Some of it can be crafted by players in the game from rare and exotic materials (e.g., special metals) that those same players have plucked from dangerous mountaintops after facing many perils (albeit perils which, in general, pale beside those to be found inside an instance). Some of it can be crafted or provided by computer-controlled non-player characters for whom the player has performed some suitably epic quest. Most of the loot required to climb the progression curve's higher end is literally looted from the corpses of monsters slain in instances slightly lower on the progression curve. Such loot is referred to as "drops" (the metaphor being that the monster is clutching his prized magical breastplate in his hand, which he lets drop to the floor as he is slain). All monsters have a "loot table" of useful drops that they could drop when slain; the actual piece of loot a monster drops is determined by the game server rolling a virtual set of dice and looking up the result on the table. Frequently a given player will want only one drop from the monster's loot table - and, given the statistical nature of selecting which piece of loot will drop, that player may have to slay said monster many times before the dice come out his way. (Side Note: Don't ask me why the monsters have all these magical weapons and armor lying around to tempt passing adventurers. I never did figure out what Baron Rivendare wanted with a druid's Wildheart Kilt.)

Trash. All dungeons in WoW, following established video game tradition, are populated by two kinds of monsters (or "mobs"): bosses and not-bosses. In WoW, not-boss monsters inside an instance are referred to as "trash." This is part machismo, part recognition of the fact that bosses are the focus of any game they appear in. Being the focus of the players' efforts is part of what makes a boss a boss. The loot dropped by trash (or "trash mobs") may be helpful to a player's progression, but it is rarely vital and usually of lower quality (i.e., less mighty) than the loot dropped by bosses.

Run/Clear/Down. To "run" an instance is to go inside of it and fight the monsters therein. To "clear" an instance is to slay every monster inside of it, or at least to slay all the bosses inside of it. Because instances themselves have miniature progression curves whereby, e.g., the first boss in the instance is easier than the last, "clear" may also be used partially (as in "this week we cleared Karazhan through the Shade of Aran"). If a boss is slain, he is said to be "down" or to have "been downed," and the act of slaying him is "downing" him.

Reset. Once you have cleared a raid instance, what do you do? Can you do it again? Or are all the monsters and bosses in there dead for all time? In WoW, everything you just slew will come back to life, ready to be slain (and looted) again, in the course of time (usually on the order of once a week for most raids). This is referred to as the instance "resetting." Resets are a necessary absurdity given the statistical nature of drops and the fact that the progression curve is loot-dependent as well as skill-dependent. Suppose a player needs a particular set of magical greaves in order to successfully challenge a great leviathan, and those greaves are known to be held by an evil death knight. He can (with the help of others) slay that death knight, who may drop the player's magical greaves but could just as easily drop a wizardly robe that is (because he is not a wizard) of no use to the player whatsoever. If the death knight stayed dead, our player could not get his greaves, and would forever be barred from defeating the leviathan (whose drops he would need to face yet greater challenges afterwards). And no - for reasons which are utterly contrived, the player cannot simply rifle through the death knight's corpse and obtain all the loot that he is presumably hiding in his back pocket. Don't ask me why.

There are also "soft" resets within a raid itself. If a raid has multiple bosses inside of it, the trash preceding that boss will generally be "linked" to the boss. From the moment the first "linked" monster is engaged, the raid will be on a hidden timer (anywhere from fifteen minutes to over an hour). If the boss is not downed within that timeframe, the trash will come back to life again and the raid will have to clear it all over. However, if the boss is downed within that timeframe, his linked trash will stay dead until the entire raid instance resets. This mechanic allows players to clear a raid over several days. If a boss is downed today, the raid can come back tomorrow and waltz through the halls that only yesterday were packed full of ravening monsters, until they get to an area of the dungeon that they have not yet cleared.

So now we have all the tools to understand just what raiders do all day. In fact, you probably understand most of the dynamic already.

Let us start with the basic premise: a player and twenty-four of his friends (or at least his comrades-in-arms) desire to down some boss. For instance, this very evening my guild will attempt to down a massive magical-mechanical golem type entity known as the Void Reaver. Our raiders have various reasons for wanting to do so.* The snarky way to put it is that they want to down the boss so they can get loot to down some other boss, etc. etc. ad nauseum. And this would be true, although it's probably no more or less trivial than a football team who wants to defeat this week's opponent so they can get the rating to defeat some other team, etc. etc. ad nauseum. Another way of putting it (which would be true for the football players as well as the raiders) would be to say that this week's target presents a challenge of skill that they wish to answer, for the inherent reward and sense of accomplishment that comes from defeating any challenge, whether or not it leads to further challenges down the line.

It is a common misconception among non-players, I think, that raiding is simply a matter of logging into the game at the appointed hour, journeying to the dungeon wherein the boss resides, and sallying forth to conquer and pillage. In some cases this is true; a player will generally have reasons to visit instances that are lower on the progression curve than his current level of skill and equipment permit him to take on. These instances are "easy" to him by virtue of his skill and equipment and therefore require no extensive preparation on his part to clear. For another player, less skillful or less well geared or both, that same instance might require careful planning beforehand.

In general, raiders are most excited about attempting instances that are at the very limits of what their gear and skill allow (this is particularly true of "new content," a boss or dungeon that the group has never hazarded before). Now, whether one's equipment is mighty enough to down a particular boss is a rather complicated and involved but reasonably mechanical assessment, since many thousands of others have attempted the very same boss and with the help of the internet it is fairly easy to benefit from their experience. Whether one's skill or the skills of one's comrades are adequate is another assessment entirely, and one that is prone to egoism.

There are a number of ways in which a raid can increase its chances against a boss at the very limit of their skill/equipment envelope. One way is to browse the internet for write-ups of others' successful (or unsuccessful) attempts on that boss, or to watch videos of other raids fighting the boss, or to post questions about the boss on an online discussion forum. I have never fought the Void Reaver before, so I read an article that discusses the fight. Alternatively, a player might notice (or be told) that his skill is lacking and he is a drag on the group. This player could go online and discuss with others what he is doing wrong, or what he could be doing better. The WoW forums are full of just such questions. Forewarned is forearmed.

Another way is to craft magical potions, scrolls, and the like (even magical war drums) that the raiders will use just before engaging the boss himself. The benefit from such "consumables" is short-lived, but will effectively expand the skill/equipment envelope for the duration of the boss fight itself. The use of consumables generally increases as the group's familiarity with the boss decreases. If the guild has slain this boss a dozen times before, they may feel comfortable enough to engage in the fight without this temporary augmentation. If the boss has only been downed a few times (or never at all) the group may attempt to compensate for their lack of skill at this particular challenge by essentially temporarily augmenting their equipment. Of course, magical potions are not cheap. They require rare herbs found in the far corners of the globe, and it is no easy task to scour the far corners of the globe in search of enough herbs to provide twenty-five people with five vials of potion apiece. Some players will sell such herbs or potions on the in-game auction house (which is like eBay, except that it's a physical auction house to which one must journey). Of course, since the labor involved in getting those materials for auction is considerable, players who intend to buy their consumables must spend a considerable amount of time in the game raising money.

Finally, a group can try to improve its actual gear before the "main event," so to speak. Another more or less common misconception is that everything needed for a raid is found within the raid itself. The game could have been designed this way, but it was not. In part this is an accident of design; loot primarily intended for one instance may well be useful in six or seven. In part it is also a deliberate design decision; Blizzard wants to contribute to the epic feel of the game by making players journey across the globe to many different locations. For instance, there is an orcish warchief named Kargath Bladefist who is known to drop bracers (forearm guards) that would enhance my druidess' capabilities in her bear form (like all druids in WoW, she is a shapeshifter). Bladefist resides in a 5-man instance called the Shattered Halls, half a world away from the Void Reaver in Tempest Keep. In preparation for this evening's assault on the Void Reaver, I could have found four other players with reasons of their own to visit the Shattered Halls in an attempt to down Bladefist and get my bracers. In point of fact I tried to do exactly that, and failed to find four other players willing to make the attempt (the Shattered Halls, despite being a lowly 5-man, has a reputation for being quite challenging. One of the changes in Blizzard's design philosophy since the expansion pack has been to make 5-man instances more challenging, so players without the time or social network to coordinate 25-man raids can still have a comparable level of challenge). Even if I had, the entire attempt would have taken two to four hours. First I would have had to find four players besides myself who wanted to go. Then I would have had to find four players whose gear and skill, in conjunction with my own, would give us a reasonable chance to actually clear enough of the instance to get to Kargath (who is the final boss of the instance). And then we would have had to go do it, which would take sixty to ninety minutes for even a very well geared and skillful group.

All of this falls into the category of "preparing for the raid," and all of it, as you might imagine, takes time. And then there is the raid itself, which can take anywhere from two hours to six depending on how the group's skill/equipment envelope matches up to the raid, and how persistent the raiders are. As a general rule, a six-hour raid means the group doesn't have the chops for their target, but they may persist in the hopes of learning more about the encounter through painful experience (or simple denial). In my personal opinion a "successful" raid should take two to three hours, but others have different tolerances and expectations (others in my guild, for instance, are perfectly happy with a raid that takes four hours).

I mentioned earlier that all of this preparation may be necessary for some players to run a 5-man instance just as much as it is necessary for another, more skillful or better geared player to run a 25-man instance. This was not really true. One of the things that I think can trip couples up is how much more time and effort must be spent preparing for raids than preparing for 5-mans. The truth is that most 5-mans require very little preparation, because they are simply easier. The progression curve, in other words, is not linear. The jump in difficulty from, say, Sethekk Halls to the Shadow Labrynth (one of the more difficult 5-mans) is not nearly so great as the jump from the Shadow Labrynth to Karazhan (which these days is the first raid that most players can handle). The demands of the game change dramatically when a player begins to raid, because the game has gotten a lot harder.

As I said before, there is no particular inherent game mechanical reason why the game should get much harder in raids (Blizzard has recognized this to some extent, with the addition of "heroic" 5-man instances that are more like raids in their challenge level but still only require 5 players). Nevertheless, that's the game. Blizzard has decided that the hardest challenges its designers can come up with should be placed in a raid context. Of course, that is the very thing about raids that makes them so exciting to most raiders. Unfortunately, because those challenges require 10 or 25 other players to experience, there are significant social reasons why the game takes much more time at the raid level. Schedules must be coordinated days in advance. People log in to the game late. Some members of the raid didn't do their homework, and must have things explained to them (thereby wasting the time of all those who did do their homework, for which the explanation is redundant). And these social barriers, each of which requires time, are compounded atop the added gameplay necessity for greater preparation. I think the effects in terms of needed prep time can be confusing for those around a newly minted raider.

The raiding lifestyle is not particularly conducive to romantic (or indeed, parental) relationships, but I think that understanding it can help. And so far I've been able to maintain my relationship with Thayet without giving up raiding entirely (in fact, although my play time has decreased, my progression has increased). Based on that experience I think the main component to the "romantic raider" lifestyle is that both parties value the other and their leisure activities of choice. Thayet loves spending time with me (and I with her), but it's also important to her that I have my alone time. It's also often seemed to me that it would help many couples if they both understood what the process or raiding involves. For instance, I think you can see by now why it isn't really possible to raid without playing the game outside of the scheduled raid time; such a player would have no time to prepare and therefore could not attempt new and challenging bosses. Of course, a player could always simply refuse to prepare, and there are usually several in a given raid who have done just that. However, their slack must then be taken up by others in the group (or else the group must accept this reduction in its capabilities): others must gather the herbs that he didn't, or spend valuable time explaining the fight. That simply isn't fair to the other players, who (although it is often forgotten) are human beings with lives and schedules of their own.

On the other hand, there's a difference between playing the game because you're bored (i.e., sending the message that you value WoW more than your girlfriend) and playing the game in pursuit of some particular goal. For instance, here are some items from my WoW "to-do" list:

Journey to Nagrand and gather rare primal shadow from the demons I slay there, which I will use in an enchantment I want cast on my cloak to enhance my healing spells, and in weaving into magical armor kits and a magical ring that will help protect me from the nature-based spells I will have to face when we challenge the mighty water elemental Hydross
Journey to the Zangarmarsh to gather rare motes of life from the fungal giants I slay there, which I will use in the aforesaid ring
Journey to Terrokar Forest to gather rare primal water from the water elementals in a lake high atop a mountain, which I will use in a different ring to protect me from the frost spells that Hydross and his minions will use
Journey to the Blade's Edge Mountains to gather rare primal fire from the fire elementals there, which I will use in the second aforesaid ring
Journey to Hellfire Peninsula to kill Kargath Bladefist in the Shattered Halls until my bracers drop to enhance my bear form, needed to tank many bosses
While I'm there, invade the various portions of Hellfire Citadel to prove myself a champion of the beleaguered humans of Honor Hold, as only then will they teach me to craft a particular magical armor reinforcement, which will enhance my panther form as well as many of my team mates
Journey across the world to slay various bosses in 5-man dungeons on "heroic" difficulty mode to earn badges of justice, which I can give to the angelic na'aru in Shattrath City to prove that I am worthy of the various pieces of magical armor they give to their champions, which armor will enhance my bear form
Journey to an entirely different world to run the haunted wizard tower of Karazhan, a 10-man raid, in pursuit of various and sundry magical armor and weapons
Journey to Stormwind City (or have another character journey to Stormwind City) to find on the auction house: armor that will protect me from nature spells, armor that will protect me from frost spells, and rare gems that when cut in a particular way can be socketed into my armor to enhance its mightiness because the patch Blizzard will release in a week or two will change the way my druid benefits from particular types of enhancements
Earn money to afford the aforesaid items on the auction house

That list will get whittled down slowly, but it's important that when Thayet is busy or what have you I spend my play time working towards some specific goal, as a way of honoring the time we have to spend together. Some of the things on that list I can do on my own at any time of day in chunks of time as small as ten minutes apiece. Others will require the aid of others to run various instances over the course of hours, which I can only do at certain hours of the day (when other people likely to help me are likely to be playing the game). I think knowing and appreciating a raider's "preparation list" could help a lot of raider/non-raider couples communicate effectively about play time.

* It is another common misconception that the players will want to down some boss for a particular story-based reason. In the majority of cases (I venture to say the vast majority of cases) this is simply not true. It may have been true the first time the players attempted to down a boss; perhaps the game provided them with some story-based reason to do so. Amen amen, I say to you, it will not be true by the time they are downing him for the tenth time, or even the fifth. WoW does tell a story, but it does so in a very strange way. Imagine a storytelling medium where what the audience experiences is only evidence of what happens, or an interpretation of what happens, and from that evidence or interpretation they are supposed to construct in their imaginations what actually happens. That is how MMORPGs (indeed, most video games) tell stories. It may be important to the player's imaginative reconstruction of the story to kill Illidan Stormrage the first time. Very quickly (as quickly as the second time; or indeed, for some players, the first time), the player's only immediate motivations for killing Illidan [again] will become the gameplay challenge he presents, with no story-based motivation at all. Whether this is a failing of game design I leave to you. Personally I just find it somewhat amusing. After all, there's no story-based reason for the activities of football, or basketball, or really any other team sport. I don't consider the lack of narrative motivation a flaw in the design of those games.

Courting Me, part 2

Alexander's comment on my last post got me thinking about the problems with issue-based appeals to the Christian electorate. I'd like to postulate at the outset that there are basically two types of Christian voters. There are some Christian voters who appear to be genuinely committed to political positions for religious reasons - no gay marriage, no abortion, etc. And then there are those who are committed to doctrine - to "religious reasons" themselves, you might say.

Here's an example: suppose a politician comes up to two Christian voters and says, "I believe that gay marriage should be recognized/legalized in this [electoral region]. I appeal to your religious values to determine whether you should vote for me." Christian 1 will say, "My religious values include gay marriage; I will vote for you" or "My religious values do not include gay marriage; I will not vote for you." Christian 2 will say, "Gay marriage is an application of my religious values and not one of my religious values itself; please give me an argument." Three guesses as to which I think is the better way to be.

This is the basic trouble with issues-based religious appeals to voters, I think. Because of course I can (as discussed in the last post) vote for something I think is immoral if I consider the alternative to be worse. As a Christian, I am not concerned with individual platform planks. Any hot-button "values" voter issue you can think of is, by itself, irrelevant to me when I vote as a Christian. What is relevant to me as a Christian voter is whether any individual platform plank is more likely to promote the Kingdom of God than not. This is a much broader inquiry than the issue itself. Let us say for the sake of argument that I consider gay marriage immoral. What I want to hear from a politician who appeals to me based on that issue is not "the Bible says gay marriage is immoral; c.f. passages X, Y, and Z." I want to hear, "I am committed to bringing American society into personal contact with Jesus Christ. I believe that outlawing gay marriage will, on the whole, advance that goal. Here is my analysis of the reasons why it will tend to do that, why it will not tend to do that, and why I think the one effect outweighs the other."

Of course any politician who tried to make an appeal like that would be crucified by his opponents, and perhaps rightly so. After all, voters (and politicians) would raise very serious issues about such a statement and the Establishment Clause (at least, the 20th century version of the Establishment Clause). But here's the thing: I feel like that's the only religiously legitimate issue-based appeal a politician can make. If oppressing a moral evil drives people further away from Christ, I fail to see how that oppression is supposed to appeal to me as a Christian. When Christ dined with prostitutes it wasn't to admonish them about getting a career change. But no politician ever talks about the effects of their political positions on the voters' spiritual lives. They can't. The best they can do is try to get at it sideways, from a sociological standpoint, by saying things like "X is bad for the American family." Those arguments are usually fairly sketchy to begin with, in my opinion, and they don't have anything directly to do with Christianity, either.

So there's the conundrum: the only religiously legitimate way to appeal to me on a given issue is politically illegitimate. My conclusion is that people should just stop trying.

That's not to say that I consider my Christianity separate from my franchise, or that I don't care about the spiritual lives of political candidates. It's just that I think I'd much rather have candidates appeal to me as a Christian voter not on the basis of individual issues but on the basis of what kind of person they are, how they make decisions, and what their spirituality means for them as professional politicos.

That might mean that candidates can't really appeal to me primarily as a Christian voter. That might not be such a bad thing.

Courting Me

"And as for the fact that the Athenians have chosen the kind of constitution that they have, I do not congratulate them ..."

I go back and forth on the duty of a good citizen to be informed about the candidates he votes for. On the one hand I feel bad exercising my franchise in the dark. On the other hand I console myself with the fact that the system was designed with precisely that eventuality in mind, and works surprisingly well for a government nominally run by the willfully ignorant.

In this latest round of voter self-education I have run into the inevitable attempts by Republicans (and Democrats! Exciting new development!) to court evangelical Christians, a voter demographic to which I nominally belong. In fact, I belong to an even less centrist demographic - evangelical Pentecostals (making people like, say, Vonsus, look downright tame).

As usual, one of the hooks used to try and nab my demographic is the issue of legalizing or illegalizing abortion. Like most attempts to court my vote on religious grounds, I find this offensive at worst and problematic at best.

I don't actually know what I would say if someone asked me for counsel on whether or not they should get an abortion. But for the sake of argument, let's say I think abortion is a great sin and a terrible cowardice, to boot. Does it therefore follow that I think my country's laws should forbid it?

It does not. The issue is made clearer for me when I consider religious freedom. As an evangelical Pentecostal Christian I am naturally of the opinion that where Christianity conflicts with other religions, Christianity controls. I am also naturally of the opinion that people ought to be Christian for their own welfare, even if that means (as it usually does) that they can't adhere to any other religions. That's one of the things that "evangelical" means in this context. But does it follow that because I am an evangelical I think all other religions should be outlawed?

It does not. We can even assume, for the sake of argument, that I believe all other religions are demonic conspiracies (which I do not, in fact, believe). Doesn't change a thing. The fact of the matter is that I think the freedom to not follow Christ is an important American freedom, even though I also think it is pretty much the worst decision, pragmatically and morally, that a human being can make. This does not mean that I think the Constitution of the United States is a higher authority than God; it's just a reflection of my belief that attempts to outlaw religious immorality in this country will not, in fact, advance the Kingdom of God.

Similarly with abortion. As I said, I'm not 100% sure what my "stance" on abortion is. But even if I did think that abortion is immoral, why should I want my elected representatives to try and outlaw it? Do we outlaw immorality in this country? I'm not sure that we do. I'm certainly not sure that we should.

Moreover, religious-based political activity makes me uncomfortable as a Christian. The fact of the matter is that most "Christian" political activity is deeply embarrassing to me as a believer. People might start off meaning well, but the next thing you know people think that you're the freak for being cultured, educated, and rational as opposed to, say, Jerry Falwell. I've felt like enough high-profile "Christian" media figures have embarrassed my faith and damaged my personal witness to be highly suspicious of any attempts to court me by legislating my supposed morality into law, thank you very much.

Of course this is easy for me to say; I'm not a politician. If somebody is in a policymaking position and their personal conscience tells them to legislate a certain way, I'm not going to decry that decision just because their personal conscience happens to be Christian. I mean, suppose you do think something is immoral, and you've been elected to make national policy. What do you do then? Can you really look yourself in the mirror every morning knowing you decided to legalize (or fail to outlaw) something you believe is wrong? Maybe you can; I don't know (and I hope I never have to find out). But using promises of what your conscience is going to tell you once elected just feels ... I dunno ... fake? It certainly doesn't entice me to vote for you.

Harry Potter, Boy Hero?

I've started [re-]reading the Harry Potter series. Yes, for those of you who don't know, I never got past Chamber of Secrets. I read that far in Sicily because that was as far as our little impromptu library went, and I didn't find them compelling enough to be worth reading any further at the time. The writing style bothered me, and so did the plot. I don't mind improbable plots (heck, I enjoy improbable plots) so long as they're internally consistent - the magic foundation approach to storytelling. Take an improbable or impossible set of premises, and build a tightly logical narrative on top. Chamber of Secrets, I felt, was a different kind of storytelling - the suspension of disbelief approach. Take an improbable or impossible set of premises, and build an improbable narrative on top.

That sounds disparaging but it isn't meant to be. There's absolutely nothing wrong with skating by on the sheer coolness of your world, or your aesthetic, or your narrative voice, or whatever. There are lots of books that "skate by" in that way that are much better than magical foundation books, taken as total packages. But at the time all anybody could talk about was how cool Rowling's world/aesthetic/imagination was, and that was (probably unreasonably) offensive to me. More imaginative than Wrede? More imaginative than Pierce?

Well ... maybe. Looking at the question afresh, though, that doesn't seem to be the question. The merit of a fantasy world is to be judged by the way it plays with fantasy formulae, not by the imagination on display in its original elements. I'm not really far enough in to comment on Rowling's use of formulae.

But here's something that nobody ever talks about with regard to Harry Potter, even now: what is the call of the story? What is the story itself saying about the world, philosophy, morality? When people did discuss this sort of thing when I was reading them the first time, it seemed that all anybody could say was that the call of the story was to let it be okay to be a bratty ten year old kid. That ten year olds were naturally bratty and antiauthoritarian, and that was okay.

Which is, of course, total nonsense, and made me really uninterested in reading further. I can read a book with a bad aesthetic, I can read a book that's unimaginative, I can read a book that's badly constructed; I can even read a book that's all three if it has a really, really good call. But a bad call just kills it for me. I have plenty of time to contemplate the base and low in the real world (I was doing it just now, reading about politicians' response to Ahmadinejad's talk at Columbia. Honestly, people, it's a university). Who wants to spend leisure time contemplating anything other than the noble and good?

Perhaps it was a fluke of my sample of fans back then, or perhaps it's just that the series is finished now, but when I've managed to get people to talk about Harry Potter's call these days they tell a different story. And that makes me interested again. I'm sure the books get perfectly formulaic and clunkily written after you've read about four of them with your literary critic hat on. Whatever; I'm absolutely certain I've read worse and enjoyed every second. Never mind Rowling's adverbs; what is the woman trying to say?

Here's what I hope I'm going to find. No, let me back up. There are basically two types of hero stories in the world. One type of hero is typified by, say, Honor Harrington. Honor is a compelling protagonist because she is practically perfect in every way, morally larger than life. She has a strong sense of duty, an indomitable courage, an unwavering moral compass, and the physical and mental skills to back them. She isn't perfect, of course; I find her character flaws quite compelling, but she is, in short, predisposed towards heroism. And yet she is ever the underdog, and the reason Honor is a heroine is because she continues to choose the right course of action in the face of ever more horrible threats from the outside world. And when she spits in the world's eye and does the right thing anyway and the world follows through with its threats and something horrible happens to her because she did the right thing, she takes it without complaint and is just as determined to do it again the next time. Anybody who's ever felt that the world is just too much for them to handle, that doing the right thing was too much cost for no reward, should be able to recognize the appeal of this kind of heroism. This is holding fast to your heroism in the face of the world trying to seduce (or bludgeon) you away from it.

And then there's the other type of hero, the kind that I hope Harry Potter will turn out to be. Because Harry, so far as I remember, isn't predisposed towards heroism. It's not just that he isn't a tactical genius, crack shot, and doesn't have a black belt. He isn't even mentally or morally disposed to do the right thing; he isn't mentally or morally remarkable in any way. I don't mean that his heroic qualities are overlooked by those around him, like Disney's Aladdin. I mean he doesn't have any, even deep down inside. Not that he has a great store of villainous tendencies deep down inside, either. He's just a normal kid, which is to say he's kind of a brat. Back when I was in college this seemed to be the very thing that made people so enamored of him. Personally I felt when I was his age (and continue to feel) that calling that kind of behavior "normal" is a sad commentary on the quality of contemporary parents.

But here's the rub: Harry isn't predisposed towards heroism, but he has the option to be a hero anyway. Everyone does, after all. And it's just as heroic to choose heroism in spite of your natural proclivities as it is to choose it assisted by your natural proclivities. Harry's story (I hope) is the choice of a boy who ultimately chose to do right not because that's the kind of person he was but because he chose to do so. With help, of course - indispensable help, I imagine - but because he chose to. This is the kind of heroism that the anti-hero exhibits. Harry may not be Honor Harrington, but I hope he's Han Solo.

And this is, ultimately, the kind of heroism that we all exhibit as well. Maybe some people are more predisposed towards heroism than others. But ultimately all of us choose it in spite of ourselves more than we do because of ourselves. And we have help, yes, the kind of help without which we could not choose the right thing no matter how much we tried. The important thing is not that we chose it alone or with help, or that we chose it because or inspite of ourselves. Just that we choose it.

What to Do

Before I get started, the previous post has been tweaked a bit. I'm much happier with it now.

On Tuesday I take the Bar, which is probably all the warning this blog is going to get. I was going to write a much more emotional stream-of-consciousness post on the subject, but I had the good fortune to talk it over with Thayet before I did anything so silly (not silly because acknowledging your feelings is silly, but because it's silly to post such things on a blog before talking them over with my closest supporter).

It's been an unpleasant experience. Well, it is an unpleasant experience, since it's not over. And I'm not at all sure that I'm going to make it.

"Do you mean you think everything will come right if we do untie him?" said Scrubb.

"I don't know about that," said Puddleglum. "You see, Aslan didn't tell Pole what would happen. He only told her what to do. That fellow will be the death of us once he's up, I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off following the Sign."

It wouldn't be so bad if I could convince myself that the Bar is a worthy opponent. But I just can't.

"I can't!"

"Aslan believed you could ... and so do I."

What I mean is, it's just so large. But that's all it is. It's like an army of conscripts led by a drooling idiot. It wouldn't be so bad, I suppose, to lose to professionals - or even to lose to amateurs led by a great general. But this ... it's just some great bloated thing. It's large and broad but intellectually shallow. Losing to the Bar (when I imagine it, as of course I do) feels less like being beaten and more like failing to conquer. It feels (to put it another way) like losing to myself.

"I thought you would be grand and terrible! I thought you would make us grow up, make us accept knighthood's duties and sacrifices. This is just mean - you're a nightmare device, bringing bad dreams to people who want to help others!"

And besides the sheer indignity of losing to such an inglorious foe, I feel robbed by it as well. I miss my friends. I miss the made-up glamor of arming in tails. I miss having a good church. I miss going out on dates. I miss cooking. I miss grocery shopping. I miss art. I want to dance again. I want to learn Irish on Monday nights. I want to play games and watch movies and be thrilled again with the beauty of it all. I want to tell stories again.

"Ye want. Ye want. 'Tis something different ye're learning here."

Instead I have furtive retreats to Azeroth so I can stumble back to my books and pretend that I'm training well, and snatches of the Iliad read at night, and movies stolen from study time. Not that World of WarCraft doesn't have art, and the Iliad is nothing but art, and Transformers thrilled me with the beauty of it all. But everything has happened under the shadow of this idiot foe, this Bar exam.

I find the sequentiality of my brain working against me here. It's just so big, and there's no way to knock it down. There is always more studying that one could do, and I chastise myself for being soft - for needing to drop into the familiar mastery of my druid, or to conjure the plain of the Troad, or slip into that strange trance that holds childlike wonder and film critic side by side in tension. For that matter, why can't I think about something else when there's an unfinished task still? Weakness, weakness, weakness all!

Another trudged with heavy thoughts
Until he disappeared from view,
To ruminate on what he'd done
And punishment, as was his due.

There is an insidious kind of elitism at work here. As I've remarked before, real combat isn't like the finely balanced game theoretical puzzles that developers love so much. It's messy. You fight what you face where you face it with what you've got in whatever shape it's in. And at the end of the day, it doesn't much matter whether you lost to a disorganized rabble or to a "worthy" opponent. The willingness to present an unfair fight is what sets apart a simulation from a sport - or real life from a game. The ability and desire to win an unfair fight (whether you hold the advantage or the disadvantage) is what separates the martial from the game theoretical.

"Well," answered Zim, "suppose all you have is a knife? Or maybe not even a knife? What do you do? Just say your prayers and die? Or wade in and make him buy it anyhow? Son, this is real - it's not a checker game you can concede if you find yourself too far behind."

"But that's just what I mean, sir. Suppose you aren't armed at all? Or just one of these toadstickers, say? And the man you're up against has all sorts of dangerous weapons? There's nothing you can do about it; he's got you licked on showdown."

Zim said almost gently, "You've got it all wrong, son. There's no such thing as a 'dangerous weapon.'"

"Huh? Sir?"

"There are no dangerous weapons; there are only dangerous men. We're trying to teach you to be dangerous."

My goddesses have ever had this martial spirit. Did Alanna the Lioness give up for no better reason than that the fight was unwinnable? Did Cimorene, or Keladry, or Honor Harrington? Did my sweet one refuse to win because what stood between him and victory was ignoble?

"Look, young Trebond - what did you think studying to be a knight was about?"

My life is full of duties fulfilled and unfulfilled. I have a duty to do my best. I have a duty to be prepared for anything. I have both done and not done that duty. I have a duty never to complain. I have a duty timely to complete every one of my tasks no matter how many there are or what they are. I have both done and not done these duties.

And, because I am a lawyer, I have to ask: what are the consequences of failure? There are consequences, of course. Large ones. But one thing does not change: keep going. Don't stop. This is both an artistic and a martial statement. As Xenophon said (and when has my Xenophon ever stopped because life was unfair?), "Now for it, brave sirs; bethink you that this race is for Hellas - now or never - to find your children, your wives; one small effort, and the rest of the march we shall pursue in peace, without ever a blow to strike; now for it!"

Keep going.

"You mean," said Lucy rather faintly, "that it would have turned out all right - somehow? But how? Please, Aslan! Am I not to know?"

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."

"Oh dear," said Lucy.

"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan. "If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me - what will happen? There is only one way of finding out."

Happy Birthday to a Dear Friend

For her birthday, Shanah Van asked that we give somebody else a gift lin lieu of giving one to her. This post is probably going to be late, because it’s taken me a while to figure out what to say, and also because I’m writing this from a place that doesn’t have internet access.

You can tell this is a serious post because I’m going to start it off with some disclaimers. Let me start by breaking the rules a bit and saying that I love Shanah Van. This has been true for some time but “I love you” was one of those things that was locked away in the statue room for the right person. Now it’s been given to the right person, so I can say “I love you” to Shanah and not feel bad (I suppose most of you know this, but for anybody who doesn’t, let me note for the record that I dislike qualifying “I love you” with phrases like “as a friend” or “in Christ.” Of course I don’t love Shanah the same way I love my sister, or my mother, or Thayet, and I harbor no romantic inclinations towards her. But the fact remains that I love her, and that’s that).

Second, let me say that this post is bending the rules of this blog just a bit. My intention is not to honor, and not to offend. I don’t think anything I’m going to be saying is news, so anybody who knows who I’m talking about ought to also know already what I say here. But if anybody finds anything here offensive or uncomfortable, please let me know, and I’ll be happy to redact accordingly.

That said, on to the post.

I couldn’t think of one person to give a gift to, so instead I’m going to do a partial tour through my statue room, now that it’s closed. There are plenty of statues I’m going to skip, and of course the whole concept means I’m not going to be hitting any of the guys (and I’m still missing a blogname for Blue Rose’s boy). What can I say? Can’t hit everybody in one post.

In my head there is a long hall, all in white, with bright lighting that seems to come from everywhere and nowhere. At the end of this hall there is a painting framed in rich brown wood, which is the only color in the entire scene. We’ll return to the painting later. At the end of the hall you can turn left or right. I don’t know what lies to the left. To the right, at the very end of the hall on your right, is the door to the statue room.

This hall and the door itself are all plain featureless white, all brightly reflecting the same sourceless white light. Inside are statues of all the girls I’ve ever had crushes on (there is only one girl I can say I have ever loved, in the romantic sense, and she isn’t here). They stand on a vast crowded floor on low circular podiums, carved in white stone smoother than the creamiest Parian marble. All is the same pristine, unbroken white except for Nari’s statue, with its steel thunderbolt—pristine, but not cold. There is a warmth in the stone of the statues, a bittersweet fondness as of old friends. I have often wished that I could carry a document like this in my wallet, so that if I were in a serious accident somebody could try to find these women and tell them what a difference they made, that Natalie remembered them. But of course such a document would be far too large to carry in a wallet.

In revisiting this place it is not my intention to revisit old feelings for the sake of old feelings. But I would like to single out a few because they taught me something significant that has helped to bring me here.

There is Nala, who can be named at last after Twilight and Kathelia’s wedding. Her statue is a lioness with an imperious tilt to her head, gaze focused on something distant, caught in the motion of crouching into unseen grass. Nala was the first girl ever to show interest in me as a boy, and also the first girl I had a major crush on that I learned to be friends with. My first crush ever was Raven, but in all the ways that matter it began with Nala. She was the one who first introduced me to that complicated dance through the woods of pursuit and pursue. It would never have worked out, but for anybody who thinks Thayet and I are a surprising match—oh, you should have been there in middle school with me and Twilight and Nala, in the days of the Empire and Gen. Hayes.

There is Thea, whose statue is a long and sinuous dragoness backwinging as she sets down on a lake unseen, head tossed upward with the joy of the grass and the sun and the water. Nala was my friend. She was wild and romantic and fiery, like a wood elf come to life. We would wrestle and play and fight and dream together. But Thea—Thea was kind to me. My old friend. The girl I used to go on dates with that left me with a grin I just couldn’t shut off, because she liked me for me. Thea taught me that I really was as good as anybody. She believed in me.

There is Princess, whose statue is the dragoness Sasha—I don’t know how else to describe it. In early high school my Dragon Girls inspired me to write a pair of beauty pieces that tried to explain our relationships. Thea’s was titled Simply Wonderful. Princess’ was simply I Know a Girl. Princess taught me for the first time what it was like to be friends with and attracted to a girl who was my intellectual equal. Someone who didn’t think I was smart, or weird, or verbose—just Natalie. Wonderfully Natalie, enjoyably Natalie—but just Natalie. She taught me how wonderful that is, and how necessary, and how possible. When we went out we’d just talk, enjoying the electricity that crackled between us. People would always mistake us for boyfriend and girlfriend, and she was (is, I suppose) a beautiful girl—but I think I was always just Natalie to her, and to me she was just Princess.

There is the Hawaiian, whose statue is just her, standing behind her keyboard, wearing a smile being lifted on unheard chords to God. The Hawaiian was the first Christian girl I had a real crush on. She taught me how necessary, how indispensable it is to fall in love with a girl who loves Jesus. And she taught me that you have to wait for God’s timing even when you can’t see any external obstacles.

There is Blue Rose, about whom I could say so much, but I imagine that too much would embarrass her. Her statue is just a long-stemmed rose, standing upright, suspended by unseen forces above its podium. She is the lady knight at my round table, who has always looked out for me, always called me back, always called me on by her example to be like Jesus. I always felt that we went through Stanford like two figures out of a Tyrtaios song, neither running ahead nor lagging behind, encouraging each other with our words. She taught me … well, lots of things. She taught me that the true things do not necessarily become untrue just because they operate differently in new life circumstances. She taught me the importance of being myself even as myself changes and grows. She taught me new ways to be brave and obey God.

There is Shanah Van, whose statue is herself in an enormous gown (green, though the stone of course is white) with layers of petticoats. She is caught in the midst of a spin, and though her face is blankly serious there is joy lurking beneath the surface. Shanah was my Sweatshirt Girl, who with Blue Rose kept me going through those first two years in Testimony and thereby opened up so much of what God had for me, and who bears a large portion of responsibility for the fact that I dance (and therefore, in a way, for my meeting Thayet). I think Shanah was the first girl at Stanford to flirt with me—she taught me how attraction can nourish friendship, if the friendship comes first.

The last statue I want to take you past is that of Esther Selene, whose statue is the a mare’s head thrown back and whinnying, against a backdrop of a crescent moon whose arms enclose three stars. It was Esther Selene who taught me a large portion of what I know about dating and romance (and who first taught me how to apply what I know), who taught me the joy of doing it right, and who put the last nail in the coffin of the idea that at heart I’m really just a nerd, and nobody outside of my family will ever love me.

And that brings us to me, as we weave our way through all the other statues whose subjects I don’t have time to honor now, and I direct your attention away from the statue of the country girl in the checkered dress with the basket on her arm. It would bend the rules too much to talk about who I am, but I suppose you know—and to the extent that I am a worthy partner for a woman, a large part of the credit goes to the women above.

Now it is time to close the door to the statue room, and return to the painting we passed by at the start. The painting is of a woman, with tumbled curls of hair so brown it is nearly black and creamy pink skin, with a full and mobile and very red mouth. The wood of the frame is a rich brown, and to the left of the painting as I show it to you there is a heater shield trimmed in silver and blue. To the right is a hoplite aspis, also in silver and blue.

This is Thayet, after the half-K’miri queen of Jonathan IV (did everybody catch the details there? Don’t tell me you haven’t read the books), whose subjects call her the Peerless—but I call this woman my sister, fellow priestess, lady knight, and my future queen. I call her, after the phrase of Solomon, the one whom my soul loves.

The woman in this painting loves Jesus. She is morally brave, and willing to do what he tells her to. She is wild and romantic and fiery, but I would like to call your attention to the self-evident fact that her painting is not of a kite. It is of Thayet as Thayet I, founder of the Queen’s Riders (and let us recall as well the character of the Queen’s Ladies). Wild and romantic and fiery, yes, but flighty—no. Her emotions run high, but as a person, she is steadfast. She is practical, in her way, which is usually not my way—that is to say, we are both young, and we have different (but I think complimentary) areas of expertise when it comes to living life well both practically and morally.

There is a surprising sadness in the face of the woman in this painting. She has been through a lot—which is not especially impressive, of course, nor particularly admirable. Lots of people have been through a lot and come through it the worse for wear; suffering is an opportunity to build character but doesn’t produce it. Here is what I do find admirable: to bear suffering and retain one’s happiness, one’s sense of delight. Of course, lots of people can stay happy in the face of crushing disappointment; it’s one of many defense mechanisms the psyche can choose from. So here is something more admirable still: to bear suffering and joy simultaneously, with joy the deeper and higher of the two. Happiness can be a defense mechanism. Contentment and wonder can be defense mechanisms. Joy comes from the Lord, and my love is a joyful woman.

She’s always been there for me. Of course, there are lots of reasons to always stick by a person, not all of them good. But Thayet stuck around because she believed in me, believed both in what I’m trying to be and that I can do it, and she believed those things for the right reasons. Anybody can believe in a dream and the ability to accomplish it as wishful thinking. I don’t care about wishful thinking. I care about honesty and obedience and dreaming the dreams Jesus dreams for us. I care about sticking it out even when you don’t feel like it because Jesus told you to. And that is why there is an aspis on the wall. Her emotions run high, and I love that. But her colors are argent and azure.

She taught me to open new areas of myself to introspection. She taught me new ways to believe in myself - not in the tired, defiant way in which we must never believe in ourselves, but in the simple, humble way of acknowledging what is. She taught me to be more open. And to hold on to the old, Nehemiah-like determination as well.

And that again leaves us with just me. And who am I? Have I grown as a result of knowing all these girls? Well, this is still Speaking Natalie, and I’m not going to answer that question myself in detail. Ask my parents. Most of you know how. I will content myself with saying yes. I am more myself—more who I am supposed to be, and who I long to be—for the varied loves of these women. There is more to say in my heart about each of them than I can say here, or could say here if I had all the time in the world.

Happy Birthday, Shanah. I love you.

Death

Here are some things I’ve learned regarding my beliefs about death in the last week or so. If we need an overarching theme, I suppose it’s that my beliefs about death (which are, I suppose, a subset of the Christian beliefs about death) are weird. That’s not to say paradoxical, or inconsistent, but I have to admit they are weird.

Here’s an example. It turns out that I view death as an almost wholly biological phenomenon. I am highly skeptical of claims that dying people are seeing those who have passed on, or heaven, or have any extraordinary insight that the rest of us don’t have. This is not to say that I think it’s impossible to see those who have passed on, or heaven, or to have literally superhuman insight. It’s just that I think those are relatively extraordinary events, and in any case I don’t see what at all they have to do with death. If anything, I suppose that the dying perceive less than the rest of us.

On the other hand, it’s very important to my conception of death (and, indeed, to my conception of humanity) to affirm that a person is bodily. In Phoenix Earth terms I would say that humans are animals; i.e., they are meant to have bodies and their bodies are an important part of who they are. I reject wholeheartedly the view that the body is merely a shell or a vessel, unconnected from the “real” or spiritual person. When a person dies, in my opinion, they are dying – death is not the mere release of a person’s true self from a wasted shell. When we say that a person dies, I think that they really are dying, and I prefer to call it that. Euphemisms (and I don’t mean the term perjoratively) such as passing away, going home, or even that most ancient of Christian euphemisms, falling asleep, make me uncomfortable.

Of course, it is equally important to my conception of death (and life) to affirm that people are spiritual. That is to say, I believe that we are animals, but also that we are animals with spirits, and those spirits are no less a part of us than our bodies. So while I believe that when a person dies it is they and not a container that is dying, I also believe that there is a part of the person who is not dying.

And what happens to that part after death? The truth is, in most of the ways a person observing a loved one dying might care about, I don’t know. My beliefs don’t include anything on the subject of whether the dead can or cannot hear us when we talk to them, or whether they care about what’s happening on Earth, or are aware of it, or just how it is they remain distinctly themselves separated from a vital part of themselves. My sacred texts are silent on those subjects, and I decline to speculate. My understanding of angels prevents me from imagining that the dead turn into angels (and I wouldn’t find the thought especially comforting even if I did, since as I understand angels they are a warlike and thoroughly inhuman race). But I don’t really know what a person does “turn into” when he or she dies.

For that matter, what do I mean when I say “death?” Christians frequently speak of the first human sin as allowing “death” into the world, and we look forward to a day when there will be no more dying. I look forward to a day when there will be no more dying. But what does that mean? Once upon a time, did organic life really never terminate? Is the existence of carnivores a result of the fallen state of the world (for that matter, is the entire animal scheme of feeding a result of the Fall)? Perhaps, although I admit I find it hard to believe that a lion’s feeding reflex (or a zebra’s) is evil simply because it results in the termination of the food’s biological existence. And were humans truly intended never to die of old age? Do our bodies wear out faster now than they were supposed to, or were they never supposed to wear out at all?

I don’t know the answers to those questions, but I suspect that when we say “death” in this context – death entered the world after the Fall, Jesus conquered death, there will come a day when there is no more dying – we mean something like destruction, and not the mere termination of biological life. So we can speak of the “second death,” when some human spirits will really be destroyed forever. And human death really is death, perhaps not because the animal part of the person is dying but because the person is being sundered.

It is conventional to assume that one holds one’s beliefs about death partially (if not chiefly) as a comfort. Here I am believing that death is merely biological – but also that people are inherently biological. I have no real clue as to what existence is like for a person who has died. I suppose that Christian people probably go to “heaven” (whatever that means, although it certainly sounds not-bad), but I’m not even positive of that (c.f. Ecc. 9:5). These are not especially comforting beliefs. I do have one belief about death which is comforting, and that is the advent of the Phoenix Earth.

It turns out that I really do believe in a day when the Earth (and perhaps, by implication, all of existence) is made new and all those people (or at least, all the ones who were Christian when they died – I’m agnostic about the rest, although I am firm in my belief that there is a bad outcome to this story as well) whose very humanity was sundered by death are given new bodies, when people can be spiritual animals again and in some cosmic not-very-well-understood sense, all is as it should be. I haven’t the slightest idea what those bodies will be like – I suppose they will resemble our current bodies as much as a seed resembles a sunflower. And I haven’t the slightest idea what that new Earth will be like, or whether that Earth will eventually be swallowed up by a dying star as this one is supposed to be, or how the laws of nature will have to change so that all is as it should be, except I imagine we will be surprised by the depth of the corruption worked when “death” entered the world. But it turns out it is enough for me to look forward to a day when the sundering is undone and will never be worked again.

As I said at the beginning, it seems to me that my view of death is pretty weird. But it turns out that it really is my view. And it turns out that it really is comforting after all.

The Last Shot

Yesterday I turned in my last ever law school assignment. Law school is finally over. There are more steps in the process, technically - I haven't received a grade yet (for any of my classes), my degree hasn't been conferred, I haven't received my diploma - but those are all out of my hands. The last shot has been fired; it just hasn't hit yet. I am now in the limbo at the end of the level, when at last you can lower the gun and wait for the scores to appear so you can check the one all-important measure of success.

That measure is, of course, accuracy. Never mind how many points you've garnered. Never mind how many times they hit you, how many quarters it took to get here. Did you make every shot count? That is the only true measure of success.

In life, of course, true measures of success are harder to come by. You can try to measure success procedurally; you can ask, "Did you do your best?" But the answer to that question is always no, and holding too tightly to it leaves one in a constant struggle to reframe the scope of the endeavor. Oh, there were those last glorious hours for this last assignment when I was up until 8:00 in the morning, writing calmly and steadily with [I hope] clarity and force for almost ten hours straight. But there were also the days before those hours, when I just didn't care, or it was all too much. And maybe it was too much; maybe it really was beyond my ability in those moments that stretched into hours. But at the very least, I could have tried harder.

And that's the thing - even when the task is impossible, even when you're going to get hit no matter how fast you are on the trigger, you can always try harder, think faster, plan farther ahead. And that makes "doing your best" a rather amorphous measure of success. So you can look at what you've done, what you've accomplished. But that seems rather hollow. For one thing, accomplishments come easier for some than for others - but there is value in effort; there has to be. You can't ignore the milestones, of course, and I don't. My "accomplishments" bring me pleasure and a deep rooted sense of satisfaction with the world. They bring me joy; I feel the joy of the Lord in this limbo at the end of the level. But the accomplishments aren't success. At the end of the day, whether the milestones come easily or hard, you do your thing and sometimes people throw awards at you.

There is one other measure of success I can think of. When the credits roll and you step out of the booth or put the gun back in the holster, nobody asks you what your accuracy rating was. They ask if you finished the game. In one sense accuracy is all that matters, and that is a true sense. But in another sense what matters is that you got from level to level, and that is perhaps the truer sense. In a game, of course, the levels are linear and there are no wrong choices; they all lead to the last climactic shootout. But life's levels are not linear, and there are wrong choices. I've made more than my fair share of them, as we all have. And those choices, the level choices, are perhaps what really matter. In life, I submit, perhaps the question is not how well you did but what game you were playing.

At the end of law school people seem fond of telling you that, for all the jokes people make about lawyers, you've made a good choice by choosing to be a lawyer. It's a good profession. An honorable profession. The profession to which America has always looked for its greatest leaders; a profession with its own unique niche in the world from which to make a difference, and all that is true, but it doesn't mean we've all made good choices by choosing to be lawyers. We've made good choices to be lawyers, if indeed they are good choices, because that's what God made us to do and we're doing it. The grades in the computers, the piece of paper on the wall, are not given significance by the effort that went into them (and I worked for this piece of paper, I really did). The effort itself is not given significance by the fact that it led to a good and honorable profession, or even simply by the fact that it was effort. The effort has significance, if it has significance at all, because the effort was to do what God made me to do, what he's told me to do, what I must do. The grades and the pieces of paper have significance, if they have significance at all, because they're milestones on the right road - not that it has to be a straight and narrow road (and mine isn't), but the right road. A road that I chose but didn't design.

I think it's the right road. It's not just joy I feel, alone in the dark at the kitchen table with the buzzing of the refridgerator and the remains of a home-cooked meal. It's peace. All is right with the world. I missed quite a few shots in the last level. More than ever before, I think. And it will only get harder from here. There is the bar to study for, and take, a wedding to plan, and after that the hurry-up-and-wait routine of a transactional lawyer. A house to keep. An engagement to live, and to grow in. Friendships to maintain, and in some cases reclaim. There will be dark times, when the nights are late and the games are few and snatching even a few hours with my beloved will take all the strength we have left, I am sure.

I can sit here alone in a darkened apartment and see all of that coming. But my heart is not troubled. It is a path I have chosen, but not designed. The last shot has been fired. For a few moments I can lower the gun and dwell on what is to come, and it makes my heart swell. Because the level may be harder than any that have come before. But it's the right one. I know it is.

Jorsoran Kando a Tome

Once upon a time, I read a lot of books. If you look through my storage boxes in the garage back home you'll find boxes stuffed full of mass market paperbacks - The Babysitters Club, BattleTech, and Star Wars novels mostly. These books live in the closet, because they helped to make me who I am. In my room at home is a precious smattering of books pulled from those collections - the Blood of Kerensky trilogy, the Heir to the Empire trilogy, Stackpole's X-Wing novels - and a few choice others: Gates of Fire, Starship Troopers, the Enchanted Forest chronicles, the Pit Dragon trilogy, the Tortall books, the Honor Harrington series. These books live in my room because they remind me of who I want to be. A few of the books from home made it here with me to Stanford - old friends that I want with me wherever I go, to remind me of who I am and connect me to those who have gone before. You could write a fair chronicle of my inner life by looking at where my books live. And now I have a new bookshelf, which has no books on it. Not yet.

I spent years at Stanford with blank walls, because Stanford was not home, and there was nothing to put on my walls. And slowly the shape of my wall decorations took place: plates of the Archimedes Palimpsest, prints of Honor Harrington, photos of the family in Hawaii, a precious poster of the Moulin Rouge, a Vettriano painting of a dance under the trees at night. The time has come to take these down. And now I have new walls, which have no pictures on them. Not yet.

When I was eleven, I played my first shooting game in the old Tilt arcade in the Fallbrook Mall with my dad: Lethal Enforcers. I suppose we played about a quarter's worth of the game, and I did all right, since I've always been fairly good at video games, but I didn't really have a clue as to what I was doing. And then Dad showed me how to grip the gun, how to line up the sight picture, and basically taught me how to win a gunfight (or at least how the Marine Corps says to win a gunfight; not like either he or I have ever tried): line up your shot, do it right, squeeze the trigger. Aim again - take your time, do it right - and squeeze the trigger. Accuracy, not speed, is the goal. Make every bullet count. In time, you'll learn to do it quickly.

I don't suppose Dad intended to be teaching a life lesson there in Tilt, but ever since then I've thought of life's challenges in shooting terms. One thing at a time, and don't mind the rest - know where they are, but don't let them get to you. Take your time, do it right, put the bullet in the air. Find the next target. Line up again, take your time, put the bullet in the air. Find the next target. Be calm. Concentrate on the process - on doing your best - and not on the outcome.

It might not be the best way to live but it's how I've lived so far, or at least how I've tried to. I don't know if it's a male thing or a Natalie thing, but I don't really multitask very well. I can sort of simulate multitasking by doing things quickly, or at least I used to be able to. One thing at a time, make every bullet count, and in time, you'll learn to do it quickly.

On April 26 I went to Dave and Buster's to visit some more old friends - Time Crisis 3, Ghost Squad, Mazan, and Jurassic Park II: The Lost World. I walked through the Million Dollar Midway with my power cards and a drink in my hand, shooting through games I know and love, challenging myself to make every bullet count, every parry and counter-slash. I had dinner in the same booth as the last time I had come there alone, to think and to pray, to lay an important decision at the throne of God. My thoughts were going at a million miles a minute, but deep inside, where I had retreated, there was only me, the gun, and the sight picture. And I enjoyed the quiet as I tried to line up each shot and make every bullet count. Praying. Praying that the next seven years are even better than these have been. Praying that I be taught what I need to know.

The Midway was full of noise but I didn't really hear it. Deep inside I enjoyed the stillness, the familiar burn of the lactic acid in my biceps. And the singing. Because for a few days I had been unable to listen to anything but a Mandalorian war chant, "Vode An," and as I moved between games I fumbled with the unfamiliar language over and over again. Somehow it was important that I get it right. Bal kote, darasuum kote / Jorsoran kando a tome. Jorsoran kando a tome. Jorsoran kando a tome. A tome. A tome.

And that was really the last chance I've had to reflect. The next day I proposed marriage to Thayet. And then it was off to finals, trying, trying to keep up my fire, and failing, and bitterly introspecting about it. It was like the last seven years were determined to play themselves out in the space of a few days, and then she was there, holding up my gun arm, because the time has come and God has decreed that mhi jorsoran kando a tome. And then the bullets were in the air, all but one, but people were congratulating me anyway for where they hadn't landed yet and it was time to celebrate myself before the level was even over because it was now or never. But school wasn't over, it isn't over, not yet - one last shot to take. And yet already it's time to clear the walls and the bookshelves because there's a deadline for moving and work to be done and a wedding to plan and somewhere in the midst of it all I turned twenty-six. I've had the biggest week of my life, I suppose, and no time to reflect on it until now. And even now there isn't enough time, not enough time to say good-bye to a campus that finally warranted wall decorations, to be thankful for what I've received and to mourn the shots I've missed, to pray over what is to come.

But in truth, I feel strangely calm about it. Life is busy but deep inside I am quiet because while I'm missing a lot of the scenery I know I am going where I am supposed to go. And we will line up the next shot, and the next shot, and the next, and do our best to make them all count. A tome.

Empire at War

I was thinking today about the best Star Wars games of all time. I would name them as these: TIE Fighter, Knights of the Old Republic, and Republic Commando. I'd add X-Wing, X-Wing: Alliance, Jedi Knight II, and Jedi Academy if we want to extend the list beyond three. And just maybe Empire at War. I've been meaning to comment on Empire at War for a while, and since I'm fairly deep into my first imperial campaign in the expansion I figured this post is about due.

A brief overview for those of you who are interested in my game posts but aren't familiar with the title. Empire at War is basically a Galactic Civil War alternate-history sandbox. The game takes place on both the strategic and tactical levels, both in real time. The strategic (interstellar) part of the game consists of building your forces and planetary bases and maneuvering on the galactic scale. Base building is similar to Rome: Total War - specific buildings are required for specific units and other buildings, but it isn't a "base building" game in the sense of a classic RTS; either a planet has a particular facility or it doesn't. Planets are differentiated from one another by the tactical map associated with that particular planet (e.g., the famous stormtrooper training world of Carida reduces the cost of infantry units), the amount of credits they contribute to the owner's economy, the allegiance and formidability of the natives, a strategic or tactical bonus appropriate to the world, the maximum supportable number of land facilities, and the maximum supportable size of space station.

As a Star Wars game goes that's mostly all you'd want. One potential disappointment is the fact that the Rebellion functions, strategically, pretty much just like the Empire - while the Rebels have a slight informational advantage in terms of concealing the forces at a particular world from their enemies, the core mechanism of expansion is conquering planets. This makes the game play like fairly late in the Civil War (post-Endor), when the Rebellion was legitimate enough that planets would actually declare their allegiance to the fledgling "New Republic" even though the Empire was clearly not defeated. Whether this is a failing sort of depends on your point of view. Empire at War is clearly trying to let you rewrite Star Wars history, so maybe the Rebellion in this game is actually far more formidable than the Rebellion in Star Wars canon. That's kind of cool. On the other hand, it means that you can't play the "where is the Rebel base?" kind of skulk-and-hide that you might want to. The criminal faction in the expansion, the Zann Consortium, actually plays rather more like you'd expect the classic Rebellion to play. The Consortium can conquer planets, but it can also "corrupt" worlds held by other players by setting up a variety of criminal enterprises in the system. Consortium units can travel anywhere within the corrupted network of systems by paying [sometimes very hefty] bribe costs, allowing them to strike without warning anywhere within the web of corruption.

Once combat is initiated the strategic map pauses, and you fight the battle out on the tactical level using whatever forces you have brought to the system, or whichever forces are stationed in the system. Space combat is basically built around a rock-paper-scissors type of system, with roughly four rates of combatants: starfighters, corvettes, frigates/cruisers, and capital ships. Starfighters are represented on the "squadron" level (though the number of ships in a squadron varies from three to seven depending on class) and are divided into space superiority fighters and bombers. Bombers are valuable for their proton torpedoes, which in this game bypass shields, making them potentially devastating to anything larger than a corvette. Space superiority fighters are valuable as dogfighters and interceptors. Both are extraordinarily vulnerable to the corvette-class vessels, which fill an anti-fighter fleet defense role, and are in turn no match for your frigates and cruisers. Capital ships, which can only be built at particular worlds famous for their shipyards (e.g., Kuat and Mon Calamari), will eat virtually any starship alive but are potentially vulnerable to bombers.

The game does a good job, I think, of presenting an interesting and Star Wars-y space combat problem. The tactical problem in space is really dominated by the really big ships and the really small ships. Unmolested bombers can make quick work of even an Imperial Star Destroyer. A few corvettes can create a virtually impenetrable fighter defense, but these pickets are in turn easy pickings for the enemy's heavy combatants, which both outrange and outgun them. A fighter screen can do the same work without that vulnerability, but not as efficiently - and that tactic also opens the door for a few daring corvettes on the enemy's side to punch a gaping hole in your fighter screen. The great skill is to manage your formation so as to create a gap in the enemy's coverage without creating one in your own - usually all with the aim of letting the ponderous capital ships bring their awesome firepower to bear (and the firepower of a single Star Destroyer is truly awesome, I assure you) or letting your bombers begin their run.

The defender in a space battle will usually be defending a space station (and sadly, no planet may have more than one space station), which may range in formidability from a mere deterrence to a fleet-smashing fortress depending on how much has been invested in it. Space stations have fighters and starships assigned to them as garrisons. These garrison ships play an important part in the tactical dynamic of attacking and defending. Each level of station has a fixed number of garrison units it can have in the fight at any given time. The trick is, so long as the station's hangar hardpoint is intact (frigate-sized vessels and up are composed of individually targetable subsystems such as weapons, shield generators, engines, flight control, etc.), destroyed garrison units will be periodically replaced. Thus, the attacker has an incentive to strike hard and decisively, to minimize the impact of these extra units; while the defender is well served by playing a delaying game. There is a finite number of units either side can have on the board at any given time, so players can have reserves ready to hyperspace in as units are destroyed. Garrison units do not count against this ship limit, so the defender has a potential numerical advantage, but this rarely obtains as it is quite difficult to issue every system a formidable defense fleet from the regular navy.

Both land and space combat have their "super weapons," which is only appropriate in a Star Wars game. Your space battle super weapons are planetside surface-to-orbit guns which must be constructed like any other base building. The Rebels have their signature v-150 Planet Defender ion cannon, while the Empire has a hypervelocity mass driver. These weapons are substantial obstacles to anything larger than a corvette, although they are also quite expensive and take up a base slot that could be used for something else. They have a nice feel to them - there's really no counter except to destroy the weapon with a commando raid (if you're the Rebels), use only small ships, or to attack with several times the force you otherwise would have.

Land combat follows a similar basic dynamic but has a few extra wrinkles thrown in. Each land map has several "reinforcement points," which are areas suitable for landing troops. The number of units (measured in platoons ranging from two to five armored vehicles or two to three squads of infantry) the attacker can have on planet at any given time depends on the number of reinforcement points he controls (each LZ allowing a different number of units, so some are more valuable than others), while the defender can start the battle with a full complement of units from his regular army plus the garrison units deployed by his base buildings, which are replaced as destroyed just as in a space battle. Control of the map's landing zones is usually an important piece of victory, as the landing zones constrain the momentum of an attack. It is even possible, if one can manage it, to cut off the attacking units completely by capturing all the LZs on the map - thus, while the enemy may have a very large army in orbit, he may literally have no place to land them.

Star Wars has always followed a World War-style tactical model, so it is appropriate that the land units be classified (more or less) into infantry, light armor, heavy armor, and artillery. Infantry is important for its ability to effectively engage other infantry and its ability to capture locations (such as landing zones) and the "build pads" which are scattered across each map at important locations and which allow you to emplace pre-fabricated turrets and repair stations. Infantry is what changes the front lines of a battle. Light armor (such as the AT-ST) is about as effective as you'd expect in a World War II game; it's no match for a serious armored fighting vehicle, but it's also fast and a simply insuperable obstacle to infantry with no anti-tank teams. Artillery is relatively short ranged (though longer-ranged than anything else on the battlefield) but devastating against soft targets or emplacements and can make quick work of an infantry advance. Heavy armor is largely the queen of the battlefield (anti-tank teams excepted), so there is again a rock-paper-scissors sort of balancing act between the anti-armor and anti-infantry arms of the service. Unless, of course, the Empire deploys AT-ATs - a weapon against which nothing but overwhelming numbers and brute force will truly avail.

One of the nice things about Empire at War's land combat is that it allows for situations in which one side simply cannot win. If you have run out of anti-armor capable units or emplacements it really doesn't matter how many men you have left on the field so long as the enemy has even a token force of tanks or walkers. At the same time, a single anti-armor turret can do for virtually an entire platoon of light armor. If the enemy has brought airspeeders to the fight and you have no anti-aircraft capabilities, you have already lost. A single AT-AT really can win an entire battle if the other side is unprepared. You don't find that sort of model in games very often, and it's nice to appreciate it when it happens.

Your land super weapons are bombing sorties (assuming you have any bombers in orbit) and, in the expansion, orbital bombardment. Star Wars has never had much land-air integration, and this game is no exception, but the periodic use of bombers or bombardment does open up some interesting strategies. Sorties are only available periodically, so a battle has to drag on some time before they're available, but they can also flatten pretty much anything in a single run. Thus they can be used to clear choke points, add anti-armor punch to an otherwise light attack, or smash a base building that would otherwise be beyond reach.

One frustrating thing about land combat (and to a lesser extent space combat) is that the build pads (or the defense satellites, which are far less numerous than build pads) can only be built upon during a battle. These are an important part of the battlefield; they help to give it shape and substance, and they also increase the cost of a battle (since each emplacement costs a small amount of money), which is an important strategic consideration. A base can be made significantly more or less defensible based on the geography of these emplacements. So it's well worth your time to build on them after you've effectively won a battle, but that means trekking infantry all the way out to each one, which is silly.

The other interesting thing about land battles is that most worlds have natives who are friendly either to the Empire or Rebellion (and a few have natives who are just plain hostile) and are produced, garrison-like, from native dwellings on the map. Depending on the world in question the natives may be mere unfortunates who are caught in the crossfire or a serious tactical consideration. On most worlds they're mere civilians armed with blaster pistols, good for little more than harassing attacks or capturing undefended locations (since they live all across the map, though, they can be highly useful for capturing advance landing zones or fortifying locations in advance of your main force). A few worlds, such as Kashyyyk (the wookiee homeworld), have natives who are actually quite fearsome. And on some the natives are formidable through sheer numbers. Endor, for instance, is virtually impossible for the Empire to conquer if the Ewoks are backed by even a handful of Rebel troops. The Ewoks are not formidable fighters, but they are numerous, and if properly supported can overrun the initial imperial beachhead with ease.

Combat is a nice mix of the small and large scale. The Rebels have the unique option of slipping a small force of ground troops past a planet's orbital defenses and attacking its land facilities directly, so there's always the specter of a small-scale action - and as I said, it's difficult to adequately cover your systems, so even the front lines can wind up being essentially small unit actions. The feel of the game sort of switches organically in smaller actions from formation management to individual unit management. I was once down to defending a base with two squads of stormtroopers and a pair of speeder bikes, defending against the exhausted remnants of a Rebel attack that were just unwilling to give up and retreat. The action mostly consisted of the scout troopers trying to buy time for the stormtroopers to get some emplacements ready, and had a very nice edge-of-your-seat feeling. Or again, I once defeated an Acclamator-class assault ship with a single Corellian corvette by luring the Acclamator's fighter screen away and then leading it a merry chase through an asteroid field until the rocks pounded it to rubble. That kind of shift to the individual and heroic happens quite naturally, and is a nice shift.

And finally there are the heroes - the obvious ones like Luke Skywalker, Emperor Palpatine, Obi-Wan, Darth Vader, and the like; and the less obvious ones like Captain Piett ("You are in command now ... Admiral Piett") and Mon Mothma. The game does a good job of balancing the innately hero-driven aspect of the Star Wars universe and keeping things relatively realistic (and therefore keeping your troops relevant). Some, like Darth Vader, have a presence in both land and space. Others are only combatants in land battles (e.g., Obi-Wan), space battles (Capt. Piett), or not combatants at all (Mon Mothma and Grand Moff Tarkin). Basically heroes are exceptional at what they're good at, and just like everyone else otherwise. Rogue Squadron can do for a large number of TIE fighters, but they aren't that great against a Tartan cruiser. Some of my favorite moments have been with the Jedi, like the time Yoda cut through an entire platoon of stormtroopers only to be stepped on by an AT-ST. Or the time I discovered the Emperor himself on a planet, and he turned my prize heavy armor company against me using the Dark Side of the Force ... and then as he was plastered by my proton torpedo artillery he croaked, "I did not foresee this!"

So, not the best Star Wars game ever. But pretty close, really.

300 and Easter

So I've seen 300 twice now, and I figure it deserves some comment.

300 was ... well, it has its goods and its bads. On the good side were the stylization (mostly) and the fact that the movie gets the heart of why Thermopylai is a story that has endured for 2500 years as one of the greatest feats of arms in the annals of mankind. On the bad side were certain pieces of dialogue and certain alterations to Spartan society.

Let me say before I turn to each of those items that 300 was not as good as Gates of Fire. Maybe that's unfair, because one is a graphic novel I haven't read that was turned into a movie, and the other is a regular novel that hasn't been turned into a movie, but to the extent that you can compare across genres there's just no comparison. One of the main reasons for that difference is that the characters in Gates of Fire are not (with one notable and important exception) trying to be heroes.

300, on the other hand, takes its inspiration from the extraordinary wave of patriotic fervor which swept all Greece in the wake of the Persian Wars. From the Greek perspective, Greek valor and the Greek way of life had triumphed over the monolithic empire from the East, an evil empire ruled with an iron fist by an eviler emperor who commanded alien hordes of slave soldiers and bought his enemy with his fabulous treasury, a man and an empire that stood against all that was good and right and happy in the world.

It's all nonsense, of course. Xerxes probably did have a fearsome temper, and he probably did lose perspective over the whole Greek affair, but Achaemenid Persia was in fact a great fountain of civilization (more "Greek" advances at the time of the Persian Wars had come out of Persian-occupied Greek cities than had come out of the Greek mainland) that was actually a very gentle and humane empire run on a quasi-federal system. Sparta was a police state whose entire society was built around preventing a massive slave revolt; Persia was the empire that sent the Jews back to their homeland with orders to rebuild their temple and worship their god in peace. The idea that Sparta defeated Persia in the name of freedom and civilization is transparently nonsense. But that was what the Greeks themselves honestly believed at the time.

This perspective informs every aspect of 300's stylization. The Greeks are nude (or as nude as we can get away with making them in mainstream American cinema) because the nude figure with shield, helmet, greaves, spear, and sword is the ancient Greek artistic convention for "hero." The Persian archers are dressed exactly as they are portrayed on vase paintings from the time, right down to the pattern on the fabric - as recalled by vase painters who were veterans of the war and vividly remembered every detail of their alien foe. Xerxes did not, of course, have gunpowder, war elephants (Persia didn't extend to India), or war rhinoceroses (nobody has ever had war rhinoceroses). But all that is meant to convey the perceived alien-ness of the empire. The Greeks do not generally fight in phalanx, but Leonidas explains the phalanx's fighting style in dialogue, so the moviemakers knew. It is just that they wished to display the heroism of the Greek fighters according to the conventions of American storytelling, where heroic fighters fight singly or in pairs. The one scene of actual phalanx fighting is a better on-screen depiction than anybody else has ever achieved (although still of rather poor quality absolutely, to be fair). They even have Gerard Butler play Leonidas with a Scottish accent (the tradition of translating the Spartan dialect as Scottish goes far back).

The movie's depiction of Sparta herself is hit and miss. I think it's clear that Frank Miller gets Sparta, but I am not entirely happy with the way he conveys that understanding. To really understand Thermopylai, you have to understand the Spartan way of life - Sparta as it was just before its society self-destructed in the aftermath of the Peloponnesian War. You have to understand how deeply these men loved their women, how deeply they partnered with them, and how earnestly - almost naively - they believed in the martial virtues. In 300 Leonidas' wife Gorgo stands for essentially all of Spartan society - that Spartan paradox of the warrior housewife, a woman who is thoroughly domestic and simple and humble in her way but whose virtues imbue her with a bearing most regal and make her quite as fearless as any hero. Now, it is important to understand that about Spartan women, to understand the sorts of families these men willingly left behind forever and to understand the sorts of families that made them who they were. You have to understand what they were fighting for to understand why anybody cares about their story.

Gorgo was, by all accounts, a most extraordinary woman. The trouble is that Miller invents a subplot wherein "the council" and the ephors are bought off by Persian gold, to give Gorgo a homefront war to fight. This shows her character to the best advantage, but it also depicts a fictionalized and un-lovable Sparta. To be sure, Persia fought with its gold as much as its soldiers; that's only rational foreign policy. But there is no evidence that they ever corrupted Sparta, and the ephors and the council are thoroughly fictionalized. The ephors were not a band of diseased and lecherous mystics; they were acclaimed as the oldest and wisest Spartan citizens, who served as senate to the kings' executive (our own Senate was heavily modeled upon the ephors' example). Indeed, we are told that the ephors told Leonidas he was taking too few men to Thermopylai (to which his famous reply: "Rather too many for the business at hand"). And Miller presents "the council" not as the body politic of Spartan citizens (and therefore the Spartan army) but as a bunch of professional politicians - and this dichotomy between the politicians and the warriors drives Gorgo's subplot, whereas in reality there was no such dichotomy. So it is easy to understand why Leonidas loves Gorgo so, and it is easy to understand what sort of woman she was, but as for Sparta itself the audience cares not a fig.

And that's a serious flaw, because the reason Thermopylai is important is because the Spartans decided to leave their beloved homeland and their families and die. The battle itself was indeed a spectacular feat of arms, but at the end of the day the allies held for only two days and their stand was of doubtful strategic importance. At best it stiffened the spine of the Greek allied congress to fight. If Greek civilization is what they were fighting for ... well, they were also fighting against Persian civilization, and that is a cause I find of doubtful nobility. But these were men who loved their families and loved their country, and when those were threatened they chose not to cling to them but to go far away from home and die. They could have sat at home and waited for the Persians to come, enjoying the time they had left - instead they chose to separate themselves from that which they loved in the hope that somehow it might be preserved. When the goat path was discovered they could have retreated, lived to fight another day - but they found they could not and still be true to what they were fighting for. They fought for Spartan laws, Spartan families, Spartan wives - and they could not run away and live Spartan men. They did not expect to come back, and they went anyway. They say that as her husband marched to the Gates Gorgo asked him what she could do to help. "Marry a good man," Leonidas said, "and bear good children." That - not the men they killed, not their warped view of the Persian Empire - is a story worth telling and retelling.

I didn't watch a lot of Babylon 5, but I remember an episode that struck me. A Minbari is trying to understand Christianity, and he asks a human monk what the emotional heart is of his religion. The monk thinks for a moment, and replies that it is not the Crucifixion, nor the Resurrection. It is the night Jesus spent in Gethsemane, when he was struggling with the full weight of realization of what was to come ... and decided not to run away.