fun story from last night tho: all the people from my english lit tutorial went out to the pub, since we had our last class of the semester yesterday and we wanted to celebrate. i was chatting away with two of the people, peter and zara, about the class i’m hopefully taking next year, ‘scotland and the supernatural,’ and i was talking about the testament of gideon mack and how it had gil-martin it it, and like. out of nowhere. this group of super sinister looking people in floor-length black cloaks with soot smeared all over their faces walked into the pub. and peter just goes ‘oh my god kyra you summoned them by talking about gil-martin.’
Because I heart your meta, is there a theme in the book you find resonate today?
i think... a good one is not letting faith blind you. it was pretty much all a critique of calvinism in particular, but i think the core theme of not putting your complete faith into something so thoroughly that it blinds you to everything else is a good message even today. the whole reason gil-martin is able to manipulate robert into the murders so easily is because robert has this unshakeable conviction that he’s one of the righteous and he’s predestined for heaven, which means he can do anything without risking damnation. gil-martin twists that faith so easily by whispering in his ear that he can kill, he can sin, he can do anything he wants --- he’s already saved, so nothing he does on earth matters. and that’s really, really dangerous thinking. a huge part of why hogg wrote it was to be like, ‘hey, guys, believing that you’re predestined for heaven and thus free of any judgment on earth is kind of shitty, because you’re using it as an excuse to get away with pretty awful stuff. this can easily become a really bad thing.’
like i said, this mostly concerns calvinism specifically with the whole predestination thing, but i think the main theme still works out well: don’t get so consumed by a belief in something that you let it blind you to what’s rational. if robert had just stopped for a minute and thought, ‘wait, even if i’m predestined for heaven, killing unarmed people is a really fucked up thing to do, maybe i shouldn’t,’ then maybe everything wouldn’t have gone to hell (no pun intended) the way it did. even if you have a really strong belief in something, whether that’s religion or a political belief or even just an opinion on something lesser, it’s important to pause every once in a while and look at how that’s affecting you. it might be influencing decisions that may not be in your best interest, or the best interest of people around you --- and if that’s the case, it’s important to think about whether that’s worth it. faith is a great thing to have, but not when it becomes so overzealous that it blinds you to rationality and right and wrong.
so!! i think that’s a good theme that still holds today. even if there aren’t many super devout calvinists like robert running around thinking they can murder people and not face consequences because they’re predestined for salvation, getting blinded by faith or beliefs can still be a problem in a lot of ways, so the overall message still stands.
also, just don’t trust guys who can shapeshift?? like?????? if robert had just thought wait a minute this guy keeps literally shapeshifting into different people that’s not really normal maybe i shouldn’t trust him then things would have been fine????? just don’t trust shady guys named gil-martin who shapeshift and say things that heavily imply they’re satan.
I legit just bought the kindle version of The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner because your taste is always so exquisite in every regard and yes. I had to. I live. Thank you!
i’m glad!! i hope you end up enjoying it. i do like to warn people, when they start off, that the editor’s narrative is extremely dull. it’s not too long, but it is very, very boring and kind of a chore to slog through, so just stick with it until you get to robert’s own confessions. that’s when it gets interesting.
i’ve missed this asshole so like this for a SMALL STARTER tomorrow morning. i’d also welcome questions about the book from anyone who’s interested, since i’d really love to talk more about it!!
all right, since i definitely need to follow more people to get this blog off the ground, please like or reblog if you’d be potentially willing to interact with a GIL-MARTIN, an interpretation of THE DEVIL, from james hogg’s the private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner. it’s a bit of an obscure book, but all the info you need can be found on my pages, and i’m more than happy to answer questions!! he fits extremely well into pretty much any verse or time period, too, so i’m open to characters from many fandoms.
wow, hello!! i’m so, so sorry i’ve been neglecting this blog. university ate up most of my time and my main blogs took precedence, but i’m free until my exams in may, so i’m hoping to get this blog back off the ground again!! feel free to come prod me if you’d like to plot something --- i’m going to start fresh, since a fair amount of my partners aren’t even active anymore, so it makes sense to just go with a clean slate.
Épocas mejores by Ibai Via Flickr: Más en www.ibaiacevedo.com | Facebook
i’m so sorry i’ve been so absent here recently!! i have four essays due in the next three weeks, which is kind of kicking my ass. i do plan to come back after things settle down!!
“you are liars and witches!” said he, foaming with rage, “and creatures fitted from the beginning for eternal destruction. i’ll have your bones and your blood sacrificed on your cursed altars! O GIL-MARTIN! gil-martin! where art thou now? here, here is the proper food for blessed vengeance! hilloa!”
-but there was no friend, no GIL-MARTIN there to hear or assist him.
( independent & selective gil-martin, a manifestation / interpretation of THE DEVIL. primarily based on james hogg’s the private memoirs and confessions of a justified sinner, but also influenced by james robertson’s the testament of gideon mack. penned by kyra. multiple aus and crossovers available, including lucifer, supernatural, hannibal, and dragon age. art credit. )
i’m so sorry i haven’t been here!! things get a bit wild with uni to worry about, so i’ve mostly been focusing on @vicemirrored‘s blog, but rest assured that i haven’t abandoned gil. once i have more free time, i will be back here.
men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while their own person and reputation sat under shelter. I WAS THE FIRST THAT EVER DID SO FOR HIS pleasures. i was the first that could thus plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability, and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and spring headlong into the sea of liberty. but for me, in my impenetrable mantle, the safety was complete.
( independent & selective DR. HENRY JEKYLL, of robert louis stevenson’s original novella. / not musical-based. / various aus & crossovers available, including harry potter, hannibal, dragon age, lucifer, etc. / established august 2013. / poem credit. )
One of the cards I did for the TEW Tarot Card Project! I dont really like how it turned out buuuttt i figured i’d post it anyway to maybe draw attention to the project :0
HE WAS CORRECT, THEY WERE ALWAYS PROMISING TO DESTROY IT ALL AND NEVER DOING, be either for the fun Earth could bring, with it’s little meat bags or because of whatever higher purpose there was. Even now, when his forms were not enough to melt, twist, make crooked the minds of the ones who see him, it was still rather entertaining to pull strings and watch the genius become a servant, or even better, a cow or a vegetable, whichever their madness drove them to be. But even then, Nyarlathotep sits by the GIANT TODDLER that is his progenitor and play his flute waiting for the moment this will be no longer enough to feed his appetite, and therefore, it will walk and tear away both time and space. Would that mean that whichever creation Gods existed, they would restart? Only for within millenniums it could all be repeated?
❝ I say because whom will be it’s doom does not comprehend it’s own actions… I am sure you know who I am talking about. ❞
starting over would be just fine, gil-martin thinks. all things considered, the world could do with a clean slate. HIS fear, which he’ll never voice, is that the proposed destruction of the world won’t mean a new beginning, but a definitive end. he doesn’t trust the gods, or the devils, to start afresh; more likely, he thinks, they’ll simply walk away, and that thought sincerely displeases him. earth may be far less fun in the current era than it used to be in centuries past, but something to do is better than nothing, he thinks. a universe without humans to toy with and uses as pawns would be exceedingly, interminably dull.
“ do you want to see the world destroyed, nyarlathotep? ” without breaking eye contact, he dips his hand back into the blood and starts to lick at the crimson again.
everyone thinks latin is a hard language to learn because it’s dead or because the grammar’s difficult or something like that but latin is actually hard because you keep accidentally summoning demons while you study and it can get kind of hard to do your homework when they’re all fighting over the soul you apparently just sold to five of them by mistake