8FOLD/META: About the Author # 1: Tom Russell

[Saxon Brenton]

Martin replied to Tom about _Speak_ #1
>> That's what I'm interested in: knowing something was wrong, doing it
>> anyway, and not knowing why.
>
> Read it.  Liked it.  Didn't quite buy it.  Most of us take the middle
> road: we have to think about ourselves first but we're not quite 
> ready to say "Fuck you" to the rest of the world.  Would having 
> great power change that?  Not necessarily.  "With great power comes 
> great responsibility" and "Absolute power corrupts absolutely" are 
> both demonstratably true, but the average person would be neither 
> supremely altruistic nor diabolically evil.  we all do things for a 
> reason.  It isn't just because we can.

I remain intrigued and endlessly amused by the fact that the great 
moral polarisation that characterises the stereotypical superhero 
setting is a juxtaposition of Stan Lee on the one hand and Lord Acton 
on the other.  But be that as it may, I got the impression that Gregory 
simply felt too weighed down by the expectations of doing Good with 
his abilities (and this despite the example of the super-plumber that 
you don't have to dress in a costume with your underwear on the 
outside if you're a superhuman) and is simply lashing out doing 
whatever he damn well feels like.  And if, as Tom later said, he 
progresses to doing even worse things, it might be interesting to see 
if the same attitude prevails with regards to doing Bad.
 
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Saxon Brenton                           saxon.brenton at uts.edu.au
The GIRL GENIUS comic of Phil and Kaja Foglio is now online at: 
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