Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

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drakkar
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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by drakkar » Fri May 31, 2013 10:43 am

Now look what you have done. You had me look up "zealot". :lol:
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metoo
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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by metoo » Fri May 31, 2013 11:06 am

drakkar wrote:Now look what you have done. You had me look up "zealot". :lol:
A day when you learn something new is never wasted, so be happy!
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drakkar
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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by drakkar » Fri May 31, 2013 2:12 pm

Now you really got me happy, I'm a scientist! :mrgreen:
For the heart life is simple. It beats as long as it can.
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DarkCorvus
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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by DarkCorvus » Fri May 31, 2013 8:16 pm

i dont think so .... :lol:

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Alice?Maybe
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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by Alice?Maybe » Fri Jun 13, 2014 8:27 pm

There is nothing satanic about Abby. Just as there is nothing satanic about the child abused for all her life who becomes promiscuous, addicted, wayward. Abby is a victim of abuse and has developed survival strategies in spite of the trauma. I mean, someone forced upon this child, violated her and turned her. Abby's vampirism is no more her fault as is her eye colour.
"I'm not a girl" (except when I am)

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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by lombano » Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:51 am

I don't think a knight is any way a good analogy - Abby may "serve Satan" but a knight implies voluntary service from a sort of privileged position, whereas Abby is obviously unhappy in her position. Abby would be more accurately described as "Satan's slave." Her service is only voluntary to the extent that she could kill herself instead (like a slave) and by Christian norms that too would be a sin, so she has even less choice than a slave (she sins either way). I don't think she has any grand plan, she just tries to meet her material and emotional needs.
cmfireflies wrote:And the idea that Owen, raised by a fundamentalist mother, wouldn't be able to tell the difference between stealing candy and committing murder, because hey, the punishment for both those sins is hellfire. That might make him a bit more to Abby.
This is a fascinating idea. If you're going to burn forever anyway, Owen might think, you might as well sin all you want. Once you steal candy, let alone have a sleepover with a female you're not married to, you might as well become a serial killer. This is somewhat analogous to some of Haakan's musings - that life in prison would be his lot if he got caught and that committing more crimes made no difference, and that going by Dante's version of hell, if you committed a sin dooming you to the lower circles, you might as well sin all you wanted, at least the sins punished in the upper circles, as it would make no difference to your everlasting punishment.
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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by dongregg » Sun Jun 15, 2014 5:31 pm

danielma wrote:As is the case with anything that challenges society, the rock band KISS was deemed satanic by a bunch of closed minded PTA waving concerened fundamentalist christians. The same types who believe that any questionable rock band is tearing apart the fabric of society. The name KISS was deemed as an acronym for meaning Knights in Satan's Service by said fundamentalist. Why does this matter to LMI you ask? Well, Owen's mother is implied to be a religous zealot (of sorts). Owen's mother is a part of that society that maybe deems Abby as the path of Evil. At the same time, a society that also deems KISS as Evil.
The banality of evil is not best served by a rock band. Evil needs legions of mindless zombies, as you describe so well--banal servants who zealously pursue the war on thinking.

Let light stand for thinking in this passage from Faust:

The haughty light, which now disputes the space
And claims of Mother Night her ancient place.
And yet, the struggle fails; since Light, however weaves,
Still fettered, unto matter cleaves:
It flows from matter, matter beautifies;
By matter is its course impeded;
And so, but little time is needed,
I hope, until light, along with matter, dies!

[The German (and my translation) are on a different jump drive.]
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by sauvin » Sun Jun 15, 2014 6:16 pm

danielma wrote:As is the case with anything that challenges society, the rock band KISS was deemed satanic by a bunch of closed minded PTA waving concerened fundamentalist christians. The same types who believe that any questionable rock band is tearing apart the fabric of society. The name KISS was deemed as an acronym for meaning Knights in Satan's Service by said fundamentalist. Why does this matter to LMI you ask? Well, Owen's mother is implied to be a religous zealot (of sorts). Owen's mother is a part of that society that maybe deems Abby as the path of Evil. At the same time, a society that also deems KISS as Evil.
s/anything that challenges society/anything that's new/;

While our fundamentalist Christian friends have, overall, an enormous impact on Western thought, I wouldn't want to be one to claim that such fundamentalism necessarily excludes the capacity or willingness to reason. I've known a few, unshakeably devout to their very core, and still perfectly able to recognise that the "tearing apart" of the "fabric of society" is a very complex thing, and have recognised without being prompted that religious zealotry itself can be destructive to said "fabric".

Owen's mother doesn't deem Abby as "the path of Evil". I don't get that she's capable of "deeming" anything. She gives me a very strong impression of just being a follower, and not a very good one, being coarsely stippled between an empty electronic church blaring into her living room and sleeping off another episode of dipsomania. She doesn't believe anything, doesn't believe in anything, and doesn't want to. All she really wants is to drift away.

Owen's mother doesn't deem Abby as "the path of Evil". She can't; she doesn't even know Abby exists, let alone anything about her. Mom is already far enough advanced in her drifting away to even fail to suspect that her twelve year old son is sleeping with a seriously older girl.

As for Abby herself, I agree completely with Lombano with respect to her alleged service to Satan: she's trapped. And yes, it's fascinating, this mentality of "in for a penny, in for a pound".
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Re: Is Abby a Knight in Satan's Service?

Post by dongregg » Sun Jun 15, 2014 7:20 pm

"The banality of evil is not best served by a rock band. Evil needs legions of mindless zombies--banal servants who zealously pursue the war on thinking."

@sauvin. I'm staying with that characterization. I've spent too many decades listening to their rants to attribute thinking to them. And being devout has never implied being lobotomized. (To say more would require a PM.)
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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