Splendor | Definition of Splendor at Dictionary.com

“Farts?”
“Yeah,” the human replies.
“Actual farts?”
“Indeed,” nods the human.
“Genuine flatulence, like the actual secretion of excess gas from your anal cavity,” splutters the Asimadorian.
“That’s them yes,” says the human.
The craft travels onwards through the void. Within the cabin the two beings scan multiple instrument panels, their eyes focused upon the data upon a dozen view screens, as they plunge at faster than light speed towards their destination.
Some moments pass. The Asimadorian finally just turns to the human beside her.
“Your species are genuinely weird,” she snorts.
“That’s a bit harsh G’Nip,” replies the human with a raised eyebrow.
“No, it isn’t. You are the only species in the galaxy, no, I’m gonna say it, the only species in the UNIVERSE, who would suggest that one of the proofs that there is a God is... the existence of farts.”
There was a long pause.
“Well, as I said it was a bit more complicated than that,” sighs the human.
“FARTS!” G’Nip almost shouts, her large brown eyes bulging, her fur bristling.
The human remains silent for a little bit. She knew from experience that you always allowed Asimadorian’s a little while to calm down when upset. It’s not like G’Nip would enter battle frenzy over this, but it was better to be safe than sorry.
The ship continues its journey through interstellar space for a while. The human wondered if her companion had gotten over the issue.
She hadn’t.
“Have you ever met a Deccan?” asks G’Nip.
“Occasionally. They’re Sulphur breathers, so unless either they or one of us wears a life support suit we can’t really socialise,” says the human.
“Well Lilith let me tell you something,” the Asimodorian leans forward in her seat, “when they encountered your species, and my species and the HurKint, and the Showkei and the GesKlooopaCha, you know what they realised?”
Lilith was staring at the kinetic drives readiness screens and monotone says, “What did they realise?”
“They realised that across this vast cosmos, somehow, six, let me repeat that, SIX species had evolved on planets thousands of light years from each other, independently from one another, across billions of years of unique evolutionary development…”
“I know where you are going with this G’Nip,” says Lilith, desperate to cut off what was the obvious conclusion, but failing.
“And yet,” growled G’Nip, “ALL six highly intelligent species evolved bearing the same form- two arms, two legs, central spine, upright posture, prehensile hands. Six of them. All evolving the same biological shape. Do you know what the chances are off that?”
“Well, I could…”
“It’s a lot Lilith. Like seriously a LOT. And the Deccan saw this amazing thing and they considered that, THAT, as evidence to the existence of a Divine Creator. That. One of the most cosmologically significant developments one could imagine. That is the kind of thing a NORMAL species would say reveals the existence of a divine entity.”
“Right…” says Lilith, waiting for the punchline.
“Not,” says her companion bristling with indignation, “farts!”
A pause.
“I think you are taking this out of all proportion G’Nip,” says the human calmly.
“Farts Lilith! What next? Did you learn about FTL drives because of your ability to take a shit? Did one night on your homeworld one of your ancestors have an explosive case of diarrhoea, and, as they propelled liquid excrement out of their backside suddenly go, ‘Hey, maybe we can go faster than light?’ Huh?”
There was a longer pause.
“I explained it wrong,” sighed Lilith, “While we can speak the same language, our species does conceptualise a lot of things differently. We do lose stuff in the translation.”
G’Nip gives her human companion the side eye.
“So, it wasn’t farts?”
“Oh yes, he mentioned farting,” smiles the human.
The Asmadorian just glares at her human co-pilot balefully. A moment passes. It takes a deep breath, its large flat nose flaring, its fur bristling and then blinks.
“Perhaps you should explain it again Lilith,” it finally says, very carefully.
Lilith nods, and ponders.
One of the great technological marvels the two species shared was the ability to travel faster than light. The problem with faster than light travel, however, was once it had begun, there was little for crews to do except watch the engines. It led to conversations like this.
A lot of conversations like this.
“Alright,” she begins, “so, let us get back to where we were before your little hysterical outburst…”
“I WAS NOT HYSTERICAL!” snarls G’Nip before her nostrils suddenly close (the Asmadorian reaction to embarrassment).
“You were a little hysterical G’Nip,” says Lilith.
“I’m… maybe I was a little… judgemental,” comes the hesitant reply. Lilith knew Asmadorian’s had only began to grasp the concept of apologies quite recently (in the two hundred years since they encountered other species) and figured that was pretty sincere by their standards.
“It’s fine G’Nip. I did not explain it properly. So, where were we? Before all this started, what were we talking about?”
“We were discussing how many species believe that the grand cosmic beauty of the universe can only possibly exist because of a divine creator, and that God is proven by its majesty, its complexity and its wonder.”
“Ah, yes, right,” smiles Lilith, and she sits back in her seat. She ponders how to proceed from this point and then flushed with an idea, begins.
“So, what you are describing? On Earth we also had that theory, the idea of a divine creator revealed by the design of the universe. It is a theory that is as old as our species as I said, and has had a host of separate names for it; artificial essentialism; argument by design; Natural Theology; Intelligent Design. It was all basically the same thing. We would look at the complexity and the amazing nature of the Universe, see how it all worked and fit together and then look at something complicated WE had made like a watch. Then we would say ‘Well if this artefact, which is easily constructed by US, functions so well, that MUST mean that the universe, which is way more complex must be constructed by a much wiser and more profound intelligence’. Because it works so well, yeah?”
“Exactly the conclusions reached by the Deccan,” says G’Nip.
Lilith nods and takes a deep breath.
“Anyway, so there was this guy, a single human male; he lived around… wow. He lived around 3000 years ago. Back then G’Nip we humans were a much more primitive species alright? We had not discovered flight, not even electro-magnetism. We were very, very basic.”
The alien nods listening carefully.
“So, at the time there was a large Empire on one part of our planet. Its name was Rome. It was… it isn’t important to know about Rome. What is important was, as this huge empire was fading and dying, with the usual symptoms, you know, cities being destroyed, civilisation itself falling apart, all of that, there lived this one human, called Augustine of Hippo. With me so far?”
“Yes,” says G’Nip.
“Right, SO, in amidst all this decline and fall, this Augustine of Hippo? He was like a great theologian and thinker. He was trying to make sense of his whole world falling apart routine. He ended up becoming one of our greatest writers on the subject of faith and God. So much so many humans have declared him a Saint.”
“Holy men and women yes?”
“Ultimate holy men and women. Actual agents of Divine Wisdom and Agency.”
“Wow. Understood. Alright, go on Lilith.”
“ANYWAY, this Saint Augustine was a believer in the idea that the design of the universe was evidence of a divine creator, just like the Deccan. And he wrote a long list of the marvels of nature that were, to him, proof that the universe, by its very properties, revealed the existence of a God, through these wonders.”
G’Nip nods, following eagerly.
“And amidst these proofs he wrote about, he said, and I am quoting him verbatim here, that one of the essential proofs for there being a grand divine creator was that ‘Some can produce at will odorless sounds from their breech, a kind of singing from the other end’.”
“Singing?”
“A kind of singing. From the other end.”
There was a long pause.
“So… farts.”
“Yep. Farts.”
The alien said nothing for a while. Lilith smiles. The Asimodorian hisses under her breath, “You are one FUCKED up species,” but Lilith ignores her.
“Technically, now I come to think about it, it is actually a very good example to use.”
G’Nip’s eyes widen and her nostrils flare in bewilderment; “How? How in the seven stars is it a good example?”
“Well, there was another school of theological thought… actually it was an entirely separate human religion, and they spoke of the Godhood being found in all things. ALL things. Both the magisterial and the base. The Divine Being manifest in all aspects of reality. They would ask ‘Does the mundane contain the Buddha?’ and would say that if you said it did not, what you describe cannot BE the Buddha.”
“Buddha?”
“The name for the divine those humans used,” the human says.
The alien considers this for a while and ventures, “So, your Holy Men…”
“And women,” adds Lilith.
“Your holy men and women would argue that the divine is found in all things? Not just in the glory of the universe, but also in the basest aspects? Such a bodily function?”
“Yes, the idea that if the universe was designed by divine intelligence, then ALL things are manifestations of this divinity, both sacred AND profane. So that includes the grand cosmic splendours of the stars all the way down to things like teeth. And farting.”
The alien is silent. Lilith took this as a good sign and so continued.
“Some of our Holy people, not all mind, but some, they would turn to the Deccan for example and say ‘Hey why is it you accept something like six out of the 11 intelligent species all having the same basic shape as proof of the existence of a divine intelligence, but not the complex and frankly amazing system of expelling excess gases from our bodies? Is that not also proof of a brilliant central designer?’”
“These… these are profound thoughts.”
“Ain’t they just,” says Lilith, proud of herself and she smiles.
“I had… my people have never thought of the Divinity quite like that before?”
“Well, my species spent a LONG time contemplating such things. We did it a lot. No seriously, a LOT. I mean basically talking about God has been the number one occupation of the human species for nearly all our history.”
“And yet… you do not count yourself as a religious species?”
“Not anymore. I mean sure we were. Boy, we really were. Literally thousands of religions, and faiths and creeds and belief systems…”
“Having so many? It is a sign that you were a deeply spiritual species,” says G’Nip. The human besides her grins.
“Actually, it was more just a sign that we really just couldn’t agree on a damn thing. Humans are fractious beings. We disagree about just about EVERYTHING. And that is the reason we had so many belief systems. We simply couldn’t agree, wouldn’t agree on, the divine at all. We all saw it differently and then? Whenever we met each other? We were convinced the other guy believed in the divine incorrectly. And THEN would try and convince them to change their mind.”
“So, you engaged in endless theological debates?”
“Fuck no. We would try and convince them they were wrong; they would try to convince us WE were wrong and then eventually both sides would give up and we’d start killing each other.”
“Oh.”
“That’s how it was. We did this so often some of us actually believed that religion and faith was the CAUSE of all human wars. ALL human wars.”
“Was it?”
“Of course not. HUMANS are the cause of all human on human wars. But religion and faith? That was just the easiest tool to use to justify for war. There were so many versions of them, so many variations of faith that it basically said to all humans, ‘Hey- do you have a bigoted and biased opinion you wish to impose upon the rest of your species? Why not shop around the religions? Eventually you will find one to suit your purpose. And if THAT doesn’t work- why not create your own?’ We used religion to suit us. Blaming belief systems for wars was like putting the cart before the horse.”
“Cart before…?”
“Oh, like putting the propulsion unit in front of the habitation cab,” she corrects. G’Nip frowns and mutters, “That’s not very logical…”
“In time,” continues the human, “we humans of course became more secular and more advanced. We became a much more logical species, more willing to put religion behind us. Know what happened when we did?”
“World peace?”
“Fuck no! Nothing changed. We STILL made war upon one another. We just found other things to manipulate to justify them,” she grins.
“What other things?”
“Oh it gets bad. So, we actually had a period of time when we decided that religion wasn’t the best way to justify war upon each other, so we would kill ourselves over our fondness of geographic features.”
“What?”
“We created these things called ‘nation states’ right?”
“Like Empires?”
“Oh no. Much much smaller. We would divide up the land based on completely artificial boundaries, right? And then even if said boundary divided up a single valley say, people on one side of this artificial boundary would develop an entire differing culture and language than people who lived only yards away.”
“That sounds insane…” says G’Nip.
“It gets worse. We would then create IDENTITY over our little geographic plot of land…”
“Wait, stop. These territories- they were divided by geography, yes? Separated by rivers and mountains and that kind of thing? And you formed bonds of kinship being based in a natural occurring habitat zone? Like my species hunting grounds of antiquity?”
“Nope. We’d make artificial representations of where we thought they would end on maps and argued passionately over these imaginary borders on the maps.”
“No actual physical divide?”
“Oh, we would eventually build some to match the imaginary lines on our maps. Erect walls and barriers. But nothing natural.”
“That doesn’t just sound insane, it is a little…” says G’Nip.
“Not as insane as deciding we would go to war with the other humans in the other community.”
“You actually killed each other because you lived in separate geographic locations?”
“Yep. We would kill each other because we would create artificial nations of our kind and then insist that the needs of those nations justified killing. We THEN we developed geopolitics…”
“Geopolitics?”
“I want you to imagine a religion. A comprehensive world view of the purpose of your species, from the grand scale to the most minute aspects of your lives.”
“Alright…”
“Now remove any reference to God or the divine.”
“You would simply have dogma!” hisses the alien.
Lilith grins.
“You got it. ALL the reasons religion could give us, NONE of the complicated theology. In time politics became THE go to excuse to kill each other. Capitalism, Communism, Fascism, Democracy, Libertarianism, NeoHumanism, Totalitarianism, Gaiaism…”
“So many?”
“Remember what I said about humans being unable to agree on just about anything? It was the exact same situation with religion, only now about dogmatic belief systems minus the spiritual side.”
“Wow,” says G’Nip.
“Tell me about it,” says Lilith, stretching in her seat, “And we did this for centuries. Eventually we kinda realised we had been blaming religions and faith for the crap we just always did to each other unfairly. And we stopped giving them such a hard time.”
“So, you became a more spiritual people?”
“Nah. By then we had just become too cynical and too long in the tooth. We didn’t reject religion, but it stopped being all we were about. Yes, we still have a bunch of people who are religious. And we still have lots of people who get upset by the very idea of religion because they refuse to believe the evidence of history.”
“Does this cause conflict?”
“Only on social media. Anyway, then along comes meeting the rest of the galaxy. Aliens. We were not alone! We know most other species underwent some kind of philosophical crisis and religious awakening when they met alien life for the first time? Us humans? Not so much.”
“Why not?”
“Because we were mostly emotionally burned out by then. We had almost destroyed our planet, and in truth were mere decades away from wiping ourselves out. AND we knew it. We saw the discovery of you guys not as some divine proof of a cosmic creator, but mostly as relief that we now had something else we could focus on.”
G’Nip gazes over at her human crew mate for a few moments.
“You sound so cynical,” she says and Lilith surprises her by smiling and nodding.
“Yep. That’s us. The most cynical and jaundiced race out of the 11 sentient species And its served us well. We don’t get anywhere near as passionate as we use to. We have seen it and done it all before. A young species but a very intense one. Whose gotten their fingers burned by such intensity.”
“Which is why,” says her alien crew mate, “whenever one of us talks about divinity, your kind will do something like mention one of your holy men believed farts were proof of the divine?”
“Can’t help ourselves. A very jaded reaction. But it’s not just about religion. This is why you find we don’t serve in the galactic legions as warriors, or the ruling council as politicos.”
“This explains why you humans dominate the diplomatic service, the Department of Conflict Resolution and the Interstellar Exploration Guild,” says G’Nip, a sudden awareness filling her eyes.
“You got it. We don’t take ourselves TOO seriously anymore. We see the absurdity in anger sure, but also in pride, and hubris. We don’t discover new things and believe it contains some divine reasoning, or get all upset about the actions in the senate anymore. We just like to solve problems and discover things and remain… you know… a little bit ‘meh’ about everything.”
“You sound bitter,” says her companion but Lilith smiles.
“Nah. We ain’t. We just very, very grounded. After our history? Trust me- being grounded is the ONLY way to cope anymore. We even have a name for it. Several. You know, humans being humans we disagreed over this new mindset, so back home we call it Neo-Stoicism, Grounded Pragmatic Realism, Post Evolutionary Stress Response Disorder, New Era Cynicism...”
She grins again, “And besides,” says the human, “this is why we are famed for our sense of humour. We like to laugh. Mostly at ourselves sure, but at everything if we can.”
Suddenly warning lights flash up on the view screens, followed by audible alarms. Both human and alien, their conversation instantly forgotten, spring to life, moving hands over a score of monitors and falling back on their training and expertise.
“Dropping out of FTL in six Tebutum,” says G’Nip.
“Inertial dampeners are in the green.”
“We have a clear materialisation space,”
“All systems show optimal,” says Lilith.
“Micro hull breaches?”
“None,” smiles the human.
“Two Tebutum until return to spacetime,” reads G’Nip calmly.
“FTL shields starting countdown on automatic retraction. Kinetics report full readiness…”
“One Tebutum.”
“All realtime sensors show 100% readiness… bracing for return. Auto start sequence on the kinetics has began.”
“Andddddd... Return!”’ says G’Nip and their small exploration craft drops back into spacetime.
When FTL travel was discovered, all species realised very quickly that two aspects of it were seemingly designed to kill the occupants of their star ships in horrendously gruesome ways.
The first was when starting and travelling; moving faster than light speed placed not just extraordinary pressures upon their ships, but also upon their frail biological bodies inside the ships. Vast energies were spent generating artificial inertia to keep them all alive.
But that was nothing compared to stopping. Going from faster than light to… well anything NOT faster than light represented an elevated chance of death. The first FTL’s actually came to a complete stop. The crews of those ships disembarked in buckets after having been scraped off the walls. Actually in some cases the remains filled Petri dishes.
We are talking powerful forces here.
Now, the ships generated vastly more artificial inertia as they ended FTL travel so as to prevent death by sudden change in velocity. And compensated by coming out of light speed but still going insanely quickly.
Both Asmadorian and Human exhale as their bodies briefly scream under the pressure.
“Two thirds light speed,” mews G’Nip through gritted teeth.
“Kinetic engines on full burn,” comes the human reply, strained as the ship begins its timed deceleration.
“One third light speed.”
“Estimate 180 million miles to cessation point,” grits Lilith.
“One quarter,” comes the growled reply.
“Deploying physical negators,” says the human, flicking a switch. The ship shakes as it begins to drastically slow down even quicker.
“One tenth light speed. Deploy secondary negators.”
“Deploying,” says Lilith, triggering another switch. The ship shakes again, much more violently, and they are thrown forward in their seats, held in by the restraints.
“Slowing…” says the alien.
“Slowing…”
“Terminating kinetic engines, ready to burn counter drive,” says Lilith her hand stood by a switch.
“Slowing… now!”
There is a brief roar as a series of engines erupt into life. And then they cease. A sudden silent stillness.
Both creatures stare at the screens.
“We have cessation,” says G’Nip.
“Winding down all kinetics.”
The two pilots scan their screens.
“We are back in spacetime,” says G’Nip, “Unfurl FTL plating. How’s the ship?”
“Structural integrity is 4 by 4 by 4,” smiles the human.
“All sensors in full working order. Sending ping.”
“I recognise the ping is sent. Gathering telemetric data… stand by…”
A tense moment passes. G’Nip’s eyes widen and she bears her teeth.
“Initial data confirms- we are on target. We made it.”
Lilith grins back and says “We did it G’Nip!”
The sense of triumph at having competed such a dangerous manoeuvre as travelling via FTL into an unknown part of the galaxy filled them both. The alien pilot, her fur bristling with pride gives a small yelp of victory.
“A new sector to explore. Who knows what we may find here,” says the Asimodorian, “Well aside from the obvious?”
“Opening view screens,” says Lilith and seven data screens lose their individual information and form into a single gigantic image that sits across the front of their cabin. High resolution cameras now exposed to the cosmos begin recording the light that reaches them and the results appear before the two passengers.
Upon them is a stunning edifice; a massive structure of interstellar gas, billowing and bulging in sophisticated shapes.
Their sensors respond to readings in the light spectrum to reveal a kaleidoscopic array of colours, reds and blues and yellows and greens, all dancing around each other. Throughout it, like dizzying gemstones, sit a cluster of blue-white, new formed stars, each glowing in the unique intensity of the chemical chain reactions at each stellar core.
The Asimodorian and the human stare at it opened mouth at this vast entity; which while still thousands of light years from their position, it takes up their entire view, filling the sky with its beauty.
“It’s…” begins G’Nip who then stops.
“Wonderous,” whispers Lilith.
“The Sacred Nebula of the Gressimobo System.”
“The largest star nursery on this side of the galaxy,” continues her human companion.
“It’s so much bigger than the pictures we have…”
“Spacetime G’Nip- the images we had of it were light sent 650 million years ago. I expected there to be change but this…”
She wipes a tear at the beauty before them both.
G’Nip is the first to gather her thoughts.
“Right Lilith, we need to perform…”
She stops. As Lilith gazes at the cosmic wonder before her, a sound begins from the base of her seat. A singular wet sound, of gas being pushed through a hole that varies in size as it passes. It begins high but develops quickly into a deep sonorous resonance; the sound waves echo off the cabin walls; as it continues, it gets louder, building to a thundering crescendo, a sound suggesting a veritable quivering of internal organs, before ending on a high pitch, almost mewing squeak, that continues for a further second or so.
The whole thing lasted a good 11 seconds.
G’Nip stares at her human crewmate horrified.
“Did you just…”
“Better out than in,” smiles Lilith.
“I can’t believe you…”
G’Nip freezes. Her eyes widen. Her nostrils suddenly, violently, close.
“BY THE STARS THAT’S DISGUSTING!”
“Oh, its not that bad G’Nip,” giggles the human.
“By the seven! That’s FOUL. Do you weaponize your assholes? You are such degenerates,” cries the Asmadorian, flailing around in her seat in a desperate attempt to get away from the smell.
“Come on,” begins Lilith, laughing harder now.
“Are you DYING? That stench!”
“I’ve been kinda holding it in for a while…”
“Computer- begin emergency atmospheric filtering…”
“Hey, its not that bad G’Nip, its… oh… oh wait. Oh, that IS disgusting. I can’t believe I made that…” laughs Lilith.
“Ancestors protect me!” mews the alien and the human turns to her.
“I’m so sorry G’Nip. That one has got egg in it.”
And there, 475 million light years from Earth, the human is laughing and laughing…
Do you wish to be great? Then begin by being. Do you desire to construct a vast and lofty fabric? Think first about the foundations of humility. The higher your structure is to be, the deeper must be its foundation.
St Augustine

I have played for over three decades and coached for two. I have always admired players who have exceptional skills, no matter what physical gifts they were born with. For this reason, the skill set of guys like MJ and Kobe, Nash and Magic, have impressed me a bit more than guys who have unbelievable athletic ability or size. I don't mean to hate, but I just can't dive fully into the splendour of Ben Simmons or Giannis or (wait for it...) LeBron since the kids I coach can't really mimic their games. Yes, LeBron has phenomenal vision and his shotmaking has really improved since the days he couldn't shoot FTs or 3s, and Giannis and Ben are amazing in the open court with their footwork, so I understand I am diminishing their games because they've been born long and strong and agile.
To put it another way: when I ask kids to watch highlight vids on YouTube, the first four names mentioned above are usually at the top of my list, because they're games can be learned, at least in terms of normal hoopers learning the value of footwork, jab steps, shot fakes, spins, court vision, hesis, and sound fundamentals. Truth be told, I'm also a Laker fan, a one-time MJ hater, a point guard who got the chance to play with Nash during summer, and not that athletic!
Okay, now onto Beal. I've watched him maybe 12-15 times in my life, and most recently twice this week on League Pass. His movement on the court, his footwork, his ability to score with and off the ball, his good but not superior physical talents are maximized - helped of course with his ability to shoot from anywhere.
In short, is there a better all around scorer in the league right now? Harden can go left and has that stepback. But he never posts up or does anything off the ball. He is phenomenal in the open court. Luka is similar. I love Dame's game for sure and DBook is just entering his prime. Steph and Klay and KD are Hall of Famers.
Am I out to lunch? Am I overreacting based on recency bias since I've actually enjoyed watching this team with Russ now a part of it? Would love your thoughts.

Corpse Cover
In an eon of insanity, man has become a wall.
To contemplate the full horror of life in the Age of Imperium, one must first recognize that mankind fell from his sublime pinnacles of worldly wonder and achievement that was the Dark Age of Technology, a heady time when man settled millions of planets and bestrode the galaxy like a colossus thanks to the cunning of his mind and the artifice of his hands. From those lofty heights did man plunge down a precipice of doom known as the Age of Strife, when man in his suffering and desperation devolved into a savage cannibal and wretched scavenger bereft of longevity and innovation, capable only of manhunts, abduction of woman and looting the great works of a bygone golden age in a shocking state of the most primitive cruelty and ignorance. Parent ate child, and all was ruin.
The death spiral of Old Night was eventually halted by the bloodstained coming of the Emperor of Terra, rising the eagle banner on man's birthworld, and for a short while a resurgent spirit of enterprise and ingenuity swept across the surviving human colonies as legions conquered, for the rekindled sparks of brilliance seemed set to lead man back to his former ascendancy. Yet the feeble flesh of mortals are destined to wither and die, and so too must their dreams, for once again the galaxy burned in a monstrous civil war that ravaged man's dominions and tore down any chance of restoring his lost supremacy and soaring quest for immortality. Brother slew brother, and all was fell.
The shining beacon of hope that was the early Imperium, forged in the fires of the Great Crusade, has since sunk together like a failed soufflé. For the might and splendour of the Imperium proved not a bastion of strength to shelter man from a galaxy of horrors, but became instead a prison where the efforts of man amounted to little more than a prolonged waiting for the inevitable end as his powerful vigour and clarity of mind rotted into torpid senility. Thus the Age of Imperium brought not rejuvenation to man, but the decline and misery of old age. And man slid down into a swamp of misery and superstition, and he reverted to a blinkered fanatic capable of the most bloodthirsty acts of depravity imaginable. Hate ruled supreme, as grinding destitution and endless struggle saw trillions ultimately die for nothing. Man trod water, and all was decay.
Twohundredfifty generations of brutal freefall were thus followed by fivehundred generations of total war. Fivehundred generations of sacrifice and suffering. Fivehundred generations of unending carnage and slaughter. Thus wretched man learnt to harness himself to the cart, and he pulled the heavy burden forward through inexorable storms. And as he fought a losing war against impending doom, man again and again made use of an ancient warrior trick until it became second nature to him, for man would seek shelter behind the fallen, and man would pile his dead into a wall of flesh to shield himself from death for a little longer. And thus even the lifeless husks of departed souls were made to serve in the arena of slaughter.
Survival in war has ever favoured quick-thinking soldiers who manage to adapt to their battlefield and use the terrain itself as a weapon to strike back against the enemy. Cunning and luck has ever been crucial when swords are drawn, for victory must be won by any means necessary, and damn all scruples that would betray you to the cruel foe. Thus Imperial Guardsmen with their wits about them instinctively know to take cover when under fire, and anyone who wish to preserve his stay among the living will know to swallow his revulsion and make use of the dead. Such pragmatic solutions to the perils of the moment have always been a regretful fact of life in armed conflicts through the ages, yet never before has a great power betwixt the stars turned such dehumanizing improvization into a systematically ingrained practice among the articles of faith in its military doctrines.
It is better to die for the Emperor, than to live for yourself. It is better to clog up the streets and corridors with your own carcass, than to retreat an inch when faced with mortal danger. It is better to erect barricades out of the fallen warriors of mankind, than to bury them. Not even in death does duty end. Fear not the pox and the plague, for the God-Emperor shields his faithful and devout ritual worshippers from the festering swarms of germs, flies and maggots. Trust in the guidance of the Imperator of Holy Terra to bless you with the grant to think on your feet, and therefore dive for cover behind a fallen comrade. Be pure of heart and strong of will, and lay corpse upon corpse to form a solid wall. Waste not, want not.
One glimpse of an exemplary sharp Imperial foosoldier who found an aegis in so much dead meat, was that of private Dasharatha Kumarya, of the 108108th Rajipur Tech-Guard regiment of the Astra Militarum. During the twelfth battle of Hive Rhea on Perisistratus VII, lunar satellite to Teleklos Tertiarius, this Imperial infantryman followed the rapid advance of his platoon's brave lieutnant Skanda Ramutiskrit, when suddenly the junior officer and most of his platoon were gunned down in a rebel ambush. Dasharatha survived the initial massacre by the will of our lord on Terra, and he was granted a flash of preserving insight from the lord of hosts and leader of the people, wherefore the private quickly took cover behind the corpse of his dead platoon leader, which lay splayed out on the ground with a scorching wound through Skanda's right eye. Dasharatha Kumarya peered through his gasmask lense and proceeded to methodically gun down one treacherous enemy after another, all the while yelling the traditional battlecry of his homeworld: "For the Omnissiah and the Holy Atom!" Thus did an Imperial Guardsman avenge a loyal officer's death by shooting the foe from behind the carcass of his slain martial brother.
Yet the uses for fallen soldiers extend far beyond momentary emergencies in Imperial modes of operation. Warfare for the servants of the God-Emperor is an industrial undertaking waged on a titanic scale, where little room is left over for finesse and efficiency. To win in war, the Imperium knows that it must feed the meatgrinder in a broken calculation of increased input of men and material, heedless of all losses beyond the balancing of very large numbers on available force charts. How else could this sclerotic empire of a million worlds and uncountable voidholms survive? Only by growing a heart of stone can the Imperium of Man do what must be done, blind and deaf to the human suffering its lowly minions must endure.
Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Effectivization, improvement and innovation were the follies of the Dark Age of Technology, whose glories have long since rusted and faded away. As knowledge and ancient hardware slowly withers away, increasing amounts of processes which were once the domain of machinery and automation have to be salvaged in patchwork manner by throwing bodies at the problem. Literally so, in the case of military engineering and fieldworks.
Thus the Imperium of Man has long since codified standard practices of using the corpses of friend and foe alike as landfill in such inconvenient features of the theatre of operations as enemy trenches, moats, rivers and valleys. What once was only a desperate gambit during better and long since forgotten eras, has now become standard Imperial procedure, as instructed by the Tactica Imperialis and practiced by Imperial forces all across the Milky Way galaxy. In fact, campaign planners within the Departmento Munitorum will always adjust calculations for Imperial Guard sandbag needs and consumption, by including corrective equations compensating for casaulty rates determined by the average volume and density of a malnourished human being, since the Astra Militarum by ancient decree of the High Lords of Terra operates on the thrifty principle of not letting the dead go to waste.
Thus slave labour, military fieldwork detachments and machine cohorts directed by gifted amateur officers, Mensurae Lustrantii or Tech-Priest Enginseers labour day and night to build and reshape the battlefield with plasteel, earth, rockrete, sandbags and the bodies of dead people and beasts alike as primary materials. The dirt of the ground, prefabricated sections and lifeless stalwarts are all combined into field fortifications and strongpoints that may prove decisive in the fickle mutability of military campaigns. When casaulties as usual ramp up in the millions and often also billions, the hard-working soldiers of the Astra Militarum and their harrowed corvée labour gangs will move amid the filth and squalor of the battlefront, scavenging corpses and constructing redoubts of unmoving flesh and bone. These carcass building blocks are not only limited to civilian and military humans alike, but also include all manner of alien and exotic animal cadavers of ridden mounts, draft animals, tracking beasts, attack predators and many other strange creatures. Even the fallen can be put to good use.
Thus the warriors of the Emperor pile dead men, women and children on top of one another for their battlements, using both earth and corpses on top of rockrete fortifications for extra protection. Of course, sometimes acute shortage of building material rear its ugly head when planning or convoying fall foul of reality. Then, nearby settlements may find themselves razed to the ground and plundered to the cellars in order to provide material for the military needs of defence and siegeworks. The banality of evil is such that ordinary people in the uniforms of Planetary Defence Forces, Voidholm Militias and the Astra Militarum may find themselves committing routine purges of useless eaters in populations close to the front, without even an ounce of regret or gleeful cruelty stirring in their jaded hearts. It's just war, like any other.
And so primitive earthworks reinforced by dead human bodies take shape on ten thousand different warfronts. Even the deceased will have a posthumous chance to serve their species and lord, whether it be in the shape of soldiers with galloping hearts who throw themselves to the ground and find momentary respite behind a fallen brother in arms or martial sister, or in the form of macabre field fortifications deliberately planned and built under the careful supervision of overseers with whips and measuring instruments in hand. Must we not all offer up ourselves and our close kin on the altar of duty? Must we not all sacrifice our lives and limbs for the greater cause of humanity's divine Imperator? There can be no future for man without sons and daughters willing to give all in service to His Divine Majesty, no matter the brutal horror staring them in the eye.
Since human life is worth nothing, why should the Imperium of Man attach any abstract dignity to the human dead? Better to raise corpse castles and cadaverous bastions, than let such beneficial casaulties go to waste. After all, do we not in truth honour the dead by building with their corporeal vessels? And do not many warlike fallen eventually end up in sacred monuments, on full display for all the congregation to behold and ponder? For after battle has ended, the Adeptus Ministorum in all its pomp and pageantry will vie with local planetary or voidholm authorities over prime ossuary pickings from among the slain. And so corpses will be uncovered and flayed of their wretched flesh, to be bathed in acid until only pure bone and teeth remains. On one million worlds and voidholms without number, both temple and palace will exert strenuous efforts in order to collect the numerous remains of fallen loyalist warriors and martyrs of the faith for processing into skull towers and skeletal decoration for cathedrals and other forms of Imperial architecture. Thus those who fell in the heat of battle and were heaped upon one another at the front, may find a second duty in death by instructing the pious multitude on the thanks owed to those who give their life for the Emperor, as well as serving patriotic propaganda purposes in grand ceremonies enacted by local overlods desperate to shore up popular support.
The evil that men do will never relent, and neither will mortals of any species cease butchering each other across this turbulent galaxy. Death and taxes are said to be the only certainties in life, and so war must harvest its due share of fallen fighters and victims when flames engulf the baleful field of slaughter. We know they will die in battle, so why deny that stark reality by hiding the dead? No, better that their corpses fulfill a greater purpose, than be wasted on selfish burial. Thought of self, after all, is an unforgivable sin, so grab now the limp arms and legs of fallen comrades and heave them on top of the battlement. It is a virtuous toil.
For we will harbour no pity, no remorse, no mercy. We will rise strong to the occasion with fervent prayers on our lips, and we will bear the strains of labour and the rigours of combat without deviation. Without empathy. Without weakness. We all hereby solemnly swear to kill and be killed for the sake of our species and lord, and we likewise forswear our bodies of flesh and blood, and we willingly dedicate them to whatever higher purpose our masters and betters may design for them. We confess our wretched lives to be worth less than ash and clay, for we have sinned, and our ancestors have sinned, and our descendants will sin in the eyes of the God-Emperor of mankind. Please, o mighty lord of men! Please give our flesh and dust value by building out of us a mighty bulwark, to stand against the darkness. Please, we ask of You, o celestial judge of souls, we ask of You to use us, to throw us away or to incinerate us if You so will! Only You on high can grant us meaning. As such we will sacrifice, and be sacrificed in turn. In Your name.
This we pledge, and this we ask, and may our immortal souls burn in eternal hellfire if we break this sacred vow.
Ave Imperator.
And so man carries on, with the most primal stubbornness and will to survive burning valiantly in his heart. His realm across the starspangled void may have shrunk to but a million worlds and a decimated gaggle of voidholms, clinging to what little hope remains against the overwhelming darkness. Trapped as he has been for ten thousand years inside an interstellar madhouse, man will go to the ends of immorality and beyond to fight the grinding erosion of his degenerate Imperium. He will commit any heinous crime imaginable to uphold that corrupt and oppressive tyranny of mass murder and degradation that is his sole remaining shield, and he will fill his lungs with hatred, and he will shout his defiance to the high heavens. And man will rage, rage against the dying of the light, even as the doomed Imperial order that is his shepherd and slavedriver continues the decline of human power in the Milky Way galaxy.
In the darkest of futures, what is man if not the most wretched of creatures? What is man if not the eager thrall of tyrants and liars? What is man if not the stone of his own wall?
We must build.
See the whole world become our clay. Behold the life and death of wicked man for what it is: But another material substance with which to remould and build anew as the exalted masters of the radiant Imperium sees fit. Be practical of mind and squander not the resources of His Divine Majesty, the protector of our species chosen by all the gods of old, whom He superceded. Learn to erect obstacles and fortifications out of the bloodstained dead themselves. Cover them with earth, and then cover the earth with human cadavers. Stake rods through inert earth and dead men alike to strengthen the structure. Display the remains of your deceased heroes proudly on the parapet, and follow their valiant example. Defy your abominable foe with blackest contempt and fiery scorn, and show that every casaulty of yours is but another brick in the wall of the Imperium. As we die in this vale of anguish, that wall will rise higher and stronger than before, by the celestial grace of the Emperor, enthroned in heavenly light upon the Golden Throne of Holy Terra. Remember that Throne ruling of all mankind, and remember the merciless judgement that awaits us all. Remember the sacrifice you have been called upon to make, and do not flinch in the performance of your Imperial duty, soldier.
Glory to the first man to die!
Praise be unto the lord and saviour of our species! Praise be unto the Master of Mankind! Behold His manifold blessings, for even in death may the martyrs of the Imperium continue to protect the living.
Such is the demented state of a regressed mankind in service to the rotting stellar dominions of Holy Terra and Mars, locked in an unspoken suicide pact.
Such is the future that awaits us all.
Such is the grave of our species.
It is the fortyfirst millennium, and there is only indifference.

St. Pope John Paul II talked about mutual subjection in Mulieris Dignitatem, but what does that mean? In what sense a husband is to be "subjected"? I can't wrap my head around it.
St. Pope John Paul II writes:

1. The text is addressed to the spouses as real women and men. It reminds them of the "ethos" of spousal love which goes back to the divine institution of marriage from the "beginning". Corresponding to the truth of this institution is the exhortation: "Husbands, love your wives", love them because of that special and unique bond whereby in marriage a man and a woman become "one flesh" (Gen 2:24; Eph 5:31). In this love there is a fundamental affirmation of the woman as a person. This affirmation makes it possible for the female personality to develop fully and be enriched. This is precisely the way Christ acts as the bridegroom of the Church; he desires that she be "in splendour, without spot or wrinkle" (Eph 5:27). One can say that this fully captures the whole "style" of Christ in dealing with women. Husbands should make their own the elements of this style in regard to their wives; analogously, all men should do the same in regard to women in every situation. In this way both men and women bring about "the sincere gift of self".

The author of the Letter to the Ephesians sees no contradiction between an exhortation formulated in this way and the words: "Wives, be subject to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife" (5:22-23). The author knows that this way of speaking, so profoundly rooted in the customs and religious tradition of the time, is to be understood and carried out in a new way: as a "mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ" (cf. Eph 5:21). This is especially true because the husband is called the "head" of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church; he is so in order to give "himself up for her" (Eph 5:25), and giving himself up for her means giving up even his own life. However, whereas in the relationship between Christ and the Church the subjection is only on the part of the Church, in the relationship between husband and wife the "subjection" is not one-sided but mutual.
In relation to the "old" this is evidently something "new": it is an innovation of the Gospel. We find various passages in which the apostolic writings express this innovation, even though they also communicate what is "old": what is rooted in the religious tradition of Israel, in its way of understanding and explaining the sacred texts, as for example the second chapter of the Book of Genesis.[49]
The apostolic letters are addressed to people living in an environment marked by that same traditional way of thinking and acting. The "innovation" of Christ is a fact: it constitutes the unambiguous content of the evangelical message and is the result of the Redemption. However, the awareness that in marriage there is mutual "subjection of the spouses out of reverence for Christ", and not just that of the wife to the husband, must gradually establish itself in hearts, consciences, behaviour and customs. This is a call which from that time onwards, does not cease to challenge succeeding generations; it is a call which people have to accept ever anew. Saint Paul not only wrote: "In Christ Jesus... there is no more man or woman", but also wrote: "There is no more slave or freeman". Yet how many generations were needed for such a principle to be realized in the history of humanity through the abolition of slavery! And what is one to say of the many forms of slavery to which individuals and peoples are subjected, which have not yet disappeared from history?
But the challenge presented by the "ethos" of the Redemption is clear and definitive. All the reasons in favour of the "subjection" of woman to man in marriage must be understood in the sense of a "mutual subjection" of both "out of reverence for Christ". The measure of true spousal love finds its deepest source in Christ, who is the Bridegroom of the Church, his Bride.

​
On the other hand, Pope Leo XIII writes in Arcanum Divinae:

1. Furthermore, the Christian perfection and completeness of marriage are not comprised in those points only which have been mentioned. For, first, there has been vouchsafed to the marriage union a higher and nobler purpose than was ever previously given to it. By the command of Christ, it not only looks to the propagation of the human race, but to the bringing forth of children for the Church, "fellow citizens with the saints, and the domestics of God";(16) so that "a people might be born and brought up for the worship and religion of the true God and our Saviour Jesus Christ."(17)
   
2. Secondly, the mutual duties of husband and wife have been defined, and their several rights accurately established. They are bound, namely, to have such feelings for one another as to cherish always very great mutual love, to be ever faithful to their marriage vow, and to give one another an unfailing and unselfish help. The husband is the chief of the family and the head of the wife. The woman, because she is flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, must be subject to her husband and obey him; not, indeed, as a servant, but as a companion, so that her obedience shall be wanting in neither honor nor dignity. Since the husband represents Christ, and since the wife represents the Church, let there always be, both in him who commands and in her who obeys, a heaven-born love guiding both in their respective duties. For "the husband is the head of the wife; as Christ is the head of the Church. . . Therefore, as the Church is subject to Christ, so also let wives be to their husbands in all things."(18)
   

St. Pope Pius X in Casti Connubii :

1. Domestic society being confirmed, therefore, by this bond of love, there should flourish in it that "order of love," as St. Augustine calls it. This order includes both the primacy of the husband with regard to the wife and children, the ready subjection of the wife and her willing obedience, which the Apostle commends in these words: "Let women be subject to their husbands as to the Lord, because the husband is the head of the wife, and Christ is the head of the Church."[29]
   
2. This subjection, however, does not deny or take away the liberty which fully belongs to the woman both in view of her dignity as a human person, and in view of her most noble office as wife and mother and companion; nor does it bid her obey her husband's every request if not in harmony with right reason or with the dignity due to wife; nor, in fine, does it imply that the wife should be put on a level with those persons who in law are called minors, to whom it is not customary to allow free exercise of their rights on account of their lack of mature judgment, or of their ignorance of human affairs. But it forbids that exaggerated liberty which cares not for the good of the family; it forbids that in this body which is the family, the heart be separated from the head to the great detriment of the whole body and the proximate danger of ruin. For if the man is the head, the woman is the heart, and as he occupies the chief place in ruling, so she may and ought to claim for herself the chief place in love.
   

In what sense, does husbands be subjected to their wives, since, Ephesians 5:24 says:

24 As the church is subject to Christ, so let wives also be subject in everything to their husbands.

How is this all fit?

Corpse Cover
In an eon of insanity, man has become a wall.
To contemplate the full horror of life in the Age of Imperium, one must first recognize that mankind fell from his sublime pinnacles of worldly wonder and achievement that was the Dark Age of Technology, a heady time when man settled millions of planets and bestrode the galaxy like a colossus thanks to the cunning of his mind and the artifice of his hands. From those lofty heights did man plunge down a precipice of doom known as the Age of Strife, when man in his suffering and desperation devolved into a savage cannibal and wretched scavenger bereft of longevity and innovation, capable only of manhunts, abduction of woman and looting the great works of a bygone golden age in a shocking state of the most primitive cruelty and ignorance. Parent ate child, and all was ruin.
The death spiral of Old Night was eventually halted by the bloodstained coming of the Emperor of Terra, rising the eagle banner on man's birthworld, and for a short while a resurgent spirit of enterprise and ingenuity swept across the surviving human colonies as legions conquered, for the rekindled sparks of brilliance seemed set to lead man back to his former ascendancy. Yet the feeble flesh of mortals are destined to wither and die, and so too must their dreams, for once again the galaxy burned in a monstrous civil war that ravaged man's dominions and tore down any chance of restoring his lost supremacy and soaring quest for immortality. Brother slew brother, and all was fell.
The shining beacon of hope that was the early Imperium, forged in the fires of the Great Crusade, has since sunk together like a failed soufflé. For the might and splendour of the Imperium proved not a bastion of strength to shelter man from a galaxy of horrors, but became instead a prison where the efforts of man amounted to little more than a prolonged waiting for the inevitable end as his powerful vigour and clarity of mind rotted into torpid senility. Thus the Age of Imperium brought not rejuvenation to man, but the decline and misery of old age. And man slid down into a swamp of misery and superstition, and he reverted to a blinkered fanatic capable of the most bloodthirsty acts of depravity imaginable. Hate ruled supreme, as grinding destitution and endless struggle saw trillions ultimately die for nothing. Man trod water, and all was decay.
Twohundredfifty generations of brutal freefall were thus followed by fivehundred generations of total war. Fivehundred generations of sacrifice and suffering. Fivehundred generations of unending carnage and slaughter. Thus wretched man learnt to harness himself to the cart, and he pulled the heavy burden forward through inexorable storms. And as he fought a losing war against impending doom, man again and again made use of an ancient warrior trick until it became second nature to him, for man would seek shelter behind the fallen, and man would pile his dead into a wall of flesh to shield himself from death for a little longer. And thus even the lifeless husks of departed souls were made to serve in the arena of slaughter.
Survival in war has ever favoured quick-thinking soldiers who manage to adapt to their battlefield and use the terrain itself as a weapon to strike back against the enemy. Cunning and luck has ever been crucial when swords are drawn, for victory must be won by any means necessary, and damn all scruples that would betray you to the cruel foe. Thus Imperial Guardsmen with their wits about them instinctively know to take cover when under fire, and anyone who wish to preserve his stay among the living will know to swallow his revulsion and make use of the dead. Such pragmatic solutions to the perils of the moment have always been a regretful fact of life in armed conflicts through the ages, yet never before has a great power betwixt the stars turned such dehumanizing improvization into a systematically ingrained practice among the articles of faith in its military doctrines.
It is better to die for the Emperor, than to live for yourself. It is better to clog up the streets and corridors with your own carcass, than to retreat an inch when faced with mortal danger. It is better to erect barricades out of the fallen warriors of mankind, than to bury them. Not even in death does duty end. Fear not the pox and the plague, for the God-Emperor shields his faithful and devout ritual worshippers from the festering swarms of germs, flies and maggots. Trust in the guidance of the Imperator of Holy Terra to bless you with the grant to think on your feet, and therefore dive for cover behind a fallen comrade. Be pure of heart and strong of will, and lay corpse upon corpse to form a solid wall. Waste not, want not.
One glimpse of an exemplary sharp Imperial foosoldier who found an aegis in so much dead meat, was that of private Dasharatha Kumarya, of the 108108th Rajipur Tech-Guard regiment of the Astra Militarum. During the twelfth battle of Hive Rhea on Perisistratus VII, lunar satellite to Teleklos Tertiarius, this Imperial infantryman followed the rapid advance of his platoon's brave lieutnant Skanda Ramutiskrit, when suddenly the junior officer and most of his platoon were gunned down in a rebel ambush. Dasharatha survived the initial massacre by the will of our lord on Terra, and he was granted a flash of preserving insight from the lord of hosts and leader of the people, wherefore the private quickly took cover behind the corpse of his dead platoon leader, which lay splayed out on the ground with a scorching wound through Skanda's right eye. Dasharatha Kumarya peered through his gasmask lense and proceeded to methodically gun down one treacherous enemy after another, all the while yelling the traditional battlecry of his homeworld: "For the Omnissiah and the Holy Atom!" Thus did an Imperial Guardsman avenge a loyal officer's death by shooting the foe from behind the carcass of his slain martial brother.
Yet the uses for fallen soldiers extend far beyond momentary emergencies in Imperial modes of operation. Warfare for the servants of the God-Emperor is an industrial undertaking waged on a titanic scale, where little room is left over for finesse and efficiency. To win in war, the Imperium knows that it must feed the meatgrinder in a broken calculation of increased input of men and material, heedless of all losses beyond the balancing of very large numbers on available force charts. How else could this sclerotic empire of a million worlds and uncountable voidholms survive? Only by growing a heart of stone can the Imperium of Man do what must be done, blind and deaf to the human suffering its lowly minions must endure.
Forget the power of technology and science, for so much has been forgotten, never to be relearned. Effectivization, improvement and innovation were the follies of the Dark Age of Technology, whose glories have long since rusted and faded away. As knowledge and ancient hardware slowly withers away, increasing amounts of processes which were once the domain of machinery and automation have to be salvaged in patchwork manner by throwing bodies at the problem. Literally so, in the case of military engineering and fieldworks.
Thus the Imperium of Man has long since codified standard practices of using the corpses of friend and foe alike as landfill in such inconvenient features of the theatre of operations as enemy trenches, moats, rivers and valleys. What once was only a desperate gambit during better and long since forgotten eras, has now become standard Imperial procedure, as instructed by the Tactica Imperialis and practiced by Imperial forces all across the Milky Way galaxy. In fact, campaign planners within the Departmento Munitorum will always adjust calculations for Imperial Guard sandbag needs and consumption, by including corrective equations compensating for casaulty rates determined by the average volume and density of a malnourished human being, since the Astra Militarum by ancient decree of the High Lords of Terra operates on the thrifty principle of not letting the dead go to waste.
Thus slave labour, military fieldwork detachments and machine cohorts directed by gifted amateur officers, Mensurae Lustrantii or Tech-Priest Enginseers labour day and night to build and reshape the battlefield with plasteel, earth, rockrete, sandbags and the bodies of dead people and beasts alike as primary materials. The dirt of the ground, prefabricated sections and lifeless stalwarts are all combined into field fortifications and strongpoints that may prove decisive in the fickle mutability of military campaigns. When casaulties as usual ramp up in the millions and often also billions, the hard-working soldiers of the Astra Militarum and their harrowed corvée labour gangs will move amid the filth and squalor of the battlefront, scavenging corpses and constructing redoubts of unmoving flesh and bone. These carcass building blocks are not only limited to civilian and military humans alike, but also include all manner of alien and exotic animal cadavers of ridden mounts, draft animals, tracking beasts, attack predators and many other strange creatures. Even the fallen can be put to good use.
Thus the warriors of the Emperor pile dead men, women and children on top of one another for their battlements, using both earth and corpses on top of rockrete fortifications for extra protection. Of course, sometimes acute shortage of building material rear its ugly head when planning or convoying fall foul of reality. Then, nearby settlements may find themselves razed to the ground and plundered to the cellars in order to provide material for the military needs of defence and siegeworks. The banality of evil is such that ordinary people in the uniforms of Planetary Defence Forces, Voidholm Militias and the Astra Militarum may find themselves committing routine purges of useless eaters in populations close to the front, without even an ounce of regret or gleeful cruelty stirring in their jaded hearts. It's just war, like any other.
And so primitive earthworks reinforced by dead human bodies take shape on ten thousand different warfronts. Even the deceased will have a posthumous chance to serve their species and lord, whether it be in the shape of soldiers with galloping hearts who throw themselves to the ground and find momentary respite behind a fallen brother in arms or martial sister, or in the form of macabre field fortifications deliberately planned and built under the careful supervision of overseers with whips and measuring instruments in hand. Must we not all offer up ourselves and our close kin on the altar of duty? Must we not all sacrifice our lives and limbs for the greater cause of humanity's divine Imperator? There can be no future for man without sons and daughters willing to give all in service to His Divine Majesty, no matter the brutal horror staring them in the eye.
Since human life is worth nothing, why should the Imperium of Man attach any abstract dignity to the human dead? Better to raise corpse castles and cadaverous bastions, than let such beneficial casaulties go to waste. After all, do we not in truth honour the dead by building with their corporeal vessels? And do not many warlike fallen eventually end up in sacred monuments, on full display for all the congregation to behold and ponder? For after battle has ended, the Adeptus Ministorum in all its pomp and pageantry will vie with local planetary or voidholm authorities over prime ossuary pickings from among the slain. And so corpses will be uncovered and flayed of their wretched flesh, to be bathed in acid until only pure bone and teeth remains. On one million worlds and voidholms without number, both temple and palace will exert strenuous efforts in order to collect the numerous remains of fallen loyalist warriors and martyrs of the faith for processing into skull towers and skeletal decoration for cathedrals and other forms of Imperial architecture. Thus those who fell in the heat of battle and were heaped upon one another at the front, may find a second duty in death by instructing the pious multitude on the thanks owed to those who give their life for the Emperor, as well as serving patriotic propaganda purposes in grand ceremonies enacted by local overlods desperate to shore up popular support.
The evil that men do will never relent, and neither will mortals of any species cease butchering each other across this turbulent galaxy. Death and taxes are said to be the only certainties in life, and so war must harvest its due share of fallen fighters and victims when flames engulf the baleful field of slaughter. We know they will die in battle, so why deny that stark reality by hiding the dead? No, better that their corpses fulfill a greater purpose, than be wasted on selfish burial. Thought of self, after all, is an unforgivable sin, so grab now the limp arms and legs of fallen comrades and heave them on top of the battlement. It is a virtuous toil.
For we will harbour no pity, no remorse, no mercy. We will rise strong to the occasion with fervent prayers on our lips, and we will bear the strains of labour and the rigours of combat without deviation. Without empathy. Without weakness. We all hereby solemnly swear to kill and be killed for the sake of our species and lord, and we likewise forswear our bodies of flesh and blood, and we willingly dedicate them to whatever higher purpose our masters and betters may design for them. We confess our wretched lives to be worth less than ash and clay, for we have sinned, and our ancestors have sinned, and our descendants will sin in the eyes of the God-Emperor of mankind. Please, o mighty lord of men! Please give our flesh and dust value by building out of us a mighty bulwark, to stand against the darkness. Please, we ask of You, o celestial judge of souls, we ask of You to use us, to throw us away or to incinerate us if You so will! Only You on high can grant us meaning. As such we will sacrifice, and be sacrificed in turn. In Your name.
This we pledge, and this we ask, and may our immortal souls burn in eternal hellfire if we break this sacred vow.
Ave Imperator.
And so man carries on, with the most primal stubbornness and will to survive burning valiantly in his heart. His realm across the starspangled void may have shrunk to but a million worlds and a decimated gaggle of voidholms, clinging to what little hope remains against the overwhelming darkness. Trapped as he has been for ten thousand years inside an interstellar madhouse, man will go to the ends of immorality and beyond to fight the grinding erosion of his degenerate Imperium. He will commit any heinous crime imaginable to uphold that corrupt and oppressive tyranny of mass murder and degradation that is his sole remaining shield, and he will fill his lungs with hatred, and he will shout his defiance to the high heavens. And man will rage, rage against the dying of the light, even as the doomed Imperial order that is his shepherd and slavedriver continues the decline of human power in the Milky Way galaxy.
In the darkest of futures, what is man if not the most wretched of creatures? What is man if not the eager thrall of tyrants and liars? What is man if not the stone of his own wall?
We must build.
See the whole world become our clay. Behold the life and death of wicked man for what it is: But another material substance with which to remould and build anew as the exalted masters of the radiant Imperium sees fit. Be practical of mind and squander not the resources of His Divine Majesty, the protector of our species chosen by all the gods of old, whom He superceded. Learn to erect obstacles and fortifications out of the bloodstained dead themselves. Cover them with earth, and then cover the earth with human cadavers. Stake rods through inert earth and dead men alike to strengthen the structure. Display the remains of your deceased heroes proudly on the parapet, and follow their valiant example. Defy your abominable foe with blackest contempt and fiery scorn, and show that every casaulty of yours is but another brick in the wall of the Imperium. As we die in this vale of anguish, that wall will rise higher and stronger than before, by the celestial grace of the Emperor, enthroned in heavenly light upon the Golden Throne of Holy Terra. Remember that Throne ruling of all mankind, and remember the merciless judgement that awaits us all. Remember the sacrifice you have been called upon to make, and do not flinch in the performance of your Imperial duty, soldier.
Glory to the first man to die!
Praise be unto the lord and saviour of our species! Praise be unto the Master of Mankind! Behold His manifold blessings, for even in death may the martyrs of the Imperium continue to protect the living.
Such is the demented state of a regressed mankind in service to the rotting stellar dominions of Holy Terra and Mars, locked in an unspoken suicide pact.
Such is the future that awaits us all.
Such is the grave of our species.
It is the fortyfirst millennium, and there is only indifference.

RESURRECTION and THE HEREAFTER: Part 3
• Sixth Aspect: Come now, look! All these imposing railways, planes, machines, warehouses, exhibitions show that behind the veil an imposing monarch exists and governs.
Such a monarch requires subjects worthy of himself. But now you see all his subjects gathered in a hospice for wayfarers, a hospice that is filled and emptied each day. It can also be said that his subjects are now gathered in a testing-ground for the sake of manoeuvres, and this ground also changes each hour. Again, we may say that all his subjects stay in an exhibition-hall for a few minutes to behold specimens of the monarch’s beneficence, valuable products of his miraculous art. But the exhibition itself changes each moment. Now, this situation and circumstance conclusively show that beyond the hospice, the testing-ground, the exhibition, there are permanent palaces, lasting abodes, and gardens and treasuries full of the pure and elevated originals of the samples and shapes we see in this world. It is for the sake of these that we exert ourselves here. Here we labour, and there we receive our reward. A form and degree of felicity suited to everyone’s capacity await us there.
• Seventh Aspect: Come, let us walk a little, and see what is to be found among these civilized people. See, in every place, at every corner, photographers are sitting and taking pictures. Look, everywhere there are scribes sitting and writing things down. Everything is being recorded. They are registering the least significant of deeds, the most commonplace of events.
Now look up at the tall mountain; there you see a supreme photographer installed, devoted to the service of the king; he is taking pictures of all that happens in the area. The king must, then, have issued this order; “Record all the transactions made and deeds performed in the kingdom.” In other words, that exalted personage is having all events registered and photographically recorded. The precise record he is keeping must, without doubt, be for the sake of one day calling his subjects to account.
Now is it at all possible that an All-Wise and All-Preserving Being, who does not neglect the banalest doings of the lowest of his subjects, should not record the most significant deeds of the greatest among his subjects, should not call them to account, should not reward and punish them?
After all, it is those foremost among his subjects that perform deeds offensive to his glory, contrary to his pride and unacceptable to his compassion, and those deeds remain unpunished in this world. It must be, therefore, that their judgement is postponed to a Supreme Court.
• Eighth Aspect: Come, let me read to you the decrees issued by that monarch. See, he repeatedly makes the following promises and dire threats: “I will take you from your present abode and bring you to the seat of my rule. There I shall bestow happiness on the obedient and imprison the disobedient. Destroying that temporary abode, I shall found a different realm containing eternal palaces and dungeons.”
He can easily fulfil the promises that he makes, of such importance for his subjects. It is, moreover, incompatible with his pride and his power that he should break his promise. So look, o confused one! Your assent to the claims of your mendacious imagination, your distraught intellect, your deceptive soul, but deny the words of a being who cannot be compelled in any fashion to break his promise, whose high stature does not admit any such faithlessness, and to whose truthfulness all visible deeds bear witness. Certainly, you deserve a great punishment. You resemble a traveller who closes his eyes to the light of the sun and looks instead upon his own imagination. His fancy wishes to illuminate his awesomely dark path with the light of his brain, although it is no more than a glow-worm.
Once that monarch makes a promise, he will, by all means, fulfil it. Its fulfilment is most easy for him, and moreover most necessary for us and all things, as well as for him too and his kingdom.
There is, therefore, a Supreme Court, and a lofty felicity.
• Ninth Aspect: Come now! Look at the heads of these offices and groups(1). Each has a private telephone to speak personally with the king. Sometimes too they go directly to his presence. See what they say and unanimously report, that the monarch has prepared a most magnificent and awesome place for reward and punishment. His promises are emphatic and his threats are most stern. His pride and dignity are such that he would in no way stoop to the abjectness inherent in the breaking of a promise. The bearers of this report, who are so numerous as to be universally accepted, further report with the strong unanimity of consensus that “the seat and headquarters of the lofty monarchy, some of whose traces are visible here, is in another realm far distant from here.
The buildings existing in this testing-ground are but temporary, and will later be exchanged for eternal palaces. These places will change. For this magnificent and unfading monarchy, the splendour of which is apparent from its works, can in no way be founded or based on so transient, impermanent, unstable, insignificant, changing, defective and imperfect matters. It is based rather on matters worthy of it, eternal, stable, permanent and glorious.”

LAVAL
Laval couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I’ll really get to train?” he asked incredulously. “That’s what he said,” replied Rukus. The Master of Steel had been sent by King Crominus to inform Laval that his heart’s desire was going to come true: he would get to train as a Kingsguard. “Who’ll be my teacher? When will I start? Where will I train?” Rukus stepped back. “Too many questions, My lord,” he said. “I’m just the messenger. I don’t know any of the details.” Laval was practically glowing with excitement. Take that, Father, he thought. “All I know is that you are to go to the Crocodile Courtyard tomorrow at sunrise, and you are to bring your sword.” Laval nodded enthusiastically. “Sure thing. I’ll be there!”
“I won’t know either way. I won’t be.”
“Right. Sorry. Thank you!” Rukus left and Laval shut his door. Yes! Finally! Laval could have run around his room if it hadn’t been so messy. His bed was unmade; his blanket hadn’t been folded in quite some time, and his clothes were scattered on the floor, his bed, and the rack. Laval needed to release his energy, and so he decided to find Cragger.
He looked for the crocodile prince everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. He had searched the Crocodile Courtyard, the catacombs, the throne room and had even asked to be permitted into the royal family’s common room. The guards had denied him, but had confirmed that Cragger was not there. Crooler was, but Laval was not interested in the least. Finally, it was Cragger who came to him. Laval was sitting alone in the Crocodile Courtyard, the open-top square space near his room, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. “Looking for me?” Laval jumped to his feet. “Hell yeah, Cragger! Did you hear the news?” Cragger shook his head. “I’m going to train as a Kingsguard!” Cragger grinned a toothy grin. “That’s great, Laval! You’ve dreamed of becoming a Kingsguard since you were a kid!”
“I know! I start tomorrow! I’m so excited!” Cragger had brought his dual Vengious blade, and Laval had brought his Valious. “Why did you want to see me, Laval?” asked Cragger. “We should race,” he replied. “What?”
“Race, like we used to! Don’t you remember how we’d drive circles around the Lion Temple?” Cragger grinned. “We haven’t done that in a while, have we,” he mused. “No,” said Laval, “we haven’t. My father’s been bothering me about reading this and reading that so that I can become an advisor. He’d only let me use my Speedor after I could summarize whatever the hell I just read.”
“You think that’s bad? My father comes back after every council meeting and gets drunk before telling me all about it. He thinks everyone is stupid and the decisions they make are stupid. The only person he actually praises when he’s drunk is your father.” There was a pause in the conversation. “He wants you two to make up, you know.” Laval looked down. “My father made it clear that he doesn’t care what I want. I’m just a ‘what if’ to him. What if I had done this? What if I had done that? I’m like a second try for him.” Cragger sighed. “Ever since Father has been giving me advice about ruling, I’ve begun to think about things from a different perspective. Try putting yourself in his place, Laval. He just wants what’s best for Chima. Is that really a bad thing?”
“I’ve tried putting myself in his place before. He’s still a sanctimonious hypocrite. I mean, he’s the one who killed Fluminox.”
“That’s because the phoenixes were lying about their prophecies,” reminded Cragger. “He felt that the phoenixes were no longer qualified to rule Chima. He didn’t kill him on a whim. No matter what you think about him, your father does want what’s best for most people. And people like us, we’re not most people.” That gave Laval pause. Maybe I was too harsh on Father, he thought. I guess he does want me to help save the realm, whatever that entails. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “About making up, I mean. I suppose I can’t ignore my father forever.” Cragger laughed. “Cavora knows we’ve tried. Anyways, you said you wanted to race?” Laval grinned. “You can’t imagine. Race you to the garage!” In an instant, Laval and Cragger had bolted; they were both sprinting towards the garage where their Speedorz were being kept. They quickly found it and hopped on their vehicles, their bodies surging with excitement. The one-wheeled vehicles were powered by strange blue crystals called Icefire from Mount Cavora, the majestic mountain in the centre of Chima. Having made a deal with the Rhinoceros Tribe centuries ago, the other animal tribes of Chima were able to obtain these crystals and use their energy to power their Speedorz; some of Icefire had ultimately found their way to the Outlands as well. While Speedorz once occupied a deeply spiritual and religious role for devout Cavorans, they had since become little more than tools for racing and for battle.
The Speedorz were operated by the rider’s hands; one knob was for acceleration while the other was for steering. Laval had ridden one many times before, and all Chi Speedorz followed the same general style of control. Laval and Cragger revved their vehicles, preparing for their age-old dance. “Where do you want to go?” asked Cragger. Laval shrugged. “Through the Firewood?”
“Sure,” Cragger replied eagerly. It was getting harder for Laval to hear over the sounds of their Speedorz and his own pounding heart. “Ready?” Cragger nodded, his yellow reptilian eyes already dead set in front of him. “Pride and Fury!” Laval roared as he peeled out of the garage. “Sharper Than Steel!” Cragger returned, his Speedor squealing as well. In no time, the two of them were well outside the Citadel’s walls and heading towards the Firewood, their Speedorz rumbling down the earthen trail leading to the forest.
Laval was in the lead, but winning did not preoccupy his thoughts. Instead, he took in the wind blowing through his fiery red mane and the colourful blurs which he blazed past. He inhaled deeply, taking in the cool breeze and listening to the hum of the Speedor against the rocky road beneath him. He could hear Cragger’s Speedor behind him as well, gaining on him. “Out of practice, Cragger?” Laval taunted. “Ha! You wish, Laval!” Cragger’s Speedor suddenly surged forward, passing Laval’s in an instant. “See you back in the Citadel!” he shouted jokingly. “Over my dead body!” Laval revved his Speedor and accelerated until he was just behind Cragger. His best friend’s maroon cloak was blowing in the wind, and his tail was swaying gently. The Firewood was fast approaching and the trail was narrowing, only allowing room for one Speedor at a time. The trees were beginning to take up more space, and the bright splendour of the Citadel was becoming a memory. “Off-road?” Laval asked hopefully. “As long as there aren’t any shortcuts!” Whooping, Laval immediately veered his Speedor to the right, weaving through various towering trees. Gazing upwards, Laval saw the gentle sunlight through the green canopy as his bumpy ride criss crossed through roots and trunks. He could just make out Cragger, barreling down the straight, clear path which cut through the forest. “You’re not going to try some glade racing?” Laval shouted as he caught up to the crocodile. “Why waste my energy?” Cragger retorted. “This is the easiest way back!” Indeed, the trail which had been forged in the Firewood looped around and would eventually lead back to the Citadel, forcing Cragger into a circuitous track. Laval could easily cut straight through the trees, but he decided to stay close to his friend. “Easiest, but not the fastest!” Tempting Cragger to follow him, Laval drove his Speedor in front of the crocodile before going right again. Laughing, Cragger turned right as well, following Laval through the copse of trees. “Now this is a race!” Laval shouted gleefully, bobbing and weaving around the tree trunks. He could see the trees becoming more sparse as he pushed forward. “We’re almost out of the forest!” he yelled. “I know!” Cragger returned. “Which means it’s time to accelerate!” With one final burst of speed, Cragger tore through the forest and made it out, in view of the Citadel. Laval followed a few seconds behind, not missing a beat. They continued back towards the Citadel at top speed, but Laval could see Cragger losing ground. “Overestimating your Speedor, I see,” Laval joked. “First one back to the Crocodile Courtyard wins?”
“You got it!” With the garage in sight, Laval made it past Cragger and pushed his vehicle to its maximum, allowing him to get into the garage first. He forced his Speedor to stop, making a skidding noise as it ground to a halt. A second later, Cragger followed, his Speedor making a similar screeching noise. Laval hopped off his Speedor and ran for the Crocodile Courtyard, but in no time, Cragger was right beside him too. “You’re going to lose, Cragger!” Laval jeered. “Think again, Laval!” The two of them made it to the Crocodile Courtyard, panting and sweating, and made for the tree at its centre. Almost got it, Laval thought, his hand reaching out to touch the tree. Seeing Cragger just as close as he was, Laval sprung forward, crashing into the tree a second before Cragger’s hand touched it. Laval fell onto the grass surrounding the tree and rolled onto his back. “Laval? You alright?” Laval was laughing uncontrollably, writhing on the ground. Upon seeing him, Cragger began chuckling, and soon, he was doing the same.
“You know,” Laval said, sitting up and panting, “sometimes I still think about the good old days.” Cragger chuckled and sat down next to him. “You mean before all this nonsense? Before I was going to be the Crown Prince, and before you were going to become an advisor?” Laval nodded. “Or Kingsguard. I still remember the games we played at the Forever Rock,” Laval said wistfully. “That old thing?” Cragger scoffed. “That piece of rock has been in Chima since the gods themselves walked on the earth!” Laval laughed too, but in truth, he missed it. The small, grey, much-eroded stone was embedded at the cliffs south of the Lion Temple and overlooking the Sapphire Sea. When the then-Lord Crominus often came to visit Lagravis, Cragger would play with Laval, using the Forever Rock as a fort, a shield, or whatever else. “Remember,” Laval could still hear his father say, “if you can’t see the rock, then you’re too close to the cliffs.” Laval and Cragger would nod obediently and then run off, following the path to the edge of the world. They would spar with branches, chase each other around or wrestle, but it didn’t matter. The worst part of their playdates was the end. Laval sighed deeply. “Life was simpler then, wasn’t it?” he murmured, lifting his arm up to block the sun shining down on them. He could almost hold it. “Yes. It was.” The two friends lay in silence for a little until a voice called out. “Cragger! Father needs you.” Crooler was there, no doubt for a while before she had spoken. “What? Now?”
“Want me to go back and ask again?” Cragger sighed. “No, it’s alright. I’ll be right there, Crooler.” He turned back to face Laval. “Sorry. Princely duties, I guess.” Laval chuckled and stood up. “I get it. You know, that bit about the greater good really got me thinking. You’ll make a great king someday, Cragger.” The crocodile prince smiled before turning to take his leave. That was a good workout, thought Laval. Time to get some rest. I’ll need it for tomorrow.
Laval could scarcely sleep through the night. His mind was flooded with thoughts and questions about what his training would actually entail. Will my teacher be nice, or rude? Will I relearn the basics, or go right into it? And most frequently, will Father approve? Laval had set a candle with several firestarters at the end, timed so that they would go off with a bang half an hour before sunrise. When it went off, Laval was sleepy. He had managed an hour or two of slumber before his makeshift alarm went off, and now, he had thirty minutes to get ready and get going. He threw on his tunic, his kilt and his crown before grabbing his sword. No point in wearing my cloak, he thought. He left his room and made for the Crocodile Courtyard in good time, arriving five minutes before he was supposed to. Other than behind the tree, there was nowhere for someone to hide. Laval walked all the way around the tree and checked his surroundings, but the pillars which held up the castle around them hid no warriors. Is this a joke? Is this Father’s way of telling me that I’ll never make it? Laval was about to leave when he heard a cough. “Ahem,” a voice said. Laval turned. There was still no one. “Up here, lion prince,” the voice said. Laval looked up at the tree and saw a gorilla up on a branch. The gorilla had dark brown fur and light green markings on his forehead and cheeks. “I'm not a prince,” Laval said. He wasn't amused at the prospect of having a gorilla teach him how to fight. “Who are you, anyway? I was promised a true warrior to teach me how to become a Kingsguard,” he said. “That’s me.” The gorilla leaped down from the tree and walked up to Laval. “My name is Gunter. I’ll be your teacher.”
“You?” Laval scoffed. “But you’re a—”
“A gorilla? Is that what you were going to say?” Laval decided to tread carefully. “I only meant that the gorillas were a peaceful tribe. You’re pacifists, aren’t you?”
“Just because we don’t fight doesn’t mean we don’t know how. You wanted a teacher, right? I’m it.” Laval sighed and drew his Valious. “Alright, fine. Let’s get this over with.” The gorilla chuckled. “We’re going to fight right here?”
“I think you’re not a fighter. You say you are. Why do we find out who’s really the master here?”
“Just because someone can beat someone else doesn’t mean they’re a master,” Gunter replied. Before Laval could shoot an insult, he added, “But I am better than you.” Laval looked at the gorilla’s bare shoulders. “You don’t even have a weapon,” he said. Is this guy crazy? If he had a sword, then it’d be a fair fight, but he’s using his bare hands. Is he asking to get hurt? “I don’t need one.”
“Alright.” Laval darted forward with his Valious, intending to hit Gunter with the flat part of his blade. The gorilla didn’t flinch. Instead, he caught the blade with his hands, holding it steadily away from his chest. “How—” The gorilla twisted his hands, wrenching the sword out of Laval’s hands. Laval watched as his blade flew in the sky, not seeing the gorilla in front of him until he was two inches away. Crap! Laval moved sideways before trying to catch the gorilla with his arms to push him back, but Gunter slid under his arms and grabbed his legs. In one swift motion, he flipped Laval onto his back before sitting on top of him, holding him down with his hands and his prehensile feet. “Ow!” Laval could barely breathe. “Who’s the master, little lion?” asked Gunter. “Let me go!” Laval squirmed and jerked around, but Gunter’s grip was stronger than his. “Who?” he demanded. “Alright, alright! You are!” Laval frantically tapped Gunter’s feet, and he released his grip before rolling off. The gorilla had a smile on his face. “That’s your first lesson, Laval,” he said. “Huh?”
“Respect. We’ll resume tomorrow. I expect you’ll keep an open mind about my techniques from now on.”
“We haven’t even been here for ten minutes!”
“It doesn’t take long to teach. It takes a lifetime to learn.”
Laval trudged away from the courtyard, feeling equal parts frustrated and disappointed. It’s not his place to do that to me, he thought. Who is he, anyway? Who the hell hired him? Still, he could do nothing more today, so he decided to go practice on his own. He went past the Crocodile Courtyard to the training area, near the dungeons. Like the Crocodile Courtyard, the training area was a square, but it was empty inside and covered in dirt and gravel. The surrounding dungeons looked imposing enough; what could be seen from the outside was grey stone, cracked in some places, and rusted bars. It was dark in the dungeons, and very few people were held there nowadays. After looking around and making sure that no one was there to watch, Laval drew his sword and began practicing his sword movements. When he was younger, he had seen the Lion Guard train on this very spot, and had learned various movements. He slashed diagonally, pulled back, and jabbed forward. Then, he sidestepped, slashed again and ducked under an imaginary enemy’s blow before stabbing the air. He repeated it fifteen times before his arms and legs began to feel sore. That’s training, he thought. Not whatever the hell Gunter was teaching me. Yet he found himself returning to the Crocodile Courtyard the next day.
“Good to see you, little lion,” said Gunter cheerily from the treetop. “Have you learned the first lesson?”
“Yes, I have,” he replied. “Excellent,” the gorilla said as he leapt down from the tree. “Then we will begin the second lesson.”
“And what lesson is that?”
“Breathing.” Laval scoffed. “Ah, so you already know what breathing is?”
“If you hadn’t noticed, I’m alive. I think I’ve got a pretty good handle on it.”
“Ask a fisherman to catch a fish, and you will not be disappointed. But how many fishermen truly know what fishing is?” What’s he talking about? “Show me how you breathe, Laval,” commanded Gunter. “I’m doing it right now,” said Laval, irritated. “I can’t hear you,” taunted Gunter. Grumbling, Laval took deep breaths in and out to satisfy his teacher. After about three inhalations and exhalations, Gunter shook his head. “No, no, no. You’re doing it wrong.” Then how am I alive? he thought rebelliously. “When you breathe,” said the gorilla, “you should breathe from your core. I can see that your breath makes your stomach rise and fall.”
“Yeah, isn’t that normal?”
“Yes. But being normal isn’t good enough to be a Kingsguard.” Fair enough, Laval thought. “So I’m supposed to force my stomach not to move?”
“We should never force our bodies to do anything, little lion,” replied Gunter. “I’m not a little lion,” growled Laval. “I’m the second son of Lord Lagravis, First Advisor to the King! You will treat me with respect!”
“Respect? So you have learned the first lesson. Alright, Laval,” he said. “Here is your practice: you will stand here until the sun sets and focus on your breathing.”
“What?”
“Did I speak too softly?”
“I was going to go to the market for supper this evening!”
“Not anymore. You will stand here and breathe in the following manner: three counts in, three counts of holding, and three counts out. Again and again, until you can no longer see the sun. Then, I will see you tomorrow for our next lesson. Goodbye!”
Gunter began walking away, leaving Laval behind. How am I supposed to stand here for hours? What if I have to relieve myself? Or eat? Muttering to himself, Laval unsheathed his Valious, put it on the ground and stood still, focusing on his breathing. Three in, three hold, three out. Three in, three hold, three out. Three in, three hold, three out. Laval continued for three hours until about midday, when he finally lost it. “To hell with this!” he shouted out loud. Who does he think he is, making me stand here for Cavora knows how long just to breathe? I’m hungry, I have to pee, and I’m pissed off. Laval picked up his Valious and looked around, making sure that Gunter wasn’t hiding somewhere. When he was sure there was no one around him, he decided to go to his room and have the servants bring him lunch. That idiot probably won’t even realize I left, he thought. I’ll just breathe in for three a few times to show him tomorrow, just to prove him wrong. Laval stayed in his room for the rest of the day, lying down, occasionally eating and polishing his sword. When he went to sleep that night, his new way of breathing eased him into a restful sleep, recharging him for the next day’s lesson. But when he arrived in the Crocodile Courtyard, no one was there. Laval looked around the courtyard; he even looked up the tree. There was nobody. “Gunter?” he shouted. When there was no response, he tried a different tack. “Master?” Still, only silence replied. When he was sure that no one would come, Laval turned around to go somewhere else when Gunter’s voice rang out. “Did you see how that felt, Laval?” He whipped around to see Gunter leaning against the tree. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “How the hell did you get here?”
“I was here the whole time,” the gorilla replied. “I expected you to leave for a bit to urinate, or maybe to get some food,” he continued, “but I didn’t take you for a quitter.”
“I’m not a quitter,” Laval said, his eyes narrowing. “I beg to differ. You left, Laval. You said you’d be here and you weren’t. So I did the same to you this morning. It’s not fun, is it.”
“Just what is your problem, gorilla?” Laval demanded. “Do you enjoy making yourself feel superior? Is that it? Or did my father find you just to make me suffer? To rob me of my desire of becoming a Kingsguard?”
“Your father did hire me, Laval. In person.” I knew it! “But I know nothing about your feuds, whatever they may be. All Lagravis told me was that you wanted to become a Kingsguard, and that he wanted me to be your teacher. Now, I’m not forcing you to take lessons from me. The choice is yours, as it always was. I only ask that if you choose to remain with me, you follow my rules without question. Is that a fair thing to ask?” All traces of sarcasm and mockery were gone from Gunter’s face. Laval mulled it over for a while before responding. I have been acting like a jerk. If Father hired him, I guess he should know what he’s doing. “Alright, Gunter. I suppose that’s fair.” The gorilla smiled, and Laval smiled back. “Good. It seems you’ve finally learned the first lesson,” he said. “Now, onto lesson two—”
“Breathing?” Laval cut in. “Yes, Laval! Good job! You’ll be a Kingsguard in no time.”
“With a teacher like you?” said Laval, smiling without irony. “I don’t doubt it.”

When talking about how Sansa was the "least sympathetic" of the Stark children in AGOT I just want to clarify a few things because I think there's a misunderstanding over what that actually means.
A sympathetic character isn't necessarily someone who is a good person, or someone we should be rooting for - i.e. because their goals will bring pain to others for example. A sympathetic character is someone who attracts the liking of others. (in this case, those who reads)
For example, if we look at someone out of ASOIAF- I think Azula from Avatar the Last Airbender is a good example. I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't watched it but I'll say is that while Azula might be a sympathetic character, that does not necessarily make her a good person or the hero.
Regarding Sansa - if Sansa isn't sympathetic in AGOT, it's because George didn't portray her in that way. This was a consequence of him POV trapping her and pitting her against other characters that he clearly wrote to be immediately liked (i.e. Arya).
The issue is that while George might not have written Sansa to be sympathetic in AGOT- its also obvious that he never wrote her in a way that showed she was a 'not nice' person either. She validates the pain and anger of Sandor after he tries frightening her, her "heart goes out" to Barristan after seeing him humiliated, she doesn't use her position against Jeyne in a way that would hurt her and sticks up for her at the Small Council Meeting. Furthermore, it's also important to look at what Sansa values. Yes, it's true that Sansa idolized the knights for their beauty and splendour (i.e. Loras) - but its also true that she looked up to them because she believes in chivalry - which means things like justice and protecting the weak and innocent.
Therefore, while Sansa might not have been sympathetic in AGOT - her portrayal also shows IMO that a lot of readers are mistaken about her being a horrible person or someone who needs a redemption arc or someone who needs to be "punished". George never introduced Sansa with irredeemable flaws, and its obvious IMO that he was setting up her later development.
Finally, at the same time there are those who did find Sansa sympathetic upon their first read of AGOT (I count myself one) and plenty more while re-reading the series with a fresh perspective.

For whatever reason the story of Chione at Abydos has always fascinated me, so I decided to analyze the story and see what all can be inferred from it.
So for reference, the play "Chione at Abydos" is based off an Ancient Greek play set in the Thracian city of Abydos. In the play, a being named Chione arrives at Abydos in a blizzard, taking control of the city, ordering the gates to be shut, and causing the voiceless dead to rise throughout the city. She plunges the city into silence, snow, and "slow endings" for nine years, until members of the city revolt against her authority. They raise a "conspiracy of shouts" against the silence she demands and throw open the city gates, allowing a "Scarred Man" to take Chione away, releasing the city from her spell, although they "die from remorse".
So first off, it's clear that the Scarred Man referred to in this story is the Colonel, as many of his titles refer to scars (The Scarred One, The Scarred Captain, and The Tribune of Scars). His presence here fits the setting, as his ascension to Hourhood corresponds with the founding of Mycenae around 1300 BC.
Chione is a little less obvious, but as I see it the closest match among known entities is the Madrugad for a couple of reasons:

1. Chione has a strong association with Winter, which the Madrugad does. Also the book gives the lore fragment A White Ceremony, which is directly linked to the Madrugad.
2. Chione is said to cause the dead to rise, and the Madrugad presides over death and the passage into the Mansus. Additionally, the Church of the Unconquered Sun paid homage to her during their funeral rites but also instructed care to be taken in case the dead "are not quiet".
3. In the descriptions of her invocation for The High Passes, the Madrugad is described as being an Hour that "quells and quiets" as well as one that is "at home in the cold", both of which seem to apply to Chione in this situation.

Of course it's possible that Chione is just another being entirely separate, but this seems to be a good match to me so I'm going to assume Chione is the Madrugad.
However, as this story is set in Ancient Greece (which, in our history at least, largely fell to Rome in 146 BC) this means it likely takes place before the Intercalate (which probably takes place after the War of the Roads which begins in the 15th century). Which means the Madrugad must be a Name at this point (since she was created and not an ascended Long afaik).
If the Madrugad is indeed still a Name of the Sun-in-Splendour, then that only raises more questions. We know from the Exile DLC that the Colonel is fond of the established order, and given his eventual appointment to guard the Worm Museum by the other Hours, it's pretty safe to assume that he and the other Hours are on good relations (aside from the Lionsmith, of course).
So why is the Colonel intent on capturing the Madrugad? Judging by her actions in Abydos, it seems to me that she is using the city as a place to hide, probably from the Sun-in-Splendour (plunging the city into an eternal winter is a nice symbolic way of hiding herself from the Sun-in-Splendour, as the sun will be at its weakest during that time of year). There's also no sign of the Madrugad plotting against her master to become an Hour proper - while nine years is a relatively short period of time for an immortal being, her actions seem to indicate more her attempts to make the city a safe and comfortable place more than anything.
Given how little we know about the desires of the Madrugad and the Sun-in-Splendour, it's impossible to know why she would want to hide from her master. The only suggestion I can make is the merciless nature of the Sun (since, as we know from the Watchman, mercy is found only in shadow). Regardless, it seems to me that the Sun tasked the Colonel to hunt her down and return her to him. But then why would he show mercy upon a Name who rebelled against him?
If I'm going to reach even further, I'd suggest that the Madrugad's power of Forge hints at a collaboration between the Sun-in-Splendour and the Forge-of-Days in her creation. Since there is speculation that these two Hours loved each other and would not risk siring actual children for fear of committing the crime of the sky, perhaps one or both of them bore a special attachment to the Madrugad, and did not punish her more severely for her rebellion.
But this is all wild speculation at this point - I'm not sure if anybody else cares about this book as much as I do lmao, but if so I hope you enjoyed reading through my analysis!

Wick them off with a laser-point stare, kitsch design of any type that could be built suspect; the room a hone-tuned grater, satellite noticed in a languid reminiscence. Perfect waves. Half radiant thermometer, half fan, part producer part observer, sifting rush, for the gold, by the riverbank thin, clay moist and sparse, curved; Godel as a curlicue outlier, following elegant geometry.
Cheeks mottled from previous tears, I am a strange loop, mercury expanding and contracting knuckle by knuckle tight, her lighter grooved in the flesh of her palm. No one desperate can be blamed when forgiveness holds the foundation. Small talk and a, ‘Do they deserve the benefit of the doubt?’
However, the mainstream can produce the vignette. Moment by moment, you are invaded against your own will as you align yourself with the desideratum gazebo that is frivolous user in a mystified trance,
Proust. A pioneer in the suspended lapse. Barthes, no comparison. Dream Jung and Fromm in spite of the banal accusation of being enraptured by a mediocre path.
A girl who asked you if this could be found at a library potentially gathered at frequency. In spite of being known as licentious, Dickenson asks to end coherence. Rubber sole, a Beatles pun. The labyrinth,
Pessoa. The derelict.
No, thank you, sir.
One time she had left for her mother to find, during a bout of absent-minded reverie as a child, ice cream to be discovered, in a dry pool-hoard of drowning ants too eager to wait for the sweet relief of energy distribution as a whole; a course linearity, of divided sides, torn asunder by rowed chimney in a sleep deprived dusk, no, more than one time..
.. Flickering left and right in response to the clunk, quantum excitation, NEVER forget that dark matter is not black matter, or blotted out matter, or underlying matter; but the question of the missing match of unexplained vs explained mass in the universe. If our models were correct, there would be no dark matter. There is also dark energy, a whole other explosive thing that gives credence to acceleration and absolute permeation but this is not something me as a dilettante am able to speculate on.
Thick, solitary heel, braving the convex middle way. Retroactive countenance, not either is right. Both sensitive to pain. We all know suffering. Party after party, people spittle and loiter, only to redact after an ‘okay, it’s my final’ triumphant flick of a cigarette’ allowed coupled with celebration. Concern and neglect toggle chiastic tendencies in anticipation of a new age.
What does it mean to be superficial? There is the difference between the artefact and the name, both of which designate a heterogeneous vector range, in both how to interact with and how to gauge.
‘Where have you come from, where have you been?’ as the notorious cotton-eye joy sings.
A banger.
Broken promises reverberate; undone plans are avoided with urgency. Should pay the same benevolent heed when dealing with children. As a bifurcated race, those sponsored by the ever-lasting façade dipped in velvet prescience, a gift from god, capitulation one after the other,
Advocated by marionette hunter, a triangulate miasma obstinate on seeing askance the credit view, merit is the key, the one whose intent is shrouded in aim to provide, sparks a theatrical splendour.
Wistful engineer, our architect (the structuralist approach) comes next, with no agenda other than to facilitate the execution of a reason in formative adage, to find safety precaution carved through to stability, the approach to which paves way, outside of the third and final of our dedicated knot; the sense-orientated addict. In the thrill of undermining the chase, for the sake of indexing stops at nothing to ensure that ‘disavowed in the name of jouissance!’ be not, the fuse with which the Stoic and Lacan (as diametric counterpart as per a typical reading) bind together with the agenda of facilitating the truth with no other excuse than to promote safety; caution engraved.
In the motif, in the trademark, in the sigil, in the catchphrase, as the separate, as the one who stands for a reason incongruous, the surrealist; as the one who arrives in peace and to reconcile a bargain sincere enough to inflate a creed capable of deterritorialization at a whim,
Here you have a creature, less immune to threat, than the one who has community in the sheath?
Laminate societal consistency. Watch the winding procession soak up dizzy cool slats for an early reprieve granted by the holiday season. They stumble discordant as a wayward drift by the side of a curb, an alpha guffaw permeating the room is latched to brandish reputation; woozy with cider our protagonist heaves a glass clamor chink by chink, a crack or a slip, gliding attendants hemmed in by fabricated comfort inducers blessed lucky to work inside of a place with a view on a day like today where natural disaster is poised for a stir.
Suspended in an ache not dissimilar from the weight of gravity on bone, pulverized molecular, a smoke stack storm billowing the surface in sync with the beat mistral flair.
A friend once sent me a thesis that divulged in the separation of the licentious immediate and the budding semiotic.
Daniel, here is looking at you, I didn’t finish it, though we both touched upon it in a practical sense, enervated in our most somnambulant states, sacrosanct tessellation; a quasi-veiled optic and permeable nexus, redacted and refracted of aberrational sovereignty, mercenaries of slime; the rule of the flaw, causing obsessional and stalking behaviors such as emulating the admired as the pious and crafting that which must be avowed as the emeblem, as touched before in a previous work, and, with community in the centro of its shell, can never go astray.

https://www.reddit.com/DarK/comments/kgbxzj/spoilers_s3_tannhaus_means_something_completely/
In the first part I discussed that if you take Tannhaus and pluralize it you get Tannhäuser. Tannhäuser is a 13th century minnesinger and subject of Richard Wagner’s opera of the same name. In the opera he is in love with Elizabeth. I then went on to discuss why Richard Wagner’s operas might get used in Dark. Baran bo Odar and Jantje Friese gave an interview where they discussed that the primary theme of Dark was to take Schopenhauer’s philosophy and give it an emotion. The first and most famous person who sought to take Schopenhauer’s philosophy and give it an emotion was Richard Wagner. All of Wagner’s mature operas take Schopenhauer’s philosophy as the theme. Specifically in his opera “Tristan und Isolde” Wagner revolutionized music to make the audience feel Schopenhauer’s philosophy as an emotion. (look up the Tristan chord). Finally I gave two examples of how Wagner gets used in Dark via the concept of the liebestod (lovedeath). The deaths of Jonas and Martha/Adam and Eva are a liebestod. It is not a common thing to see in western literature/art as the concept of giving up one’s individual sole is a foreign one. I also discussed Siegfried and Brünnhilde from Wagner’s “Ring of the Nibelung” cycle and how they are also a nephew and Aunt in an incestuous relationship that ends in a liebestod. To make clear what a liebestod is I will include some lines from “Tristan und Isolde”:
“TRISTAN: Extinguished now is the last glimmer ...
ISOLDE: of what we thought, of what we dreamed ...
TRISTAN: all remembrance ...
ISOLDE: all recollection ...
BOTH: holy twilight's glorious presentiment obliterates the horror of delusion, setting us free from the world.
…
TRISTAN:Thus would we die, undivided, one forever without end, never waking, never fearing, embraced namelessly in love, given entirely to each other, living only in our love!”
In Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos” Ariadne is also seeking a liebestod. Just before Ariadne follows Bacchus (who she thinks is Hermes as the messenger of death) into the cave and Dark begins to parallel the opera, Ariadne states what she thinks is going to happen when she dies. This is also the paradise that Adam offers to Sic Mundus (at the beginning of the opera the composer specifically states Ariadne will cease to exist as herself when she dies):
“Ariadne: There is a land where all is pure, the land of death. Here nothing is pure, everything is connected....You will set me free. Give me to myself. This burdensome life, take it from me. I will lose myself entirely in you. With you Ariadne will abide...So it is there, where you will lead me! Whoever abides there, will forget very quickly! Speaking even breathing will cease to exist! One rests and rests for evermore. For there no one is exhausted from weeping. One has forgotten what was causing grief. Nothing matters there that counted here, I know”
In what she thinks is her final seconds before ceasing to exist Ariadne questions what is about to happen to her just like Martha does in parallel:
"Ariadne: What becomes of me in your arms? What is dying in me? What secret is on your lips? What is left of Ariadne? Do not let my suffering be forgotten. Do not let my suffering be forgotten! Let Ariadne go with you. (at this point Jonas offers his hand if you play the two in parallel)”
I will now move on to some other examples of how characters and ideas from Wagner opera may have made it into Dark starting with Tannhäuser.
Tannhäuser is in love with Elizabeth. It could explain why Noah is a priest. Tannhäuser departs the cave under the Venusberg where he has been in thrall to Venus (part of Sic Mundus?).
“Tannhäuser: Yet, I must go from hence to the world of earth; if I remain with you, I can only be a slave. For freedom, then, I long, for freedom, freedom, do I thirst; for struggle and strife I will stand, though it be, too, for destruction and death: from your kingdom, therefore, I must fly - Oh queen, goddess, let me go!...
... I carry death and the grave here in my heart, through repentance and atonement I will find myself repose!”
He finds Elizabeth whom he had abandoned once and falls in love with her again. He can not marry her till he finds redemption however. He therefore makes a pilgrimage to the pope (Adam?) scourging himself the entire way. When the pope refuses to grant him absolution he sets out to return to the cave knowing he can never have Elizabeth again. Elizabeth seeing that Tannhäuser didn’t return with the pilgrims goes into the mountains alone and starves herself to death (Ariadne in the play) praying for him to be redeemed. When Tannhäuser returns Venus is there waiting for him. He is ready to give in but he hears the name “Elizabeth” and remembers. The spell is broken, Venus disappears and he dies redeemed by Elizabeth whose prayers were answered by a miracle.
Next we move onto “The Flying Dutchman”. This is Wagner’s first mature opera. In it Wagner uses the concept that two people destined to fall in love could know each other their entire lives, long before actually meeting in person. This is seen with Jonas and Alt-Martha in the bridge sequence. Senta is the daughter of a sea captain. She was told the story of the Dutchman as a child and right from the beginning somehow knows that she is destined to redeem him. Even before her father arrives bringing the captain of a strange ship that he encountered in a bay while sheltering in a storm she knows he is coming. The opera also introduces the idea of a woman (Martha?) redeeming and eternally damned man (the StrangeAdam?).
“SENTA:(BALLAD) I. Johohoe! Johohohoe! Hohohoe! Johoe! Have you met the ship at sea with blood-red sails and black mast? On the high deck, the pale man, the master of the ship, keeps endless watch. Hui! How the wind howls - Yohohey! Hui! How it whistles in the rigging, Yohohey! Hui! Like an arrow he flies, without aim, without rest, without peace! But redemption may one day come to the pale man, if he but find a woman on earth true unto death. Oh, when will you find her, wan mariner? Pray to Heaven that soon a woman will stay true to him! II. In bitter gale and raging storm, he once tried to round a cape; he cursed, in mad fury, and swore: "Never will I give up!" Hui! And Satan heard it! Yohohey! Hui! Took him at his word! Yohohey! Hui! And, damned, he now roams the sea without rest or peace! But the poor man may still find salvation on earth for an angel of God showed him how one day he might be redeemed. Ah, wan mariner, could you but find it! Pray to Heaven that soon a woman will stay true to him! III. At anchor every seven years, a wife to woo he goes ashore: he wooed every seven years, but never a true wife he found. Hui! "Hoist sails!" Yohohey! Hui! "Weigh anchor!" Yohohey! Hui "False love, false faith! Back to sea, without rest or peace!"
It is I who will save you with my true love! May God's angel show me to you! Through me you shall find grace!”
Her boyfriend Erik tells her that he had a dream in which he sees her father bringing the stranger with him to his home. Senta listening to his story in a trance like state indicates that she had the same dream. When the Dutchman actually arrives they know each other on sight even though the Dutchman never introduces himself:
“DUTCHMAN: As from the mist of times long gone this girl's image speaks to me: as I dreamt of her for restless ages, I see her now before my eyes. I have often lifted my eyes at dead of night, longing for a wife. Satan's spite left me but a pounding heart to remind me of my torment. The dull glow I feel burning here, can I in my misery call it love? Ah, no! It is a yearning for redemption: would that through such an angel it came true!
SENTA: Am I deep in a wonderful dream? What I see, is it mere fancy? Have I been till now in some false world, is my day of awakening dawning? He stands before me, his face lined with suffering, it reveals his terrible grief to me: can deep pity's voice lie to me? As I have often seen him, here he stands. The pain that burns within my breast, ah, this longing, how shall I name it? What you yearn for, salvation, would it come true, poor man, through me!”
In the end the Dutchman thinks that Senta has betrayed him. He sadly set sail on his ship while Senta is restrained from joining him. She breaks free and runs up to the top of a cliff and proclaims “Here I stand, true to you unto death!” She leaps off the cliff to her death. The ship and crew sink into the ocean and the transfigured forms of the Dutchman and Senta are seen rising into the sky collapsed into each other’s arms.
Incidentally I thought that Senta, Silja, and Sonja are all similar sounding names. Silja’s and Sonja’s names are connected in a not so obvious way. Sonja etymologically is derived from the Greek name Sophia meaning wisdom. Silja is etymologically derived from the latin name Caecus meaning blind one. In norse languages the name means having lost an eye. This is important because in mythology often characters sacrifice their vision to gain knowledge. In German/Norse mythology Wotan/Odin gives one of his eyes to drink from the fountain of knowledge. This could explain why in Jonas’ world characters have a horizontal band going across both eyes while in Alt-Martha’s world there is a vertical band going over one eye. Incidentally Senta’s name is derived from latin crescere (to grow) or vincere (to conquer). In Germanic and Norse languages the meaning has been changed to truth or journey.
In Wagner’s last opera “Parsifal” the roles are reversed. This time a man (Jonas?) needs to redeem an eternally damned woman (Eva?). Kundry is an interesting character. She has been reincarnated many times. She has been damned since the beginning of time. In her first life she was Eva herself who was thrown out of the garden. She also has two different bodies one in the land of the grail knights and the other in the land of the magician Klingsor (Martha/alt-Martha?). In the first world the grail knights found her asleep when they first arrived and built their castle. She is the loathsome damsel from the legends. She is disheveled and she sleeps outdoors under briar patches. The knights almost all hate her despite the fact that she will take any risk at all to help them. This is because as part of her curse Kundry can not cry. When she wants to cry she starts to laugh this makes her feel worse and makes her laugh more which drives her to madness. When the spear is stolen and the fisher king is wounded she becomes the grail messenger and travels the world non stop seeking knowledge and cures. When Parsifal arrives she is the only one who understands that he is destined to retrieve the spear and that he is the only one who can redeem her.
In the world of Klingsor we learn the truth. Klingsor was the one who stole the spear. He knew of Kundry’s curse. He uses his magic to put her in a second, beautiful body. He has the power to command her absolutely in this form. He used this power to have her seduce the fisher king. He stole the spear and used it to wound him while he was in her arms. Since then Kundry has gone back and forth. In the grail lands she does everything in her power to repair the damage she has done only to be recalled by Klingsor to seduce the grail knights one at a time so he can kill them. Finally Klingsor orders her to seduce Parsifal so he can kill him. Kundry does her best to resist but is in the end powerless to prevent it. The seduction scene is interesting in that she uses the story of her curse to try to move him to pity while at the same time trying to seduce and destroy him (all against her will):
“Kundry: An eternity have I awaited you, my Saviour, oh! So late! Whom once I dared revile. Oh! If you knew the curse, which compels me asleep, awake, through death and back to life, in pain and laughter, in ever new forms to suffer anew, tortured by unending existence! I saw Him - Him - and ... laughed! Then I met His gaze! Now I seek Him from world to world to meet Him once again. In times of great distress I feel those eyes turn to me, His gaze resting upon me. Then the accursed laughter grips me again; a sinner sinks in my arms! Then I laugh - laugh - unable to weep, only scream and storm, rave and rage, in ever recurring nights of madness, from which, though penitent, I scarcely awake. One I desire with deathly yearning, whom I recognised, though I stupidly despised him, let me weep upon his breast, for a brief hour only united with you, and, though it may offend both God and world, find forgiveness and redemption!”
Although he successfully evades her seduction and retrieves the spear only she can lead him back to the land of the grail knights. Under the influence of the curse she can not do this. Therefore Parsifal is doomed to spend decades searching for it. Kundry thinks that she has failed yet again. However decades later Parsifal does find his way back to the land of the grail knights. He forgives Kundry and redeems her. He frees her from existence and she dies.
The final opera is “Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg”. In it we see another familiar situation. Hans Sachs (HG Tannhaus?), cobbler and meistersinger, has lost his wife and children to the plaque. His daughter’s best friend Eva has taken it upon herself to fill the role of a surrogate daughter to Sachs., visiting him often. Now that she is grown she comes to him with a strange request. She asks if he would marry her so she can become both his daughter and his wife. Sachs knows her far too well and knows it is something else she wants. Eva must marry a meistersinger the next day and there are only two unmarried meistersingers, Beckmesser who she hates, and Sachs who she sees as a second father. She however has fallen in love with a stranger to town, Walter. Because of her Walter took the test to become a mastersinger but failed as he does not know the rules. Sachs figures this out and, despite being deeply hurt that Eva would use him this way, sets out on the impossible task of teaching Walter to write a master song by the next afternoon. Walter does write a master song and is admitted to the mastersinger guild. Eva is able to marry him.
“WALTHER: Shining in the rosy light of morning, the air heavy with blossom and scent,full of every unthought-of-joy, a garden invited me and, beneath a wondrous tree there, richly hung with fruit, to behold in blessed dream of love, boldly promising fulfilment to the highest of joy's desires, the most beautiful woman: Eva in Paradise."
In the evening twilight, night enfolded me; on a steep path I had approached a spring of pure water, which laughed enticingly to me: there beneath a laurel-tree, with stars shining brightly through its leaves, in a poet's waking dream I beheld, holy and fair of countenance, and sprinkling me with the precious water, the most wonderful woman, the Muse of Parnassus!"
Most gracious day, to which I awoke from a poet's dream! The Paradise of which I had dreamed in heavenly, new-transfigured splendour lay bright before me, to which the spring laughingly now showed me the path; she, born there, my heart's elect, earth's loveliest picture, destined to be my Muse, as holy and grave as she is mild, was boldly wooed by me; in the sun's bright daylight, through victory in song, I had won Parnassus and Paradise!"
In the song it is easy to figure out who Eva in Paradise is. Mt. Parnassus (Mountain of the house of the god) is a little harder. It is where the muses live. Also it is a sacred mountain to Bacchus. Bacchus of course is the god whom Ariadne marries.
So we see that there are multiple themes based on Schopenhauer that Wagner put in his operas and later are also seen in Dark. The most important is the liebestod which winds up in Dark via Strauss’ “Ariadne auf Naxos”. There are other themes seen in both. The idea of an eternally damned man requiring the redemption of a woman and eternally damned woman needing the redemption of a man. The idea the two people in love could have seen each other long before they met. The idea of a character with two different forms in two different worlds. The idea of a person giving up immortality for freedom and accepting death as the price (in Dark it is more giving up eternal recurrence then immortality). The idea of a man having lost his entire family having a surrogate daughter replacing the daughter he lost (or granddaughter in the case of Dark).