How to Deal with Monikers

One time, I found this description of the book, Ivan the Terrible on Bookbub:
“Explore the life of Ivan the Terrible — the infamous Russian tsar who more than earned his daunting moniker. But beneath Ivan’s exterior of brutality may have lurked a complex, even sympathetic leader…”

The phrase “daunting moniker” caught my attention. It reminded me of this blows-your-mind-away monologue by Christoph Waltz as part of his portrayal of a Nazi Colonel named Hans Landa in the movie Inglorious Basterds. Here, I quote the parts of relevance:
“Monsieur LaPadite, are you aware of the nickname the people of France have given me? … “The Jew Hunter.” … Heydrich apparently hates the moniker the good people of Prague have bestowed on him. Actually, why he would hate the name “the Hangman” is baffling to me. It would appear he has done everything in his power to earn it. Now I, on the other hand, love my unofficial title precisely because I’ve earned it.”

Set aside the moral aspect of the Hans Landa quote for a minute. But isn’t it true that most of us do get tagged by a moniker during childhood or at college? And in those periods of our life, those monikers can be honest and usually cruel. Sure, at other times, they can be unfair and undeserved. But either way, during those periods, they “stick”. Sadly, the more you dislike it, the harder it sticks. Anyone who says otherwise was never a child…

At least monikers like “the Terrible”, “Hangman” and “Jew Hunter” are accurate descriptions based on what the person did. But often monikers come from actions that lie beyond one’s control. Like being a bastard. A term that Jon Snow faces all the time in the awesome series, Game of Thrones. So how does one deal with a situation like that? After all, Landa’s advice to “love (the) unofficial title precisely because I’ve earned it” doesn’t apply in such cases. So how does one deal with such “unearned” monikers? Tyrion Lannister, the Dwarf (another moniker, this being of the honest and cruel kind), from Game of Thrones gave the answer to Jon Snow:
“Let me give you some advice, bastard. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world will not. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you.”

I never cease to be amazed by the wisdom one can get from the most unlikely of sources, including a Nazi Jew Hunter and Game of Thrones. In fact, Game of Thrones has wisdom (and quotes) on every topic under the sun, and it would take an encyclopedia to capture all of that. And like the Greek and Hindu epics, Game of Thrones can be (re)interpreted and argued about for ages…

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Student of the Year

Image
As a toddler, my daughter loved Alia Bhatt’s songs, esp. the ones from Student of the Year . (That movie did have many good songs and well-choreographed dances). Fast forward to present day, when she is 12 yo. She rarely watches Hindi movies now, but one of the few ones she likes of late, Raja aur Rani ki Prem Kahani has, yes, Alia Bhatt.   If I had any hopes that there was anything to be read in the name of her toddler-time favorite ( Student of the Year ), they have been dashed. Our conversations come exam time are perfectly captured by this photo and its caption: In fact, the pic below captures how she and I look at her answer sheets – me intently, she with an expression of “It’s over, so why are you even looking at it?”   Of late, we pull her leg and tell her that she isn’t showing any signs of academic prowess, she’d better find a rich guy to marry. Some time later, she showed us this meme on the Internet: “Me No Study, Me No Care Me Go Marry Millionaire If He Die
Read more

The Retort of the "Luxury Person"

Image
Coming up with biting and witty retorts. It’s something we dream of, but rarely manage to pull off. Worse, the more we stew over the offending remark, the more likely we are to come up with that dream retort, as Calvin ruefully points out: During our last holiday at the Taj Resort, seeing my wife carrying towels to our poolside chairs, one of the kids there mistook her for a member of the staff and asked for a towel. When my wife narrated this to us, I did not imagine that my 8 yo daughter would come up with her own retort. But a day later, my daughter recapped the incident, an incident that didn’t even involve her in the first place , and said, “You know what I’d have told that kid who asked for the towel?”. And without waiting for an answer, she told us anyway: “I don’t work here. I too am a luxury person who is living at this resort. Go get your own towel.” We were highly amused by the phrase she had coined: “luxury person”. It certainly captures the kind of holid
Read more

Animal Senses #7: Touch and Remote Touch

Instinctively, we think touch is based on contact. Not entirely true, explains Ed Yong in Immense World – there’s a more important aspect than contact: “These incredible feats are possible through movement. If you rest a fingertip upon a surface, you can get only a limited idea of its features. But as soon you’re allowed to move, everything changes. Hardness becomes apparent with a press. Textures resolve at a stroke.” As you run your fingers over a surface, they hit the tiny peaks and troughs and set off vibrations in the mechanoreceptors at their tips.   At the tip of its snout, the star-nosed mole has many pairs of hairless appendages. It uses them to touch things around itself. Alive or dead? Food or ignore? It does these movements at an insane speed. In the time it takes to blink our eyes, the star-nosed mole can probe, identify and swallow its food. “Light may be the fastest thing in the universe, but light sensors have their limits, and the star-nosed mole’s sense of
Read more