Posted May 21, 2014
I'm in. I patched this up from several different authors I'm familiar with; I've always been frustrated with protagonists who end up winning through the virtue of them being the hero despite their long history of screwing up.
An excerpt from The Life and Travels of Saint Leopold
The world lies, from the moment we’re brought into this world to the day that your life is taken from you, it always has. Men ... are not created equal. Some are born with greater strength, some with greater beauty; some are born into poverty and others born sick and feeble. In both birth and upbringing, in sheer scope of ability every human is inherently different. That is why the people discriminate against one another, which is why there is struggle. Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not cheat, thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. All of these are lies, enacted each night and denounced at the break of dawn.
Yet there is no dignity in wickedness, whether in robes of nobility or rags; hell is a land where all are equals. But in this world sin with coin in its hand can travel freely whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. There is a touch of divinity even in brutes that should forever exempt him from indignities. I am burdened by sorrow my brothers; there is war and discrimination, malicious deeds that are carried out by the strong. The same abhorrent interplay of tragedy and comedy of centuries past, the world has not changed. The people still suffer. What do you do when there is an evil you cannot defeat by just means? Do you stain your hands with evil to destroy evil, or do you remain steadfastly just and righteous even if it means surrendering to evil?
Facing death my heart despairs that the foretold time will never come, but I fear it also. All the signs say that a single child will decide our fate. Will it be a strong man, or a dullard and buffoon who was born under the weight of the stars. One life to change the world… what if the gods in their ill humor bless us with a fool, who will let our world slip through their fingers.
An excerpt from The Life and Travels of Saint Leopold
The world lies, from the moment we’re brought into this world to the day that your life is taken from you, it always has. Men ... are not created equal. Some are born with greater strength, some with greater beauty; some are born into poverty and others born sick and feeble. In both birth and upbringing, in sheer scope of ability every human is inherently different. That is why the people discriminate against one another, which is why there is struggle. Thou shalt not commit murder, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not cheat, thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. All of these are lies, enacted each night and denounced at the break of dawn.
Yet there is no dignity in wickedness, whether in robes of nobility or rags; hell is a land where all are equals. But in this world sin with coin in its hand can travel freely whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers. There is a touch of divinity even in brutes that should forever exempt him from indignities. I am burdened by sorrow my brothers; there is war and discrimination, malicious deeds that are carried out by the strong. The same abhorrent interplay of tragedy and comedy of centuries past, the world has not changed. The people still suffer. What do you do when there is an evil you cannot defeat by just means? Do you stain your hands with evil to destroy evil, or do you remain steadfastly just and righteous even if it means surrendering to evil?
Facing death my heart despairs that the foretold time will never come, but I fear it also. All the signs say that a single child will decide our fate. Will it be a strong man, or a dullard and buffoon who was born under the weight of the stars. One life to change the world… what if the gods in their ill humor bless us with a fool, who will let our world slip through their fingers.
