All in

          The final decisive battle/move/play, not necessarily the last battle(if talking about the war as a whole), but most likely the beginning of the end for one of the sides . Or it is the critical meeting or rallying point in the history of a conflict that turns the tide. We are surrounded by stories of these moments factual and otherwise, where it could have gone either way but something happened and a new destiny forged among the harsh wilderness of fate.

          Right off the bat at the start of chapter three we are given an example of "All in" in the story of "The Oath of the Horatii: "One of the Great Stories of Ancient Times" by Livy. There was a fight/conflict between the Albans and the Romans, At the conference, Mettius proposed that the dispute be resolved by some means other than mass bloodshed, citing the concern that the nearby Etruscans would fall upon the two Latin states if weakened by war and unable to defend themselves. It was agreed that a set of triplets from each side, three brothers Horatii and three Curiatii, would battle for the victory of the two states. Livy refers to conflict amongst his own sources as to which set of brothers represented which state, but prefers the view that the Horatii were the Romans, and the Curiatii Albans.  (I wrote this)---> The battle begins, one of the Alban's unleashes a mighty roar and charges forth!! The Horatii parries the blow, and the clash of steel can be heard across the otherwise silent battle field. The other two Horatii brothers run forward to intercept the remaining Albans lest they attack their brother whilst he is occupied. They fight for 5 minutes!! 10 Minutes!! 15 Minutes, the battle rages on,neither side giving quarter. An Alban blocks a sword thrust with his shield and almost as if in slow motion, you can see the sword waver, then shatter all across the battle field. Things look bad, one of the fragments has flown into the left eye of one of the remaining brothers, the unengaged Alban notices this and takes advantage of the weakness. He approaches from the left/rear, flanking the brother and with a stab through the heart it suddenly turns into a 3v1 match. The Albans are grateful that the duel will soon be over, they have been running(as in fighting) at 200% and can't keep the pace much longer, they are wearing more armor, their weapons are heavier, they are exhausted. Things look grim, his brothers are dead and death comes from the north, east and west for him. He does the only thing he can do, he runs, Mercury bless him, he runs. The Alban crowd screams for his blood, the Romans begin to weep, for all is lost. The Albans are in hot pursuit but begin to break ranks, the Alban that threw the first move falls behind to take a rest, and another begins to lag some 50 yards behind his fellow warrior. The remaining brother at last, stops and turns deciding he is dead anyway, he might as well death head on. But wait......What is this!?, a solitary Alban out of breath!? He realizes what has happened and takes advantage of the shift. He rushes up and beheads the Alban as he has his hands on his knees, face down gasping for air. He dons the helmet and carries the head of the fallen and jogs up the 2nd Alban, confusing him. He quickly jabs his sword from the bottom of his jaw upward into the Alban's brains. The battle wind has shifted, he still has a chance after all. The last Alban won't be a push over, he will have recuperated by now, but god's willing he would hold his ground, for the Horatii, for Rome.
            Eventually down the line Alba Longa ceases to exist as its citizenry is added to the Roman collective. Did it really happen this way or is this just legend? Either way it makes for a pretty badass, patriotic story of valor,luck and heroism.

          Then we have "Hannibal is at the gates" also by Livy. It provides another example of "All in", but this time in the rallying type example. Hannibal is the worst enemy the Romans had ever faced, he being the only person to ever bring Rome in her prime to her knees. He scared the bejeebers/bejeezus out of the Romans, so much so that their allies deserted, citizens left and even those of patrician blood wanted to "call it" and find refuge in a foreign country.  Destiny chose Scipio because everyone else was too scared or full of despair to be bothered. He gave a very dramatic speech and appearance type deal which was enough to impress everyone to eventually follow him. While he probably was not thinking this at the time, "fortune favors the bold" , it held true for him and it often holds true, throw something together, anything. Putting together any kind of defense is better than the alternative of death. There comes a time when you have to look death in the eye and laugh at it in the face, because it will have you eventually anyways. They freed (6:20) slaves (paragraph 5), conscripted anyone they could and put everyone else together to make armaments and anything else that could be useful. I remember seeing a history channel on this, they even had a blind guy sorting out things by touch. I was reminded of life in the U.S.A.  (scroll through posters) during WW2. Every scrap was saved and everyone did their part to fight against the Axis powers, even children recycled their toys so the materials could be re used. What would the world be like if we had given into despair after Pearl Harbor? The British were fortunate to have a similar man in Winston Churchill during WW2 ,the power of the "All in Rallying cry" is amazing and brings tears to eyes. He held onto European front until Pearl Harbor scared the USA into action.

Iwo Jima, declaring All in

it's just not happenin

           The All in is prevalent throughout all literature, television/movies and video games. Some examples include the movie Patriot,(video clip) when Mel Gibson sees the deciding moment and specific area of the battle that will determine their fate and calls for the line to be held. Or in the Bible when Shedrach, Messach and Abednego refuse to bow to the Idol. It is also found in video games, such as the last mission starcraft 2 wings of liberty which is called all in,(:50,4:12,6:50) which is where I get the name of today's blog.  Even found in the sports world via its sister the "Hail Mary" not just in foot ball but in any sport, when someone defeats the odds it is referred to as a Hail Mary.  I could go on and on and give examples that I have read or seen, but I'm sure you can think of plenty on your own. The whole "All in" concept ties in very closely to the concept of hope, the unwillingness to surrender or accept defeat, it is the very life force that keeps mankind going on despite the disasters that happen or dangers they may face indeed the All in has shaped the entire history of humanity. Whenever you find yourself at that deciding moment in life, and make the decision to win despite the odds or danger or risks or simply because it is the last option left to you, you have just performed or entered the "All in".

All in

Why have you come? You will find naught but death here.

All in concept in Christianity, Jesus barring the way to heaven

  

Greeks, literature, the power written word

                  Thinking about Greeks, many people or at least me, think about mythology. Stories of valor, bravery, courage, hope, cunning, strength , love and wisdom, but also stories of cruelty, selfishness, mercilessness, ruthlessness, jealousy, vanity, murder and strife. After reading this chapter, taking some time, looking back and thinking about it, I come to see that some of the stories in the Greek mythos are stories of the times they were living in, not just stories offering morals and teaching generic lessons or stories about their religious beliefs, but something more akin to political humor/satire/propaganda.

                 An example of this given in the text is the story of "The Trojan Women" by Euripides. If you didn't have a back story or information about it, you might just think someone was trying to follow up the story of the Trojan war, however we are given the story of why Euripides wrote this.It was written in response to the destruction of the neutral island nation of Melos by the Athenian army. The Athenians were at war with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War. It seems to me that it was a culmination of land disputes and several political slights against one another that eventually led from peace--->wary truce----> minor hostility---->open war. As was the usual up until nuclear weapons were developed, peace--->wary truce----> minor hostility---->everyone dies, which is why we generally try and avoid war as a "civilized" world now, probably not because we are better people now, but because the stakes are too high. Melos was a colony of Sparta, in the way America/U.S.A. was a colony of Britain, yes we might have been British at the start, but if someone came around saying that we were British it wouldn't really make any sense or hold any ground. There was probably a fear in Athens that Sparta would use Melos as a staging ground for an offense against Athens, similar to the Cuban missile crisis when Russians were building bases to house nukes within strike range of the U.S.A.. Just as often as they can bring us heroes, they can also spawn villains. Villains, men who know just what to say as they lead us blindly along the road of seemingly good intentions to hell. The Athenians had lost the F.D.R. of their time (Pericles) and gained a hybrid of George Bush and Adolph Hitler. I'm not saying George Bush is evil, I refer to his lack seeing the details and stubbornness once his mind was set, combined with Hitler's public speaking skills and love cruelty. The Athenians offered the people of Melos and ultimatum, serve(pay tribute) or die. The people of Melos tried to use logic and reason as to why Athens should not worry about them attacking Athens or helping the Spartans, or as to why the Athenian's behavior seemed counter intuitive as to their beliefs but the Athens ironically refused to listen to reason. The Melians refused to surrender, all the men were killed and the rest were sold as slaves. They sacrificed the very qualities they claimed made them better than the Spartans, the very qualities they were trying to protect, and so in turn the Athenians lost the battle against Sparta. For if they no longer used logic,reasoning, cunning and wisdom to defeat the Spartans, was there any hope of defeating a nation trained for war? It was like a man trying to defeat a lion with his barehands at that point, instead of using tools and traps in bringing the seemingly more powerful beast to heel.

              I couldn't find it on the internet, but I remember seeing a history channel show about the history of Greece and its relationship with Crete. Some Greek guy was making political speech and trying to get people to side against Crete or put it in bad light by speaking about the Minotaur and how it would be there sons and daughters sent to be sacrificed next time. It reminded me of the way we would refer to Arabs in Afghanistan or Iraq with racist terms like towelheads, jawas, sand people or sand-Ni&&3@Z or make up that they weapons or that they all want to kill us in an effort to turn public opinion against them. At this time Minoan civilization(named after the fictional king Minos) was in power in the Mediterranean region, they probably got some form of tribute from the weaker surrounding countries. They may have been referring to the human sacrifice (under the religion section) that Cretans may have practiced via some priest or priestess wearing a bull mask (under interpretations). So the legend of the Minotaur may have been propaganda developed by the Greeks to slowly turn the masses against Crete so they could take their own place as the stars of the Mediterranean world. Thinking back on the story of the Minotaur, I can see some parallels to the Nazi propaganda I saw against Jews in the Holocaust museum in the capitol.

Illustration from the antisemitic
children's book,The Poisonous
Mushroom, in which a Jewish man
is depicted as a child molester
attempting to lure German children
with candy

The poisonous mushroom

description of movie here

Now just replace the word Jew with Cretan/Minoan/whatever their races name was and replace the following images with a savage blood thirsty man/bull creature and you will see the power of literature.

 

It wants to eat your children!!

Even their women are ugly!!

Rise up Fellow My Fellow Greeks!! Slay the Cretan menace!!

If you take a minute and think about it, it doesn't seem like much; some scribbles on a paper or etches on a wall but literature has the power to change the hearts and mind of a person, a city, a country and the world. It is said the pen is mightier than the sword whoever made up that saying could not be more right. People live and die by the proclamations,judgements,teachings and stories left down by their ancestors and given by those in charge.The Greeks left us with a powerful legacy, it's up to us[everyone] as to whether we will ultimately use its power for Evil or Good.

Scribbles indeed

The quest for eternal life

               As a whole humanity has always had fear of dying, not necessarily of the act of dying, but of the unknown, of what comes after and the fear of being forgotten. So we make up stories, religions and go on futile quests in search of holy, mysterious and magical objects and we create monuments to survive the ages, the stories themselves becoming a sort of testament to mankind.All in an effort to say "I was here..................".

         
                                                                                                                                                                               Stories, yes there's lots of stories about searching for immortality, or at least an extension on life. From the    text we have "epic" of Gilgamesh. He befriends a wildman Enkidu, battles Humbaba and a bull from heaven and visits an old sage seeking wisdom. From just a couple of the things he does in the story(let's not forget the writer that wrote this, whoever it was) he has left his own mark on the world. He befriends a wildman, the concept of befriending the crazy/savage/unknown/different person and becoming brothers after fighting them is extremely prevalent throughout literature and roleplaying videogames(which I consider literature) via the Defeat Means Friendship , Worthy opponent , Fire Forge Friendship as well as other related tropes including Heterosexual life partners. He battles Humbaba, some kind of fire breathing winged lion beast/monster. Humbaba exists in numerous video games and takes a variety of forms, a dragon, golems, manticores and giant winged bull creatures. It's important to note, that even if humbaba isn't an elite insanely powerful boss level monster existing in its own dungeon at the very least it is an elite difficult to defeat creature type that requires special care to avoid dying against. Just type "humbaba in video games" under Google images and you will see page after page of actual game screen shots or fan art. Wanting to bring his friend back to life, he goes on a quest to find the "Hermit Guru" known as Utnapishtim. I would argue that even though we don't know who wrote the Epic of Gilgamesh, that person has obtained a literal(related to literature) level immortality rivaling that of biblical figures.

Gilgamesh and Enkidu without Enkidu dying

A version of Humbaba

                 The search for eternal life or ability to bring back people from the dead gives us lots of ideas and objects to work with. You have movies and novels which involve a search for a fountain of youth, the latest involving Pirates of the Caribbean, earlier ones including Gulliver's travels where he trades the giant wasp sting to gain access to one. You have the philosophers stone, people have actually been trying to make this as crazy as it sounds or maybe I'm crazy for not believing. The first Harry Potter book was actually called the philosophers stone but changed to the sorcerers stone, either way the concept is the same. Among the deathly hallows was a stone that was believed to bring people back to life but in the end only allowed conversation with the dead, which drove the living mad. There is the anime Full Metal Alchemist in which 2 brothers become disfigured, one's soul actually having to be implanted into a suit of armor, after a failed attempt to resurrect their mother using alchemy. The story is their miscellaneous adventures on the search/quest for the philosophers stone.
              You have your Holy Grail cup believed to have been used by Christ in the last supper, somehow blessed with residual traces of his divinity. In Fiction such as in Indiana Jones, and perhaps to some people in real life, drinking water blessed by its touch is supposed to grant extended life or healing properties similar to that of the philosophers stone and increased physical ability.
              You also have blessed/magic locations including Shambala or Shangri-la, a special location where people are able to meditate and reach immortality via enlightenment or ascension type methods. A recent game I just completed Uncharted 2 started out as finding the lost fleet of Marco Polo and culminated in finding Shambala and stopping a military leader from creating an army of super soldiers via the healing/enhancing/maddening properties of the blue tree sap of the Tree of life which grows in the center of Shambala.

Shambala in Uncharted 2

             Sap which is, of course, tree blood, and blood of magical beings/people and those of the "pure" are supposed to confer protection, power or even immortality. In fiction becoming a vampire usually involves a blood exchange of some type or amount. Orcs in the Warcraft series were driven crazy, filled with battle lust and given additional strength via drinking from springs tainted with the blood of the Demon Mannoroth. Christians/Catholics believe that when they take sacrament the wine turns into Jesus' blood as you drink it which is required for entrance into heaven. You have the Hebrews painting blood of a pure unblemished lamb over their doors during the First Passover in the Bible so that way the Angel of Death would pass them over as he continued his task of killing everything first born in the Country.

Blood of Christ

Serious business

It's okay to laugh

           

                                                                                                                                                                                                 You also have your man made monuments such as pyramids and temples. Places like stone henge and the great wall of China. We preserve documents such as the Declaration of independence and the Bill of rights in an attempt to immortalize our origins. You even have phrases like "diamonds last forever", "take a picture it'll last longer" and even grocery stores selling "forever stamps". The list of immortality objects/concepts and locales both fiction and non fiction ironically do not end.       

How many licks does it take?

Just like diamonds? hmm....