Lore/Story Ren's Compendium Of Parables (vol. 2)

Alrighty, this is the spiritual successor to this thread
Just gonna put some of my short stories here. Feel free to give critiques. It would also make me overjoyed if anyone wants to write what they think each story means.
(Also, keep in mind some of the stuff is a bit placeholder, some of it is kinda rough as well. Also, this is all effectively set in the same world, but not the wynncraft world)

Pseudopoems (2 extremely short non/semi-prose things)

Reality Bleeds (So...this one will be disturbing to some audiences. It contains themes of suicide and torture, so keep that in mind, it's also a bit gory)

Burden Of The Philosopher King

Filimar's Lament

Spoiler: May want to read the story before this spoiler

I'm thinking of keeping Filimar alive at the end of this one, what do y'all think about that?

Exodus (Title is subject to change)

Few Things Can't Be Fixed By Killing God (I'm kinda curious, what do y'all think of Crenellae in this one? And about Raonottem)

 

Existance
Silence
Eternal death
Awakening
Pain
Of darkness, internal screaming
Screaming
Screaming, vibration
Death of darkness
Substance, of which to be acted upon
Atoms
Atoms and vibrations
Propagation
Funny latin words
Anger, dissatisfaction, pain
Life
Ignorance
Suffering
Humanity
Reality
Status quo, propagation, curiosity, death

 

Lmao

 

Okay, a few comments:

1. What does Burden of The Philosopher King have to do with philosophers or kings?
2. Aspirant from Filimar's Lameme is American propaganda: you're supposedly "free", but you face wage slavery racism sexism bigotry unaffordable living etc...
3. Aspirant's logic is... alright so if I'm going to a private swimming pool and I have to pay fees, that's kind of suffering. If I go to a public pool, there is no fee. Does paying more money or suffering more make things better? Does it unlock anything you could get easily without suffering?
   Aspirant talks as if the world is a dog-eat-dog, zero sum game where everything must be absolute. Why, though? So Aspirant takes Filimar's intelligence and thought away, but what does that have to do with anything? He talks as if free thought IS suffering, but what is his reasoning? 1984? "Slavery is Freedom?" Suffering is evolution's punishment. Pain, hunger, unfulfillment. If you were the perfect lion, with a full belly, no injuries, with his genes passed onto the next generation, where is the suffering? Evolution did not give animals the ability to feel pain just because pain is suffering and suffering is freedom. No, suffering is a punishment and if you win you do not get punished. But the thing is, winning is rarely decided by trying your hardest; it is mostly caused by small arbitrary factors and luck. People are born into poverty, and thus they live a life of suffering because of it. Are they freer? No. In fact, they are anything but free. A slave suffers and is not free. Again, why is suffering the equivalent of freedom?
   Aspirant says: "For without evil there can be no virtue." says who? God? Jod with a J? Whoever Eternia or that god is? Because of "balance?" Why? Evil and Virtue are human concepts, and they are caused by sparks between neurons in a human that is less than a grain of sand compared to the universe. There is no law of physics saying that humans can't have virtue without evil. This idea that there has to be balance in human characteristics itself is a made-up human concept.
   
4. What's up with all the wooden black-eyed people
5. I don't understand the meaning of Exodus. Is it supposed to be some "go with the flow" kind of thing?
6. What is even happening in Exodus? What is the context?

 

Thanks so much for all the comments, gimme a bit, but I intend to answer this in detail

 

1. Think of it as a title like Bullet With Butterfly Wings where it refers to a theme of the story rather than the story itself
2. Interesting idea. Aspirant wouldn't think that suffering was exclusive to freedom. His idea of freedom is not a very human idea of freedom, in fact many of the other Figments in my story disagree with Aspirant in that sense, or think to a lesser extreme than him.
3. I think the definition Aspirant is using for suffering is different from your definition. For instance, he would not be concerned as much with the suffering or non-suffering of a lion because he wouldn't think of lions as having sapience, and thus a higher capacity to suffer. To Aspirant, even a person in complete bliss is still suffering because of disadvantages they had. So a person who did not know all knowledge, would be suffering because they were in some way uneducated (because any straying from perfection is imperfection). His point about people in poverty was because people in poverty have different experiences than people who are born rich. Can one life be said to be better than another? What if the person born in poverty is more intelligent, or laughs more? What if the rich person lives a life of depression? Aspirant is saying that the capacity to suffer and cause suffering is related to our ability to act. Imagine not being able to cause suffering on other people, you would be unable to act without making somebody feel something unpleasant.
Well, how can you have hot without cold, or darkness without light. He's basically putting evil and virtue in a binary. Aspirant's beliefs (And by extension, most of the gods in my stories) are not supposed to be necessarily taken as "right," I mostly just want to make people think about his ideas.
4. Motifs
5. Kinda, tbh its one of my weaker stories since it doesn't have a very mythic aspect to it, it's just a guy describing Meldemar's ideology. It's basically that detachment will help you cope with suffering in a sense. But yeah, it's one of my weaker ones, it prolly needs to be re-written or scrapped.
6. Mmm, you're not necessarily supposed to know the context. (I know that might sound weird from a writerly sense, but I don't really wanna give the context for that. All of these fables are going to be part of a bigger world/story and they will make more sense when I write about those)

EDIT:
Actually idk about Aspirant thinking imperfection=suffering. I know for a fact he’d consider suffering to be inevitable, and would suffering is to some extent a good thing.

Also, I don’t really see how Aspirant’s opinion would be American propaganda, cuz he’s amoral, and is implicitly defending the right of people to cause suffering to others, I.e. torture or something like sexism. He simply thinks that it’s better to have the freedom to cause suffering and to suffer, than to be unable to cause suffering, or to suffer, and therefore lack cognition. I personally wouldn’t want yo live in Aspirant’s ideal world.

 

The first poem is short, explains the creation, and it "orchestrates without understanding."
The second one sounds like it's linked to another story, I can't remember it

You've gotten my opinion on this already.

You've gotten my opinion on this already.

I can see where you were going with this one but it being just suffering doesn't sound like all there is to life. Of course, we will have setbacks and tragedies but we can't forget people are also defined by their triumphs and actions, actions that can occur from outside setbacks or failings.

You've gotten my opinion on this already. I can agree with the fact that it is the weakest one so far.

This one I think is an interesting one, it more or less explains the idea of having too much power, kinda similar in a way to having too much money when you think about it.