[UA] Avatars and Godwalkers

[Royal Minister of Stuff]

Hey, nothing that makes sense is really trite.  I like
the idea of an antisocial dropout snatching the ideal
of the masterless man away from the ronin.  In looking
around, though, I suspect what's happening would be
the other way around.

Up until the 80s, most people (in the US, at least)
thought of concepts like the Masterless Man as a sort
of tough guy who worked within the system.  Burt
Lancaster's character in "From Here to Eternity" is
the clean-cut version and, of course, Dirty Hairy was
the other end.

Then manga and anime started to seep into the public
consciousness (largely by illegal means.)  The works
of Kurasawa became acknowledged as more than a source
for "The Magnificent Seven" and all of my fat gaijin
friends started going on about ronin and swords made
of folded metal. (Though I attribute that to -shudder-
Highlander.)  They had been on about ninjas for a few
years until I someone forced us to read "The Tick."  

As a result, the unshaven guy on the motorcycle or the
rumpled cop or, god forgive me for mentioning this,
any character played by Joe Don Baker, became, well,
less Real.  The Ronin seemed more and more like a
classical image of
Man-Fighting-System-From-Within-On-His-Own-Terms.  It
was one of those things which had happened, not just
once, but frequently, while no one can actually
remember the real Serpico anymore.

So that begs the question: there has to be ANOTHER
contender for masterless man.  Who's trying to rest it
from (heh heh) "That Guy in Japan" and who says it
can't be the leader of Mak Attax?


--- Gareth Hanrahan <hanrahag at iol.ie> wrote:
> (snip)
> The way I read it, you've got to stay close enough
> not to break taboo while
> twisting the intent of the archetype around towards
> your point of view.
> Basically, you've got to completely screw the
> current Clergy member over
> using his own rules. So if the current Masterless
> Man is derived from the
> model of the ronin samurai, and you want to ascend
> as the Antisocial
> Dropout, you've got to fulfill all the requirements
> and display the symbols
> of the old Masterless Man while promoting your own
> version. In this case,
> the Avatar might carry around a small samurai sword,
> but use it for jimmying
> open the coin boxes in phone booths or something. *
> 
> > Robin
> Gar
> http://www.mytholder.f2s.com
> 
> *: Ok, really crappy and trite example. I know.
> 
> 
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> http://lists.uchicago.edu/mailman/listinfo/ua


=====
-- Rp Bowman, Royal Minister of Stuff
The Electronic Nation of Yokeltania:
http://www.geocities.com/yokeltania/

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