3.) The use of the worgen also reflects something about our upbringing, and to better explain that, I have posted a page from the current comics series "Curse of the Worgen" (this is from issue #3) at the bottom of my post. Please read it before continuing, then come back here.
***(continue here)***
In WoW lore, the city of Gilneas is a kingdom of humans that had shut itself off from the rest of the world in order to protect itself from what it saw was the increasing evils of the world (in this case, the world is named Azeroth). The good leaders had noble intentions, but such isolationist actions rarely succeed, and eventually the city found itself being attacked by a race known as the Forsaken (who belong to the aforementioned Horde), a group of undead zombies who have managed to regain their sentience.
Not only that, the Gilneans also found themselves attacked from within, by wolf-like creatures that eventually came to be known as worgen. The worgen curse is passed down by being bitten by a worgen, so eventually nearly the whole city was infected with the worgen curse, including its king, Genn Graymane, who had initially kept this secret from his subjects until later.
The worgen curse was brought to Gilneas by a night elf druid (night elves are a part of the Alliance) named Ralaan who is entirely convinced of the rightness of his "cause", which is to introduce the world to what he feels is the blessing of "Goldrinn" (a wolf god in WoW who is the source of the ability to turn into worgen). Becoming a worgen also means taking on and abandoning yourself into a primal and feral fury. Ralaan claims that becoming a worgen frees the mind from the inhibitions that we tend to impose on it, and he evens goes so far as to call it enlightenment and the thought processes while under the influence of being a worgen as "purity of thought". To run wild, in other words, is to run free, and that's what he wants to share with everyone.
Does this sound familiar? This is basically the bill of goods that our baby boomer parents and liberal leaders have fed us all this time - to abandon ourselves to our basic and carnal urges. They have fed this to us because they have fed this to themselves, believing somehow that releasing ourselves from our inhibitions and freeing ourselves to our various lusts will open our minds and broaden our horizons. Some of them got so caught up in their perverse definition of "enlightenment" that they abandoned certain other responsibilities - like to their children. But rather than feel guilty about abandoning their parental responsibilities to us, they instead tried to assuage their guilt by indoctrinating us into their hedonistic lifestyle.
Before you think I'm exaggerating here, think about your upbringing. First, consider that legalized abortion became available for our parents, who at the time were in the process of abandoning themselves to their lusts and urges, and as we all know, being pregnant tends to get in the way of hedonists practicing their "craft", and we just can't have that, can we? And who were these little obstructionists? Us! Our generation lost a great deal of our number - one third of us, according to some estimates - because the majority of those who got abortions simply didn't want to put up with the inconvenience of having and raising a baby. Sucks to be us, right?
Those of you of my generation who are reading these words were the lucky ones. However, our troubles didn't end there. Our generation also happened to be the ones that were latchkey kids; that is, you pretty much had to wake yourself up to get yourself ready for school and you had to walk yourself to school in the mornings and you had to walk yourselves back to an empty home and had to prepare your own meals. Why? Because your parents (if they were still married to each other) were gone early in the morning and often returned late at night.
How many of you also spent a great deal of time in daycare? How many of you spent a lot of time with your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you were *raised* by your grandparents, or aunts or uncles? How many of you have had multiple step-parents, and step-sibling, and half-sibling? How many marriages have your parents had? And most importantly, how many of you have been told by your parents that they are doing all this "for you"? Oh really? The multiple marriages and the mix-and-match families was for our benefit?
I wish that these parents would at least have the honesty to admit that they did all this for *their* benefit, and what was best for the kids was actually an afterthought. When they did do things "for us", it was actually to benefit them in some way. Also consider this when many of you were teens: How many of you knew a friend or had a friend who knew a friend whose parents were willing to buy them cigarettes, booze or drugs? I knew quite a few. Why would these parents do such a thing? This will probably also sound familiar: They wanted to be their children's"friend". I'm not a psychologist, but if I were to hazard a guess, I would say that this was their subconscious way of making up for their lack of parenting skills. But what kind of parent makes up for their absenteeism by handing their child a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of booze?
On top of all this was the fact that in school, we were subjected to all the stupid educational "theories" to come down the pike, and we were made the subjects of every stupid social experimentation they could come up with - all for "our own good", of course! I can't tell you how many times I watched friends of mine suffer needlessly because of the stupid selfish and hedonistic philosophies that our parents and teachers followed simply because that's what their contemporaries did. In other words, they were all being conformists in their nonconformity. You would think the irony would have smacked them in the head at some point!
Anyway, to wrap this up: We were a captive audience, much like the citizens of Gilneas in their walled city, because these people were our parents and our teachers. They followed their own "Ralaans" and their ideas of releasing yourself into your primal and carnal lusts as enlightenment. We were made to follow in these philosophies because we were raised - no, make that indoctrinated - into it much like the citizens of Gilneas who were infected with the worgen curse, so a bunch of us ran wild like the worgen did in Gilneas. This is why I say that we are worgen. We are the Worgen Generation.
But there are worgen who fought the feral passions through help and through magic and medicine that helped control those passions. They regained their self-control even as they still possessed the wolf-like body, but it's a battle they will have to fight for the rest of their lives. Much like we will have to fight our demons. But friends, we can do it, and we must do it. There is a night elf priest in the comic named Belysra who felt guilt over her role in the worgen infestation of the Gilnean population, and made up for it by helping Gilneans who are cursed as worgens to control their feral passions. I want to be our generation's Belysra.
The comic page below is the point that I want many more of us to get to - the realization that we have been misled by false prophets and that we have to take it upon ourselves to bring us out of the sort of "enlightenment" that they have promised. We may have been "cursed" by people who should have been our providers and protectors, but it doesn't mean that we have to stay "cursed". But first we have to open our eyes to the problem. Only then can we get to the point that the worgen is at in the page below.
So friends, let's take control of our lives and our destinies, and let's start by controlling the name by which we refer to ourselves: Let's be the Worgen Generation. May our howls be heard the world over!
No comments:
Post a Comment