/lit/ - Literature

>>17337273

>>17338900
For god's sake don't ask for political book recommendations in this hellhole.

>>17338426

>>17337608
An underrated film.

>>17337240
>Really though, your logic is so retarded it makes my dick hurt.. Happiness is not just relative. There are basic conditions humans need to thrive, and if those conditions are not being met, people are not going to feel happy about it. Many niggers living in nigger countries are diseased and hungry, and even though I loath to call them human, it's obvious the necessities for human life are not being adequately met, and they have little chance of thriving.

I agree that people in those conditions often aren't living flourishing lives. However, I don't think that they're necessarily experiencing so much suffering that it would be impossible for them to use a technique like Nietzsche's amor fati.

>You stand in a lofty place with a full belly and a safe home, you look at the whole wretched world and all it's hardships, and say to yourself, "they're just as happy as me because they don't know what they're missing." Disgusting.

I've spent years living in severely underdeveloped areas and working with people who exist in conditions of incredible privation. It's my observation that many people who live in these settings are at least as happy as the average First-Worlder. This isn't to say that we shouldn't work to give them access to the resources they're being denied, of course; I believe there's more to flourishing than avoiding unhappiness. My point is that there's no reason a "poor kid born in Africa" can't implement amor fati as well as a First-Worlder, because ignorance and severe material privation don't necessarily translate into an experience of irresistible subjective suffering.

>>17337166
There is some exploration of Westerosi viticulture in the series, but there are also some large questions left unanswered.

>>17337033
You fell for the usurper's propaganda.

>>17336990
Black hair seems to be dominant when the father is a Baratheon, though there are some characters with a Baratheon mother who have light hair.

desu I'm more puzzled by the way winemaking works in a world with unpredictable seasons than I am about the genetics.

>>17336465
Re: eye color, it's really a toss-up. Violet eyes are considered characteristically Targaryen, though there are plenty of Targaryens who don't have them (Aegon the son of Rhaegar, Duncan the son of Aegon V) and there are even more Baratheons who don't have blue eyes (Jocelyn, Orys, arguably Renly).

>>17336465
Not all -- Rhaenys Targaryen, the daughter of Rhaegar, had brown hair; Daeron Targaryen, the son of Maekar I, also had brown hair. I think all of the identified characters who bear the surname "Baratheon" have dark hair, though some characters with a Baratheon mother (like Rhaenys Targaryen, daughter of Aemon Targaryen and Jocelyn Baratheon) have light hair.

Anyway, I think GRRM uses these signature physical characteristics (hair color, eye color, build, etc.) to make his sprawling array of characters easier to keep track of. They're also used, sometimes, to suggest whether a character takes after his ancestors. Cleos Frey, who's the son of a Frey and a Lannister, has the brown hair and lank build characteristic of the Freys, and his confrontation-averse personality is more typically Frey than Lannister.

>>17336524
>If that's true, then someone who knows only torturous buttsex, and has never known anything else, could potentially be as happy as you or me.
I think this is a good rebuttal to the idea that happiness is the prime good. Plenty of people who live in a state of illiterate malnourishment are happier than I am, but I don't envy them.

>>17336399
How torturous can it be if the people undergoing the torture are happy about it?

>>17336351
>dumbing down your world
>stock characters with clothes from the hanger
>glad I didn't waste time with it

If you didn't read it, how do you know that's what it is?

>>17336182
P.S.- And my local newspaper, of course.

>>17336214
Why?

>>17335381
Giving different families or groups of people an easily identifiable characteristic makes Martin's sprawling cast of characters easier to keep track of. It doesn't really bother me.

>>17333928
My mom gifts me books like these all the time, which I do enjoy. I got her "In the Garden of Beasts," which I don't think she ever read, despite it being just the sort of thing she evidently enjoys.

>>17336160
What do you want me to do with this? Okay, so you don't like the concept of amor fati. So what?

As an aside, I can tell you that poor kids born in Africa aren't necessarily less happy than you are; many of them don't appreciate what they're missing.

>>17336154
The New York Times, The Spectator, KCRW, Quillette.

Journalist. I may be on track for a promotion to editor soon.

>>17336052
Man, I hadn't thought about those books in years and years.

>>17333146
>"DRACO!" I shouted. "What the fuck do you think you are doing?"

>Draco didn't answer but he stopped the flying car and he walked out of it. I walked out of it too, curiously.

>"What the fucking hell?" I asked angrily.

>"Ebony?" he asked.

>"What?" I snapped.

>Draco leaned in extra-close and I looked into his gothic red eyes (he was wearing color contacts) which revealed so much depressing sorrow and evilness and then suddenly I didn't feel mad anymore.

>And then... suddenly just as I Draco kissed me passionately. Draco climbed on top of me and we started to make out keenly against a tree. He took of my top and I took of his clothes. I even took of my bra. Then he put his thingie into my you-know-what and we did it for the first time.

>"Oh! Oh! Oh!" I screamed. I was beginning to get an orgasm. We started to kiss everywhere and my pale body became all warm. And then...

>"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!"

>It was...Dumbledore!

>>17335081
Seconding the recommendation of "Junky."

>>17335960
Hays.