/lit/ - Literature

>>17371232
You are a woman

i wish i were seething over a whale instead of shitposting my life away

>>17371232

I mean, his business was killing whales anyway and this particular one took his leg.

Was it actually years? If I recall he lost his leg on the voyage before Ishmael joined on. It certainly wasn’t a grudge of decades.

>>17371232

Reminder that all the best Star Trek movies are influenced by Moby Dick:

Wrath of Khan (2): Khan is stranded at Botany bay for years, has only Moby Dick and one or two other books to read (you could do worse in terms of desert island reading), gets a boat and seeks revenge on the creature which wronged him Khan=Ahab, Kirk=Moby Dick, quotes Ahab at his death

Voyage Home (4): Time-travel farce to get humpback whales to communicate with an alien probe to save Earth. Whales are discussed and depicted at length. Toward the end they scare off a possibly-illegal whaling vessel. Heavily influenced by the "save the whales" and Humpback sounds nature fads of the 70s.

First Contact (8): Now Picard is Ahab, and the Borg are the whale. NOOOO1!! NOOOOOO!!!!

>>17371237
lol this

>>17371299
Star Trek is trash for nerds. No one cares how garbage is inspired.

>>17371232
It's a metaphor for libidinal frustration and sexual dysfunction and a masterpiece of coomer literature. Old Ahab can't get it up any more. Moby Dick (dick is literally in the name), is a SPERM whale. And the whole goal of hunting sperm whales is to get their cummies, spermaceti. Spermaceti doesn't actually have anything to do with the whale's reproduction, it's a waxy oil substance that is secreted inside it's head. Still, the metaphors are obvious. Just look at this glaringly obvious textual evidence from chapter 94: A Squeeze of the Hand.

>Squeeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm till I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a strange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly squeezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the gentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving feeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually squeezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as much as to say,- Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish any social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come; let us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into each other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and sperm of kindness.

>>17371299
>star trek is actually new england whaling in space

based af

>>17371323
Star trek is based as fuck. It's one of the few TV series that comes close to dealing with in depth topics of what it is to be human and experiencing the cultural zeitgeist. Sure, it doesn't come close to good literature and there are some less than savory bits, but the movies, next gen, ds9, and voyager all had some interesting things to say about humanity, the future, and our own world from an alternative perspective.

This is the exact same issue with EVA. Weeb faggots obsess over the origin of the angels and bullshit autistic level details about the worldbuilding instead of the actual underlying themes. You only call star trek nerd shit garbage because your exposure to it is the mainstream idealized parody of what star trek actually is. It's not a fair assessment and you are just being a shit poster god damn it I fell for the bait didn't I? Like a giant whale.

>>17371323

>no one cares how garbage is inspired

So you maintain that there is no such thing as the pleb.

>>17371232
>“Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,” cried Starbuck; “never, never wilt thou capture him, old man- In Jesus’ name no more of this, that’s worse than devil’s madness. Two days chased; twice stove to splinters; thy very leg once more snatched from under thee; thy evil shadow gone- all good angels mobbing thee with warnings:- what more wouldst thou have?- Shall we keep chasing this murderous fish till he swamps the last man? Shall we be dragged by him to the bottom of the sea? Shall we be towed by him to the infernal world? Oh, oh,- Impiety and blasphemy to hunt him more!”

>“Starbuck, of late I’ve felt strangely moved to thee; ever since that hour we both saw- thou know’st what, in one another’s eyes. But in this matter of the whale, be the front of thy face to me as the palm of this hand- a lipless, unfeatured blank. Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act’s immutably decreed. ‘Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders. Look thou, underling! that thou obeyest mine.- Stand round men, men. Ye see an old man cut down to the stump; leaning on a shivered lance; propped up on a lonely foot. ‘Tis Ahab- his body’s part; but Ahab’s soul’s a centipede, that moves upon a hundred legs. I feel strained, half-stranded, as ropes that tow dismasted frigates in a gale; and I may look so. But ere I break, yell hear me crack; and till ye hear that, know that Ahab’s hawser tows his purpose yet. Believe ye, men, in the things called omens? Then laugh aloud, and cry encore! For ere they drown, drowning things will twice rise to the surface; then rise again, to sink for evermore. So with Moby Dick- two days he’s floated- to-morrow will be the third. Aye, men, he’ll rise once more,- but only to spout his last! D’ye feel brave men, brave?”

>>17371324
None of the gay stuff in this book registered with me until I browsed /lit/

>>17371361
You can wax poetic about televised community theatre all you want, it's still trash. "Hurr durr it says more about humanity than Friends or the Big Bang Theory." Wow, what a crowning achievement.

>>17371232
imagine that.