Lord of The Rings and Nietzsche's Übermensch: Part 2

Two characters that don't meet Nietzsche's criteria of an Übermensch are the friends, Pippin and Merry. Together, the friends halted the Fellowship's journey on more occasions than one. Merry, bored beyond belief, searches for something to entertain himself. During his search, he finds a stone, where he promptly throws it into the water. By this careless act of boredom, he endangers the Fellowship by alerting the sea monster of their presence.

Merry

Another occasion was when the Fellowship entered the Mines. They silently crept through the Mines and watched out for any dangers. While they make their way into the room where several dwarfs died, Pippin backs away. Completely unaware of his surroundings, he backs into a well, knocking over a bucket and sending a loud crash through the entire area. Which, ultimately, leads to the Orcs to finding them.

Pippin

On both occasions, Pippin and Merry endangers someone who fits the criteria of an Übermensch; Frodo. If one of their mistakes had done more than endangered his life, they wouldn't have fulfilled their quest. Pippin and Merry are neither a lion, a camel, or a baby. They do not fulfill Nietzsche's criteria.

Lord of The Rings and Nietzsche's Übermensch: Part 1

Two characters that do fit Nietzsche's criteria of an Übermensch is Frodo and Aragord. Frodo Baggins is a member of the Fellowship. He is given the task of carrying the ring with the intention of destroying it. Frodo is the camel, weighted down by his burdens. By taking the ring, he shows the elves, the dwarfs, and the humans that hobbits can help save Middle Earth as well as they can. This changes how the others think of half-lings and help "create new values" along the way.

Frodo

Aragord was originally introduced as Strider, but eventually he was revealed as the heir of Isildur. His ancestors, while under the influence of the ring, reeked havoc. Even when they died, his line was said to be cursed with the desire to control the ring. However, when Frodo offered the ring to Aragord, he rejected it. Instead, telling Frodo that it was his and his alone. This displays the ideology of “the spirit now wills his own will, and he who had been lost to the world now conquers the world.”

Aragord

Nietzsche's Three Metamorphoses

Nietzsche's three metamorphoses of the spirit are the camel, the lion, and the baby. Each of these metamorphoses are how a spirit grows and develops as it matures.

Camel: The camel is our spirit, weighted with the burdens of our past and present lives. The camel wanders alone, carrying more than it can bear through an endless desert.

Camel

Lion: The camel becomes a lion when it masters the desert. It fights our burdens and conquers. The lion lightens the soul masters the desert alone. To further the lion's need for victory, it seeks out the Dragon. The dragon will be named "Thou shalt" and the lion will be "I will." The dragon stands in it's way like an obstacle, each one of its scales shining with values, thousands of years old. When the dragon and lion come together, the dragon prevails because the lion is survival instincts. The lion helps us reach for what we need, and understand the rightful values.

Lion

Baby: When the lion becomes a baby, it reaches an entirely new beginning. It is to forget, to uncover, the souls true self and to rules the spirit by itself. Without other masters ruling its life.

Baby

Fate or Free Will: The Matrix

          The concept of free will is arguably the desire and reign to act freely. Within the United States, we have free will to act as we so desire. This idealogy is what Neo was taught to believe in the Matrix. However, as the movie progresses, Neo is recruited by Morpheus, who insists that he is The Chosen One and it is his destiny to save everyone from the Matrix. Neo is hesitant to believe so, but as he finally begins to believe this is his destiny, the Oracle informs him otherwise. Despite his disbelief, Neo is haunted by the prospect that his is ordinary, when he believed he was more from the beginning.
          From this point on, Neo is faced with two decisions; one impossible, and another plausible, but unwillingly accepted. Near the end of the movie, Neo releases all other opinions and doubts. Instead, he focuses on his true nature and embraces what he finds there. I believe, as the movie began, the concept was about fate, but as Neo finally chose to accept his destiny, this displays free will. Essentially, this movie is about choosing your own destiny and not letting others influence your own actions, even if it is fate itself.

Morpheus contacting Neo for the first time

Plato's Cave Theory

Plato's Cave Diagram

        The cave is where the prisoners will live out most of their lives. They will be unable to look away from the flickering, candle-lit images that were shown on the cave wall before them. The purpose of this cave is to make the prisoners think that they shadows aren't shadows, but actual objects. The cave is designed to deceive the prisoners into recalling these images vividly enough to discuss among one another. They talk as a group and recall the image and their storylines that didn't exist, or articulate details they imagined.
        This cave describes the human journey because it shows humanity that we cannot simply accept the world presented to us. We can't accept everything we're presented or told. We need to find the truth for ourselves and free ourselves from our prisons. The cave shows us we have unlimited potential and we need to travel outside our "caves" into the real world.

My Drawing of Plato's Cave

My Own Grief in Kubler-Ross' Stages

        This year has been tough for my family. Mainly after hearing my grandmother had terminal, pancreatic cancer. She had one to an exploratory surgery after finding the mass, only to learn she was in one of the early stages of her cancer.
        Following Kubler-Ross's "Grief Cycle," the first stage is ultimately the denial stage. When we heard she had a mass, my family prayed for it to be a clot at most. We were horrified to find it was actually lung cancer. For a while, we didn't believe the diagnosis. That is, until my grandmother told us herself.
        Secondly; the anger stage. We were informed after the diagnosis that, during the exploratory surgery, the surgeons had unintentially spread the cancer in her lungs to her pancreas. We were unbelievably angry. We knew it wasn't the surgeons' fault she developed the cancer, but we needed someone to blame before we could begin to accept the diagnosis.
        Next is the bargaining stage. One of the saddest things I've seen was my grandfather trying to get my grandmother into an experimental drug test. The researchers said this drug had high hopes for curing pancreatic cancer and our family jumped at the opportunity. They, sadly, declined. Mainly, because my grandmother was already ill from the chemo being done on her lung cancer, and they didn't want to take the risk.
        Months later, her lung cancer is gone, but she is still very ill from the pancreatic cancer. The doctor says most of the cancer is gone, but a lot keeps coming back. After hearing this, my grandmother is horribly depressed. She thought she would beat this, but is finally realizing the reality of her situation. She reached the depression stage.
        Now, she goes through her day optimistically. She has her good days and her bad, but once she reached the acceptance stage, she isn't entirely happy with her situation, but she's living through it. And that's all anyone can ask of her.

The Truman Show and Rene Descartes

        Rene Descartes' ideas brought a skeptic approach that impacted the future of philosophy, history, science, and religion. He believed that all he saw - colors, sound, the earth itself - was nothing but an illusion crafted by a superior genius. Like, in the movie, The Truman Show, Truman's whole world was created solely around him. Christof was Truman's superior genius; ruling over every aspect of Truman's life. Friends, family, neighbors; all carefully selected by Christof, for Truman. Descartes envisions a deceitful, trickster God - which Christof turns Christof's infinite power manifested Truman's life, but also festers Truman's hatred and betrayal when he learns of the truth.

Truman giving himself a bow before leaving Christof's world forever