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On the Morality of Monsters

We all know that Dracula is evil, Frankenstein’s monster is a brute and the hidden gods of Lovecraft drive humanity insane but could we be misinterpreting this? Harker gets a posse together to brutally slay Dracula while he is helpless, Victor Frankenstein creates his monster and abandons him and Humanity has forgotten about the Lovecraftian gods in favour of newer kinder ones. Could it be that each of these stories (and many others) can be read in an alternate way such that the "monsters" are actually mistaken, misinterpreted and working from a "good" motivation? This can transcend the canon literature and even look at modern day monsters

  • "Beauty and the Beast" anyone? – smartstooge 9 years ago
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  • Hey there, I don't think that we should create "monsters" like Frankenstein, or wipe them out without knowing whether or not the "monster" in question as actually a monster. A monster is something intrinsically evil...it works for evil, and doesn't repent and turn back to good. Many people would call Hitler a "monster", but the truth is, Hitler was a human, and that means he was fully capable of making moral decisions, and even loving every single person he had control over. "Monstership", I believe, is something that pertains to nature, not choice. You can't become a monster unless you ARE a monster. I'm not sure how helpful this note was, but it's some food for thought! – Hedekira16 9 years ago
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  • This is a great opportunity to talk about how subjective morality is. For example - if a vampire has to drink blood to survive, and do so, are they truly evil just because humans have decided it is an evil act to drink blood? Why are vampires in fiction considered 'good' if they drink animal blood instead of human blood, when it makes no difference to them because they are a different species anyway? It would be interesting to discuss humans imposing their moral system on other creatures. – Grace Maich 9 years ago
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  • Uh, I thought Frankenstein's monster was a victim? The author of the novel made his plight entirely sympathetic, and despite all his faults and flaws, Frankenstein's monster was pretty remorseful and set out to kill himself after his creator die. I'm also currently reading Dracula, so I'll get back to you on that, but from my understanding, Dracula really is just plain ol' evil. And from my understanding, Lovecraftian gods have a sort of bizarre morality, where our concepts of good/evil don't really... work with them. This isn't the first time this topic's been explored, but I welcome you to take a stab at it. – Helmet 9 years ago
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  • I think one of the issues in Frankenstein was also that of education. Or maybe the more accurate term to use is cultivation? When the creature was born, he was a blank slate. He had equal potential to be either a blessing or a curse to mankind--what settled it was the treatment he received. The creature himself says, "I am malicious because I am miserable." – chemis3 7 years ago
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