TAXIARCHY

 

I am Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. 

Surrender now, and we can avoid bloodshed.

So Infernally Touchy....

In times of spiritual trial, Oppenheimer would search the Bhagavad-Gita, a sacred Hindu text, for meaning and comfort. 

He often turned to the story of the warrior Prince Arjuna, who to fulfill his destiny must Fight and Kill.

“In battle, in forest, at the precipice in the mountains,

On a dark great sea, in the midst of javelins and arrows,

In sleep, in confusion, in the depths of shame,

The good deeds a man has done before defend him.”

(The tunnel seals behind them.)

ACE: 

Doctor?

DOCTOR: 

Don't worry, Ace. 

It's only a trap.

[Clearing]

(The Brigadier and Lavel run from the helicopter, which then explodes.)

BRIGADIER: 

Five million pounds worth of aircraft, and we've lost it.

LAVEL: 

They’ll make us pay for that

BRIGADIER: 

We'll be poor for the rest of our lives.

(Lavel's leg hurts.)

BRIGADIER: 

Pulled a ligament?

LAVEL: 

Oh good. I thought it might be something serious.

BRIGADIER: 

I'll see if I can get some help from the village.

LAVEL: 

But sir, we don't know what the situation is here.

BRIGADIER: 

The situation, Lavel, is normal. 

And it doesn't get much worse than that. 

You know, I think I'm rather enjoying this.

(The Brigadier takes his service revolver from its holster and heads off.)

[Churchyard]

(Mordred is reading the names on the war memorial.)

MORDRED: 

‘Tis a shrine to those fallen in battle.

MORGAINE: 

So, they are not the savages you led us to believe. 

You fought on their soil without proper respect for the dead.

MORDRED: 

Mother, I —

MORGAINE: 

You have dishonoured us, Mordred. 

What is victory without honour? Leave us!

(Mordred walks through two lines of knights. The Brigadier walks up the road by the church.)

MORGAINE: 

What manner of man are you?

(Morgaine and the Brigadier meet at the church gate. The Brigadier points his revolver at her.)

MORGAINE: 

A Warrior, no less. 

How goes the day?

BRIGADIER: 

I've had better.

MORGAINE: 

I am Morgaine, The Sun Killer. Dominator of the thirteen worlds 

and 

Battle Queen of the S'Rax. 

What say you?

BRIGADIER: 

I am Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart. 

Surrender now, and we can avoid bloodshed.

*****

BRIGADIER: 

Let me see if I've understood you correctly. 

You are holding a Remembrance ceremony for the dead of our World Wars, a ceasefire, to remain in force for the duration of said ceremony, right?

MORGAINE: 

Your words are strange, 

but that is the meaning, yes.

BRIGADIER: 

Right. What must I do?

MORGAINE: 

I wish you to know that I bear you no malice.

BRIGADIER: 

I understand.

MORGAINE: 

But when we meet again, 

I shall kill you. 

Morte D'Arthur

by Alfred Lord Tennyson

So all day long the noise of battle rolled

Among the mountains by the winter sea;

Until King Arthur's table, man by man,

Had fallen in Lyonnesse about their Lord,

King Arthur: then, because his wound was deep,

The bold Sir Bedivere uplifted him,

Sir Bedivere, the last of all his knights,

And bore him to a chapel nigh the field,

A broken chancel with a broken cross,

That stood on a dark strait of barren land.

On one side lay the Ocean, and on one

Lay a great water, and the moon was full.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:

"The sequel of today unsolders all

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights

Whereof this world holds record. Such a sleep

They sleep -the men I loved. I think that we

Shall never more, at any future time,

Delight our souls with talk of knightly deeds,

Walking about the gardens and the halls

Of Camelot, as in the days that were.

I perish by this people which I made, -

Though Merlin sware that I should come again

To rule once more -but let what will be, be,

I am so deeply smitten through the helm

That without help I cannot last till morn.

Thou therefore take my brand Excalibur,

Which was my pride: for thou rememberest how

In those old days, one summer noon, and arm

Rose up from out the bosom of the lake,

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

Holding the sword -and how I rowed across

And took it, and have worn it, like a king:

And, wheresoever I am sung or told

In aftertime, this also shall be known:

But now delay not: take Excalibur,

And fling him far into the middle mere:

Watch what thou seest, and lightly bring me word."

To him replied the bold Sir Bedivere:

"It is not meet, Sir King, to leave thee thus,

Aidless, alone, and smitten through the helm.

A little thing may harm a wounded man.

Yet I thy hest will all perform at full,

Watch what I see, and lightly bring thee word."

So saying, from the ruined shrine he stepped

And in the moon athwart the place of tombs,

Where lay the mighty bones of ancient men,

Old knights, and over them the sea-wind sang

Shrill, chill, with flakes of foam. He, stepping down

By zig-zag paths, and juts of pointed rock,

Came on the shining levels of the lake.

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,

And o'er him, drawing it, the winter moon,

Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,

Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work

Of subtlest jewellery. He gazed so long

That both his eyes were dazzled, as he stood,

This way and that dividing the swift mind,

In act to throw: but at the last it seemed

Better to leave Excalibur concealed

There in the many-knotted waterflags,

That whistled stiff and dry about the marge.

So strode he back slow to the wounded King.

Then spake King Arthur to Sir Bedivere:

"Hast thou performed my mission which I gave?

What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?"

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

"I heard the ripple washing in the reeds,

And the wild water lapping on the crag."

To whom replied King Arthur, faint and pale:

"Thou hast betrayed thy nature and thy name,

Not rendering true answer, as beseemed

Thy fealty, nor like a noble knight:

For surer sign had followed, either hand,

Or voice, or else a motion of the mere.

This is a shameful thing for men to lie.

Yet now, I charge thee, quickly go again

As thou art lief and dear, and do the thing

I bad thee, watch, and lightly bring me word."

Then went Sir Bedivere the second time

Across the ridge, and paced beside the mere,

Counting the dewy pebbles, fixed in thought;

But when he saw the wonder of the hilt,

How curiously and strangely chased, he smote

His palms together, and he cried aloud,

"And if indeed I cast the brand away,

Surely a precious thing, one worthy note,

Should thus be lost for ever from the earth,

Which might have pleased the eyes of many men.

What good should follow this, if this were done?

What harm, undone? deep harm to disobey,

Seeing obedience is the bond of rule.

Were it well to obey then, if a king demand

An act unprofitable, against himself?

The King is sick, and knows not what he does.

What record, or what relic of my lord

Should be to aftertime, but empty breath

And rumours of a doubt? but were this kept,

Stored in some treasure-house of mighty kings,

Some one might show it at a joust of arms,

Saying, `King Arthur's sword, Excalibur,

Wrought by the lonely maiden of the Lake.

Nine years she wrought it, sitting in the deeps

Upon the hidden bases of the hills.'

So might some old man speak in the aftertime

To all the people, winning reverence.

But now much honour and much fame were lost."

So spake he, clouded with his own conceit,

And hid Excalibur the second time,

And so strode back slow to the wounded King.

Then spoke King Arthur, breathing heavily:

"What is it thou hast seen? or what hast heard?"

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

"I heard the water lapping on the crag,

And the long ripple washing in the reeds."

To whom replied King Arthur, much in wrath:

"Ah, miserable and unkind, untrue,

Unknightly, traitor-hearted! Woe is me!

Authority forgets a dying king,

Laid widowed of the power in his eye

That bowed the will. I see thee what thou art,

For thou, the latest-left of all my knights,

In whom should meet the offices of all,

Thou wouldst betray me for the precious hilt;

Either from lust of gold, or like a girl

Valuing the giddy pleasure of the eyes.

Yet, for a man may fail in duty twice,

And the third time may prosper, get thee hence:

But, if thou spare to fling Excalibur,

I will arise and slay thee with my hands."

Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,

And, leaping down the ridges lightly, plunged

Among the bulrush-beds, and clutched the sword,

And strongly wheeled and threw it. The great brand

Made lightnings in the splendour of the moon,

And flashing round and round, and whirled in an arch,

Shot like a streamer of the northern morn,

Seen where the moving isles of winter shock

By night, with noises of the northern sea.

So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur:

But ere he dipped the surface, rose and arm

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him

Three times, and drew him under in the mere.

And lightly went the other to the King.

Then spoke King Arthur, drawing thicker breath:

"Now see I by thine eyes that this is done.

Speak out: what is it thou hast heard, or seen?"

And answer made the bold Sir Bedivere:

"Sir King, I closed mine eyelids, lest the gems

Should blind my purpose, for I never saw,

Nor shall see, here or elsewhere, till I die,

Not though I live three lives of mortal men,

So great a miracle as yonder hilt.

Then with both hands I flung him, wheeling him;

But when I looked again, behold an arm,

Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,

That caught him by the hilt, and brandished him

Three times, and drew him under in the mere."

And answer made King Arthur, breathing hard:

"My end draws nigh; 'tis time that I were gone.

Make broad thy shoulders to receive my weight,

And bear me to the margin; yet I fear

My wound hath taken cold, and I shall die."

So saying, from the pavement he half rose,

Slowly, with pain, reclining on his arm,

And looking wistfully with wide blue eyes

As in a picture. Him Sir Bedivere

Remorsefully regarded through his tears,

And would have spoken, but he found not words,

Then took with care, and kneeling on one knee,

O'er both his shoulders drew the languid hands,

And rising bore him through the place of tombs.

But, as he walked, King Arthur panted hard,

Like one that feels a nightmare on his bed

When all the house is mute. So sighed the King,

Muttering and murmuring at his ear, "Quick, quick!

I fear it is too late, and I shall die."

But the other swiftly strode from ridge to ridge,

Clothed with his breath, and looking, as he walked,

Larger than human on the frozen hills.

He heard the deep behind him, and a cry

Before. His own thought drove him, like a goad.

Dry clashed his harness in the icy caves

And barren chasms, and all to left and right

The bare black cliff clanged round him, as he based

His feet on juts of slippery crag that rang

Sharp-smitten with the dint of armed heels -

And on a sudden, lo! the level lake,

And the long glories of the winter moon.

Then saw they how there hove a dusky barge,

Dark as a funeral scarf from stem to stern,

Beneath them; and descending they were ware

That all the decks were dense with stately forms

Black-stoled, black-hooded, like a dream -by these

Three Queens with crowns of gold -and from them rose

A cry that shivered to the tingling stars,

And, as it were one voice, an agony

Of lamentation, like a wind, that shrills

All night in a waste land, where no one comes,

Or hath come, since the making of the world.

Then murmured Arthur, "Place me in the barge,"

And to the barge they came. There those three Queens

Put forth their hands, and took the King, and wept.

But she, that rose the tallest of them all

And fairest, laid his head upon her lap,

And loosed the shattered casque, and chafed his hands,

And called him by his name, complaining loud,

And dropping bitter tears against his brow

Striped with dark blood: for all his face was white

And colourless, and like the withered moon

Smote by the fresh beam of the springing east;

And all his greaves and cuisses dashed with drops

Of onset; and the light and lustrous curls -

That made his forehead like a rising sun

High from the dais-throne -were parched with dust;

Or, clotted into points and hanging loose,

Mixed with the knightly growth that fringed his lips.

So like a shattered column lay the King;

Not like that Arthur who, with lance in rest,

From spur to plume a star of tournament,

Shot through the lists at Camelot, and charged

Before the eyes of ladies and of kings.

Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere,

"Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go?

Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?

For now I see the true old times are dead,

When every morning brought a noble chance,

And every chance brought out a noble knight.

Such times have been not since the light that led

The holy Elders with the gift of myrrh.

But now the whole ROUND TABLE is dissolved

Which was an image of the mighty world;

And I, the last, go forth companionless,

And the days darken round me, and the years,

Among new men, strange faces, other minds."

And slowly answered Arthur from the barge:

"The old order changeth, yielding place to new,

And God fulfills Himself in many ways,

Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.

Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me?

I have lived my life, and that which I have done

May He within Himself make pure! but thou,

If thou shouldst never see my face again,

Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer

Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy voice

Rise like a fountain for me night and day.

For what are men better than sheep or goats

That nourish a blind life within the brain,

If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer

Both for themselves and those who call them friend?

For so the whole round earth is every way

Bound by gold chains about the feet of God.

But now farewell. I am going a long way

With these thou seest -if indeed I go -

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)

To the island-valley of Avilion;

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies

Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard-lawns

And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound."

So said he, and the barge with oar and sail

Moved from the brink, like some full-breasted swan

That, fluting a wild carol ere her death,

Ruffles her pure cold plume, and takes the flood

With swarthy webs. Long stood Sir Bedivere

Revolving many memories, till the hull

Looked one black dot against the verge of dawn,

And on the mere the wailing died away.

[DOOR CHIMES.]

Come.

Jean-Luc.

Kirsten.

Hello.

May I? 

Apparently, you have urgent Federation business.

I understood you to have left affairs of state behind.

I am staying as far from it all as I can.

So then what can I do for you? - Bruce Maddox.

- What about him? I believe that he is using neurons from the late Commander Data to create a new organic synthetic.

Well, that's not far from all of it, it is all of it.

The Romulans are involved.

This gets better and better.

Commander Data was not only my colleague, he was my dear friend, and he gave his life, body and soul, to the Federation.

And if there is a chance that some part of him still exists, then I think we have an obligation to investigate.

There is no "we", Jean-Luc.

Kirsten, I know we have not always seen eye to eye.

Nevertheless, I have a request to make.

Based on my years of service, I want you to reinstate me, temporarily, for one mission.

I will need a small warp-capable reconnaissance ship with a minimal crew, and if you feel that my rank makes me too conspicuous, well, then, I am content to be demoted to Captain.

The sheer fucking hubris.

You think you could just waltz back in here and be entrusted with taking men and women into space? 

Don't you think I was watching the holo the other day along with everyone else in The Galaxy? 

I should not have spoken in public.

The Romulans were our enemies, and we tried to help them for as long as we could, but even before the synthetics attacked Mars, 14 species within the Federation said, 

"Cut the Romulans loose, or we'll pull out".

It was a choice between allowing the Federation to implode or letting the Romulans go.

The Federation does not get to decide if a species lives or dies.

Yes, we do.

We absolutely do.

Thousands of other species depend upon us for unity, for cohesion.

We didn't have enough ships left.

We had to make choices.

But the great Captain Picard didn't like his orders.

I was standing up for the Federation, for what it represents, for what it should still represent.

How dare you lecture me? 

Ignore me again at your cost.

My cost?

You are in peril, Admiral.

There is no peril here, only the pitiable delusions of a once-great man desperate to matter.

This is no longer your house, Jean-Luc.

So do what you're good at: GO HOME

Request denied.

BABA YAGA

“I'm so sorry, my child.”

What Doctor Who companion Bill Potts teaches viewers about foster care

The new character has the potential to shine a light on a group of children that people might not otherwise consider

Leanne Mattu

Wed 12 Jul 2017 10.12 BST 

Last modified on Tue 17 Jul 2018 11.38 BST

Fans of Doctor Who started to learn about the Time Lord’s new companion a year before her first appearance. In that time, we learned quite a bit about Bill Potts, played by Pearl Mackie, and much of the media focus rested on the fact that she is the first openly gay companion.

What no one knew until the first episode was broadcast is something that resonates with me on a professional level. I work at Celcis – the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland – an organisation that works to make positive and lasting improvements in the wellbeing of children and young people who, for a variety of reasons, are looked after by the state, for example in foster care – children like Bill Potts.

Viewers first find out about her circumstances in a low-key way in the first episode, when she tells her foster mother, Moira, about The Doctor: “You know you’re my foster mum? He’s like my foster tutor.”

Fostering a child with complex needs means being their advocate

I was keen to see how this aspect of Bill’s character would be received by viewers, given that media portrayals of foster families are sometimes problematic.

The first thing I noticed is that Bill is a working adult in her 20s, but still lives with her foster mother, Moira. 

Young people in care are often expected to become self-sufficient more quickly than their peers, but Bill’s situation is a nice example of the recent shift in policy that recommends young people have more gradual transitions to adulthood. 

Although we see Bill move out in episode four, this doesn’t work out, and by the sixth episode she is back living with Moira. 

I wonder how many viewers are aware that Bill’s experience isn’t the norm? How many would question the apparent ease with which Bill returned to live with her foster mother? 

In Scotland, less than 3% of young people eligible for support after leaving care remain with their former foster carers.

The media response to Bill’s family background was interesting. One review read:

Moffat’s decision to write Bill as someone who has failed to get into the university that The Doctor has been lecturing at is troubling. Why is such a bright young woman shovelling chips onto the plates of students, rather than learning alongside them? 

Such a storyline feels somewhat quaint and patronising today … it’s a shame that Moffat reinforces the notion that a person from a tough background ... will have a hard time pursuing higher education.

I can understand why the reviewer feels this was the wrong approach. Being looked after should be no barrier to accessing university, college or any other opportunity. 

It’s a sad reflection of reality, however, that the pursuit of higher education for young people who have been in care is still challenging. Bill herself tells us that she “never even applied”, although she’s “always wanted to come here”. 

We never find out why she didn’t, but lack of support or encouragement could have played a part. By reinforcing the notion that someone with Bill’s background might struggle to access higher education, I hope Steven Moffat has encouraged some viewers to wonder why that might be.

There were also some interesting comments about the relationship between Moira and Bill. One suggested Moira was “neither warm nor nurturing”. 

Another described her as “emotionally absent”, and a third as a “neglectful foster mother”. 

At first this was quite a leap to judgment, but episode six confirmed something hinted at in the first episode: Moira is oblivious to Bill’s sexuality. 

Their relationship isn’t as close as it perhaps first seemed. 

Although we find out that her mum died when Bill was a baby, we don’t know how long she has lived with Moira; perhaps, like many young people in care, Bill has moved several times and hasn’t lived with Moira long enough to develop a truly maternal level of closeness.

Children in foster care aren't waiting for a loving home – they are already in one

Andy Elvin

Bill does have a sense of connection with her biological mother, though. The Doctor, who learns that Bill has no photos of her, puts his time-travelling capabilities to good use by going back to get some. As social care professionals know, having photos may contribute to Bill’s understanding of her history and identity, which can be important for her wellbeing. 

Bill’s mum is only alluded to briefly a few times, but in episode eight Bill’s ability to focus her thoughts on her mother is vitally important.

In a speech at this year’s Scottish Institute of Residential Childcare conference, Lemn Sissay spoke about the long tradition of fictional characters from “substitute care” backgrounds, and suggested that “the kid in care is used in popular culture because they feel so much”. Bill has amazing potential to shine a (fictional, wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey) light on a group of children that people might not otherwise consider.

Leanne Mattu is a research associate at the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland

[Level-507]

Now a charred post-apocalyptic wasteland with a few fires still burning. Cyber-Bill limps through the ashes and finds the Doctor, falls to her knees and touches him gently, weeping over him. A tear falls on his forehead. Then she stands and looks skywards as if screaming at the heavens. Rain begins to fall and a figure rises out of a very rapidly created pool of water.

BILL [memory]: 

Promise you won't go? 

HEATHER [memory]: 

Promise. 

Bill sees her Cyberman body fall backwards.

BILL: 

Am I Dead..? 

Wet Heather kisses her.

HEATHER: 

Does that feel dead to you? 

You're like me now. 

It's just a different kind of living. 

Water is pouring off Bill's hands.

 

BILL: 

How did you find me? 

HEATHER: 

I left  you my tears, remember? 

BILL [memory]: 

I don't think they're mine. 

HEATHER: 

I know when you're crying them. 

Time to go. 

BILL: 

But The Doctor, we can't just leave him. 

HEATHER: 

Of course we can't. 

And we're not going to. 

Whoosh!

[TARDIS]

The women are now both completely dry, and the Doctor is lying on the floor by the console.

 

BILL: 

I suppose this is the only place he'd rest in peace — 

If there's any place he'd do that. 

Heather operates the controls.

BILL: 

How can you fly the TARDIS?

 

HEATHER: 

I'm The Pilot. 

I can fly anything. 

Even you.

 

BILL: 

So I'm like you now. 

I'm not human anymore. 

HEATHER: 

I can make you human again. 

It's all just atoms. 

You can rearrange them any way you like. 

I can put you back home, 

you can make chips, and live your life, 

or you can come with me. 

It's up to you, Bill, but before you make up your mind — 

She opens the Tardis door to reveal a bright star shining in space.

 

HEATHER: 

Let me show you around. 

BILL: 

Back in time for tea? 

HEATHER: 

If you want. 

BILL: 

You know what, Old Man? 

I'm never going to believe you're really dead. 

Because one day everyone's just going to need you too much. Until then — 

(kisses his cheek) 

It's a big universe, but I hope I see you again. 

There is a tear on his face.

BILL :

Where there's tears, there's Hope. 

(to Heather) 

Just one thing — 

I've been through a lot since the last time we met, so I'll show you around....

They hold hands and step out into the infinite. 

The regeneration begins.... 

“Don’t get me wrong — Self-Decoration is one of the greatest joys and privileges of being  a woman, and it’s lots of fun...

....but •un•-decorating oneself takes one down to The Primitive, the level of Baba Yaga — it brings a woman down to the level where she is more able understand between 

Life and Death

   between 

Birth and Rebirth 

between 

Choices of The World and Choices of The Inner World.”

Well. Frankly, I was surprised when you left.

I thought you'd bet on shooting your way out.

“I am.”

How sentimental of you, then.

Risking your revenge while saving their lives.

Almost reminds me of the Annika of old.

“Me, too.

Picard still thinks there's a place in The Galaxy for Mercy.

I didn't want to disillusion him.

Somebody out here ought to have a little Hope.”

Like you used to have before I took it away from you.

“Something like that.

You're stalling, Jay.

Your second security wave will be here in less than five seconds.”

Annika - 

“He was a son to me, Jay.

This is for him.”

JOAN'S VOICES AND VISIONS

Joan's voices and visions have played many tricks with her reputation. 

They have been held to prove that she was mad, that she was a liar and impostor, that she was a sorceress (she was burned for this), and finally that she was a saint. 

They do not prove any of these things; but the variety of the conclusions reached shew how little our matter-of-fact historians know about other people's minds, or even about their own. 

There are people in the world whose imagination is so vivid that when they have an idea it comes to them as an audible voice, sometimes uttered by a visual figure. 

Criminal lunatic asylums are occupied largely by murderers who have obeyed voices. 

Thus a woman may hear voices telling her that she must cut her husband's throat and strangle her child as they lie asleep; and she may feel obliged to do what she is told. 

By a medico-legal superstition it is held in our courts that criminals whose temptations present themselves under these illusions are not responsible for their actions, and must be treated as insane. 

But the seers of visions and the hearers of revelations are not always criminals. The inspirations and intuitions and unconsciously reasoned conclusions of genius sometimes assume similar illusions. Socrates, Luther, Swedenborg, Blake saw visions and heard voices just as Saint Francis and Saint Joan did. If Newton's imagination had been of the same vividly dramatic kind he might have seen the ghost of Pythagoras walk into the orchard and explain why the apples were falling. Such an illusion would have invalidated neither the theory of gravitation nor Newton's general sanity. What is more, the visionary method of making the discovery would not be a whit more miraculous than the normal method. The test of sanity is not the normality of the method but the reasonableness of the discovery. If Newton had been informed by Pythagoras that the moon was made of green cheese, then Newton would have been locked up. Gravitation, being a reasoned hypothesis which fitted remarkably well into the Copernican version of the observed physical facts of the universe, established Newton's reputation for extraordinary intelligence, and would have done so no matter how fantastically he had arrived at it. Yet his theory of gravitation is not so impressive a mental feat as his astounding chronology, which establishes him as the king of mental conjurors, but a Bedlamite king whose authority no one now accepts. On the subject of the eleventh horn of the beast seen by the prophet Daniel he was more fantastic than Joan, because his imagination was not dramatic but mathematical and therefore extraordinarily susceptible to numbers: indeed if all his works were lost except his chronology we should say that he was as mad as a hatter. As it is, who dares diagnose Newton as a madman?

In the same way Joan must be judged a sane woman in spite of her voices because they never gave her any advice that might not have come to her from her mother wit exactly as gravitation came to Newton. We can all see now, especially since the late war threw so many of our women into military life, that Joan's campaigning could not have been carried on in petticoats. This was not only because she did a man's work, but because it was morally necessary that sex should be left out of the question as between her and her comrades-in-arms. She gave this reason herself when she was pressed on the subject; and the fact that this entirely reasonable necessity came to her imagination first as an order from God delivered through the mouth of Saint Catherine does not prove that she was mad. The soundness of the order proves that she was unusually sane; but its form proves that her dramatic imagination played tricks with her senses. Her policy was also quite sound: nobody disputes that the relief of Orleans, followed up by the coronation at Rheims of the Dauphin as a counterblow to the suspicions then current of his legitimacy and consequently of his title, were military and political masterstrokes that saved France. They might have been planned by Napoleon or any other illusionproof genius. They came to Joan as an instruction from her Counsel, as she called her visionary saints; but she was none the less an able leader of men for imagining her ideas in this way.

Being Squelched for Loving Beauty is Probably The Worst Thing You Can Do to a Woman

How Awful Goodness Seems

Abashed the Devil stood,
And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely; saw, and pined
His loss; but cheifly to find here observed
His lustre visibly impaired; yet seemed
Undaunted:—"If I must contend," said he,
"Best with the best, the sender, not the sent,
Or all at once; more glory will be won,
Or less be lost."

" Had she been a sage and monarch in whom the most venerable hierarchy and the most illustrious dynasty converged, her pretensions and proceedings would have been as trying to the official mind as the pretensions of Caesar were to Cassius. 

As her actual condition was pure upstart, there were only two opinions about her.

One was that she was Miraculous :

The Other that she was Unbearable.

JOAN AND SOCRATES

If Joan had been malicious, selfish, cowardly, or stupid, she would have been one of the most odious persons known to history instead of one of the most attractive. 

If she had been old enough to know the effect she was producing on the men whom she humiliated by being right when they were wrong, and had learned to flatter and manage them, she might have lived as long as Queen Elizabeth. 

But she was too young and rustical and inexperienced to have any such arts. 

When she was thwarted by men whom she thought fools, she made no secret of her opinion of them or her impatience with their folly; and she was naïve enough to expect them to be obliged to her for setting them right and keeping them out of mischief. 

Now it is always hard for superior wits to understand the fury roused by their exposures of the stupidities of comparative dullards. 

Even Socrates, for all his age and experience, did not defend himself at his trial like a man who understood the long accumulated fury that had burst on him, and was clamoring for his death. 

His accuser, if born 2300 years later, might have been picked out of any first class carriage on a suburban railway during the evening or morning rush from or to the City; for he had really nothing to say except that he and his like could not endure being shewn up as idiots every time Socrates opened his mouth. 

Socrates, unconscious of this, was paralyzed by his sense that somehow he was missing the point of the attack. 

He petered out after he had established the fact that he was an old soldier and a man of honorable life, and that his accuser was a silly snob. 

He had no suspicion of the extent to which his mental superiority had roused fear and hatred against him in the hearts of men towards whom he was conscious of nothing but good will and good service. "

"I have a competition in me....
I want no one else to succeed.
I hate Most People.

There are times when I look at People and I see nothing worth liking.
I want to earn enough money that I can get away from everyone.
I see The Worst in People.
I don’t need to look past seeing them to get all I need.

I’ve built my hatreds up over the years, little by little, Henry… to have you here gives me a second breath.

I can’t keep doing this on my own with these… people."

Tecumseh

"The Treaty of Greenville marked a crucial turning point in the battle for the eastern half of the continent, opening the Ohio River Valley to a flood of white settlers, and hemming the Shawnees and their allies onto dwindling tracts of land too small to sustain the old ways of life. 

Even in the newly created Territory of Indiana -- into which Tecumseh and his followers now retreated, hoping to find refuge -- a systematic policy of land loss and dispossession was soon put into place by American politicians, eager to effect the transfer of land any way they could and convinced the Indian way of life was dying. 

"The American settlements will gradually circumscribe and approach the Indians, who will in time either incorporate with us as citizens of the United States, or remove beyond the Mississippi. 

Some tribes are advancing, and on these English seductions will have no effect. 

But the backward will yield, and be thrown further back into barbarism and misery ... and we shall be obliged to drive them with the beasts of the forest into the stony mountains."

President Thomas Jefferson, 

1801

Stephen Warren, historian: I don't think we appreciate just how ruthless Thomas Jefferson was as President in 1801, and how ruthless folks like Jefferson's territorial governor, William Henry Harrison were in the period specifically after 1800. 

The Americans employed what was called the "factory system." 

And what that was was the establishment of government forts throughout the old Northwest where the government would accept furs in exchange for goods. 

And it became a way of making native people into debtors of the United States. 

And when Thomas Jefferson becomes President, in his first term he writes William Henry Harrison and says, you know, essentially, 

"Through the factory system, native people will incur debts beyond what they are willing to pay, and they will only be able to pay those back through a cession of lands." 

John Sugden, biographer: So for the Shawnees -- for Tecumseh -- it was a period of continual dispossession, continual violence, and continual retreat. 

There is no place at that time you could really, if you were a Shawnee, have called home. 

Because it was constantly being taken off you. 

Stephen Warren, historian: So that by 1805, native people find themselves confined to a small corridor of land -- really a spit of land -- in northwestern Ohio and northeastern Indiana. 

That's all that's left of them. And it is not enough to continue a hunting tradition. 

What was happening to them was a tragedy of epic proportions. 

Men could no longer hunt. They could no longer operate as life-sustaining killers. They could not feed their families via hunting. 

They were on a constant war footing. 

And another horrifying aspect of it is that so many men have tried to protect their people through war, and have died doing it, that these villages are 5 totally out of balance. 

So that there are probably double the number of women as men in any native village in 1805, because of this war of attrition. And so these are not only broken homes, but broken communities. 

David Edmunds, historian: It is a time in which disease flourishes and spreads across many of the tribes of the Ohio Valley. 

It is a time when alcoholism begins to spread among the tribe. 

The very fabric of tribal society, the kinship systems, seem to be under stress. 

And it's a time when, I think, a lot of Shawnees are having second thoughts about: 

"Who are we, and what is going on here?" 

"Why has the Master of Life turned his face from us?" 

"What has happened to us?"

"What have we done to cause this?"

Narrator: By the spring of 1805, the misery and suffering in northern Indiana had reached the breaking point. 

In Tecumseh's village along the White River, even so great a provider as he was helpless to defend his people from the rain of woe now descending upon them; while almost day by day, his younger brother, Lalawethika -- 

A failed hunter and warrior, who had tried without success to support his family as a holy man and healer -- sank further and further into an abyss of shame and despair. 

Stephen Warren, historian: I think that Lalawethika fell victim to all of the worst unintended consequences of colonialism. 

He was an alcoholic, and many viewed him as lazy, prone to violence; he abused his wife. 

And so every opportunity that Lalawethika had to distinguish himself resulted in failure. 

And, by most accounts, he could not support his family. 

So that he was dependent upon Tecumseh, and others like him, to literally feed his family. 

He was so caught up in the sadness and the despair of dependency upon The United States in the form of alcohol, and the fur trade, and of land loss. 

It was so destructive, and such a sad time. 

Narrator: It would be all the more surprising then in the dark spring of 1805, as the universe continued to come unhinged for the Shawnees, that a message of terrifying beauty and hope would be brought to the beleaguered people -- coming in their very darkest hour, and in the end, from the least likely of sources.