# Cruelist attack from an evil villain. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 6, 2004, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011 "2004-01-06T14:57:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011/41 "2004-01-09T14:48:14Z")
> [@](#): > > always knowing that his hand is going to devour him. Why doesn’t he just cut it off, then? I can live with one hand… > [@](#): > > What does the word “retconned” mean with reference to a film? It means they change the past on you. You see it more often in comics - some heros have multiple origin stories. And fans really hate when the writers do this. Example: Magneto’s name is Erik Lensherr. He’s a Polish Jew. This has been well established for years. We know which Death camp he was at, ioncluding which camp jobs he had to do while there. This was consistant for years. Then Marvel brought in another writer years later, who for no apparent reason decided that Magneto was actually a Gypsy at a completely different camp named Erik Magnus. Then nowadays, otherwriters changed it back because that whole retcon was 'effin stupid. Sometimes it causes really funny problem, becuase the writers retcon one hero, which may mean the past history of other characters cannot be, but they don’t always change the past of the other characters, which are under different writers. This was rather absurdly shown in DC’s Crisis of Infinite Earths (or whatever the title was), where the writers rewrote most of history (and introducin some really stupid things) and basically turned reality upside down. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2004, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011/42 "2004-01-09T23:35:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by cmkeller \* > **Yeah, but I wouldn’t characterize that as cruel either. Emotionally wrenching? Yes. But Master Pandemonium wished Vision and Scarlet Witch no ill will…he just wanted the rest of his soul back. I don’t think that it qualifies as an act of cruelty if it was done without malice.** Malicious or not, the _effects_ were still pretty devastating to the parents, I thought. ---
**Author:** ![Nichol\_storm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Nichol\_storm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nichol_storm)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011/43 "2004-01-10T00:14:04Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by smiling bandit \* > \*\*Why doesn’t he just cut it off, then? I can live with one hand… > \*\* Because it’s also his most powerful weapon, and Miroku plans to use it to help defeat Naraku. Retconned, btw, is short for “retroactive continuity”. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2004, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011/44 "2004-01-10T00:46:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Knowed Out \* > \*\*Another parcel of villainy from the brilliant mind of Alan Moore: > > In _Miracleman_, Kid Miracleman comes to discover his alter ego has become a murdering psycopath, so he withdraws into catatonia to keep from becoming a killer. The alter ego tricks him into waking back up, and when he does, he tears everybody in the hospital apart limb from limb and leaves their dismembered corpses in grisly display…all except for one nurse. > > Before leaving, KM tells her, “You I will spare. You were kind and gentle to me” and leaves. She’s paralyzed with fright, and after he’s gone, begins to move again, muttering “Thank you God, oh thank you…” > > Then the next panel KM returns and tells her, “I’m sorry. They’d think I was growing soft now wouldn’t they?” \*\* Well, that wins the award for “oh, thank YOU for reminding me of that” 😃 (jeez, is Alan Moore a fucking genius, or what? And, no, I don’t really want to clog this thread by having anyone answer that…) ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2004, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011/45 "2004-01-13T05:49:40Z")
Ranchoth: > [@](#): > > Malicious or not, the effects were still pretty devastating to the parents, I thought. Granted, I was just of the opinion that “cruelty” is a matter of intent. Chaim Mattis Keller ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2004, 6:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011/46 "2004-01-13T06:38:28Z")
lets not forget Vincent Price’s Shakespearian villian in THEATRE OF BLOOD & his treatment of Robert Morley… “Oh, I do wish my little doggy-woggies were here to enjoy this!” Btw, TITUS was made into a kickass movie with Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange & Alan Cummings. > [@Katisha](#): > > Lavinia, actually – and she wasn’t murdered, though she was mutilated (i.e. tongue and hands cut off, so she’d have no way to convey to anyone what had happened). Titus stabs her (to save her honor, he says) along with a whole lot of other people at the end of the play. (In Deborah Warner’s production she deliberately walked into his knife.) > > Really, _Titus Andronicus_ has a lot of stuff fitting this thread. At one point in the play, the villain, Aaron the Moor (a prototype for such nasty Shakespeareans as Iago), tells Titus that his sons, who’ve been framed for the rape of their sister, will be released if Titus will chop off his own hand. This he does, and later has it returned to him with the heads of his two sons. > > Some play, innit? :eek: 😉 > > Shakespeare’s source for much of the plot of _Titus_ is Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_ – specifically, the story of Philomela and Procne. Philomela is raped by her brother-in-law Tereus (Procne’s husband), who subsequently cuts out her tongue so she can’t tell anyone. However, she makes the truth known by weaving a tapestry about it, and when Procne sees it, she takes revenge on Tereus by killing their son and serving him for dinner, showing the boy’s head at the end of the meal. As is usual in Greek myths, they end up getting turned into things, specifically into birds: Philomela a swallow, Procne a nightingale, and Tereus a hoopoe – later tradition mixed up the birds, so the nightingale is invariably referred to poetically as Philomela. > > One interesting note, albeit a bit off-topic, is that Shakespeare is very upfront about his debt to Ovid: Lavinia’s inability to weave a tapestry like Philomela is mentioned in precisely those terms (apparently, her rapists had done their homework), and she attempts to show her father and uncle what’s happened to her by using her nephew’s copy of the _Metamorphoses._ > > Oh, and for reference, and just 'cause they’re both really neat: > > [Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/latin/ovid/trans/Ovhome.htm) > > [_Titus Andronicus_](http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/shake/titus.html) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cruelist-attack-from-an-evil-villain/223011.md?page=2)