Exactly. The thing is, what if snakes are a critical plot twist you don't want to give away? You can either provide a warning at the top and spoil the whole thing, or risk triggering Indiana Jones when he reads your story. Past a point, it stops being about art, and it starts being about creating an elaborate bubble to protect Indy from ever seeing or hearing about snakes.
Back in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church didn't want anyone outside the clergy to read the Bible, which is why they opposed the printing press. You'd think they'd want people to read it, but back then most people couldn't read, which allowed the Church to control the message and how it was interpreted. The printing press threatened that balance of power. I'm sure their motives were less than pure, but I bet Rome really believed they had to protect the untrained masses from reading some sort of mind-blowing passage they couldn't handle. Come to think of it, there's two or three snakes in the book, so maybe that was the issue.
The point is, they couldn't stop people from reading the Bible even if they had been right to try. And ultimately, the world is probably better off with the printing press, so maybe it's better to face these things head on instead of trying to hide from them. I admit it's a little insensitive, but there's going to be a drug-using skeleton story out there somewhere, and you can't depend on the world to protect you from it.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2011-11-05 07:29 pm (UTC)Back in the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church didn't want anyone outside the clergy to read the Bible, which is why they opposed the printing press. You'd think they'd want people to read it, but back then most people couldn't read, which allowed the Church to control the message and how it was interpreted. The printing press threatened that balance of power. I'm sure their motives were less than pure, but I bet Rome really believed they had to protect the untrained masses from reading some sort of mind-blowing passage they couldn't handle. Come to think of it, there's two or three snakes in the book, so maybe that was the issue.
The point is, they couldn't stop people from reading the Bible even if they had been right to try. And ultimately, the world is probably better off with the printing press, so maybe it's better to face these things head on instead of trying to hide from them. I admit it's a little insensitive, but there's going to be a drug-using skeleton story out there somewhere, and you can't depend on the world to protect you from it.