Thanks for posting, everyone.
Quote:
Originally Posted by radagastly
Natural disasters are only disasters from a human (or elvish) perspective.
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A man and his son sit on their porch one stormy night, taking advantage of the breeze. It's dark, as it's night, but also because a storm is coming. The air is thick, the clouds heavy, dark and brooding. The breeze slows, stops, then picks up and becomes a wind. Rain like a sheet drops from the sky and suddenly the porch is walled in water. Booming can be heard in the distance; the sky lightens here and there. As the storm gets closer, the booming gets louder and the lightning more apparent. The rain slows somewhat but the storm worsens. The son looks up at his dad, frightened by the intensity of the crashing, cracking and booming, but his father gives him a knowing nod, assuring him that it's okay, though the dad himself isn't too sure. The father looks up at his neighbors' house, sitting lonely on top of the hill across the valley...
Crack! BOOM!
The house up on top of the hill is no more. The fire now there is hard to see as the afterimage of the lightning bolt hitting the hilltop is still etched on both father's and son's eyes. When they recover from the shock, the son looks up at his dad, the question his face apparent.
***
How does dad reply? Would it be dependent on what is assumed to be the cause of the
lightning? And so:
- Greek citizen, 435 BCE. "Son, those people must have angered Mighty Zeus, who smote them with his thunderbolt. Think that I heard them the other day saying something negative about Zeus' hair."
- Roman citizen, 26 BCE. "Son, those people must have angered Juppiter Optimus Maximus Soter, who smote them with his thunderbolt. Think that I heard them the other day saying something like 'Jupiter looked a lot like Zeus.'"
- Rohirrim peasant, Third Age, Peter Jackson's world. "Son, those people must have angered Saruman, who smote them with his thunderbolt, which is a newly acquired ability that he uses very infrequently like his purported fireball spell. Think that I heard them the other day saying something like 'Curse you Saruman! May you fall upon a spikey wheel of your own making!'"
- Some (not all) religious person, present day. ""Son, those people must have angered God, who removed his mantle of protection from them. Think that they didn't believe in the God that we know."
- Some (not all) religious person, present day. ""Son, our God works in mysterious ways and we are to learn from this."
- Some religious or not person, present day. "Son, though I'm not sure exactly why lightning struck that house, but maybe it's because the house was higher up on the hill and lightning tends to favor such elevated things. Such things are infrequent, but can happen.
- Tolkienist, 7th Age, living in Arda. "Son, _______."
What does the person living in today's Arda say to his son? Was it Melkor, Melkor's legacy, part of Eru's plan, Manwe, etc?
And note that I don't mean to disparage anyone's beliefs.