Poor Things
Promethean ideas of the cost of scientific ambition have obviously been crowding my brain as of late, so the <PERSON> parallels were immediately exciting. This cautionary tale about the dangers of scientific curiosity would be delivered through a female Creature who, for once, is no one’s bride. Just, perhaps, someone’s daughter, but even that isn’t as clearly cut.
<PERSON> was labeled a modern <PERSON> because he chose to challenge, by way of scientific ambition, the mandated divine order, just like the titan did when he stole fire from the gods to give it to man. Here, he even goes as far as to have others, including his Creature, affectionally call him “God”, making the matter even more obvious. How, I immediately asked myself, as if all that video essay research made it into an obvious <PERSON>’s gun, is this particular modern <PERSON> going to be punished for his crime of sacrilegious curiosity?
What a pleasure to discover, along with <PERSON> herself, that curiosity, specifically hers, is not to be punished but celebrated. That there is actually as much philosophical and scientific value in the slow but unstoppable uptake of childlike wonder as there is in the more mature ways of exploring existence. That the world as seen by new eyes is terrifying, but also shockingly straightforward. 660
If x, then y. Repeat.
Neither God created <PERSON>, they merely gave her a body and a brain to work with. Everything going forward was all her doing. To discover oneself is to create oneself.
And as <PERSON> discovered the adult world by touching everything and putting it in her mouth, creating her own world in the process, I thought back to the other reason <PERSON> stole fire from the gods. He wanted to help mankind. Empathy got him punished for eternity. May that not be the case of <PERSON>. 660