Rama
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When your seven-year-old notices that some heroes are the pits.
Even when a character is clearly intended to be heroic by the author, you won’t always agree.
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On ‘The Ravanayan’ and women traveling alone.
It’s bad enough that our thousands-year-old myths feature women attacked for traveling alone … why are we still letting this happen today?
A. K. Ramanujan, comic books, comic review, comics, did Shoorpanakha deserve to be punished, did Shurpanakha deserve to be punished, fate, fear curtails liberty, female desire in the Ramayana, freedom to travel, gender violence, gendered violence, graphic novel, graphic novel review, graphic novels, Holy Cow, Holy Cow comics, Indian mythology, Mohanty and Goel, monkey battle, mythological violence, mythology, oppression, oppression of women, Rama, Ramanujan, Ramayana comic, Ramayana variants, rape culture, Ravana, Ravanayan review, retellings of the Ramayana, review of the Ravanayan, Sexism, sexual impropriety, Shoorpanakha, Shoorpanakha mutilated, Shurpanakha, Three Hundred Ramayanas, toxic masculinity, Vijayendra Mohanty, violence, violence against women as terrorism, violence against women in the Ramayana, violence against women to instill fear, Vivek Goel, why was Shoorpanakha attacked, why was Shurpanakha attacked, women traveling, women traveling alone
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On the value of religious misinterpretation.
We’re liable to misinterpret old stories when we look at them with modern eyes … but it’s worth knowing what myths might mean in a better world.
Abraham, anachronism, anachronistic crtique, Ants Among Elephants, Bible, can God save us, caste, caste system, Christ, Christian theology, colonialism, conquest, covenant, creation in Genesis, dalit, David Kishik, DK, Dravidar Kazhagam, forgiveness, forgiving god, Genesis, God, God saw that it was good, God’s insecurity, Goldman, grammar, hebrew, Hinduism, human sacrifice, human sacrifice for good harvest, imperialism, incarceration, incarceration crisis, incarceration in the U.S., incarceration in the United States, jail, Jesus, Jesus’s sacrifice, Job, John-Michael Bloomquist, mass incarceration, merciful god, mercy, Noah, Old Testament, oppression, poetry, poetry in jail, rainbow, Rama, Rama threatening ocean, Ravana, Ravana worship, religion, Rudyard Kipling, sacrifice, sacrifice of Jesus, suffering, Sujatha Gidla, Tamil, teaching in jail, teaching poetry in jail, textual analysis, The Book of Shem, The Flood, The Iliad, The Prodigal’s Return, theology, Translation, untouchable, why did Christ have to die, why did Jesus suffer, why does Rama threaten the ocean, why is God jealous, Yahweh
Frank Brown Cloud 