Good Omens...And Bad: Prophecy in Theory and Practice, Class Ten

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Monday, November 13, First Period

The classroom is in its usual arrangement, with the usual spread of hot drinks and pastries. Although not quite what was available at the Tangiers, unfortunately.

"Good morning. I hope you all got a good rest last night. Today we're going to discuss what you observed over the weekend. Also, please remember that your group projects are due this week. You can submit them today, or there will be a box outside my office all week. Also, don't forget to turn in last week's homework assignment."

LECTURE: "Over the weekend you observed 'professional' fortune tellers plying their trade. Tell the class something about your experience -- what did you observe, how accurate did the predictions seem, what tricks might they have used to make their predictions seem more personal than they really were?

In some places, public fortune telling is outlawed entirely, while other places have laws against telling fortunes for money. Do you believe that divination for profit should be against the law? Should it be regulated in some way?"

HOMEWORK: Finish your group projects and submit them by Friday. Mr Joxer and Miss Rutledge, I know your group has diminished significantly. Please see me after class if you have concerns about your project. [ooc: See the group project thread below for more details.]

Project Groups:
Blair, Phoebe, Belthazor, Lavender
Anders, Nadia, Walter, Pippi
Bridge, Dean, Dawn, Sam
Marty, John Connor, Lyra, Eric
Joxer, Agnes, Maia, John Constantine

Syllabus
Class Roster
Classes Linkdrop

ETA: "I need excuses from the following students regarding your absence from last Friday's lab."

Bridge Carson
Lyra Belacqua excused

[ooc: Please wait patiently for Your patience has been rewarded. OCD is now up.]

Comments

Sign In

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

As you do.

Re: Sign In

[demonbelthazor]

Belthazor

Turn in Last Week's Homework

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Write a brief essay on the pros and cons of being the object of a prophecy. How could it benefit the person Chosen, how could that person's being Chosen benefit others? Inversely, how could being the Chosen of a prophecy turn out to be more of a curse than a blessing?

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[demonbelthazor]

Bel *handwavey* turned in his half-assed homework attempt.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[joxertehmighty.livejournal.com]

Joxer turned in a piece of paper with a stick figure drawing of a woman in leather, a horse, a woman in some sort of ancient Greek green sports bra, and a mighty warrior in a pointy helmet.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[daemonridden.livejournal.com]

Lyra turned in her homework, of course. It wasn't half bad, considering that she took the angle she had in class, that is: what if someone didn't know thye were the subject of a prophecy. The paper is littlered with personal anecdotes to support her theories.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[oatmanspatient.livejournal.com]

Prophecies: How it sucks when it relates to you
Or
Why Nostradamus can suck my *Expletive Deleted*

by Martin Q. Blank

Oh sure, prophecies can be nifty keen when you are enjoying the fortune cookie with the check from your Chinese dinner. Who wouldn't want to meet a tall and handsome stranger? Especially if they pay for said dinner check.

Yeah, we all want the cool prophecies like "You are destined to be rich and powerful" or "You will save the world's population of Spotted Owls by banning toothpicks" or even the unbelievable "The Cubs will win the World Series in 2007". But when you get the prophecies like "You are destined to drown in a shallow pool of water for no good reason" or "You're going to save the world from a zombie invasion but will have to sacrifice your life" or "Go directly to Jail. Do not pass GO. Do not collect $200"... Yeah. You're pretty much screwed.

On the other hand the rest of the world gets to live; Spotted Owl McNuggets will be featured at your local McDonald's and whoever gets to win Monopoly only wins play money, not real ones. Unless of course you are playing strip Monopoly and then you're just nekkid and in handcuffs.

I can't believe I just wrote that.

So to sum up:

1. Prophecies usually suck when you're the one being talked about.
2. Spotted Owl McNuggets? Really tasty in BBQ sauce.
3. I've never played strip Monopoly.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[saltandammo.livejournal.com]

Dean turned in his essay, which listed some good and bad things that could come out of being the focus of a prophecy, which boiled down to having forewarning versus psyching yourself out. He also wrote that prophecies should be given no more weight than any other form of intell and that you could get in trouble if you made it be a big thing that overpowered everything else.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

Anders's homework was more of a rant than an essay, really. And you could have substituted "sports star" for "Chosen person" at just about any point. Goes to show you where his brain was this morning . . . or what was left of it after the weekend, anyway.

Depending on how people take the prophecy, the Chosen person could really get a huge status boost from it. Lots of respect, attention, maybe a huge contract and bonuses. And everybody else? Well, people need idols sometimes. Status symbols. Role models or people to look up to, to inspire them or give them hope or something.

But that could get to the Chosen person's head after a while, if they're constantly aware of it, and make them completely unfit to carry out their end of the bargain. And then people would be all "Oh, look at that egomaniac," and start to lose respect, and then it's all downhill from there, isn't it?

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[nadiathesaint]

Nadia turned in a long, rather bitchy kind of essay about how being the object of a prophesy completely sucked because people tried to use you and kidnap you and generally do horrible things.

At the very end of the essay, though, she turned around slightly and pointed out that maybe, just maybe, if she actually, say, went along with the prophesy, there might be some benefits, like, say, eternal life.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

Pippi's paper is a bit rambly and states that being the object of a prophesy as it could give one a sense of purpose but would also suck as prophesy is very open to misinterpretation and people can be very zealous when they think they're Doing The Right Thing.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

I have yet to see a prophecy benefit the person Chosen. Pain, immense responsibility, and general suckitude seem prevalent. Also, just because a person is Chosen doesn't mean that they're intellectually or emotionally prepared to deal with their lot in life.

Oh, sure, they may say they are and give many, many, many speeches to that effect, but that doesn't make it true. There are also increased expectations on the subject of the prophecy, under the theory that the Fates, the Powers that Be, or whomever is In Charge of the Universe wouldn't Choose the Village Idiot entertaining as that might be. If the wrong person is Chosen, or refuses their Duty, people can die. The same thing can happen if they believe so strongly in the prophecy that they ignore what their common sense and instincts are telling them.

On the other hand, if the correct person has been Chosen, they can save the world, and do on occasion.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[http://users.livejournal.com/weissguy_/]

Weiss turned in the assignment. *handwaves*

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[apocalypsesoon.livejournal.com]

John handwaved an essay about how it's mostly a bad deal to be a prophesy focus. Totally not drawn from personal experience. No, it's an emperical paper through and thorugh.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[sensethevisions]

Phoebe turned in a rather long paper about the pros and cons about being part of a prophecy. She also included how painful such a thing could be to a person emotionally.

Re: Turn in Last Week's Homework

[likethegun]

Sam turned in his handwavey slightly-longer-than-brief essay.

Class Discussion

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Over the weekend you observed 'professional' fortune tellers plying their trade. Tell the class something about your experience -- what did you observe, how accurate did the predictions seem, what tricks might they have used to make their predictions seem more personal than they really were?

In some places, public fortune telling is outlawed entirely, while other places have laws against telling fortunes for money. Do you believe that divination for profit should be against the law? Should it be regulated in some way?

Re: Class Discussion

[saltandammo.livejournal.com]

"I'm pretty sure the one I observed was nothing but a con," Dean said. "I think I'm probably more psychic than she was. She started out with really broad, vague pronouncements that could've fit my question -- but they could've fit any question. Always with the sense of trouble brewing, some problem just in the future. I had a moment when I thought about giving her the benefit of the doubt and I guess she must've sensed that and thought she had me on the line because all of a sudden everything she was saying was somehow tied up in money and bad financial karma."

Re: Class Discussion

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

"The psychic I talked to described a friend of mine almost perfectly, and since as far as I know she's back home in the Colonies and never went to Vegas, I'm pretty sure he never met her," Anders offered. "Except for the part where he said I'm going to end up marrying her someday, because that is so never going to happen."

He considered, scratched idly at the bandage on his neck, and grinned. "He didn't take it really well when I laughed at that. Should it be outlawed? I don't know. Some people have to make a living, I guess. And in a city like Las Vegas, how seriously do you take that sort of thing anyway? It's all about entertainment there, as far as I can tell, and hey, if that's how you get your kicks . . ."

Re: Class Discussion

[strongestgirl.livejournal.com]

"I was very confused by mine."

Re: Class Discussion

[lilpunkinbelly.livejournal.com]

"I got a very gloom and doomified fortune," Dawn shrugged, "but it started out reasonably well, if a bit vague in talking about sick, strong, blonde women. Unfortunately for the guy, I asked a very specific question at the end of things, and he got it all the way wrong."

Group Projects

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Select a category of prophecy or style of divination from the list provided, and write your own prophecy using the material we cover in class. This does not have to be a "true prophecy" -- you may create one from whole cloth, or use the methods of divination we will discuss to produce one. Part One of the project will be due November 17.

[OOC: Please have one person from your project group tag in either here, or in the post that will go up each day for Aziraphale's office, to hand in this part of the project. Next Monday, I'll assign the second part. Even if you handwave the project, please give me a topic, so that when the projects are assigned to other groups for Part II, they have a topic to work off in case they want to submit an 'actual' interpretation. Please tag here if you have questions.]

Link to Group Project assignment (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/991669.html)

Re: Group Projects

[saltandammo.livejournal.com]

Dean dropped off his group's project on the way to his Dad's office on Thursday.

It had taken a while to get the wording right but Dean figured the ancient gremlin prophecy that foretold the founding of Fandom High they finally came up with was going to get them big marks.

Talk Amongst Yourselves

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

For any discussion that isn't related to the assigned topic please.

Re: Talk Amongst Yourselves

[demonbelthazor]

Bel? Still trying to keep a low profile. Pay no attention to the demon with the puncture marks in his neck. *whistles innocently*

Talk to the Professor

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

Catch him after class on his way to office hours.

Re: Talk to the Professor

[daemonridden.livejournal.com]

Lyra walked confidently up to the professor, trying to catch him on his way out.

"Sir?" she called, digging in her bag for something.

OOC

[a-phale.livejournal.com]

My city has the highest concentration of earth religions and new age practitioners in the southeast US. It's also against the law to do any type of fortune telling in a public venue unless it's part of a church activity and on church property.

WTF?

Re: OOC

[cantgetnorelief.livejournal.com]

FYI, Bridge's player's hard drive went kablooey over the weekend so I have no idea what her availability is going to be. :/

Also -- WTF?