Mad Kings and Queens [Wednesday, June 4th, 2nd Period]

[atreideslioness]

"Today we're working with someone many of you may be familiar with," Ghanima announced as the class assembled. "The inspiration for Bram Stoker's famous vampire, Count Dracula, Vlad the Impaler may not have actually drunk blood, but he was certainly one of the most bloodthirsty rulers to have ever stalked through the annals of history."

"Raised to be a conventional prince, Vlad III was an exceptional warrior, horseman, and scholar: he was fluent in several languages, as well as the art of etiquette. His father had sworn to uphold an allegiance to fight the Turks, and was honored with membership in a secret society known as the Order of the Dragon, or the Dracul. Thus, Vlad gained his famous title, Drăculea, or "son of the Dragon." At the age of eleven, Vlad and his younger brother, Radu, were taken hostage and held at the palace of a Turkish sultan. Vlad and Radu lived under a constant threat of death or torture, and were often beaten and abused by their captors. The experience marked him for the rest of his life."

"Following the death of his father, and years of exile, Vlad returned to his homeland of Walachia and seized control of the throne. Determined to assert his power, he invited all the noble families of Walachia - the Boyar - to a banquet. Vlad suspected that many of them hand betrayed his father and brother, and once the feast was over, the old and infirm were impaled on wooden stakes. The younger and sturdier members of the party were enslaved, and put to work building him a castle. A short time later, he reportedly gathered up the beggars of the region and boarded them up in a great hall before setting it alight and burning them to death. His reasoning was reportedly 'I did this so no one would be poor in my realm.'

"Keep in mind that since the death of Vlad's grandfather (Mircea the Elder) in 1418, Walachia had fallen into a somewhat anarchical situation. A constant state of war had led to rampant crime, falling agricultural production, and the virtual disappearance of trade. Vlad used severe methods to restore some order, as he needed an economically stable country if he was to have any chance against his external enemies."

"The early part of Vlad’s reign was dominated by the idea of eliminating all possible threats to his power, mainly the rival nobility groups. This was done mainly by physical elimination, but also by reducing the economic role of the nobility: the key positions in the Prince’s Council, traditionally belonging to the country’s greatest boyars, were handed to obscure individuals, some of them of foreign origin, but who manifested loyalty towards Vlad. For the less important functions, Vlad also ignored the old boyars, preferring to knight and appoint men from the free peasantry. A key element of the power of the Walachian nobility was their connections in the Saxon-populated autonomous towns of Transylvania, so Vlad acted against these cities by eliminating their trade privileges in relation with Walachia and by organizing raids against them. In 1459, he had 30,000 of the German settlers (Saxons) and officials of the Transylvanian city of Kronstad who were transgressing his authority impaled."  

"Vlad controlled his subjects with an iron-fist, and any who opposed his rule or committed even minor crimes could be subject to a gruesome and agonizing death. Adulterous wives, cheating merchants, even one poor woman who had sewn her husband's shirt too short -- all were killed hideously," she said. "Vlad's preferred method of execution was, as I mentioned earlier, to impale his victims. He turned this torture into an art form, arranging the stakes and victims into complex patterns and puzzles." Ghanima's eyes swept the classroom, carefully noting how the students were reacting before she continued. "'The wooden stakes were typically plunged vertically, from the anus to the mouth, and were smoothed and oiled at the tip to ease the passage through the body and avoid damaging vital organs. This ensured an agonizingly slow, yet effective, death. Rumor says that victims of noble birth were given longer stakes, as to be higher from the ground, and were often first invited to dine with Vlad, surrounded by rotting staked corpses."

"Of course, he did not limit himself to staking," she said calmly. "Vlad was reportedly partial to other forms of torture as well, and thought nothing of boiling people alive, skinning, scalping (also while living), and mutilating or roasting children and feeding them to their mothers. Reportedly, he managed to dispose of at least one-tenth of his citizenry during his reign."

"In 1462, when the Turks invaded Walachia, they were totally unprepared for the sight which met them on the outskirts of the capital city of Tirgoviste: rows upon rows of large stakes upon which the bodies of at least 20,000 men, women, and children hung. The horror was enough to make the invading army flee in terror."

"When the Turks invaded again, this time determined to destroy the Dracul, Vlad fled to his allies in Hungary where he was kept under house arrest for several years. His appetite for sadism did not diminish during his incarceration, and he turned to the only victims he could find - rats, mice, and birds. Vlad was reinstated as the King of Walachia upon his release from prison in 1468, and he reportedly died in 1476."

"There are several variants of Vlad the Impaler's death. Some sources say he was killed in battle against the Ottoman Empire near Bucharest in December of 1476. Others say he was assassinated by disloyal Boyars just as he was about to sweep the Turks from the field or during a hunt. Other accounts have Vlad falling in defeat, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal Moldavian bodyguards. Still other reports claim that Vlad, at the moment of victory, was struck down by one of his own men. There are accounts that Vlad's body was decapitated by the Turks and his head was sent to Istanbul and preserved in honey, where the sultan had it displayed on a stake as proof that Kazıklı Bey was finally dead. However, Romanian historian and Vlad biographer Matei Cazacu disputes this, since the Turks tended to remove the scalp of their victims' heads rather than behead them." Ghanima smiled viciously at the assembled students. "After all, Vlad learned picked up that particular torture habit during his time as a hostage in the Turkish court. Clearly, an argument can be made in this case regarding nature versus nurture."

[OOC: Please wait for the OCD to go up. NOTE: Today's class is behind the cut-tag for impalement, violence, and lots of people dying. NOT FLUFFY.]

Comments

Sign In

[atreideslioness]

Vampirically.

Re: Sign In

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Amber Atkins

Re: Sign In

[senor-chado.livejournal.com]

Yasutora Sado

During the Lecture

[atreideslioness]

Take notes, boggle, flee the classroom when it gets to be too much. Ghanima will not hold it against anyone who cannot stay for the full class today.

Re: During the Lecture

[minnesota-teen.livejournal.com]

Amber had read about Prince Vlad before and while completely immoral and evil, she did find the history interesting. Of course, she'd not dug too deep either. She read about the implaling and thought Vlad was simply sadistic in nature and most likely insane.

Re: During the Lecture

[senor-chado.livejournal.com]

True, it wasn't quite bad as all that, but Chad couldn't help but wonder a bit at the irony of a lecture on a guy who liked torture that involved so much note writing, damn.

Re: During the Lecture

[sixstandingby.livejournal.com]

One of Gavin's first thoughts was that this guy would fit right in in his universe.

Re: During the Lecture

[lordofthecats.livejournal.com]

Lion-o was probably younger than anyone else in the class and the subject was a bit more than he could handle. He got noticeably paler as the lecture went on.

Re: During the Lecture

[solo_sword]

Jaina had heard quite a few pretty gruesome stories of torture coming out of her universe these days, but wow. It didn't make it easier to hear.

Re: During the Lecture

[raspberryturk]

After Ghanima's statement that Vlad's old man was bent on fighting the Turks, Reno's attention had been grabbed.

It wasn't until a little later, when "Turk" had been expanded to "Turkish sultan," that Reno realized she had been referring to some other Turks.

... Vlad would have made a freaking terrifying eco-terrorist. And, ShinRa Turks or no, Reno was rooting for them the whole time.

Re: During the Lecture

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

Horrifying. She had thought she'd known sadists, in her time, but they paled in comparison.

Re: During the Lecture

[ella-obeys.livejournal.com]

Ella listened with a kind of horrified fascination. There was nothing like this at home -- at least not from humans.

Re: During the Lecture

[harrydresden.livejournal.com]

Harry was kind of grossed out by all of this. But he was a teenage boy, and gross was kind of fascinating too. Plus he had to remember to ask Bob whether or not Vlad had actually been a vampire or not.

Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[atreideslioness]

On your desks are handouts regarding Vlad's various pastimes and the the infamous 'Night Attack'," Ghanima said. "I'd like you to read them over, and decide if Vlad Ţepeş was indeed mad, or simply a man dedicated to ridding his country of invading forces by any means necessary."

"Keep in mind that history is written by the victors. As prince, Vlad maintained an independent policy in relation to the Ottoman Empire, and in Romania he is viewed by many as a prince with a deep sense of justice and a defender of Walachia against Ottoman expansionism. How might this play into the stories about him that you find in Germany and Russia?"

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[senor-chado.livejournal.com]

Chad frowned thoughtfully, gravely, as he looked over his notes and considered what he might thought. The last comment about differing views on him was what stayed him the most. Maybe it was that they were just missing something if the Romanians thought he was okay?

But, no, he couldn't convince himself that a violent approach like this was the best one. Violence begets violence, and that begets...well..

"I think," he finally offered, "that his drive to protect his country by any means necessary drove him crazy. It became an obsession, and, you know, it's like...if you're actively violent like that, people are gonna return the favour, so you're always watching you back, and it j ust builds and builds..."

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[solo_sword]

"He was crazy," Jaina said, feeling pretty strongly about this. "Defending your territory is one thing- not that I'm okay with torture as a method of killing- but he was using this against his own people, and if you're ruling, they're supposed to be the people you're working for. My first thought is that the Romanians wouldn't want this sort of thing in their history."

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

"The 'deep sense of justice' doesn't account for burning the poor or the cruelty towards his own people," Alice said simply. "I have to wonder how those who would defend him explain away his sadism. There is a difference between killing your enemy because that is what must be done, and toying with it like a cat with a wounded mouse."

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[notqueenyet.livejournal.com]

"They're not exclusive states," Aravis said quietly. "His madness drove his obsession, his obsession spurred his madness."

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[raspberryturk]

Reno frowned faintly, mulling it over for a moment.

"Kinda brings me to mind of a guy from my own world who promised when he gained power that he was gonna rule through fear." Another moment of consideration. "Didn't make him crazy. The guy's cunning, if anything, but he didn't get the chance to go crazy, really, before he fell outta power anyhow. I dunno... Maybe things woulda got a lot like Vlad, there, if things didn't go unchecked. Absolute power and paranoia gangin' up to make a man go totally nuts."

The President had been crazy enough. If Rufus had gone that way, he would have been infinitely worse.

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[walks-two-paths.livejournal.com]

"I'm not sure the two concepts are mutually exclusive," Savannah said finally.

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[ella-obeys.livejournal.com]

"One need not be mad to be cruel," Ella said decisively. "People with power over others tend to abuse it, if their character takes that bent. Vlad's nature made his actions only more extreme than others."

She gave a tiny, sick, smile. "Perhaps he had a surfeit of imagination."

Re: Class Discussion: Ruthless Efficiency or Sadistic Insanity? Are they incompatible?

[southernbender.livejournal.com]

"Insanity," Katara said immediately. "The ends don't justify the means."

Talk to the TA Duo

[atreideslioness]

Once they ping in.

Re: Talk to the TA Duo

[notyourpawn.livejournal.com]

Alice was here. Trying not to envision the mass impalings, but relatively calm otherwise.

Talk to Ghanima

[atreideslioness]

She's here, especially if you were disturbed by today's topic.

OOC

[atreideslioness]

No vampires were harmed in the making of today's class. Unfortunately.

Re: OOC

[raspberryturk]

I continue to find your classes fascinating and awesome. Yay, Vlad!