Not exactly evil
though. I’m exaggerating.
We just read this
fable from Pachatantra. It’s a compilation of a bunch of “Indian” fables. We
read one called Numskull and the Rabbit.
Numskull is the
lion, who is also the antagonist of the story. I feel kinda bad for him. First,
he was born a lion, which we all know is the animal with the worst luck in
fables (even in Lion King, where THEY’RE the protagonist). And as a bonus his
mother named him NUMSKULL. She probably said something like this when he was
born; “Aaaaw, my poor baby. Being born in a lion in this harsh world filled
with race-winning turtles and army-fighting-Vishnu-impersonators-slash-weavers.
I know, let’s name him the slang word for stupid!”
Poor Numskull.
So, we had this
recitation part where we had to decide whether the Rabbit was virtuous or not.
A lot of people said he was. I found it funny how they could find a lion-killing
bunny virtuous.
They said that he was
brave. He was able to face down (and murder) a lion, despite his size. No, he
wasn’t. He had no choice. It was either be killed, or kill. And in the end, he
chose to be the killer.
And everyone seemed
to blot out the fact that he didn’t even reconsider killing the lion. Tyrant or
not, the lion was still a living breathing animal, whose life the Rabbit
decided to cut short.
Haven’t you noticed
how people love to romanticize the idea of having a perfect being as a
protagonist. They should remember that no one is perfect. And the only thing
that kept me from delivering my speech to defend my side is that I wasted my opportunity
to speak on the characteristics of the bunny.
Stories, as many
people forget, are just an adventure of something out there that was told to many
people because of its happy ending. And they only tell the ones that are
happy-ended because one of the rarest things in the world is getting one for you.
