 |
| Woody has mellowed over the years |
That's funny, I didn't realize he was just a gnome. From the beard up, he looks like your traditional wild man of the woods character. If he is a gnome, could it be that he was once a virile wild man—a huge hairy, bearded dude with gnashing molars and thunderous laughter? Perhaps his diminishment is due to that modern process by which we become caricatured, eviscerated, emasculated, defeminated versions of ourselves, suitable only for branding purposes. This could be a kind of Robert Bly, Iron John, men's movement type thing, but not limited to men only. Just the idea that there's no room for that sort of pagan spirit in a Socratic, Alexandrian, rationalistic, deterministic, positivist, empiricist, consumerist, materialist, materialistic society.
I don't think the Savage Sisters would have done this to Woody. No one so clearly secure in their own identity/muliebrity would do this to another. I don't know, maybe they would, but in a spirit of mischief, not malice. Of course, part of the reason they don't rain arrows down on Arthur is his feminine qualities (see "A Distinctly Feminine Attack on History" and "Frolicsome Fawn-Like Movements"). But more than anything else, Arthur is childlike, not unmanly. He's just a different kind of spirit—not the wild man type, but some other unadulterated expression. I would think that the Savage Sisters would recognize that same essence in Woody, even while keeping a safe distance and even battling with him from time to time. Of course, they might turn him into a gnome, but that's just par-for-the-course paganism. Even dismembering him wouldn't be that big of a deal. He'd probably be laughing and bellowing through the whole thing. Like them, he is unhistorical. This isn't Don Gilber.
Probably James Vernor did this to him, trying to sanitize and sell wild man urine!
No comments:
Post a Comment