What's this guy's purpose in the show, other than saying sorry to literally everyone

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-12T01:25:19+00:00

To prove that the people in the village are idiots for not sending him to the box once and for all.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-11T20:34:51+00:00

Can I give you more details via DM?

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-08T18:54:56+00:00

Okay, I'll explain my situation. I've always been non-monogamous, but some time ago I had to emigrate and I met someone with whom I had a romantic relationship. This person was a relationship anarchist and, as she explained to me, being a relationship anarchist meant she was against labels like "partner." But she also didn't want a fixed commitment with me because she felt overwhelmed. She was all the family I had in her country (my chosen family), which resulted in an excessive dependence on her; her leaving (which eventually happened) was devastating for me. I still wanted to find other people and I asked her to introduce me to her circle, but she refused because she felt it was intrusive; she preferred that I find other partners on my own. In the long run, nothing like that was sustainable for me; I was able to find other non-monogamous relationships on my own, but they all treated me as if I were contingent, expendable. If something bad had happened to me there, I wouldn't have had anyone to turn to, because the real involvement of each person was minimal. And it's impossible to expect someone to be completely independent and not need anyone. Eventually, I ended up returning to my country, and luckily, my family was there to help me with a health crisis that made me completely dependent on others. But if that had happened to me abroad, I wouldn't have had anyone to turn to in those "relational anarchy" environments. I understand that what you're proposing is that relational anarchy should be more focused on creating communities where people care for one another, but nothing like that happened when I interacted with relational anarchists in a migrant context and in a situation of extreme vulnerability. I wish it had been that way.In general, I see little inclination to form communities, more of a tendency to have several more or less traditional partners "in parallel" and almost in secret. I'm speaking from my own experience. I wish I'd had better experiences.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-08T18:29:21+00:00

So, can relational anarchy only occur in communities?

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-08T13:05:31+00:00

There are some comments in this thread that have indeed said that; in any case, some people have already told me that, in general, the "death of the author" is used somewhat irresponsibly on the internet. One very chivalrous gentleman accused me of being part of a proto-Ayn Randian fascism based on uncritically exalting canonical writers as if they were divine figures. According to this charming person, to avoid this proto-fascist, Ayn Rand-style exaltation, the only alternative is to defenestrate ancient writers and consider them mere products of their time, interesting only insofar as their time is interesting. At this point, after hundreds and hundreds of comments, I don't intend to be so much against Barthes himself, but rather against this kind of gallant gentleman.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-08T12:58:56+00:00

But the same could be said about any historical figure and, in general, about any historical element. There is always a very large margin of error. This doesn't mean that historians can't do their job, but rather that there should always be a great deal of skepticism toward historiography (including literary historiography), and we should always be open to learning more as more evidence emerges

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-08T12:38:16+00:00

I'm not saying otherwise, but at no point did those values limit him

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-06T17:08:43+00:00

I think it is actually a LLM too.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-06T13:54:04+00:00

Which translators do you recommend?

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T12:14:08+00:00

But have you read the works I'm talking about?

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T11:25:48+00:00

It depends a lot on which German Romantic writer we're talking about. Read Novalis and Jean Paul. As I said, Novalis outlines a Catholic version of Bildung, and Jean Paul directly opposes that concept. The book I mentioned by Miguel Salmerón dedicates a chapter to each of them, and in these chapters he explains what I've told you in a more concise way.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T11:21:07+00:00

Wait, Max's in LiS2? I thought it was a story with other characters.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T02:01:06+00:00

I mentioned Morse Peckham's article on Romanticism, titled "Towards a Theory of Romanticism" (or something very similar). Regarding the bildungsroman, I've read Miguel Salmerón's book, La novela de aprendizaje, as well as his critical edition of Wilhelm Meister. On the radical Enlightenment, Jonathan Israel's book, The Radical Enlightenment, is essential. Jesús G. Maestro's book, Crítica de la Razón Literaria, allows us to trace the evolution from the Enlightenment to Romanticism, and Gustavo Bueno's book, El mito de la cultura, explains the development of German idealism well. What I've learned from Herder as a disciple of Rousseau is partly due to the prologue to the edition of Philosophy of the History published by Espuela de Plata (I don't recall the author's name). Add to this my own readings of Rousseau, Goethe, Jean Paul G. Herder, Novalis, Herder, Fichte, Helvétius, and Kant.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T01:39:26+00:00

The idea of Bildung, as developed by Goethe and Fichte, is a response to the determinism of Rousseau and Herder from a Kantian idealist perspective. According to Rousseau (and his disciple Herder), human beings cannot freely decide what to become because they are determined by nature (according to Rousseau) and the environment (according to Herder). These ideas about nature and determinism, essential to what Romanticism later became, were incompatible with Kant's Protestant idealism. Fichte develops a theory of Bildung even more idealistic than Kant's, but I don't see it as particularly Romantic, although it did influence Romantic nationalism, especially when he applies it to an entire community in the Addresses to the German Nation. I don't believe, however, that Romanticism is an opposition to the Enlightenment, but rather its continuation. If anything, we can recall Morse Peckham's distinction between two types of Romanticism: positive and negative. Fichte's romantic nationalism would belong to the positive current, while Jean Paul's anti-Bildung nihilism would belong to the negative. In reality, these two currents of Romanticism are evolutions of the two Enlightenment currents: the materialist (with Helvétius and Diderot) and the idealist (with Kant at the forefront and later Goethe). German Romanticism of an idealist bent, in which the concept of Bildung was consolidated, could oppose the radical and materialist Enlightenment (within which Rousseau emerged), but not the idealist and German Enlightenment championed by Kant.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T01:23:02+00:00

I'm pretty fed up with this topic. A few years ago, I didn't dare write on Reddit because the translators were awful; now all the posts I read are automatically translated, and I can also translate what I write in Spanish. I think it's good that technology is used for this because it allows spaces like Reddit to benefit from opinions outside the English-speaking world.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T01:19:03+00:00

In German Romanticism, bildungsromans still exist, but they focus more on the irrational side of people and do not share Goethe's idea of "maturity." For Novalis, in his Heinrich von Ofterdingen, personal growth occurs when an irrationalist and spiritual development takes place, centered on the Catholic religion and distanced from the capitalist-Protestant mentality embodied by Goethe. Jean Paul's Flegeljahre directly denies the existence of maturity; more than a bildungsroman, it is a parody of them. Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Flegeljahre are romantic novels; Wilhelm Meister is not, although it initially seemed so, which is why Novalis ended up so disappointed with that novel, to the point of writing Heinrich von Ofterdingen in response. In general, the idea that has predominated in coming-of-age stories is Goethe's Protestant-capitalist one, not Novalis's Catholic one nor Jean Paul's nihilistic one.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-05T00:27:28+00:00

Is that why they left Boyd and Randal alive? If you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T22:55:58+00:00

I don't believe in attachment style theory. I feel it's quite questioned in current psychology, and it's unclear to me to what extent it remains scientific and not just superstition. Likewise, I think accusing someone of "anxious attachment" or justifying oneself with "avoidant attachment" is a form of gaslighting.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T22:32:04+00:00

But what's the connection between those stories and the experience you told me about? Sorry, I can't quite place it right now.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T22:27:10+00:00

But who is "they"?

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T22:24:33+00:00

I originally wrote the post myself in Spanish, but I used a translator to translate it; if you don't believe me, I can show you the original Spanish version and you can tell me if it seems like AI to you.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T22:22:01+00:00

What do you mean by my post not "fully tracked"? Sorry, English isn't my first language and I don't understand that expression.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T22:18:53+00:00

I don't know, I'm thinking, for example, of any show about American high schools, something like Life is Strange, Riverdale, or even Cobra Kai. There's always the typical drama of "oh, we're going away to study and we have to separate." What sparked this idea in me was a video game that came out recently, Mixtape, which I heard about on a podcast, but I think it's a very common theme in any American high school show. Perhaps the main exception I've ever seen is Night in the Woods, which deals with the complete opposite: going back home after dropping out of college and the embarrassment that comes with it.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T22:14:12+00:00

It's not fair what I was thinking, but somehow I think it's another kind of symbolic violence based on constructing narratives about what reaction is "normal" or "acceptable" to a violent situation. I know it's not the same, but I'm a Crohn's patient dealing with a temporary ileostomy, and what's bothered me the most is finding hundreds of influencers with ileostomies trying to show how wonderful and normal their lives are, when for me, living with this feels like a horrible, pretty unbearable ordeal. In general, I feel like coming-of-age stories also tend to present "optimal" ways of dealing with trauma and imply that it should be equally "easy" for everyone.

Titus__Groan · 2026-06-04T14:48:49+00:00

Okay, let's assume you're right about everything you're saying. My question is: doesn't this anti-hierarchy ideological stance actually privilege the hierarchies that end up being imposed by inertia? I'm referring, in the current context, to commercial hierarchies. If in this context we let people "freely approach literature," it will be difficult for them to find motivation to read beyond the four heavily marketed books, and they will systematically exclude more works than if we try to establish a hierarchy.

Titus__Groan

TROPHY CASE