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{"id":2489,"date":"2011-11-02T06:06:39","date_gmt":"2011-11-02T10:06:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/exploringourmatrix\/?p=2489"},"modified":"2011-11-02T06:06:39","modified_gmt":"2011-11-02T10:06:39","slug":"torchwood-weevil-fight-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2011\/11\/torchwood-weevil-fight-club.html","title":{"rendered":"Torchwood: Weevil Fight Club"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

$\"\"$ The episode, for most of its duration, might well have seemed to have little that is of direct interest to someone concerned with the intersection of religion and science fiction. But as Owen\u2019s investigation brings him into contact with Mark, major religious overtones begin to appear, and religion is even explicitly mentioned. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point of your life?\u201d Mark asks Owen. Later he says<\/a>, \u201cWe\u2019re a generation of no faith. In society, in religion, or in life. All we can do is reduce ourselves to the basics.\u201d<\/p>\n

An echo of the earlier episode \u201cThey Keep Killing Suzie\u201d with its focus on the afterlife or lack thereof is found in Mark\u2019s words, \u201cSomething\u2019s out there in the darkness. Something\u2019s coming.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark\u2019s suggestion that weevils might be the descendants of humans, thousands of years in the future, when \u201call that we have left is our rage,\u201d is striking. Looking into a weevil\u2019s eyes is compared to looking into the dark recesses of one\u2019s own soul.<\/p>\n

The depiction of creatures that are humanoid in appearance, and yet seem to be driven by pure unbridled rage, hatred or hunger, is quite common in sci-fi. Science fiction has a long history of looking at the darker side of human existence, of extracting one aspect of human existence \u2013 positive, negative or a mixture of the two \u2013 and projecting it onto a fictional alien entity that has just that characteristic and not other contrasting ones. But what, if anything, do we learn from doing so?<\/p>\n

Gwen\u2019s seeking of forgiveness from Rhys, telling him of her affair with Own after giving Rhys an amnesia drug, is also noteworthy. The phrase \u201cforgive and forget\u201d is widely used, and yet the truth is that we find it hard to do both, and we all wish at times that we could not simply be forgiven, but also erase the very memory of what we did wrong from another\u2019s mind. We desire the other person to know and forgive. We also desire for them to forget. And the moral issues involved with trying to make<\/em> someone forget may be ones that real life technology may one day require us to deal with.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ Owen\u2019s statement that, in the cage with a weevil, for a moment he felt totally at peace, suggests that human beings, with our myths of primal or primeval innocence, are somehow aware that there is a serenity to the sort of animal existence that kicks in during combat, sex, and other activities that are universal among higher organisms. A moment of peace can be achieved, however fleeting, in allowing those primal instincts to take over for just a moment.<\/p>\n

Perhaps our sense of loss of innocence is a result precisely of our ability to reflect afterwards on what we have done and on the consequences.<\/p>\n

We long for the peace that comes with momentarily abandoning that conscious, reflective thought. Yet we are horrified by the thought of being pure rage alone. And so we find outlets for our instincts that will not upset the delicate balance of civilization. We create weevil fight clubs. We live our lives at the intersection of what classically has been referred to as the flesh and the soul.<\/p>\n

And yet it seems that however much pain and angst and regret accompanies such existence, we really would not want to have it any other way.<\/p>\n

$\"\"$ <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"