Voilà! In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance; a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you may call me V.
— V's introduction to Evey
In his battle with Creedy, V primes his daggers into the letter "V" before throwing them.
There is repeated reference to the symbol “V”, as both letter and number, throughout the film. For example, V's introductory monologue to Evey (above) begins and ends with “V”, has five sentences, and contains the letter "V" 53 times. Also, on the subject of Evey, "E" is the fifth letter of the alphabet and similarly, the letter "V" is the number 5 in Roman numerals, count the alphabet backwards and you'll also end up with "V" as the fifth letter. November is also the only month in the Gregorian calendar with the letter "v" in it. The pronunciation of "Evey" accentuates on respectively "E" and "V", both their names combined in one name. Similar references are made through V's background, choice of words and action. V is held in Larkhill cell number “V”. A favourite Latin phrase of V's is from Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus: "Vi veri veniversum vivus vici" ("By the power of truth, I, a living man, have conquered the universe"). In a dance with Evey, the song V chooses is number five on his jukebox, though all the songs on his jukebox are numbered "5". When V confronts Creedy in his home, he plays Beethoven's Symphony No.5, whose opening notes have a rhythmic pattern that resembles the letter “V” in Morse code (···–). The Symphony's opening was used as a call-sign in the European broadcasts of the BBC during World War II in reference to Winston Churchill's “V for Victory”. Before the climax of the film, V is shown setting up dominoes in blacks and reds, and eventually sets them off in a brilliant shaping of the letter V. The film's title itself, is also a reference to “V for Victory”. In the battle with Creedy and his men at Victoria station, V forms the letter “V” with his daggers just before he throws them. The daggers each spin 5 times before embedding themselves in Creedy's bodyguards. After the battle, when V is mortally wounded, he leaves a “V” signature in his own red blood. The Londoners, descending on Parliament in V costumes, approach on streets which meet and form a V. The destruction of Parliament results in a display of fireworks which form the letter “V” (just like at the beginning with Old Bailey), which is also an inverted red-on-black “A” symbol for anarchy. Like the Old Bailey and Larkhill, Parliament was destroyed on the fifth of November (the only month on the calendar to contain the letter "V"). In astrology, V stands for a November 1 through 15 discovery, in the provisional designation of a comet. However, this not only symbolizes the relationship between the number 5 and the letter V, as it commemorates the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, when Guy Fawkes was found in the cellar of the House of Lords with 1800 pounds of explosives. Also, Big Ben shows the start of the group of V's at 11:05 p.m., creating a giant V on the clock face as well as referencing Guy Fawkes day (11-05). When Evey is brought to confess for the first time, the background light is shown diagonal to show the left side of a V, and the opposite when Evey refused to confess at the end. Also, the title itself "V for Vendetta", is made up of 5 syllables. See also the Law of Fives.
Plato's Republic has offered human society many a lesson and posed a good number of thought-provoking questions. A particular story that has me intrigued is the one pertaining to the Ring of Gyges. If a more-or-less decent person really did come into possession of the device described therein – and let's boost up its power a little for the sake of modern technology, making its wearer invisible on all spectrums, both visible and invisible (infrared, x-ray, etc.), when the ring is activated – would that individual’s conduct be altered? Would a person be able to resist the temptation to utilize the ring for her or his own benefit?
If you personally were placed into this situation, would you prove Glaucon wrong?
Maybe Socrates' interlocutor was onto something when he purported that, “Justice is accepted as a compromise, and valued, not as a good in itself, but for lack of power to do wrong.”
(The Republic of Plato, trans. by Francis MacDonald Cornford, Book II, 359a)
How could I have been so blind? How could I have denied all the signs that have appeared throughout my life? Nothing ever made sense before today, and something just didn't add up about my life. There seemed to be no purpose for this existence, and my atheistic perspective offered no clue about the true origin of life. Sure, evolution seemed to offer a decent distraction from the search for meaning. Yet, there was an emptiness inside me...
Today was the day of my conversion. I have finally found what I have been searching for all my life (without even knowing I was searching for it). I have been proven wrong, and now admit my fault. Oh Blessed One, I thank thee for calming my restless soul with your your holy Noodly Appendage, for now I recognize the truth! From this day forth, I'm a Pastafarian...
"In the beginning He created a Mountain, Trees, and a Midget"
- The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster
P.S. Join me in my quest for greater understanding of his great Meatballness by visiting http://www.venganza.org. RAmen for now, and may the pirates keep you safe!
I'm not sure how to think of Pope Benedict XVI after reading this article. I'm not jumping to any conclusions, nor am I going to judge his character based upon segments of his speech. However, the following text does make me wonder about who exactly so many people have put in charge of one of the most prominent religions on our planet
Please tell me what you think about this article. My next entry might include more of my own thoughts on the matter...
Pope: Science seeks vainly to make God unnecessary in the universe and our lives
Benedict XVI talked about faith in God the Creator, who is “Goodness and Love”. Hatred and fanaticism are “pathologies” of religion. The “fear of God”, at the origin of modern atheism, features in thoughts about judgement, which is above all rendering justice to those who have suffered.
Regensburg (AsiaNews) – At least in part, science has vainly sought to make God unnecessary in the universe and hence to man himself. But, when we exclude God, “something doesn’t add up”. On the fourth day of his visit to Germany, Benedict XVI talked again about faith to 250,000 festive people on the esplanade of Islinger Feld of Regensburg, a city especially dear to Ratzinger as a scholar. The pope explained how faith ultimately means believing that God is the beginning and the end of everything. He is the “Creative Reason, the Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth”, including man. “Knowing God”, seeking his face – a recurring theme in the ruminations of the theologian pope – excludes fear, which is rather at the origin of modern atheism. Nor has it any place in considering Judgement, which is the “dissolution” of injustice.
The pope’s was a complex address. In the city where for long years he was a university lecturer, he illustrated the Creed. “We believe in God. This is a fundamental decision on our part. But is such a thing still possible today? Is it reasonable? From the Enlightenment on, science, at least in part, has applied itself to seeking an explanation of the world in which God would be unnecessary. And if this were so, he would also become unnecessary in our lives. But whenever the attempt seemed to be nearing success - inevitably it would become clear: something is missing from the equation! When God is subtracted, something doesn’t add up for man, the world, the whole vast universe.”
The pope did not make direct reference to the age-old controversy between evolution and creation but noted that “we end up with two alternatives. What came first? Creative Reason, the Spirit who makes all things and gives them growth, or Unreason, which, lacking any meaning, yet somehow brings forth a mathematically ordered cosmos, as well as man and his reason. The latter, however, would then be nothing more than a chance result of evolution and thus, in the end, equally meaningless. As Christians, we say: ‘I believe in God the Father, the Creator of heaven and earth’ - I believe in the Creator Spirit. We believe that at the beginning of everything is the eternal Word, with Reason and not Unreason.”
He repeated: “We believe in God”, but asked: “in what God? Certainly we believe in the God who is Creator Spirit, creative Reason, the source of everything that exists, including ourselves. The second section of the Creed tells us more. This creative Reason is Goodness, it is Love. It has a face. God does not leave us groping in the dark. He has shown himself to us as a man. In his greatness he has let himself become small. ‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’, Jesus says (Jn 14:9). God has taken on a human face. He has loved us even to the point of letting himself be nailed to the Cross for our sake, in order to bring the sufferings of mankind to the very heart of God. Today, when we have learned to recognize the pathologies and the life-threatening diseases associated with religion and reason, and the ways that God’s image can be destroyed by hatred and fanaticism, it is important to state clearly the God in whom we believe, and to proclaim confidently that this God has a human face. Only this can free us from being afraid of God - which is ultimately at the root of modern atheism. Only this God saves us from being afraid of the world and from anxiety before the emptiness of life.”
The pope continued: “The second section of the Creed ends by speaking of the last judgement and the third section by speaking of the resurrection of the dead. Judgement - doesn’t this word also make us afraid? On the other hand, doesn’t everyone want to see justice eventually rendered to all those who were unjustly condemned, to all those who suffered in life, who died after lives full of pain? Don’t we want the outrageous injustice and suffering which we see in human history to be finally undone, so that in the end everyone will find happiness, and everything will be shown to have meaning? This triumph of justice, this joining together of the many fragments of history which seem meaningless and giving them their place in a bigger picture in which truth and love prevail: this is what is meant by the concept of universal judgement. Faith is not meant to instil fear; rather it is meant - surely - to call us to accountability. We are not meant to waste our lives, misuse them, or spend them selfishly. In the face of injustice we must not remain indifferent and thus end up as silent collaborators or outright accomplices. We need to recognize our mission in history and to strive to carry it out. What is needed is not fear, but responsibility - responsibility and concern for our own salvation, and for the salvation of the whole world. But when responsibility and concern tend to bring on fear, then we should remember the words of Saint John: “My little ones, I am writing this to keep you from sin. But if anyone should sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one” (1 Jn 2:1). No matter what our hearts may charge us with - God is greater than our hearts and all is known to him” (1 Jn 3:20).”
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