Two Sides to Every Story

Two Sides to Every Story

Making Assumptions Causes Problems

A major theme in "Strange the Dreamer" is that both sides within an argument/hostile situation often do not completely understand each other's reasons for resentment, leading to even more conflict.

More specifically, Lazlo and Sarai come from rival groups (humans and godspawn). These two groups have resentment towards each other because the gods had raped the humans in order to create godspawn. In return, the humans killed the vast majority of gods and godspawn, not considering that the godspawn had nothing to do with the unspeakable actions of their godly parents. Each side has valid arguments but also misunderstandings.

Lazlo and Sarai have no reason to hate each other as individuals, although society says that they are supposed to because of what the races they are part of had done to each other.

This tumultuous kind of relationship reminds me of how Christians and Muslims often interact which as of recently has been really bad, especially with the recent mosque bombing. Many Christians and people of other faiths hold resentment towards all Muslims because of the terrorist attacks they hear about in the media such as 9/11. Yes, these terrorist attacks are horrible but its important to remember that most Muslims are disgusted by the actions of those terrorists. However, in response, some people of other faiths have retaliated by killing Muslims at random, seeming to think that they're preventing terrorism.

This can be compared to how Eril-Fane thought that killing godspawn would stop the rape of more humans. Neither case is true; killing Muslims does not prevent terrorism and killing godspawn does not prevent rape. In both cases you can often understand why some people act the way they do, although it does not justify their actions. Clearly the people were just distraught from being raped or having people they love killed by terrorists but it does not make it right to kill innocent godspawn or Muslims. Killing the gods and the terrorists is justified but there is no reason to take out innocent beings just because of the actions of some of their kind. It's also reasonable for the innocent Muslims and godspawn to feel resentful towards the humans or people of other faiths as a whole because of what the select few have done to them in responds to what a select few of their own kind did. However, once again, this does not make it right to hate everyone of a certain group, it's just more understandable. Due to all this resentment, hurtful actions towards each group seem to occur in a never-ending cycle of violence and misunderstanding.

In sum, it is best to just not make assumptions about people and their motivations in life simply based on their beliefs or race. It's especially horrible to take action against someone who hasn't done anything to hurt you just because you think they might due to their background. Just be nice and treat people on an individual basis. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯