Month: April 2016
Machiavelli’s “Small Volume”: The Legacy of the Stage Machiavel
“Bearing in mind all the matters previously discussed, I ask myself whether the present time is appropriate for welcoming a new ruler in Italy, and whether there is matter that provides an opportunity for a few-seeing and able man to mold it into a form that will bring honour to him and its inhabitants.” -Machiavelli
Privileged Positions: House of Cards and Frank Underwood’s Machiavellian Monologues
“Since a ruler, then, must know how to act like a beast, he should imitate both the fox and the lion, for the lion is liable to be trapped, whereas the fox cannot ward off wolves…[b]ut foxiness should be well concealed: one must be a great feigner and dissembler. And men are so naïve…that a
“You win or You Die”: Game of Thrones and Machiavellian Amorality
“However, how men live is so different from how they should live that a ruler who does not do what is generally done, but persists in doing what ought to be done, will undermine his power rather than maintain it.” -Machiavelli Note: Spoilers for the first four seasons of Game of Thrones and for Richard
Hated, Feared and Loved: Popular Representations of Nicollò Machiavelli
“A controversy has risen about this: whether it is better to be loved than feared, or vice versa. My view is that it is desirable to be both loved and feared; but it is difficult to achieve both and, if one of them has to be lacking, it is much safer to be feared than
Part II: Wicked Women and the Negotiation of Female (Dis)empowerment
“Not only did she dupe me into believing she still loved me, she actually forced me to implicate myself. Wicked, wicked girl. I almost laughed. Good Lord, I hated her, but you had to admire the bitch.” – Nick Dunne Gone Girl, (Flynn 345) [1] The majority of Gone Girl’s masterful storytelling depends on Flynn’s