December 2010 Writing Challenge -- TIE-BREAKER POLL

[TheDustyZebra]

Well, yeah, it made perfect sense -- one of those things where you smack your forehead and say, "of course that's how it works -- why didn't I think of that?"

 

[Mouse]

It put me in mind of Neil Gaiman, which is no bad thing. I really wanted to write a Santa story, but I couldn't get anything to come together...

Yep I thought the same, but didn't want to bang on about Neil Gaiman again. Wrote my own evil Santa poem last Christmas, but it's not as good as SF's.

 

[paranoid marvin]

I didn't get Hoop's title either. If she had said John 15:13 --- BINGO! I would have had it. But I voted for SF in the original go around and did now.

I do think it is rather interesting that both winning entries, cracker jack stories that they were, were about unwilling sacrifice, and in the end I think "unwilling sacrifice" is a complete oxymoron. Sacrifice on a human level is only sacrifice if it is willing, otherwise what we have is criminal. If I give up my dinner for a homeless person willingly, I have made a sacrifice (small as it might be), but if that same person pulls a knife on me and demands my dinner I will give it up, but I will have been robbed. I might have made a trade for my personal well being, but in my view it would not have been a sacrifice.

(It is with some frustration I note that I can now type sacrifice correctly every time. I learned that with my frustrating encounter with a failed acrostic. GRRR!)

Mouse wrote:
What were you reading anyway? John 15 is the famous passage of Jesus where he talks about "I am the vine, you are the branches..." and he says about his disciples "I call you friends..." There is nothing there about Jews, Cyprus, or the king of Armenia.

.... What you quote sounds like it comes from Isaiah but I can't find a passage like you seem to have read because Isaiah would not speak about Christians so??? ....

Depends who the one is who feels they are making the sacrifice. If , as one of Montezuma's people I had been offered to his gods , then he would have been sacrificing the loss of one of his people - even though I as the sacrifice may be unwilling (although I probably wouldn't have the heart to tell him that)

 

[Ursa major]

For me, my decision in the Tie Breaker was easy: I'd already put the two stories in different categories in my initial judgement. Having said that, either entry would be a worthy winner.

 

[Parson]

Depends who the one is who feels they are making the sacrifice. If , as one of Montezuma's people I had been offered to his gods , then he would have been sacrificing the loss of one of his people - even though I as the sacrifice may be unwilling (although I probably wouldt have the heart to tell him that)

Count on somebody to throw a fly in the ointment! I think my point still stands. I would say Montezuma would say he was making a sacrifice, but when your sacrifice is human, then that person's willingness determines whether it is a sacrifice or a murder.