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Evil or Vengeful - Clabo

I know I may have discussed this topic somewhat in my blog post last week, but because we were prompted to discuss Abernathy's questions in this weeks blogpost, I decided to talk about this again because I find it the most interesting. When the question of whether Grendel's mother was evil or not is posed, I think an important question to ask is what the intent is. I feel that because she did not attack or terrorize Heorot more than once, it is difficult to assume or compare her evilness with her son. However, by looking at her intent, we see that her actions are much more noble than maleficent. Her actions were very similar to that of a heroic Greek or Trojan warrior going back to recover the body and/or armor of their fellow soldier. She was just doing her action in order to achieve vengeance for her son, and to bring honor and less shame to his passing. However, if one looks at her innate darkness and foreboding evil presence that constantly is surrounding her, one has to realize that she has to hold some fairly large presence of evil within her. While her son may have wreaked havoc upon Heorot, he lacks what Megamind calls the most important part of being a villain, and that is "presentation." This is the element that Grendel's mother unquestionably has. In my opinion, she was evil, but it is more like she is retired and only comes out when she has to. I feel like the days of her wreaking havoc had to have been in the past, but that is also just head-canon.

Do any of you have similar thoughts? Any ideas or things you thought I missed? 

P.S. I commented on Jackson Riddle's and Kaitlyn Terry's posts.

Comments

  1. Jackson RiddleMarch 2, 2021 at 12:24 AM

    I absolutely agree, she is evil but doesn't overdo it with excessive attacks on the kingdom. In her defense, she attacked Heorot as an act of vengeance for her son and stopped it there until Beowulf goes after her. However, she also has an evil side to her; in her past she lived a life like Grendel, a life of malice and evil, but now she's sort of "retired" so to speak.

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  2. Micah PowersMarch 2, 2021 at 8:41 AM

    I would want to put it in a pie chart because I think she is like 85 percent evil with 15 percent morality but her morality only seeks a self serving purpose to feed back her evilness. In the case where your morality is only self serving I guess that by virtue of definition makes your morality immorality. In her moral side is immoral than yeah I was wrong she is 100% evil.
    I think Jackson's comment is more accurate retired evil.

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  3. Logan TurnerMarch 2, 2021 at 9:07 AM

    You make a good point about her evil being in the past. While she may have been "retired" from being evil, after her son was killed, she came out of retirement to wreak havoc once more, which adds a new layer to her character that I never really noticed before.

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