6 ms·
MSJR I'm quite the minority. My thoughts were as follows: 1. Maid Marion did something she didn't want in order to rescue a lover, and deservedly went with so
by banachtarski 11y ago
MSJR
I'm quite the minority. My thoughts were as follows:
1. Maid Marion did something she didn't want in order to rescue a lover, and deservedly went with someone in the end. Understandable particularly after being the victim of unappreciation and abuse.
2. The sheriff imprisoned them for reasons that are not explained by the story. Can't fault him here. He allows himself to be bribed with sex which could be seen as a mercy in a certain light. More importantly, he was good on his word to release Robin and Little John, as opposed to abusing his power even further. Basically, he could have done far worse than he did.
3. Little John had the least to lose in all this, and as far as I can tell, hasn't done anything necessarily correct either. It's very easy to start off fulfilling the white knight role, but then have nothing to follow it up with. Neutral on his behavior and he ranks lower than the sheriff only because he had an easier decision to make.
4. Robin is the real cunt in this story from my perspective. Ingratitude coupled with abuse, and lack of empathy as to Marion's motivations.
The claims:
> Such an emphatic rejection of ready-made values is probably partly camouflage. You hate to be thought weak or insecure. You value honesty, and abhor hypocrisy.
> Men: Women are very much part of you life, and you are - or perhaps would like to be - quite ruthless, both with women and life in general.
... interesting.
*edit:formatting
Final edit:
I guess the underpinning difference between my perception of morality is that it's a bit relative based on the search space of decisions available. There are a ton of details omitted that would likely sway my decision a different way, however, so the solution set to this problem seems a bit unstable.
- eemax 11y agoEh, it seems to me the sheriff horribly abused his position of power. Either LJ and RH were imprisoned rightfully, in which case perhaps they shouldn't be just be released, or else the sheriff wrongly imprisoned them. Either way, he exploited his power as sheriff and blackmailed MM for sex. RH's actions, on the other hand, while certainly misguided, are at least understandable, if he lives in a typical culture of masculinity, monogamy, and Victorian-era purity, where it's embarrassing to be rescued by a woman and shameful for women to have sex. He was probably feeling emasculated after being rescued by in such a fashion, and took out his anger on MM. (Which is bad, of course, but I don't think it's worse than what the sheriff did). Finally, RH's "abuse" is left ambiguous, as opposed to the sheriff's which is very much explicit.
- banachtarski 11y agoHere's an interesting thought experiment. If the RH in this story was in the sheriff's position, what would he do?
- j2kun 11y agoBlackmail is not quite the right word. There is no evidence in the story that MM is not free to reject sheriff's offer without consequence (above RH/LJ remaining in jail, which as we've all observed is not necessarily unjust).
- icebraining 11y agoWe also have no evidence that she is sure there will be no consequences. In her position, if the local sheriff had just arrested your loved one (for valid or invalid reasons) and then called you saying he would free them if you only had sex with him, would you really trust him not to take revenge if you refused?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- j2kun 11y agoI agree, but on the other hand sheriff's makes the offer after MM pleads. I think that would suggest that sheriff is seizing an opportunity, not extorting MM or demanding sex.
- jcoffland 11y agoIt seems to me that the sex trade was the Sheriff's idea.
- jacobwcarlson 11y ago> He allows himself to be bribed with sex which could be seen as a mercy in a certain light. My read was that he extorted sex, not agreed to a bribe. Had Maid Marion offered sex in exchange for Robin's freedom things might be different, but abusing a position of power to get sex is super-shady.
- icebraining 11y agoYeah, "to which she agreed" makes it clear it was his initiative.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- icebraining 11y agoYour post made me realize that my decision was colored by my previous knowledge of the characters, particularly from Ivanhoe. I wonder if I would have decided differently if they had used other names.
- RodericDay 11y agoI think the most telling insight of the entire test, in all the times I've discussed it with people, is when guys read this > Maid Marion begged the Sheriff for their release, pleading her love for Robin. The Sheriff agreed to release them only if Maid Marion spent the night with him. And somehow many of them end up with the impression that MM offered sex. edit: I wasn't really replying to this post in particular, it just seemed like a good place to go about it. If you check the response for women for your ordering, by the way, the response is fairly positive.
- banachtarski 11y agoNowhere in my statement did I say that MM offered sex. I'm not sure where everyone responding to me is getting that. I said the sheriff allows himself to be bribed with sex which is orthogonal to who propositioned the bribe in the first place.
- staunch 11y agoWhat if The Sherrif's entire motivation in imprisoning Robin Hood was to have sex with Maid Marion?
- banachtarski 11y agoYep indeed. What if. What if Marion had an opportunity to rescue Robin Hood ahead of time but allowed him to be captured as an excuse to sleep with the Sheriff? What if the sheriff was just testing the bond between Marion and Robin and knew that they wouldn't be right for each other so he did this to break them up? What if Robin abused Marion because the sheriff brainwashed him while he was in the dungeon? What if little john is actually a lesbian girl? Honestly, like I said, the problem space is unstable because there are too many details omitted. I could come up with a different backdrop of circumstances that could sway the scale any way I want.
- aidenn0 11y agoI'd be interested in hearing how you can think that coercive sex (MM want's RH released, SN will only release RH if MM has sex with him) rates higher with morally/honest than just "hasn't done anything necessarily correct"