OCR
actually take on the role of myth, although perhaps they do so ina primitive way. Their essence is simplification. The undifferentiated dualism of black and white, good-evil, light-dark reigns. But this determines the thinking of the masses, which is one-dimensional. They think mostly in terms of the dualism of the same and other. The alien is the alien who is the enemy, which either kills us or we kill. Look no farther than the Alien series. Death travels with us. And indeed, starting with the early works of art, the depiction of the idea of memento mori has been given a central role. All of this is very deeply embedded in the universal essence of thinking, to put it simply: this approach conveys something that, however primitive, is closely and completely related to the issues that occupy the world. It would be hard to deny that these days this includes the concept of the other and alien (enemy). Returning to the quote: “When he opened his eyes the Other's armor was running down its legs in rivulets as pale blue blood hissed and steamed around the black dragonglass dagger in its throat. It reached down with two bone-white hands to pull out the knife, but where its fingers touched the obsidian they smoked. Sam rolled onto his side, eyes wide as the Other shrank and puddled, dissolving away. In twenty heartbeats its flesh was gone, swirling away in a fine white mist. Beneath were bones like milkglass, pale and shiny, and they were melting too. Finally only the dragonglass dagger remained, wreathed in steam as if it were alive and sweating.” (George R. R. Martin: A Storm of Swords.) The other here is an alien and an enemy who wants to occupy what was not originally his and does not belong to him. He wants to change the lives of those who are different from him by destroying their world. In Game of Thrones, this is symbolized by a Wall that separates the same and the other. The Wall (capitalized thus) is an indestructible structure, seven hundred feet high and over one hundred leagues long, yet still unable to fully protect those behind it. Whoever lives beyond the wall is the other. The other, the alien, hates the one behind the wall, and vice versa. One seeks to protect, the other seeks to destroy the wall and destroy all that exists behind the wall, because that