"Nothing burns as well as ignorance."
-Translated from the Italian "niente brucia così bene come l'ignoranza", from Immanuel Casto's song "Piromane" (Pyromaniac)

It's a quote that resonates with me even though I struggle to unpack it, it has a villainy feel but...

I just heard this line from Hellsing Ultimate and it gets all sorts of gears a-grinding in my head:

"Only a human can destroy a monster. Only a human could dare hope to."
~Alucard, to Alexander Anderson, Hellsing Ultimate episode 9

“And the answer, said the judge. If God meant to interfere in the degeneracy of mankind would he not have done so by now? Wolves cull themselves, man. What other creature could? And is the race of man not more predacious yet? The way of the world is to bloom and to flower and die but in the affairs of men there is no waning and the noon of his expression signals the onset of night. His spirit is exhausted at the peak of its achievement. His meridian is at once his darkening and the evening of his day. He loves games? Let him play for stakes. This you see here, these ruins wondered at by tribes of savages, do you not think that this will be again? Aye. And again. With other people, with other sons.”

― Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian

Is there a place more wrought with possibility than the sea shore? Where two worlds—each exclusive of the other—meet in roiling tumult, the strangenesses of the deep are vomited up, and the for-granteds of our lives meet their boundaries. What is happening at land’s end?
https://hellahexi.wordpress.com/2016/02 ... chors-rot/

This is how Patrick Stuart describes the fighter class:

"You can call it something else, wrap it up in plans and analysis, say violence is a stopgap or that a stabbing never solved anything, but it all comes down to blood and bruises in the end.


Someone has to be ready to take the hit and deal out hurt, and if nobody is, then you have already lost.


And of all the people set to do harm in this world, there are few as prepared as you are to eat the consequences and take back some of what they fork out. That’s honest.


Tongues lie and minds deceive, but the body is the truth. If you underwrite your actions with your flesh, if your currency is your own blood, you are True, no matter what they say. The truest thing in this uncertain world.


You might be a walking catastrophe in every sense but this; socially, mentally, financially and, lets face it, probably morally, but your deeds are true, no matter how dumb, corrupt or crazy you might be.


And where on Udd is there any good thing not clothed in violence and hiding somewhere on the Path of Blades? Honour, truth, charity, love, the past, the future, even hope and the breath in your lungs, either someone is willing to fight to keep them, or someone worse will fight harder to take them away.


If you want these things, or say you do, and you are not fundamentally willing to start some ****, now, and I mean right NOW, this instant, then you get nothing. And if you have them already, you get less than nothing because someone’s coming to take them away, and most of whatever else you have along with it.


People say violence never ends well, but things are bad for you right now. The world is bad. Everything is bad for everyone. And what are they going to do? Write a book about it?


All those schemes and plans, kingdoms and empires, every grand idea and noble cause, all they are is levers, and every leaver has a nasty, dirty, torn-up tip where the pressure goes, where the weight is lifted. The part that does the work and takes the hurt.


That's you, or someone just like you, and if you don't work, then nothing does, you dirty wedge. You are a lever with a lever in its hand. This one with a metal bite or a piercing point where the pressure enters in.


And there it is, existing for a tenth of a second when the impact shock runs through your bones and your body realises it is still alive, with all its organs still within the skin, that you were a slim slice of a moment faster, or stronger, or smarter or just lucky, it doesn't matter which – it’s a hit. You got them. Steel bites and for that exact fragment, wound and weapon are the axle of reality, everything, every dream and plan, every past hope and possible future, all of it, wheels like stars around the singular, certain and absolute fact that metal entered flesh. The war at the heart of things flexes and the pulse of reality beats, once.


Now do it again.


And again and again. Keep doing it. Keep fighting till you claw through time. Kick Deaths teeth out from its skull, sow those teeth like corn to grow new Deaths, and kick out their teeth too.


Win.


And if you can't win, survive.


And if you can't survive, then make sure you leave a big goddam mess on the way out."

I know it's just a similar name but I couldn't help but hear that read in the voice of Captain Jean-Luc Picard

I read it in the voice of the narrator in Darkest Dungeon which probably fits the subject matter a little better.

Same.

I was half-way through before I thought I should look where the link leads because it sounded maybe a bit more poetic than I'd expect even from Picard, and noticed it was from False Machine. I'm not saying it's not a good choice to get a quote from, but maybe knowing that ahead of time would have eased any confusion.

Then again, with a name like that, I'll bet he gets stupid comments a lot.

I hear he's not even a real machine.

"There were three of them. They were immediately and absolutely recognizable as adventurers; rogues who wandered the Ragamoll and the Cymek and Fellid and probably the whole of Bas-Lag. They were hardy and dangerous, lawless, stribbed of allegiance or morality, living off their wits, stealing and ikilling, hiring themselves out to whoever and whatever cam. They were inspired by dubious virtues. A few performed useful services: research, cartography, and the like. Most were nothing but tomb raiders. They were scum who died violent deahts, hanging on to a certain cachet among the impressionable through their undeniable bravery and their occasionally impressive exploits."
China Mieville, Perdido Street Station

‘The only thing that unified the souls was their service to the flesh--without the flesh, they begin to unravel. Imagine seven birds that were huddled together in a nest during a storm. As the storm stops, each bird begins to realize that they are not a seven-beaked creature whose lower half is a nest; they take flight. This is what happens when a body decays.’
Arnold K, Goblin Punch

A cool idea to tinker with through necromancy...

A question unrelated to the topic: is "seven birds" an expression with some kind of cultural significance, or the fact I already heard it used it as it were comes uniquely from the significance of the number?

There's no cultural significance to having exactly 7 feathered dinosaurs that I am aware of, but I'm afraid I can't parse the second half of your question.

If anything, I think any significance would come from the number itself, as humankind has placed significance on a few numbers like "lucky number 7," "Friday the 13th," "good things come in threes," et cetera. Different cultures place emphasis on different numbers, like how there are 4 "classical elements" in Western civilization, but Eastern civilizations had 5.

I know this is probably something you're already aware of, but I don't think it hurts to mention in case you hadn't looked into the subject yourself, or for anyone else that may not have ever realized it. I occasionally remind myself of Nika Harper's words: "Old news is still news to someone, and you never know when you need to hear it."

That was basically my question; The Adventure Zone has a quote describing seven kinda-planeswalkers as "birds", hence my doubt. So the bird part isn't relevant, it happens that two different sources used the magical 7 in combination with that specific metaphor.

I'm not sure about the number 7 in general, but the people of Centerra believe a person has 7 souls. The mineral, vegetable, animal, purple, red, white and blue souls.

A lot of significant numbers in Western culture come out of ancient Jewish mysticism, where numerology was big. Basically, different numbers were used s shorthand to symbolize things. I'm that context, 7 was basically the perfect number. The Divine spirit moves through seven wins, the scroll of Divine judgement was sealed with seven seals, and so on. So seven keeps being a convenient way to show that something is mystical and important.

This also explains the association of the number six with the infernal and demonic. Because if seven is perfection, then six is imperfection. If seven is purity, then six is corruption.

Dear Sir Oswald,
Thank you for your letters and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one’s own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.
I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.
Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell