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References to Yeats' The Second Coming and the BAT (CD spoilers)

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the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
Quoting "The Second Coming" is pretty much a trope of realish-world apocalyptic fiction settings, sfaict; my favourite riff on it is in GRRM's The Armageddon Rag.

breck:
End of storm front has the first mentions of falcons and falconers and the center cannot hold. I was a criminal justice major i somehow missed a lot of yeats work so i was surprised when i looked it up after reading storm front, which is why i can recall it, but not quote it.

Quaras:
Would also throw in Shakespeare's Ulysses speech as very closely tied...

ULYSSES
Troy, yet upon his basis, had been down,
And the great Hector's sword had lack'd a master,
But for these instances.
The specialty of rule hath been neglected:
And, look, how many Grecian tents do stand
Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions.
When that the general is not like the hive
To whom the foragers shall all repair,
What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded,
The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask.
The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre
Observe degree, priority and place,
Insisture, course, proportion, season, form,
Office and custom, in all line of order;
And therefore is the glorious planet Sol
In noble eminence enthroned and sphered
Amidst the other; whose medicinable eye
Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil,
And posts, like the commandment of a king,
Sans cheque to good and bad: but when the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds! frights, changes, horrors,
Divert and crack, rend and deracinate
The unity and married calm of states
Quite from their fixure! O, when degree is shaked,
Which is the ladder to all high designs,
Then enterprise is sick! How could communities,
Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities,
Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,
The primogenitive and due of birth,
Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,
But by degree, stand in authentic place?
Take but degree away, untune that string,
And, hark, what discord follows! each thing meets
In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe:
Strength should be lord of imbecility,
And the rude son should strike his father dead:
Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides,
Should lose their names, and so should justice too.
Then every thing includes itself in power,
Power into will, will into appetite;
And appetite, an universal wolf,
So doubly seconded with will and power,
Must make perforce an universal prey,
And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,
This chaos, when degree is suffocate,
Follows the choking.
And this neglection of degree it is
That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose
It hath to climb. The general's disdain'd
By him one step below, he by the next,
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation:
And 'tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,
Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,
Troy in our weakness stands, not in her strength.

Cenphx:

--- Quote from: the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh on January 25, 2013, 07:30:01 PM ---Quoting "The Second Coming" is pretty much a trope of realish-world apocalyptic fiction settings, sfaict; my favourite riff on it is in GRRM's The Armageddon Rag.

--- End quote ---
Yeah, I've definitely seen the lines about "things fall apart" and "the center cannot hold" just about everywhere. But references like these feel like easter eggs for english majors.  :D I also think its interesting that as far back as Storm Front, the characters could tell something big and world-changing was coming. Though maybe human beings always feel like the end is nigh, who knows.

marc baggins:
From the last page of Storm Front, 227 in the Wizard for Hire omnibus edition.

The world is getting weirder.  Darker every single day.  Things are spinning around faster and faster, and threatening to go completely awry.  Falcons and falconers.  The center cannot hold.

Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we have the Dresdenverse's earliest Second Coming reference.

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