The Noah Who Cried Wolf: a LUST parable

[Chris]

One aspect of last night that doesn’t seem to be getting a lot of play is Noah’s love of Aesop’s fable The Boy Who Cried Wolf. We’ve been looking for connections between @lilmsfancpants and @bcbishop’s nights, and I think @izryn hit the nail on the head when she pointed to the story of the boy and the hookstress’ message to Bryan. I’ve seen a couple of people jokingly refer to Noah as the wolf in this scenario, but don’t forget how he sees himself: he’s the boy who cried it. In a completely skewed view of the parable that seems to totally (perhaps intentionally) ignore its violent end, Noah admires the idea of a man who has the confidence and talent to hold an entire town in the palm of his hand with absolutely nothing but lies. What could be more perfect for him? The hookstress’ message that “once they stop believing you, you’ll know it’s begun” is not only highly relevant but also carries a distinct air of foreboding. Because remember what happens at the end of the fable: it’s not the boy who gets eaten by the wolf when it finally comes. It’s the boy’s sheep. Perhaps a coded warning of what all of us who follow Noah can hope to expect?

• This topic was modified 7 years, 8 months ago by Chris.

[Max Z]

The issue with parables is that they can rarely be tied to a single canonical text or version. Myself, I’d never heard that it was the boy’s sheep who get eaten, I thought it was the boy himself. But your version not only seems to fit better, it’s downright alarming. Fantastic observation.

[Chris]

It’s definitely true, @maxzumstein, I’ve seen versions with the boy dying as well. But it appears that the original version of the story attributed to Aesop’s Fables, the story was originally called The Shepherd’s Boy and the Wolf and in that story the wolf killed the sheep. Though I wonder in the case of Lust if we aren’t dealing with a few different shepherds…

[Jeremy]

This seems to fit the earlier theory that he is trying to lure people of a certain mindset in order to eliminate them.

[Taylor Winters]

This is wonderful @macbethinabathtub! I was thinking of how it related as I was listening to Lia’s periscope, and was going to research the parabole myself–but you seem to have gotten it (hell, I’ll still research it to be thorough, but I think you got it).

[Author]

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