Cecil meta and *Paradise Lost*

[profbutters]

 So I'm working away, and among other things, I am preparing to teach Milton's Paradise Lost next week.  And I really enjoyed Jamie's post about Aria and you-know-who.  Which means you are going to get some Cecil meta.  

This is probably only spoiler-y if you haven't read the latest chapter (2/14/09).

If you did read the latest chapter, some of you may have been surprised by Cecil's, um, "employees."  But the suggestions have been there at least since last year.  The Big Reveal of chapter on Cecilia's parentage began with:

Yet not for those. . . do I repent or change,
Though changed in outward luster, that fixed mind
And high disdain, from sense of injured merit. . . .
All is not lost; the unconquerable will . . .
And courage never to submit or yield;
And what is else not to be overcome?

The attribution on the cover page is "Milton, Paradise Lost,"  but it doesn't say more than that.  Some people recognized it anyway:  those lines are spoken by Satan.  Yes, I have partly modeled Cecil on Satan.  Milton's Satan, anyhow.  There he is--"fixed mind, high disdain" and "injured merit," "injured merit" being the big one. Cecil, like Satan, is a WHINER.  He feels hard done by.  He deserved to be given the job.  He earned it. As Cecil says repeatedly, "this is unjust," or less impressively, "it isn't faaaaair."

Some people got a bit pissed off with him in the last couple of chapters, when he didn't Plead for Max, but hey--he wouldn't:

To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee. . . that were low indeed. 

Cecil Does Not Beg.  Period.  He's proud.  And by golly, the guy is miserable:

So spake the Apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, yet racked with deep despair.

Cecil's referred to himself several times as being "in exile," but when you get right down to it, it's his own fault.  It's not as though his family didn't want to have anything to do with him.  The visuals I've always had going with him --single person chess, the organ, and the telescope--are those of a loner.  And in the big bumper wedding chapter where his sister and virtually everybody else got married, I underlined that:





He's not totally like Satan.  I left out "study of revenge, immortal hate."  Cecil's not all that interested in revenge or hate.  He would consider it a waste of time.  And you're not going to catch him saying "Evil, be thou my good."  He IS Good.  He is the Best Goodytwoshoes of them all, he thinks.  But he has a lot in common with Milton's Satan. He never sleeps, he's got dreams of Empire, he's a total, utter, narcissist, and he even has a baby with himself.

This gets into some squicky territory, BTW, and before I mention it, I want to clarify that Cecil's relationship with Cecilia may be too close, in a way, and even unhealthy, but it's not ikky or perverted.  It is not squicky at all.  Blech.

Here's what happens in PL:  Satan, when he's still in Heaven, has a spectacularly enraged and narcissistic thought and develops a literally splitting headache.  His daughter, Sin, springs fully armed from his head.  So that's one reason I don't have any pictures of Cecilia's birth.  In some ways he got Mortimer to help him, but in some ways, Cecil just *thought* Cecilia into existence.

After that, (in Paradise Lost, of course, not SC), Satan falls in love with Sin because, by golly, she reminds him so much of him, and Sin in turn gives birth to Death.  The actual bit is not something you want to read if you're at all sensitive about this sort of thing. There is a bit, though, when Satan is trying to get out of Hell and asks his daughter Sin to let him out.  She isn't supposed to, but she does, because when Satan has taken over, she will reign at his right hand, "thy daughter, and thy darling, without end."   So the Holy Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) is mirrored by the Unholy Trinity (Satan, Sin, Death.) 

To the extent that they parallel Milton, that's the way Cecil's family goes, too:  Satan-Sin-Death = Cecil-Cecilia-Max.  And why do you think Max is obsessed by death?  Hey, he IS Death.  You'll notice that my sims aren't quite this bad, and partly that's not their fault:  they just can't live up (or down) to the demonic level.  And that is mostly Cecilia's fault. 

Cecil's Achilles heel is Cecilia.  She was not in The Plan.  When he cloned himself, he assumed that Cecilia would BE a little female version of him.  He's not alone.  A lot of parents think that way.   The problem is that your children are not you.  They are themselves.   Some of this came from observing Cecil and Cecilia.  Stacilee has seen this in action, too; they are an exceptionally loving little family.  And unlike Sin, Cecilia wasn't a fully armored goddess.  She was a helpless, affectionate little girl who worshipped her papa, and Cecil had to raise her on his own.  To the extent that Cecil has fallen in love with anyone or anything, he fell in love with this quiet little girl, who wanted nothing more than to please her Papa and make him happy.  And that has derailed everything for him.  Love hurts for Cecil.  He hates it.  He wants nothing to do with it, but you can't jam the milk back in the carton.

Because she was capable of loving her Papa, Cecilia was capable of loving Secundus.  And therefore Max got a tiny hint of having parents who loved him and who loved each other. Like his Grandpapa, Max has learned that Love Hurts.  He doesn't have a lot of use for it either, which is why Achilles was right when he told Cass, "he's not good relationship material."  

They're all terribly screwed up, and they're tragic in a lot of ways, and their family has no natural births in it at all, but they aren't quite demons.  Anyway, I thought you'd enjoy that, and I hope I didn't wind up revealing where this is going to go.  I always think that, and then it turns out not to have been true.

PB

Comments

[docnerd.livejournal.com]

I've always seen Ceci as proof that Cecil's not completely cold and emotionless. She is very much his weak spot, and anyone who wanted to get to Cecil would be wise to start with Cecilia. Cecil really is a sort of classic Miltonian figure.

Max and Cecil do have a lot in common, but Max isn't quite as rational and patient as Cecil, which works to his advantage in some ways but not in others. Max ends up being a slightly more tragic figure, because he's got a legitimate reason for feeling the way he does, whereas Cecil's is more of a self-induced thing.

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

There's more than a touch of Screwtape going on, too. I think Cecil thinks of Cecilia as his weak spot, but in a way, she's really not at all. She is what keeps him from becoming entirely inhuman. Max is much more human, precisely because he suffers a lot more.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

Holy crap, Prof. I knew there was a lot going into Cecil, but this floors me. Reading your meta and Ben's recent meta's has me feeling like a hack. Some of these things you think through so profoundly. I write talking dogs. ;)

On a more serious note, this was fantastic to read. I'm not familiar with Paradise Lost on any level other than name recognition, but this was very eye opening in so many ways. :)

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

But. . . but. . . I LIKE your talking dogs! Seriously, you've got plenty of profundity of your own going on, and at least you don't have to rob an old dead blind guy to get it. (Twelve long perfectly balanced books and Milton wrote it by dictation because he was blind. Still floors me.)

Cecil gets about 90% of my serious attention, probably. It's also why writing him tires me out so much. Lewis said that about Screwtape--thinking and writing diabolically is really uncomfortable. I've kind of got to feel out all that hellish torment and then stuff it right down and gloss it over, and then I want to sleep for a week.

[orikes13.livejournal.com]

I think the thing that amazes me about what you, Ben, and Jamie do with your allusions and your symbolism is that it is very deliberate and well thought out. When I write, I tend to do without necessarily considering the broader issues. I go from what seems like it'll make a good story and would make sense for the characters to do. Larger literary and symbolic things tend to only get added by complete and utter accident.

I like my talking dogs too. But what you guys do still amazes me. :)

[legionary27.livejournal.com]

On the other hand your plotlines are actually original and mine at least are loosely based on actual events. Adaptations are much easier to write than good original compositions, in my opinion. I'm always impressed by the new plots for each generation and how you keep things interesting.

[lauriempress.livejournal.com]

Umm, all I can say at the moment is wow. Okay it's not all I can say but it somes it up very nicely. I really enjoyed this look into them. They are some of the most complex characters out there. And I think that is why we all want more. I can see where it would make you tired though.

Lauri

[dgjamie.livejournal.com]

Loved reading this. I've never read Paradise Lost, I tried but it was Dad's old Copy from when he was and English Major at University and I kept getting distracted by his notes in the margins. Anyway, I loved the association you've drawn between him and Satan.

I thought it was interesting that Cecilia is meant to play the role of Sin since she is supposed to the epitome of Squeaky Clean and Virtue for her father. Though of course she strays from that when she defies him I guess.

And Max being Death was wonderfully appropriate.

[legionary27.livejournal.com]

I didn't read Paradise Lost so I didn't know all the symbolism that went into the three characters. Well done!

I guess the question I'd have with Cecil, is in spite of everything that has happened, what would he do if confronted with the choice of ruling an Empire or basically rezzing Cecilia, since her current form is pretty much non existent upstairs. Would he save his daughter or choose to further his goals. I think Max would save his mother but Cecil, I'm not as sure.

Don't worry about stealing from a blind man. That story of Sin's birth is almost Greek Mythology-ist, so Milton was far from blameless.

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

Ah. Now, I can't answer that, of course, without mentioning when we go from here.

One of Milton's goals was to take classical myth and epic and Christianize them, so he gives his own spin on things like the birth of Athena.

[kitanasnape.livejournal.com]

So that’s it! When I read part of Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost earlier this month, I *knew* I’d recently read the phrase “injured merit.” I dismissed it as something from Screwtape, but it was you and Cecil!

The connection between Cecil and Satan makes a lot of sense. Now that you mention it, I can see it, though I’m not surprised I didn’t make the connection earlier since I’ve never read Paradise Lost. As for Cecil never making evil his goodness, one of the themes I’ve noticed from Lewis is that evil is just good slightly bent. I think that describes Cecil pretty well. He takes what’s a virtue—Squeaky Cleanness—and takes it to such extremes that it’s turned him into the antagonist or whatever of his family.

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

Yup. There's a lot of *Screwtape* in my writing of Cecil, too. Can't say more, but basically, you are right on the money.

[peasant007.livejournal.com]

Never, in a million years, would I have thought that reading a bunch of "little sim stories" would lead to a thought provoking literature journey. In one way, it's good, for it broadens my horizons; in another way not so good, because I have no patience for lyrical prose (I would far rather have it performed for me than for me to actually read it. AP British Lit in school was very painful, but I loved going on the field trips to Spring Green to see Shakesphere).

Thank you for the meta on Cecil, it was a very interesting read. I always hold out for the fact that Cecil will eventually break away from the PL mold you have for him, but it's becoming redily apparent that he very well may not. I am also thanking my lucky stars (again) that I decided against ever having him in my story. I would be too tempted to make him human. Also, I have enough exhausting characters to write for...

[profbutters.livejournal.com]

I actually much prefer drama to poetry. You can't get a degree in English Ren. Lit without Milton, though, and it grew on me.

Cecil does have a "flaw," though, and that is his genuine love for his daughter. And of course, he's not utterly demonic. I have some other models for him, too; it's just that that is a big one.

[smoothiesims.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed reading this, Prof. I don't think it shows where your going with Cecil at all, unless that reflects Paradise Lost further, and I haven't read it anyway.

It's great to hear some of what inspired you for Cecil's plotline, anyway, and I know I've definitely been wanting you to talk about him more. It is hard to do that without ruining the enigma he is, especially since you're still using him full-time, but I think you pulled it off. Plus it's always fun to get inside your head for a little and see what you're thinking. I think you've been getting better and better over the generations at pulling character and plot threads together.

[lauriempress.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking today. In some ways Cecil reminds me of another poem as well. "A Dream Deferred" by Langston Hughes.

Lauri

[hooptytrib.livejournal.com]

Wow PB, thank you so much for posting this. I had a real craving for some behind the scenes analysis, and this is just a wee bit of a gold mine.

Re-reading is going to be a blast, especially now. Frankly, after reading the first time mid-earthquake I could go for some recollection in tranquility.

And MALT! That's what I'm talkin' about! Da fricken' MALT!

[penguingirl03.livejournal.com]

Finally had a chance to read this and like everyone before me I have to say wow! I love how deeply thought out Cecil is as a character, and by connection Cecilia and Max. Of course I have never read Milton so I would never had made these connections and I won't be able to predict where you are going with this either, but I really enjoyed learning about it!