Discussion Main / Pride

I've moved this Real Life example here because it's a contentious one. We don't actually know if the North Korean dictators genuinely believe their own propaganda, or if it's just an act to maintain power.

• Kim Jong Il. His propaganda convinces North Korean citizens that he and his late father created the world and control the weather. If pride were a tangible substance he would have burst at the seams.
  • Then again, propaganda itself is not equivalent to pride. Given the fact that North Korea is not a rich country by any measure of the word, this could be seen as a way to maintain his position

Originally the Dr Doom entry was 321 words long, which is probably too many for a single example character. I simplified — we can probably get the ideas across with less. Here is the original for reference.

• Pride is probably, if not most definitely, the defining trait of Dr Doom, and a large part of his life running the course it has is a result of it. The accident that resulted in his face being damaged was because Doom was too arrogant to believe Reed Richards found an error in his calculations he overlooked and went about the experiment that ended disastrously. The minor scar Doom received he saw as horribly disfiguring due to his vanity, and in desperation to hide it he ended up really messing his face up, and was unable to even admit to himself of his mistake in either instance. The fact that he is a supervillain is largely due to his lust for power rooted in his belief that he should be second to no one, and his ongoing rivalry with Richards is rooted in Doom's need to prove himself the superior man and scientist, as well as just plain hating him venomously because he couldn't forgive Reed for being right when he was wrong, eventually reaching the point where he blames every single problem with his life on Reed Richards, unable to accept the idea that a person as great as believes himself to be could ever make a bad decision and convinced that Reed is constantly plotting to destroy his life out of jealousy. It is also due to his hubris that Doom feels it is in his right to conquer the world, as he believes he could do a better job of running it then anyone (though to his credit, in instances where he did conquer Earth he actually did a good job of backing those claims up). In fact, if Doom were even slightly less proud he'd have become Earth's greatest hero as one What If? story posited, although this Doom was still defined by his pride, which ultimately proved to be his Fatal Flaw.

Most of this entry discusses variations of the myth where Medusa isn't an example. In the main page I reduced it to the single (famous) version (Ovid's Retcon) where she is.

• Though mythology is chock full of these, a notable one is Medusa, a priestess of Aphrodite. Depending on the version, she either had sex with Poseidon in a temple of Aphrodite, or out and out said she was prettier. She got turned into one of the Gorgons by Aphrodite because of it.
  • This is true only in regard of one version of myth, because in another one she was a titaness raped by Poseidon due to her beauty and turned to her horrible form due to anger and grief. And this has nothing to do with pride.
    • Alternately, she was raped by Poseidon inside a temple, and was cursed for daring to profane the temple by having sex inside it (and, knowing Greek myth, because Aphrodite was angry and couldn't get back at Poseidon himself).
  • It's worse for her sisters, Stheno and Euryale — in one version, they helped her sneak into the temple, but in the other, they did absolutely nothing wrong or proud. They still got changed. Of course, the gods in Greek mythology are all huge jerks...
    • Medusa was changed into a Gorgon by Athena for indiscretions in the temple, not Aphrodite—-hence the reason Athena sends Perseus on the quest to obtain Medusa's head (so Athena could place it on her shield to petrify her enemies). So Poseidon raped Medusa in Athena's temple, and since the Goddess couldn't punish her uncle, she punished the woman instead. Some accounts claim that Athena was already jealous of Medusa and just wanted to curse her, but as with all myths, varying tales are impossible to reconcile.