11/29/11

"Had the trial happened? Had anything ever happened? But the savage pain in my arms told me that everything had happened.
And then, out of that pain, the sheer physical torture, I began to understand. I was Iago; but I was also crucified. The crucified Iago. Crucified by... the metamorphoses of Lily ran wildly through my brain, like maenads, hunting some blindness, some demon in me down" (pg. 530 The Magus).

Iago

Iago is one of Shakespeare's most complex villains. In the beginning of the play Othello, Iago seems to be pure evil but as the play moves on you realize that he is not an immoral person, he just lacks all sort of feeling. Iago became envious of Cassio's newly acquired position. Iago feels that he is the only one worthy of the position. He cheats, steals and kills until he gains the position he desires. Only a person that does things without feeling or thinking of the consequences can commit such terrible acts.

Nicolas feels like he has been the trickster throughout the God game but at the trial he is shown that in actuality, everyone has bamboozled him. Nicolas realizes that he hasn't been the one running the show and this bothers him a lot. He is so caught up in how smart he is and how he thinks he can never be fooled, that he lets Conchis and all of his followers deceive him. Niclolas' narcissistic personality exposed him to ridicule and put him in a vulnerable spot. Being so smart, he could not comprehend the fact he was tricked. The "truth" about Lilly was so devastating. Nicolas explains that the idea of Lilly raced through his brain like the maenads. The maenads were the followers of Dionysus. These people were often in a state of a delirious craze which occurred from being quite intoxicated while dancing around. These people would lose all sense of self control. They would shout uncontrollably, engage in sexual activity, and even sometimes commit the ritual of hunting and tearing animals and humans to pieces. Dionysus' followers became possessed by him and would lose all sense of reality, which apparently Nicolas felt like. He could make no sense out of what had happened to him for the last couple of days. He was drugged multiple times and only had what Conchis and others told him, to believe as reality.