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Kamela Miles's avatar

I love your take on hero vs. villain and how both are important to the epic as we know it. Grendel was just following his place in the epic and we don't get to see his side of the story. I felt sympathetic with Grendel's mother most of all. If we strip her completely of her monster status that the epic illustrates her as, I think we can see her as a human being as Morton suggests. Was Grendel a greedy being who inflicted violence horribly on other beings? Yes? Did he also have a mother who showed her love and despair when he was killed? Yes. This is why I also don't fault her for taking out one of the most important people to Hrothgar because arguably, the most important person was taken from her.

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Emma Holm's avatar

I love your line "Beowulf and Grendel both die." How final, stark, and true; their ends are the same, so why not treat them the same? I like your line of thinking here, how cyclical history and literature is, and while we've heard the "history is told by the winners" speech time and time again, you push us to think about the inner-workings of the cycle and the consequences of a broader lens. Thank you for your thoughts!

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