Bloodlust Revolution

He says there is a "blood lust" in the country, encouraged by propaganda, deceit and a President with "a messiah complex. Religion is an incredibly powerful force in this overwhelmingly Catholic country, and many of its adherents here attend Mass regularly. Because if this continues it will destroy us as a country, as a nation," Picardal says. This criticism from within the Catholic Church has not gone unnoticed by the notoriously outspoken President, with Duterte delivering an escalating set of verbal attacks against the Church in recent weeks.

Last week, he called it "full of shit," accusing bishops of corruption and womanizing during a speech to the family members of slain special forces. According to CNN affiliate, CNN Philippines , he also said priests should help him by speaking out about addiction instead of attacking him on the issue of extrajudicial killings. He brought up the child abuse scandals that have plagued the church, asking "What will you do about homosexuality in the seminary? What have you done to minors there? Still, that has not dampened approval for the President's campaign against illegal drugs.

While many of the faithful approve of the crackdown on drugs, Picardal believes they oppose the killings themselves. He says policeman have begun to come to confession with troubled consciences. Still, he concedes the drug war has its supporters.

Some ordinary Filipinos, he thinks, have lost their way. He ministers regularly to victims' families. He's no stranger to their pain, since his own mother was murdered more than 20 years ago by members of the Philippines' constabulary. He went on to live a life devoted to activism:.

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Picardal was part of a commission that investigated extra-judicial killings in Davao, Duterte's hometown. In , after dictator Ferdinand Marcos instituted martial law, Picardal was arrested while handing out fliers urging people to resist the regime. It is a pressure that builds, explodes, and then carries everyone along with it.

I am a big fan of the subject of Revolution. The modern era began with a series of political revolutions, from the enlightenment to the American and French revolutions. The rule of kings, despots, emperors, and Theocrats was wiped away — not completely, of course, but pretty convincingly. For some time Fantasy seemed to shy away from the subject of Revolution. Rebellion, yes, but serious social upheaval, struggle, and reform? There are several reason for this in my mind.

The first is that revolution is generally associated with urbanization, which is something that the early authors of the genre either had trouble selling or simply shied away from with notable exceptions.

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Another is that for a revolution to ring true it cannot be cast as a black and white events. A rebellion casting down a Dark Lord is not a revolution, it is a myth, an uprising, a tale of justice being done, and rebels fighting the good fight. A revolution is a brutal, deeply human affair that pits the followers of one paradigm against another, and often leads to great upheaval and tragedy even for the winners.

The complexity and brutality of a revolution requires a writer to lovingly create a society, one that has merits as well as flaws, to ring true and then to add stresses to it until it explodes. Recently, however, Fantasy authors have begun to tackle the idea of revolution. Personally, I think that much of this willingness to tackle mire difficult ideas comes from the broader readership that Fantasy has.

With a more developed, larger readership, writers can afford to be more daring in seeking out their niche. As my neighbors south of the border celebrated their independence day, revolution was very much on my mind. Not just because to the nature of the revolution that led to American independence, but also due to current events. Over the weekend I was amazed to see pictures of the latest rounds of protests in Egypt, larger and more impressive than ever before. Someone noted that it was the largest revolutionary gathering in history.

The protests in Brazil might give them a run for their money though. And all this after the traditional media wrote off Egypt with pithy narratives about the inevitable failure of the Arab spring. Egypt has shown true democratic backbone, and while the outcome is still in doubt I am impressed. We could use a little of that here in Canada, methinks.

All of this brought revolution to my mind. There are few actions that encompass conflict in the modern day more thoroughly than a revolution.

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• Priest speaks out against Duterte's War on Drugs - CNN;

When systems, beliefs, and states fall apart a revolution is the result these days, more often than an invasion. It is a topic that every modern writer should consider. I often muse that the one truly successful trait of modern Democracy is that it harnesses the forces that give birth to revolutions, giving citizens the chance to oust governments and force change on a regular basis.

And while political parties and other groups may exploit and attempt to control the system these efforts can only bottle up the people for so long. All of the clash and rhetoric with less blood, I guess. Revolutions are great fodder for Modern Fantasy. They have much of the action of a war story, the politics and intrigue of a thriller, high-minded rhetoric, and deep, dark cynicism.

A tale of revolution can be one about individuals caught in the tide of change or about those trying to pull the strings or lead from the front. The revolution can be inspiring and heroic, or bloody and ultimately doomed to fail. A revolution can also be an excellent backdrop for a novel, providing the kind of chaos that can act as a catalyst for a story with a more intimate focus. In pastoral fantasy, especially those set in the middle ages, magic is the province of the learned. What if there was some sort of equivalent to the enlightenment, which began the spread of literacy and reason to all, with magic?

The conflict between the common magic-users and the great and mighty aristocrats of sorcery could be very interesting. Almost every tale with a Vampire protagonist has some sort of conflict between the younger, more modern Vampires and the older generations leading to a revolution of sorts. This is a common use, the latest version of which we can see in the Dragon Age series where magic-users are considered dangerous and subject to terribly harsh rules.

The idea is that magic-users are restricted and inevitably seek to use their power freely, and thus a revolution is born.

Gavin does lean this way in Bloodlust at times. A mystical aristocracy strikes me as an interesting idea. It makes perfect sense if magic-use is inherited and the power structure is feudal. In this case the people find some sort of equalizer that brings them on to equal footing with the mages which slides into revolution.

Mages make great villains. Maybe some types of magic are banned, while others flourish. This creates a conflict between the various types of magic which can lead to an uprising t against the oppressive force.

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The side that wins gets to determine what magic is acceptable. I could see a great book in here about advocates of Dark Magic rebelling against the light or vice versa. Class warfare is the go-to catalyst for revolutions of all types. Fantasy offers plenty of racism, class-hatred, and grit for this sort of scenario. Class warfare in a fantasy environment would likely play out similar to the way it does in the real world.

Regardless of the scenario, revolution offers a writer an exciting backdrop or a great central conflict. However, crafting a believable, interesting revolution for your fantasy world requires a great deal of work. Simple revolutions tend to come off as trite commentary on real world politics. In a Fantasy revolution it is best to ground the act with deep world-building. Here are some things to consider:. People who are willing to get up and revolt often have a long list of grievances, built up over some time.

The revolution often seems sudden because some event triggers it. What is this trigger? We have the courts and elections, for example. It would be hard to imagine a full scale revolution while both of those function properly. What mechanisms have broken down in your world?

Have the elders been corrupted? Is the oracle broken? Have the the gods abandoned men? Has the King gone mad and started a crazy war? In almost all revolutions there are self-interested bastards who will try to take advantage.