I was in high school when The Hunger Games became the worldwide phenomenon that it was. It seems like a distant memory now, but there really was a time when the novels and the movie adaptations were the height of popular culture.

I wrote in another post about the political theory implicit in the original trilogy, which I will not rehash here. For this piece, I want to turn to Suzanne Collins’ prequel novel, The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, published in 2020 and released as a movie in 2023, well after the limelight of the original trilogy of dystopian novels.

I was introduced to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by my now-wife, an avid Hunger Games fan, shortly after we started dating. Intrigued, I decided to listen to the audiobook. I will admit, though I am suspicious of popular culture franchises (I blame my contrarian streak), I enjoyed the book. I enjoyed it in large part because it feels so different from the original trilogy of books.

To be sure, there are some similarities — Ballad is set in the same world as the Hunger Games trilogy and depicts, among other things, a Hunger Games where one of the tributes (and the ultimate victor) is a young woman from District 12. It also shows the depressing state of a world rocked by climate catastrophe, civil war, and economic inequality.

That’s roughly, however, where the similarities end. At 528 pages, Ballad is noticeably longer than any other book in the franchise. Moreover, it shows the world of Panem in its relative infancy, set a full 64 years before the first book and depicting the Hunger Games at only a decade old. If anything, the catastrophes of the world of Panem are fresher (especially the civil war, which ended only a decade before the plot) in Ballad.

Most telling of all, though, is that while the original trilogy of novels had a strong narrative arc with plenty of memorable characters, Ballad is different. In a style reminiscent of a Dostoevsky novel, Ballad is driven less by plot than it is by a singular character. It is, in a very real sense, a lengthy psychological portrait of one man: a young Coriolanus Snow. Snow, the scion of a patrician family fallen on hard times with truly Napoleonic ambitions, spends the novel building his own psychology into the President Snow of the original trilogy.

As a fan of Dostoevsky and psychological portrayals in literature, I found myself enjoying the surprising degree of literary sophistication Ballad has. However, this would not be one of my pieces if I did not focus on the politics implicit in the novel. As I read the development of Coriolanus’ worldview, I found echo after echo of the political thought of Thomas Hobbes as famously expressed in Leviathan, and I slowly came to realize that, in the kind of leader Coriolanus Snow becomes, we see a depiction of the dark side of the Hobbesian articulation of social contract theory.

The Hobbesian Background

Few works of political philosophy are as famous as Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651), published against the backdrop of the apocalyptic conflict of the Thirty Years War (1618–1648) on the European continent and the English Civil War (1642–1651) in Hobbes’ homeland. Hobbes is perhaps most influential in the history of political thought for his new, thoroughly modern articulation of human nature and the origins of social life, marking a distinct departure from ancient and medieval thought on the same subject.

To paint with extremely broad strokes, Hobbes argued that human beings are defined first and foremost by their desires, both for the things that they need for survival but also for those things that they find pleasurable. In a state of nature, without the constraints of society, law, or social norms, human beings will enter into competition with one another for the objects of their desires.

The net result of that state of affairs is a natural war among human beings, a fundamentally self-destructive existence which Hobbes famously summarized as being “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

The misery of humanity’s natural state calls out for a remedy. The remedy, Hobbes argues, is the social contract. The mechanism works something like this: human beings, desiring to escape their misery, form a compact among each other to form a power exercised by a sovereign over themselves (note that, contrary to how contemporary parlance uses the term, the Hobbesian social contract establishes political power and therefore cannot be made with those exercising political power). In doing so, they forfeit virtually all of their natural rights and privileges to the sovereign. Thus empowered, the sovereign will exercise extensive powers to reduce conflict among human beings, enabling the emergence of civil society and all its trappings.

At its most basic, the Hobbesian social contract establishes an overawing state which, through its power, holds human beings otherwise prone to conflict in check. Hobbes advises that this power be exercised with as much gentleness and amity as possible, but also recognizes that the task of sovereign political power is, in its essence, a harsh one. If the sovereign power should fail, falter, or be overthrown, the human beings it governs will return to the state of nature, a calamity for them. Thus, in moments of crisis and danger, harsh measures can be justified to stave off conflict, rebellion, and revolution.

The Frosty Heart of Coriolanus Snow

Let us return once again to The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. Examining the sketch of Hobbesian social contract theory above, we can see how the worldview which Coriolanus flirts with throughout the novel before fully embracing it at the end is Hobbesian to the core.

We must remember, first and foremost, that Coriolanus was a child during the last war between the Capitol and the Districts. He remembers the days when the Capitol was under siege, and the hardscrabble, cannibalistic existence that resulted. He is thus keenly aware of the fragility of the order in which he lives and how much misery will result from its collapse. Coriolanus in his own life experience sees that a strong Capitol is the only antidote to chaos.

But there is more still to his worldview. Coriolanus certainly sees resistance and political rebellion as a recipe for chaos and human suffering, but he also clearly considers that human beings will naturally tend towards chaos unless they are kept in check.

In this view, he clearly bears the mark of his mentor and political patron, Dr. Volumnia Gaul. Shown only in Ballad as a head game maker, Gaul makes no secret of her view that the Hunger Games serve to do more than just punish the Districts for their rebellion. Instead, in Gaul’s view, the Games show human beings at their most natural. If you take a group of human beings, especially supposedly innocent children, and put them in an environment where there are few if any rules except survive, with the winner getting the fulfillment of their desire to live and return home, they will barely hesitate barely to behave like animals.

This view of human nature is very similar to the one expressed by the Joker in The Dark Knight, which he tries to have played out in real life in the scene with the two ferries. Each ferry is loaded with explosives, and each ferry has the detonator for the other. All one ferry has to do is blow up the other one, and its occupants get to live. In The Dark Knight, the Joker’s anthropology is partially repudiated when both ferries refuse to blow the other up.

Such repudiation is in short supply in Ballad. Over the course of the novel, Coriolanus has to enter the arena himself to extract one of his acquaintances. He barely survives the experience, and has to kill one of the tributes to escape. From that time on, he does little to question that human beings are naturally dangerous, and that consequently their nature has to be held in check by a strong hand. He states his principles quite plainly in his monologue near the end of the novel when he tells Gaul that he now understands, after his time in the Districts as a Peacekeeper, that all the world is an arena. The Hunger Games, to Coriolanus, serve as a warning not just to the Districts against further rebellion, but also to the privileged residents of the Capitol as to what they face if their rule ever fails. We are, in short, back at Hobbes — for the social contract to be good, it must be evil for the state to be challenged.

Conclusion

Thus, the political anthropology of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes shows us a darker side to the social contract theory, some version of which is familiar to many of us from school. If we truly accept that human beings are, at their core, competitive to the point of war with each other if left to their own devices, then human beings cannot be trusted with freedom.

Consequently, the basic process that removes human beings from that condition (i.e. the establishment of the sovereign power via the social contract) is a positive good which must be safeguarded at all costs. In the course of his development as a character in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes and in the actions he takes later in the original Hunger Games trilogy, we see that Coriolanus Snow has swallowed this worldview whole. It is the best way to make sense of his cruelty, his preference for the iron fist, and his utter refusal to tolerate any resistance or even disrespect of his regime.

Of course, in its own way, the master plot of the Hunger Games world gives the lie to Snow’s worldview. Though the characters of that world live in an era where they remember a troubled history of violence and chaos and might have greater preference for strong authority, Katniss Everdeen shows that human beings will not always become murderous if left to their own devices — even in the primal conditions of the arena, they are still capable of compassion, friendship, and solidarity with each other. These are bases for social life entirely dismissed in the Hobbesian view, and their triumph is Snow’s undoing.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

The Politics of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes was originally published in The Masterpiece on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Asian Honeymoon Really Buffs Your Stats

It is remarkable how dramatically an 11-day honeymoon to Japan and the Marianas really buffs one’s flying stats.

Unlike last year, when my flying got off to a rocky start in the first quarter due to not flying for work, the first quarter of this year has been marked by frequent work flights. However, the numbers below are really driven by the honeymoon my wife and I took in Tokyo and Guam in January. Two transpacific flights prove to be potent outlier data points! Instead of being the driver of my air travel this quarter, my work travel is instead playing the role of the icing on top.

Without further ado, here are a few noteworthy totals for my travel in the air as of the end of the first quarter of 2025:

• Total flights: 26
• Total US domestic flights: 22
• Total international flights (i.e. flights with an origin and/or destination outside the US): 4
• Total miles flown: 22,153 (0.9 times around Earth)
• Total airports visited: 8
• Total countries visited: 4 (if you count Guam as a separate entity given its status as a US territory — the Flighty app also places it in Oceania, though it looks like whether Guam is part of Asia or Oceania is disputed)
• Time spent on flights: 66h 8m
• Average flight time: 2h 32m
• Most flown airline by flights: Delta Air Lines (21 flights)
• Most flown airline by distance: American Airlines (7,225 miles)
• Top 3 airports by number of visits: Cincinnati (CVG) — 21 visits, Detroit (DTW) — 19 visits, Tokyo (NRT) — 3 visits
• Time lost to delays: 11h
• Cumulative Arrival Performance: 6h 50m late
• Most-flown aircraft type: Bombardier CRJ900 (19 flights)
• Cabin class breakdown: Economy: 3 flights (12%), Premium Economy: 19 flights (73%), Business: 1 flight (4%), First: 3 flights (12%)

Here are a few standout flights:

• Longest flight taken by distance: American Airlines 61 from Dallas (DFW) to Tokyo (NRT) — 6,413 miles (and a new all time record for me)
• Longest flight taken by time: American Airlines 61 from Dallas (DFW) to Tokyo (NRT) — 15h 11mins (also a new all time record for me — and since it was some time before we were able to push back from the gate in Dallas, we actually spent closer to 17 hours on the plane)
• Shortest flight taken by distance: Delta Air Lines 5060 from Detroit (DTW) to Cincinnati (CVG) — 228 miles
• Shortest flight taken by time: Delta Air Lines 5060 from Detroit (DTW) to Cincinnati (CVG) — 1h

Stay tuned for new numbers next quarter!

Airline, Hotel, Rental Car Status Updates

Airlines: At the end of last year, I earned Platinum Medallion status with Delta. While I have not gotten as many first class upgrades as I had hoped (though I have gotten some), I am making heavy use of the perk to upgrade myself into Comfort Plus for free after ticketing. That perk has been extremely useful. I am also liking the rate at which I earn SkyMiles (9 per dollar spent on airfare). We will see how the status perks experience develops over the course of the rest of the year. I am already set with completed MQDs and MQDs booked (but not yet flown) to earn Gold Medallion for 2026. With months of work travel yet to be booked, I expect to re-qualify for Platinum Medallion handily.

Hotels: It is only the end of the first quarter of the year, and I am already over halfway to re-qualifying for Hyatt Globalist status (60 total nights required) through February 2027. I expect to hit and exceed that benchmark this year with no difficulty due to staying at Hyatts for work travel.

Rental Cars: As usual, I maintain Executive Elite status with National.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

Strong Finish

As referenced in my first quarter air travel retrospective of the year, I started 2024 quite nervous about how much flying I would actually do. Now that 2024 is drawing to a close, I am pleased to report that my worry was unfounded. I have no doubts I am pretty unique in logging my flights while not being a pilot, but the occasional data nerd in me delights in looking at my flying activity over an entire year.

While I did not fly as many flights or as far in 2024 as in 2023, I had a remarkable number of flights, many of them short hops on regional jets. Those are certainly not my favorite, but are still quite manageable on short hops.

All the same, 2024 took a solid second place in most flown years for me.

Here are a few noteworthy totals for my travel in the air for 2024 with comparison to 2023:

• Total flights: 84 (98 in 2023)
• Total US domestic flights: 81 (94 in 2023)
• Total international flights (i.e. flights with an origin and/or destination outside the US): 3 (4 in 2023)
• Total miles flown: 40,087 (1.6 times around Earth) (62,366 miles and 2.5x around Earth in 2023)
• Total airports visited: 18 (21 in 2023)
• Total countries visited: 4 (4 in 2023)
• Time spent on flights: 132h 39m (194h 28m in 2023)
• Average flight time: 1h 34m (1h 59m in 2023)
• Most flown airline by flights: Delta Air Lines with 74 (Delta with 59 in 2023)
• Most flown airline by distance: Delta Air Lines at 32,126 miles (Delta at 24,626 miles in 2023)
• Top 3 airports by number of visits: Cincinnati (CVG), 69 (Cincinnati with 37 in 2023); Detroit (DTW), 54 (Detroit and Milwaukee with 35 each in 2023); Denver (DEN) and Minneapolis (MSP), 8 (Dallas/Fort Worth with 28 in 2023)
• Time lost to delays: 6 hours (32 hours in 2023)
• Cumulative Arrival Performance: 7h 2m early (20h 45m late in 2023)
• Most-flown aircraft type: Bombardier CRJ-900 (Boeing 737–800 in 2023)
• Cabin class breakdown: Economy: 40 Flights (49%) (45 flights/60% in 2023); Premium Economy: 31 Flights (38%) (23 flights/31% in 2023); Business: 0 Flights (0%) (0 flights/0% in 2023); First: 11 Flights (13%) (7 flights/9% in 2023)

Here are a few standout flights:

• Longest flight taken by distance: Delta Air Lines 229 from CDG to CVG — 4,145 miles (In 2023 it was Air France 159 from DFW to CDG — 4,937 miles)
• Longest flight taken by time: Delta Air Lines 229 from CDG to CVG — 8h 48m (In 2023 it was British Airways 193 from LHR to DFW — 10h 37m)
• Shortest flight taken by distance: Delta Air Lines 5060 from DTW to CVG — 228 miles (In 2023 it was United 4785 from ORD to MKE — 67 miles)
• Shortest flight taken by time: Delta Air Lines 5060 from DTW to CVG — 57m (In 2023 it was Delta Air Lines 1720 from DTW to CVG — 51m)

Stay tuned for new numbers each quarter of 2025!

Airline, Hotel, Rental Car Status Updates

Airlines: This year I completed enough MQDs with Delta Air Lines to earn Platinum Medallion status, which makes me very excited. I was able to reach Platinum through a combination of work travel, personal travel, and a handful of paid upgrades. Given that I expect to continue flying Delta for work and personal trips in 2025, this status will be extremely valuable to me. I especially expect to get a lot of use out of the ability to pick a Comfort Plus seat shortly after ticketing a Main Cabin ticket.

Hotels: With careful use of some points around a short local stay I needed to complete, I ended up at the 60 qualifying nights with Hyatt needed to earn their coveted Globalist status. This will be my first time holding top tier status with any hotel chain and I expect to make great use of it on trips in 2025.

Rental Cars: As usual, I maintain Executive Elite status with National.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

One of the Best Habits I Have Chosen

As someone who publishes on this platform and comes from an academic background, I have done a good deal of writing. That writing often proceeds according to some process like this: I sit down, knowing I have something to write or want to write something as a mental exercise. I then struggle to get started, doing what I can to focus. In some cases, I fail to do so, falling victim to distractions and procrastination. In fewer cases, I succeed, and what starts as a small trickle of words accelerates as the thoughts begin to flow, and usually after a surprisingly long period of time, I have written a large quantity of words.

To put it straightforwardly, when it rains, it pours. When it doesn’t pour, it’s a desert.

I’ve spent a good amount of time dissatisfied with that inconsistency and hoping I could introduce more regularity to my writing output. I suspected that part of the problem lay in the irregularity of my taking time to write. Writing was not part of my daily life, and because of that gap it was something I typically had to force or rely on momentary whims.

I believed I could short circuit this difficulty by building a daily writing habit, by making writing a normal part of my mental processes.

I started that habit a few months ago, around the time I started writing for Medium more seriously. I can’t say that I have kept to it rigorously. Nevertheless, I have had several months of keeping it going more or less strong. The habit has helped make my writing more organic, but has also produced other benefits. Below, I want to outline several side effects of my writing habit that lead me to recommend such a habit to others.

1. Writing Regularly Clarifies My Thinking

If you are anything like me, you spend a lot of time in your own head. That can be powerful, as it lends oneself to deep thought on complicated questions. However, it can also be a problem because one’s stream of consciousness is not always coherent or, frankly, rational.

How often have you had an idea that seems excellent in your head, only to talk through it out loud with someone and realize that it makes precisely zero sense? A similar process happens with writing out ideas. Putting your thoughts to paper or a keyboard forces you to clarify and articulate your thinking in ways that are actually comprehensible. For those of us prone to getting stuck in our heads, that clarification is priceless.

2. Writing Regularly Makes Me More Curious

Writing is a skill, and like many skills, it is similar to a muscle — it gets stronger with practice and refined techniques. That also means it can atrophy with disuse over time.

Aside from being a skill, writing is also a tool. Like most tools, wielding it influences how you think about the world and the objects towards which you use the tool.

Imagine taking a person who has never used a hammer and then telling them to drive a nail into a wall. They might be able to do it, but with great strain and difficulty. If you then gave this person a hammer and asked them to complete the same task, there might be some initial troubles, but that person would quickly become much better at driving nails. As the skill improves, that person will eventually start to look for other nails to drive and other uses for a hammer in their lives.

That last part is key. In writing repeatedly to strengthen the skill muscle, I look for more things to write about, be that stories to tell, facts to explain, etc. Building a writing habit thus spurs curiosity, and a curious mind is a critical skill throughout life.

3. Good Writing is a Valuable and Increasingly Rare Skill

Nothing has shaped our world quite so much as the ease of communications that now exists in virtually all corners of the globe. There are certainly costs to this ease of communication, which I cannot exhaustively lay out here.

However, one of the costs, it is increasingly clear, of that ease is actually a cheapening of the quality of communications materials. Good writing with smooth prose and strong diction is a growing rarity these days because writing and publishing have come to require very little effort. There are certainly some benefits to such low barriers, but sloppy communication helps no one.

On the contrary, our human need to communicate clearly and effectively is perennial. The value of clear communication, be it for relationships, business, or anything else, is endemic to the human condition and changes little with time or circumstances.

That basic condition presents an opportunity to those who can still write and communicate effectively. There is more appreciation and accolades (not to mention more value) to be had for good writing. In setting up a writing habit and frequently strengthening that skill, I believe I am taking advantage of this opportunity, and I encourage others to do the same.

Conclusion

After a few months of writing more frequently for Medium and building a daily writing habit to support it, I can heartily recommend those who do not already have this habit to start one. Not only has it helped make me a better writer, it has made me a better thinker and enabled better engagement with other ideas and people. In a world increasingly lacking in those skills, rebuilding them is not only a personal good, but a social one as well.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

Building a Writing Habit was originally published in The Masterpiece on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Continuing Strong

As hard as it is to believe, 2024 is already 75% complete. The march of time goes ever onward! With the end of another quarter, it is time for another check in on my year in flying so far!

After a rough start to my year of air travel and a strong quickening of the pace in the second quarter, I am pleased to say that my air travel has continued at a strong pace in the third quarter of the year. That strong pace has been driven largely by continued work travel, but several notable personal trips have also taken place.

Here are a few noteworthy totals for my travel in the air for 2024 as of the end of the third quarter:

• Total flights: 56
• Total US domestic flights: 53
• Total international flights (i.e. flights with an origin and/or destination outside the US): 3
• Total miles flown: 30,351 (1.2 times around Earth)
• Total airports visited: 14
• Total countries visited: 4
• Time spent on flights: 95h 35m
• Average flight time: 1h 42m
• Most flown airline by flights: Delta Air Lines (48)
• Most flown airline by distance: Delta Air Lines (23,091 miles)
• Top 3 airports by number of visits: Cincinnati (CVG) — 48 visits, Detroit (DTW) — 38 visits, Denver (DEN) — 6 visits
• Time lost to delays: 6 hours
• Cumulative Arrival Performance: 2h 33m early
• Most-flown aircraft type: Bombardier CRJ 900 (37 flights)
• Cabin class breakdown: Economy: 29 Flights (54%), Premium Economy: 23 Flights (43%), Business: 0 Flights (0%), First: 2 Flights (4%)

Here are a few standout flights:

• Longest flight taken by distance: Delta 229 Paris (CDG) to Cincinnati (CVG) — 4,145 miles
• Longest flight taken by time: Delta 229 Paris (CDG) to Cincinnati (CVG) — 8h 48m
• Shortest flight taken by distance: Delta 5060 Detroit (DTW) to Cincinnati (CVG) — 228 miles
• Shortest flight taken by time: Delta 5060 Detroit (DTW) to Cincinnati (CVG) — 57m

Stay tuned for updated numbers at the end of the year!

Airline, Hotel, Rental Car Status Updates

In a new section for these summaries, I also wanted to provide notes on where I stand in the search for status with travel providers.

For airlines, I achieved Medallion Gold status with Delta at the end of this quarter, the first time I have achieved this status. I am continuing to press hard for Platinum Medallion and believe I will reach it before the end of the year with remaining work travel and a couple of paid upgrades.

Since I have been staying in Hyatt hotels for work travel much of the year, I reached Hyatt Explorist status this past month. By my calculations, I expect to fall just a few nights short of Globalist, which is quite unfortunate.

For rental cars, I continue to maintain Executive Elite status with National.

That’s it for Q3! Stay tuned for a year in review in a few months!

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

I have, for some years now, been a great admirer of St. Thomas More. More has much to recommend him — he is one of the few figures of world history that can really lay claim to the title “Renaissance man.” More did not just live during the Renaissance, he had a remarkable mind that deeply penetrated a massive array of subjects and disciplines. More’s interests were diverse, from languages to history to theology. His practical pursuits also varied widely. More was, all at once, a scholar, a lawyer, and a statesman. Moreover, he showed immense promise in all three, rising to become Lord Chancellor of the Realm under Henry VIII (second only to the King in rank) and he has been a fruitful subject for scholarly research ever since.

Yet, for all his great accomplishments, there is a tragedy to More. He did not just live during the Renaissance, he lived during one of the most tumultuous periods of English history. Henry VIII, himself a kind of Renaissance man (though not as much as More), began his reign at a young age with great promise and was a man of great piety and devotion to his Catholicism. Yet, as we all know, Henry wavered over the course of his reign and ultimately led England into a breach with the Catholic Church over Henry’s desire to end his marriage to Catherine of Aragon.

More, though he had to tread cautiously in public, strenuously objected to Henry’s schism and seizure of authority over the Church of England. More’s accomplishments thus proved a double-edged sword — they made him a figure whose opposition, even suspected, to Henry’s moves could prove damaging to the King’s image and to More’s longevity. More thus spent the last years of his life harried by friends and officials to accept the new status quo in England. More refused and was ultimately beheaded for high treason. He has been canonized as a martyr by the Catholic Church, along with other martyrs who suffered under persecution by the Tudors.

I do not believe I have encountered a greater dramatization of this part of More’s life than the movie A Man for All Seasons, based on a play by Robert Bolt. One of the most widely acclaimed movies ever made, A Man for All Seasons won the Academy Award for Best Picture when it came out in 1966 and still has numerous devotees today.

Indeed, it is a thoroughly delightful movie to watch, with well-written dialogue (Bolt also wrote the screenplay), excellent set and costume design, a lively score, and stellar performances by the cast (especially Paul Scofield’s Academy Award-winning portrayal of Thomas More). What really makes the movie compelling, however, is its portrayal of a world frankly foreign to modern audiences. Virtually every character in the film is a political actor, but the form of political life portrayed is courtly, not legislative or executive, medieval not modern.

Calling the political life portrayed in the movie courtly is not, however, to say it is primitive. Quite the contrary, power is exercised in a highly complicated network of personalities with a delightful array of titles. This gives the setting of the film a strong degree of novelty in portraying an organization of social life so foreign to contemporary circumstances.

At the center of this whole network, though he only appears in a few scenes of the movie, is King Henry VIII. Henry, before the events of the film, married his brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon. Though the marriage was initially quite loving, Catherine and Henry’s many sons are stillborn or do not survive long after birth. The implications of this impasse are significant — contemporaries of the time would have remembered that dynastic instability had led to the Wars of the Roses, which tore England apart for decades before ending with Henry’s father’s victory at Bosworth Field in 1485. If the Tudor dynasty fails, there is the distinct possibility, raised by several figures in the film, that the realm could fall once again into civil war.

For numerous reasons, including his need for a male heir as well as a libido of truly epic proportions, Henry’s eyes begin to wander. They settle on Anne Boleyn, one of Queen Catherine’s maids of honor. An affair, a poorly kept secret, begins. Eventually, around the time of the film’s beginning, Henry decides he should divorce Catherine to marry Anne. The task is not simple, however, as Henry and Catherine’s marriage required a dispensation from the Pope in the first place (since Catherine was Henry’s brother’s widow). Henry, initially a faithful Catholic, uses the influence of Cardinal Wolsey, his Lord Chancellor, to lobby the Pope for a lifting of the dispensation and an annulment of his marriage to Catherine.

What drives the drama of the story and More’s tragic role is that Henry decides that nothing will get in the way of his determination to marry Anne. When Wolsey fails to secure the annulment Henry wants so ardently, Wolsey falls from grace and is shut away in a monastery to die. Henry comes up with several explanations for Wolsey’s failure, but appears to latch onto one in which Wolsey secretly opposed and obstructed the King’s measures. The king thus comes to see in Wolsey’s memory a cast of characters within his court that are secret traitors who will stop at nothing to undermine his reign. It is this paranoia and the need to seek and destroy treason that will consume many in Henry’s kingdom, including More.

In the short term, however, Henry turns to More on Wolsey’s advice to appoint More as the next Lord Chancellor. Though he clearly does not want the position, More dutifully answers his King’s call. It is clear, however, that Henry wants More to succeed where Wolsey failed and support the king’s efforts to secure an annulment. More refuses while doing his best to remain a faithful servant, hoping to avoid Henry’s ire. More states that he believes he is not competent to judge on the theological matter of a marriage’s lawfulness, preferring, as during Wolsey’s tenure, to defer to the Pope’s judgment.

Instead, Henry begins rallying support for a break with the Pope to lead a new English Church, which will declare his first marriage unlawful and allow him to marry Anne. Finally, the tide breaks — Parliament declares Henry Supreme Head of the Church in England, and the English Church gives Henry what he wants. After years of faithfully serving the King, including three as Chancellor, More resigns his office. While many question if More resigned in protest of Henry’s moves, More remans silent on the pressing questions, hoping to retire from public life to a quiet existence at his country house.

Part of what does More in, however, is that Henry clearly holds him in immensely high regard, as do many others in England and across Europe. In a speech he gives to More, Henry shows himself a shrewd observer of character. He names multiple characters as mindless followers, jackals (Cromwell, the movie’s main villain), or yes men (More’s friend the Duke of Norfolk), and these characterizations all bear out over the course of the story. Then, there is More, who stands alone in many ways. Henry knows More is an honest man, a good man, and that he is considered such in the realm. Thus, if jackals and yes men back Henry’s moves while honest men like More do not, there is a serious challenge to the king’s standing. Henry’s conscience can only be assuaged if More supports Henry’s actions, which More will not do.

Put otherwise, as long as More holds out on providing public support for Henry’s annulment and split with Rome, the possibility remains, perhaps even in Henry’s mind, that he is in the wrong. He thus corrals his influence, acts of Parliament, and loyal public servants to get More to give in. More is eventually brought to trial for treason for refusing to swear to Henry’s title as Supreme Head of the Church, and through jury tampering and a perjuring witness, More is convicted.

More’s Actions Throughout: A Model of Loyal Civil Disobedience

So much may be said about the drama of A Man for All Seasons. Of particular importance to this piece, however, is how More comports himself in the difficult years portrayed in the film. It is my contention that, while a model for civil disobedience, More goes about it in a way entirely foreign to modern sensibilities but also in a way that strikes one as heroic.

What makes More’s silent resistance to Henry’s rule different? In a word, obedience. What we see in More throughout the movie is a constant battle between the demands of different kinds of obediences. More’s famous line at the end is emblematic in this regard: “I die His Majesty’s good servant, but God’s first.” More’s foremost loyalty is clearly to God and his Catholic faith, secondly to his family, and third to his king. For much of his life, these loyalties did not conflict. Even when they do, as is the case with Henry’s marriages, More does all that he can to continue to fulfill all his duties well. In the above-mentioned conversation between Henry and More, More expresses truthfully how anguished he is over his inability to follow his king. More sees his duty to faithfully and competently serve Henry, and he is greatly dismayed that, at least in this area, his king is not pleased with him.

Yet, More believes that the sanctity of marriage and the union of the Church are higher goods and require that he suspend his allegiance to his king’s will. What sets More apart, then, is that his break is confined only to this area of the marriages and the Church of England. Henry’s trespasses do not, for More, vacate the king’s authority and the obedience owed to him.

As such, More goes about his opposition silently, not revealing his true thoughts nor letting others harm themselves by doing so. More wishes Henry, an unstable man prone to fits of temper, no harm — he neither seeks to depose nor circumvent him. Though More never says it explicitly, his actions show his belief that, instead of instituting radical, revolutionary change, human beings of good character can rest easy if they have done what they can to fulfill their duties and make their corner of the world a little better. Indeed, More expresses to his son-in-law that, in tearing up established law, revolutionary change will do more harm than good before one has the chance to realize it.

What makes More admirable is that he knows his kingdom is getting worse, but he still seeks to serve it as best as he can. More is at once a man of great courage and conviction while also being a man of great moderation. Even when he resigns as Lord Chancellor and his persecution by the royal authorities becomes more overt, More refuses to speak out in a way that would harm himself or ruin the king’s good name. He believes that this approach will be sufficient and that the authorities will leave him alone as a result.

In this, unfortunately, he is mistaken. As mentioned above, Henry is not content to have More silent, which only implies consent. Henry wants More’s open and public support. To force More’s hand, Henry’s servants instituted, by Act of Parliament, an oath of support for the king’s new title and the legitimacy of his heirs by his second marriage. By the act, refusal to take the oath constitutes high treason, punishable by death. More refuses to take the oath, and through the previously mentioned chicanery, is tried and convicted of said treason. It is only after his is condemned to death that More finally speaks his true mind, with its forceful view of the repugnance of Henry’s actions.

Through all the suffering of the last few years of his life, More thus remains a model of calm, good cheer, and patience. Many of us with modern sensibilities, when placed in More’s circumstances, would seek to cry out against the injustice of it all, perhaps even to try to overthrow Henry as a dangerous ruler. Indeed, many of More’s contemporaries would have had some experience or recollection of such actions, as the Wars of the Roses, fought not long before the events of A Man for All Seasons, saw the crown change heads several times.

Many of us, in short, would be like William Roper, More’s son-in-law. However, saying many of us would be Roper is not complimentary, as Roper is consistently portrayed as a hothead who, though intelligent, is prone to speaking before thinking and whose views vacillate wildly. Roper has little to ground him, and virtually every scene in which he appears has More chastising or correcting him in some fashion.

More, as the film’s hero, challenges our sensibilities with a different model of holding up under persecution and injustice, one which is deeply Christian but also uncomfortable even to this author. More clearly believes that his duty as a Christian and a subject of the king is to obey temporal authorities to the greatest extent possible, so long as they do not contradict loyalties to God and the Church.

At its best, such a sense of duty leads to moderate, competent statesmanship. At its worst, it can lead to an attitude that will tolerate some injustices for the sake of social peace. That prioritization is hard for modern readers, raised in a culture that prizes principled civil disobedience, to swallow. More clearly understands when an injustice takes place, but seems to want to content himself with doing what lies within his power to improve the surrounding situation.

While this attitude may appear to be acquiescence, I contend that it is actually a deeply grounded relationship with one’s own circumstances. More clearly understands his faculties and what actually lies in his power to improve. For a man who rises to such high office, More displays remarkably little ambition. He knows that he is, for all his brilliance and competence, still just a man, a man with limited foresight and horizons, who comes down to earth to guide the circumstances truly within his reach. The realism of this relationship to one’s circumstances is heroic, and one we could learn from in an age of artificially inflated senses of agency.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

The Politics of A Man for All Seasons was originally published in The Masterpiece on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jurassic Park holds a special place in my heart. It is a movie I have watched many times, and though on my first viewing (as a kid), I found the movie far too scary to finish, I have since come to appreciate just how much of a masterpiece it is.

It also holds a special place in my life. Jurassic Park is my fiancée’s favorite movie, and it was one of the first we watched together. She claims that the moment she knew she would marry me came while watching it together, as we completed lines before the actors onscreen did.

As with many IPs, the book is better than the movie, excellent though the movie may be. Nonetheless, it is the movie I will focus on for this piece.

Jurassic Park is a curious choice for an article about politics in movies, as there is really no politics in it. However, as readers of my previous pieces have likely parsed out, I take a wide view of politics when choosing subject matter. Politics, at its core, is not just about government, elections, policy, lawmaking, etc. Instead, at its most basic level, politics is about how human beings, social animals to the core, live in common and pursue common goods that extend beyond the goods of the individual. It is under this rubric that we can see Jurassic Park as a political movie.

Namely, Jurassic Park raises important political and social questions that can serve as a critique of how the modern world functions today. In particular, I want to focus on three: the role of science and technology, the role of the profit motive, and finally the overarching goal of human mastery over nature.

Science and Technology

Perhaps no greater issue is raised in Jurassic Park than the relationship modern humans have to technology. The movie, as a piece of science fiction, can place before us an extreme case of a trend to give us the opportunity to explore a trend’s implications. In this case, the trend is the manipulation of genetics or genetic power.

To be sure, our ability to read and manipulate entire DNA strands is a triumph of modern science. That ability can be used for a great deal of good, from designing agricultural products that are more pest and climate resilient (thereby lessening world hunger) to helping cure diseases.

However, as stories like that of Jurassic Park remind us, human beings are extremely creative creatures. For all the high-minded idealists working to make the world a better place, there are perhaps even more cynics who would pursue more lucrative but ethically questionable implications.

John Hammond (the movie version, not the cynical novel version), creator of Jurassic Park, is part idealist part eccentric. It takes that special kind of mind to say, “why not take advances in modern genetics to bring ancient species back from extinction and place them in an advanced zoo? It will serve as a reminder to human beings of how young and small we really are while also being highly profitable!” Such motives are not entirely unjustified — humanity could use a great deal of humbling in the face of its technological prowess, and Hammond, as a businessman, does need to make sure his businesses remain solvent.

All the same, such thinking also belies an important point the movie wants to raise about our relationship to technology — tools are not neutral. Put otherwise, the tools we have at our disposal to accomplish an end shape how we would like to go about achieving that end and how we think about accomplishing that end. Once we have a tool, it is nearly impossible to resist using it barring serious, collective reflection on the implications of its use. To someone with a hammer, many things start to look like nails.

I think that this basic reality is part of what Dr. Ian Malcolm is getting at with his famous line that “your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think if they should.” Once the potential of genetic power has been unlocked, human beings being what they are, a veritable arms race results of as many players as possible trying to apply the technology to as many ends as possible.

I read that frenzy, and the particularly disastrous results it leads to on Isla Nublar, as an appeal to think more carefully about our tools. Instead of allowing a technological frenzy to become its own driving force, we are asked to seriously consider what technologies are worth pursuing and which ones are not. Jurassic Park is not inevitable.

The Profit Motive

If Ian Malcolm is truly correct, something was always going to break the back of Jurassic Park. However, in the movie, the most proximate proverbial straw is corporate greed. Dennis Nedry, a contractor for the park, is deep in financial troubles due to unnamed problems. Recognizing the technological complexity of the park and his critical role in making sure all the computer systems function correctly, Nedry lobbies John Hammond to increase the compensation to Nedry’s firm. Hammond refuses, correctly recognizing the lobbying as Nedry trying to get himself out of money difficulties.

Heavily disgruntled, Nedry complains bitterly. Somehow, before the events of the movie, he comes to the attention of Lewis Dodgson, an executive at one of Hammond’s competitors. Dodgson, ruthless in his ambition to surpass Hammond, smells an opportunity to break into Hammond’s park and steal viable dinosaur embryos. With those embryos in hand, Dodgson’s company can catch up to Hammond’s and perhaps pull ahead.

Dodgson recruits Nedry to sabotage the park and steal the embryos. Nedry is successful, but is killed by a dinosaur he let loose during his escape. The rest of the plot follows from the havoc created by Nedry’s sabotage.

We are thus tempted to blame Jurassic Park’s failure on the greed of Nedry and Dodgson. The blame, however, is more complicated than that. We said above that movie Hammond, unlike book Hammond, is an idealist. He does not concern himself much with the park’s bottom line (a man who insists on sparing no expense is not exactly a cost cutter). He even tampers the wild-eyed enthusiasm of Gennaro and others who realize what a fortune the park could make.

Nonetheless, Hammond is still a businessman and head of a large company. That company, InGen, has been able to build Jurassic Park in part through raising huge amounts of seed capital. That means there are investors to appease, investors who want to know they will see a return on their investment. The shadow of these unnamed investors looms large over the film — it is precisely their concerns over safety that lead to the main characters going to Isla Nublar in the first place. Though Hammond intends to give humanity some humility with Jurassic Park, it is highly unlikely the venture would have ever happened if he did not think it would be profitable.

Thus, through this complicated web, we can see that the profit motive also plays a crucial role in driving the events of Jurassic Park. The movie thus becomes a cautionary tale not just about how we relate to science, but also how the profit motive catalyzes and interacts with advances in technology.

However, something deeper is ultimately going on here. Jurassic Park is a critique of a frenzy for technology and the profit motive, but it is also a critique of an entire philosophical paradigm, no small task.

Mastery of Nature

Few philosophers have had as large an influence on the history of ideas as René Descartes. Living in late sixteenth century and early seventeenth century France, Descartes is likely most famous for his metaphysical axiom “I think; therefore I am.” However, Descartes’ most long-lasting influence comes from his view of the goal of philosophy.

Like many early modern critics of ancient thought, Descartes argues that ancient thought and medieval commentary upon it had become ossified because, in trying to grasp at abstract concepts, it had become divorced from the human condition. Whether such a criticism is fair is not for us to adjudicate here. However, in contrast to ancient thought, Descartes asserted that the real ends of philosophy and science are the development of technology. Human beings, in turn, ought to deploy those technologies against nature to master and possess it and improve the human condition.

In this pattern of thought, Descartes closely tracks the English philosopher Sir Francis Bacon, who argues for the use of science to subjugate nature to human willpower, to bring its wild character under control.

Clearly, this Baconian/Cartesian instinct is at work in the creators of Jurassic Park. Few words show up as often in the dialogue as “control.” Hammond asserts repeatedly that the dangerous dinosaurs of Jurassic Park are under control. To his credit, the safeguards he, his scientists, and his engineers have thought through are extensive, from physical barriers to meddling with the dinosaur’s DNA so they cannot breed on their own to making them dependent for living on an enzyme only InGen can provide.

Of course, in the great intellectual conflict of the film, Dr. Ian Malcolm repeatedly insists that the control Hammond seeks is not only elusive but impossible. Whatever control Hammond thinks he has is an illusion, an illusion which chaos will eventually bring down.

Malcolm is, of course, vindicated. As the T. rex breaks out of its paddock, he says, “Boy do I hate being right all the time.” His vindication comes with little consolation, as he barely survives the T. rex attack. Others in the same party are not so fortunate.

As the rest of the plot unfolds, the remaining humans in the control center desperately try to get the park online as the situation runs increasingly out of control. Eventually, Ellie Sattler confronts Hammond, agreeing with Malcolm that the control he thought he had was an illusion, that life, even tampered with, will not be contained. Ultimately, the situation on Isla Nublar becomes irredeemable, and the survivors flee in a helicopter, leaving the island in dinosaur hands and the park’s buildings to quickly be reclaimed by the jungle.

The movie thus, in the final count, also becomes a cautionary tale of the arrogance that the successes of humanity’s attempts to master nature engender in the face of nature’s inherent complexity that defies total mastery. The danger comes when nature is just controllable enough to make us think it is completely controllable. That is where the missteps begin.

Conclusion: A Political Solution?

Again, Jurassic Park is not an explicitly political movie, but it raises several important political themes. It is even better to say that it raises political questions that we have been reluctant to address as a society.

Remember, in its essence, politics is about how human beings live in common and pursue goods beyond their own private goods. Some forces within social life are so potent as to be able to radically reshape human life. It is our great fortune as modern humans to have incredible tools at our disposal for making the world a better place and improving the human condition. However, tools are not neutral — once we develop them, it becomes hard not to use them and not to let them shape our understanding of problems.

Apply this logic to technology, and you quickly get the paradoxical state of affairs that the only way to resolve technological issues is through the application of further technology, a rough equivalent of saying the best way to put out a fire is to add more fire. Under specific conditions, this may be true, but the concern is that a frenzy of technological development becomes a self-sustaining process. That process can produce great good but can also cause great evil.

All that is to say, the astounding tools of modern life need to be guided in their use. The moral of Jurassic Park is that technology combined with a false sense of mastery and the search for profit can produce disastrous results. Yet, the viewer is still left with the perception that the tragedy of Isla Nublar is not inevitable, that care can be taken with how we apply our technological prowess.

I submit that, as an issue affecting the pursuit of common goods, the issues above are ultimately political issues. It belongs to collective decision-making by a polity to determine things like the proper uses of technology in social life, where the profit motive is appropriate and where it is not, etc. It is a great failure of modern politics and political philosophy that it has chosen to leave such issues entirely within the domain of private decision-making. That failure leaves the tools in charge. That failure, in a fictional but plausible scenario, eats human beings alive.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

The Politics of Jurassic Park was originally published in The Masterpiece on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise is an odd bird. If I were to tell you that Disney took a popular ride from its theme parks and made it into a wildly successful franchise constituting (as of writing) five movies with a sixth possibly on the way, I would forgive you your skepticism.

Nonetheless, that is precisely what took place. A franchise inspired by a theme park ride was the first franchise to have two or more movies gross more than a billion dollars at the box office. It started with an initial (generally good) trilogy, which then extended into two (generally bad) additional movies. In any case, these movies have things to recommend them — memorable characters, strong action sequences, a sense of humor even in high stakes situations, even a lore for its world. They are successful in capturing some of the sense of adventure that came with the golden age of sail.

I also think that, when looking deeper, they teach a quasi-political lesson about the problems that come from seeking radical autonomy in life at the expense of everything else.

In particular, I want to focus on the character of Jack Sparrow, easily the most memorable from the franchise, and proceed through the first three Pirates movies tracking his character and motivations. What becomes clear through this lens is that in each one we see difficulties with Sparrow’s relentless pursuit of autonomy. Sparrow thus becomes a warning of the costs that come with pursuing radical individual autonomy.

The Curse of the Black Pearl

The first film of the franchise gives us a masterful introduction to Sparrow’s character, sailing into port atop the mast of his ship, looking grand and powerful. He then looks down at something which concerns him and drops from the mast. It is only then that we see that his “ship” is just a dinghy rapidly taking on water. Sparrow does what he can to bail out his sinking vessel, but it is no use. As background characters watch in stunned silence, Sparrow stands back on top of the mast as his sinking ship approaches the dock. He steps effortlessly off the mast onto the dock as the dinghy settles on the bottom and walks away as if nothing has happened, bribing a port official to avoid entering his name.

It is a masterful introduction scene, where Sparrow says not a word until the very end, and it speaks volumes about his character. We can deduce from this scene alone (and have our impression confirmed later) that Sparrow is a pirate whose fortunes oscillate wildly, but who nonetheless knows how to be a smooth talking charmer. Regardless of if he is down on his luck or not, Sparrow knows how to act as if he is one of the greatest pirates in the world. He is, in short, a consummate con man who expertly hides his intentions. Characters around him as well as the audience constantly wonder how much they can trust him or anything he says. Is a speech he gives bravado meant to manipulate someone, or the actual truth of the matter?

As the protagonist of the whole franchise, we can be genuinely tempted to root for Sparrow or see him as a rogue with a heart, someone who is at his core a good person even if he would rather not admit it to himself. It is important to resist this view — Sparrow is the protagonist and has genuinely heroic moments, but he is not, in the end, a good person.

Indeed, Sparrow’s manipulative side is on full display in this first movie. To focus on specific plot threads, we note that Sparrow’s driving motivations in this film are two. First and foremost, Sparrow seeks revenge on Hector Barbossa and the crew of the Black Pearl. A decade before the movie, Barbossa, then Sparrow’s first mate on the Pearl, led a mutiny and marooned Jack on an island with a pistol with just one shot to take his life. Sparrow escaped the island and now seeks to use that one shot to kill Barbossa.

Second, Sparrow seeks to regain the Pearl for his own. Here, his motivations are more complicated than a desire for revenge. In seeking to be captain of a ship, especially the Pearl, Sparrow is seeking freedom. What a ship, especially his beloved Pearl, provides is near unlimited mobility — the chance to go about the world where and when one pleases and live by taking from others through piracy. One can, in this view, use a ship to take and take from the world without ever contributing to it.

By the film’s end, Sparrow has been successful in accomplishing both his goals, but it is the second goal that is of greater interest to us in this piece. While an all-consuming quest for revenge makes for great drama, the second goal shows Sparrow to be motivated by a view of the good life as it relates to other human beings. Sparrow seeks a life unencumbered by obligation, a life driven by his whims. He is a quintessential radical individualist, though it is doubtful he would ever use such terms.

The Curse of the Black Pearl reveals this element of Sparrow to us, and it continues to manifest throughout the franchise. However, the franchise itself shows this view of the good life to be insufficient and to impose costs on others. Let us continue to see how.

Dead Man’s Chest

While The Curse of the Black Pearl serves as a standalone story, its two sequels really form two acts of one drama. In it, we are introduced to a duo that serve as the antagonists for both acts: Lord Cutler Beckett of the East India Trading Company and Davy Jones, captain of the Flying Dutchman.

The film begins by laying out the history between Sparrow and Jones. We learn that, a year or two before Barbossa’s mutiny on the Black Pearl, the ship itself had been sunk due to some unknown cause. Sparrow, as always deeply attached to the Pearl and the freedom it offers him, makes a deal with Jones, who has a significant degree of control over the seas.

Jones agrees to raise the Pearl, but his price is steep. Sparrow may sail the Pearl again as its captain for ten years, but at that time he must serve for 100 years as part of the Dutchman’s crew. Sparrow, always eager to seize short-term gains in the belief that he will figure out a way out of the bargain later, accepts this trade.

By the time of the plot itself, Sparrow has been enjoying his restoration as captain of the Black Pearl for a short period of time, but has failed to repay his debt to Jones. He is visited on the ship by Bootstrap Bill Turner, a former member of Jack’s crew and now part of Jones’, who warns him that Jones is coming to collect. Sparrow, true to character, argues that his time is not up, as he was mutinied upon and did not captain the Pearl for much of the intervening period.

Turner, unmoved by Sparrow’s self-serving arguments, gives Sparrow the black spot, and warns that Jones’ beast, the Kraken, will be drawn to Sparrow as long as he has the spot. If it finds him, it will take him and the Pearl back to the depths.

Sparrow, who we are used to seeing as more or less unflappable, is genuinely terrified at this turn in his fortunes. He sails his ship and crew towards the nearest land he can find to avoid deeper water where the Kraken might find him.

Before proceeding through the rest of the movie’s plot, let us pause to examine what we have already seen. Sparrow, as laid out above, is deeply attached to the unencumbered life and the possibility for it that the Black Pearl provides him. We see now that Sparrow, in the past, has been willing to literally sell his soul to preserve that way of life for himself. Now that he has been unable to find a way to squirrel himself out of this debt, he will spend the rest of the movie frantically seeking for a way out, even if it means selling the souls of others, even acquaintances.

Let us turn briefly to Lord Beckett before then, however. Entering into the storyline dramatically by arresting several characters who had aided Sparrow, Beckett is clearly a master manipulator and highly ambitious. We learn that his ambitions, symbolized by the world map being painted in his office over the course of the film, are global in nature. To put it simply, Beckett seeks to control the world’s oceans and all the trade that takes place across them. This goal makes him an implacable opponent of piracy and pirates.

To accomplish his two-fold goals, Beckett seeks the Dead Man’s Chest, which contains Jones’ still-beating heart. In having the ability to eliminate Jones at any moment, Beckett will be able to control him and turn him loose on other pirates. Between the Flying Dutchman and Beckett’s own extensive resources, piracy could be removed from the world entirely. However, the consequences of that plan wait until the next film.

For now, we return to Sparrow’s own search for the Chest. He settles on searching for it as a way to clear his debt and keep his freedom, but Jones is closing in. To try to buy himself some time, Sparrow makes another deal with Jones. After Sparrow tricks Turner’s son into joining the Dutchman’s crew, Jones gives Sparrow three days’ reprieve to come up with 100 souls to take his place. Before leaving, Jones asks Sparrow bluntly if he can live with the bargain he has made, if he can condemn innocent souls, even friends, to a lifetime of service so that Sparrow can be free.

Sparrow barely hesitates, answering that he is fine with the bargain he struck. Indeed, he tries very hard to fulfill it and seems to have no regrets for doing so, even though he ultimately changes course and continues his pursuit of the Chest.

Sparrow and his crew find the Chest, but Jones’ crew attacks to retrieve it. In the ensuing confused melee, former-Commodore Norrington escapes with the heart itself to give it to Beckett and regain his lost honor. Unaware of this development, Jones’ crew retrieves the chest. Sparrow, believing he has the heart in his possession, flees. Jones, after failing to catch Sparrow, unleashes the Kraken on the Black Pearl.

The Pearl’s crew are able to fend it off a few times, but at great loss of life. Sparrow, knowing his ship is doomed, slinks away in a lifeboat, hoping to save himself while the Kraken is distracted. Changing his mind last minute, Sparrow returns to the Pearl and helps drive off the Kraken’s latest attempt.

Realizing that the Kraken is after Sparrow, Elizabeth Swann tricks him and traps him onboard the ship so that the survivors of the crew can escape. Sparrow accepts his fate and is consumed by the Kraken, along with the Pearl, and taken to Davy Jones’ Locker.

While there is some admirable heroism in Sparrow’s actions at the end of Dead Man’s Chest, his record as a whole across the movie is hardly admirable. What we see in Sparrow is a man whose continued addiction to an unencumbered life gets him in more and more trouble: selling his soul, sacrificing friends and innocents so he can continue free, etc. Indeed, one could read his actions as a decision that he does not want to live apart from the Pearl, and will share its fate.

Of course, Sparrow’s story does not end with the Locker. Lord Cutler Beckett now has the heart of Davy Jones, and can thus add a nearly invulnerable ship to the already considerable resources at his disposal for seizing mastery of the seas. Only a unified body of pirates has any chance of standing against him.

At World’s End

At World’s End is the first movie of the franchise to really explode in scale. At the end of the previous film, the main characters, along with a revived Hector Barbossa, determine that they will have to rescue Jack from the Locker. Barbossa, one of the pirate lords of the mysterious Brethren Court, has determined that Beckett is too grave a threat for pirates to face alone (as they are of course wont to do). As such, Barbossa summons the Court to convene, but there is a serious problem — Jack Sparrow is also one of the pirate lords, and he failed to name a successor or pass on his Piece of Eight before he was taken by the Kraken. Hence, the need for Sparrow’s rescue.

Barbossa has a hidden agenda here as well. Revived from death by the pagan goddess Calypso, Barbossa knows that one of the conditions of his continuing to live is releasing her from her human form. Imprisoned in that form by the first Brethren Court using their Pieces of Eight, Barbossa will need all nine pieces to accomplish his task. That includes retrieving Jack’s piece with him in the Locker.

Various adventures and dramas ensue as the main cast of characters interacts with other pirate lords, all while Beckett and the Flying Dutchman are closing in. The narrative becomes a web of desperate people believing their cause is lost and betraying each other multiple times. The web makes the narrative challenging to follow, but it makes an important point — this is how pirates are. Their basic instinct is, when necessary, to save themselves and guarantee their futures at the cost of others. Sparrow’s addiction to autonomy is a character flaw, but one shown to be ubiquitous to pirates.

Nevertheless, Jack is rescued from the Locker and the entire Brethren Court meets at Shipwreck Cove. The conference between the nine pirate lords quickly turns chaotic as disagreements and differences appear in the open air. All the lords agree that Beckett and the East India Company pose an existential threat to their way of life, but they agree on little else.

Barbossa strongly argues that the Brethren should free Calypso, beg her pardon, and ask her to turn her power against Beckett. Several lords rightly point out the obvious flaws in such a plan: Calypso is more likely to strike the Brethren to avenge her captivity than she is to attack Beckett. They argue instead that Shipwreck Cove is a strong fortress that can withstand siege for a long time — the Brethren have simply to wait out Beckett.

Leading the charge against this course is Elizabeth Swann, newly made a pirate lord herself after the death of her predecessor. Having had some dealings with Beckett, she knows he is relentless and will actually win a waiting contest with the Brethren. She argues that the Brethren’s only choice is to fight against impossible odds and sail their fleet out to meet Beckett’s armada.

Since an act of war by all pirates can only be authorized by a Pirate King, a vote is called. As expected, each pirate lord, including Swann, votes for themselves. The last of the nine to cast a vote is Sparrow.

Which brings us back to his character. Having died and been brought back from the dead, Sparrow spends At World’s End trying to figure out not only how to keep his freedom, but how to avoid death itself. Through interactions with several characters, we see that Sparrow decides he will have to stab Davy Jones’ heart, thereby becoming captain of the Flying Dutchman and immortal unless and until his heart is destroyed. It is also clear, however, that he is not totally sold on this plan either. He is reminded that he would have to focus on shepherding the souls of those who die at sea or become deformed like Jones, and his own immortal father, Captain Teague, tells him that living forever is not hard — it is living with oneself forever that is difficult.

Still, Sparrow decides that killing Jones is his best course. When his turn comes to vote on a pirate king, he votes for Swann. This move surprises and shocks everyone in the room, including Swann. With two out of nine votes cast but more votes than any other candidate, she becomes the second Pirate King.

On the surface, this may seem like a noble gesture on Sparrow’s part, a recognition of the need to fight for what they believe is right. However, I think a more cynical reading is equally plausible. Sparrow needs to get aboard the Flying Dutchman to stab Jones’ heart, and his best chance to do that is in the mayhem of a naval battle. In voting for Swann, he knows he is voting for war.

After Barbossa tricks the group into freeing Calypso and fails to win her favor, the Brethren send their fleet into action. The Black Pearl sails forward. Instead of deploying the overwhelming force at his disposal, Beckett makes the stupid decision to send only the Flying Dutchman into battle.

The two ships engage in the midst of a maelstrom. In the chaos, Sparrow is able to steal the chest and the key from Jones. In a climactic moment, as Jones has defeated young William Turner in a sword fight, Sparrow appears, holding Jones’ bare heart in one hand and his sword in the other. Jones, brutal to the end, stabs Turner. Sparrow looks on in surprise, caught off guard and unsure what to do. In one of the few moments of real humanity Sparrow shows, he and Swann have a dying Turner stab the heart, killing Jones and saving Turner’s life while also making him the Dutchman’s new captain.

Sparrow’s decision here is puzzling. Spending the entire movie hoping to take Jones’ mantle for himself, Sparrow gives it up to another at the critical moment. Perhaps he is moved by the distraught cries of Turner’s new wife Elizabeth, or maybe he believes that, as long as Jones dies, he and the Brethren may stand a chance against Beckett and the pirate way of life can continue. Or perhaps, as we find out at the end of the movie, he knows of other ways to live forever and feels fine moving to plan B.

Whatever the case, the Pearl and Dutchman, now captained by Turner, sail for Beckett’s armada. Again, the East India Company boss makes the flabbergasting decision to send out only one ship — his own heavily armed flagship. He does not know that Jones is dead, but still, the decision is downright stupid.

When he sees both ships bearing down on him, Beckett freezes in indecision as the pirate ships ravage his flagship with cannon fire. Eventually, the ship explodes, killing Beckett. The rest of the armada loses hope and flees. The Brethren emerge victorious while only engaging one of their ships. Sparrow and the other main characters return to the Caribbean, where Barbossa again steals away with the Pearl while Jack is onshore. Setting off on his own again, Sparrow ends the trilogy sailing a dinghy, just as we first saw him, but now he and Barbossa are both seeking the Fountain of Youth.

The Problem of Autonomy

Jack Sparrow provides an interesting case study throughout the initial Pirates trilogy because he is, first, a memorable character and second, has pretty consistent motivations throughout.

Sparrow’s self-conception is that he is an independent person. He clearly detests being indebted to others for anything, and will run away (sometimes literally) from obligations. Sparrow is happiest when sailing his Black Pearl wherever he pleases, engaging in robbery to support himself and debauchery to amuse himself. Sparrow’s ideal life is a life where he and his desires are in total control. He is, in short, an autonomy addict. To be sure, plenty of other characters in the franchise display this pattern of behavior, and it seems nearly ubiquitous to pirates, who throughout the franchise cannot help but betray each other for their gain. Nonetheless, Sparrow is a good case study here because he has the most screen time and therefore displays his addiction to the highest degree.

Yet, all three movies show us the insufficiencies of the pursuit of this life and the trouble Jack lands himself in as a result. In The Curse of the Black Pearl, Sparrow’s relative indifference to the preferences of his crew and failure to provide wider goals to them contributes to the mutiny that removes him from his captaincy. Sparrow is saved from the cursed Aztec gold as a result, but is nonetheless consumed by his need for revenge. He shows himself perfectly capable and willing to manipulate others into helping him without revealing the full details of what that will entail (like deliberately not telling Turner he may have to die to save Elizabeth).

Dead Man’s Chest is even more damning of Sparrow’s character. Sparrow has literally sold his soul to preserve his ship and his freedom in a colossally short-sighted bid to save his freedom. Here again, he shows himself entirely willing to trick friends and strangers into a lifetime of service aboard the Flying Dutchman so that he can stay free. When he is not tricking characters into service, he is tricking them into helping him find Jones’ heart, which he can use to clear his debt. He even shows himself willing to leave his compatriots to the Kraken, though he does relent and lets the others escape.

Finally, in At World’s End, Jack pursues the immortality that comes with being captain of the Dutchman but shows little to no care for the other pirates in peril. If anything, Sparrow is drawn to the idea of himself as the last pirate — alone against the world. The fact that the other pirates would do the same if the roles were reversed does not absolve Sparrow.

What do we have, then, as a main protagonist of the series? Certainly, not a hero. What we have is a shallow, lonely man whose few moments of humanity are drowned in a sea of lies, tricks, and manipulations. He is certainly humorous, and remains the most memorable character from the entire franchise by far. Nonetheless, his addiction to autonomy leads him down courses of action that ruin almost all of his chances at real heroism.

Should we be surprised, though? Sparrow is, after all, a pirate. He never claims to be anything else.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

The Politics of Pirates of the Caribbean was originally published in The Masterpiece on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I can still vividly remember when The Hunger Games dominated American pop culture. I was in high school, and the wildly popular book series were being adapted into highly successful movies that were in some cases the high points of their actors’ careers, making them some of the most recognizable faces in the world.

I also recently had the chance to reread the books (in audiobook form) and was drawn to thinking about the political thought present in the story. While at first it seems that very little attention is paid to political life in Panem, I have become convinced that the narrative of the Hunger Games books is deeply informed by a worldview I can only describe as Marxist.

Before I begin, I should add a note that describing the view of social life put forth in the franchise as Marxist is meant to be a factual description. That is to say, I am not using the label as a “I don’t like this, therefore I will say it is Marxist to discredit it” device, but rather because I believe that is the most accurate description of the school of thought it falls into. With that disclaimer out of the way, let us begin.

The Apolitical Element

On first reading, the Hunger Games trilogy seems actually remarkably uninterested in politics or social life. To be sure, political elements are present, but when they are we are given very little actual information about them. For example, there are frequent references to mayors in each district, but little description of what they do, how they get their offices, or if there are any other government officials in each district besides the head Peacekeepers. Presumably, someone has to collect taxes, coordinate education, and oversee the administration of each district. However, we never see any of these activities taking place. Nor is there any real description of government in the districts at all — virtually all state action seems to come from the Peacekeepers.

One could retort that one of the foremost characters of the series is President Coriolanus Snow, but his role actually suffers from many of the same issues. We know he is President of Panem and wields immense, dictatorial powers of life and death over everyone in the country. That sounds like a lot, but anyone with a mind for basic political questions would note that it still tells us very little. Is Snow elected (presidents usually are, at least at first)? If so, who elected him, and how often are there presidential elections? How long has Snow been president? In Mockingjay, Finnick says that Snow was very young when he came to power and he is shown announcing the fiftieth Hunger Games in old video tapes, so he has ruled Panem for at least twenty-five years before the books. All of the above still does not tell us much. Does Snow rule by decree, or is there some sort of legislature? What about a bureaucracy — even the wiliest of political operators cannot run a continent-spanning country by themselves? Is there a judiciary? What is the relationship of civilian authority to military authority?

These questions surround President Snow, but are never answered, even in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, his origin story. Yet the narrative pays so little attention to questions that have significant import for life in Panem that the politically-minded reader cannot help but feel a little frustrated.

What we get from Panem, instead, is a society that is apolitical. Not apolitical in the sense that political institutions and offices do not exist, but apolitical in the sense of lacking, as far as we are shown, any sort of deliberative process to produce collective action in pursuit of collective goods. It is fundamentally a world of stasis, of iron-fisted efforts to preserve an existing state of affairs with no vision for the future. It is, in effect, ridiculous. In Panem, what maintains social order (or does until it all comes crashing down over the course of the trilogy), is force and will, not governance.

Indeed, it seems that the people of Panem can hardly conceive of social life as being organized any other way. In Mockingjay, when Plutarch Heavensbee mentions that the rebellion will install a republic in Panem after its victory, he is met with scoff, even from other rebels. To the people of this world, republics are things in history books that failed to hold back the calamities that created Panem.

Thus, to politically-minded readers, it may seem like the apolitical element of the trilogy is attributable simply to a lack of interest in the topic. I have become convinced that this is not so, that a better case exists that what passes for politics in Panem is deliberately given little attention as a result of the wider worldview of the trilogy.

Peeling Back the Veil: Politics as Window Dressing

I have already stated my thesis that the worldview of The Hunger Games is essentially Marxist. Let us delve into that thesis, because it would seem to clash with the apolitical element of the trilogy described above.

Some of the parallels are easy to draw. The society of Panem is rigidly divided along class lines. Almost uniformly, all of the continent’s people are divided between a wealthy bourgeoisie in the Capitol and the working masses split into the Districts. The wealthy elite of the Capitol seem to do no work at all and are instead consumed with running themselves into debt over trivial matters of parties, fashion, and social status. The population of the Districts, however, is much poorer (though some Districts are richer than others) and in many cases barely ekes out a living. The great injustice of it all is that the Capitol’s existence is only made possible thanks to the goods made for it by the Districts. In exchange for those goods, the Capitol provides order and security. To do so, and in memory of the civil war that precipitated the Hunger Games, those guarantees of order and security come with heavy doses of repression. It is not at all clear the extent to which the Capitol populace is aware of their government’s actions, but the extent of their awareness does not alter the facts of the situation.

Moreover, social mobility is highly restricted in that society. Life in the Capitol is highly isolated from hardship, and we only see two ways in all four books in which those born into the Districts can obtain elite status. The first is by winning the Hunger Games, but that path relies on chance and leaves one psychologically scarred. The other route, which we see in the characters of Sejanus and his family in The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, is to amass great wealth and buy one’s way in. The Plinths are able to do this through a weapons manufacturing empire (hardly making them sympathetic) and are still the subject of enormous suspicion in the Capitol and are ostracized for their District background.

There is thus the clear existence of a class conflict in Panem, and the collective arrangement of life in the fictional country is defined first and foremost by the economic relations of production. The mode of production in use in Panem is quasi-feudal but certainly exploitative. The only way we see in the narrative for the situation to become better is for the divided workers to unite and overthrow the established order in a revolution. This revolution is sparked (unwittingly) by Katniss near the end of The Hunger Games, it builds in Catching Fire, and we see its completion in Mockingjay.

Yet, almost no details are given about how things really work afterwards in Panem. The basic arrangement of Capitol and districts is shown to be left untouched, though with much more equitable sharing of resources. The Hunger Games are also abolished, though not until after debate about if one more should be held with Capitol children as retribution. In any case, these are extremely rough details, and we are left with the impression that the revolution itself is the narrative’s goal and climax. The rest of details are less important and can be worked out later.

However, I contend that the similarities go deeper, deeper in a way that helps to explain the apolitical element outlined above. For Marx, the fundamental fact and driver of social life is the basic relationships of production and exchange. That forms the structure of society. Everything else that we normally associate with regular life, from politics and religion to morals and patterns of thought, is part of what Marx refers to as the superstructure. The superstructure’s purpose, deliberate and not, is to dress up and legitimate the underlying relationships of production and exchange. These things, in other words, exist to legitimate or at least to perpetuate economic arrangements, even wildly unjust ones.

Accepting such a framework denies virtually all ultimate relevance to the things that form the superstructure, including politics. It is possible, then, to read the narrative’s apathy for politics as situated within its wider worldview. The politics of Panem, whatever their content, are irrelevant in the face of the more basic injustices of the economic relationship between the Capitol and the districts. Economic life in Panem is so imbalanced, so dehumanizing, that other endeavors are trivial. Politics becomes little more than window dressing to an economic order that repels the story’s readers. The goal of the whole narrative thus becomes revolution by the workers against this order, establishing true people’s power. This is a thoroughly Marxist view, and I contend it is plainly present throughout the Hunger Games trilogy.

Conclusion

As a reminder, the intention of this piece is not to label all opponents of the regime in The Hunger Games as all being Marxists. The injustices and disregard for the common good displayed by the Capitol cannot help but evoke sympathy from readers for the oppressed of the districts, whatever one’s own political and ideological persuasions may be.

Nonetheless, the view of social life displayed by the narrative contains striking indicators of a Marxist worldview informing it all, indicators that are too strong to ignore. The exploitative nature of Panem’s industry, the intentional divisions of the working classes into districts, the population imbalance between the districts and the Capitol, the bourgeois and proletarian manners of the different classes, etc. all speak to a world in class conflict, a powder keg world. All it takes to light that spark, to awaken the consciousness of the working classes, is a teenage girl with a handful of poisonous berries.

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!

The Politics of The Hunger Games was originally published in The Masterpiece on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

My Best Transatlantic Flight So Far

Author’s Note: this is the third and final of a series of stories about forms of transportation I took on a recent European trip. For a preview of the stories, please see this post.

For much of my life, I have lived in places where my home airport has only a handful of international routes. At the time I was growing up in Colorado, the Denver airport’s international routes were dominated by daily flights to London and Frankfurt (that has since changed with the addition of many more routes).

Now, my new home airport of Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International is in a similar situation. Aside from a handful of flights to Toronto and Cancun, the international routes are dominated by regular service to Paris and London.

I have been blessed to have the opportunity to take the flight to Paris and back on a handful of occasions, and it has always tickled me to do so. CVG is larger than many airports, but still fairly small. So, to be able to board a plane there in the American Midwest and get off at the much larger and busier Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris is quite the contrast.

In any case, I recently had the chance to fly this route for the first time in over half a decade on a new aircraft type, and it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience. Here is my review.

Picking the Route

In my experience, while tickets with connections are just fine when setting out on an international trip, having a connecting flight on a return feels much more difficult. Having to fly across an ocean, land at some large hub, go through customs, re-clear security and recheck bags, then board another flight can actually be remarkably draining.

By contrast, when possible, having a nonstop return flight to your final destination feels like a breath of fresh air. Being able to go through most of the above process (minus the last two steps) and then head home is remarkably easier.

That was one of the reasons I was happy to be taking this route. The vast majority of my international returns have involved connecting flights — this was one of the few that did not. Indeed, part of the reason we ended our European trip in Paris was to be able to access this flight.

Booking

The Delta nonstop from Paris to Cincinnati does not run daily (instead it runs about three or four times a week), but we were fortunate that it was running on one of the two days we were looking to head home. More than that, we were fortunate that the flight was available to partners, so we booked two tickets using 60,000 Virgin Atlantic miles and modest taxes and fees. That points cost was a little steep, but getting onto this particular flight was well worth it.

On the Ground in Paris

While I love Paris as a city, Charles de Gaulle Airport leaves a lot to be desired. Its layout is puzzling, and it can be quite difficult to navigate. There is plenty of signage, and travelers will need to use it to get where they need to go within the facility.

We started our morning in the city proper and took the RER to the airport. I generally recommend this way of getting from CDG to the city — it is slower than a car, but not much slower and a lot cheaper to boot. Initially, the train we were on said it would stop at Terminals 1 and 2, but when it reached the Terminal 1 stop, the driver came on the intercom and announced in French that the train would be terminating there. We needed to get to Terminal 2, so we took an elevator to the level above the platform to assess our options. We were wondering if we might have to find a shuttle or something when we noticed another set of tracks next to the ones we had come in on. Upon descending to those, we found trains that were continuing on to Terminal 2. It was confusing and we do not know the reason for needing to switch, but we did eventually figure it out.

Terminal 2 at CDG is the home of Air France and so is quite busy. We got off the RER and walked a few minutes via a fairly convoluted route to the Delta check in area. The line was fairly short — we printed bag tags and boarding passes at a kiosk, presented our passports and answered a few questions, and finally dropped off our bag at (very cool) self-service kiosks.

Our gate was at one of the satellite concourses of Terminal 2, meaning that we had to get on a tram and ride it a couple of stops (see what I mean about complicated navigation?). Only once we were at the satellite terminal did we go through security.

Fortunately, our timing was excellent — once we were through security, our flight was boarding in less than a half hour. It was not necessary to wait long or find food — we just hopped in our spot in the boarding line. Boarding began on time, and after some extra security screening we got on board our Boeing 767–400 (a new aircraft sub-variant for me).

On Board

One of the things I deeply appreciate about the Boeing 767 is that, in economy, seats are set up in a 2–3–2 configuration. That means that groups of two who are traveling together can sit together and have direct aisle access without climbing over a stranger. So, we had easy aisle access and comfortable legroom, even in coach.

As it turns out, even if we had had another seat between us and the aisle, it might very well have been empty. As far as I can tell, the flight was about 60% full. As such, there were lots of empty seats, meaning that it was easy to get up and move around the cabin without having to make space for other folks moving around. More than that, as someone who regularly overheats and sweats like crazy on airplanes, I truly found the cabin environment to be comfortable and cool. All that is to say, I could tell from the very early stages that this was going to be a pleasant flight, even in coach.

Food Service

Shortly after takeoff from Paris, food service began. On this flight, unlike others, I had remembered to order a special meal for us in advance. In both the meal and snack services, food was good and service was prompt, but we had fewer services than would be had on a foreign carrier on the same route. My one complaint was that, for whatever reason, Delta’s system seemed to confuse a vegan meal and a vegetarian meal.

Entertainment

I have long been a fan of Delta’s approach to inflight entertainment. In an era when some US airlines are removing seat-back entertainment systems from anything except their long-haul planes, Delta is implementing them on virtually every airplane except regional jets. That makes a huge difference in the passenger experience. I continue to recommend that all travelers download their own entertainment to their devices before any flight, but I enjoy being able to have recent movies available to watch and to have a flight tracker going.

I should also note that Delta is in the process of implementing free WiFi across its fleet. While our aircraft for this flight did not have it, the full fleet should have it soon, and I have greatly appreciated using it on other Delta flights. It baffles me that some airlines continue to charge for WiFi.

Landing in Cincinnati

Remarkably, the eight hours of the flight passed by very quickly. As we entered final approach and got an excellent view of Cincinnati from the air, I found myself regretting that the flight was almost over.

After landing, we got off the plane and proceeded to the customs area. One of the really nice things about CVG is that, since it handles only a few international passenger flights, the customs facility is of modest size and moves fairly quickly. True to form, that day our flight was the only one being processed at that time, so customs processing was quick. I had Global Entry and was through quickly, but even if I had not had it I would have gotten through in just a few minutes.

Bottom Line

I cannot emphasize enough how much of a game changer it is to take an international flight straight to one’s final destination. The hassle one saves is enormous, and is easily worth paying anything but the largest premiums over a connecting itinerary.

This flight described above was my most recent chance to remember this principle, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Even beyond the chance to fly right into my final destination, circumstances conspired to make it an overall highly pleasant flight, perhaps even my best transoceanic flight. The cabin was comfortable, service and entertainment were good, legroom was plentiful, and the flight was at the right level of capacity to make moving around fairly easy. I would not hesitate to take this flight again!

If you enjoyed reading this and want to see more writing like it, as well as deeper dives on my leisure travels and other topics, I encourage you to follow me! Doing so helps my writing reach a larger audience, which in turn supports further stories!