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What we learn from the Krogans? - Not the ones from Mass Effect

All praise Ninny of the Nonny! 

I have watched a considerable number of superhero movies, and received much criticism from the 14th Lords of Grammar who constantly tell me its "lay-miz-eh-RAH-bluh"! Well, unlike them I've actually read the book. So they can take their large coffee mugs and do something with it.

Ah! Yes... the superhero movies - chicken soup for the lonely souls (make it daal ka paani for us bimar vegetarians). Behind the capes, armours and impossible powers (married to ridiculous physics), they operate on the shared ground of human suffering. All of them attempt to explore what it actually means to give oneself up for others.

Their premise is rooted in philosophical ideas of suffering, pain, empathy, love and sacrifice. It seems to me that the capacity for true sacrifice is rooted in the capacity to endure pain. A soul that endures a certain amount of suffering expands beyond its ego. It creates space to absorb an immense amount of agony, instilling the virtue of empathy. From the depths of empathy flows love. This is not the obsessive, transactional romantic love born of convenience, but an agape love—a profound, unconditional devotion to humanity itself. (For an understanding of love beyond its bastardised form seen in Bollywood movies or felt in 'relationships', see C S Lewis, The Four Loves) 

It is this specific love that acts as the spring of sacrifice - a concept hollowed out by those in power. Politicians and administrators frequently speak of glorious purposes, demanding the masses lay down their lives, their comforts, and their futures on the altar of some grand design. At the same time, they build impenetrable fortresses around themselves, safely insulated from the consequences of their own dictates. This is not sacrifice; they legislate pain into the lives of the people.

Sacrifice is not commanded from a podium or through a mail; it is chosen in the depths of the heart. It is intrinsic. It is Logan, enduring the crushing heartbreak of striking down Jean because it is the only way to save the world from her uncontrollable fire. It is Peter Parker, willingly erasing his own existence from the memories of every person he loves, condemning himself to isolation so that they might have a safe future. It is Tony Stark, feeling the fatal, cosmic surge of the Infinity Stones, knowing the cost, and paying it without hesitation. It is Steve Rogers, plunging the aircraft into the icy, lonely depths to spare a city. It is Cal - a father, broken and desperate - taking the life of the woman he loved so his daughter, Skye (he would have called her Daisy), would not have to bear the soul-destroying weight of doing it herself. “You don't have to bear this pain,” he tells her. “I will.”

That is the essence of sacrifice. It is the realization that one's capacity to carry suffering is so vast, that they refuse to let that suffering touch anyone else. You understand the devastating cost of pain, and the thought of another person bearing that agony becomes worse than bearing it yourself. You do not ask them to carry the weight; you step forward and take the cross upon your own shoulders, choosing to break your own self so that the people you love might remain whole. 

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