Question about the Book of Esther

[conuly]

This bugs me every time I think of it, which is surprisingly often once I bothered to look it up and find out the whole story as to why the farmer's market bakery stand is overtaken by hamantaschen every year.

So after the happy ending, the evil vizier is defeated yay, King Dim Bulb lets the Jews go out and preemptively murder literally tens of thousands of people who might pose a risk to them. Are we all supposed to just assume there was no unpleasant backlash to this action? Even if they only got the exact targets who virulently hated them and were actively plotting genocide as well... I mean... those targets had families and friends and all, right? And the innocent bystanders on either side probably were a little upset over all the blood. (I suppose that the likely consequences would make a depressing coda to the general merriment, but still.)

Comments

[kshandra]

You're the second person on my page to talk about this today.

[conuly]

Well, it's Purim, so.

[randomdreams]

You can't get a good simple morality story if you insist on fully contextual treatments!

[conuly]

It's not that good a morality story to begin with. Nobody's motivations make sense. (Well, okay, once they figure out they'll be murdered then Esther and Mordecai's motivations make sense, and I'm on Team Vashti all the way, but other than that.)

[archangelbeth]

I suppose it's kind of a "and they lived happily ever after, because all the enemies were dead" thing, where it's part of the genre to assume that Consequences Didn't Happen...

Genre Convention.

[conuly]

I'm just saying that the correct response to being surrounded by enemies on all sides is perhaps not to visibly justify their seething hatred, even if only in their own little minds. If you've determined they have to die, at least take your time and find a good patsy first.

[archangelbeth]

Well, yeah, that's the sensible thing, but when the genre is "happily ever after," you don't ask about why the prince is marrying the weird girl in the coffin when he should be saving himself for an arranged marriage that will benefit his kingdom -- he doesn't know the girl's supposed to inherit when he proposes, right?

(.........yes, I want to read that fic now...)

[gingicat]

I was reading it to the family last night and added notes on some things:
— the Jews specifically only attacked those who attacked them
— some would-be opponents were so scared they pretended to be Jewish
— the Jews didn’t “despoil” even though they had specific permission to do so.

Also, the Jewish Publication Society translation from 1986 reads like The Arabian Nights.

[conuly]

That's the only way to do things morally, I guess, but it still seems like a risky move.

[larryhammer]

Are we all supposed to just assume there was no unpleasant backlash to this action?

Yes, because this is tribal story.

[redbird]

An attentive reading of the Passover Haggadah is also problematic, especially the part where "God hardened Pharaoh's heart" so he wouldn't do what God wanted, and then punished the Egyptians what Pharaoh had(n't) done. (Given that Egypt was an absolute monarchy, punishing all the Egyptian peasants for what the ruler did would be ethically problematic even if God hadn't hardened his heart.)

[conuly]

You don't even want to know how many people have tried arguing with me that this part isn't in there, I was making it up because I'm a meaniepants atheist who hates God.

[cellio]

I asked about that on Mi Yodeya a while back and got some interesting answers.

[mme-n-b.livejournal.com]

Not families. Not after the Jews got through with them. And not friends, not once they figured out which way the king's wind blows. But yes, once the king moved on to the next wife there was probably a backlash.