I wanted to share an example of how majoring in Classics has seriously modified the way I experience the world.

So, after discovering Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, I went into serious immersion. I watched it several times, and I listened to the soundtrack over and over again. And . . . the things I think about while I listen to it are not the things I would have thought before studying Greek and Latin.

The most obvious example is at the end of the song "So They Say". If you haven't watched Dr. Horrible and you'd like to see what I'm talking about, it's the first song on this section. (Spoiler warning: that's the last part, so if you plan on watching the first two, be warned. Actually, this whole discussion will be spoilery, though.)

Billy (aka Dr. Horrible) and Penny sing a few lines in duet, and I find the way they construct their sentences very telling. The lines go as follows . . . some of the words they sing are the same, and some of them are different, and the differences are important.

Penny	Billy
There's no happy ending	There's no happy ending
So they say	So they say
	Not for me, anyway.
Should I stop pretending?	Stop pretending.
Or is this a brand new day?	Take the chance to build a brand new day!

(I hope the table works okay. It's been ages since I've had to use one. I'm surprised I still remember how.)

At this point, Penny is sitting alone in the laundromat, where she and Billy usually get together to hang out, clearly disappointed that he didn't show up. Meanwhile, Billy is locked in his mad lair, missing the chance to be with Penny because he's so bent on plotting destruction for her new boyfriend.

So, look at the last two lines. Penny is in doubt. She thinks this should be a good thing, but she doesn't feel it. And her language reflects that. She uses questions--this is a good thing, isn't it? Should I stop pretending that everything is going to be wonderful and take the next best thing?

Meanwhile, Billy is changing, from the sweet, good-hearted, but rather ineffective villain he was in the beginning, to a more hard-hearted, bitter, and dangerous villain. His language indicates that as well--he's speaking in imperatives. Stop pretending. Take the chance. He's both exhorting himself to do something that's against his nature, and becoming a more assertive character, less of a push-over.

This is a far cry from his language in the first song, "My Freeze Ray", where he literally can't make himself speak. ("Wanna say / Love your hair / Here I go: / [incoherent mutters] . . . mumbling.") As Billy undergoes a transformation as a character, he undergoes a linguistic transformation as well. (Also related: in the first scene, Billy is practicing his evil laugh, and it's pretty pathetic, and very sweet. At the climax, after this transformation, Billy lets out a very long, impressive evil laugh.)

And it's so artfully done, too, because Penny's self-doubt is intertwined with Billy's growing resolve--they balance each other perfectly.

. . . anyway, yeah. I probably should turn that urge to analyze things back in the direction of my theses, but . . . it's sure more fun to analyze things that are so much fun.

Reformation leaders totally equal Harry Potter house founders! Check it out:

Gryffindor = Martin Luther: had the balls to take on the pope AND the emperor and won.

Ravenclaw = John Calvin: smart and articulate and elevated elitism to an art form.

Hufflepuff = John Wesley: happy joy and love! aw, sure, you can come to heaven too! why not?

Slytherin . . . well, okay, there wasn't a really obvious Slytherin, but Courtney and I decided on Jonathan Edwards, because he wasn't very nice, I guess? (We were thinking of his famous Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God sermon, which I actually think is hilarious. "The God that holds you over the pit of hell much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you and is most dreadfully provoked.")

. . . there goes half an hour that I could have been writing my final or sleeping.