Title: Forgiveness is Hollow
Author: Stacey-Marie
Pairings: none
Warnings: bitter outlook set to French lyrics..guilt and religion bashing as well, probably heresy if you want to take me to task over it.
Disclaimers: Gundam Wing, its chara, mechs and all other miscellaneous stuff doesn't belong to me, they are the property of Bandai, Sunrise and the Sotsu Agency. So don't sue because you have a better chance of finding a live cabbit in my room than something of value.
Note: This is a song could easily be applied to anyone of the characters in GW and I honestly have no idea why I picked Trowa for it, but I think it fits well. If you don't notice this off the bat, yes, the song is in French. I've translated the parts I wished to use and believe it's not the best translation you'll find if you look. However I do think the song fits much better if you go for a direct translation versus one that will flow in English better. I do highly recommend that everyone go download this song but ::shrugs:: odd French music is not for everyone. Anyway please don't pick on my translation many things will not translate perfectly to our language and besides looking at my dictionary (random commercial blurb for French-English dictionaries) I've been looking at others' English translations and trying to come up with one that will fit well. I'd also like to mention that I didn't use the whole song either, just bits I wanted. Yeah I'll go hide in a corner now.
Forgiveness is Hollow
C'est trop facile d'entrer aux églises
De déverser toute sa saleté
Face au curé qui dans la lumière grise
Ferme les yeux pour mieux nous pardonner
« Grand Jacques » ~ Jacques Brel
«It's too easy to enter the churches
To cleanse yourself of all your sins
Face a priest in the gray light
Closing your eyes for us to pardon you better»
Guilt and religion are funny things. If you pray hard enough and long enough the blood will wash from your hands and you will be redeemed so you may look down on others with palms stained crimson and cry out against them. Religion is a device of the weak. By speaking to some old man in the dark you are no longer responsible for you crimes. Bullshit.
When I was young and lived with the mercs I never thought of religion much. No one there leaned on it like the faulty crutch that it is. We killed people and we did it for money, but we slept just fine at night. A job was a job and who cares what their faces looked like or what their names were? During the war I learned the truth. As I spied undercover I saw the men flock to churches. They wished to believe they were right and as such had no guilt for whatever crimes they committed against humanity. What does it matter if your unit ended up destroying a school? You destroyed an enemy convoy and in the name of the Father, the Son (,) and the Holy Spirit you are absolved because you are bringing about a new world order. God must have wanted the children you slaughtered at His side.
These people make me sick. The blood can never, never leave your hands no matter how many hours you spend on your knees. Once, when I first met Duo, I asked him to explain his religion to me. He gave a bitter laugh and told me it was about making you feel better at the end of the day. He also told me it was a crock of shit. "We're on our own," he said. "Religion forces guilt down your throat and then turns around and gets rid of it if you whisper words over beads." Guilt it seems is only a matter of how much you care to let things in. How much you allow yourself to feel. When I was young I slept well. If people had died at our hands it was because they weren't good enough to beat us back and so we won a prize: their lives. But if I feel, if I feel why I'm doing this is beyond the need for food and shelter and warmth then.then come the nightmares and the feeling of a layer of filth and dirt that will never be scrubbed away.
C'est trop facile quand les guerres sont finies
D'aller gueuler que c'était la dernière
Ami bourgeois vous me faites envie
Vous ne voyez donc point vos cimetières?
«It's too easy when the wars are finished
To claim that this is the last
My friend you make me envy you
Can you not then see your own cemeteries? »
You know after the war, when we all started to settle into peace, I watched them. I would go to soldier's bars and just watch the faces of my former enemies. People I would not have hesitated to kill less than a month, a year, before would be just a few feet away smiling and laughing over the heroic deeds they had accomplished never knowing I was there. Amazing the amount of crosses in the crowd. I followed a group of them to a church one night. The priest prayed for forgiveness and they begged for it on their knees, yet the next night I would see them boasting again. It made me angry, so horribly angry. Forgiveness is hollow. It's like it never meant anything to these people. They fought the good fight and now have washed the blood off and can return to normal life. What about me?! Why, why can't I stop seeing the flames?! Why can't their ghosts give me peace?! Why is my mind filled with the sound of a scream cut off followed by the static hiss of a broken comm unit? Why can't I fall into the easy peace of religion? Why isn't it easy for me to cleanse my soul in the darkness of a chapel? I want it so badly, but peace will not come.
Treize claimed that his new world would never see war after the last battle because the horror of all that bloodshed would make us think before we took up arms. But the war didn't end for me; I am still fighting my demons. I think the others feel it too. Heero, Duo, Quatre, Wufei. We were not mere foot soldiers, we were the entire opposing army. In a sick kind of way it's fitting that it is taking us longer to find the rest and peace promised at the end of the wars, as our guilt is for the deaths of so many more people. They were not all innocent though. Even I will not go that far in my self pity. They did take up arms to kill me and destroy what freedom the colonies attempted to regain, however unknowingly. Yet, they did not truly know the fight they fought. Blood thirsty terrorist here, colony savior there, what's the difference to idealistic young soldiers?
C'est trop facile
De faire semblent
« It's too easy
To pretend »
Hmmmm. Where was I? You know it really doesn't matter anyway.
End. Special thanks to Sparkle, my wonderful friend who was my beta at the last minute. You're a million bucks girl ^_~
Author: Stacey-Marie
Pairings: none
Warnings: bitter outlook set to French lyrics..guilt and religion bashing as well, probably heresy if you want to take me to task over it.
Disclaimers: Gundam Wing, its chara, mechs and all other miscellaneous stuff doesn't belong to me, they are the property of Bandai, Sunrise and the Sotsu Agency. So don't sue because you have a better chance of finding a live cabbit in my room than something of value.
Note: This is a song could easily be applied to anyone of the characters in GW and I honestly have no idea why I picked Trowa for it, but I think it fits well. If you don't notice this off the bat, yes, the song is in French. I've translated the parts I wished to use and believe it's not the best translation you'll find if you look. However I do think the song fits much better if you go for a direct translation versus one that will flow in English better. I do highly recommend that everyone go download this song but ::shrugs:: odd French music is not for everyone. Anyway please don't pick on my translation many things will not translate perfectly to our language and besides looking at my dictionary (random commercial blurb for French-English dictionaries) I've been looking at others' English translations and trying to come up with one that will fit well. I'd also like to mention that I didn't use the whole song either, just bits I wanted. Yeah I'll go hide in a corner now.
Forgiveness is Hollow
C'est trop facile d'entrer aux églises
De déverser toute sa saleté
Face au curé qui dans la lumière grise
Ferme les yeux pour mieux nous pardonner
« Grand Jacques » ~ Jacques Brel
«It's too easy to enter the churches
To cleanse yourself of all your sins
Face a priest in the gray light
Closing your eyes for us to pardon you better»
Guilt and religion are funny things. If you pray hard enough and long enough the blood will wash from your hands and you will be redeemed so you may look down on others with palms stained crimson and cry out against them. Religion is a device of the weak. By speaking to some old man in the dark you are no longer responsible for you crimes. Bullshit.
When I was young and lived with the mercs I never thought of religion much. No one there leaned on it like the faulty crutch that it is. We killed people and we did it for money, but we slept just fine at night. A job was a job and who cares what their faces looked like or what their names were? During the war I learned the truth. As I spied undercover I saw the men flock to churches. They wished to believe they were right and as such had no guilt for whatever crimes they committed against humanity. What does it matter if your unit ended up destroying a school? You destroyed an enemy convoy and in the name of the Father, the Son (,) and the Holy Spirit you are absolved because you are bringing about a new world order. God must have wanted the children you slaughtered at His side.
These people make me sick. The blood can never, never leave your hands no matter how many hours you spend on your knees. Once, when I first met Duo, I asked him to explain his religion to me. He gave a bitter laugh and told me it was about making you feel better at the end of the day. He also told me it was a crock of shit. "We're on our own," he said. "Religion forces guilt down your throat and then turns around and gets rid of it if you whisper words over beads." Guilt it seems is only a matter of how much you care to let things in. How much you allow yourself to feel. When I was young I slept well. If people had died at our hands it was because they weren't good enough to beat us back and so we won a prize: their lives. But if I feel, if I feel why I'm doing this is beyond the need for food and shelter and warmth then.then come the nightmares and the feeling of a layer of filth and dirt that will never be scrubbed away.
C'est trop facile quand les guerres sont finies
D'aller gueuler que c'était la dernière
Ami bourgeois vous me faites envie
Vous ne voyez donc point vos cimetières?
«It's too easy when the wars are finished
To claim that this is the last
My friend you make me envy you
Can you not then see your own cemeteries? »
You know after the war, when we all started to settle into peace, I watched them. I would go to soldier's bars and just watch the faces of my former enemies. People I would not have hesitated to kill less than a month, a year, before would be just a few feet away smiling and laughing over the heroic deeds they had accomplished never knowing I was there. Amazing the amount of crosses in the crowd. I followed a group of them to a church one night. The priest prayed for forgiveness and they begged for it on their knees, yet the next night I would see them boasting again. It made me angry, so horribly angry. Forgiveness is hollow. It's like it never meant anything to these people. They fought the good fight and now have washed the blood off and can return to normal life. What about me?! Why, why can't I stop seeing the flames?! Why can't their ghosts give me peace?! Why is my mind filled with the sound of a scream cut off followed by the static hiss of a broken comm unit? Why can't I fall into the easy peace of religion? Why isn't it easy for me to cleanse my soul in the darkness of a chapel? I want it so badly, but peace will not come.
Treize claimed that his new world would never see war after the last battle because the horror of all that bloodshed would make us think before we took up arms. But the war didn't end for me; I am still fighting my demons. I think the others feel it too. Heero, Duo, Quatre, Wufei. We were not mere foot soldiers, we were the entire opposing army. In a sick kind of way it's fitting that it is taking us longer to find the rest and peace promised at the end of the wars, as our guilt is for the deaths of so many more people. They were not all innocent though. Even I will not go that far in my self pity. They did take up arms to kill me and destroy what freedom the colonies attempted to regain, however unknowingly. Yet, they did not truly know the fight they fought. Blood thirsty terrorist here, colony savior there, what's the difference to idealistic young soldiers?
C'est trop facile
De faire semblent
« It's too easy
To pretend »
Hmmmm. Where was I? You know it really doesn't matter anyway.
End. Special thanks to Sparkle, my wonderful friend who was my beta at the last minute. You're a million bucks girl ^_~