Even though the original book says Jack *isn't* good looking or charismatic or a natural leader, all he's got is the bullying and intimidation That's the tragic narrative and it's a specific narrative of a tragic flaw
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Ralph and Jack could've just been the same person and then there'd be no tragedy, no sad tale of lost hope, it'd just be "An evil bully leader landed on an island and continued to be an evil bully"
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Or Jack could've never existed and the story would've been hunky-dory, but boring Or, tantalizingly, Ralph could have been just a little smarter or a little tougher, a little less of a dick himself and able to see what needed to be done to stop Jack
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Which is also a huge part of the theme of the book, this tragedy that *Piggy* is the one who actually is smart enough to do those things but nobody respects him Ralph and Piggy need to be one person but they're split into two
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That's hammered in at the end of the book, the second to last line has Ralph mourning "most of all for the friend called Piggy" Everything irrevocably goes to hell when Piggy dies
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And like it's obviously not somehow inevitable or universal that the popular kids are kind of dumb and don't know how to do anything about bullies and the smart kids who know what's going on are fat and ugly and nobody listens to them
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It's not a universal human truth, but it is a particular familiar dynamic that *when it happens* causes things to get ugly in a particularly tragic and painful way, and that's what Golding, as a teacher who saw this kind of shit play out, wanted to write about
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(If I wanted to go into allegory, a debased form of criticism but compelling, it's really hard not to see Ralph the Student Body President, Jack the Recess Bully and Piggy the Insufferable Nerd as mainstream liberals vs. fascists vs. the left intelligentsia)
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(And the infighting between Ralph and Piggy and the way they constantly undermine each other even though they know they should be on the same side because Jack is so dangerous is why Jack wins A hoary narrative but one that kind of gripped the mind in the post-WWII era)
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Replying to @arthur_affect
I don't know, it's been a looooong time since I read "The Inheritors", but my recollection is that Golding did seem to be saying something pretty bleak about human, or homo sapien, nature. But I barely remember it, and maybe I'm remembering wrong.
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Haven't read it so can't comment on it
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