Is it just me or do others agree that most of these fictional BoM characters were frickin' self-righteous assholes. God, if I had been one of Nephi's older brothers I would have kicked the shit out of him too. With all of his self-righteous pontification, it is no wonder that the rest of the tribe tried to vote him off the boat.
Nephi is bad enough, but my all-time least favor BoM hero next to Captain Moroni is Ammon. Have you ever considered how much grief Ammon has caused modern day missionaries? I swear that at every goddamn mission conference I attended, someone would invariably refer to trying to be a great missionary like Ammon. It never worked for me because I would have had to been like James Bond to succeed.
As a missionary in the 1970s I couldn't just wander over into the neighboring country, which in my mission just happened to be Soviet controlled East Germay, and start brown nosing Erich Honecker (the East German dictator). First, there is the matter of crossing the East German border without being cut to ribbons by trigger happy Soviet border guards in machine gun nests or without blowing myself to Kingdom come on a landmine. Second, assuming that I did get in alive, I doubt the border guards would have taken me directly to Honecker. Instead, they would have probably locked me up in some hell hole prison until 1989 when the wall finally came down. Third, even if they did take me to Honecker, I doubt that he would offer his daughter to me as a wife. Even if he had, I am not really into women with facial hair and missing teeth anyway. Third, it would have been highly improbable that Honecker had a stable full of horses (or tapirs as the case may be) that he would let me tend to. Besides, I don't know a damn thing about caring for horses and even less about taking care of tapirs. I suppose Honecker could have put me in the auto pool, but again I don't know much about cars and after I fucked up any repairs I would have been shot. Now we come to fun part.
Unlike in Ammon's time, I doubt there were robbers in East Germany who kept stealing Honecker's vehicles. First, the few times that I was in East Germany I was freaked out by the overwhelming Soviet military presence there including lots of armed soldiers and tanks, etc. If the military wasn't enough, East Germany had no shortage of police. You would have to be out of your frickin mind to try to openly steal anything in East Germany. Again, they shoot first and don't bother to ask any questions.
Next, there is the whole problem with Ammon cutting off the robbers' arms with his sword. I know Joseph Smith had an obsession with swords, but I always wonder why the Lamanite robbers simply didn't shoot Ammon with a couple of arrows. I suppose Ammon could have had some magnetic force field around him like Samuel the Lamanite that deflected arrows, but why would these guys keep physically attacking Ammon when he was cutting off everyone's arms. It sort of reminds of the black knight scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
http://www.mwscomp.com/movies/grail/grail-04.htm
May be even more to the point, it reminds me of Dr. Evil's colloquy with his son Scott in the first Austin Powers movie:
Scott: Why'd you run out on me?
Dr. Evil: Because you're not quite evil enough. ... Well it's true! You're semi-evil. You're quasi-evil. You're the margarine of evil. You're the Diet Coke of evil. Just one calorie, not evil enough.
Opps, wrong quote. Here is what I had in mind:
Dr. Evil: The details of my life are quite inconsequential. My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low-grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a 15 year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet. My father would womanize, he would drink, he would make outrageous claims, like he invented the question mark. Sometimes, he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy - the sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament. My childhood was typical: summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring, we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent, I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds. Pretty standard, really.
Opps, wrong one again. I'll get it right this time:
Dr. Evil: All right guard, begin the unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism.
[guard starts dipping mechanism]
Dr. Evil: Close the tank!
Scott Evil: Wait, aren't you even going to watch them? They could get away!
Dr. Evil: No no no, I'm going to leave them alone and not actually witness them dying, I'm just gonna assume it all went to plan. What?
Scott Evil: I have a gun, in my room, you give me five seconds, I'll get it, I'll come back down here, BOOM, I'll blow their brains out!
Dr. Evil: Scott, you just don't get it, do ya? You don't.
I think you get the picture now on why I hate Ammon.
M.P.
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