Buffy and the Russian General

PROFESSOR: Now, Rasputin was associated with a certain obscure religious sect. (Buffy taps her pencil on her desk. The girl next to her glares. Buffy sees her and stops tapping the pencil but continues fidgeting) They held the tenet that in order to be forgiven, one first had to sin. Rasputin embraced this doctrine and proceeded to sin impressively and repeatedly. The notion that he was in fact evil gained strength years later (Buffy fiddles with her pencil, drops it, shrugs and doesn’t pick it up) when the conspirators who set out to kill him found it nearly impossible to do so.

BUFFY: (to herself) Nearly impossible?

PROFESSOR: I’m sorry, there’s a question?

The students look at Buffy.

PROFESSOR: (sighing) Miss Summers, of course.

Buffy makes a pained face, stands up as the professor gives her a disapproving look.

BUFFY: I, uh, about, you know, killing him … you know, they, they poisoned him and, and they beat him and they shot him, and he didn’t die.

PROFESSOR: Until they rolled his body in a carpet and drowned him in a canal.

BUFFY: But there are reported sightings of him as late as the 1930s, aren’t there?

PROFESSOR: I can assure you there is near consensus in the academic community regarding the death of Rasputin.

BUFFY: There was also near consensus about Columbus, you know, until someone asked the Vikings what they were up to in the 1400s, and they’re like, “discovering this America-shaped continent.” (Professor looks annoyed) I just … I’m only saying, you know, it might be interesting, if we …. came at it from, you know, a different perspective, that’s all.

PROFESSOR: Well, I’m sorry if you find these facts so boring, Miss Summers. Maybe you’d prefer I step aside, so that you can teach your own course. Speculation 101 perhaps? (The other students laugh) Intro to Flights of Fancy? (The students laugh more)

BUFFY: I only meant-

PROFESSOR: What was it you were going on about last week? Mysterious sleeping patterns of the Prussian generals? (Buffy looks annoyed) Now, some of us are here to learn. Believe it or not, we’re interested in finding out what actually happened. It’s called studying history. You can sit down now. Unless you have something else to add, professor?

via Checkpoint – Buffy Episode 90 Transcript.

So when I watched this recently, I heard “Russian,” not Prussian.

I have no idea if this is the source, but here (pdf download) is what immediately came to mind:

 Two things revealed by the composite Tolstoy-Caulaincourt narrative struck me with peculiar force. The first is that from the moment Moscow was captured and occupied Kutusov seems to have known exactly what Napoleon was going to do. Moreover, it is clear that he was the only one who did know. Caulaincourt shows beyond peradventure that through the whole month spent in Moscow Napoleon himself had not the faintest idea of what his own next move would be; nor, naturally, had anyone on the French side, and of course no one but Kutusov on the Russian side had any idea of it, especially in view of circumstances which I shall presently mention…

The essay is entitle “Snoring as a Fine Art” because, according to Albert Jay Nock’s two sources (Tolstoy’s War and Peace and then a journal by a Frenchman, Caulaincourt), General Kutusov seems to have done nothing but sleep through staff meetings, ignore all advice and sound reason, and then give strange orders that always worked to destroy Napolean.

I have no idea what to think of this; so naturally I’m sharing it on my blog.

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