wendigo+o

=__ Wendigo Analysis __=

The sight, or even just the thought, of a Wendigo is enough to make anyone’s hair stand on end and make their blood run cold. Completely unknown creatures are scary enough, but a Wendigo – utterly petrifying. Just knowing that a Wendigo can pop up at any time, any place, and without any warning until it is too late is nerve-racking. In this day and age it isn’t all too likely, but imagine back when things were tougher and the food was a bit scarcer. Back in the time that Swift Runner and his family were alive. Swift Runner, unfortunately, became a Wendigo. I’m not entirely sure why Swift Runner became cannibalistic and butchered his family so he could feast on their corpses. It is not like it was a totally desperate move, either. If he went to the Hudson Bay Company post he could have gotten food for he and his family. Maybe they wouldn’t have gotten much but they would have gotten something. In my opinion, though, I believe that his pride doomed them all. I think that the concept of behaviorism in the Grand Theories of Psychology can explain Swift Runner’s actions. The concept of behaviorism suggests that our behavior is affected by some sort of outside cause. I believe that this outside stimulus was Swift Runner’s pride. I think he felt it was his responsibility to provide food and all else to his family, like other husbands/fathers throughout the centuries. To except food from somewhere else probably would have hurt his pride and he didn’t want that to happen. So he, instead of excepting charity when he needed it, allowed himself and the rest of his family to go hungry. Even when his eldest son died, I think he had too much pride to ask for help. So eventually things got so bad that he couldn’t take it anymore. His pride wouldn’t allow him to go no more than 25 miles to get free food so he slaughtered, and ate, the remainder of his family. I think this is the case because some people will completely refuse help or go to the extremities because they have too much pride for their own good. They can’t seem to allow any such humility, even if it is completely justified. So I think it was Swift Runner’s pride that killed his family, not some disturbing craving for human flesh. After all, he ended up admitting to what he had done and got executed for it. If he killed them because he wanted to eat them, one would think he would have left the area afterwards. From there he could have just traveled around and fed on any humans that passed by him. No, I think he felt guilty because of his pride and submitted to the authorities figuring he could somehow make up for his wrongs.

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