Why Do Villains Insist on a Ring? Greed and Fetishism from Sauron to Spike

Tolkien establishes the perils of greed through Sauron, Gollum, Boromir, Thorin, and many other characters. In his world, beside treasure hoards and Silmarils, the ultimate temptation appears in the golden ring that offers ultimate power. The characters who seek it contrast with generous, royal Aragorn and Galadriel as well as the humble hobbits. Buffy the Vampire Slayer has a similar message, as the villains, great and small, construct talismans to focus their magic. Buffy and her friends find these to destroy them, never to use them. In fact, they fight with an assortment of unnamed weapons and simple spell ingredients from the corner store. Still, they discover more powerful tools and sometimes succumb to their worst urges. In both series, ordinary people remain quite vulnerable to temptation, with lessons that teach them to rise above it to find heroism

The Underworld as the Heroine’s Journey Home: Marvel, \u3ci\u3eXena\u3c/i\u3e, and Mythic Reimaginings

Hell is traditionally a place of torment, where the young heroine, like Persephone or Eurydice, is kidnapped by the patriarchy, leaving others to rescue her. The last few decades, however, have offered a model closer to Sumerian Inanna, in which the heroine is enlightened by hell or even conquers it. Angela, Queen of Hel: Journey to the Funderworld by Marguerite Bennett (2016) gives its heroine this path. Winning back her beloved, Angela, sister of Thor and Loki, becomes queen of the underworld but then prefers to bring Sera back to earth in a flip on Eurydice. The Xena episode “Fallen Angel” (5.01) has a similar arc. Xena, now an archangel, descends into hell to save Gabrielle. Saving Callisto makes Xena a vicious demon, one who glories in destruction. Only Callisto, like the good shadow within, can manage to redeem her. Likewise, the 2018 French graphic novel Persephone by Loïc Locatelli-Kournwsky shows the heroine discovering hell as her place of power. As Carol S. Pearson writes in Persephone Rising, “Persephone’s ease in moving back and forth between the worlds and the seasons can be a model for our gaining ease in shifting between multiple roles and adjusting to new life stages that require different things from us” (190). All these heroines gain enlightenment and might through claiming hell as their birthright or conquest—the true font of feminine power

Reducing the environmental impact of surgery on a global scale: systematic review and co-prioritization with healthcare workers in 132 countries

Abstract Background Healthcare cannot achieve net-zero carbon without addressing operating theatres. The aim of this study was to prioritize feasible interventions to reduce the environmental impact of operating theatres. Methods This study adopted a four-phase Delphi consensus co-prioritization methodology. In phase 1, a systematic review of published interventions and global consultation of perioperative healthcare professionals were used to longlist interventions. In phase 2, iterative thematic analysis consolidated comparable interventions into a shortlist. In phase 3, the shortlist was co-prioritized based on patient and clinician views on acceptability, feasibility, and safety. In phase 4, ranked lists of interventions were presented by their relevance to high-income countries and low–middle-income countries. Results In phase 1, 43 interventions were identified, which had low uptake in practice according to 3042 professionals globally. In phase 2, a shortlist of 15 intervention domains was generated. In phase 3, interventions were deemed acceptable for more than 90 per cent of patients except for reducing general anaesthesia (84 per cent) and re-sterilization of ‘single-use’ consumables (86 per cent). In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for high-income countries were: introducing recycling; reducing use of anaesthetic gases; and appropriate clinical waste processing. In phase 4, the top three shortlisted interventions for low–middle-income countries were: introducing reusable surgical devices; reducing use of consumables; and reducing the use of general anaesthesia. Conclusion This is a step toward environmentally sustainable operating environments with actionable interventions applicable to both high– and low–middle–income countries