Between the good and bad, that's where you'll find me, Reaching for Heaven

Found on the Jim Butcher forums:

 

Volume 8 of the former and the infamous volume 7 of the latter. I was tempted to make the trek to the Borders in Burlington, clad as Harry Dresden, but I neglected to carve myself a wizard's staff, and there was no way I could scare up a hockey stick quickly, so I just opted to go as myself. Drat that Harry Potter for gumming up Borders' orders, since Hellsing 8 came out on the 4th, but it didn't show up on the shelves until now, since the system got gummed up due to DH's presence. Getting both books on the same day as well as the 40% discount on DH (with your Borders Rewards card -- and that's cheaper than I would have paid at the store where I work) more than makes up for that little glitch.

I haven't started reading DH yet: I've got housework to take care of, plus I really need to start typing "A Woman with an Issue of Blood" and start sending that the rounds of the magazine editors.

Of course the subject line of this post got me thinking, "Hm. Alucard vs. Harry Potter. Who would win?" I think that's a moot point.

Since I had a "Hellsing" anime marathon last night and watched the last six episodes back to back to back: I rather prefer the OAV to the manga, since the anime takes such wide departures from the manga, and I'm not sure what to make of the ending of the anime, whether I liked it or not, but I have to admit, I was relieved when a god-moding freak who reminded me of some anNOYing twinkers on the MxO got the belt-down. Whew. Didn't have to listen to him bragging any more.

Now... on to the Catholic perspective I've been putting off:

I know some people in the Catholic League for Civil and Religious Liberty who'd be foaming at the mouth over the Iscariot organization/Section XIII (*some* people: this group is pretty good about being spot-on at sticking up for the Church when someone misportrays it publicly, but once in a great while, they bark up the wrong tree; case in point when someone got after Dick Wolf for an episode of "Law & Order" where a priest was convicted of murdering a drug dealer. I remember seeing that episode and thinking Graham Greene's ghost had helped the scriptwriter, it was such a tight moral conundrum). But it doesn't faze me any more. I'll admit, I found it irksome at first, but I've gotten past that. My main problem with it when it did bother was the fact that I've seen way too many "Vatican assassins"/priests/monks as assassins done very badly. :: Glares in Dan Brown's general direction; considers writing a crossover fanfiction with a cage-match between Father Anderson and Brother Silas, though Anderson would leave Silas alone since the latter is human:: The "Hellsing" universe, anime tropes aside, is so different from ours that it's more like an alternate universe or a paralell universe of some sort, thus the organizational mechanics of actual Catholicism does not apply here. In our world, even if there *was* a freak-hunting organization in the Church, Pope John Paul II would probably have had it disbanded and issued a public apology for all the freaks that had been put out of comission, especially if any of said beings were innocent of any wrong-doing.

However, I find it surprising that a Protestant spook-targeting organization and not a Catholic one would have a vampire or two on the payroll. There's a couple different Catholic saints who supposedly tamed preternatural beasties to work with them: St. David, a 7th century missionary to Wales supposedly tamed a dragon and used to ride on its back on his journeys. St. Wolfgang, a 10th century German bishop, supposedly tamed a devil or a demon and had it help him in his ministry: there are early Rennaissence paintings of him with a demon holding a Mass book, or carrying a big basket as the saint distributes food or clothing to some poor folks. Just my thoughts, nothing more. My experience with a lot of Protestants is that they can tend to be spiritually pragmatic to the point of being a bit rules-lawyerish at times, and that they'd be extremely hesitant about having something wierd working with them, even if it's for the greater good.

Unless my theory is true and Anderson actually *is* a dhampire (ie. part human, part vampire, doesn't have the weakness to daylight or the need to drink blood).