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Quote by Tong Hua

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Bu Bu Jing Xin/步步惊心

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Tong Hua

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“But the attitude that Viking society held up as the ideal one was a heroic stoicism. In the words of archaeologist Neil Price, "The outcome of our actions, our fate, is already decided and therefore does not matter. What is important is the manner of our conduct as we go to meet it." You couldn't change what was going to happen to you, but you could at least face it with honor and dignity. The best death was to go down fighting, preferably with a smile on your lips. Life is precarious by nature, but this was especially true in the Viking Age, which made this fatalism, and stoicism in the face of it, especially poignant. The model of this ideal was Odin's amassing an army in Valhalla in preparation for Ragnarok. He knew that Fenrir, "the wolf", was going to murder him one way or another. Perhaps on some level he hoped that by gathering all of the best warriors to fight alongside him, he could prevent the inevitable. But deep down he knew that his struggle was hopeless - yet he determined to struggle just the same, and to die in the most radiant blaze of glory he could muster.”

“She turned to look at Althea with eyes the color if brandy in firelight. "Can't you feel it?" she asked her in a whisper. "Look around you. We are on the cusp. We are a coin spinning in the toss, a card fluttering in the flip, a rune chip floating in stirred water. Possibilities swarm like bees. In this day, in a moment, in a breath, the future of the world will shift course by a notch, One way or another, the coin will land ringing, the card will settle to the table, the chip will bob to the surface, The face that shows uppermost will set our days, and children to come will say, "That is just the way it has always been.”